The dead wanted nothing more than to be left alone, or at least that’s what they used to say. He and Marcus regarded the small form cloaked in white, barely bigger than Troy had been when he came to live with them, maybe as tall as Sammy the Stargazer. Achilles studied Marcus, just a kid himself. Downy sideburns stopped at the meat of the jaw, bald chin, faint mustache; he wasn’t even shaving yet. “An unmarked grave?”
“We still say Potter’s Field, but the indigent and unclaimed are cremated these days. We hold the ashes and bury them all together once a year,” said Marcus. He shivered and suggested they leave the walk-in. Out in the hallway, Marcus briskly rubbed his arms. “It’s cold in there. It’s cold in there,” he repeated, his voice hollow, his dark skin ashen. He appeared on the verge of tears. “He’s dead, you know, but still, it seems like someone should get him.” Marcus laughed. “I hoped you were here for him. Not that I wanted your brother to be here. I just wanted someone to come for him. Your brother’s lucky. I work here, and I couldn’t do it.”
“How long have you worked here?” asked Achilles.
“About three months. It pays better than dishwashing and I get a lot of time to study. I’m used to it. You know what I mean.”
“I know,” said Achilles, knowing Marcus didn’t mean a word he said.
Looking embarrassed, Marcus stepped closer to Achilles and, dropping his voice, said, “I know this is unusual, but I could copy the picture.”
“O.K.,” Achilles nodded.
Marcus copied the photo, and Achilles wrote his cell number on the bottom of the copy. Marcus pointed to the area code. “Shame if it hits y’all.”
“What?” asked Achilles.
“That hurricane. Haven’t you heard? It’s headed straight for y’all.”
Achilles had thought Ines was overreacting. It was nothing, according to Wages. Happens all the time. It’s hurricane season. It was probably nothing to worry about. Feeling a mere thank-you insufficient, he shook Marcus’s hand, closing it in both of his.
“Hopefully, I never see you again.” Marcus grinned awkwardly.
Achilles mustered a smile and another thanks.
His tone measured, Marcus asked, “Does your brother have the crush? I ask because if he does and he’s around the Bricks, you need to watch Pepper and his crew. Everything leads back there. But it’s crazy. If you go in, keep your tens on the inside.” Marcus balled his hands into fists for emphasis.
Achilles wanted to tell Marcus to quit while he could, before it changed him, to let the dead bury the dead — only they had the strength for it — and that he needn’t blame his tears on the cold, that it wasn’t too late for him, but Achilles just nodded and thanked him again and slipped out, exhausted.
Was it the antiseptic atmosphere of the hospital, all white walls and gleaming metal? Was it that the morgue was in the basement, tucked away like a secret, so far underground that the exposed pipes dripped condensation, the air so cool and dense he could feel the weight of the earth overhead? Was it the sense of inevitability that accompanied death in a war zone? How could he have squatted to eat a pork chop out of a pouch, smoke a cigarette, and swig an entire canteen of water in the same room as three dead insurgents while rocket impacts sprinkled them all in mortar, then, after the thunder came, after the Apaches shat a steaming pile of missiles in the faces of the hajis and their artillery, walk out of that same building, water sloshing in his belly, gnawing at a chocolate bar and laughing — until he cried — at Merriweather’s knock-knock jokes about the real money shots, yet the little boy Marcus said was destined for Potter’s Field remained seared in his mind, as did the body he had viewed at the first morgue? He remembered thinking that D-794, the burn victim in New Orleans, must have done it to himself, but now he couldn’t forget him. The one clean patch of skin on the chest, the fingertips worn to the bone.
In New Orleans, the gurney had been wheeled in by a kid in a lab coat and headphones. He’d been wearing orange skateboarding sneakers with thick soles and had put a lot of effort into looking bored, not unlike Marcus. Was that how Achilles had appeared to the locals? Had they thought of him as a kid in funny clothes but with a gun? What had they thought about him when he was overseeing the cleanups after bombings, safe behind his Oakleys while wives and mothers examined limp fingers for wedding bands and looked for matching shoes they hoped not to find? His own hands shook at the thought, his mind racing wildly as he tried to imagine how others had seen him, something he hadn’t dared consider while active. Too weak to walk, he sat on a parking barricade. The concrete felt good. It was cold, cooling first his butt, then his thighs. He unclenched his fists and placed his hands on the barricade as well, taking a few deep breaths.
Every Achilles, all of them, missed his friends. Achilles the Stubborn. Achilles the Suited. Achilles the Cynical. Achilles the Goofy. Ines had nicknames for his every mood, more than he could remember; hence, he was also Achilles the Absentminded. Achilles thought of himself as versions one, two, and three: the dutiful son, the reliable brother, and the soldier, all of which were reconcilable. But the new Achilles, the Ines Achilles, who was that? And what about the other Achilles, from the minefield, from the fight? Where did he fit? The only thing they all had in common was that every Achilles missed his friends, all of them, and being able to talk to them without saying anything.
What’s going on? Will the ball club win it? Do you think they have a chance? What’s the deal? What’s new, man? What you know good? What’s happening? He tried it with Wexler, tried explaining that he needed to talk, that the morgue had freaked him out, that corpses again gave him crazy legs. Where’s the nearest bar? Isn’t Atlanta the strip club capital? What about Magic City? Ptah. Women! Isn’t there a shooting range nearby? Let’s head to Columbus and hit the Benning Brew Pub. Is a game on? And, finally, “Fuck, man.”
Wexler said nothing.
They were in the living room, where Wexler, always moving, always busy like a small dog, was folding laundry as patiently as he worked at that crap house. He had to lay the clothes out on the ironing board because he couldn’t bend his chin to his chest.
In the yard next door, three kids dressed like superheroes played hide-and-seek, their high-pitched voices drawing Achilles to the window again and again. Two of them were about seven or eight years old, the third about five. The small backyard in which they played offered little cover: a rose bush, a pine tree, a stump, and a rusted-out Lincoln Continental Mark V riding cinderblocks. The five-year-old was most often It. While he counted, the tallest of the three, Spiderman, having figured out that the little one never looked up, would climb the tree, carefully keeping his face away from the sap and the sharp needles. The other older kid, Batman, would carefully tuck his cape into his belt and crawl under the car, leaving Achilles holding his breath. The youngest one, Wolverine, would count — one, two, three, four, four, four, seven, eight, nine, twenty — then wander the yard for barely ten seconds before he started crying, poking himself in the face with his plastic claws as he tried to wipe the tears away.
When they let him hide, Wolverine always stood at the edge of the rosebush and closed his eyes, as if that made him disappear. Achilles had often seen that, under fire, had always thought it a natural reaction to fear, never realizing that maybe the person just wanted to disappear. Troy had done it when Wexler ran into the minefield. Wexler had done it when Wages shot the sniper. Achilles had done it when Troy followed Wexler, swore to never look away again, but did it again when Merriweather was shot.