The Sentimentalists

by Johanna Skibsrud

  He dropped a lot of acid when he was in high school, so when he walks into the building that’s what he thinks is happening; his mind has been fucking disturbed, and here’s the payoff. A great big German Shepherd dog, the head so large that it looks like the picture’s all scrambled, who leaps at him, lashing itself against its chain. Somebody in the far corner of the room throws something at it. Napoleon can’t see what it is that gets thrown, but whatever it is the dog doesn’t notice at first either, and lunges again at Napoleon to the end of the chain. Then he gets lurched back, and falls and only then notices what it is that’s been thrown. He picks up the object and starts licking away at it, his bright teeth showing, lips curled. It’s dim in there, and Napoleon picks his way carefully, only a little forward, and then asks the first guy he sees. “Excuse me, sir – I’m looking for Haskell.” His eyes haven’t adjusted at this point, but when they do he realizes he didn’t need to use that “sir.” It’s just a kid, no older than himself, and smaller. With pimples on his face.

  The kid shouts, “Haskell?” and someone else asks – Napoleon thinks it’s the bone-thrower – “Looking for Haskell? Officers’ mess.”

  “Officers’ mess,” the kid repeats, turning.

  “Hey,” Napoleon says, “wait.” He doesn’t say “sir” this time. He just grabs at the kid’s sleeve. “Aren’t you going to tell me where the fuck the Officers’ mess is?” He has noticed just how much bigger he is than the kid. Why the hell is everyone making him feel so small?

  “Oh – yeah,” the kid says, and he’s embarrassed now in front of Napoleon. Or so Napoleon flatters himself. And then he gives him the directions to the mess. Napoleon has to keep reminding himself to pay attention; to listen to the kid. His mind wants to drift away from him, anywhere. He thinks now, for example, that this is the way it has to be – a question of attitude. That he can get through anything if he just remembers that. He should have said something to those jerks in the truck, even.

  He’d have to work on that. Because there was no way he was going to survive here if he was just going to let any small asshole push him around. That feeling in the truck, for example. Then the disproportionate fear that he had felt when he first saw that dog. (Now curled up. Gnawing quietly on the bone). That would kill him before anything.

  That’s what he’d been doing for the last six months – his basic training out in California – being pushed around. No wonder he hadn’t felt like himself. That he had felt instead all loose and out of sorts, like he was only his shirt, without his body inside, being whipped around in a washing machine. But over here, man … things felt different, it was like the fucking Wild West out here. There were no boundaries at all, no lines, or limits, but then of course, he’s AWOL right now, he reminds himself. No wonder he feels this way.

  He makes his way over to the Officers’ mess. Every minute he expects to look up and see Clark there, with a big grin on, but he doesn’t see him until he gets into the hall. Until he stands at the entrance, lets his eyes adjust and looks around. That’s when he sees a long table about twenty yards back where four or five other guys are gathered, talking quietly.

  He wishes that his brother would look up and see him and come over, like he’s been expected. All of a sudden it seems too much for Napoleon, to walk over there himself, to open his mouth, to call out: “Clark!”

  That sound would be like a crow calling if he let it out of his mouth right now.

  An officer passes by him in the entrance. “You lookin’ for somethin’?” he says. Napoleon shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. Then nods in Clark’s direction. “My brother –” he says. And the officer (not too much older than Napoleon) says, “You Haskell’s brother?”

  He’s got an old face, though, the officer. The kind of face where you can tell exactly just what kind of middle-aged man he’ll be. (Balding, a little tired, but nonetheless pleasant looking. Professorial. The kind of bald man ladies like.) Napoleon nods and then he grins, even though he doesn’t want to.

  “Ohhh! Oh yeah!?” The professor guy says, “Well, nice to meet you.” He sticks out his hand, which Napoleon takes, and as he’s shaking it the professor waves with his other hand over to the table where Clark’s sitting. “Hey, Haskell,” he says, “your brother’s here.”

