A Return
Josh Penzone
Adam Scuro awoke on his childhood’s bedroom floor. Still in his fatigues, he pulled himself up using his crutches—the last thing issued to him by his country—and sat down on a chair across from his bed. He’d been afraid of that bed, afraid its softness would create a peaceful sleep, trapping him in his repeated nightmare. He looked out the window, into the fading darkness, at the house in front of Vintage Woods Court — There is no light where the devil plays — and waited for Howard Havenshaw—the liar—to enter the scene with an American Flag folded under his arm.
As Adam hopped down his steps, he had visions of swinging a crutch and cracking the old man’s skull. And so he set out to do just that, but, as his crutches snapped against the pavement, attacking the morning silence, his anger dissipated once he came upon Howard.
Howard’s sweatshirt hung heavy, looking big on him. Maybe Howard was shrinking the way old men do. Adam was only fifteen when Howard first spoke to him. He’d missed a three-sixty while skateboarding and scuffed his knee, screaming a curse. “Big words from a little boy,” Howard said, sitting on his front porch cleaning a rifle. “You wanna learn to be a man, sonny? Be here tomorrow at 0-600. I’ll make a hero of you.” Then Howard cocked his rifled and went inside.
Adam waited, but the old man didn’t sense he was behind him. “I see you’re still at it.” Howard turned and Adam pointed at the sweat stains on Howard’s ARMY embossed sweatshirt.
“Five at five. Every morning. God bless routine, because a day without surprises is a—”
“Good day to be a soldier,” Adam said, finishing one of the old man’s overused aphorisms. They both smiled. He wondered if it bothered Howard that he’d stopped e-mailing. “Need help?” Adam nodded at the flag. Howard waved him over. Adam grabbed the flag and Howard fastened the grommets to the metal rings.
“What happened to your leg, soldier?”
“It’s classified,” Adam said.
Howard nodded and then pulled the string, raising the flag. The metal clasps rapped against the flagpole. Adam listened to its unpredictable rhythm as he stared inside Howard’s garage. The left side was crammed with boxes stacked upon one another. Floor to ceiling. The symmetry was commendable. Four rows wide. Seven boxes high. Three boxes deep. Adam stared at those boxes and then finally said, “See you at sunset for the night’s last retreat?”
“Copy that.”
They saluted one another and that was it.
As Adam’ sticks hit the pavement, he couldn’t believe how differently that went than he had envisioned. After he was discharged, he could have gone anywhere—to Vegas, to Hawaii—after all he hadn’t even spent five percent of what he’d made over the last four years as a private in the US Army. But he came home. Not for his family. To confront Howard Havenshaw, the legendary liar of Vintage Woods Court. He came back for something true from Howard. Just one truth. A confession.
~ ~ ~
Adam’s mom was sleeping on the couch. Yesterday at the airport she’d smiled when she saw him, but it looked off, like an unfixable mistake a painter made when constructing a face. He’d heard from his brother Liam that their mom had gone off the rails again and Dad had made sure she was back on her pills. At the airport he caught her sneaking one while they waited at the luggage carousel. He kissed her cheek and said it was good to see her. She stared forward and said “ditto” as they watched the sleek, shiny metal slide around and around.
He sat down on the couch at her feet, wincing at the pain in his knee. After the M.D. extracted fluid to reduce the swelling, he told Adam that he didn’t do any structural damage, so if he took Aleve and kept ice on it, he’d be back in action in no time. Adam told him he was heading home for Thanksgiving. His active duty was up. The M.D. saluted Adam for his service and handed him some Vicodin. He’d been doubling up on the dosage since.
His mom stirred, giving him a glance. “You can take that ridiculous costume off. We all know where you’ve been. Guess that’s why you never called.” She licked her lips and turned over, facing the sofa. The few times he had called home, small talk transitioned to silence until one of them said they had to get going.
“When’s Liam getting home?” he said, wondering why his father hadn’t asked him to go to Miami University with him to pick up his brother for Thanksgiving break.
“Poor Liam.” She mumbled. “He’ll be waiting in his dorm room all day.” She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “He’ll be waiting. Like a fool.”
Their dad was notorious for being late, always choosing his restaurant, The Florentine, his true baby, making everything else second.
Adam waited for her to sit up, to talk to him. When she didn’t, he knelt beside his mother and closed his eyes. He wished she’d stroke his hair, like when he was little and woke up screaming. She’d sing made-up lullabies, until fear subsided, and the monsters returned to shadows on the ceiling.
~ ~ ~
He spent the day reading 1984--it was the only book he’d ever read from start to finish, and he’d read it over twenty times. He’d actually tried to read other books, but when another book was in his hands, something felt wrong, almost immoral. He was at the part where Winston Smith was obsessively imbibing Emmanuel Goldstein’s manifesto, controlling his wanted truth through more lies. Commanding officers joked that Adam was the perfect soldier. They’d say he didn’t bog down the mind with superfluous ideas, allowing only room for the essentials.
