Knuckleduster Page 7
“Oh, shit. I’m really sorry,” Thorp said, straightening up when he noticed Brody. He sat forward and clicked the Gizumoshingu’s monitor off and unhooked the cable connecting it to a small cylindrical device, a unit Brody recognized immediately.
“No, it’s fine. I heard whatever you’re watching and it surprised me is all. I didn’t see a TV or anything in here earlier.”
Thorp wrapped the cord around the textured cylindrical unit and tucked it under the couch cushion, of all places, then closed the ordi’s lid. “I just have this one. Sometimes I mount it on the wall. Other times I don’t—I worry about getting robbed, being out here all alone and everything.”
“What were you watching?” Brody asked, already knowing.
“Some of the old gun-mount footage from the firing range and stuff,” Thorp said.
Brody knew the gunfire wasn’t from the firing range. It was too scattered, no time between bursts for careful aiming. It was footage from the war. He also knew from the self-help audios he had bought when seeking refuge from his own memories of war that watching this kind of footage was unadvisable.
“They let you keep your gun-mount footage?” Brody asked.
“I asked for it,” Thorp said, reclining again. “It took a while, but they mailed it to me a few weeks ago.”
Brody leaned against the doorjamb. The living room was cold, the hardwood floor making the bottoms of his bare feet numb. The sonar picked up a few logs in the wood-burning fireplace through its louvered hatch. Everything inside was burned down to cinders. He asked, “Did they give you everything that was on it?”
Thorp hesitated, then sat up. “Yeah, everything’s on there.”
Brody remembered the day he was handed the cylinder. The tech guy behind the glass partition at the armory had to explain it to him. “Underside the barrel … Yeah, the bracket there … Yep, just like that. Every time you switch the safety catch off, that camera will start—everything you shoot at, it all goes onto the cylinder, your rifle’s black box.” The man added, “Just in the event there’s a mishap.”
Brody wanted to press further, take another step along that road. Given what Thorp had done with his rifle during their time in Cairo, he wondered if anyone surveyed what was on the footage before mailing it out into the world, where it could be seen by anyone, duplicated, and put online to confirm the suspicions of everyone who detested that unpopular war and what the troops had done while in Egypt. He decided not to ask. It was late and already it was going to be hard for both of them to get any sleep, having scratched even that far into the wax enveloping their memories.
Thorp felt ashamed at being caught watching the gun-mount footage. But old habits were hard to break, and he was unaccustomed to having company. Something in him had lost the capacity to understand that sound travels, or perhaps his hearing was starting to go. He had no idea that Brody could hear what he was watching all the way upstairs. It must’ve been loud because Brody managed to get all the way downstairs before Thorp had even noticed him standing there.
Now, Brody loomed in the living room like one of the shrinks, playing the silent game, not saying anything at all so you’ll just go on and on and on and unload all of it. Thorp knew better. He kept his mouth shut and waited for the other man to say something first.
“I wouldn’t worry about her,” Brody said.
“How can I not?” Thorp spoke into the darkness, straight ahead toward the fireplace. Brody had that thing on, the sonar, and when he did, his eyes clouded over and only cleared when he put the lenses in. It was hard to look at him like that, his eyelids blinking over those useless orbs in his head, his head cocked to listen. Couldn’t he just close his eyes? After one glimpse, Thorp had to look away from Brody and his dead eyes.
Something knocked against his thoughts, like the hull of a boat suddenly colliding metal flotsam just below the water’s surface. If he had just stayed in for a few more months, maybe he could’ve seen that goddamn thing that blinded Brody before it was tripped. Maybe his friend could still see without the aid of lenses or that sonar thing if he had just fucking stuck with it.
Brody didn’t respond.
“Sorry. I’ll keep it down. Go on back to bed.”
Brody lingered in the room. The sound of him moving from foot to foot, his bare heels sticking to the lacquered wood like something being peeled up, continued for a few silent moments. It was as hard being in this room with him now as it was getting up the gumption to call him for help. Torturous.
