Hold Fast (2 page)

“Now, Brother Nathan!” My mother’s protest is too weak to be taken as a serious reprimand, but that’s hardly unexpected. She fawns over the small monster. Mom, would you have treated your own sons that way if you’d been able to give Father Emmanuel any? Or would you have hated them and ground them under your heel like you did with me? I know the answer, of course. Anything from that twisted man would be a gift from Heaven, in her eyes.

So long as it was a boy, of course.

Not for the first time, I find myself envying my little sisters-that-never-were. Those ‘useless girls’ never had to live like this.

I shrug off Nathan’s taunt, keeping my eyes on the road. I’m memorizing every detail of it. One day I will be running away down this road. One day, I’ll be a free woman. One day.

The thought makes me generous toward the little boy who will probably never know anything about life outside the compound.

“What do you say when you’re really hungry?” I ask him. He sees the world in black and white, so let’s see if I can introduce the concept of a third color: gray.

“That I could eat a horse,” he says. His expression shows that the question surprises him but he plays along anyway. “But what does it have to do with you lying?”

“Do you sincerely and honestly believe you could actually eat an entire horse? All by yourself?” I ignore his question and continue with my own.

While he ponders the question, I park in our assigned market space and turn off the ignition. Mom gets out to pull the first of our tables off the truck, leaving Nathan and me alone for a moment.

“Let me answer my question for you,” I say, taking one of his hands into both of mine. “You couldn’t
possibly
eat an entire horse. It’s not true, and everyone around you knows it’s not true. But saying that you
could
doesn’t make you a liar.”

He looks into my eyes struggling to understand what I’m saying.

“You’re not trying to deceive anyone, you see? You’re not lying, you’re just creating a picture, a mental image, to tell your mother that you’re really,
really
hungry. Does that make sense?”

Nathan nods, and I can see wheels turning in his head.

“Well, when I said ‘ten thousand times’ it was just an expression. I wasn’t trying to deceive my mother. I just wanted her to know that I have enough experience to know I need to be careful driving over the old bridge and she shouldn’t worry.”

I give him a few seconds to mull this over as I jump down from my seat.

“Using an exaggeration like that is okay, Nathan,” I say pulling on his hand to make him follow me. “When you do that, you’re not telling the
exact
truth but you’re using it to help someone else understand something that
is
true.”

Obediently he follows me, and in silence, helps me unload our baskets and bins of produce onto our table. My mother, picking up on his pensive frown – because, of course, she notices him, right? – waits until he’s out of earshot.

“Courtney,” she asks, with a fond smile in his direction, “did you break our chatter box?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head.

I didn’t break him. Quite the opposite, I hope. I may have done something to fix it. I gave the little boy some food for thought. With any luck, he’ll take the time to digest it fully.

* * *

A
nother patrol
.

The sun beats down fiercely on Sadr City, and my CamelBak is already empty.

Shit. I know I filled it. Where did my water go?

Whatever.

The streets are empty. They’re always empty on these patrols. Where the fuck are all the locals? There’s at least a solid fucking million people living in these few square miles of dusty concrete and mud brick. There’s not enough rocks for all of them to crawl under, and even if there were – there’s only six SEALs walking down the street. It’s not like they couldn’t squash us like bugs if they wanted to.

“Six of us? You just had to go and fucking count, didn’t you?” Saggy spits a brown stream of Copenhagen juice. It kicks up a tiny dust cloud and evaporates almost instantly. So does Saggy. One instant he’s there – SO3(SEAL) Jason Higgins, nicknamed Saggy within the Teams – and then
poof
. Before my eyes he fades to a sparkling mist, which winks out as if he had never existed.

One after another, so do Toad, Tinkerbell, Mullet, and Meat. Tinkerbell looks disgusted; Mullet shakes his head sadly.

“You know better than to count, brother,” he says. His words echo up and down the street after his misty outline is gone. I’m alone now.

“No, man,” I say. “You know why I have to count. You fucking
know
why, Mullet.” My voice is raw, harsh.

I miss them. The brotherhood—when you spend enough time in combat with someone, there’s a bond—but even more than that, I miss the firepower. Meat’s SAW is a force multiplier. The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon spits out a shitload more fire than my M4 could ever manage without melting the barrel.

Doesn’t matter. Gotta finish the patrol.

I’ve got the route memorized. I know this shit like the back of my hand. I’ve done this same fucking route at least a thousand times. I don’t even bother asking why we’re patrolling here anymore – SEALs aren’t for fucking street-level patrols, and everyone knows it.

We do body snatches, grabbing up insurgent leadership as quietly as we can. We kick doors. We do overwatch with sniper rifles, shooting suicide bombers before they can detonate. If they want to go to Paradise, let them do it by themselves rather than in the company of a crowd of strangers. We kill people and break shit.

These chickenshit patrols are what the Army sends its dogfaces to do. There’s Marines to pick up the slack as well. But still, every fucking night I do this route, and every night that hot midday sun pounds down on me.

The sun. It’s night. Something’s nagging at me about that. What? Shake it off, man. Shake it off. Head in the game.

