Like Always

by Robert Elmer

  “Three. And I’m not trying to make anybody look bad. Just trying to do my job.”

  “Yeah, I can tell. You’re, like, some kind of working fool. Running out to the cars, building displays. Is this what they made you do in boot camp? Go, go, go?”

  “Boot camp was nothing compared to—”

  Again, he cut his thought off midsentence. Jason didn’t seem to notice, but then, Jason hardly noticed when his own shoe was untied or his shirttail was untucked.

  “Well, I think Wally hired you for the PR too. You know, like, ‘Motherhood, apple pie, God bless America, and come on in and meet our local war hero.’ Right?”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there.” Michael shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know about God blessing anything.”

  “Whoa. Didn’t know that was such a hot button. Guess heroes are touchy like that.”

  “Would you cool it with the hero stuff? Wally can say whatever he wants, but I’m nobody’s hero. The only thing—”

  “You’re just trying to be cool about it.” Jason waved him off. “I think we should have you autograph tires for customers, like with a white pen? Maybe we could charge a few bucks extra.”

  Jason launched into a high-pitched laugh at his own joke. Unfortunately, he was right about the way their boss looked at the whole hero thing. And Michael tried not to look at the poster Wally had made of Michael’s official Air Force photo—the one with him in full uniform. Wally had posted it prominently on the wall, next to the Snap-on tool kits and the American flag, just above the display for their premium all-seasons. Other tire centers had calendars or pictures of girls in bikinis standing next to the latest model cars or holding batteries. Here they had a picture of a war hero.

  Or in his case, a war survivor.

  Except he wasn’t sure the name fit. Survivors, after all, came home to a big kiss from their waiting girlfriends. And survivors got on with their lives without constant nightmares about…

  “Hey, I don’t mean anything by it.” Jason pointed his thumb at the homemade poster. “I just think you ought to feel honored. People would probably come up and salute you, still.”

  “That’s just it.” Michael turned back to his work. “It creeps me out.”

  “Hmm. See, that’s what I don’t get.”

  Since Michael didn’t explain, Jason went on.

  “Well, maybe I’ll just paste my own face up there then, so all the girls who come in here will ooh and ahh at Jason Warner, war hero. If we can’t get you to sign tires, at least I should be able to get some dates out of this, huh?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  That invited a strange look from Jason, who stepped around the car and narrowed his eyes at Michael. “Hey, you’re not, uh…” Jason searched for words. “You know. ‘Cause if you are, I mean, I’m not hydrophobic or nothing, and it really doesn’t bother me one way or the other. Just maybe it would be nice to know, know what I mean? No offense.”

  Michael turned the air gun on his co-worker and pulled the trigger. It spun the ratchet with a loud whirr. Jason flinched.

  “Would you knock it off? I’m not a hero, and I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re getting at. But I am trying to get this car finished, okay?”

  “Whoa. Sure thing, dude.” Jason held up greasy hands in surrender, then flashed a grin of what must have been relief. “Just making sure. You never know when somebody’s, you know, different. Or a born-again, something off the wall like that. But I still think you really ought to use that war hero stuff for a little extra advantage, you know? Not every guy has that kind of leverage. Don’t you think?”

  Or a born-again?

  Michael caught his breath, about to say something, then decided to just ignore Jason and turned back to his tires. He had nothing left to say, not after that wimpy objection to being a hero. He’d known some heroes. Seen guys who risked their lives for all the right reasons. Some guys who came home in a pine box. Only he wasn’t one of them, and that’s what Wally and Jason and his parents and his little sisters and everybody else didn’t get. Hero? No. So what was he supposed to say?

  Yeah, I was scared out of my wits over there most of the time. Sick-to-my-stomach scared.

  Some hero.

  And yeah, I blamed God most of the time for being silent when everything was blowing up around me, including some of my best friends.

  Some Christian.

