Rome

by Jay Crownover

  “I don’t need your money, son.”

  I lifted the eyebrow that was under the scar, it was the only one I could arch independently, so I did it a lot.

  “No? Well, what did you mean when you said we could work something out?”

  I had to wait as he was called to the other end of the bar by one of the patrons. It startled me to realize the new customer was probably only five years older than me. I also recognized the Army Ranger insignia tattooed on his bicep and felt a shiver of apprehension slide down my spine. I didn’t want to see myself in these guys, in this place, but it was getting harder and harder not to.

  By the time Brite made his way back to me, I had given up the fight and propped myself up on an empty stool. My thoughts had drifted down a rather dark path, and I was having to struggle really hard to stay in the present. I wondered briefly if it showed on my face. I used to think I was pretty good at hiding all the turmoil that was crawling, saturating, filling me up from the inside out. After the blowup with Rule, and the way Brite was looking at me as he lumbered in my direction, I wasn’t so sure that was the case. I cleared my throat and forced myself to meet that charcoal gaze as he leaned on heavy forearms across from me.

  “How handy are you?”

  I tilted my head to the side and considered him in puzzlement. “What exactly do you mean by ‘handy’?” I mean I could break down pretty much any weapon you put in my hand and have it back together and firing in seconds, I could field-dress any number of injuries, I could tinker with the motor on the Harley and probably troubleshoot the basics of anything thrown at me. I was a problem solver by nature, but I wasn’t going to go out and build a house from the ground up or anything crazy like that.

  He gave me that grin that I was starting to think meant the guy had something up his sleeve.

  “You’re a guy with plenty of time on his hands and I’m a guy with a bar in serious need of some TLC. I already spend too much time here and I have no desire to be stripping floors and refinishing this bar top at my age. You bled all over it, you can fix it.”

  We stared at each other in a tense silence for a long time. I was trying to figure out if he was serious and I think he was waiting to see if I was going to waffle or not. Finally I had to blink, so I leaned back in the stool with a sigh.

  “Are you sure you don’t just want me to come regulate, like watch the door for you for a few weeks or something? Then no one would have to worry about bleeding on the floor in the first place.”

  He barked out a laugh that made me cringe.

  “No offense, son, but last time you were in a scuffle in here, you were the one that had to get dragged to the doc.”

  I made a face and tried not to let the truth of it sting my already wounded pride. “I was drunk, and outnumbered.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need a bouncer. I need a helping hand, someone I can trust, and someone that can be in here and not judge, because maybe, just maybe, he sees a little bit of himself in some of the regulars.”

  It took every single fiber of self-control I had not to react to his dead-on assessment of how I was feeling. I had to fight not to fidget but to just sit still and try and think of any good excuse not to do what he was asking me to do. When nothing came to mind, it made that dark place I was hovering on get just a little bit wider.

  Not even six months ago I was in charge of over a hundred men. I planned clandestine missions, I was the go-to guy for all the answers and solutions, and none of that translated to any kind of goddamn real-world job experience. I indeed had way too much free time on my hands and no end in sight for it. It made my head hurt and my heart speed up a little in my chest, so I cleared my throat and told Brite thanks when he set a glass of water down in front of me.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather me write you a check?”

  He shook his head and that grin I was really starting to mistrust broke through once again.

  “Nope. I don’t need your cash, I need you.”

  Seeing that there really was no way around it if I wanted to be a man of my word, I nodded solemnly. I wanted to show this burly man who I respected without question, because I felt like we were kindred spirits, that I might not know where I was going or what I was doing but I still had more honor than one man needed in this lifetime.

  “All right. I can do what you need me to do. How long do you think it’ll all take?”

  He laughed long and hard, so hard that some of the other regulars looked our way in curiosity. I didn’t see why it was funny but I kept my mouth shut.

  “As long as it takes, son.”

  That seemed vague and open-ended, but before I could make him hammer down a more definitive time frame, he slapped his meaty hands down on the bar in front of me and leaned across the wooden expanse so that we were eye to eye. It was unnerving to have those dark eyes peer so intently into my own, but I immediately understood that whatever he was going to follow up with was to be taken seriously. This was without a doubt Brite’s I’m serious as hell face.

  “No drinking while you’re working. I mean it.”

  I frowned a little. “Okay.”

  “I’m serious, Rome. I know firsthand how easy it can be to lose track of what it’s like trying to live outside the bottle. What you do in your free time is of no concern to me, you want to pickle your liver that’s your choice to make, but while you’re here, I won’t watch another good man go down.”

  “Weren’t you the one pouring me endless shots of Wild Turkey the other night?” I would rather have all my teeth removed from my head by rusty pliers than admit how often a bottle of Belvedere was putting me to bed these days.

  “It was the Fourth; every soldier should be allowed to celebrate what they have given up to support freedom, no matter how long ago that victory was.”

  I considered him carefully, but couldn’t fault him his reasoning, so I just shrugged.

  “All right, I don’t think that should be a problem.”

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  Jeez, this guy sounded like the very first drill sergeant I had when I enlisted.

