Hold It 'Til It Hurts

by T. Geronimo Johnson

  When he moved near, she moved farther away. This implosion was worse than the explosion he’d expected. He’d counted on anger and accusations, yelling and screaming, hoped for an argument, some of her self-righteous indignation. A fight. Instead, as Achilles made a pallet on the floor, Ines lay on Achilles’s bed, clutching her suitcase, crying as if she had lost her own brother.

  CHAPTER 24

  UNABLE TO SLEEP, ACHILLES WANTED TO CRUISE THROUGH TOWN BUT halfway expected to be stopped at each intersection, so he sat on the cinderblock stoop all night. The Reserves were full of sheriffs and deputies, troopers and constables, and on the drive to New Orleans he’d nodded at them all. On the drive home though, he found himself gripping the wheel and hovering over the brakes whenever Smokey passed. He was still on the stoop when the morning fog burned off, the trees wavering like the shadows of people who weren’t there. He was on the stoop when, unexpectedly, a donated limousine arrived at seven a.m.

  Ines, Achilles, his mom, and his two aunts rode to the funeral home in the limousine. They traveled through the center of town—past the people lining the streets waving American flags as if it was a parade, past the school and courthouse with their flags at half-mast, past the signs that read, We miss you, Troy—picking up cars en route, until a procession of vehicles trailed behind them, all of which had to park on the street because the funeral home lot was full.

  His father’s funeral had started fifteen minutes late, but today Mr. Eckhart, the funeral director, was outside scowling at his pocket watch when the limousine pulled up. There was an hour before the actual service, but he hustled Achilles into a side room where five privates in dress blues sat around a folding table sipping coffee.

  “It’s going to be a real hero’s service, Achilles. You better believe it. These gentleman from Shippensburg CC ROTC volunteered to serve as pallbearers.” To the five soldiers, Eckhart said, “Gentlemen, this is Achilles Conroy, Troy Conroy’s brother.”

  They jumped to their feet and snapped to attention, introducing themselves and offering condolences. It’s an honor, they all said. When the funeral director excused himself, they remained standing. With a wave of his hand he directed them back to their coffee. “Thank you sir.”

  “I earned my rank,” Achilles said softly. He vaguely recognized the tallest one, Hausman. Achilles knew a Dennis Hausman, a lanky geek with a deadly jump shot who wore glasses so thick he could start fires with them on a cloudy day. He’d soon be armed, so hopefully the younger one had better eyes than his brother. Same thin frame and too-long arms, same prominent Adam’s apple. Achilles imagined this younger Hausman squirreled into the shadow of a shredded Humvee, momentarily deafened by the explosion, squinting as it rained dirt, trying to make out a target. Or maybe nothing would happen at all. He would play Xbox when he wasn’t on patrol, throw lollipops at kids when he was, and return in nine months with a tan. If they did ROTC, then college, then entered with a commission, at least they wouldn’t be cannon fodder.

  The funeral director returned to explain the protocol. After the viewing, which he insisted on calling it even though the casket was closed, they would carry the casket to the hearse, which would take one tour through town before returning to the cemetery for the burial. “Remember,” he told them twice, carefully including Achilles in his roaming gaze as he looked at each of them in turn, “the casket is light, very light. Lift it slowly, don’t jerk it, and don’t look surprised at the weight.” He closed his fist around his pocket watch, lifting it slowly, almost as if it weighed too much for him to hold in one hand. “No one watching you should know it’s empty.”

  Eckhart ran the event with military precision. They had loaded the casket, driven through town, and returned by nine thirty. Five minutes later, they were gathered at the same gravesite where everything began a year ago. Achilles sat between his mom and Ines. Janice, Dale, and their new baby were seated nearby and, behind them, throngs of people stretching back nearly to the street. Kids too young to have ever known Troy fidgeted and whined while their parents jerked their arms and hushed them. Four large-breasted blondes in their late teens stood shoulder to shoulder, sniffing and wiping their eyes. Their football coach stood next to a line of beefy kids who must have been the current varsity squad.

