The Unit

by Terry DeHart

  “Why are you going back?”

  “I think I might’ve left the oven on.”

  He smiles but his eyes are as black as the hole in the muzzle of his revolver. He looks back at Mom and tells her not to touch the other guns. Mom moans. I should be pissed off at her, but I’m not. I feel bad for her. I wish she would’ve shot BS in the head. I wish I had pieces of his skull and brain in my hair and the windows were splattered with the last of his sicko thoughts. I think I’d be happy then.

  He keeps the gun to my head. I start to panic but I squeeze the control yoke until my fingers burn. I’m flying VFR at 130 knots and I have to maintain. Mom cries for a while.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “Everything is okay.”

  BS says, “That’s the spirit, boy.”

  I turn to look at Mom. I’ve never seen her so pale. Even back when I was a kid, after the surgery she had on her knee, she had more color than she does now. Pale, wan, ashen, drawn, waxen. I want to pull her out of the hole she’s fallen into, but I don’t know how.

  She cries and wails again. Her voice rises like an old air raid siren. It keeps going up and up and it reaches a peak and I can’t get the sight of nuked Sacramento out of my head. The panic builds inside me again, still. The yoke is a bloody bone in my hands, and I can’t feel my feet on the rudder pedals. My heartbeat gets out of synch and I’m dizzy in that sick way that feels like dying. Her voice reaches the end of its breath and she’s quiet. She has no air in her lungs, but she doesn’t take another breath, and that’s even worse than the wailing. My vision starts to tunnel and gray, and I have to slap myself hard across the face. I slap and slap until the panic is replaced with pain.

  BS tells me to get my shit together. Mom pulls out of it. She takes a breath. She grabs my shoulder and tells me no. No, no, no. She apologizes and asks for forgiveness and protection for us from her imaginary god, the one we’ve all been praying to, and then we’re finally quiet. I turn off the heat because it picked up the smell of the dead city, but it gets cold fast in the mountains, and I have to turn it back on. I try to get comfortable by not paying any attention to anything that’s not directly in front of my nose. The little engine spins its two-bladed prop and we climb into the Sierras.

  We’ve been in the air for three hours and we didn’t start with a full load of fuel. The bullet that passed through the instrument panel did some damage. I smell the beginnings of an electrical fire. The smoke starts then, and the rest of the instruments go dead and something behind the panel is starting to glow red.

  We’re high in the mountains and I can’t set it down just anywhere. The smoke makes it hard to see, but we luck out and see a highway below us. I dive down as low as I can go without smashing us into high-tension lines. It’s Highway 341. We’re southeast of where I thought we were. We missed Reno, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll make it to Virginia City.

  And we do. The trees thin out below us and we fly into the saddle of a big, grassy valley, with the old Comstock Hills all around. I open my window to clear the cabin of smoke and get a blast of freezing air. The smoke clears for a second and I see old wooden buildings under us. Main Street. Dead cars clog the road, but puffs of woodsmoke are coming from some of the chimneys.

  With the window open, the fire flares up in front of me. BS tries to beat back the flames with one of his gloves. I think about trying to take the gun away from him, but I’m too busy to try it. I fly over the main drag and nobody shoots at us. Thin, cold air. Unsteady gusts of wind in the valley. Flames are licking at the windshield. I have a hell of a time keeping us straight and level, but I do. I try to drop the flaps, but nothing happens. I chop the power and we descend. I stick my head out the window and find a part of the road that doesn’t have any dead cars on it.

  I come in hot and mostly blind. I flare and ease the little tires onto the cold asphalt of the highway. Small screech of rubber and the thump of the struts compressing. Ten toes heavy on the brakes. I kill the engine and roll out. I get us stopped. We’re on the highway just east of town.

  The instrument panel is burning for real. We don’t wait for an order to get out. We cough the smoke out of our lungs, then BS goes to work. He tosses the shotgun and my rifle onto a patch of dead grass. He tells us to move away from the guns and sit down. He takes the rest of our gear from the plane, then he stands in front of us. His airplane is burning behind him and he’s really pissed off. He holds the revolver on us and scratches his face. His beard is like gray pubic hair. I have no idea what he’ll do. Mom takes my hand in hers, and I don’t pull away.

