BEN WALKED IN the dark. He’d wasted no time after Reno abandoned him, just headed down the road according to the directions on his arm. He was too exhausted to hate, too tired to think. Periodically, he felt a tug at his waist, like he was pulling something along the road. But whenever he turned, he saw nothing. When he touched his bruised eye, a swampy, queasy feeling overtook him. But he couldn’t leave it be. He’d never been sucker-punched before. Congratulations, Benjamin, he thought. At last, you’re a man.
Ben walked down the center of the road, wary of the shadowy woodland around him. The Smokies were cooler than Dry Hills and he wondered how far into the mountains Reno had taken him. He needed a couple of beers to dull his throbbing face, settle his stomach, and clear the fog from his head. He doubted the county was actually dry, but it didn’t matter. He was alone. Nobody for miles.
As dawn broke, the wall of shadow dissolved. Red and silver maples appeared, clustered among hornbeam and yellow birch. The thickness and freshness of it all, the mesmerizing color—Ben had forgotten such lushness existed. He left the road and tromped toward the forest, not minding the dampness of the long grass that seeped into his shoes. At the base of a maple he stopped and placed his hand against the sap-stained bark. There, on his finger, a gold band. It seemed impossible that he’d spent all those months in Iraq without it. Ben pressed his palm harder against the mottled trunk, as though to intentionally drive splinters into his skin. How had he ended up out here, so far from her?
He made himself walk back to the road. He was nervous, wanted to crawl on his belly to avoid bullets that at any moment could come whizzing from the trees. You’re not crazy, he told himself. So you won’t act crazy. He felt better once he reached the pavement.
By ten a.m., Ben moved in a full-blown haze of dehydration and nausea. Pinkish-red light poured from a gash in the sky, and sometimes, when he looked at the road, he saw the sticky black floor of Corporal Coleman’s Humvee. Shortly after noon, he passed a sign that read Sparta, Population 3,046.
A few hundred feet on, Ben came to a gas station with an attached convenience store. Beside it sat an auto shop and, beyond that, two Airstreams. Shiny and silver, they seemed to hover like blimps. About twenty yards back was an impressive junkyard of old automobile parts, lawn mowers, television sets, dishwashers, scrap metal, tires, and wood stacked under blue tarps. It was the most orderly junkyard Ben had ever seen, the items arranged in rows according to color and size. A sign on the chainlink fence read Last Chance Garage and Junkyard. Reno Caruso, Proprietor. Below this in letters that were comically small: Miles Swanson, Apprentice. Ben entered the convenience store and headed straight for the refrigerators. Not a beer in sight.
He grabbed a bottle of water and drank greedily. Then he opened a bag of chips. When nobody came to take his money, he headed out in search of Miles. Classical music floated from the garage. Ben walked in and let out a relieved sigh. At last, the Death Star.
“You’re Ben?” said a soft voice. “I’m Miles.”
The man who appeared quite suddenly resembled a desiccated cornstalk. He wore khaki coveralls, and his sloping forehead was topped with a dandelion puff of brown hair. “Reno do that to your face?” Miles asked and barked a loud, awkward laugh. His gaze was fixed midway between Ben’s bruised eye and his earlobe. His left hand trembled against his leg. Something off about this one, thought Ben.
“Reno said to get you some food. Come on.” Miles led Ben into one of the Airstreams. It was a tidy little compartment. Ben noted a cluster of yellow wildflowers in a vase, checkered curtains, and a photograph of a pretty young woman.
“Nice place,” Ben said.
“Thanks. I’m happy enough with it.” Miles opened cupboards and gathered glasses and plates. His hand continued to shake. He glanced over his shoulder and motioned for Ben to sit down. “This place used to be a real pigsty. But I realized that I was letting the sick tell me what to do instead of the other way around.” Miles pulled a bowl of chicken salad from the fridge. He put a few slices of white bread on the plates, poured iced tea into Ben’s glass. He did all of this with his right hand. “I thought you’d rather eat something fresh. You know, instead of that crap we sell at the gas station.”
