Lose it in the war…? How do you lose a leg? It’s not like I woke up one morning and—BAM! To the man’s credit, Johnathan had been wearing his OIF Veteran hat on that day. The father of the fat simpleton child simply put two and two together, and perhaps thought asking “did ya” was as close to patriotism as he could get. Maybe when they reached wherever they were going, they’d share a story about a wounded veteran they had talked to on an airport shuttle. For Johnathan though, the question had been too blunt. What do you say to something like that? He wondered now, pulling up to the garage gate. He punched the parking box and it quickly spit out his ticket with the garage color and level designation. He tried to shake the dark cloud of knowing what lay ahead, all the people with their kids, or just people in general, curious eyes wandering over his maimed deformity as if he were some unordinary impossible thing.
Johnathan parked between a black BMW coupe and a red Chevy Cruze. Maybe it won’t be so bad today. Maybe it won’t be crowded. He hoped. Inside, he walked briskly to one of the kiosks in front of the check-in desks. There was only a skeleton crew working and each of them was busy chatting with fellow co-workers. Not that he blamed them. Since the recession of 2008, the airline conglomerates had done everything they could to preserve their end-of-year bonuses and that typically meant taking a big steaming dump on the underlings, the blue-collar laborers, the janitors, maintenance, customer service reps, passenger service agents, airline ticket agents, ramp crew, runway crew, stewardesses, and, God help us, even air traffic controllers and pilots.
He swiped his driver’s license and confirmed his destination: Washington, D.C. For a moment he thought about upgrading to business class, but then decided against it. He looked up briefly as the machine finalized. Gazing at the check-in agents, he felt the ghost of nostalgia creeping through him. Though he cared little for small talk, he missed interacting with a real face to face person. The kiosk was so…impersonal. And with the way prices had been climbing, he wasn’t sure how much money these drones were really saving shareholders, which in turn, according to his brief understanding of how economics worked, should have brought ticket prices lower. Finally, the automaton spit out his boarding pass. Johnathan collected it and then made his way toward security.
A dog barked somewhere, followed by the patter of laughing children, but when Johnathan turned to look he could find neither dog nor any children. The airport seemed empty, much to his delight. Less people meant less ogling at the checkpoint. The walk from the terminal to security was not bad, about a block, in street distance. After displaying his ID and boarding pass, Johnathan was allowed to the conveyor belt to off load his belongings. He was glad he’d decided to wear loose fitting basketball shorts, the one with the Rockets Team logo etched on the trim. He had an extra pair of jeans in his suitcase. He planned on changing in the bathroom once this part was over. It was bad enough getting stared at through security, he didn’t want to bare it during the flight. Karen had packed his jeans for him.
She deserves better. Maybe we’ll take that cruise we talked about. ‘Bahama, Jamaica, come-on pretty mama.’ Get a sitter for Tabitha. Maybe my parents can watch her for a week while we finally get away. Karen deserves better.
Johnathan unloaded his belongings on the belt, all but for his leg. If he could, he’d rather get wanded. One of the security guards motioned him forward to climb into the large partially enclosed body scanner. Johnathan moved forward and paused, gesturing awkwardly at his prostheses. The young security guard stood there for a while with a look of pure confusion. Great! If this had been any other situation, Johnathan may have laughed. Apparently the guard had never dealt with someone with his deformity before.
“Do you want me to take it off?” Johnathan prodded. A part of him wished he still had his OIF hat; it may have made this gesturing business simpler.
“No, sir. You’re just fine. Come over to this side and I’ll wand you through,” called another TSA guard. He was much older than the one standing in front of Johnathan, still confused.
“Thanks.” Johnathan hobbled over, he felt like he’d already been on his feet all day. Well, one foot and its alloy partner.
“No reason making you go through the trouble if you don’t have to. We still got these wands, might as well use them every now and again.” The older security guard was kind. His voice was warm and reassuring. It was a voice that spoke with graceful maturity instead of the warped bitterness of a too serious youth.
This was a man who loved and lived with the choices he’d made in life, even the bad ones. Johnathan stood in front of him. Glad to able to keep his arms at shoulder width, a living, albeit slightly ruined—and maybe one day happily so—Vitruvian man.
