One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  “Tell me a story,” Emjay says quietly.

  “I was hoping you would tell me one,” Flint says.

  “Nah.” Emjay Brown lowers his head, as if it’s too heavy to hold up anymore. “I need to hear something that isn’t about this place. A good distraction. You’re a writer; why don’t you spin something for me.”

  “A story? Hell, you’re going to make me work?” Flint leans back on his elbows and tries to take some comfort from the rays of sunlight squeezing through an opening in the decrepit brick wall. He wants to keep things light with Emjay Brown, but it seems they both crossed that line months ago. Maybe they crossed it the minute they both arrived in Iraq.

  “You ever been to San Francisco?” Flint asks. When the soldier doesn’t respond, Flint takes that as a no. “You’ve heard of the Golden Gate Bridge? In San Francisco? I used to live there. Anyway, the Golden Gate has a strange claim to fame. It’s a destination for jumpers. Easy access, great view. A suicide magnet. Hundreds of people have jumped from there. Something like twelve hundred altogether. But only three people have jumped off that bridge and survived, and you know what all three say?”

  Emjay rocks forward over his folded arms, as if there’s an ache deep in his belly.

  “The minute they jumped, they wished they hadn’t. All the unfixable things in their lives that made them jump suddenly seemed fixable once they went over the edge—all except the fact that they had jumped. They wished they could take it back. They wanted to live.”

  “They weren’t deployed in Iraq.”

  Flint lets out a breath. “No, I’ll give you that. But deployments end. When are you scheduled to head home?”

  Emjay shrugs, a gesture heavy with hopelessness and ennui.

  “Come on, man. Everybody knows their exit date.”

  Emjay brings his knees to his chest and pushes back, away from the edge of the platform.

  A move toward safety, no longer on the verge of plummeting off the edge.

  Flint allows himself a modicum of relief. “So you like it so much here you want to stay?”

  Warily, Emjay shifts his eyes toward Flint. “December. They say we’re out in December, but that means shit. This is our second deployment. We were in Baghdad in 2004, then home again. There’s a good chance they’ll redeploy us back here. Hell, they’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  Flint nods, familiar with the schedule of deployments, which had only accelerated in the past few years, but right now his main goal is to keep this guy talking. Emjay Brown is in a state of shock. Flint is no shrink, but he’d guess post-traumatic stress disorder. Hell, Emjay should probably be in the hospital for the next forty-eight hours until his psyche found some sort of normalcy. But then, even then, Brown would be returning to the same tortured world, the same battered country stripped to the bone by Americans, loaded with danger.

  “You know,” Flint says, “I knew John. Went to college with his wife, Abby. I was even at their wedding.”

  Emjay cups his chin in one hand, squeezing his jaw, as if to clamp down all pain and emotion.

  “I hear you and John were a team,” Flint says.

  “Yes, sir. We were partners, so to speak. I was beside him when he took that first bullet.”

  “You were with him?” Flint turns away from Emjay Brown, not wanting the soldier to feel his scrutiny.

  “I was right beside him when he went down.” He eases his grip on his rifle and scratches at the ruff of shorn hair over his forehead. “I was there. I saw it all. I tried to save him. I applied pressure to the wound…to where I thought he was bleeding from. I tried, but then he came at us and fired again and I…” His voice is thick with emotion. “I had to back off or he was going to shoot me, too.”

  “You saw the shooter?” Flint says softly, belying the acceleration of his pulse. “But I heard that the building was shuttered, that it was dark—”

  “I saw enough. My NOD wasn’t working right and I was messing with it when the first round whirred over my head and John went down, told me he’d been hit. I was beside him, on my knees, trying to put pressure on his chest, stop the blood. But John was so angry, screaming and yelling at the shooter. ‘You fucking shot me!’ he kept yelling, over and over.”

  “Like he knew the shooter?” Flint adds. He’d read as much in the report, but Emjay’s take suggested a new dimension.

