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 with the edge of his fingers and imagined how delicately she might remove it before going to sleep. Then he thought of her in bed, himself with her. She smelled like cigarettes and breath mints, but Bradley suspected if he got closer, she’d smell different. He may be walking around without a combat badge, but surely there were some things he could still do right. He slid his arms around her waist and they swayed together, beer tilting the Arkansas sky.
Inside, they stumbled over clothing, the nightstand. Bradley had been right. She smelled like sweetened citrus. The softest thing he’d touched in almost a year. A few minutes into it, he bit her nipples too hard, and she let out a tiny yelp. He made a game of it—gentle kisses all over her body like a thousand apologies and when they finally did finish, Bradley nodded off, the muscles in his body relaxed so thoroughly his joints turned to jelly.
He woke just before dawn, the security light from the gas station angling into Ashleigh’s apartment. He got dressed and pulled a chair over to the window. When he reached to slide it open a few inches, Ashleigh woke up.
“Whatchya doin’?” she asked
“Here,” he said and took a drag from a cigarette and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” She sat up slowly. “What time is it?”
“Dunno. Five?”
Ashleigh took a drag and handed the smoke back to him. He tapped the ash out the window. Outside, the warming sky still held a hint of darkness, trying to outgrow the night before.
“God, my head,” she said.
“I’ll get you some water.”
“No. You don’t have to.”
But Bradley was already up, muscled body walking toward her bathroom. He emerged a moment later with a plastic cup. He watched her drink, the way her throat stretched long and smooth as she raised her chin. “I gotta go,” he said.
Ashleigh set the empty cup on her dresser. “K.” She leaned forward and kissed him, her tongue thick and cool from the tap water.
“Can I come by sometime?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m around.”
He drove home slowly, noticing frost across the pastures, a few shallow ditches iced over. Sunrise in Iraq always looked apocalyptic, the horizon announcing itself in fireball red, heat sizzling through the dusty air and warming each day much too quickly. Bradley rolled his window down and let his arm stretch into the morning air. It felt crisp, invigorating. Enough to make each moment seem fresh.
He let himself in quietly, the house humming its gentle noise. The refrigerator. The PC. Muffled voices from a TV left on in the back room. It sounded symphonic to Bradley, almost dream-like. Jared would stop by later,