A Sort Of Homecoming

omecoming

  by

  Geoffrey Kruse-Safford

  "You go to Punky's wedding?" The light in the bar was soft. Not quite dark, it was more inviting, typical of a hotel lounge. About fifteen people sat at tables and the bar. Since this was the south, the juke box played only country music. At the moment, Reba McIntyre was telling the story of Fancy.

  "Couldn't. I was on my way home from Yemen."

  "You know he married a lawyer, right?"

  "No shit."

  "No shit. What I heard, she's fucking loaded, too. He scored big."

  "So why didn't you go?"

  "I'd just started this job, couldn't get the time off, didn't have the money to go all the way to fucking California. My old lady wasn't much behind me going out and drinking with my old Army buddies. You name the excuse, I made it. Fucker unfriended me on Facebook for about two weeks."

  "What a douche."

  "Yeah, but I sent him an email telling him that. He got over it. He's heading out this way, says he'll stop here for a day or two."

  "To Petersburg?"

  "Virginia Beach, some conference, for his job. I told him if he stopped here, I'd pay for his beer, but he says he gave that shit up, his wife made him stop."

  The two men were a study in contrasts. One, small and stocky, sat in a long-sleeve t-shirt and carpenter's pants, his shaggy brown hair and scruffy beard giving him a rumpled look. Sitting on the other side of the table, the tall, thin man in the uniform of an Army Lieutenant, was a recruiting poster come to life. The crease in his trousers looked sharp enough to draw blood. His scalp shone through the regulation cut of his auburn hair.

  Barry Tenant and Lt. Vernon Haslip had entered US Army Basic Training in the same class in early 2002. After five years, Barry had left, returning to his hometown of Petersburg, VA, a job in construction, and a chance to pick up where he'd left off with his high school sweetheart.

  Vernon had stayed in the Army, taking opportunities to get an education, going through Officer's Candidate School, and was headed through Petersburg on his way back to Ft. Benning. Word through the grapevine was his name was on a near-future honor's list, so his promotion to Captain was in the works. He'd emailed his old friend Barry for a get-together in the bar at the La Quinta on the north side of Petersburg, right before the split between I-95 and I-85, which Vernon would be taking on his way to southwest Georgia.

  "What about The Rev?" "The Rev" was Patrick Star, given his nickname during Basic because of his devout, occasionally goofy, religious beliefs.

  "I haven't heard from Rev in years," Vernon said. "I want to say five, but it's probably more than that."

  "You know he was living on the streets, right?" Barry said.

  Vernon nodded. "Yeah. I contacted some people I knew at the VA Hospital in Boston, but it didn't do much good."

  "Fuckin' VA," Barry muttered. "You know what those people are like, right?"

  Vern grunted. "I know. What else could I do, though?"

  Barry shook his head. "Rev deserved better. I mean, he tried to drag those people out of the way, didn't he? I'd have lost my fucking marbles, too, if some kid I was trying to rescue just fucking died in my arms."

  "That poor kid didn't just die, Barry. That bullet sprayed his brains all over Barry's face." Vern drained his bottle of Fat Tire. "And Rev's lucky that piece of shrapnel just landed in his arm and not someplace else. Stupid bastard never should have been doing that."

  "That's what the VA told him, you know," Barry said. "His Lieutenant was too fucking scared to send his unit forward, so Rev went and saved that family and instead of a medal, he gets court-martialed for disobeying a lawful order. The VA told him they were really fucking sorry, but there wasn't anything they could do."

  Vernon nodded. "The folks in Boston were willing to listen and bend the rules, but no one I knew could find him to get him to head over there."

  "You remember Travis, right?" Barry asked, changing the subject.

  "Of course. Bastard was the only one to beat my obstacle course time." A server brought two more beers. Vernon nodded, handing her a ten while he spoke.

  "You know he offed himself," Barry said.

  Vernon blinked. "Aw, man."

  "About three years ago."

  "What happened?"

  "What didn't happen? Poor dude lost both his feet, he couldn't find work, his old lady tossed him out because I guess he was getting all violent and drinking too much and all that shit. He was grabbing a piece of floor at Sully's, Sully came home, stupid motherfucker had eaten his gun, ruined Sully's fucking apartment."

  Vernon shook his head. "That's horrible."