“Were you in the war?” asked the younger security guard. There was no one else in line, and so he had walked over to the thin red line to join them.
Johnathan gazed at him. Was he was wearing his OIF hat after all? No—he’d thrown it away a few months ago. This young Sherlock simply deduced Johnathan’s age and the obvious amputated leg and put two and two together, miraculously, and got it right, plain and tragic as it was.
“What?” Johnathan managed, blinking wildly to clear his thoughts.
“Don’t mind Erney. He’s a little soft in the head,” said the older security guard. The wand whined as it passed over Johnathan’s prosthetic.
“Just curious man. Don’t mean no offense. I’ve got a cousin that’s serving in Afghanistan. I think he’s in Bagram…or whatever the airbase is over there,” said the young man. He smiled as he talked, his pride hardly masked behind his freckle-faced ignorance.
Though Johnathan and this young security guard were perhaps not very far apart in age, Johnathan felt decades older. He looked at the man as he would a boy. Even his mannerisms and hideously obtuse questions seemed childlike. How could he berate him? It was slow going at the airport and he was probably no doubt bored, or maybe even worried about his deployed cousin. Johnathan could picture the yellow ribbon sticker, or if he’s fancy, magnet, stuck on the tail of this boy’s green Ford F-150. An American flag—somewhere, it was most certainly there on the cab of the truck, maybe even as the air freshener. The young guard probably went to his cousin’s sendoff party, but did not follow him to the gym staging area or tarmac.
When his cousin comes back, if his cousin comes back, he’ll want to take him out for some beers, but he’ll invite his own buddies to join them. Not dinner though. Most certainly he would attend the welcome home BBQ family get-together. He’ll talk with buds as if he were the one deployed. As if knowing someone who’s deployed comes with some kind of pseudo-glory. And then when the years pass he’d forget about his cousin altogether. But if his cousin does die, KIA as they say, this young, baby-faced Erney would most certainly get some kind of ink done and remember his name when talk of war and patriotism ever came up at bonfires or Fourth of July picnics. Because that’s the tragic irony of it all, isn’t it? We memorialize the dead, not the living.
“Yes, I was in Iraq,” Johnathan finally answered. The older guard was done with the wand and motioned him to collect his things.
“That’s cool, man. Thanks for your service.” Erney followed, standing beside Johnathan, thumbs hitched along the edge of his belt. He smiled as Johnathan collected his suitcase, travel bag, and cane. “My cousin is in the Airforce. Not sure what he does…something with finance, I think.”
POG, Johnathan thought instantly. He giggled, but did his best to mask it as a cough.
“When do you think they’ll be done over there?” asked the guard.
“Done?” Johnathan was gazing at the directional signs above, searching for where the bathrooms were so he could change into his jeans.
“Shoulda nuked that fucking country to begin with.”
“Um-huh.”
“How many of our brave men have we lost over them, excuse my language, fucking ragheads? Too many if you ask me. Tired of seeing this crap on TV, man, about some famous so-and-so maki
ng billions, and nothing about our boys in uniform. It’s…its…what’s the word?” The young man scratched his head.
“Tragic?” offered Johnathan, not really caring. He found his sign and started toward it.
“Yeah, tragic…” said Erney. “So, what about this Abu Ghraib mess going on? Do you think there’s a chance them troops will be acquitted?” called out the young guard.
Johnathan had almost reached the main hallway leading toward the terminals, cafés, restaurants, and the restrooms.
“No clue,” Johnathan called over his shoulder before the boy could ask anything else.
“I hope they do, buddy. It was all bullshit, anyhow. Have a safe flight.”
Johnathan did not stop. He kept moving. Any residual want for airport conversation burned away. If he talked with no one else this entire trip, he wouldn’t be sorry in the least. The conversation—was it really that or banter?—boiled in his mind. Afghanistan. Iraq. Home. And the ones that didn’t make it. Ricky. And now what? According to guys like Erney, now we’re seeing everything fought for and everything lost being flushed. Did it even matter? Does anything really matter?
