Jaguars purr. When she turned the key in the ignition the engine vibrated smooth and steady and low to the ground, ready to pounce. She glanced over at Todd. He’d been watching her the whole time. His face looked like the car sounded. She caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror. She looked like the morning after, and they hadn’t even left the driveway.
The security checkpoint guards must have also heard about the Jaguar. They waved her through the gate so she wouldn’t have to slow down. Rose hit the highway already doing seventy. It felt like they were crawling along until they hit ninety. The highway shot straight as an arrow through the desert. Occasional trucks flew by, trailing quick blasts of wind in their wakes. Otherwise there was nothing but the open road and gas stations spaced at strategic intervals, like pit stops.
Todd couldn’t take his eyes off Rose’s hands on the wheel. She let it play through her fingers and then gripped it tightly. The alternating delicacy and mastery drove him crazy. He knew exactly what her hands felt like, taking control that way. Rose was keenly aware of the focus of Todd’s attention. His thigh flexed every time she reached for the stick. Gripping the wheel was a way to steady herself, not the car, to postpone the inevitable as long as possible.
The faster they went, the less clear the distinction between car and driver. Everything was close at hand, intimate. She could flick every switch on the dash without taking her hands off the wheel. The proximity of the engine made every pumping piston feel like an extension of her body. The pavement itself was just inches away, within reach. They could feel it unfurl beneath them, miles and miles of open road with a magnetic vanishing point pulling them faster and farther, irresistibly.
Rose spotted the motel first, a classic roadhouse with flashing neon signage and several semis parked out back. She screeched into the parking lot and told Todd to wait in the car. She disappeared into the office, emerging a minute later with keys dangling from the forefinger of the same hand that had so recently gripped the stick. They spent the afternoon in Room 27.
The Jaguar never lost its luster. Rose was one of those women who could make everything new over and over again, just when Todd feared they might sink into a routine. Before the kids were born, they took road trips every chance they got. They stopped at sleazy motels to commemorate their maiden voyage. When Todd was deployed overseas, the Jag hibernated in the garage. Rose would sit in it periodically, to reminisce in its leather embrace, but driving without Todd felt masturbatory. It just made her feel more lonely.
When Maureen was born they still managed quickies on Saturday afternoons. They told babysitters they were spending the day at the mall. After Max’s diagnosis, the Jag languished in the garage while they figured out the complicated logistics of his treatment. The expense was mind-boggling. They discussed the possibility of Rose getting a job to help pay for the army of neurologists, allergists, nutritionists, and therapists conscripted to rescue Max from his solipsistic fortress. A second income was out of the question. Rose would be needed full-time at home to coordinate the troops. Their son’s brain was like a time bomb that would implode rather than explode if they couldn’t manage to rewire its circuitry by the age of four or five. Every second counted.
Todd pored over spreadsheets, shifting nonexistent money back and forth to cover the cost of the rescue mission. They discussed cashing in Todd’s pension plan, in spite of the penalties. Without a mortgage to leverage cash, their only option was to rack up credit card debt. Even then, bankruptcy was just a matter of time. They considered every option, no matter how farfetched, knowing full well as they schemed late into the night that there was one simple, tragic solution. The Jaguar.
Todd surprised Rose one Friday afternoon, coming home for lunch without calling ahead. He brought a babysitter along, a nurse from the base so Rose would agree to leave Max in capable hands for a few hours. His head-banging had gotten to the point where they couldn’t trust him with regular sitters. The last one had called 9-1-1, scaring him half to death. With the exception of trips to doctors and pharmacies, Rose had been housebound for weeks, tending to Max.
That morning, Rose finished interviewing potential ABA therapists. She offered the job to Sasha, an abnormal psych graduate student with a little brother on the spectrum. The fact that Sasha didn’t consider her brother abnormal convinced Rose she was right for the job. She was scheduled to begin work the following Monday, the official start date of Max’s treatment program. All that remained was to set up the payment plan.
“Grab your purse,” Todd said.
“Where are we going?” Rose asked.
“To the mall.”
They revved up the Jag for one last vertiginous spree on the open road. They raced by one sleazy motel after another without even slowing down. Todd couldn’t tell if she was angry or just too sad to consummate the trip. When they got back home, Rose parked out front. She left the keys in the ignition. They hadn’t talked about a thing, had just driven to the vanishing point and back in silence. Her sixth sense had already relinquished the Jaguar.
“You’ll have to go without me,” she said. “I can’t bear it.”
It was almost five and the dealership would be closing for the day. Todd climbed out of the passenger seat for the last time. He had prepared a speech about how selling the car didn’t mean forfeiting the feelings attached to it. Actually naming the feelings would be impossible, but Rose would know what he meant. She was already halfway across the lawn. He called her name and she disappeared into the house, pretending not to hear. She hadn’t even said good-bye to the hood ornament.