  He spit on the floor and attacked his tires until he heard the mechanical beep of a customer pushing open the front door. Jason had already disappeared, and Wally was helping another customer from behind the front desk. His boss turned and whistled toward the shop.

  “Sullivan!”

  Michael didn’t waste any time trotting up to help the customer, a young mother with three little ones in tow. He tried not to look at them, but the little boy—about four or five—pointed his little plastic rifle at everything in the store, from racks of tires to pictures on the wall. His mom didn’t notice, but she needed a new set of tires, she thought. Could he show her what they had on sale?

  Michael escorted them around the displays, starting with the all-seasons Wally always wanted him to sell. He couldn’t help but feel the stare of the little boy.

  “Not now, dear.” The woman brushed off her son as she studied a price list by the first display. The boy kept tugging her shirt.

  “The rest rooms are over there,” she said, pointing to the door. “Your sister can take you.”

  He shook his head and aimed his toy gun at Michael’s face. Michael wanted to introduce him to a little firearm etiquette but didn’t have a chance.

  “I don’t have to go!” announced the little guy. He whispered something into his mother’s ear and pointed at the We Support Our Troops poster. His mother looked at the poster, then at Michael, then back to the poster.

  “I think you’re…” She looked at Michael with a question in her eyes. “Are you?”

  “Everybody asks that.” Michael sighed. “But I have no idea who that is.”

  “Are you famous?” asked the little boy, holding his gun up to Michael. He wasn’t fooled. “Could you sign my gun?”

  If Michael closed his eyes, he knew he would see another little boy, not much older than this one, kicking a soccer ball and hiding behind the burned-out skeleton of an Iraqi car, half a world away. Only the other boy…

  “I’m sorry.” The mother grabbed the gun away from the boy and stuffed it in her purse. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”

  She couldn’t have known, but Michael sighed with relief when she hustled her children outside a minute later, thanking him for the information, and saying something about passing it along to her husband.

  That was fine with him. Half an hour later, it was also fine with him that he was left to close up the store after Wally and Jason and Marilyn had left.

  “You’re just a working fool!” Jason waved at him as he hurried out.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” Michael locked the door from inside and turned the Open sign to Closed. “Or maybe just a fool, period.”

  With Wally finally gone and no one else to ask questions, he could pull a ladder up from the tire racks and position it under the poster. And if anyone asked, well, of course they still supported the troops. Just not this particular one.

  Before he had time to think about what he was doing, he climbed up and reached for the poster. Then the phone rang.

  “We’re closed,” he addressed the phone, but it continued to ring. He would have let the answering machine pick up, but he had clipped one of the cordless extensions on his belt. And if Wally was calling…

  He punched the button to answer. “WallyTire. Michael speaking.”

  “Hey, there’s a familiar voice. Are you guys still open?”

  “Oh! Yeah. I mean, no, Dad. Mom said you—I mean, I’m just…” He grabbed the poster and tore it down with a satisfying rip. He wondered how he was going to get rid of it without leaving evidence. He would just have t
o take it with him. Although how obvious was it going to look now? “I’m just closing up tonight.”

  “That means you haven’t had dinner yet?”

  “Uh…” Michael glanced down at plan A: the popcorn machine in the waiting area and an abandoned slice of pie Jason’s mom had brought by yesterday.

  “I guess that’s a no.” Michael’s dad sighed, but his voice still bubbled. It almost didn’t sound like him. “Well look, then I’m glad I caught you, because there’s something I want to talk to you about. It’s pretty exciting, and we just heard this afternoon.”

  “Huh? Heard what?”

  “I can meet you at a Denny’s or something.”

  “You can’t tell me over the phone?”

  “You’re turning down dinner?”

  Michael only paused for a moment.

  “Which Denny’s?”

  seven

  Wherever you are—be all there.

  JIM ELLIOT

  From the corner booth, Will saw his son step into the diner and look around. He caught Michael’s eye with a wave.

