Fire and Forget

by Matt Gallagher

  “Call me Ishmael,” the captain says without smiling. “And you gonna see some Moby-Dick-sized sharks today. You better be good and scared.”

  Evie glances at Colin, who shakes his head. The motor roars and she motions to her husband with a tube of sunblock. Colin relaxes, pulls his shirt off and offers her his back. He is sunburned across his shoulders, and Evie feels a wave of guilt about not reminding him to apply sunblock before his early morning run. There are so few ways she can keep him safe and yet she couldn’t even protect him for one day against the Hawaiian sun.

  About four miles from shore, far enough out that they can no longer see land, the boat slows. Ishmael’s lackey drags buckets from the stern and starts chumming the water, fish blood pooling on the surface like oil. The passengers watch the fins rise up as if summoned.

  There are suddenly so many sharks, long slabs of shadow under the boat, the gash of white rubbery mouths occasionally breaching the surface. Evie recoils from the edge while Colin eagerly takes photos, chatting with the pierced boy who keeps pouring fish chunks overboard.

  “Galapagos,” says the boy. “They recognize the sound of our motor.” He grins with crooked teeth and Evie wonders if he pierced his lip to distract from the mess inside his mouth. “They range from six to twelve feet.”

  Ishmael cranks down the large steel cage suspended off the side of the boat. The cage is for humans. Evie supposes there are windows of Plexiglas within the bars to make for clearer underwater viewing, but from where she stands, it just looks like a lot of big holes.

  “Who’s going first?” the boy asks.

  Of course Colin raises a hand, putting the other on Evie’s elbow. “We will.”

  Evie takes off her T-shirt and sarong, then slowly slips on flippers and snorkel gear. She follows Colin down the ladder into the cage. The water is ice cold and she treads frantically, as if about to drown. She is too afraid to put her face into the water. The fins circle the cage and her breath comes in hissing gasps; she gags on the salty mouthpiece. Colin emerges next to her. He points down but she shies away. He pulls the mouthpiece from his lips and offers her his hand.

  “Trust me,” he says.

  She hesitates, and they stare at each other for a moment, their view distorted by the slowly fogging plastic of the masks. He reaches for her and she pulls her hand loose. He reaches for her again, both hands this time clutching hers, and she fights an impulse to kick him. She takes a deep breath, tells herself the hands gripping hers belong to the man she loves, but she looks back at the boat, looks frantically at the people watching, and wants them to save her. She can feel the sharks underneath, feel their snouts and serrated teeth brushing along the side of the cage.

  The cage shakes with a bump and she rips her hands free, grabs the boat’s ladder, and pulls herself up. For a moment Colin treads water alone in the cage, watching her. Then he too climbs up into the boat.

  Evie looks down at her flippers. “I’m sorry, Colin. I just can’t.”

  He stands there in his mask, the mouthpiece flapping against the side of his face. “It’s safe, Evie. It’d be safe if we weren’t even in the cage. Galapagos sharks are harmless.” He takes off his mask and looks to the pierced boy for backup, but the kid is sneering, as if pleased Evie is such a coward, as if the whole purpose of his job is to terrify at least one tourist a day. Then Colin’s eyes lock on her, and calm suffuses his face. “I’ll prove it,” he says softly.

  His eyes still on Evie’s, never hesitating, he climbs up on the boat railing and, before anyone can even think to stop him, he steps off, right into open water, sinking into the center of the feeding animals.

  Evie screams, rushes to the edge, feels Ishmael wrench her arm as if he thinks she will follow her husband.

  Colin surfaces, still facing the boat. He keeps his eyes on his wife as he reaches out to pet a shark, his palm running easily along its shiny back.

  Both of you may need to discuss any issues you’ve had involving trust or jealousy, even if infidelity was not a problem. It takes time to re-establish or develop a trusting relationship. Be appreciative of each other, and make time for each other. Marriage requires continuing commitment.

