Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Somewhere in the room a phone rings. Mr. Jones answers, speaks briefly, and brings the phone over to Norm. It is the general. Dime stares straight ahead, into the far distance, it seems. Billy can hear him pulling in deep, measured breaths that he holds for several moments, then releases in finely calibrated jets through his nose. Meanwhile Norm is doing big-guy banter with the general, thanking him for his time, wishing him happy Thanksgiving, inviting him to some future unspecified game. You bet, ha ha, we’ll do our best to arrange a win for you. Dime rises, as if the general has actually entered the room. Norm looks up, registering the weirdness of the move, and indeed Billy fears that his sergeant is contemplating something extreme, but Dime just stands there exuding waves of soldierly discipline until Norm extends the phone his way.

“Sergeant Dime.” Norm’s smile is jacked a couple of clicks beyond mere courtesy. It is triumphant, one might say. Imperial. Magnanimous. “General Ruthven will speak to you now.”

Dime takes the phone and makes his way to the shadowy back of the room. Josh sidles away to give Dime some space. After a moment Billy leaves his seat and also moves to the back of the room, simply to be near his sergeant and for no other reason. He takes up position near Josh, who shoots him looks of feverish sympathy. The entire room can’t help but listen.

“Yes sir,” Dime says crisply.

“Yes sir.”

“No sir.”

“I understand, sir.”

For a full minute Dime says nothing, during which time the Bears score again. Skip and Todd toss their pens, but in deference to the general no one says a word.

“Yes sir,” Dime says presently. “I didn’t know that, sir.”

“Yes sir.”

“I think I do sir, yes sir.”

“Thank you sir. I will, sir. Out.”

Dime pivots and lofts the phone in a high, soft arc toward Mr. Jones. “Come on Billy,” he says, and without another word he’s exited the room and goes booming down the corridor at a brisk pace. Billy has to jog to catch up.

“Sergeant, where we going?”

“Back to our seats.”

“What happened? I mean, shouldn’t we…”

“It’s okay, Billy. It’s cool.”

“It is?”

Dime nods.

“He said we didn’t… ?”

“Not in so many words.” For several paces Dime is silent. “Billy, did you know General Ruthven is from Youngstown, Ohio?”

“Uh, no, actually.”

“I didn’t either, till just now.” For a moment Dime seems lost in thought. “It’s just over the state line from Pennsylvania.”

Billy begins to think maybe his sergeant has lost it. “Near Pittsburgh,” Dime continues. “He’s a big Steelers fan. The Steelers, Billy, yo? Which just by definition means he hates the Cowboys’ guts.”

“Hey guys!” someone calls, and they turn. It’s Josh, trotting after them. “Where’re you going?”

“Back to our seats,” Billy answers.

Josh slows for a moment, glances over his shoulder, then gathers speed. “Wait up, I’ll come with you.” He has a sheaf of manila packets under one arm, and with the other he’s reaching into his coat pocket. Something white flashes in his palm.

“Billy,” he calls, holding out a small plastic bottle. “I got your Advil.”

WHY MAKE A MOVIE anyway? It seems pointless to go to all that trouble when the original is floating out there for all to see, easily available online by searching “Al-Ansakar Canal,” “Bravo snuff movie,” “America’s throbbing cock of justice,” or any one of a couple of dozen similar phrases that summon forth the Fox News footage, three minutes and forty-three seconds of high-intensity warfare as seen through a stumbling you-are-there point of view, the battle sounds backgrounded by a slur of heavy breathing and the bleeped expletives of the daring camera crew. It’s so real it looks fake — too showy, too hyped up and cinematic, a B-movie’s defiant or defensive flirtation with the referential limits of kitsch. Would a more polished product serve better, one wonders — throw in some story arc, a good dose of character development, artful lighting, and multiple camera angles, plus a soundtrack to tee up the emotive cues. Nothing looks so real as a fake, apparently, though ever since seeing the footage for himself Billy has puzzled over the fact that it doesn’t look like any battle he was ever in. Therefore you have the real that looks fake twice over, the real that looks so real it looks fake and the real that looks nothing like the real and thus fake, so maybe you do need all of Hollywood’s craft and guile to bring it back to the real.

Then again, everybody always says how much like a movie the Fox footage is. Like Rambo, they say. First Blood . Like Independence Day . Or, as one of their new neighbors in row 6 says, a perky, chatty, twentysomething blonde who’s shown up with her husband and another young couple, “It was just like nina leven all over again. I sat down and cut on the news and got the weirdest feeling I was watching a movie on cable.”

“You guys rock,” says her husband, a handsome, strapping fellow in a Patagonia parka and heirloom-quality cowboy boots. “It felt damn good to see us finally getting some payback.”

The other young husband and wife echo the sentiment. They aren’t much older than Billy, these two young couples who’ve migrated down from the upper deck for a sampling of the money seats at garbage time. They remind Billy of certain kids he went to high school with, the sons and daughters of the small-town country-club elite who were firmly embedded in the college track, and now here they are in their midtwenties, duly credentialed and married, starting out their grown-up lives on schedule. The young couples are eager to meet the Texas Bravo, but for a moment they don’t know what to make of him in the flesh. “You’re just a kid!” one of the wives cries, breaking the ice, then they’re introducing themselves and thanking him for his service, the two young wives breathy and fond, the husbands racking his arm with welcome-to-the-frat handshakes.

“Awesome,” they say, “outstanding,” “an honor to meet you” and so forth, their words sloshing around Billy’s brain like soft ice cubes

Billy resumes the aisle seat. Sleet pounds down around them like a spray of fine-grained fertilizer pellets. “No deal?” Mango asks, and Billy shakes his head.

“So what’s that about?”

Lodis and A-bort are leaning in, they want the story too.

“Norm’s just a cheap bastard, I guess. What can I say.”

“We thought Day was shitting us when he told us the deal. Fifty-five hundred—”

“—shit’s cold, ” A-bort breaks in, “all the coin he’s got running through his pockets, and that’s the best he can do for us? Dude’s got millions.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s got millions,” Mango points out. “He’s careful with his money.”

“I be careful with my money, I had some,” says Lodis, his splotch of lip quivering like a big juicy booger, or a nib of entrails dangling from a gut wound. Josh comes down the row calling their names and handing out manila packets. Inside his packet each soldier finds an assortment of Dallas Cowboys swag: headbands, wristbands, a combination key chain/bottle opener, a set of decals, the cheerleader calendar for the upcoming year, a glossy eight-by-ten photo of the Bravo shaking hands with Norm, signed and personalized by the great man himself, along with several eight-by-tens of the Bravo posing with his trio of cheerleaders in the post-press-conference scrum, signed and personalized by each of the girls. The Bravos sort of shrug once they’ve gone through their packets. Outright derision is beneath them. Billy’s cell buzzes and it’s a text from Faison.