Liam texted: d-lay.
It had been so long since Adam had questioned information he received he simply accepted the text’s ambiguity as an order.
He put the book down and studied the bare walls. He pulled back the comforter on his bed and felt flannel bed sheets, his dad’s favorite. Growing up he’d only seen his parents fight when his mom was off her pills, but even then, screaming felt unnatural, more like bad actors doing a table reading. It was worse when they were affectionate. Last night when his father kissed his mother’s cheek, there was a premeditated calculation to it that made Adam itch. All his life he seemed to be waiting for an unprompted moment with his family, some emotional pulsation of anger or fear or spite that was birthed from an unwavering love. Even at seventeen when he’d secretly enlisted, their response couldn’t be executed into fearful words or erratic action, just the same contrived looks: his mother’s usual far-away-pharmaceutical-laced-stare and his father’s tired, forlorn countenance.
Adam rummaged through his duffel bag. He took two Vicodin and chased it down with a swig of Knob Creek he’d found behind the flour in the kitchen cupboard—his father’s hiding place for booze from his mother—and read until Winston was imprisoned. Not bearing to read what happened in room 101, he took his post at the window and waited until the sky was minutes away from that malleable pink and purple—Howard’s cue.
His mom was still asleep on the couch. He stood still, waiting for something, anything to happen.
Nothing.
Crutch free now, Adam limped towards the flagpole.
Howard saluted and pointed to the sky.
“Time of year when darkness seems to roll in faster each night,” Howard said. “Winter’s challenge to make us work more swiftly. Not an issue for us trained men.”
Howard lowered the flag to Adam’s outstretched arms. Five years ago, when Adam had first helped, he tried to tell Howard what he’d learned in American History class about the night’s last retreat. Howard said, “Enough of that tricorn hat nonsense. You want a real military education, kid?” Howard lifted his pant leg, showcasing a horrific scar. Adam was immediately drawn to the violence and glory of war.
Adam rubbed his knee as he looked at the boxes in Howard’s garage. They were the type of boxes you buy in bulk at Lowes and then assemble.
What is he hiding?
Mirroring Adam, Howard rubbed his knee. “I don’t know about your injury, but mine’s telling me some winter nastiness is brewing. No doubt November will trade this Indian summer for snow in a few hours. Ohio weather.”
Adam folded the last of the flag, wondering if his knee injury would one day talk to him.
“Your corners are much tighter than when you were a boy,” Howard said, taking the flag. He tucked the flag under his arm. “Wanna come in for a drink?”
Adam looked back to his house. Although only two houses away, it looked lost in the only dark pocket of the street, as all the other houses had spotlights on front yard trees and flood lights illuminated porches.
“One drink.”
Howard poured doubles and held out his glass. “To the greatest nation in the world.” They drank. Howard patted Adam’s arm. “So, tell me about it.”
“It?”
“It! The shit! Army man to army man. Tell me, because there ain’t no way you can tell anyone who wasn’t in it, least of all your family.”
“Can I tell you?”
Howard paused, then continued. “And if you marry one day, you sure as hell can’t tell her. I mean, she will be compassionate, and overdose you with empathy, but she will look at you differently, as if you can never be trusted again, that is, if you tell her the truth.” Howard looked away. “I know.”
“You never talk about your wife, Howard.”
“Different life.”
“So was war.”
“War never leaves you.”
Adam took a bigger sip than Howard’s.
“Speaking of which…” Howard pointed at Adam.
“What’s to tell?” Adam said.
“You were stationed outside Kabul? Right?
Adam pushed his empty glass forward.
“Gotta be better than the damn jungle.”
“It’s just sad, Howard. Just really, really sad.” Adam looked away, focusing on knickknacks and tchotchkes that were lined up in rows on the dining room table. The objects reminded him of when they’d target civilians in hopes they’d turn informer. Adam was never the talker. Instead he’d focus on some innocuous thing in the room and tried to figure out how it got there.
Adam gulped his drink.
“Easy, soldier. This is the good stuff. Aged eighteen years. Three-hundred bucks a bottle.”
“Did you change something?” Adam stared at the collection of pewter war figurines on the dining room table. “The furniture or something?”
“Same stuff. Gotta keep it simple. Man only needs the essentials.”
The essentials? A single man in a four bedroom, 3200 square foot home? That’s essential?
Adam shrugged, realizing he’d never been upstairs.
“Bet everything’s skewed after Afghanistan: 250,000 square miles, forty-first largest country in the world. All those mountains. That’s a lot of world to cover.”
Adam grinned. The old man had found Google.
