by Brian Cotton
***
Harvey found it difficult to concentrate on the path ahead. His strong, weathered hands gripped the steering wheel as he maneuvered the vehicle up the next small hill. Seated next to him was Buck. His son sipped on a bottle of fresh, spring water and had not once looked over to his father during the entire eight hours of the trip so far. They still had a ways to go and Harvey wondered if his son was going to say anything at all to him.
“What are you thinking about, son?” Harvey asked to break the silence.
Buck took a moment to answer. “I’m trying to think about how I can avoid screwing this up again.”
“You’ll do fine. You’ve had one actual mission under your belt now. Use that experience to learn, don’t just beat yourself up over it.”
“That all you care about? How I’m going to do on the next mission?”
Harvey paused. “Look, son…”
“My name’s Buck.”
“Okay, Buck, I just want to make sure you’re going to be okay for this mission.”
“I’ll do fine, all right, just like you said.”
Harvey turned his attention back to driving. He was going through that battle in his own mind once again. That battle between what it truly meant to be a good father to Buck. He never knew what it took to do that. When Harvey was growing up, he always had a supportive father who raised him right. He was taught how to be a great American and how to serve his country the right way. But, when things started to change, he lost contact with his parents.
After Buck was born, there were complications with his wife’s pregnancy. Harvey tried to deny it to himself, but the complications killed his late wife, and he always battled the itch to blame Buck for it. It wasn’t his fault, Harvey knew, but it was still all too easy to say that if he had never gotten her pregnant, she would have never died. So, that’s what he did, he shifted the blame from his son unto himself. The guilt made it difficult for him to be a good father because, deep down, he wished he was not a father.
Harvey cleared his throat. “You doing okay, son?”
“Yeah, just swell.”
“Buck, I want to be there for you, but the road goes both ways, you hear? You shutting me out isn’t helping matters at all.”
Buck finally looked over to his father. “I’m not shutting you out.”
“Then, how come you never, ever, come to me for anything? You never talk about you, what’s going on with you, how you’re feeling. Nothing.”
“You should know how I’m doing. This is all I do.” Buck moved his open palm all around in a circle. “I’m just trying to not disappoint you.”
“I know that times are tough right now, but you’ve got to give it time. Once we are done fighting…once we can claim some type of victory…”
“You’ve been saying that for years. Just one more battle, son. We’re almost there, son. It’s getting old. How am I supposed to connect with you when I don’t know when our luck is finally going to run out?”
Harvey looked towards Buck. “Maybe that’s why we should try harder. As long as we are still fighting, when we don’t know the outcome?”
“Yeah, right. That’s a great plan.”
It was useless trying to get through to the boy. Harvey just shook his head and returned to his silent posture in the driver’s seat. A lot of what Buck had to say was correct, and Harvey knew it. So, the leftover just did what he knew how to do best. Hide from it. Pretend like the tension wasn’t there. The hope was always that Buck would come around to understand, and respect, his father for who he was.
Not being a man who was good with his own emotions, Harvey found it tough to say that he wasn’t really fighting for the red, white, and blue. That was just a show he put on for those who fought with him. No. The truth was, he was fighting for Buck, so that he could have a better life than what was out there now. The road was still long and with leftovers only getting older, time was running short. But, he just knew that there would come some point in his lifetime when the rebels would have a significant victory in this war.
He just hoped it would come sooner rather than later.
.09
Sullivan opened the front door to Mary’s house. He unsnapped the shoulder holster and hung it on the coat rack to his left. The volume on the TV blared from the living room, to the point where nobody heard him enter. Through the speakers, Consul Olyphant talked about how great the USR was and that the public need not fear the resistance threat. Everything was under control, he said. The more Sullivan thought about it, the less in control the USR seemed to be. The resistance was still running rampant out there, destroying USR buildings, and killing Agents.
The investigation into Reed and his friends had led to nothing after the initial night of surveillance. Sullivan and his new partner heard nothing but a card game going on. They obviously had a code of some kind and they did a very good job of keeping it secret. The truth would come out eventually, Sullivan hoped. One of them would slip up as they were not experienced in this line of work. They were factory workers after all. He would have to come up with some type of plan that didn’t involve Little.
Inside the living room, Davie was lying on his belly, his back legs bent straight up, his hands on his chin. He watched with great interest to the nightly press conference. When he saw his father walk in, he jumped up from his lying position and assaulted Sullivan with a giant hug around his legs. Sullivan reached down and played with the boy’s short hair.
“You have a good day?” Sullivan asked.
“Sure did! It’s better now that you are here!” Davie replied.
