The irony was that Wages had taken to calling Achilles a player, even though Achilles always described Ines as Nothing. Wages would say, Right, and Chinese people’s eyes don’t look like that when they’re at home. Really, it’s Nothing serious. And Wages, unaware that Achilles did his admiring from a distance, always answered that no one did Nothing Serious more than two days in a row. Maybe that was true, but Achilles still didn’t think of Ines as anything serious, or that she would become anything serious. She was an obsession, a challenge. A mission. The couch couldn’t be a stand-in forever. His plan was simple: suit up, show up, look attentive, and act cooperative: everything that had gotten him through the military. That had worked with Janice, who was a checkout girl at Sak and Save when they first met. He was in the express lane and let the lady behind him go ahead because she had only one item. Janice cooed like that was the nicest thing anyone could do, so Achilles did it three more times. That was how long it took before she agreed to go to a movie with him. After that, even though she already had a boyfriend, they saw each other almost every day. But that didn’t make it serious.
Achilles wasn’t sure he’d even know what something serious looked like. He didn’t think like that. He wasn’t married. He was Achilles. Whenever he asked his father for advice about women, or rather on the two women he had dated other than Janice, his father always answered: “Son, what’s your name?”
“Achilles.”
“That’s right. You’re Achilles, not married. Enjoy being single. Believe me when I say it will be over too soon.”
So whenever Wages nosed around at it, Achilles just shrugged and answered, I’m Achilles. And Wages said, I didn’t know you were such a player, and Achilles would grin, as he did now, against his will.
After Spirit House, he had headed back to Wages’s to clear his head and think through things as he only could somewhere he felt safe. It was a few hours after meeting the Harpers, and Achilles and Wages were in the latter’s living room shooting the breeze and playing video games. Bethany was out fencing, so the Xbox was blasting through the stereo. Achilles hoped to see Ines at St. Jude later that evening, but all afternoon Wages had been pushing Achilles to stay for dinner. He even tried to introduce it as a wager into one of the games. Lately, Wages had been more insistent about Achilles eating dinner at his house, making Achilles suspect that Wages was, well, jealous or offended. After Achilles made the mistake of mentioning Margaret, Wages concocted a plan: Achilles was to invite Ines to the gun show, where Wages would show up and do the male version of Ooh girl, what you doin’ here? At lunch, he would grill Ines: How many rounds before you have to change the barrel of an M60? Can you perform that operation by hand? What’s quieter, the suppressed .22 rifle or the HK with the silencer? Wages was in the midst of ooh girl strutting, his hand dangling at his side, sashaying between the high-heel chair and the sparkling settee, when Bethany came in about an hour earlier than expected, sabers and épées in tow. Wages stared at her like an intruder.
“How was the match?” asked Achilles.
“It was only practice, but fun.” She shared a few more details, her voice dropping as it became apparent Wages was ignoring her. “What have you guys been up to?”
There was a long spell of silence. Wages stared alternately at his hands and at Bethany with a forced smile. Finally, he said, “We’re going out for a while.”
“Kyle, I thought we were going to see Candy today. It’s my only day off this week.” She sighed, ruffling Wages’s hair. “Never mind. You and Achilles have fun.” She pronounced it “A-sheel.” It was obvious she’d been to practice. She seemed more aware of her body than usual, her movements were precise, her step light as she left the room.
“Excuse me!” Wages stood and stomped off to the back of the house.
Achilles heard Bethany laugh and ask, “Are you hungry, baby?” Hushed harsh words followed. Glass broke. A short scream sounded, and ended immediately, as if muffled. Achilles stood, “What’s up?”
“It’s cool,” Wages called.
Achilles sat back down, despite hearing what sounded like a quick tussle and the sound of smacking flesh. “Get up! Get up!” he heard Wages say as if through clenched teeth. Wages reentered the room first, waving one arm in front of himself like he was swimming, the other behind him dragging … Bethany by her hair. Achilles shot back to his feet so quickly he felt dizzy. Wages had a fistful of her hair; she held on to Wages’s arm to keep her full weight off her scalp. She was breathing heavy and steady, but not crying. Achilles had to give it to her: she was tough.