“Just saw the one spot. Seemed as big or as small as any other place.”
Adam stretched out his leg. His knee felt healed.
“So what really happened?” Howard nodded to his knee and leaned forward. “Take some shrapnel diving behind a tank after a suicide bomber introduced himself to town square?”
“What happened to your leg, Howard?” Adam said, careful not to slur, as the Vicodin and alcohol mixed him up inside.
“I told you.”
“That’s the one thing you’ve never told me, Howard.”
Howard rubbed his leg.
“What does it matter?”
A text from his brother: DETOUR on 70.
Adam turned off his phone.
“In a Howard Havenshaw tale, everything matters: from droplets of water on a leaf, to the sun’s position, to the thickness of the bayonet, how much sweat in the boots, and the stench of the fart of the guy in front of you. All of it mattered.”
Howard’s eyes widened.
Adam looked away.
“Adam,” Howard shrugged. “Did I do something?”
Adam hit his knee. He hit it again. Nothing. No pain. He jumped out of the chair. “Let’s change the scenery.”
“Hey! Marvin! My buddy Marvin Kipler from my second tour in Nam said that every morning before we set foot on the trail.”
Adam’s grin conjured a dumb smile from Howard, looking like he’d forgotten a punch line to a joke.
~ ~ ~
The Barrel 44 bartenders flashed white teeth as Adam and Howard passed. Adam eyed the chalk-written-whiskey-menu on his way to an empty booth in the back. Howard looked around. “You sure about this place, soldier?”
Adam didn’t answer. He waved over a server. Howard sat down. When the server told them they didn’t carry domestic bottles, only craft beers, Howard said he’d be fine with nothing. Howard looked at Adam. Once a bunkmate had returned from recon and all he had to do was give Adam a look and Adam knew everything from that look. No words needed to be closer for it.
“I think we should leave,” Howard said.
“Look at this booth’s wood. It’s nice. Not like the shitholes in South Carolina during basic. Tables were plywood, or some shit. You should’ve seen the trash looking for uniforms, wanting to be a stateside anchor, taking the benefits of a guy who couldn’t spend his paycheck. I swear. The only way they’d serve this country was on their backs.”
Howard checked his watch.
“Howard, why are those boxes in your garage.”
“What?”
“The boxes. All those boxes? What’s in them?”
Howard shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing is in them.” Howard looked around, itching the side of his neck.
Adam squeezed his hands into fists. Everything was suddenly out of focus.
“Oorah!” a blonde at the bar shouted. She slammed down her empty shot glass and flipped the middle finger at three guys.
“I wonder what she tastes like.”
Howard raised his eyebrows.
“Howard, my man, I haven’t been laid in four years. High school girlfriend gave me a pity screw before I left. I’ve killed as many people as I’ve boned. How’s that for some Adam Scuro trivia?” Adam opened his eyes wide and laughed.
“You okay, soldier?”
“Hell yeah, I’m okay. No dirt on me! I feel goddamn great! Don’t you remember, man! Remember to finally feel free from it? Look!” He pointed at the bar. “They have no idea how safe they are. They don’t get it. None of it. Hey. Go over. Tell one of your stories? Like the one you told me about your friend who stepped on the landmine and exploded in front of you. Just poof! Gone! And then his guts rained on you.”
“Marvin Kipler.”
“Marvin Fuckin’ Kipler. Now that’s how you change the scenery!”
Adam walked over to the blonde. She was about twenty-three and her t-shirt read “Surly Girl Saloon.” A heart in the middle of the shirt had a skull with a pirate’s patch over the left eye, a bandana covering the scalp. Horns protruded from the skull. The three guys around the blonde wore variations.
“Ma’am,” Adam said, “I just heard you shouting on behalf of the United States Marines. Now, those motherfuckers are crazy and great for our country, but they can’t touch the Army, ma’am. Not even close.”
She looked at his desert camo uniform.
“You on leave, soldier?”
Adam slapped his heals together, stretched his spine, and saluted. “Private Adam J. Scuro. Fort Eggers, infantry in the CFC-A, ma’am. Stationed outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Just ended four years of active duty for the United States Army, ma’am!”
“At ease, soldier.” She winked. “My daddy served in the marine corps for over thirty years. Retired now. Even at his age he said he could still whoop any army man with just his left hand.”
“I like those shirts. Got one for me?”
“Why?”
“I’m the only one not wearing one. Looking at us, I look like the enemy.”
“No extra shirts,” she said. The guys with her shrugged.
Howard moved out of the booth and lingered behind Adam.
Adam reached over the bar and grabbed a piece of chalk then pulled off his khaki tee. He handed the chalk to the girl. “Draw that design on me,” he said. “Now, the heart you draw better be the same size as the one you have. The smallest mistake can clue the enemy in.”