  “Okay, Brite, it won’t be a problem.”

  His teeth appeared through the tangle of facial hair again and he smacked his palms flat on the bar.

  “Excellent. You’ll meet the rest of the gang eventually as we go along. The Sons of Sorrow haven’t been back in, but if they come, I’ll have a talk with the chapter president and let him know he better rein his prospects in. I don’t mind a fistfight here or there, it gives the place character and keeps things interesting, but I have a hard-and-fast rule and no one, and I mean no one, touches servicemen or women when they’re in here. Everyone knows that.”

  I laughed a little and climbed to my feet.

  “It’s the American Legion.”

  Brite laughed with me and picked up a bar towel. “Civilian life can be a real bitch to settle back into, sometimes it helps to have a place that feels more familiar. That’s what the Bar is all about, son.”

  Since I was feeling so adrift myself, I had to admit what he was talking about sounded not only nice but also particularly necessary. I slapped my ball cap back on my head and shook Brite’s hand. I agreed that I would be back tomorrow when he opened the doors at ten in the morning. I wasn’t exactly excited about it, but it was the first time since I got back to the States that I actually had someplace to be. And that felt more right than anything had in a long time.

  I would’ve gotten up early the next morning, but considering I was sleeping fitfully at best, I was wide-awake already when my alarm went off at eight. Since Nash normally didn’t have to go into work until noon, we usually tried to hit up the gym before he went in—that is, if he made it home from wherever he spent the night before. I think he felt bad for me, because while he and Rule had a pretty lax gym ritual they usually adhered to, I went every morning, and since I’d moved in he had managed to trudge along or at least made the effort to try. I needed the gym to work out th
e things chasing me in my subconscious, and even if I didn’t feel like a warrior anymore, at least I could still look like one. Besides, I was just too big; if I didn’t go to the gym, I would turn into a blob of a man in no time flat, especially since I was no longer out running PT and ops with kids ten years younger than me on the regular.

  I was rubbing my eyes and making coffee when Nash’s bedroom door opened. I never knew if it was going to be him coming out or some dewy-eyed young thing that looked like she had been through the sex spin cycle. Nash and my brother both had a way about them that drew attention from the opposite sex in a way I just never really understood. Not that I lived like a choirboy in my youth, but I had never been the kind of guy who wanted quantity over quality. That made my momentary lapse with the trashy redhead even more stupid. Man, maybe I really did deserve having my ass kicked the other night.

  Nash was flying solo this morning, which was unusual. He was pulling a T-shirt on over his head and muttering a few swearwords under his breath. I handed him a cup of coffee and asked him what was wrong.

  He just shook his head and cracked his neck.

  “I’m trying to get my uncle to go to the doctor and he’s being stubborn. Cora called after work last night saying he sounds like he’s hacking up a lung and looks pale. He’s insisting that it’s just a cold, but even over the phone I can tell he sounds terrible.”

  I knew they were really close. Uncle Phil had raised Nash and been more of a parent to Rule than my own folks. I didn’t know much about the man, but by all accounts he was a real stand-up guy and I knew the guys held him in really high regard.

  “Maybe it really is just a bad cold.”

  Nash nodded and pointed at the half-smoked pack of cigarettes he had abandoned on the counter.

  “I picked up the habit from him when I was younger. It makes me nervous.”

  “Then quit.”

  “I’m trying.”

  I snatched the pack of the counter and tossed it in the sink. Nash hollered my name and swore at me as I turned on the garbage disposal.

  “Try harder.”

  He glared at me. “You’re a douche bag.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.” I rolled my heavy shoulders and popped my knuckles.

  “You ready to do this?”

  He was still scowling at me. “No. I’m gonna swing by his place and see if I can harass him into getting a checkup, at the very least. Plus I have an early appointment.”

  “All right.”

  We said good-bye and I headed to the gym. I worked out harder than I had in a while, I think I was trying to burn out the memories, sweat out the coil of dread and unease that always felt like it sat in my stomach. I was sore and worn out by the time I showered and changed into an old pair of jeans and a faded tee with the word ARMY stenciled on the front. I opted to take my pickup in today since I was already dragging and didn’t feel up to muscling the Harley through downtown traffic.

  When I got into the bar Brite was already waiting with a list and a huge-ass BLT. It was too early for lunch, but considering the beating I had just put my body through, it was welcome. We chitchatted for a few minutes, he introduced me to his cook, a lady who was about the same age as him named Darcy, who apparently was also wife number two, and he ran down the list of the regulars that my too tired brain tried to process sluggishly.

  The list of tasks he handed over was impressive. He wanted the bar stripped, stained, and varnished. He wanted all the tables and chairs tightened and cleaned up. He wanted the battered wood floors stripped, sanded, and refinished. He wanted all the heavy kitchen equipment moved and the whole joint power-washed. He wanted all the lights changed out. He wanted the entire place primed and painted. He wanted me to build a stage. He wanted me to reorganize the liquor stock room, including adding new shelving and storage. It was all stuff that was fairly easy and mindless, nothing I didn’t think I could handle. In fact I was arrogant enough to think I could knock it all out in a couple of weeks.