  I turn and look back at the town. We’re maybe five hundred yards from the first buildings on Main Street. I don’t pray, exactly, but let’s just say I’m really hoping to have some witnesses. And then yeah, a door opens and people step onto the boardwalk. My eyesight isn’t one hundred percent, but it looks like one of them is holding a pair of binoculars on us.

  BS winks and lowers the revolver.

  “Well, guess I’ll be seein’ ya. Can’t say it’s been a slice of heaven.”

  He picks up Mom’s shotgun and unloads it and field strips it and throws the parts far out into the grass. He slings my carbine and takes both of our packs and walks away to the north. It’s a hell of a walk to Reno, but I’m very glad he’s going, and I don’t wish him well. The truth is, if I had a gun right now, I’d shoot him right in the middle of his fat back. I’d kill him if I had a gun, and I’m looking forward to the day when I can, because this shit isn’t over for him.

  He walks away and we don’t have anything left. No food or weapons or poncho liners, but my hair is tingling because we’re alive and free. I try to find the parts of Mom’s shotgun. I find everything but the bolt assembly. I look everywhere, but it’s gone, so I put the slide and barrel and trigger group back onto the receiver, so it at least looks like we have a working shotgun.

  We put some distance between us and the plane. It’s burning like crazy. It’s av-gas, so it’s like a big Molotov cocktail. There’s a big bang. The heat flares against our faces, but we’re okay. The plane takes its last flight, rising into the air from the explosion, and then it settles down and starts melting into the ground.

  BS is about a hundred yards away. He turns and shakes his head, then he gets back to walking. The smoke spreads in the valley. The wind blows it flat, but it’s really black, and clear for all to see. The air is cold as hell and the fire feels kind of nice. We start to walk toward town, walking a game trail that leads through chaparral, sage, tumbleweed, whatever it is. I’ve never had time to learn about botany and stuff like that, but someday I plan to learn it.

  I can’t feel my hands and feet, and I try to ask Mom how she’s doing, but my mouth doesn’t work. There isn’t any cover, and smoke is blowing like a signal behind us, and we have no choice but to walk straight toward the mercy or violence of strangers.

  Bill Junior

  Damned if her daddy didn’t wake up. He hasn’t said shit to me, and that’s good for him, because if he does, I’ll put his daughter back into service. He seems to know it, too.

  The girl got some candles from somewhere, and she’s got about a dozen of them burning in the shack. She’s sitting with her old man’s head in her lap and I wouldn’t mind trading places with him. I like the way her red hair shines in the candlelight. It makes me happy that I let her take baths. I don’t think I’ll be able to give her the thing she wants most, her freedom, but while she’s here, I can be her sugar daddy, with good food and baths and all that shit.

  I walk into the shack like I own the place, because I do own it. When I get inside, I pull off my watch cap and just stand there. Melanie looks at me, then looks away. It makes me feel good to see her. It’s kind of beautiful in here, the candlelight making the leather and cloth and carpet of the place look all rich and soft, the way even craphole bars can look kind of special in dim light. I’m almost proud, because I’m the guy that made this cool-looking place possible.

  “How’s he doing?
” I say.

  The bastard lifts his head and looks at me. His head is all bandaged up. His eyes don’t have anything in them, no hate or begging. I keep my eyes on him, but he doesn’t look away, and if it was anyone else, I’d put him down like a dog. I can’t have anyone making me look like a pussy, so I send my men out of the room. The girl told them all about her rich daddy, and now it’s time to find out the truth.

  Jerry

  I rise into pain and the kid is there. My shirt is pulled up. He’s tapping the flat of his hand against my belly. My belly is jiggling.

  “So. Tell me about yourself, old man.”

  “You want a date or something?”

  My words are mush in my mouth, but I get them out.

  “Ha. You’re funny.”

