Читать книгу Still Come Home - Katey Schultz - Страница 10

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Stars & Stripes Forever

…The arrangement for moving supplies throughout Afghanistan, known as the Host Nation Trucking contract, began in May 2009. There are eight companies handling the work. The full $2.16 billion contract covers the movement and transportation of 70 percent of the material needed for US troops in Afghanistan. Security guards hired by the trucking companies funnel that money to the local warlords or the Taliban to ensure the supply truck convoys get to their destinations unscathed…

Miller sinks into his chair, reading on his Army-issued Dell PC tucked into the back room of a stripped down trailer. Drywall panels barely set straight. No paint or decor to hide the fast-paced construction demanded in wartime. Even his desk, a large piece of plywood lofted by milk crates, is hastily gathered. The discomforting irony isn’t lost on him; everything in this room came from someplace else. Everything has a price.

Folson’s letter rests atop a small pile on the center of the desk. Stacks of Army Times and kid-signed “Dear Soldier” letters cluster around a burgeoning wastebasket on the floor. A box of lotion Puffs sits on top of the filing cabinet, pills locked below. Tenley had sent the tissues when Miller caught a cold, though by the time they arrived, the virus had moved on. What he could really use is a tube of ChapStick, his papery lips constantly cracking and peeling, little lines of dried blood like cosmetics. The front door to the trailer opens, and the drywall shakes when the door slams shut. Three swift clomps of a soldier’s boots across the hollow floorboards and a knock on the office door.

“LT?”

“Come in, PFC.”

Folson enters and salutes.

“Sit down,” Miller says.

Folson’s reflex appears slow, but he manages to sit, and in those few seconds, Miller makes a quick study of his soldier: shoulders sagging like a wet poncho over Folson’s frame, eyes half-lidded. Miller can’t help but think: Ativan? Klonopin? There’s a different air about Folson tonight, like static before a lazy summer story. They’ve all had to rely on an upper or downer before. There’s an unspoken protocol: do what needs doing, and keep it to yourself. Better yet, locked in a drawer. Whatever Folson has swallowed since he sulked off the field, it was too much of the wrong thing.

“All right, Folson. I’m tired. But I’m not too tired to walk you through this, so I need you to listen up.”

Folson keeps his gaze down, staring at his feet. He fingers his wedding band, turning it round and round. The shuffling of his boots across the concrete interrupts the quiet. “The heat got the better of me out there.”

“You think I care about a fight on the playground?” Miller says.

Folson has always responded to slight condescension. He raises his gaze, eyes settling on the letter. His lips part slightly, a wheezing intake of breath. Slow as sunrise, a look of disbelief dawns across his face.

“Sir?” he says. He reaches for the letter. “Sir, is that…?”

“Now, listen…” Miller swipes the letter from the top of his desk and looks at the label.

Folson withdraws his hand, and his eyes, suddenly tightening, finally meet Miller’s. “Sir, that letter says Esquire.”

“Yes, it does. This isn’t going to be easy.”

Miller hands Folson the envelope. “But I’ve seen you go through much worse in combat.”

“Lewis Fontineau, Esquire, & Sons, Divorce Attorneys at Law, Gatlinburg, Tennessee? Urgent response required?” Folson looks torn. “No,” he whispers. “Just—hell no.”

“Hold on a minute here because where I come from, this could mean there are still options.”

“She actually meant it!” he shouts and stands. “Can you believe this? Can you even fathom what kind of polar-fucking-vortex bullshit this is, coming from a woman living in a house I’m paying for by busting my ass against the hajis, while she’s streaming Netflix and painting her nails?”

“No, PFC, I can’t. Let me take it to the Echo Company lawyer. They’ve got him camped out at the TOC all day, twiddling his thumbs. He can at least translate the thing for you.”

“There’s nothing to translate,” Folson says. “I know Becca. She doesn’t do anything halfway. Jesus. And the girls. What about my girls?”

