by Ben Fountain
“Dawg,” he says to Billy, “I just wanna go to sleep.”
“Uh huh. How’s your ear?”
“Hurts like a motherfucker.” After a second they both find this extremely funny.
“What’d he do, try to rip it off?”
“He won’t doing nothing except weighing about three hundred pounds. I woulda flipped him ’cept his leg was so fat, couldn’t get my arm around it. I was like, dude, you never heard of diabetes? You might wanna shed a few, lay off the supersize for a while.”
They try to watch the game, but it’s so slow, what’s the point. The fans around them are sheltering under blankets, umbrellas, here and there a plastic trash bag; only the Bravos sit there like stock in a pasture, wide open to the weather. Billy pulls out his cell and stares at Faison’s number. He is tempted to call just to hear her voice message, which sounds more southern than her real-life voice, the vowels rounder, the hard palate hollowed out, the vox equivalent of a Hill Country feather mattress.
“Dawg, I think I’m in love.”
Mango laughs. “It’d be gay if you weren’t. I saw the way you guys were moshing back there on the field. It means something when they do that shit, you know? They don’t touch you unless they dig you.”
Billy stares at his phone.
“You get her digits?”
Billy solemnly nods.
“Well, fuck, she definitely likes you. Kind of sucks it’s coming on the back end of the trip.”
Billy moans with the pleasure and pain of it, these violent oppositional forces that are physically molding him into something new. The Jumbotron plays the American Heroes graphic again, then grinds through the deafening commercial cycle, the same ads always playing in the same maddening order. FORD TRUCKS BUILT TOUGH! TOYOTA! nissan! TOYOTA! nissan! FOR ALL YOUR BANKING NEEEEEEDS DUM-DEE-DEE-DUMMMMM! Then Sykes sings out in his gruesome falsetto, If you can’t make me say ooo!, then he pauses to tell the fans fore and aft how much he loves them, how much he loves all Americans everywhere, then he’s singing again—
WhaaaAAAtttt’s love got to do with it, got to do with it,
WhaaaAAAtttt’s love but a secondhand emooooo-shun
Word comes down the row that Dime slipped him a big fat Valium about twenty minutes ago, and now he’s the happiest girl in the whole USA.
Billy startles, nearly drops the cell when it rings. He checks the screen.
“Her?” Mango asks.
Billy shakes his head. He doesn’t recognize the number. The call rings out, followed a minute later by the chirp of a waiting voice message. Billy stares at the phone. He wishes it would tell him what he wants. He dials up the message and listens, then sits back and closes his eyes. What would Shroom do? Shroom would return to the war, definitely, but that was his destiny in this life cycle, he was fulfilling his warrior incarnation and only by seeing it through would he move on to the next stage. “So what stage am I?” Billy asked, joking, sort of, but Shroom didn’t laugh. You won’t know until you work at it, he said. Study, meditate, contemplate, focus. You won’t find out just by drifting through your time. So with his eyes still shut Billy tries to envision himself at the ranch. Very secure and remote, the voice in the phone message said. It’s a good place. We’ll make sure you won’t lack for anything. In the vision Billy is walking down a path. He’s wearing jeans, Timbs, a flannel shirt, and a corduroy jacket. The path leads through some woods, and there’s a river nearby. He can hear the shoosh of rapids, sometimes glimpse the flash of water through the trees, but the vision yaws and stutters until Faison materializes at his side, and then it all unfolds in gorgeous HD, he and Faison living quiet in their secure location, loving each other, screwing eight or nine times a day, cooking meals and watching movies, going for walks with the dogs. There would be dogs. And lots of books, books piled everywhere. He would apply himself to study in the best Shroom tradition, so he’d know that much more when the shit-hammer came down. And when it did—when the time came to make his stand? He’d have Faison, the lawyers, his Silver Star on his side. He could do it. He’d make statements. Ain’t gonna study war no more.
