Playing Tyler

by T L Costa

  “Ty!” B’s grin takes up his whole face, and he pulls me into him. He smells like shampoo and body wash and that cologne he’s always liked.

  “B, man, how’ve you been?” I choke on the words, eyeing him as he pulls me inside. His color is awful. Skin like old chalk. His eyes hollow. He’s wearing a sweater and it’s like eighty degrees in this apartment but he’s still shivering. “You sick?”

  “No, fine, just tired.”

  Cut him a break. He called, finally. He invited me over.

  He needs something.

  I wish I could stop being such an asshole. It’s an invite to check out the new digs, that’s all. Relax.

  His eyes widen as he sees me alone. “You didn’t bring your girl?”

  “Nah, she has to work tonight.”

  We walk into B’s small living room and he shuts the door behind us, being sure to latch the deadbolt. The place is actually sort of neat. Like he cleans it sometimes, which is good. The couch is small and the fabric is tearing. A bicycle leans up against one wall, next to a bookcase full of papers and books and magazines. Just on the other side of the couch is a small table with three unmatched folding chairs, leading into a pretty crappy, pretty cluttered kitchen. B doesn’t cook, so if it’s being used, it’s not by him.

  “Can I get you anything to drink? Ty, you need a beer? Pabst was all they had but it’ll do if you really need one. Might have some Coke…”

  I kick at the floor with the front toe of my boot. “So, B, whose place is this?”

  “Kelly’s.” His smile gets even wider. “She’s at work now but she’ll be back in a minute, if you want to meet her.”

  “Sure,” I say, though the word sounds weak even to me. I don’t want to meet Kelly. Kelly, the reason he’s here. The reason he’s not getting better.

  I take my coat off, throw it over the back of the ratty couch. He walks around the couch, staring at me.

  What? Why is he staring? I look down, did I spill something on myself? Typical. No, I don’t think so, what the hell is he looking at?

  “You’re huge,” B says, voice soft, sad.

  The long-sleeved tee does fit a little tighter around my arms, but wow, that’s not really what I was expecting. I look at my brother. He looks small, old, even. So damn thin that he might just float away. Cheeks look too white beneath his long sandy hair. His sweater is high against his neck, sleeves long. Looks like it was a nice sweater once, like Abercrombie or something, but it’s like him, worn. His jeans don’t have any holes in the knees, and he looks way too preppy for his craptastic surroundings.

  Does he expect me to say something to that? Like what? Yeah, I’m the freaking Hulk and you’re back to being a junkie, holding your left side like it hurts to breathe. I shrug. Can’t say that. Can’t think that. “Why did you leave the center, B?”

  He ignores me. Just walks past me and into the side bedroom, taking my coat from the couch to the bed and coming back. He needs time to think up an answer? Didn’t he have all that time when he wasn’t calling? When we didn’t know where he was or if he was still alive? Couldn’t he have thought of something then? He sighs. Looks at his feet, then meets my eye, smiling. Lame smile. Half-smile, not real, not true, not him. Shit.

  “I don’t need all their steps. They didn’t show any respect for me as an intellectual, you know? Talked to me like I was some kind of idiot. I’m not unintelligent, I’m an addict. It’s different.” He coughs. “That and I’m worried about you.”

  Lying son of a bitch. He expects me to believe that line of bull? Like Rick is the one who’s doing me wrong? Heart pounding, hurting my ears, my voice is low. “So you left rehab because you’re worried about me? Really, B?”

  His face, that half-smile, falters, shakes. I’ve never in my life questioned him before. Not really. He knows it. Knows he’s gone too far. “Yeah.”

  “Because, I mean, if you were really that worried, you’d think that maybe you would’ve called, I don’t know, sooner?” I can’t stop it. Can’t keep my voice steady. I want to fucking kill him. Hands balling into fists, I want to throw him to the ground and hurt him, hurt him for this, hurt him for Mom, for me, for Dad.

  “Tyler, man, you don’t understand, it’s complicated, we just got a phone and–”

  “Bullshit,” I say. Voice tight. Vowels clipped. Heart breaking. Broken. Smashed.

