A Hard and Heavy Thing (11 page)

Levi couldn't find his voice right away. He nodded and hid behind his cup.

“It's not just some rush job or impulse decision based on emotion, pride, fervor, and all that?”

“Yeah. We've actually, uh, been working with the recruiter for like, forever. Like, almost two months now.”

Levi's dad leaned back and folded his arms. His cuffs popped from under his suit coat and the shoulder seams stretched. He looked over Levi's head as if deciding how to react. Finally, he allowed himself a full smile. “That's great, Son. I think that will be good for you.” He brought his eyes back down to Levi's face. “Yeah,” he said. “I think that will be good.”

This was not what Levi expected. He looked over at his mom. She was crying, as he had expected, but not in the same manner. “Oh honey,” she said. “I'm so proud of you.”

Levi blushed, pleased with himself. Yet, he also felt confused and perturbed at their immediate acceptance of the news that he had joined the army smack dab in the middle of a war. Sure, Liz and Chris peppered him with questions between trips to the buffet to get their bread pudding and ice cream—Infantry? What will you do there? When do you leave? Are you scared? Will you go to Afghanistan right away?—but no one tried to keep him around. His dad had never looked more pleased. Levi tried to answer their questions with energy and excitement, but it gnawed at him that no one tried to talk him out of it.

Later that night at the Hartwig house, after the bottles of homemade wine from Liz's catering company had been drunk, after the board games had been put away, and long after Levi had surrendered his keys to his dad, the married people went upstairs to bed. Paul stayed at the dining room table, his top shirt button undone and his tie loosened. He sat in front of his laptop answering e-mails and doing whatever work it was that young lawyers did when they were on vacation.

Levi sat at the end of the table and sipped on Glenlivet 18, the smooth scotch being the only liquor he could find in the house. He tried to keep his movements slow and small. Each time he set down his glass, he eased it onto a cork coaster, trying to refrain from making any noise that would disturb his brother, who was the definition of concentration, a fact that astounded Levi considering Paul had drunk as much as anyone that night.

The more he drank in silence, the more he grew annoyed that Paul hadn't moved, hadn't gotten up to go to the bathroom, hadn't stretched, hadn't even stopped typing. He started to make little noises to grab his attention. First, he coughed, as if something had gone down the wrong tube. When that didn't work, he poured tiny sips into his glass and drank them like shots, slamming the tumbler onto the table after each one. He retrieved a bag of cheese curds and flopped into his seat, making sure to bump the table on his way down. Paul continued working, unfazed. Levi belched and threw a cheese curd into the air and tried to catch it in his mouth on the way down. He caught about one out of every three. He leaned over the table to catch one on the way down. It moved the table several inches and his elbow knocked the bottle of scotch on its side.

It was empty enough by now that only a few drops fell out, but the disturbance finally made Paul look up from his computer. He glanced at the tipped bottle as if to ensure that its contents wouldn't flow in his direction and ruin his computer. When he was satisfied he was safe, he looked up at Levi, raised his why-are-you-a-moron eyebrow, and returned to his work.

Levi crossed his arms in a petulant huff. He stewed. The only sound in the house was the steady hum of the forced-air heater and the clicking of Paul's keyboard. The silence was too much for Levi, and he grew dizzy with his drunkenness.

“Why didn't you say anything at lunch when I told you I joined the army?”

Paul didn't look up from his work. “What did you want me to say?”

“I don't know.” Levi stood up. “Maybe that I shouldn't do it. Maybe talk me out of it?”

“Okay. How about this? You're an idiot for wanting to join the army.”

“Dad and Grandpa were both in the army. Are they idiots?”

“They were drafted, moron. They hated it. They're both practically pacifists now. Well, Dad is anyway. Grandpa's dead.”

“Thanks for the reminder, dick.” Levi sat back down.

Paul shrugged. “Okay, let me try again? You're a total shrimp. Your life's dream is to smoke weed and write books all day in your underwear. You play in a punk band and do exactly the opposite of whatever anyone in authority tells you to do. The first thing they'll want to do is buzz your head and shave off that stupid soul patch, but you won't let anyone touch your hair or those ridiculous sideburns. And you're going to join the army and all of a sudden be GI Joe? You'll be court-martialed within the year.”

