The Outside Lands

by Hannah Kohler

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “Yes, yes—”

  “Can I get you something?”

  He reached his right arm once more, felt it come to life.

  “Look at that,” he murmured.

  “Sir?” She was looking at his mangled hand, her eyes tender with pity.

  “Hey,” he said, clicking his good fingers until her eyes met his.

  She frowned. “Yes, sir?”

  He moved his arm again, felt it travel further this time.

  “Captain Vance?”

  “My disability compensation hasn’t come through. I need you to help me get ahold of it.”

  She hesitated.

  “There’s a problem?”

  “No, sir, it’s just—”

  “Insurance too. I’ll be out of here soon, and nothing’s ready.”

  She looked afraid.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, frustration gathering. “If you can’t handle it, you need to get someone who can. I’ve waited weeks for someone in your department to show up. All kinds of other people have come that I didn’t want to see”—the American Legion men with their goddamn optimism, the crippled vets with the DAV—“but you’re the ones I need, and now you have to help.” Her eyes sought the ground. He stared at her until she made eye contact. “I’m getting better, and as soon as my face is healed up, I’ll be out of here. I want to know when my money’s coming. And I need you to help me find a job.”

  “A job?”

  “A job.”

  “But what kind of—” She stretched out her hand, her fingers splayed.

  “They gave you a job, didn’t they?” He shook his head, tasted bitterness. “All right, let’s call it quits, shall we? You run on.” He waved his good hand. “Go get your boss to send someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  He was ready for it—the tears, the running from the room. But she stood still and dry-eyed, taking a breath that swelled her breasts under her dress.

  “I need to ask you something,” she said. And whether it was the morphine or his arm or this small show of courage from one of the few fuckable girls he’d seen in weeks, he waited.

  “What makes you think you can work again?”

  The words were a woman’s slap, sharp and spiteful. He looked into her face for ridicule but saw only a surprised earnestness, as though she were taken aback by her own bluntness. He heard the sound of his own laughter.

  A nurse poked her head through the curtain. “Is everything all right?” Tom nodded, his laughter coming in small bursts. “Ma’am, visiting hours are from two to four.”

  “She’s not a visitor,” said Tom. “She’s from Veterans Affairs.” The brunette smiled.

  He’d graduated from Stanford magna cum laude, majoring in mechanical engineering and leading the Indians to victory in his final year in the big game against Cal. By the time he left campus, he had job offers from California Gas & Electric and the Pacific Railroad; and his uncle had gotten him an interview with one of the banks downtown. He was engaged to a Whitson heiress who lived off saltines and vodka stingers and had the sexual energy of an athlete. Life was turning out fat and rosy. But watching Jack Kennedy talk about military service on the Whitsons’ new TV set seemed to leach its colors. When Tom signed up for the Corps later that year, his father shook his hand hard, and he hadn’t missed the flash of triumph on his mother’s face when he told her he’d broken off his engagement to Kathryn.

  Tom gave the bare bones of his résumé to the brunette—Stanford, Officer Candidate School, Amphibious Warfare School—but she didn’t write anything down, just nodded and wrung her hands and, when he’d exhausted himself, said, “My brother’s in the Marine Corps.” Then Donna came.

  “Sir,” she said. “It’s time.”

  Tom raised his hand to stop Donna pulling back the sheets; he didn’t want the girl to see the amputation, or the gown that barely covered his crotch. The brunette must have noticed his discomfort because she exited through the curtains, as quietly as she’d come.

  “Who was that?” said Donna. “She was pretty.”

  “Just another girl, hanging around,” he said.

  The next day he watched for her, surveilled the doors for her face among the trail of staff and visitors. When the Asian woman came to take him away for PT, he stalled, and she smacked her tongue in her mouth. The day bled out, with only his mother for a visitor. Night came, and Tom fell into a strange, light-filled sleep.