Rrrrraaaahhhhhxxxx-annnnnn, Sykes is screeching at the top of his lungs, you don’t have to, then he turns and starts chattering to the fans in row 8 about how much he loves the Bravos, hell yes he loves his boys like brothers, he’s just a poor white dumbass from Coon Cove, Florida, but at least he’s got the Army, hooah! Down on this end Lodis is slumped in his seat, fast asleep. Dustings of sleet have accumulated on his shoulders and arms as in a comic advertisement for an antidandruff shampoo. A squirt of subcutaneous tissue spills from the cut in his lip. The nice boojee lady in front of them happens to notice the sleeping soldier, such a compelling sight that she turns all the way around for a closer look.
“Ain’t he sweet?” Mango says.
“How can he sleep in this weather?” she cries.
“Technically he’s not asleep, ma’am,” Crack informs her. “He’s passed out.”
The lady laughs. She’s a cool boojee lady. Her husband and friends are chuckling too.
“But it’s just miserable out here,” she protests. “Shouldn’t he at least have a blanket or something? Doesn’t the Army give you coats?”
“Oh, ma’am, don’t worry about him,” Crack assures her. “We’re infantry, that’s kind of like being a dog or a mule, we’re too dumb to mind the weather. He’s fine, believe me, he don’t feel a thing.”
“But he could freeze!”
“No ma’am,” Mango chimes in. “We punch him every once in a while to keep his blood moving. See, like this.” He delivers a sharp whack to Lodis’s bicep. Lodis snarls and throws out his arms, but his eyes never open.
“See?” Mango beams. “He’s fine. He’s happy. He’s like a cockroach, you can’t kill him!”
The lady rustles around in her pack, then kneels backward on her seat and drapes a Snuggie over Lodis, one of those personal lounging blankets with built-in sleeves as advertised on late-night dumb-dumb TV. Before long the Bravos have tucked a homemade sign under Lodis’s chin. HOMELESS VET—WILL SLAY VAMPIRES FOR FOOD. Below that, HAVE A BLESSED DAY. Then a smiley face. The crowd perks up when a Cowboys lineman boosts an enemy fumble and staggers, slips, and slides all the way to the Bears’ three, but then the refs get into it, they convene at the sideline replay machine and discuss, peer, point, and discuss some more, they are a team of Nobel scientists tweaking the breakthrough cure for cancer. At last, a decision is decided. Upon further review . . . The fumble is revised to an incomplete pass and that does it for the boojees, they start packing up. Mango reminds the nice lady to take her Snuggie. “Oh, I can’t do that,” she says, smiling down at Lodis, so soundly racked with his eyelashes flocked with sleet, that lip chunk dangling like a squashed bug. “He looks so cozy. I want him to keep it. You tell him it’s my gift to him.”
Bravo erupts: Noooo!
“You’re gonna spoil him!”
“He grew up in a ditch, he don’t know from being cold!”
“It’s like giving a pig a Rolex, ma’am, he’s got no appreciation for the finer things in life.”
The lady laughs and waves them off. “Thank you!” the Bravos cry as she and her group file out of the row. “Thank you for supporting the troops!”
“Nice lady,” Mango says, settling back in his seat. Billy agrees. They look at Lodis and laugh, then Mango shivers. He hunches over and clasps his hands between his thighs.
“You look like you gotta piss.”
“I sorta do gotta piss.” Mango winces and shivers but stays put. “You gonna see Faison before we go?”
“Hoping.”
“Dude, gotta be some way you can get with her.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t wanna push it.”
Mango laughs.
“No, I’m serious. I mean, if this was a normal situation all I’d be thinking about right now is where to take her on a date. Trying to nail her, I mean, come on. I’ve only known her about four hours.�
��
“Billy, our situation ain’t normal, in case you hadn’t noticed. You think she’s gonna keep on liking you a whole year, and you a million miles away sending her dipshit emails? Dear Faison how are you I am fine today we busted down a house and killed many bad fuckers as much as we could. That shit gets old, dawg, shit gets old real quick. Even our moms don’t wanna hear it after a while.”
“You are one depressing fuck, you know that?”
“I’m just sayin’! This is your best shot, dawg. This is as close as you’re gonna get, so go for it. If she’s a nice girl and she wants to support the troops . . .”
“You’re an idiot.”
Mango laughs. Billy’s cell is ringing again.
