I sighed, picking at the remains of my food. The waitress returned, asking if I was still working on it. I told her I was not. I paid, and left.
It was not exactly on a whim that I decided to visit the sporting goods store again; the possibility had lodged itself in the back of my mind earlier that day, I was burying the white deer. I pulled into the parking lot at a quarter past eight. The store was mostly empty save for its employees, who were obviously preparing to close for the night. Nevertheless, I walked to the gun counter and told the woman working there that I wished to buy a handgun. Her chin creased in distaste — the necessary paperwork would keep her here past closing. But she capitulated.
“What are you looking for?” she asked me. She was about forty, sandy-haired, with a flat, unfriendly affect. I felt very comfortable dealing with her.
“A Browning nine-millimeter,” I replied. There were better firearms, but it was the Browning I was used to.
She showed me what they had: a used P-35 Mark III, and a new HP-SFS, with its improved safety. The P-35 was unadulterated by its previous owner, which was good news — I preferred to customize my own weapon, and smooth operation of the Browning required certain modifications. I told her without hesitation that I would take it, and filled out the proper papers. I was finished by closing time.
“Well that was easy,” the clerk said, with obvious relief. “We’ll give you a call when the check comes through.”
“Excellent,” I replied.
I left the store feeling much more safe and secure, even though I didn’t have the Browning yet. It was the feel of it in my hand; in spite of its flaws, or perhaps because of them, it filled me with confidence. I thought of my father’s Enfield then, and wondered if it had made him feel the same way. Of course, in reality, the gun did not make him safer — on the contrary, it was the instrument of his death. But I was not my father.
The Amvets was exactly where it had always been, and appeared not to have changed since I was a child. It was a low, long structure with a peakless roof that sloped back toward the parking lot; there were no windows, save for a wall on one end made almost entirely of glass blocks. It was beside this wall that I found Randall and Heph, occupying one end of a large buffet table, along with three pint glasses and two pitchers of beer, one full, one nearly empty. They waved me over and, before I arrived, shared a hearty laugh.
“We had a bet goin’, didn’t we, Randy, on whether or not you’d show up, Mr. Loesch!” Heph smacked his dungaree’d knee.
“What side were you on, Heph?”
“Welp, I thought you would come! Randy thought not.”
Randall offered his large, dry hand to be shaken. I obliged. “Glad you decided to join us,” he said.
“Me too.” I turned to Heph. “Heph, you should call me Eric, if we’re going to be friends.”
“All right then, Eric!” The entire exchange appeared to amuse him no end. I could see that he would make a fine drinking companion.
I sat down and poured myself a glass of beer, offering to pay for my share. The offer was quickly refused. I listened to the two of them for a short while; they talked about bass fishing. Eventually the discussion turned to local matters, and I revealed that I had, in fact, grown up in the area, which they did not appear surprised to learn. This led to the subjects of childhood pursuits and shared acquaintances. I was not especially helpful with the latter, as my family had not had strong social connections here, and as I was a number of years younger than Randall and Heph. But we knew of certain names in common, and discussion was lively until, at last, it petered out.
In the silence that followed, I watched a pair of headlights rake across the glass block wall. When I looked up at my companions, they were exchanging a meaningful glance. They saw me noticing, and quickly turned away.
“Randall. Heph,” I said. “It’s clear there’s something you’d like to discuss with me. Though I’m flattered you wanted me to join you tonight, I never doubted that you had an ulterior motive. What is it?”
Heph seemed abashed by this little speech, but it appeared to give Randall some resolve. He sat up a little straighter and said, “Well, we know about all that happened to you. And we just want to let you know we’re behind you, that’s all.”
To be perfectly honest, I had imagined this would come up. I was not, however, interested in discussing it. “That’s very kind of you,” I said.
“So it was you then, was it?” Heph said suddenly. “Randy said he was reading up on the internet and all that. Seemed to me there’s gotta be other people called Eric Loesch in the army, right?”
“No,” I admitted. “That was me.”
Randall was gazing at me with a strange intensity now. I turned my beer mug around and around on the tabletop.
“You’re not drinking your beer,” he said.
“I’m not much of a drinker,” I replied.
“Ahh, on the wagon. Sorry about that.”
I said nothing, though his characterization was not entirely accurate. I did not have a drinking problem from which I was recovering. I simply did not enjoy excessive indulgence in alcoholic beverages.
Heph spoke up, to fill the lull in conversation. “Welp, anyway, it’s you then. I’ll tell you, son, I think you got a raw deal. Seems to me none of that was your fault. You were just following orders, right? You were doing what had to be done.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“People on the outside don’t understand what it’s like,” Heph went on. “They think it’s all black and white! There’s bad and there’s good and nothing in between! But it isn’t like that, now, is it! It’s hard making decisions in a time of war, and when push comes to shove you gotta do your job and you gotta show the enemy who’s boss, don’t’cha think, Randy?”
Randall nodded slowly. He appeared to be slightly ill at ease after Heph’s little speech. For my part, I realized that I would be forced to leave. There was no way to carry on with the conversation, now that this subject had come up, and I began, in spite of myself, to shift uncomfortably in my chair.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, an excuse for leaving would soon present itself. Only a few seconds of awkward silence had elapsed when I began to become aware of the health-food meal in my stomach, and the fact of its not having yet been digested. It had been quite some time since I ate; the meal ought to have been well on its way through my system. Instead, it was threatening to make a dramatic return.
“Gentlemen, would you excuse me a moment?”
Randall and Heph replied with grim nods as I rose, then walked, then walked faster, to the men’s room. I pushed open the door of a stall just in time to expel my dinner into a filthy, waste-encrusted toilet. A few moments later I was washing my face with scalding hot water from the chipped and stained porcelain sink, and shivering uncontrollably. My stomach, though empty, turned over, and I returned to the stall for another round of painful release.
When I emerged at last into the bar, Heph and Randall looked up at me expectantly. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I seem to have come down with something.”
“You look like you just saw a ghost in there,” Randall remarked.
“It was the ghost of my dinner,” I managed to quip, and their laughter went some way toward smoothing over the discomfort of the moment. I thanked them again for inviting me out, and walked unsteadily to my car.