NEW ORLEANS
PRESENT DAY
LEIF
“You wanna play catch?”
I was immersed in my thoughts and it took me a second to process the little voice was talking to me. When I finally looked up, Hunter was standing there, staring at me with those big blue eyes and holding a baseball in one hand and a Ninja Turtle glove on the other…backwards. “What’s that buddy?”
“Do you know how to play ball?” I’d missed out on playing sports as a kid, but I tossed a ball around in the army with the guys more than once.
“I do okay. What about you?”
“I played t-ball last year. This year I get to play real baseball, but I need to learn how to catch better and throw farther.”
“Well, the first thing we need to do is turn this around,” I told him, taking hold of the glove. I took it off of him and said, “Hold out your hand with your palm up.” He did as I asked him, and I slid the glove back on him. “It’s a little big.”
“Yeah, Mom bought it,” he said like it explained everything. I tried not to smile.
“Well, that was nice of her.”
“Yeah, she’s nice…but she doesn’t really know anything about t-ball.”
“No?”
“Nope. She claps when I hit the tee, and she bought me a Paw Patrol bat and a Ninja Turtle glove.”
“Not cool?”
“It makes me look like a baby.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s not what she meant for it to do.”
“Nah, I like both of them, but I’m not four anymore.”
“No, you’re not. Sometimes I reckon it’s hard for a mom to see that. You wanna throw the ball around a bit?”
“Yeah!” His eyes lit up, and he looked as excited to play ball with me as I was that he asked me to play. I followed him out to the center of the backyard, and he threw it to me first. I saw right away what he was doing wrong, but I was afraid of hurting his feelings, so I picked it up where it had rolled and threw it back without saying anything. He put his glove out and held it there in front of him while the ball went over his head. “I suck,” he said.
I did laugh then. “I don’t reckon your mama would be too happy to hear you say that word.”
“Nah, she’d yell at me. But I really do.”
“No, you don’t. Everything takes practice; that’s all you need.”
“We don’t start practice for two weeks.”
“You can practice anytime though. We’re practicing right now.”
“Will you be here every day?”
“When your grandpa’s home, I’ll be here, otherwise I have to be with him.”
“Can you practice with me?”
“Sure, buddy, as much as we can.” He grinned again. He looks so much like his mama. He bent down, picked up the ball, and started to toss it to me. “Can I show you something?”
“Okay.”
I went over and stood behind him. “Lift your arm like you’re going to throw it.” He raised his arm up, and I took hold of it gently and pulled it back over his shoulder more. His little arms were so skinny. “Okay, hold that pose for a minute.” I went back around and stood a few feet in front of him and held out my hands. “Okay, with all your strength, launch it into my hands.” He put his little tongue out to one side and with a big “oomph” he let the ball go. I had to take a step back because he’d thrown it so hard, and it landed right in my hands. I think I was more tickled than he was. We whooped and hollered and high fived. It was a good feeling that doing such a little thing for someone could make them so happy. I hadn’t made anyone happy in a long time.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” I looked down and realized my sleeve had pulled up and Hunter was staring at the scars on my arms.
“There’s nothing wrong with it now, buddy. Those are scars. I got burned a while back.”
“Can I touch it?”
“Sure.” I watched his little face as he took one of his fingers and slid it slowly along one of the longest scars.
“It’s smooth.”
I smiled. “Yeah, the scars are smoother than the rest of it.”
“How come?”
“I’m not sure, buddy. I think because it’s newer skin maybe.”
“How’d you burn them?”
I wasn’t sure what you were supposed to tell a kid about war so I said, “I was at work and there was an explosion. It burned my gloves and the sleeves of my jacket caught on fire, too.”
He made a face. “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah, it did, buddy. I’ll bet your mom has told you to never play with fire, right?”
“Yeah, she says it all the time.”
“Well, she probably wants to make sure you remember. She doesn’t want to see you get hurt. It hurt awfully bad, worse than anything I ever felt.”
