Personal Effects (11 page)

The second footlocker opens just as easily. But as soon as the lid hits the floor, I forget how to breathe.

T.J.’s uniform is laid out on top, still in plastic, fresh from the dry cleaner’s, waiting for him to put it on. My gut clenches, and for once I’m glad I didn’t have dinner. My hands recoil. I can’t touch it. But having come this far, there’s no turning back. And I can’t live without knowing what else is in there.

I make my shaking fingers approach the thin plastic again. I lift it up by the plastic and swing it over to the bed, and then smooth it out flat so it won’t get wrinkled. My eyes won’t look away. I stand there, staring, hands cold and head dizzy. A car horn outside jars me loose. I need to move on.

As far as I can see, the footlocker is full of more folded clothes. Mostly his everyday uniforms, but other clothes and some small bags of stuff, too.

I’d been expecting something more. That I would open them up and immediately understand something more. I’d see something that had been T.J.’s and get what he had been thinking or doing right before. Or I’d see something meant just for me. Some piece of T.J. that would be all mine.

But I didn’t count on everything being handled and reorganized, sanitized, and not by his buddies or anyone who even knew him. I didn’t think about some stranger packing everything up in secure plastic bags, with no clear answers for me.

Kneeling down, I start to sort the stuff. The first bags hold nothing interesting. I sift through things, glancing and moving on until there’s a pile of the everyday crap of T.J.’s life, none of which is going to answer any questions.

The next layer isn’t any more enlightening: some more clothes, washed clean of all traces of T.J.; a striped towel; a fleece jacket with some kind of logo; and finally, together under the rest of the clothes, the T-shirt he wore the day we left on our hike, the one with the crack in the word
ARMY,
and his favorite sweatshirt, with the ripped pocket. I put them both to the side, pumped to at least have those.

More plastic bags. A few books. A handheld game player and a bag of games. A bunch of CDs, mostly by groups and singers I’ve never heard of. Some aren’t even in English. I pull out a couple of the CDs that look interesting and put the rest in the pile to go back in.

I practically dive into the footlocker for the next bag — T.J.’s laptop, his battered case empty next to it. But when I lift it, the bag’s too light, and when I open the bag, there’s a gaping space where the hard drive should be. A letter in the bag says it was damaged beyond repair. Losing that hurts. I guess down deep this is what I wanted the most, so much so I didn’t even have the guts to wish for it. I drop it onto the pile of stuff. No point in taking it without the hard drive. Disappointment seeps up inside me. What if there isn’t anything here that can tell me anything important?

A Discman. A few more plastic bags of CDs, and one holding some papers. I shuffle the papers around. Statements and forms. Some pamphlets with other soldiers’ names. Memorials. Other dead guys T.J. had known. No thanks.

I repack the footlocker, with, I hope, something at least close to the care used to pack it originally. I lay everything back in neatly, stacking some things to make it look full even without the small pile of stuff that’s coming with me, until all I have left is the uniform on the bed. I force myself to once again pick it up by the plastic edges and, as gently as possible, lay it in on top. I smooth out a couple of ripples. Someone who didn’t even know T.J. made it look perfect. The least I can do is try to keep it that way. I slip the zip tie back through the closed lid, wrap tape around the cut, and slide it so the tape doesn’t show as much.

In the third footlocker, there’s more clothes, and then a portable DVD player and several bags of DVDs. I look them over one by one, wondering which was his favorite, which ones he watched over and over, which ones he would tell me to watch, if he were here.

I have to take a deep breath and make myself keep going. If I stop to dwell on the stuff I wish I knew, on all the ways I wish I had known T.J. better, I’ll lose it. The DVDs go into the pile to go downstairs, but I put the player aside to put back in. The DVDs, Dad will never notice around my room, but the player, covered in stickers and so obviously T.J.’s, will make him ask questions.