“We’ll get it figured out,” Brody said but not until he was halfway up the stairs, as if he wanted to drop the statement, then evade the scene so Thorp couldn’t lure him into another debate.
Thorp knew he could go on and on and sometimes he got a little wound up about things, and as much as he wanted to chase Brody up the stairs and ask what he was planning to say to his sister, Thorp left it alone.
He waited until he heard the upstairs bedroom door close and the squeak of bedsprings before reaching under the couch cushion for the cylinder. He uncoiled the wire around it and plugged it into the side of the ordi and continued watching, tallying mistakes like a coach reviewing last night’s game. He paused only to make sure the noises he heard were the wind, never going outside without a gun in hand. Just like any other night, except with company trying to get some sleep upstairs, Thorp had to do it quietly.
7
The morning came and Brody stuffed the lens charger in his pocket with no idea exactly how much time had been put into them overnight. He removed the battery from its housing and gave it a shake near his ear. Solid. He tossed it into the bathroom trash as he went downstairs. Before he was halfway down he knew that Thorp had coffee on the burner and bacon and eggs in the pan. Again, the smell betrayed it as the real deal. Despite the day he had ahead of him of trudging around Chicago in the cold trying to talk a young woman into dropping out of the military, he was allowed a glimmer of happiness.
Brody stepped into the kitchen and in the pixelated representation of it saw Thorp still in his robe as he turned around with a sizzling pan.
“So that’s what they make you wear, huh?” Thorp asked. “Son of a bitch, look at that thing. Christ, you look stupid.”
Thorp had seen it last night—well, more like just a few hours ago since it had been nearly three when Brody had been awoken by long-ago gunfire pushed out of tinny ordinateur speakers—but apparently Thorp didn’t feel like commenting on the sonar until now. It was odd, how different he seemed from last night. Shielded behind this chipper outgoingness, reminding Brody of his father’s friend who was on emotion-stabilizing medication. Gruff and canted forward, hands in pockets one moment, then laughing about everything after one shake of a pill bottle and a glass of water. Perhaps that was the case with Thorp. Maybe he was on some kind of pill that smoothed him out. Or perhaps this was just who his friend was now and it was Brody who would have to get used to it.
“Thanks,” Brody scoffed, walking to the table and carefully having a seat. He had decided to wear the same clothes he’d worn on the train yesterday, his starched button-down shirt, tie, and slacks, because he knew people were a tad more cooperative when he wore a tie. And since he was going to Fort Reagan, where it was unlikely that answers would be handed over to even the most well-dressed of men, Brody decided he’d at least try to look his best.
Thorp scraped two strips of bacon onto Brody’s plate. “It really kills me to see you wear that thing.”
“I could take it off.” Brody smiled. “But that won’t make eating breakfast very easy.”
“‘Enlist now. Serve your country. Become a hero.’ My ass. More like, ‘Enlist now, have something terrible happen to you, get mailed back home with all kinds of shit wrong with you, and—”
“All right.” Brody put up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sore about what happened to us, too, but let’s not start with that shit again. Let’s just have our breakfast, and I’ll be on my way to go talk to your sister, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Thorp said, setting the pan on the stovetop. “I don’t mean to get wound up about it. But it just kills me what happened to you. I should’ve been there. I should’ve bucked up and dealt with—you know—and gone with you, waited until after the shit cooled down before I started talking about posttraumatic stress.”
“Forget it,” Brody said, his voice stern, and took up his fork.
Thorp stood by the table and watched Brody chase his bacon and eggs around the plate. Suddenly, he shouldered on a coat and went outside with a cigar.
Brody remained at the kitchen table, eating what he could catch. He wanted to look up to see where Thorp went, but the sonar couldn’t see through glass, even though it had been polished to an invisible sheen. He upended his coffee, tasting the bitterly sweet silt of half-melted sugar that had settled to the bottom, and removed his phone to call a cab. While he listened to the phone ringing he went so far as to actually cross his fingers that they’d send a cab that was driven by someone with a pulse.