He kicks the metal wastebasket, and it slams into a corner with a loud, snare-drumming clap. Its contents spill out like guts.

“Look,” Miller says, “you’ll be stateside in no time. You two have made it this far, Folson. She’s got to know that.”

“You can’t see it, can you?” Folson shakes his head. “Just the same as you can’t see a cheap tackle on the field or the Band-Aid missions we’ve been sent on all month.”

Miller stands. “If you want to talk logistics with me, you can wait until you’re promoted, though you and I both know that’s a long way from the direction you’re headed now,” Miller shakes his head. “We can shout about this, or we can be civil. It’s your call. In either case, I won’t have you trashing my office.”

Folson retrieves the metal wastebasket as if to set it back in place, but instead, he throws it across the room.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Miller says. He moves from behind the desk, ready to scruff Folson by the collar.

That fast, Folson punches the dent in the wall where the wastebasket hit. The plaster gives way. A small cascade of chalky drywall lets loose, and Folson dashes out the door.

Seeing how quickly things can turn, Miller can only think of Cissy’s tantrums. Everyone has their own version. Folson punches. Cissy hits. With only two elementary schools in the county and Cissy already kicked out of one, could he and Tenley survive the stress of a move? When they shredded their divorce papers, the promises they made to eachother felt giddy but conditional, as if marriage was some sort of currency measured on the exchange. He certainly hasn’t kept his end of the bargain, and the more Cissy heads down this track of disruptive youth, the more Miller hates himself for the suffering his absence must cause her. It doesn’t exactly make him want to arrange a tell-all with his wife in which he’d have to confess that he failed at the one thing his job requires above all else—to keep his men alive—and besides, he’s 7,000 miles away. He’s here. Now. A soldier under his charge getting eaten alive by a woman equally far away. The trajectories his family and Folson’s family are on seem impossible; Miller can’t even touch them. Absence makes the heart grow something, but he’s not certain that it’s fonder.

Outside the trailer, daylight fades to a dim, orange belt that parallels the horizon. It’s the only hour during which FOB Copperhead could be called beautiful, and Folson appears determined to crap all over it. Miller scans a few alleys between trailers, then jogs toward the main pathway opening to the rest of the base and looks for something awry. The base unfolds in front of him like a gigantic Monopoly board—sandbag-lined barracks and coalition offices to one side, the infirmary and dumpsters dotting the opposite. Separate offices for the ANA, of course, who seem under constant harassment to “use their own assets” for Afghan troop casualties or wounded civilians. In the distance, the chow hall and PX sit near rows of Porta-Johns, their fecal-soup scent a nearly constant tickle under his nose. From there, it’s not difficult to spot Folson, what with a cluster of soldiers gathered around the flagpole next to the chow hall and a high-pitched holler hitting Miller’s ears the same moment his brain finally makes sense of what his eyes are showing him.

Miller arrives at the flagpole breathless, having sprinted the 100 yards full-bore, passing articles of Folson’s desert camis along the way. First the uniform blouse. Then one combat boot. Another. Impressive, considering the cumbersome laces. Folson’s ripstop pants and undershirt came off last in what looked like a tumble to the ground, though quickly recovered, and there he is, nearly thirty feet in the air, straddling the flagpole, wearing nothing but boxer briefs and white tube socks. The piercing sound hits Miller’s ears again, and he sees now that it’s coming from Folson, wailing like a baby. A handful of onlookers holler up at him, partly out of concern but mostly out of annoyance. They’ve come for the nightly flag lowering and instead discovered a crazy motherfucker flexing his muscles to the sky. Miller herds the soldiers aside, though most stay close to witness the reputed 2LT in action. Miller squints upward again, trying to draw a line of clarity. This may well be one of the strangest, most fitting sights produced by the war: a trained soldier sobbing in the dying light, the bold stars and stripes of the American flag thwapping him across the chest.