“That her?”
“No,” Billy says, checking the screen. “My sister.”
“You ain’t picking up?”
Billy shrugs. The call rings out. A minute later he gets a text.
Dont go pls.
B hero x2.
CALL HIM BACK.
Pls.
Yr sis loves u.
Billy punches up the phone message again, this time listening not so much to what the man says as to the sound of his voice, whatever information might be coded in timbre and pitch. The voice is white, male, educated, middle-aged; Texan, but with a big-city crispness to his words. Strong. Assertive. Sympathetic. Son, if you’re thinking about taking a new direction in your life, we can sure help with that. It is a good voice. Billy is tempted to listen again, but here comes Dime barreling down the row, blasting through the obstacle course of Bravo knees and feet. He reaches the aisle and pulls out his cell, crouches by Billy’s seat. “Sykes is driving me fuckin’ nuts,” he says, studying his messages.
“Better living through chemistry, eh, Sergeant,” says Mango.
“Yeah, well, it was either meds or ball-gagging the little shit. He’ll be fine,” Dime says, though no one has asked. “He’ll be fine once we get him back on post. It’s all this other . . .” He falls silent. Billy clears his throat.
“Sergeant, if you had a choice, would you go back? To Iraq, I mean.”
Dime lifts his head; he is not pleased. “But I don’t have a choice, do I? So your question lacks relevance.”
“But if you did have a choice.”
“But I don’t.”
“But if you did.”
“But I don’t!”
“But if you did!”
“Shut up!”
“I’m just—”
“SHUT!”
Billy shuts. Mango is giving him a WTF? stare. Dime snorts and shakes his head.
“Do you wish we had a choice, is that what you’re saying?”
“Well.” Billy understands he’s gone too far. “But we don’t.”
“That is correct, Billy, we don’t. We’re going back, and we all know what we’re going back to, and that’s why we’re gonna have our shit high and tight and look out for each other twenty-four/seven. But I will say this.” He pauses; his cell is ringing. “If I’m never in another firefight as long as I live, that’ll be okay by me. Hey.” He’s got the cell to his ear. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Interesting. How about this, how about if Swank sits on his face, would he do it then?”
Billy and Mango look at each other. The damn movie.
“So it’s either that or . . .” Dime looks up at the scoreboard. “Albert, we’re running out of time.”
Mango turns away, hissing something low and hot in Spanish. Down the row Sykes has launched into the old boot camp chant, Pick up your wounded, pick up your dead . . .
“He’s right here,” Dime says, glancing at Billy. He listens for a moment, then asks Billy: “Are you available for a meeting?”
Billy laughs. “Am I what? Sure, yeah. When?”
“Now. With Norm. Josh is coming for us.”
Billy’s throat knots up. “Okay.”
“Yes he is available,” Dime says to the cell. “Anybody else?” Dime listens, then grunts and clicks off. For several moments he just crouches there, staring at the field.
“Sergeant, are you okay?”
Dime snaps out of it. “I was just thinking, rich people are crazy.” He turns to Billy and adds, with feeling: “Don’t ever forget that.”
“Roger, Sergeant.”
MONEY MAKES US REAL
THEY COME UPON ALBERT in the corridor outside of Norm’s suite, head down, back propped against the wall, tapping on his BlackBerry with his silver tapping stick. He beams when they turn the corner.
“Guys! What up?”
“Up, down, all around,” Dime answers.
“Let’s hang here a minute, I’ll bring you up to speed.” He turns to Josh with a pleasant, pointed look.
“I’ll go tell Mr. Oglesby we’re here,” Josh says.
“Excellent idea.” Albert herds Dime and Billy down the corridor some distance from the suite. “Looking good at halftime, guys, you did yourselves proud. You meet Beyoncé and the girls?”
“Hell no,” Dime grumps.
“What? No? That’s lousy. So what was that about down on the field, after? Looked like a flash mob or something, Black Friday at a Wal-Mart out in North Jersey. We couldn’t figure out what was going on.”
“It was nothing,” Dime says. “Just boys being boys.”
“Somebody giving you a hard time?”