Johnathan struggled to push away his thoughts, but they came all the same. He recalled the day his friend died when normal people typically recalled cheating on an exam or forgetting to do their taxes. Dread, guilt. The emotions came with the memories of Ricky’s death and the day Johnathan had lost his leg—lost…there’s that word again—and the smell of cooked skin…Ricky’s skin, the smell you’d associate with hair blowers set too high, with absolute apprehension. And then there was of course the Thing he saw before it all happened, the insect looking monster…Did I? Was it real…? Or maybe something…No…it wasn’t real, the Thing, the cicada looking freak was not real. It couldn’t have been. Like the wizard said, I’m manifesting the fantastic to mask my guilt for Ricky’s death…Bullshit, maybe. If I saw it, if it was real…? Goddamnit, leave it alone!
Johnathan slid into one of the stalls, found his jeans, and began to change. If It was real, why didn’t anyone else see it? Remember Ricky? Ricky didn’t see it…remember asking…and he looked and screamed, but it wasn’t because he saw the devil, it was because he saw the RPG…I know, I know, but still…what if…what if, what, Johnny-Boy? What if Santa is real, huh? You going to believe in devils, in giant bugs, then you might as well believe in the fucking tooth-fairy! He finished getting dressed, stuffing his basketball shorts into his luggage. The logo for Wounded Warriors beamed at him, the thread seemingly impossible white. He thought about opening his luggage, digging for his pills.
Feel worked up, Johnny-Boy? How’s about a delectable, egg-shaped benzodiazepine…no? Need something a little stronger? Feeling more blue than pink? Okay…
“You know, my cousin is deployed…Afghanistan, I think…” Erney’s voice echoed in his skull.
How about a couple Prozac’s? No. What about Zoloft? No, again?
“Shoulda nuked that fucking country to begin with…”
Okay, how about some tasty Paxil, sounds like we better go with the green 40mg one! No? Are you sure?
“How many of our brave men have we lost over them, excuse my language, fucking ragheads…?”
Hmm…I guess we’d better go with the copper-white Zyprexa. That’ll do the job for sure…or zombify you enough to think it’s doing the job. Either way, Johnny-Boy, you’ll get results.
Johnathan popped two of the green Paxils. He wanted to be numb, but not as numb as how the Zyprexa made him feel. He’d save those for after the Wounded Warrior conference at the D.C. VA Hospital. At the sink, he washed the cocktail down in two gulps of stale tap water. The taste of metal clung to the back of his throat. Maybe get a coffee before the flight…better make it decaf. He splashed some the cold water on his face, gazing at his reflection, and then left to find a Starbucks.
***
Johnathan braced himself against the counter feeling the full effects from the two Paxils he’d swallowed in the bathroom. The Starbucks, What do you call them? Coffee specialist? girl was pretty. She was young, with a firm body he minded not in the least to look at. She smiled as he ordered his tall decaf. He paid with cash.
“No change, please,” said Johnathan fighting off a yawn.
“Oh, thanks,” said the Starbucks girl dropping the coins into an otherwise empty cup beside the register. “You flying business or pleasure?” she asked, making small talk while pouring his decaf.
“Business. I don’t see how anyone could fly for pleasure.”
“Not a fan, huh?”
“Not really.”
“Is it the heights?”
“The heights and an overactive imagination.”
She smiled and handed him his tall decaf.
“Thanks,” he said, meeting her gaze.
“My pleasure. Have a safe flight,” said the Starbucks girl, her attention drawn to the next customer in line.
Johnathan hobbled with cane and coffee in hand over to an empty table and plopped in the chair. Despite the Paxil’s numbing effect, his stump still throbbed. He sipped and watched people passing by, trying not to think about high-altitude explosions, midair collisions, and the plane mysteriously coming apart, his seat bottoming out by some supernatural cause or another. No, Johnathan was most certainly not thinking about that. And he was not thinking about Iraq or Ricky.
