Jesse Goolsby - I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

“Do I smell like Afghanistan?” he asks, eyeing Barry Bonds and Chris Webber posters over the bookshelf of DVDs, photos. A glance at the pictures and he finds himself in one, but it’s a group photo on Mount Lassen.

Wintric’s protective boot is parked on the coffee table. His unmedicated foot pains him if it dips below his heart too long. Kristen wants to see his foot, but he tells her no, at least not yet. Thirty minutes later he pulls at the Velcro on the top of the boot. He slides the boot off, then the black sock, and finally the nylon. His biggest toe is the single remaining digit, and half his foot is missing on an arc, a crescent from the base of the ankle to the single intact toe. Kristen asks to touch his foot and Wintric tells her yes, but she doesn’t move. She wants to know how it happened.

“If I say someone shot it off, I’m a hero, but if I stepped on my own knife, I’m a fool. Either way, I’ve got a third of a foot. A scythe foot.”

“A scythe foot?”

“Doc told me it’s used to cut wheat down. Got a big curved blade on it. Grim Reaper carries one.” He lifts his foot and swings it left. “Knocks them down for harvest.”

Her eyes level up to his, and he recognizes the expression — the pity he wants and despises.

“Sometimes I think about chopping the whole thing off. Maybe then I’ll deserve the fucking sympathy.”

He’s surprised her, and she inches back.

“Don’t do this, K,” he says. “Don’t look at me like I’ve changed.”

“You have half a foot. I’m not supposed to feel anything? It’s enough that you’re back.”

“You think I’m back?”

“I’m glad you’re back.”

Wintric grabs his gear and hurriedly puts on the nylon and the sock and fastens the boot up. He stands up, and the spiked blood rushes down his leg. The groan brings Kristen’s hand to her mouth. She locks the door dramatically.

“Sit down,” she says.

She feeds him two of his pain pills, and his face flushes out. It’s against the label warning, but he asks for a beer and she gets him one. He calms, says he’s inquiring about work down in Sacramento in fence manufacturing, but she knows he lies.

“If you don’t like it there,” she says, stops. “Just because you were raised here doesn’t mean anything. I’m making nine an hour at Holiday.”

“We got a Subway, I see.”

“There are worse places.”

“I’ve been to Alabama. Georgia. Went up to Atlanta.”

“Yeah?”

“Coca-Cola plant. The headquarters is there.”

“Oh.”

“The Coke secret ingredient list is locked in a vault.”

“For Coke?”

“Yeah.”

“But don’t they have to put the ingredients on the can? It’s a rule, right?”

“I think.”

“Then how is it a secret if you can see it on the side?”

“All I know is that there’s secret shit in there and like only two people in the world know what it is.”

“Cocaine.”

“That’s how it started.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Well, it’s called Coke.”

Wintric drinks from his beer can. Kristen thumbs the front pockets of her jeans, her chest hollow. There is no transition for what she wants to say. She was as surprised as anyone when Wintric’s parents told her he was coming home, done with the army, injured, but not horribly.

“I missed you,” she says. “I left you alone because you wanted me to.”

“I know,” he says, looking away. Barry Bonds on the wall, bat in hand.

“I would’ve been…”

“Relax. I didn’t send anyone else my hair.”

“I have it,” she says, and rises.

“No. Don’t. I believe you.”

“You going to grow it out?” she asks, now reaching out and touching the back of his scalp. “Prickly.” She brings her hand down to his shoulder and squeezes the muscle.

He smells her hand, vanilla lotion, and the scent intoxicates him— comfort, home, sex, strong, young. Kristen’s green eyes, home. He reaches up to her face and touches her jaw.

“It’d just get in the way, I think. We’ll see.”

She leans into his hand, then reaches for it, kisses it. She notices that he does smell different, but how?

He exhales and moves close and kisses her on the mouth. The warmth and fear rush at him on the couch, everything happening so fast, and he remembers standing and lifting Kristen, moving her to the wall. He pictures this muscular movement, but it seems a desire too far removed, a past fantasy, no longer a fantasy. His pulse jabs strong in his hands, but before he attempts to command his body into action a pain shoots up his leg and he winces.

Kristen remains close, hoping he can smell her.

“Stay,” she says.

She stands and reaches to the bottom of her green shirt and yanks it up over her head, her curled hair lifting in the neck hole, then bouncing down. She unbuttons her pants and wiggles free. She reaches back, unfastens her bra, and slips it off. Wintric sits up on her couch, then opens his mouth.

“Stay,” she says, and smiles.

She reaches to his waist and the lip of his underwear on his skin, then pulls his underwear and sweatpants down past his knees. His legs shake and he lifts his arms in front of him, but she grabs his wrists and he lets her guide them to her hips as she straddles him.

“You nervous?” she says. “It’s okay. I know you.”

He opens his mouth to say “Wait,” but nothing comes out.

“I know you.”

She feels herself weightless and she senses the tears are near, so she closes her eyes as she leans over Wintric and lets her breasts brush his face. She waits for him to say her name and he does, in a whisper, a question. She kisses his mouth and feels him kissing back, and soon she moves down and tongues his nipples, her hand running along his inner thigh — something she knows he used to love — and she hears him breathe shallowly, then her name, a question, but she doesn’t answer. She kisses his stomach, his body trembling, her lips on his belly button, a mole just below, her name, and she moves her hand to his penis, half erect, and moves her head down, and she opens her mouth and feels his hands on her head, squeezing at the sides of her head, pulling her up, her name, his closed eyes.

“Kristen?”

“What?”

His eyes are closed.

“Please,” he says, and he opens his eyes. He can sense her surprise when he reaches down and grabs his sweatpants. He pulls them up to his waist and begins to stand, but stops. He looks at her silent face and reaches to her and puts his hands just below her ribs and brings her close, chest to chest, her wide-eyed face now in his hands, and he kisses her mouth hard, pushing his lips against hers, turning his cheek to her lips, feeling the pressure of her face on his, his hands now on her back, pulling her hard against him.

She places her hands on the sides of his head, fingertips pressing the base of his skull, where the neck meets. She kisses his cheek, his temple, his ear, his forehead, her hands pulling him close, his head on her chest, her arms strong and flexed, pulling him into her.

Twenty minutes later Wintric grabs a packet of cigarettes from his bag and says, “I know,” before lighting one. He rests his head on the back of the couch. Kristen takes eight steps to the refrigerator, her pants still on the floor. Wintric watches her long legs and ass move and wonders where they’ll live. He has already heard talk of twenty new homes out by the airport, and he sees himself on his hands and knees, his back bending at awkward angles as he nails roofing under the sun.

“Can I get you anything?” she asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

He still has her taste in his mouth, and he knows she’ll always ask him if he is sure. She’ll offer to carry things, lift things. His foot is back up on the coffee table, and he weighs the consequences of yelling to her, I’m fucking sure. I said no, but he eats the words. He sees his new boot on the coffee table, the scythe foot inside, and he debates cutting off the rest, making everything clean.