Ben pulled out his wallet and offered to pay for the water and chips, but Miles shook his head. He nodded at the lunch items. Ben made himself a sandwich, but the mayonnaise turned his stomach. “I really should get going—” he began, but Miles interrupted him.
“So what’s your story, Ben?” he asked, and then, without giving Ben a chance to answer, he launched into his own personal history. “Before I came here, I was on the street in Chattanooga. And before the street, I was in a shelter. And before the shelter, I was in a house in Chattanooga and working at Hardee’s. Prior to that I was at Fort Benning. And before that I was in Fallujah and Nasiriyah. And then,” Miles said, scratching his balding crown, “let’s see, before that, I guess I was just a regular kid living outside Macon, Georgia, and going to high school. My wife and I were both JROTC. We were high-school sweethearts. More iced tea?”
Ben held out his glass. “So your wife is in the service?” he asked, thinking too late of the Airstream’s narrow bed and lack of feminine objects.
Miles nodded, then shook his head. “I was pretty shook up after she died,” he said. “You know, because I’d been stationed in the same place only a few months before. It was like she was walking in my footsteps. Only I walked out and she didn’t.”
Ben had imagined what it would be like to have Becca in Iraq with him. He’d sometimes envisioned himself standing outside the COP and her suddenly jumping from a Humvee shouting, “Gotcha!” But these daydreams quickly turned dark. As he thought of burying his face in her hair and breathing her in, he’d start to panic. He’d picture bullets flying into her small body, flinging her to the ground. He’d picture her eyes dead and open to the sky.
“I’ve got steady work now,” Miles continued. “I was lucky to meet Reno. He helped me get my disability. And there are nice people in Sparta. Even with the Vietnam and Korean guys fighting over me. The VFW and American Legion are across the street from each other, and I’m stuck in this tug o’ war between them.”
“What do you mean?” Ben shifted uncomfortably. Now that he’d learned about Miles’s wife, he felt stuck, obliged to listen.
“Vietnam guys refuse to set foot in the VFW ever since one of the Korean vets told Reno that he wasn’t welcome there.”
“Did Reno get in a fight?”
“No, sir. See, the VFW is for veterans of foreign wars, and this one guy from Korea told Reno that his war didn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because Congress never made it official.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Everybody wants his truth to matter, I guess.”
“You’d think these guys could find some common ground,” Ben said.
“You mean like you and me feel common ground with marines?”
Miles had a point. And yet. If you’d been fired at, you’d been fired at. Who cared if the conflict in which said firing occurred had been authorized by Congress?
“So what’s your story?” Miles asked.
“Well, I served in—”
“No.” Miles shook his head. “I mean what happened that our friend Reno sent you out here? You’d think since he’s so much shorter . . . but his fist is like a rock.”
Ben wondered how many people Reno had punched in recent months. “I was trying to talk to my wife. I guess he didn’t want me doing that.”
Miles nodded. “You were angry? And drunk?”
“Yes.” Ben looked directly at Miles, tried to make the guy hold his gaze. “But I would never hurt her.” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to explain himself to a man who was as busted as the junk he lived next door to. Looking at Miles, Ben realized that he, Sergeant Benjamin Thompson, was doing pretty well for himself. “So can I have my keys?” he asked.
Miles shook his head. “Reno gave me instructions. Not till you’re okay to drive. When was the last time you slept?”
Ben couldn’t remember.
“You can rest here, no problem,” Miles said. “I even made up the bed for you.”
Ben did not like this option, but what could he do? “Just a catnap.” He picked up his plate to rinse it and realized that he’d finished the sandwich. When had that happened?
“I’ll just be in the shop,” Miles said and left the Airstream. Ben lay down on the bed and set his watch alarm for one hour. Miles wasn’t so bad, he decided. He was only following orders.