“You’re a terrible liar, Ted.” Patrick glanced at his brother, then looked out to the Pacific coalescing in the early light.
“It doesn’t take much to fool most people,” said Ted. Patrick studied his brother in profile. “Pat, that guy who robbed me a few days ago that I told you about? I took him to the next level.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a technical Rogue Wolf term. It means I beat up Edgar. But Jessica stabbed me. So I threw her in the pond.”
Patrick leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked down at the damp, gum-stained concrete. He knew how his father must feel. “Was Cade with you?”
“I told you he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“But he was there, wasn’t he?”
“I swear on our parents’ grave. No. But Trevor was.”
“Trevor?”
“One of Cade’s Rogue Wolves.”
“You beat up the robber? Or Trevor did? Your knuckles aren’t even skinned.”
Ted sighed and put his hands into his hoodie pockets without looking at them. “I used gloves. Maybe you could just say something like, good job. Or, way to go, Ted. There are more heroes in this world than just you.”
“I am not a hero and I don’t want to be.”
“It’s how you were born, Pat. Me, I have to work harder.”
“So he robbed you with a gun. Now you say you’ve beaten him up and thrown his girl into a pond. Are you satisfied? Does this make it even now?”
“Yeah. I really got him good.”
“So you’re done. You’re not going to do this again.”
“Oh, absolutely not. We’re even-steven. I just remembered when I was in fourth grade and I got in a fight with Ronnie Stevens and we became friends later.”
“Is that what you want to happen?”
“This went a little too far for that.”
Patrick could see the whitewater below, washing ghostlike up the beach. The caissons of the pier were individuated, and lights came on in the restaurant far down at the end. A surfer stood knee-deep with his board under his arm, as if he’d been trapped there all night awaiting release by sunlight, then fell forward on his board into the water. Two more paddled out through the shorebreak. “I don’t want you down at Pride Auto Repair anymore, Ted. Do you understand?”
“Naturally.”
“I’m ordering you away from there.”
“Okay. I’ll stay away.”
“You have to control yourself, Ted. If you won’t control yourself, who will?”
“Not government, that’s for sure.”
“Who’s talking about government?”
Ted shook his head back and forth quickly, then rolled the hood over his head and snugged it tight. “They get in! They get in!”
“What are you talking about—your ideas again?”
“Yes! I got this new idea in the hospital a few hours ago—how if you make yourself believe a lie to make the world look the way you want it to look, you’ve started to go insane. And after you believe that first lie, every other lie gets easier. And in you go, deeper and deeper. My first lie was that I would become a meaningful man. That I had something that was all mine and really important I was meant to do. That thing I was telling you about on the way home from the airport. I was eleven when I told myself the meaningful man lie. Can I make another confession? You think I won’t control myself. But sometimes I get really, really angry. You don’t know how angry. I want to do terrible things. And I see how they can be done. Exactly how. And usually I talk myself out of them. Usually. I’m afraid someday I’m not going to be able to. And then I’ll mix up my anger with the really important thing I was meant to do. And then, wow, what a random mess that’s gonna to be.”
Ted unzipped his sweatshirt and touched the wounds beneath the clean olive T-shirt his brother had brought him. “Three-Five. Dark Horses. ‘Get some.’ I got some, Pat.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. You fuck up everything, Ted.”
“That’s Dad’s line.”
“I didn’t mean everything. Not everything. Just some things. I wish there was a way for you to not try so hard.”
“You mean give up?”
“Not give up, but … hell … I wish there was a way for you to just put one foot in front of the other and get the mission done. And quit worrying about every damned froggy thing that comes into your head. And just be in the world without having to change it. Man, just be here and let other people’s problems be other people’s problems. Not yours.”
“That makes really good sense. I’m going to try it, Pat. You know, in a way, I’ve been trying to do it almost my whole life! When I turn fast counterclockwise? With my arms crossed and my eyes shut? Really fast? Like you said, it’s unscrewing from the world.”
