Rebecca Coleman - Heaven Should Fall

“Yeah. I don’t have ‘people.’ Her parents were alcoholics. I’m sure they died years ago, but anyway, I haven’t seen them since I was four.”

“Shit,” he said again.

I shuffled back into the kitchen and began peeling the waxed paper from a stick of butter. “We all have our traumas.”

“That we do. But most people’s don’t involve plane crashes. You get some kind of extra credit for that one. How old were you, then?”

“Eighteen. Too old to be an orphan, so no extra credit for me.” I set down my work for a moment and leaned toward him in a conspiratorial way, my hands resting on the edge of the kitchen island. “You want to hear the weird thing? I saw the clip on the TV at school while I was on my way to class—the wreckage of these two planes, they’d flown into each other—and I didn’t give it a second thought. I looked right at it . You’d think you’d get some kind of gut feeling when you see something like that, right? Or you’d have some sense of dread or that uneasy feeling that something isn’t right. But I got none of that. I just went about my business, clueless the entire day. That really screwed me up for a while.”

“Wasn’t your fault. So you’re not a psychic, so what.”

“I know, but since then I overcompensate a little. I see things like that on the news and I can’t shake the feeling that it must be personal until I can prove otherwise. One time, there was this avalanche near Deep Creek Lake, which is near the camp where I worked, and these two hikers died. I couldn’t get in touch with my friend Dave, the camp leader, so I drove all the way out there to check on him. Three and a half hours each way.”

He replied with a low, sympathetic laugh. “Are you serious?”

I nodded. “He thought I was nuts. But I was in college, and it was a Friday, so I had the time to spare. It turned out to be a good excuse to see him.”

Elias fell silent again, but there was an expectant feeling within the quiet, as if he wanted to keep the conversation going yet didn’t know what to say. I measured oats and peanut butter into a bowl, added in the butter softened in the microwave. After a minute or two he said, “You know it’s midnight?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m hungry. I’ve been eating like it’s going out of style.”

“You don’t show it. It’s all baby.”

“I hope so.” I watched as he cracked open another can of beer with one hand and took a sip from it. “What’s the shield tattoo for?”

“It’s my unit patch.”

“Were you pretty close with those guys?”

“Of course. You can’t not be.”

“You ever talk to them these days?”

He didn’t reply. The TV flickered with the scene in the chow hall. I said, “You know, you could probably meet people like that at the VFW, if you miss spending time with them.”

His voice was scornful. “I know that, Jill.”

“Sorry.” I dropped Fudgie mix by the spoonful onto a piece of waxed paper and slid the tray into the fridge. “My mom was a big advocate of group support like that. She was an AA sponsor.”

“That means she was an alcoholic, right?”

“One who didn’t drink anymore. She’d done her step work.” I nodded toward the beer can on the side table. “She would tell you not to mix that with Prozac.”

His laugh came out as a single note—a bark of surprise. “Guess you were the one who hung the bag on my door, then.”

“It’s no big deal. I was on it for a while myself.”

“I just started it a couple months ago. Scooter picks it up, since I don’t drive anymore, and he won’t say anything to Dodge. If Dodge found out he’d start razzing me about it, and that’d work my nerves, and it wouldn’t end so well.”

“I get that. But mixing alcohol with antidepressants won’t end so well, either.”

“Eh, who cares. I’m okay so far. And I’m already a shitbag, so just put it on my tab.”

“Why do you say you’re a shitbag? Nobody thinks that about you.”

He took another drink of his beer. “That’s the term. It’s an army thing. People who can’t hack it, can’t pull their weight. I wasn’t feeling so hot by the halfway point of my last tour, but no way in hell I was going to come out of there labeled a shitbag. It’s funny, though—over there, I could make it work. I could push through it. Back here, not so much.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m supposed to relax . There, it’s normal to be on edge 24/7. You hear a sudden noise, you can aim a rifle at it. You’re supposed to be suspicious of everyone you don’t know. Try any of that over here. You just can’t get used to it.” He broke his focus on the TV and met my eyes, his gaze frank and clear. “You know why I had to stop driving? Fucking bicyclists . They come pedaling up alongside my Jeep out of nowhere and I’m ready to kill somebody. And other stuff, too. Motorcycles, road work. The noise. It’s like chaos-noise. It doesn’t match up with what my brain tells me it is.”

I nodded.

He exhaled smoke away from me. “So I stopped driving. Fine. I put my ass in this seat and stay here. And then Candy’s kids come up behind me and try to scare me, or they jump up and down and say the same thing over and over again, or they shriek—you know, the stuff kids do. And I feel like I’m going to beat the living shit out of them.”

“Me, too.”

He laughed a little. “No, but I really am going to beat the living shit out of them. I can feel my muscles pumping up for it. One time, John—the littlest one—came by and knocked over my beer. And I grabbed him by the shoulder and smacked him across the side of the head with my hand. He went running back to Candy crying, ‘Uncle Elias hit me, he hit me.’ She spanked him and told him to leave me alone.” He picked up the beer can again. “That’s when I got my ass to a doctor.”

“Did they tell you it was post-traumatic stress disorder?”

“Nope. Combat stress.”

I frowned. “That’s not what it sounds like to me. My mom knew some Vietnam vets who—”

“Well, I don’t know about Vietnam. But here, now, you pretty much have to point your weapon at your commanding officer for them to decide it’s PTSD. The Prozac helps, though. I don’t feel like hitting the kids anymore. The downside is, I don’t feel anything .” He shrugged and dropped his cigarette into his beer can. “No panic, no excitement. I’m like a ghost. But at least I’m not killing anyone.”

“Maybe they can change your medication. Or your dosage.”

“Maybe. That would require going back to the doctor.” He stretched his leg out and brought it back, gingerly, as though testing it for pain. “I just want everyone to leave me alone. You’re okay, though. If you think I’m a shitbag, it’s no skin off my nose, because I know what you went and did.” He nodded at my belly.

I laughed. “Hey, now. Your mom has declared me Cade’s true wife.”

“Yeah. You’re his biblical wife because he knows you in the biblical sense. Sorry to break it to you, but if that’s true, then your boyfriend’s a polygamist.”

“At college they just called him a man-whore.”

He shot me half a grin. “Fair enough. Say, can you pass me that heating pad over there?”

“Sure.” I handed it to him. “What hurts?”

“My leg and my shoulders. They always hurt.”

I moved behind the chair and let my hands rest on his shoulders. His muscles tightened, but he didn’t flinch, and so I began rubbing them slowly, rhythmically, working my way across his neck and upper back. He let his head drop forward, and so I worked my thumbs along his spine and down to massage his shoulder blades. He groaned, and I smiled.