Walt eyes me. He looks like a quintessential grandpa. White comb-over, round face, pleated slacks. “Hayden, huh? Like the cattle ranch?”
I’m tempted to lie, but I don’t. “Yes.” I don’t offer more than that, because it’s a stretch for me to be here at all and I don’t want my family’s reputation to affect what I’ve come here to accomplish.
Bill starts the meeting by telling me what years he served, and what countries he was in. This goes on around the table, each man introducing themselves in this way. When it gets to me, I tell them about my three tours in the Middle East, the battles I fought in, and the job I had.
Walt whistles when I tell them I was on EOD. “Thank you for your service, son.”
I nod. “Same to you. Same to all of you.”
“My guess is that you’re here for a reason, Wes,” Bill says. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I lean forward in my chair, place my steepled hands under my chin. I’m not sure where to look, so I keep my eyes down on the plastic table. “I joined because I was angry. After the attacks on September 11th, I felt this sense of rage like I’d never felt before. My beloved country had been hurt. I wanted to go over there and kick ass.” I look up into the patient and understanding eyes of men who felt what I felt. “Four years turned into eight, and then twelve. The sense of duty, of loyalty to my fellow soldiers, was powerful. I couldn’t leave them behind for a normal life. Near the end of my last tour, shit went south. We went into a town where we knew insurgents would be. We’d already told the people of the town to evacuate. And they did. Except for the unlucky ones who were used as martyrs.” Tears sting my eyes and I bite my bottom lip to keep them at bay. “We rolled into town in our armored Humvees, and right in the middle of the goddamn street there was a woman and a child with a bomb strapped to them.” I’m in the stale air of the VFW, but all I smell is dust and anguish. It’s cool in this room, but I’m hot under my uniform and Kevlar. My voice is the only sound, but my ears fill with the cacophony of exploding mortars, yelling, and radio commands.
“I knelt in front of them and worked on deactivating it. My men surrounded me, protecting me, while they took fire. One was shot. I remember the sound of him hitting the ground. We had to fall back, but I didn’t want to. My lieutenant had to pull me away.” I feel it, the tight grip around my chest, the feeling of being dragged. “We were around the corner when I heard the bomb go off. A part of me died that day alongside that woman and child. I didn’t know them at all, but that didn’t matter. Something connected us, and I couldn’t understand what had reached out and touched me so deeply. I’d seen terrible tragedies over and over, and you get to a point where you’ve seen so much that your threshold for tolerating suffering is higher. But that day I felt her terror.” I palm my chest, where I keep it locked away. “My threshold vanished. She and the little boy, they were just human beings with a basic instinct to survive. I wanted them to survive, and I couldn’t make that happen. I feel guilty, but also I’m disgusted. Let down.” Around the table, each man listens closely. More than a few have tears in their eyes. “I got out after that, and I haven’t been able to adjust. I don’t find joy in very many things. Life’s shine has worn off. I see their faces, and I think, what was the point of it all?” Moisture hits my hand, and I realize it’s my own tears, sliding off my cheeks.
The men are quiet, and then Walt speaks. “I don’t know the point of most of life. My wife was the nicest, sweetest person who ever put two feet on this earth, and she passed away from cancer. Why?” He shrugs. “God only knows. But Wes, I was a lot like you for a long time. Angry and resentful, confused and embittered. Not only was it hard for me to find happiness, but I made sure I pushed it away if I did find it. It was a terrible way to live, and I regret it. I was in Vietnam, and I saw some things a person should never see. Here’s what I figured out. My real problem was not what happened, but how I felt about what happened.”
Walt’s words sink in, finding a home in the jumble of emotions. Each man has something to say, but Walt’s words are the ones that have grown claws and dug in.
When the meeting is over, Bill brings out coffee and store-bought cookies.
The coffee isn’t good, but for some reason that makes me like it. No attempt has been made to impress, and I like that. Taking a sip, I ask, “So, you guys meet every week, even though you all know one another’s stories?”
Creighton takes a bite of his cookie. “It’s nice to be around each other. I can’t speak for everyone, but sometimes I feel a restlessness and I need to break away from my family. Finding this group saved my marriage.”
Malcom claps his hand on Creighton’s back, which makes him cough because he’s chewing, and everyone laughs.
When I leave, I shake hands with everyone and tell them I’ll be back. And I will. Come hell or high-water, I’ll be here. This may just be what saves me.
And I have one person to thank for putting the idea in my head.
Dakota created a little bit of space in my chest, and it was a breath of oxygen for a drowning man. That lungful of air was enough to make me want more, but I can’t get it unless I make more space on my own.
I pull out of the parking lot of the VFW feeling like I just hit the jackpot.
30
Dakota
“You knowyou don’t have to be here all day long?” Scott leans against one of the poles of the tent I set up earlier today. After being here day after day without a place to sit other than my car, or shade over my head (also from my car), I bought the kind of tent well-suited for the sidelines at a kid’s soccer game. The gray tent is five by five, and the shade shifts with the movement of the sun (which is technically the Earth’s movement because the sun doesn’t move butdetails). Today is my first day using it and I’ve moved my chair and table every hour to capitalize on the shade. And it appears, by the barely concealed irritation and taut jaw muscles, that Scott would prefer I pack up my new tent and leave.
Too damn bad.
My dad trusted me with this job and I don’t plan to make him regret it. Besides, what should I do, stay in my hotel room and work from afar? No. My place is here, with my shoes (boots, for toe protection) digging into the dirt. My laptop works as well in this remote office as it does in my cramped hotel room. Not that my hotel room is all that cramped; Sheila got a bigger room for me since I’m booked for so long. But the same five hundred and eight square feet, all day long, eventually becomes claustrophobic. This wide open space makes me happier.
“I’m good.” I smile sweetly at Scott over the top of my laptop. “Being out here helps me focus on work.”
Scott sighs like I’m the world’s biggest inconvenience. Did I misread him calling me boss? Was it just to placate me? Let me think I’m in charge? I’m just about to tell him who’s signing his checks (technically, Wright Design + Build signs them, but guess whose last name is Wright?), when Scott says, “You make some of my guys nervous. They feel like you’re watching them to see if they’re making a mistake.”
Placing my flattened palms on the table, I push up so I’m half-standing, and lean over my computer. Scott reads my body language and leans forward to hear me.
I smile serenely. “Tell the crew that I won’t see them make a mistake unless they make a mistake. This is my project and this cozy little space you see here?” I gesture with one hand at my makeshift desk that is decidedly not cozy. “This is where I’ll be unless I’m needed elsewhere.”
Scott nods curtly, getting my drift. He doesn’t look angry or upset, just resolute. “Yes, Boss.” He throws in a salute and walks out from under the shade of the canopy.
“Hey, Scott?” I call after him. He turns. “You or anyone on your crew is welcome to steal some shade anytime they need it.”
“I’ll pass that along,” he says, turning back around and striding away.
