Frank and I had changed for the better, but not all Vietnam veterans had. I thought about that fucking rapist, Brian, I had killed, and how Jessica’s brother, Roger Dodger, had been killed in prison a year before Jessica lit herself on fire. Roger Dodger had gotten caught mugging women to keep up his drug habit, even though Jessica and I tried to help him right his ship many times. We made dozens of phone calls on his behalf, trying to get him job interviews. He mostly hadn’t shown up for them, and when he did, he was always wasted, so I offered to pay for help with the drugs and drinking, but he only took that money and got high. Some people you just can’t help, and they end up getting shanked in a jail drug deal gone bad. What a fucking waste. And all after surviving Vietnam too.
But Clayton Fire Bear was now a successful lawyer, I told myself over and over, and you don’t become the head of a law firm by literally scalping white people in America. Metaphorically scalping all types of people is what all lawyers—red or yellow, black or white—do every day of the year, but that’s another story.
I kept telling myself that Fire Bear was going to be cool about everything as I stretched out in the California king bed Frank made sure I had in my room.
People always say that old cliché about how you have to walk a day in another man’s moccasins if you want to truly understand him, only no one ever says that about men who actually wear moccasins, meaning real American Indians. So I tried to think about all that had happened from Fire Bear’s point of view, wearing his moccasins, which were uncomfortable on my white feet, to say the least.
Then I started to think about Jessica again, and the name carved into her underwear drawer.
I had only slept for an hour by the time the clock said 5:00 a.m. I got the coffee going and then took a hot shower before I lined up my many pills and watched the sun come up over the distant mountains. I sipped coffee and smoked my first morning cigarette—Frank had been kind enough to book us a smoking suite, which still existed in this part of the country. He found me a few minutes later. He was showered and in his suit uniform and smiling over a cup of coffee himself.
We chowed down on breakfast at the hotel, and everyone there kept thanking me for my service, being that I was in my camouflage and we were in a part of the country where they really know how to treat veterans. I thought of how proud my father was when I took him back to Normandy, and it made me miss the old man something fierce. But I just nodded and smiled at the people who said nice words to me, because there isn’t really a good response to someone thanking you for your service.
“You ready for this?” Frank said as we finished our bison sausage and eggs.
I told him that I had remembered the knife, if that was what he was worried about.
But it turns out he was worried about my emotional state, which was kind of him, so I told him he didn’t need to get his panties in a twist for me. That made him laugh in a good way, and then reach over to swat me on the shoulder twice, the way guys do with their true buddies.
And then we were in another limo, headed into a small city that I will not name here, but there was snow everywhere, and the white mountains in the distance were lit so bright from the sun, it hurt your eyes to look.
Next there were tons of people clogging the sidewalks, walking in boots and heavy coats and even ski goggles, which made me think of my neurologist surgeon, asshole that he was.
The limo stopped in front of a modern-looking building with an all-mirrored-glass front that looked like something you might see in New York City. You could tell that whoever owned the building had class and big-time money, so I had mixed emotions when I saw Fire Bear’s real last name written out in big letters.
I was glad that a fellow Vietnam veteran had overcome hardship and made something so obviously impressive of himself, but I knew that you never want to fuck with a powerful lawyer who can break your legal kneecaps in a court of law without even hardly trying. If I were going to lawyer up against a man who owned a big-time business like this, I would need more money than I currently had, which was a lot, but nothing compared to men like Frank. I had successful big-boy money, but Frank’s made billions. And from the look of this building, it seemed like Fire Bear was somewhere in between.
And here I was, walking onto his home field with a knife I stole from him a lifetime ago. I was like a killer strolling into the police station fifty years after committing the crime, holding up the murder weapon the cops had spent their entire careers searching for.
Frank saw the doubt on my face. “Do you think I would let you do this if there were any possibility whatsoever that it could go sour?” he said.
I realized this meant that Frank had probably contacted Fire Bear—they might have e-mailed or spoken on the phone. The outcome might be rigged from the start, but I still had to walk through the door and face a soldier I had wronged when I was a young man.
You don’t have to be a genius to realize that Fire Bear represented much more than our little story—he was symbolic of every fucked-up thing I had ever done in Vietnam, which was a long list, to say the least.
So I smoked a cigarette out there on the sidewalk, trying to find the courage, as Frank put his arm around me and told me everything was going to be okay. He kept saying I should trust him and that he had my best interests at heart and that I needed to do this because most Vietnam vets never get to right a single one of their wrongs. Frank kept saying over and over that I was doing this for every dumb young American combat veteran who has ever made mistakes, which was all of us, including Fire Bear.
It took me two more cigarettes to get up the courage. By then, I was so fucking cold from standing out there on the sidewalk that I just wanted to get warm. We went inside, and Frank checked in with the woman behind the desk in the lobby, saying that we were there to meet the big boss, Fire Bear himself. She told us to take a seat on these couches covered in real spotted cowhides.
Ten minutes later she told us to follow her, so we did that too, taking an elevator ride up to the top floor and then walking down a long hall with pictures of tepees and feather headdresses, along with all the other Indian-related shit that hung on the walls.
When we got to Fire Bear’s office, there were two cigar-store Indians flanking the door. That made me want to take a picture—Hank always insisted that those were racist, yet Fire Bear had chosen them to guard his office.
My nemesis was seated behind his desk, his back turned. He was looking out his window, which had a million-dollar view of the distant mountains. The good-looking lady who had escorted us to Fire Bear’s office said, “Mr. Fire Bear, David Granger is here to see you.”
Fire Bear didn’t respond.
I looked at Frank. He nodded, meaning I was to go in alone. So I did.
I heard the door close behind me, and my heart started to pound.
As I approached, Fire Bear said “Sit,” so I sat in one of two red leather chairs facing his desk. He did not turn around, nor did he speak for what seemed like an eternity, so I told him I had his father’s knife and wanted to return it to him. He didn’t say anything in response.
He just kept staring out the window, his back turned.