“You army guys are crazy! I love it!”
The chalk felt rough at first, then its touch seemed to disappear altogether.
“What happened?” she asked, running her fingers on his side.
Adam slid his tee back over his scarred flesh. “It’s nothing,” he said.
Howard tugged Adam’s arm.
“Adam, I think we should leave.”
“Private, is this your dad?” the girl asked.
“No,” Adam pulled Howard close. “My dad is am un-heroic, small-business owner. This here is the great Howard Havenshaw. The best the Army has ever produced.” Adam’s tone was flat. “Howard, tell these fine people about the time you saved your platoon when you manhandled the enemy and rolled him on top of the very grenade he had thrown?” Howard tried to leave, but Adam pulled him back. “Or the time you went against your CO’s orders because you had a hunch you were being led to an ambush. How your instincts were so keen, you actually ended up ambushing the enemy?” Adam turned to Howard. Their noses almost touched. “Or the time the enemy killed your twin-brother and when he died in your arms how it was like holding your own dead self?”
The bar went silent. Adam waited for Howard to say something. Howard limped to the exit.
Outside, a group of girls’ laughter hung heavy as Adam chased after Howard.
“What, Adam! What do you want?” The protector of Vintage Woods Court’s face was pale and expressionless. He made a violent gesticulation. Adam shrugged and shook his head. He plopped down and scooted back against the façade of the bar. He grabbed his knee. It was painless, but bleeding.
“Adam, we should get you home.”
He cried. Howard sat down next to him.
“My drill sergeant at basic said I came into the Army romanticizing it, like a Hollywood movie or something.” He wiped his cheeks. “Said it wasn’t that uncommon. Said enlistees do it all the time. Then he asked me my favorite war movie, and you know what? I couldn’t name one. Not one goddamn movie.” Adam laughed until he found a way to quiet his voice. “I just don’t get why you’d do it, Howard?”
“Do what?”
“Make it all up.”
The traffic stopped and started and stopped again.
“So you figured me out. I’m a phony. A liar.” After a silence, Howard added. “Jesus, Adam, what do you want me to say?”
Adam closed his eyes. Blood stuck to his pants, and seeped down his leg, into his sock. After his very last military post, he’d gotten drunk and found a rock and smashed his knee. He wanted to do it again, but it hurt so much the first time, he couldn’t bear it. With a bum knee, he couldn’t be called back—ever. But the moment after, he was worried he was right.
“Do you feel guilty?” Adam looked at Howard. Howard didn’t look away, and then he shook his head. “Maybe war is peace,” Adam said.
Howard stood and pushed the crosswalk button. Adam rubbed his bare arms. It’d dropped thirty degrees since the morning. He shivered and thought of the boy, the one who had detonated the bomb, the one who had given him those burns. The boy looked to see if Adam was dead. That’s when Adam shot him.
“Pain and regret.”
“What?”
Adam stood. “That’s what your stories are missing.”
When the crosswalk lit white, Howard didn’t move; Adam limped past. At some point, Howard caught up, and as they walked together, it began to snow.
Howard’s garage door opened, but the overhead light didn’t come on. The headlights shined on the boxes. Adam squinted, trying to give those boxes a sober gaze. Large, wet snowflakes swirled into the headlight’s beam.
“Damn garage light is acting up again,” Howard said.
Howard turned the key. Everything went dark. Adam opened the door. Cold air swept inside. The hardened bloodstained pants scraped against his knee.
“Wait! Adam. Please wait. Just wait a second. One second. I can make this right.”
Howard sounded panicked at first, then his voice steadied.
“Adam, I have something to say. It may not make sense—not at first—but you need to know why I said I was in Vietnam. Why I told you those stories. The truth is my twin brother did die over there. I told you his stories. His. Marvin Kipler was real. In a way it was all real. I couldn’t go. I busted up my leg. The Army said no to me.”
Adam looked at his dark house. He checked to his phone, one message from Liam: u lost?
“My dad was so disappointed in me. He was an Air Force man. He thought I was nothing because I couldn’t serve. I’m just doing what I can here to help the country. This is fine. We are fine. Everything is fine. Just talk to me.”
“I don’t want you to fix anything, Howard. I…” he stared into the garage. “I just need something real.”
“Real? That’s what I’m telling you. Adam, listen to me. Please. Listen. I finally got to pass it on. Don’t you see? Together, we are a team. You have to see that?”
Adam reached over and turned the key. Headlights showed big flakes blowing into the garage. He opened the door emptying Howard’s words to the night air. Adam’s shadow cast over the boxes. He stumbled knocking over a row. “No,” he said, tossing aside the jarred lid. Howard’s shadow loomed over him, still babbling. “No,” Adam said again, as he attacked the boxes, opening one after another after another, until the very last one revealed that they were all truly empty.
