Michael Langlois - Bad Radio

“Please? I really don’t want to go and sit at home by myself right now, okay? Since your truck is all smashed up, I’ll drive you home. I want to.”

The entanglement of obligation. The sticky, unbreakable bonds of helping or being helped. These are exactly the things I didn’t want.

“Okay. Thanks.”

Anne drove us away from the frenzied lights and swarming officials and towards the relative quiet of the highway. Barely half a mile away, all traces of the commotion were lost behind us. People don’t realize how secretive the world really is, easily swallowing up wonders and atrocities alike, aided only by a few yards of distance and people’s unwillingness to look.

Anne was discovering the truth of this now, having spent her entire life with her grandfather, and only tonight getting her first glimpse of his world.

I watched her drive in silence for a few minutes. Her face was stiff and her knuckles were white on the wheel. I’m not good at comforting people, but I gave it a try. “Hey,” I said. “You want to stop somewhere and grab a bite to eat? It’s a long drive and I missed supper. I bet you did, too.”

She inhaled, like she was remembering to breathe. “Yeah. Some coffee probably wouldn’t hurt, either.”

We pulled into a greasy spoon called Ginger’s, drawn in by a billboard boasting “All night breakfast and burgers! Never closed since 1961!”

The night was still young, so the place was noisy and crowded. We stood in front of the battered hostess podium until an unsmiling woman swooped in and acknowledged us with a terse nod, grabbed a couple of greasy plastic menus, and towed us into the fray.

“Can we have that booth by the window?” I asked. She changed course in mid-stride, slapped the menus down hard on the table, and left without a word.

“I think she likes me,” I said, sliding into the orange vinyl splendor of our booth. A tiny laugh escaped Anne’s lips with a sound that could almost have been a sob. She settled back into the booth and some of the tension left her face.

The coffee started coming as soon as we sat down, which was the second sign of a truly great diner, the first being surly-but-efficient service and the third having to do with heavenly pie coming out of a pit of a kitchen whose grease accumulation was now a structural feature. The coffee tasted surprisingly good to me, but that might only be because I’ve been drinking nothing but my own for the last couple of years.

I ordered a cheeseburger with a side of hash browns — you never eat at a roadside diner without getting the hash browns — and Anne got some kind of egg white omelet with broccoli in it called the Guiltless Pleasure. I’m sure the name was half right.

While we waited for our food, I kept an eye on our car, which was easy from the booth by the window. I didn’t expect any trouble, but I’d look pretty stupid falling for the same trick twice in one night.

Anne excused herself to go to the restroom, so I spent my time alternating between watching the car and the bathroom door at the rear of the restaurant.

All around me people were sharing meals at crowded tables. The sudden sound of laughter would occasionally ring out clearly over the general din, granting the shabby diner a more festive air than I would have expected from a roadside hash house. I guess life hadn’t stopped while I was hiding out on my farm after all.

Guilt nudged me because I felt good sitting here about to share a meal with another human being, surrounded by happy, energetic people. This feeling of guilt was born of … what? Penance for feeling anything but grief? Loyalty to the past? Cowardice? I honestly didn’t know. Withdrawing from the world hadn’t been a choice, it had been a straight, inevitable path. For the first time in five years, I felt the tiniest twinge of regret about my decision to end my time in the world.

Anne and the food arrived at the same time, and for a few minutes there was only eating and nodding at each other with full mouths and raised eyebrows. As I expected, the hash browns were outstanding. The cheeseburger was good, too, especially since it had more bacon on it than any of the breakfasts I could see.

“I can’t believe you’re eating that,” said Anne.

I shook the softball-sized burger at her, making the greasy bun flop. “This is what we used to call food. That stuff you’re eating would make a monk cry.”

She rolled her eyes at me, which I took as a sign that she was feeling a little better.

We made small talk while we ate. I figured that when she was ready to talk about more serious things, she’d bring it up on her own. We were waiting for a couple of slices of pie when the dam broke.

“I’ve been going over what happened tonight in my head, over and over again. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

I didn’t say anything. I’m sure it would have sounded good to tell her that it would be okay, and that eventually she would stop thinking about it, but that’s never been true for me. If anything, some scenes carve themselves a permanent place in your mind the same way that the unceasing flow of a river creates a canyon.

“You and my grandfather only spoke for a minute before … before everything happened, but I can’t make any sense of it. How did you know his old army nickname was Cake? Even I didn’t know that until last year, and that was from reading his old letters from the war when I was helping to move his things into the home.”

I shrugged. “I told you I was Abe Griffin.”

“I’m serious. Also, he said a word I don’t know. Baitbag? And then you said it was like Warsaw, and he agreed. What was that about? Did you know that my grandfather was wounded in Poland in the war?” She looked at me for a long second, her eyes going hard. “Did you set this up? He seemed to recognize you as soon as you walked in. Have you been visiting him? To convince him that you were his old army buddy? Is that why he sent me to get you?”

I nearly choked on my burger. “Are you asking me if I secretly set up this whole meeting so that I could shoot my own accomplices and then wait around to get questioned by the police afterwards? After I arranged to make sure you knew where I lived? I don’t know what you do for a living, Anne, but I’m going to bet that your day job isn’t police detective.”

She put up her hands. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. Nothing makes any sense, and I don’t know what to think. Just, please, help me understand what’s happening.”

It seems like my entire life has, in one way or another, revolved around keeping this secret. Those of us who survived Warsaw never told Command the whole story. Of everyone in the world, at least they would have believed it. But my men were willing to lie for me, so that I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life in a basement lab somewhere as a permanent specimen.

I started dying my hair when Maggie turned fifty in order to lie to our friends. There wasn’t much I could do for my face, but you’d be surprised how far a little gray will get you. I had to stop going to veteran’s functions a few years later, when the gray wasn’t enough.

In my own town, I had to avoid even my closest friends, becoming more isolated by the year. Eventually that became less of a problem as they passed away from age or accident or disease.

I let my youth force me into hiding, shrinking my world down to just Maggie and me, and that was just fine. Until she died. Now, sitting across from Patrick’s granddaughter, I found that I no longer cared. I realized that I was carrying the shield long after the battle was lost.

“The answer is that I really am Abe Griffin. Your grandfather knew me because we served together in the war.”

“Oh my God.” She looked at me closely to see if I was kidding. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”