* * *
Max always lined up his potatoes in two rows of four. Todd appreciated the military precision of the configuration. He knew he shouldn’t. There was something terribly wrong with a boy who would only eat round, tan foods. Most of Max’s dinner was on the floor halfway across the room. Green beans were not tan. Tofu steaks were not round. Rose refused to stop dishing a full meal onto his plate, no matter where it ended up. Max’s behavioral therapist insisted that giving in to his whims would reinforce them, and all would be lost. Todd understood this to mean they were engaged in a battle of wills. Max versus everybody else. He couldn’t help admiring his son’s determination. It had been months since he’d eaten anything that wasn’t round and tan.
Everyone was pretending they were a perfectly normal family eating a perfectly normal dinner. Rose was helping herself to another gooey dollop of tofu surprise. Todd was politely refusing seconds, having already devoured a Big Mac and fries on the way home from work. A preemptive strike. Maureen was clamoring for dessert. Once she finished her so-called meal there was nothing to do but badger her parents. Teasing her younger brother was no fun. He barely knew she existed.
“What’s for dessert?”
“I already told you,” Rose said. “Carob sorbet.”
“Can I watch videos until you guys finish eating?”
“How many times do I have to say no, young lady?”
Maureen was sick and tired of her mother’s random rules. She turned to her father, hoping she could leverage him more effectively. In her experience, fathers were pushovers. They weren’t around enough to keep track of all the regulations laid down by mothers, who apparently had nothing better to do than sit home all day terrorizing their children. Fathers went to work and earned what they called a living, which gave them the right to be grumpy when they got home.
“Daddy?”
“You heard your mother.”
“I’m bored.”
“Smart people don’t get bored.”
“What do they do?”
“They make conversation.”
“Yada yada yada.”
“Tell us about your day at school.”
Todd was careful to pay as much attention as possible to Maureen. Having an autistic brother was like sharing the nest with a gorilla. Miraculously, she didn’t seem to mind all that much. She was a classic eldest child whose ego was even bigger than the gorilla. Ro
se attributed it to the fact that Maureen was a Leo. Max was a Sagittarius, but either autism or his rising sign must have eclipsed his sunny disposition. Given the circumstances, their daughter was remarkably well-adjusted. She tripped off to school without throwing tantrums. She played with her dolls without ripping their heads off. She ate her supper without herding it into two rows of four.
“Anne’s dad came to talk about his job,” Maureen said.
“That’s nice,” Rose said. “What does he do?”
“He’s a plumber.”
“A noble profession,” Todd said.
“What does that mean?”
“Your father was joking.”
“No I wasn’t.”
“He fixes toilets.”
“I rest my case,” Todd said. “What could be more noble than that?”
“What do you do at work, Daddy?”
Before Max’s diagnosis, Todd dreaded the day his children would grow old enough to ask this question. Afterward, he feared that Max might never develop the language skills necessary to ask it. In any case, the answer was classified top secret.
“Everything but fix toilets. We bring Anne’s dad in for that.”
“What about dripping faucets?”
“Yup. That’s my job.”
“For heaven sake, Todd,” Rose said. “Do you want Maureen to tell her friends at school you fix faucets for a living?”
“Why not? Like I said. It’s a noble profession.”
“Not as noble as defending your country.”
Todd shot Rose one of their coded parental looks, which, in layman’s terms, meant what’s your goddamned problem. Rose knew better. She was usually a model military wife, steering clear of her husband’s profession, which was way too explosive for table talk. Her capacity to dredge up innocuous topics of conversation was unparalleled. But once in a while she buckled under pressure, especially when they’d already exhausted their old standbys during the salad course.
There were only so many times you could talk about Max’s sessions with his behavioral therapist. They had discussed what they hoped was a breakthrough for the past two weeks, analyzing it from every possible angle. Max had suddenly started not only noticing but miraculously grabbing a kaleidoscope ball Sasha had ordered online from the autistic version of ToysЯUs. You’d have thought he’d learned how to play catch, they were so excited. Then, just as abruptly, he was oblivious to the ball. Sasha remained sanguine. Two steps forward and one step back. Rose worked through her disappointment with her Facebook friends. Todd was still devastated.
The further they immersed themselves in the PCA lifestyle—Parents of Children with Autism—the less there was to talk about. An old friend had called that morning, inviting them to spend the weekend at their cabin, but Rose decided against mentioning it. No need to tempt Todd with an invitation they couldn’t possibly accept. Gossiping about the extended family used to be mildly entertaining, especially Max and Maureen’s quirky grandparents. But they had stopped visiting even before Max’s diagnosis, and since then they rarely called. Rose’s father said he was getting too old to travel. He wasn’t too old to bowl two nights a week, presumably because no one in the league was autistic. Rose was too relieved to call his bluff. Every visit felt like a prolonged accusation in the guise of trying to be helpful. Her father in particular meted out advice like an implacable headmaster. All Max needed was some good old-fashioned discipline. If his mother couldn’t control him, Todd should haul out the strap. Todd’s parents were even worse. They flat out didn’t believe in autism. It was a fad, not an epidemic. Talk about a conversation stopper.
