King tapped Becca’s leg and she flinched. But then she saw that he’d raised his hand and was giving her a thumbs-up. Slowly, she raised her hand to return the gesture. The wind battered her arm like a twig, as if it would shake the very skin from her bones, blow her fingernails out of their nail beds. She gripped the armrests again and focused on her breathing. And, just then, King slowed. The shift was small, but Becca’s relief was indescribable. It was like King had sensed her terror. Thank you, Dad, she thought. Thank you for keeping me alive.
King had found his stride. If she didn’t resist the wind and the speed, if she let herself become part of the bike, she could skim the road’s surface and, like a sailboat, glide. For the first time, Becca held up her head and looked around. She took in the smooth green quilt of pasture and the fields of alfalfa, the cows freckled across the hills. She felt something well inside of her and realized it was joy. It was, it seemed, a perfect day to ride.
Around five that evening, the trio rode into Memphis and crossed the Mississippi River. Reno sped by, his legs stretched out straight like a little kid racing downhill on a bicycle, daring gravity. Becca pushed up the face guard on her helmet and gulped down mouthfuls of wind, each draft filling her with lightness. They weren’t quite halfway across the river when she looked down the bridge and imagined she saw Ben standing at the far end, grinning. She’d been here before—the familiarity was powerful—though she couldn’t think when or how. And it didn’t matter anyway, because soon the motorcycle had gobbled up the last few feet of bridge and hit land. They’d reached Arkansas, and there was nothing but road ahead.
PART II
* * *
AWOL
December 13, 1975
Dear Willy,
I have come to believe that certain anniversaries—holy days, if you will—deserve a formal commemoration. Sad as it may be, your story will never appear in the history books. It will never be cataloged by scholars, or published in journals, or immortalized by poets. This is wrong, Willy. It’s unjust. It’s enough to make a man grow angry . . . But that is not Durga’s way. So instead, I have decided to mark this holy day by writing your story. Which is my own story. Which is, above all, the story that Durga herself put in motion.
I will begin with December of 1969, that irreversible slash in time after which neither I nor the war I’d been fighting was ever the same. Before you, of course, everything was awful. I was on my second tour. This time around, I’d spent months sloshing through the Mekong Delta swamps, up to my knees in stinking water, shooting blind through the mosquito haze. Though our squad lost three in the swamps, we somehow managed to distinguish ourselves. The leadership said we’d displayed uncommon heroism and bravery, and as a reward, they were promoting us—me, Reno, and King—and tapping us for something special. The next thing we knew, we’d been transferred to a Civilian Irregular Defense Group camp—a CIDG—near the Cambodian border. Then for months, we saw no action at all, just built barracks and surveillance posts. In the neighboring Montagnard village, we put up a school and taught the tribesmen to shoot. We handed out C rations to local kids in exchange for back rubs. It didn’t matter that no amount of beer could wash the fetid taste of swamp water from my mouth. I’d developed my routine: drink too much, sit up on patrol, try not to think.
And then one morning, you arrived. You sat in the major’s office, this skinny kid with an acne-blasted face and lashes so dark and thick, you looked like you had on makeup. You were eighteen, nineteen tops. I remember thinking: No way this kid’s ever been laid.
The major introduced you as “Private Wilfred Owen McKenzie, anthropologist.” He said we were pulling a mission the next week and that you were coming with. “Willy Owen,” you said and stuck out your hand to shake mine. Your fingers were pale and your skin seemed translucent. I noticed your hands were trembling.
Reno’s mouth was wide open and King had this slack-jawed look, like you might be a mirage. I thought: No way in hell am I going to let some Fucking New Guy get my men killed. Of course, the major knew exactly what was on my mind and tried to set me straight. He said you’d been through basic, reported you were a decent shot. Normally, I trusted the major. He was experienced, a picture of confidence, straight as a pencil, his head squared off like a worn-down eraser. But right then, I was feeling a whole lot of panic.
The major waved his hand over a map on his desk, loosely identifying a village called Li Sing. “Some minority related to the Cham lives there,” he said. “You know the Cham?”
Of course we didn’t know the motherfucking Cham.
“They’re Hindus or Muslims or some kind of mix,” the major said. And then he looked at you for confirmation.
“Yes, sir,” you said, your voice shaking as bad as your fingers. You swallowed so hard, your Adam’s apple practically shot up into your chin.
“Headquarters suspects the people of Li Sing have important intel. Private McKenzie’ll explain. This map came with him, direct from HQ.”
That night in the mess, you told us that you spoke seven languages, had gone to college at sixteen, and had read Homer in the original. (I was impressed, Willy. I’d always considered myself something of a scholar. Growing up, I had a shelfful of books they don’t even think about giving you in high school. But advertising your brains out here, to these men? That was a big mistake.) In any case, you told us that three months before, an army colonel had arrived at the university where you were studying the anthropological and linguistic origins of indigenous Cambodian tribes. Apparently, you were the only American the army could find whose linguistic skills might let him communicate with the people of Li Sing. The colonel gave you a patriotic spiel, but you were already in; you’d do anything to see Li Sing with your own eyes.