  John from Austin called her once a few weeks after they met, still long before Colin’s return. He left a message: “I finally convinced Florence to give me your number. Said I couldn’t live without the recipe for your tartlets.” Then the easy chuckle of a man who does not often go to such lengths to track a woman down. “Meet me for a cup of coffee. A harmless little cup, at this place I know that serves the best damn brunch you ever tasted. Then maybe we’ll hit the new Goya exhibit at the Blanton. C’mon. Call me.”

  Evie didn’t call but a few days later she went to the Blanton Art Museum, wearing a blue dress and a pair of heels, glancing too often over her shoulder. She kept his message, replaying it now and then, not deleting it until the eve of Colin’s return. She waited for him to call again, knowing the next time she’d answer.

  Emotional changes occur for all family members during and after deployments. A spouse’s expectations about a soldier’s emotional involvement upon return may not be met. It can be a challenge for a soldier to turn emotions back on after controlling them for a year. The soldier may initially show only anger or detachment. It may take time for the soldier to feel comfortable enough to establish a full emotional range.

  Colin and Evie sit by themselves on the ride back to shore. Evie feels sick. The boat had erupted in shouts, one of the newlyweds had fainted, and the captain had muttered a string of obscenities when Colin hefted himself back onboard. There was even more chaos after that: passengers yelling at the captain, at each other, the captain threatening to turn back to shore unless “you crazy haoles calm the hell down.” Then the tentative peace as the other couples went into the shark cage and came back quickly, while Evie shivered in her towel and refused to let Colin put his arm around her.

  “Did you take a picture?” he asks, unable to stop grinning.

  “Take a picture? I thought you were going to die.” Her chest hurts, her heart still thrashing against its walls as if it will never beat calmly again. “If one of your soldiers did that, you wouldn’t be smiling.” Her throat fills as if she is back in the ocean, her eyes haze over, and she is crying so convulsively she can barely speak. “Dammnit, Colin.” She rubs her towel across the mess of her face, not caring if anyone on the boat can hear her. “I was scared enough when you were deployed. I shouldn’t have to be scared when I’m right next to you, watching you do something reckless and stupid.”

  Colin puts his hand on her knee, his grin gone. “OK,” he says simply. “Roger that.”

  But a few moments later, when her shuddering slows, when they can see land and the flags of the marina in the distance, he is defensive. “It was bullshit, Evie,” he says. “Can’t you see that? I had to prove these jackasses wrong.” He struggles to find the right words, lowering his voice. “I’ve seen kid toys loaded with explosives, snipers hiding in an elementary school. I’ve been in a Humvee with soldiers singing ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ and a second later it was upside down, full of fire and screams.” He motions his thumb over his shoulder. “That, back there? That wasn’t anything to be afraid of. That was nothing but a bunch of fat fish having lunch.”

  During the deployment, both of you may have needed reassurance that your spouse was committed to the relationship; these reassurances are still important post-deployment. Most marriages survive deployments but the issue of loyalty and commitment must be mutual for your relationship to remain resilient.

  They stop for a bag of burgers and a six-pack then head to the hotel. Evie opens the curtains wide so they can see the sunset. Colin takes his damp clothes off, slips into a pair of boxers, and climbs on top of the bed. He plumps the pillows behind his head, rests a burger on his stomach, and scrolls through the television channels with the remote control. Evie cracks open a beer and hands it to him. “You want to sit out on the lanai with me? We c
an watch the sunset while we eat.”

  “I’m great here,” he says, tuning in to a football game.

  She touches the balcony’s door handle, about to go outside alone.

  “This feels good,” Colin says, and she looks at him, mystified. The beer bottle and remote? The burger on his belly? The football game on a TV smaller than the flat-screen they have at home?

  “What?” she asks. “What feels good?”

  His eyes meet hers. “I almost forgot what it’s like. . . .” He hesitates, as if realizing whatever he is about to say is as much an insult as a compliment.

  “What? To be married?” she finishes.

  Colin nods. His eyes go back to the game. Evie continues to watch him, waiting for more. But she notices something. He is sitting still. He has not moved the remote or the burger or the beer. If she squints, the man almost looks like he is in a hammock.

