Until We Fall

by Jessica Scott

  I wonder if she knows what that feels like—to lose something that’s defined you, even if that something was toxic and negative and utterly destructive, it was still yours. To turn your back on who you are and what you’ve been and try to rebuild when you have no idea where to even begin.

  Looking back, I know why I hated everyone at West Point. It wasn’t anything personal. It was…protection. Fear.

  I don’t remember when I started drinking. Or what it felt like before I lost a decade of my life at the bottom of a bottle. But I know what the last decade has felt like. What it’s felt like to put aside the bottle and suddenly not be able to find the anger and the hate that had been near constant companions.

  But standing here, in this moment, in the space we are deconstructing, she reminds me of the past. The past before I started to hate everything I was. The past before I lost myself.

  She is a light.

  Not a rope, pulling me along, making me go somewhere I don’t want to go. A light. Illuminating a path. A path that it is up to me to continue down.

  It would be easy to walk over to her. To engage in pure physical contact.

  I won’t. I can’t.

  I’m in no place to even think about being part of someone else’s life.

  She swears suddenly and seems to barely avoid slapping the phone down on the brick windowsill. I try to move so it’s not glaringly obvious that I was standing there, staring at her like some kind of stalker, but I’m pretty sure she’s already caught me.

  “You okay?” Yeah, real slick, Caleb. Real fucking slick.

  “Yeah. The whole conversation you overheard earlier? Now they’re playing the veteran card—asking me to get involved because my status as a veteran will give more credibility to the Wellness Center.”

  “Why are you irritated by that?” I tug my gloves back on. “I bet they give you free parking. You don’t want your ‘thank you for your service’ military discount?”

  It’s a crappy attempt at humor and it falls painfully flat.

  She shakes her head, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I have no objections to that at all. But the longer I’ve been away from the Army, the more I realize I’m not comfortable with the genuflection-before-the-saints-ritual that we do.” She sets her phone on the ledge and pulls her gloves on. “It’s not… I’m proud of my military service and I think others should be, too. I mean, if you want to change your Facebook profile to a picture of you in uniform every year. But I’m not comfortable with this idea that veterans are our nation’s saviors. And using me to speak for all veterans is even more gross than using me as an Indian woman.”

  “I guess I never thought about it like that.”

  She shakes her head and lifts her phone before setting it back down, perfectly calm. I’m consistently amazed at how she can dial her temper back so quickly. “It’s dangerous. To give people that kind of power and influence.”

  I frown then and lean against the table we’re getting ready to move. “I don’t see where it’s dangerous. I mean, soldiers are taught to be leaders, aren’t we? Why is it dangerous to get ten percent off at Applebees?”

  She tips her head at me. “It’s not the discounts. It’s the…the idea that as soldiers we can’t be criticized. The idea that when we speak, we somehow have more credibility than others.” She motions toward the window. “On campus, they brought in this company to teach the yoga classes at the Wellness Center. Fine, right? Except that they didn’t listen to the objections of the Indian students about how this particular company operates in India.” She bites her lips together into a line that makes me cringe. “Now, they want me to come talk about how the Wellness Center can help veterans. And that’s fighting dirty because I started my damn studio to use yoga to help veterans and…” She blows out a hard breath. “It’s not harmless when people use their status as modern-day gods to influence otherwise well-meaning people.”

  “So it’s the principle of the thing. Of them asking you as a combat veteran to endorse something to your fellow vets?” I brace my hands on the edge of the table behind me. “I’ve never honestly given this that much thought.” I scuff the floor with my toe.

  “Most of us don’t and that’s okay. But I…it feels dirty for them to ask me to do this when I can’t support this and they know why. But they keep asking.”

  “That’s pretty disrespectful.”

  “It’s dishonest, honestly. I want to help our brothers and sisters. That’s why I’m expanding the studio to this space. I want to create a place where we can have meetings and events and bring people who are struggling to yoga. To help them. And yeah, I can’t do that for free but I don’t have to sell my soul to do it, either.”

  “What does a good project look like for you? I mean, what’s not problematic?”

  She reaches for her water bottle. “Research. Using yoga to help people. I mean, if people want to use their veteran status to sell T-shirts and coffee and whatever, fine. But all that hyper-masculine dude-bro bullshit is how we have a generation of veterans who either won’t fucking talk about the things they did in the name of God and country, or those who won’t shut the hell up about it and wow, this is apparently something that gets me really pissed.”

  She sighs hard.

  “I was pretty much that angry vet-bro stereotype for a long time.” I look up at her. “I was the guy who couldn’t shut up about serving. About being better than civilians who never sacrificed.” I reach for my own water bottle, to try and swallow the block in my throat. “I embraced it. Because it was the only thing that made me feel like I was part of something when I finally took the uniform off.”

  She presses her lips together again. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. That’s not who I’m trying to be anymore.” I look down at my plain dark blue T-shirt, covered in dust. “I think this whole being-a-veteran thing is a lot more complicated than I realized.”

