She laughed lightly at the compliment, something deep inside her heart exploding clear and bright with happiness. Remembering their favorite dish she asked “Shall we order the apple pie?”
Adam reached under the table and gently took her hand. “Of course, my dear. Let's save the best for last.”
14
North Carolina was not known for its balmy winters, especially this particularly frigid December 15th. The twenty five men and women lined up in the cold 0600 morning air appeared to Sergeant Johannson like so many steam vents. Their breaths floated above them in an ever increasing fog.
She walked up the line, two deep, barking out the last names in roll call.
“Beninate?”
“Aye” was the answer, forceful and strong.
“McHenry?”
“Here!”
“Samson?”
“Aye”
“Turner?”
Silence followed, then the soft ruffle of necks turning inside of tight collars against the cold. The rumor was out that Turner was still in Hawaii, and despite the attraction of that thought at this moment, everyone knew it to be big trouble for the Private.
“Turner?” Sergeant Johannson yelled more forcefully.
No answer.
“God dammit Turner!” Johannson swore, then continued down her list.
“Yamaguchi?”
“Here!”
~~~
I hovered, as best I could make out, above Janet's fitfully sleeping form all night. Try as I might I couldn't read through the rapid bursts of static and noise coming from her dreams. She had risen twice during the darkness to throw up. Shivering each time, she crawled back under her covers into a fetal position, snoring with exhaustion.
At daybreak she roused herself, dressed in my clothes again, pulled on my Army cap and made her way to the cafeteria. She had to, there wasn't anything but beer cans in the refrigerator.
Showing my military ID card to the cashier, she loaded up on scrambled eggs, toast and steak. A large ice tea and ten packets of sugar, a fork and knife and two napkins filled the rest of the space on her tray.
I wasn't sure why I was so interested in her every movement, but I was. For some reason I couldn't quite fathom there was an intense need for me to keep an eye on her.
About the time she was finished with her breakfast she stumbled and fell twice on her way to the bathroom. I was curious which one she would have gone into but she didn't make it halfway. She was throwing up blood right before she passed out.
Five minutes later she was in the KMC infirmary getting her temperature taken and about to get her shirt removed. The nurse there had read my dog tags around her neck, made note of them and turned back to find her sitting up, staring with eyes redder than my friend the lava.
“Hey there soldier. You had a bit of a spill. Are you feeling any better?” The nurse, a big football player type, asked the question in a relatively demanding tone. He was a civilian volunteer.
Janet shook her head a little, not so much as a no, but to clear the confusion out of her mind. “I'm good. No worries.”
“Really? You were barfing blood in the cafeteria. Not a good thing.” The nurse wanted to place a call to the base commander, but knew he was in Kona on a shopping trip. There were no other commanding officers available until tomorrow at the earliest.
“Yes, yes. Just drank too much this vacation.” Janet looked up at the nurse, an alcohol induced sadness in pitiful eyes working to her advantage. “I'm shipping back to Afghan tomorrow morning. Just celebrated too much.” She looked down at her hands, still scarred but healing up. “You know what I mean?”
“Poor bastard,” thought the nurse. In his opinion Private Turner could do damn well whatever he pleased by his measure. “No problem. Look, if you like I can check you out now. Real quick physical. See if you're up for duty, if you know what I mean?”
Janet knew very well what that meant. He was going to give James Turner an excuse to avoid deployment, but of course would discover that a naked James was really a naked Janet. That wouldn't work.
“No thanks, but thanks!” She looked up at him and went to shake his hand, anxious to get this over with.
The nurse shook her hand, amazed at how non-masculine it felt, but disregarded that thought. Most hands he shook were smaller than his anyhow.
“Good luck then Private Turner.”
“Jimmy, you can call me Jimmy for the next 24 hours,” Janet joked.
“Right on Jimmy!” The nurse laughed. “Give 'em hell!”
“I will,” she said.
“I did,” I heard her say to herself, thinking about pushing me over the side, killing me a little more.
~~~
“Hey Larry, are you up yet?” Alex asked over the phone about an hour earlier than would have elicited a positive answer.
“Well, I guess I am,” Larry answered. “Why? Why are you calling me so damn early Alex?”
“Sorry Larry. But, it is 10:30.”
Larry sat up quickly, looked around his room to find Shirley and the dog both gone. The drapes over the massive picture window view of Mauna Loa had been drawn shut. “Geez. OK, that's cool. I should be up already.” Larry ran his hands through his hair. “I guess it's too late to go paragliding now.”
Alex listened to his friend wake up with half his brain while the other half was reviewing the reservations list. After a moment or two of silence, he asked again. “Are you up now?”
“Yeah, yeah. I'm up.” Larry coughed once. “What's up?”
“Good, hey look. That Sergeant Johannson called me about two minutes ago, all pissed off about this Private Turner deal.”
“Yeah, so?” Larry tried to find more importance in Alex's statement, at least enough to have woken him up.
“Well, she's about to call the police to come pick Turner's ass up, but God love her, she is going to give him one more chance. If we can get the guy on the phone she said she would hold off one more day.”
