Youngblood (21 page)

After a long, hot shower, I massaged my feet and collarbone and put the uniform back on. I'd thought about things in the stall and knew what I needed to do next. In one part of my life, at least, I wanted clarity.

•  •  •

I got lucky. She was online and responded quickly to the Skype invitation. I set up my webcam and headset and waited for her to come to life on the screen. I'd chosen a corner stall, away from prying ears and curious eyes. I sat up tall, shoulders back, and took a deep breath, smiling for the camera.

The feed was grainy. She wore a pair of thin, rimless glasses and had her hair up in a ponytail, though a few loose brown strands swept across her forehead. She wore a long-sleeved shirt I recognized and a
pair of conch earrings shaped like moons that I didn't. I studied the apartment wall behind her, looking for clues, but it was blank and empty.

“
Shaku maku
, Marissa,” I said. “How goes it?”

“Jackson,” she said. “What time is it there?”

“Almost dinnertime. Pretty early there?”

“Yeah,” she said, somewhere between sass and insolence. I'd always adored her temper, except when it was directed my way. “Got up for a run.”

“It's nice to look at you,” I said, because it was. I wanted her to smile, but instead she blinked twice and frowned.

“You look thin,” she said. Her voice was raspier than usual. I wondered if she was smoking again. “Your face, especially. You eating? You and your bird belly.”

“If I wanted to be mothered . . .” I began, trailing off. That last word reminded me of the shot-up civilians, and the dead driver's mom on the side of the road, but I didn't know how to begin to tell Marissa about that. I wanted to tell her about the firefight, too, and the medal, but that all felt foul suddenly, as I realized I was just hoping to impress her. So instead I said, “I'll be eating as soon as we're done. Thought I'd take this rare break from war to talk to my girlfriend. That okay?”

She groaned and put her head in her hands. I watched her fingers tap her temples like little drum sticks. She'd always had such soft skin. Sometimes, on those lazy California afternoons on her front patio, I'd stroke her arms until she asked me to leave her alone so she could read. Her voice didn't have the playful lilt to it that it had then.

“Don't call me that, Jackson. Do not call me that. You're the one trying to push me away. This was your idea, too, remember? To avoid becoming a cliché?”

“Push you away?” I felt red coursing through my veins and knew I should stop, but wouldn't. “Are you retarded? You're the one who barely answers my e-mails.”

“I just did!”

“With pointless bullshit. You're the one pushing away. Even now, when I need you more than I've ever needed anyone.”

That made her cry. Even though that'd probably been my intent, something about the tears sneaking down her face filled me with regret and self-disgust. I apologized for calling the things that made up her days pointless, but that just made it worse.

“What am I supposed to say?” she asked, daggers in her voice now. She wiped her eyes and held my gaze through the screen. She'd always been tougher than me, always been able to cut through my reckless parrying to get to what mattered. “I don't say anything because everything I say is wrong. I don't reply because I don't know how to.”

“Well, try.
I'm
trying.”

“Bull,” she said. “You never communicate with anyone until you explode. I can't read your mind. I won't let you blame me for that. You know your mom had to tell me what happened to your soldiers? I'm so sorry for that, Jack. I'm so, so sorry.”

“Don't bring them up,” I said. “You've no right.” I shook my head and leaned back, sneering at the camera. “This was a mistake. To hell with it.” After a few moments of silence, I pointed to my bracelet. “Remember this?”

She smiled sadly, the gap in her teeth finally showing. She tugged at one of the moons in her ears. “Of course,” she said. “That week meant a lot.”

“Where's yours?”

“It's here. Somewhere. I wear it, just not running.”

“Sure,” I said. “Sure.”

Her eyes filled with tears again but she blinked them away. The feed was so bad I couldn't make out the deep blue of her eyes. I wished I could reach through the connection and seize those irises and keep them as stones in my pockets, to hold anytime I wanted.

“Why did you order my boyfriend a box of elephant dung, Jack? How do you even find something like that? It was gross. And so immature.”

I asked her to repeat herself so I could think of something.

