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How often do you do this?” Buster asked. The men looked at him like it should have been obvious. “Every goddamned night,” Kenny said, “unless there’s something good on TV, which is pretty much never.” “We don’t have jobs, Buster,” said Joseph. “We’re living with our parents and we don’t have girlfriends. We just drink and blow shit up.” “You’re making it sound like it’s a bad thing,” Arden said to Joseph. “Well I don’t mean to,” said Joseph, and looked at Buster. “It only sounds that way when I say it out loud.” “So,” Buster began, unsure of the correct way to phrase his question, “does all of this, shooting off potato guns, ever remind you of your time over in Iraq?” As soon as he finished his question, everyone around him seemed, momentarily, incredibly sober. “Are you asking if we have flashbacks or something?” asked David. “Well,” Buster continued, beginning to realize that he had been better off shooting potatoes into the atmosphere, “I just wonder if shooting these spud guns makes you think about your time in the army.” Joseph laughed softly. “Everything makes me think about the army. I wake up and I go to the bathroom and I think about how, in Iraq, there were just pools of piss and shit in the streets. And then I get dressed and I think about how, when I would put on my uniform, I was already sweating before I buttoned my shirt. And then I eat breakfast and think about how every single goddamn thing I ate over there had sand in it. It’s hard not to think about it.
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