The captain rocked in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “About that marijuana business. My father told me all about Colonel March. Dickie March was a good soldier but a rule-bender. They drank together but neither of them ever touched a joint.”
My blood chilled. Jacowicz had caught my defender in a lie that slandered Jacowicz’s dead father.
“Wander, do you know how Judge March won his Medal of Honor?”
I shook my head.
“During the Second Afghan War, my dad and Dickie March were the only survivors when a surface-to-air rocket knocked down a helicopter. My dad broke both legs. Major March’s arm was crushed and pinned by wreckage. The wreck caught fire. Dickie March used an entrenching tool and hacked off the tissue threads that attached his own arm so he could drag my dad out before the wreck exploded. Then he evaded enemy patrols for three days, carrying my dad on his back, until they were rescued.”
Jacowicz rocked back in his chair and fingered another frame, a holo of a pretty woman holding a baby. “I’d sacrifice anything for my wife and my son. But parents and children rarely actually have to make those sacrifices. Soldiers do. In combat, what we fight for isn’t God or country or even the people we love back home. We fight for the GI next to us. They’re more family to us than anyone else we’ll ever know.”
I swallowed. “Sir?”
“I owe Dickie March. My dad owed him. Dickie March is family. If Dickie March thinks you’re worth lying for, that’s enough for me. So don’t think you’re staying in the army because some naive West Pointer be-lieved a lame lie. You’re staying because somebody I care about believes you can make a difference.”
Staying. My heart leapt.
“Sir, I’ll be the best soldier—”
“Save it I hear promises of life-changing experience daily. I’m sure the judge does in his court, too. If you stay in, mis incident goes in your record jacket. You’ll be denied every decent assignment in the army.”
It couldn’t be worse than Basic. I just drifted with the moment while my heart fluttered.
“… make us bom late for graduation, Wander. I said “dismissed!’” He waved his hand.
I nearly forgot to salute as I spun an about-face. Basic was behind me! The worst mistake of my life was behind me!
Graduation was all the better because the judge stuck around and watched. Afterward, in the mess hall, we ate cookies and drank Beverage-Grape-Powdered and shook hands with everybody’s mothers and fathers. I tried to buy the judge a steak dinner over in Hershey, Pennsylvania, but he got the tab. We both cried as I put him on the train back to Colorado.
We all got two weeks’ leave after Basic. Most trainees had family to go home to. The closest person to me left on Earth was Metzger.
He flew out of Canaveral. With no commercial air, I had to deadhead a lift with a military truck convoy to Philadelphia, then hitch another lift with another convoy headed south.
The truck ride to Philly was bumpy and cold and gave me time to think. I thought about Walter, about the fate of the world, but mostly about what an idiot I had just been.
Jacowicz had said I could have walked away from the army.
Instead, I had fought my way back into a low-paying, dirty, dangerous job. A job where my screwups left me with no shot at advancing. Recruits like Druwan Parker, my broken-leg bunkmate with the high-ranking relative, might make a career in the army. Not me. The farther I got away from Indiantown Gap the more clearly I saw reality.
The freight depot in Philly was in a warehouse district. A big room with a supply sergeant behind a gray metal desk, vending machines on one wall, and a couple vinyl sofas, it smelled of wet cardboard. I had hours to kill before the southbound convoy left for Florida.
A couple civilians, guys near twenty, sat atop their luggage. Recruits, bound for Basic at Indiantown Gap with another convoy. Shaggy, impressed, smart-ass. In short, me a few months ago.
I sprawled across a sofa and watched the supply sergeant run inventory on his screen. His olive skin was acne-pocked, and a scar twisted along his jawline.
“Where you from, Sarge?”
“The Bronx.” His name tag read “Ochoa.” Regular noncommissioned officers weren’t like drills. Anybody could shoot the breeze with them.
“What you doin‘ there, Sarge?” I pointed at his screen.
“Entering paper goods inventory we got in this warehouse.”
“Like what?”
“Toilet paper. Wrapping paper.”
“Gotta keep ‘em separate, huh?”
He shrugged. “This is the army. Paper is paper.”
“You like your job?”
He shrugged. “I’m short. As in short-time-until-discharge. Never figured I’d get to retire.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve had my share of admins.”
As in administrative-punishment hearings. A resource!
“What for?”
“Bar fights, mostly. I was stationed on a navy base.” He spit tobacco juice into a bucket alongside his desk. “Who can drink with squids?”
Fair point
“It didn’t keep you from getting promoted.”
“The army takes care of its own.”
My chest swelled.
He shrugged. “Unless you got a drug incident in your record.”
My heart sank.
“You dope, no hope.”
“You mean coke addicts. What if somebody just did Prozac?”
He shook his head. “This is the army. Drugs is drugs.”
I stared at my low-cuts. A fat lot of good it had done me to learn how to keep a shine on my shoes. This guy was me in twenty years, even if I didn’t have a drug incident reported in my records.
I drifted outside the depot Across the street a storefront church offered meals. A line of bundled men stretched from its door to the end of the block. They weren’t homeless derelicts. They were responsible, respectable men from whom this war had stolen hope. I was made to melt into that line.
It would be easy just to disappear right now. Into the ranks of the homeless, the orphaned, the jobless. The army overflowed. Deserting would be a favor, making a spot for a new guy. The army couldn’t spare resources to pursue deserters.
I had a couple months’ pay on me and civvies in my duffel. I remember some comedian’s epitaph had been “Better here than in Philadelphia.” Philly was no prize, but it was big enough to get lost in.
I slipped back inside long enough to retrieve my duffel and hike it onto my shoulder. I’d find an alley down the block, change into civvies, and blend in.
Sergeant Ochoa looked up from his screen. “Your convoy to Canaveral rolls out at 0400. Don’t get lost, Specialist!”
I already was.
I pushed my palm on the swinging door and the door pushed back. A black man in civvies came through, suitcase in one hand, steadying himself with an aluminum cane in the other.
I dodged around him.
“Wander!”
I turned. Druwan Parker, broken leg and all, grinned at me.
He dropped his bag and stuck out his hand. “Look at you! Sharp and rock-steady! You made it through Basic!” He looked me up and down while he pumped my hand.
“What are you doing here?” I managed.
“Second chance.” He held out his arms and lifted his leg. “Pins came out a week ago. I’m getting recycled
