“Jesus,” Bradley said.
The stranger laughed loudly. “Look at you, whiter than a fuckin’ ghost. What are you? Giving blowjobs over there on base all day?”
The others joined and their laughter invaded the kitchen. Bradley stepped around the island, toward the stranger. It wouldn’t take much. A sideswipe to the guy’s bad leg would send him to the floor.
Jared strolled into the kitchen, Sonya in tow. “What’d I miss, Taylor?” he asked.
“Nothing yet. But stick around and you might see Mr. Welcome Home try and get tough.”
Just then, Bradley lunged, ducking fast beneath Taylor’s arms and ramming him into the pantry door. What would have been a take down and two points back in high school was now just an awkward moment, Bradley the star fool. Taylor looked down at the boy wrapped around his rib cage and gave a chuckle.
“Well, how about that,” he said.
Bradley angled his weight into Taylor and felt the hinge on his prosthesis start to give. And as though it were as easy as shaking hands, Taylor slid one meaty arm underneath Bradley’s chin, securing a head lock. The other, he used in a guillotine—both illegal moves in any high school match, but who said anything about playing straight? Bradley’s head throbbed, his field of vision suddenly speckled into fading stars.
“Ah, relax,” Jared said.
Taylor eased up, and Bradley slowly backed out of the position. Seamlessly then, he felt Taylor’s thick palms grip his shoulders and flip him around into a full nelson. Jared laughed then, too, seeing his brother’s face, cheeks flushed and veins throbbing along his temples.
“What the fuck?” Bradley squeezed out.
“He’s just messing with you, bro. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Taylor said and released his grip. “Just like Iraq. A little hand-to-hand to keep things real.”
“Right,” Bradley said, stepping away and popping his neck. He had a mind to flee but it was his party, wasn’t it? He leaned against the kitchen island to steady himself. As he rubbed his hands along his throat, he felt a small impression where the buttons on Taylor’s shirt had gouged into his flesh like a tiny, faked bullet hole.
“You bring what I asked?” Jared said.
“Sure as shit,” Taylor said. “And the high’s almost as good as a fire fight.”
The others settled around the kitchen table, Sonya sitting on Jared’s knee. His brother took a hit from the pipe, electric white smoke crackling into the air. As if reading Bradley’s mind, Jared exhaled and looked at his brother.
“Don’t worry, kid. It’s only every once in a while.” He smiled, then passed the pipe to Sonya.
Kid. The word didn’t sit well anymore. Kids didn’t enlist in the Army. Kids didn’t have keggers thrown in their honor, local papers touting their military accomplishments, strangers in airports thanking them for their service. Kids weren’t hometown heroes, but maybe Bradley wasn’t, either. He’d certainly been shown as much a few minutes ago, wrapped in Taylor’s death grip. He shoved his way out the back door and wandered into the yard. The night felt cool and damp, as if on the edge of a rainstorm. How long had Jared been hanging around guys like that? He’d acted so casual. Then again, he hadn’t heard Taylor’s crack about blowjobs—or had he? Bradley breathed deeply and kicked his feet along the top of the grass. No dust. No camel spiders. Just that sweet air laced with the sideways hint of a norther.
A few minutes passed and he heard the front door open and close, then a car pulling out of the driveway. Fucking infidel, he thought. Weren’t they all fighting in the same war? Choking on the same sand? Guzzling the same chlorinated water that gave everybody the shits? “You’ll make a good team player,” a recruitment officer had told Bradley when he looked over his high school transcripts, noting the weight training credits and sports accolades. But as a wrestler he was the one in charge, long seconds between the ref’s whistle to start and end each match something like a buzz for Bradley as he maneuvered ankle picks and duck-unders, always quicker than his opponents. Teammates hollered from the sidelines, but those seconds in between were all Bradley’s—from the instant decisions he made locking arms with the other guy, to those rare moments he found himself pressed into the mat, body contorted into passivity, when he knew he’d been beat. That was gone now, and though Bradley had moments of cleverness on the roller board underneath a Humvee, wrenches and bolts in hand, those victories were quiet. Smaller. Hardly noticed in the great machinery of war.
Sonya’s laughter cut through the night air, the sound emanating from somewhere back inside. Bradley stumbled to the edge of the lawn and unzipped to take a piss. He could crash on the couch downstairs, but, no. He wanted his own bed. He zipped up and started walking down the driveway.
“Hey, hold on a sec,” a voice called.
“Who’s there?” Bradley saw a figure squatting near the shrubs by the mailbox, just beyond the reach of the porch lights.
“It’s Ashleigh,” she said and stood. “Sorry. The bathroom was locked. Can I get a ride? I’m just in the apartments above the gas station.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’m Bradley.”
“I know,” she said. “Nice party.”
She looked at him, her light skin visible through the darkness. Her blond bangs were trimmed to just above her eyebrows. A few hairs caught in her thick mascara. She was older. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? They hadn’t gone to school together, he knew that much.
“You ready? That’s me over there.” He pointed to the Ranger.
“Yeah,” she said. “You good to drive?”
“Good enough.” Bradley shrugged. He hoped it was true.
Minutes later, they stood awkwardly at the bottom of the steps behind the gas station, sharing a cigarette. If this had been Jared’s moment, they might not have made it out of the truck, windows steaming in the damp starlight. But enough of Jared. Enough of folks thinking they knew what it meant to go to Iraq. War played out awkwardly, rarely as planned. Bradley’s war might be fought in tiny moments inside the wire, but it was still war. It wasn’t his fault nobody else could see that.
“It’s weird being back,” he said. He shifted his weight from side to side, gravel crunching underfoot.
“I bet.”
“Kinda makes high school look like a cake walk.” As soon as he said it he regretted it, that kid in him always creeping around the edges, making it impossible for anyone to take him seriously. He glanced at Ashleigh and noted the way her lips curled around the cigarette filter as she took another drag. She seemed caught up in something else. If she took him for a kid, she wasn’t showing it.
“So?” she asked. “What’s it like over there?”
Bradley shook his head. “Nobody’s asked me that all night.”
She took the last drag and crushed the cigarette beneath her sneakers. “Well, you don’t have to say nothin’.” She reached for his hands. He felt the cold metal of her watch
