A storefront operation in a block of shops that had been taken over by churches, St. Jude was sandwiched between First Bethel Apostolic and the Church of the Almighty Congregation, all three names stenciled in cheerful colors as if they merely hawked baked goods or dry cleaning services. He peeked in the window of First Bethel, the single room with industrial carpet installed halfway up the walls and folding chairs striking him as too earnest, too impoverished, to be a sacred space. A service in a converted store couldn’t be the same as mass in a real church like St. Augustine, not that he even knew what that was like. God was blond in this part of town, both storefront churches displaying the same blue-eyed Jesus, like franchisees, the shelter’s sign featuring a sandaled brown-haired man who must have been St. Jude. For a moment, he wondered how they even knew what any of these saints looked like.
Achilles scanned the line, seeing no sign of Troy or anyone who resembled him. Ignoring the grunts and the half-hearted objections, he pushed his way through the crowd to a door marked Volunteers. Inside, two teenagers sat at a folding table. They were Blow’s age, no older than Troy at his enlistment date.
“Name?” asked the tall one.
“Achilles Conroy.”
“Where’d you serve?” asked the tall one.
“Korengal,” answered Achilles, wondering why it mattered.
“Is that federal?” asked the tall one.
“Yeah, I guess,” said Achilles.
“Korengal?” muttered an old man he hadn’t noticed before. “I had a cousin there.”
The teens scanned the sheets spread out before them, meticulously running their fingers along rows and columns as if they expected to find Achilles’s name hidden in one of the little black boxes. “You sure it’s federal? How do you spell it?”
Achilles spelled it.
“And where is it?” asked the teen.
“Afghanistan,” said someone behind him.
“I knew it,” said the old man, lounging in a corner.
The tall teen shuffled his papers. “Knew that shit didn’t sound familiar.”
Achilles turned to see a large-breasted white woman with blond dreadlocks and a red paisley head wrap. She waggled her finger at the teens. “Tsk tsk! Korengal is in Afghanistan, seniors. It’s SAT season.”
To Achilles: “Were you really in Korengal?”
“Really.”
“Doing what?”
“What else is there to do?”
Admiration shot across her face. “Really?”
“Yeah,” said Achilles.
“How can we help you?”
“I was looking for somebody.”
“Who?”
“A friend,” he said quickly.
“What’s he look like? We got a lot of somebodies here.”
He reached for his wallet, but as a precautionary measure he’d left it at home before going to the green camelback. “Five eleven, one hundred eighty-five pounds, brown skin, brown hair.” Half of the people in line matched that description. “Light brown skin and green eyes.” That described the short teenager at the volunteer table. The woman nodded, waiting for him to finish, her eyes round as quarters, focused only on him, as if for this moment he was all that mattered. Her face was bright and open, honest. Her heart-shaped lips were glossy and garnet, as radiant as her head wrap. The bright colors, the dreadlocks, the figure — she was perfect, like an anime character.
“You’re more than welcome to wait,” she said. Her voice was deep and rich, sweet too, like honey and cream. “What’s his name?” When Achilles hesitated, she repeated the question.
“Troy. Do you know anyone named Lex or Blow?”
“Sorry. You’re looking for a bunch of folks.”
“Yeah.”
“Good luck, soldier.” She extended her hand. “I’m Ines.”
“Achilles.”
“Really?”
“Who would make that up?” asked Achilles.
“You’re probably right,” she said. “Were you really in Goddamnistan?”
“Who would make that up?” asked Achilles.
“A lot of people.” She nodded knowingly.
“Not if they were there,” said Achilles.
“That’s a tautology,” she said.
The teens snickered. Achilles shrugged it off. He didn’t know what it meant. Did she say Goddamnistan a minute ago? She couldn’t have.
“You’re serious,” said Ines, facing him squarely. “Okay. Let me guess. You were in a hipster bar, someone insulted your commander-in-chief, and you decked the guy.”
Achilles shook his head.
“Girlfriend dragged you out tonight?”
“No.”
“On your own. That’s unusual. Since you’re trying to do the right thing, could you monitor the line? We’re shorthanded. Just remind them not to push or fight. If they do, yell. There’s always one off-duty cop, but he’s inside because it’s air-conditioned. What can I say? It’s volunteer work.”
“Sure.”
Ines pulled a pen out of her hair and wrote something on her forearm. “We’ll owe you one. Thanks.”
At first, Achilles didn’t see any problem with agreeing to help. He’d planned on watching the line anyway. The St. Jude line was no different from the St. Augustine line. They stomped and stammered loudly at the end of the line, but shuffled and whispered as they approached the door, avoiding eye contact. Within ten minutes of pacing, his eyes drawn to the intersections whenever anyone approached, he regretted his decision. His shirt was plastered to his back, the bandages on his arm damp, and his boxers bunched up in a damp wad. As the men filed inside, they straightened up and focused on Ines like BBs to a magnet, and she looked them in the eye and called them brother, all of them, black, white, brown, and the two yellows.
In Kabul, he’d known white people like her in the charities. Nicknamed NGOs because No Government Organization gave shit away, they were staffed by glassy-eyed Americans. “Brother! Brother!” an Afghan would shout, but they knew it was solidarity by circumstance. The white Americans were different, saying “brother” like they believed it, earnestly claiming kinship with all humanity. Most volunteers were idealists or opportunists running a side scam. Both camps scorned the soldiers, though the opportunists admitted that they profited from destruction because no matter how much food, medicine, and clothing they gave away someone else paid for it, and paid them to deliver it. Charity was big business. The desk pilots understood that, as did the smugglers — who were more fun to drink with — but most volunteers were naïve optimists, though they didn’t think of themselves as naïve; how else could they be optimistic?
After a week in country, the volunteers would tell a sad tale about the day they realized Afghan kids imitated gunfire and artillery while playing with their toy trucks and planes. Isn’t that why we’re here? Wasn’t that what most trucks and planes were doing in Goddamnistan? Achilles would ask. But he’d never push it. If he did, they’d start moaning about the army’s deplorable recruiting tactics, their tendency to target neighborhoods like the one Achilles must have grown up in. They’d sigh for him, curse the government, saying what they assumed he couldn’t, steadfast in their belief that Achilles was a victim, a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Democracy, not understanding that he hadn’t volunteered to die for anything. He’d been indirectly drafted. But he let them talk. Liberal guilt was always good for a few beers.
After the shelter closed, Ines stopped to talk to him on the way to her car. They stood in the street while the off-duty cop extinguished the lights one by one until the building was dark. Achilles had thought people stayed there overnight, that maybe there was yet a chance that Troy might arrive. But of course he hadn’t seen Troy. He hadn’t really expected to. Ines was what he needed, a distraction from all the possibilities he couldn’t admit to himself that he was even considering.