Billy nods. This actually sounds interesting. “So how do you do it?” he asks bluntly, thinking, What the hell. “How do you get the jump on all those other guys out there trying to do the same thing?”
Hawey is chuckling again. “Well, fair question.” He sits back and ponders for a moment. “I guess I’d say, independent thinking. And inner peace.”
Billy smiles. He thinks Hawey might be putting him on.
“Inner peace — you need to know who you are, what you want out of life. You have to do your own thinking, and for that you better know who you are, and not just know but be secure in it, comfortable with yourself. Plus you gotta have discipline. Stamina. And luck sure helps. A little luck counts for a lot, including our great good luck of being born into the greatest economic system ever devised. It’s not a perfect system by any means, but overall it’s responsible for tremendous human progress. In just the past century alone, we’ve seen something like a seven-to-one improvement in the standard of living. I’m not saying we don’t have problems, we’ve got a helluva lot of problems, but that’s where the genius of the free market comes in, all the drive and talent and energy that goes into solving those problems. Now, look at this stadium, all this, the crowd, the game.” Hawey’s arm sweeps left to right, then he points at the sky and the Goodyear blimp dangling in the early winter gloom. “This is everything there is, you know what I’m sayin’? I’m not like that guy who goes around saying greed is good, but it can sure as heck be a force for good. Self-interest is a powerful motivator in human affairs, and to me that’s the beauty of the capitalist system, it makes a virtue out of an innate human flaw. It’s why you’re gonna live better than your parents, and your kids are gonna live better than you, and their kids better than them and so on, because thanks to our system we’re going to keep on finding more ways, easier and better ways, to solve the problems of living and accomplish so many things we never even dreamed of.”
Billy nods. America has never made so much sense to him as at this moment. It is an exceptional country, no doubt. As with the successful launch of a NASA space probe, he can take pleasure in the achievement, even feel some measure of participatory pride, all the while understanding that the mission has absolutely nothing to do with him.
“Now,” Hawey continues, “right now we’re going through a pretty rough patch. Two wars, the economy’s basically in the tank, the whole mood of the country’s down. But we’ll get through it. We shall overcome. Our system’s been proving its resiliency for over two hundred years, and you youngsters, yall have a lot to look forward to. I think it’s going to be an exciting time for you. If I could be your age — how old are you?”
“Nineteen, sir.”
Hawey has opened his mouth to speak, but he pulls up short. He looks at Billy as if puzzled, not profoundly so, just stumped for the moment.
“Nineteen. You sure act older.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Shoot, I feel like I’m talking to a twenty-six-year-old lawyer, just the way you handle yourself.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”
Hawey turns to the game. It seems he’s lost his train of thought, but a moment later he’s coming back at Billy.
“Is it true they put you up for the Medal of Honor?”
“My CO did, yes sir.”
“What happened with that?”
“I don’t know. Higher tubed it, that’s all they told me.” Billy shrugs. Whatever bitterness he feels is mostly secondhand.
“You know, I was never tested that way. Was too young for World War Two, though I remember it well. Now, Korea…” Hawey clears his throat, lets the thought die a natural death. “You know things most of the rest of us will never know. The experiences you’ve had, you and your buddies…” Again he fails to finish the thought. Billy knows what they mean, these false starts, these snags of the psyche that stop a certain kind of Victory Tour conversation dead in its tracks. The old men struggle, and he can’t help them. There’s nothing he can say. He’s learned it’s best just to act like nothing’s going on.
“Well,” Hawey says with the forced good cheer of a man shaking off bad news, “I’m just proud to be able to spend this time with you. Nineteen years old, hell, I didn’t know my ace from my elbow when I was nineteen.” He wishes his grandsons were here so they could meet Billy and see what a fine role model etc., etc., the laudatory verbiage is all fine and good but Billy would rather be learning something useful and new, or how about a job offer, that would be nice. Come work for me! Let’s get rich! I’ll show you how it’s done! Hawey is still gassing about his grandsons when Faison flashes onto the Jumbotron, a Mount Rushmore — sized Faison leaning into the camera, smiling, tossing her head, shimmying those glorious pom-poms right in Billy’s face and he can’t help it, he sags in his seat and groans. In an instant Hawey sees what’s going on.
“Um-umph, now there’s a healthy girl.” He chuckles and taps Billy’s knee, acknowledging the things a young man needs to stay alive. “Goodness gracious, look out now. Norm’s got some show dogs, don’t he.”
BILLY AND MANGO ARE OUT FOR A WALK
AT THE END OF the first quarter they are asked to leave the suite. The Mexican ambassador is coming with his sizable entourage and the place is already packed to code, so somebody has to go. Norm apologizes. He seems truly distressed. “You should see the security this guy rolls with,” he tells Bravo, shaking his head. “I guess it’s a drug war thing, but still. We’re not too shabby on security ourselves.”
“Plus you’ve got us,” Sykes points out, “sir.”
“That’s right! We do! We’ve got the finest fighting men in the world right here! Oh man, if there was any way you guys could stay…”
Bravo is cool with it. Bravo could give a shit, basically. After big good-byes and a final round of applause Josh takes them back to their seats. Out come the cell phones, the iPods, the spit cups and dip. It’s raining, sort of, the air pilled with a dangling, brokedick mizzle into which umbrellas are constantly being raised and lowered, up, down, up, down, like a leisurely game of whack-a-mole.
“Whoa, they scored.” Mango nods at the Jumbotron. Cowboys 7, Bears 0. “When did that happen?”
Billy shrugs. He’s not cold, which isn’t to say he would mind being someplace warm. He finds two new texts on his cell. Kathryn: Where u sitting? Pastor Rick: U r in our prayers 2day this special day of thanx. Lets talk b4 u leav overseas. Pastor Rick, the tanned, portly founder of one of the largest megachurches in America, did the invocation for Bravo’s rally at the Anaheim Convention Center. In a moment of — weakness? delirium? — Billy sought him out after the rally for an emergency counseling session. Something in the invocation had struck Billy as real, and while the rest of the Bravos signed autographs and posed for pictures, Pastor Rick and Billy sat down backstage and talked through Shroom’s death. Shroom lying there wounded. Shroom sitting up. Shroom collapsing in Billy’s lap, then his eyes zeroing in on Billy with such urgency, with so much pressing news, then the fade and his soul releasing, whoom, as if the life force is a highly volatile substance, contents stored under pressure.
“When he died, it’s like I wanted to die too.” But this wasn’t quite right. “When he died, I felt like I’d died too.” But that wasn’t it either. “In a way it was like the whole world died.” Even harder was describing his sense that Shroom’s death might have ruined him for anything else, because when he died? when I felt his soul pass through me? I loved him so much right then, I don’t think I can ever have that kind of love for anybody again. So what was the point of getting married, having kids, raising a family if you knew you couldn’t give them your very best love?