Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

WhaaaAAAtttt’s love got to do with it, got to do with it,

WhaaaAAAtttt’s love but a secondhand emooooo-shun

Word comes down the row that Dime slipped him a big fat Valium about twenty minutes ago, and now he’s the happiest girl in the whole USA.

Billy startles, nearly drops the cell when it rings. He checks the screen.

“Her?” Mango asks.

Billy shakes his head. He doesn’t recognize the number. The call rings out, followed a minute later by the chirp of a waiting voice message. Billy stares at the phone. He wishes it would tell him what he wants. He dials up the message and listens, then sits back and closes his eyes. What would Shroom do? Shroom would return to the war, definitely, but that was his destiny in this life cycle, he was fulfilling his warrior incarnation and only by seeing it through would he move on to the next stage. “So what stage am I?” Billy asked, joking, sort of, but Shroom didn’t laugh. You won’t know until you work at it, he said. Study, meditate, contemplate, focus. You won’t find out just by drifting through your time. So with his eyes still shut Billy tries to envision himself at the ranch. Very secure and remote, the voice in the phone message said. It’s a good place. We’ll make sure you won’t lack for anything. In the vision Billy is walking down a path. He’s wearing jeans, Timbs, a flannel shirt, and a corduroy jacket. The path leads through some woods, and there’s a river nearby. He can hear the shoosh of rapids, sometimes glimpse the flash of water through the trees, but the vision yaws and stutters until Faison materializes at his side, and then it all unfolds in gorgeous HD, he and Faison living quiet in their secure location, loving each other, screwing eight or nine times a day, cooking meals and watching movies, going for walks with the dogs. There would be dogs. And lots of books, books piled everywhere. He would apply himself to study in the best Shroom tradition, so he’d know that much more when the shit-hammer came down. And when it did — when the time came to make his stand? He’d have Faison, the lawyers, his Silver Star on his side. He could do it. He’d make statements. Ain’t gonna study war no more.

Rrrrraaaahhhhhxxxx-annnnnn, Sykes is screeching at the top of his lungs, you don’t have to, then he turns and starts chattering to the fans in row 8 about how much he loves the Bravos, hell yes he loves his boys like brothers, he’s just a poor white dumbass from Coon Cove, Florida, but at least he’s got the Army, hooah! Down on this end Lodis is slumped in his seat, fast asleep. Dustings of sleet have accumulated on his shoulders and arms as in a comic advertisement for an antidandruff shampoo. A squirt of subcutaneous tissue spills from the cut in his lip. The nice boojee lady in front of them happens to notice the sleeping soldier, such a compelling sight that she turns all the way around for a closer look.

“Ain’t he sweet?” Mango says.

“How can he sleep in this weather?” she cries.

“Technically he’s not asleep, ma’am,” Crack informs her. “He’s passed out.”

The lady laughs. She’s a cool boojee lady. Her husband and friends are chuckling too.

“But it’s just miserable out here,” she protests. “Shouldn’t he at least have a blanket or something? Doesn’t the Army give you coats ?”

“Oh, ma’am, don’t worry about him,” Crack assures her. “We’re infantry, that’s kind of like being a dog or a mule, we’re too dumb to mind the weather. He’s fine, believe me, he don’t feel a thing.”

“But he could freeze!”

“No ma’am,” Mango chimes in. “We punch him every once in a while to keep his blood moving. See, like this.” He delivers a sharp whack to Lodis’s bicep. Lodis snarls and throws out his arms, but his eyes never open.

“See?” Mango beams. “He’s fine. He’s happy. He’s like a cockroach, you can’t kill him!”

The lady rustles around in her pack, then kneels backward on her seat and drapes a Snuggie over Lodis, one of those personal lounging blankets with built-in sleeves as advertised on late-night dumb-dumb TV. Before long the Bravos have tucked a homemade sign under Lodis’s chin. HOMELESS VET — WILL SLAY VAMPIRES FOR FOOD. Below that, HAVE A BLESSED DAY. Then a smiley face. The crowd perks up when a Cowboys lineman boosts an enemy fumble and staggers, slips, and slides all the way to the Bears’ three, but then the refs get into it, they convene at the sideline replay machine and discuss, peer, point, and discuss some more, they are a team of Nobel scientists tweaking the breakthrough cure for cancer. At last, a decision is decided. Upon further review … The fumble is revised to an incomplete pass and that does it for the boojees, they start packing up. Mango reminds the nice lady to take her Snuggie. “Oh, I can’t do that,” she says, smiling down at Lodis, so soundly racked with his eyelashes flocked with sleet, that lip chunk dangling like a squashed bug. “He looks so cozy. I want him to keep it. You tell him it’s my gift to him.”

Bravo erupts: Noooo!

“You’re gonna spoil him!”

“He grew up in a ditch, he don’t know from being cold!”

“It’s like giving a pig a Rolex, ma’am, he’s got no appreciation for the finer things in life.”

The lady laughs and waves them off. “Thank you!” the Bravos cry as she and her group file out of the row. “Thank you for supporting the troops!”

“Nice lady,” Mango says, settling back in his seat. Billy agrees. They look at Lodis and laugh, then Mango shivers. He hunches over and clasps his hands between his thighs.

“You look like you gotta piss.”

“I sorta do gotta piss.” Mango winces and shivers but stays put. “You gonna see Faison before we go?”

“Hoping.”

“Dude, gotta be some way you can get with her.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t wanna push it.”

Mango laughs.

“No, I’m serious. I mean, if this was a normal situation all I’d be thinking about right now is where to take her on a date. Trying to nail her, I mean, come on. I’ve only known her about four hours.”

“Billy, our situation ain’t normal, in case you hadn’t noticed. You think she’s gonna keep on liking you a whole year, and you a million miles away sending her dipshit emails? Dear Faison how are you I am fine today we busted down a house and killed many bad fuckers as much as we could. That shit gets old, dawg, shit gets old real quick. Even our moms don’t wanna hear it after a while.”

“You are one depressing fuck, you know that?”

“I’m just sayin’! This is your best shot, dawg. This is as close as you’re gonna get, so go for it. If she’s a nice girl and she wants to support the troops…”

“You’re an idiot.”

Mango laughs. Billy’s cell is ringing again.

“That her?”

“No,” Billy says, checking the screen. “My sister.”

“You ain’t picking up?”

Billy shrugs. The call rings out. A minute later he gets a text.

Dont go pls.

B hero x2.

CALL HIM BACK.

Pls.

Yr sis loves u.

Billy punches up the phone message again, this time listening not so much to what the man says as to the sound of his voice, whatever information might be coded in timbre and pitch. The voice is white, male, educated, middle-aged; Texan, but with a big-city crispness to his words. Strong. Assertive. Sympathetic. Son, if you’re thinking about taking a new direction in your life, we can sure help with that. It is a good voice. Billy is tempted to listen again, but here comes Dime barreling down the row, blasting through the obstacle course of Bravo knees and feet. He reaches the aisle and pulls out his cell, crouches by Billy’s seat. “Sykes is driving me fuckin’ nuts,” he says, studying his messages.