Whitney Terrell - The Good Lieutenant

ARMY OF ONE was the motto that hung over the mirrors in the Fort Riley weight room, right next to the porny photographs of competitors for the Mr. and Mrs. Fort Riley competition flexing and oiled up in their bathing suits. Fowler was in her regulation ARMY T-shirt and black gym shorts wondering what the hell Pulowski was seeing when he praised her body in bed. After three solid weeks of paperwork and overseeing the packing at the DRIF, she looked like an Army of about fifteen. Her shorts felt a size too small and the small bung of soft flesh that drooped over the waistband was visible when she kept her shirt tucked in (as regulations required), giving her the profile of a deflated gray balloon, so she strove to keep her eyes on SportsCenter as much as possible instead.

Who had told her that she belonged here? Pulowski. Who had convinced her that she had convictions? Pulowski. Who had given her the ridiculous idea that she should act on them, even if that made her different? Well, she definitely looked different enough here — as did Dykstra, who at the moment was gamely struggling to do sit-ups on an inflated ball. Meanwhile, Fowler rocked her feet on the elliptical paddles, swinging them in a vague waddling motion that definitely wasn’t going to intimidate anybody.

“He’s here,” Dykstra said. He’d wandered over from the bouncy ball with a towel around his neck, his bald head beaded in sweat. As a protective measure, he’d put on a hooded sweatshirt and standard-issue old-school cotton sweats (speaking of porny) and black Converse high-tops with green socks.

“Feel strong, be strong,” Fowler said. They were watching Masterson as he worked his way through the free weights, in an ARMY shirt that seemed to have been deliberately chosen to be one size too small. He carried a small leather pack from which he withdrew a towel, an iced bottle of water, a pair of weight-lifting gloves, and a sheaf of papers, sat down on the end of a bench press that two significantly larger sergeants had been using, and began Velcroing on his gloves while reading the papers, which he set between his feet. The soldiers who’d been using the bench, though larger, moved silently away. “I got a different motto,” Dykstra said. “Never risk good health bennies.”

“Really?” Fowler gave Dykstra the up-and-down.

“Hell, yeah. Working the deli at Wawa don’t cover kids, you know what I’m saying? Soon as Jenny peed on that stick, I’m out doing roadwork, wearing a garbage bag. Drop forty pounds, sign up, pass my physical — and bam, that’s it for me on the workout thing.” Dykstra scrounged a cookie from the pocket of his sweats.

“That’s a great story, Dykstra,” Fowler said. “Excellent example for everybody. Remind me to put that in the company newsletter, okay?”

“Hey, I ain’t supposed to be an example.” Dykstra pawed his belly affectionately, then tapped her on the shoulder with his cookie. “That’s your thing.”

* * *

Squats were what Fowler decided to try, her legs being the area of her body where — in Pulowski’s estimation — she had the most productive mass. She’d seen it done a couple of times from right there on her elliptical trainer and she doubted that there was any kind of intensely specialized knowledge that went with lifting weights — in fact, she suspected that, like most male things, the more men acted like there was some sort of specialized body of knowledge that she was unable to acquire, the less likely it was that that knowledge amounted to anything. She knew people as well as Masterson knew people. She could train and run her soldiers as well as he did. The whole hard-ass aura that he gave off, the weight-lifting gloves, the dark and silent intensity, the gloom, his special little campground out in the woods — all of that was just sleight of hand.

But that was only her best self, the new self that Pulowski managed to bring out somehow. The old self still believed that appearance mattered and, what’s more, was always worried about looking the part, having never really looked the part in high school, or as Harris’s stand-in mom, or as a lieutenant. That self believed that the hard-ass Masterson was real and deeply impressive and would’ve preferred to remain invisible to him.

Masterson began a set on the bench press. Little peeps of effort escaped his lips, and his arms shook in what she saw as a reassuringly human way. She slipped two thirty-five-pound weights onto the squat bar, tightened up her back belt, positioned the bar behind her neck, gripped it with her palms, blew out (like she’d seen other lifters do), then stood, lifting the bar off the rack, feeling its weight press down on her shoulders — and squatted. Once, twice, three times, feeling easy straight through five reps. Not bad.

She propped the bar back on its stand with a satisfying clank. “How ya doin’, sir?” she said. “You need a spot with that?”

Masterson sat on his bench, breathing hard, and stared at her for longer than it should’ve been possible to stare at somebody without speaking. Then he reclined, legs splayed, with the sad whitefish belly of his inner thighs and his package visible at eye level. “What do you want, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“I thought you might need a spot.”

“I doubt it.”

It was a difficult and unnerving response. Did he mean that he doubted that was what she wanted? Or that he doubted he needed help?

What would’ve been wrong with saying thanks?

“Sorry, sir, my bad.” Fowler gave a wholly unconvincing laugh. “I just thought that we were sort of working here on the same team.”

“Foster!” Masterson said. A giant sergeant set down a barbell and, with a nod from Masterson, tossed Fowler a plastic water bottle.

“Thank you, sir,” Fowler said. She drank. Then dropped it down quickly, eyes tearing, and choked down a mouthful of warm beer.

“I don’t want you on my team,” Masterson said.

She clenched her fist and deliberately drank again. “Even so, sir,” she said, wiping her mouth, “I would like to talk to you about Sergeant Beale. And some shackles he might’ve given you. I apologize, but I’m going to need both Beale and those shackles back.”

“Apologize?” Masterson said. “Hell, I should be thanking you. Who would the Packers be without the Vikings? Who would the Chiefs be without the Raiders? You want to talk about teamwork, Lieutenant — the most important ingredient in teamwork is the other team. And it really helps if they are a prissy pain in the ass.”

She considered this theory during her second set. When she’d finished, she walked over to Masterson again. “Who exactly are the Raiders in this equation, sir?” she asked. “Because I don’t really see how there’s a hell of a lot of things you’ve got to fear from my unit. Or from Beale. He’s not Charles Woodson. He’s just my platoon sergeant. Or he would be if you’d tell me where he is.”

“Charles Woodson,” Masterson said, smiling approvingly. He nodded over at the hulk, Foster, who’d resumed his curls. “That’s fucking nice, huh? Chick knows her old-school football. We should get you on the Delta fantasy team.”

“I watch a lot of TV,” Fowler said.

“The circle of brotherhood only works if there’s somebody on the outside. You and your man Beale are good candidates until we get to the Iraqis. Hell, anybody who has the nickname Family Values Fowler — that’s an outsider to the universe. I mean, personally, I’d make an effort to get that changed.”

“It wasn’t my first choice.”

“It’s not my first choice to drink beer on Saturday mornings, but the guys like it because they feel like we’re getting away with something. It wasn’t my first choice to steal your shackles, but the fact that you got your panties all in a bunch about it is amusing. You should try it, Fowler. Have some fun. Dislike someone. Find an enemy. All this happy talk about reconstruction and helping the Iraqis stand up and saving them for democracy? Not happening. Even if it’s real, which I sincerely doubt, it’s bad for the mind. All I really need for unit cohesion is a shithead. Beale’s an excellent shithead. I don’t think that you really are a shithead. But you keep acting like this, and hassling me about a bunch of shackles, then I’d be happy to put you on my list.”