  Brandon goes. I can see it. It’s like he falls into himself just a little, just a bit, and then I can see the dark around his eyes and how thin he is and the pain written into his face. Just a junkie, getting older. “You don’t get it, Ty, you can’t trust that guy. Haranco is a division of Tidewater. They do contract work for JSOC and they use people. I had to get out, find out what he’s really up to–”

  “Rick isn’t my problem.” My cheeks are burning. “Rick’s hooked me up with a job, with a future. What have you done for me, Brandon? What have you ever done that hasn’t brought me anything but pain?” I can’t breathe. Need air. I force in a deep breath. “You know what? Just tell me what you need. Money? Tell me how much.”

  “No, Ty, I don’t need money.” The hurt in his eyes is real, but distant. “Maybe a little. I’m having a tough time finding work in the field.”

  “Did you even call Mom? You know, let her know you’re not, I don’t know, dead?” He hurt Mom, he hurt me, he hurt Mom, she cries, oh God she cries at night when she thinks I can’t hear and he probably hasn’t even called. My eyes sting and my cheeks are wet and my heart is screaming. He looks like I slapped him. Fuck him. “Can I see your phone?”

  “What?” His eyes get all hollow-looking and his posture sort of slumps over.

  I do a quick, angry pantomime of a phone. “Can. I. See. Your. Phone.”

  He pulls out his phone and gives it a quick glance before handing it over. “Here.”

  Good. Let him feel like an ass. I scroll through the call log. Nice phone, not the latest model or anything, but decent, probably a pre-pay. Calls, so many calls. Swallowing the bile that mushroom clouds up through my vision, I ask, “God, how many people did you call before me, B?”

  He doesn’t answer, he looks at the floor. My stomach feels empty and like lead all at the same time. He never called Mom. Leaving me to tell her that he’s alive, leaving me to do the hard stuff for him, to shield him from seeing. Seeing how he’s destroyed his mother, how he’s wrecked her life, how she doesn’t trust herself to love anyone ever again because of what he’s done. I shut the phone. Squeeze it in my right hand. Squeeze it. Feel the smooth shell and the weight and squeeze, wrapping my palm and fingers around it, squeeze, not wanting to know who ranked first on that call list, not wanting to know why they got the first call.

  Eyes wandering the room, he talks to the air, to the world, to everything but me. “It’s hard to find any kind of job in journalism, you know. They all want transcripts from college and my work history. No one wants to give anyone a break anymore, and you need to be in school to be an intern, so it’s just been rough going, you know?”

  Should have thought of that before sticking that needle in your arm. “You can get a job flipping burgers or something to pay the bills, B. You know, like the rest of the world.” I feel my head wind up tight. “Why’d you call that reporter from Canada? Planning to move?”

  “No. He called you?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because Rick’s using you, Tyler.”

  I laugh. Not a happy sound. “That’s funny coming from you, B.”

  He stops. Stares. Does he not see? All the lies he’s told and the money he’s bummed and the…

  “It’s different. Rick’s company–”

  “Haranco.”

  “Yeah, Haranco, they’re mercenaries. That flight school he keeps talking about, I don’t think that it’s going to be the type of flight school that you’ve been counting on.”

  “I know what I’m doing, B.”

  “No, I don’t think that you do.”

  “Brandon. You’re n
ot listening. I. Know.” I look at him. Dead in the eyes. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Oh shit.” B’s voice is like a whisper. Light, breathless, shocked. “You’re actually piloting the drones.”

  The truth just hangs. Hangs in the air in between us. And he looks small. I can’t remember him ever looking so small before. He’s thin and has tiny lines around his eyes because his face is too skinny and even his hands look sort of hollow. But it’s his eyes. They’re still Brandon’s eyes. Always Brandon’s eyes. Eyes that can look at three billion pieces of shattered vase on the floor and figure out how to make them fit back together. Put everything back together but his own life. “It’s a good thing, B.”

  “It’s not good.” He backs away. Physically takes a step away from me. From me. “It’s not good, Tyler. You’re a hired gun. You kill people for money.”

  Bodies torn apart lying by the road, dog limping covered in blood against a desert. “No.” I swallow. “I kill people for America. For my country. It’s just like being in the Air Force.”