The next layer down, I hit pay dirt. T.J.’s iPods — three of them, all different sizes. They’re beat all to hell and scratched and are probably the things he loved the most out of everything here. Most people don’t need more than one. T.J. took all three with him on deployment. He probably had some reason — something about their uses, or time, or convenience. Hell, maybe even types of music. He bought the Shuffle the last time he was home — he couldn’t resist its tiny size. But I guess he just couldn’t bring himself to get rid of his first true-blue one, even with the others.

T.J. always fell asleep to music. Ran to it, too. He did pretty much everything to music. I can’t wait to hook them up and try to figure out what he listened to the most, what he fell asleep to in the middle of a war zone, and what he listened to last. God, to scroll through the songs, see his history in music — maybe even some of my own. Probably a lot of songs I first heard through the closed door of this room, my ear pressed against the other side. I put the iPods in my keep pile and move on.

His camera’s a mess — scratched and cracked and held together with some kind of tape. I can’t get it to turn on. No memory cards. I put the camera back in, at least for now.

A few more books, some falling apart, like they might disintegrate if I handle them too much. T.J. didn’t read much when he was home — a book or a magazine by his bed, maybe, but he didn’t just sit around and read. But these, all beat up and creased, he read these a lot. One in particular is held together by a rubber band, with the front and back cover gone, and the pages crinkled and fluttering like it’s been wet and dried out at least once. Another says
Stories from the Appalachian Trail,
a scrap of paper sticking out, marking a page. I choke, hold my breath, push on my eyes. I’m not ready to see what’s on that page, how far he read before . . . I put the four books with the pile to go downstairs.

The next layer’s a blanket I’ve never seen before. Then a box, black-and-white and glossy, with some kind of shiny stones or shells in an intricate pattern on top. I pull it out of its plastic bag. The inside smells like wood, but it’s nearly as glossy as the outside. It’s beautiful, and I have no idea why T.J. had it. It doesn’t look like something he’d carry around with him, and I can’t see him giving it to me or Dad. But there’s something about it. I want it. But no way could I pass it off if Dad saw it in my room. Too much to risk.

More plastic bags with nothing interesting. At the bottom are a couple pairs of jeans. Kind of a letdown, and I feel sick to my stomach. I was sure I’d find some answers, but I’m leaving with just some stuff. Some cool stuff, but still.

I reach in to roll up the jeans so they’ll take up more room. My hand hits something more, something underneath them. I yank the jeans out and toss them aside.

At the bottom, like afterthoughts, are more plastic bags.

Something crackles in the air around me, shoots through me.

I drag the first one out with shaking hands. Pictures. Stacks and stacks of pictures. I open up the bag and grab some at random, their slick surfaces sliding around.

The first picture’s all light and dark. But after turning it, a window and side of a building, and some sign in a foreign language, becomes clear.

I dump all the pics back in their bag. The other three bags are full of envelopes, loose letters, and cards, even a couple of drawings.

Shit.

The things people sent him. I grab all four bags. No doubt they’re coming with me.

I glance at the clock in the kitchen on my first trip downstairs. Shit. Later than I thought.

If I can get it all downstairs, hide it, then even if Dad finds out, maybe he won’t be able to find it all.

I’ll hide my stuff better than he ever could. But I know, even if he finds out, I’ll deal with it. No way he’s taking anything back.

I repack the footlocker as fast as I can, one layer at a time, but not nearly as carefully as before. Too much to lose now. And still, so many times I have to resist the urge to add to my sizable pile, knowing there’s every chance I’ll never get another look. It hurts to put the black-and-white box back in, but of all the stuff, it’s the thing Dad would know, on sight, was wrong. I just can’t be that stupid.

It takes three more trips to get everything down to my room, and on each trip, things fall and my spastic hands scrabble to gather them up again. I toss stuff onto my bed and run back for more. When it’s all downstairs, I stare into T.J.’s room again.

