“I am doing something. I’m a professional writer.”
“C’mon. Whatever.”
“It’s true. I write sample essays for rich college kids through some cheater website.”
“What about all the books you were going to write?”
“It’s not like I haven’t tried, but anything I finished would suck. It would be too preachy, too maudlin, too heavy, too sentimental. Too self-conscious. Too obviously allegorical. Too cliché. Critics would tear it apart.”
“Forget about the critics. They want books written by a god they don’t believe in.”
Levi dropped the last burning ember of their joint and said nothing.
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself and just write the stupid book already. I don’t care if it’s the worst thing on the planet. Even if it is, at least you’ll have done the worst thing on the planet, which has to count for something.”
“What if I’ve already done the worst thing on the planet?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Levi said nothing for a good long while. Then he said, “I’m going to go back.”
“Where?”
“Active duty. Going to join the army again.”
“What? Are you nuts?”
“Ah, just playing.” He hit Nick in the shoulder. “Seeing how you’d react.”
It had gotten to the point where Nick couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Get over it already,” he said.
“What did you say?” Levi’s voice was suddenly cold.
“I said get over it already.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what I said. It means get over it. It means you’ve been home over a year and you need to get over it.”
Levi shrugged, as if shrugging off the whole idea. He swung his legs from the bridge like a carefree kid. “Whatever. At least in the army I had a purpose. At least back then what I did meant something.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Nick said. “You don’t even believe that yourself.”
“Sure I do. Last week on the Internet, I saw a picture of some little girl in Afghanistan skateboarding to school. That couldn’t have happened before we went there.”
“How many people have to die before the right to skateboard is no longer worth it?”
Levi stood up. His mood shifted like tectonic plates. “What the hell does that even mean? You think that’s it? You think I didn’t have a purpose? How about the one sitting right here? How about you? And your life? Don’t you dare talk to me like what I did doesn’t matter.”
He walked back and forth across the rotting, moss-covered planks of the old bridge. He screamed into the air, “I’m just so bored now!” He paced back and forth and leaned over the edge of the rail. “I’m going to jump.”
“Shut up. There are rocks everywhere. It’s like, three feet deep.” The weed had made Nick apathetic. He didn’t believe him anyway.
“There’s a place right over here that’s deeper. I used to fish in that hole.”
“And you’re going to hit it in the dark?”
“I’ve hit more than that in the dark. And at a farther range too.” He climbed onto the black metal supports along the side of the bridge.
“Knock it off, dude. You’re going to kill yourself.”
“There are worse things.” He jumped.
Nick heard the splash. He popped to his feet and slid down the slick embankment under the bridge. He stopped short of the heavy rocks that led down to the water.
Levi climbed up out of the water, and he shook his head. Little droplets flung off his hair. “Whooooooooo, perfect,” he yelled.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nick screamed.
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m not the one trying to kill myself.”
“Oh yeah?” Levi said. “Moping around, college dropout, working a job you never wanted for practically nothing in some small town you always wanted to escape. You actually like this? You appreciate these low stakes after what we’ve been through? You actually like this new acoustic life? All brain dead and unplugged?” He spat it out like it was poison. “We played in a rock band, traveled the world, fought wars, blew things up; we held lives in our hands and influenced the fate of nations. We did some serious living, Brother. We were baptized by fire.” Levi yelled and gesticulated wildly. Spittle flew from his mouth. “And now this? Look at you, limping around. You’re pathetic. Medals in a pile of trash on the floor like you were never there. Like you’ve forgotten everything.” Levi shoved Nick, causing him to stumble back a step.
Nick nearly lost his balance. His eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in anger. “Yeah? Baptized by fire? Are you serious right now?” He shook his head. “But what should I expect from you? The sad vet who can’t get over himself or let go.”
“Shut up,” Levi said, tears welling in his eyes. “Sorry we can’t all inherit the family business, get the girl, and go back to life as usual.” He shoved Nick again.
Nick shoved him back. “Think I didn’t have problems? Think I don’t still have problems? You have any idea what I’ve been through with that business I inherited? Or that we’re probably going to lose it? Or what I’ve been through with my wife? And that I could have lost her? You know, I was doing just fine until you got back. Almost forgot the war until you brought it back into my house. Threw your medal on the wall to remind me every day of not only the war but also how much I owe you, huh? You, you, you. It’s still all about you, isn’t it?” Nick shoved him again.
Levi charged forward and slammed his shoulder into Nick’s stomach, taking him to the ground. They rolled around on the thin dew-covered grass, both of them getting snotty and damp as they fought for the upper hand. Nick broke free from Levi’s grasp and jumped to his feet. Levi did the same. Nick swung blindly in the dark and missed, but he felt a fist connect with his nose. He bent over, stunned, and he put his finger to his nose to feel for blood.
Levi tackled him again, and they rolled down the rocky bank into the shallow, arctic water. Sharp boulders gouged into Nick’s hip and back as they tumbled in the cold stream. As they splashed down into the water, the earthy mineral flavors of the northern headwaters rushed into their mouths.
