T. Parker - Full Measure

“It has to be done before Saturday.”

“Not by me it doesn’t. Get someone else,” he said, and hung up. Patrick left messages at three other places but two hours later not one had called back.

When Salimony and Messina showed up Patrick drove fast to Joe’s Hardware, where he chose the most expensive wood finish in stock, a rich dark color like Iris’s, marked “Walnut.” He bought liquid stripper, a heavy belt sander and five grades of paper, wire brushes, big sponges, paint trays, brushes, paint thinner, and a jumbo package of red shop rags. Another two hundred and sixty bucks flew from his pocket, leaving less than eight hundred dollars from Fatta the Lan.’

By eight fifteen he was sanding off the old finish in the living room, hoping to finish by the time the painting crew got done with the dining room. The painting boss morosely examined the drywall patches and added another hundred to the job to finish them off professionally, unless Patrick preferred for them to show. Taibo’s table saw screamed from the garage. Salimony and Messina attacked the living-room floor with coarse sandpaper. Patrick leaned into the hot screaming belt sander, still believing they could pull this off. They were United States Marines.

By Thursday the walls and foot rails had been painted, the chair had been returned, the mirror rebuilt, the china cabinet was ready for its glass, the aerial Cash farm giclée was hanging in its new frame, and Free Spirits had a place in the newly beautified dining room. The kitchen cabinets brimmed with new dishes, glasses, and goblets. The Italian vase looked good in the living room.

But the refinished hardwood floors were not right. The three men stood in the foyer studying the still-tacky floor. Very clear in Patrick’s memory was the burnished warmth that had once come from the wood — like it had candles underneath. But now the wood was brown and flat and invariable. “Looks like we drowned it in cheap paint,” said Patrick.

Messina looked down on it, nodding. “Or in shit.”

“And look where it meets the hallway,” said Salimony. “You can really see the difference.”

“Maybe it will look better when it dries,” said Patrick.

“Yeah, like dry shit,” said Messina.

Taibo came to the French doors of the patio, open for ventilation, and looked in. “You need to match the old finish, you idiots,” he called across to them. “The old finish had more red in it. So, Patrick, go back to Joe’s and buy red mahogany stain, and cherrywood stain, too. And get more of the walnut, and ten gallons of stripper and some more trays. I’ll help you get the color right.”

“That sucks,” said Messina. “Just these two rooms took two whole days.”

Patrick looked at his watch. “She said she’s getting in at seventeen hundred Saturday.”

“Back when she was still talking to you,” said Messina.

Patrick gave him a hard look. “We’ve got twenty-four hours to get this off, mix up the right color, and slap it on.”

“She won’t ever say another word to you if we don’t get these floors right again,” said Messina. “And that Natalie, isn’t she sweet as a honey sandwich? She probably won’t say another word to me, neither. So, let’s get some, Dark Horses.”

Twenty-three hours later, at five o’clock Friday, the four Marines stood in the foyer watching the wood dry. They were half-stoned from breathing fumes close-up for an entire day. Their backs and knees were sore and their hands were stained and scalded by the finish that found its way into the rubber gloves. But Patrick could see the old warmth back in the wood. It was radiant.

They sat exhausted and tipsy in the backyard, drinking tequila and beer left over from the party and eating Jack in the Box food that Patrick had fetched. The sky to the north was the brittle white of a storm foretold, but the sunset was a red-and-orange wonder far out beyond Pendleton. They lined up at the wall to watch. “Sangin’s sunsets were just as good but here we won’t get killed,” said Patrick.

“Not by woolies, anyway,” said Messina, lighting another cigarette.

“I saw Pendleton for the first time when I was eighteen years old,” said Salimony. “It was exactly eight years since I wrote President Bush that letter after nine-eleven. Right to the day — September twelfth. And when I first saw Pendleton, after growing up in Indiana, I thought, hot damn, I want to stay in California and live here when I get out. And now that’s what I’m doing. So this is my dream come true. According to this new study California is the most poorly managed and fucked-up state in the whole union. But it seems fine to me. Just look at it.”

“You been sniffing too many fumes, Sal,” said Messina.

“They don’t affect my dream.” He passed the big bottle to Taibo, who drank and passed it to Patrick.

“When I drink,” said Patrick, “I think of Sangin. And when I think of Sangin I think of you guys, and Boss and Zane and Myers. I think of Zane more than I should. I’ve got two cool dogs at home but I don’t love them the same way as I loved Zane. Once in a while I feel bad for loving a dog more than I loved most of the men. But it never was about love, not even crawling out through fire to tourniquet Prebble’s leg. I didn’t feel any love for Prebbs about that, but I did it.”

“You did a damned good job of it, too,” said former medic Taibo. “It saved Prebble’s life. Love is what you do, not how you feel about what you do. And you wouldn’t have run through fire to save a dog.”

After a long moment during which the sunset lost small gradients of light, Patrick said, “Before your time, Albert, before our first medic Adams went down, we were on a patrol and Zane dropped to the ground fifty meters from us. I could see he was on to something. Somebody whispered, ‘Oh, the heat’s got him.’ But I knew from the way he was looking at this twisted-up little tree that he was on a bomb. And he wouldn’t come off it. Crittendon couldn’t yell after him and call every skinny from miles around right to us. Then a sniper opened up. At Zane, not us. To this day I don’t understand why he did that, shoot at the dog, apart from pure meanness. So Crittendon yelled his head off trying to get Zane up but it did no good. The sniper kept missing — probably some village kid making extra money. Like having a paper route. We put the fifty all over him and I went and got Zane myself. God knows how many IEDs I walked over but the fifty kept the sniper down. I got to Zane and picked him up and carried him back. And I stayed away from that tree. When the Apaches came and sent the sniper to paradise, our bomb guys followed my footsteps back to the tree, and what did they find but a goddamned saw-blade IED dug in underneath it. So, actually, yeah, I did save a dog.”

“So you were like a dog medic,” said Salimony. “There ain’t nothing wrong with saving a dog.”

Patrick took another swig of the golden liquid. “If I could name one thing that the war stole from me that I miss most, it would be loving my own dogs.”

“Maybe you’ll learn how again,” said Salimony. “So, here’s to Zane and Myers and Pendejo and Adams and all the others who left it out there. Man or dog.” They touched their beer bottles and watched the rump of the sun settle behind the hills.

Patrick and Messina looked in on the newly finished living-room floor, found it acceptable, bumped fists. To keep from walking on it they went around the house to the front door. They came in and followed the hallway down, and in the closet of the spare bedroom found blankets and two rolled-up sleeping bags.

They drank and talked late and lay faceup to see the stars through the patio lattice. Every word went back to Sangin, and every space between the words. Twice they traipsed around to the garage and turned on the lights to see Iris Cash’s heirloom china cabinet, made newly resplendent by Taibo. Each time, Patrick circled it again and again, hawkishly looking for the tells of rebuilding, but he could see none.