Achilles raised his hands slowly, palms out, stepping toward Wages.
Wages shook his head. “No. She’s the one who needs to do the talking. Tell him.”
Bethany inhaled sharply, coughing. Wages waggled her head back and forth.
“Wages!” yelled Achilles.
“She’s only making it harder for herself.” He shook her head back and forth again. “Don’t fuck with me. I’ll break your fucking neck and burn this house down. I don’t give a reindeer fuck.”
“Bethany, what’s happening?” asked Achilles.
Her gaze strayed across the ground, the wall, her feet, anywhere but Achilles.
“Say it,” demanded Wages.
Bethany cleared her throat, “I’m sorry.”
Wages jerked her head sharply. “Look him in the eye.”
Bethany looked Achilles in the eye. “I’m sorry for mispronouncing your name, Achilles. I won’t do it again.”
“It’s okay, Bethany. It’s not a problem. Please let her go.”
Wages nodded quietly like a man who was just asked if a large meal, the remnants of which remained on his table, had been satisfying. “Is that acceptable to you? Is it?”
Achilles nodded vigorously. “Yes. I mean, I didn’t care in the first place.”
The way Wages grimaced, Achilles understood that the more he protested, the angrier Wages would become. Bethany took quick, short breaths.
“It’s not acceptable,” said Wages.
“It’s acceptable,” said Achilles.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s cool. It’s not a problem. It’s acceptable. It’s very acceptable,” said Achilles. “Let her go, please.”
Bethany breathed deeply, her little belly creasing her shirt at the waist. It was the first time Achilles had thought of her as pregnant. When she had been tending his wounds, he thought of having a baby as more like a job to do and less a thing to carry.
Bethany was looking at him again. “Is my apology acceptable?”
Achilles looked away and mumbled his agreement. When soldiers were stuck together in cellars and caves and tents and shit went zulu-foxtrot and a squadmate went goofy, everyone acted like nothing had happened. But this was her house.
Wages lifted Bethany to her feet and sent her down the hall with a smack on the butt. When she pushed back against Wages, he held up one finger. “Don’t.”
“You want to go for a walk or something?” asked Achilles, gently shepherding Wages out the front door.
Wages shrugged. “I could use a beer.”
They walked in silence for several blocks. His parents barely argued. It was often apparent that his mother wasn’t listening, only nodding to keep the peace. His father usually grimaced and rolled his eyes so far back in his head he looked possessed. But he had rarely heard them raise their voices except for his eighth birthday. Wages, though, hadn’t raised his voice either, not once. His look and demeanor had been that of the Wages he knew on active duty: a big rock in a small river. Never a tremble in his hands, not even when packing Quikclot in that gaping hole in Ace’s leg or forcing Xavier’s mouth open for the medic to insert the breathing tube. Not a tremor in his voice when directing them to fall back and cover him while he ran for Merriweather. He was calm even in house-clearing runs. The Afghans would be trussed up and kneeling with hands over heads, sometimes with hoods over heads, sometimes bound like smoked hams and shitting th
emselves, and Wages remained cool as a cuke, chewing on a protein bar. The hotter it got, the cooler he got. He’d repeat his question over and over, and when he shot the detainee in Jalaya, all he said, with a mouthful of chocolate, was, “Mohammed pulled the trigger when he reached for me. He jumped on that bullet.”
