They smelled of sweat, unwashed uniforms, and, if one strained hard enough, the undermusk of blood that always reminded Abe of sniffing warm pennies.He ducked to a crouch—down to the level of the Ruffles potato chips—so he wouldn’t be seen by Lumley, Zeildorf, and Miller. Abe was wearing his now-standard work uniform: shorts and a T-shirt. He wasn’t even wearing a helmet, let alone a hat. These days, he walked around the FOB as bare-headed as any KBR contractor. Rather than a 9mm pistol, he was now made to carry an M16 rifle like a lowly enlisted Fobbit. Shrinkle cowered in the aisle, his head crinkling against the Ruffles as he listened to the Bravo Company soldiers make their way through the PX, their smell and swagger clearing a path of Fobbits before them. They were now two aisles away from Abe, browsing through the PX’s pathetically small DVD section.Miller—the die-hard movie geek of the platoon—was rhapsodizing about the History of Breasts in the Cinema. The PX was crowded with Fobbits taking a long lunch hour, but that didn’t stop Miller from proclaiming, loud as a bullhorn, the merits of big-screen sweater meat: Jennifer Connelly in The Hot Spot.
