Marine Corps Stories: The Brilliance

“And you’re not my goddamn brother,” Sergeant Dante Sellers said. Sellers stood at about six feet. He wore a high and tight haircut and a fresh Marine utility uniform. Aged twenty-three, and oak hued, he had journeyed upon an electronics shop in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

“Come on, my– look, let me put it a different way. The Party has changed. You, me, we’re the same skin color as the forebears who lead some of the best artistic expression movements of all time. We blacks must look at this Party as the only way out of this. Sure, you can salute and bust down lance corporals all day. But behind all those green cammies, you should have a red heart with a hammer and sickle.”

Sellers looked at Alfonse Crooks with disdain. He noticed that the man’s shoes were about two sizes too small for his feet. He picked up on the black dress trousers and white dress shirt with a black and gold button at the top. Crooks stood at about 5’6”. He was thirty-eight-years-old. He carried a slanted smile with yellowish grey teeth that aligned perfectly in his mouth.

“I’ll be encased in an urn before I ever claim to be a louse,” Sellers said.

“Hey, It’s the twenty first century, man. The party has changed. People have changed. We’re not the same Party as Stalin and Mao. We’re for creating communities like you do on social networks.”

“Yes, that’s true if you discount that those social networks are run by intelligent, greedy, good, and selfish capitalists. The ‘Party’ matches its colors. It promises you life but only comes up with red streaked all over the walls and streets and everywhere. Red all along the stair steps and red along the alleyways. It is a doctrine of death.”

“Buddy, buddy….” Crooks said still trying to sell an idea rather than a new mobile device.

“Oh, now I’m your buddy. To hell with that. You’re not my goddamn buddy either.” Sellers became an impenetrable tank. Every verbal ballistic directed at him became swallowed up by his armor: his mind. He received a call from Staff Sergeant Chris Wemble parked outside of the store telling him to hurry up."Give me a minute," he said into the communication device.

“I see we are off on the wrong foot. I can tell you now, that in this country, ‘The Party’ has gone kaput. It’s no more. But...we are on the underground. I am originally from the Congo. I immigrated here when––”

“Save your biographical details….” Sellers said.

“Okay, okay, okay. Like, this shop right now, it is owned by the people, now.”

“The people? What people?”

“The Party people, of course. No one makes more or less than the other and we divide our ends up equally. It’s a beautiful system.”

“Yes it’s just gorgeous until someone wants to buy a new car or home and the rest of the Party fails to pitch in so the individual is left walking and homeless.”

Crooks shook his head. “No, no, no, my...look, I was able to come to Saudi Arabia with just a few pennies to my name. I built this shop up by myself. I then branched out to various people and we sort of resurrected the Party in this section of the Mid East. I changed my name and everything for the cause.”

Sellers looked around the store. It didn’t seem too shabby but there remained traces of rat and roach traps around the place and a spicy, bitter scent wafted around its walls.

“I don’t give a damn. You’re not changing me into a Party loyalist no matter how hard you try to sell it. It just won’t work. Now, what you can do for me is exchange these bullshit batteries.”

Crooks sighed. “If only you could understand.”

“I understand alright, just because we share the same skin color, doesn’t mean we’re brothers. And this ‘Party’ will be over once we get done with the place.”

Crooks scowled as he reached for the new batteries. Sellers straightened and smiled with the brilliance of a five thousand watt lightbulb.