  “Glad you could join me.” Will flinched. He sounded like he was greeting a potential client. “I mean—your mother and I have hardly seen you since you got back.”

  “Yeah.” Michael slipped into the booth and fingered a menu. “Guess I’ve been busy at this job. Busier than I thought I’d be.”

  He didn’t look anything like the Michael who had left for boot camp four years ago, and it wasn’t just the lack of pimples or the broader, square shoulders hardened by combat duty. Something else had hardened as well.

  “So you’re not tired of the work yet?” Will asked.

  “Tired? Naw,” Michael said, missing the pun attempt, weak as it was. “Its only been a few weeks. Wallys way out of focus, but he’s okay.”

  “Not as bad as your commanding officers?” Will thought he might as well try to fish for a little more of the story, whatever the story was. But the question didn’t get much of a reaction—just a noncommittal shrug.

  “I only ran into one guy over there who was a real piece of work, and he was on his way back to the States in a couple of weeks.”

  “Transferred?”

  “Killed.”

  That ended the interrogation. Michael slumped into his side of the booth and hoisted a menu to his face. Will considered pushing for more details but decided against it. Michael would talk about his tour of duty when he was ready. Or he wouldn’t.

  “Hungry?” Will couldn’t remember a time when Michael hadn’t been hungry, but maybe that had changed too.

  “Getting there.”

  Could the conversation get any more awkward?

  Michael studied his options while they traded grunts about fascinating topics like the weather (hot, huh) and the Giants winning the pennant (cool, huh). Moving on to more challenging discourse, they commented on how much the price of gas had gone up again (lame, huh).

  Will nodded at the back of Michael’s menu, the contents of which his son had likely memorized by this time. At this rate, we’re going to run out of small talk in a big hurry. Will thought. The young waitress with the Bozo-red hair hadn’t even taken their orders yet.

  When she finally arrived, Will ordered a bacon mushroom burger, since Merit wasn’t there to remind him about cholesterol. Michael ordered an omelet with extra cheese, since he didn’t need to worry about cholesterol in the first place.

  “Oh,” Will added, “and a cup of coffee. Black.”

  Michael ordered the same.

  Will grinned at his adopted son as they passed their menus to the waitress. “I forgot how you always liked to eat breakfast at dinner,” he said. “A bowl of cereal for a bedtime snack, right? How did they feed you? I mean, did you eat okay…over there?”

  Food would be a safe topic. Even military food on the battlefield.

  “Sure.” Michael nodded and finally seemed to relax a little. “You can have anything you want in an MRE.”

  Meal, ready to eat. Will had heard horror stories about the military version of the instant breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As they waited for their food, Michael explained what they were like, and Will hoped he would finally ease up and tell him what had happened in Iraq. Five minutes later, though, the conversation lagged once more.

  “Been going to church anywhere?” Will asked, trying a more roundabout approach. Not that he was one to ask himself, but—

  Michael apparently found the label on the bottle of ketchup fascinating. “You know Wallys been scheduling me to work on Sundays. I haven’t had a chance yet.”

  Will nodded. Now what?

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, Will trying to find a way out of their conversational dead end. Before he could, the waitress brought their orders.

  “No, actually, he gets the omelet.” Will pointed to his son, and the waitress switched their plates. They situated their food and unwrapped their utensils from napkins.

  Will paused, and he and Michael glanced at each other. Will would have prayed for the family once, when Michael was little and Merit was along. But now? Michael fingered his fork, waiting.

  Finally, Will bowed his head and closed his eyes. He silently counted to ten backward, popped his eyes back open, and dug into the meal.

  Michael followed his lead, dousing the omelet with ketchup.

  “Whoa, Mikey! Where’d you learn to eat eggs like that?”

  Michael pointed to his full mouth instead of answering.

  “Forget it.” Will returned to his burger, catching the dribble down his chin with a napkin. Now they had an excuse for not saying anything, as they quietly inhaled their meals. Michael was the first to finish.