  It took two days for me to realize I was going to be at the Bar forever. Every time I would get started on a particular project, one of the grizzled veterans would wander over and I would find myself stuck in a conversation about the best way to do it, or how they would do it, or what I was doing, who I was, where I was from, my rank and designation, which inevitably led to talk about the military and endless amounts of war stories. Before I knew it, the day had come and gone and I hadn’t accomplished much of anything. I mentioned it to Brite and he just shrugged it off and told me once again that it would be done when it was done, like I had all the time in the world. Like I didn’t need to figure out what in the world I was going to be now that I was a grown-up and no longer in the army. I tried not to let it rub me the wrong way.

  It was late Friday night, or rather super early Saturday morning and I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling. I was making a conscious effort not to use vodka as a sleep aid, but tonight I was regretting it. Luckily Nash hadn’t been home, because this nightmare, when it woke me up, was violent enough that my own screaming had jolted me awake. I was sweating and shaking and getting a drink sounded awesome. I didn’t do it, though, I just lay there and let the images that had been too harsh to sleep through roll endlessly through my head. I knew logically that if they didn’t go away, I was going to have to get help, that I probably had bits and pieces of PTSD courtesy of the desert and too many years at war. I wanted to think I was tough enough to handle it on my own, that it would just fade away with enough time, but I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  I swung my legs out of the bed, thinking a nice predawn run would get my shit back on straight, when my cell phone suddenly rang from the desk where I had it on the charger. Icy fingers of dread raked down my back. Early-morning calls like this never led to anything good. It rang four times and was going to get sent to voice mail before I talked myself out of being scared enough to answer it. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was long and the connection was barely audible and broken, so I knew immediately that it was coming from overseas.

  “Hello?”

  “Master Sergeant?” I barked out a bitter laugh and propped myself on the edge of the bed. I noticed absently that my hands were shaking.

  “Not anymore. What’s up, Church?”

  Dash Churchill was my sergeant first class, and I recognized his slow Mississippi drawl even across the bad connection and with my mind being sleep-deprived. We had moved up the ranks together and served in the same unit for the last six years. We were soldiers first and friends second, but I trusted him implicitly and knew that if he was calling with no consideration to the time change and the fact I was no longer his commanding officer, then shit had to be bad.

  All I could make out was a garbled bunch of words, stuff like “bad intel,” stuff like “FUBAR mission,” things like “outgunned” and “hidden explosives.” I heard “insurgents” and “loss of life” and my brain went haywire. I went immediately into commando mode, trying to get him to give me just the pertinent details, only to get shut down by things like it being classified and on a need-to-know basis.

  I swore at him and had to refrain from throwing my phone at the wall. With gritted teeth I asked why he called if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I could feel each thump, each beat in every tip of my fingers.

  “Three KIA, four in serious condition getting airlifted to Germany. They were ours, just thought you would want to know.”

  The line went dead and I let the phone fall from numb fingers. I put my head in my hands and tried to stop myself from freaking out. I wasn’t in anymore, they weren’t my men anymore, it wasn’t my mission anymore, but none of it seemed to matter. If they were in my unit then I knew two things: they were too young to be dead, and if I hadn’t been such a mess, both physically and mentally, maybe I could have stuck around and prevented it.

  I couldn’t stay in this house. I couldn’t be alone with just my wayward thoughts for c
ompany, so I changed into track pants, put in my earbuds, and went running. It was either that or cash the bottle of vodka and be useless the rest of the day. I ran until I couldn’t see the blood and bodies anymore. I ran until my muscles burned and my lungs felt like they were turned inside out. I ran until there was so much sweat on my face no one could notice the moisture building in my eyes was anything but exertion. I ran until my heart thudded and hurt for another, more tangible reason.

  When I got back to the Victorian, I took my time in the shower and contemplated calling Brite to tell him I had zero motivation to be at the Bar today, but then the idea of just sitting alone in the apartment with silence and too much time freaked me out, so I forced myself to go. When I walked in I didn’t say anything to anyone or touch the sandwich Darcy had left for me. I was pretty sure my nasty mood was transmitting to anyone that crossed my path, because for the first time since I started spending time at the Bar, everyone gave me a wide berth. There was no chatting, no stories, just everyone looking at me suspiciously out of the corner of their eyes. Even Brite didn’t impart his sage wisdom on me today, he just left me to my own devices, which was nice, or possibly dangerous.

  I was pulling the wood trim off one of the walls in the back. I was working on autopilot, my mind in a place so far away from this dank bar in Denver that I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. I put my hand on the wall and it landed on a missed finishing nail that was sticking out. It jabbed into the flesh of my palm, which was startling and hurt, but in no way deserved the reaction it got. I swore and threw the hammer I was using across the room. Unfortunately my anger added force to it and my aim sucked, so it smacked into one of the neon beer signs that decorated the wall and shattered the thing into a million pieces. I swore again and let my head fall forward like I just couldn’t hold it up anymore.