  She smiles sadly. “Yeah. I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with it. Like how do I do this,” she motions to the space around her, “and make sure that veterans know this is a space for them if they want, without doing the same thing that I’m complaining about the Wellness Center wanting me to do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s got to do with intentions?”

  She makes a noise. “Yeah, maybe. I think about Arjuna. When Krishna tells him it’s his duty to fight. This place is my duty. To my Indian family and my American one. To those vets who find a place here. But that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated.”

  I tip my chin at her. “You talk about this place for veterans but…you won’t have anything to do with West Point.”

  The question may end the fragile conversation. It may slap at her and piss her off. If I’d thought about it, I probably wouldn’t have asked but the words are out there now.

  “West Point. I don’t like who I was at West Point. I don’t like what I became. When I left and met people like First Sarn’t Sorren and First Sarn’t Washington I learned a lot more about taking care of soldiers the right way.” She sighs hard. “I guess, their way of leading felt more right to me. West Point wanted me to be a hard ass, to follow these rules that only apply selectively.” She straightens. “Okay. Break over. I need… Let’s do some manual labor because wow, did this get intense.”

  She lifts one end of one of the remaining tables that still needs to be moved out of the way. “This is really solid.”

  I grant her the distraction from talking about the Wellness Center and West Point and veterans that clearly struck a nerve. I grab one side of the table. “It really is.”

  She stops in front of an old window frame that had been hidden among the tables. Standing there for a moment, she frowns, then lifts it up, testing it. “I bet we could strip this down and stain it. It might make a nice wall hanging.”

  I tip my head and try to see it how she’s seeing it. Funny how I could see the shelves taking shape from the old table but I’m having a hard time seeing this window as anythin
g but a window. “It’s just some broken-down old window.”

  She glances over at me and smiles softly. “There are always ways to find new uses for some old broken things.”

  I frown. “Are we talking about the window?”

  “What else would we be talking about?” And just like that, the easiness between us fades to cool shadows once again.

  A cloud moves overhead, blotting out the sun in the dusty skylights above. “I feel like that is a trick question.”

  She smiles softly. “There’s a gel you can use to strip off old paint and stain. See this hole, right here? I can fill it with wood glue and shavings so it will take the stain. And it’ll be good as new.”

  “Yeah but the hole won’t take the stain as good as if you were to cut this half off and make it smaller.”

  “That’s the point. You want it to look worn. The dings and gouges and scrapes in the wood are what give it character.”

  I’m a little unnerved by this conversation even as I find myself obsessed by her lips forming the word wood. Because I am fucking twelve years old, apparently. “How do you know all this stuff about wood and construction anyway?”

  12

  Nalini

  “I like learning how to do things. Keeps my mind busy.” Just like I’m enjoying talking to him. Working with him.

  Watching him work. Because hot damn do his forearms make a woman think filthy, inappropriate things.

  “And you don’t like having an idle mind?”

  “Not with an imagination like mine.” I don’t need to tell him about the fire or the way that it created an altar to itself that I’m forced to kneel before whether I want to or not. Every time I strip my clothes off, I’m reminded of what changed that day.

  “I can definitely relate. The first thing Bruce got me to understand once I’d sobered up was how to keep my hands busy.”

  I make a noise as I stack the window frame onto the pile of salvageable wood. “Yeah. The mind-body connection is pretty strong. And it’s sometimes a lot easier to keep your hands busy to get the mind to follow along.”

  He nods and drags one of the last remaining boxes outside.

  I wish I remembered him more as a cadet. I would love to see how much he’s changed. I suppose we all have, though.

  “So I guess you don’t like Veterans’ Day?” he asks when he comes back in. He grabs one side of the last table and we move it to where the rest of them are waiting to be taken outside.

  “It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m just…I’m conflicted about it.”

  “You have something against Freedom Cheesy Fries or Thank You For Your Service Buffalo Wings?”

  I glance up at him and try not to laugh. “Are those real food items?”

  “I have no idea but if they’re not, I smell a themed restaurant idea coming up. I could pitch it to venture capitalists if I ever get my ass back into a classroom.”

  I laugh because the idea is so ludicrous. “Yeah, well, don’t underestimate the need for people to wrap themselves in the flag and call themselves patriots.”

  “Is that what bugs you about Veterans’ Day?”

  “I don’t know, honestly. I’m not opposed to it.” We stack one of the tables onto another one, creating more floor space to be available for building the walls between the retail space at the front of the studio and the actual studios in the back. “When I first got back from Iraq, I was all in on the angry veteran stereotype, you know? I was pissed that people were making it about sales and discounts. That people weren’t paying attention to oh, I don’t know—a fucking war we had going on.” I swipe my hand across my forehead. “But then, I don’t know. I had time to reflect on it when I was in grad school. I mean, I think rituals are important; don’t get me wrong. But I guess it just feels somewhat empty? Like it makes people feel good and that’s okay and maybe it’s important and oh man, I’m rambling.” I glance over at him. “Sorry.”