Mary looked up from the recliner. She had that same look of disappointment on her face that Julie would give him. When Julie was alive, they never spent much time with Mary and her husband, Jimmy, who was already in bed. Jimmy worked construction and Mary stayed at home. After Julie’s death, it became Mary’s job to raise Davie, a job which Sullivan was reluctant to ask of her. She told him that this wasn’t for him, but for the boy, and that he needed to find some way to raise Davie the right way. Raising a child the right way, in this world, that was almost like a cruel joke.
“Glad to see you grace us with your presence.” Mary said, turning her attention back to the television screen.
“Nice to see you, too, Mary.”
“You taking him home tonight?”
“I was actually…”
“Fine,” Mary interrupted. “He can stay here tonight. Again.”
“Thanks.”
There was nothing harder in this world than looking down at little Davie to see that look of sadness when he couldn’t come home. Sullivan wanted to take Davie home tonight, more than anything else, but he needed to plan his next moves to get answers from Reed. A lot of the time, especially tonight, he questioned whether or not it was really worth it. Did it really matter how Julie died? Did it really matter if the USR or the resistance did it?
“Can I please come home with you?” Davie asked.
Sullivan shook his head. “You like staying here, right?”
“I do, but I want to come home.”
“I know you do, but Daddy’s got work to do, you know that. I’ve got to figure out what happened to Mommy.”
“I miss Mommy.” Davie replied.
“I do, too.”
“Where do you think she is now?”
It took a moment for Sullivan to come up with an answer. In his own mind, she merely ceased to exist, but that wouldn’t work on the little boy who would be devastated to hear that. It was an awful thing, he thought, to not believe in anything other than his own existence. One had to make the best out of what he or she had now and then, when it was all over, nothing mattered. He thought about Father Francis’s interrogation at times like these. Those church people he would interrogate from time to time seemed to think that there was a Heaven that all the good people went to.
“She’s up in the sky, looking down on you.
She’s so proud of you for being so brave and such a smart boy.”
“Yeah?!”
“That’s right. Why don’t you watch the TV a little bit more while I talk with your Aunt Mary?”
“Okay!”
Davie ran back over to the front of the television set and resumed his comfortable posture. Sullivan felt a sense of guilt for encouraging his son to watch the hatred that went on, but it wasn’t like there were any kid friendly shows he could watch. Sullivan turned to Mary and summoned her to the kitchen. She reluctantly stood up from the recliner and followed him in. At the sight of the shoulder holster, with the Glock 17 attached, she groaned. They took a seat across from each other at the red oak table.
“You can’t keep doing this to him.” Mary said.
Sullivan breathed in deep. “I know. Do you think it doesn’t kill me not to have him all the time?”
“This is exactly why Julie wanted to leave you.”
There she went again, another tirade about how the only reason that Julie never left him in the first place was because she couldn’t afford it out there, on her own, with a small child. She loved Davie too much to lose him, because Davie would almost certainly have ended up with Sullivan. Sullivan placed his opened hand in the air then moved his index finger to his lips. He didn’t need this, not today.
“That boy needs his father,” Mary continued. “Why do you still ignore your responsibilities?”
“I’m not ignoring anything,” Sullivan replied, fighting back the urge to raise his voice. “What I’m doing is for him, can’t you see that?”
“No.”
“Then, you really are just like your sister.”
Mary slammed her first on the table. “You don’t talk about her, you hear me, you son of a bitch?”
“That’s not necessary.”
“She’s gone, William. We are all trying to move on from it. Maybe I am just like my sister, but at least I’m not like you.”
“Look,” Sullivan said as he continued to fight back his temper. “You need to calm down. I told you before. I’m trying to find out what happened to her, who the parties responsible were. Things weren’t the greatest…”
“You can say that again.”
“Listen to me. I know I screwed up our marriage, I get that. But, even if things were shitty, I still loved her. That’s why I didn’t leave her. I want to know what happened.”
“And, you just ignore your son, you can live with that?” Mary demanded.
“There are a lot of things I’ll have to answer for when the time comes. More things than you could ever imagine. But, I can’t just forget it ever happened.”
“I’ll tell you who was responsible. It was them.”
Sullivan leaned forward. “Them, huh? Well, they claim that it was the USR.”
“Of course they did! Why wouldn’t they? They aren’t just going to come right out and admit it. Are you really that stupid?”
The Agent leaned back in his chair, shook his head, and then rubbed up and down his face with his hands. He didn’t need the insults that she continued to throw at him. Mary never wanted to listen, all she wanted to do was throw every single one of life’s problems on his shoulders then tell him it was all his fault. Not today, though. He was not going to deal with it today. What she said was right, he would have to sacrifice (not ignore) time with Davie. But, when he found out…
“You know, what has the USR done to correct the problem? Aren’t there still women dying everywhere, just like Julie?” Sullivan demanded.
“It’s obviously something that they’ve never seen before. The resistance, they are cunning, secretive. Who the hell knows what kind of evil concoctions they can come up with?” Mary replied.
“Did I ever tell you about the resistance guy who broke into my house and tried to kill me?”