Josh Penzone
Adam Scuro awoke on his childhood’s bedroom floor. Still in his fatigues, he pulled himself up using his crutches—the last thing issued to him by his country—and sat down on a chair across from his bed. He’d been afraid of that bed, afraid its softness would create a peaceful sleep, trapping him in his repeated nightmare. He looked out the window, into the fading darkness, at the house in front of Vintage Woods Court — There is no light where the devil plays — and waited for Howard Havenshaw—the liar—to enter the scene with an American Flag folded under his arm.
As Adam hopped down his steps, he had visions of swinging a crutch and cracking the old man’s skull. And so he set out to do just that, but, as his crutches snapped against the pavement, attacking the morning silence, his anger dissipated once he came upon Howard.
Howard’s sweatshirt hung heavy, looking big on him. Maybe Howard was shrinking the way old men do. Adam was only fifteen when Howard first spoke to him. He’d missed a three-sixty while skateboarding and scuffed his knee, screaming a curse. “Big words from a little boy,” Howard said, sitting on his front porch cleaning a rifle. “You wanna learn to be a man, sonny? Be here tomorrow at 0-600. I’ll make a hero of you.” Then Howard cocked his rifled and went inside.
Adam waited, but the old man didn’t sense he was behind him. “I see you’re still at it.” Howard turned and Adam pointed at the sweat stains on Howard’s ARMY embossed sweatshirt.
“Five at five. Every morning. God bless routine, because a day without surprises is a—”
“Good day to be a soldier,” Adam said, finishing one of the old man’s overused aphorisms. They both smiled. He wondered if it bothered Howard that he’d stopped e-mailing. “Need help?” Adam nodded at the flag. Howard waved him over. Adam grabbed the flag and Howard fastened the grommets to the metal rings.
“What happened to your leg, soldier?”
“It’s classified,” Adam said.
Howard nodded and then pulled the string, raising the flag. The metal clasps rapped against the flagpole. Adam listened to its unpredictable rhythm as he stared inside Howard’s garage. The left side was crammed with boxes stacked upon one another. Floor to ceiling. The symmetry was commendable. Four rows wide. Seven boxes high. Three boxes deep. Adam stared at those boxes and then finally said, “See you at sunset for the night’s last retreat?”
“Copy that.”
They saluted one another and that was it.
As Adam’ sticks hit the pavement, he couldn’t believe how differently that went than he had envisioned. After he was discharged, he could have gone anywhere—to Vegas, to Hawaii—after all he hadn’t even spent five percent of what he’d made over the last four years as a private in the US Army. But he came home. Not for his family. To confront Howard Havenshaw, the legendary liar of Vintage Woods Court. He came back for something true from Howard. Just one truth. A confession.
~ ~ ~
Adam’s mom was sleeping on the couch. Yesterday at the airport she’d smiled when she saw him, but it looked off, like an unfixable mistake a painter made when constructing a face. He’d heard from his brother Liam that their mom had gone off the rails again and Dad had made sure she was back on her pills. At the airport he caught her sneaking one while they waited at the luggage carousel. He kissed her cheek and said it was good to see her. She stared forward and said “ditto” as they watched the sleek, shiny metal slide around and around.
He sat down on the couch at her feet, wincing at the pain in his knee. After the M.D. extracted fluid to reduce the swelling, he told Adam that he didn’t do any structural damage, so if he took Aleve and kept ice on it, he’d be back in action in no time. Adam told him he was heading home for Thanksgiving. His active duty was up. The M.D. saluted Adam for his service and handed him some Vicodin. He’d been doubling up on the dosage since.
His mom stirred, giving him a glance. “You can take that ridiculous costume off. We all know where you’ve been. Guess that’s why you never called.” She licked her lips and turned over, facing the sofa. The few times he had called home, small talk transitioned to silence until one of them said they had to get going.
“When’s Liam getting home?” he said, wondering why his father hadn’t asked him to go to Miami University with him to pick up his brother for Thanksgiving break.
“Poor Liam.” She mumbled. “He’ll be waiting in his dorm room all day.” She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “He’ll be waiting. Like a fool.”
Their dad was notorious for being late, always choosing his restaurant, The Florentine, his true baby, making everything else second.
Adam waited for her to sit up, to talk to him. When she didn’t, he knelt beside his mother and closed his eyes. He wished she’d stroke his hair, like when he was little and woke up screaming. She’d sing made-up lullabies, until fear subsided, and the monsters returned to shadows on the ceiling.
~ ~ ~
He spent the day reading 1984--it was the only book he’d ever read from start to finish, and he’d read it over twenty times. He’d actually tried to read other books, but when another book was in his hands, something felt wrong, almost immoral. He was at the part where Winston Smith was obsessively imbibing Emmanuel Goldstein’s manifesto, controlling his wanted truth through more lies. Commanding officers joked that Adam was the perfect soldier. They’d say he didn’t bog down the mind with superfluous ideas, allowing only room for the essentials.
