“Come out with your hands up!” roared the speaker, but Danny’s voices laughed and turned their venom outward.
—Who the fuck do they think they are!
For one blissful moment, Danny had the illusion that he was leading his old company in a daring attack against the enemy. Armed with nothing but a U.S. Army ballpoint pen he had picked up off the counter, he charged at the first policeman to come through the door. He held his pen like a rifle, took aim, and then he tossed the pen to the officer and laughed.
BE ALL YOU CAN BE, said the pen.
6.8 Joe Kelly
Kelly’s parents had moved to New Jersey while he was overseas, and even though they greeted him with a banner over the door and arranged a gathering of neighbors, Kelly knew he didn’t belong there and the sooner he left, the better.
“I’ll bet you’re glad to be home,” said the people who came in the door carrying fragrant dishes and bottles of beer, and Kelly nodded and said he was.
“I’ll bet you’re glad to be home,” said a strong-looking girl who lingered in the entry, primly settling a cardigan around her shoulders and assessing the crowd.
Kelly was about to say he was, but then he changed his mind. It was one thing for a bunch of old people to drop by to have meaningless conversations with him, but the only reason a girl like that would do it was because someone had told her to or because she was desperate. He kind of liked the desperate ones. They made him feel like a trained sniper at an arcade game. When she started to walk off, he said in a low voice, “Scared of soldiers?”
“Not really.”
Game on, thought Kelly. “Well, I’m scared of big girls,” he said, smiling to show he was playing with her, drawing it out a little—respectful, but sure of himself, like if she didn’t want him now, he hoped she would change her mind. If he brought his A game, she might even end up thinking it was her idea. But where Kelly used to like to play the game straight through from “Hi, my name is Joe” to “Why didn’t you warn me you’re part tigress,” an inner restlessness prompted him to make the game more challenging by cutting right to the chase. He couldn’t see himself asking about her job or her family situation or giving her a bunch of meaningless compliments or making up some bullshit about his ambitions and goals, so he said, “You must be bored. Can I get you a drink or do you want to get straight to the sex?”
“What do you say we skip the drink and the sex and the wedding and the two kids,” said the girl, “and we go straight to where I run off with another man.”
“Shee-it,” said Kelly. She wasn’t desperate after all. “I must be losing my touch,” he said. He smiled, and the girl cracked a smile too, at first like she was humoring him according to the rules of her own game, but then with her eyes too, smiling for real. Just when they were beginning to understand each other, Joe Senior limped over with a bowl of chips and introduced them.
“This is Rita. She works down at the U-Haul with me. Her uncle runs the dealership.”
It was more than Kelly wanted to know. “Rita,” he said. “Ri-ta.”
“Joe,” she said.
Now that she had a name and a family and a reason for being there, the game was less interesting, and he started marking the exits and keeping his back to the wall just in case. Just in case a firefight broke out. Just in case insurgents stormed the living room. He laughed and said, “For a minute there, I thought I was back in Iraq.”
“That must be kind of weird,” she said.
It was the conversational cross talk that did it, and the crowded room, and his father, who was wobbling around grinning and making sure people were enjoying themselves. And it was New Jersey, with its potholes and smokestacks and rows of shabby brick houses, one of which was his home now even though he had never been there before in his life. Even the army was better than New Jersey. Even the fucking Bronx.
“I see you met Rita,” said someone Kelly didn’t know, and Kelly said he guessed he had.
“She works down at the U-Haul with your dad.”
A few minutes later someone else came by and said, “Say, Rita, have you met Joe?”
“What’s your name again?” asked Kelly, leaning in close enough to smell the musk of her hair. They had been introduced three times and he meant it as a joke, but Rita backed up a step and regarded him as if he was slow on the uptake or dangerous or possibly both, which was when he noticed she was marking the exits too.
“This isn’t a required event,” said Kelly. “Feel free to leave if you want to.” He had to admit he said it a touch brusquely, so to make up for it, he blurted out, “It’s just that you’re very, very hot.” But the sentences were out of sequence now, and lines that had always worked to flatter and spark now came off as aggressive and a little, well, desperate. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn the uniform,” he said in an obvious play for sympathy. “It changes things. It changes how people look at me.”
“I can only imagine,” said Rita.
“I can take it off and you can tell me if there’s a difference.”
“That’s a nice offer,” said Rita, “but maybe some other time.”
“I didn’t mean…I just meant I could change into jeans.”
Kelly’s mother came up with a tray of drinks, and Rita used the interruption to move toward the door. When Kelly turned around a moment later, she was gone.
“Shit, Mom. There you went and chased her off.”
“I’m sure you’ll see her again,” said Kelly’s mother. “Her name is Rita and she works with your dad down at the U-Haul.”
Kelly took one of the drinks and then another. It was some concoction his father had whipped up. It tasted like pineapple and coconut with something pink mixed in, but it carried a kick. By his third drink, the shabby house seemed to be disintegrating around him. What was he doing sleeping in a dingy little bedroom off the kitchen of his parents’ house? He was twenty-two years old. He was a man. He was a warrior, for Chrissakes. He could take any man in the room with his hands tied. Blindfolded with his hands tied. Blindfolded with his hands tied and bowling balls chained to his legs.
