“Because this place is dark, cold, rainy, and gets tsunamis. I’ve had enough.”
“I think that’s a good reason to join,” said Messina.
“Why don’t you go to college?” asked Patrick.
“D’s. I’ll use the GI Bill when I’m out and know what I want to do.”
Patrick wondered what John Bostik would be like if he’d gone to school rather than to war. Alive, for starters. Even young Kirk knew that a distant war had killed his brother, so what could Patrick say to dissuade him? Still he felt compelled to try. “There’s only one reason to go to war, Kirk — to defend your country. Make sure you got a good war, one that does that.”
“How will I know if it’s good or not?”
Patrick had to think about that a moment. “I think the good wars come to you.” The room went silent and Patrick felt six minds arcing away in six different directions, like bright tendrils of one firework. “I’d like to say that the thing I loved most about John was his sense of humor. The first time we almost died together it was close. Real close. They caught us out in the open in the brown zone, not far from Route Six One. Machine guns lit us up — must have been half a dozen of them dug in on a hillside. We hit the dirt and the bullets were thick and all we had for cover was this scrawny little fallen tree. And after about half a minute of this, Boss started laughing. Hard. And the bullets kept ripping past us and slapping into that tree and he said, ‘I’m sorry, Pat, but when I get this close to dying and I’m not dead, all I can do is laugh.’ And I got what he meant and the bullets were still coming at us and I started laughing too and I couldn’t stop. I just could not stop. Because it was absurd. Because we were supposed to be dead but we were flat behind a scrawny tree that was saving us. We finally returned fire. The air cover arrived and they laid down the rockets and killed every Talib on that hill. We lost two men in the ambush. Sisley and Ocampo. There were another maybe hundred times I should have died over there. At least. And every time death failed to get me, I laughed. John taught me to laugh right in its face.”
Salimony told the family about John’s easy kindness with village children, how he shared all the stuff in the care packages they sent, except for the peanut-butter-filled pretzels, which he hogged for himself and his best friends only. Luckily, we all three qualified as best friends, said Salimony. Messina told them about the time their son ran to the side of a platoon mate, Evans, who’d set off an IED hidden in the rocks — got the tourniquet on him like right then — and saved his life and his foot. Patrick told them how he and John would follow PFC Reichert out at night with SAW machine guns, to cover the crazy kid on his critter patrols. Reichert collected anything weird he could find, took pictures and made notes on them. He kept his treasures in jars and cans at the FOB — all sorts of lizards and snakes and bugs. He staged fights between the camel spiders, the Marines betting and cheering like it was UFC or something. “My brother, Ted, always had crawling things in cages when we were kids. Still does. So, when we covered Reichert on his night missions it was like we were covering Ted. And I thought it was an example of why we were in the war. How the war related to America and home.”
Patrick saw that Kirk was listening to him. The boy had a pugnacious expression but he was alert. “Then are you saying it was a good war or it wasn’t?”
“After going I know it wasn’t good and it wasn’t necessary. Before going I never thought about it. That’s why I’m telling you to think about things first. It might give you an advantage. Maybe your brother sacrificed so you won’t have to.”
“I just flat-out disagree,” said Salimony. “We kicked ass, made a difference, and made our country safer. It’s as simple as that.”
“I’m with him,” said Messina.
Patrick shrugged. “Either way, John Bostik was a great guy and I’ll remember him forever. I looked up to him.”
“Amen,” said Salimony and Janet Bostik in unison. Patrick handed Bostik’s dog tags to his father.
They set out for home. Patrick steered his truck through the looming redwoods, which even near noon permitted little sunlight into the world. The rain had stopped and tufts of fog snagged in the treetops. This place made Patrick feel sullen and nervy, and he saw why John and Kirk wanted out. At least in Afghanistan there was sun. He pictured Boss the last time he’d seen him, then quickly banished that horror.
Messina demanded they see Pelican Bay Prison because he’d heard about it in a movie. So Patrick found Lake Earl Drive and followed it out. “The prison’s got a special cell block, right in the middle,” Messina said. “It drives you insane if they lock you in it too long. The cells are concrete cages with no windows.” Patrick pulled onto the grounds which, upon first sight, looked tranquil and parklike. The parking lot was very large and only one-third full. Behind the electric fences stood the prison, which to Patrick looked efficient and not quite humane. “My old man took me to Joplin Prison when I was a kid,” said Messina. “On account of I’d been doing some shoplifting. Just candy and football cards and stuff but he wanted me to see what was waiting for me. It pretty much worked. Except ever since I’ve been kind of fascinated by prisons. Well, that’s good enough — I doubt they give tours.”
They pulled out of the Pelican Bay parking lot in silence. Patrick followed the signs for the highway. Salimony got the sudden inspiration to visit Sergeant Pendejo’s family, too. He remembered that Pendejo had lived in Coalinga, where the big-ass earthquake happened a long time ago, and which was right on the way to home. “I mean, if we could tell Boss’s family what a great guy he was, we could tell Pendejo’s.”
“But he wasn’t a great guy,” said Messina. “And his name wasn’t even Pendejo.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, pendejo means pubic hair in Spanish.”
“I always wondered why his tag said something else.”
“Pendejo was just a nickname, Salimony. You never knew that?”
“Pendejo’s name was Alejandro Reyes,” said Patrick.
“So it rhymed with pendejo,” said Salimony.
“Kind of not very much,” said Patrick. “He wasn’t bad. I always thought, down inside that guy who always did every damned thing he was told to do, was an okay human being. He wasn’t mean enough to be a Marine. But he was terrific on that barbecue. He made the thing out of a fuel drum, remember?”
“He died making burritos for his men,” said Salimony. “So let’s go see his family and tell them he wasn’t such a bad guy.”
“Oh, they’re going to love hearing he wasn’t so bad,” said Messina. “Sal? You really are full of shit. Maybe we could get some beers for the road.”
“It’s way past noon,” said Salimony.
Heading south they played the radio and threw empties out the windows and stopped at rest areas. Patrick quit after two beers but the rest of the twelver was gone before Patterson. The two other Marines fell silent then asleep. After six hours on the road Patrick pulled off for Coalinga. The evening was warm in the central valley and the land lay flat. He saw late-season cotton still in the fields but most of the soil was brown and groomed and ready to be planted. He saw the sign for the prison and the sign for the mental hospital then Messina’s head pop up from the crew cab into the rearview. “How come they got so many criminals and crazies in this state?” he asked. “That’s the third prison since Pelican Bay and I been asleep for three hours.”
“Any of those cheese things left?” asked Patrick.
Messina held the bag upside down and nothing but orange dust came out. Next to Patrick, Salimony finally sat up, yawned loudly, and burped. He took out his phone. A moment later he was leaving messages and talking to people, trying to track down the family of Alejandro Reyes.