SHOES

SHOES

(Sample Pages)

by

Andrew Phillips

THE PRELUDE

November 28, 2002

Khost, Afghanistan

Late Morning

Nobody wants to stand or eat too close to anybody serving in the MAU. Working around dead people leaves a smell, and the chow line’s gonna be long. Better to stay behind in the tent to let it shorten. The table in the Mortuary Affairs Unit is strong enough to hold dead bodies. So, it can hold me.

I’m like a bird dog on point. Still as death. My eyes are open, but I can’t see a thing. It’s the heavy black plastic covering my body. Like the thick wool blanket Mama lay across me on cool nights when I pretended to be asleep. Boots and socks are on the floor beside the table. The body bag? Smooth under my heels. And on the tops of my toes. It’s weight and coolness? A comforting touch on my naked forehead. Nose. Cheeks. Arms. Stomach. Legs. Feet.

Take deep, slow breaths. Keep my chest from heaving too much. Won’t matter though. Each breath moves me enough to crinkle-crackle the plastic. Like bone beetles scurrying across the outside surface searching for a way to get in.

Time stands still. No DD Forms wait for a signature. No processionals of flag-draped transfer coffins to watch. No red dirt swirls up my nose. No dog tags lie crumpled on the ground to collect and catalog. No folded “Dear Son” letters to chase as they blow in the wind across the red dirt. No tattered pockets to search for hidden “I love you,” notes from wives. No wrinkled, bloodied photographs of unseen babies to smooth and place in plastic baggies. No suicide notes soaked in blood to send home to grieving spouses. No leg-less, foot-filled boots to un-lace to remove ragged, bloody stumps. And…no dead eyes stare sightless up into mine.

Nothing matters now. Except this brief escape from the random mortar rounds pounding somewhere in the distance. From the incessant engine roars. The thick, pungent odor of diesel fuel. All in the world outside the one I now occupy.

Until my unit gets the call again.

It can happen anytime.

And we’ll ride out to the site. To search for and gather up. And bag and evacuate. And inventory everything. Once a part of a Living. Breathing. Feeling. Thinking. Missing and missed. Loving and loved someone. Everything has to be bagged. Everything. There can be no more unknown soldiers. It’s our job to make sure it never happens again.

The air is stale inside the bag. And my arm itches. Willing the itch away doesn’t work. Give in and scratch it. Time to rejoin that other world. The real one.

Unzip the body bag.

Got to sit up and get outta this thing before somebody comes in.

Damn. It’s Mack.

“Gatlin, that is some creepy shit, man.”

Pull on my socks. Reach for my boots.

“Nothing but a thing.”

“Don’t let the NCO catch you doing it. What’s up with that, anyway? You got a death wish or something?”

Finish lacing up my right boot. But, don’t look up. Voice barely above a whisper.

“No. It’s just that…” Even if I try to put an explanation into words, I’m not sure I want to. It’d been a long time since I’ve been able to open up to anyone. Not since those letters to Gammy Gat. More than ten years ago. God, I loved that woman.

Mama would’ve sent me to a shrink if she’d known I was writing letters to a dead woman.

But, that was then. This is now. And I like Mack. We’ve talked before. Mostly junk. Nothing worth anything. But still, we connected.

“It’s just that it’s weird as….”

“I needed to know what it was like. We’ve zipped up so many ‘angels’ in these things. And I can’t help thinking Murph put himself in there. On purpose. For real.” Pause. “He was a good soldier.”

“He still in your head? You gotta let go, man.”

“But he’s got a wife and a little kid.”

“We all got family.”

My family? Sorta like an old deck of cards. A tattered Jack. A faded Queen. A rumpled-up King of hearts. Three solid aces? My sisters.

“Did you read his…”

“Hell no.” Mack sits down on a stool. “Weapon under his chin? And in the port-a-john?”

Movement through the open window flap distracts me for a moment. But Murph’s note? Read it. More than once.

“Want me to tell you what it said?”

Mack smiles.

“Let me think…HELL. NO.”

“He told his wife and son he was sorry.”

“Damn it, I said…”

“He didn’t know who he was anymore.”

“That’s a big, DUH.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Least I KNOW I’m an asshole.”

Not gonna let him skate on this one.

“Last thing he wrote was they’d be better off without him.” Pause. “The guy was a loner when he got here.”

Mack removes his cover. Rubs his bald head.

“We should’ve made it harder for him to feel alone.” Wipe my nose on my sleeve.

“Not our job, man.”

“He killed himself, for God’s sake.”

“There’s a damn burr up your butt about these suicides. What’s that about, anyway?”