“No idea what you're talking about.” I sat on my hands to keep them from moving. “I didn't even know you had a boyfriend.” I clenched my molars together, and my heart pounded against its cage. “But if it's who I think, he's a fucking tool. Thought you were better than that.”

Marissa closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. I shouldn't have snapped at her for mentioning Alphabet and Ortiz, I thought. She'd been trying, just as I'd asked. When she opened her eyes she leaned in and kissed the screen. There it is, I thought. Two stubborn souls raised on too much reality television, our fights always ending as quickly as they began. And even though we were arguing, we were talking now. That seemed important.

I was about to return the kiss when she said, “I'm sorry, Jack. I love you. But I can't do this. Please don't write, don't call. Not until you get back and become you again. I'm sorry I'm not strong enough. But I didn't volunteer for this.”

The connection winked out and went dead. She'd logged off. As I sat there staring at a black hole of a screen, the creeping sense that something irreplaceable, something matchless, had just broken within. I realized she hadn't asked how I was.

I hadn't asked her, either.

Stumbling out of the cybercafé, I passed a joe Skyping with a kohl-eyed goth lady holding a toddler. The two adults were laughing together at the child's burps. I paid the Kuwaiti employee in the front, walked outside, and found a Porta John to dry-heave into.

•  •  •

It was twilight when I came out. My hands were shaking and everything seemed fuzzy and distant, and I decided I needed something to do, like eat. I walked through the gray dusk to the chow hall, passing tents and warehouses and clusters of soldiers in workout clothes talking softly. A dark melody had filled the desert, a blend of finches, seething air, and helos slicing through the sky.

The chow hall was a big white magnet north of the shopping gulch,
a massive canopy that seemed to hover over the pale sands. Part circus tent, part martial pretense, it was ringed by blast walls and protected by counterbattery radar. It could serve over a thousand soldiers at a time and up to fifteen thousand a day, not including the ones who gorged at the nearby fast-food shacks.

As I replayed my conversation with Marissa over and over again, the shock and hurt wore off. My steps turned to strides. I pushed up my patrol cap high so the back was on the crown of my head and the brim pointed to dull stars. It was more comfortable this way, and it identified me as a field officer who didn't give a fuck. I held my rifle from the rails, not bothering with the sling. In the land of fobbits, I was king. No one approached or even gave me a sideways look, which made me angrier. More than anything, I wanted a fight. I
needed
a fight.

I found one at the chow hall entrance.

To the side of the snaking line stood three of my soldiers, Washington, Batule, and Doc Cork. Washington was arguing with a soldier whose back was to me, his face contorted. He took a step back and started to raise his fist before Doc Cork grabbed it with both hands and held it down. In response, the unknown soldier shot a wagging finger into Washington's face, cursing. I moved between the bodies like mercury.

“Corporal Washington! Chill.” Doc Cork squeezed Washington's forearm and whispered “The LT” in his ear. Washington exhaled slowly and his shoulders drooped.

“Sir,” he said. “Me and the chief here was just discussing what he meant by ‘you people.' As in ‘You people never know who's boss.' ”

Everyone separated, and we stood in a tight circle. The chief warrant officer was built for a parade, every corner crisp, his boots unsoiled. His face exuded the pink shine of a daily high-and-tight.

“We're supposed to be postracial now, Chief,” I said. “I'm sure you were just about to explain that.”

“It has nothing to do with him being black!” The chief shook his finger again. “I meant young soldiers who have been promoted too quickly and have no discipline. He in your platoon, Lieutenant?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can tell me what the hell that scorpion is.” He pointed to Washington's patch, but his eyes were all over my lopsided cap. “I don't care what medal he got today, he's still a soldier. Their uniforms are un-sat. Yours, too. This isn't the bush.”

I smiled goofily. “You a regs man, then? Regulations are important.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw uncertainty cross my soldiers' faces. “Wouldn't you agree?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” So certain. So smug. “That's why I stopped him.”

“Then why the
fuck
aren't you at attention when addressing a commissioned officer of the United States Army?”

It was like I'd backhanded him. He snapped to attention, unleashing a sarcastic salute and yelling, “Sir, yes, sir!” Every eyeball in the chow line was now on us. I had two options: escalate the spectacle or end it.

