“I appreciate it. But still, the corrections you made are in your hand.”
“That a threat?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You wanna say something, say it plain.”
“Ain’t no hidden meaning to it.” Baker twitched a smile. “You and me, we joined at the hip. That’s all.”
“I been a gentleman and let you visit. Now it’s time for you to go.”
“I’ll get up with you later.”
“Go on. I got to get some sleep.”
After Baker closed the door behind him, James Monroe threw the dead bolt, went to the Frigidaire, and found another Pabst. He sat down in his chair and stared at the television but did not pay attention to the images on the screen.
He reached for the phone and made a call. The conversation he had was short and emotional.
Later, Monroe switched the channel on the television to a late Wizards game, broadcast from Seattle. He pulled up the tab atop the can of beer, tilted his head back, and drank deeply.
Sunshine House was one of the many food pits found on Georgia Avenue, both in the District and in downtown Silver Spring. The neon sign in the window advertised “Steak and Cheese, Seafood, Fried Chicken, and Chinese,” a shotgun approach that produced mediocrity and, ultimately, heartburn and diarrhea. The proprietor’s name was Mr. Sun, hence the store’s name. Sun owned three operations in D.C., Montgomery, and Prince George’s County; lived in a house off Falls Road in Potomac; drove an E-Class Mercedes; and had kids at MIT and Yale. Cody Kruger called the place Sun’s Shithouse. He and Deon ate there often.
Deon had just finished a plate of orange chicken, a side of fries, and a large Coke. His stomach hurt already. He had been driving north, seen the sign in the window of Sunshine House, and pulled into the lot. When he was stressed he tended to seek out food. The antidepressants he took were supposed to lessen his appetite, but they did not.
Deon wiped grease from his face and threw his napkin in the trash. He pushed on a glass door and walked out of the store toward his Marauder, parked in a spot facing the Armed Services Recruitment Center, a plain brick structure beside Sun’s. He got under the wheel and fitted the ignition key but did not turn it. He didn’t want to go to the apartment and listen to Cody. He didn’t want to go to the house on Peabody and see his mother’s swollen eyes.
He did not know, exactly, how he had gotten here. In elementary school, he had been an average student with limited social skills. In middle school, he had two close friends, Anthony Dunwell and Angelo Ross, but they were athletes and he was not, and in high school, they began to run with a different crowd. It was in his early high school years that he first experienced shortness of breath and nausea when he was asked to stand before the class and present his work. Meeting new people, he often stammered when he spoke. His mother took him to a shrink, who called his problem social anxiety and diagnosed him with panic disorder. Deon was prescribed Paxil, and that seemed to help. So did good weed. He became less socially retarded and, for a while, had a nice girlfriend, Jerhoma Simon, and then another with a brilliant smile who went by the name of Ugochi. For reasons he couldn’t recall or didn’t want to, those relationships did not last. After graduation there was a dry spell without girlfriends or new male friends, until he met Cody up at the shoe store. After that, there was one bad decision after another, and the entrance of Charles Baker, and here he was, nineteen, with money in his pocket and nothing ahead but more money or jail time, sitting in a parking lot.
Deon touched the key in the ignition slot but dropped his hand away.
The boxed sign over the recruitment center was brightly lit. He recalled that down in Park View, in a similar recruitment office near the old Black Hole, the sign had always been lit and the windows kept smudge free. A clean storefront in a strip of run-down businesses, a beacon for the young men in the neighborhood who were looking for a job or a way out, many of them high school dropouts, many of them running from temptation and trouble, some of their own making, some not.
The times he’d been to places like Chevy Chase and Bethesda, Deon had never seen recruitment offices of any kind. But it made sense. Why would the army, navy, or Marine Corps waste their time, money, and effort on kids who were never going to sign up and serve? Those kids were going to college. Those kids had parents who would pay for their tuition and room and board, and later help usher them into the job market via their network of successful friends.
Looking through the plate glass of the center, he saw two life-size cardboard cutouts of soldiers, one black, one Hispanic, in full dress. In between the cutouts, large wire racks held dozens of pamphlets. He could guess that some of the pamphlets were printed in Spanish. Behind the racks were dividers, the kind that formed cubicles in offices. Deon wondered what these folks didn’t want citizens on the street to see.
On the window itself were numerous posters touting service. A picture of an aircraft carrier loaded with planes, troops, and equipment, ready for action, below the words “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of All Who Threaten It.” A photograph of a black woman, beautiful and proud eyed, a beret cocked jauntily on her head, the caption reading “There’s Strong. And Then There’s Army Strong.” Other posters mentioned enlistment bonuses of up to $20,000, thirty days’ vacation pay per year, 100 percent tuition assistance, and full health and dental benefits. Guaranteed training in a chosen career. The chance to travel.
Yellowish light bled out from beneath the padded dividers. Someone, some officer, was in there, burning the oil, alone and ready to talk.
Deon had nowhere special to go. He had the need to talk to someone, too.
He got out of the Mercury, passed under the bright, inviting light of the big sign hung over the recruitment office, and tried the handle of the front door. The door was unlocked. But Deon did not step inside.
Sixteen
Raymond Monroe stepped out of the therapy room a little after noon, intending to call Kendall and have lunch with her down in the cafeteria. As he pulled his cell from his pocket, he passed a young man, blinded in one eye, shrapnel wounds forming crescent scars around the socket, his head shaved and stitched on the side.
“Pop,” said the young man.
“How’s it going?” said Monroe.
“Awesome,” said the young man without sarcasm or irony, and he walked on in a square-shouldered stride.
At the elevator bank, Monroe waited for the down car beside a man his age who stood with his hands on the grips of a wheelchair. A young woman of about twenty sat in the chair, her hospital gown worn over a T-shirt. She had short black hair, blue eyes, and a bit of a mustache, most likely a growth spurred by steroids she had been taking postinjury. Both of her legs had been amputated high in the femur, not far below the trunk. One stump was badly burned and scarred with “dots,” small bits of shrapnel still embedded close to the skin surface. The other stump did not appear to have been burned but was twitching wildly.
“Hey,” said the young woman, looking at Monroe.
“Afternoon,” said Monroe. “How’s everybody doing on this fine day?”
“How am I doin, Daddy?” said the young woman.
“She just got fitted for her new legs,” said her father. His eyes were the same shade of brilliant blue as his daughter’s. “Won’t be long before Ashley’s walkin again.”
Both Ashley and her father had deep southern accents. Both of them smelled strongly of cigarettes.
“And after that,” said Ashley, “I’m gonna swim from one shore to the other and back again.”
“She wants to swim in the old lake,” said the father. “We got a nice clean one down by our home.”
“I will, too,” she said.
“Next summer, maybe,” said the father, as he reached down and touched her cheek. He smiled, his lip quivering with melancholy pride.
“Maybe you and I will get a chance to work together in the pool,” said Monroe.
“I’ll make you tired,” said Ashley.
“My little girl is game,” said the father.