“How about tomorrow you look for a job,” said Joe Senior when everyone had gone.
Yeah, he could do that. Or he could hold up a bank and take what he needed without bungling the job the way his father had done. Or he could bungle it in the family tradition and go off to prison and come back fifteen years later and pretend everything was A-OK. He could vanish into thin air, kind of the way he had come. He could do all of those things or none of them. Suddenly he wanted to cry like a baby, and then crying was the last thing he wanted to do. Instead, he took a twenty out of his mother’s purse and headed out to see what people in the great state of New Jersey did for fun.
6.9 Penn Sinclair
When Penn left the library, the air was fresher than it had been, as if a storm had blown through or an oppressive haze had burned away. The sun was sharp and clean and the shadows were cool and blue, reminding him of his boyhood and hiding from the heat beneath the long veranda of the Greenwich house. Two privates were walking along the sidewalk smoking cigarettes. Every now and then one of them would stop to look around as if he wanted to take it all in: the traffic, the sooty buildings, the girls in summer dresses, the street vendors, the city smell. Recognizing military, they saluted when they saw him, and Penn saluted back.
“Where’re you headed?” he called out after them, but he said it too late and they didn’t hear him.
When he got back to Louise’s apartment, he was relieved to find it empty. After he showered and shaved, he stood in front of a long gilded mirror, dressed in a black T-shirt and new jeans, and tried to see himself as other people saw him, but he couldn’t. For the first time in months, hope stirred within him. Gone was the shame that had followed him everywhere since the incident and along with it, the impulse to study theories and avoid life. Gone too was the dense flock of misgivings that had pecked steadily at his insides as if he were Prometheus, sentenced to have his liv
er devoured by a giant eagle for bringing the fire of the gods to undeserving mortals. This was the way he used to feel after the snow began to melt and the crocuses and little stubs of grass poked through. He had been waiting for months for someone to tell him that everything was going to be okay, and now the news about redemption was his to tell and spread.
Louise came home a little while later. “Did you get the job?” she called down the narrow hallway. He could hear the liquid rustle of her jacket against the silk of her blouse as she took it off and hung it on a hook in the vestibule. “I’ve just discovered something. Do you want to know what it is?”
“I’ve discovered something too.” Penn could hear her opening the refrigerator and setting something on a shelf.
“It’s actually really good news for you,” called Louise.
After considering whether to share his news or listen to hers first, Penn said, “What did you discover?”
“Come out here and I’ll show you.”
“In a minute. Just tell me.” He had left the television tuned to CNN, and in the background, the six o’clock anchors talked crisply of world events. For days the news had been filled with the case of Ehren Watada, who was the first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq on conscientious grounds and whose case was making its way through the military courts. Penn strained to listen to the story over the sound of Louise’s heels clicking against the polished floor, but he lost the thread.
“I’ve discovered costume jewelry!” she called from the bathroom. “I never understood it before, but now I do.”
The next story was about collusion between the government and the media and the blurred line between news and propaganda. Was his crime not just that he had failed to properly lead his men but that he had thought he could lead them at all in such murky circumstances? Was Watada a coward or was he insanely brave to risk being called about the worst thing Penn could think of? The questions swirling through Penn’s mind had given him the idea that he could partly make up for his mistakes by helping Watada or someone like him. That he could do something to clear away the fog and tell the truth about the war. Louise’s voice floated toward him: “Just wait until you see!” He would help Watada, and if he could help his men in the process…He didn’t know yet what he would do, but it wouldn’t be theoretical help. It would be practical and real, and nothing Louise or anyone else said or did would stop him.
When Louise walked into the bedroom, his clothing was stacked in neat piles on the bed next to his open duffel, but she didn’t see it at first. “It’s really fabulous, and it’s so cheap,” she said, striking a pose that showed off the strings of colorful baubles draped around her neck. “You’ll never have to give me anything measured in carats again!” She caught herself and laughed. “Or, well, almost never.” Then her eyes swept the room and she saw the piles of folded clothing.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” said Penn when Louise sat down next to the duffel and started to cry. He was reminded of what he loved about her—her sincerity, her elegance, her pleasure in new things. Even when she was crying, her skin was like porcelain, her eyes like glass. But he and Louise were like trains traveling in opposite directions—either they passed each other safely by or they met and destroyed each other.
“Obviously it’s you,” she said.
The tears threatened to give way to anger, but Penn had nothing more to say. The knot in his stomach was back, tense and ticking. He knew it wouldn’t go away as long as he and Louise kept each other trapped inside old versions of themselves.
Louise raised her damp eyes. Behind the tears was a smoldering clot of questions, as if she too housed a ticking mechanism and she was waiting for him to either set it off or snuff it out. Penn was sorry for so many things. “I’m sorry, Louise,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.” He could see her deciding whether to continue to cry or to shout at him, but her indecision lasted longer than usual, as if she finally understood about more than costume jewelry. He felt sorry for her, but the good thing was, he no longer felt sorry for himself.