They wrestled, each trying to get the upper hand. Arms reached under legs. Hands flew under armpits and gripped hair and necks and wrenched heads. They fought dirty because winning was the only thing that mattered. Abs flexed and rotated. Heads went underwater, gulped cold water, and came back up sputtering. They both turned about, leveraging their own weight and the weight of their memories against each other. They had done this countless times, and the fluid movements and constant shifts of advantage harkened back to their long days of combative sessions during their military training.
When they had settled in the gritty silt on the bottom of the creek, Levi was on top. He put his elbow across Nick’s neck and worked his knees up to pin his arms down. Although Nick had always been much larger, he had never been much of a fighter. Levi had always been full of more violence.
Nick was helpless to fight him off. He felt Levi’s fingers tighten around his neck. He went slack and tapped twice on Levi’s thigh, signaling that he was done. It was over. He conceded.
Levi didn’t let go. The moon shone on his face, and Nick saw a snarl he didn’t recognize. He tapped harder in case Levi didn’t feel him the first time. When Levi didn’t relent, Nick realized that everything was possible. Levi was no longer himself, and he was capable of anything.
Nick’s vision began to grow dim, and the moving water of the creek now sounded like rushing rapids roaring inside his head. He panicked. In one explosive movement, he stretched his arms free from under Levi’s knees. He clawed at Levi’s face hovering above his own, but quickly changed course and tucked his arms in to free his own neck. His thoughts raced and the rushing in his ears grew louder.
His thumbs scraped the stubble on his own neck as he strug
gled to create distance between Levi’s grip and his own windpipe. He lifted his hips and flopped back down. He writhed and twisted and turned until Levi shifted. As soon as he had an opening, he put a knee in Levi’s groin.
Nearly as soon as it had begun, it was over, but a whole history rested in the brief struggle.
Levi rolled off, and Nick slipped up the rocks on the side of the creek. He stood on the bank and looked down at Levi holding himself in the water.
Nick screamed as he bent over in pain. “What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not the enemy here.” He lifted his head and watched Levi stand up. He shouted at him, “I’m doing something. At least I’m doing something. I’m living. And you know what? I don’t need their Purple Heart.” He peeled off his wet shirt, fighting it as the sopping fabric stuck on his back. He flung it aside and showed Levi the wrinkled piebald scars all over his torso. “My purple heart is right here.” He turned and pounded on his chest. He kicked off his waterlogged shoes and peeled his dripping socks from his frozen feet. “I don’t need to tell stories to remind people I was there, because I have all of this to remind every single person who looks at me that I was there. I don’t need a medal hanging on my wall to tell me I was there, because every day, every step, every morning I wake up with my skin burning to remind me that I was there. And I’m right here. Right here on this earth, still alive, right here.” He stomped on the ground as he yelled. “You can’t change anything, Levi. I can’t change anything. The past is done. It’s over.” He pulled down his wet pants and threw them to the side. “Look at this,” he yelled.
Levi looked at the ground, silent and shaking.
“I said look at this.” Nick looked to the sky and cried out, “You can spit out all the ridiculous clichés you want, but I was baptized by fire.” Nick stood with his fists clenched, soaking wet, naked, and trembling.
Levi climbed up the bank and sat down on the grass.
Exposed and heaving, Nick turned and walked back to his pants. He put his bad leg in first, but the wet denim of the jeans stuck together, so he couldn’t slide the leg in. He lost his balance and fell. He sat on the grass, furious that he was so crippled he couldn’t even put on his own pants. He slowly pulled each wet leg of his jeans over his skin. He felt the moist, abrasive waistband scrape against the backs of his thighs. He fell and arched his back to inch the wet jeans up his butt. He stood and limped around gathering his shirt and shoes in his arms.
He walked back and said, “I never wanted to be the wounded little bird, you know. I was just trying to get on with my life.” He collapsed next to Levi, and they sat there next to each other in the cold. When they both stopped shaking, Levi got up. Nick got up too, and they walked.
As they left the park, they stopped at the veterans’ memorial wall the VFW had recently built. “Look at this,” Levi said. He ran his hand over the smooth granite. “They have all the names of all the people that have ever served from this town. Look. Your name here. And mine here. On a memorial. Can you believe that? Like we’re dead or something. Nothing but a memory.” He looked over his shoulder at Nick. “Then again, aren’t we?”
Nick climbed in the passenger’s side of the truck. Levi, looking sad and broken, made his way to the driver’s seat.
Nick slammed his hands on the dashboard. “No,” he yelled. He pounded on the dashboard again. “No, we’re not.”
Levi revved the engine, turned the heat up. “Whatever you say.”
Nick opened the door and got out of the truck. He walked across the parking lot and up the hill in the direction from which they came.
Levi backed up and drove off in the opposite direction.
3.16 DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST HER;
SHE WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP
When she saw him standing there like a stray, hair wet and matted, she opened the door to let him in.
“Is Nick home yet?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Do you think I could wait for him for a while?”
She looked at the vodka bottle he waved while he spoke. She looked at the clock on the wall. Even though he hadn’t been in the house in nearly a year, Levi opened the cupboard as if he lived there. He grabbed a glass and sat at the kitchen table.
