Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

He didn’t like the sound it made, like clods of dirt falling on a coffin. He stopped.

“Let’s have them, then.”

“I lost the damn key. You got something we can jimmy it open with?”

The man at the desk looked disgusted again, and as tired as be had when Mitch had first come in. “No. That’s not my department. Look, take the box to a locksmith and get it open.

We aren’t going to get anywhere without some papers to work from.“

Mitch rubbed his head, hating the man, wishing he could take his bead and shove his face into his fucking little computer screen. He put his fists in his lap, out of the man’s sight. “Look.

Please. Did you check on what I told you last week? Did you run down my name and serial number? I mean, listen, isn’t that what these little gizmos are for?“ He tried to sound reasonable, admiring of the computer technology that had caused this whole fuckup.

“Yes. And it came back the same- Mitchell Ignatius Reilly is listed as MIA- Missing in Action. He never came back from Viet Nam.”

Mitchell’s fist hit the top of the desk in short, hard jolts, punctuating each syllable. “I am sitting right here. Ask my wife. Ask my folks.” The man’s face went red and white. He began to rise. Mitchell hid his fists again. “Look. I’m sorry I did that. I know you’re doing the best you can. Hey, did you check on that other tiling I told you?”

The man settled back in his chair and looked at him in blank weariness. Mitchell wanted to punch his civil service mouth, to make him care. He controlled himself. He mastered it and held it down and strangled the impulse. He was in control of himself.

“You know. There was a guy in my company, shipped over with me, Michael Ignace O’Reilly- Weirdest damn thing. His serial number was within a couple digits of mine, they were always getting us mixed up, trying to give him my mail, that kind of shit. I shipped stateside before he did. Maybe he’s the one MIA.”

“Him.” The man at the desk looked harassed. “I’d almost forgotten why I ran a check on him. It didn’t help. He’s not MIA, he came out in a plastic bag.”

Cold panic squeezed Mitchell. “What? What are you trying to tell me. that I got a choice between MIA and dead? Look at me. I’m here, man. Take my fingerprints if you want. The Army has mine on record, I know. That’ll prove I’m me. Go ahead, take them.”

“Look.” For the first time, an edge of anger crept into the man’s voice. “I know you want help. I’ll even say that I can see you need help. But before we go to extremes like fingerprints, why don’t we do what’s simple? Go get that damn box opened! Get those papers to me and I’ll have a fighting chance of getting this straightened out. Until then, I’m going to tell you to quit coming here. Every week I ask for your papers, and every week you have a different line. I can’t do a damn thing without some papers. Give me a birth certificate, discharge papers, anything. Just go get those damn papers for me, or don’t come back. Look, man, why don’t you go to the state?

There’s a lot of agencies for people like you. They can help you. You need to get some help!“

The man stood up to call the words after him, but he didn’t stop. He beat it out of there, leaving it all behind. MIA or dead. Great choice. Dammit, he was here, he was alive, he hadn’t changed, but no one would accept him, not his wife, not the VA, he had no one. No one cared enough to help.

“Dad?”

“Mitch? That you, son? You still up in Seattle?”

“Yeah, Dad. Dad, I’m having a-hell of a time. Nothing is going right.”

“Well, you just stick with it. You’ll get it all straightened out. I’d call Mother to the phone, but she’s gone to get her hair done. Mary dropped some boxes here. You know about that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she told me. Dad, what am I going to do?

I’m losing it all.“

“Son, you just stay right there until you get it all sorted out.

I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Say, did you catch the game last night? Did you believe that last play? Who would call a play like that? If I were the owner of that team, I’d take that coach and—“

“Dad! Dad, listen to me. I want to come home. I got to come home. Can you wire me some money?”

“Well, Mitch, I just don’t think that’s a good idea. Now, look, there’s no sense in running away from this thing. You’re up there, you may as well get it all sorted out before you come home. You know you brought this on yourself, acting so wild.

If you hadn’t punched out those guys in the local office, maybe they could have cleared it up for you here. But as it is, you’ve got them all stirred up and they aren’t going to do a thing for you. So you got to go through the Seattle office. You just tough it out and I’m sure you’ll be all right.“

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am. Now Mitch, I’m not going to tell Mother you called. This thing with Mary has her flying around the ceiling as it is, and she’d just get all upset all over again. So I want you to sit down and write her a nice note tonight and mail it off to her. She’s been upset enough about Mary taking little Benjy away, and her stomach is acting up, so don’t‘write anything that will get her worked up. Okay?”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes, she’s going to be fine, as long as she stays calm.

Don’t you give her any more reasons to be crying over you.

Now, you do like I told you, and get better, and then you give me a call and let me know when you’re coming home. I know things look pretty dark right now, but you’ve got to untangle them one knot at a time. Take care of the VA mess, get the help you need, and when you get finished with that, we can worry about what’s next.“

“Yeah. Dad? Dad, I’ve got to talk to you. When I called Mary—”

“Son, I’d love to talk with you about that, but I can’t. Phone bill has been crazy with you always calling collect. I shouldn’t have accepted this one. So I’ve got to hang up now. Remember what I said. Take the problems one at a time. Get straight with the VA and get some help. Then we can worry about Mary and me rest of it. I got to go now. You write your mom a nice note tonight, okay?”

“Yeah. Dad?”

“Good-bye, Son.”

The bright sunlight through the window woke Wizard. Even in his sleep, it had been making his eyes water. He rolled silently from his bed, cursing the hangover and the weariness that had made him sleep in. He surveyed the damage. The den was a wreck. He dressed slowly, in silence, trying to move his head as little as possible. He wanted to lie down again, but forced himself to set his room to rights. He walked very carefully, setting his feet where the floorboards creaked the least.

Black Thomas watched him as he shook and smoothed the blankets. They smelled like Lynda. She had left her mark everywhere. Thomas noticed it when he came over to lie on the mattress. He sniffed and growled softly before he settled. his raw stump hovering away from his body. When he had arranged himself. Wizard lowered himself carefully beside the cat and inspected the wound.

“Looks like it will heal, my friend.” Wizard touched it with his eyes only, moving his pounding head to see it from all angles. “That was a foolish move you made, and I’m afraid you’ve paid dearly for it.”

Black Thomas opened his red mouth wide in a meow of disdain. Wizard was forced to nod, humiliated. “I didn’t say you were the only one who did stupid things. I’ll have to pay for mine as well. I’ve got to find Cassie today. I’ve got to get this whole mess straightened out.”

Moving with ponderous care, he tidied the rest of the room, taking no satisfaction in it. There was more shabbiness than he had ever noticed before. What Lynda’s eyes had touched seemed to have changed overnight. The coziness of his retreat had turned to squalor, the privacy to isolation. He picked up the little pipe from me floor and dropped it into the footlocker on top of the bag of weed. He stared for a long time at me other things she had stacked on the floor. Daylight made them all real. Finally he brought himself to touch them, to stack them back inside the footlocker. But when he tried to drop the lid, he found the hinges racked. There was no shutting them away anymore.