  Evie glances out the window, watching the waves come in or out, high tide or low tide, she’s not sure. She imagines sharks, always moving through that dark unknown, searching and hungry. She lets go of the door handle and goes to the bed, slides in next to Colin. He hands her his beer and she takes a sip.

  Not taking his eyes off the television, he says, “Guys would hear a lot of shit, a lot of stories about their wives back home.” Evie pauses, the bottle midair, too much beer filling her mouth. “But I never doubted you, Evie. Never.”

  “Good,” she replies, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She can’t tell if she is relieved or horrified at the implication of rumors, at the thought that Colin might have heard something after all. It is the moment she has been waiting for. But she is suddenly so tired she can barely hold the bottle out to him.

  He takes the beer and she curls deep into the bed, watching his profile, hearing the sportscasters murmur and the air conditioner hum. She needs to stop thinking, she tells herself, she needs to stop wondering where she’d be right now if John from Austin had called again and thoroughly changed the events of her life, changed them in such a way that she would never have heard how much her husband trusted her.

  All soldiers are affected by combat. It is normal for soldiers to experience symptoms due to their deployment experiences. Some may need help for their reactions. You, too, may experience mental health issues after your soldier’s deployment. A family member with a mental health concern may affect the rest of the family. Make your family’s mental health a priority!

  Evie wakes with a start. Colin’s hands are sliding along the sides of his body, searching his ribs, his hips, his thighs.

  “Shhh, Colin, you’re alright. Wake up, baby,” she whispers, sitting up and swinging her legs off the bed, her toes on the cool floor, ready to run. “It’s me, it’s Evie.” She can see the glitter of sweat and feel the heat coming off his body; she watches him roll over, his elbow hitting her now empty pillow. She stands, takes a step toward the bedside lamp, then hesitates. The balcony curtains are wide open and the moon, peeled and pale, hangs loosely over the night. It illuminates Colin so clearly she can see his reedy, powerful muscles working under the wrapper of sunburned skin.

  She thinks of the shark cage, how she pulled her hand out of his, how she left him alone and surrounded, watching from the safety of the boat. She thinks of John from Austin and his kiss. For these reasons, for so many others that might be flashing across Colin’s brain, jerking his unconscious body, she knows she ought to put as much distance as possible between herself and her husband.

  But Evie gets back into the bed. She touches him, her hand on his shoulder, daring the military life consultants, the chaplains, the psychiatrists, to be right, daring the sleeping man to strike.

  Her palm on his skin has the opposite effect. His breathing slows, his body stills, his sleep is quiet again.

  “You’re OK. I’m here,” she says over and over like a lullaby. She’s not quite sure when the refrain changes to, “I’m OK. You’re here.” She does not think of all the years she found herself in a big bed, pillows piled up in poor imitation of her husband, and she does not think about the years ahead, when she will be alone again. Colin is here now and Evie is content. At last she is certain of what she needs: her arm around her husband’s chest, his warm breath on her wrist.

  3

  REDEPLOYMENT

  Phil Klay

  WE SHOT DOGS. Not by accident. We did it on purpose, and we called it “Operation Scooby.” I’m a dog person, so I thought about that a lot.

  First time was instinct. I hear O’Leary go, “Jesus,” and there’s a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he’d lap up water from a bowl. It wasn’t American blood, but still, there’s that dog, lapping it up. And that’s the last straw, I guess, and then it’s open season on dogs.

  At the time you don’t think about it. You’re thinking about who’s in that house, what’s he armed with, how’s he gonna kill you, your buddies. You’re going block by block, fighting with rifles good to 550 meters, and you’re killing people at five in a concrete box.

  The thinking comes later, when they give you the time. See, it’s not a straight shot back, from war to the Jacksonville mall. When our deployment was up, they put us on TQ, this logistics base out in the desert, let us decompress a bit. I’m not sure what they meant by that. Decompress. We took it to mean jerk off a lot in the showers. Smoke a lot of cigarettes and play a lot of cards. And then they took us to Kuwait and put us on a commercial airliner to go home.

