The Outside Lands

by Hannah Kohler

  “But—”

  “That’s all,” says Vance. He claps his hands, the way my dad did to shut us up when we were kids. I feel a riptide of hatred tug me, the same whip-speed current that used to take me when I was a kid and my dad got fierce. “You—” Vance turns to Esposito, who’s got his bare ass out for the corpsman. “You got to sit this one out.” If this is a joke, I can’t hear a smile. “Flesh wound. Small price for a Purple Heart.” He turns and leaves.

  “You got to be fucking kidding me,” says Carter.

  Esposito sucks air as the corpsman checks his buttocks. “Vance just called you a pussy,” he calls.

  “Fuck you, Esposito.”

  “A pussy,” continues Esposito, “and an idiot—hey! Watch it.”

  “Sorry.” The corpsman raises his white palms to Esposito’s offended ass-cheeks. Esposito could use a bit of roughing up—he was getting too smug, with his backlipping and work-dodging—but this Purple Heart graze might make him worse.

  “All right, that’s enough,” says Fugate.

  “Well, fuck-a-doodle-doo,” says Carter.

  “I’ll gather the others,” says Fugate. “We leave ASAP. Jackson, stay here and tell me what you know. Carter, you’ll be walking point. Show us where we’re going.”

  Fugate puts the light on Carter’s face; he looks like he’s going to faint. “Fuck you, Jackson,” he says. “You too, Esposito.”

  A half hour later, I know I should catch some sleep, but I’m fully charged, gripped by that hate-current like it wants to take me someplace, but I don’t know where. When I was back home and that riptide got me, I’d take off on my bike, ride as fast as I could up the highway with the trucks breathing down on me till I skidded off, spent, at Fort Funston, where I’d sit on the cliffs and imagine hurling myself down into the surf. Now I got no place to go, and my feet take me along the perimeter, round the LZ, till I get to Esposito’s hooch.

  The hooch is lit by a flashlight propped against the wall; and Esposito’s awake, lying on his front on his rack, his ass fat with bandages. His face is heavy and doughy, like it gets when he’s high.

  “Shit, Esposito. What did that corpsman give you?”

  “Mamasan gave me a jive pack.” He lifts his hand to show me a half-dozen machine-rolled joints. “Pure Cambodian grass.”

  “That was wild out there,” I say.

  “Sure was.”

  “You think Dopfer will be okay?”

  “Let’s hope that spike bled him to death before those gooks picked him up.” Esposito fingers a joint from his pile and sparks it, and I catch a tremble in his fingers. “Fugate won’t find nothing.” He takes a long drag.

  “Shit.” I think of Dopfer twisting out of my grip and slapping around in the dirt, like a fat, beached fish. I should have left Shea—stupid kid was dead anyway. I should have tried to yank Dopfer up that hill; he might have been alive enough to haul himself a little of the way. I think of Skid, and Shea and Dopfer, think of the ghosts we’re collecting; and that shame comes again, slick in my blood.

  Esposito’s watching me; he’s got a dull, entertained look in his eye. “You think you could have saved him, huh?” He blows his smoke skyward, a smile cupping his mouth.

  “We could have tried,” I say. “If you and Carter hadn’t just run for it.”

  “Listen to me,” says Esposito. He drops his arm so that it hangs over his rack; the joint bleeds smoke. His face has snapped cold and mean. “We didn’t run, we’d be dead too.” He lifts his arm and takes another pull, and I can hear the judder in his breath as he exhales. “Don’t you fucking put this at my door. This is on that asshole Vance. Listening post, my ass.”

  “It isn’t clear how it could have gone our way.” My foot is tapping the dust; I try to hold it still.

  “No shit.”

  “You think it was a set up?”

  “You don’t? We get caught with dope, we get told to pack our bags for a light-’em-up-and-fire adventure. Nice example for the rest of the men. You think it’s a coincidence, you’re dumber than I thought.”

  My heart’s running. “What about Shea? And Carter and Dopfer?”

  “Expendable. Bunch of shitbirds.”

  Just last week Vance tore Carter and Dopfer a new asshole each for reporting late for maintenance duty.

  I shake my head. “I want to get back out there, man. I want to make it right.”

  “Shame you’re such a fucking pussy.”

  “Screw you, man.”

  “There it is.”

  “Captain Vance. Fucking cocksucker. What’s his fucking problem?”