“Did you think you were gonna die?” I thought about Gonzo, and while I watched him melt away, I did indeed think that I was going to die.
“Yeah, buddy, I did.”
“Were you scared?”
“Yeah, I was really scared.”
“My dad died. He was a soldier.” My chest suddenly hurt.
“I’m sorry to hear that, buddy.”
He shrugged. “I just wish I could have met him. I have a picture of him. Do you wanna see it?”
I didn’t. I didn’t want to look at Leif Thompson’s face ever again. Just thinking about what he’d done to his family…both of them, made my stomach turn. But there was no way I could tell this little boy no. “Sure, buddy, I’d like to see it.”
“I’ll be right back.” He ran into the house. I stood there and tossed the ball up and down while I waited for him to come back. I wondered how Karli would feel about me playing ball with her son. I didn’t have to wonder long. I heard the sound of her voice, and it cut through every raw nerve in my body.
“Hunter what are you doing with that?”
“I’m showing the guy.”
“What guy?” Hunter raced back through the door, and Karli appeared almost instantly behind him.
“This guy.” I caught the ball I’d just thrown up and gave her a little smile. She didn’t smile back.
“Why is he showing you a picture of his dad?” Karli looked anxious. I tried to give her a reassuring look. I wasn’t about to say anything to Hunter about his dad. That wasn’t my place.
“He just asked if I wanted to see him.”
She looked like she was holding her breath as Hunter handed me the photo. I looked down at the face of the man I’d impersonated. Hunter’s blue eyes looked at me out of the photo and looking at it that way made it a little easier. I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat and said, “He’s a handsome guy.”
“He was a soldier, and he was really brave, and he fought all the bad guys.”
I smiled, and then I glanced at Karli. Her eyes were filled with tears. Damn. Hunter looked like he expected me to say something though so I said, “I’ll bet he was an amazing guy. I’d like to be that brave someday.”
“Me too! When I grow up, I’m gonna be in the army too and fight the bad guys.”
“You know, sometimes army guys do other things too besides fighting.”
“Like what?”
I looked up at Karli, and I saw that she was thinking the same thing I was…that day we ran into each other in Texas. It was the day I decided absolutely that fate or karma or whoever it was really wanted us in each other’s lives…if only for a moment.
********
KILLEN, TEXAS
2014
After I was injured in that explosion, I spent close to six months in the hospital in Germany. I had at least ten surgeries during that time. I was burned over eighty-five percent of my hands and arms, and there was a lot of damage to my lungs because of inhaling all of the chemicals that were burning that day. Our truck and the truck following us had been full of cleaning supplies that only served to make the explosion more lethal. I had to have one of my lungs removed and multiple sk
in grafts from the backs and sides of my thighs to cover the areas on my hands and arms where the skin was completely gone. I lost three fingers, they re-made two of them for me. I also had a concussion…and the vision of Gonzo roasting to death in front of me haunts me to this day. You would think that a guy who had been through all that would want to run as far and as fast as he could from the army, but like I’d told Karli once, I ain’t never been accused of being normal.
The day I walked out of the hospital and reported to my new command, the army tried to get me to leave. I begged them to keep me and told them I’d do whatever they assigned me to do. There had to be something I was qualified to do. I was an officer by that time, so I could teach, or I could go stateside and recruit. I knew I had seen the last of combat—and I was actually okay with that. A little bit of getting nearly burned to death solves that whole wanting to be a hero problem. I just didn’t want to be alone again, on my own and trying to figure out how to survive in the world. I didn’t know how to do it, and my anxiety was off the hook. I was twenty-three years old at the time and I’d never lived completely on my own without someone telling me what to do. I was ashamed of the fact, but I knew that I needed that.
Someone took pity on me and assigned me to logistics on the base in Germany for a while. Two months after that, they accepted my re-enlistment papers and assigned me to Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. I laughed when I got my papers. I’d been assigned to honor guard detail. I never felt there was too much about me that was honorable, but I wanted to stay in so badly that I wasn’t going to even try and turn it down.
