T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

But he survived it. Wages at the helm, steady-like, always calm, always good at keeping everyone on the level, even after a night at the business end of the tequila gun, even when getting flushed into the big shit. He was always like he had been with Bethany a few moments ago — a machine. Everyone who came up against the machine could make it work for or against them. Bethany didn’t deserve that, Achilles didn’t think. But he really didn’t know. She was always nice to him. She’d tended his wounds with steady, warm hands and a look of concentration in her brown eyes, the left one a little darker than the right, almost black. Fencing kept her light on her toes, even with the added weight, and her arms were well toned, especially the triceps. She had a swimmer’s shoulders and pronounced calves. Well proportioned she might be, there was the old saying: No matter how pretty she is, there is always someone, somewhere, sick of fucking her. Who knew how Bethany agitated Wages? Maybe she disrespected him in all those subtle ways women have of chiggering under the skin. When men gave in to that, Merriweather called it getting drunk on whine. But Bethany was pregnant. Maybe that made her forgetful. “Aren’t pregnant women forgetful or stressed or something?” asked Achilles.

“I didn’t tell her to get pregnant. Am I supposed to let her do what she wants just because she’s pregnant? I don’t think so. It’s the opposite. There’re about to be two of them in the house. If I let the big one go off on her own devices, they’ll mutiny, the whole thing’ll come down on my head. You can never regain lost respect. The psychological war is not the land war. You cannot regain lost ground, except through virtual annihilation and I won’t let it come to that.”

Achilles had heard this all before. If you can’t break their backs, break their wills. If you can’t break their wills, destroy their homes, kill their livestock, raze their buildings. In basic training they were taught that the Geneva Convention prohibited soldiers from firing large rounds at humans. Fifty-caliber rounds, for example, could only be fired at equipment, like belt buckles or helmets. Commit to a course of action and complete it, even if you have to put your head through a wall. Yes, Achilles had heard it all before, in one way or another. It was the only way to hold things together.

They passed a Middle Eastern restaurant, sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a Mexican restaurant-slash-liquor store. The window was plastered with the gyro posters that could be found in any mall, and one beer sign. It looked good enough. Achilles had sworn that he’d never eat another food court gyro, but here with Wages in New Orleans, Nola as Ines called it, it felt like a sensible thing to do. Maybe Wages would relax a little, and talk about whatever was bugging him, in case it wasn’t really Bethany. But when Achilles paused in front of the restaurant, Wages shook his head vigorously, “We gave blood, we’re not giving money, too.” And, he wouldn’t go into the Mexican place because the guy had hit on Bethany once, and today Wages would have to smack the refried beans out of Manual Dingo. When Achilles pointed to the Chinese restaurant, or more specifically, to the humming air conditioner mounted over the doorway, Wages said, “Rocket pockets! I’m not walking into that whorehouse.”

You wouldn’t have said that six months ago, thought Achilles. What? You expect them to have a drive-thru?

Achilles tried to think of something funny but couldn’t. Wages was never really a joker. Everyone had a nickname in basic training: gays were ass monkeys, blacks were porch monkeys, and Asians were monkey eaters. Wages never went in for any of that. Wages never referred to his men as ladies, never went for the gay jokes, never went for easy targets like sand zigger and camel jockey. In fact, Wages rarely laughed, but Achilles always found him easiest to get along with. There wasn’t any pressure to say anything clever, they could just hang out and drink and relax and chat. Achilles doubled his pace to catch up with Wages, who had gradually pulled ahead as he often did after heated moments, like he had to be alone at the very moment the rest of them wanted to be together for reassurance.

Troy would know what to say. He always did. Achilles dug through his memory for the advice meted out in the transition classes. They had attended a mandatory class at the Kyrgyz airstrip before being shipped home, the Soldier’s Reentry Readjustment Workshop, also known as SRRW or the “Don’t (Leave Bruises if You) Beat Your Wife Class.” The workshop covered three main topics: how to respond to people who criticize the war, and thus your duty, patriotism, loyalty and honor; how to recognize PTSD and why one shouldn’t be ashamed to seek help; and how to handle unanticipated family adjustments. He didn’t remember any of it except Think before speaking and Walk away before becoming mad enough to strike and Act, don’t react. Or, something like that. He didn’t remember the exact words, only that it felt like the opposite of what they’d been paid to do for the previous twenty-four months.

He knew that with an ACOG sight he could reach out and touch someone up to eight hundred meters away. He knew that the M4 fired a 5.56 at up to nine hundred feet per second. He knew that when insurgents “surrendered,” stumbling out of a smoky doorway with hands high, the second one out of the building was the one most likely to draw a gun. But he couldn’t remember a reassuring thing to say if his friend’s life depended on it. He had nothing for Wages except a hand on the shoulder.

They walked that way a few more blocks in silence. Soon they reached a broad oak-lined road with a grassy median as wide as a football field. The lane ended at a turnabout, on the center of which sat an important looking building made of large slabs of marble and heavy columns. The metal banner suspended across the road read City Park. He followed Wages across the grass into the cool shadow under the canopy of ancient live oaks. It was still humid, but at least the sun wasn’t beating down on them anymore. The trees were tall and stately, the massive limbs stretching out in all directions, some outstretched like arms inviting passersby to join them on a walk around the park, others hugging the ground low enough to serve as benches.

Along the edge of a small lake, a row of vendors sold hot dogs, cotton candy, and popcorn. Achilles was drawn to the Lucky Dog hot dog stand because the cart was shaped like a large frankfurter. He bought a dog and offered his friend a bite.

Wages waved it away. “No meat on Fridays.”

Wages bought some popcorn and walked across a footbridge to a small island in the middle of the lake. The embankment was longer than it was wide, and shaped like a face, with two barbecue grills for eyes, a boulder for a nose, a bench for a mouth, and below the bench, a beard of monkey grass dipped beneath the tide line, making it look like a giant taking a drink, sipping from the gently swelling tide. The water was opaque, and where shallow, the color of whiskey. It felt out of place, a swamp in the city. Seated on the old metal bench, Wages plucked popcorn at the ducks.

After the pigeons started intercepting their food, the ducks drew nearer Wages, waddling so fast that at each step it looked like they were going to fall over. The sun glanced off their gleaming, lustrous coats. The leader, a melon-chested drake with iridescent eggplant and avocado-colored plumage, ventured within arm’s length of Wages, boldly warning off the pigeons with his robust, guttural call. Satisfied that the interlopers had taken flight, the leader marched back and forth along the perimeter while the smaller ducks ate. The pigeons warbled their protest. A nutria rat with slick brown fur dashed across a drainage pipe. A group of clouds clustered in the south, like huddled athletes waiting to take the court. A high school soccer team scrimmaged nearby. Achilles moved closer to the soccer fields. On another field, a kid practiced free kicks. The ball lofted and arced through the sun right into the goal three times in a row, like it was tethered to a string. Everything was so vivid that he would have thought he had just been in a firefight if it weren’t for the fact that he could hear everything, the warbling pigeons, the trickling water, the wind through the trees. Wages came and stood beside him.