Neither bothered to answer. Thirty-eight fell asleep and smeared her cheek down the window of the car until she leaned forward enough that her head dropped and she startled and woke up again.
After about ten minutes we arrived at a one-story in a nice street filled with houses just like it, long ranch houses with big lawns and cactuses along the driveways. It confused me. I wouldn’t have thought any woman who’d fuck some Marine on a one-night stand would have the money for a house like that.
G parked in the street, got out, and walked over. The brunette smiled when he put his arm around her, and then she opened the door and let us all into a big room with a huge L-shaped couch in front of the TV. She said I could sleep in the room off to the right, and while she was in the bathroom, G pushed me and Thirty-eight into it.
There was a low bed with Transformers sheets, toys on the dresser, and small shirts and pants on the floor. Thirty-eight looked drunk and tired and confused, and also like she might bolt. Now that we were out of the club, I could smell her perfume. She had a slender body, a dancer’s body, and I thought I remembered her saying she taught ballet, but that could have been another woman. She had long black hair and small breasts, and her friend had touched me on the chest earlier, and I wanted her to touch me too.
I shut the door. She looked up at me like she was scared, and I was also scared, but I knew what I was supposed to do.
After Rachel, she was the second woman I’d ever slept with. The next morning we woke up, hung over, on those Transformers sheets, and she looked disgusted. Like I was unclean. Being in Mortuary Affairs, I knew that look well.
We didn’t stay long. The brunette had to pick up her kid, so G and I went off to get breakfast at Waffle House. G’s friend Haiti arrived in town later that morning, and I went off by myself and let G and Haiti do their thing. They ended up double-teaming some tourist, or at least they said they did. Either way, I’m glad I wasn’t there.
It was another three weeks before I got home and everybody thanked me for my service. Nobody seemed to know exactly what they were thanking me for.
I called Rachel up and asked if we could hang out. Then I drove out to her parents’ place. It’s in a development on the edge of town that’s full of shitty cookie-cutter houses laid out in twirly roads and cul-de-sacs. Rachel was living in their basement, which had been made out into a separate apartment. I went around to the back and down the stairs to the basement. Within a second of me knocking, she opened the door.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.”
She looked different from what I remembered. She’d gained weight, in the best way. Her shoulders had fleshed out. She had curves. She looked healthier, stronger, better. I was greyhound lean, and she’d never seen me like that.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, and then she smiled like it’d just occurred to her that that was the right thing to do. “You want to come in?”
“Yeah. I do,” I said. The words came quick and nervous. I forced a smile and she backed away as I walked through the door, but then changed her mind and stepped forward to hug me.
I held on and she tensed, after a second. She moved out of range and then spread her hands apart, as if to say, “This is my place.”
It was all one room, a bed with sky blue sheets and a desk shoved in a corner, exposed pipes running down the ceiling, and water damage streaking the walls, but she had a kitchen and a bath and, I guess, no rent. Better than the barracks, anyway. It looked completely different from when her parents had used it as a game room and we’d used it as a place to make out.
On the floor by the fridge, I saw a small water and food bowl. “That’s Gizmo’s,” she said. Then she called out, “Gizmo.”
She turned away from me. I looked around, too. We couldn’t see him, so I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the bed and saw eyes. A slender gray cat edged forward. I put out my hand for him to sniff and waited.
“Come on, cat,” I said, “I’ve been defending your freedom. At least let me pet you.”
“Come on, Gizmo,” Rachel said.
“Is he a pacifist, too?” I asked.
“No,” she says. “He kills cockroaches. I can’t get him to stop.”
Gizmo edged a little toward my hand and sniffed.
“I like you, cat,” I said. I scratched him behind the ears and then stood up and grinned at her.
“Well,” she said.
“Right.” I looked for a place to sit. The basement had only one chair. Optimistically, I sat on the bed. She pulled the chair over and faced me.
“So,” she said. “How you doing? Okay?”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“What was it like?”
“I’m glad you wrote,” I said. “Letters from home mean a lot.”
She nodded. I wanted to tell her more. But I’d just got there, and she looked so much more beautiful than I remembered, and I didn’t know what would happen if I started talking for real.
“So,” I said, “any new boyfriends or anything?” I gave her a smile to let her know it’d be okay if there were.
