“That’s a fact.”
“Okay, Pat. Eat the apple, fuck the corps.”
Patrick thought about Bostik as he and Ted took the truck down to the barn. They loaded up the valves, filters, water lines, PVC cement, cutters, insulated wire, sprinkler heads, shovels, and picks. With ten summers of such work behind him, Patrick could do this in his sleep. But Ted knew almost nothing about irrigation and he tried to do whatever Patrick did, then lost interest and turned over branches and rocks, looking for creatures he might move into the bunkhouse.
Back in the grove, the digging felt good to Patrick’s muscles and he was pleased by how many valves they had replaced by noon. It felt good to be necessary. “This isn’t bad work,” he said. “Nobody’s shooting at us and nothing’s going to explode. In Afghanistan you were either bored out of your mind or terrified. The thing I like about this work is it leaves my mind free to wander.”
“What was it like on your first patrol?”
“Just the usual.”
“There wasn’t much usual in what you were doing, Pat. You should at least tell me something about it, since I’m your brother.”
Patrick dug in with his shovel. “When we first got there, the Taliban knew there had been a change of guard so they wanted to welcome us new guys. First full day at FOB Inkerman we were told to walk a hundred meters down Route Six One One, then turn around and come back. Just our squad, twenty-one of us. One hundred damned meters. With that much gear, a hundred meters can smoke you unless you’re used to it. We were supposed to get used to our stuff and the terrain. Six One One was narrow and rocky. Off to the east there was corn, high corn that time of year, all the way back to the Helmand River. Then hills. On our right, to the west, was all brown zone—flat desert and no cover. That hundred meters just about killed us. I carried a SAW machine gun, which weighs twenty-eight pounds. Plus ammo, grenades, water. When we started back we heard motorcycles out in the corn. That’s a weird fucking sound—high corn with motorcycles revving inside it. We had ICOM radio intercepts and ’terps to tell us what the skinnies were saying to each other. They were setting up an ambush is what they were doing. But we made it back with no contact. We were disappointed.”
“Disappointed you didn’t get shot at?”
“Yep. We’d all gone there to fight.”
“When was the first contact?”
“The next morning. It was a full-on op, with an early gear check and a map and orders to recon a village farther up the Six One One. We were only five minutes out the back gate when we heard the motorcycles out in the corn again and the ’terps said it was Taliban again, a lot of them. They lit us up with machine guns, heavy fire, and we all hauled ass into the corn and dove in. Then everybody was firing blind and there was corn flying around but you could barely even see your own guys. Loud. It was amazing how we hardly ever saw the ragheads. But we were happy to be shooting. So after a few minutes everybody’s done and the air is full of dust and gunsmoke and everything goes real quiet. You could smell the shot-up corn. And goddamned Salimony screams out, ‘America! Get Some!’ We went another forty meters up the road and Messina saw a hajji in a man-dress digging in the rocks. Blew him onto his butt. It was our first kill.”
“How many did you kill personally, Pat?”
“Eight for sure. Probably more like twenty, realistically. We could only do death confirmations maybe a quarter of the time because the contact was so heavy. They’d drag out their dead and we’d never know.”
Patrick wiped the sweat and soot from his forehead then Ted did, too. “Wow, Pat. That must have been a rush. I wish I could do something like that.”
Patrick looked out at the burned world that they were trying to repair, one sprinkler, one tree at a time. “Yeah, it’s a rush.”
Ted nodded and took up his shovel again. “I had a gun pointed in my face just two days ago. Right here in Fallbrook. I thought I might get shot for sure. I was driving my taxi and it was one of my fares. A young Mexican guy. He lured me to his ’hood on Ventana so his homies could watch him jack me. He took all the money I’d collected, and all my tips except for ten bucks. I was really scared but really mad, too. I could feel those two things fighting it out in me for what I should do. Scared and mad. I got short of breath and my vision shrunk down to like a tunnel like it always did, remember? I chased him but you know how slow I am. I went to the cops then turned around in the station and walked right back out. I’d seen the Mexican guy before around town and I’m sure I’ll see him again. His gun was old and the bluing was rubbed off the end of the barrel.”
“How come you didn’t say anything?”
“I just did, Pat.”
“This happened the day after I got home?”
“Yeah, that day. I was thinking about you the whole time I was driving. And the next thing I know there’s a gun in my face. I haven’t told anybody but you.”
“You didn’t report it?”
“You know me and cops.”
“What are you going to do, Ted?”
“I don’t know what to do. I got robbed, so there’s supposed to be justice. On the other hand, I didn’t get shot and I’m only out some tip money. What do you think I should do?”
Patrick dug out a ruined valve as he thought. “Tough call. I’d go back to the cops. Report it. They’ll question him. Maybe he’s had other complaints.”
“Then I go to court and a bunch of people stare at me? And the judge dismisses the case for lack of evidence? And don’t forget, I’m the guy who got expelled for making fun of the mayor on the Web, so they all would think I’m a whack job.”
“That wouldn’t properly figure in, I don’t think. But this wouldn’t go to a trial. No witnesses except his buddies, and you know what they’ll say. But you don’t have to press charges to file a complaint, I don’t think. You just have to let the law put this guy on notice.”
