I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [50]
That did it. The combination of a lack of sleep, the fatigue caused by the crazy performing schedule, and my own overloaded emotions made me snap. Severely. I had no choice, so I launched into a tirade at the poor girl who was in charge of us.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I snarled. “This is it? This is where you want us to stay tonight? There are no other rooms on the base? I’ll take a tent if you’ve got one. You can’t put us all in here. There won’t be enough oxygen in this confined space to get us through the night. For God’s sake, we don’t even have booze to make this seem like fun. Besides, I have a deep-seated fear that these guys will try and gang rape me, and who could blame them?”
The girl went into shock and scurried off.
Completely rattled, my brain was misfiring severely. Was this part of an experiment they were running on us? I wondered. Is this some kind of test to determine our psychological readiness for combat? (They could have just asked and I would have told them I have never been ready for combat.) If it was, then they needed to lock up the bazookas, because I was ready to explode.
By the time I calmed down, I looked around the room and noticed that there were only top bunks left.
FUCK!
I get up a lot at night. I don’t sleep well, even in the best of conditions. And these definitely were not. Who knows what my shattered psyche would make me do in the middle of the night in a war zone? I could easily forget where I was and get out of bed and break a few limbs. I was a basket case.
Kid Rock was nice enough to exchange bunks with me. And I was nice enough not to tease him when he started reading a magazine article about Michael Jackson.
I was surprised when the girl I yelled at came back. By then we were all in our bunks. She announced that there was a couch in the TV room that I could sleep on. The ladies were all watching TV and I could join them.
Well, I am no little sissy-boy. I heard myself say: “I don’t leave my men.”
I actually said that. I don’t think I have laughed harder at anything else that I have ever said. I was delirious. So was everyone else. Everyone was screaming with laughter.
When she closed the door on this group of men, we immediately reverted to being twelve-year-olds. Scattered farts shot across the room.
The fart is man’s most basic form of communication. It’s the way we say all is well, how are you?
Robin and I began to plumb the comic depths of our situation. The ensuing madness that occurred in this room is one of the funniest times of my life, and I can’t remember any of it. Only the joy of men being so stupid, tired, and silly that we couldn’t see straight, we could only laugh our tits off.
By early morning, we were off and headed to God knows where. Practically every place we went was God knows where. God and the people who call it home.
Humans adapt to anything. I can’t. I couldn’t even adapt to eight guys in a tiny room on bunk beds. I don’t adapt well to long lines or automated operators or being put on hold and having to listen to bad music. I am a big baby. I admit it. Meanwhile, the men and women we were entertaining are struggling to adapt to a barren terrain, ungodly temperatures, and an enemy that wants to destroy you 24/7.
Oh, wait. Now I remember where we’re headed.
Kabul. Which, it turns out, translates as “God Knows Where.”
Every aircraft we get on is the loudest plane on earth, from the jumbo troop carriers to the small ones to the helicopters. Every one of them is fucking loud—louder than when I stood in front of speakers at rock concerts. But after three days, something strange happens: you get used to the noise. It doesn’t matter anymore. I get on the plane and pass out. I don’t know how our service people do it. Every time I see something new that they have to deal with I am more than amazed by their discipline. How do they