Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

She was living in a fantasy world. I didn’t want to go to Seattle Junior College. Shouldn’t she know that about me by now?

“We’re seniors, Danny. We have to start planning for the future.”

“I do have a plan,” I said. “Schmidty will want to retire soon. I’m going to buy him out of the business and run the shop myself. I’ll take some good auto tech classes at North Idaho Community College and—”

“Babe, that shop isn’t making much money.”

“It will when I update it, when we can do more work on natural-gas hybrids and solar tech.”

“You could find more advanced and interesting work with machines with something like a mechanical engineering degree. Why just change the oil on old cars when you could design new ones?”

“I do a lot more at the shop than oil changes,” I said.

She slid her hand down my arm and squeezed my elbow. “I know that. But I—”

“Anyway, I can’t leave Mom. She needs me.”

“I know she needs you, Danny,” said JoBell. “But you need to live your own life too.”

“I can’t abandon—”

“Hear me out,” JoBell hurried on. “We both know that even though she has problems, she is a strong woman. She doesn’t handle abrupt changes very well, but she does adapt in time. You had to start really slow with rodeo and football, remember? She got used to it.” She had a point. I let her continue. “When we go to Seattle, we’ll come home every weekend at first. After she handles that okay for a while, we’ll drop it back to every other weekend. Then once a month. Then every few months like normal college kids. I know she’ll be okay. I would never do anything that would hurt her. I love your mother. You know that.”

She made it sound like it would be almost easy. But I knew I wasn’t college material. I didn’t have the grades or the smarts to go to some big university to become an engineer.

I parked the truck in the school lot and leaned forward against the steering wheel. I felt JoBell’s warm hands sliding up and down my back. When I faced her, she leaned over in this great, low-cut sort of wrap shirt, and she smiled with the morning sun shining on her golden hair. We kissed for a long time. Amazing how that always made everything feel better.

She touched her forehead to mine. “I need to get out of this town, Danny. And you may not realize it yet, but you do too.”

—• I’m standing in a field off the southeast-bound side of Highway 84 over Snake River, where the Idaho National Guard has been mobilized to set up this checkpoint behind me. As you can see, Guardsmen are searching all traffic coming into Idaho, apparently in an effort to make sure no outside soldiers or law enforcement agents enter the state from Oregon. Civilians are free to come and go as they please, but while the soldiers are moving rather quickly with each car they search, this is obviously causing some difficulties with inbound traffic. Earlier today a number of small law enforcement watercraft patrolled the river, stopping at this checkpoint to fuel up before •—

—• those of you just joining us here on KRPK 780 AM the Rock, northern Idaho’s number one Christian talk station, I’m Mike Veenan. Welcome to The Call , the show where we do our prayerful best to answer your questions or offer prayers for whatever your concerns may be. Please feel free to give us a call at 1-800-555-ROCK, that’s 1-800-555-7625. Let’s go straight to the phone lines. Hello, Cindy from Sandpoint, Idaho, grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ. What’s on your mind today?”

“Mike, I’ve been following what’s been happening lately in the news? With these checkpoints? And the people shot in Boise? And I… I don’t know, but I’m really scared. How are we as Christians supposed to respond to all this? I mean, I’ve been praying for America and for peace and all, but, I mean, I don’t want to sound crazy, but this almost seems like the end-times.”

“Cindy, of course you’re doing the right thing by praying. And you do not sound crazy at all. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew chapter 24 verses 6 and 7, ‘You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.’ Now this is Jesus telling his disciples, telling us, about the signs of the end-times. I think you are absolutely right to wonder if recent events are the beginning of the end, but remember, our Lord tells us to see to it we are not alarmed. So… Spiritually prepare yourself? Certainly. And maybe we need to begin to stockpile shelf-stable food and bottled water, to make sure we have enough fuel in case •—

That evening I stood with my platoon on the armory drill floor, waiting for First Sergeant Herbokowitz to call the formation to attention so that our commander, Captain Leonard, could address the company. A lot of guys in the company were missing, but that was mostly because a bunch of them were already on state duty. I checked my watch. The first sergeant was taking a long time to get things rolling. Formation was supposed to be at eighteen hundred, but they were already ten minutes late. That never happened.

Finally, Herbokowitz came out of the orderly room onto the floor. He faced us and stood at attention. “Company!”

The platoon sergeants standing in front of each platoon turned their heads and yelled, “Platoon!”

But the regular routine was interrupted when Captain Leonard marched out on the floor. “Top,” he said to the first sergeant, “just skip it.” He held his hands up in the air, waving to us in a “come here” gesture. “Huddle up.” We all looked at each other for a moment before we crowded in around the commander.

Captain Leonard stood with his hands on his hips. He bit his lip for a second before pursing his lips and blowing out a deep breath. “These have been difficult times for the 476th Engineer Company. Most of our soldiers are deployed to Iran, and most of the rest of us had a rough time in Boise.” He paused and swallowed. “Being a soldier means dealing with tough stuff and helping your fellow soldiers deal with tough stuff.” He was quiet for a long time.

Luchen elbowed me and shot me a look like, What’s going on? Sparrow’s expression was unreadable.

The CO continued. “Maybe I should have done a better job helping my fellow officers cope. Now we’re all going to have to help each other get through this.” He stood up straighter. “It is my sad duty to report to you that Second Lieutenant Chad McFee took his own life with a sidearm this afternoon.”

A noise somewhere between a groan and a gasp came from the group, and I felt dizzy.

“He was twenty-three years old, a fantastic and dynamic trooper,” said the commander. “A good officer.”

McFee had killed himself? I thought he hadn’t looked so great the last time I saw him. And what had I done to help him? Nothing. I’d allowed one more casualty from the Battle of Boise.

“Please join me for a moment of silence.” A cutting quiet fell over the group. “Now, we recently had our annual mandatory suicide prevention briefing, so I’m not going to make you all sit through that PowerPoint again,” said Captain Leonard. “But the chaplain will be around at drill if any of you need to talk to him. I encourage you, I beg you, if you are having trouble, talk to someone. Anyone. And all of us need to remember to be there for our fellow soldiers. Now. We have a lot of work to do, and as hard as it may be to focus on our duty, let’s remember that we are always ‘mission first.’ Let’s go to work!” He turned to Herbokowitz. “First Sergeant, take charge.”