Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“So you’re saying one of the clipboard chicks was supposed to bring us up,” Dime clarifies.

“Essentially, yes.”

“So how does that make it your bad?”

Josh opens his mouth, he’s going to try to try, but Bravo saves him the trouble with a group razz. Jaaaaaassssshhhhhh! Dah Joshster. Jash . He is too damn nice for his own good, which is why Bravo loves the big lunk.

“Yo Josh, you hear about our fight?”

“Wait, what. What fight?”

“The one we just had.” Crack grins and holds up his ice pack.

“Yeah, Josh, that your bad too,” Day says.

“Wait, wait a second. You’re kidding me. Oh shit, guys, what—”

“Jash, chill. It’s cool.”

“Yeah, Josh, we like to fight. It’s like our main thing to do.”

“You gotta remember, man, we’re basically just a bunch of apes.”

Day asks about the after-party, which he defines as wherever Beyoncé and her girls are, which is where he’d like to be. Bravo offers this a unanimous second but Josh thinks Destiny’s Child has already left the stadium. Billy is tired of asking about the Advil, so doesn’t even. They take a freight elevator up to the first-level concourse. Crack, Mango, and Lodis head for the men’s room to primp their injuries. The rest of the Bravos hang out on the concourse and phone home. Didja see me? How’d I look? Billy decides this is the grunt version of the after-party, calling up the fam. He pulls out his cell and dials Kathryn, but his sister Patty answers.

“Helloooo little brother,” she trills from deep in her cups, her voice all woozy and sickly sweet. “You looked so handsome on TV! We’re all really proud of you, baby bro.”

“Thanks.”

“Soooo”—she pauses for a sip of her drink—“what’s she like?”

“What’s who like?”

“Beyoncé, fool!” Billy hears his mother wail in the background, Please don’t call your brother a fool.

“Oh, her.” Billy affects a yawn. “Yeah, she’s okay. She’s a little thick through the hips.”

Patty knocks that down with a braying Hah! “Did you meet her?”

“Never got the chance.”

“But you were right up there onstage!”

“Yeah, but that’s as close as I got. And it didn’t seem like the best time…”

She wants to know if he’s met any other celebrities. Billy doesn’t mind, but it sort of brings him down, talking about those people. There was the actress from Walker, Texas Ranger, the blonde who played the spunky district attorney role. Senator Cornish, who has the largest head of any human Billy has ever seen. Jimmer Lee Flatley, medium-heavy country music star, and Lex, the Fort Worth hunk who made it all the way to the final round of Survivor . He throws out a few more names like change from a dollar bill.

“Listen, that thing you were doing at the end, what was that? We were all wondering.”

What thing?

“Well, right there at the end, when you were looking up at the sky. Like you were praying or something.”

“They showed that?”

“Well, yeah.” She laughs at the rise in his voice.

“Like a close-up?”

“Not real close, but they showed it. For a second it was pretty much just you on the screen.”

This freaks him, though he doesn’t know why. “Well, I sure wasn’t praying.” He frets in silence a moment. “Did it look weird?”

“No,” she laughs, “it looked sweet . You were cute . We’re really proud of you.”

“I don’t remember that at all,” Billy says, though he remembers perfectly well. “It was hot up there with all the lights and everything. Maybe I was just trying to get some air.”

She starts to tell him again how handsome and brave he looked, but Kathryn takes the phone from her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“So no Beyoncé, huh.”

“ ’Fraid not.”

“Just as well, she’s probably a total bitch. Hang on a sec…” Doors open and close; the house noises fall away, replaced by an airy, bottomless quiet. Kathryn has stepped outside.

“Jesus Christ!”

“What?”

“Cold as dammit out here. I would not want to be wildlife today. You staying warm over there?”

“Warm enough.”

She tells him she and Brian spent several hours playing in the snow this afternoon, scraping enough together to make a runt snowman. “He’s crashed in your room right now, I think I wore his little hiney out. We recorded halftime so he can watch you later. But, um, listen.” She lowers her voice. “Patty told me what you said, about Brian. About telling him never to join the Army.”

Billy closes his eyes, silently curses.

“And I don’t think you should go back.”

“Kathryn.”

“Just listen, just please hear me out, okay? I got in touch with some people, those people I told you about. The group in Austin.”

“I’m really not interested in talking about this.”

“Just listen, please, Billy, just listen for a minute. I talked to them twice, they’re good people, they know what they’re doing. They’ve got lawyers, resources, they aren’t a bunch of flakes. And they really want to help you. They’ve been hoping somebody like you would reach out.”

“Somebody like me.”

“A war hero. Somebody the movement could really rally around.”

“Oh Jesus.”

“Just listen! One of these guys, one of their group, he’s got like a ten-thousand-acre ranch where you can stay. I’m telling you, man, these people have some serious stroke. They can have some people meet you at the stadium and drive you to the airport, they’ll fly you out to the ranch on a private plane tonight. You’d just disappear for a couple of weeks while the lawyers get everything set up.”

“That’s AWOL, Kathryn. They shoot people for that.”

“Not you, not after everything you’ve been through. These lawyers know what they’re doing, Billy, they have all kinds of strategies for cases like yours. And they’ll have a PR firm on it too, these guys are pros. Can you imagine how shitty they could make the government look, prosecuting you? After the whole freakin’ country saw what you did on TV?”

“I’m not psyche, if that’s what the lawyers are thinking. So they can forget about that.”

“Of course you’re not psyche, only a nut would want to go back to the war. We’ll have the lawyers plead temporary sanity for you, how about that? You’re too sane to go back to the war, Billy Lynn has come to his senses. It’s the rest of the country that’s nuts for wanting to send him back.”

“But, Kathryn.”

“But, Billy.”

“I sort of do want to go back.”

She screams. He thinks he can hear it echoing off the trees in the backyard.

“No, no way, I don’t accept that. You cannot want to go back to that place.”

“But I do. I can’t stay here if the rest of the squad’s going back. If they’re over there getting shot at, I want to be there too.”

“Then maybe all the Bravos should stay, how about that. Bush pinned medals on all you guys, nobody’s going to think you’re cowards for not going back.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Okay, enlighten me here. What’s the point?”

“Well, I signed up.”

“Under duress! Thanks to me ! Me and my shit!”

“No, it was my choice. It’s what I wanted to do. And I knew they’d probably send me to Iraq. It’s not like anybody lied to me.”

She groans. “Billy, all those mofos ever do is lie. You think if they halfway told the truth we’d even be in a fucking war? You know what I think, I think we don’t deserve to have you guys die for us. No country that lets its leaders lie like that deserves a single soldier to die for it.”