“Well, you might have anticipated it and gotten his gun—”
“Colonel, to be perfectly honest with you, not only did I anticipate it, but I encouraged it. I did a fucking head number on him. She knows that and you know that.”
He didn’t acknowledge this because it was not what he wanted to hear or know. It wasn’t in the manual, but, in fact, giving a disgraced officer the opportunity and encouragement to kill himself was historically a time-honored military tradition in many armies of the world but never caught on in this Army and has fallen out of favor nearly everywhere. Yet, the idea, the possibility, permeates the subconscious of every officer corps who are linked by common attitudes and overblown feelings of honor. Given my choice of a court-martial for rape, murder, and sexual misconduct that I knew I couldn’t beat, or taking the .38-caliber easy way out, I might just consider the easy way. But I couldn’t picture myself in Bill Kent’s situation. Then again, neither could Bill Kent a few months ago.
Karl was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. Finally, I heard him say, “Cynthia’s very upset. She’s still shaking.”
“Comes with the job.” In fact, it’s not every day that someone blows his brains out right in front of you. Kent should have excused himself and gone into the men’s room to do it. Instead, he splattered his brains, skull, and blood all over the place, and Cynthia caught a little of it on her face. I said to Karl, “I’ve been splattered in ’Nam.” In fact, once I’d gotten hit in the head by a head. I added, helpfully, “It washes off with soap.”
Karl looked angry. He snapped, “Mister Brenner, you’re not funny.”
“May I go?”
“Please do.”
I turned and opened my car door, then said to Karl, “Please tell Ms. Sunhill that her husband called this morning, and he wants her to call him back.” I got into the Blazer, started it, and drove off.
Within fifteen minutes, I was back at the VOQ. I got out of my uniform, noticing a spot of gore on my shirt. I undressed, washed my face and hands, and changed into a sports coat and slacks, then gathered up my things, which Cynthia had laid out. I gave the room a last look and carried my luggage downstairs.
I checked out, paying a modest charge for maid and linen service, but I had to sign an acknowledgment-of- damage slip regarding my writing on the wall. I’d be billed later. I love the Army. The CQ helped me put the bags in my Blazer. He asked me, “Did you solve the case?”
“Yes.”
“Who did it?”
“Everybody.” I threw the last bag in the back, closed the hatch, and got in the driver’s seat. The CQ asked me, “Is Ms. Sunhill checking out?”
“Don’t know.”
“Do you want to leave a forwarding address for mail?”
“Nope. No one knows I’m here. Just visiting.” I put the Blazer in gear and headed out through main post, north to the MP gate, and out onto Victory Drive.
I drove past Ann Campbell’s town-house complex, then reached the interstate and got on the northbound entrance. I put a Willie Nelson tape in the deck, sat back, and drove. I would be in Virginia before dawn, and I could catch a morning military flight out of Andrews Air Force Base. It didn’t matter where the flight was going, as long as it was out of the continental United States.
My time in the Army had come to an end, and that was okay. I knew that before I’d even gotten to Fort Hadley. I had no regrets, no hesitation, and no bitterness. We serve to the best of our ability, and if we become incapable of serving, or become redundant, then we leave, or, if we’re dense, we’re asked to leave. No hard feelings. The mission comes first, and everyone and everything are subordinate to the mission. Says so in the manual.
I suppose I should have said something to Cynthia before I left, but no one was going to benefit from that. Military life is transient, people come and go, and relationships of all kinds, no matter how close and intense, are understood to be temporary. Rather than good-bye, people tend to say, “See you down the road,” or “Catch you later.”
This time, however, I was leaving for good. In a way, I felt that it was appropriate for me to leave now, to put away my sword and armor, which were getting a little rusty anyway, not to mention heavy. I had entered the service at the height of the cold war, at a time when the Army was engaged in a massive land war in Asia. I had done my duty, and gone beyond my two years of required national service, and had seen two tumultuous decades pass. The nation had changed, the world had changed. The Army was engaged now in a drawdown, which means, “Thanks for everything, good job, we won, please turn out the lights when you leave.”
Fine. This was what it was all about, anyway. It was not meant to be a war without end, though it seemed so at times. It was not meant to give employment to men and women who had few career prospects, though it did.
The American flag was being lowered on military installations all over the world, and all over the nation. Combat units were being dissolved, and their battle flags and streamers were being put into storage. Maybe someday they’d close up NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Truly, a new era was dawning, and, truly, I was happy to see it, and happier that I didn’t have to deal with it.
My generation, I think, was shaped and molded by events that are no longer relevant, and perhaps, too, our values and opinions are no longer relevant. So, even if we do have a lot of fight left in us, we’ve become, as Cynthia sort of suggested to me, anachronisms, like old horse cavalry. Good job, thanks, half pay, good luck.
But twenty years is a lot of learning, and a lot of good times. On balance, I wouldn’t have done it any differently. It was kind of interesting.
Willie was singing “Georgia on My Mind,” and I changed the tape to Buddy Holly.
I like driving, especially away from places, though I suppose if you’re driving away from a place, you have to be driving to a place. But I never see it like that. It’s always away.
A police car appeared in my rearview mirror, and I checked my speed, but I was only doing ten mph over the limit, which in Georgia means you’re obstructing the flow of traffic.
The jerk put his red flasher on and motioned me over. I pulled over to the shoulder and sat in the Blazer.
The officer got out of the police car and came over to my window, which I lowered. I saw that he was a Midland cop, and I remarked, “You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?”
“License and registration, sir.”
I showed him both, and he said, “Sir, we’re going to get off at the next exit, come around, and you’re going to follow me back to Midland.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. Got it over the radio.”
“From Chief Yardley?”
“His orders, yes, sir.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then I have to take you in cuffs. You pick.”
“Is there a third choice?”
“No, sir.”
“All right.” I pulled back onto the highway. The cop car stayed behind, we went around the cloverleaf, and I found myself heading south toward Midland.
We got off at an exit near the west edge of town, and I followed him to the town recycling center, which used to be called the dump.
The car stopped at the incinerator, and I stopped behind him and got out.
Burt Yardley was standing near a big conveyor belt, watching a truck being unloaded onto the moving belt.
I stood and watched, too, as Ann Campbell’s basement bedroom headed into the flames.
Yardley was flipping through a stack of Polaroid photos and barely gave me a glance, but he said, “Hey, look at this, son. You see that fat ass? That’s me. Now look at that teeny weenie. Who you suppose that is?” He threw a handful of the photos onto the conveyor, then picked up a stack of videotapes at his feet and also threw them onto the belt. “I thought we had an appointment. You gonna make me do all this here work myself? Grab some of that shit, son.”
