A Hard and Heavy Thing (28 page)

“Going to visit a buddy in Walter Reed in DC. Maybe talk to Congress and have them end the wars. After that, Brooklyn. I heard there's a lovely young teacher there looking for a husband. After that, home. To Wisconsin.”

Albie shook his head and wagged a finger at him. “No Brooklyn. But I can't anyway. I don't have a car.”

“You do now.” Levi dropped the keys to his truck on the counter.

“You drink too much.”

“I don't drink enough.”

“That is too much,” said Albie. “I can take some whiskey, but I cannot take your truck.”

“So sell it. I don't care. The title is in that cardboard box and it's already signed over to Abdul Teyrawah, so that old truck is your problem now.”

Albie dropped his burning cigarette in the last swallow of his whiskey, and he set his glass on the counter. He wrapped Levi in a hug. “You people and your Christmas,” he said.

“Nothing to do with Christmas,” Levi muttered.

“You come back anytime,” said Albie. “And if you convert, you can marry my daughter.”

“I'll think about it,” Levi said as he waved his goodbye.

He stumbled into his own kitchen to pour himself another drink. He emptied the last third of his vodka bottle and threw it at the garbage can, the lid of which was closed. He opened the fridge to find an empty pizza box and a lone bottle of beer. He leaned against his fridge and lit another cigarette, smoking it as he drank the beer. He finished the beer before the cigarette, and when he had finished his smoke, he dropped the butt in the empty beer bottle. He sauntered over to the garbage can, stepped on the pedal that opened the lid, and he dropped the bottle in the can. Leaving the lid open, he unbuttoned the fly of his jeans and pissed into the garbage can before stumbling to his bedroom.

After returning home from the burn ward at Brooke Army Medical Center and before Levi returned home, it wasn't the war that kept Nick awake; it was his febrile prayers over Oma's deteriorating health. After he had returned, it was as if she had breathed a sigh of relief, a sigh in which she happily gave up her ghost now that her grandson was safe. She didn't seem to suffer, but she grew smaller and thinner. He wanted to pick up this poor old woman and rock her like a baby. And then she died.

Then there were the long months—or was it years?—in which anxiety over Eris's drinking and wandering consumed him. Even when he could fall asleep—on the rare nights she was home and sober—he'd wake in a sweaty panic, feeling around to make sure she was still there.

Other thoughts then kept him up at night. Like any entrepreneur trying to make his way in the world, thoughts of his business kept him awake. He thought about the razor-thin profit margins of the food service side of the house. He tried scheduling in his head to cut manpower expenses. After he had been taken for thousands by his manager, Kathy Stenson, he stayed up contemplating the cost versus benefit of boosting his in-house security to prevent employee theft.

Since firing Kathy, he had been working every shift every day, and it had almost gotten to the point where he was too tired to sleep. Now, on the eve of Levi's return, something else, something like trepidation kept him up. He leaned against Eris's back and put his mouth on her neck and kissed her, trying to wake her.

She reached her arm behind her and swatted at him. “Leave me alone,” she said. “Lemme sleep.”

He turned on the lamp. “I get home, and you're sleeping,” he said. “I wake up, and you're gone.”

“So.”

“So you're the one who complains we don't talk.” Nick turned on his back and laced his fingers behind his head. “I just don't know what to do.”

“Start by turning the lamp off.”

“That's not what I mean.” But he did turn the lamp off.

After two hours on the cusp of sleep, he got up. Through the window, he could see the streetlights shining off a thin layer of snow. He cleared his driveway and the rest of the walks on his block before driving to the Hartwig house in Bangor to shovel their driveway and sweep the snow from their deck. The snow was light and the work was easy, so making the rounds with a shovel and a broom seemed as good a way as any to release the nervous energy that fizzed and popped inside him.

As he walked around the back of the house and onto the deck, Kevin opened the sliding door and poked his head out. He held a cup of coffee and wore the flannel pajamas and slippers that Nick imagined were common for men of his age and economic status. “You didn't have to do this,” he said.

“You're old. Didn't want you to have a heart attack.”

Levi's dad laughed. “Well, when you're done, come inside. Charlotte wants to show you something.”

