Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“Sergeant,” says A-bort, “we’re thinking conspiracy here. Norm put the roadies on us ’cause we wouldn’t take his deal.”

“I’ll mention it to the cops,” Dime says, not smiling. This is a joke. Billy’s cell buzzes and it’s a text from Faison, Which white hummer, and he bolts from the limo even as he’s punching in her number. One of the cops huffs, “Where do you think you’re going?” but Billy’s focus is such, all his being attuned to the one true thing, that a kind of godly aura repels the officer’s challenge.

Her cell barely rings and she’s clicking on. “Hey!”

“See where the cop lights are, all the cops standing around?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“That’s ours. I’m standing outside.”

“Stay there,” she says, “I’m walking that way.” Then, “I see you! Don’t move, I see you, I see you…”

He sees her cutting through the crowd, white boots flashing underneath a dark overcoat, and her hair, a muted silver under the horrible prison lights, spilling everywhere, over her shoulders, down her back, across her breasts. She looks so good that he feels himself empty out, no breath, no pain, no thought, no past, his whole life distilled to the sight of Faison striding toward him in all her sleet-spangled glory.

He must have started walking toward her, because they meet with a satisfying crunch. For several moments they can do no more than clutch each other. The crowd parts around them, so many people moving past that a kind of privacy is conjured from the sheer multitudes.

“What happened to your face ?” she cries, pulling back, touching his cheek. “Omigod, you’re bleeding.” She glances past him at the cops and emergency lights.

“Those guys from halftime, the stage crew. They jumped us.” He laughs. “I guess they were still pissed off?”

“Oh God. Oh my God, you’re hurt.” She’s studying his cheek, fingers brushing the edge of his cut. “Trouble sure seems to follow you guys around.”

They kiss, hard. It is impossible for them not to be all over each other. “This sucks,” she soon murmurs, and pulls away just enough to unbutton her coat, a swift downward sweep of her hand and the coat is opening, wrapping around him. She pulls him close and moans as her chest meets his. She’s still in her cheerleader uniform. He moves his hands inside the coat and grasps her hips. She shudders, then rises on her toes, her pelvis striving for purchase on that hump in his pants, her mouth clamped so hard that his lips turn numb. “Go for it,” someone says, brushing past them. Another passerby advises them to “get a room.” After minutes or possibly hours Faison drops back on her heels and slumps against him.

“Oh God. Why do you have to go?”

“I’ll be back on furlough. Probably in the spring.”

She lifts her head. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” If I’m still vertical, he thinks.

“Then you better make time for me.”

“Count on it.”

“Seriously, I mean it. How about if you come stay with me?”

He can’t speak. He can barely breathe. She’s looking from his left eye to his right, back and forth, back and forth, always her two double-teaming his one.

“I know it’s crazy, but we’re in a war, right? All I know is that it’s right, it just feels right. I want every second I can get with you.” She shivers, shakes her head. “I’m not the type to get bowled over, not like this. I’ve never felt this way about anybody.”

Billy pulls her close; her head falls against his chest. “Me either,” he murmurs, the sound of his voice vibrating through their bodies. “Girl, I’d just about run away with you.”

She lifts her head, and with that one look he knows it’s not to be. Her confusion decides it, that flicker of worry in her eyes. What is he talking about? Fear of losing her binds him firmly to the hero he has to be.

She touches his cheek. “Baby, we don’t have to run anywhere. You just get yourself home and we’ll be fine right here.”

He doesn’t resist, because there’s just so much to lose. He will forgo the greater risk in favor of the lesser, even though the lesser — and isn’t this funny, funny! — is the one that might get him killed. He plants his face in her hair and breathes deep, trying to store enough of her smell to last for all time.

YO BRAAAAVOOOOOO booms across the plaza, Sergeant Dime’s parade-ground bellow. MOO-HOOOOVING OUT! LET’S GOOOO!

“That’s me,” Billy whispers. Faison moans, and they fall into another bruising kiss. There’s a violent moment when they try to pull apart — they grab at each other, pick and jab at clothes, body parts, a weird rage burning through them that they can’t quite control. Faison’s face suddenly crumples and she mashes into him.

BRAAAVOOOOO! NOW!

Billy kisses her lips and pulls away, and it feels like the last thing he’ll ever do. “Be careful!” she calls after him, and he raises his fist in acknowledgment. “I’ll pray for you!” she calls louder, and that just makes him feel hopeless. He’s dying out here, dying, and that thing in his pants makes it difficult to walk, the rock-hard prong of his virgin member like a flag that refuses to fly at half-mast. He knocks at it with his wrist, the back of his hand, trying to force the creature down without the whole world seeing, and then, oh shit, they’re on him, a group of seven or eight fans who want him to sign their game programs. So grateful, they say. So proud. Awesome. Amazing. This only takes a couple of moments, but while he’s scribbling his name it dawns on Billy that these smiling, clueless citizens are the ones who came correct. For the past two weeks he’s been feeling so superior and smart because of all the things he knows from the war, but forget it, they are the ones in charge, these saps, these innocents, their homeland dream is the dominant force. His reality is their reality’s bitch; what they don’t know is more powerful than all the things he knows, and yet he’s lived what he’s lived and knows what he knows, which means what, something terrible and possibly fatal, he suspects. To learn what you have to learn at the war, to do what you have to do, does this make you the enemy of all that sent you to the war?

Their reality dominates, except for this: It can’t save you. It won’t stop any bombs or bullets. He wonders if there’s a saturation point, a body count that will finally blow the homeland dream to smithereens. How much reality can unreality take? He’s in somewhat of a daze as he passes off the last program and starts walking toward the curb, hands fisted in his pockets to hopefully hide his crazed erection. Thank you! the nice people call after him. Thank you for your service! Sleet pecks at his eyes, but he hardly feels it anymore. The cops step aside as he approaches, revealing Josh and Albert standing by the limo’s rear door, and Albert is grinning, waving him on. “Hurry!” he cries playfully. “Come on! They’re leaving!” As if this was the ride you couldn’t miss, the one that would save your life? Albert gives him a quick hug as he slides past. Josh says good luck and squeezes his arm, then Billy is stepping off the curb, half-falling onto the limo’s rear banquette.

Albert slams the door behind him and throws out a final wave. “We’re good,” Dime calls to the driver. “Let’s go.”

“Hell yeah, get us the fuck out of here,” says Sykes.

“Before they kill us,” Crack seconds. “Take us someplace safe. Take us back to the war.”

“Seat belts, everyone,” Dime tells the squad, and Bravo paws around the seats, sorting out their belts. Dime notices the steeple in Billy’s lap.