Liam texted: d-lay.
It had been so long since Adam had questioned information he received he simply accepted the text’s ambiguity as an order.
He put the book down and studied the bare walls. He pulled back the comforter on his bed and felt flannel bed sheets, his dad’s favorite. Growing up he’d only seen his parents fight when his mom was off her pills, but even then, screaming felt unnatural, more like bad actors doing a table reading. It was worse when they were affectionate. Last night when his father kissed his mother’s cheek, there was a premeditated calculation to it that made Adam itch. All his life he seemed to be waiting for an unprompted moment with his family, some emotional pulsation of anger or fear or spite that was birthed from an unwavering love. Even at seventeen when he’d secretly enlisted, their response couldn’t be executed into fearful words or erratic action, just the same contrived looks: his mother’s usual far-away-pharmaceutical-laced-stare and his father’s tired, forlorn countenance.
Adam rummaged through his duffel bag. He took two Vicodin and chased it down with a swig of Knob Creek he’d found behind the flour in the kitchen cupboard—his father’s hiding place for booze from his mother—and read until Winston was imprisoned. Not bearing to read what happened in room 101, he took his post at the window and waited until the sky was minutes away from that malleable pink and purple—Howard’s cue.
His mom was still asleep on the couch. He stood still, waiting for something, anything to happen.
Nothing.
Crutch free now, Adam limped towards the flagpole.
Howard saluted and pointed to the sky.
“Time of year when darkness seems to roll in faster each night,” Howard said. “Winter’s challenge to make us work more swiftly. Not an issue for us trained men.”
Howard lowered the flag to Adam’s outstretched arms. Five years ago, when Adam had first helped, he tried to tell Howard what he’d learned in American History class about the night’s last retreat. Howard said, “Enough of that tricorn hat nonsense. You want a real military education, kid?” Howard lifted his pant leg, showcasing a horrific scar. Adam was immediately drawn to the violence and glory of war.
Adam rubbed his knee as he looked at the boxes in Howard’s garage. They were the type of boxes you buy in bulk at Lowes and then assemble.
What is he hiding?
Mirroring Adam, Howard rubbed his knee. “I don’t know about your injury, but mine’s telling me some winter nastiness is brewing. No doubt November will trade this Indian summer for snow in a few hours. Ohio weather.”
Adam folded the last of the flag, wondering if his knee injury would one day talk to him.
“Your corners are much tighter than when you were a boy,” Howard said, taking the flag. He tucked the flag under his arm. “Wanna come in for a drink?”
Adam looked back to his house. Although only two houses away, it looked lost in the only dark pocket of the street, as all the other houses had spotlights on front yard trees and flood lights illuminated porches.
“One drink.”
Howard poured doubles and held out his glass. “To the greatest nation in the world.” They drank. Howard patted Adam’s arm. “So, tell me about it.”
“It?”
“It! The shit! Army man to army man. Tell me, because there ain’t no way you can tell anyone who wasn’t in it, least of all your family.”
“Can I tell you?”
Howard paused, then continued. “And if you marry one day, you sure as hell can’t tell her. I mean, she will be compassionate, and overdose you with empathy, but she will look at you differently, as if you can never be trusted again, that is, if you tell her the truth.” Howard looked away. “I know.”
“You never talk about your wife, Howard.”
“Different life.”
“So was war.”
“War never leaves you.”
Adam took a bigger sip than Howard’s.
“Speaking of which…” Howard pointed at Adam.
“What’s to tell?” Adam said.
“You were stationed outside Kabul? Right?
Adam pushed his empty glass forward.
“Gotta be better than the damn jungle.”
“It’s just sad, Howard. Just really, really sad.” Adam looked away, focusing on knickknacks and tchotchkes that were lined up in rows on the dining room table. The objects reminded him of when they’d target civilians in hopes they’d turn informer. Adam was never the talker. Instead he’d focus on some innocuous thing in the room and tried to figure out how it got there.
Adam gulped his drink.
“Easy, soldier. This is the good stuff. Aged eighteen years. Three-hundred bucks a bottle.”
“Did you change something?” Adam stared at the collection of pewter war figurines on the dining room table. “The furniture or something?”
“Same stuff. Gotta keep it simple. Man only needs the essentials.”
The essentials? A single man in a four bedroom, 3200 square foot home? That’s essential?
Adam shrugged, realizing he’d never been upstairs.
“Bet everything’s skewed after Afghanistan: 250,000 square miles, forty-first largest country in the world. All those mountains. That’s a lot of world to cover.”
Adam grinned. The old man had found Google.