When asked for his name and jigsaw number, he hung up. He had forgotten that he was completely broke. He went outside and paced through the grass that he hadn’t been able to tell was moist with dew until he felt its cold sting on the tips of his toes, even through his boots. He got to Thorp standing by a tree on the crest of the hill overlooking the fields.
“Hey, buddy,” Brody said, tightening his coat around his neck. It was a chilly morning, and he wondered if what he was stepping through in the grass was frost and not just dew.
“Sorry about that,” Thorp said. “I get kind of nutty sometimes about all of it. You’re the first and only guy I knew in the service that I’ve had out here, and I guess I wasn’t ready for it. Normally, I deal with it all right—it’s just with Nectar and having you here, it’s pretty hard not to think about the grunt days.”
“Understandable,” Brody said. He glanced down at his feet, then looked into Thorp’s green eyes, picturing them how they were supposed to look instead of the shifting white orbs he saw with the sonar.
“What is it?”
“You know what?” Brody said. “I’m just going to come out and say it, because there’s no real easy way around it. I’m flat broke. And I need to get a cab into Chicago if you want me to talk to Nectar. Could you spot me a ride?”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course. No problem.” Thorp took out his cell and called the cab company.
They walked back to the house and waited in the living room for the car to arrive.
Brody stood at the window, staring at the lawn. If he had to endure asking his friend for money when he hadn’t even been here a full day yet, at least the fates could see to it that the cab was driven by a human. Give me that at least.
Brody wasn’t so lucky. As soon as the cab pulled into the gravel driveway he could tell it was being piloted without an actual driver. He didn’t even need to see that the windshield had no one sitting behind it. The damn things slowed to a crawl before making a turn ever so carefully, the way a small dog might go down darkened steps—with overwhelming hesitance as if the very next step could spell certain doom. Brody sighed.
The cab put itself in park. Once Brody was in the back, he heard the casual electronic prompt, “Where would you like to go today, sir or madam?”
He answered, “Chicago,” with a voice weighted heavily with reluctance, hoping the robotic cabbie would detect this and decide to do him a favor and accidentally take him somewhere else. The one and only time Brody would’ve been happy if technology decided to be uncooperative.
During the ride, Brody turned his cell back on, and a series of beeps sounded, alerting him that he had an abundance of voice mail waiting. They were all from his probation officer. He immediately called her.
“Mr. Calhoun,” Chiffon said as if she had been waiting for his call for hours. She probably had been. Her voice was pleasant, upbeat despite the underlying streak of impatience.
“Just returning your call from earlier this morning.” Brody bit his knuckle and winced, expecting the worst.
There was a beat of bitter silence.
“I see you’ve left the state,” she said plainly.
“Visiting a friend.” Too fast, Brody scolded himself. You answered that too damn fast.
“This doesn’t happen to be like most of your friends, I hope. You seem to have a lot of friends who are always asking favors of you. I sincerely hope you’re not breaking your probation by leaving the state to visit a friend like that.”
“I should’ve told you that I was leaving the state. I’m sorry. I’m here to see one of my friends from the service but it’s just to Illinois and I’m steering clear of any big cities.”
“Don’t lie to me. I can see you’re in Chicago right now as we speak.”
“I know but there isn’t a grocery store nearby. A man has to eat, right?” Again, too fast. Do you want to go to prison?
Chiffon sighed. “Listen to me. Do I have your undivided attention at this moment? We could just as easily have this conversation in person, say, in a holding cell.”
“You have my undivided attention, I assure you,” he said.
“I have a nose for malarkey, and the stuff you’re trying to sell me is rotten. You and I made an agreement. As far as the law is concerned, it’s being bent to its very limit with you. For everything you’ve done, all the noses you’ve broken—literally—and toes you’ve stepped on—figuratively—you should be in jail right now. Time and time again, I let you off easy. Not to say that what you do is right. No. But if you don’t behave yourself while you’re out of state, I’ll have no choice but to reevaluate your case. January is on fast approach, I’ll remind you.”