  So there you are. You’ve been in a no-shit war zone and then you’re sitting in a plush chair looking up at a little nozzle shooting air conditioning, thinking, what the fuck? You’ve got a rifle between your knees, and so does everyone else. Some Marines got M9 pistols, but they take away your bayonets because you aren’t allowed to have knives on an airplane. Even though you’ve showered, you all look grimy and lean. Everybody’s hollow-eyed and their cammies are beat to shit. And you sit there, and close your eyes, and think.

  The problem is, your thoughts don’t come out in any kind of straight order. You don’t think, oh, I did A, then B, then C, then D. You try to think about home, then you’re in the torture house. You see the body parts in the locker and the retarded guy in the cage. He squawked like a chicken. His head was shrunk down to a coconut. It takes you a while to remember Doc saying they’d shot mercury into his skull, and then it still doesn’t make any sense.

  You see the things you saw the times you nearly died. The broken television and the hajji corpse. Eicholtz covered in blood. The lieutenant on the radio.

  You see the little girl, the photographs Curtis found in a desk. First had a beautiful Iraqi kid, maybe seven or eight years old, in bare feet and a pretty white dress like it’s First Communion. Next she’s in a red dress, high heels, heavy make-up. Next photo, same dress, but her face is smudged and she’s holding a gun to her head.

  I tried to think of other things, like my wife Cheryl. She’s got pale skin and fine dark hairs on her arms. She’s ashamed of them but they’re soft. Delicate.

  But thinking of Cheryl made me feel guilty, and I’d think about Lance Corporal Hernandez, Corporal Smith, and Eicholtz. We were like brothers, Eicholtz and me. The two of us saved this Marine’s life one time. A few weeks later Eicholtz is climbing over a wall. Insurgent pops out a window, shoots him in the back when he’s halfway over.

  So I’m thinking about that. And I’m seeing the retard, and the girl, and the wall Eicholtz died on. But here’s the thing. I’m thinking a lot, and I mean a lot, about those fucking dogs.

  And I’m thinking about my dog. Vicar. About the shelter we’d got him from, where Cheryl said we had to get an older dog because nobody takes older dogs. How we could never teach him anything. How he’d throw up shit he shouldn’t have eaten in the first place. How he’d slink away all guilty, tail down and head low and back legs crouched. How his fur started turning grey two years after we got him, and he had so many white hairs on his face it looked like a moustache.

  S
o there it was. Vicar and Operation Scooby, all the way home.

  Maybe, I don’t know, you’re prepared to kill people. You practice on man-shaped targets so you’re ready. Of course, we got targets they call “dog targets.” Target shape Delta. But they don’t look like fucking dogs.

  And it’s not easy to kill people, either. Out of boot camp, Marines act like they’re gonna play Rambo, but it’s fucking serious, it’s professional. Usually. We found this one insurgent doing the death rattle, foaming and shaking, fucked up, you know? He’s hit with a 7.62 in the chest and pelvic girdle; he’ll be gone in a second, but the company XO walks up, pulls out his KA-BAR, and slits his throat. Says, “It’s good to kill a man with a knife.” All the Marines look at each other like, “What the fuck?” Didn’t expect that from the XO. That’s some PFC bullshit.

  On the flight, I thought about that too.

  It’s so funny. You’re sitting there with your rifle in your hands but no ammo in sight. And then you touch down in Ireland to refuel. And it’s so foggy you can’t see shit but, you know, this is Ireland, there’s got to be beer. And the plane’s captain, a fucking civilian, reads off some message about how general orders stay in effect until you reach the States, and you’re still considered on duty. So no alcohol.

  Well, our CO jumped up and said, “That makes about as much sense as a goddamn football bat. Alright, Marines, you’ve got three hours. I hear they serve Guinness.” Ooh-fucking-rah. Corporal Weissert ordered five beers at once and had them laid out in front of him. He didn’t even drink for a while, just sat there looking at ’em all, happy. O’Leary said, “Look at you, smiling like a faggot in a dick tree,” which is a DI expression Curtis loves. So Curtis laughs and says, “What a horrible fucking tree,” and we all start cracking up, happy just knowing we can get fucked up, let our guard down.