Patrick felt exasperation and nothing more. This was what he hated most about civilian life—the incredible slowness; the numbing discussions; the goop-thick assumptions that there was plenty of time for all things to be considered, no matter how idiotic and useless and destructive they might be; the truly awful belief that everyone had a right to express themselves any time they felt like it, to unscrew themselves from the world if they wanted to. In civilian life, how long did you have to wait for a thing or a moment to truly matter? In Sangin the way you tied your boots could decide whether you lived or died. And those around you. That’s why you electrical-taped yourself and your gear before patrol, slapping the tape on every surface that could reflect light back to the enemy, everything that could make a sound and give you away. Then you jumped up and down and listened, and Myers would watch and listen too, for even so much as a twinkle or a rattle. It had to be perfect. It mattered. In Sangin, if you simply forgot the extra tourniquet, someone could die. In Sangin if you let even a small patch on your goggles get sanded so dull you failed to see the Talib sniper in the rocks far away, someone could die. If you walked imperfectly and knocked a rock down a slope, someone could die. It all mattered. And that, the mattering, was the greatest pleasure there was. Not the adrenaline-rush of combat, or the mind-blowing alertness it took to survive it. But the knowledge that everything was important and you had to do everything right. You had to be perfect for yourself and the men around you. Because you knew they made themselves perfect for you. It was pure dedication and pure belonging, to be ready, and to risk your life to save another. Your greatest humility was your greatest pride. Nothing else came close. Combat was life at its most meaningful and everything else was an approximation.
“You’re thinking about the war, aren’t you, Pat? How in the war the enemy was the wooly-heads, but back here at home the enemy is me.”
“Enough horseshit, Ted. Let’s go home. We’ve got ten more hay bales to pick up and a whole lot of pole pickers to oil and sharpen.”
“You think we’re ever really going to need them again? Those pole pickers for avocados?”
“What I think doesn’t matter. I’m just going to be ready if some of the burnt trees live. Or if Dad can get a Farm Bank loan and there’s any planter stock left on the market. And if the rain comes.”
“I don’t think Dad believes any of it is going to happen. He’s already given up. He’s just going through the motions because it’s all he knows how to do. It makes him mad. And he enjoys being mad.”
“That’s his kind of faith, Ted.”
“I brought a bat to take Edgar to the next level but I never landed a blow. We both got a hold of it and tried to get it away from the other. We were up close and our eyes were about level and it was me against him. We’re big guys. And when I called on all my strength it came to me, and I was able to move him back. Then Jessica stabbed me and Trevor butted in. But I had that guy. I had the whole thing going my way.”
“It’s the last time you see those people. The last time you go to Pride.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say. That’s right, Pat. The last.”
* * *
Pat
rick and Ted sharpened picker blades until 8:00 A.M., then Patrick sent his brother downtown to get the hay bales. He told Ted the feed and tack store men would load them in. After Ted’s truck vanished around the bend Patrick waited a few minutes then drove to Pride Auto Repair.
He’d been here as a boy with his dad, though not often, because his parents didn’t care for Jed Magnus’s race hate. He wondered how long it had been. Twelve, fifteen years? Outside it looked the same, with the racy neon Model T sign up again, and the windows cleaned. Inside was also like he remembered it, except for seeming smaller, with the same high ceilings and brick walls and the pool table, jukebox, counter, and stools. The counter was the same scarred oak, and the framed Vintage Car Show posters looked just like the ones from his boyhood, only with more recent dates. The lobby had been made to look old when he was a boy and it looked even older now. But now the man behind the counter was Cade and not his father.
“Patrick Norris! Good morning.”
Patrick walked to the counter and Cade offered his hand. Patrick took it, yanked hard, grabbed Magnus by the collar with his other hand, and pulled him face-first onto the countertop. He put his back and legs into it, dragging the man the length of the counter before launching him to the floor. Magnus crashed hard in a storm of pens, flyers, business cards, complimentary calendars, and candy. “Leave my brother alone. Don’t look at him or talk to him again. Ever.”