Rose’s comments about Todd’s mysterious profession, in all its patriotic glory, hung in the air. She mimed a chastened expression to signal her willingness to drop the subject, even though the idea that she was threatening national security was patently ridiculous. Todd could be such a control freak sometimes, especially lately when Max’s condition made him feel so out of control. He pretended to ignore Rose’s body language, the better to deflect Maureen’s attention. They both assumed their table talk was too generic to arouse her curiosity, more like something you’d hear in civics class than a deep dark family secret. But Maureen was a classic eldest child in more ways than one. She was precocious, above all, in her ability to manipulate family dynamics, usually to her advantage. When she saw an opening, she pounced on it.
“Matt says you kill people for a living,” Maureen said.
“Who’s Matt?”
“My nap partner.”
“Your nap partner is a boy?”
“Daddy doesn’t kill people,” Rose said. “He protects our country against bad guys.”
“He doesn’t kill them?”
“Only the bad guys.”
And sometimes civilians. And sometimes their children. It hadn’t been a good day at the office. Not that it ultimately mattered a whole hell of a lot in present company. The answer to the innocuous question—How was work?—could never be innocuous enough to share with his kids. What could he say? It was great. I killed three al Qaeda operatives. And that was a good day.
“How can you tell the difference, Daddy?”
Every other night that week, Todd would have shrugged off the whole misguided conversation. His defenses were down. He tried not to slam his fork down too hard, but everyone except Max jumped anyway.
“I’ll get the dessert,” Todd said.
His napkin dropped to the floor as he stood up. Rose smiled at Maureen, pretending nothing was happening as she bent over to retrieve the napkin. Maureen smiled back, hoping to avoid getting into trouble for asking too many questions. Neither of them noticed that Max was watching his father storm out of the room. His face was blank, but his eyes were intently focused.
* * *
Technically it wasn’t Todd’s fault, which made little or no difference. He was the flight commander, such as it was, but not the pilot of the actual plane, which wasn’t actually a plane. It was a drone and Brown was in a virtual rather than real cockpit. The official report cited a control glitch, which was nominally responsible for identifying the wrong target. Whether the error was human or technological remained unspecified, if not obscured. One way or the other, accountability was a real problem in drone warfare. All the more reason for Todd to guard against pretending that all of these contingencies let him off the hook. They made little difference to him and no difference to the dead Afghan family.
Todd’s squadron spent most of their time tracking down targets. Sensor zooms were so powerful they could read license plates from optimum cruising altitude, miles above unsuspecting drivers. Their computers automatically ran checks to see if the cars and trucks in question had been involved in hostile encounters. These high-tech innovations were indispensable. The enemy didn’t bother wearing uniforms, let alone deign to drive official military vehicles. Even ambulances had been commandeered by sectarian militia. Surveillance drones could be preprogrammed to monitor potentially high-value targets. But armed Predators and Reapers still needed pilots, guys like Brown pulling triggers from the safety of air-conditioned trailers almost 8,000 miles from the nearest potential enemy. The air force made a big deal of calling them remotely piloted aircraft rather than drones, as though the latter term were misleading and derogatory. Todd was a straight shooter. He called a spade a spade and figured drones by any other name were still drones.
Todd had done his best to train his pilots to be battle ready. None of them had ever seen real action. This was the new air force. If virtual warfare required the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time, they were ready enough to fly drones. Todd had to admit they were more adept at processing information than he was. They could simultaneously monitor up to seven computer screens, assessing flight coordinates, real-time video feeds, infrared imaging, crosshair targets, and constant streams of intelligence from boots on the ground. But they were still more like professional multitaskers than real pilots. Traditional pilots also made mistakes fro
m time to time. Civilians still accounted for a significant number of casualties in the war on terror. But with so much logistical information at their fingertips, virtual pilots should have been better equipped to steer clear of innocent bystanders.
Todd had spent the afternoon floating from one virtual cockpit to the next, feeling more like a systems analyst than an air force officer. The army may have been willing to let Nintendo nerds fly armed Predators, but USAF drone squads were supervised by seasoned pilots like himself. After several hours of routine surveillance, they had finally been tasked with an actual combat mission. A marine platoon in the Nawa District needed aerial support. Nobody on the ground had been able to pinpoint the source of the threat that was pounding Alpha Company with short-range missiles. If a specific target was identified by the time they heard the drones overhead, they’d retreat and let Reapers finish the job with laser-guided bombs. At the very least, Todd’s squadron could provide aerial intelligence.
Often as not, there were too many civilians in the vicinity to accommodate air strikes, even in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Todd never relied exclusively on ground intelligence to make this determination. Or computer intelligence, for that matter. A Predator had eyes in the back of its head, quite literally. If you made judicious use of technology, virtual combat could actually save innocent lives. But only if you partnered with drones, augmenting their intelligence with your own. Distinguishing between enemy combatants and civilians was easier said than done, especially when suicide bombers wore burqas and terrorist cells were housed in family homes.
Visibility couldn’t have been better, especially since the local time was 0700 hours. Todd and his squad had been working late almost every day since the recent surge in drone strikes. They were used to watching Afghans eat dinner and bed down for the night. Longer shifts meant they also watched them get up and get going in the morning. Senior al Qaeda leaders didn’t necessarily keep regular hours. But their wives and children did, as did the families of Taliban warlords in tribal areas, everyday people living everyday lives under constant surveillance.
The Home Front Page 2