  “So,” Michael swabbed the rest of his ketchup with his little finger, parked his knife and fork on the cleared plate, and looked up. “I’m still waiting for your big news. You said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

  Will had to give the kid credit for being the first to bring it up. He would have, but he was still working on his last few fries. First things first.

  “Actually, yeah. I did.” He knew he had one chance to ask this, and at this point, he had to admit Merit was right. Michael wasn’t going to accept any offers from his dad. Not a chance in the world.

  Michael raised his eyes to target him directly. “Holy smokes, Dad. Were you this way when you asked Mom to marry you?”

  Will held up his hands, pretended he had no idea what the kid was talking about.

  “Look. Your mom and I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. To tell you the truth, things haven’t been so good at work.”

  “When have they ever been? You’ve always hated your job and that nut case boss of yours. What’s his name, Brian?”

  “Bruce. Yeah.” Out of habit he glanced down at his cell phone, clipped to his belt. “I’m surprised he hasn’t called to yell at me while we’ve been here.”

  “So what’s new and exciting about that?”

  Will hadn’t expected a plain fact like that to hit him so hard, but it helped make his point.

  “See, that’s what I’m saying. I’ve always wanted to do something I enjoyed, something that would bring our family together.”

  “You mean like that nighttime janitor job you used to drag me to when I was little? That was the worst.” Michael made a face.

  “What do you mean, the worst? I thought you liked that job. It taught you how to work.”

  “I trapped spiders and fell asleep under the desks. It was the worst, Dad. Believe me.”

  “Oh. Well, anyway, it’s not going to be like that. But listen.” Will leaned forward, as if telling a secret. “Your mom and I just put an offer on a little resort in Idaho. It’s by Lake—”

  Michael straightened. “A resort? Are you kidding? What kind of resort?”

  “Let me finish. It’s on Lake Pend Oreille. Kokanee Cove.”

  “Oh, you mean where Aunt Overdose lives.”

  Will tried to look stern, but Michael’s nickname for his a
unt was more than appropriate. “Aunt Sydney does live there, yes. I think that’s part of the reason your mother agreed to this whole thing. We’d be closer to family.”

  Michael finally smiled. “Family you haven’t talked to in twenty years.”

  “Not that long.”

  “Okay, fifteen. What was I, six years old when we went to visit, and she went ballistic because Mom wouldn’t let her smoke pot in front of me? Said we needed to open our minds?”

  “You remember that?”

  “Vividly. I was totally intimidated by her hairdo too. She looked like a pharaoh with all that blue makeup on her eyes and that big braided thing in back. And those claws she had for fingernails? Could have scratched my eyes out.”

  “I think you let your imagination get away with you, there. Sydney never had fingernails. She was more into vegetarianism and compost piles.”

  “I’m confused. I always thought she and Mom hated each other.”

  “No, it’s not quite like that. Even though they’ve hardly spoken to each other since that…marijuana incident.”

  “But it’s not all better now, is it?”

  “Not yet. Sydney never apologized, and your mom thought she was protecting you and the girls by keeping you away. It’s going to take some time to heal, but moving there will be a big step. I think a lot of things are going to change.”

  “Hmm. Well, I still think this is totally weird, Dad. You’re really going to sell your place and move away from the Bay Area? give up your job and everything? your 401(k) contribution? your health plan? You can’t be serious.”

  “Listen, we’ll still have a health plan,” Will told him.

  Well, they would, pretty much. But Michael still looked skeptical, so Will decided to try the idealistic angle.

  “Okay. Sometimes all that stuff doesn’t really measure up. Sometimes you have to just go for something because, well, it’s the chance of a lifetime, and you’d regret not trying it.”

  The irony of the conversation was not lost on Will, as his son suddenly reminded him of Uncle Fred. Where had this come from?

  “Oh!” Michael snapped his fingers. “That’s it. This is some kind of midlife crisis. Maybe you should just buy a Corvette instead.”