  The preacher spoke about hope, rebirth, faith, and the sacrifice each required. Eternal life was promised to all who believed in the Lord, and Troy, We all know, was a believer, for rarely did a man make better use of his talents. Rarely did a man make so selfless a sacrifice with heart and head. With a grand gesture, the minister pointed to the military photo mounted on an easel next to the coffin, describing Troy as a veteran who selflessly served abroad and at home, who fought to bring freedom to Afghanistan and safety to Louisiana, who exemplified Christian ideals in life and in death. When it was Achilles’s turn, he said a few words about his bother’s love and courage.

  But what he was really thinking about was his brother the prankster. Troy had once mixed red Kool-Aid in the tub and lain there for hours waiting for someone to find him. Their mother flipped. The stain didn’t come out for weeks. Achilles had always wanted to be the hero, to be lauded, to be idolized, until now. The more everyone spoke about Troy as a hero, the less real he became.

  The preacher talked about “the Word,” as had the preacher at Wages’s funeral, and just as suddenly as he had started, he stopped talking and nodded at the three soldiers standing at attention fifty yards away. There were too few buglers and too many funerals, even this close to Washington, so the soldier at the far end solemnly leaned over and turned on a boombox. “Taps” played. His mother and Ines hissed gently at him for squeezing their hands too tightly. When the song was over, the same soldier leaned over and turned off the boombox. Achilles braced himself for the coming twenty-one gun salute, the seven volleys that would echo across town. At his father’s funeral, he had flinched six times. This time he breathed purposefully, and his heart didn’t miss a beat, not when they folded the flag and presented it to his mother, not when they lowered the coffin.

  But when his mother held his hand for support as she bent for her own handful of dirt, and she said, “Thank you for bringing your brother home,” he was seized by a momentary desire to take it back. His mother had asked one time, “Are you sure? How do you know? Are you absolutely sure?” He threw his handful of dirt on the coffin, and his aunts and Ines followed suit, each handful rattling less until soon you couldn’t even hear it fall, the line so long it seemed there wasn’t enough dirt in the world.

  The entire town converged on the VFW after the service, including those who hadn’t been at the funeral, resulting in a crowd thicker than the Fourth of July cookouts. Even with every window as well as both doors open, the bar was hot and sticky. He saw friends from high school he scarcely recognized. It had only been three years since he enlisted, but it felt as if he’d aged a lifetime. They patted him on the back and expressed condolences, averting their eyes as they segued into the next question or an innocent congratulation: Man, you did it. You went and did it, and came back.

  That could have been Achilles telling the same jokes and making the same faces, huddled up with the football players who positioned themselves fifty yards from the girls, while sneaking sidelong glances and talking loudly enough to be heard across the parking lot. The girls, in their own cluster, stood with their backs to the boys, taking turns glancing over their shoulders and blushing whenever they made eye contact. All they were missing was corsages. If he had stayed, he would be hiding out behind the dumpster smoking cigarettes and then sucking up to Troy, asking him, as a Randall, Jarrell, and Howie asked Achilles, “Did you get to kill anybody?”

  He might have responded differently to “have to,” but as much as he appreciated the attention, he could only shrug in response to “get to.”

  He saw Ken and Ken’s mom, who still looked sexy, wearing her hair like Farah Fawcett had on Charlie’s Angels, a look that was back in style. Sam, the Chinese kid he use
d to play with, was home for the holidays. They spoke briefly, and Achilles learned that Sam had spent a few years in Korea, which was where he was actually from. The recruiter was there, which surprised his mother because, Three of them killed themselves you know. The guilt. Achilles wanted to explain that the recruiters had only said what they’d wanted to hear.

  “She’s like a hostess,” she said, pointing to Ines.

  She was right. Ines moved through the crowd with ease, talking to all who listened, listening to all who talked, so comfortable you would have thought she had lived there her entire life. And when she wasn’t talking, she was tending to his mother. Achilles said, “She likes to tell people what to do.”

  “That’s exactly what you need,” said his mother.

