Walking Wounded

by Lauren Gilley

  “You idiot,” Murkowski told him. “They all just got blown to hell. They ain’t lookin’ to wine and dine an ugly asshole like you.”

  Harcourt lifted his nose in mock offense.

  “You boys are all missing the big picture,” Finn said. “There’s girls back home. This here – this is our chance to fight.”

  “Jesus, you’re bloodthirsty,” Harcourt said with a tinge of admiration.

  “No,” Finn said, smiling. “I’m a Marine.”

  The LSTs ground to a halt in knee-deep water on the shore at P’ohang-dong and the diesel engines of the deuce-and-a-half trucks roared to life, trundling down the ramps; Marines marched ashore.

  It was in P’ohang-dong that Will would learn what that unfamiliar smell was.

  The city had seen the kind of fighting he heretofore had only seen in WWII photographs. Buildings cracked open like Easter eggs, spilling out guts of splintered wood and crumbled plaster. The random, scattered personal belongings that had been left behind as the South Koreans fled stood out as tableaus: a charred shoe, a headless doll, the blackened slats of a baby’s crib. Almost too intimate to be looked at. The communists hadn’t wanted to absorb South Korea: they’d wanted to raze it to the ground, flatten its people into the mud, and make something new for themselves from the soot-black bones.

  The smell? It was death.

  That was the day Will stopped looking at the war as something he had to do for his friend, and as something he had to do on behalf of a people that so, so badly needed help.

  “Jesus Christ,” Murkowski said again and again. “Jesus Christ.”

  Then Hertz let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Look at that.”

  The thing about Americans was that if there was a place for levity in a dire situation, even just a scant inch, they would make use of it. Crouched on the side of the road, down on one knee with a hand upraised, black, crackled, and frozen like a statue, was a dead North Korean who had been hit with napalm.

  An American had wedged five playing cards between his stiff fingers.

  ///

  The company marched up the Main Supply Route in rubber-bottomed, leather-topped duck boots and two layers of socks, eighty-pound packs pressing their shoulders down into their sternums. Will breathed through his mouth, and every time he exhaled, his breath plumed like smoke, a white vapor in the waning daylight. He hadn’t expected it to be so goddamn cold in Korea.

  His socks chafed, and his pack chafed, and sweat gathered between his shoulder blades despite the cold numbness in the rest of his body. The MSR twisted and looped up a never-ending hill, and he felt eighty instead of twenty.

  Ahead of him, Finn sang something low and unintelligible under his breath, gloved fingers tapping out a rhythm against his thigh – a distraction from the burn of overworked muscles and the strain of carrying so much weight.

  Somewhere behind him, he heard Harcourt: “I’ve got news for jails across America. Forget locking anybody up: make ‘em do this as punishment.”

  There were a few weak laughs, a scattering of amused snorts, but mostly everyone was quiet. Every step across the frozen ground drove home the point: this was war, and it wasn’t going to be anything fun.

  The sound of truck engines reached their ears, and they all migrated to the side of the road. Months later, Will would look back on this moment and think about what a callow idiot he’d been for assuming the trucks belonged to them. That because it was an American MSR it meant it must be friendly forces headed their way. But in other ways he’d be glad for this moment.

  A line of trucks came into view around the corner and started down the hill, moving slow and carefully. The backs were uncovered, and they were filled to the brim with…with…

  He saw a hand, fingers gnarled into claws.

  Bodies. They were filled with dead bodies.

  Corpses that had frozen in grotesque pantomimes of movement, arms and legs outstretched, heads cracked back on their necks. They’d died, and they’d fallen, and they’d frozen that way. Too many of them to treat gently, they’d been stacked like cordwood, on their way back to the boats.

  “Shit,” Finn breathed, head turned toward the nightmare.

  “Hope they thaw before they put them in their coffins,” Hertz said quietly, his voice low and respectful.

  The trucks thundered past, grisly payload swaying and jostling, American Army boys on the way back to their mothers.