Before I left Germany, I was able to finagle an address for Gonzo’s family out of the clerk. I wasn’t a talker, but I was his commander…and I’d given the command that had ultimately gotten him killed. They deserved at least a courtesy visit from me. I dressed in my dress blues, and on my way to Fort Hood, I had the transport take me to a little town in Georgia. Gonzo was from a really nice neighborhood, and I found out that he came from really nice parents, too. They listened to me talk about him; I shared what memories I had of him and told them how he made me laugh. I didn’t tell them how he drove me crazy, but his brother, who was just a teenager brought up how much he liked to talk. I sat there with that family for over two hours, and after we talked about Gonzo, they wanted to know about me. I told them what little there was to tell, and before I left, laden down with homemade Mexican food and hugs and kisses from them all, I was given their phone numbers and told in no uncertain terms to call them if I ever needed anything.
Visiting Gonzo’s family was a double-edged sword. It made me feel good to talk about him with people who loved him and remembered things about him besides the day he died. It also made me feel even lonelier to know there were families out there like that. It’s all I ever wanted, and what I imagined in my head didn’t even come close to being that good.
I got to Fort Hood at last, and one of the first things I found out about it was that more soldiers deployed from Fort Hood had died in the Middle East than from any other base in the U.S. The town was one big funeral after the other.
As I learned my new duties, my biggest hurdle was learning how to fold the flag. It wouldn’t have taken me quite as long, but at that time, I was also still learning how to use my hands. I stuck with it though, and after a while, I was a flag-folding S.O.B. We were also the ones who marched in all the parades and made public appearances, so I even got a little better at talking to people I didn’t know. I grew tired of the barracks, so I found a little place just off the base that was close enough to give me a sense of security. The first day I moved into my house I met a girl named Chloe. I was taking things out of the truck, and she walked right up to me and started talking. She told me she’d been visiting her friend next door, and then she proceeded to quiz me. She wanted to know if I was married and if I had kids and how long I’d been in the army and even what my rank was. I’d heard about women who sought out military men to marry, but Chloe was the first one I’d ever met face to face.
She told me she was thirty-two and she “used to be” an exotic dancer. She didn’t mention that day that she was gainfully unemployed, but I found out soon enough. Before I knew it, we were dating and then way too quickly after that she’d moved in. I’d gone into it thinking she would be there for me and I wouldn’t be lonely and maybe I’d get over my unhealthy obsession with Karli. But the opposite actually happened. She was only in the relationship for what I could give her, and knowing that made me feel lonelier. Feeling lonely made me think of Karli and how happy I’d been for those six months we exchanged letters. The more she’d told me about herself, the more I wanted to know. In Chloe’s case, the more I knew, the less I wished I did.
I was getting dressed in my A-class uniform one day when she came in from being out. She didn’t work, but she went out a lot. She was a wreck, and she smelled like old booze and cigarettes and sex. She had an idea in her head that because I was so easy going that I was stupid as well. After a year of it, I was just finally done. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to run her fingers through her tangled, blonde hair. “Are you going to another funeral?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t you get tired of going to funerals?
“Nope, I love ‘em.”
“Really? Isn’t that kind of morbid?”
I took a deep breath for patience and said, “I was joking. I don’t like them, but it’s my job.”
She came close to me as I was buttoning up my jacket and ran her hand across my smoothly shaved face. She reeked, and it made my stomach turn. “You look so young when you shave.” She had a lustful gleam in her eyes. I’m not sure why a thirty-five almost thirty-six-year-old woman would be excited about a man who looked like a boy, but Chloe was different like that. She ran her hand down the other side of my face and said, “You look so sexy, baby. Call in sick…”
“No.” I brushed her off of me and picked up my hat. “Grown-ups go to work, Chloe.”