  Clark looks up then, toward the professor, and toward Napoleon, both of whom are still standing, facing one another with their hands clasped. Napoleon sees Clark’s face and how at first it’s incredulous, and then it’s pleased. He does, he really does look pleased. But first, before that, there’s a surprise like he thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him. But then his brain adjusts and takes it all in: the professor and his kid brother, who last he heard was still in basic training out in California, and then he gets up from the table and strolls over to meet them. Napoleon just stands there, waiting.

  When Clark gets within an arm’s length, he stretches out his hand toward Napoleon and Napoleon grasps it in both of his. “Hey, buddy,” Clark says.

  “Hi!” says Napoleon.

  Then, after what seems like a very long time they sit down. Someone has gone to get both of them a beer. Napoleon tells Clark some things, but he tells them all out of order. About his training. Leaving out how much he hated it. Everything about it – the base, the entire State of California. About the last time he saw their parents. Leaving out how his mother had clung to him and wet his shirt and said, I wish you were a university man. How she’d then looked angrily at his father who was standing like a post in his too-big jacket with the collar standing up so that it acted like a shield to the wind and obscured part of his face. How she’d said to him, why couldn’t I have raised two university men? How his father had reached out and tugged at her arm, tugged her away from him, a little more fiercely than was nice. A little more fiercely, to be fair, than he probably had wanted to tug her away. How Napoleon was unable to see if his father was really angry or not because his face was mostly shielded by the high collar. But then how, when his father did approach, he could see that his face was set into a tight line that, if it tended toward anything, tended toward cheer. How he extended his hand to his son, and how Napoleon had taken it, but limply, and then, after thinking for a moment, how the father had taken up the son very briefly in his arms in an attempt at an embrace. One that fell, however, so short of intimacy that for Napoleon the gesture rather emphasized instead of bridged the divide. “Don’t get yourself into any trouble,” his father had said, and turned away, taking his mother with him.

  It doesn’t take them long to finish the beer. And it doesn’t give Napoleon much to talk about, leaving all that stuff out. Clark doesn’t seem to have a lot to say either. It’s hot, and both of them seem thirsty. Clark just nods and nods again, as Napoleon speaks, and then he introduces him to the few men that are sitting around them at the table, and then he stands up, his beer drained. Napoleon stands up too after a few seconds. Clark stretches his hand out over the table and takes Napoleon’s up in his. The table is too fat to have second thoughts and close the handshake in an embrace. Instead, Clark bangs the side of Napoleon’s shoulder with his other, flat and open, hand. “Well, soldier,” he says, “I guess you’d better get back to your unit.”

  Napoleon thinks everybody is looking at them. He feels uncomfortable. Then confused. Like he’s forgotten things. He looks around for his bag. “Oh, well, fuck, okay, I’m out,” he says, giving his shoulders a shrug.

  Then he gives his brother as firm a shake and a squeeze on the hand as he can, and turns and walks the hell out of there.

  It’s not too hard to find a ride back to Danang, and then he gets into the right vehicle and heads to his unit. He tries to feel good, and brave, like he did on the plane or like he did when he told that kid not to walk away from him, but instead he feels mostly sick to his stomach now. The beer started it, then maybe the drive. He feels nauseous and cramped up, like he hasn’t shit for a year. Also, his tiredness seems to crash down all around him suddenly. He has
a splitting headache.

  The following of orders is some comfort now. No one requires anything of him, after all, except for the movement of his body from one place to another, and he is still, if vaguely, capable of that.

  “Wait over there,” a man tells him and Napoleon gets his body up and walks it over into a corner of a low building which is not unlike the low metal building he’d been in earlier in the day.

  As an experiment, he tries to pick the body’s foot up, and does so. Then he puts it down.

