Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“But dude—”

“I know, I know, it’s a huge disappointment, I really wanted to nail this thing while you were here. What can I say? We gave it our best shot, but it’s not over, hell no. I’m gonna keep working this deal till it happens, I promise you that.”

Monklike murmurings rise from the Bravos, thankyouthankyouthankyou . A car is waiting to take Albert to the airport; he’s flying back to L.A. tonight. Even though his option extends for an entire two years, this feels like the end of something, with all the nostalgia and melancholy natural to endings. Albert says he’ll walk out to their limo with them; evidently Mr. Jones is coming too, perhaps to ensure Bravo departs without further insult to the Cowboys brand. They join the weary masses moving toward the exit. A kind of drone, a bottom-register vibraphonic hum emanates from somewhere up ahead, from the threshold, Billy realizes as they draw near. It is the ongoing moan of successions of fans as they step onto the plaza, a windswept barrens of icy concrete with nothing between here and the Arctic Circle but thousands of miles of recumbent plains. The Bravos curse, lower their heads, jam hands in pockets. The sleet gouges micro-divots in their faces and necks. Josh calls the soldiers to him and does a head count, then leads them across the plaza toward the limo lane, limos lined into the murk as far as the eye can see, and, oh Lord, just among these dozen in plain sight Billy counts four in the snow-white Hummer style.

“Billy.” Albert has fallen into step beside him. “I think your sergeant is mad at me.”

“Well, he’s kind of a moody guy.” Billy wishes Albert was on his other side, to block the wind.

“Listen, you’ve got my e-mail, right? And I’ve got yours. Let’s stay in touch.”

“Sure.” Billy is scanning the line of limos. How Faison is ever going to find him out here…

“I admire Dave a lot, but sometimes I wonder how reliable he is. So how about this, whenever I can’t get up with him, I’m going to contact you. You’ll be my point man for the rest of the squad.”

“Fine.” Billy raises his windward shoulder, digs his chin into his chest. The wind cuts across the plaza like an unmoored guillotine.

“Listen,” Albert says, lowering his voice, “you’ve got the most sense of all these guys, you and Dime. I trust you. You’re developing into a real leader. I know I can count on you to keep the communication flowing in a positive way.”

“Sure.” Billy is thinking if Faison hasn’t showed by the time Bravo is ready to leave, he’ll just bail, go AWOL right then and there. He’ll say he’s got to take a whiz or something, duck out of the limo; he’ll be as good as committed then, more so once he locates Faison and spills his guts at her feet.

“I meant what I said about the deal,” Albert is saying. “I’m going to keep working it. Sooner or later it has to happen, it’s just too good not to.”

Billy looks at him. “Really?”

“Well, sure. With Hilary basically attached, it’s only a matter of time.”

The plaza is lit like a prison exercise yard, all glaring white lights and jabby shadows. Billy turns to scan the area for Faison and almost at once registers a pattern within the crowd, a kind of rippling or cross-current aimed this way. There’s a blank moment, then Billy is opening his mouth, he knows what’s coming an instant before his mind forms the thought. He’s actually shouting as the roadies step from the crowd, then all he knows is that he’s down in a fetal curl as a ball-peen sort of thumping pummels his back. He realizes that’s himself he hears grunting with every whack, not that it hurts, it’s pressure weirdly stripped of pain, and about the time he figures out someone is kicking him here comes Mr. Jones stepping into the light. At this point time doesn’t slow down so much as congeal into a series of overlapping blocks. Here is Mr. Jones standing upright, pulling his gun from his suit jacket, then the massive body slam from behind that sends him flying, and the gun — a Beretta Px4, in the freeze-framed moment Billy sees it quite clearly — launched with great force from Mr. Jones’s hand. It takes off like a skate across the ice, skittering, spinning just beyond Billy’s reach, away it goes and he twists around despite the foot in his ribs because he has to see where it’s going—

Straight for Major Mac, as it turns out. With a veteran goalie’s timing and economy of effort, the major lifts his toe a couple of inches and traps the weapon under his shoe. He scoops up the Beretta, checks the safety, and chambers a round while holding the weapon down and away from his body, then with the elegance that comes of many hours of practice, he raises his arm and fires straight overhead,

BAM.

In all of tomorrow’s exhaustive media coverage of the game — the straight news stories, the human-interest piffle, the brain-draining chatter of the TV and radio jocks — there will be not a word about gunfire after the game. The Bravos will agree this is very strange. Surely thousands heard the roar of the gun; certainly those many hundreds on the plaza who ducked at the report, screamed, cowered, threw themselves on their children, or took off running, and whoever was kicking the shit out of Billy abruptly stopped. For some moments Billy simply lies there, enjoying the profound inner peace that comes of not being kicked. He tips his head to keep the blood from running into his eyes and watches Major Mac, who sets the safety on the Beretta and carefully places it on the ground. Then the major stands tall with his arms T-squared, not crooked at the elbows, not with his hands on his head, postures too suggestive of surrender. No, he stands with his arms straight out to the sides, simply to show the charging cops he is no longer armed.

“Major Mac dah man,” Billy mutters. He says this mainly to hear himself, to see if he’s basically all right.

It takes the police some while to sort things out. That there are so many different kinds of police seems to complicate things. Eventually the Bravo limo is located and brought forward, and the soldiers are herded into it while discussion continues on the plaza nearby. Albert and Dime are out there, and Josh, and Mr. Jones, all conferring with a cadre of the higher-ranking cops. Major Mac stands slightly apart, not in custody per se but with an officer meaningfully placed on either side. The handful of roadies thus far apprehended stand in a miserable clump, handcuffed, heads down, their backs to the wind.

An officer leans into the limo’s open rear door. “Anybody here need to go to a hospital?”

The soldiers shake their heads. Noooooo.

The officer hesitates. Almost every Bravo is bleeding from the face or head. The roadies came at them with wrenches, pipes, crowbars, God knows what else.

“Just checking,” the officer says, and withdraws.

They find two cold packs in the limo’s first-aid kit and pass them around. Mango has a gash over his left eye. Crack lost two teeth. A goose egg of a contusion is rising on Day’s forehead. Sykes and Lodis are bleeding from the nose and scalp, respectively. Billy’s cheek has been laid open, a two-inch tear along the ridge of the bone — that’s the shot that took him down, he guesses. His torso throbs with a muffled, tumbled sort of ache, nothing major, but he’s not fooled. He knows tomorrow it’s going to hurt like hell.

Dime climbs in and takes a seat. “Cops want everybody’s name and contact info,” he says, passing a clipboard and pen to Day.

“Sergeant, are we going to jail?” Mango asks.

“Nah, we’re victims, dawg.”

“How ’bout Major Mac?” Lodis wants to know.

“Major Mac’s a goddamn national treasure. Nobody’s putting Major Mac in jail.”