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

She calls out over the stereo, “How much is the bonus?”

Wintric has stayed in the water, letting her go about her business. He’s witnessed her productions before, and is a little surprised there aren’t any tears. He swims in to where he can touch and revels in the sight of Kristen’s moonlit body, her constant, unabashed confidence.

“Thirty thousand.”

“You’re going to the war.”

“Is there anything else?”

Something swims between his legs and he grabs his genitals. He isn’t sure of all the details of his enlistment, about what he’ll be asked to sacrifice, but he knows the posts are nowhere near this place, that the travel will take him away from these pine-filled valleys that cut him off from what he calls “civilization.” There are other lakes in the world like the one he stands in. He would struggle to name any, but he’s sure there are cities with lakes right in the middle of them, and when you’re done swimming you walk a block to your apartment or to other city things that await your call, and the sun shines warmer. He wants more than a taste, he wants to stay, and not in Chico or Redding or Red Bluff. Farther. He longs for strangers surrounding him, people who don’t know about his family’s crumbling house or his father’s bad back or his repeating sixth grade. He needs the separation, even if it means aiming a weapon for real.

Wintric watches Kristen balance on the stump. He’s sure she will never leave this place. Once when he asked her about her fantasy vacation, she said she’d always wanted to drive through the massive redwood over near the coast. She wasn’t sure of the tree’s exact location, only that she’d seen photos of cars halfway through the trunk. It was so close by, her dream getaway, he had to laugh. She argued that people come from all over the world to drive through that tree. “If you’re from Japan or France, driving through the tree is a big deal. Why can’t it be a big deal for me?” He knew she was right, and he thought about how the only thing interesting about travel was that it’s away from where you are.

Kristen turns around, faces the low beams, and Wintric studies her silhouette, her lean shoulders, the lines of her slightly spread thighs up to their intersection. Her hips have filled out, and Wintric pictures his hands there.

Wintric hobbles out of the lake and strides to her. Her skin smells like fish, and he smells his own arm and it’s the same. His face comes to her stomach and he kisses her belly button. She sways her hips and he places his hands on them and listens to her singing.

They decided early never to say “I love you” to each other. Even so, Kristen is all he has known of romance and trust. He kisses her right hip, then runs his tongue along where it meets her thigh.

“Wintric,” she says.

Though he can’t fathom what death or war means, he’d want her to get the folded flag if everything came to that, and he wonders if that’s what love is, and he thinks that it is. He reaches up from her hips and runs his palms down her sides, up to her breasts, down her ribs, her stomach.

“Not here,” she says.

“Please,” he says.

Wintric squats down and kisses the inside of her left knee, and she runs her hands through his wet hair.

“You’ll have to cut your hair,” she says. “You’ll look bad with short hair.”

He kisses the inside of her right knee, her inner thigh.

“I could look great. You never know.”

“A bowling ball,” she says. “A tennis ball. Round.”

His hands on her hips.

“The lights are on,” she says. “At least get the lights.”

“Low beams.”

Her hands through his hair, her fingers on his scalp underneath. Can he feel better than this?

“They charge for haircuts in the army?” she says. “Stupid if they do.”

“Are you kidding?” he says. “It’s thirty grand a cut.”

Marcus prays his erection will go down before the bell rings. He has about ten minutes left in class, but Kristen sits two rows ahead to the right, wearing a white cotton shirt, and every time she leans over to talk to her friend he catches a flash of the top of her breasts. He untucks his black shirt. A female voice trickles down through the air, something about lawyers.

The results of the career questionnaire rest on Marcus’s desk. He darts his eyes back to the top of it: (1) Doctor, (2) Teacher, (3) Accountant, (4) Lawyer, (5) Services. A week ago he filled in the far-right bubble on each line and let a computer tell him what career options there are for high schoolers who answer “Very Interested” to every question.

Even after glancing at the results multiple times, seeing his name above “Doctor” sends a warm surge through him, but when he closes his eyes he can’t picture himself in the white coat, can’t feel anything but the word and the sound of it from Kristen’s mouth, the same mouth that he dreams of at night. He imagines her naked in his bedroom doorway, walking toward him, taking back the covers, saying his name, and going down on him.

The lecture ends and the counselor weaves up and down the rows, helping anyone with his or her hand raised. Marcus’s hands are in his lap, but Miss Sheroll stops beside him. She appears tired.

“They don’t have an ice cream question so you blow it off? Keep the paper, Marcus. Keep it and think of what you won’t be. When you wake up, we can talk.”

The bell rings, and she leans in with bad coffee breath. “Not everyone has to go to the mill.” Then, with a smirk: “I wouldn’t assume they’ll be hiring.”

Marcus stays put, waiting, and Kristen walks up his row, books at her chest. He flexes his right arm, leans in enough to get a whiff of her vanilla perfume.

Wintric and Kristen eat lunch in Reno before his flight to basic training. The slot machines near the casino buffet bang out their solicitations. The carpet underneath them is a dated turquoise-pink-and-black stew. He wears a gray shirt with Army across the front, and his hair reaches the middle of his back. He has put away four platefuls of shrimp.

Wintric has never been on a plane before, and his buddy told him to watch for the turbulence, but he isn’t afraid. When he imagines the inside of the plane, the images are from the movies and the seats are large and flight attendants in tight uniforms carry trays of drinks.

“Are you going back for more?” Kristen asks.

“No, I’m good.”

“Is it time?”

“You want me out of here?” Wintric says, and stares at her to make sure she feels the joke, but he knows she’s his equal.

“As soon as possible,” she says. “Don’t worry, you won’t miss anything. Afghanistan has world-class shrimp.”

“Got to get through Fort Benning first.”

Kristen wears his favorite outfit, but she hasn’t caught him glancing at the plunging neckline.

From the casino floor, Wheeeel ooooff Fortune!

“Will you send me your hair?”

“What?”

“Your hair. It’s something. Stick it in the mail.”

“You want me to overnight it?”

“Stick it in the mail.”

“Fine.”

“They’re gonna wonder where the heck you came from with your hair.”

“The army has to have people like me. That’s the point. Rich big-city people don’t enlist. Why would they?”

“It saves the kids of our town.”

“What does?”

“The army saves. That’s what my dad says.”

“We’ll see. Not sure what I need to be saved from.”

“No. I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay.”

She spoons soft-serve vanilla ice cream into her mouth.

“They take girls, K. I’m only half joking.”

“Yeah. Well. I haven’t thought about it.”

“I don’t know if I want you to think about it.”