  A week passed. His surgery had been rescheduled for Thursday. With each day, the ward grew hotter, and his body grew tighter with impatience. He asked a volunteer to wheel him down to the courtyard, a square of grass at the base of his building. It was eighty degrees out, but the courtyard was shaded. Tom waited until the volunteer had gone, then tested his right arm, squeezing his hand around the wheel and pushing it down. The chair nosed forward. He was getting stronger: his hourly exercises with the gripper were paying off. He pushed the wheel down again, and again, until his chair was skewed and his arm was tired. He righted himself so he could look across the courtyard. He watched a blackbird parade across the grass, picking for worms. Here, outside, there was a different quiet to the silence of the ward, which was a thing of absence; here, the quiet was a secrecy of sounds, layered, inaudible—the push of the wind, the grind of insects, the movement of the trees.

  He felt it before he heard it: the approach of somebody along one of the paths between the buildings. It was her. She was dressed for the dog days of summer, wearing a dress patterned like picnic cloth. He took in the slimness of her waist, the roundness of her ass. She stopped outside his building and bent over her purse, straightening to light a cigarette. Turned, and saw him.

  She stubbed out her cigarette against the wall and walked toward him.

  “Captain Vance.”

  “About time.”

  She blushed. Ripe and bright and flushed—he could imagine how she’d look after getting fucked.

  “What have you got for me?” he said.

  The sun rolled from a cloud and blazed at her back, putting her body into shadow. Her hair moved in the breeze.

  “I’m not sure I have what you want,” she said. The sun rolled away again, and he saw her swallow, the hollow of her throat rising and dipping.

  “You’re going to tell me to be patient,” he said. He pushed his right hand down on the wheel again, moved the chair further this time. He was learning about patience, how it was courage, not cowardice.

  “I don’t have anything to give you,” she said. He was struck again by her mix of nerves and sass. He used to get this all the time—the chicks hovering to speak with him, pink and tongue-tied. But this was something different. She glanced over her shoulder as if to leave.

  “Your brother’s a Marine?” he said, words coming in a hurry.

  “He is, sir. In the Quang Tri province.”

  “That right? I was out there too. He’s infantry? Artillery?”

  “Artillery.”

  “Which battalion?”

  “I’m not sure, sir.”

  “Know which base?”

  “No, sir.”

  Tom nodded. “Officer or enlisted?”

  “Enlisted.”

  “Right.” Tom had had enough of enlisted men to last a lifetime.

  The blackbird dragged a worm from the ground and gulped it whole.

  “What’s it like over there?” she said.

  “Hot,” he said. “Hot, humid. Beautiful country.”

  “It’s dangerous?”

  “A little dicey now and then. But, no, he’s artillery, he’ll be on a firebase or some such for the most part. Not a lot of direct engagement with the enemy. You shouldn’t worry.”

  “He says he’s seen a lot of combat.”

  “That’s unusual. You might catch a little heat on patrol. And you’ll get some rounds coming into the base. Attacks happen.” Deadwood. He pushed the thought away. “But they’re rare. Bigger problem’s boredom.” />
  “That’s hard to believe.”

  Tom shrugged. “Harder to lead men through boredom than it is through battle. When the bullets fly, a Marine will rally. But it’s the months when nothing happens that men get wild.”

  “Wild?”

  “They look for a release. Booze. Marijuana.” She shifted her feet. “Black kids, hand-shaking, hanging out, brawling—especially after Reverend King. The kind of thing my father never had to deal with.” They made wars differently then: front lines, clear enemies, a patient, sacrificing public. Glory was easier come by, sooner recognized—his father wasn’t braver than he was; he was luckier.

  Sweat showed on her forehead. She wiped her mouth with her fingers. He’d been too honest.

  “Look, most Marines are disciplined and focused, like I’m sure your brother is. But in a war like this, where they’re lowering standards to get the numbers up, you’ll get a couple bad ones in the yield.”

  “You ever had any bad ones?”

  “How do you think I got like this?” He regretted the words as he spoke them.