  He pats my belly harder and my bladder is full and I have a new, urgent pain to add to the other more patient ones. I try to sit up, but I black out. I wake up when my head hits the floorboards.

  “What I want to know is—what can you do for me and my men?”

  “Give me a rifle. Let me show you.”

  He smiles a sharpened smile. I’m drifting, almost submerged, too tired and hurt to have any inhibitions. I’m about to tell the boy to go fuck himself when I feel a pinch on the meat inside my upper arm. It’s Melanie. She’s using her fingernails and giving me a hard, twisting pinch. It occurs to me that she’s been running some kind of game with the boys. I fight down an urge to vomit. I somehow have the presence of mind not to look at her.

  “I’ll say it another way,” says the kid. “Why shouldn’t I end you—right here, right now?”

  “I told them about the money, Dad,” Melanie says. God bless her for throwing me a line.

  I sigh. Bill Junior looks into my eyes, and I look away. I roll onto my side and curl up with my pain. There’s a hint of triumph in Bill Junior’s voice when he says, “Okay. We’ll talk about the details later.”

  He leaves without letting us know anything about his plans for us. Melanie is still in the world and we’re together, but when I sit up the pain takes the top of my head off. She helps me when I get sick into my canteen cup. I’m in a flat spin even though I’m only kneeling on the ground. Head wound. Concussion. I’ve had almost every other kind of wound in my life, so why not that?

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “Are you still you?”

  “I’m fine, baby.”

  TBI stands for traumatic brain injury. My voice sounds like the growl of an animal that has learned a few words. I say nothing about how she looks, and she doesn’t say anything about how I look. I want to give her something but I have nothing to offer. I don’t ask her if she needs anything. I can’t escape into the safe territory of father-as-provider, so I hold out my arms and we hug. I want to lift us above the clouds and fly us away, but I don’t squeeze her very hard because I don’t know what-all might be broken inside us. I have no idea what these little monsters have done to us, and I can’t let myself think about it.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ve got these boys right where we want ’em.”

  “Ha,” she says. “How do you get that ego of yours through doors?”

  “Doors are for pussies. We Sharpes walk through walls.”

  She gives a bark of a laugh that turns into a cry. I smile from the surface of concussed blackness, then I sink back under it. I drift in and out through the morning and afternoon. Despair and regret and pain and fear for the well-being of what still remains of us, but when I wake up at dusk, I find the kernel of hope that I so badly missed. I’ve carried it with me on four continents and it hasn’t ever left me completely. Determination, for whatever reason, comes around when the world goes to complete shit. Maybe it’s only a figment of my desperation, but my mood lifts and I groove along in the hard, rebellious feeling of fighting pain. Family. God. The certainty that things will turn out as they’re meant to turn out. And if things don’t improve, we’ll be in a better place, so there’s no need to worry about a little pain.

  I drift with the current, then I rise through a hole in the ice. She gives me water. It’s sweet and cold and I get greedy and chug down half the canteen. She was our first baby, but she’s my nurse now. She once wore shoes that barely fit over my thumb, but now she tells me “Good Daddy” and pats my hand. My stomach clenches but I keep the water down. I was getting dehydrated, and when I get the liquid inside me, my head starts to bleed again. It runs down the side of my face and joins with the tributaries from the cuts in my brows and lips. Melanie is trying to swab it away with a filthy towel when Luscious walks in with a group of boys.

  “Damn,” he says.

  “That’s just what I was thinking when I saw you,” I say.

  He squats on a dirty Cadillac floor mat and looks into my eyes. I look back. He doesn’t have his gun drawn, but I feel like a small animal that’s been hit by a car.

  “You still bleeding like a pig? I thought you were done with that.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll heal up just fine, but you’ll always be ugly.”

  He laughs, but then he slaps my head and it’s all I can do to stay conscious.

  “Your daughter says you’re a rich bastard.”

  “She said that?”

  “She says you shit money. Was she lying?”

  “No.”

  Melanie kneels beside me and Luscious moves close enough to grab her.

  “Well, that’s why you’re still alive.”

