The Unit (15 page)

But that’s bullshit. Maybe the only thing I have in common with those people is stubbornness, and I haven’t used even one percent of what I have in that department. They haven’t seen anything yet.

So I stop talking to them. I don’t say anything when they come for me, and I try to stop screaming. I give them the same silent treatment I once gave my dad.

They don’t notice at first. They’re too busy going after my body, but after a while some of them start talking to me, after. And talking is my mission and also my chance to survive. I can’t preach to them. They’ve been preached to all their lives by cops and judges and the people in juvie, and just look where it got them. No. I can’t preach, but I can tell stories, can’t I? I can tell lies about how rich my family is, and maybe the power of greed is stronger than the power of lust.

Not all of them are monsters. Maybe none of them are, given enough time and caring and therapy. There’s Donnie, for instance. He could just be playing with my head like the others play with my body. And if that’s true, then it would be okay for me to hate them all. Then it would be okay for me to wish them dead, if not kill them myself.

But Donnie seems to be a good kid. He looks like he’s about thirteen, and he brings me things. After the first rapes he brought me baby wipes and a clean set of boys’ underwear and a fresh apple and a Pepsi and two pills that turned out to be Oxycontin. He’s a really super-white little kid, with his sad eyes and black hair, and he can’t look directly at me when he gives me stuff. He’s nervous and he wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve. I didn’t notice it before, but he has a speech impediment. He says, “Here,” but he pronounces the “R” like a “W,” so it sounds like “Hew.” And I think it isn’t very good advice, but what should I expect from a wild boy with unrealistic goals?

I didn’t thank him that first time after the hell started, because I thought he’d been sent by someone else. But it was all him that time, and the times that followed, and now I hope he’ll sneak over and give me things, and he does. He gives me a fur coat that smells like old people and mothballs. He gives me a granola bar and a pillow that’s slightly damp, smelling of laundry detergent, with a single bullet hole in the middle and only faint bloodstains remaining.

He doesn’t say anything this time, but he looks at me, then looks away when I meet his eyes. I ask him about getting a bath, and he says they took baths last night but forgot about getting me into the tub. He says he’ll remind Bill Junior. I thank him and I reach out to touch his arm, but he pulls away and walks all hunched over back to his comrades.

The other boys taunt him when he comes out of the shack. They say, “Donnie’s in loooooove. He wants to issy-kissy the itchy-bitchy, dooooesn’t he?” They have a good laugh, but then the mean ones start talking about what they want to do to me, and
will
do to me, soon, and I bite my lip to stop the screaming, and sometimes it works.

Dizzy. Feels like a truck ran over my head. If this crappy little settlement had a pharmacy, I’d be tempted to load up on drugs. But no, I’ll limit my drug of choice to Motrin. Mom stands over me. Her shot arm is in a lumpy, dirty sling, and she uses her other arm to offer me a bottle of booze. I refuse it. I think she’s trying to get me wasted so I won’t know when the little shits come for us and it’s time to die. I’m grateful and pissed off about it, both.

Dad is still away, but Mom isn’t pacing when she prays, so I know he hasn’t left to get Melanie yet. I don’t know how he’ll do it. There has to be more than a dozen of the little bastards left alive. I’ve never been able to believe in God, some huge eye in the sky that loves us and watches over our every move, and not only
lets
things happen, but sometimes
makes
them happen. I wish I could believe it. I wish I could look right into that supernatural eye and ask it to help my dad, but then I feel like a hypocrite and I cry a little bit. I cry and I tell myself that I’m only washing out my eyes, and fear has nothing to do with it.

But yeah, right. That’s what I used to say about most things—
Yeah, right
. Everything before was bullshit. But not now. This is them and this is me. No more flying around on trips to nowhere, smoking weed and buzzing through life at low altitude. No more playing computer games at night, waiting for my life to start. The bombs jump-started me, and that’s a good thing. I never would’ve been this alive without the bombs. God help me, I like it. I want to get back into the game, and if I was a praying man, that’s what I’d pray for.

