In the Path of Falling Objects (8 page)

“Hey!” Mitch said, jogging over from the car.

“Stop it!” Lilly yelled. But I couldn’t hear anything else beyond the pulse in my ears and my gasping breaths, and the sounds of my fists smacking into my brother’s chest and face.

“You stupid punk!” I cursed. I sat on top of Simon, pinning his arms down with my knees into the gravel and dust beneath a desiccated locust tree, my hand twisted around in Simon’s hair, holding his head steady while my other hand alternately slapped and punched him; Simon, whining with each strike, eyes shut tight, blood spraying out from his nose and mouth.

“You’re hurting him! Stop it!” Lilly screamed. “Mitch! Make him stop it!”

Mitch just stood there, where the shade of the tree fell across his eyes.

“He’ll stop soon enough,” Mitch said. “I seen this coming ever since we caught these two.”

I gave Simon’s hair a final twist, then launched myself off of him, making a grunting growl as I did, storming away from the others, out past the tree and into the desert, punching my arms in the air and barking curses at no one, barking curses at myself. I tore my shirt off and wiped at the blood from my hands and arms, then balled it up and covered my face as I collapsed to my knees, facing away from all of them, sobbing so hard that I couldn’t believe I would ever stop crying.

Joneser
,

Hi. What’s happening out in the world? That’s what GIs over here call home. The world.

I can’t sleep. It took me about 10 minutes to write that first sentence because the South Vietnamese are firing their 105s right over my head and I’m starting to get a little worried. The whole place shakes like it’s the end of the world.

Last night, two VC were killed at our northern perimeter. You know what the RVNs did? They took what was left of the bodies, because they both got it by claymore mines, and laid them in the road outside the firebase so people can see what happens to VC. One of them was a woman. I don’t even want to say what they did to her body.

But the only Army here is a South Vietnamese battery and us, so there’s no one to boss us around and we can sleep whenever we want, just not now. But we have a big ice chest filled with beer, and we listen to music a lot.

You know what? My platoon leader was out here to deliver mail, and I got your letter, but some RVN went in his jeep and stole his camera. We reported it to the RVN major and he caught the guy. You
know what they did to him? They made him low-crawl in the mud with a mortar round in his arms and while he was doing this, other RVNs were beating him all over with clubs. He was really bloody. Then they threw him naked in a real small cage made from barbed wire. That’s what I call a good case of military discipline.

There’s a picture in here of me and Scotty in his room. His room is about 9 feet by 5 feet. My room is a little bigger, but they’re both like coffins. But they’re in bunkers, of course.

I’m watching some rats in here right now, and getting bitten by mosquitoes. Scotty is scared of rats, but he used to have a pet monkey that would chase them away, but I think someone stole the monkey and probably ate it.

On nights like this, sometimes I just watch the rats. Some of them are big enough that they’d kill a small cat or dog. When it’s quiet, not like now, you can hear them hissing and screeching all night.

I don’t know what I hate worse, the sound of the rats or those 105s.

Tomorrow I might get to go to our home battery, they have showers there. I haven’t had a shower in 2 weeks. And I usually have to sleep with my clothes and boots on. I’m dirtier than hell. My sheets have mold on them.

I’ve been here four months and my nerves are shot. Every time I hear a noise I jump. I’m shaking so bad right now. But the worst thing, I saw a five-year-old boy get killed the other day and then I thought of you and Simon and I thanked God that you aren’t in a place like this. I hope you guys aren’t fighting all the time, Jonah, you have to be the man.

Scotty just came in right now. He said tell my little brother hi. He can’t sleep either, I guess, but I bet there’s more rats in my room than his. We’re going to have a beer (don’t tell Mom
and Simon, ha ha) and maybe try to go to sleep. Anyway, I’m getting under the mosquito net cause these things are killing me.

I’ll write to you soon.

Love
,

Matthew

I don’t know how long I sat there.

I felt so tired, like I could just lie down and sleep.

And wait for the buzzards to eat me.

I could hear the motor on the Lincoln starting up.

I took the shirt down from my face, my eyes blind and blurry in the dry light of the desert. My hands were sore and streaked brown with my little brother’s blood. I heard someone approaching from behind. I still didn’t fully believe what I had done. And I kept hearing myself, on the dirt road from our house, telling Simon how I promised to take care of him.