  “Except you’re not in the Air Force.” He thrusts his arms up in the air like he wants to shake me, punch me. “Haranco may take contracts from the government but they’ll kill for the highest bidder.”

  The dog, covered in blood, limping. “Maybe you should take a good look at yourself, B, before you go around shitting on other people. I mean, you only asked me over here so I could give you money, right?”

  “No, it’s not like that.” Brandon’s face is pale, painted with disbelief, horror, disappointment. I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.

  “Right, well.” I reach into my pocket, pulling out a wad of bills. I put them down on the back of the couch in front of me. “Here’s two hundred bucks. Hope that helps. I gotta go.”

  “Wait.”

  I grab my coat and unlock the deadbolt on the door. Need to go. Need to go now before I hurt him. Need to leave and run a mile. Or hit something. Hard. Now.

  “Tyler,” he says, voice soft, muted, “tell Mom I said hey.”

  That’s it? I’m going to kill him. Grab him and tear at him and scream. I throw the door back wide, feeling it pull at the muscles in my arm, ripping up through my shoulder, pulling at my neck.

  “Tell her yourself,” I shout and let the door slam behind me.

  “Are you serious? What do you mean you didn’t get it yet?” Peanut’s voice. High. Happy. Incredulous. I look up at his face on the screen, popping the last of the chips in my mouth. Don’t need this. Seeing B really messed me up. Ran for an hour outside in the rain and it didn’t help. Didn’t kill the pain.

  “I mean I didn’t get it yet, OK?” I answer. So calm. So calm. Three months ago I would have rather chewed off my own leg rather than miss the release of Zombie Ninja Dojo 2, but now, well, I don’t care.

  “You OK over there man, cause I thought you just said that you haven’t gotten ZND2 yet.” Alpha’s face laughs at me from monitor two.

  “Got other things going on,” I say, taking a swig of Red Bull and sitting down. The stuff tastes like ass, but it works alright. “Playing the flight sim game a lot.”

  “Aw c’mon, that’s boring as shit,” Peanut says, red curls looking lank, unwashed, even through the lens of the screen.

  “Nah man, not if you do it right,” I say, pushing back into the chair.

  “Oh yeah? I tried that free online version the other day. What’s your kill count at, man?” Peanut asks. “Mine’s at like one. Slowest. Game. Ever. How can their upgrade be any better? That game sucks.”

  “Um, ninety-six.” I try and remember the number every night before I turn off the game. Knowing each digit is a dead terrorist. Or at least a few of them are. Wish I knew for sure how many were real. To know exactly how many terrorists won’t kill anybody else because I stopped them. I have to figure out what those convoys are doing, though. Sometimes their stops don’t make any sense. Like when they deliver their goods and bring the empty trucks someplace else to fill up. What the hell are they filling up with in Afghanistan? Do they recycle the crates or something?

  “Ninety-six! Ugh. How many hours that take you? I hate it. Moves too slow, and all the math. It’s like a learning game and shit.”

  “C’mon, the calculations are easy. It’s like third-grade stuff.” I pop a few chips in my mouth. Thank God Mom remembered to go to the store. “Oh, wait, I’m sorry, didn’t you fail third grade?”

  “Ouch, man. You’re hit, P.” Alpha laughs.

  “Whatever, look, I gotta go. Go play a real game.” Peanut’s face is like his hair, bright red. “Alpha, man, check the cheat codes and get back to me, alright?”

  “Yeah, man, later.” Alpha smiles at me from the inset pic on the monitor. “Me too. Tyrade, get your ass to the store tomorrow and check in later, OK?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say. I hit end.

  Leaning back, way back in my chair I stretch, feel everything get long, get ready, get loose. Flipping on the switch, I bite back the nagging in my head and start to fly.

  Ani

  Why does everything we read for freshman Lit have to be so depressing? I throw Madame Bovary to the side and get up to grab my water bottle out of the mini-fridge. Picking up the book again, I read one line and throw it back into the pillows. I wonder what Tyler’s doing right now, and I push the back of my head into the bed as I imagine him flying the sim. I’m just not OK with this, but I have no idea what to do about it that wouldn’t end up hurting one or the both of us.