  He is issued a rifle, and puts his name in red tape on the butt of it in the way that he is told. Then somehow he finds a way to ask for a bathroom. They tell him just wait, but he says he really can’t wait anymore, and he’s told to wait again. He shrugs, but is worried. He goes back to the butt of the rifle, smoothing his name. Finally someone shows him to an outdoor privy and he goes in there and sits down on the hot seat and lets his bowels go and it’s such a relief that he cries too, because he forgets which part of him he’s supposed to be letting go. He gets them all mixed up together, and then he realizes what a mess he is, sitting there, shitting and crying, and he hits his hand on his head several times as hard as he can and says, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” and then realizes that the kid (just another enlisted guy like himself ) who showed him to the privy is still standing outside the door, which is thin, waiting to take him back again. He’s embarrassed in remembering that, and finishes up as quickly as he can.

  When he comes out, he doesn’t say anything to the other guy and just follows him back inside.

  He finds, then, that they’re standing in a row, and he is side by side with all the rest of the new guys, and there’s a big old Gunny coming down the line, and then he’s nearer and nearer, saying, “Who’s Haskell?” His name sounds very deep and mean. Damn, he thinks, and doesn’t answer for a minute. But then he realizes that that’s not going to work: he’s just smeared his name onto the butt of his gun.

  “Who’s Haskell?” The gunnery sergeant barks out again, and so he admits it. He steps out of the line, and salutes. “Haskell, sir,” he says.

  “You,” the Gunny says. “Sergeant asks you to report. Roberts here’ll take you.” Napoleon has a whole pile of freshly issued gear beside him, but they say don’t worry about that, and he’s not really worried about that, so he leaves and just follows this other guy inside again. His stomach cramps. Also he’s thinking, Damn damn damn. I’m fucking caught now. I’m fucking in for it now.

  “You Haskell?” this Sergeant says to Napoleon.

  “Yes, sir,” says Napoleon.

  “Relation to Clark Haskell, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Napoleon says, “Clark’s my brother, sir.”

  The Sergeant belts out a short laugh and comes out from around the desk to slap Napoleon on the shoulder. “I’m pleased,” he says. “You can tell your brother that. Pleased to have you in my unit.” He pauses. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, and takes a close look at Napoleon. “Yep,” he says, “I see it. See the familial resemblance. You as fine a man as your brother?” Pause. “What?”

  “Well, I don’t know, sir,” Napoleon says.

  He gets another slap on the arm. “Let’s try that again,” the Sergeant says. “You as fine a man as your brother?”

  He’s not really mad, though. At least Napoleon doesn’t think he is.

  “Uh –” the Sergeant doesn’t give him enough time, though, and jumps in. “The answer,” he says, “as for almost everything, is Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir,” Napoleon says.

  “Well, good,” the Sergeant says back. Then he chuckles and moves back behind his desk. He lays his big flat hands on the big flat desk, and leans back in his bendable chair. “Never met a finer officer, myself,” he says, “as that particular Haskell: your brother.” Again he pauses, looking off into the space of the room, as if actually that other Haskell’s presence is more real to the Sergeant in that moment than the Haskell which has recalled him to mind. The one who’s actually there, really present, swaying a little, and attempting to concentrate on what is happening to him, and what the Sergeant is saying, and how he should be acting toward him.

  “I look forward,” the Sergeant says finally, “to seeing the same kind of man in you. I’m sure you have a lot in common.” He looks up at Napoleon with these words. He looks up at him quite kindly, and smiles.

  “I hope I won’t disappoint you, sir,” Napoleon says. And that starts the man up again. He leans back further in his bendable chair, in a caricature of repose, and it must be a funny story that he’s telling because his eyes are all lit up and grinning, his big teeth showing. He’s a handsome man. He has light, arched eyebrows and very clear, fair skin, like a boy’s. Though now, around his eyes and mouth, it has articulated itself as finally quite separate from his features, creasing into a spray of small, independent lines. The pronouncement of his square chin gives his face an added air of authority. Napoleon wishes he had a chin like that one, and maybe because he wishes this he misses all but the tail end of the Sergeant’s story. His nod, he hopes, is sufficient enough reply.

  Something about a bet – a gentleman’s agreement – and then the Sergeant says, bringing things to a close, “and never in my life, never in all my life, have I known a man to throw a grenade so far.”

