My main duties as the Production Assistant on The Iraq Show are to 1. translate the Daily Data into plain English and 2. get the coffee. I’ve only been on the job a few weeks so, for the most part, my job has been to 2. get the coffee. But today is different. Today, the Daily Data arrives early from Iraq. It reads:

281553Z 31009KT 10SM CLR. 101st Airborne Division, US MLRS fired 18 ATACMS against suspected air defense sites in Al Hillah with a 100% kill rate. USAF F-16CG deployed for low-level strafing run in vicinity to account for statistical anomalies.

First, I hand out the Starbucks. Some of the “Iraqis” invariably want what they call “Iraqi coffee” so that they can stay in character. Every day, they ask for Yemeni beans, pulverized with ginger root and cardamom and brewed in a copper kettle. Every day, I bring them Frappuccinos.

Then I translate the Daily Data into a more user-friendly format. It’s the first time I’ve been allowed to translate the Daily Data, so I want to do well. Show my dad that I’m not a goof-off. I try out a few things, and finally settle on:

It’s a clear day, September 28, 2007, with 10 statute miles of visibility. At 6:53PM local time, there’s a wind from the northwest at 9 knots. The army fired 18 missiles at a small Iraqi town today, killing everybody. A fighter jet flew over the town afterwards, killing anyone who was not already killed.

Simple, but effective, I think. I bring the translated proof of the Daily Data to the Senior Production Manager, Martin, for approval. Martin is a fat, bald man with beady eyes like two raisins on a cream pie. He wears the same sky-blue tie and white short-sleeved shirt every day. The AC in his trailer is on full-blast but he sweats like a pig. He reads my proof.

“Looks good,” he says. “There are just a few small things I would change.”

“Like what?”

“The thing is—and I’m going to be totally honest with you here since you seem like a smart guy—you have to poetry it up a bit for the writers.”

“Poetry it up for the writers?”

“That’s right. They’re different than you and me. You have to give it to them in such a way that speaks to their sort of bohemian sensibility. We need to make them understand what they need to write about. This is a tv show, not math. When writers see all these numbers and raw data, they get all afraid like a bunch of little gay elves.”

“Gay elves?”

“Is there an echo in here? I said like gay elves. That’s called a simile. They’re not actually gay elves, and please don’t tell anyone in HR that I said they were.”

Martin sits back in his reclining desk-chair and folds his hands behind his head.

“Here’s what I would suggest,” he says.

He begins:

The hot sun is like a giant red orb, pulsating at dusk above the hot Iraqi desert. The northwestern wind blows, at about 9 knots. Later, Sergeant Michelson and his bunkmates huddle after a particularly harrowing day, in which 4 of their fellow soldiers were killed. They huddle like football players huddled in a very important football game, perhaps the 2005 AFC divisional playoff game, Colts versus Steelers. He tells them stories, about his beautiful wife, Kelly, a gorgeous cheerleader in her day, with wonderful tits like two coconuts that are extremely soft and smooth and not hard or hairy like most coconuts. Also, he tells them about his little son, John, who is sick with pneumonia after receiving an Anthrax-filled letter from a terrorist in the mail. The soldiers reminisce about their own beautiful wives back home. It turns out, one soldier’s wife is a pulmonologist, and this gives Sergeant Michelson hope for his son’s future. That’s what’s on his mind. That, and the United States Armed Forces, and how the Commander in Chief of those Armed Forces, the President of the United States does his best to pursue the ideals of excellence and democracy purported by his forefathers the Pilgrims, sometimes with the gentle reassurance and tough love of eighteen missiles or F-16CG fighter jets, but minimizing, as always, collateral damages to the Iraqi people who, with God’s blessing, will one day dry their wings of the morning dew and fly free of our swathing like butterflies flying from the chrysalis, to govern themselves independently and rightly, with no ill-will toward our men, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice, for all those who deserve it.

He pauses and takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling.

“So,” he says. “Do you see what I mean by poetry it up?”

“I guess,” I say.

“And do you see the difference between mine and yours?”

“I definitely see that.”

“What I did was, I made it pretty. I made it interesting. I brought in outside knowledge about an interest of mine, the National Football League. That’s just an example of one way you can speak the language of the American people.”

“So it’s good to bring in football analogies?”

“It’s just an example of one good thing you can do. As time goes on, you’ll develop your own style. You might want to try baseball.”

“Okay, I’ll make a note of that.”

“Also, I added some facts about this Sergeant Michelson and his life and his son, John. They call that backstory in literature and it’s very important to have. And then I added some bits about our president and the U.S. of A, taking into account the first people in America, the Pilgrims, ergo Plymouth Rock. I added texture that helps to portray the data vis-à-vis this country’s people, both past and present. Do you see what I mean?”

“I think I can catch on,” I say.

