Out There: a novel

by Sarah Stark

  “Isn’t there anything you’d like to do with yourself, dude?” Nigel asked.

  The question interrupted Jefferson’s consideration of the option Ray had chosen, to end his own life after making it home alive. It was unbelievable news—such a nice guy, a guy who’d loved Gabriel just as Jefferson loved him.

  Jefferson remembered the night a shrill whirring had heralded the arrival of a mortar in their barracks—in truth it had hit the next building, not theirs, but who could tell the precise landing point of such fiery violence?—uprooting Jefferson and Ray Soto and all the other guys who were on the verge of sleep, slamming their bunks into each other and spilling the contents of their drawers into heaps of disarray, snatching their cell phones and laptops, smashing their skinny arms and legs and butts onto the cold, hard floor. There was a pause of intense silence, and then there was moaning and tears. Jefferson had been thrown against Ray, both alive, thank god, but Ray had cried into Jefferson’s shoulder and clung to him like a child. No blood on either of them, but then again, blood wasn’t the only sign of a wound.

  He hadn’t told that story to Dr. Monika. He’d forgotten that one.

  Nigel was looking at him, waiting for something, it seemed.

  “I got some bad news today,” Jefferson finally said, unable to look his cousin in the eyes, staring instead down into the dirt.

  “Yeah,” said Nigel. “Sorry to hear, cousin.” His large frame hovered, motionless.

  “Yep,” said Jefferson. “I found out a friend of mine died. Not too far from here,” he said, pointing to the ground. He was preparing to go on, to tell Nigel about Ray, about how they’d shared a love for the great writer García Márquez, when he realized his throat had closed up and that he would not be able to speak anymore.

  “I can’t talk about it,” he said finally, sobbing into his hands as he thought all the sad thoughts about why any of it had had to happen.

  Nigel could not have been further from understanding his cousin’s infatuation with the famous writer, but he knew Jefferson was a dreamer who rarely acted. And he knew Jefferson, who had seemed extremely weird and disconnected when he’d first returned from war, had calmed down a little bit over the past months, but was still not at all well. Nigel had watched Jefferson jump and cower at the sound of a shopping cart rattling across the grocery store parking lot. He had seen Jefferson’s finger-crochet projects hanging from the clothesline next to the van in Esco’s backyard. From his spot in his sleeping bag on the floor, he had witnessed Jefferson’s screams in the night and had documented daily the thickening glaze over his cousin’s eyes. He appreciated, as only an obese man can, the large quantity of Doritos Jefferson consumed, along with the increasing bagginess of his clothes.

  “Come on, cousin,” Nigel said now. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  An intuitive naturalist, Nigel believed in neither talk therapy nor antidepressants when it came to mental health. Perhaps nothing would help his cousin, he thought, but staying in Santa Fe was probably the worst thing he could do. Although he did not think Jefferson was suicidal, whenever he saw that faraway glaze across Jefferson’s eyes, he imagined it had something to do with death fantasies. He had a smirk and a standby line: Come on, man, eat some ice cream or somethin’. Go ride your bike down to the stadium. It might not have been enough to help everyone, but for Jefferson—who loved Nigel and who, despite the murkiness of his solitude, despite the pain of his memories always found himself wanting to live—it was just enough to see him through a bad moment.

  “Come on, man. Eat some ice cream or somethin’. Go ride your bike down to the stadium,” Nigel said now.

  So far it had worked every time, but now Nigel was sensing a deeper level of grayness in his cousin’s blank face, a degree of absence he hadn’t seen before. Something close to unreachable. He knew he had to keep his cousin engaged—conversant and awake, so to speak. All the brochures from the VA talked about how family members needed to pay attention to their loved ones once they returned home, not to ignore subtle changes in expression or skin tone or general energy level. And so, though he generally tried to avoid using his own large body to intimidate other people, Nigel decided to make an exception. He was out of options. So he heaved himself down onto the ground in front of his cousin, bent his knees under himself, grabbed Jefferson’s bony wrists, and brought his meaty face right up close. Pressing firmly into Jefferson’s hands and ignoring his attempts to pull away, Nigel told him to shut up and listen in the harshest tone he could muster.