But here’s what you didn’t tell us, Willy. Only forty-eight hours after you landed in-country, snipers attacked your convoy. They killed the private sitting next to you, the bullets blowing blood and shreds of skin onto your face. You sat like that, beside a dead man, for the thirty minutes it took to reach a medical facility. You were the Fucking New Guy and you’d been fucked over real good. That’s why your fingers were shaking. When the major told me this, I thought: Well, maybe he was a good shot in basic, but not anymore.
Currahee!
CO Proudfoot
5
BEN WALKED IN the dark. He’d wasted no time after Reno abandoned him, just headed down the road according to the directions on his arm. He was too exhausted to hate, too tired to think. Periodically, he felt a tug at his waist, like he was pulling something along the road. But whenever he turned, he saw nothing. When he touched his bruised eye, a swampy, queasy feeling overtook him. But he couldn’t leave it be. He’d never been sucker-punched before. Congratulations, Benjamin, he thought. At last, you’re a man.
Ben walked down the center of the road, wary of the shadowy woodland around him. The Smokies were cooler than Dry Hills and he wondered how far into the mountains Reno had taken him. He needed a couple of beers to dull his throbbing face, settle his stomach, and clear the fog from his head. He doubted the county was actually dry, but it didn’t matter. He was alone. Nobody for miles.
As dawn broke, the wall of shadow dissolved. Red and silver maples appeared, clustered among hornbeam and yellow birch. The thickness and freshness of it all, the mesmerizing color—Ben had forgotten such lushness existed. He left the road and tromped toward the forest, not minding the dampness of the long grass that seeped into his shoes. At the base of a maple he stopped and placed his hand against the sap-stained bark. There, on his finger, a gold band. It seemed impossible that he’d spent all those months in Iraq without it. Ben pressed his palm harder against the mottled trunk, as though to intentionally drive splinters into his skin. How had he ended up out here, so far from her?
He made himself walk back to the road. He was nervous, wanted to crawl on his belly to avoid bullets that at any moment could come whizzing from the trees. You’re not crazy, he told himself. So you
won’t act crazy. He felt better once he reached the pavement.
By ten a.m., Ben moved in a full-blown haze of dehydration and nausea. Pinkish-red light poured from a gash in the sky, and sometimes, when he looked at the road, he saw the sticky black floor of Corporal Coleman’s Humvee. Shortly after noon, he passed a sign that read Sparta, Population 3,046.
A few hundred feet on, Ben came to a gas station with an attached convenience store. Beside it sat an auto shop and, beyond that, two Airstreams. Shiny and silver, they seemed to hover like blimps. About twenty yards back was an impressive junkyard of old automobile parts, lawn mowers, television sets, dishwashers, scrap metal, tires, and wood stacked under blue tarps. It was the most orderly junkyard Ben had ever seen, the items arranged in rows according to color and size. A sign on the chainlink fence read Last Chance Garage and Junkyard. Reno Caruso, Proprietor. Below this in letters that were comically small: Miles Swanson, Apprentice. Ben entered the convenience store and headed straight for the refrigerators. Not a beer in sight.
He grabbed a bottle of water and drank greedily. Then he opened a bag of chips. When nobody came to take his money, he headed out in search of Miles. Classical music floated from the garage. Ben walked in and let out a relieved sigh. At last, the Death Star.
“You’re Ben?” said a soft voice. “I’m Miles.”
The man who appeared quite suddenly resembled a desiccated cornstalk. He wore khaki coveralls, and his sloping forehead was topped with a dandelion puff of brown hair. “Reno do that to your face?” Miles asked and barked a loud, awkward laugh. His gaze was fixed midway between Ben’s bruised eye and his earlobe. His left hand trembled against his leg. Something off about this one, thought Ben.
“Reno said to get you some food. Come on.” Miles led Ben into one of the Airstreams. It was a tidy little compartment. Ben noted a cluster of yellow wildflowers in a vase, checkered curtains, and a photograph of a pretty young woman.
“Nice place,” Ben said.
“Thanks. I’m happy enough with it.” Miles opened cupboards and gathered glasses and plates. His hand continued to shake. He glanced over his shoulder and motioned for Ben to sit down. “This place used to be a real pigsty. But I realized that I was letting the sick tell me what to do instead of the other way around.” Miles pulled a bowl of chicken salad from the fridge. He put a few slices of white bread on the plates, poured iced tea into Ben’s glass. He did all of this with his right hand. “I thought you’d rather eat something fresh. You know, instead of that crap we sell at the gas station.”
Ben pulled out his wallet and offered to pay for the water and chips, but Miles shook his head. He nodded at the lunch items. Ben made himself a sandwich, but the mayonnaise turned his stomach. “I really should get going—” he began, but Miles interrupted him.
“So what’s your story, Ben?” he asked, and then, without giving Ben a chance to answer, he launched into his own personal history. “Before I came here, I was on the street in Chattanooga. And before the street, I was in a shelter. And before the shelter, I was in a house in Chattanooga and working at Hardee’s. Prior to that I was at Fort Benning. And before that I was in Fallujah and Nasiriyah. And then,” Miles said, scratching his balding crown, “let’s see, before that, I guess I was just a regular kid living outside Macon, Georgia, and going to high school. My wife and I were both JROTC. We were high-school sweethearts. More iced tea?”