Larry sat there for another long moment trying to figure out his part in all this drama. He couldn't. “Okay, so...?”
“So,” Alex made his request. “You can come with me to Cabin #94 and tell me just who you gave the telegram to. This whole cross-dressing thing has me confused.”
Larry had gotten out of bed and walked out onto his west facing deck with the cordless phone. The wind was looking too squirrely to fly anyhow. “You want me to drive all the way over there, Alex?”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, the whole three minute drive will earn you a free buffalo steak lunch, on me.”
“Well then, since you put it that way. See you in ten.”
~~~
Sergeant Johannson knew her troops had returned from leave from all over the U.S. Some from Florida, some from California, and many from the Midwest. Despite whatever weather they had enjoyed, or not, they all knew that Afghanistan was brutally cold in the winter. The 15 or so degrees they had enjoyed at roll call would have been a welcome respite if they'd been already in Kunduz or even Kabul. This was a good run up to one of the shocks they would experience back in-country.
As she dismissed them for breakfast and ran back to her temporary office she hoped frigid weather would be their only shock. She didn't let her mind debate such frivolous thinking. Right now she was pissed off at Turner. Not only was his ass in trouble, but hers would be as well. This would be her third AWOL, deserter or whatever they wanted to call it, in three years. Promotion was slipping farther and farther away.
She was so mad at him she had an overwhelming desire to fly to Hawaii and ring his redheaded neck. She should have done that last week when he posted that inane Facebook post about being dead. Her only good last chance was for some guy named Alex to pull off a miracle and get Turner on the phone.
~~~
The weather around the volcano, specifically Halema'uma'u was getting wet. trade winds, normally steered north by the “long mountain” Mauna Loa were coming in more from the east today. Th
eir moisture laden blessings were easily appreciated by the hundreds of families depending on rain catchment for their water. The jungle seemed to like it as well, and the lava pits grumbled with increased hissing and crackling.
Larry loved the rain as much as the usually perfect weather. It gave him a chance to feel a part of the tropics again. One could soon believe this was all a high desert what with the barren lava plains, clear and dry weather and of course the cold nights. The jungles were tucked into fortunate valleys and ridgelines that had both avoided the lava flows and could catch the little rain that regularly visited. Besides, his papaya trees doubled their production after a couple of days of good drenching liquid sunshine.
The drive to the National Park gate was literally four minutes and it was another four to Alex's office in the military recreation area. Larry pulled his F-250 into the spot next to the flagpole, grabbed his jacket and hat and walked briskly up the ancient steps and into the brightly lit lobby.
“Thanks, Larry,” Alex greeted him, already with his coat on. “I appreciate this.”
“Lunch?” Larry confirmed.
“Steak!” Alex beamed. “It's my favorite dish up here.”
“OK then, let's go.”
Alex and Larry marched down the steps and into the light rain, rounded the corner toward the small stone and wood structures. Cabin #94 was already in view.
“So, follow my lead on this Larry. I'm going to knock on the door and ask for Private James Turner. Regardless of who answers the door, I want you to tap me on the back if you see the same person you gave the earlier telegram to.”
“Got it,” Larry confirmed.
“Turner rented this cabin for two people. Himself and a Janet Turner, presumably his wife.”
“Cool,” Larry said. “Looks like the lights are on.”
Alex took a deep breath and quickly climbed the three steps up to the small covered porch with a much too large chair on the deck crowding a garbage can.
“Game faces,” Alex whispered and knocked three times on the door.
~~~
Janet seemed to be dreaming hard when the two guys came knocking on the door. I was still on my self-imposed duty of keeping a watch over her, not that I could do much.
She was sprawled on the floor having rolled off the couch during the night having never made it back to bed and having thrown up three times. Poor thing.
Beer cans littered the place, some twenty plus, and both laptops competed with the overhead lights to see which could outlast the other. I would imagine that the place reeked by this point too.
The knocking continued, growing louder and more persistent as well. Suddenly my phone began to ring and that frequency seem to rouse her from her comatose slumber. About the third ring she opened her eyes, and then she heard the pounding on the door.
“Hold on! Jeezus.” She mumbled it as loud as she could, picking herself up off the floor. A couple of beer cans got mixed up under her feet and she fell back to the floor with a thump.
“Are you OK in there?”
“Yeah, sure. What the hell do you want?” Janet still had a good touch of belligerence in her, no doubt from the alcohol. She finally managed to get to her feet, wipe her mouth with her sleeve and pull a sweater over her stained t-shirt. At least the alcohol had deepened her voice with its toxic effects on her esophagus.
“Private James Turner. It is very important I talk to you immediately!” The voice from outside the door sounded serious.
“Yeah, yeah. Hold on a minute will ya?”
At least the knocking had stopped. Janet looked at the phone and saw the Ft. Bragg area code, again. “Shit!”
“Turner! Are you OK in there? Please open the door!”
Janet frantically looked for my Army cap, found it under the couch, put it on and took a quick look in the mirror. That must have been a bad idea, since she almost started to cry. She splashed some water on her eyes, toweled off as much hideousness as possible and went to the door.