  Emjay nods. “It was so crazy and dark, I couldn’t see right then, but John had his night-vision device, and I think he was looking right at the sniper. And he was goddamned pissed.”

  “Because it was someone he knew?”

  Emjay scratches at the stubble over his forehead, blinking back tears. “Like it’s not bad enough these Iraqis try to blow us up? You got to defend yourself from your own guys, too?” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Someone on our team.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Flint presses. “I mean, in all the commotion—”

  “I saw him,” Flint interrupts. “At least, I saw that it was a soldier, one of our guys. The second shot hit John in the neck, and as I was scrambling I grabbed his helmet, thinking at least I’d be able to see and help him. His night-vision device worked, and I saw him, the shooter. One of our guys. Someone in Bravo Company, heading right out that door.”

  The silence in the decrepit building swells between them as Flint tries to process this new information, none of which was in the report he’d read. “Did you tell your platoon leader about this?” he asks quietly. “Does Lieutenant Chenowith know?”

  “Chenowith, there’s a piece of work. He’s threatening to court-martial me because I went on a maneuver with a piece of broken equipment. Like we have a choice out here, when the army gives us shit for vehicles. Flak jackets from World War Two.” Emjay lifts one shoulder, sinking into himself. “Chenowith would like to see me hang. He doesn’t want to hear that someone in his platoon is a rat.”

  A journalistic spark bursts inside Flint at the knowledge that this is a story—a huge piece with significant implications. Of course, he doesn’t have clearance to embed in this unit, but what the hell. He’s always subscribed to asking forgiveness, not permission.

  But whoa, boy. Remember your goal here—to help out a friend, to be Abby’s eyes and ears here.

  Hell, he doesn’t know what to do.

  Emjay Brown swings his rifle across his chest and cradles it like a baby. “They bury the truth just as easily as they bury the dead. The army is good at that, you know, glazing over the truth. From the day the recruiter tells you you’re serving to defend America and preserve freedom, you step into a shitload of lies, a big con.”

  “You think they’ll cover it up?” Flint asks.

  “I guarantee, they’ve already made up some story about who killed John, too. They’ll blame it on Iraqis to cover their asses. But I was there and I saw what I saw. It was another soldier. One of our own killed John.”

  “Another soldier…” The enormity of the accusation makes it difficult for Flint to wrap his brain around the evolving truth.

  “Someone in our platoon,” Emjay says solemnly, fingering the strap of his rifle. “And I wish to God I could tell you who it was.”

  Chapter 18

  New York City Abby

  While waiting at New York City’s JFK airport for her final connection to Washington, D.C., Abby hears John’s name mentioned on one of those canned soundtracks and freezes in her vinyl seat. Is that John’s college football photo illuminated on the television set hanging from the ceiling of the waiting area?

  In the video, shot before he left for Iraq, his dark eyes are impossibly round, his brown hair gleaming in the lights set up for a press conference. God, he was so handsome in his scarlet jersey. Number nineteen.

  Funny how a person can come alive on a television screen, their face animated and full of mirth, and that image doesn’t fade with death.

  As a childhood photo of John flashes on the screen, Abby leans forward in the chair. How did the media get that picture?

  S
harice…

  Snatching her purse, she digs for her cell phone and rehearses the scolding she’ll give her mother-in-law. I asked you to keep a low profile! A low-key obituary…something short and dignified, but instead I’m seeing my husband’s baby pictures broadcast on national television!

  She speed-dials her in-laws but a busy signal blares back at her. Damn. Ending the call, she glances back at the television screen, where the on-air personality continues to detail John’s life.

  “…however, John Stanton was no ordinary soldier. Friends and family were astounded when the rising young star left a promising career as a running back for the Seattle Seahawks to join the U.S. Army. At the time, John Stanton, who enlisted with younger brother, Noah, said that it was his duty to serve his country.”

  And there is John, dark eyes locked on the camera, handsome and earnest. “This war on terrorism, I believe, stands to be one of the most significant battles of our generation. I can’t justify sitting idly by while our freedom is at stake.”

