“Nothing important,” she said quietly, her eyes refusing to meet with mine.
“Sure.” I flavored the word with enough sarcasm to drown a horse. “That’s why he kept coming back for more. That’s why you’re shacked up with him now.”
I could tell by the way her eyes widened that she knew exactly what I meant. I nodded, knowing that my deductive skills were still in full effect – just like they always were. My chest tightened, and the nasty taste in the back of my mouth worsened. My temples throbbed, and for a moment I couldn’t see anything around me.
“Evan, please…” Her voice trailed off.
My feet stumbled slightly; I regained my balance, and faced her fully.
“Please what?” I yelled. My arm rose up, and the Beretta in my hand found its barrel pointed in her direction again. “What exactly do you want? More information?”
“No! I don’t want anything, please – just let me go!”
“Let me go! Please, just let me go!”
“Not until you tell us what we want to know!”
“There weren’t any more units! Ours was the only one!”
“We found two others near you, so I know you lie.”
A blow to my head rattles in my skull.
“I wasn’t privy to…to any…information…”
“You’re an officer!”
I grunt as a sack full of hard, lumpy objects makes contact with my stomach again. It moves around to my kidneys with another blow, and then the lower half of my chest, knocking the wind from me and causing me to vomit onto the sand…
“Let you go,” I said, my voice dropping to a near whisper. “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.”
The noise in the small room was deafening.
I dropped to my knees, and the cold cement floor sent a shockwave through my body as she slumped to the floor against the wall. I looked to her face and the neat hole in the center of her forehead, willing the impossible.
“Fuck…no…”
My mouth and throat felt as though they were filled with sand, and I coughed to try to rid myself of it. I could feel it – taste it – but when I touched my fingers to my tongue, there was nothing there. I couldn’t swallow, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe, either.
“What the fuck did you do?”
I coughed again, and the coughing turned into choking. Choking sobs that were completely uncontrollable filled the air as my Beretta dropped to the floor with a clang. I scrambled for it quickly, cradling it against my body.
“Why did you do it?” I screamed at the slumped figure in front of me. “Why did you listen to him? Why?”
There was no answer.
There would never be an answer.
Like so many other questions, I’d never know the real answer.
My fingers reached out and touched hers, as if somehow that would make any difference. It didn’t, and though they were still warm, I knew they would be cold soon enough.
“I told you it was going to end this way,” I whispered. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
Too many whys.
I dropped back on my ass, wrapped my arms around my knees, and began to rock back and forth. I didn’t understand what was happening inside me, and I didn’t like it. My thoughts couldn’t seem to stay in one place, and instead, they bounced around from one memory to another.
The first time I saw her on the street corner.
The feel of her fingers across my chest in the shower.
The scent of her skin.
Holding her against me as we slept.
Would I ever sleep again?
There was just no way I was going to survive this.
Chapter 12 – Lost Sanity
My feet felt oddly disconnected as I plodded up the stairs of the CTA 146 bus heading north. It was pretty much completely full, and I had to stand there holding the bar for a couple of stops before there was a seat available. At the next stop, a bunch more people got on again, and I could barely see anything except asses. A little girl nearly fell in front of me as she tripped over people’s feet, and her father leaned down to pick her up and hold her to his chest. After a couple more stops, they also found seats right at the back.
She was an African-American girl of about four years old, and her head was covered with a hat that looked like it had been cut from one of those fuzzy bathroom rugs in bright pink. There were two long pieces of fuzzy fabric that I figured were supposed to form a scarf, but instead of wrapping around her neck, they just hung down on her shoulders. At the end of them were felt pieces made to look like an animal’s face. It was obviously warm and looked both ridiculous and adorably cute all at the same time.
What the fuck did I do?
More people crowded on, and the driver yelled at everyone to step toward the back of the bus to make more room. A couple in Muslim garb slipped past some of the other people standing in the middle of the aisle and moved near the back door to my right. She wore a black dress, and her head was covered in bright blue fabric. He was in a button-down white shirt with a high collar, and his beard was dark and full.
I wasn’t so far gone as to believe that the pair were Al Qaida sympathizers or insurgents just because of the way they were dressed or what holy book they happened to read on which day and in which building. Usually my reaction was no more than a slight flinch if they got too close, and then I would be silently berating myself for a couple minutes about being stupid.
This time was a little different.
I reached up and rubbed my hand over my face to rid myself of the sweat forming on my forehead. My eyes looked back towards the other end of the bus, but the hairs on the back of my neck continued to stand up and tickle at the inside of my head. My bladder felt the need to empty itself, and when I closed my eyes it all came back.
Middle of the afternoon, just east of base but right along the border. Insurgents had been taking potshots at the base, and we’d already had one suicide bomber blown to bits near the motor pool.
Send in the snipers.
We’re tasked with taking out the guys hiding in the hills, but the day’s been a wash. No people, no shooting.
“Where are you going, LT?”
“Thirty seconds, Private,” I respond. “Nature calls.”