“Game face,” she whispered to herself.
~~~
Alex gasped when the door flew open. Larry squinted to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was really seeing.
“What the hell do you guys want kicking on my door like that?” Janet demanded.
“Sorry to bother you, of course. Private James Turner?”
Larry was already tapping Alex on the back. They both noticed Janet hesitate.
“What is it?” she demanded again, not directly acknowledging the question.
“Look, I'm not here to judge or make trouble. But, I have a message for Private James Turner from Sergeant Johannson.”
Janet just stared at both of them.
“It's pretty god-damned important!” Alex yelled now, somewhat out of frustration and somewhat, he would reveal later, out of fear.
That got her attention.
“OK, what is it?” Janet said softly. “I'm Private James Turner.”
Alex could smell the reek of stale alcohol, dirty hair and some other whiffs he was trying hard not to identify. Larry was still tapping him on the back until he shrugged his shoulder to tell him enough.
“Sergeant Johannson says you missed roll call this morning in Ft. Bragg. She says if you get on the phone with her right now she will hold off calling the MPs. That's the military po...”
“I know who the hell the MPs are!” Janet barked. Her eyes slowly drifted, as in the pull of gravity itself, down to look at her feet.
No one spoke for at least a full minute, but Larry thought it was ten. Alex was shaking. He had never seen a human being in such bad shape and still breathing. This guy, or whoever it was, looked like death warmed over but left to cool a bit again. Dark purple circles were under the eyes. The hair, short cropped as it was, still looked dirty and there were various scabs on the arms and neck.
Finally Janet looked back up from her feet to guys, snarled and slammed the door hard in their faces.
“I'll be there in ten minutes to use your phone!” she yelled from behind the door.
Alex and Larry looked at each other and turned around. They stepped down onto the sidewalk and both let out audible sighs.
“That went well I think,” Larry said.
“OMFG!” Alex pronounced.
Larry took a moment to spell that out. “Oh-My-Frickin'-God?”
“Something like that,” Alex acknowledged. “That was the biggest freak show I have ever seen.”
Larry nodded. “Yep, and they say crack heads are spooky. I'd say alcohol is probably worse, just slower.”
As they entered Alex's office he turned to ask, “So that was the same person you gave the telegram to?”
“Sure was, a bit worse for the wear.” Larry noted.
“And, our friendly bartender confirms then that this same person was a long haired female red head only a couple of days ago?” Alex continued.
“Sure enough.”
“And you heard her just say she was indeed Private James Turner, didn't you?” Alex asked.
“Yes I did indeed.”
Alex pondered that for a moment. Larry turned to look out the large office window at the gathering cloud moving into the jungle across the one lane road.
“Well, I'll be interested to see how she explains all this to the Sergeant,” Alex mused.
Larry was quiet for a long time, lost in thought. His hands were tracing little circles on the cold window, condensing the moisture into little sad faces.
“Larry?” Alex interjected. He watched his friend take his time to answer.
“So,” Larry whispered, then spoke a bit louder. “I guess we can presume Private James Turner is dead.”
~~~
Agatha and Adam were in love again. Thirty some odd years of separation in the middle had done little to quell the flame, or so it felt, anyhow.
After apple pie they had taken a ride in Adam's remodeled '72 Camaro convertible, when he finally admitted it was the '72 Camaro convertible they had actually date
d in.
“I know, I couldn't believe it either. I had heard a couple of years after I had to sell it, that it had been in a crash at Burning Man. But, when I looked at the VIN number, which I had actually memorized, it was the same...I almost cried with happiness.”
Agatha looked at him a long moment.
“OK, I did cry a little,” he admitted looking away from her a moment. “It was absolutely amazing.”
Agatha looked around at the details of this classic ride. It was all so familiar, so historical, but it was her history and that kept it from being dated and old.
After a long night of talking and even singing along with their favorite songs, now on the Oldies Channel, they found themselves awkwardly at Agatha's front porch.
Adam had his arm around Agatha on the porch swing, her head comfortably resting on his shoulder.
“You know, I would. I want to of course. But, we shouldn't. Not tonight.”
Agatha lifted her head a little and looked at him quizzically. “What are you talking about Adam?”
“Oh, nothing, just rambling on about nothing.”
Agatha secretly smiled to herself. It was as perfect as if it'd been written. “Why don't you sleep on the fold out couch, and,” she sat up excitedly, “in the morning, let's head up to Tahoe!”
Adam grinned and let his head drift back a bit to watch the ceiling move lazily back and forth. He couldn't have asked for a better script himself.
~~~
Janet was in a full on panic. I could feel it in the static she was broadcasting, in the noise from her soul.
She shooed the maid away when she showed up, extra cleaning supplies and garbage bags in tow.
“They're on to me, they have to be,” she mumbled. “Shit, I gotta get out of here.” In five minutes she was packed and in her rented car. Fighting the urge to speed away, she kept pulling her foot off the accelerator after each urge to flee. Staring straight ahead she hoped that if she didn't see anyone then they wouldn't see her either. She did however, feel the sweat moving down her forehead, her neck and back.
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