Sparta (24 page)

Conrad wrote him back:

Hey, Anderson. It's good to hear from you. Glad to hear about you and the lake. I'm running every morning. It's about eight miles, but it seems less because it's not 130 degrees out here. Can't get used to that. I know what you mean about everything seeming not real, but it will get better. You got the dog team going yet? Keep in touch. Semper Fi.

Anderson used to talk about that dogsledding race in Alaska. He talked about it in-country, where 80 degrees was a cool early-morning temperature and the idea of snow was like the idea of deep space. The guys had teased him about going from 120 degrees above to 120 below.

“Hey, Anderson,” Carleton once asked, “what's your deal? Don't you do temperate zones? What about a place where the weather is
nice
? Ever heard of that?
Nice weather
?”

“You've never been on a dogsled, Carleton,” Anderson said, shaking his head. “I'm sorry for you, man.”

Conrad wondered how Anderson's hands were, and if you could go in a race like that with hands like mitts. Anderson swore his hands were okay, though they didn't look okay, and Conrad was pretty sure he was lying.

Conrad answered all the emails. Some of his officer friends were back home, but most of them were still in-country. His best friend, Bruce O'Connell, the leader of their sister platoon in Ramadi, was in Afghanistan. He was up in the mountains somewhere and rarely got to use the Internet. Today he'd written:

Dingo Three Actual: How's it going back home? I bet you're wishing you were here with the rest of us, freezing your ass off and hiking up mountains after
dushman
. Eat your heart out, bro, only heroes are here, all the weenies were sent home. We are a million fucking miles from nowhere. Wish you were with us.

Conrad wrote him back:

Dogbite One Actual, things are tough here too. Can't decide how late to sleep in the morning. Wish I were there with you freezing your ass off. I miss the camel spiders. Let me know how things go. I'll tell you it's pretty weird being back. Semper Fi. Farrell.

He liked hearing from O'Connell and he liked hearing from his men. Until the GMAT review book arrived, his main focus was exercise, run in the morning, PT in the late afternoon. The thing was to keep to a regimen.

After lunch, he drove down to the commercial strip in Casden. The car dealers were clustered along one section. Shiny cars were drawn up along the road below festive strings of fluttering pennants. Conrad drove into the first car lot he came to, which was Japanese. He wasn't sure he wanted Japanese, but he liked the idea of small and efficient.

Snub-nosed cars were drawn up in a row facing the road. Behind them stood the showroom, with a strange swooping roof and a vast plate-glass wall.

Conrad parked the Volvo and got out. The pavement was dense black, fresh and oily beneath his shoes. Did they repave the lot every few months? He wondered how much that added to the sticker price. He pushed through the heavy glass doors. Three cars were parked on the red carpet. Indoors, polished and immaculate, the cars looked like sculptures, like art, not transportation. You were meant to feel like a genius for finding a car that was beautiful and exciting as well as useful.

Conrad stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at a silver sedan. The sloping windshield reflected the bright, watery stars of the ceiling lights. Its outline was smooth and blurred, like water pouring over stones. He thought of a Humvee, huge, heavy, squat, the color of mud. This was like a toy, glittering, small, playful.

A salesman materialized beside him.

“Afternoon,” the man said, smiling. He was tall and pear-shaped, with a round face and thinning brown hair. He wore a blue suit and a white shirt, and a narrow striped tie was clipped onto his shirt above the belly.

Conrad nodded. “Afternoon.”

“I'm Jim Harkness. What can I help you with?” He had bad teeth and a murderer's smile.

“Oh, nothing right now,” Conrad said, nodding, his gaze drifting across the cars. “I'm just looking around.”

“This right here? This is a great car.” Jim Harkness put a proprietary hand on the sleek fender.

“Yeah,” Conrad said.

“Looking for something sporty?” asked Jim.

“I don't really know,” Conrad said.

Jim put his hands in his pockets and jingled something. “This one is sporty,” he said. “Handles well, good on the highway. Nice acceleration.”

“What's the mileage?” asked Conrad. He didn't care.