  "Sully called me, like, an hour after they came and took him away. He'd drained almost half a bottle of Jack right after the coroner left, he was just totally fucking wasted, crying and screaming and shit."

  Vernon shivered..

  "Travis bought the short end of the stick from the moment he got out of Basic."

  Vernon nodded. "Don't I know it. How that Sergeant he got in Advanced School ever made it that far is beyond me."

  "Aw, c'mon, Vernon. You're an officer now. Don't pretend."

  "I'm serious. Stupid racist assholes like that are still out there, but what he did to poor Travis was horrible."

  "Then, poor fucker gets sent into Iraq, and some lucky Revolutionary Guard unit flips his HUMVEE."

  "Is that what happened? I hadn't heard."

  Barry nodded as he drank from his bottle of Bud Light. "Yeah. RPG hit a front tire, flipped it right the fuck over. One poor dude flew out the front, then got crushed. The rest, when they ran out to return fire, it was right in to a fucking mine field."

  "Christ," Vernon said.

  "They never should have done that, but I think their Lieutenant and one of their Sergeants were pretty fucked up, so it was every man for himself."

  Vernon shook his head. "Poor bastard." He took a sip from his bottle. "Did Sully ever recover?"

  "Yeah. He drives a truck now, you know. I saw him, oh, had to be about a year ago."

  Vernon laughed. "Little Sully?"

  "Little. Shit," Barry laughed. "He's got a beard like fucking Grizzly Adams, a big old gut."

  Vernon laughed. "He was even skinnier than Punky."

  Barry chuckled. "I know. I didn't even fucking recognize him. I was at this truck stop up north, on a run back from DC for work, he comes up to me in line, I finally had to ask him who he was 'cause I didn't have a clue."

  "What did he say?"

  "Aw, he didn't care. He knew he looked different. He said he got in to the business because of what happened with Travis, couldn't shake it, didn't feel good staying in one place."

  "I bet."

  "You know Brucey snuffed it, too."

  "I heard he took his wife and kid with him, too."

  Barry nodded. "That was a fucking shame, man, let me tell you. He was still in the service, I guess getting some actual help for PTSD, but still couldn't control his temper. Didn't help they were planning on rotating him back to Afghanistan too early. He didn't want to go, he kept begging and begging for his Head Doc to give him an out. When they didn't he just snapped."

  "His company commander at the time was at the Pentagon with me for a while. He took that pretty hard."

  "I know it wasn't his fucking fault, but I gotta wonder whether I should give a shit how bad he felt."

  "He had his orders, Barry! Jesus fucking Christ, man, remember those?"

  Barry nodded. "I remember. It's just, you know, Bruce was a friend of ours, crying for help, and look what happened to him." He nodded to the bartender for another beer. "I gotta ask, Vernon. Why you still in? I mean, fro
m what I hear, your tours were the shits."

  "Oh, they were, trust me." Vernon emptied his bottle. When the server came, he waved her offer of a fresh bottle away. "I don't know. The Army's been good to me. I've been to college, I got a future ahead of me. Plus, you know, it's work."

  Barry shook his head. "How many buds you seen killed or sent home missing something? Tell me."

  Vernon shrugged. "A lot." He shook his head. "No one said it was going to be easy."

  "I remember the spiel we got from the Sarge at the end of Basic. We all got in because of 9/11, though, remember? We all thought we were going to go over and kick Osama's ass, then come home and it would be parades and pussy from dawn to dusk."

  "That's what we thought, didn't we," Vern agreed.

  "And look at us. Well, me, anyway. Most everyone who made it out alive from my Regiment has got something wrong with him, including me. I still wake up nights, sweating and shit, my old lady holding me because I'm crying." Barry shook his head. "I can live with the fucking nightmares, jumping through the roof if some asshole's car backfires down the street. It's that crying I hate." He sighed. "Makes me feel weak."

  "You're not weak, Barry," Vernon said.

  Barry shook his head. "No." He looked down at his hands. "I ever tell you about what happened to me? In Iraq?"

  Vernon shook his head. "I know it was some bad shit."

  He looked up and over at the bar. "If I'm going to tell this story, I'm gonna need more beer." He waved a finger at the bartender.

  "What's Monica going to say?"

  "What she always does. That I need to stop with the booze if I'm going to get my shit together."

  "Then just tell me."

  Barry shook his head.