“Yes, you did. You put your son in danger. Who knows what could have happened?”
Sullivan ignored the blame. Instead, as he talked, images from that night filled his mind. “He saw Davie and, I don’t know, he just froze. Like he had some sort of empathy or something. He could’ve killed me right in front of Davie, but he didn’t.”
Sullivan envisioned the gun being pointed at his head. The intruder had on a mask that covered his eyes. He wore an American flag patch on his arm. The Agent demanded to know why they poisoned Julie. Something that the man said, about Sullivan “not knowing what was really going on”…then, that telecast by the resistance…
“So, what’s your point?” Mary demanded, bringing Sullivan back to the present.
“The point is, in my line of work, Agents would’ve blown me away without hesitation. Wouldn’t matter who was with me. If they wanted me dead, they just pull the trigger, then go home to a warm meal and sleep like babies. With all this talk about how great the USR is and how evil the resistance is…I don’t know. I always go back to that moment.”
Mary’s stare turned ice cold. “You’re letting that propaganda piece by those filthy people cloud your thinking.”
“Am I? Can’t you just think outside the box for just one minute?”
“I’m not saying anymore. The last thing I need is for Agents to pour through this door. Now, if you are going to continue your hate mongering, you can leave. You’re going to leave Davie here, anyway. He’s the only Sullivan that’s welcome in my house right now.”
Sullivan said nothing more. He got his things and left Davie behind for another night.
.10
Kaspar lay next to Krys outside of their tent. The squad had stopped for a few hours so they could try to get some rest before the next mission started. Upon Krys’s suggestion, demand really, the two brought their sleeping gear to the outside. The black sky above was cloudless and lay bare the stars. Krys loved to star gaze, so it was out of the question to sleep inside tonight. There hadn’t been a night sky this clear in a long while.
Her head was rested on Kaspar’s shoulder. He rubbed at her arm and fought back the sleep that attacked his consciousness. His eyes closed once again, but he forced them back open. In the process, his body jolted which startled Krys. She looked over at him and smiled.
“Never thought I’d be asking if you were okay.” she said.
“Just trying not to fall asleep.” Kaspar replied.
“Really? Why not?”
“This moment is just too perfect to waste.”
Krys smiled again and kissed his cheek. “Sorry again for being a bitch today.”
“You don’t ever have to apologize to me.”
“But, I feel like I do. You were just looking out for me and I snapped at you. We…don’t…”
Krys started to cough. She forced her body up into a seated position. Kaspar rose up as well and rubbed at her back as she continued her violent coughs. He reached over into one of the cargo bags. Inside was a handkerchief that he handed over to her. She put the white cloth in front of her mouth and continued. The coughs lasted longer than Kaspar could have anticipated. As he rubbed at her back, tears from his eyes were forced back. Would this be the moment? Was this her time?
The attack finally stopped. When Krys moved the handkerchief away from her mouth, droplets of blood were littered all over it. She threw the cloth to the ground in anger. Kaspar reached over and held her close to his side. Although she remained silent, he could feel through the jerks of her body that she was crying. He reached over with his hand and started to run his fingers softly through her hair.
“It’s going to be okay,” Kaspar said.
“What if it’s not?” Krys demanded. She pulled her head out of his chest. “I’m almost at the end and I have so much left to do.”
More talk about a cure would only upset her, so he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he looked up towards the stars, and her eyes followed his to the heavens above. They sat there and marveled at them once again. After a momentary gaze, Kaspar focused his attention back on Krys. He tried to remembe
r how vibrant and full of life she used to be before she got infected. It seemed like only days ago she was that same old Krys. The violent effects of the experimental drug had taken off with a fury.
“What was it you called me, when we first met?” Kaspar asked, trying to change the subject.
“Huh?” Krys replied, confused.
“You remember, don’t you? You called me a bitch or something…”
Krys laughed. “Oh, that’s right, I called you a butch.”
Kaspar smiled. “That’s it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even know you back then. And, you were kind of a pussy back then, too.”
“Hey, hey…” Kaspar said with a chuckle.
“Those were good times, back then.”
“These are good times, now.”
Kaspar looked over to Krys and kissed her on the forehead. These were good times, moments like these. If there was one thing that he learned over the past months it was not to take anything for granted. He did that with Mother and swore he wouldn’t for Krys. There were so many things he wanted to tell Mother, but he never did, always thinking he could just do it later. In his mind, Mother would always be there. He learned a harsh lesson when she was gunned down…
The stars, they are so beautiful, Kaspar thought to himself to get his mind away from those horrible thoughts. Not about Mother, he loved to still think about her, but about the Agents who killed her. He peered over at Krys who just lay there, on her back, in complete wonderment at the sight above. He reached over and grabbed her hand. She squeezed it back in response.
If only these moments could last forever…