And I can’t afford to ignore the possibility that He or She exists, because He or She is my last hope. I want to believe that my gramma is in heaven. I want to believe it so much that it hurts, so I kind of
do
believe it. At least I don’t rule it out, the heaven she believed in without doubt.

Maybe hope is God and God is hope. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Yeah. I can pray to that. Please help me, whoever You are. Give me the wisdom to figure out where I stand with people and with myself. Even if You’ve moved on, or You’re dead, or You’re only make-believe, I still think I’ll talk to You. Dad needs my help. He’s going out to kill or be killed. I think he’s planning to trade his life for Melanie’s. But then what? Then Mom will be stuck in hell with a half-blind son and a pacifist daughter. We’ll be easy prey for the vultures.

So let it come back. Let me see again. A single person isn’t worth much these days, but another gun could make a difference. I know I’ll be making a lot of promises to You soon, and here’s the first of them: If You get us through this shit, all of us alive and whole, I’ll give the rest of my life to You. I’ll dedicate my life to some holy cause that You see fit to tell me about.

I’m serious, here, Mr. God. I’m every bit as serious as one of the heart attacks You use to kill billions of people. I’m as serious as a lightning bolt or a tornado or the blast of a volcano. Take us through this and I’ll be Your faithful servant. Amen.

I drift off for a while, then I open my eyes. I start to feel like a fake asshole, because I was praying, and meaning it, and other people might say it’s just a coincidence, but when I open my eyes again, I can see better. My vision isn’t all the way back, but I think it will get there. And He’s got me, then. I stumble outside and I can see faraway ridgelines, darker against the dark sky. I can see the enemy’s bonfires, too. The world is like a wet oil painting, but it’s fine art, to my eyes, and He’s got me in His service now.

I go back to my bed of hay, my little manger bed, and I dream in Technicolor.

She’s a fine one, all right. I can’t get her out of my head. Part of me wants to take her for myself, but the men probably wouldn’t stand for it. Pirate leaders are always making hard decisions, because their men don’t want to be led at all, right? Isn’t that the whole point of being a pirate? Sure, a little bit of assholishness is called for, whippings and Hunt Club, and all of that. I need them to fear me. They
want
to fear me, but I also want them to think of me as a fair man. A little assholishness goes a long way, but no, I can’t take the girl for myself. If we find more girls, maybe I’ll take her then, but I can’t do it now.

But she’s still in my head, so I go to see her. I arranged a bath for her, with hot water and fresh bars of soap and five different kinds of shampoo and our two queer dudes standing guard. It’s two hours before the next watch ends, so she’s had some time to get her shit together. I walk into her shack. It’s warm inside. There’s a propane heater glowing red in the middle of the floor, but I leave the door open, like I did before. She’s sitting in a chair. There’s a little desk in the shack and someone brought her a mirror, and she’s combing her hair. I walk to where I can see her reflection, and she’s combing her hair without looking into her eyes. I look at her eyes myself, and they’re green and steady, and I’m glad to see it.

She doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t say anything, so I clear my throat. I feel almost like I don’t know what I’m doing.

“I’ll get you a bath every week.”

“Good.”

I’m quiet for a while. I want to ask her how she’s doing, but I have a pretty good idea. Then she surprises me. She asks me how
I’m
doing.

I tell her not to worry about that. There isn’t anything else to say. I want to tell her I’m not such a bad guy. I want to say I’d like to get to know her, and wouldn’t it be nice of we’d met some other way, but damn that shit sounds lame.

I walk away. When I turn to close the door, she’s looking straight at herself in the mirror, and her eyes are like the eyes of a pissed-off angel.

Seems as if I haven’t slept in years. I might go crazy or I might drop dead in my tracks, but I can’t sleep. Even if I suddenly grew tired, I couldn’t sleep now.

I sit with Susan on a hay bale. I put my hand on her knee and she stands and then she paces.