From the doorway, everything is exactly in the places I found them. The footlockers are exactly where I found them, and I rubbed my shoes all over the carpet so there are no obvious dents or roughed-up places to give me away. From the hallway, you can’t even see that the footlockers have been opened. Dad would have to go all the way in and crouch down to see that the zip ties have been cut.

Back down in my room, I start to panic for real. A bunch of T.J.’s things sitting around in piles will beg questions. There’s no telling when Dad might get home, or when he might get it in his head to come down and check up on me.

I dump the stuff from my lowest desk drawer into a trash bag and then put most of the smaller stuff in there. The T-shirts and sweatshirt I hide in my bureau, underneath my other sweatshirts. The books and DVDs get stacked under the desk, in the back, behind the comic books I haven’t read in a while. Then I push my desk chair in as far as it will go.

In the bottom of my closet is my box full of hiking stuff. I dump it all out, and then shove the bags of letters and pictures into it and slide it under my bed. Close enough to grab in an emergency, but still out of sight.

Then I wait for Dad to come home.

D
AD
’
S TRUCK DOESN
’
T PULL INTO THE DRIVEWAY UNTIL
after midnight. I hold my breath, listening as he moves through the house.

Instead of going right upstairs, he walks around the kitchen. I hear the cabinet. He gets a drink. If he comes down the stairs, I might shit my pants. If he heads to the recliner, I’m gonna have to sweat it out some more.

Then I hear it: the open, close, lock of the back door. The steps pause near my stairs. I dive for the bed, ready to pretend I fell asleep listening to the music. But the door doesn’t open, and his footsteps head through the living room and upstairs.

I wait for the water through the pipes, the sounds of him walking around his room, and count to one hundred. Wait some more, and there’s nothing but silence. He has to be out. Then, moving as quietly as I can, wincing on every step, I grab my backpack. I drop it next to my nightstand, in case I still need to hide the letters and pictures, quick and portable-like, or make a run for it.

Just before climbing back onto the bed, I slide the box out from underneath it and turn on the bedside lamp. I pull out the bag of pictures. The first few I grab are of buildings and people, looking like every pic I’ve ever seen of Iraq. One of two little boys holding thumbs-up at the camera, the smaller boy holding a candy bar clutched in his hand. A couple of some kind of market, with colorful stalls. Some kind of water. A sunset over a city.

Next are three of guys from T.J.’s unit, or maybe another unit, but Army guys, recognizable even in jeans and tees. They’re standing in front of a restaurant or a bar. A couple of pics of the same guys at some kind of party, but this time all looking a little wasted. One of T.J. leaning over with some little kids — he was blowing up balloons. His face, so happy. I stare at it for a long time, then slip it into my backpack, in the small pocket at top.

One of a woman in uniform, dark skin and hair, serious, except for her eyes: her eyes seem to be laughing, maybe at T.J. taking the picture? Maybe she’s in T.J.’s unit? Another picture of her, more relaxed, sitting at a table under an umbrella, with T.J. and two other guys. She’s the only one in the sun, and her dark skin is glowing, shiny and kind of coppery. Her hair’s pulled back from her face, cool sunglasses on top of her head. She’s beautiful, smiling into the camera. The other people around the table, including T.J., smile, too. A couple more of them, in different places, but the same clothes. More pics of kids.

Some soldiers in full uniform talking to a classroom full of kids. Another of the woman with T.J., arms around each other. He’s grinning his shit-eating grin, and she’s laughing, her feet dangling like he had just lifted her off the ground.

Lots more of Iraq. Buildings. People. Streets. Lots of other soldiers. Even more pics of kids.

Another of T.J. and some guys around a picnic table. These guys don’t look like Army, but I have no clue where it was taken, or who they are. Were they friends? A woman leaning against a fence. A whole bunch of a lake, houses on the other side. Some people windsurfing. A cat on a chair. Still so many in the bag. So many people I don’t even know. Who are they?