T. Parker: Full Measure

“The big memorial for the Dark Horses is next week,” said Ted. “Third Battalion, Fifth Regiment. I always liked the sound of your unit. The Three-Five. Get Some! Pendleton’s flying in Marines and families from all around the country. Speeches, Color Guard, everything. Mom and Dad already got a written invite signed by a real brigadier general.”

“I heard about it.”

“Are you going to go?”

“I’ll go.”

“I wish I could of done what you did. Too bad I always screw up.”

“You’re off the drugs, aren’t you?”

“I’m off the thirties and the booze.” Patrick knew that thirties were 30 milligram OxyContin, “hillbilly heroin,” an addictive prescription painkiller. Ted’s addiction had been discovered by his mother a year ago, about the time Patrick was walking his first patrols of the poppy fields in the Sanjin District. The coincidence puzzled Patrick. He had come to see that life was often made of pieces that didn’t fit.

“You did your part, Ted. You got clean and you’re back in school.”

“Was. The college expelled me for some stuff I put on the Internet.”

“What stuff?”

“I did a cartoon of Mayor Anders.”

“Damn you.”

“It’s freedom of speech, Pat. I’m really sick of her and the rest of government, collecting all my tax money and spending it on things we don’t need. We didn’t need the new library. What was wrong with the old one? And how big a pension will she and her friends at City Hall get? How come they didn’t spend the money on more firemen? It’s government waste of our dollars, Patrick. Why can’t I say that? So I drew a cartoon of her as a dealer at a blackjack table. She’s leaning over to push big stacks of chips to a homeless family on welfare. I exaggerated her breast size. The college said it was against women, hateful and antigovernment. I’m expelled. But I’m not charged with anything.”

“Damn you, Ted. Can’t you leave anything alone?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You want to mean something by it, Ted! That’s the whole point. You piss me off.”

Ted frowned grimly and pulled a CD from the door slot. “Listen to this music, Pat. It’s Cruzela Storm. She’s local and she’s—”

Patrick snatched the plastic case away from his brother. “If you won’t control yourself, who will?”

“It’s the same old thing, Patrick. Ideas get into me—”

“I know, and you say you don’t know where they come from. Bullshit. You’re too old for that excuse now.”

“I’m sorry I hurt her feelings. But when the ideas get into me I don’t know what they’re going to look like when they come back out. Does anyone? I don’t have anything personal against Mayor Anders. I apologized on her Web site and never heard back. There’s no talk of charges. Nothing like that. But there’s good news, too, Pat. I’m spending sixty hours a week in my taxi. Sixty. And making some serious money.”

Patrick let his head rock back against the rest and watched the scorched earth scroll past his window. He saw Ted lean his head back, too. A campaign poster for Mayor Evelyn Anders, apparently running for re-election next month, flashed by. On blackened chain-link fence along the road, the families of returning troops had already hung new signs and banners welcoming home their Pendleton-based husbands and fathers and daughters. WE LOVE YOU, JASON! XOXOXO! WELCOME HOME, TAMARA!

“There’s yours, Pat! We made it ourselves, soon as the fire got put out.”

Patrick looked at the clean white banner hanging on the fence, the red-and-blue lettering and the goofily oversized image of his serious Marine Corps face under his dress cover. He was surprised how young he looked and how old he felt. He thought of Myers and Zane and the others dead in Sangin, and of Salimony and Messina and Bostik, alive here in California.

You can’t dwell on all the times you should have died or it’ll drive you crazy. Look at the guys who won’t ever get to think back on that war. Look at the guys it ate alive. Then look at yourself and figure out the difference between them and you. There isn’t any.

Coming into town from the east, Patrick saw that the fire had been capricious, destroying one grove but sparing another, burning one house to the ground and ignoring the next. Like snipers, he thought, or mortar rounds. He saw Valley Pumpkin Patch, with straw Halloween witches on strings hanging from the surrounding sycamores, and acres of big orange pumpkins stretching away. He’d run in those fields as a boy. He had always loved the fall here. Now his heart ached in a general way and he sensed there was much more to come.

Downtown looked much as he had left it, but there were many more empty storefronts. He was surprised how many FOR RENT or FOR LEASE signs these were. Even the Navy recruiter was closed and empty. The east side was mostly Mexican businesses — markets and the bakery, the shoe and music stores. Here the streets and sidewalks were busy with young mothers pushing strollers, older women carrying plastic shopping bags in both hands for balance, and kids on foot and on bikes. By the number of youngsters out on this afternoon, Norris guessed that Fallbrook schools were not in session because of the fire. It cheered his heart to see people walking around, living their lives without carrying guns or getting shot at or wondering where the IEDs were hidden. They don’t know how good they have it, he thought.

Farther down Main Street were most of the nice older buildings — City Hall, the community theater, and the banks and restaurants, the dance studio and the Art and Cultural Center, hair salons and art galleries. A taqueira boasted the world’s best tacos while a drive-through claimed the world’s best burgers. Patrick liked the world-class braggadocio in his small town.

And he also liked that here in Fallbrook, Japanese owned the sushi places, Chinese families ran the Chinese restaurants, Koreans owned the Korean restaurants, Indians ran the smoke shop, Pakis the liquor stores, and Mexicans the carnecerias, zapaterias, and joyerías. There were blacks, mostly stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton. There were California Indians — Cahuilla and Rincon and Pala — descended through the centuries, clannish and proud. And Guatemalans, almost all of them males, some very young and their shirts always tucked in tightly, who toiled as field hands and gardeners.

AVOCADO CAPITAL OF THE WORLD! Patrick looked up at the smoke-smudged banners on Main Street and smiled. He recalled from fourth-grade history that Fallbrook was originally plotted as a town site in 1885, declaring itself dry of alcohol. He had gotten out the local phone book that night, to find that Fallbrook had thirty-one churches, one synagogue, three taverns, and four tattoo parlors. He thought of Fallbrook as a shrunk-down version of the republic.

The Norris house sat on high ground overlooking eighty mostly burned acres. Jack and Spike, both wearing yellow ribbons on their collars, followed the truck up the drive, barking. Patrick got out and touched their spacious Labrador heads and saw the big yellow ribbons fluttering on the oak trees and the porch railing. He hated the ribbons. He pet the dogs. He’d thought of them often and almost longingly in Sangin, but now he felt little for them. Ted was pointing to where he’d cut back the landscape plants and trees just a week ago, pure luck he said — he’d had no idea how important it would be when the fire came. Patrick looked out over the slopes, steep and blackened. The San Luis Rey River trickled far down the valley in an untouched cushion of green.

His mother pushed through the door and hurried down the wooden steps and pulled herself into his arms. Caroline’s tears were wet and warm on his cheek. She firmly stroked his face and head as if to confirm their wholeness, and as Patrick smiled felt a great ledge of relief break loose inside him and tumble downslope, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. They couldn’t finish their sentences.