  Will decided his chafing wasn’t so bad after all. No one else in the company said a word of complaint.

  ///

  Just before nightfall, a rice paddy took shape in the gloom alongside the road, its terraced shape unmistakable. “We’ll make camp here tonight,” Captain Stokes called, hands cupped around his mouth, breath fogging in a way that made him look more like a dragon than normal. “And for God’s sakes, don’t drink the water like those damn Army boys did, you’ll be shitting in your pants for weeks.”

  “The water’s frozen, sir,” someone called, and several others laughed.

  Will hadn’t planned to (Lt. Monroe had explained to them on the way over that Korean rice paddies were fertilized with human feces), but whoever had yelled was right. The paddy was frozen all to hell. It was like one sheet of ice stacked over the next, and the next.

  “Shoulda brought my skates,” Murkowski said.

  Without any discussion, the company broke down into their platoons to make camp, rifle teams sticking together and NCOs gravitating toward one another. They choked down C-rations in the twilight and crawled into their mummy bags with haste – the sooner they were wrapped up, the sooner they’d be warm. They’d lined their bags up close in hopes of sharing body heat, and in this strange frozen wilderness, Will’s only comfort was the familiarity of the men around them, and of Finn’s shape at his side.

  “The stars are different,” Finn observed when they were on their backs, only their faces peeking out of the bags. “Different constellations.”

  “Well, we’re on the other side of the world,” Will said. “We’re looking at a different night sky.”

  And it wasn’t just the stars: Will couldn’t get the sense of different out of his nose, the way the air smelled and tasted unlike anything he’d ever sensed before. Beneath the killing cold, there were odors and flavors that held no place in his memory. The jungle, maybe? Or Korean earth. Or maybe death, again, the tang that superseded all others.

  “How cold is it, I wonder?” someone asked.

  Someone else said, “Zero degrees.”

  The next morning, they’d learn that had been an accurate answer.

  “Will,” Finn said, softly, so no one else could hear. “I’m really glad you’re with me. I think we’re gonna do great things.”

  “Me too,” Will said, as sleep put its claws in him. “Me too.”

  ///

  Will was up and dressed and packed the next morning before sunrise, grateful to have his boots back on, already wishing for his mummy bag again. Jesus, it was cold.

  “I won’t ever complain about a Virginia winter again,” he told Finn as they leaned together, rubbing their hands and breathing on them in the vain hope it might instill some warmth in their fingers.

  “No shit,” Finn said. His teeth were chattering. “I’d just as soon be marching already. I’d rather sweat than freeze to death.”

  Around them, the makeshift camp was alive with cursing, foot-stomping, and hurried packing. First light turned the fog to something thick and pearlescent; five feet away, men were nothing but dark shapes. They could have been anyone. A chill snaked down Will’s back when he thought about how easy it would be for the enemy to slip into their midst unnoticed.

  “Alright, listen up,” Captain Stokes called, voice echoing across the paddy, glancing sharply off the ice. “We’re assigning units this morning.”

  “Shit,” Finn said, and Will’s stomach cramped up with fear.

  With the rigorous march, amidst the adrenaline surge of deployment, they hadn’t
considered the possibility of being assigned to different units.

  It went alphabetical, and it took forever. Will was shaking by the time Stokes got to the Ms. Without thought, his hand curled around Finn’s wrist and squeezed, hard.

  “We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine either way,” Finn said, voice strong. But he curled his own fingers in Will’s sleeve and squeezed back, their arms down low so no one could see.

  “Maddox,” Stokes finally called. “5th Division, 1st Battalion, Assault section.”

  “It’s fine,” Finn assured, again, as the list went through Martin, Maple, Melvin, Moretti…

  “Murdoch, F,” Stokes said. “5th Division, 1st Battalion, Assault section.”

  They let out a breath together.

  ~*~

  Present Day

  “You’re quiet today,” Will observes with a grunt that could be annoyance, could be approval, could be phlegm. “Not as much of a smartass.” That’s definitely annoyance.