Levi's parents hunched over the island bar. “Come here,” Charlotte said. “Look at this.”

They were looking at a mahogany frame. Levi's Silver Star citation was framed in the top, and replica Silver Star and Purple Heart medals sat centered in the bottom half of the frame. The deep forest green of the felt background made the blue, red, and purple of the ribbons pop in contrast.

He had read the narrative many times before, yet he still found himself amazed as if reading it for the first time. He had no recollection of the blast and no recollection of the subsequent firefight. The last thing he recalled was driving down Boa, squinting against the setting sun. Different images returned to him from time to time—a bloody arm on his chest, smoke obscuring the sky—but these seemed distant and surreal. These images were no more than something he had seen in a movie once. His real battle had been his recovery.

Charlotte put her hand on Nick's elbow. “Well,” she said. “What do you think? We're going to give it to him when he gets home.”

Nick traced his finger around the edge of the frame. “I think it looks great.” For a moment, he felt a twinge of guilt at being the cause of such mayhem, but he quickly pushed the thought away. Whether he failed to spot the bomb or not, he wasn't the one who had planted it.
What's done is done,
he thought.

He excused himself, and he drove back to La Crosse. He cleaned himself up and took Eris to church before they took Uncle Thomas out for steak and eggs as they did every Sunday.

Nick's mind wandered all morning. Levi's homecoming was no small news. Plenty of people in Oma's Pub had been peppering him with questions all week. In the afterglow of the presidential inauguration, all the common-sense Democrats in the small village of Bangor, Wisconsin, viewed Levi's return as proof-positive that they had voted correctly and the wars were ending. The Republicans viewed his return as evidence of a mass exodus of heroes from the military now that the Commander-in-Chief was so antimilitary and soft on defense. Charlotte had spread the word all over town, and she had passed out invitations to everyone at Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, but Nick wasn't even sure Levi would show up at the airport. He'd sent a postcard from Manhattan with a flight number, and Nick hadn't heard a thing since.

Nick's Uncle Thomas chewed on toast and talked with his mouth full. “So where'd you go?” he asked.

Nick looked up from his eggs, which he had been moving around on his plate. “Huh?”

“Got that thousand-yard stare again.” He sipped his coffee. “So where'd you go?”

“Nowhere.”

“Suit yourself.”

The anxiety only grew through the afternoon. It peaked as he drove alone to the airport. He scanned the faces of the masses as they walked down the ramp from the secure area. He thought he spotted a man that might be Levi walking behind a group of people near the tail end of the herd. He had a difficult time being certain because the man was a ways off, but the slight slump of the shoulders, the way he slightly bobbed with each step in what could be mistaken for a cocky swagger, and the way he held his head down as if he had no idea what was going on around him were all unmistakably Levi. The long, flared sideburns that Nick remembered from high school already crept toward Levi's jaw, and the rest of his hair wasn't far behind.

Levi had been carrying a messenger bag loosely on one shoulder. When he saw Nick, he threw the bag toward his back and started pushing through the other travelers with their rolling suitcase-sized carry-ons and the casual lumber of cattle.

“Let me through,” he yelled. “That's my brother up there.”

Nick's dread melted away with Levi's smile, and he couldn't help but laugh as Levi cut around an old man in khakis, loafers, and a Packers sweatshirt. He did an actual spin move around a little girl in a red dress decorated with candy canes.

Nick tried to brace himself to keep from being crushed, but Levi wrapped him up. He pinned both of Nick's arms against his sides. He picked him up, bending his legs to bounce. Each bounce punctuated his speech: “It is. So so. Good. To see you.” He dropped Nick and stepped back. He looked Nick up and down. He winced. “Oh man. Sorry, dude. I didn't hurt you, did I?”

Nick laughed. “I'm not a porcelain doll, ya douche.”

Levi reached out and touched the tight wrinkled skin that spread up the left side of Nick's neck and ear. “Does it hurt?”

Nick tilted his head, pulling his face from Levi's touch. “Did the army close all the chow halls? You must have lost like thirty pounds.”