He laughs nervously, and I move around the end of the pale beige building. I flip my rifle over to my back and release my dick from my fatigues. Something doesn’t feel right, but I shake off the feeling, and I sigh as a steady stream wets the sand in front of me.
Shots.
Screams.
The perimeter alarm begins to blare.
Trying to get my rifle back around my shoulder while simultaneously getting my dick into my pants. I stumble backwards, right myself, and then aim my weapon as I move around the building.
Bodies everywhere.
Ortega, Matthews, Davis, Ryans – all on the ground, none moving.
Pain in the back of my head, and the sand rushes up to connect with my face.
My eyes flew open, and I had to blink several times to get myself back into the present. The bus was even more crowded than before, and the Muslim couple had moved closer to me. My chest tightened as I tried to take a calming breath and failed.
“She’s dead.”
The guy across from me looked up and narrowed his eyes a little, but I ignored him.
The bus stopped again, and though I hoped the couple might get off at this stop, they didn’t. Instead, a guy in a camouflage-colored coat stepped on, and I felt myself tense. It wasn’t desert camo, at least, but for some reason it still set my heart beating faster. I looked away quickly and crossed my arms in front of myself. As I closed my eyes and gripped my biceps with my fingers, I could feel Bridgett’s phantom fingers run down the side of my face, cooling my heated skin when I was sick.
“Stop it.”
But it didn’t stop.
The rumbling of the seat below me felt like the aftershocks of bombs going off around me. The sound of the
bus against the street as it took off again was transformed to tank movements on grimy sand. The bus lurched to a stop, and I felt myself bump into the woman next to me on the bench seat. Again, my muscles tensed, and the butt end of my weapon dug into my back. I considered pulling it out of my waistband.
Of course, everyone would have been able to see it then – not such a great move.
Was it?
I closed my eyes again, and various visions of high school shootings and gunmen from rooftops invaded my head. Despite the carnage of the scenes played for everyone’s viewing in the media, my mind found peace with the idea. There was always the same ending to the instigator of that kind of violence.
End being the focus.
“Tired.”
Tired of playing this role, tired of just moving through the city like I was some kind of god or demon here to bring Rinaldo Moretti’s version of justice to those who crossed my path. None of it even mattered to me – all I got out of it was a wad of cash and a twisted idea of loyalty to someone who told me I did a good job and occasionally called me “son.”
When I opened my eyes, the Muslim woman was looking at me. My already tense body coiled, and my hand slipped down to the end of the seat – closer to my weapon. I had seven rounds loaded and two more clips on me. My mind counted how many people I could take out with what I had. I could easily build a barrier of bodies around myself.
How would that look to the woman who was eyeing me? Would she try to come at me? Would she throw herself in front of her husband or he in front of her?
It wouldn’t make any difference. They would both die. So would the guy wearing that stupid camo coat and the plethora of oblivious teens with their earbuds shoved into their ears and their electronic devices shoved in their faces. They had no idea what was going on around them, and it was about time for someone to wake them all up.
I couldn’t save those in my unit – couldn’t protect them. There was nothing I could do now – no one to save, no one to protect. The deaths would be meaningless and senseless – every last one of them.
All deaths were.
My fingers reached behind my back and touched the warm handle of my Beretta. It felt good. I maneuvered the weapon around to my front, though still underneath my jacket.
My mind continued to swim around me, but there wasn’t any war going on inside. Even when I tried to come up with shit I might regret not knowing or not doing, I couldn’t come up with much. I wished I had a pizza for lunch instead of the damn hotdog I’d grabbed from a cart. I wished I’d seen that new GI Joe movie that was supposed to come out soon – the previews looked good, and I had always liked GI Joe.
My head moved up slowly, and I opened my eyes.
There really wasn’t any reason to delay.
“It’s decided.”
This was how it was going to end.
I looked around from right to left, starting with the Muslim couple. My eyes traversed the teens, the camo-coated guy, a woman with a Macy’s shopping bag, and the guy holding his little girl.
The little girl’s eyes left her father and focused on me. Our gazes locked on each other, and the fuzz of the pink hat blew around in the wind from the bus doors as they opened and closed at the next stop. My heart beat louder in my chest, and I could feel the blood flowing rapidly through my veins. I didn’t know how long she and I just looked at each other. I only knew that she would be collateral damage in my half-assed plan.
The doors of the bus opened, and the fuzzy hat blew around in the cool breeze again. I shoved off the seat, pushed my gun into the front waistband of my pants, and got the fuck off the bus.
I was far past my own stop – up north on Michigan Avenue near the John Hancock Observatory. I crossed the street but didn’t bother to get on another bus – it seemed risky. My feet carried me past the Water Works and the Columbia sportswear store. I went by Tiffany’s and Co and tried not to think of my date with Bridgett.
The smell of tomato sauce and cheese dragged me into a nearby pizzeria, where I ordered a cheese stuffed pizza with extra sauce, ate half of it, and then leaned back and wondered if my stomach was going to explode.
