T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

“She’s only with me because I’m dark enough to upset her mom.” Even as he said it, Achilles knew he was wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to save face. They had owned slaves. So what? Her wealth did frustrate him, though, because she didn’t care about money in that way that only rich people could. She never looked at prices. She didn’t even check the total before handing the cashier a credit card. Achilles sometimes found himself envying her family history, and her skin, lighter even than Troy’s, the passport that let her be what she wanted when she wanted. He thought then of how Ines complained about being mistaken for white and being teased by the darker-skinned kids growing up, and he felt guilt and confusion not only because what he’d said was not then true, but because of how often in his life he had suspected that it was true but hadn’t had the words to express it.

“I’m not surprised.” Something shifted in Wexler. “The way you grew up.”

“The way I grew up?”

“Troy told us that you didn’t go to church, that you were adopted by white people.”

“Us who? When?”

“After you shot Chief, he explained that you were reckless and angry. He mentioned it again toward the end, to explain why you volunteered so much and why he had to follow you. That’s why Wages looked after you. Well, he would anyway, he’s stand-up. That’s why Merriweather always gave you advice.”

“I was following Troy,” Achilles protested.

Wexler continued as if he hadn’t heard Achilles. “Troy mounted up like he wanted to, but he makes everything look easy and sound like your idea. I swore I’d never tell you. I’m only saying this because I want you to know I understand that it’s strange for you, but you need to find Jesus. Only he can help you.”

A loud crash shook their feet, followed by a scream as the car in the yard next door fell off the blocks. The kids circled it like it was a bonfire, skipping and cheering, the youngest one yelling, “Fly school shit!” Achilles counted the heads, holding his breath until he saw Spiderman and Wolverine clamber up the hood, and Batman, his cape trailing behind him, leap onto the back bumper, holding a stick to the sky like a sword, proud as a knight who had just slain a dragon.

It simply couldn’t be true. Had he missed the signs, like Ines’s race, and the doubts he felt about his own envy when Morse called? No. It wasn’t true. Troy was always first in line, and giving Wexler that bullshit excuse was his way of making it appear necessary, and therefore easy.

“You gotta tell her,” Wexler said. “You won’t get away with this, Keelies.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t make that face. You know I got to tell you if you’re wrong. I don’t think you’re going to get away with this.”

“Are you cursing me like you cursed Merriweather? You know that’s the last thing you said to him.”

The blood drained from Wexler’s face.

“You know it is,” said Achilles, feeling betrayed by both Troy and Wexler. And Wages. And Merriweather. And Jackson. Next Wexler would tell that story about footprints in the sand. They were all in it, which explained why Wages lied about Merriweather’s kid. They were all having a good laugh about Achilles. Troy assuming his avuncular tone when they all met up at zero-dark-thirty for a final gear check, Troy’s grin a silent signal saying, Here we go again, Achilles out to prove himself, like a parent overseeing a child’s first attempt to climb a slide. That casual shrug he always offered as a last word now an indictment. He saw it again: Jackson strapped to the roof, Wexler groaning like the time he had dysentery in Gardiz and hiding his face under Troy’s protective wing, Troy with his arm around Wexler like they’re at a horror movie. Is that why Wexler and Wages were so eager to help him find his brother? Did they feel sorry for him? Was that why Wages offered his couch for as long as needed? What they thought was shame was merely prudence. Troy couldn’t understand; his name was at least normal. Did they think they could understand what it’s like to have the teachers treat him better only after meeting his parents but the basic training cohort eye him curiously for that same reason? Well they were wrong, all of them. Achilles didn’t need anyone’s pity. In fact, he needed no one.

Achilles stood in the window studying the night sky, the river of dancing light flowing down Peachtree Avenue and the waxing moon so low he could hang his coat on it. He was in a hotel room with a beautiful woman — for whom he hadn’t paid — who said she loved him. He beckoned Ines to the window, put one calloused finger to her cheek, as Sammy had earlier that day at the planetarium, and said, “Your freckles do look like stars.”

She laughed. “Don’t make fun. He’s just a child expressing his feelings. You know that’s not easy to do.” She winked and turned away.

The quarter moon resembled a smug, cockeyed grin. Arrested by the traffic signal, the river of dancing lights was only the usual drunken gridlock that appeared every Saturday night in a big city. He jerked the drapes together, pulling so hard that one end of the curtain rod popped off the mount. She said nothing as he rehung it. After Ines fell asleep, he studied her face, her cheeks flushed with Cabernet. Was that a dipper in her right cheek, and Orion in the left? Or was it the other way around? In Goddamnistan, he always watched the stars to make sure they weren’t moving.

The museum lecturer had said the stars were lights from the past, sometimes dead before you saw them because of the time it took light to travel through space. Incomprehensible distances. That thought seized him, and he was gripped by the same panic that strangled him awake his first nights at the FOB, when screaming mortars, stars very much alive, pounded the earth. Pushed by the same terror he felt at the edge of that minefield when he stepped outside himself — which he surely did, he saw it happen as clearly as if he were watching his own shadow step off on its own accord — he started for the window to check the sky for some sign, some reassurance. Still unsettled, he wanted to wake Ines and rock her back to sleep, run his finger from her brow to the tip of her nose, give the constellations new names, but he knew the one thing you never tell a woman is that you need her, and that you’re scared to lose her, especially if it’s true. So he’d just quietly slipped under the bedspread and pulled the sheet over both of their heads, locking her into his pillow fort, inhaling the scent of her shampoo.

Still, he told himself that he wasn’t afraid to lose her. He had lost more and lived through worse. But whenever he imagined life without her, his joints hurt as if grating against shrapnel, as if ground against glass, as he felt now, alone in Atlanta.

After Wexler’s hissy fit, Achilles decided to spend the night at the hotel. When he returned, the line at the check-in counter extended out the door. Almost everyone waiting in line was from the Gulf Coast, and complaining loudly about price gouging and the trip. The drive, usually seven hours, had taken them fifteen, even with contraflow. His mom called to ensure he wasn’t trapped in New Orleans. The call was brief, and no one mentioned Troy. They’d long stopped using his name. Would it be the same with Ines, or even easier because no one knew her? Sitting alone now in that hotel in Atlanta, thinking back to the last time they’d been in a hotel, he thought maybe it was cowardly not to admit one’s feelings. In the room, he dragged his feet on the carpet, opened and shut a few drawers. Dust rose when he slapped the pillows. He jumped up and down on the bed and rolled around in the covers. It was his first time being alone since moving in with Ines. His first time alone, ever.