Penn tracked Le Roy Jones down at a computer repair shop. Le Roy found Hernandez in a veterans’ database, and Hernandez had the number for Kelly’s parents’ house in New Jersey. Kelly had Danny Joiner’s number, but Danny wasn’t answering his phone.
Penn explained his idea of going to Seattle to support Watada. “Or we can do something else that will expose some of the lies about the war.”
“You can count me in,” said Kelly. “I don’t have anything better to do.”
“Or there’s a protest in Washington, DC,” said Penn. “What do you say we go to that?”
6.10 Danny Joiner
Danny arranged his uniform carefully on a hanger. After everything was in order, he noticed a thread hanging from the sleeve of the jacket, so he rummaged through the kitchen drawers for a pair of scissors, worried that Dolly would come home for lunch and surprise him. It was nearly noon. He had hidden the prescription bottles deep in the bathroom trash. If she thought he was sleeping, she would leave him alone, but if she saw the contents of the kitchen drawer in disarray, she might come into the bedroom to wake him up. He shouldn’t leave the uniform out either. If she came into the room, it would arouse her suspicion. He could put it on, but he worried that was disrespectful. Instead, he straightened the kitchen drawer. He tipped over the trash to make sure the two amber pill containers were all the way down at the bottom. Then he looked under the pillow to see if the locket his mother had given him was there.
—Why wouldn’t it be there?
He didn’t know why, but why had he been diagnosed with personality disorder? Why were Iraqis killing Americans, or was it the other way around? Why was Pig Eye dead and why didn’t he stay that way? Why did the postmaster insist on saluting whenever Danny went into the post office, and why did poor people keep voting to give rich people all of their money and their lives?
It seemed a shame to hang the uniform in the closet where he couldn’t see it, so he hung it on the back of the closet door. Then he pushed the discarded toothpaste tube and the wads of Kleenex aside to look for the two pill containers—just to make sure they were there—and then he covered them up again so they couldn’t be seen by anyone who was casually glancing in the direction of the wastebasket.
The contents of the kitchen drawer were as neat as a pin, but were they too neat? Before joining the army, Danny had been the messy one, but now it was Dolly who scattered things here and there. He decided that the neatness of the drawer would worry her. Just the other day she had called him a neatnik and made a comment about obsessive-compulsive disorder. “If only I had that,” he had told her. “Maybe that would be covered by the plan.”
Yes, the locket was there—at first he didn’t see it because it had slipped inside the pillowcase, so he slid it out again and tucked it farther toward the middle of the bed before fluffing the pillows over it. Then he went into the kitchen to mess up the drawer slightly—just enough so that it looked like Dolly had straightened it instead of him. Dolly didn’t care if the knives with the red handles and serrated blades were mixed in with the butter knives. Then he switched on the closet light to check the uniform for dust and stray threads and the bathroom light to check the wastebasket again before turning both lights off. Off or on? It hadn’t occurred to him to consider which was better. It was possible neither was better, but if one had even the slightest advantage, then that’s the way he wanted it. Everything as right as he could make it, even if he couldn’t make it perfect, which he realized with deep regret that he couldn’t. He knew that sometimes both options were good and sometimes neither was, but in either case, you had to choose.
As Danny considered this, his eyes strayed to the window, which admitted a rich band of late-summer sunlight into the room. Everything happens for a reason, he thought, for the sideways glance at the window was enough to convince him that natural light was eons better than artificial light, especially since Dolly had switched all of the light
bulbs over to compact fluorescents, which weren’t as soothing as incandescent. Not that he really believed everything happened for a reason. Some things just happened—what possible reason could he give for what he had done to Pig Eye and what he was about to do to himself? He believed in chaos, which might partly explain the OCD, which he decided he probably had, not that it made a difference now.
The ice had melted in the glass of water, so he thought about going to the kitchen and replacing it. Cold water would taste good, but why did it matter? He should get a fresh glass because he wanted to do things right. He also wanted to be kind to himself the way everyone he talked to said he should. It was too bad the melting ice made the glass sweat. The condensation would drip on the table and leave a stain. But then he told himself that nature wasn’t bad or good and that if he was going to try to change the actual physics of things, he was setting himself up for failure. Failure, he thought, and then he laughed.
It was 12:30. If Dolly were going to come home for lunch, she would have been there by now, so it was a pretty safe bet that she wouldn’t be home until after five—later if she stopped at the store. He had plenty of time to check for the two amber pill containers, but this time he found, buried underneath a folded piece of cardboard that he had thought was the bottommost piece of trash, a receipt from an expensive shop and a third container, the little round dispenser of the birth control pills Dolly used. When he peered down into the very depths of the trash can, he saw that the dispenser still contained some of the little pink pills, so he removed it, thinking they must be the placebos the manufacturer added on to the end of the month because it was easier to take a pill every day than to take them three weeks on, one week off. Just in case she had thrown it away inadvertently, he set it on the countertop where she would see it. As he did so, he counted more than seven days of sugar pills—almost half the pills were there. Why would Dolly throw away the medication she relied on? Was she trying to deceive him by getting pregnant without asking him first? Was she already pregnant, and if she was pregnant, was the baby his?
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