Fire in the Blood

by Perry O'Brien

  And then, like a magic trick: a burst of white-hot light.

  * * *

  —

  Coop reclined in the darkness, his back against the ice. He heard the forest breathe in gusts across the pond. When he opened his eyes he saw stars. Coop lay there for a while, trying to remember how his lungs worked. He could feel the force from the blast still lodged in his sinuses, a bubble of dizzying pressure, as if the explosion had crawled into his head and gotten stuck there, or found itself a home. As he watched, the stars crackled and came apart, little lights drifting and falling toward the earth in loopy spirals. Not stars, Coop realized. It was Theo’s money. Thousands of bills, burning and twisting in the night air.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Back in Maine there was an inlet behind Coop’s house, and every winter it would freeze. The trapped ocean never hardened entirely, but for a few bitter days it would seem as if the coastline had expanded, the water changing into a new landscape of jagged islands. Every year Coop would stand on his family’s old fishing pier and survey these continents of ice, and every year he’d swear that if he was fast enough he could run straight across the cove, leaping from one bobbing island to the next as each capsized or submerged beneath his feet. He’d imagined it so many times—darting across the frozen sea, leaving a trail of broken ice in his wake—and now he played the vision over and over, a kind of prayer as he stumbled through a kingdom of mysterious streets: Ampere, Lucerne, Throgmorton, Griswold. His chest felt full of broken glass, and at the corner of Marmion, Coop stopped to gag, leaving spatters of black in the snow. The sky was still dark. It was early on a Saturday morning.

  After a few more blocks he noticed his left leg dragging. The foot was soaked in a needly dullness and Coop thought about little pieces of shrapnel, how deep they can go. Fill your body with blood before you even know you’re hurt. He wasn’t sure why he was walking, or what toward. The world was bits and pieces, fragments floating in his head.

  Sunlight appeared over the rooftops and the city came awake with sirens. Two old men came out from a tobacco shop to have a look as a dozen SUVs went screaming past, vehicles brandishing the emblems of Police, Fire, and Homeland Security.

  Up the street Coop saw a group of uniformed officers setting up steel barricades. It took a few moments for him to comprehend the scale of this mobilization, and to realize, Jesus Christ, they’re looking for me. Overhead came the chop-chop-chop of a helicopter and Coop shrank down inside himself as he staggered down the road. Of course they are, he thought. You’re a killer.

  As he limped down the street Coop waited for hands to fall on his shoulder, the riot of uniformed bodies that would push him to the ground. Zip-tie and hood him like an Afghan villager. It’s all right, Coop told himself, it doesn’t matter if they catch you. He was ready to give himself up, and wildly he scanned the block, hunting for a way to avail himself of this conviction.

  He spotted two cops setting up barricades and staggered in their direction. The cops looked up at him, and then at each other. Coop’s throat felt too dry to speak. He hoped the soot on his clothes and his burned eyelashes would be enough of a confession.

  “No luck, buddy,” said one of the cops. “Street’s closed off.”

  Coop stood there blinking. He thought, I’m the one you’re looking for.

  The other cop came over. “Look chief, I know it’s cold out here, but you see this? This here’s a police line. You cross it, all you’ll get is a ticket, you understand? We’re not putting you in a cell.”

  “So move along,” said the first cop, waving him away. “Just keep it moving.”

  Coop managed a nod before continuing down the road. Goddamn, he thought. It was getting harder to walk.

  He saw a crowd gathered at the next corner. People unloading from passenger vans, the transports logoed with KING OF PEACE TABERNACLE. Mostly older-looking black folks, guided by kids carrying placards, folded reams of cloth, and bundles of sticks. Coop headed toward them, drawn by the collection of bodies. More people were arriving, many of them in like-colored assemblies, wearing sweatshirts and hats with the same letters and numbers, like military units. One of the groups carried a banner saying WRONG WAR. Coop puzzled over this for a few seconds before comprehending. The police hadn’t come for him after all.

