look at each other, the recognition of experiences shared is like a current arcing through space and making a connection.
But we don’t talk much about that. Micky squinted at me, then bent down, opened the lid on a big orange cooler, and handed me a bottle of beer. He picked up his own bottle and clicked the neck against mine. “Confusion to our enemies,” he said and took a sip.
“Why should we be alone?” I replied.
Micky’s partner Art came through the sliding glass door that led to the den. He smiled at me. Art is bigger than my brother and his hair is a lighter, sandy sort of red. But he has the same cop mustache. And the same cop eyes.
“Deirdre wants to know how much longer, Mick,” Art said.
Micky poked the meat with a finger. “Gimme five minutes and we’re set.”
Art nodded at that. He started to head back to the house, then turned. “You talk to Connor about that thing yet?”
My sister Irene’s husband Nick came into the yard just then. Micky jerked his head in Nick’s direction. “Not now,” he told Art.
“There’s a thing?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” Art said. “Right up your alley.”
“Art . . . ” Micky warned him. Then he looked at me. “After dinner. We’ll talk about the thing.”
“And what a thing it is,” Art said over his shoulder as he headed back into the house.
“I love it when you guys get technical,” I said to my brother.
Nick rooted around in the cooler and pulled out a beer, too. He looked at us with bright, expectant eyes, waiting to be let in on things. We changed the subject.
We had eaten and the light outside was fading. I always feel a bit overstuffed and sluggish after a family feed like this. But the kids hadn’t slowed down at all. They had gobbled down their meals and bolted for the yard, leaving paper plates piled haphazardly in the trash and a trail of potato chip crumbs that stretched from one end of the house to another. Twilight deepened and in the strengthening invisibility of night, they hooted like animals from far off jungles.
The den is Micky’s lair. It’s littered with old furniture and bad decorations. My brother paneled it himself, and in spots the wooden sheets of fake walnut are coming away from the furring strips. There’s a neat little space with a desk and a small file cabinet in one corner. On the wall to one side of the desk, there’s a framed collection of family pictures: my folks on the day they were married; all of us kids at the beach, squinting into the sun shining from behind the photographer. My dad, cocky and smooth-faced, posing outside a tent in Korea. He’s wearing a sidearm and a set of faded fatigues. His billed cap is pushed way back on his head. He looks young and thin and his ears seem big. He wouldn’t be that thin again until just before the cancer finally got him.
I sighed to myself, and Micky came up behind me and heard.
He handed me a beer, and in a rare moment of vulnerability, put his arm around my shoulders. We stood there for a hair’s breadth, sharing Dad, before he used the motion to turn me around to lead me to a seat. Art was with him. I looked at them expectantly, but Micky seemed like he didn’t want to talk business. Whatever it was.
Micky gestured at the picture. “Remember what Dad used to say about the Marine Corps?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Two things. ‘Best thing I ever did other than marry your mother . . . ’”
“And?”
“And ‘Don’t ever join,’” I finished.
“Smart man,” Art concluded approvingly.
“The Service . . . ” Micky said with poignant reminiscence. “It’s a whole other world.”
Now I knew my brother had in fact served a tour with the Marines in his younger years. It was both a source of exasperation and pride to our dad. He hadn’t relaxed until Micky came home. And in short order Dad began to worry again: Micky was, after all, home.
“You gotta watch out,” Art said, keeping this odd little conversation rolling.
Who knew where we were heading? “Come on,” I said, “you were both in the military.”
“We were idiots,” Micky said.
“Speak for yourself,” Art said. “I knew just what I was doing . . . though I did come away with a strong desire to never go camping again.”
My brother snorted and drank some beer. Both men smirked in remembrance of things that I, a lifelong civilian, would never know.
I held up a hand. “Boys. Please. I can swear that I have no desire to enlist.”
“Enlist?” Art asked. “You’re too old.”
“Too weird,” Micky added.
“So what are we talking about?” I asked. I paused and added with emphasis, “Is it . . . the thing?” It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
Art got up and made sure the door was shut. It has a habit of popping open at odd moments. Micky’s carpentry is effective but rarely precise.
My brother eyed his partner. Art came back to his seat and sat forward, cradling his beer bottle in his hands. “Okay. Look. I got this call about you.”
“I didn’t do it,” I grinned. But neither man smiled back.
“Seems your fame is spreading, Connor,” Micky snickered. “Someone wants to know whether you’re the real deal.”
I sighed. I’ve been in the paper a few times over the last couple of years. I get some mail from martial artists who yearn to know “what it’s like to put your skills to the ultimate test.” That’s the way one guy put it. Some people confuse real life with a movie. I hate to break the news to them: being on the sharp end of events is scary and exhausting. There’s no sound track. No guarantee of a satisfying ending. When I think back, and I try not to, I’m left with a jumble of memories; my mouth so dry I couldn’t swallow, the feel of another human being’s waning heat. There’s the smell of blood and the crackle of radios when the ambulances arrive, as well as the flush of guilt, relief, and surprise. Finally, I recall the desire to sleep forever.
I looked at my brother and his partner, then held my hand out. “Come on. What’s up?”
Art licked his lips. “I got a semi-official inquiry about you. Guy I knew years ago in the service named Baker.” He looked at Micky and said, “He re-upped and made a career out of it.”
Micky shrugged and made a face that said we all screw our lives up in unique ways.
“This Baker sounds like a real hard-charger,” Micky continued. “You know, Special Forces stuff: parachutes, scuba gear, sneaking around, cutting throats . . . ” He looked up at Art. “Like someone else I know.”
His partner shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was young and foolish once, too.”
I sat forward.