“Hey, man, let’s get you down from there!” Miller cups his hands around his mouth and shouts.

Folson looks down, and one of his legs slips free, causing him to nearly lose balance before latching on again.

“Just keep your gaze level,” Miller calls. “Just hold on up there.”

“Sir?” Folson yells. His voice is a mishmash of rebel teen and muscle man, teetering between tears and brawn.

“Yeah, PFC, I’m right here,” he edges closer to the bottom of the flagpole, though he knows any position he finds is futile. If Folson lets go, there’s no stopping the inevitable.

“Sir, I need you to burn that letter.”

Miller stares up at Folson’s face, astonished to see surprise, then relief in quick succession. “Consider it done,” he says, cupping his hands to project his voice once more. “Now tell me about how the Vols football is looking for next season.”

“Fuck that, man. Fuck the entire fucking state of Tennessee. I am a ‘volunteer,’” Folson’s voice sounds steadier now, a bit less in conflict with itself.

“You got that right.”

“And back home, they’re sucking down Mountain Dew and swiping Sudafed, hulking around in their bright orange football jerseys. You and I both know it. Our country is full of shitholes, Sir. Shithole, after shithole, after shithole.”

“Not the whole country,” Miller says. “I went to California once when I was a kid. Dad squeezed us all into a camper for a week. The ride sucked, but those old growth trees, man. I’m telling you…Nothing shithole about ‘em.”

“I bet you my neighbor back home drinks more Mountain Dew in a week than a goddamn tree sucks water in a year.”

A slight breeze rolls across the FOB, and the ropes clatter and tangle along the flagpole. “Sir, my arms are shaking.”

“Mine would be too. Why don’t you come down?” Miller says, and now he knows. Folson has scared himself. Plain and simple. Climbing a flagpole is one way to do it. Miller suspects the feeling is at least a little better than whatever Folson felt looking at that letter.

“Just…just…I’m shaking. It’s just a lot. There’s just a lot of everything, Sir.”

“I understand,” Miller says.

“Look, I know it’s weird, but I need you to tell me about your wife.”

“Anything, bro. But why?” Miller asks. To think of Tenley in this moment rattles his composure. He’s trying not to fall short. How desperately part of him wants to climb that pole too.

“Because your wife wouldn’t pull something like this. You’ve said it yourself. She’s a good woman.”

Miller looks down for a moment, stretching his neck. His brain ticks its way through the muck. Do good women always remind you how much you’ve missed? Do good women say they’ll always love you, then grow cold because they’re questioning what kind of man they married? Yes. No. Miller could go either way, but what matters has always been the same: he likes who he is with Tenley and Cissy in his life. He has come to depend upon the way they see him. What remains is whether or not they’ll keep seeing him that way once he gets back.

“It’s not as simple as being a good woman or a good man,” Miller finally says. He looks back up and sees Folson’s muscles freeze around the flagpole. The soldier’s skin appears pale from the neck down, making the array of emotions across his sunburned face all the more dramatic. “I’m not gonna lie to you, man. It’s just not that simple. But I will tell you how I screwed up back home last Thanksgiving. How I still have some things I’ve got to set right.”

It stings to think of it, let alone say it out loud. But Folson’s situation demands honesty, and Miller isn’t above personal exchange when called for.

“Did you take the cheesy bread out of the oven too early? Because that’s what Becca always rides me for. The cheesy bread. Can you imagine?”

“Naw, man. It was worse than cheesy bread. But you gotta come down. It’s killing my neck to look up that way, and besides, I’m sick of seeing your hairy back. You’re fucking Wolverine up there, man. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Folson allows a half-smile. “‘I’m the best there is at what I do…’” he quotes. Below, Miller raises his hands into the air, fingers scraping upward like Wolverine’s claws. He lets loose an animal growl. They finish the line together, and the shout echoes across FOB Copperhead: “‘…AND WHAT I DO BEST ISN’T VERY NICE.’”