“What if he robs me again?”
Patrick emptied a shovelful of good Fallbrook decomposed granite around the valve. “Then that’s a whole different story. If we’re out and about and you see him, point him out.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Stop that, Ted.”
“Okay. Should I get a gun?”
“No. Then things just escalate.”
“Would you say that to anyone, or just to me?”
“To anyone. Speaking for myself, I can’t tell you how good it was to check in my weapons in at the armory. I like being able to walk around without guns. It’s a privilege.”
They worked silently for a few minutes and Patrick wondered what would be the right behavior for Ted, given the young Mexican man, the gun, the money, the fear and anger. He’d seen that anger spike. A gun for Ted didn’t seem like the right thing. It struck Patrick that in many ways civilian life was more difficult than combat. In Fallbrook, things were not clearly divided into us or them, friend or enemy, kill or be killed. In Sangin, the things he had done as a fighting man were simple and clear, bloody though they sometimes were. Here, things were complex.
They replaced the burned valve and walked to the truck for water. Patrick saw his father down in a swale two hundred meters away, painting a tree trunk with the sprayer. Something about it was amusing and sad at the same time: an aging man in a burnt grove, painting tree trunks white. White for Archie; black for Bostic. “Anyway,” he said. “My mind wanders to Iris Cash a lot.”
“She’s very attractive,” said Ted.
“Yeah. And she’s a fighter. She thinks her stories are weapons. But for good, you know, to help people. She’s trying to get lighted crosswalks downtown, even though her own city council said no.”
Ted glugged down some water and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I heard about that. Evelyn Anders is behind it.”
Patrick cut his brother a sharp look. “Don’t.”
“I won’t. I’m not. I’ve got my orders.” Ted nodded and pursed his lips but Patrick could tell that he wasn’t going to be able to silence hi
mself. “You know, Pat—Evelyn Anders is Mom’s and Dad’s financial advisor. Isn’t it weird that with her, our parents have lost so much money?”
“Everybody has, Ted. It’s a bad recession. Not everything is personal. Not everything is a conspiracy. Not everything can be blamed on a small-town mayor.”
“Government is the problem, Pat. I’m sure of it.”
“Work, Ted. Work.”
* * *
At cocktails Patrick stood on the Norris patio and watched the sun setting over the distant hills. He was tired from the grove work but pleased with their progress. He thought about the fishing boat he’d seen for sale on the Web last night. It was an older but very neat seventeen-foot Mako Pro Skiff, set up well for fly casters, trailered and allegedly pampered. Thirteen grand.
Ted sat shoeless in a rocking chair, rubbing his foot through a blackened sock, a large tumbler of iced tea sweating on the deck beside him. He had brought a computer out to the porch to watch the San Diego news. “I’ve decided to drive the taxi on weekends and some evenings,” he said. “It pays and I need the money.”
Archie and Caroline both looked from the monitor to Ted, and the swinging love seat they shared swayed to a gradual stop. “If you have the energy for two jobs, like Pat does, then more power to you,” said Archie. “I think all of you should know that I’ll be talking to the farm bankers down in Escondido tomorrow. I’m hoping we can get a loan to order replacement trees.”
“It’s like a government conspiracy to wreck our family,” said Ted.
“In what way?” asked Archie. “I’m just talking to the bank, Ted.”
“But it’s funny how she bailed them out but not us.”
“She?” asked Caroline.
“The nanny state, Mom. Bailing out the banks.”
“Look,” said Archie. “I don’t love the government either, son. But leave the whining back in the bunkhouse before work tomorrow. And wear some boots with better support.”
“Do you still have the good orthotics?” asked Caroline.
“I’ll find them. In the closet somewhere.”
“I think this calls for a toast,” said Caroline. They lifted their glasses and waited. “To the Norrises—back from one war and into another.”
They clinked glasses and Patrick felt emotion in it, the simple act of touching. Then a TV story about the disastrous Fallbrook fire came on the news and he saw Fire Chief Bruck, Sheriff Hazzard, and Mayor Anders on the dais at City Hall. The Fallbrook city seal was visible behind them. With the two men standing slab-faced on either side of her, Evelyn Anders announced that the fire was conclusively arson and that the current damages were three human lives and approximately two billion dollars in damaged property. She said that anyone who had information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist would get a reward of $50,000 from San Diego Gas & Electric.
“That’s big government in bed with big business,” said Ted. “Fifty thousand is nothing to them. She’ll draw a fat pension and they’ll raise the rates whenever they want. No wonder we the people can’t win.”
Patrick watched the next story, about an Al-Qaeda magazine calling for American jihadists to start forest fires in America in the summer and fall. Apparently “detailed instructions” were published online. Patrick looked at the pictures of the bearded, turbaned, smiling men who published the magazine and they looked pretty much like the skinnies he’d spent thirteen months in Sangin trying to kill.
“You missed a couple,” said Ted.