  He’s watching me quietly. Intently. Like I wasn’t just running off at the mouth like a raging lunatic. “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing. It’s just really cool how you get all fired up about this.”

  It’s my turn to frown. “I have never met anyone in my life that likes it when I get on my soapbox about anything.”

  He grins and tosses me my Leatherman from the table. I slip it into my back pocket.

  “Well, you haven’t met the right people.”

  We go back and drag another table off the pile together. “When I was a cadet, one of the ethics professors told me I was intimidating and bossy. That I needed to be more ladylike because no man was going to want to follow me or fuck me.”

  He flushes and says nothing for a long while. “I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t have said that.”

  I clear my throat. “Yeah, well, I got over that a long time ago. And he was a she. So yay feminism, right?” One of the last busted-up tables goes into the dumpster.

  “Did you say anything to her?”

  A fourth table comes off the pile, revealing yet another stack of old boxes and pallets beneath. “What was I supposed to say? I was a cadet and she was a lieutenant colonel.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  I narrow my eyes and look over at him, pausing as we’re about to lift the table. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like there for people like me, do you?”

  “I don’t follow. Aren’t women in the military always saying that they’re equals?”

  I take a deep breath to unblock the frustration that blocks my throat. “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean that everyone buys into that. And some of the old guard resents like hell that women—and especially brown women—are there and they’re not afraid to let us know it.” I pause as he lifts the other end of the table and we start moving again.

  I start dragging again. This time he’s the one who pauses. “So wait.” He drags his hand over his forehead, swiping through the dust that’s coating the tips of his hair.

  “What?” I motion for him to start dragging again. We get moving again, heave the broken plastic table into the dumpster.

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  I’m not sure what he was going to say or why he stopped himself. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

  But I’m pretty sure I don’t want to rehash all the fucked-up things that happened to me at West Point with him, on day one of a major project. I’m not here to unpack all the old memories I’ve been trying to ignore.

  We go back inside. “I guess I see your point about Veterans’ Day,” he says after taking a long pull from his water bottle.

  “It’s not like I have anything against it. I just…Society needs rituals. So I’m not saying get rid of it. It’s just that I don’t know how I feel about it anymore.”

  * * *

  Caleb

  Her words are the best summary of how I feel about life at this moment. I don’t know how I feel about it anymore. About any of it. Living. Breathing. School.

  I don’t know why I’m here. But I am…and so I’ll make the best of it, I guess.

  “I don’t think it’s a simple problem to solve,” I finally say.

  She pulls her box cutter out of her back pocket again. “I’m not sure it’s a problem to solve at all.”

  “I guess that’s a good point.” I turn to the stairs leading into the basement. “Any idea what’s down there?”

  “No clue, but we’re about to find out.”

  I pause at the top of the stairs. “If you need to change the subject, just say we’re going to change the subject. We don’t need to descend into hell to find something else to talk about.”

  She laughs. “Well, I’m pissed off enough to need something to do with my anger.”

  Jesus Christ, she’s serious. I may need to start drinking again.

  But I say nothing, instead grabbing the most powerful flashlight I can find from the toolbox and follow her down.

  Praise Jesus, I find the lights. They flick on with a heavy, industr
ial buzz, flooding the space with artificial but deeply welcome light.

  “This would be a hell of a place to hold a banging-ass party.” The old stairs lead down to a massive storage space with a run-down stage in one corner. The ceiling is relatively high and the dust and the cobwebs give it a spooky, intense atmosphere. “Add in some illegal drugs and a cheap light show and you could charge fifty bucks a head to get through the door.”

  I spent New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam one year. This space makes me think of it. From what I can remember, it was a damn good time.

  She tucks her flashlight into her belt. Damn, she’s like Inspector Gadget.

  I lift open one of the boxes, shifting aside a sheet of yellow newspaper. A couple of cigar boxes are tucked into more newspaper. Inside, there’s an old pipe. The handle is a glossy light wood and the place where the tobacco goes is bright, gleaming ebony. “Hey, are these anything you want to keep?”

  She pads across the space. The moment she sees the pipe, her eyes light up. “Holy shit, yes.”

  “Is this good or something?”

  “This is a Dunhill. They were high-end pipes made around the end of World War I.” She lifts it out of my hand, turning it over in her hands. “This is really old. See this?” She points to a tiny stamp. “Our pot-smoking friends apparently had really high-end tastes if they were selling these.”

  I lift both eyebrows, rocking back on my heels as she tucks the pipe back into the case. “Okay, now I’m just dying to know how you know this.”

  “I was mildly obsessed with the fall of the British Empire after World War I for a while a few years back, and the impact colonialism has had on the world, especially India. I stumbled across these during a trip to Mumbai.”

  I fold my arms over my chest, utterly fascinated. “What kind of exciting life have you led that you travel the world, researching colonialism and old British pipes? That’s not exactly a normal career path for a member of the Long Gray Line.”

  She smiles, lifting another pipe from its case. “Holy shit.” She looks up at me. “These are potentially worth some pretty good money.”