the metal bobbing cork, halfway between the sip and the shore, is witnessing no strolling, no meeting. No, no such luck.
It’s a fucking shooting gallery.
Three hundred yards of beach and it’s a fucking shooting gallery. Sitting ducks. The air strikes missed.
A half hour.
A half hour for these sick fuck Germans to wake up and drink their whatever the fuck they drink and wait for us, US, like sitting ducks on the low-tide beach.
Better jump off the side now, better jump off the side of the bobbing metal cork—Jesus, they are mowing ’em down in front like a firing squad. Might as well be back in the American Revolution over here.
Jesus.
Ratatat-tat.
“Jump!”
“But that’s not the—”
“Jump, goddammit!”
Now it’s motherfucking ice cold, all the way up to the chest, this pack, these boots, this gun, this fucking thing is never gonna fire. If I make it.
Now bullets through the water. Pshew pshew pshew. Jesus. There and there and over there, too. Now blood, Jesus. Seeping out everywhere—how strange it goes, little tentacles, clusters. It’s not my blood. It’s not my blood yet.
Now is the worst part. The waters ending. Now the shore. The shore. Oh, Christ. How many men? It’s crowded. This is a fucking crowded party, my friends. And these are my friends, indeed.
Stay down. Stay down.
OK.
You can do this. Just a stretch of beach, just a stretch of beach. Bulletproof. I am bulletproof. I’m an American and this is how I save the world.
When you look at the aerial shots of Omaha Beach on this day, you will get confused. There ocean. Yes, familiar. There’s sand. Yes, that seems right. There is the grass above and the bunkers. Yes, I understand.
But then, below, where the ocean meets the shore, there are all these skinny rectangles, one, two, three, even four skinny rectangles parallel to the beach. All along the length of the beach. Hundreds of them.
And then, above, one, two, three, even four above of the skinny rectangles, perpendicular to the beach, up a ways, on the shore. The length of the beach, as well.
This is, say, one hundred yards of beach. Not much. It’s a big goddamn beach, you could only get so much in one goddamn photo.
And the skinny rectangles?
Make the skinny rectangles parallel to the beach, floating willy-nilly but more or less beached by the ebb and flow of the tide . . . make them the ones dead in the water. Private First Class Dwyer, who had been vomiting in the metal cork. Private First Class Solano, who had whispered to himself a prayer. Did he whisper it there in the water, too, did he whisper it to the sand and the blood in the tentacle pattern ebbing to and fro, to and fro?
And perpendicular? Make those rectangles injured and hidden up against the dunes. Make those the ones that got grabbed and dragged and hauled and left. Make them live. Most of them.
Make one of them a man named Charles Krause. A man who, seeing his feet below him and the skinny rectangles floating in the water ten yards down, would think now, would always think, he was not a man for getting injured. He was not a man to be torn to pieces by bullets, but the bullets begged to differ, bleeding him out into the brine. Leveled. He should’ve been up there fighting. He should’ve made it up the sand. It was a guilt he carried with him from that day to the next day to the next year and to the rest of his days, back in Michigan, Muskegon, Michigan—where he would never tell a soul. No one. Not even his wife.
The snow plower would never be upset with his wife for her dumb stupid doll collection again. In fact, the first thing he would do after that day, that long day of questions and more questions . . . looking at that body, waiting for hours, those grueling sessions recounting over and over his every step, movement, thought. The watch on his wrist. The hat in his hand. Everything he had on from that day, he would put in a plastic bag and bury deep dark deep in the back of his closet.
The first thing he would do upon seeing his wife, his sweet, ashy, thankless wife. He would walk up to her, slowly, and crash her up against the wall. He would put his mouth on her shoulder. Flowers on her apron. He would stand her up against the wall and whisper to her deep, “I am stupid. I am a stupid man. Don’t ever leave me. I will buy you a doll every day for the rest of your life and build a new room for all the dolls in the world. Stay with me. Just. Stay with me.”
At night, his eyes in the ceiling, he would stare back at those ice doll eyes, that porcelain face, and, underneath them, a blue-and-white locket, a cameo. Wedgwood.
Shauna Boggs was daddy’s little girl. Even though he called her plumpish and sometimes ignored her altogether, she was still his one and only. She knew.
She knew it just like she knew, the day her mom took off, that she was now the lady of the house. It was up to her. She would do the cooking and she would do the cleaning and she would press his shirts and make his Maker’s Mark just how he liked it, not too much ice, but not too little either.
She held her position with honor and grace from seven to ten to twelve to fourteen. She held her position as the lady of the house with the seriousness of a librarian.
And when Mr. Boggs came home one night, too late from the Jewel Box, and swooped her up from her bed and carried her into his bed and treated her like the lady of the house . . . she held that position too.
A police description can look like this: “Body was found at approximately 7:15 AM on March 13, 1978, off Route 31, two miles south of the corner of Pioneers and the Route 31 interchange. There were numerous lacerations to the neck, shoulders, face. Heavy bruising around the wrists and ankles. Blunt force trauma to the skull. Possible death: strangulation.”
A police description cannot look like this: “I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. How young! How desecrated! How beaten! And then tossed by the side of the road. Discarded trash. A disposable bag. This could’ve been my daughter, my wife, my niece. Who are they? I will find them. I will find them and I will kill them.”
It could say: “Lacerations around the hands and shoulders, defensive wounds, red marks around the wrists and neck, blunt force trauma, possible strangulation.”
It could not say: “I have seen that throat in chapel choir, those vocal chords, now silenced, singing in a soprano voice, a voice, quite literally, just like the cliché, like an angel. But how can you not think it? A voice, yes, like an angel, in the chapel choir. There, on the altar, singing ‘Ave Maria.’ A soprano voice, a stunning voice, singing ‘Look Homeward Angel,’ singing ‘Dona Nobis Pacem,’ singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and even, on a lighter day, ‘Southern Cross.’ ‘This Little Light of Mine.’ A child’s voice. A child’s