  When John spoke he commanded attention, imparting immediacy. As if he’s talking to me. From the many travelers who now tip their heads up to the television to watch, Abby sees that John’s appeal stretched far and wide.

  “And now that he’s been killed in the line of duty,” the journalist continues, “Americans are ready to embrace Stanton as one of the great heroes of our time. Senator Phil Woodsmith of Washington calls him a model American. ‘Here’s a young man who sacrificed everything for his country. He left a career in the NFL—every boy’s dream—to serve in Iraq because he believed in this war.’”

  No! Abby wants to shout. John didn’t want the war…not really.

  A Republican senator speaking from the steps of the Capitol remarks on the country’s “huge loss of an American patriot, a true freedom fighter,” and a spokesperson for the president says: “The United States Armed Forces will honor John Stanton by proving that his efforts in Iraq were not in vain.”

  They’re all linking his name with the war, Abby realizes. She’s tempted to climb atop the row of airport seats and pull the plug on the television, but that would be like plucking one weed from an acre of crabgrass.

  The word is out: John Stanton is named a martyr of the Iraq War.

  Politicians crown him a hero.

  And it’s all so wrong.

  Not wanting all the travelers in the terminal to see her cry, Abby clutches her bag to her chest and cuts around a bank of chairs to stand at the floor-to-ceiling window, facing out at the tarmac. Part of her does not want to share John with the world at all. She wants the peace and privacy in which to nurture his memory and say her own good-bye. On the other hand, since she cannot have that peace, she feels it’s her duty to protect John’s image, guard his memory from politicians and spin doctors who twist things around to suit their cause.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is our preboarding announcement for flight three-oh-two to Washington’s Dulles International Airport…” The airline representative announced Abby’s flight. Since John’s remains wouldn’t arrive in Dover for another day or so, she was going back to the home of her childhood, and while she welcomed the comfort of her dad’s arms and her mother’s cinnamon-walnut buns in the morning, it wasn’t truly her home anymore.

  Home was at Fort Lewis with John.

  And soon that home would be gone, too.

  She presses a hand to her mouth to suppress a sob, and when she closes her eyes, Abby feels a slight pressure at the base of her throat, right in the nook John used to massage with his thumb.

  It’s almost as if he is here, haunting her, unwilling to move on to the next world. She takes a deep, calming breath, and suddenly he is with her, the scent of his aftershave filling her nostrils, sweet and lemony….

  John.

  She can almost hear strains of his laughter, his rumbling voice, gregarious and flippant. Don’t let those stuffed shirts get you down. They’re just wordsmiths, and I’m a man of action. They can try to sum me up with a trite label, but you know the truth, Abs. I’m just a man. Not an ideal, but a person.

  “I know,” Abby whispers. “I know.” She presses a hand to her throat but there is nothing there—the moment has vanished, and she is simply a woman in an airport waiting to board a flight.

  As she joins the line, a young couple sprawled on the carpet in one corner catches her eye. They are sharing a slice of pizza, bite for bite, and passing a bottle of Vitamin Water, talking quietly. They remind Abby of the way she and John were in their first years—college students with no responsibilities beyond getting to class on time and making decent grades. Of course, Abby worked her collection of on-campus jobs to offset tuition, and John pumped iron and hit the turf, leading the Rutgers team to victory. At the time, Abby felt she was stretched thin, but looking back now she realizes those were golden days. College offered all the freedom of adult life without the responsibility.

  Looking past the young couple, down the corridor of the terminal, Abby realizes that she and John had met for the first time right here at JFK. That was six years ago, and the airport was packed with holiday travelers, with flights delayed and cancelled due to the icy snow that had been falling continually since noon. John was waiting for a flight back to Seattle, and Abby was trying to get home to Virginia for Christmas.