End of the next block, turn north. There’s a dog barking somewhere. I don’t know where it is – I never know where it is. I hear it every time.

Alley. One hundred meters. Check in on the radio. There’s no beep to tell me the crypto is synced, and no voice comes back at me. Still, make the report to silent air.

Check the chamber on my M4 – charging handle comes back just enough to see a sliver of brass ahead of the bolt. The handle makes a metallic
click
when I push it back to the stops and the catch engages. Hit the forward assist a couple times, make sure the carbine is back in battery. I’m going to need all the firepower I’ve got when I go around this corner. Just like I do every night under the hot Iraqi sun.

I put the rifle to my shoulder and come around the corner. There should be a stack of guys behind me, each with their own sector to cover, but since I’m by myself now, I have to do it all. Lead with the muzzle, sweep from right to left, expose as little of myself as possible until I’ve cleared the area.

There’s nothing here, nobody. I didn’t expect there to be. There never is.

The black curtain in the window at the end of the alley shakes. There’s no breeze. God, I wish Meat was still here with the SAW.

The red dot of the Aimpoint is centered squarely on the window. Any moment now, it’s going to happen. The muzzle of the RPK is going to push the curtains aside, and this time I’m going to light that motherfucker up before he has a chance to open fire.

The coarse black curtain shakes, and there’s the gun. I’ve got the drop on him this time. His head has to be … there. Right there. Take up the tension on the trigger and …
click
. Nothing happens. The round has evaporated, just like my water. Just like my brothers. It’s the same thing every night under the killing sun in this alley. And just like every night, the enemy’s old Soviet-built machine gun barks.

Motherfuckers are learning from us. Used to be they’d just spray and pray, yelling out
Aloha Snackbar
while full-auto recoil pushed their muzzles too high. The safest place to be was right in front of them. If the first two bullets missed you, the rest would too. This guy though, he’s using short bursts, controlled. Aimed. I take the first two rounds in my chest plate, the third zips past my left ear.

My brothers disappeared because I’d counted them, and I hoped they’d stay gone. It didn’t work, though – they’re back now. Their corpses are broken, shattered things lying in the street under the hot sun. Just like every night on this patrol. What’s left of Meat’s face looks sad.

“You know that doesn’t fucking work, bro.” His tone is matter-of-fact, resigned. He sighs, and foamy blood burbles out through the holes in his neck. Meat turns his head to look at the others. “Take the SAW, man. You need it more than I do.” He looks around at the dusty ground of the alleyway where pieces of his skull and half his brain matter lay scattered. “Shit,” he says. “As often as we do this, you’d think I’d be used to it by now,” and closes his one remaining eye. He’s lying still now, and his hand is loose on the machine gun as I roll and drag it to myself.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t change history. I can only repeat it.

My chest plate was never meant to stop heavy rounds at close range, and it didn’t. I’ve got two big, bloody holes in my body in spite of the armor. The twin hammer blows put me on the ground while the unseen gunner dealt with my brothers, but now she – it
is
a woman, the body count guys will tell me this when I wake up in the trauma center at Landstuhl – is coming back to me. I’m still moving, she can’t leave me alive.

The SAW is still coming around when she fires. I’m on the ground, prone, and my left calf burns now from a new hole. She aimed high, thank fucking Christ. Only caught me with one round
.
The muzzle is dropping though; she’s coming back on target. My first burst goes low, all three rounds absorbed by the mud brick wall below the window. She fires again, this time stitching me from halfway up my back with the first round. Second one in my ass. The rest of them are high, hitting in the dirt behind me.

My second burst from the SAW hits home, and the RPK is silenced. There’s nothing moving now except for the settling clouds of dust and that goddamned curtain. It’s still moving with the nonexistent breeze. My ears ring from the gunfire. The smell of blood – and worse things – fills my nose. It’s cold here, in the bright nighttime sunlight.

There’s a
THUNK-sqeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaal,
and I’m thrown forward by deceleration against the lap belt.

Why is my alleyway decelerating?

I jolt awake, reaching for my weapon, but all I find is the armrest of the comfortable first class seat, and it all comes back to me. It’s not real. It never is, not any more. That sun and blood-drenched alleyway only happened one time in the real world. One day. It’s only in my dreams that it happens every night. I’m on the airplane, headed home, and we’ve just landed.

A young mother sitting next to me holds a baby on her lap, shrinking as far from me toward the aisle as she can get. Across the aisle is an older man – maybe in his late sixties – that has the look. His eyes meet mine, and yeah—he’s been there. He nods once, sharply, in recognition.

My breathing slows as the airplane taxis toward the terminal, and by the time the door opens jetway is made up my hands have mostly stopped shaking. The words tattooed across my knuckles taunt me – HOLD FAST, one letter across each finger. A legacy of my time as a Bosun’s Mate before I went for Naval Special Warfare. The tattoo is ancient superstition, a talisman to strengthen the men handling sails and anchors. A spell, even, to ensure the hands would never slip.

Hold fast? I can’t even hold fast to my own fucking mind anymore.

