T. Parker: Full Measure

“Level eighty-one,” Ted said after a while. His hands tapped the keyboard on his lap and the humanoid trotted and the wild dogs flew apart.

“What’s the object of this game?”

“To create the best character you can. It’s all about character.”

“Why’s he killing dogs?”

Ted turned. “Those are wolves, not dogs. Big difference. Dad seemed happier when you came back from your fire-damage tour. Bigger, somehow. Did you say you’d stay and help?”

“I did, yes.”

Patrick watched his brother in profile, his hands brisk on the keyboard, the big taurine creature gliding through the countryside. After a while Patrick went to the shelves of cages that lined two walls. This part of the bunkhouse was half-dark and most of the cage lights were off but he could see tarantulas stepping lightly and snakes both still and gliding, and the skinks and swifts peering out from cracks. Alligator lizards prowled. There were Pacific tree frogs and baby pond turtles no larger than golf balls. Patrick saw mantids and scorpions and black widows and pine sawyers. Ted only kept what was native and, as he said, “unlovable.” The high handsome oak shelves were built years ago by his father, who had encouraged Ted’s husbandry of creeping things and — strangely, Patrick had always thought — almost nothing else.

Ted talked without turning. “Pat, you did good for our country overseas, no matter what you think. And I want to do something, too.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet. Something really big. And then, I think I’ll leave. There’s more to the world than Fallbrook. You should come with me. I’d like it if you came. Maybe if you get that boat we can take it and just head out like, for the territory.”

“I think I’ll be here a while. And you know what? The big thing you can do is help put this farm back together.”

“Dad thinks I’m stupid.”

“He gets his mind wrongly fixed at times.”

“Just like I do.”

“I already talked to him about this. It’s up to us now, Ted. We’ve got to repair what we can repair, and when spring comes, hope enough trees make it. Otherwise we sell the whole place at a big loss and clear out.”

Ted’s creature hooked a wolf and threw it high and it hit the ground a broken, snarling thing. “Got him, Pat!” Ted swung around, his expression grave. “Dad really said that? He wants me to work?”

“He really said it.”

“There’s nothing in the world I’d rather do than help this family. Nothing. I’ll give my notice to Friendly Village Taxi tomorrow after work. Cleo will have to understand. It may take her a day or two to find someone else, but I’m needed here. Right here now.”

“Yes. You are.”

Ted smiled. “Tell me about the war.”

“Later.”

“I fully understand. You need some time first.”

Back in the house Patrick refilled his glass with ice and bourbon and lay in his old bed, the same one he’d slept in as a high schooler. As he waited for sleep to find him, the present stepped aside and his memory barreled in with an explosion of light, then Myers and Zane, and then a split second later the unforgettable sound of a bomb finding flesh. The roar startled him back to the now, where he smelled the smoke of many things native and distant that had burned. Much later, as sleep tiptoed toward him again, Patrick saw in his mind a white with black trim Triton 240 LTS Pro Series fishing boat with the outboard four-stroke Mercury, a twenty-five gallon bait well, plenty of deck storage, stainless-steel hardware and grab rails, nonskid casting decks and gunwales. She was strong and capable. She streaked across the water with Patrick at the helm and she was his.

The next evening Patrick drove his pickup to City Hall for the council meeting. Not having driven in a year found him boldly speeding through Fallbrook’s winding roads with the windows down and the cool evening air on his face. Snippets of joy.

The Fallbrook city council met on the second Tuesday of every month and the meetings were covered by Village View reporter Iris Cash. One night not long before his deployment, Patrick had gone before the city council to ask for a setback variance for a new Norris Brothers grove fence, and he had discovered Iris. She had caught up with him after his presentation that night and asked questions about the variance, but had a spark of curiosity in her eyes. Six weeks later Patrick was gone, carrying his memory of that spark across the continents and into the hot desert of the war, tucked away, a private jewel, something to have that was durable and good.

Tonight he wound through the crowded council chambers toward her and caught her eye. She broke away from a small group. “Patrick Norris? It’s so good to see you again! It’s been a year.”

“Thirteen months.”

Iris was blue-eyed and curvy, with wavy blond hair. She wore a snug black T with the Statue of Liberty in red, white, and blue sequins, jeans, and black slip-on sneakers. Her expression was withholding. She held a small computer tablet in one hand. Her gaze roamed his own. “Are you back for good?”

“Yes. Done with all that.”

“I thought a text or something might come my way.”

“I just needed to get it done. I thought of you.”

“Okay. You’re looking well.”

“So are you, Iris.”

“I’m so sorry about the farm.”

“We’ll put it back together.”

“You came back just in time for that.”

Patrick nodded, picturing himself in the Domino’s Pizza shirt, carrying a heat-insulated extra large to a Fallbrook front door. At least he wouldn’t be sitting in an office. The tips weren’t bad. It was the only job he’d ever had, other than being a high school student, a farm laborer, and a killer with a choice of machine guns — M240 or SAW.

Neither spoke for a long beat. “Why did you come here tonight, Patrick? Another variance?”

“I came to see you. And what the town has been up to.”

She gave him a look of assessment. “Stick around then! Fallbrook’s been up to a lot. Call me at the paper sometime — there’s a new coffeehouse we could try.”

He sat near the back and on the right where he could see Iris in profile. The council chamber was a stately twentieth-century brick edifice with high coffered ceilings and an air of Protestant thrift. The four councilpersons and mayor sat at a raised dais that curved out from the far wall. They each had a slender microphone. The local cable outfit had a tripod and camera set up stage left, manned by an operator with a headset clamped on. The seal of the city — a robed woman with her back to the viewer, facing an avocado grove that stretched forever before them, the sun either rising or setting in the distance — hung on the wall behind the officials. Patrick estimated thirty rows of folding chairs, thirty across. He thought of how hard it was to find a place to sit at forward operating base Inkerman, which had three chairs, always taken, and rock-hard sandbags and Hesco blocks. He mostly ate standing up. As Mayor Anders called the meeting to order, the chairs were all but full and more citizens stood in the back and more outside the open doors, straining to see in over one another. Lew Boardman found a seat next to Patrick.

When the minutes were done, the mayor opened with old business. A stocky man in his early forties stepped to the podium. He wore a brown suit that looked too small, a white button-down shirt, and a striped necktie. Patrick was surprised. He recognized the man as Cade Magnus, the middle son of onetime Fallbrook scourge Jed Magnus. The Magnus family had left town almost a decade ago — to the great relief of most of its citizens — but Patrick instantly recognized Cade’s smug demeanor and haughty smile.