Levi flexed his bicep and kissed it. “And I could still kick your ass.”

“You wish.”

They looked at each other in silence, the stupid smiles of old friends unsure of what to say to each other. Nick knew that it was Levi in front of him, but his eyes had grown more intense. His cheeks had hollowed out, enhancing the lines in his smile, which seemed almost manic. Despite the broad grin that spread across his thin face, there was an incongruity in the way his thick eyebrows pulled together and in the way his forehead wrinkled.

Nick bit his lip while they waited for luggage. He still had to broach the subject of the party. “So, I know you said no ticker tape parades, but your parents insisted on a party.”

Levi shrugged. “Cool.”

“I mean, they kind of invited everyone in town to their house for a coming home party.”

Levi took a few steps and picked up a black hockey bag moving along the conveyor belt. “They kind of did or they did?”

“Well, they did. They're all waiting there now. They wanted it to be a surprise, and I'm not supposed to tell you, but I know I wouldn't want a bunch of people jumping out and yelling at me. I'll tell you that for free.” Nick put his hands in his pockets and looked expectantly at Levi, who was digging in the hockey bag. “You know, or we could just like, blow it off or whatever.”

After finding what he was looking for, Levi picked up the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He took a long pull from the flask he had taken from the bag. “Ah, what the hell. Let's go party.” He handed the flask to Nick. “Here. Drink and be merry.”

Nick took a sip of the straight liquor—vodka from the bottom shelf—and he smiled with relief. “Okay then. Your chariot awaits.”

In the parking lot, Nick opened the hatch to Eris's blue Volvo. Levi whistled and dropped his bags in the back of vehicle. “Fancy,” he said. “The old bar and grill must be doing pretty well. Living large, eh?”

“It's Eris's actually.” Nick patted the top of the car. “She wanted something all-wheel drive for the snow. My truck was a mess, so I stole this for the afternoon.”

“So how is she? Eris.”

Nick didn't know how to explain things. The question felt loaded. It seemed like the kind of question whose answer required context and history. It seemed like the kind of question that needed its own chapters so he simply said, “She's good. She works at a bank now.”

Levi smiled as he stared out the window of the car, looking at—or past—the virginal snow on the pastures and the barren stalks of the cornfields. The all-volunteer village council had commissioned a Kinko's to create a big banner that said, “Welcome Home Staff Sergeant Levi Hartwig, Silver Star Winner and Our Hometown Hero!” They tied it to the splintered wooden sign that boasted Bangor as the home of the Lady Cardinals, High School State Basketball Champions of 1995. After coming up from Interstate 90, they drove up Highway 162 under a canopy of naked maples. They bumped over the railroad tracks, past the Log Cabin Tavern, and around the blind turn into Bangor where Levi saw the sign that welcomed him.

“Are you kidding me? What the hell is that?” Levi looked at Nick with a perplexed smile.

After stealing a glance at Levi to gauge his reaction, Nick turned back to the road. “President Obama may as well have ended the wars already. Bangor has her hero back, and hope is in the air.”

Levi turned back to the window, shaking his head. He rubbed his hand across the back of his head, through the hair that was already long enough to reach his collar.

Instead of pulling into the packed driveway, they joined the two rows of cars on the frozen front lawn. They stepped out, each with a foot in the car and a foot ankle deep in the cold snow.

“Well,” Nick said. “Ready to do this?”

Levi pulled the flask from his back pocket and drank. He kept his eyes on the house as if it might reach out and grab him if he looked away. “Why the hell not?” he said, as much to himself as to Nick. He took one more swig before tossing the empty flask on the passenger seat of the car.

They stomped through the snow toward the house. When Levi reached the sidewalk, he paused and looked up at the tattered blue star flag that hung there. He untied the rope and let the flag down, catching it before it hit the ground. He rolled it up in a ball and walked it over to the trashcan, where he dropped it without ceremony.

His mother opened the screen door first. She lumbered down the stairs and shuffled along the sidewalk. Tears streamed down her face and she held out her hands. Levi stood still on the sidewalk, waiting for her to reach him. She put her hands on his cheeks and said, “My baby. Oh, my baby's home.”