I walked back home and dropped down to the floor as Odin came up to me and whined. He sniffed at my hands, and I swear he knew what I had done.
“I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t even know why I did it.”
My throat tightened, choking off my words.
“I could have taken a piss on the other side of the building where I might have seen them coming up. If I had, I could have taken them out from there – lots of cover.”
Dizziness tried to knock me further to the ground, but I fought my way back to my feet. Maybe I was dehydrated – my throat was certainly dry. After guzzling a bottle of water, I decided to take Odin outside. He wagged his tail at me, and I felt like a total schmuck for not even thinking about what would happen to him if I was gone. I rubbed his shaggy head and attached the leash to his collar.
The weather was about the perfect temperature for his coat, and he seemed pretty thrilled when I didn’t steer us towards the park but headed out down Wacker and towards Navy Pier. It was a good distance, but Odin loved to walk out by the lake.
He moved towards a group of seagulls, and I ran with him so he could chase them. My feet pounded the ground, and my head filled with memories.
Heavy artillery fire and an explosion. I can barely lift my head at this point, but I want to know what’s going on outside. Something big. Something noisy.
I can only hope whatever it is will finally end me.
There is shouting, the sound of feet running, and the added sound of a helicopter way too close to the ground.
More explosions, more shouting – this time in English, but I assume that is nothing more than a dream – another hallucination.
I can’t even pretend I still have hope.
Tired from the run, we walked back to the apartment. I fed Odin and sat down at my computer to check email.
Maybe if I just kept myself occupied with the mundane, I could manage to pull out of this.
“You killed her. She fucking trusted you – depended on you.”
“Shut up.”
Email never changed.
Some attorney in the UK was sure I was the long lost relative of some Irish land baron and would like to send me a lot of money.
The Art Institute had free admission to Chicago residents to the Picasso exhibit on Monday.
The place where I just had dinner wants me to save ten bucks on my next visit.
Nothing interesting, so I closed it and sat on the couch for a while, flipping through channels. It didn’t work, of course. I even tried some pay-per-view-porn, but it did nothing for me. My head was pounding too much.
“Better off with a hooker; they’re just not better off with you.”
“Shut up.”
I had to do something to clear my head, so I grabbed Odin’s leash and led him back outside and over to the dog run.
The sun was beginning to fade behind the buildings, but there was still plenty of daylight and lots of people around. The kids on the playground were loud, but all seemed to be having fun. The damn parking garage door sang out to all around that a car was about to exit, and I tensed at the blaring noise. Shaking my head to clear it, I sat numbly on the bench and let Odin do his thing.
My head was still throbbing, and I rubbed my fingers over my temples. When I brought them back down again, I saw a spatter of blood on my thumb.
“Is it hers? His?”
I rubbed at it and then laughed at myself.
“Out, out, damn spot!”
“Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!”
My arms tightened around my body, and I doubled over a bit. I hadn’t realized it before, but the sound was just a little too close to the perimeter alarm that blared in the middle of the night, signifying that someone had breached the exterior of our base. It was usually a false alarm, but it still woke everyone up.
“Too t
ired. Need sleep.”
Odin ran up and slobbered on my leg.
“Disgusting,” I told him, but I rubbed his head anyway. With our connection reaffirmed, he ran over to a yippie terrier and chased it around a tree with funky orange bark.
The damn garage door behind me went up again, accompanied by the detestable and continuous warning sounds. My back and shoulders tensed, and my heart rate increased.
My mind continued to flash back and forth – the Iraqi desert, Bridgett’s body on the floor of my boss’s office building, Lia’s moans as I slid inside of her, and the taste of sand.
It was too much…just too much.
“Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!”
“Motherfucker!” I growled low as the sound from behind me made my teeth clench. My right index finger gripped back against my palm, letting me know what my body wanted.
The woman who apparently owned the yippie terrier glanced over at me dubiously. My eyes met hers, and I held her gaze until she looked away. She quickly moved herself and her dog to the other side of the small park.
“Like that’s gonna help you.”
Thirty seconds after it stopped, the blaring, beeping sound began again.
I capitulated to the growing need inside of me.
Whistling for Odin, I snapped his leash back on his collar and marched across the park to my apartment building. Odin whined at me and actually pulled back a bit at his leash, which he never did. I glanced back at him, and he nearly cowered.
I didn’t have time for that, though. I had other things to do, so I hauled him to the building against his will.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered as the elevator took forever to get to my floor. I pressed the button several dozen times, but it didn’t seem to help. As soon as the doors opened, I hauled Odin down the hallway and into my apartment. I released his leash, filled his water dish, and then turned to something far more desirable.
In my bedroom closet, way in the back, were my desert fatigues. I hadn’t worn them since my forced retirement, but they still fit pretty well. I pulled the dog tags that sat at the bottom of the ceramic dish on my dresser over my head, and then I turned back to the closet.