Still Come Home. Katey Schultz

him or, at least, possibility. Maybe it’s his innocence she finds charming—his age alone permitting unawareness of what’s headed their way. He moves the pump slowly, tiny frame working hard against the pressure, but nothing comes. He looks at her again, untrimmed hair flopping around his eyes and ears.

      “What’s your name?” she asks, and when he points with excessive gestures toward his chest, she understands that he must be mute.

      “Oh. Zra?” she asks, pointing at her heart.

      He shakes his head, then points back and forth between his heart and his mouth.

      “Shpeelak,” she says, meaning whistle.

      Wrong again. The boy moves his hands from his lips to the air in front of him, as if pulling something from his mouth.

      “Ghazél!” she says at last, quieted by the irony—a mute boy named “song.”

      He nods enthusiastically, then does a little dance in the street, his face opening into a charming grin.

      “Wait here.”

      She heads toward her apartment and up the stairs. And so it begins—Aaseya tossing down a stuffed date and Ghazél catching it skillfully, the two connected mid-air by an invisible thread.

      2

      Blister in the Sun

      The call center on base is nothing more than a dented double-wide lined with makeshift cubicles and a few wobbly folding chairs, a fine coating of sand over everything. Second Lieutenant Nathan Miller walks to the back corner and sits down. A boxy, push-button phone and dusty desktop fill the narrow space. He dials the unending stream of numbers for home and waits. On the computer screen, a cursor flashes in the blank Google search field, keeping time. A framed photo of President Obama hangs on the wall above, but it might as well be Ares, these Middle East wars so unending that entire generations have already come of age.

      Tenley’s voice crackles across the static of 7,000 miles, delayed. “…and then the school counselor called after that, and I just, Nathan, I just. I don’t know what to say. Cissy’s angry.”

      He waits, absorbing. Their daughter is only six years old. Tenley is a good mother, but lately her phone calls have turned into emotional rants, and Nathan resents it. He resents the resenting. Then he feels like a dirt-bag husband and absent father, and, before he knows it, all he wants to do is hang up because it feels like the most loving thing he can do.

      But Cissy? Angry? He sits up in his seat, trying to think clearly.

      “What did the counselor say?”

      “The counselor said if Cissy hits another child, the school will be forced to expel her. It’s district-wide policy. Nathan, where else is she going to go? We’d have to move. We’d have to sell the house. We’d have to…”

      “Hits another child next year?”

      And then he remembers the emails he hadn’t read all week. The ones he thought were school newsletters and automated messages about attendance. The ones that should have caught his attention, but it’s a joke these days, trying to complete a single thought without interruption. His mind hops, jack-rabbit style. Add in his other life, his other self, the other side of the globe? Forget it.

      “…and then there was this thing about Host Nation Trucking, and they had this talking head on there who said the Americans are straight-up giving cash to the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

      “Who? Who said that?” Nathan reaches for the keyboard, typing a few search terms into Google.

      “They’re setting you up to fail. Just get yourself home. Come home. I love you too much for this.”

      “It’s going to be OK, Tenley. Ten? Try not to worry.”

      A page of links appears on the screen the same time static cuts him off. The phone line goes dead. He scrolls through the pages. The Guardian. NBC. The Nation. CNN. The headlines send a spike to his gut.

      How the US Army Protects Its Trucks—

      by Paying the Taliban

      US Trucking Contracts Fund Taliban,

      Source Says

      It’s all over the news. Isn’t it just peachy when the military screws itself, then tops it off by stealing the ten minutes Miller has to talk with his wife about his homecoming? They were going to discuss their dream vacation in the Keys, Cissy’s favorite bedtime story, the latest episode of Breaking Bad. Anything. Anything but this.

      The trailer door kicks open, and Private First Class Folson enters. “Yo, LT Miller!” he says, pointing to a clock on the wall beneath Obama. “Game time!”

      “Be there in a few,” Miller calls. “Don’t wait on me.”

      Folson closes the door, and Miller is alone again. He looks up at Obama. As much as he’d like someone to blame, the only common denominator in war is a string of impossible decisions. There’s no god of war presiding, no black-and-white definition of good and evil either, and it strikes him then that if anything can be called “commander in chief” of these twenty-first century wars, it’s the almighty dollar. He reads the articles in a rush. Of course his country is double-dealing. Of course he’s a pawn. When has he ever really believed otherwise? Proof doesn’t change the fact that he’s still in Afghanistan, decidedly not home, not with his wife or daughter, not even sure what family should feel like anymore. He’s had enough—of news, of sand, of failure, of phone calls, of himself, of whoever that self is these days. He closes the web browser and heads out the door. Gotta sweat this one off.

      It’s all in good fun, these pick up games on Forward Operating Base Copperhead on the outskirts of Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan. By landscape and amenity, the multi-national base could almost be in southern Nevada, eastern Oregon, or any place dry and bleached and American with too much of what you don’t want and not enough of what you need. Taco Bell? Check. Burger King? Check. Tube socks, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Facebook, Double Stuf Oreos? Check. And football, of course.

      Two plays after kickoff, an Alpha Platoon linebacker slams into Miller’s ribcage, and it feels like a blessing. A crisp smack and thud. Miller falls to the ground the only way gravity allows. His side hurts, which is good because if it hurts, he’s alive—exactly what he must be in order to keep everyone else alive. He lets loose a grunt as the play moves past, then presses his palms into the grit to get up. This is what he does: try and try again. He’s the leader with a reputation for meticulousness, effective decision-making. Nearly everything his career has brought him to so far has given him the chance to prove himself in this way, again and again. But what if perfection is its own kind of failure? He’s so close to finishing the tour and getting back home. A muddy centerline, the cool slap of cleats on wet grass, the freedom to fuck up. For now, home is miles out of reach, light years. So when Miller rises from the makeshift field and feels a heat-laced head rush pulling him down as though someone roped sandbags over his ears, he knows this is all that remains: to stand up anyway, even as his own country tries to push him back down.

      The game is in Spartan Platoon’s favor now, PFC Folson hustling downfield with the ball clutched to his chest in a manner not unlike the picture pinned above his bunk. Miller has seen it: twenty-two-year-old Folson cradling his infant daughter right before their first goodbye, the wife frozen sternly in the background. The photo appears both unique and unoriginal, a sad foreshadowing played out more times than Miller can count. A letter addressed to Folson is waiting on Miller’s desk right now with a return address that suggests divorce. Folson might have some clue of what’s coming—he’s acted lackluster lately. Slacking on weapons maintenance, missing meals, even turning up late once for a division-wide meeting with the company commander. But Miller can’t be sure how Folson will react, and the Spartan Platoon sergeant has been too fed up to bother dealing with Folson’s misdeeds as he should.

      Twenty yards downfield, the Alpha linebacker tackles Folson, and they tumble into the dirt. Miller hustles to catch up, tornadoes of dust rising with each step. If a devoted father like Folson is screwing up, what