D-782 was too short, too dark, and too thin. He looked nothing like Troy. Achilles shook his head, no. He exhaled in a rush — he had dodged the first bullet. Breathe. Always remember to breathe. No less than three military instructors had reminded Achilles of that, catching him with his shoulders hunched and lips pursed when out on the range. The attendant called for D-794 and the light blinked off. Achilles heard one gurney being wheeled out, another wheeled in. He watched the diener’s reflection. His breathing was labored, the nametag on his chest rising and falling as if at sea, as if Troy were his brother. The faster that nametag moved, the more Achilles relaxed, like O’Ree had told him: “We’re the opposite of most people, son. We must learn to be like a ship that grows steadier the more the sea storms.” Was he ready? Achilles nodded. Another knock on the window, the light flashed on. This time a kid in a lab coat and headphones, the one who must have transported the body, remained in the viewing chamber standing behind the gurney.
The white plastic sheet used for burn victims was folded back to the waist, revealing second- and third-degree burns over much of D-794’s torso. The skin was mottled black and pink, except his raw, gnarled fingertips and ragged throat, which Achilles recognized as a sign the man had burned to death in an enclosed space while trying to claw his way out. One unburned patch of skin on the chest was the same shade as Troy. The scorched cheekbones were high, like Troy’s. But the eyes were too close together, Aren’t they? Troy had wide-set eyes. The eye sockets are too close, right? He inched closer to the glass, remembering Troy’s uniform folded neatly on the bed with his helmet on top.
He knew it was physically impossible, but for a moment he thought he smelled the body. Breathe. Always remember to breathe — through the mouth. The eyes were definitely too close. The upper lip cracked like pumice as the kid in the lab coat nudged the mouth open, revealing gold teeth coated in ash. Achilles grinned with relief, ignoring the attendant’s reaction to his smile. The attendant pressed the red button, and the kid in the lab coat gently pulled up the sheet, letting it float down and settle on the blunt contours of the scorched face. The light snapped off. Achilles put his finger to the glass again, studied the gap between his fingernail and the reflection and remembered — if there was no gap between your fingernail and the reflection, it was a genuine mirror.
Back in the office, the attendant searched for the visitor’s log. Able to focus now, Achilles looked around the narrow room, which was furnished only with an old gunmetal desk and a rigid plastic chair. No file cabinets. This wasn’t the man who’d answered the phone, the man who’d listened to Achilles describe his brother, then muttered “Light-complected ABM. We got one, but he’s burned real bad.” ABM — average black male. Achilles scowled, muttering “complected” to himself. It made skin tone sound like a psychological burden. It must be a New Orleans thing, like cold drink meant soda, and reach me meant hand me. On the wall was the same Dilbert cartoon he’d seen hanging up in the Forward Operating Base morgue. The characters were in a board meeting and the caption underneath read, The Only Place Lower than Hell. The idea that an office could be anything like hell always made him chuckle. Some people had it too easy. He laughed again, louder.
“Tough job there, boy,” said the attendant as he rifled through the papers on his desk.
“Yeah.” Though Achilles didn’t know what was so tough about sitting around in an air-conditioned office all day. “How do you do it?”
“No, son. I meant yours.”
Achilles winced. “You do what you got to do, right?”
“My captain used to say that in Korea. I believed it too, back then. But you’ll tell yourself anything to stay afloat on a river of flaming shit.” He found the log and waved it triumphantly. “I’ll tell you what’s a shame. It’s a shame what these kids are doing to each other out there nowadays. Animals. Those dealers are animals. Someone should line them all up and shoot them, and their dogs. Civilians shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns. That guy was burned up by his dealer. They even poured alcohol down his throat so he couldn’t scream.” His toned changed and he hunched his shoulders like it was campfire story time, like he was on Scared Straight, that old TV show that tried steering bad kids in the right direction by taking them to prisons and morgues, the eternal message always the same—This could be you!
“Imagine that! Alcohol in his throat so the minute he yells, the flames are in his mouth and neck, and he’s ripping his own skin off trying to make it stop.” The attendant beat at his chest, openhanded, pantomiming fruitless efforts to douse a flame. “Ever seen anything so gruesome? They call it baptism. Baptism!” He crossed himself twice. “Can you imagine hating someone that much?” He was still clutching the log, awaiting an answer in exchange.
Achilles shrugged again and shook his head. For all he knew, they did it to themselves. D-794 could have been one of those crunchers Wages had talked about, someone who burned himself up trying to light a pipe, like that old comedian Richard Pryor. “Yeah, it’s terrible,” he said as he reached for the clipboard. He listed Wages’s address as his own, noted himself as next of kin, and marked their parents as deceased.
“Good luck.” The attendant stared hard.
“What?” asked Achilles.
“I’m just wondering, do I want to see the other guy? Or have I already?”
“I don’t know.” He’d forgotten about his bruises and sore muscles, as he’d been trained to. The implications of that answer dawned on him. “I mean, of course not.”
“Never mind.” He clapped Achilles on the back, as if he understood his plight, as if something had passed between them. “Good luck.”
There was no use saying he didn’t believe in luck. There was no use explaining that Achilles’s reserve wasn’t luck. He’d often attended the sifting of the dead. Not even the first ones had been shocking: a cluster of civilians, a wedding party charred beyond recognition, only vaguely human in shape, and most importantly, absent familiarity — he couldn’t have possibly known any of them. They were, as someone said, the only Gannies it was safe to turn your back on.
He reminded himself of why he was doing this. Troy had prints on file, and when they were run, their mom would be called. She would have to answer when the phone rang in the middle of the night because it could be Achilles with news of Troy, if not Troy himself. Too old-fashioned to have a phone in the bedroom, she would feel her way to the living room, her left hand grazing the wood-paneled wall and her right holding her reading glasses. Once seated in the green chair at the roll-top desk where she writes out the bills and reads the Bible — which she never even looked at when their father was alive — she’ll turn on the lamp, pick up a pen, and put on her glasses, behind which her eyes float in the air like two blue globes. Then she’ll answer the phone. After hearing the news, she’ll call Achilles and apologize.
That was why he must be the first to know. But if he found Troy on a gurney, what could he really do? Apologize for letting her down? Again? When Troy first talked about signing up, his mother pulled Achilles aside and said, “Only you can talk him out of it. He’ll listen to you.” He’d expected Troy — who hated authority, listened to no one, followed no directions but his own — would be phased out within weeks. A drill sergeant would give him an order and he would walk off, like he did on every job. There was no way that Achilles, who thought his own cautious but easygoing nature perfectly suited for the military, was going to talk him out of it. How could he have expected that Troy, the free spirit, the wild card, the deck with three jokers, would fit in like he’d been born into chaos? “Every deck needs a joker,” Troy always said, though he was anything but a joker, throwing himself into his duty as if all he’d ever wanted all his fucking life was for someone to be man enough to tell him what to do and have the balls to back it up.