  Probably no one had even heard an explosion, Coop realized. The clap of Kosta’s death would have been just another noise, lost in the city’s innumerable commotions. Looking upward to the sky, Coop felt himself reduced within the multitude. His efforts were little more than feeble sparks of rage. Everything was light, even the new, raw truth he carried of Kay, freshly scooped from his heart.

  Back on the lake, Coop had taken a long time to lift himself up from the ice. Of Kosta there had been nothing left except a watery crater and bad-smelling smoke. Coop wandered back to the site of the deer, where he fetched Kosta’s rifle from the snow before hiking up to the old rail station. He came low toward the van, circling the vehicle with the rifle raised in front of him. Peeking through the driver’s side window he saw the keys had been left in the ignition. Taking these, he went to the rear of the van. Unlocking the door, he found Sean, a thin shadow chained to the floor, and above him, a portrait rendered in wild strokes of grime. Instantly Coop recognized Kay smiling down on him from the foul-smelling cave of the van, and in that moment, standing in the open door, Coop finally felt as if he understood the situation.

  When Coop opened his eyes he saw the crowd was moving. There were drumbeats now and it seemed there was no end to the people joining the march. Coop found himself following despite his exhaustion. He didn’t want to be left alone.

  Off in the distance someone was making a speech, but the static echo was lost to the racket, a hundred discordant chants, the music from drum brigades, gutter punks playing kazoos, the jingling bell of a Buddhist monk in gray robes. Then came a river of flag-draped coffins. Dancing over the coffins were giant skeleton puppets dressed raggedly in the manner of Afghans and Iraqis, American soldiers, pin-striped bankers and politicians, all carried by women wearing black masks. Around the protesters were police and more police, riding on motorcycles, bicycles, horses, armored vans, manning the mazes of steel barriers, heads angled to better catch radio chatter.

  The protesters chanted and yowled. This is where Kay would be, thought Coop. If there’s any place she would be, this is it. The thought made him smile. Of everything that had happened since he’d come to New York, joining this mad procession was the first thing he’d done that would have made her happy. No, the second thing, he reminded himself. Extricating Sean, of that Kay would have approved. Not that it had been a conscious idea, setting down the rifle against the van’s rear fender and passing Sean the keys. Coop had barely looked at him when he did it, and the two of them never said a word to each other. Coop couldn’t be sure how long he had stood there before turning away and retreating into the snow. All he knew was this: if Kay had ever belonged to him, however briefly, that time was long over. In truth she had been gone before she died.

  “Welcome home, brother,” said a voice nearby. Coop swiveled his head, registering that he was being addressed.

  The man was tall and skinny and obviously homeless, almost as if one of the skeleton puppets from the protest had detached itself and come to life. Angular and scraggle-faced, he wore a baseball cap and a green jacket that Coop realized was a faded Army uniform with sergeant stripes. A row of multicolored ribbons were pinned to his chest.

  “You just get back?” said the man.

  Coop blinked. The man reached out and put a finger on Coop’s chest, where his dog tags had fallen out of his coat. Coop felt the twitch of drill reflexes, the hobo sergeant activating Coop’s grunt brain, and he felt cold tingles of pain in the straightening of his spine as he slipped his arms behind his back, assuming the position of parade rest.

  “Roger, Sergeant,” said Co
op.

  The man grinned. “C’mon, we’re over here,” he said, loping off into the crowd. Coop followed.

  The sun rose higher as more and more protesters filled the streets. Coop and the old sergeant zigzagged through the thickening crowd, the distant speech and the chants growing to a static roar. Along the edges of the avenue, orange-vested parade marshals waved the onlookers back, dividing the multitude into separate formations. The old sergeant led Coop to the front of the march, where they joined a white-haired crowd of old hippies in camouflage.

  “I’m Red,” said a geezer in a boonie cap. He pointed at Coop. “Your eyes look funny.”

  There’s blood leaking in my brain, Coop wanted to say. Instead he nodded and gave a thumbs-up.