She frowned. “I don’t think that’s a fair question.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. She folded down her skirt with her hands and left them resting in her lap.
“You look great,” I said.
I leaned over, closer to her, and put my hand over hers. She pulled her hands back.
“I didn’t shave my legs today,” she said.
“Neither did I,” I said.
And then, since I wanted to and since I’d been to Iraq and since why not, I put my hand on her thigh, just by her knee. She put her hand on my wrist and gripped it. I thought she was going to pull my hand off, but she didn’t.
“It’s just,” she said, “so I wouldn’t, you know—”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” I said, stopping her. “Absolutely. Me too.”
I have no idea what I meant by that, but it felt like agreeing with her was the right thing to do. She let go of my wrist, at least.
The warmth of her thigh under my hand was killing me. That deployment, I’d spent a lot of time being cold. Most people don’t think you’d be cold in Iraq, but the desert’s got nothing to keep the heat in, and not every month is summer. I felt there was something important I had to say to her, or something she had to say to me. Maybe tell her about the rocks.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
“You said that already.”
“Yeah.” She looked down at my hand, but I wasn’t about to take it off her thigh. Back in high school, she’d said she loved me. I still deserved that much. Besides, I was exhausted. Talking to her had never been this difficult, but touching her felt as nice as it always had.
“Listen,” I said, “do you want to lie down?” I nodded toward the bed and she drew back, so I added, “Not to do anything. Just…” I didn’t know what.
I looked at her and thought, She’s going to say no. I could taste it, hanging in the air.
“Listen,” I said again, and ran out of words. The room got narrower and tighter, the way the world does when you’re pumping adrenaline.
“Listen,” I said again, “I need this.”
When I said it, I didn’t look at her. Just at my hand on her thigh. I didn’t know what I’d do if she said no.
She got up from her chair. I let out a long breath. She walked to the side of the bed, stood there a second, and then lay down, facing away from me. She’d agreed.
Crazy thing was, now I didn’t want to. I mean, to curl up with this girl, who’d made me beg? I was a veteran. Who was she?
I sat there for a second. But there was nothing else to do in that room but get down on the bed.
I lay on my side, next to her, and spooned her body, fitting my hips against hers and resting my right arm across her waist. There was a warmth to her that flowed into me, and though she was tense at first, like she’d been earlier, she relaxed after a bit and it stopped feeling like I was grabbing her and more like we were fitting into each other. I relaxed, too, all the sharp edges of my body lost in the feel of her. Her hips, her legs, her hair, the nape of her neck. Her hair smelled like citrus, and her neck smelled softly of sweat. I wanted to kiss her there, because I knew I’d taste salt.
There were times, after dealing with the remains, when I’d grab a piece of my flesh and pull it back so I could see it stretch, and I’d think, This is me, this is all I am. But that’s not always so bad.
We stayed on the bed for maybe five minutes, me saying hardly anything, just breathing, buried in her hair. The cat jumped up on the bed and joined us, pacing about at first and then settling down near her head and watching us. Rachel started telling me about him in a quiet voice—how long she’d had him, how she got him, and the funny things he did. She was talking about something she loved, so the words came easy, and it was nice to hear a sound so natural. I listened to her voice and felt her breathe. When she ran out of things to say, we lay there and I thought, How long can we stay like this?
That close to her, I was afraid I’d get hard. I wanted to kiss her. There was no one but me and her in that room, and I knew she didn’t want me. In that little system of me and her, I was the nothing. I had this sense of looking at myself from above, like all of my wanting her was there in my body and I was outside of it, watching. I knew if I crawled back into my skull, I’d start begging.
I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling. The cat got up, too, and walked to the headboard, rubbing himself against it. Rachel turned toward me.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, even though I didn’t have to go or even have anywhere I’d rather be.
She said, “How long are you around?”
“Not long,” I said. “Mostly seeing family.”
I wanted to hurt her, somehow. Maybe tell her about the woman in Vegas. But I said, “It was great seeing you.”
And she said, “Yeah, it was great.”
I sat up and put my feet over the side of the bed, facing away from her. I waited, hoping she’d say something else. The cat jumped off the bed and over to his food bowl, sniffed, and turned away.
Then I got up and walked out the door without looking back. As I went up the steps and through her backyard, I tried not to think about anything. And when that didn’t work, I tried to remember the name of the woman in Vegas, like if I did, it would protect me.