“Do you think,” she asked, “I could get you some coffee? Maybe instead?”
He waved a sad hand. “I’m good. Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” She sat across from him. She knew he was not okay.
“My dad doesn’t think so. He thinks I need to go to meetings. You been to meetings?”
She bit her bottom lip. She nodded.
“So, then what? You just quit, like, cold turkey or whatever?”
She shrugged.
He lifted his eyebrows and frowned deeply as if he were offended by this. She stood and got her own glass from the cupboard. She held it out for him to pour.
“Should you be doing that?” he asked.
“You my dad now?”
He poured. She sipped. He relaxed.
They sat in silence for a long time. She finished a drink. He poured her another. He worked his closed mouth as if he were having an argument in his head.
Finally he spoke. “You know what kind of meeting would be perfect? It would be a meeting for people like me. People similarly laconic. I’d go to this meeting for dudes like me—dudes who all have some completely established grief, some totally bona fide affliction they’re all too incredibly strong to unleash on everyone else, everyone else being the weaker men in the world. You know, I really admire those guys, i.e., the strong taciturn men without the overwhelming need to be heard. I’d walk into that meeting, sit down, and look at all the other silent, usually unnoticed men. We’d all look around at each other and gulp our coffee without waiting for it to cool down. Then after a few moments of that—a few moments of drinking coffee and appraising one another—we’d all nod at each other with tight-lipped half-smiles. We’d get up, walk out, and go about our lives refreshed.”
“If you didn’t talk, how would you know they were like you?” she asked.
“I’d recognize them by their jaw muscles—prominent from lots of teeth clenching.”
“Maybe Nick could join you.”
He snickered.
She waited.
“You know what we did over there?”
“No.”
“We stole wood from the main base and built a deck on ours.”
“What else?”
“I have beers in my truck. I’m going to go get some beers.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do.”
She looked up at the clock. She picked up the phone and tried calling Nick. It would probably be hours before he was home. There was no answer.
Levi returned with a case of beer. He set it on the table. He opened one and handed it to her.
“We had this big concrete T-wall that stood in front of our door so if mortars came in at just the right spot, the frag wouldn’t fly through our doorway. We stole a projector, hooked a laptop and speakers to it, and we made our own outdoor theater.”
“What else?”
“It lasted a week because the bugs were so bad. And the camel spiders.”
“What else?”
“We drank liquor that girlfriends shipped over in mouthwash bottles.”
“What else?”
“At night?” he said. “After missions? We played our guitars and sang songs against the war. Our soldiers smoked shisha and sang harmonies.”
She said nothing, but remembered a night with Nick years ago.
“Don’t you want to know what else?”
She took a drink, shook her head. “You don’t have to.”
“We put bullets in the faces of old men who drove too close. We detained teenagers, beat them up, and put sandbags over their heads because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and they were born in the wrong country. We did it because we were terrified. We were terrified all the time.”
She said nothing for a long time, but he stared at her intensely, waiting. She was afraid to look away.
“What am I supposed to say to that?” she finally said.
“Who said you had to say anything?”
She looked away and finished her drink.
“Let’s smoke,” he said.
He was sad.
She was drunk and wanted to make him happy, so they smoked in the living room. They sat on the floor with their backs against the couch. They ashed in empty beer bottles. She was glad they had changed rooms.
“You’re good to me,” he said. “All you’ve done for me. Letting me stay here, letting me smoke here.” He swept his hand out in front of him. “I missed you.”
“Good. We missed you.”
Levi looked down at his cigarette, which he held between two fingers on a hand that rested on the floor. He rested a beer bottle on his poochy stomach. He looked like he might fall asleep like that.
His head bobbed like an old man with Parkinson’s. “So,” he said. “Two weeks after getting to Panjwai on my second trip to Afghanistan, we got in a TIC. Have you read that phrase in any of your books? TIC? Troops in contact?”
She nodded. She didn’t want to know anymore, to drink anymore, or to talk anymore, but it was now obvious that he needed to tell her.
She asked him to go on.
“We took heavy fire. People died. Whatever.”
He said this as if it were nothing.
“We walked out again, and once again, of course, we took contact. The platoon sergeant was on R&R and our LT was this young hot-headed type. He started talking all sorts of nonsense like he was going to raze villages. He was going to go out on the next mission and scorch the earth. It was probably a bunch of blustering bullshit, but there were rumblings in the platoon, and not your typical and perfectly natural revenge-speak rumblings. There were some deep, dark, seriously ominous undertones here.”
He drank and lifted his cigarette to his lips, struggling immensely with the weight of it. When his palm had plopped back on the carpet, he once again stared at the smoke that streamed straight up between his fingers.
He nodded and inhaled deeply through his nose. “I was tired and I didn’t want to scorch anything, so I said I was sick. I lied. I was just so tired. So they went out and I was alone. Like a big coward. I was the only one in our little wooden B-hut for hours. I cleaned my weapons. I cleaned my pistol. That nine mil looked so attractive.”
A Hard and Heavy Thing Page 31