“Not bad,” said Jim. He leaned back on his heels. “Twenty-one in the city, thirty-two on the road.” He rose slightly on his toes. “Great audio system.”

“How much is it?” Conrad asked. He didn't like standing in front of the plate-glass wall, which would turn into a million flying knives in an explosion. Outside there was constant movement. Cars, trucks, people.

“Well,” said Jim reasonably, “it starts at twenty-two.” He paused. “But we can be flexible.” He smiled, showing the teeth. It looked as though a brown fluid were seeping between them. “Flexibility is our middle name.” He laughed, slitting his eyes.

Conrad said nothing.

“Come on, let's go out for a spin. You'll love the way this car feels.” Jim Harkness jingled his metallic possessions and rose again on his toes.

Conrad thought of driving with him, turning out onto the strip. Cars coming in constantly from the right, traffic lights every few hundred feet. No maneuvering room, cars pulling up close beside you, tailgating you from behind. His chest felt tight, and he took a deep breath to open it.

“Not today,” he said. “Thanks.”

“What'll you be using the car for?” asked Jim Harkness. “City driving? Commuting? Long distances? I could show you another model that gets better mileage.”

“Yeah,” Conrad said. “I'm not buying anything right now. I'm just looking. I'm not sure where I'm going to be.” Outside, a van was backing up, making a series of robotic cheeps. The sounds went through him.

Jim Harkness could feel his withdrawal.

“Here's my card,” he said. “It's got my cell. Anytime you want to talk, give me a call.” He smiled the awful smile. “Some salesmen don't want you to call them at home, won't talk at night. Hey!” He raised his shoulders, lordly. “That's not my way. You want to talk? I'm ready. Call anytime, we can talk about flexible plans, different models, whatever you want.”

“Thanks,” Conrad said. He put the card in his pocket. “Thanks a lot.”

He pushed out through the door. On the black pavement he was hit by the unmitigated glare of the sun. The red and white pennants hung slack. Beyond the pavement was the midday traffic on the strip, the sun hitting the cars, bright refracted gleams everywhere. There was too much to focus on. He'd planned to visit three or four places, but when he left the lot, he turned up the steep hill onto Green Lane to head home by the back roads.

It didn't actually make sense to buy a car now. If he was taking courses in New York in the fall, he'd just be paying garage fees. The idea of graduate school made something rise up in his chest again. It was infuriating.
Shut the fuck up,
he wanted to say to himself. What was it? The sense of helplessness was the worst, the feeling that he couldn't control this.

He looked in the rearview mirror. There was one car behind him, a small dark red sedan, at four hundred meters. It drove slowly, without gaining. He lost it around curves. As he drove, he checked on it constantly, dropping his eyes to the road, then raising them up to the mirror. He watched the car on the straights. He had no backup here, he was alone. In-country you never traveled alone.

He watched the car and saw it turn off onto The Narrows Road. Probably a housewife picking up a kid from school. He knew that, but it didn't change how he felt when he saw the car following him.

When he arrived home, it was midafternoon and the day seemed flat and old. The cleaning lady's car was in the driveway. Conrad parked in the garage but didn't get out of the car. He didn't want to go inside, though there was nowhere else for him to be. He didn't want to speak to anyone. He didn't want to smile at the cleaning lady and say hello to her.

The cheerful, sloppy Italian woman, Maria, who had cleaned for them during his childhood, was gone. Retired or moved away or something. Now there was an Eastern European woman, thin-lipped and small-eyed, who wore tight, pilled foot-strap pants. She had faded frizzy hair and spoke her own impenetrable language and barely any English. Lydia had introduced him to her, pretending the same kind of friendship she'd had with Maria, whom she'd loved. This woman never smiled; she would never hug any of them, but Lydia acted as though she didn't know this.

“Katia, this is
my son
,” she had said, unconsciously raising her voice, the way people did when they thought you didn't understand them. Katia nodded secretively, unsmiling, looking from one to the other of them as though assessing the possibilities.

Wherever Katia was now in the house, she would be disturbing, dragging the vacuum noisily over his foot, leaving the bottle of Windex and a cleaning rag in his bathroom sink, a pile of dirty laundry on the kitchen table. Actually, he didn't want to be in anyone's presence right now.