“Your service to country tonight is noted, Chief.” I leaned down into the man's face, our noses touching, his stunted seafood breath tickling my chin. “You're dismissed.”

“Lieutenant.” He spoke low now so only I could hear him. “Do that again, you'll spend the rest of your life drinking through a straw.” I was going to call his bluff, but he continued. “You think you know me? You know shit. Just 'cause I don't wear it, don't mean I don't have it—I've been blown up more times than years you've been alive. Your boys are out of control. So are you. Rein it in. Be a leader. Respect the uniform. Respect yourself.” With a salute, he was gone into the dirty night, just another shape drifting through the camouflage sea.

“Show's over!” I shouted to the line, where heads ogled and voices jeered. The madness had passed. Now I was just embarrassed. “Enjoy your meal, vote Republican.”

“Holy shit, sir.” I turned to the soldiers. It was Doc Cork. “That was awesome.”

“Thanks, LT,” Washington said as we exchanged knuckles. “Owe you one.”

The three soldiers moved away while I got in line. Then something gloomy pricked at me and I called them back. I asked Washington
and Batule to remove their scorpions until we returned to the outpost. They balked.

“That guy was a racist,” Washington said. “Why you taking his side?”

“I don't doubt that. But he's right about the patches. Tell the same to anyone rocking the scorpion at Salsa Night. We'll be back soon.”

“But, sir—”

“Did I stutter? Move out.”

Whatever goodwill I'd earned was lost. They walked off grumbling about power-tripping officers, but replacing one another's patches. I envied them for their solidarity.

“Lonely,” I sang to myself, not ironically, not cheerfully, watching the three soldiers fade away. “I'm Mister Lonely. I have nobody . . . for my own.”

They served surf and turf for the holiday. The cooks wished me a happy Fourth, and a thickset female with a dreary smile told me she'd been up twenty hours preparing food, and I felt bad for every mean, nasty thought I'd ever had about fobbits, because the truth was we needed them more than they needed us.

I ate in a back corner. On a nearby television, I watched Cleveland sports fans burn the jersey of some basketball player, a self-proclaimed messiah who'd left because winning was hard there and it'd be easier in Florida. After a tenth jersey burned, the howling of proletarian pride and pain broadcast across the globe, I went outside and bummed a cigarette from a contractor. We tried small talk, but his English proved rudimentary and my Korean nonexistent, so we smoked next to each other in quiet, observing the night.

Watching soldiers come and go through shadows, I longed for the other side of the wire. It didn't always make sense out there, but sometimes it did. And it offered purpose. I forced myself to contemplate the sniper shot that'd almost turned me to pink mist, and I fantasized about what that would've done to Marissa. A sick pleasure took hold; I saw her weep and regret. Her life would've never been the same. It would've destroyed her. Then I saw what it would've done to my parents,
to Will, and I remembered it would've destroyed me, too, in the most literal of ways. Chambers, I thought. Chambers saved me. He'd said to embrace the beast within, and now I knew he'd been right. He'd been right about everything.

I'd see Haitham and Azhar dead before we left, I promised myself, not because I hated them, but because that was what I was supposed to do. That was why we were here. I walked to Salsa Night, my patrol cap tilted up only slightly.

An empty warehouse on the southern rim of the base, the club lay at the end of a gravel path, next to the airfield, in a deep mire of Halliburton trailers. The generals intermittently tried to shut down the club, but like an obstinate weed, it kept returning. Higher had relented in order to maintain the perception of control. Officers weren't supposed to go, but we weren't banned from it, either.

I just needed something to do.

The walk was dark and quiet. At the airfield, I watched a group unload a cargo jet with neon ChemLights, little dancing birds of hallucinogen. The crates alongside the fence line were filled with machine gun ammunition and milk shake powder mix. There was no other activity on the tarmac. Cresting a small ridge, I heard the club rumbling well before I saw it, a shining boom box of a building. Blue and yellow lights flashed through partially boarded windows, and I asked myself if watching bored joes grind up on each other was really how I wanted to spend my evening.