Phil Klay - Redeployment

Except what happened in Iraq was just what happened, nothing more. I don’t think it made me any better than anyone else. It was months and months of awful. And the first weekend back we got a ninety-six, and Corporal G convinced me to go with him to Las Vegas.

“We need to get away from Iraq,” he said, “and you don’t get much more American than Vegas.”

We didn’t go to Vegas proper. We drove an extra thirty minutes to go to some local bar where, according to Corporal G, the drinks would be cheaper. If we struck out there, we could always leave and find some tourists looking to party.

I never liked G, but for clubbing he’s the one to go out with if you want to get laid. He’s got a whole system. He scopes the bar and talks to lots of girls early on. “Quantity is better than quality,” he says. “It’s all about planting seeds.” In that first hour, he doesn’t try to seal any deals or even stay with a group of girls for more than five minutes. “Make them think you’ve got better options,” he says, “so they’ll want to prove you wrong.” He knows which girls to hit on at which parts of the night, which girls to say hi to but then bounce and leave wondering, and which girls to keep hitting on. Late in the night, when everyone’s a bit looser and it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge, he starts buying lots of shots. He never drinks any himself, though.

Girls like Corporal G. He’s a tall workout freak with a trapezoid chest, a slew of shiny dress shirts, and dance moves right out of a music video. He avoids carbs, overloads on red meat, and shoots steroids immediately after any unit drug test. He can be charming, too, and he’s ruthless when he gets going. If he likes a girl, he lets her know right away. “What’s your name again?” he’ll stop and say in the middle of a conversation. “I want to know for sure because I’m getting your number in two hours.” It doesn’t work every time, but it doesn’t have to. Once a night is enough.

At the local bar, he did his best to set me up with a girl. She was thirty-eight years old. I know that for sure because she kept repeating it like it made her guilty, being with a bunch of twenty-somethings just old enough to drink. And she had a fifteen-year-old daughter who at that very moment was babysitting the son of this plump brunette Corporal G was targeting by the end of night.

“Fat girls fuck better ’cause they have to,” he’d said as though dispensing great wisdom. “And they’re easier, too, so it’s a win-win.”

I could tell the brunette liked him because she tried to convince her friend to like me, too. They’d talk off to the side, the brunette pointing at me from time to time. And when I’d ask Thirty-eight to dance, the brunette would give her an approving nod. None of that worked so well. Even on slow songs we’d dance so far apart I could picture her fifteen-year-old daughter standing in the open space between us. Then Corporal G bought her enough shots to get a grizzly bear wasted, and it was on.

Late in the evening, the brunette told us we were all too young, then asked how much we worked out and felt our pecs. She slipped her hand underneath my shirt and cupped my pec and squeezed, smiling at me the whole time with this drunk smile.

To me, that was crazy. I hadn’t touched a woman since Rachel, let alone been touched by one. Just being close enough to a girl to smell her was enough. And then she touched me like that. And then she touched G, too. If she’d asked us to fight each other for her, I’m sure we would have done it.

Thirty-eight had her arm around me when we left the bar, but the cold air sobered her up a bit and she unhooked herself and walked to her friend, who was talking with G. He motioned to me.

“You get in their car,” he said.

“What?”

He shot me an angry look, walked over, gripped his hand on my shoulder, and said into my ear, “You get in their car, deal’s sealed.”

The thing had a drunk logic to it, so I followed the two women to a lime green sedan and got in the backseat without asking if it was all right. The brunette got in and sat at the wheel. She wasn’t sober enough to have any business driving, but she was sober enough to know it was weird having me in the back. Thirty-eight got in the passenger side, and we drove off, G behind us following in his car.

“So, where do you live?” I asked from my hostage’s position in the backseat.

The brunette said a street name that meant nothing to me.

“Nice place?”

Neither bothered to answer. Thirty-eight fell asleep and smeared her cheek down the window of the car until she leaned forward enough that her head dropped and she startled and woke up again.

After about ten minutes we arrived at a one-story in a nice street filled with houses just like it, long ranch houses with big lawns and cactuses along the driveways. It confused me. I wouldn’t have thought any woman who’d fuck some Marine on a one-night stand would have the money for a house like that.

G parked in the street, got out, and walked over. The brunette smiled when he put his arm around her, and then she opened the door and let us all into a big room with a huge L-shaped couch in front of the TV. She said I could sleep in the room off to the right, and while she was in the bathroom, G pushed me and Thirty-eight into it.

There was a low bed with Transformers sheets, toys on the dresser, and small shirts and pants on the floor. Thirty-eight looked drunk and tired and confused, and also like she might bolt. Now that we were out of the club, I could smell her perfume. She had a slender body, a dancer’s body, and I thought I remembered her saying she taught ballet, but that could have been another woman. She had long black hair and small breasts, and her friend had touched me on the chest earlier, and I wanted her to touch me too.

I shut the door. She looked up at me like she was scared, and I was also scared, but I knew what I was supposed to do.

After Rachel, she was the second woman I’d ever slept with. The next morning we woke up, hung over, on those Transformers sheets, and she looked disgusted. Like I was unclean. Being in Mortuary Affairs, I knew that look well.

We didn’t stay long. The brunette had to pick up her kid, so G and I went off to get breakfast at Waffle House. G’s friend Haiti arrived in town later that morning, and I went off by myself and let G and Haiti do their thing. They ended up double-teaming some tourist, or at least they said they did. Either way, I’m glad I wasn’t there.

It was another three weeks before I got home and everybody thanked me for my service. Nobody seemed to know exactly what they were thanking me for.

I called Rachel up and asked if we could hang out. Then I drove out to her parents’ place. It’s in a development on the edge of town that’s full of shitty cookie-cutter houses laid out in twirly roads and cul-de-sacs. Rachel was living in their basement, which had been made out into a separate apartment. I went around to the back and down the stairs to the basement. Within a second of me knocking, she opened the door.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

She looked different from what I remembered. She’d gained weight, in the best way. Her shoulders had fleshed out. She had curves. She looked healthier, stronger, better. I was greyhound lean, and she’d never seen me like that.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, and then she smiled like it’d just occurred to her that that was the right thing to do. “You want to come in?”

“Yeah. I do,” I said. The words came quick and nervous. I forced a smile and she backed away as I walked through the door, but then changed her mind and stepped forward to hug me.

I held on and she tensed, after a second. She moved out of range and then spread her hands apart, as if to say, “This is my place.”