  Just the thought makes my stomach turn. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to eat anything for lunch. Dad killed people, and look what happened to him. Everything was different for him when he came home. Dad used to be so open, so much fun. Now he’s not even allowed to cut his own steak because he might try and kill himself with a plastic butter knife. Tyler doesn’t understand and I don’t know how to warn him, how to explain what this might do to him. What war did to my father.

  My throat’s killing me and my nose won’t stop running. I run my hands up the side of my face and push in at the temples, anything to make the thoughts of Dad alone in a cell disappear. God, I can’t let that happen to Tyler, too.

  Sitting up, I plug in. Mr Anderson has to have another programmer. I don’t think that he could link the system that I made to the drones overseas by himself. And it sounds like not all of the missions that the kids fly are real, most of them are just a sim. But I now know for a fact that a couple of Tyler’s were linked up to the UAVs, I just have to figure out which ones.

  Pulling up my Haranco files on my laptop, I scan through the different lines of codes. If I can figure out which code links the sim machines to the actual drones I can tag each time someone flies on those codes and record it. Back it all up.

  I start a new file, call it Jericho. I have to figure out how to bring Haranco down.

  If only there was a way that Tyler wouldn’t go down with Mr Anderson. I take a sip of water, and wonder what the price of saving him from a future like my father’s will be.

  CHAPTER 24

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28

  TYLER

  “Tyler?” Ani’s voice is all nose when she opens the door to her dorm room. Wow. She even looks sick. Eyes all red, nose all red, hair all matted and wild. Kind of cute, in a way.

  “Hey.” I hold out the bag. “I suck at cooking, but I bought you a big thing of chicken noodle soup from the deli down the block.” I walk inside, shoving papers out of the way to make room on her desk to put down the bag. Hope they aren’t important. I can put them back later, maybe, but I have to put the bag down. It’s one of those thin white paper bags that’s leaking and burning my arm. “Oh, and some ramen noodles for later, in case you need some. And Gatorade powder. You need to stay hydrated. Some vitamin C chew tabs, which Mom used to make me take whenever I got sick, and here” – I hold out the little boxes. Covered with my terrible wrapping job. Please let her like it please let her like it – “Got you these, to cheer you u
p.”

  Her mouth is open. Gaping. Can’t tell if it’s because she’s surprised or if it’s because she can’t breathe through her nose. Her robe hangs open wide. She looks so good in that little tank under there. Short shorts. Right. She’s sick. Not in the mood to make out. I probably should have gotten tissues for her. The college probably only has those thin, rough ones. Hate those. Make your nose feel all raw and chapped. Should have gotten her the soft ones.

  “What are these?” She takes the packages. I put my arm around her waist. Lead her over to her bed. Should I fluff her pillows? Does that actually do anything? Don’t think I’ve ever had my pillows fluffed. I pile them up against the wall. Help her sit down. She runs her slender fingers underneath the packaging. Shit. It’s the small one. My throat gets a little tight. What if she hates it? What if it’s awful?

  “I thought of you when I saw it,” I say.

  She pulls it out of the box, holding up the ax on the thin gold chain. Dangles it in the air over the box. Her eyes go all distant and soft and she presses her lips together. What does that mean? Don’t know. She must hate it. “It’s beautiful. You really shouldn’t have.”

  “Wait, you like it?”

  “Yes.” She sits up a little straighter, leaning in as she unhooks the clasp.

  My heartbeat picks up. I did it. She likes it. “Let me help you put it on,” I say and grab the thing. Wow, is it small. I move her hair off of the back of her neck. The lines of her neck are so perfect. Like a painting. I want to kiss her. Kiss the back of her neck. See what her skin feels like against my lips. I don’t. I fasten the clasp. Put her hair back where it belongs.

  “How does it look?” She turns to face me, beaming.

  I want to kiss her. Throw her down on the mattress and pull her arms up over her head and just kiss her forever. But she obviously wants an answer with words. And she’s sick. Right. “Looks great.” I bite my lower lip. She smiles. Bite my lip harder so I won’t kiss her. “Here, open this one.”