3
The apartment felt emptier than when he had left. Raines went to the kitchen and dropped his keys on the counter before getting a can of Coke from the fridge and popping the tab. He drank half the can in one go and went to the living room, sitting on the couch and flicking aimlessly through twenty or so channels before happening on news coverage of some new military initiative in Afghanistan. He watched for a while until the various senior officers being interviewed blurred into one indistinguishable whole.
Light from the setting sun washed over the living room before fading to dark. Raines muted the sound on the TV and closed his eyes, the flickering light from the screen playing across his face.
Fatigue settled down through his flesh and into his bones. He took another sip from the Coke, not tasting it. He’d noticed in the last two weeks how food no longer held any pleasure for him. It was fuel for his body and nothing more than that. He hadn’t had a beer in weeks. Didn’t know any more what it was that used to give him pleasure.
Raines left the TV on and went to the bedroom, going straight to the wardrobe and pulling down a box from the shelf above the hanging rail. He took it back to the living room and set the box down on the table, taking the lid off and lifting out a rag. It was smudged and well worn and smelled of metal and gun oil.
Setting the rag down on the table, he placed his gun on top of it and began methodically taking it apart and cleaning it like he had done a thousand times before.
Take care of your weapon and it will take care of you.
When he was finished cleaning the gun, he put it back together and made sure that the mechanisms were all working correctly, slipping the magazine out of the handgrip and racking the slide.
He took the magazine out again and held it up, looking at the exposed bullet sitting on top of the magazine. It looked innocuous, like it was nothing at all. How could something that small be capable of doing so much damage?
The metal of the magazine felt cool against his forehead when he pressed it there. It slid smoothly back into the handgrip with a satisfying click and Raines jacked a round into the breech.
Ready to rock ’n’ roll.
That’s what all the young guys said before they headed out on their first mission. Like it was a movie or something. Not real.
Then a mine took your leg off.
Your blood pumped out into the sand.
Real enough for you now?
And what happened when you got home? Thanks, son, for all your sacrifices. Here’re your papers. Now go find a real job and pay your own medical bills.
Can’t afford it?
Tough shit.
Suck it up, soldier. No one never promised you nothin’.
‘You reap what you sow,’ Raines said out loud, turning the gun and placing it at his temple.
He put his finger inside the trigger guard and touched it to the trigger. Felt it give.
Just a little pressure and it’ll all be over. No Feds watching your every move. No more deals with the Devil. Just the quiet.
He applied more pressure to the trigger. Wondered if he’d hear the explosion as the gun went off. Would he be aware of that split-second as the tip of the bullet passed through the barrel of the gun before shattering the bone of his skull and shredding his brain?
Wondered if he would feel the pain.
His leg started to ache under the scar.
He pressed the trigger some more. Realised that it was more than he had ever done before. Wondered if this time he would keep going until all the lights went out.
The phone rang through in the kitchen. Raines waited for it to ring out.
It started again as soon as it had stopped. He sighed, released his finger from the trigger and placed the gun on the rag spread out over the table.
Went to the kitchen to get the phone.
‘Sorry about earlier,’ Matt Horn said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you when you were here.’
‘I wasn’t upset.’
‘What are you doing right now?’
Raines rubbed absently at the welt by his temple where he had pressed the gun to his head.
‘Nothing much, you know. Watching TV.’
‘Anything good?’
‘No.’
‘Want to come over for a beer?’
He stepped into the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, looked at the gun sitting there on the table.
‘We could watch a game or something,’ Horn said. ‘Like we used to. I mean, we haven’t done that in a while.’
‘Sounds good.’ He hung up and went back to the table, looking down at the gun sitting there. He wondered if Horn was now a security risk and whether he should go over there again tonight and make sure he wouldn’t talk to anyone. But he couldn’t find it in himself to do that. Not after everything.
He switched off the TV, picked up his keys and went outside into the dark. The gun still lying on the rag on his table.