  “It’s not his problem, it’s yours.”

  “Yeah? How the hell do you figure?” I’m glad Esposito’s being an asshole about this—it’s burning off some of this bright, boom-band energy that’s charging through me.

  “You keep standing there and taking it from that asshole. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Like you’d do any different.”

  “He don’t mess with me ‘cause he knows I ain’t weak.”

  “Tell that to your shot-to-fuck butt-cheeks.”

  Esposito half-asses a smile. “Carter’s pissed.”

  “Well, stupid motherfuckers. Should have taken me instead.”

  “Yeah, judging from your lady-shaking hands, that didn’t look like a good idea.” He’s got that wisecracker, Jersey Mafia voice, the one he gets when he’s being a real asshole, and real enjoying it.

  “Fuck you, Esposito. You don’t look so cool yourself.”

  He ignores this. “Nah,” he says, twisting the joint against his rack and flicking it to the ground. “The shit flew, and Vance had to send in the real Marines to clean it up.”

  I think on Vance, his in-jokes with Roper, his big-man backclaps with Fugate, and wonder if my neck just isn’t thick enough, my disposition isn’t John Wayne tough enough for the guy; I question what it is he can’t stand about me, wonder if it’s the same shrimp-muscled ugliness my dad sees in me. Vance, with his tall bones and his square jaw and his self-belief—he’s the worst kind of all-American asshole, the kind who’s had it real fucking easy and doesn’t even know it.

  “I’ve had it with that motherfucker,” I say, and I feel my fingers shake, my foot pat the ground.

  Esposito looks at me long and slow and hands me one of his special cigarettes. “So do something about it,” he says. “Calm down and be a fucking man.”

  That hot white light that drowned me inside out in the forest—the light that helped me muscle Shea from the ground and chased my cells up that hill with those carbines snapping at my back—it’s still burning in my bloodstream, and not even Esposito’s wham-bam Mary Jane can douse it. At two o’clock in the morning, Fugate returns. I see Shea and Dopfer being hauled in on stretchers, but something in the loll of their bodies, the whiteness of their faces, stops my relief. Four grunts load them into a Dustoff, and the chopper leaves in a hurry, as if there’s something somebody somewhere can do for these kids. I watch that dark bird haul ass away from the strobe lights, foot-tapping and hand-jiggling to get rid of some of the rocket fuel inside me, and I hear somebody vomit over his boots. I go to my hooch and lay down; but the light is pushing my blood and I can’t keep still, and I foot-drum and second-count, waiting for dawn. And I think of Vance roostering past me like I didn’t exist, striding to meet Fugate as he returned over the perimeter with his spoiled bounty, clapping the men on the back and laughing like he had breath and joy to spare; and those hot white cells snap together in an idea, and I know what happens next.

  Zero three hundred hours. The dark time: before dawn bleeds. I creep past the lookout tower. It’s heavy in my hand, heavier than I remember. I work my fingers over its shell, finger the pull. A little death fruit.

  A body comes. I squat to the ground, hear my breath move the air, feel that white light raging in my fingers, they’re fucking glowing with it. I drop my head; my hands are dark, and Sergeant Leatherneck trudges on by. I see the bunker, hidi
ng in the night, think of him, warm and meaty in his cot. And the light blares in my brain, and it’s pulling me to the hooch.

  There it is: a big mouth ready for the spoon. Pull. My finger loops and it’s done—pin, clip, lever pulled—easy as opening a Coke. The light’s so loud, and I know all I need to do is throw the thing and the light will go with it; and as it leaves my fingers it’s like that brick at Old Ted’s—my fingers want to suck it back as soon as it leaves. But that slice of air between my skin and the grenade might as well be a fucking world of space, because it’s gone, straight inside the hatch, and I feel my dumb ass walking after it to see where it went, and my brain pops and I turn and I run for my life as the grenade explodes in a hot white noise behind me.

  Jeannie / May 1968

  Jeannie would have known her shape anywhere, even in the struggle of the crowd along the wharf: the blaze of hair, the scoop of her figure, the length of her stride. She was wearing a yellow dress and tall boots, a glossy purse in the crook of her arm. Jeannie’s heart quickened; she thought to drag Lee and duck into the gathering of customers at the crab stall, but it was too late—Jeannie could tell by the sharpening of her elbow, the rise of her chin, that Nancy had spotted them.