  “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “It has nothing to do with you.” The courtyard clouded. From the recesses of the hospital, yelling.

  “Maybe it does,” she said.

  Misgiving crept over his skin. “Who are you?” he said.

  “I . . .”

  “Who are you with?” It would explain it—her incompetence, her nerves, her damn persistence.

  “I came alone.”

  “For Christ’s sake—who do you write for?”

  The girl paused, her skirt parachuting in the wind. He watched her playing dumb, stalling, and violence gathered in his blood. “Who do you write for?”

  “I don’t write for anybody,” she said. She flinched. His chair was on her feet, its wheels squashing her toes; he must have driven it forward. He pushed back on his wheels, freeing inches of space between them.

  “I’m not a journalist,” she said. Her eyes smarted.

  “So why all the goddamn questions?”

  She said nothing, slipped a foot from its shoe and rubbed it against the back of her calf.

  “What did you want to find out?” he said. “You digging for something? Or just damn nosy?”

  “I wanted to know what it was like out there,” she said, her voice plain, bare—honest. He studied her keen face. “What it was like for you.”

  If she was a journalist, she was a bad one—no notes, a shaky cover story. She folded her leg like a dancer to rub her naked foot.

  “There are a lot of journalists running around in this war,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know about that.” She pushed her foot back into her shoe. Her toenails were lacquered red.

  Tom remembered Donna in the shower, telling him she wasn’t the enemy; remembered twisting the skin on that kid’s wrist when she came to visit her burned-to-death boyfriend. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “My mother says I act like I’m still at war.”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “It’s okay.”

  Tom felt the shade, cold on his skin. “I’m not stupid, you know,” he said. Electricity traveled across the girl’s face. “I know you can’t do a lot for me. Maybe an office job with the DoD, maybe clerking with the VA.” The electricity was gone, the girl’s face smoothed to stone. “But I know you’ll do your job.”

  “Sir—”

  “Come back, so we can talk some more about it. Whatever happened today. You’ll come back.”

  Jeannie / July 1968

  Jeannie ducked her head as the cab drove down Parnassus, her heart thumping. As they turned onto Stanyan, the pounding softened, but her body still crawled with swelter. When the cab pulled up outside Chapman & Macht, the lining of her dress was greased with sweat. She pulled herself onto the sidewalk, smoothed her skirt, and stepped through the gilded door.

  The woman at the desk greeted her and gestured for her to pass. The building was quiet, sound falling dead against the carpets and drapes, the atmosphere of strained concentration nearly touchable. Jeannie found the door, and knocked.

  “Mrs. Harper.” Albert Macht stood at his desk, his fingertips touching his papers, as though unwilling to let go. He gave a tidy smile and nodded for her to sit. “How are things?”

  Jeannie’s mouth was dry. “I just came from the hospital.”

  “Ah.” Macht tugged the fabric at the knees of his pants and placed himself in his chair. “How did it go?” His face collected into an expression of concern.

  “I didn’t get far.”

  “But you asked him?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t know who I am.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “He thinks I’m with Veterans Affairs.”

  “Is that what you told him?”

  “I don’t know.” Jeannie couldn’t remember lying outright; remembered a half-dozen spaces in their conversations when the truth had stuck in her mouth.

  “I see.” Macht pressed his lips together. “Well, Mrs. Harper, I’m afraid that’s not going to get us anywhere at all.”

  Jeannie prickled with irritation. “I’m aware of that, Mr. Macht.”

  He nodded as she spoke; he wasn’t listening at all. “The good thing is, you have access,” he said.

  Access wasn’t difficult—the hospital was busy and the staff overwhelmed; nobody had the time or the inclination to question a respectable-looking woman walking the wards. Avoiding her father-in-law was harder. Jeannie thought of her close questioning of Richard, her curiosity about his schedule, the time she ducked into an empty office as he strode the corridor toward her.

  “The captain,” she said, wrinkling her toes inside her pumps. “He’s a difficult man.”

