Lizzy’s folding my clothes on her bed, separating work clothes from regular clothes. Not that there’s much difference. Three pairs of pants and six shirts. She hasn’t bothered with any of her own clothes. Just added them back to the piles on the floor.
I’m leaning back against her pillows, feeling plain worthless. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem, dude.” Not even taking her eyes off the television, she asks me, “Are you following this stuff in Tunisia?”
I look over her shoulder at the news footage. Smoke and bombs, police killing innocent-looking people in some Middle Eastern town. Not something I’d take an interest in, given the choice. “Not really. What about it?”
“Well, last week, some guy burned himself alive in front of a police station to protest government oppression. And now, everyone’s out on the street. It seems like they might even get this dictator, Ali something, overthrown.”
“Wow. Crazy.”
“Totally. And what’s crazy is that they were live-tweeting it and shit until the government shut down their Internet.”
“Look at that,” I say, watching the television over her shoulder. It’s nighttime over there, and people in a traffic circle are setting up barricades. They’re waving flags, chanting, and carrying on.
“So. Iraq,” Lizzy says, easing softly into the question she’s been wanting to ask for a few days. “When were you there?”
“’Round oh-six.”
“And what you did over there, what you saw, does it affect the way you think about things? Like what’s going down in Tunisia?”
“The way I feel about what? Riots?”
“No, dude. Fucking freedom. People fighting for their freedom.”
I take a moment to try and think of something to say besides the truth, which is that I don’t think much on it either way, and blurt out, “Well, I hope everyone comes out okay.”
Lizzy smirks and goes back to the television for a second, with her forehead wrinkled all cute. She’s confused, which is understandable, I guess, since I don’t even know what I meant by that myself.
“You ‘hope everyone comes out okay’?” she asks finally, like I said something stupid and didn’t realize.
“Sure.” I shrug. “I hate to see people getting hurt.”
“Dude”—she laughs—“you were in a war.”
I fumble around for words. “Well, I suppose you could call it that.”
She laughs some more. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make fun, or anything. That’s just not something I thought a veteran would say about this. I was thinking you’d be all like, ‘Good for them. Fighting for their freedom. Rah, rah, rah!’”
Now I’m wishing I’d have said something better, more wise, because I’m stuck with this loser line about hoping no one gets hurt. I try to make myself believe it so the next thing I say might sound less stupid.
But Lizzy seems like she’s already moved on. She turns back to the news and says, “I wonder how they turn off the Internet to a whole country?”
“They did it in Iraq, on a smaller scale. Not the Iraqis. The Marines, I mean.”
Lizzy perks up. “Really?”
“Yeah. Whenever someone got hurt. They would turn off all the phones and all the Internet so no one could call or write home for a few days. They called it River City.”
“What for?”
“You mean why did they call it that?”
“No, I get why they called it River City. I mean, why did they turn off the phones and the Internet?”
“Oh.” I stop to think about the nicest way to say it. “Because they didn’t want the family finding out from the newspaper or the neighbors, I guess.”
“Finding out that someone got hurt? Would that make the news?”
I take a breath. “Yeah. Killed I mean. I didn’t want to say it like that, but it was mostly for when people got killed.”
“Oh. Sorry, Les. That sucks.”
“It’s fine. It happens.”
I’m pissed at myself, now. For bringing it up. We’re having a boring conversation, now. And she has to say boring stuff like, “That sucks.” I figure I can say about five boring things to this girl before my time is up, and I was hoping this might last a little longer.
But then a question occurs to me. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘I know why they called it River City’?”
“You don’t?”
I shake my head.
“The Music Man. You know? The Broadway musical? There’s a song called ‘There’s Trouble in River City.’” She folds the last of my laundry.
“You like Broadway musicals?”
“Tell any of my friends and I’ll kill you.” She throws a pair of underwear at my face, and I smile because despite everything Landry’s been telling me about her, this could last another week. Maybe all the way into the New Year.
I look over her shoulder, back at the news footage from Tunisia.
I think of Kateb. I bet he’d have something to teach me about this.