A muscular young man came from the repair bay through the double doors, holding a red shop rag in one hand. He stopped and the rag dropped to the floor. Magnus was already up in a shooter’s stance, a handgun leveled at Patrick’s chest. “I could shoot you right now, Patrick, and be within my rights. You’ve assaulted me on my property without reason. I’ve got a witness.”
“You won’t shoot me. And you won’t call the sheriffs. I’ll tell them about Trevor’s adventure last night with Ted. I take it you’re Trevor.”
The big man looked at his boss, who lowered his gun then and put it behind his back from where it had come. He brushed off the front of his blue work shirt, making sure the “Cade” patch was clean. “You’re an asshole, Norris. You come into my place of business on a nice Friday morning. You break my pen jar and mess up my ‘Take Back Main Street’ display. You dump my customer-appreciation candy on the floor. And it’s not cheap drugstore stuff—it’s real avocado fudge made here in Fallbrook. You throw me around and accuse my employee of who knows what. All because of your dumbass brother? Let me tell you something—we can hardly keep him out of here. He just slinks back again and again like a whipped dog. So, if you don’t like the company he keeps, take it up with him. But I own this place. When I’m in it, I look at who I want to look at, and I talk to who I want to talk to. My country has a Constitution that protects people like me from people like you. It protects your brother, too. So get lost, jarhead, or I will blow a hole in you. You want a war to fight, fight America’s enemies. Until then, you’re just a trespasser.”
“Rogue Wolves.”
“That’s right.”
“The skinnies weigh half of what you do but they’re twice as heavy.” Patrick looked at each man in turn and walked back out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Patrick and his father and mother walked the realtor through the family home. The revised offer had come one day after the fire. It was afternoon and the light came through the windows in pleasant autumn angles and Patrick tried to see the place with fresh eyes. The realtor’s name was Scott Dormand and he had worked with Archie and Caroline for twenty-plus years. He had a sad face and depleted hair, dyed blond and combed over. Patrick could tell that Dormand was concerned with an as-is sale, noting the wear on the hardwood floors, the unpopularity of the wallpaper below the chair rails, the unusual “sea foam” color of the tile in the master bath.
“The son of a bitch doctor can do what he wants with it,” said Archie.
“Very true,” said Dormand. “Very true.”
“We won’t take a million three for something worth three million.”
“I know you won’t, Arch. I just wanted to see it again before we make the counter. There’s a lot here to love—the location is magnificent, the home has terrific bones, the kitchen has been remodeled and the plumbing and electric are sound. You’ve got double-pane windows, and the gorgeous old fireplace. On the other hand, we don’t want to scare them off.”
“By asking them to pay what it’s worth?” asked Caroline.
“Before the fire, his offer of two million was low, according to the comps. Asking three million, you were high. But I presented his new offer of one million three to you because that’s my job. And, well, the buyer looks at the ranch and sees the same house he made an offer on before the fire. But he also sees eighty burnt acres of avos that may not come back. He wants those trees. He wants to be a grower.”
“Goddamned Newport Beach doctor wants to be a grower,” said Archie. “Just tell him full asking price—three million, even—take it or leave it.”
“I’ll tell them exactly what you and Caroline want me to tell them. But three million is pretty high, Archie. Prohibitively.”
“Honey?” asked Archie.
Patrick heard his mother sigh. She was wearing her usual white blouse, a pink kerchief around her neck, pressed jeans, and black boots. Her makeup and lipstick were minimal and tastefully deployed. “I’m with you, Arch. Three million.”
“Patrick?” asked Archie. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think you want to sell it.”
“Not for a penny less than three, I don’t.”
“Then hold out, Dad.”
In the silence Dormand cleared his throat. “I really have to doubt that anyone will pay it, in this economy, after this fire. Just so you understand, Archie.”