* * *
It was a relief to get away from all of them, to walk into the Domino’s kitchen, get his blue, black, and red work shirt on, pack the deliveries into soft-sided warmers and insulated pizza sleeves while he talked to Firooz. Firooz and his wife Simone were Iranian refugees who had come here decades ago, after the fall of the shah. He had been a veterinarian and she a schoolteacher. They were humble people, willing to be of service, and now they owned the franchise. Firooz kept touching Patrick—on the arm, the shoulder, patting his hand. He and Simone helped Patrick carry out the warmers and set them securely in the cab of his truck. Patrick attached the Domino’s sign to the roof of the polished black Ford F-150—used but low mileage, a graduation gift from his mother and father—then climbed in. He hit Mission and gunned it for Stage Coach. He’d never known, before deployment, what a pleasure it was to drive a good vehicle on wide safe streets and feel those V8 horses stretching out with no IEDs to blow him to smithereens.
Three short hours later his work was done and Patrick sat outside in folding chairs with Firooz and Simone. The night air was damp and in the spray of the parking-lot lights Patrick could see mist and ash settling. They talked about town and business and the big election coming up and the several federal and state agents, not to mention local sheriff deputies, who had come around to talk with Firooz and his wife lately. Something about an online terrorist site they’d never heard of. Inspire.
“We can live through these suspicions,” said Simone. “They are unfounded and ridiculous. And nothing, compared to what we have been through. This is our country.”
Patrick counted his tips—eighteen dollars—and a few minutes later, Simone and Firooz sent him home with a large, three-item pizza.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Three days later, after ten hours of field labor, Patrick took the night off from delivery work. He showered and shaved and tried on clothes he’d left at home before deployment, which were too large for him after thirteen months of combat and meager rations. Zero hot meals a day. One cold shower a week. Some of his older high school clothes fit.
He met Iris Cash at Salerno’s. The dining room and bar had few customers on this weeknight, even with several Fallbrook restaurants having recently folded. Iris took a bar stool facing Patrick across a small round table. She launched straight into the arson evidence and the reward and who would do such a thing to this peaceful little town? Then she was off on Cruzela Storm and Georgie’s brave friends and lighted crosswalks, and how she’d already gotten the school district to lock in a date for Warrior Stadium, and a pledge of deeply discounted food and drinks from Major Market; and she’d been promised page one, an above-the-fold placement for an article and pictures in The Village View next Thursday, which would trigger the North County News and the San Diego Union-Tribune and the networks to follow and kiss my exhaust! Iris wore a frayed and faded denim jacket over a lacy blouse, and jeans tucked into boots. She had a quirky smile and smelled floral. Patrick earnestly faced this blizzard of words and expressions and sensations, easily the most pleasant minutes of his life for well over a year.
The waitress brought their drinks and Patrick told Iris about the irrigation and painting and how it took a long outdoor shower just to get the soot off him before showering inside. He tried to match her emotional energy, but since coming home, he was having trouble staying interested in himself. It was hard to stay focused on things that couldn’t kill you. Even when they were good and important things. He found himself arranging the salt and pepper shakers and the bottle of hot sauce in the same relative positions as Myers and Zane and himself at 2200 hours on December 10 on the night patrol up to Outpost Three, wondering for the thousandth time, at least, how it was that Myers—touching down in Patrick’s footprints while Patrick followed those of three other men ahead of him, and all of them behind Bostic with the Minehound and Zane with his splendid nose and instincts—had tripped the IED. How was that even possible? How had Zane failed to detect it? Bostic?
“So, are you going to stay in Fallbrook and work the ranch?” asked Iris.
“For now. I’m delivering pizza, too.”
This seemed not to faze Iris. “Do you like growing things?”
“Not really. I don’t seem to have farming blood. I want to guide anglers on the bay in a boat. But now, I’m trying to do what’s right.”
“I heard you lost almost all the trees.”
“Just a few left for sure, out of eighty acres.”
“You don’t have to talk.”
“I want to talk.”
“If you say so.”
Patrick returned from some far place. “Want to get a table and have dinner?”
“I’d like that. Can I ask you something?”
Patrick nodded and drank. He felt the strength of the liquor. After a year of almost no drinking, even a small amount hit him hard.
“Can you tell me three words that will help me understand you?”
Patrick thought for a moment. “I miss it.”
Her expression went from concern to astonishment, which she quickly dropped. “That’s … three words, all right. You do want to talk. Let’s get that table. The osso buco here is terrific. Oh, can I just say one thing to you?”
“Please don’t say thank you.”
“Welcome home.”
* * *
After dinner Patrick drove them out to Oceanside and they walked the pier to the end and watched the fishermen bring in mackerel and bonito from the flood-lighted sea. The landed fish spasmed wildly against their plastic buckets. Patrick nodded at some of the Marines in and out of uniform, and some of them acknowledged him. In town he took Iris to the Galleon, a bar popular with his fellow Pendleton Marines. They got two stools at the bar and Patrick bought a round for them and for the four Marines who were already there. The jukebox played a country song, then some metal, then “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” the opening notes of which brought shouts of “I can’t get no!” and raised glasses all up and down the bar. Patrick knocked back the bourbon and signaled for another round. Iris gamely drained her lemon drop, sat up straight, and took a deep breath. “Don’t let me get too stupid tonight. I have work in the morning.”
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