Dime looks to Billy. “Was somebody giving us a hard time?”
“No, relatively speaking,” Billy answers.
“He’ll go far,” Albert says to Dime. “All right fellas, here’s the deal.” He pauses to smile at a passing couple, waits for the swish of their fur and cashmere to recede down the hall. “Norm’s in. He wants to put together an investor group to make our picture, but that’s not all. He’s inspired, shall we say, you guys have inspired him to think big thoughts today. He’s decided to form his own production company and start making films.”
“Might as well. His football team sure sucks,” says Dime.
Albert sniggers, glances up and down the hall. “Apparently he’s been mulling it over for quite some time, then we show up and he figures that’s God’s way of telling him to make his move. And frankly why not, the studios are looking to slough off risk any way they can. A guy who comes in with his own product, his own money, this is a very desirable commodity in Hollywood these days.”
He pauses while several more couples pass. One of the men snaps his fingers at Dime.
“Hey, great job at halftime!”
Dime snaps his fingers back. “Hey, you too!”
Albert waits until they’re gone. “It helps that he’s going all in, we’ll have that much more credibility shopping our picture around. With a one-off deal you’re sort of a lame duck, but if they know you’re sticking around? All the more reason for him to make a statement with this picture. Anyway, as far as our deal goes, as soon as he gets the company formed I’ll assign my option over to it, then when we’ve got the package together the company exercises the option, you guys get some money, and we go into production.”
“Cool,” says Dime.
“I’ll need you guys’ consent to transfer the option over.”
Dime hesitates. “But you’ll still be our producer.”
“You better believe it.”
“What about the Swank situation?”
“He’s still got a blunt up his ass about Hilary, but we can deal with that. All kinds of ways to deal with that. Believe me, having her in the mix is nothing but good for us. But listen.” Albert coughs into his fist. “You need to know going in, Norm’s got somewhat of a problem with the option price.”
“What kind of problem.”
“A size problem. A hundred thousand per Bravo, ten Bravos, that’s a tough nut to crack right out of the gate. We’re already looking at plunking half a million for the script, then getting a lead on the level of a Hilary, a Clooney, we’re talking multiple millions here.”
Dime turns to Billy. “Here’s where we get fucked.”
&nbs
p; “No!” Albert cries. “No, no, no, no, Dave, have some faith! We’ve come this far together, you think I’m gonna toss you over the side now? Dave, Dave, you guys are my guys, either we make it together or we go down together. That’s what I told them in there, but I’m not gonna bullshit you, Norm’s not Santa Claus, he’s not spending one more dime than he has to. He, they, one of his guys—look, these are businessmen, okay? Understand they’re very crude in their thinking, just by definition. They floated the idea of dealing with just you two, they see your stories as the principal elements in this and the rest of the guys as, well, ancillary. I said I’d run it by you, but—”
“No.”
“—uh huh, total nonstarter, that’s what I told them. Bravo lives by the warrior code, I said. They won’t ever leave one of their own behind.”
“For them to even—”
“I know! But you have to understand that’s the mentality we’re dealing with here. Streamlining, return on capital, all that MBA shit, but I think they got the message. It’s gotta be all Bravos or no Bravos, nothing in between.”
“Damn straight,” Dime woofs, with volume enough to raise giggles from the busboys down the hall.
“David, relax.”
“I’m totally relaxed. Billy’s relaxed too, aren’t you Billy?”
“Totally, Sergeant.”
“Hang with me, guys, I’m gonna get you there. Right now what they’re offering is, well, what you’d be doing is deferring moneys up front for a net-profits percentage in the movie. You get an advance when the option is exercised, then you get another pop when we go into production—”
“How much?”
“—David, let me finish, please. Look, just ballparking this thing, if it has even decent success on the scale I’m thinking of, you guys will come out considerably better than a hundred thousand, but you’ll have to hang in there and be patient. When I set our up-front number two weeks ago I was thinking we’d be playing with studio money, but it’s a whole different game when you go independent. The numbers scale back across the board, people usually end up taking a profits percentage in lieu of cash. Even stars take percentage if it’s a project near and dear to their hearts.”