  “Jeannie?”

  “Nancy,” said Jeannie, hoping Nancy wouldn’t hear the falter in her voice. Jeannie shifted her feet to put a little distance between herself and Lee; sensed Lee at her shoulder, her hair catching the wind, her eyes on Nancy. “How are you?” said Jeannie. Nancy’s hair was curled into a difficult chignon, her lips painted coral. She looked older, more expensive than she had the last time Jeannie saw her.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” said Nancy. “You’re such the mother now.”

  Jeannie heard a small ha from Lee, and heat spread up her neck. Nancy’s eyes flicked over to the girl before returning, hard and bright, to Jeannie; and Jeannie felt the familiar helplessness in the face of her old friend’s spite. She pulled her jacket across her dress. “It’s been awhile,” she said, then, searching for something else to say, “So . . .”

  The wind blew, skidding garbage along the ground and bringing the odor of fish. Nancy’s nose crinkled. “How’s Billy?” she said.

  “Good,” said Jeannie, grateful for the question. Lee was fidgeting from one foot to the other, clicking her fingers softly together; Jeannie raised her voice to keep Nancy’s attention from the younger girl. “Working all the time. He just passed his board exams. He’s going to—”

  “John never talks about him,” said Nancy. “I wondered if he still worked at the hospital.” She lifted her hand to unstick a thread of hair from her lipstick; a pale stone glinted on her ring finger.

  Jeannie cleared her throat. “And you?” she said. “Any news?”

  Nancy drew her lips into a smile and shrugged. “Not really.”

  Lee looped her arm through Jeannie’s and pressed close against her. “We should go,” she whispered.

  Nancy turned to face Lee, her eyes taking in the bare face, the flared jeans, the loose hair. Jeannie held her breath. “Hello,” said Nancy. “You are . . . ?”

  “Yes, this is—” said Jeannie.

  “Lee Walker,” said Lee. She raised her hand in a salute and smirked; embarrassment crawled over Jeannie’s body.

  “All right,” said Nancy, raising her eyebrows at Jeannie, a smile—real, this time—touching her mouth. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  “Yes, let’s go,” said Jeannie, loosening herself from Lee’s grip. “See you soon.” She went to kiss Nancy on the cheek; Nancy turned her head so that Jeannie’s lips smacked the air.

  “I guess so,” said Nancy.

  “Who was that?” said Lee as they ducked onto Stockton, past the idling buses and up the hill. “She was a bitch.”

  Jeannie felt a flare of irritation. “Someone I knew in high school,” she said.

  “Was she your first?”

  Jeannie heard the nettle in Lee’s voice and turned. “What are you talking about?”

  Lee’s eyebrows lifted in innocence; but there was something triumphant about the smile in her mouth. “You were acting strange,” she said. “Needy.”

  “Please,” said Jeannie. Lee stopped, and Jeannie wondered if the younger girl wanted to argue; but Lee was peering through the soap-streaked window of a café and making a clicking sound with her mouth.

  “Here we are,” said Lee. Jeannie felt her blood pulsing. She watched Lee, was relieved to see the command forming in the younger girl’s face.

  “Let’s go,” said Lee; and Jeannie let Lee take her by the hand as they pushed through the door.

  They waited in the café, among the idlers and sightseers, sinking cream and sugar into their coffees. Jeannie watched the small girl at the next table tear into a jelly donut, her eyes round with delight, and was pinched by the thought of Charlie in Cynthia’s apartment back on Noe, trapped with Cynthia’s lively, vindictive five-year-old.

  “Here,” said Lee. “It’s got to be.”

  Jeannie watched as a thin, walnut-faced woman edged across the room, her eyes searching each table until they fell to the daisy fastened at Lee’s chest. Jeannie took a breath to steady herself, and smoothed her face into a neutral expression.

  “Are you here to see us?” said Lee, half rising in her seat.

  The woman nodded, dragged a chair, and sat. Her fingers worked over the buttons on an overcoat that was too heavy for May.

  “You found the place okay,” said Lee.

  “I was expecting a man,” said the woman.

  “You got us,” said Lee.

  “Aren’t you a little young?”

  “Does it matter?”

  The woman pressed her lips together and shucked her coat onto the back of her chair.

  Lee waved at the waiter. “You want something to drink?”

