Downs settled down next to Mac on the sloped cement of the driveway. The concrete was still warm from the day’s sun, and he and Mac arranged their packs to form a backrest. Downs leaned back and looked at his friend, who offered him a warm can of Pepsi. He laughed and took it. “God, I feel like a new man after that shower, Mac. It’s like being born again, you know?”
“Felt good, that’s for sure. Chow wasn’t too bad either. Beats C-rats or an MRE.”
Ferris and Smith sauntered up and dropped their packs with a thud. “Hey, Steve, y’all want some pogey-bait? Me and Wayne came prepared to watch this movie in style.” Ferris offered a huge bag of M&Ms to Downs and Mac, who each took a handful. “Wayne, offer Corporal Downs a beer. He’s looking a mite parched.” Downs shot a look at Ferris, who grinned wildly, then withdrew a twelve-ounce Miller from his cargo pocket. “All perfectly legal, Corporal Downs. You know me and Wayne have the utmost respect for Marine Corps regulations. Ain’t that right, Wayne?” grinned Ferris.
“Yep, that’s a fact,” said Smith, as he took a beer from each pocket and offered them to Downs and Mac, then located another in his pack for himself. “You know, at fifty cents a can a man could grow to like this place. Gotta do something about a ’frigerator, though. I can’t get used to warm beer. It ain’t civilized. That’s how you can tell we’re in a third world country, no cold beer,” concluded Smith.
“Hey, Mac, do y’all know what time the movie starts?” asked Ferris.
“Well, Jimmy, they’ll probably wait for it to get dark before they show it,” answered Downs.
Ferris looked at Downs. “Yeah, I hope we’re in the right place. Sergeant Griffin said this is it. And they got a part of that wall there painted white. We pretty much got front row seats if this is it.”
Downs settled back against his pack and looked at the sky. Here and there a star appeared in the pale blue backdrop. Other members of the platoon wandered up and settled around them, automatically arranging themselves in neat rows. Word had filtered down from battalion operations section that first squad was to be sent out again before returning to the company area, while the other two squads would return the following day. Downs realized he was too tired to give it much thought. Instead he turned to Mac and asked, “What are you thinking about, Mac?”
“Aw, I don’t know. This ain’t too bad, Steve. You know? I’m glad we drew that run up to get those dragon gunners. Sort of breaks the routine. I didn’t really want to go back to our holes at the company. Guess I’m bored with the same old shit all the time. At least this way we get to see a little of the city. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’m sick of standing watch and walking patrol, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe we’ll get liberty in the Med on the way home. Do you think we might?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Downs knew Mac was thinking of Athens. He had met a girl there. A small dark-eyed girl who spoke broken English and wrote him frequently. He knew because he recorded the number of letters Mac received. He felt it was an intrusion of Mac’s privacy, but he did it because Griffin had ordered him to do it.
As if on cue Mac asked, “Think we might go to Athens again, Steve? That’d be cool, man. I could see Marina. It’s been eight months since I saw her.”
“I don’t know, Mac. We’ve always gone to Athens on all of our other Med cruises, but it might be different now because of Beirut. You know, usually we float around the Med for six months and hit all the ports. But now, with Beirut, we might only go to one or two, or maybe just Spain to clean our gear.”
Mac frowned. “Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing. Leave it to the Marine Corps to screw up everything. She said she would fly to anyplace around here we got liberty, as long as it’s in the Med.” Mac paused, then looked at Downs. “She wants to fly here,” he said, obviously concerned.
“To Beirut?”
“Yeah, can you imagine that? Her comin’ here to see me.”
Downs looked at Mac, then laughed, “Something tells me the first shirt wouldn’t exactly lay out the red carpet for her, you know?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t understand why I can’t just take a few days vacation. Her life is so different.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Downs looked away from his friend, at the platoon sprawled around him. Helmets and weapons lay across bulky packs, and extra ammunition was strapped to each man’s gear. Every man wore his heavy flak jacket with the attached web gear, and carried bandoleers of ammunition for his M-16. She wouldn’t understand this, thought Downs.
She has no way to comprehend my life now. The thought struck him like a physical blow, and he turned farther away from Mac, ending their conversation. He wished it would hurry and become dark. He wanted to think of her, to lose himself in the daydream of her. Someone laughed and Downs inadvertently turned to face him. He was at odds with the person he was now, and the person she knew. Even if he left, it would never be the same. He could never explain this to her, or his desire to be a part of it.
Griffin walked by and nodded to him without speaking. He wondered what she would think of Griffin. Downs relished the thought that she would dislike him, but instinctively knew that he was wrong. She would see Griffin as an integral part of something she herself could never like or understand. But she would also view Griffin as a natural part of all this. He was in his element she would say, while you, Steven Downs, are an impostor. She would tell him that he didn’t belong here, that he should be somewhere else, pursuing other things.