“Just saw the one spot. Seemed as big or as small as any other place.”
Adam stretched out his leg. His knee felt healed.
“So what really happened?” Howard nodded to his knee and leaned forward. “Take some shrapnel diving behind a tank after a suicide bomber introduced himself to town square?”
“What happened to your leg, Howard?” Adam said, careful not to slur, as the Vicodin and alcohol mixed him up inside.
“I told you.”
“That’s the one thing you’ve never told me, Howard.”
Howard rubbed his leg.
“What does it matter?”
A text from his brother: DETOUR on 70.
Adam turned off his phone.
“In a Howard Havenshaw tale, everything matters: from droplets of water on a leaf, to the sun’s position, to the thickness of the bayonet, how much sweat in the boots, and the stench of the fart of the guy in front of you. All of it mattered.”
Howard’s eyes widened.
Adam looked away.
“Adam,” Howard shrugged. “Did I do something?”
Adam hit his knee. He hit it again. Nothing. No pain. He jumped out of the chair. “Let’s change the scenery.”
“Hey! Marvin! My buddy Marvin Kipler from my second tour in Nam said that every morning before we set foot on the trail.”
Adam’s grin conjured a dumb smile from Howard, looking like he’d forgotten a punch line to a joke.
~ ~ ~
The Barrel 44 bartenders flashed white teeth as Adam and Howard passed. Adam eyed the chalk-written-whiskey-menu on his way to an empty booth in the back. Howard looked around. “You sure about this place, soldier?”
Adam didn’t answer. He waved over a server. Howard sat down. When the server told them they didn’t carry domestic bottles, only craft beers, Howard said he’d be fine with nothing. Howard looked at Adam. Once a bunkmate had returned from recon and all he had to do was give Adam a look and Adam knew everything from that look. No words needed to be closer for it.
“I think we should leave,” Howard said.
“Look at this booth’s wood. It’s nice. Not like the shitholes in South Carolina during basic. Tables were plywood, or some shit. You should’ve seen the trash looking for uniforms, wanting to be a stateside anchor, taking the benefits of a guy who couldn’t spend his paycheck. I swear. The only way they’d serve this country was on their backs.”
Howard checked his watch.
“Howard, why are those boxes in your garage.”
“What?”
“The boxes. All those boxes? What’s in them?”
Howard shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing is in them.” Howard looked around, itching the side of his neck.
Adam squeezed his hands into fists. Everything was suddenly out of focus.
“Oorah!” a blonde at the bar shouted. She slammed down her empty shot glass and flipped the middle finger at three guys.
“I wonder what she tastes like.”
Howard raised his eyebrows.
“Howard, my man, I haven’t been laid in four years. High school girlfriend gave me a pity screw before I left. I’ve killed as many people as I’ve boned. How’s that for some Adam Scuro trivia?” Adam opened his eyes wide and laughed.
“You okay, soldier?”
“Hell yeah, I’m okay. No dirt on me! I feel goddamn great! Don’t you remember, man! Remember to finally feel free from it? Look!” He pointed at the bar. “They have no idea how safe they are. They don’t get it. None of it. Hey. Go over. Tell one of your stories? Like the one you told me about your friend who stepped on the landmine and exploded in front of you. Just poof! Gone! And then his guts rained on you.”
“Marvin Kipler.”
“Marvin Fuckin’ Kipler. Now that’s how you change the scenery!”
Adam walked over to the blonde. She was about twenty-three and her t-shirt read “Surly Girl Saloon.” A heart in the middle of the shirt had a skull with a pirate’s patch over the left eye, a bandana covering the scalp. Horns protruded from the skull. The three guys around the blonde wore variations.
“Ma’am,” Adam said, “I just heard you shouting on behalf of the United States Marines. Now, those motherfuckers are crazy and great for our country, but they can’t touch the Army, ma’am. Not even close.”
She looked at his desert camo uniform.
“You on leave, soldier?”
Adam slapped his heals together, stretched his spine, and saluted. “Private Adam J. Scuro. Fort Eggers, infantry in the CFC-A, ma’am. Stationed outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Just ended four years of active duty for the United States Army, ma’am!”
“At ease, soldier.” She winked. “My daddy served in the marine corps for over thirty years. Retired now. Even at his age he said he could still whoop any army man with just his left hand.”
“I like those shirts. Got one for me?”
“Why?”
“I’m the only one not wearing one. Looking at us, I look like the enemy.”
“No extra shirts,” she said. The guys with her shrugged.
Howard moved out of the booth and lingered behind Adam.
Adam reached over the bar and grabbed a piece of chalk then pulled off his khaki tee. He handed the chalk to the girl. “Draw that design on me,” he said. “Now, the heart you draw better be the same size as the one you have. The smallest mistake can clue the enemy in.”
