Aric Davis - The Fort

Hooper lay there for a long time. As terrible as the endless barrage was, he seemed to be safe. The ground wasn’t rumbling like it had back in the shit, and no one was screaming in pain from shrapnel, like he had been on that awful night of fire and lead. No one came for me then, and they won’t now, either. Help hadn’t come until the next morning; those pussy medics had had to wait until the area was clear to come get him. The men around Hooper had died slowly, their screams sputtering out like motors running out of fuel. Not again, not again , thought Hooper, a moment of clarity allowing him to see the filth he was lying in. The moment begged for another, and Hooper all but dragged himself to his feet, his injured leg leaking blood and pus as he dragged it behind him to the bathroom, his foot turned sideways and the leg dying the slow death of rot.

Hooper turned on the shower, then all but fell in. He was in a boat racing up a Vietnamese river, but he shook the false thought away. Hooper had never been upriver, downriver, or on any river that wasn’t in Michigan. Still, the memory had come from somewhere, and it felt real enough. He slowly lowered himself to a sitting position in the shower, tearing off the curtain and landing on his ass with just a few inches to go. He threw the curtain aside and let the shower work its magic of cleaning his mind and body. Slowly the shit, piss, blood, and pus were scraped off of him by the slowly warming stream, and it felt wonderful, the best feeling in the world.

Clarity came to Hooper in violent waves, memories from the shit interspersed with movie memories that seemed more and less real at the same time. Also in there were thick blasts of Amy, both the new and the old one. Amy before Vietnam, wearing high-cut denim shorts and laughing with her friends outside in the driveway. Hooper brooding in the house as his mom wheezed and fucking groaned on her respirator. That same Amy moaning beneath him, or was it crying? It hadn’t mattered then, but it seemed to now, for some reason. The new Amy came to him then, Amy strapped to the pole, begging for water. What had he fed her in the last few days? Three or four pieces of dried toast, a few glasses of water? The bitch deserves it , another voice said plainly. She ran, she let that VC motherfucker shoot you. Another seizure wracked Hooper, and he danced the sleep of the dying in the bathtub, every noise but a death rattle escaping his body.

The cold woke him up violently, helped along with the pain from his leg. He was no longer being blasted by the shock of the pain. It came in waves now, attacking his nervous system like the barrages the VC kept throwing at his long-ago-destroyed emplacement. He knew that risk was past, that he’d been home for years, but every single Fourth of July explosion told him otherwise, each blast a death knell for the men around him, who were a mix of shadows, screams, and spilled blood. Hooper shouted with them, adding his own voice to the raucous sounds of a world gone mad. History and the present were flashing back and forth in ugly intervals, wounds suffered long ago finding a place alongside those of the present. Hooper lay in the shower, letting the water run over him as though it could make him pure.

44

The afternoon had yielded no hits, and Van Endel was starting to think the holiday might have cut down on the night trade. He was wrong, though, and was almost depressed over it. Even hookers deserved a day off, but from the look of things, most of them had decided that dusk on the Fourth of July was still a perfectly fine time to offer their wares.

Van Endel and Martinez had circled the blocks where the women were most apt to be walking. The men’s district was a little farther north, though the job opportunities were basically the same. Finally, Martinez spotted a woman they’d talked to before, a rough-looking black hooker who said her name was Candy. “Hard Candy,” she’d told them—if a john got too pushy or tried not to pay, that is. Van Endel pulled the car to the curb and let Martinez get out first, then followed her. Women tended to make them less jumpy, doubly so after the last eighteen months of steady disappearances.

“Is that Candy?” Dr. Martinez called out, in a voice that was almost as much a lie as the girl’s name. “I know that’s my girl Candy. You remember me?”

“I don’t know you, White Bread,” said Candy. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

Van Endel was between the two women almost immediately, holding his badge in one hand and the picture of Molly in the other.

“Candy, I know you recognize us,” said Van Endel. “I’m the detective that you hate talking to. I’m white bread. Dr. Martinez here is more of a tortilla in ethnicity, and her you like, if you recall correctly.”

“Oh shit, Doc,” said Candy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean no harm, but you looked like this white bitch from some church that’s been buggin’ the shit out of us lately, and chasing away the money and the men too. She could keep the men, but the money, that’s a problem,” said Candy with a smile so vivid and full of life that it was almost heartbreaking. Van Endel didn’t figure she gave that look to too many people, and it was sweet enough to take some of the hard living off of her face.

“I need to ask you some questions, Candy,” said Dr. Martinez, taking the picture of Molly from Van Endel and slipping back in front of him. She handed the photo to the working girl. “This girl’s named Molly Peterson, and she’s been missing for almost five days. The detective and I are trying to find her. Can you help us?”

“Probably not,” said Candy. “She don’t look like no girl that would be down here. She look like she still in school. She could make some money, though. She’s pretty enough.”

“All right,” said Dr. Martinez. “We felt like this was kind of a long shot to come down here, but it was nice to see—”

“Hold on,” said Van Endel. A thought had struck deep as an ice pick into his brain. “Have you heard of anything weird happening down here with any high school kids? Not the usual things, like being assholes and throwing garbage around, but just sort of being around?”

“Actually, yeah,” said Candy. She paused, and Dr. Martinez made a ten-dollar bill disappear in Candy’s hand. “Yeah, now that I remember it, another girl workin’ these streets, Bambi, told me she saw a shitload of teenagers out here fuckin’ around a few days ago. Not like fuckin’ with the girls or johns or nothin’, just fuckin’ around and shit. You know, like kids.”

“Where does Bambi work usually?” Van Endel asked, trying to mask the elation in his voice. We might actually be getting somewhere, so relax, don’t blow it.

“She usually over by Cherry, like a block back that way,” said Candy, then held her hands up. “But I ain’t helping you find her. I gots to make money, and I don’t need to be seen with no police. No offense, Dr. Martinez.”

“None taken, Candy,” said Dr. Martinez with a smile. “Before we let you get back to work, can you tell us what Bambi looks like, how she usually dresses?”

“I’ll tell you how she look, but you don’t need to worry about how she dress. You’ll know her as soon as you see her. She pretty as hell, even for a pale-ass white girl. She tall, almost six foot, and she wears them heels that’ll break your leg if you ain’t careful. She got long, almost white hair, and she keeps it in braids.”

“All right,” said Dr. Martinez, slipping Candy another ten-dollar bill. “Thank you for your help.”

“Shit, Doc, thanks. You know, since you being so cool and all, even if you travel with bad company, watch out for Bambi’s man. I don’t know if he’s all pimp or just a guy who rents his lady, but he’s a mean son of a bitch. Shit, if he didn’t mark her up so bad, she’d make more money.”