That woman, Thirty-eight, had seemed so unwilling. I was almost certain that what happened with her couldn’t be called rape. She made no complaint, never said, “No,” never resisted. She never said anything. After a few minutes, she even started bucking her hips toward me in a sort of mechanical way. She was so drunk, I guess it’d be hard to say if she wanted it one way or the other, but if she had really objected, I think she’d have said something to try to stop me.
How drunk the girl was, whether she really wanted you or whether she let you, or was scared of you, that doesn’t bother most Marines when they get laid on a Friday night. Not as far as I can tell. I doubt it bothers college frat kids, either. But walking back from Rachel’s, it started to really bother me.
I was quiet when I got home, and I was quiet later that night when I went out drinking with a few friends from high school. They weren’t close friends. I didn’t have close friends from high school. I’d spent all my time with Rachel. But they were good guys to share a beer with.
As the night wore on, more and more people came into the bar, and it got to be a regular high school reunion. I kept wondering if maybe Rachel would show, but of course she didn’t. I drank more than I usually do. It made me start wanting to tell stories.
One of the guys there, who was a few years older, told me he had a cousin who’d died in Iraq. At first I thought, Maybe I processed him. But the cousin died before I got in country.
The guy was a mechanic, and he seemed like a sympathetic sort of guy. He didn’t talk about killing hajjis or act like it was so awesome I’d been over there. He just said, “That must have been rough,” and left it at that. I don’t remember his name. Once I got drunk enough, I told him what I’d wanted to tell Rachel.
It was a story about the worst burn case we ever had. Worst not in charring or loss of body parts, just worst.
This Marine had made it out of his vehicle only to die in flames beside it. The other MPs from his unit had taken his remains from the pile of trash and gravel where he died and brought him to us. We documented his wounds, distinguishing marks, and missing body parts. Most of what made it through the fire was standard. He had the Rules of Engagement in his left breast pocket. The flak had protected it, although the laminate had melted and the words were illegible. He had charred boots and dog tags and bits of uniform. Some plastic mess in a butt pack we couldn’t identify. A wallet where the credit cards and IDs had melted into a solid block. There was no Kevlar, which he must have been wearing but which didn’t make it to us.
Some of the remains we dealt with would have very personal items, like a sonogram or a suicide note. This one had nothing.
The hands, though, were clenched around two objects. We had to work at them carefully to pry them out. Corporal G had the left hand. I had the right. “Careful,” he said. “Careful. Careful. Careful.” He was saying it to himself.
While I worked, I tried to avoid looking at the face. We all did that. I focused on the hands and what might be inside. Personal effects are important to the families.
We worked, slowly, carefully loosening the fingers. Corporal G finished first. He held up a small rock, probably from the gravel pile. After a minute, that’s the same thing I found in the right hand. A little gray rock, mostly round, but with a few rough edges. It was embedded into his palm. I tore skin getting it out.
A few days later, Corporal G talked to me about it. We’d had more remains come through since then, and normally Corporal G never said anything about any of the remains once we’d finished processing them. We were smoking outside the chow hall, looking toward Habbaniyah, and he said, “That guy could have been holding on to anything.”
I tried to tell the story to the mechanic. I was very drunk, and the guy tried very hard to listen.
“Yeah,” he said softly, “yeah. It’s crazy.” I could tell he was searching for the right thing to say. “Look, I’m gonna tell you something.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I respect what you’ve been through,” he said.
I took a sip of my beer. “I don’t want you to respect what I’ve been through,” I said.
That confused him. “What do you want?” he said.
I didn’t know. We sat and drank beer for a bit.
“I want you to be disgusted,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
“And,” I said, “you didn’t know that kid. So don’t pretend like you care. Everybody wants to feel like they’re some caring person.”
He didn’t say anything else, which was smart. I waited for him to say something wrong, to ask me about the war or the Marine that died or the rocks that G and me had kept with us, that I still had in my pocket that night at the bar. But he didn’t say another word, and neither did I. And that was that for me telling people stories.
I hung out in my parents’ house for another week, and then I went back to Twentynine Palms and the Marine Corps. I never saw Rachel again, but we’re Facebook friends. She got married while I was on my third deployment. She had her first kid while I was on my fourth.