She made her pouty face, as I pulled on my white gloves. I liked wearing gloves, it made my hands look halfway normal. “Oh Leif, all work and no play makes you so dull.” She flopped back down on the bed. I had a vision of her still being there when I got back, and suddenly I couldn’t stand the thought any longer.
“Chloe, you need to find somewhere else to live.”
She sat up and looked at me with a furrowed brow. “What?”
“I can’t do this anymore. You don’t have be out today…but soon, okay?”
“What money do you suggest that I should I do this with?” She crossed her arms, pissed. I almost told her that she was an adult and where she got her money was not my problem, but I had a hard time being that mean.
Instead I said, “I’ll give you the money to move…but then you’ll need to get a job and sustain it. I can’t keep giving you money.”
She pouted again. “Leif…” She tried to stand up but weaved over to one side and fell back onto the bed. I just turned and left the room. I really couldn’t stand the sight of her any longer.
*******
I met up with the rest of the guard just inside the gates of the base, and we all rode over to the church together in the transport van. This family had requested us to be at the church as well at the gravesite. The lady they were burying today was named Donna Bartlett. It’s probably weird, but I always like to find out at least the deceased name and something interesting about them. I feel like it’s easier to pay an honest respect if you felt like you at least knew them a little bit.
This lady was a sergeant major when she retired from the army. She’d spent over twenty years in, and she’d done six tours as a communications expert during the Gulf War. By that time, she was already in her fifties, so I had a huge respect for that alone. Her rank was also high and deserving of respect. I found out that her husband was also in the army. He retired about the same time she did as a command sergeant major. They were both on the city council at the time of his death. I couldn’t
help but think that they both left a significant imprint on the world—at least before they went. It was less than I’d be able to say about myself if I went today.
When we got to the church, we lined up on either side of the steps that led up to the big oak doors. The funeral service was scheduled to begin at nine that morning. At eight forty-five, the master sergeant called us into formation. Three of us stood along one side of the entrance, and the other three of us stood directly across from those three. We were to stand at attention as the mourners arrived, and then we would act as honorary pallbearers for the casket. This was a Catholic funeral, so the flag the coffin was draped in now would have to be changed as it went into the church and then put back on as it was carried out. Unlike the jobs I’d had previously in the army, this one was not about labor or killing or being a hero. This one was all about respect.
I stood at attention and focused my eyes straight ahead. While I stood there, I thought about the situation with Chloe. I was a little bit afraid that she’d refuse to move out and I had to find the resolve to not give in to her. All I really had to do was call my command and they’d send the MPs to remove her. I hated to do that. I hated for anyone to know my business, especially when my business was always so sordid. I shook that off and thought about the funeral again. I wondered who would be there to receive Donna’s flag. Then I wondered who would be there to receive mine. Then, of course, I thought about Karli. I always thought about Karli when I thought about my life and my future. It’s so ridiculous. I’d sent another card and check just this past week for Hunter for his birthday, but I knew from experience that she was not going to cash it. I wondered if I’d ever get to see her again.
I mulled over the same thoughts in my head until everyone was inside. Then we changed the flag on the coffin and took it in. The church was standing room only. Donna was obviously well loved. I honestly couldn’t think of one person that would be at my funeral if I died today…other than the same honor guard I was here with and my commander, so pathetic. When we reached the front of the church, we placed the coffin down gently in front of the altar and took up our positions on either side of the church. The priest started Mass, and for the first time, I was able to glance around at the people who had shown up to mourn and pay their respects. Everyone was somber, and some seemed to be focused on the Mass and others on the coffin. It was open now, and Donna looked like one of those figures at Madame Tussauds. She was a pretty, older lady, and she looked peaceful. I’m not a religious guy, but I at least liked to believe there was something beyond this harsh world we live in and people who didn’t get to live a happy life here maybe got to do it there. I hoped that one day I could meet the only people that ever truly loved me, my parents. I wanted more than anything to feel that unconditional love one day.
LEIF (Blake Security Book 3) Page 6