  “Now this is what you’re gonna do, Jefferson, ya hear? You’re taking the Kawasaki, and you’re going to drive it far away, out of Santa Fe somewhere, do you understand me?”

  Jefferson did not answer, just sat there with his chin against his chest, his eyes closed. It was difficult to tell whether he’d heard.

  “You can go wherever you want—to Las Cruces or El Paso or Phoenix—I don’t care where you go. But you gotta get out of town. You gotta find yourself, man. You gotta do what you gotta do. You hear me?”

  Nigel was sweating, and his knees seemed to be buckling under the weight, so he took a deep breath and stared way off in the distance, out of the shed and toward where he knew the Jemez Mountains rested. He’d dreamed himself of riding the Kawasaki off and away somewhere, someday, perhaps a lady friend along to share the journey. It was a dream that could still happen. But for now Jefferson needed help, and at least one thing was clear: Jefferson needed to get out of town. And Nigel’s bike could make this happen.

  But Jefferson was thinking about Ray, and how it had all unfolded. How he’d been wanting to contact Ray for weeks, see what he thought about going off on a road trip to find Gabriel García Márquez together. How he’d gone on Facebook that morning to send him a message. He knew it was probably a dumb idea, unrealistic at least, but maybe it would feel good to talk to Ray about it in theory.

  But why was Nigel so close-up and in his face? What was he saying? Something, it seemed, about the Kawasaki. Something about getting out of Santa Fe.

  All of it was almost too much for Jefferson to bear. He’d had this idea about finding the great writer, and he did believe it was a decent idea, and he’d thought about sharing it with his friend who he’d now discovered was no longer alive. What was he to make of it all? He looked straight into Nigel’s big face, into his long, narrow eyes, and he tried to make sense of everything that had brought him to that moment. It was almost too much.

  And then he found the words to say the thing he needed to say.

  “You think it’d be insane for me to go find Gabriel García Márquez down in Mexico City?”

  Nigel sat back down on his stool and wiped his brow with a rag. What was Jefferson talking about?

  “I mean, he’s had cancer for over a decade,” Jefferson went on in a rush, “and he’s super old anyway. If I could get myself down there, you think I could just knock on his door? You think he’d answer?”

  “Who are you talking about?” Nigel said, but he liked the energy he was hearing in Jefferson’s voice. It was a bit of the old spontaneous Jefferson.

  “I told you. Gabriel García Márquez.”

  Jefferson was speaking faster with each new syllable in each new question. The glaze over his eyes had begun to dissipate, though, so Nigel stopped trying to make sense of what his cousin was saying and just stared at him with newfound hope.

  “I mean, did you just say something about your bike, Nigel? I could borrow your bike? I’d take good care. I promise I’d be careful—do you really mean I could take it? Are you serious, I mean? Do you think it’d make it all the way to Mexico City? I mean, you wouldn’t mind if I tried?” Though the excess sugar from the four Dr Peppers accounted for part of Jefferson’s excitement, Nigel recognized the larger part as genuine hope. A trip on the Kawasaki. A chance to talk with some old dude who was obviously a big deal, maybe a musician he’d never heard of?

  “Look,” said Nigel, his slow, deliberate eyes finding their way out thr
ough his good thick skin. “I have no idea who this Gabriel Montez dude is—someone you met in Iraq who’s in Mexico now?—but given how bad off you are, you really have no choice, man. Sounds like you need to go find this dude. Maybe it would help. You won’t know unless you go.”

  “Gabriel García Márquez,” Jefferson said. “His name is Gabriel García Márquez.”

  17

  The 47th day. Ramon, 20, from Las Cruces shot in the throat next to me.

  Adair, from Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. 22.

  Dudzinski, 22, of Mangilao, Guam, who died in a Humvee crash. I was in the vehicle behind him. He called me “buddy boy.”

  Hazelton, 29, of Edinburgh, Indiana.

  Teresa Blue, 23, of Rosedale, Maryland. I saw the explosions and later helped carry her body.