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  When people offered their condolences, his mother managed to reassure them, to make them feel better, as if they were the grievers, except for the recruiter, whom she refused to directly acknowledge.

  “I am deeply sorry, ma’am,” the recruiter said.

  “I know.” Quoting the officer who had given her the flag, she said, “‘This flag was offered by a grateful nation in memory of faithful service performed by your loved one.’”

  “I’m real sorry,” the recruiter repeated himself. “That was moving, what you said, Achilles.”

  “I know. My son is smart. That’s why I wanted him to go to college.”

  When the recruiter left, his mother said, “You know four of them killed themselves.”

  “I thought you said three.”

  “Did I? Wishful thinking.” She pointed. “Look, it’s that woman.”

  Three teachers were clustered at the end of the bar, among them Troy’s tenth-grade math teacher, who looked devastated. As Mrs. Delesseppes once said, grief ages a person.

  His mother cradled the flag like a child, her expression reminiscent of Mrs. Robicheaux, whom they’d found on that roof. He reached out and touched her face. “I love you, Mom.”

  She turned to him. “I know you do. I love you too, sweetie.” She put the flag back on the table, arranging it so that it pointed away from her. “It fits there, with all the stains and burns, doesn’t it?

  “Yes.”

  “I never liked this bar. The last thing a bunch of old veterans need to do is get drunk. But I guess this is a celebration of his life? Is this like New Orleans?”

  “Exactly,” said Achilles.

  “I hoped it would be. They wanted to have a parade when you got back, but it just wasn’t the right time. I understand your reluctance to take that envelope now. You think you want to know, but you don’t. You don’t. You don’t want them to be in a better place, you want them to be with you.”

  A better place. Everyone had said that, even at his father’s funeral. He hadn’t noticed as much, being only twenty-four hours out of combat. Besides it was easy enough to ignore because no one said it to his face, as if they knew Achilles wasn’t buying. Once you were shot at, there was no better place to be than alive. A bead of sweat dripped from his nose and he decided to go outside for air. He looked back as he passed through the doorway. Ines was already at his mother’s side, like all that time she had just been waiting for him to leave.

  The kids behind the dumpster stopped laughing and tossed their cigarettes upon Achilles’s approach. Hausman, the tall ROTC pallbearer, was among them. “I hope those weren’t your last ones,” said Achilles.

  The kids relaxed and picked up their cigarettes, offering one to Achilles. They smoked in silence, Hausman watching Achilles out of the corner of his eye.

  “What’s up?” asked Achilles.

  “Nothing, just telling a joke,” said the young one; Bridges, according to his nameplate. Achilles recalled the shock on his face when they lifted the coffin, so light it seemed to float on air.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Achilles. He had to prompt him a few more times, but Bridges finally resumed his story, catching Achilles up first. “There were these two scientists, see, a Russian and a Czech, and they both wanted to study grizzly bears. They’d loved bears all their lives, but there weren’t any bears where they lived. So they got permission to go to Alaska. The park ranger in Alaska told them that they could go to the national park, but they’d be on their own.”

  Hausman was staring at the ground, his face red. “There aren’t any grizzly bears in Alaska. They live primarily in the Pacific Northwest.”

  Bridges shrugged. “It’s a joke. A horse never really walked into a bar and ordered a drink.”

  “Yeah, but we know that’s not real. Get your facts straight.”

  “Let him finish,” said Achilles.

  Hausman huffed. Achilles nodded at Bridges. “Go ahead.”

  “So anyway,” Bridges continued, “the scientists are in the park studying the bears, the Alaskan bears, and no one hears from them for a long time, so the park ranger goes looking and finds their campsite destroyed and bloody and a trail of bear prints, Alaskan bear prints, leading from the tents to the forest. He follows them and finds the female gnawing on a bloody boot. So he has to shoot the Alaskan bear and cut it open and see if it ate the scientists. When they look inside, they find the Russian scientist in her stomach. So the park ranger turns to the other ranger, and you know what he says?”

  “When did another ranger show up?” asked Hausman.

  “He was there all the time. They travel in pairs. Anyway, know what he says?”