  Certain things about that Christmas are still pinpoints of memory in Abby’s mind: the scarlet red of John’s football jersey, the voice of Karen Carpenter singing “Merry Christmas, Darling,” the curl of jealousy she felt over her roommate’s relationship with her boyfriend. “He’s the love of my life,” Fanteen said with the crisp British accent that lent grave authority to such pronouncements. Fanteen was so into Hitch that she had moved all her possessions into his dorm room and would take up full-time residence there after the holidays. Which really burned Abby, who had never really connected with a guy—never!—despite the fact that she was a sophomore in college.

  Everywhere Abby went that season, she heard the Carpenters song playing. “The lights on my tree, I wish you could see…” Karen sang, and it burned Abby. She didn’t have a damned tree, at least not till she got home, and there was no one to share it with. Right around finals week it became hopelessly stuck in her head, an anthem that kept her awake nights, guided her footsteps as she trudged up the hill to the Student Union. “I’ve just one wish on this Christmas Eve…” she would sing in the shower when her suitemates were out. Her wish was for a boyfriend, someone she could really connect with.

  In the back of her mind, she thought it might be Flint. They’d become good friends in freshman year, and they hung out together sometimes, listening to music and watching Friends and lingering over coffee in the dining hall on sundae night. It was okay for a while that Flint had never made a move, never kissed her. She told herself that they were building a friendship first.

  Then she heard about the sorority girl. Flint was taking some girl named Talia to the Alpha Delta Harvest Ball. How could he, after all that he and Abby had shared? Fanteen told her to confront him, give him a chance to explain, but Abby hated confrontations. Instead, she made a choice to keep her friendship with Flint just that—a friendship. Which probably saved their relationship in the long run, considering Abby’s pattern of getting bored with a guy once she had him hooked.

  Enter one extra-large, extra-loud scarlet football jersey, its white number “19” stretched across one very buff chest. Abby tried not to notice him as he sat down across from her in one of the few empty seats in the crowded terminal but, come on! First, how could you miss that loud red shirt? Plus he was cute, the tall, dark, and handsome type with killer eyes. But not her type. No jacket, but a jersey in twenty-degree temperatures—definitely a jock, and maybe a poser. Maybe he didn’t play ball at all, but wanted to nurture the jock thing.

  She opened up the Arts & Leisure section of Sunday’s Times and tried to block him out.

  “Hey, do you mind if I borrow a section?”

  Abby froze
. He couldn’t be talking to her.

  “Hey, New York Times Girl! Can I take a look? I’ll give it back.”

  She lowered the paper to find his wide brown eyes disarming her. “I guess.” She handed over the sports section, but he shook his head, stood up, and chose The Week in Review. Surprising.

  “You sure about that?” she said. “It’s not TV Guide.”

  “That’s cool. I don’t have a TV.”

  “Really? So how do you watch the Super Bowl? And the Hula Bowl, and all those other…bowls?”

  “Other people’s televisions.” He unfolded the newspaper and started reading.

  The ensuing quiet closed around them, and Abby felt oddly disappointed. Okay, the guy could read. So why did she feel compelled to keep talking when the last thing she wanted was to strike up a tedious conversation when she had plenty to read? Shifting in her seat, she picked up the sports section, deciding that if he could go against type, so would she.

  And there, on the front page, under the fold, was a splash of red—a color photo of number “19” in his scarlet jersey, all smiles and broad chest, and brown eyes so warm they could melt a Popsicle. She glanced up at him, then back at the photo in the newspaper, as if her eyes were playing a trick on her. The headline read: THE KNIGHT WHO WOULD BE KING, and the article mentioned that “19”—whose name was John Stanton—had been a Heisman contender this year. She tried to read on without letting him know she was reading. The writer thought “19” had a good shot at winning the award next year, as a senior, if he kept up the “incredible momentum” he’d stirred up on the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights.

  When she glanced up from reading, he was watching her. “No wonder you didn’t want to read this,” she said, tossing it over at him. “I bet you have it framed on your bedroom wall.”

  “Not true. But my mom probably does.”

  His smile was apologetic, but she noticed that he caught the newspaper section without wrinkling it. “Nice catch, nineteen.”