Downs thought of a summer day, they were both in high school, and she had come to watch him play baseball. He always walked to the games alone, knowing she would be there later to watch and to drive him home. Downs was in the habit of arriving early for the games, before any of his teammates arrived. He would enter the huge wooden grandstand with its tin roof and wire netting to shield the spectators from foul balls and sit alone. Halfway up the bleachers, amid the peeling green paint, he would sit. It was one of his favorite places. Alone in the silent stands he would absorb the sights and smells of the place as it slowly came to life before the game.
The ballpark had been built for a minor league club in the early 1920s when baseball was America’s favorite pastime. The old club was long since defunct, and the diamond relegated to the games of various high schools and summer-league teams, but the stadium retained all its grandeur and recalled a time when a baseball game was a special event. Downs would stare out over the field, absorbing its colors, feeling as though he owned the place.
Just behind the old ballpark, beyond the left field wall, was a small zoo belonging to the city. Animals from various parts of the world paced their cages while high school boys played baseball. The big cats were located just behind the center field wall and often enough the cheering of the crowd would be answered by a roar from the old lion who lived out his life in a cage just out of range of home run balls.
Downs had been going there, sitting alone in the bleachers, since he was a small boy. He had watched two older brothers and a collection of neighborhood boys play on that field. He had waited, patiently, to play his own games there. And now that he was playing there the feeling was even better than he had imagined, and he wanted to relish every second of it. After his senior season he would once again be reduced to the role of a spectator, no longer a player on the field.
He hated himself for being aware that it would all end too soon. He tried not to let himself think of the day when he would play his last game here, and he envied his friends who enjoyed themselves blissfully unaware that it would all end far too quickly.
During the games she would be there, waiting to catch his eye and share a conspiratorial smile. She had once told him that she loved baseball because it was a gentle sport that required a combination of strength and grace. She had watched Downs play football only once, and they had argued afterward.
When he had told her he was joining the Marine Corps it was just a quick, barely audible phrase, mumbled the day before he left for Parris Island. That night he had played his last game at the old ball field, and a terrible melancholy had overtaken them. They were sitting on the hood of her car, a half moon low over the lake. She hadn’t said anything to him. He had looked straight ahead, knowing that he was at the end of the most extraordinary summer of his life, and knowing that he would lose her.
Downs knew better than to try and make promises of writing, of coming home to her. They had driven home in silence, and said a quick good-bye in front of his house. As Downs walked up the drive he had heard her say, “I love you, Steven, but I won’t when you come home. I’ll love someone else.”
He had almost turned. His step had faltered, and his eyes had watered. He had left the next day for boot camp. When he returned four months later she was away at college and they had exchanged letters only twice. He knew that his letters had been stiff, too formal.
He was at a loss for a way to bridge the distance between them, and her words had hurt him deeply. It wasn’t so much his joining that had hurt her, it was that he had this hidden part of himself that wanted to do it. It was a solitary act, an act of independence, both from the boy he was and the person he was with her. He knew that he had hurt her, he just didn’t know how to explain something to her that he didn’t fully understand himself.
While he was home on leave he had gone to the old ballpark and sat alone in the bleachers. The weather was turning from autumn to winter and he had felt a sadness descend over him as he sat there. It was the first time he had felt the absence of others in the old stadium.
He wasn’t able to drop the rigidity forced upon him at Parris Island. He had sat there for over an hour, realizing that he would always be too complex to be just a Marine, and that after Parris Island he was not able to return home. He wasn’t a part of it any longer. He waited for the feeling to come to him, knowing that he had lost it forever because he had changed.
He had left the old ballpark and walked through the zoo that day. Eventually finding himself in front of the lion’s cage. The old cat sat gnawing contentedly on a mangled baseball. Downs had wondered if someone had finally hit a homer long enough to reach the cage. He noticed that the lion was getting old, its coat had lost its shine, and his eyes were black holes sunk in swollen lids. Downs felt sorry for the lion, sorry that the animal would never know the freedom of the grasslands, that he would spend his whole life in the cage where he had been born. He had left the zoo then and gone home, glad that he was leaving that afternoon for his regiment.
On the ride to the airport his father had driven past the ballpark, recounting the exploits of his sons on the old diamond. Downs had stared out the window in the opposite direction, not wishing to see the old stadium fade from sight.
He realized then that he had paid a terrible price to become a Marine. He had lost a part of himself. He wasn’t able to fully give himself to the Marine Corps, and without such an embrace of the system, he could never fully belong to it. The Marine Corps had taken something from him. It had taken a part of his innocence. Downs thought of the day the sniper had shot the man on the bunker. He felt a part of the incident, soiled by his participation, no matter how peripheral. He knew that he could never again sit in the bleachers and feel the old feeling. He had known it all before, long before the killing at the bunker. He had known it when he left Parris Island. He glanced at Mac, thinking of his girl in Athens, then said, “Don’t ever let her see you here, Mac. Not as we are now, not a part of this. She won’t be able to understand this. Nobody should have to understand this.”