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Friend or Foe? So Hard to Know.By Rick Horowitz
In the distance, a single point of light. You see it before you hear it. Even at night, even in the quiet of nighttime, you see the light long before you hear the engine. It's a mile or more down the road, or what passes for road in this desolate part of the country, and you wait for the single light to become two. To become headlights. Here at the checkpoint, you squint at the light approaching in the darkness, and you wonder. You're 22 years old, and you're from someplace that's nothing at all like this place. You've been in country for three months, and you and your buddies are manning a checkpoint that didn't exist three hours ago. But now you've got the barricades up, and the concertina wire, and the signs. And you wait. Off in the distance, the point of light grows larger, then flattens out as if squeezed by the weight of the darkness itself. You watch the light begin to divide, and as it does -- you think you hear the thrum of the engine now, too -- you start calculating the size of the thing, and its speed. In the dark, and without familiar landmarks, these calculations are no simple matter. You try anyway. You need to know. The headlights pass one of your signs, then another. The signs are large and clear; they tell approaching vehicles exactly what's expected of them. When the drivers obey the signs -- when they approach your checkpoint slowly, when all the faces inside the vehicle are easily visible, when their answers to all your questions make sense -- your job is only mildly terrifying. You're 22 years old, and you're supposed to be beyond feeling terrified. When the drivers don't obey the signs -- well, that's what the rules of engagement are for. You know all about the rules of engagement. You -- It's a car. This one, you decide, is a car. Your buddies agree, and you loosen, ever so slightly, your grip on your weapon. A car, you've already decided, is safer than a van. Safer than a truck. But that certainly doesn't make it safe; if it did, you'd have never heard the words "car bomber." You hear them even in your dreams. And you know in your gut that no matter how far you extend a perimeter -- to a front door or a concrete wall or an iron gate or a roadside checkpoint -- there'll always be danger at the outer edge, at the places where the perimeter and the world intersect. The car is 200 yards away; its engine is louder, its headlights brighter. Any second now, the car will start slowing down. You check one more time to make sure your signal lights are working; if the signs don't do the job, the signal lights are supposed to. The signal lights, and your hand signals, and after that... The car is 150 yards away. You're 22 years old, and your body is a clenched fist. The car is 100 yards away. You wave your arms and -- finally -- the car does begin to slow down. (At least you think it does; in the dark, it's hard to be sure of anything.) You see head shapes, or what could be head shapes, through the windshield, and you try to count them. Try to turn them into faces. You know they can see you, standing there at your barricade. The car is 75 yards away. The engine noise is softer now; the car is slowing down. (You're almost sure of it.) The car is 50 yards away, and you take one tentative step toward the center of the road, your weapon raised. You can barely hear the engine at all now, not over the sound of your own pulse pounding in your ears. You're 22 years old, and the car is still coming toward you, and you never expected to be here in the dark like this, in a place like this, and more than anything you want to make it home in one piece, and more than even that you want to protect your buddies, and the car is 25 yards away and you can almost see the faces inside and it's still coming and somebody fires a warning shot and you're 22 years old. In the back seat, somebody moves. Posted 3/8/05. Get
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Rick Horowitz