  “Mmm.” Macht gave a slow shrug. “It was never going to be easy.”

  “He’s very . . . he’s badly wounded.”

  “I can imagine.” Jeannie wondered if he could, if his expensive existence ever touched against a sick human body.

  “I tried to prepare myself. But he’s . . .” Jeannie shook her head. She’d known about the captain’s injuries, had been casually asking after her father-in-law’s patient for weeks. But she hadn’t accounted for the size of him, the height and heft of him that made the space where his leg should have been look so strange, like a lie or a joke; she hadn’t accounted for the winces of pain that pulled his face taut, or for his smell—even outside, and at a couple of paces—of sweat and antiseptic.

  “How could you prepare?” said Macht. “A girl from the Outside Lands coming up against the human cost of a war being fought nearly eight thousand miles away.”

  The Outside Lands. It was a strange expression, but one he’d used before, a reminder of his seniority and education, of her quaintness, her irrelevance. Her scattered energies found a focus in resentment.

  “I’m not an idiot, Mr. Macht,” she said.

  “I’m not suggesting . . .” Macht’s eyebrows fell into a frown, and his cheeks blotched. He coughed and rearranged his expression into one of calm control; Jeannie wondered if he was remembering her father-in-law’s larded account with the firm. “I have only respect for you, Mrs. Harper.”

  A growl, and a spaniel scuffled from underneath the desk. Relief loosened Macht’s face; he opened his drawer, removed a bone-shaped biscuit, and slipped it onto the dog’s tongue. It cracked the treat between its teeth.

  “Anthony Dwight Jones,” said Macht. “Twenty years’ hard labor. Miguel Perea. Four years’ imprisonment. Both sentenced in the last six months, both convicted of the same crime: attempted murder of an officer.” He picked up his pen, made a dot on his notepad, and set the pen down. He was master of his domain once more. “There’s no standard for sentencing in these matters. It comes down to the judge, to the court members, to counsel, to the damn weather. But most of all, it come
s down to mitigating circumstances. Was the accused misled, immature, mentally impaired, addicted to drugs? Does he have a troubled family history? Is he of good character? Does he possess a good service record? In the absence of any witnesses to this crime or the prior circumstances”—Jeannie’s mind went to the newspaper pictures of the smoking firebase, helicopters hovering, the grim-faced general—“we’ve got nobody to shore up Kip’s case.”

  “Which is?” asked Jeannie.

  “We’re finalizing the details,” said Macht. “He’ll continue to plead guilty—”

  Jeannie shook her head.

  “Whether you believe he did it or not, Mrs. Harper, he’s already confessed. Pleading guilty will lessen his sentence. Now it’s up to us to show that there were extenuating factors: that he was a good Marine, but that he was vulnerable, that he was corrupted by somebody or something.”

  “Has your attorney gotten any sense out of him?”

  “I spoke with Dellinger yesterday. It seems your brother’s still coming to terms with his situation. The kid’s story is—let’s say it’s still a little jumbled.” The spaniel grunted. Macht held out his hand, and the dog licked his fingers.

  “I wish I was there,” said Jeannie. Corresponding with Kip by mail was like calling down a well—it took an age to get anything back, and none of it made sense. The few letters she had received veered between indecipherable rants and lists of homesick questions; Jeannie couldn’t pick the truth from them.

  “You can help him by concentrating your efforts this side of the Pacific.”

  Jeannie sighed. “There’s nothing else we can do?”

  “It’s the only avenue we have to pursue, Mrs. Harper. We need to do our damnedest to get something we can use out of Captain Vance. An account of good service, a character reference, an acknowledgment of surprise that your brother would attack him in that way. Now, I’m happy to talk to him for you.” Macht’s mouth puckered as though he’d tasted something disgusting. He shuffled his papers into a pile: her time was up. “But in my experience, the personal approach gets you further with victims. Lets them put a human face to the accused.”