“No.”
“Oh Mom.”
“I saw Lisa, Chuck’s receptionist.”
“Why didn’t you … Why did …”
“I was excited, and I didn’t want you to think he only cared about the money.”
This was a point that, embarrassingly enough, he had considered. He explained how the attorney had mistaken him for Troy, but she argued. “It’s not like Chuck doesn’t know Troy’s voice,” she said. “It’s not like you wouldn’t clear that up. Right? So you better get oscar on the mike or whatever you call it over there, because he’ll be here any minute now.”
It was one of the first times he understood how some guys could take off running across the desert, gulp a grip of Tylenol, bite a barrel. Maybe Wexler had known it was a minefield.
He liked to think of himself as an honest guy, but he was starting to think he’d never really told the truth when it mattered. When Lamont Jackson caught shrapnel that sheared off the back of his helmet and head cleanlike, easy as scooping ice cream, and his brains looked like, well, a pickled walnut, he asked Achilles if he was going to make it, and Achilles was so transfixed by the sight of the open skull, so certain he was cursed to see this side of a friend, he couldn’t answer. He tried nodding. Everyone was talking and yelling and screaming, but they couldn’t hear shit, and neither could Achilles. Jackson was mouthing the words. All Achilles had to do was mouth the words Yes, you’ll make it. He couldn’t. He half-nodded. But Jackson had that look in his eye like he knew Achilles was lying, and, worse yet, he forgave him for it. That was the real burn, that a dying man held forth grace for Achilles, the living, who hadn’t the courage to be forthright and tell him, “Yes, say your prayers or meditate, or think of your mom, or conjure the memory you want to take home with you, because you sure don’t want it to be Sergeant Achilles Holden Conroy fly-eyed and crying and sweating on you, about to shit his own pants, you sure don’t want it to be the crumbled remains of the bombed nursery we crossed yesterday, each brick a tiny headstone, you sure don’t want it to be the sound of men crying and running scattershot in the dark, screaming for their mommas — and not like babies, but like only men can scream — and you sure don’t want it to be the decapitated Muslims killed by other Muslims and left on the side of the road, because the townspeople who move to bury the dead are judged coconspirators and dispatched to join them, because to attend to them is to sympathize, to confer dignity is to abet, because compassion is outlawed, and you don’t want it to be Lionel Dinkins, who took the brunt of the blast — acrid, pungent, something you should never smell — and you don’t want it to be the way the sand under your back is hot, so hot it’s like it’s baking you through the flak jacket, or the corn that suddenly aches like a scorpion stung your toe because of how your boots pinch at the end of the day because your feet have swollen to what seems like twice their normal size, and it can’t be the swishing of your pants as your legs twitch because that’s too much like running, which you’ll never do again, and you don’t want it to be the sound of your feet flopping in the sand, it’s too much like the sound of sifting, and you’ll wonder what’s being left behind, and you don’t want it to be the sound of your own tears, with your heart beating too loudly in your ears and your sobs echoing in your chest, because you never rest well when you cry yourself to sleep.”
But he didn’t say any of that. He stared blindly and swallowed often, even though his mouth was so dry each contraction was like forcing a sharp chunk of burning granite down his throat. But he had to say something, so he said to Lamont, “Remember how you told me that your mom used to put jelly between your pancakes and still let you put syrup on top?” And he held Lamont Jackson’s hand, and the tighter Jackson squeezed, the tighter Achilles squeezed. And he said, “You know how you told me that your lady’s dog used to get upset when you spent the night, and would piss in the hallway, and you won’t be mad about it when you go home?” Jackson grinned widely. “Jealous devil. My Jody’s a dog.” The grin faded and he said, “Don’t leave me.” He tried to speak again, but no more came out, and an Afghan kid in the background was laughing and Jackson squeezed Achilles’s hand tighter and Achilles squeezed back and felt the sun biting his neck, the sand in his mouth, in his socks, his ears, it was like there was sand every-fucking-where, even in his goggles, there was even sand in his ass, and it was so fucking hot he was gonna shit glass, and the kneepad straps pinching his knees, and helmet strap slicing his Adam’s apple, and his belt cutting his waist, and his pistol butt digging into his ribs, and it felt like everything that was supposed to be protecting him was choking him to death, and he said to Jackson, “Know how you say, ‘When we get back to the barracks and drop this shit off, it feels like we can fly’?” And Lamont nodded and went still, but his grip grew so tight Achilles was a long time freeing himself.
And after the perimeter was secure, when they reassembled in the silence of the aftershock — Wages calmly directing with his hands; the laughing Afghan kid defiant to the end, smiling even as he dropped to the ground clutching his neck, knees to the dirt in a soft puff of dust; Merriweather with blood on his fingers and a glazed look in his eyes, putting the blade away wet, as casually as zipping up; Wexler leaning against the burned-out hulk, sobbing, spitting on Merriweather — Achilles looked at Troy, who had switched seats with Jackson, and was just so glad that they were alive, and the sun was dead behind Troy’s head like a halo, so Achilles couldn’t see his face, and he was so happy Jackson had switched seats with Troy, and that whole fucking thing drove him fucking crazy, the whole thing, the idea that somehow by Troy being there it was impossible for Achilles to really give a fuck about anybody else in the squad, because it was like there was a tax and someone always had to pay it, and as long as it wasn’t Achilles or Troy it was okay, and he knew he shouldn’t feel that way, he knew he should want them all to make it out, but he knew they couldn’t, he knew, somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain, because he’d never believed in ESP or clairvoyance, but he knew that of the eight that started, only four would survive, and no matter what happened at each formation of prayer group, he could never muster the words Let’s do it or We got this or We put the fun in funeral. He could only say, “That’s right.” And that was the look he must have worn as a mask while Jackson died, a tense smile that said, It’s as bad as it looks, and it probably feels even worse, but at least it’s you and not us. And in the soup kitchens it was the same, and he realized that as a kid it had been the same, that if he’d asked his teachers or his friends or his neighbors, “Am I going to make it?” They would have said, “You’ll be fine as long as you never, ever, ever leave home, because here we all know you and treat you like one of us.” Maybe that was the look the neighbors had had at his eighth birthday party. Had they already known about Troy that day? That thought burned him like no other. He could never show his face in Maryland again. Pity was fatal.
And it was pity Jackson had shown. Oh how Achilles burned as they trundled off with Jackson strapped to the roof, baking like a fucking potato, someone screaming for Wexler to shut his whiny vaginy, Merriweather murmuring “We don’t get down, we get even,” and Troy chastising Achilles for breaking protocol to stay with Jackson instead of pushing into a defensive position, whispering, “Asshole! You could have been shot. For fuck’s sake, Keelies, don’t start trying to be a hero.”