Achilles respected that. He was always struggling to hold it together, thinking every day that he wished he’d never gone. Because he followed orders without complaint, he fit into the army, finally feeling a sense of belonging, but he didn’t want to be there. He was ducking in firefights and thinking that he wished he didn’t have a fucking brother, because if it weren’t for Troy’s ass, Achilles would be grilling a burger instead of eating beef stew out of a metallic envelope. He would have a job at the mill, the feedlot, or driving the mail truck. In Goddamnistan, marriage didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He could go home every night to a wife—which was always a blank face, but any soft, sweet-smelling lady would do—eat whatever she had cooked, down a few Silver Bullets, watch Cops or play Texas Hold-em, maybe fix the mailbox, or even hang a tennis ball from a string so she’d know when she’d pulled far enough into the garage, and have sex later that night. That would be nice, sex later that night. Sex every night. But instead, he was in towns he couldn’t pronounce, providing support for a team of engineers that were building bridges for the very sorry-ass fuckers that were taking potshots at them every day. If he had figured out a way home, if he’d had one chance to get back to the States, Goddamnistan would have never seen his black ass again.
But he survived it. Wages at the helm, steady-like, always calm, always good at keeping everyone on the level, even after a night at the business end of the tequila gun, even when getting flushed into the big shit. He was always like he had been with Bethany a few moments ago—a machine. Everyone who came up against the machine could make it work for or against them. Bethany didn’t deserve that, Achilles didn’t think. But he really didn’t know. She was always nice to him. She’d tended his wounds with steady, warm hands and a look of concentration in her brown eyes, the left one a little darker than the right, almost black. Fencing kept her light on her toes, even with the added weight, and her arms were well toned, especially the triceps. She had a swimmer’s shoulders and pronounced calves. Well proportioned she might be, there was the old saying: No matter how pretty she is, there is always someone, somewhere, sick of fucking her. Who knew how Bethany agitated Wages? Maybe she disrespected him in all those subtle ways women have of chiggering under the skin. When men gave in to that, Merriweather called it getting drunk on whine. But Bethany was pregnant. Maybe that made her forgetful. “Aren’t pregnant women forgetful or stressed or something?” asked Achilles.
“I didn’t tell her to get pregnant. Am I supposed to let her do what she wants just because she’s pregnant? I don’t think so. It’s the opposite. There’re about to be two of them in the house. If I let the big one go off on her own devices, they’ll mutiny, the whole thing’ll come down on my head. You can never regain lost respect. The psychological war is not the land war. You cannot regain lost ground, except through virtual annihilation and I won’t let it come to that.”
Achilles had heard this all before. If you can’t break their backs, break their wills. If you can’t break their wills, destroy their homes, kill their livestock, raze their buildings. In basic training they were taught that the Geneva Convention prohibited soldiers from firing large rounds at humans. Fifty-caliber rounds, for example, could only be fired at equipment, like belt buckles or helmets. Commit to a course of action and complete it, even if you have to put your head through a wall. Yes, Achilles had heard it all before, in one way or another. It was the only way to hold things together.
They passed a Middle Eastern restaurant, sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a Mexican restaurant-slash-liquor store. The window was plastered with the gyro posters that could be found in any mall, and one beer sign. It looked good enough. Achilles had sworn that he’d never eat another food court gyro, but here with Wages in New Orleans, Nola as Ines called it, it felt like a sensible thing to do. Maybe Wages would relax a little, and talk about whatever was bugging him, in case it wasn’t really Bethany. But when Achilles paused in front of the restaurant, Wages shook his head vigorously, “We gave blood, we’re not giving money, too.” And, he wouldn’t go into the Mexican place because the guy had hit on Bethany once, and today Wages would have to smack the refried beans out of Manual Dingo. When Achilles pointed to the Chinese restaurant, or more specifically, to the humming air conditioner mounted over the doorway, Wages said, “Rocket pockets! I’m not walking into that whorehouse.”
You wouldn’t have said that six months ago, thought Achilles. What? You expect them to have a drive-thru?