  “Just water,” said the woman. The waiter nodded and drifted away; the woman’s eyes followed. She fingered the pearls at her neck so that they rattled.

  “The man on the telephone.” The woman put her elbows on the table and clasped her hands, prayer-like; her fingers were stuffed with rings. “He said you could help me.”

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  “What’s your son’s name?” ventured Jeannie, emboldened by Lee’s brazenness.

  The woman didn’t look at her, kept her eyes on Lee. “How do I know you won’t get me in trouble?”

  “That’s not the kind of trouble we’re into.” Lee smiled.

  The woman didn’t smile back. “Your organization helped my friend. A year or two ago,” she said. She watched the waiter place a tumbler of water on the table, and took a long sip. Lee and Jeannie waited. “He’s my youngest,” the woman explained. “My only boy.”

  “He got a letter?” asked Jeannie, her voice nearly lost in the noise of the café.

  The woman either didn’t hear her or decided to ignore her. “I thought it would all be finished by the time he’d be draft age,” she said. “I didn’t think it would have anything to do with us.”

  “He’s not going to college?” said Lee.

  “He’s not enrolled. He’s never been . . . he found high school challenging. In any case, he wanted to join the family business, right away.”

  “The family business?” asked Lee.

  “You need to know about that too?” The woman gave a tense shrug. “Lingerie. We import it from France.”

  Jeannie imagined the older woman, under the wrinkles and the tweed, trussed in a red lace bustier, and her nerves loosened. We all wear our secrets, she thought—they’re right there, for anybody to find, if they can only get through the layers.

  “Last week, we celebrated his birthday,” the woman said. “Drove over the bridge to Sausalito, went to the Alta Mira. The whole family. We’ve been going there every year since he was six years old.” She took another sip of water and exhaled. “The next day—the next day!—it came. Sitting in the mailbox, between the electricity bill and the Sears c
atalog, like it had every right to be there. As soon as I saw the envelope, I knew.”

  “Did you give the letter to your son?” asked Lee.

  “Of course not,” said the woman. “You can’t trust boys with things like this.” She pulled a black purse onto the table and rooted through the contents until she found the letter. “Here,” she said. She drew it out, her eyes checking the other tables for unwelcome interest.

  Jeannie held out her palm. The woman finally lifted her eyes to Jeannie’s and handed it over. Jeannie felt a tweak of success, and removed the letter from the envelope. The name was stamped in capitals: CHARLES HENRY DEWEY. Jeannie touched the name, felt a furtive intimacy; then slid the letter back inside.

  “My son is Charles too,” she said in a clear voice. “Charlie.”

  Mrs. Dewey looked at Jeannie for a long time; once again, Jeannie wondered if she’d heard her. “He’s always been such a sweet boy,” Mrs. Dewey said. “When he was just two years old, I’d wait for him while he climbed down the stairs, and he’d kiss me between every space in the banister.” Jeannie felt something sweaty and overfamiliar touch her, like another passenger’s body pressing hers in a crowded streetcar. Her mom always called Kip her sweet boy, even when he was thirteen years old and shiny with urges.

  “All he ever wanted,” Mrs. Dewey was saying, “was to be at home, with me. Even now he’s grown—” Wetness touched her eyes, surprising Jeannie, and Mrs. Dewey even more so: the older woman scratched in her purse for a handkerchief; but by the time she found it, the tears had retreated, and she screwed the cloth in her fist. “He’s a fine young man—he’s not out chasing girls or partying or balling or whatever you young people call it.” Lee squeezed Jeannie’s knee under the table. “He’s—gentle. He’s not meant for”—she brushed her dry eyes with her fingertip—“all this.”

  Jeannie thought of Kip’s collection of dime-store soldiers, his scraps in the schoolyard, and his quiet devotion to Gun-smoke. Thought of Charlie, his impulses to hit, kick, and climb; his maneuvering of his army men over the kitchen table; his ability to turn anything into a gun—even (with a few well-placed bites) his slice of toast at breakfast. Kip may have once been sweet, but he was never gentle, and neither was Charlie—“spirited” was the word Dorothy used. The thought of Charlie’s name thumped onto a draft card sent a shadow to Jeannie’s heart, and she felt for the brittle woman who sat before her, scrunching her pearls in her worn fingers. Jeannie slipped the envelope into her purse. “We’ll take care of it,” she said.