T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

Achilles hung up. He’d already heard the directions once and besides, he had his map. He gripped the wheel with both hands in an effort to steady himself. How could he have ever been mad at Troy? How could he have even been angry about things that were out of his control? He was only six, he couldn’t have known. It wasn’t like Troy had planned his arrival.

ACHILLES STARTED HUMMING A FOUR-COUNT THE MOMENT HE ENTERED the cool, dim marble lobby of Charity Hospital. While waiting for the elevator, he thrummed his fingers against his thighs and tapped his foot, keeping cadence until he reached the subbasement and was in the morgue office showing a photo to the attendant, a white man with thick black hair, a dingy lab coat, and the kind of belly developed by years of eating at a desk. Between the smell of Grecian Formula and the antiseptic hospital odor, the room smelled like a barbershop. The man thoughtfully studied the photo. It was taken two years before at the Baltimore water park, before basic and infantry training, before their tour of duty. Troy smiles, the gap in his front teeth prominent, his green eyes razors in the sunlight. He wears flip-flops and shorts, no shirt. It was hot that day, or so they’d thought at the time. Against Troy’s broad shoulders, the swim towel around his neck is a mere cravat. He has hair. There were more recent photos, but they were all from Goddamnistan. In them Troy is wearing his uniform, and Achilles doesn’t want to open up the questions that would raise, such as why Troy couldn’t simply be identified by his prints.

The man glanced at Achilles, then at the photo again, squinting as if noting the differences: Achilles was darker than Troy, almost six inches shorter, and had smaller eyes and a wider nose. True, he and Troy looked nothing alike, but most white people didn’t notice. The man glanced at Achilles, and again at the photo.

“How long have you been a diener?” It was a term Achilles had learned from the German soldiers.

“They don’t call us that anymore.” The man worked his jaw like he was chewing on the words. “We got two you should look at. One’s pretty rough. Sure your brother doesn’t have prints on file? It would be much easier on you.”

Achilles: “None.”

“Follow me.”

The viewing area was a narrow room barely large enough for the three chairs that sat facing the dull, mirrored glass in the opposite wall. The left wall was blank. On the right wall hung a bulletin board with posters for crisis hotlines and HIV prevention, and beneath that, an intercom with red, black, and green buttons. The attendant pressed the black button and requested D-782. Achilles pressed his nose to the glass but couldn’t see anything. He pressed his fingernail against it and tried to recall the test for two-way mirrors. Was a space between the reflections a positive indication, or was it the reverse? Either way, he knew this one had two sides, and either way, from his side of the mirror, it didn’t matter. It mattered even less from the other side. He counted the tiles on the floor and ceiling — sixty-five and twenty-two respectively. After a moment he heard the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum, the distinctive rattle of old gurney wheels, and the rustling of a sheet. The noise died down. The attendant asked if he was ready. Achilles nodded and fingered his dented locket, remembering that Troy had one just like it. The attendant rapped his knuckles against the mirror, then stepped back behind Achilles. His hands clammy, Achilles ordered himself to relax, unracking his shoulders and tightening his stomach as if preparing for an unavoidable punch.

Light spat and flickered in the room behind the mirrored glass. He could barely see the outline of a body, then it was overlit, then it was again dark. Finally, the sputtering buzz settled into a hum, and the room was blanched in fluorescent light.

D-782 was too short, too dark, and too thin. He looked nothing like Troy. Achilles shook his head, no. He exhaled in a rush — he had dodged the first bullet. Breathe. Always remember to breathe. No less than three military instructors had reminded Achilles of that, catching him with his shoulders hunched and lips pursed when out on the range. The attendant called for D-794 and the light blinked off. Achilles heard one gurney being wheeled out, another wheeled in. He watched the diener’s reflection. His breathing was labored, the nametag on his chest rising and falling as if at sea, as if Troy were his brother. The faster that nametag moved, the more Achilles relaxed, like O’Ree had told him: “We’re the opposite of most people, son. We must learn to be like a ship that grows steadier the more the sea storms.” Was he ready? Achilles nodded. Another knock on the window, the light flashed on. This time a kid in a lab coat and headphones, the one who must have transported the body, remained in the viewing chamber standing behind the gurney.

The white plastic sheet used for burn victims was folded back to the waist, revealing second- and third-degree burns over much of D-794’s torso. The skin was mottled black and pink, except his raw, gnarled fingertips and ragged throat, which Achilles recognized as a sign the man had burned to death in an enclosed space while trying to claw his way out. One unburned patch of skin on the chest was the same shade as Troy. The scorched cheekbones were high, like Troy’s. But the eyes were too close together, Aren’t they? Troy had wide-set eyes. The eye sockets are too close, right? He inched closer to the glass, remembering Troy’s uniform folded neatly on the bed with his helmet on top.

He knew it was physically impossible, but for a moment he thought he smelled the body. Breathe. Always remember to breathe — through the mouth. The eyes were definitely too close. The upper lip cracked like pumice as the kid in the lab coat nudged the mouth open, revealing gold teeth coated in ash. Achilles grinned with relief, ignoring the attendant’s reaction to his smile. The attendant pressed the red button, and the kid in the lab coat gently pulled up the sheet, letting it float down and settle on the blunt contours of the scorched face. The light snapped off. Achilles put his finger to the glass again, studied the gap between his fingernail and the reflection and remembered — if there was no gap between your fingernail and the reflection, it was a genuine mirror.

Back in the office, the attendant searched for the visitor’s log. Able to focus now, Achilles looked around the narrow room, which was furnished only with an old gunmetal desk and a rigid plastic chair. No file cabinets. This wasn’t the man who’d answered the phone, the man who’d listened to Achilles describe his brother, then muttered “Light-complected ABM. We got one, but he’s burned real bad.” ABM — average black male. Achilles scowled, muttering “complected” to himself. It made skin tone sound like a psychological burden. It must be a New Orleans thing, like cold drink meant soda, and reach me meant hand me. On the wall was the same Dilbert cartoon he’d seen hanging up in the Forward Operating Base morgue. The characters were in a board meeting and the caption underneath read, The Only Place Lower than Hell. The idea that an office could be anything like hell always made him chuckle. Some people had it too easy. He laughed again, louder.

“Tough job there, boy,” said the attendant as he rifled through the papers on his desk.

“Yeah.” Though Achilles didn’t know what was so tough about sitting around in an air-conditioned office all day. “How do you do it?”

“No, son. I meant yours.”

Achilles winced. “You do what you got to do, right?”