“You can’t go alone.”

“There’s no one else. There’s you and me and Scotty and Melanie. We’re not leaving without her. And we can’t leave Scotty here alone.”

“I could be the one who goes after Melanie,” she says.

I love her for saying that. She doesn’t show a shred of fear, even though she’s offering up her life. She’s like me and I’m like her and we’re like the other people in the world who only reveal what they’re made of when everything goes to hell.

“No,” I say. “Your arm, for one thing…”

“Look. You’re the only one who can lead Scotty to safety. You could carry him, if it came to that. I couldn’t.”

“No.”

“The boys wouldn’t be as afraid of me as they are of you. I could walk straight up to them.”

“And then what? Be their mommy? Try to kill them all?”

“The children need you more than they need me.”

“Nice try, but that’s simply not true.”

I want to give her whatever she asks for. Anything but that. I want her to know I’m the right person for the job. I’m afraid for Melanie, but I’m so pissed off at those little monsters I have no qualms about killing them. The worst of human depravity. Cutting and separating that which was joined. Looking into eyes and shooting, hitting, crushing until the lights go out. Maybe even stopping the bloodflow and bandaging wounds to keep them alive, and then starting over again. The only thing worse than being dismembered is being dismembered by a vengeful father with a dull knife. It almost makes me smile.

But I don’t want Susan to remember me this way. I don’t want her to know I’ve fallen so far. I hold her and she holds me and we shiver together without tears or arousal. The path before us isn’t of our choosing. I have no choice but to go. We’re in the right, and that should count for something. Good people lose, too, but I don’t intend to be so good that I reduce my chances. I’ll be good and I won’t torture the little fuckers, but I know from personal experience that good people can be ruthless, too.

I take the warmth and strength Susan is giving me, and my animal anger turns gradually into something quiet and patient as death itself. She isn’t crying. She gives me a stiff, last hug, her splinted arm between us, and then she moves away. I have no idea what she’s thinking, but this is probably our last goodbye, and I don’t want to ruin it by asking.

Stubborn man. But I’m stubborn, too, and if we weren’t so stubborn, we wouldn’t still be taking up space among the living.

But if he doesn’t come back? I’ll have my freedom then. Maybe I can handle it. But now I don’t know if I
want
to handle it.

Maybe I was thinking about leaving him, but I still want him to be alive in the world. I shouldn’t let him go alone. Any idiot knows not to go out alone these days. And I’ll feel alone without him, maybe for the rest of my life. He’s not a big talker, but I hate the way the world seems to shed possibilities when he’s gone, its colors growing duller and nobody else around who cares enough to have even his limited ability to understand me.

My arm throbs without end. The sharp bone-broken throbs are coming less often, but my left arm will be worthless for at least another month, assuming the wound doesn’t get infected.

I breathe carefully in and out while Jerry pulls out his folding knife. He walks up to Bill Senior. He cuts the old man’s legs free and then his arms. He helps him stand and Bill Senior stumbles around as the blood flows back into his skinny extremities. He seems to be in pain, but he doesn’t complain. Jerry gives him a canteen of water and he guzzles and spits and belches.

“I wondered whether or not you’d turn into a decent human being,” Bill Senior says.

“Decent human beings are in short supply these days. I have a proposition.”

“Figured you might.”

Jerry runs his hands over the Cessna.

“Will it fly?”

“Bet your ass it will. And yes, I can fly it. So what’s the deal?”

“Take a guess.”

“There’s not enough room for all of us. Not if you get your girl back.”

“I know.”

“Okay. What then?”

Jerry walks over and stands very close to Bill Senior. He points at me. He points at Scott.

“You take two passengers.”

“Where?”

“Fly them to Sacramento. My wife and son will put in a good word for you there. You should be able to get a fresh start after that. I’ll be walking or driving out with my daughter. But if these two aren’t safe and sound in Sacramento when I get there, I promise I’ll see you dead.”