First class passengers get to leave ahead of everyone else, thank Christ. I need to get out of this metal can, need different air. The woman with the baby is the first one off – she can’t get away from me fast enough, gives me one quick nervous look over her shoulder, keeping herself between me and her child as she hurries for the exit like I’m some kind of fucking monster.

Standing up sucks. After eight years in the Navy – six of them as a SEAL – I’ve been banged up and broken in more fucking ways than I can count, and after a long flight, it’s agony to unroll myself and work stiff, painful joints back to functionality.

I retrieve my green canvas sea bag from the overhead bin, toss it over one shoulder, and head for the jetway myself. I tense up as quick footsteps approach from behind.

“Petty Officer Pearse?” I freeze, turn. It’s the man from across the aisle. He seems almost apologetic, and looks like he’s debating whether or not to put his hand out.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s stenciled on your bag. BM3 Pearse. You were a Bosun’s Mate?”

“Used to be, a lifetime ago. Got out as a first class, and not a Bosun’s Mate, anymore, by then.”

“Yeah, had you pegged for something else. Um. My name’s Dick. 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry. Ia Drang Valley, 1965.” He makes a decision, holds out his hand. I take it. It’s reflex, as much as anything. Dick clasps my hand tightly.

“Sean Pearse. United States Navy. Bunch of things. 2008 until… just now.” Avoid the subject of the Teams. People ask too many questions when you tell them you’re a SEAL. I don’t want to fucking answer questions.

“It gets better, son. It takes time, but it gets better.” Dick releases my hand, claps me on the shoulder. “Thank you for your service,” he says, then he’s gone down the jetway. I hear more footsteps behind me. The rest of the passengers are starting to deplane now. I don’t have any interest in getting stuck in a mob, so it’s time to get moving myself.

I don’t have any checked bags – most of my stuff is in storage while I figure out where I want to settle down now that I’m a civilian again – so I can skip wading through the crowds at baggage claim.

My ride’s here already, waiting for me. My mom’s standing anxiously at the curb on her tiptoes trying to see me over and around the mass of people. Melissa Pearse – no, Melissa Dwyer now. She’s remarried. I was in Afghanistan when she married Bill. Her face lights up when she sees me, and I feel a little better. A little closer to normal. Whatever the hell normal is.

My mom is a compact woman, solidly built, and her fierce hug rocks me back on my heels.

“Welcome home, Sean.” Her face is buried against my chest, and as my arms go around her, I feel her shaking, sobbing. She’s relieved, I guess. I’m home. If a stranger knocks on the door, it won’t be someone stopping by with condolences from the Secretary of Defense and a grateful nation. One visit was enough, and now she won’t need to fear a second.

Home. The World. Diesel smoke from shuttle buses lies thick in the air, bringing with it memories of the bases and airfields scattered around all the shitholes in which I’ve spent the last eight years. The smell is the same, but the sounds are different. There’s still rumbling diesels at idle, but they don’t have the deep grumble of a Bradley, and no badly-greased tracks squeal wherever I turn. The crowds of people are happy families meeting loved ones, not sergeants corralling misplaced troops.

My mother releases me, steps back to look at me. She scans up and down with penetrating eyes, pausing at the long, knotted white scar on my left cheek, the tattoos on my forearms. Another white crease of scar runs down the length of one of them, breaking the brightly colored ink there. She shakes her head – whether at the ink, the scars, or my general gauntness, I can’t tell – and pops the trunk for my bag.

“Thanks for coming to get me, Mom.” It sounds lame, but I’m at a loss for what else to say. My bag goes in the trunk, and I close the lid behind it.

“Let’s get you home, Sean.”

My mother doesn’t push me to talk, and the ride home is a blessedly quiet one. I can feel her watching me though, silently scrutinizing me out of the corner of her eye, and I turn to look out the window. I haven’t been home since I left for the Navy eight years ago, and it’s going to take me a while to get used to Maine again.

The airport is on the outskirts of the city, and streetlights are few and far between until we get back into a busier part of Portland. Familiar low brick buildings line the streets, brightly lit stores and restaurants with plenty of business traffic on the sidewalk. The buildings are the same, some of them centuries old. Maine doesn’t take easily to change.

But things have changed a lot in the last eight years. I’ve changed. My family has changed. All those years ago, Bill was a husband and father, a neighbor. He’d been a good neighbor, always there for us. He’d tried to help us out as much as possible, back when my widowed mom and I needed it most.

The next time I see him, he’ll be a husband and
step
father.
My
stepfather.

I never got the full story on what had happened there. What had changed with his wife? And what about his daughter?

I’m suddenly glad of the dark as I feel a flush run up my neck at the thought of Courtney, Bill’s daughter, and the hard, angry kiss she gave me before wiping her eyes and turning away, refusing to watch me get on the bus for boot camp. It’s been eight years since I saw her, too. She sent me letters for a while after I left, but they stopped after her parents divorced and her mom moved away.

I’d like to see her again. I’ll have to ask Bill about her.

Lost in a happy reminiscence of first love, I’m startled when the car stops and the headlights go out. I grab for the door handle in a brief panic, ready to roll out and take cover, but this isn’t an ambush. We’re home.