“Come on. Get in the car, Jonah.”

It was Mitch.

Flick.

I didn’t move, didn’t look back at him.

“No.”

“You sure beat the tar out of that boy.”

“I told him I would.”

Mitch moved closer. I could feel his footsteps vibrating through the ground.

“Get up now. Let’s go.” Mitch sounded calm, almost soothing.

“I don’t want to go with you.”

Flick.

“Then we’ll leave without you,” Mitch said, his voice closer now.
“And, Jonah? Your little brother will be with us. He’s already in the car. And you know what I’m going to do? I bet you know.” Mitch paused and cleared his throat, then leaned closer and whispered, “Maybe a mile down the road, maybe a hundred miles down the road. Maybe. I just know I’m going to kill him if you don’t get up right now.”

I dropped the bloody shirt onto the dirt in front of my knees.

I knew then that all the things I thought about Mitch from the moment I saw him were right; and probably not bad enough. And I knew I’d let Simon down, let myself down, too, and I’d have to do something about it if I could. If I was strong enough, or smart enough.

I put my palms down on the ground and pushed myself up to my feet.

My knees felt like they would buckle.

I looked over at the car.

“There you go, buddy. That’s a good boy,” Mitch said, smiling, toothy and yellow, as I turned around to face him.

“Can I get a shirt out of my pack, please?” My voice was flat and stoic.

“You can wear that one you left there in the dirt or you can go without,” Mitch said.

So I picked up the rumpled and bloodied tee shirt and shook it out. Then, without saying anything else, I pulled it on over my head and began walking back toward the Lincoln. I saw the glinting reflection of Lilly’s sunglasses there as she watched me and Mitch, could tell that Simon was sitting in the backseat just on the other side of the metal man, and I felt sick when Mitch put an arm around my shoulders, so fatherly, saying, “Do you know how to drive, boy? I think it’s time you take the wheel for a while.”

“He’s driving,” Mitch said. He opened the door on Lilly’s side and got into the backseat with Simon.

I stood behind the open driver’s door, not looking back at Simon. I knew he didn’t want me to look at him, and I was afraid of what I might see.

“I’m sorry, Simon. I’m really sorry. Are you okay?” I said, just talking, and not looking back.

Simon didn’t say anything.

“I think you broke his nose,” Lilly said, and then shifted in the seat to look back at Simon. “Did it stop bleeding?”

While I sat out in the dirt, she had taken Simon to the drinking fountain to wash the blood from his face. There was blood everywhere, in Simon’s hair, down his back and chest, drying in black grainy beads, his bottom lip cut between his teeth and my hands, and his left eye was black. She had carefully taken Simon’s shirt from him and soaked it in the warm, tin-smelling fountain water and twisted it and bathed Simon with it, wiping it across his skin and wringing it out over and over until the blood was gone.

I turned and looked at my brother.

Simon pressed the wet shirt, now gone completely red, up against his face and let out a muffled “No.” Simon turned away so nobody would have to look at him, holding that smooth and shining meteorite tightly in his right hand, flipping it over, tumbling it in his grasp.

“You want a shirt, Simon?” Mitch asked calmly.

“No.”

I sighed and sat down. I placed my hands on the steering wheel and just sat there, trying to figure everything out, feeling punished, feeling trapped. I had driven plenty of times in my life, but there was so much in my mind at that moment that I became afraid I’d forgotten anything I might ever have known.

Five miles down the highway, Mitch scratched his fingers through his cropped dark hair and stretched his arms out into the wind over
his head and said, “Donny boy, I feel like getting high. What do you say?”

“He says, ‘Groovy,’ ” Lilly beamed.

Mitch patted Don Quixote on the shoulder and said, “He never says no to me.”

I was scared. I sat stiff at the wheel, staring down the endless road carved straight from hill to hill, lined with jagged rocks and grasses, following pole after pole stretched with sagging black wire, and I cringed as I heard Mitch digging through his grocery sack and pulling out a six-pack of beer, then popping a ring on the first one, sending a foaming spray of warm yellow beer out like a sneeze against the leather back of the front seats.