Ben held out his glass. “So your wife is in the service?” he asked, thinking too late of the Airstream’s narrow bed and lack of feminine objects.
Miles nodded, then shook his head. “I was pretty shook up after she died,” he said. “You know, because I’d been stationed in the same place only a few months before. It was like she was walking in my footsteps. Only I walked out and she didn’t.”
Ben had imagined what it would be like to have Becca in Iraq with him. He’d sometimes envisioned himself standing outside the COP and her suddenly jumping from a Humvee shouting, “Gotcha!” But these daydreams quickly turned dark. As he thought of burying his face in her hair and breathing her in, he’d start to panic. He’d picture bullets flying into her small body, flinging her to the ground. He’d picture her eyes dead and open to the sky.
“I’ve got steady work now,” Miles continued. “I was lucky to meet Reno. He helped me get my disability. And there are nice people in Sparta. Even with the Vietnam and Korean guys fighting over me. The VFW and American Legion are across the street from each other, and I’m stuck in this tug o’ war between them.”
“What do you mean?” Ben shifted uncomfortably. Now that he’d learned about Miles’s wife, he felt stuck, obliged to listen.
“Vietnam guys refuse to set foot in the VFW ever since one of the Korean vets told Reno that he wasn’t welcome there.”
“Did Reno get in a fight?”
“No, sir. See, the VFW is for veterans of foreign wars, and this one guy from Korea told Reno that his war didn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because Congress never made it official.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Everybody wants his truth to matter, I guess.”
“You’d think these guys could find some common ground,” Ben said.
“You mean like you and me feel common ground with marines?”
Miles had a point. And yet. If you’d been fired at, you’d been fired at. Who cared if the conflict in which said firing occurred had been authorized by Congress?
“So what’s your story?” Miles asked.
“Well, I served in—”
“No.” Miles shook his head. “I mean what happened that our friend Reno sent you out here? You’d think since he’s so much shorter . . . but his fist is like a rock.”
Ben wondered how many people Reno had punched in recent months. “I was trying to talk to my wife. I guess he didn’t want me doing that.”
Miles nodded. “You were angry? And drunk?”
“Yes.” Ben looked directly at Miles, tried to make the guy hold his gaze. “But I would never hurt her.” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to explain himself to a man who was as busted as the junk he lived next door to. Looking at Miles, Ben realized that he, Sergeant Benjamin Thompson, was doing pretty well for himself. “So can I have my keys?” he asked.
Miles shook his head. “Reno gave me instructions. Not till you’re okay to drive. When was the last time you slept?”
Ben couldn’t remember.
“You can rest here, no problem,” Miles said. “I even made up the bed for you.”
Ben did not like this option, but what could he do? “Just a catnap.” He picked up his plate to rinse it and realized that he’d finished the sandwich. When had that happened?
“I’ll just be in the shop,” Miles said and left the Airstream. Ben lay down on the bed and set his watch alarm for one hour. Miles wasn’t so bad, he decided. He was only following orders.
6
KATH KELLER STOOD on her front porch waiting for the wind to carry the sound of growling engines to her ears. She looked calm, as always, her plump body draped in a simple tunic, her face serene as a mountaintop monk’s. But inside, Kath was full of trouble. It wasn’t just that she’d spent the morning wearing an executioner’s mask and wielding a fiery torch. (Kath made sculptures from gun shells and kitchen appliances and told gullible tourists—usually Northerners—that the pieces were statements about the military-industrial complex.) Today, the trouble was about her niece. Only a month married, Becca was already running from her husband, on her way here.
“Well, isn’t this a sight!” Kath said when the bikes finally crested the hill and parked in front of her cabin. She enveloped her niece in an embrace that smelled of cake flour and solder. “Rebecca Keller—er, is it Thompson now?—whatever caused you to join ranks with these barbarians?” She nodded at King and Reno.
“A lovers’ tiff,” Reno said.
Kath studied her niece. She saw how hard Becca was struggling to k
eep her expression even, saw the panic twitching like muscle spasms under the girl’s skin. Whatever was going on, King had not one clue about how to fix it, so he’d simply chosen to deposit the problem with her. Not so fast, big brother, she thought and smoothed Becca’s short hair. “Men are swine, honey,” she said aloud. “Young men . . .” She paused and cocked her head toward Reno and King. “And old men.”
“So nice to see you too, Kath,” Reno said.
“No love for me?” King butted in.
“How is your heart, King? You still taking your explosives?” Among King’s many medications were angina pills, hard nitroglycerin tablets he sucked on like candy. “And that belly!” Kath exclaimed. “King, honey, you know your heart and your stomach are connected, right? Reno, are you endorsing this mad-ass trip?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What’s mad-ass?” Becca asked.
It was like the wind had died. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked at her.
“Reno was the one who insisted we stop at McDonald’s,” King said quickly. “And for the record, I had a salad.”
“Kath, you know your brother does what he wants.”
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