  The encounter is over after that, and Napoleon is led back to the yard, after a firm handshake from the Sergeant. The yard has been vacated now. Napoleon picks up all of his recently issued gear, but can’t get a real good method down of holding it all. It seems awkward, and things keep slipping around as he walks. He has to keep asking the soldier, who leads him to the barracks that he’s been assigned, to stop because of this, and in those moments he shifts the positions of the things in his hands.

  4

  One day my father accompanied me out in Henry’s boat. I went ahead of him, down to the dock, and he walked, very slowly, behind. Every ten or twelve steps he would pause to breathe, his chin tucked in close to his chest. In one hand, he held onto two beers.

  When he arrived, and had settled himself into the bow of the boat, I drove very fast so that the engine would roar. In truth, I was disappointed that my father had come along.

  We drove past the island with the disappearing road, and out behind it into a small cove dotted with cottages. I slowed the boat for some people who were out in sea-kayaks, and they waved at us as we approached. There were some people set up at the campsite in that cove too. They had a big tent up, and a tarp over the picnic table, and a motorboat out on the water with a bunch of rods sticking out of the back like the spines on a fish.

  “Why don’t you tell me a story,” my father said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I can think of any.”

  “Sure you can,” my father said. “Just think of one thing, tell me one thing.”

  But instead of complying with my father’s request, I asked: “So, was that where you met Owen?” Preferring, I guess, to be installed – more comfortably – in the past.

  “Hey,” my father said. “What about that story?”

  I shrugged, and didn’t answer. My father, too, was silent for a while. Then, shifting to a lower and more careful tone, he said, very quietly: “Why do you want to know about all of this anyway?”

  He seemed not to expect a reply, though, and I was grateful to him for that, and after a while it was he who spoke again, saying, “Because, you know you don’t have to worry about any of this shit, thank Christ. If there’s one thing I’m grateful for –” But then his voice broke off again. “Oh, Honey –” he said. And for once he did not reach out, to touch me, as he said those words.

  There was something in his voice, though – an apology for something too big for him, and which was perhaps not even intended for me – and still, he regarded me as he spoke. Still, it was as though he were in fact reaching out. As though he were in fact touching me. But for once he did not, and after some time passed into which we again
said nothing, I started the motor on the boat and drove on.

  Later, skidding by shore – near to where I’d drifted alone, at the bottom of Henry’s boat, in a previous afternoon – I said, “It’s around here.”

  “What’s around here, Honeybunch?” my father said. He was once again in a jovial mood.

  “Henry’s house,” I said. “His old one. We pass over it every time we’re on this lake. Do you ever think about that?”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I think about that,” my father said. “And those old ghosts of Owen’s sometimes.”

  “You don’t believe in ghosts,” I told him.

  My father grinned. “I do more than I believe in most things,” he said. Then he took out a cigarette and fooled around in his shirt pocket for a lighter. “But no,” he said, “I don’t. I just think about them anyway sometimes.” Then there was another long pause. The boat rocked a little from side to side on a passing wake. “Actually, I don’t think Owen believed in them either, it was just something to talk about,” my father said. “Just some silly thing that reminded him of home. He loved this place. That was one thing we knew.”

  He gave the cigarette a few puffs and then chucked it into the bottom of the boat, where it absorbed water.

  Later still, my father asked: “What happens to ghosts in water? Can they swim? Are they made up of water, in that case, instead of air?” He trailed his fingers, then free of the cigarette, in the lake. “Could I be touching one right now?” he said, looking at his water hand, his eyes twinkling at me, “As well as right now?” And he wriggled the fingers of the arm still wrapped in its sling.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I wanted to get home quickly now, so I tried to start the engine, but it sputtered and stuck.

  “So, what about you?” my father asked, not giving up. “Do you believe in them?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, you did!” he told me. “You sure did!” And reminded me of all the nights I had come screaming in from the government house yard, after Helen had leapt at me as though from nowhere, on the path.