  “Hobbes,” said the tall sergeant, “lemme borrow your wheelchair.”

  Coop tried to decline but his protests were waved away.

  “Hobbes don’t need it,” said Red, “bastard just lazy. Get up, Hobbes!”

  Then the parade marshals swooped in, forming a chain of orange vests between marchers and the sidewalk audience. Coop had been locked in with the contingent of old vets. The avenue was clear ahead, exposing the bridge and the dim city, and farther out, the hard glitter of the distant sea. Now the crowd’s shouting grew louder. A brass band jumped noisily to life.

  “C’mon, men,” said the giant, and a flag was put in Coop’s hands. They wanted to push him in the wheelchair. The marshals parted and Coop was staring down a long and empty bridge flanked by flashing sirens, orange cones, bodies pushing against the barricades. There was no New York, just the protest, and as they pushed forward Coop gave himself to the lift and swell. For a moment everyone waited, a stillness of quiet bobbing. Then came a chant, a seagull shriek of rage, and seemingly from nowhere Coop was lifted and tossed forward, high among the shouts and picket signs, and all around people marching and screaming and banging on their instruments. Crowds of onlookers stood on either side of the bridge. Some were crying, others saluted. As the group of veterans neared them, these spectators broke into applause, their hands coming together, matching the beat of helicopters against the sky.

  A chill passed through Coop’s back, up his leg and into his damaged lungs, across every beating inch of his body. They’re clapping for me.

  Tears ran down his nose and fell from his trembling jaw. The wind came over the water and iced the streams on his face. He felt a great heat at his back. Coop closed his eyes and saw glowing coals; red rocks, the sun flashing on sand. The parade staggered over the bridge, a grim jangle, and Coop smiled as he felt himself come apart.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The television showed a woman skiing through Times Square. She glided across the empty plaza, heels snapping rhythmically with every stride, while all around big electric screens glowed hot against the blizzard. The camera zoomed back to better frame the shot, a wilderness of neon and gently drifting snow.

  Eva watched the news with a dozen of her colleagues, all of them crammed inside a tiny call room. They’d been stranded together ever since the storm began. Anticipating a surge of patients, St. Barbara’s had activated the emergency staffing plan, but so far, the hospital had been relatively quiet. Apparently no one was making it through the snow.

  “Diya, can you hear us?”

  Now the television cut to a reporter on the street, dressed in an oversized parka. Fat snowflakes fell all around her, some sticking to her hair and face. The reporter gestured around herself, speaking with exaggerated facial expressions, but there was no sound.

  “Nope, not getting anything from her.”

  Back to the newsroom, where the correspondent wore a look of good-humored concern.

  “Seems to be a problem with her mic. Well, folks, I think these images speak for themselves…”

  A lone car fishtailed across the freeway. Then a shot of the tarmac at JFK, cluttered with planes. In the next clip, soldiers from the National Guard canvassed a dark neighborhood, searching for people trapped in their homes.

  Eva rubbed at her shoulder. She got up to stretch, feeling the eyes of Dr. Adjaye on her. He sat on the nearby couch, squeezed in among the other white coats. Without looking Eva could perfectly imagine his expression in the glow of the television, a kind of hopeful attentiveness.

  “Now for other top stories…”

  The mayor was announcing the creation of a new task force to address the heroin crisis in New York. Meanwhile, in national news, Condoleezza Rice was being asked if the weekend’s global protests against the planned invasion of Iraq had shaken the administration’s resolve.

  “Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Rice.

  Eva left the call room and fetched a cup of burnt coffee from the cafeteria. She paced the floors. The wind howled outside. Maintenance teams patrolled the hallways, cleaning up leaks of brackish water that had sprouted from the walls.

  Eva didn’t realize she’d been heading toward Three East until she arrived in the derelict wing. The lights were off but the hallway was illuminated by a polar glow. Eva came close to the windows. She felt a shiver of cold through the glass, the storm reaching for her.