  “Guess not.” Luke slaps his notebook shut, switches off his recorder, begins stowing everything in his messenger bag.

  “Something happen?”

  “No.”

  This morning, Luke woke at a reasonable hour, early light filtering through the blinds. Hal was gone; he’d left on ahead, for another of those godforsaken pre-dawn runs. But he’d left a note, too:

  L,

  There’s bagels in the freezer, and I started coffee for you. Gone running with Matt. Call me and I’ll swing back and pick you up.

  Good morning,

  H

  The coffee was ready, and Luke poured himself a mug, stood in Hal’s kitchen with bedhead and bleary eyes, and tried to imagine that phone call. He bundled up and walked to the Maddox place.

  The interview went quickly and cleanly today, and though he doesn’t want to linger, Luke doesn’t want to go anywhere else, either. Last night sliced through some of the carefully-tied lines he’d been using to tether himself to the friend zone. He has no idea what to think or feel now.

  “You in a hurry to get somewhere?” Will asks.

  Luke doesn’t answer. He finishes packing and straightens, bag slung over his shoulder.

  Will stares at him, a sharp scrutiny through the veil of forming cataracts.

  Luke feels cagey, dangerous maybe, lit from the inside with the painful fire of last night’s fight. He knows he isn’t the sort of person who inflicts physical damage, but he can toss grenades into situations, can cast doubt in all corners. Sometimes it’s just to watch something blow up in his face. But sometimes, rarely, it gets him the answers a subtle approach never could.

  “Will,” Luke says, “why are you telling me this story?”

  Will blinks at him a moment, a calculating sort of blink. “You’re the reporter, you asked me to tell it.”

  “Writer,” he corrects. “And no. I didn’t ask for any of this. For Hal to call my boss, and for her to send me down here, or for you to rattle off thousands of words of content I can’t use and didn’t ask for.” His breath hitches in his chest, little stutters as he fights the anger. “I came to do my job, so I can get paid, so I can make my fucking rent, but I didn’t ask to get sucked into whatever the hell’s going on around here.” And whatever the hell’s going on in Hal’s brain lately.

  He sighs, and hopes the tremors in his hands don’t show. He knows, right away, that he’s out of line to talk to this man like this. But…

  “Hmm,” Will hums, and coughs. “So something did happen.”

  “Nothing happened!”

  “Yeah, alright, Mr. Writer. I didn’t set this up. I got better things to do with my time than talk to some entitled millennial brat about what I’ve been through.”

  Luke lifts an eyebrow. “Better things to do?”

  “Shut up, I do. The point is, I didn’t ask for this either, but by God, if somebody’s gonna write something about me, I want him to have the whole story.”

  “Because I need the history of your life to figure out why you hit some dude upside the head with a cane. Yeah. Makes sense.”

  “No, because…” Will makes a frustrated sound. “Your boy, Hal–”

  “He’s not my boy,” Luke says through his teeth.

  “–there’s people who’d look at him, and look at you, and think you’re getting the short end of the stick. Think you ought to cut ties and go find something better for yourself.”

  “What in the–”

  “But those people don’t know you, do they?” He leans forward in his chair, gnarled hands gripping tight to the arms. “Or him. Or any of it. And a person who doesn’t know you doesn’t have a right to tell you what to do – or tell your story. ‘Cause that’s the thing about storytelling – the person who tells it always has to tell you what they think, at the end. And what you ought to think when you read what he wrote.”

  Luke takes a deep, unsteady breath. “Will, are you gay?”

  “No,” the man says, easily, “but it don’t mean I hold that against you, kid. I’m telling you a story. My story. Because it’s something you need to know before you go writing a buncha bullshit about my boy and his family.”

  “I’m not writing about Matt,” Luke insists.

  “Oh, yes you are.” Will smirks a little, a quirk of his wrinkled lips, and leans back again, eyes dancing. “You just don’t know it yet. You can’t write about anybody attached to politics without a buncha opinions getting thrown in the mix.”

  The fine hairs on the back of Luke’s neck prickle. “Says who?”