“You army guys are crazy! I love it!”
The chalk felt rough at first, then its touch seemed to disappear altogether.
“What happened?” she asked, running her fingers on his side.
Adam slid his tee back over his scarred flesh. “It’s nothing,” he said.
Howard tugged Adam’s arm.
“Adam, I think we should leave.”
“Private, is this your dad?” the girl asked.
“No,” Adam pulled Howard close. “My dad is am un-heroic, small-business owner. This here is the great Howard Havenshaw. The best the Army has ever produced.” Adam’s tone was flat. “Howard, tell these fine people about the time you saved your platoon when you manhandled the enemy and rolled him on top of the very grenade he had thrown?” Howard tried to leave, but Adam pulled him back. “Or the time you went against your CO’s orders because you had a hunch you were being led to an ambush. How your instincts were so keen, you actually ended up ambushing the enemy?” Adam turned to Howard. Their noses almost touched. “Or the time the enemy killed your twin-brother and when he died in your arms how it was like holding your own dead self?”
The bar went silent. Adam waited for Howard to say something. Howard limped to the exit.
Outside, a group of girls’ laughter hung heavy as Adam chased after Howard.
“What, Adam! What do you want?” The protector of Vintage Woods Court’s face was pale and expressionless. He made a violent gesticulation. Adam shrugged and shook his head. He plopped down and scooted back against the façade of the bar. He grabbed his knee. It was painless, but bleeding.
“Adam, we should get you home.”
He cried. Howard sat down next to him.
“My drill sergeant at basic said I came into the Army romanticizing it, like a Hollywood movie or something.” He wiped his cheeks. “Said it wasn’t that uncommon. Said enlistees do it all the time. Then he asked me my favorite war movie, and you know what? I couldn’t name one. Not one goddamn movie.” Adam laughed until he found a way to quiet his voice. “I just don’t get why you’d do it, Howard?”
“Do what?”
“Make it all up.”
The traffic stopped and started and stopped again.
“So you figured me out. I’m a phony. A liar.” After a silence, Howard added. “Jesus, Adam, what do you want me to say?”
Adam closed his eyes. Blood stuck to his pants, and seeped down his leg, into his sock. After his very last military post, he’d gotten drunk and found a rock and smashed his knee. He wanted to do it again, but it hurt so much the first time, he couldn’t bear it. With a bum knee, he couldn’t be called back—ever. But the moment after, he was worried he was right.
“Do you feel guilty?” Adam looked at Howard. Howard didn’t look away, and then he shook his head. “Maybe war is peace,” Adam said.
Howard stood and pushed the crosswalk button. Adam rubbed his bare arms. It’d dropped thirty degrees since the morning. He shivered and thought of the boy, the one who had detonated the bomb, the one who had given him those burns. The boy looked to see if Adam was dead. That’s when Adam shot him.
“Pain and regret.”
“What?”
Adam stood. “That’s what your stories are missing.”
When the crosswalk lit white, Howard didn’t move; Adam limped past. At some point, Howard caught up, and as they walked together, it began to snow.
Howard’s garage door opened, but the overhead light didn’t come on. The headlights shined on the boxes. Adam squinted, trying to give those boxes a sober gaze. Large, wet snowflakes swirled into the headlight’s beam.
“Damn garage light is acting up again,” Howard said.
Howard turned the key. Everything went dark. Adam opened the door. Cold air swept inside. The hardened bloodstained pants scraped against his knee.
“Wait! Adam. Please wait. Just wait a second. One second. I can make this right.”
Howard sounded panicked at first, then his voice steadied.
“Adam, I have something to say. It may not make sense—not at first—but you need to know why I said I was in Vietnam. Why I told you those stories. The truth is my twin brother did die over there. I told you his stories. His. Marvin Kipler was real. In a way it was all real. I couldn’t go. I busted up my leg. The Army said no to me.”
Adam looked at his dark house. He checked to his phone, one message from Liam: u lost?
“My dad was so disappointed in me. He was an Air Force man. He thought I was nothing because I couldn’t serve. I’m just doing what I can here to help the country. This is fine. We are fine. Everything is fine. Just talk to me.”
“I don’t want you to fix anything, Howard. I…” he stared into the garage. “I just need something real.”
“Real? That’s what I’m telling you. Adam, listen to me. Please. Listen. I finally got to pass it on. Don’t you see? Together, we are a team. You have to see that?”
Adam reached over and turned the key. Headlights showed big flakes blowing into the garage. He opened the door emptying Howard’s words to the night air. Adam’s shadow cast over the boxes. He stumbled knocking over a row. “No,” he said, tossing aside the jarred lid. Howard’s shadow loomed over him, still babbling. “No,” Adam said again, as he attacked the boxes, opening one after another after another, until the very last one revealed that they were all truly empty.