Conrad backed the car up, turned around, and drove down the driveway. On the dirt road he headed north. Ten miles away was another reservoir, the Titicus, longer and more densely wooded. A dirt road followed its southern edge, a paved one on the northern side. He made his way up by back roads.

There were no houses along any of the reservoirs. Along the shore of the Titicus was a tall mixed forest with scrubby underbrush. He took the dirt road that wound around the southern edge. He could see the reservoir through the trees, the flat reflective surface. The water was a dull, muddy green, opaque and glaring. He drove slowly along the gravelly road.

As he came around a corner he saw a woman coming toward him with a dog on a leash. The dog was black and curly-coated, a Portuguese water dog, with a wide choke collar. As Conrad approached, the woman pulled back and the dog leaned forward, and as the Volvo drew up alongside, the dog exploded. Barking, frenzied, it threw itself against the leash.

The woman was tall and energetic-looking. She had short black hair and wore jeans and a T-shirt. She leaned back, tugging on the leash. The dog was lunging so hard that it levitated, hanging in the air, suspended by the leash and its big choke collar. Its teeth were bared. The woman shouted at it, yanking, but the dog paid no attention.

Conrad lifted his hand as he drove past, but the woman ignored him. She was using both hands on the dog leash, struggling with the creature. The dog nearly reached the car, its black, furry legs sticking straight out into the air. Its mouth was white with teeth. Conrad drove slowly past. He hated the sight of it, the raging dog, the black lips lifted against the white teeth. Struggling brainlessly against its owner, the person who fed it and cared for it. He tried not to look.

He thought of stopping, getting out of the car, and sending one kick into the dog's chest. One kick. He knew how it would feel against his foot, the whole body rising up, borne into the air by his foot, the ribs breaking with the impact, splintering into the chest. He wouldn't do this. He thought of doing it.
Jesus.
What was the matter with him?

Once, outside Ramadi, he'd been on mounted patrol with Jackson. They were driving through open land and saw a group of Iraqi dogs, their ribs showing beneath their tan coats, long tails curled over their backs. The dogs were worrying at something in a ditch at the edge of a field. As the patrol came closer, Conrad saw what they were after: an Iraqi man's body, the clothes muddied and dark. The dogs were crowded around it, gulping, wolfing. Jackson sighted on the dogs with his rifle.

“I can pick them off, sir,” he offered, squinting into the sights.

“We're Marines,” Conrad told him. “Marines don't shoot dogs, Jackson.”

“No, sir,” Jackson said, lifting his barrel and facing forward again.

That had been early. Later on, everyone shot dogs. They all called it Operation Scooby-Doo and thought they'd been clever, choosing that name. But everyone called it that. Conrad didn't approve, but he'd stopped telling the men not to do it.

Now Conrad turned his head away from the dog. Afterward, as he drove along, he tried to focus on the reservoir, the open stretches of calm water. None of it made him happy, and the thought came to him that he couldn't live like this.

 

12

The cleaning lady's car was gone now; the house was empty.

Conrad went up to his room and called Claire. She'd be at work now; he'd leave a message. At once she picked up.

“Hey.” He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees.

“What's up?” she asked. He told her about the early run, the car dealership.

“The salesman gave me his cell number,” he said. “Told me to call him anytime, day or night. Is that normal, or do you think he's desperate?”

“I think he's hitting on you,” Claire said.

Conrad laughed. “That must be it.” He'd forgotten it was fun talking to Claire.

“Hold on a second.” He heard her talking to someone. She came back. “Sorry, gotta go. I'm at the office, obviously. Call me tonight. I'll be at home.”

He hung up, feeling lighter. He'd go to another dealership tomorrow, look at another car.

That night at dinner his parents didn't talk about Iraq or ask about his plans. Marshall told them about an article he was writing on gay rights. They argued about why ketchup was so popular.

“It's a completely strange kind of food, you know,” Lydia said. “No other country has anything like it. It's so thick, and so sweet. I forget what it's based on, but it's not like that anymore. Maybe some Indian sauce? Other countries think it's awful.”