  He points to the gaggle of boys. They look at me with the hatred of enemies.

  “They want to have some more fun with you, but they aren’t very bright. We don’t have an airplane to spot for us anymore. A lot of us got killed in the last few weeks. We were barely holding on as it was, so you got to understand our mood. I can protect you for a little while, but I want you to think about how you’re gonna pay us.”

  I sit up and look at him. I have no choice but to force myself into the Alpha mode. I’ve always hated it. It’s stupid and obvious and without humor or the possibility of grace and it reminds us that we’re animals, walking fists and cocks, and that we can never forget the politics of the playground. I have no idea why the illusion of dominance works so well, even when it’s clearly an act, but it does work, and sometimes there’s no choice but to use it.

  I look straight into his eyes. The vertigo makes me sway, but I manage to keep my eyes locked on target. Luscious’s eyes are hooded like the eyes of someone who has plenty to hide. Like a gangster. Like a terrorist. Like a bad little kid. He tries to return the hard look I’m giving him, but young guys generally can’t pull that off with their elders. Older men simply know too much about youthful male depravity. He looks away, then he turns his eyes skyward and grabs his chin and crams himself into a thinking pose that must seem pathetic, even to him.

  “Rich people know how to protect their shit,” he says. “The world comes to an end, but rich fuckers still have their money.”

  I sit. I look. Here it comes.

  “Don’t tell me there ain’t no way for you to get it.”

  “Okay. Sure. I’ll call my accountant.”

  He moves over to Melanie. My stomach muscles tighten and my quadriceps flex and I’m up on my feet, but then my legs give way and I’m sitting on the ground in front of him. He grabs Melanie’s arm and pulls her close to him. He squeezes. She gasps and then she rolls her eyes as if she’s embarrassed that she reacted to the pain.

  “I’ll give you some time to heal up. Then you’ll tell me about my payday.” He looks at Melanie. “It’s that, or we’ll stop being so damned polite.”

  “Okay.”

  When I say it, I try to convince myself that it’s a lie. I was never a POW before, but Mel and I are POWs now, and survival is all that matters. What I say under threat and duress doesn’t mean a thing. My words to him have only one interpretation: I will survive you. I know it and he probably knows it, too, but I need to keep my defiance in the background. I can’t push him too far in front of the others, but I can’
t bend over, either.

  “Okay then, kid. If you want me to help you, you’ll need to show some manners. Go back to your little circle jerk and maybe later I’ll show you how the big boys make things happen. Classes start as soon as I stop bleeding. Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

  He picks up his rifle then he shakes his head.

  “You talk to me like that in front of my men, and I’ll shoot you on the spot.”

  “I know it.”

  He squeezes his rifle and hesitates. I know I’m about an inch away from being executed. I nod at him, the most respect I can muster, and he nods back and takes his leave.

  I fall back and sleep for a long, unknowable time.

  Susan

  Scott walks tall beside me. His face is cracked with blood lines, and it makes me want to cry, but he’s walking with purpose. I have the nonfunctional shotgun in the frozen claw of my right hand. My left arm is itching beneath its splint and bandages, and I hope the itching is a sign of healing, and not infection.

  We walk without hesitation toward life or death. Scott is unarmed. I have two cold coins in my pocket, the coins Jerry took from the dead boy. The sky is a flat-bottomed, endless yellow cloud. If I saw it on television or on a picture postcard, I would say it was a transitional sky, the kind of sky that makes a person think, because it’s neither storm nor calm, but could certainly become either, in time. The world is frozen and glittering in the strange light. We’re half wet with perspiration and we have no idea what we’re walking into. Wind through the grass. So much rotten winter grass. I’ll be happy when the snow buries all the grass and footprints and empty cartridge cases and blood trails and corpses. I’ll breathe easier when the world can at least pretend to be clean and whole.

  We walk the shoulder of the road, then straight up onto the pavement. Bootfalls on cracked asphalt. Flutters of wind in my ears, and we haven’t had our hair cut for weeks and we’re all dirty and aflutter.