“Good. Any questions?”

“Who’s Sergeant Michelson?”

“That’s a great question. The answer is, I have no idea. I just made him up. That’s another thing you can do with the Daily Data. There are so many soldiers in Iraq at this point that we can’t be expected to filter out each great story. That would be like finding a needle in a haystack, or a sand dune, in this case. So what I did was, I made up a very plausible sergeant with problems very similar to those problems of all the other soldiers. And then I added what?”

“Backstory?”

“Exactly, backstory. It was the backstory that made you think that Sergeant Michelson is a real person, with a real wife and real tits and maybe a dog, named Otto. See, you can do that too. I just made up his dog’s name on the spot. It doesn’t really matter.”

“So I could call him Frodo?”

“Sure! Now you’re getting the hang of it! It doesn’t matter at all! Now get this Daily Data over to Richard before he flips out.”

I leave Martin’s trailer and instantly begin to sweat in the heat.

The “Iraqis” are gathered together, chatting in the shade between Martin’s trailer and Richard’s trailer, so I have to walk right by them. Most of the Iraqis are Mexicans that one of the PAs picks up every morning from the parking lot of the 7-Eleven. They get paid under the table, and they don’t have speaking parts since most of them don’t speak English. Mainly they just mill about in the background and pretend to sell dates to one another while the English-speaking actors play the lead Iraqi roles. In between shots they chug Frappuccinos like you wouldn’t believe. The ones that seem to like the job have even grown moustaches so that they’re the first to be picked in the morning. It beats yard work, I guess.

I like the Mexican Iraqis. For the most part they’re good, hardworking guys with two jobs. I took Spanish in high school, so it’s fun to practice with them. They teach me swears. They use tú instead of usted. This one guy, Juan, has a family back in Mexico, and he sends all his wages back to them. Juan hardly even saves enough for food which is why he’s so gung ho about Frappuccinos. There are more calories in a Frappuccino than in about a dozen tacos.

I only understand about half of what he says, but from what I understand, I’m his best friend in America. He even gave me a picture of his daughter.

“¡Hola, maricóns!” I say as I walk past.

This gets a big laugh from the Mexicans.

“¡Hola!” says Juan with a grin. Juan’s always grinning, even though he hasn’t seen his family in almost a year. “Muchas gracias por los Frappuccinos.”

“You are muy bienvenido,” I say.

He smiles some more. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t understand.

“¿Qué pasa?” I ask. “¿Qué pasa with your family?”

“Nada,” he says. “They are very, very good. I am very, very good. Muy bueno.”

Just then, Mark, one of the American Iraqis sees me. I put my head down and make a beeline for Richard’s trailer.

“Hey!”

“Hi, Mark,” I say. Mark’s an Irish Catholic from Dorchester, in Boston. He has an accent, which he tries to hide, and pale, freckled skin. He auditioned to be an American, but Casting told him, You’re going to be an Iraqi, or hit the road. He was pissed because he was once this hot shot dramatic actor and even toured in France. Or so he says.

Mark wears a long white dishdasha and a kaffiyeh both made from tablecloths due to severe budget cuts earlier in the year. Mark can’t grow a moustache so he wears a fake, which means you’ve got this tall, lanky, freckled guy draped in a tablecloth with another tablecloth on his head, a jet-black glue-on moustache and a slight Boston accent. Personally, I think it looks more ridiculous than the Mexicans, but I’m not in Casting or Makeup or Costumes, so what do I know?

“What is this?” he asks, pointing to his Starbucks.

“Frappuccino,” I say. “They’re delicious.”

“How many times have I told you, I don’t want Frappuccinos. Are there Starbucks in Iraq?”

“Probably.”

“Well, that’s beside the point. The point is, I need to stay in character. My mind needs to be sharp.”

“But you have a script.”

“Don’t be wise with me. I heard about you. I heard that your dad got you this job. Well, not me. I worked my butt off to get where I am, and no one’s going to take that away from me, got it? And I don’t have a script, I have an outline. Everything you hear coming out of my mouth is pure improv. I need to have Iraqi coffee,” he says. “It fuels the magic.”

His moustache halfway slips off in the heat.

“Starbucks doesn’t have Iraqi coffee.”

“And the grocery store doesn’t have kofta, but I find a way.”

“All right, Mark, I’ll see what I can do,” I say, though I won’t.

“And that’s another thing. When we’re on the set, address me by my Iraqi name. Mohammed Jassim Ali. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Got it, what?”

“Got it, Mohammed.”

“Jassim Ali.”

“Got it, Mohammed Jassim Ali.”

And with that, Mark pours his Frappuccino onto the ground in dramatic fashion. Juan sees him pour it out and grimaces at all of those wasted calories. Mark holds the empty plastic cup in front of me and waits, I guess, for some sort of response. I shrug and walk away.