  Out of her coat pocket came the cough syrup. The bottle was nearly empty, just a thin coating on the bottom. She tipped it back. Then an electric bell sounded at the other end of the hallway, followed by a figure emerging from the elevator. Dark face, bleach-white coat. Adjaye, thought Eva. He must have followed her.

  The doctor turned his head, saw her, and smiled. He paced in her direction, carrying two steaming coffees.

  “Hello,” said Adjaye.

  Eva smiled politely and raised her cup to indicate she had her own.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m tired enough to drink them both.”

  He looked out the window. They stood there for a while surveying the city, lost beneath a desert of white-crested waves.

  * * *

  —

  “Your friend, he’s back in the hospital.”

  Just two days ago, Adjaye had spoken those few words to Eva. It had been intended as a friendly heads-up between colleagues, something quick as they passed each other in the hallway. But the comment had stopped Eva as if she’d been slapped. Immediately she had gone to speak with an admissions clerk. The clerk had sent her to several departments before Eva found a chief resident who remembered Coop. He had arrived at the ER earlier that morning, wheeled in by a gang of old hollering vets. Protesters, it seemed like, some of them still carrying banners and signs.

  Yes, Eva had interrupted, but where is he now?

  The chief told her where she could see him.

  Coop was lying on a cot with his eyes closed. He hadn’t been prepared yet and was still dressed for surgery. The light overhead caught the pale display of his hand sticking out from under the sheet. The mortuary wasn’t busy that night, and Eva was able to stay awhile with the body.

  Afterward there were a number of phone calls to the hospital. The first was from a detective. Then came calls from an Army commander, an attorney representing the Bellante family, a young law student from Berkeley. Then more detectives. One of the interns had asked Eva if she wanted to speak to any of them. She shook her head. It was too much.

  Now, up in Three East, Eva looked out over the white city. Out in the snow, a single soldier sat in a booth at the entrance to the parking lot. There had been a small detachment of New York National Guard deployed to the hospital to assist with snow removal and emergency transportation, and this man was posted, Eva supposed, in case any patients arrived from the cold. She watched the helmeted silhouette as the wind and snow battered his small enclosure.

  Eva finished her coffee, reached over and took the extra cup from Adjaye’s hand. They went back to watching the snow.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Adjaye.

  “Beautiful,” Eva replied, spea
king barely above a murmur.

  “Like a big blank sheet of paper,” Adjaye continued. “I like to imagine someone could go out there and write whatever they liked.”

  What a nice thing to imagine, thought Eva. If only you could do it. Just forget about the past, shed it like a coat. Go traipsing across the whole bare world, mindless of all that lay buried beneath your feet.

  To Evans, who was the best of us.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my agent, Nathaniel Jacks; my editors, Samuel Nicholson and Alexis Washam; and the incredible team at Random House.

  To the many teachers, mentors, and guides who have schooled me over the years: Bill Gavin, Daniel Burland, Judith Reppy, Mike Phelan, Chuck Wachtel, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Darrin Strauss, David Lipsky, and most of all the late E. L. Doctorow.

  Endless gratitude to Roy Scranton, Jacob Siegel, Matt Gallagher, Phil Klay, and other alumni of the NYU Veteran Writers Program. Thank you also to Deborah Landau, Major Jackson, and Ben Fountain.

  To my family and friends for their love, support, and inspiration: Yunhee, Josh, Taemin, Yuna, Taz, Sean, Trosha, Grandmother, and especially to my parents, Annie and O.B., for being my first readers. And to Jim Bentley, Andrew Woods, David Donnelly, Rory O’Toole, Josh Cousins, Nathaniel Adams, Matt Crepeau, and Tom Gagne.

  Finally, to Hannah Jean, who read the book after one date. Thank you for everything.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PERRY O’BRIEN served in Afghanistan as a medic with the 82nd Airborne Division. He was honorably discharged from the Army as a conscientious objector. His fiction has been featured in the war anthology Fire and Forget, and his nonfiction has been published by The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He currently lives in New York City.