S C E N E (XXXVII) 

AL BOSTON, U.S.A., 2017ce  

***  

A trucker with a heart of gold clings to his worst memories to not fully lose his mind in pity and drink. He is paid to move some cargo from point A to point B, but it is a lonely and meaningless life. As though he is working to pay for moving himself as meaningless cargo. 

HEVAL JILO 

“Shipping out from Boston any day now,” I tell myself. I tell myself the pain will be over soon. I tell myself I’m just an ordinary New England Joe. You can call me Micky because it’s my born name.  

I have a pretty gruff face. A New England working class disposition. I think it made a lot of the younger volunteers think I had some kind of training I didn’t have. Just a little bit of running and my knees would start to hurt. But they all ask me if I was in the military, even though I never ever was. Very few of the YPG volunteers have any useful training, besides from the leftists. They are self-trained to see things, imagine things that are probably not even there. 

On my chest I am wearing a picture of my ex-girlfriend, about the size of a baseball card. That’s perfectly normal, right? But more on that later down the line. 

I watched it on the news for several years before the cumulative effect took over me. By the time I was being struck by Turkish air force and artillery vollies, running through trenches and tunnels in Afrin Canton, called by the Hevals as Jilo Boston, well I used to drive a UPS truck. That was all the training for this I had. After that I installed solar panels. I had no other serious qualifications that made me ready for the war. Even a bit of light running makes my knees hurt. 

Explains Heval Jilo from Boston: “I mean it’s really Mikey Mike or Michael, but they named me Heval Jilo from Boston.” 

Now, strangely it seemed that in the Academy Hevals Zinar and Jansher, the two principal instructors and commanders of Western internationalists ended up sending people with no ideology to occupy Raqqa and those they somewhat ideologically trusted to fight in still raging battles near Deir Ez-Zor. But that wasn’t a hard fast rule. 

They liked, but didn’t seem to trust me, well any of us.  Some of the leftists like Kawa and Shoresh tried to buddy up to Cancer. Some of the military guys like Heval Ciya tried to buddy up to Zinar, but really, they didn’t seem to have favorites. We all looked good on our martyr posters and in death could bring the Kurdish cause to the front pages of our national papers. 

I’m cynical about Zinar and Cancer, they were of course there just to figure out how to use us effectively as so-called ‘revolutionary militants.’ Most of the Academy, which lasted about six weeks, was all rhetoric and talk. I might have fired my AK, maybe 15 rounds worth. I held up well I think given my age! I hadn’t intended to join the Y.P.G. in the beginning, I tried to enlist in Sinjar first with the Y.B.S.⁸³, but they had put a freeze on international volunteers for whatever reason. Eventually the P.K.K. smuggled me, a loud British Gypsy and a French aristocrat lawyer from Makumr Camps into Syria. 

Around my neck is a picture of my ex-girlfriend. I’m sure it sends a more portrait of my mental health to the few who see it, but I don’t have to explain shit to anyone. I don’t want to say anymore, so I won’t. My name is to be Jilo Boston, or that’s what they plan to call me in Kurdistan. I enlisted via proton mail in a formation called the Y.B.S. and received permission to make the crossing.  

I don’t have any formal military experience, though some people ask me about it, say I have that look. I’ve been watching the Islamic State terrorize the world on TV for about three years. After a while, I just came to accept that I would go be a part of it. Contribute in my little way. As several hundred had done before me and probably will do after. 

My last job was to install solar panels on rooftops. My previous job before that was as a UPS truck driver. It is obvious I was lonely and felt that doing something heroic, even if I got killed, was tangible and important. I was supposed to fly to Slemani and then get smuggled over to the Shengal. The YBS were at that time fighting in Raqqa city. I had to close out my life part by part. There was no fear in my body, only excitement. No longer would I be an observer. This was going to be the highest stakes thing I ever did; I could only fantasize that someone would tell the woman on my chest I fell fighting heroically. 

I can’t say that was all the motivation or even half. I cared of course that she knew about my contributions, should I end up making them.  What did I feel like? Like shit. Like I did not have such an interesting or amazing life and that if I did this with honor, died or not I’d have some kind of redemption. What to say more? I do not know if I am not the one drafting this book. I will just say that I want my ex to be proud of me for what I tried to do, even if it was just to get blown up being somewhere I shouldn’t be in the Middle East. In the desperate trenches of Afrin, he would be known by my Kurdish name Jilo Boston. Man, we barely got out alive. I look back at it sometimes and I get this sad empty feeling like all these fucking people gave their lives for absolutely nothing. Because in the end, we did not really defeat I.S.I.S., we didn’t replace Assad, we did not stabilize Iraq or the oil, we did not curb Türkiye, we did not build so-called democracy, and everyone got killed for almost nothing. 

They say the first stage of constructing a believable fictitious identity is to focus on one banal old job, knowing its most minute components inside out. Have one sad story, your sort of guarded reason to be and one good reason to not talk a lot. Primarily, do not tell stories about places you have never been to.