  26 yrs old. His name was Alton. Bellevue, Nebraska. His vehicle was behind mine when an IED blew it off the road. I’d never spoken to him but he had a real nice smile.

  Father and three young girls in old Toyota station wagon near Fallujah. Their young eyes were scared out the back window at me—I don’t know why. I hope nothing ever happens to them. I watched until their car disappeared into the dusty landscape.

  27-yr-old Barker of West Seneca, New York.

  40-yr-old Benton of Winona, Minnesota.

  Dan Logan from another little town in Pennsylvania. Watsontown.

  Debree, 20, of Evansville, Indiana.

  Tristan’s hand. He’s alive and has been sent home. 24.

  Cheever, Jr., 31, of Charlotte, NC.

  Daniel Waterford, 19, of Auburn, California. A real nice guy.

  Hume, 21, of Appleton, Maine. Stupid IED. Sang in the evenings like Johnny Cash.

  Thomas. Mount Vernon, Washington. Only 21. I was with him on his birthday.

  Dvorak, 24, of East Brunswick, New Jersey.

  Gomez, 20, of Irving, Texas, who died in the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. I was there when he went down but heard later of his death.

  A young guy from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

  25-yr-old from Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

  Dorn, 32, of Minnesota, his helicopter went down in the Tigris River. He was the first one to call me crazy to my face.

  Harry Wisener, 26, Golden, CO.

  Master Sgt. Pinga Pinau, 33, of Watertown, New York. Loved this guy. He was so funny and what a beautiful name.

  Zach LeBlanc who was younger than I was. Damned IEDs. From Buffalo.

  Lawrence from New York City. 26 years old.

  A guy from Rochester Hills, Michigan. I think his name was Aron. Never got his last name. 23.

  19-year-old Galen from Albuquerque. Went down after telling me about his grandparents surviving the Nazis.

  Johnston, 46, of Sackets Harbor, New York. When an IED detonated nearby he was injured and died two weeks later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC. I saw him the day they shipped him back home and he said he’d always loved the way I read from my book even if everyone else might have thought I was crazy.

  Anderson. Something about the physical training in Baghdad. He was from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 24 years old.

  A guy name Jeff Kleiner from Stockbridge, Georgia, 25, who drowned in a lake on the palace compound in Al Fallujah.

  Dwight from Cass Lake, Minnesota. Another 20-year-old. Could have been a stand-up comedian.

  The old man and his goats, pleading in an unknown tongue.

  Sgt. Schoener from Ohio. Also a sprinter in high school. 26 years old.

  Steiner, 29, of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  Thomas T. Stromberg, III. 18, of Lopez, Pennsylvania.

  Johnson, 28, of Sarasota, Florida. His helicopter was attacked. I saw him board the helicopter. He’d just given me a handful of gum and said he really liked my sneakers.

  Richard Seiders. Gettysburg, PA.

  The 17-year-old and then the hound. They were both accidents.

  A guy from Missouri named Lincoln flew through the air and died on top of me. Also immediately: Baxter Flavius, 20, of Boise, Idaho; Burkland, 26, of Rockville, Maryland; Ferre, 21, of Bakersfield, California; Connor, 19, of Jamestown, New York; Sgt. Monday from Newark, Delaware. And later, Howell, 32, of Philadelphia, New York; Lamb, 23, from New Orleans; Charles Terrazas, 25, of Clarksville, Tennessee; Nick Warren’s leg, 24, of Fairview Heights, Illinois; and Rich Rosales’s feet, 21, Saint Louis, Michigan.

  Ray Soto, 26. He loved Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he told me once. Loved him. Why did this have to happen?

  18

  He decided to present his decision in the kitchen to his grandmother and Nigel as if it were final, rather than appear to be asking them for advice. He figured they would say it wasn’t the best idea, that there were so many reasons not to go, and besides, why? He’d just returned home.

  “Aw, honey . . . ,” was all Esco said at first. After a few minutes of settling, she said, “Tell me one good reason.”