“I’m not as stupid as I look.”
“Hope the trees live and the rain comes,” said Patrick.
Archie looked at him in assessment. “And if they don’t and it doesn’t, I’ll have to sell it all to salvage three worthless condominiums. A fire sale, literally. God knows what kind of lowball offer that might be. Tell the old sawbones we’re firm at three, Scott.”
“Will do.”
“Would you like to walk the groves, see the trees?”
“There’s no real need for that, Archie.”
* * *
Patrick and his parents walked the scorched western boundary of Norris Brothers Growers anyway. In this second full year of drought now cursed by wildfire, the dust and ash rose with their footsteps and hovered in the parched air. Even the weeds and wild grasses that crept to life each year with the first drops of rain were long missing from the untrammeled center of the dirt road and from the shaded, life-friendly soil beneath the avocado trees, even from where the irrigation valves leaked their tiny surpluses into the ground. The earth beneath Patrick’s feet looked like something he’d shovel from a fireplace—dead powder without promise. He thought of the infernal dust of Sangin and the spiders as big as his hand.
They stopped on the high ground and looked down on the eighty acres. Far below, the San Luis Rey River serpentined toward the Pacific in its path of green. From here Patrick could see the barn and the bunkhouse and some of the outbuildings. Ted’s truck was parked in front of the bunkhouse.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” asked Archie. “How can he spend all day inside like that?”
“Some kind of stomachache,” said Patrick. “I’ll let him tell you.”
“He eats a lot of takeout,” said Caroline.
Archie shook his head. “Well, I’m sorry his stomach is upset, but the Farm Credit Bank in San Diego passed on us, Pat. They were our last real hope for a loan. The Norris family is now officially unleashed and on its own.”
“I’ll work extra hard tonight,” said Patrick, checking his watch. “Fridays are big money.”
“What a joy to be unleashed,” said Caroline, draping her arms over their shoulders. “Woof.”
*
* *
Patrick was right about the big money. He found himself racing between pickup and delivery, then back again for more. How fast he could do the job seemed important. A sheriff’s deputy pulled him over on Alvarado for doing sixty in a forty-five. They talked about the wildfire then Afghanistan, where the deputy had a cousin who was deployed. His cousin knew the Marine who was murdered last week by one of the Afghan army soldiers he commanded on patrol. Slow down, he told Patrick, handing back his driver’s license—woolies aren’t worth dying for and neither is pizza.
But it was hard to hold down his speed. Firooz and Simone had three vehicles going, and every time Patrick came through the Domino’s door they were making and baking pizzas as fast as they could, ordering each other around in Farsi, trying to keep up with the phone and Internet orders in English. On his next run he swerved to miss a Chihuahua darting across Main with its leash still attached, then pulled over and ran down the witless dog, which bit him before he could hand it over to its owner.
He came home at nine o’clock, counted his tips and slipped the bills into an envelope he kept under his mattress. Seventy-eight dollars and change. Not bad.
He showered and walked down to see Ted. The night was close and smelled of soot and an owl huffed through the darkness above the barn. Patrick knocked on the bunkhouse door and stepped in, the dogs wedging past him. Ted sat at his computer table, as usual, playing one of his games. He said he was feeling okay—the pain pills worked like magic and he’d just made it to the next level of the game. Patrick crossed the big rustic room and set a hand on Ted’s shoulder, looking down at the monitor, where the running bull-headed figure tossed wolves into a starlit sky. Patrick saw that Ted had hung several Evelyn Anders campaign posters on the bunkhouse walls: THIS TOWN IS YOUR TOWN. A tall stack of Village View newspapers sat on the computer table and Patrick noted the front-page picture of Evelyn Anders and George’s two young friends. Article by Iris Cash. Ted looked up at him, smiling.
“Why all the pictures of someone you don’t like?” asked Patrick.
Full Measure Page 19