“You're such a dick.”

“It's your life,” Paul said. “What do I know about it?”

Levi picked up the tipped bottle and sucked down the last few drops. “Yeah,” he said. “It is my life. And you don't even care if I lose it in Afghanistan?”

Paul laughed and pushed his computer forward. “You haven't even left yet and I'm supposed to be worried about you dying?”

“Well, we're in a war, aren't we? And I'm your little brother, aren't I?”

Paul spoke slowly, as if he were explaining something to a small child. “Let me take those points one at a time, starting with the latter.” He held out a thumb. “One. Yes, you're my little brother. I care for you deeply. But I can't pretend to know what's best for you when I see you maybe once a year. The last time I really knew you? As in knew you, knew you? As in when we lived together? You were nine years old.” Paul added an index finger to his outstretched thumb. “And fighting a war? Do you want to know how many United States military personnel have died in Afghanistan from hostile fire since we invaded?”

“Probably a lot,” Levi said.

“Take a guess at how many.”

“I dunno. Nineteen.”

“Zero,” Paul said. “Zero military deaths from hostile fire. You're more likely to die of dehydration in boot camp or a training accident on the grenade range than you are to die by hostile fire in Afghanistan right now. So no, I'm not going to try to talk you out of your grand adventure.”

Levi dropped his head to the table, and then remembering something, he popped back up. “That can't be right. What about that helicopter?”

“Crashed. Not shot down. Accidents happen. Could have happened anywhere.”

“Wow,” Levi said slowly. “Well, that's great though. Means we're kicking their butts.”

[But, to be honest, which is what this letter is all about, this revelation saddened me, angered me even, because it seemed to diminish what we were doing. It made it feel like our war wasn't big enough or bad enough to mean anything.]

“Yup,” Paul said. “And I'm sure it will be over by the time you even finish training, so if you think you're going off to be some big war hero, you better think again.” Paul pulled his computer back toward him.

“Well, what about everyone else? Mom and Dad didn't try talking me out of it. If Dad's so anti-army, why didn't he talk me out of it? They don't care if I finish school? They don't care if they lose me?”

Paul shook his head. “You don't get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Levi spat back.

“Brother, they feel like they lost you a long time ago.” Paul closed his laptop, slid it into his leather messenger's bag, and stood up. “Maybe they feel like the army will shape you up and they'll finally get you back.” He walked around the table and patted his nonplussed brother on the shoulder. “If you want to join the army, join the army. If you don't, don't. But if you are going to do anything, do it for you and not as a cry for help. Just grow up is all. Just grow up.”

January turned into February with no discernible change, and Levi thought the end of the school year would never come. He thought the long Wisconsin winter would last forever and the sun would glare off the snow for the rest of his life. The ice would never melt, leaving the fishing shanties forever on the lakes and the salt forever on the roads. But spring did come and the ice did melt and the boats emerged from their docks once again to cruise the three rivers in search of their bass, crappie, and sunfish. Before he knew what had happened, Levi found himself setting the little blue exam book from his last final on a stack of little blue exam books before walking out the door of the lecture hall, elated.

Levi had already boxed up his journals, and both he and Nick had boxed up all their other sentimental items like high school yearbooks and old DIY concert posters. They took them to the Hartwig basement for indefinite storage. They had not, however, packed their guitars. Both Levi and Nick decided that their going-away party would be one final show at The Warehouse the night before they left for Fort Benning, Georgia. The owner of the club gave A Failed Entertainment the honor of headlining. Instead of drinking before the show started, instead of sneaking pot into the backstage hangout room while the other bands played, Nick walked around talking to all his friends and the few local fans they had come to know over the past few years. Levi sat alone with an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes in the room behind the sound booth. He didn't hear the door open and close.

“You have an ashtray right there on the table. Why don't you use it?”

