23.

“GERMANY FIRST. We gotta go to Germany.” Alek was in the MWR after shift, messaging Spencer. After another boring day. He hadn’t realized quite how boring life on a base in Afghanistan was going to be, but he knew he wouldn’t have many chances to spend money. He knew that his best friend was going to be stationed in Portugal, and he knew both of them would finish their tours with some savings. He wanted Spencer to see this part of him, a part he himself was only beginning to understand.

“Alek, I’m getting good at this!” Spencer’s messages were so enthusiastic Alek was almost jealous. He’d seen pictures of Spencer’s base—it was like a beach resort or something. Spencer didn’t know what it was like to be at a real posting.

“Good at what, like checking rashes?”

“No, asshole, I’ve been doing jujitsu. I’m starting to give my class instructor a run for his money.” Spencer and his jujitsu. “Anyway,” Spencer wrote, “adventure starts soon. I’m getting excited, man.”

Spencer had no idea. Alek was desperate for it to begin. Spencer asked, “What ended up being the deal with your friends?”

“Strasser can’t come,” Alek wrote. “Honestly I don’t think Solon will either. I know he wants to but I don’t think he has the money.”

“Sucks.”

The planning was getting complicated, partially because Alek was spending too much time doing it. In reality he didn’t really need to be doing this now; he’d have plenty of time to plan later, after his tour, because he had to go back to the US for demobilization before he could fly to Europe. He planned anyway though, because for him it was a diversion, one of the only ones he had, the one fun thing he could do while stuck here on a gloryless tour. So he overplanned.

“So,” Alek wrote, “then when do you want to come back through Germany?”

“It’s just that there’s so much I want to see, you know? This will probably be my last chance to do something like this, there’s a lot to do. I know you have that girl there . . .”

Lea. He knew Spencer was going to bring that up eventually. She’d been a German exchange student in Oregon, and he’d met her over a friend’s Snapchat he photobombed. Then they began talking, and once he started planning his German tour, he decided he wanted to see her. But the plan to see her when he was passing through Germany evolved into something more; she’d invited him to stay with her at her family’s house, and now he figured he might spend a few days with her.

“It’s not just that,” he wrote Spencer. “Just don’t want to be moving every day, I want to, you know, soak it in a little.”

“All right, well, we don’t have to decide right now. Let me know if Solon comes through. In the meantime, whatever happened with the sniper training?”

“I’ll tell you about it later.” The last thing Alek wanted to talk about was being here. “But basically, I’m still really bored.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have a couple of beers for you. ”

“You piece of shit. All right, it’s midnight here. I gotta go to bed.”

“Hang in, brother, later.”

Two days later, after his shift, Alek went down to the MWR to lift weights, and decided to check his messages first. He had a Facebook message from Spencer. “Good news, I think Anthony’s coming.”

Alek had to think for a minute. Anthony? “Anthony from middle school you mean?”

“Yeah, he thinks he can get the time off. He’s just trying to get a credit card now.” That was random. Of all the people to invite. Alek hadn’t seen Anthony in what, five years, seven years? What was Anthony like now; would they all still get along?

It was good though; Spencer would have someone to travel with on his speed-of-light tour of Europe, and Alek felt okay letting them do their own thing while he went to trace his roots. He’d catch up with them for a city or two, then go back to his own spirit quest.

By the time his deployment was over, he had it pretty much figured it out: Germany, then Paris with Spencer and Anthony. Maybe Barcelona. He wasn’t quite as high on Spain as they were; mostly he wanted to get back to Germany where he could continue tracking down his own history. When he’d see the eastern side. Austria to see where his father was born. Cross the border, see Switzerland. Then Prague, where he had a cousin, and finally he’d fly out of Frankfurt. He wanted Spencer to go with him; he felt it was something important about him he wanted Spencer to see, but didn’t want to pressure Spencer to do something he didn’t want to do, but might end up doing out of duty.

So Alek decided to tell a little lie, “I actually want to do some of that EuroRail stuff too,” he wrote. That way he’d get to see Spencer, without taking Spencer off his path. Alek would go back to Germany afterward, to finish his journey on his own.

So the plan was set. He closed his computer and went to the gym. Just another month of his boring deployment, idly hoping, wishing, for some action before his adventure could begin.

FINALLY, AFTER WHAT FELT like a decade, he was done. Sitting in the belly of a C-17 Globemaster rumbling down the runway at Bagram Airfield and lifting up into the cloud cover. Someone said something about a sandstorm in Kuwait, which explained why the plane was diverted to Qatar to wait it out. Before the long flight from the Middle East to Texas for demobilization, they had to stop in Germany to refuel. Such a roundabout way, he thought. He was on his way to see his roots, and there they were, right out the window, almost close enough to touch, but the path took him all the way back to the US first before he was free.