An evenly stacked set of DD forms looks like they need straightening. The coffee mug beside the stack holds a handful of pens. One of them needs clicking. Once, maybe twice. Maybe another, just for good measure. The top of the straightened stack of evenly stacked forms looks like a good spot for the pen.

“I knew a guy who killed himself. When I was a kid.”

“No shit. How old were you?

“Eleven.”

“Jesus! How’d he, you know, how’d he do it?”

“Drank some drain cleaner.”

“That’s brutal, man.”

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago.” Finally finish lacing up my left boot.

“Why’d he do it? Did he leave a note or anything?”

“No. But he was really mixed-up, and his family was messed up. Old man on drugs. Beat him and his mom. I think he figured things would never change or get better.”

“You sound like maybe you were tight with this guy.” Mack puts his cover back on and checks it out in the mirror.

“Yeah, I guess I was. He was in my fifth-grade class.” Smooth the black plastic on the body bag.

Mack is quiet for a moment. First time I’ve told anyone outside family about Randy, since, well, since it happened. Movement out the window flap again.

A touch on my shoulder.

“Climbing inside that thing is still nuts. You scare the shit outta me sometimes. Know what I mean?” Mack walks over to the table where we all play cards in-between recoveries. Picks up a deck. Starts thumbing through it.

The tent flap slaps open.

Sergeant Danbury.

“Get the unit together, girls. And grab your gear. We got a recovery site.”

December 1, 2002

Khost, Afghanistan

Late Afternoon

Almost ready to mail this letter.

Dear Mama, Daddy, Lisa, Beth and Mary,

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. I know you’ll be getting the tree pretty soon. Wish I could be there to decorate it with you.

Girls–make sure Mama makes one of Gammy Gat’s unbelievable chocolate pies.

I do hate to tell you this next thing, but not too long ago, one of the guys in our company–Private Murphy–shot himself. I really didn’t know him very well, just that he had a wife and kid back in South Carolina. Our MA unit had to process him.

I know what you’re thinking about, but don’t. Please. I’m okay. Really.

We’ve been involved in a few recoveries these past few weeks (not counting Murph), but don’t fret. (I know you, Mama!) Khost has been pretty dull, lately, and the road to Gardez has been pretty quiet for the most part. Before long, the weather will really clog up the road, anyway. They say December is really nasty over here. We thought the dust storms had been bad. But all that red dust that builds up turns into a muddy mess because of all the rain and snow. It’s cold, too, and going to be worse than Oxford in December

Well, I’ve got to go. Sorry this one had to be so short. Christmas won’t be the same without being there at home. I miss you all very much, and wish I could be there with you. But we have a job to do. Will try to write more later. Merry Christmas!

Love ya and hugs,

Jake

P.S. DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME! I’ll be home before you know it.

Told ‘em I was okay.

But I still see him. A faded image. Like the time we saw that live sand dollar resting on the sandy bottom in a foot of clearish sound water off of Sand Dollar Island on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

The ripples.

Fuzzy up the view.

Randy, a small, red-headed boy with freckles and crooked teeth. With funny-looking ears. And chip on his shoulder.

Can will his face away.

Sometimes.

But when one of the memories from that fifth-grade year slips back into my mind, it opens up a floodgate.

***

Gammy Gat.

Sitting on her couch in the grandmother suite Mama and Daddy added on after Papa died. Smoking like a steam engine.

That image fades.

Like she did about a year after coming to stay with us.

***

Noises now.

Wheezing.

Through the doorway connecting our part of the house to hers.

***

Mama and Daddy.

Help her into the car. She turns toward my sisters and me. Smiles. Waves a shaky hand.

Mama stands at the curb with us while Daddy drives her to the hospital.

***

We visit.

Until Mama and Daddy make us stay home.

I go to school with an aching stomach every day.

For two weeks.

She never comes home.

And then it’s over.

***

Right before we moved.

Her casket.

Blanketed by a flowing flower bedspread.

The ones for winning race horses.

And coffins.

Rests on supports.

Covered by the pretend grass disguising that open hole that’s gonna swallow her up in a few minutes.

The funeral home canopy shadows the casket from the graying clouds beginning to crowd the sun.

A drizzle starts.

As if from a water-soaked ceiling foreshadowing the burst that’s coming.

It does.

The preacher keeps talking.

Just louder.

Slender water tributaries slither under the shelter searching for my shoes like clear baby snakes looking for food.

I lift my shoes.

Rest them on the slanted legs of my chair.

One slips down into the now soaked pretend grass rug we’re sitting on.

The chilly wetness creeps into my sock.

I mutter something.

Louder than I intend.

An elbow rebuke from Daddy.