The crowd flowed by with a strange mix of people only an airport could bring together under one roof. A white family of six, the parents carefully herding the mob of children toward whatever terminal they were flying out from. Each had a matching Texans jersey. Business types, with smart black and grey suits and slick shoes, expensive haircuts, and clean shaven faces, discrete pantyhose and flat-bottom shoes, walked with phones in hand, either pressed against the ear or held in front, texting. An Indian couple walked by, the man was plainly dressed in what Johnathan would consider ‘American’ clothes and the woman wore traditional clothing, a sari, colorful purple and silver draped along the contours of her body loosely.
Johnathan could see ear buds in her ears and wires leading to the smartphone in her hand. The music, whatever she was listening to, was inaudible. Another couple walked by. The man, dark skinned, wore faded jeans and red and white snickers, Johnathan couldn’t tell from where he sat. His shirt was also a mystery, but looked trendy. The woman, white, clung to him; their arms interloped around each other. She wore what he assumed to be her ‘comfy clothes.’ She reminded him of Karen. Whenever Karen traveled anywhere, she always wore a pair of Victoria’s Secret jogging pants, ‘Pink’ scribed across her nicely shaped assets, and some sort of loose fitting top, or a hoody.
As the couple passed the Starbucks where Johnathan sat, the woman rested her head on her companion’s shoulder. Johnathan suddenly missed his wife and his daughter very much and thought about calling home before his flight. What the heck does she do during the afternoon? Tabitha would still be in school. He was reaching for his phone when he spotted a soldier walking by in full ACU battle-rattle, Kevlar helmet, armor-vest, ammo packs stuffed to the brim with black and worn down gold magazine clips, Oakley’s, an M4 hung limp, attached from a screw lock, the stock collapsed. The soldier was alone, walking through the airport leaving black muddy footprints in his wake. No one seemed to notice except for Johnathan. Warm thoughts of Karen and Tabitha dissolved away into cold fear. Why is he walking around like that? Is something going on at the airport? Why is he here? Why? Why?
Johnathan stood up, forgetting his cane, coffee, and his bags he limped toward the soldier. He felt like in a dream, or trance. The room tilted as if some demi-god had rotated the world. The soldier looked around, searching, unsure. No one in the airport terminal noticed. Odd, Johnathan thought and continued toward him. The soldier’s face became clearer. Is that? No, no…can’t be, just can’t…Johnathan continued. The soldier stood motionless in the middle of the walkway. People passed him without looking, without seeing this strange sight standing alone in the airpo
rt. The soldier was scanning the area, looking, searching for someone. Johnathan reached him, touched his shoulder. The soldier flinched, as if disturbed by something painful, and then turned to face him. Johnathan froze. His soul, if he could even believe such a thing, screamed. The light in his eyes burned out. The lump in his heart that had resided there for the last year grew as heavy as lead. The beats became tired and strained. Johnathan looked into the face of his friend, Ricky, the dead member of the Suicide Squad club, the one who didn’t make it back. But he looks so alive! Real! Or does he? Johnathan looked closer. Ricky was pale and sickly blue, scorched black along one side, his left side. His uniform stunk horribly. Johnathan held his nose, eyes watering from the foul odor coming off his dead friend in fumes.
“Johnathan?” Ricky said.
“Ricky…how…?” Johnathan fought the lurching pull on his stomach.
“Johnathan, listen…you can’t…” Ricky’s voice faded.
Johnathan gazed miserably at his friend. “What…is it? How are you here?”
“Johnny-Boy don’t go…”
“What? Go where? I’m not going anywhere…look I’m sorry…I’m sorry for everything.” Tears came. Johnathan could not fight them, not this time.
“….don’t go…please tell Mags…tell her…” Ricky stood there physically in front of him, but his voice sounded miles away, like shouts carried across cold walls of a vast and empty room.
Johnathan reached for him again, felt the ruined uniform. He took him by the shoulders. “What?” he asked. “What? Tell Mags what, Ricky? What? I can barely understand you,” he shook.
Ricky said nothing. Bugs crawled from his mouth. Large, worm-like things slithered down his near charcoaled chin, dark and rich as deep soil. Centipedes with thousands of tiny antennae like legs, and other such muck leaving a path of mire dripping thickly onto his dead friend’s dust coated ACU vest.
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