“I understand,” he said, then switched on the speakerphone and tossed the cell to the seat next to him. He pulled the sonar from his forehead and tucked it in the map pocket of his peacoat. He put in one lens, blinked until color faded back into the world, then the second and waited until he could see out of both eyes. Immediately thereafter, the low charge indicator sprung up, blinking as bright and terrible as the hazards of a burning, overturned car: 01:59:59.
“Don’t tell me what you’re up to or where you’re going or why you’re in Chicago. I don’t want to know. You visit your friend, go to the top of the Willis Tower, have a hot dog and see a ball game, have your day of thanks if that’s what you want to do, but just make sure you’re on the first train home, with all the citizens of that city just as you left them—unharmed. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right. We have an appointment … when?”
“Friday,” Brody replied at once. “I’ll be there. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t misbehave. See you soon, Mr. Calhoun.”
“Yes. Thank you. Good-bye.” Brody closed his cell and felt the tension he had momentarily escaped from with a decent breakfast reassemble itself. He hated calls from his probation officer anytime, but today every single word the woman said felt like one bad diagnosis after another, every syllable and terse pause midsentence a slice across the throat. He held the phone to his chin and absentmindedly chewed on its corner. When he felt he’d chip a tooth if he bit it any harder, he put it away and wrung his hands.
As if his conscience wasn’t screaming loudly enough, there was the undeniable fact: if he got in trouble again, that was it. He’d be out of options. No more community center and Samantha, no more charges for his lenses. He’d be a blind man in prison with a serious lack of friends.
He ignored the No Smoking sign staring him in the face and lit a cigarette. The cab pulled up to the curb out front of the gated military base nestled between two high-rises. He donned a pair of sunglasses, the carotene still itchy and causing his eyes to water even from the soft glow of the white morning light cutting in between structures.
“We hope you enjoy your destination,” the cab told him.
Brody wasn’t sure how he was going to get back, but it was something he’d deal with later. He g
ot out, and the cab merged with the bumper-to-bumper rushhour throng.
He stood outside the tall cement wall of Fort Reagan for a few minutes, finished his cigarette, and approached the front gates. He was hoping that security had been loosened since he was last here, that maybe there wasn’t a guard booth and the striped arms that had to be raised to permit a vehicle past. But just as it was when he got off the bus nearly a decade ago, the guard booth stood as it always had been. He knocked on the glass.
The helmeted guard looked up from his personal screen, and his eyes narrowed at the sight of Brody, dressed in dark clothes, a black silk tie flopping in the wind.
Brody removed his sunglasses to be polite. He remembered that it was a positive must in the military. If you were speaking to someone—civilian or not—out of courteousness you removed your sunglasses or goggles. It didn’t matter if the sun was in your eyes; courtesy came first. He winced at the morning sun. It felt as if it were burrowing into his skull one claw at a time. “Hi, I’m here to talk with a friend of mine. She’s a new recruit.”
“Visiting hours for civilians are between noon and three, sir.”
“Yeah, but this is an emergency. Her brother is sick,” Brody lied and considered for a fleeting second how it hadn’t felt like one.
The guard looked Brody up and down again, leaned back in his folding chair, and pressed a button on the intercom next to him. He spoke into it with a hushed voice, received an answer almost immediately. The guard leaned forward again, the front feet of his chair slamming hard against the floor of his tiny booth. He slumped with his elbows on the desk before him and said, “What’s the new recruit’s name?”
“Nectar Ashbury.”
He clicked a few times on his screen, got out of the movie program he had been watching, and selected a roster of new recruits. He asked Brody how to spell the last name, and he did. The guard went through the roster a second and a third time. “Sorry, no new recruits here by that name. Is she married or did she change her name? That seems to be pretty common, especially when they don’t want anyone to find them and try to change their minds.” He glared at Brody.