Achilles tried to think of something funny but couldn’t. Wages was never really a joker. Everyone had a nickname in basic training: gays were ass monkeys, blacks were porch monkeys, and Asians were monkey eaters. Wages never went in for any of that. Wages never referred to his men as ladies, never went for the gay jokes, never went for easy targets like sand zigger and camel jockey. In fact, Wages rarely laughed, but Achilles always found him easiest to get along with. There wasn’t any pressure to say anything clever, they could just hang out and drink and relax and chat. Achilles doubled his pace to catch up with Wages, who had gradually pulled ahead as he often did after heated moments, like he had to be alone at the very moment the rest of them wanted to be together for reassurance.
Troy would know what to say. He always did. Achilles dug through his memory for the advice meted out in the transition classes. They had attended a mandatory class at the Kyrgyz airstrip before being shipped home, the Soldier’s Reentry Readjustment Workshop, also known as SRRW or the “Don’t (Leave Bruises if You) Beat Your Wife Class.” The workshop covered three main topics: how to respond to people who criticize the war, and thus your duty, patriotism, loyalty and honor; how to recognize PTSD and why one shouldn’t be ashamed to seek help; and how to handle unanticipated family adjustments. He didn’t remember any of it except Think before speaking and Walk away before becoming mad enough to strike and Act, don’t react. Or, something like that. He didn’t remember the exact words, only that it felt like the opposite of what they’d been paid to do for the previous twenty-four months.
He knew that with an ACOG sight he could reach out and touch someone up to eight hundred meters away. He knew that the M4 fired a 5.56 at up to nine hundred feet per second. He knew that when insurgents “surrendered,” stumbling out of a smoky doorway with hands high, the second one out of the building was the one most likely to draw a gun. But he couldn’t remember a reassuring thing to say if his friend’s life depended on it. He had nothing for Wages except a hand on the shoulder.
They walked that way a few more blocks in silence. Soon they reached a broad oak-lined road with a grassy median as wide as a football field. The lane ended at a turnabout, on the center of which sat an important looking building made of large slabs of marble and heavy columns. The metal banner suspended across the road read City Park. He followed Wages across the grass into the cool shadow under the canopy of ancient live oaks. It was still humid, but at least the sun wasn’t beating down on them anymore. The trees were tall and stately, the massive limbs stretching out in all directions, some outstretched like arms inviting passersby to join them on a walk around the park, others hugging the ground low enough to serve as benches.
Along the edge of a small lake, a row of vendors sold hot dogs, cotton candy, and popcorn. Achilles was drawn to the Lucky Dog hot dog stand because the cart was shaped like a large frankfurter. He bought a dog and offered his friend a bite.
Wages waved it away. “No meat on Fridays.”
Wages bought some popcorn and walked across a footbridge to a small island in the middle of the lake. The embankment was longer than it was wide, and shaped like a face, with two barbecue grills for eyes, a boulder for a nose, a bench for a mouth, and below the be
nch, a beard of monkey grass dipped beneath the tide line, making it look like a giant taking a drink, sipping from the gently swelling tide. The water was opaque, and where shallow, the color of whiskey. It felt out of place, a swamp in the city. Seated on the old metal bench, Wages plucked popcorn at the ducks.
After the pigeons started intercepting their food, the ducks drew nearer Wages, waddling so fast that at each step it looked like they were going to fall over. The sun glanced off their gleaming, lustrous coats. The leader, a melon-chested drake with iridescent eggplant and avocado-colored plumage, ventured within arm’s length of Wages, boldly warning off the pigeons with his robust, guttural call. Satisfied that the interlopers had taken flight, the leader marched back and forth along the perimeter while the smaller ducks ate. The pigeons warbled their protest. A nutria rat with slick brown fur dashed across a drainage pipe. A group of clouds clustered in the south, like huddled athletes waiting to take the court. A high school soccer team scrimmaged nearby. Achilles moved closer to the soccer fields. On another field, a kid practiced free kicks. The ball lofted and arced through the sun right into the goal three times in a row, like it was tethered to a string. Everything was so vivid that he would have thought he had just been in a firefight if it weren’t for the fact that he could hear everything, the warbling pigeons, the trickling water, the wind through the trees. Wages came and stood beside him.
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