  But then, before he could begin to explain, she was off and away, telling him how Mexico wasn’t safe for Americans traveling alone, that there were regularly reported tales of drug traffickers killing whoever happened to cross their path, that anyways, Jefferson was still jumpy. “Every time someone walks up behind you, you freeze like a stunned jackrabbit,” she said, and then went on to recount the incident at the post office when Jefferson had jumped to the ground and covered his head, screaming, after a man dropped his pile of junk mail. She said she was going to call his therapist (“Esco, I don’t have a therapist”) and ask if it was safe for a young veteran in his state to leave home again so soon. And besides, she was curious where he was going to get the money to pay for his international travel, and anyway, didn’t he care about her and his cousin, who had been waiting all this time for him to get home safe so they could get on with their lives? When was he going to start reading again? As she talked, she shoved plates and glasses into the upper cabinet, jamming a few saucepans and skillets down below.

  Nigel just leaned against the kitchen wall, his eyes closed, seemingly humming a silent tune.

  Jefferson waited. Despite his grandmother’s words whirling about him, he felt calm.

  “Here’s what I wanna know—,” said Nigel, when Esco had slowed down a bit and begun to repeat her arguments.

  She immediately took Nigel’s words as support for her view, interrupting him. “See, Jefferson, your cousin has a problem with this coco-minnie idea too, see?”

  “Cockamamie, Esco. Cock-a-MAMIE,” said Jefferson.

  Nigel seemed to be waiting for the talkers in his family to take another breath. When the pause had lasted a full ten seconds, he started up again, pushing back away from the wall and standing wide-legged between the kitchen counter and the dishwasher, using his hands like a football coach describing a play. “One question,” he said, holding up the pointer finger of his right hand at Jefferson. “Are you taking the dog?”

  But Esco continued on in her own line of thought. “You’re not taking the Corolla,” she said.

  Jefferson had an answer to Nigel’s question, but he turned to Esco first. He’d wanted to talk to Nigel once more privately about taking his motorbike, to seal the deal, but it looked like he wasn’t going to have that chance. He wanted to tell her that he was planning to take the Kawasaki, but she interrupted, saying, “There’s the camper van in the backyard, but I think it’s been sitting out there too long. I doubt even Nigel could get that thing runnin’ again.” Then she put her hand on her forehead and sat down in the nearest kitchen chair, as if mention of the van or the suggestion of Jefferson’s mom or both had been too much for her. “That van’s been sitting out there over twenty years, boys.”

  “Not twenty years, Esco,” Nigel said, but then he paused and seemed to calculate in the air. “Oh, well, yeah, I guess you’re right. Hmm . . .” He was now looking at Jefferson with raised emphatic eyebrows, encouraging him to tell their grandmother what the two of them had already discussed.

  Jefferson smirked, looked u
p at the ceiling and way off beyond that to a faraway place that seemed to be materializing before him.

  “I was gonna ask Nigel to borrow his motorbike, Esco,” Jefferson said finally. He had been mulling the idea over for two full days since their first conversation about it. “And I was planning to put a little carrier or basket thingie on the back for Remedios,” he said, now turning to face his cousin. “—of course I’m takin’ her.”

  Nigel wrinkled up the right side of his face.

  “I just can’t believe we’re really talking about this,” Esco said into the kitchen tablecloth, her fingers now squeezing the bridge of her nose. It seemed to her that once again the ground was moving under her feet, that the stability she’d yearned for after Jefferson’s return from war had not come to be. Some part of her had known it was too much to expect. He’d been out there in a hostile world, doing things, seeing things, she could not imagine. And though she had done her best all along to raise him, to love him, she knew that Jefferson had suffered losses before he ever left for war. She had done her best, but Esco knew that this was sometimes not enough.

  Nigel’d been reworking that bike since before Jefferson had graduated from Santa Fe High. When he’d bought the scrap parts from the owner’s widow, he’d weighed under two hundred pounds and had been dating a girl named Marissa. He’d told her he was going to take her on rides down to the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, and to the balloon fiesta. There was a moment back then when Nigel’d thought he’d marry Marissa.

  “I’m one hundred and ten percent for it,” said Nigel, “but you need to practice riding before you head out, cousin.”

  “I know how to ride a bike,” said Jefferson.