T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

Wages stood. “Let’s go. I’ll grab some beers for the road.”

Bethany called them to the table. She pronounced Achilles “A-Sheel.”

“That kills that.” Wages yelled back, “Okay Nee-Nee, we’re coming! And it’s Ah-kill-ease.” To Achilles he said, “She’s heard me say it a thousand-and-one times.”

While Wages walked into the kitchen, Achilles hung back and peeked inside the card, drawn again by the embossed gold lettering: I’d give an arm and a leg for you. The starfish was rough and smelled salty, and the tan parchment, thick and fibrous, closer to cloth than paper. Inside Wages had written a personal EKG in the same pointy handwriting that signed orders and described kill zones: Even if I couldn’t grow them back. Happy Anniversary. You’re my biggest and best adventure! Love, Kyle.

An adventure? Like his parents, trying new foods?

In the kitchen, Bethany had already set the table and was dishing out ravioli. Wages kissed Bethany on the top of the head.

Achilles admired Wages for sticking it out with Bethany. Before shipping out, Achilles had asked Janice not to write. He didn’t think he’d want to be reminded of her, or home, or anything that he couldn’t shoot. Those memories had pained him even in basic — the heat of Janice’s skin, the broken gnome in the garden, his father’s chipped tooth that he refused to have repaired until all the workers had dental insurance. The first week was okay. He’d be jogging in formation, pass a fir tree, and think of the hammock behind the house, or he’d be doing sit-ups and the jet passing overhead would carry him back to how his mom took him, and sometimes only him, to sit at the end of the runway to watch the planes land and take off. But none of that was a big deal. Those memories made sense, and besides, Troy was there with him.

The Army called it OSUT, One Station One Unit training, because they would work with the same squad and same instructors in the same location for fourteen weeks, first in basic training and then in infantry training. During the second week, Troy fractured his ankle, and was held back. Achilles was secretly glad to be ahead of him at something, but he was miserably lonely. Jerry without Tom, they’d called him. He tried not to think about home, but while Troy was being recycled, more random memories came unbidden. He’d pitch a tent and see his father at a T-ball game, polish his boots and remember his mom making a Predator costume out of leftover fabric and used inner tubes, fire his rifle and see the tiny scar on Janice’s ear where her stepmother had pulled her earring out in a wrestling match. All those thoughts coming for no reason he could fathom, like a string of commercials on a television he couldn’t turn off. So when he was shipped overseas, Janice promised to write him, and he made her promise not to.

But she did.

A week in-country, he regretted his decision but couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He didn’t have to. At the end of the month, a very apologetic letter arrived. She swore this was the only promise she’d ever break, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him being over there without knowing that a woman other than his mom carried him close to her heart. She said that even if he had another girl, that was okay, and he didn’t need to tell her. Of course he didn’t have anyone else, but still he never wrote her back. He ignored that first letter for a few weeks, using it — unopened — as a bookmark, proud of his self-control. Every time he looked up a Persian word, he felt an additional measure of power over her, and thereby, the world. But after almost a month of active duty, he broke down, carefully peeling back the flap like it was a flower petal to reveal five sheets of pink paper covered front and back with blue ink. Her letters were more organized then he would have expected, a cross between the dictionary and a diary. She listed everyone they knew and told him what they were all doing, but instead of noun, verb, article, after each name she wrote one word summing up their behavior that week: angel, asshole, prick, confused, stubborn, alien (his favorite). Every name reminded him of her. Running his dry fingers over her round, heavy, and heaving cursive, he caught a whiff of her perfume, her lotion, her smooth neck; he masturbated with the letter pressed against his nose.

Achilles couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the week. At home, he never thought seriously about Janice. She was easy to be with and listened without judging, but her family was crazy. Her brothers made all their money fighting pit bulls. In high school they went to jail for six months, came out muscled and tattooed, and suddenly hated Achilles. He never understood why. Fortunately her mother didn’t share the sentiment. Janice had never known her father but lived with both her mother and stepmother, who became friends after her dad died. Seeing the mother and stepmother twittering like teenagers, walking down Main Street in daisy dukes and flip-flops, tank tops and movie-star shades, slivers of bleached white pockets bouncing against tanned legs, their shorts cutting hot pink creases high into the backs of their thighs, their breasts gliding side to side like they were on a boat, Achilles’s father would point and say white trash. But they were always nice to Achilles, welcoming him into their trailer to drink beer while he waited for Janice, traipsing back and forth in jeans cut so high bikinis had more cloth in the crotch, and by the time Janice was ready, Achilles’s engine would be so warmed up he’d drive straight to the quarry.

The letter brought those days back. ( Cunt she had written for her mom. Hippo for her stepmother. Fags for her brothers.) With her language, she would have fit right into the army. He started composing letters to her in his head, assigning nicknames to people he didn’t like. He thought about Janice at all hours. What was she doing? Who was she with? Was she cooking for that bastard husband of hers? Were the rumors that he beat her true? Was that why she often wore long sleeves in the summer? Achilles would kill Dale when he got back. If she wanted Achilles so much, why had she married Dale in the first place? For the first time, he wondered if he was better in bed than the others. Did she put their condoms on too? Should he have claimed her? Made her pregnant? Left his mark behind? He didn’t open any more letters. His heart was a locked kennel. Had he a real girlfriend, he would have broken up with her long before shipping out so that he wouldn’t have to worry and she wouldn’t have to lie.

Achilles returned to the substation the next morning. The TV was gone, replaced by a small fan. An older, heavyset officer was working the desk. His gut rested on the counter, his blue shirt puckered between the buttons. Without waiting to be acknowledged, Achilles said, “I need to file a missing person’s report.”

The officer pointed to the auto bay, that part of the building where they would have fixed cars when the police station was still a service station. “First door on the left. Look for the sign that says Community Affairs.”

The auto bay was one open room with desks clustered in twos and threes. The glass garage doors were obscured by a row of cubical partitions, the equivalent of window offices, but the only view they offered was of the parking lot. With the neon fixtures suspended over each cluster of desks, the office looked like a bar, except instead of advertising beer, signs like Vice, Homicide, and Property floated in the air, the glowing letters casting a cool blue light. Under Community Affairs, a gray-haired suit in bifocals — Morse, according to his nametag — sat hunched over a crossword. Everything was scattered about his desk — stacks of paper, folders, candy bars — except for several miniature grandfather clocks all arranged in a neat line. Achilles waited to be acknowledged. He shouldn’t have been so assertive at the front desk. Bucking authority ran counter to his military training.