Gunny thinks very highly of him too.
Jeremy wears his Triple-T Truck Stop ball cap. He has taken his sunglasses off, the better to acquire his targets through the scope. The sunglasses had belonged to Grandmother America. They didn’t look like an old lady’s sunglasses, they were pretty cool. In the Accord’s locked glovebox he’d found a hundred and sixty dollars in a bank withdrawal envelope. Why did they call it a ‘glovebox’? Just wondering; it had been on his mind during the long drive from Tucson to San Diego. Gunny had occupied the backseat on part of that drive, but he had no opinion.
Now, Jeremy sees that they’ve gotten out of the van into that building. He feels a pressure here, because even though this place is a perfect shooting gallery—except for that van being in the way—somebody may come along at any minute and that would not be pretty. So he does feel a pressure. He felt that same pressure when he saw the van and the trailer go off the highway and he figured he’d better drive on a distance since the van was just sitting there, he didn’t want to spook them, but then the next chance to turn around had been fifteen fucking miles west because a trooper got behind him and to cross the sandy median would have made him visible.
So here they are. He has just shifted his position a dozen yards, and it paid off because the different angle gave him a clear shot at the guy with the skinned head. He thinks that was a good shot, right through a lung. He’s waiting for the man with the .38 pistol to get out. Okay… okay…here he comes, out the window the others shimmied through. And now he’s leaning over trying to help the guy on the ground. The pistol in his right hand. Little piece of shit.
Jeremy sights and fires, just to let that man know what he thinks of the pistol, and he sees the man’s right elbow explode and the pistol drop from the shot-stunned fingers.
Bite that, motherfucker, Jeremy thinks.
Oh, here comes the long-hair. The lead singer. Running out of the building. Jeremy wants to know if that dude, that fucking Nomad, thinks he’s walking on a street under a burning sun. If he thinks that his blood is red, white, and blue.
“Hope they bury you where the grass is green,” Jeremy says to the image in his scope. His finger is on the trigger.
Nomad has emerged from the building to help the man with the shattered elbow, whose arm is out of the action, Jackson. Now they both try to help the skinhead. Terry, that’s his name. Spitzenfucken or something. Terry is up on his knees. They are trying to get him on his feet. Now, look at this: here comes the hippie chick to help, and the drummer girl stands at the edge of sun and shadow for a few seconds and then she comes out too, and Jeremy can hear their voices drifting toward him, telling each other to hurry.
He has a shot right on Nomad’s head. Right between the eyes.
Gunny tells him to hit the hippie first. Gunny has gotten very troubled about that girl, though he won’t say exactly why. He says hit her now, stupid!
Jeremy has a shot, but he hesitates.
Say what you will, those people are not Blue Falcons.
They’ve almost gotten Terry standing.
Jeremy shifts his aim and sends another bullet into Terry’s back, and as Terry falls on his belly again and the others are frozen in shock Jeremy resights on the hippie chick’s head but the drummer girl has her by the arm and is dragging her toward the building, and—shit, that bitch must be strong, because she’s picking the hippie up and running with her the last few feet.
Then Nomad gets his head under the man’s broken arm and drags his ass into the building too, and Jeremy fires twice more into the shadows that have covered them.
It is time to reload.
Gunny asks what he thinks he’s doing. Gunny sometimes doesn’t seem to understand who is in charge here. Gunny doesn’t appreciate patience or understand that you can respect the bad guys, no matter how bad they are. Jeremy knows he would have been an outstanding gunnery sergeant, if they’d given him the chance. He would have been an example for the men. Of how you fight back from adversity. How you never say die.
Only they didn’t want him, did they?
No, Gunny is quick to remind him. They did not. He tells Jeremy to get his mind back on his business, and that he is going to have to go down there and finish the job with the .45 that is tucked in his jeans. And he is going to have to go down like right now, because this is what you call a Mexican standoff, except for the fact that Jeremy has two guns and the man who had one gun now has a broken arm and is bleeding torrents, so move before somebody comes along that road.
Jeremy wants to know what’s so special about that hippie chick. She’s a fucking girl, and maybe she’s a liar and dark-spirited, but why is she so special?
Gunny tells him that it’s over his head, that he’s on a mission he needs to finish before he can start his new life in Mexico. That he just needs to go down there and kill her, and then he can leave the rest of them to rot, as far as he cares.
But why? Jeremy wants to know. What’s the big deal about her?
Gunny seems a little agitated. A little pissed, really. He looks like he wants to spit blood and fire.
It’s about the war, he says.
Yeah, Jeremy knows that already. It’s about that lying video. About the lies that say we went over there and killed children. Just shot them right out of their shoes. Shot them knowing it was murder. And then came back over here and didn’t tell a single solitary soul, because we were good guys, loyal and patriotic, and that’s not something you can talk about, not even to your buddy who does nothing but offer you an empty smile from his wheelchair at the Veteran’s Hospital in Temple.
Nice day for a white wedding.
Yes it is, he thinks.
Jeremy stands up like a soldier. He begins walking through the rocks toward the road, and the building beyond. He is hot and thirsty and ready to finish his mission. With two more strides he goes crash into the first moment of the rest of his life and he walked to the white car. He held the rifle at the ready, and his other hand went under his shirt to touch the automatic pistol. He could feel Gunny, walking at his side. He passed the skinhead, lying on his belly alongside the crumpled van. Where was the pistol? It had fallen somewhere around here.
One of the others must’ve picked it up. He drew his .45 and, holding it ready before him, he eased toward the building, step after step. Gunny was beside him, and Gunny began to chatter about killing the girl like an excited kid on his way to a carnival.
< >
Terry heard music. It was himself, playing ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ on the Vox Continental. He was hurting. He was fading in and out, like a broken speaker. His wires were severely damaged. But oh, that music he could hear. He knew he was dying, but if he could hear music to the very last…then what was death, but an all-access pass to a bigger stage?
But this thing underneath him, whatever it was, hurt like fucking hell.
It was underneath his left side, pressing into his ribs.
He slowly shifted his body. His breathing gurgled like the pipes in a motel he remembered. He felt under himself to move that hard pain so he could listen to the music in peace, and his hand fell upon something metal. His fingers made out what it was: True’s pistol.
He was aware of someone moving past him. Walking toward the building where his friends had gone. It was a man wearing a ball cap. It took Terry a few seconds to focus because his Lennon specs were gone and everything was blurry and turning red, but he could make out that the man was carrying a rifle and a handgun.