I looked at Simon in the rearview mirror.

Simon’s nose had stopped bleeding, the bridge swollen smooth from his brow downward, his mouth hanging open to breathe. He sat, eyes pooled and fixed forward.

Mitch twirled the metal ring around on his index finger.

“Do you know what these are good for?” Mitch asked, holding the shining pop top in front of Simon.

“No,” Simon said.

“Nothing.” Mitch laughed and he tossed the ring over his shoulder, sending it flying back on the wind to tumble downward against the grainy surface of the highway.

And I knew what Mitch was going to do.

“Please don’t give him a beer,” I said.

“You need to ease up,” Mitch said coldly, and I could hear him rustling in the bag again. “Do you want a beer, Simon?”

“Cool.”

“That’s my man.” Mitch laughed. I heard the sound of him opening a second can.

“What if we get pulled over by the police?” I asked.

“We won’t,” Mitch said, “trust me. Do you trust me, Jonah?”

I didn’t say anything. Of course I didn’t.

Mitch waited, a silent minute that seemed so long on that highway, and then he said, “Do you trust me, Lilly?”

“Sure.” She smiled at me, like she was trying to get me to come along. I wished I could figure her out. She had to know that Mitch was poison, but I got the feeling that she just drank it all in and teased him because she didn’t care the least bit about herself.

I looked away from her.

Mitch said, “Do you trust me, Don?”

“Don says, ‘Groovy,’ ” Lilly answered.

“Do you trust me, Simon?”

Simon took a swig from the beer, and then another. And he said, “Yes.”

“So there. See? You’re outvoted, Jonah. Four to one, baby. And, after all, this is a democracy. The people have spoken. The people trust Mitch.”

And Mitch finished his beer and tossed the can out over the back of the Lincoln.

“Hey, Jonah, turn on the radio, man,” Mitch said, opening another beer.

I reached for the dashboard, but swerved the Lincoln onto the shoulder and then overcorrected. Mitch and Simon spilled their beers on their laps.

“I’ll do it,” Lilly said.

I sighed, tightening my grip on the wheel. I felt so lost and out of control. In front of her, I felt like such an idiot.

“It’s okay,” Lilly said, and rubbed my leg. “It’s been a tough day. Let’s just forget about it and have a good time.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said.

Lilly fumbled at the radio’s knob until she found a station playing
“Let It Bleed” and stopped it there as soon as Mitch started singing along.

And I tried to stay calm and watch the road and think of a way to save myself and my brother; and maybe Lilly, too.

Mitch ducked behind the seat to get down out of the wind. He began rolling a joint. When he popped back up, he held his arm over the front seat and waved the crooked, stubby cigarette in the air between Lilly and me, saying, “Look what I got.”

And I felt my stomach twist and chest tighten. I heard Mitch flicking that lighter. It wasn’t because our dad had gotten himself so messed up by drugs, not exactly; and it wasn’t that I’d never been around someone who was smoking pot, but it was just something that Simon and I didn’t do.

“Not me,” I said.

“That’s okay, man, that’s okay,” Mitch said, leaning back. “Just keep driving. And turn up the radio.”

“It’s up all the way,” Lilly said.

“I love this car,” Mitch said.

“Where’d you get it?” I asked, shifting and straining to see in the small mirror at the top of the windshield, and the smaller round one on the door, anything that might show me what Simon was doing back there.

“Ask Lilly.”

Lilly just turned away, pretending to look out at the passing blur of red and yellow desert.

Even in the open car on that blisteringly hot afternoon, I could smell the ropey smoke from the joint when Mitch finally got it to burn, and dreaded him offering it to Simon. I bit my cheek as hard as I could to not say anything. I felt so terrible for what I had done to my brother, and I wanted so desperately to get him out of there that I felt sick.

So when I heard Simon say, “No thanks, man. But I’ll have a cigarette,” and Mitch reply, “It’s cool, Simon,” I felt my shoulders loosen and I could breathe again.

“I’ll have a hit,” Lilly said, reaching over to Mitch.

“That’s my girl,” Mitch said. “Ahh . . . the world is perfect.”

“I guess it is,” I said.

Mitch lay his head back and stared straight up into the sky. “I’m floating.”