Eris stood in front of him in a pair of Docs, tight jeans, and a ripped-up form-fitting NIL8 T-shirt. Her makeup was thick, her eyeliner dark. He had rarely seen her since he and Nick had told her over coffee that they were leaving. She had done everything possible to avoid them. Levi had noticed, and he had missed her. And now, here in front of him, she looked broody and gorgeous. She sat in a folding chair in front of him.

“So you wanna tell me why?” she said.

“Why what?”

“Why what do you think? Because of The Attacks last fall? Because you're bored? Because why? Why, Levi. Because why.”

“Well, yeah. But not only.” He stuffed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

“Well, what else?” She leaned forward in her chair, her elbows on her knees. If it weren't for the coffee table between them, Levi was sure they'd be touching.

“It's complicated and probably sounds dumb, and so.” She looked at him in a way that made him feel naked. “Because I want to do something exciting. Be exciting,” he said.

“And why Nick?”

“I don't know.” Levi stood up. “I have to get out to watch the next band.”

“Sit down.”

He obeyed.

“Why Nick?”

“I don't know.” He threw his hands up and let them drop in his lap again. “He wants to do good. Be good?”

It must have been something in his voice or in his look, but she took a deep breath, licked her lips, and sat back in the chair. She crossed her legs. Before she spoke, Levi had thought she might tell him he was the most exciting person she'd ever known, and that he was good too. Even if it wasn't true, maybe she'd say it to get them to stay. Instead, she said, “If you want to be good, don't go halfway around the world to kill people.”

[That stung. It had never been about that for me. It had been about leaving a life that was boring and going nowhere. Sure, I had vaguely contemplated the possibility of being killed, and that's where the excitement and allure was—in the danger—but until then, the thought of killing other people had never even crossed my mind. Not once.]

Levi said nothing to dispel her notions of why he was leaving; he didn't spill his guts to her like he did years later in retrospect, after his mind had been destroyed. Instead, he leaned forward over the table and earnestly reverted to parroting Nick's fervent speeches. Levi thought phrases like, “The Defining Struggle of Our Generation,” and “The Only Time for Action Is Now,” and “We Weren't Created for the Sidelines,” sounded thin and cheap coming out of his mouth—[I don't have your heart. The naked sincerity. The earnestness in you that I admire so much. I couldn't strip the irony from it no matter how hard I tried. Still can't, but I'm working on it.]—yet he spouted them anyway. He was too afraid or too in denial to get at the heart of the matter.

When he had finally finished, he sat back in a mix of exhaustion and exasperation.

Eris stood. “When did you become such a follower?”

“Like you've got all the answers?”

“And what if I do?”

“Do you have a single reason why we should stay?”

“What if one was standing in front of your stupid face?”

“A reason for whom? A reason for Nick?”

She held a middle finger up in front of his face, stood still for a moment, and walked away. She slammed the door. Levi picked up the ashtray and hurled it against the wall where it shattered in silence against the feedback, open chords, and clanging cymbals of the opener's finale.

He sat there in angry silence until he heard the next band begin. A mass of teenagers swelled against the stage. Levi waded out into the group until he was surrounded, and the group started moving, and swaying, and bobbing in beat to the lazy introduction of the first song of the set. He allowed himself to be swallowed by the crowd until they were all one body with a thousand feet shuffling on a splintered wood floor, all of them wearing thin sheens of sweat. Cigarette smoke drifted at the pace of the thin noodling of the lead guitarist, which soon gave way to a heavy riffing. The music consumed all of them as the early bobbing turned into a raucous rocking of the entire upper half of the collective body until one touched soul started thrashing about through the crowd. Each pointy, frightening tip of the spikes on his wristband glinted in the lights of the stage in the small and dingy club. He pumped his fist along with the beat of the double bass drum, a pounding which by itself had the power to make their collective heart want to burst out of their collective chest in celebration of the freedom that they were experiencing in the music that preached independent thought in pursuit of an honest and more upright world. Or the agony in it all, which Levi could feel when the music stopped just for a millisecond, during which time each heart stopped with it.