  Everyone shrugs.

  “You know what this means. The Czech is in the male.”

  When Achilles laughed, the other guys joined him, except Hausman.

  “Go ahead, ask me,” said Achilles. Hausman was ROTC. He deserved to ask a question.

  Hausman turned to face him, took a deep breath. “What’s it like?”

  Achilles took him by the arm and led him away. “What have you heard?”

  “All sorts of weird stuff. Like it’s the Wild Wild West, but it’s great. There’s no women. It’s like being God. It’s a dog’s life.”

  “It’s all true.”

  Hausman bit his lip, seeming to consider this an even greater dilemma. “All of it?”

  “Every last bit.” He wanted to tell him that’s life, the fuck of it, the good, bad, and mixed in everywhere, you just choose a side when you can. “You hear about the big shit making heroes and cowards, selfish and selfless.” Katrina had been no different. There were the heroic and the craven. Those who nearly died helping others and those who looted. There were white vigilantes in Algiers shooting unarmed black survivors, and there was the river of volunteers. That was the hardest part to accept. You had to choose a side. The young white couple who opened a flower shop in the Seventh Ward did; so did the street preacher, even if no one wanted to hear it. He understood why the old-timers said, You have to live it to know it.

  Hausman looked even more uncertain than he had before.

  “Don’t go.”

  Whistles and cheers erupted behind them and Achilles went back inside to find the lights dimmed and the DJ playing. Achilles stood at the end of the bar—where as a kid he had always imagined sitting—taking it all in, and noticing for the first time the picture of Troy behind the bar and the pile of newspapers. The local press had printed extra copies. Near the photo sat a bucket and a sign made of spiral-bound paper and printed in marker: Like Many Who Lost Loved Ones In Rescue Efforts The Family Asks That Any Donations Be Made To Charitable Organization (no s). Posted behind the bar was a picture of his father that he didn’t recognize, an old photo of his dad and three friends wearing fatigues and green army wifebeaters. Earl, the bartender, handed it to Achilles. “That’s me and your old man one week before we came home.” He tapped the third head. “Nally didn’t make it. Bad luck.” He handed it to Achilles.

  When Achilles opened his wallet to tuck the photo away, Earl saw the small photo of Achilles and his squad.

  “You bring me a copy
, you can put that one up.”

  Achilles handed him the photo, his only one. “This is a copy.”

  Earl slipped the photo into the same spot where his father’s had been. “You need to have a beer and some quiet, you come up here anytime. Every man needs a Batcave, and this is it. You’re one of us now.”

  That struck him as oddly familiar. Recalling that night he spent pinned down in that cave in Afghanistan, he held Earl’s gaze for an uncomfortable moment during which the feeling that he was being insolent settled into a current of affection so strong he had to restrain himself from hugging the man. He’d never really thought about Earl before, or any of the cranky old men that gathered at the VFW. He’d thought they’d been up here because their wives wouldn’t let them watch the Redskins on the big TV when it conflicted with Golden Girls.

  Achilles imagined his father after returning from Vietnam. His dad, Earl, and Nally had only been seventeen when they were shipped off. Maybe the VFW was where they could feel as if Nally was still with them. Achilles felt as if he knew Nally. They’d talked about him like a kid who moved off to college, and then even farther away, his new life soon too busy for him to visit home often. Gone, but not dead. They must have met here every Friday because it was the only place where they didn’t need to talk about what happened because everyone had been there, whether in Desert Storm, Bosnia, Vietnam, Korea, or the Big One. Was lining up at these taps their version of Wages’s ritual? If he stayed here, was this the only place he could go? He would have to come here when he felt that burn, his spine stiff as rebar and his muscles trembling, when he wanted to choke the fucking pizza delivery boy for wearing a POW shirt, when he wanted to put a brick through the head of the TV news reporter because she was spewing some crap about the war, when he imagined replacing Dale, or reenlisting, when he thought too hard about going back for Pepper. He’d have to come back here, sit with these men and watch hockey and football and basketball, and complain about the alderman shutting down the only strip club within a hundred miles.