  “Says me. And I don’t know everything, but I do know a bit. I know you want to write books instead of magazine articles. I know you think I’m an old fool. And I know Hal didn’t bring you down here for me, or Matt, or that sad thing you want to call a career.”

  “Why, then?”

  Will shrugs. “That’s between you and him.”

  Luke breathes a moment, in and out, shallow and fast, skin tingling beneath his clothes. His scalp feels tight and his palms ache like when his blood pressure is too low. He might pass out.

  “I gotta go.” He lurches toward the door, feet like cinderblocks. But pauses at the door, turns back. “You’re wrong, though. I don’t think you’re an old fool.”

  Will smiles. “Go on, then.”

  He goes.

  ~*~

  “Making any progress?” Sandy asks when he reaches the kitchen. She’s sitting at the long table, surrounded by dozens of little cellophane bags, slips of paper, bags of tiny candy bars, and a thick roll of twine.

  “Yeah,” Luke says, because, oddly enough, it feels like they have today. And also because he isn’t willing to share what was just said, the strange way it left Luke feeling. At some point, he’ll have to tell the Maddox family that their old man is sharp as a tack, but today isn’t that day.

  Since he has no immediate plans to rush back to the apartment and write up a storm, he asks, “What are you working on?”

  “Ah.” Like she hoped he’d ask. “Swag bags for a dinner I’m hosting.”

  So far, a basket overflows with the things, and she’s assembling more. “Here?” He can’t imagine that many people fitting inside the townhouse.

  She laughs – that musical, Southern woman laugh like she thinks he’s adorable, but doesn’t mean it to be an insult at all. Southern women astound him, really. “Goodness no. It’ll be at an art gallery; industrial chic, don’t you know.” Luke has crept closer as she talks, and now he’s near enough to the table that she lifts the twine up toward him, close enough for him to see the little wire threads running through it; not real twine, but decorative shit. “I’m going for that whole rustic look. What do you think?”

  Each cellophane bag contains gift cards from local small businesses, sample size lotions and lip balms he assumes are expensive, squares of Ghirardelli chocolate, and strips of shredded, crinkled paper for filler. Sandy has tied each one with twine, and a little card printed with the name and date of the event. Simple things, throwaway thi
ngs, really, each one a little palmful of money. He can’t imagine spending hard-earned cash on this kind of thing – mainly because he doesn’t have that kind of cash. But he knows, deep down, that someone like Sandy is held to an impossible standard – a lack of gift bags could mean social suicide…and a possible bleed over into her husband’s career. Washington hates poverty as much as it hates wealth; it’s not possible to win favor if you don’t run in the “right” circles. And he also admits that, via the gift cards, Sandy and her charity have put much-needed cash in the hands of local entrepreneurs. So…

  “They’re great,” he says, shrugging. “If you go for that sort of thing.”

  She snorts. “Not your scene, huh? I’ll tell you a secret.” She drops her voice. “It’s not mine either.”

  He gives her a look.

  “Hey, I’m serious. In my mind, if you want to help a charity, you go down to their office and write a fat check. Or you go volunteer. Call and ask the animal shelter how much dog food they need to last the next six months. Donate all your old clothes. Work at the soup kitchen. There’s something bad wrong with needing a four-course dinner and a buncha ass-kissing before you’ll get out your checkbook.” She emphasizes the point with a wave of a cellophane bag. “And now I’ve got to sit here and put all these together, and people are still going to talk shit about me. How’s that for charity?”

  “People suck,” Luke agrees, smiling.

  “Some of them really do, yes. And most of them live in this city.”

  He laughs, delighted to hear someone as seemingly put-together and graceful as Sandy rant like this.

  “You got someplace to be? Or can you help me stuff bags?” she asks, waggling her eyebrows.

  “I was going to say no, but then you make it sound so dirty…” He drops into the chair next to her, bag sliding off his arm onto the floor. “Show me which order everything goes in.”

  She does, and they settle in to work, bags crinkling happily.