Pitfall (2 page)

Chapter Two

T
here’s an old saying that the past is like a shadow: although it has no real substance, it’s always at your heels. That’s how it is with me. Most days roll by almost without notice.

Until something unexpected happens.

The early Midwestern August morning was surprisingly nice for a change. After running my customary five miles, I lifted weights for thirty minutes with an old retired middleweight boxer, Fred “Ironman” Miller, as my spotter before working out for an hour on the heavy bag in the old wood-floored, boxing room at the YMCA. Fred held the bag in his two sure and liver-spotted hands as I slammed it hard with a fast combination. As always, I was overdoing my regimen, pushing the envelope, going harder than was wise or prudent. Like I was trying to prove … something.

I’d just completed another series of hits when my lower back suddenly wrenched and spasmed violently. For a few more seconds it grew worse, which in turn caused my right leg to convulse and stiffen before collapsing completely. Losing my balance, I dropped heavily to the floor; the pain making me gasp.

“Man, John.” Fred squatted on his haunches near me. “You all right?”

“Fine,” I managed to grunt. “Go get yourself some juice or something.”

Worry lines covered his battered face. “You sure? I can—”

I just gave him a look, and muttering, he left. I rolled over and painfully sat up.

My body still contains tiny, razor-like shards from that Iraqi I.E.D., too small and dangerous to be worth going after, the VA docs say; it makes going through airport screening interesting. Sometimes if the weather’s cold or I’ve been over-exerting, my frame reacts like that without warning. It’ll shudder, convulsing for maybe thirty seconds before my leg turns numb as dead as mutton. A few minutes will pass before the feeling comes creeping back, and soon I’m fine; after that I may not get another attack for six months.

Lately though, they’ve been coming more frequently. And increasing in intensity and duration.

Basically the problem is nerve damage, or so I was told at Walter Reed. But most of those same Army surgeons had said I’d never walk again, or lead a semblance of a normal life. The only holdout who’d disagreed was Doctor Sam Melbourne, our unit’s physician. After many months of grueling effort I proved him right and those naysayers wrong.

But even after I learned how to get around again on my own, those injuries were still bad enough to dump me out of the Army Special Forces altogether, and the only life and real home I’d known since I was twenty-two. Now I was working out of Madison, Ohio, plying a new trade. At least I was still mobile, and I was thankful for that; I simply can’t take the idea of riding a desk the rest of my days.

Because someday, those grim doctors tell me, a piece of that Iraqi metal, which already lies too close to my spine, is going to shift the wrong way, and I’ll face permanent paralysis, or worse. Then they’ll be forced to operate again, despite the consequences.

What’ll happen on the other side of that surgery is anybody’s guess.

I was glad I’d sent Fred away. I couldn’t stand him pitying me as I lay there because I cannot abide weakness in myself. The pain gradually retreated, and my strength returned. Picking myself up, forcing my unwilling limbs to respond, I slowly limped down the hall to the old sour-smelling locker room for a hot shower. The old and faded boxing posters lining the hallway rattled like bones in their frames as I went.

As I let the steaming water flow over my body, I reflected on the injuries that had so thoroughly wiped out my entire command in Iraq, nearly killing me in the process. The mission had been based on faulty intel; I only found later out just how faulty it was.

I lay flat on my back in that Walter Reed hospital bed, bandaged like Boris Karloff doing the Mummy act and tranked to the gills, when a tall, well-dressed, soft-spoken balding man with hard black eyes paid me a visit. I’d had dealings with these G-5 government spooks before, debriefing them after an operation, and those meetings were usually just a formality. Not this time.

“I wanted to prepare you for some rather bad news,” the spook—whose name turned out to be Ferguson—said, unconvincing concern filling his features. And with the drugs the docs had given me, I’m recalling his words as best as I can. “There are some things you haven’t been told about why your mission failed. Once you’re out of here and into rehab, we’ll debrief, and I’ll share more with you.”

“Share what?” I managed to croak.

His fake smile was wintry. “All in good time. For now, get well, Captain.” The smile expanded, but was still just as chilling. “Nothing’s too good for our latest Silver Star hero.”

Sure. Something about this, about him, wasn’t sitting right with me. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d just had a target painted on me. And I was glad a Fox war correspondent had gotten footage of the attack’s aftermath and had sent it worldwide via satellite. Good insurance.

I wasn’t wrong. One sunny April afternoon three months later I was out of ICU and into the rehab unit when Ferguson again visited. And what he said this time was sobering.

After swearing me to secrecy, he told me the person who’d passed that bad info on to my unit had been connected. Highly connected. As in a long-term, United States senator’s grandson connected. What compounded the problem was months earlier the grandson had sold out to al Qaeda for a goodly sum of non-traceable cash, and his intelligence “error” was really nothing more than a full-tilt, remote-controlled, balls-to-the-wall mass assassination.

But as the flack danced around the edges of it, revelation of the threat finally dawned. Regardless of his flag-filled “think of your country,” patriotic spin, the truth of the thing was simpler. In fine and in sum I was being blackmailed: I could take a medical retirement with a generous, as in the high five figures, monthly stipend.

Or else.

Looking back, had I really expected them to kill me? I don’t know; I’d heard stories of CIA-sponsored “accidents,” things no one could explain. All the publicity the operation had gotten would seem to preclude a personal attack, but you never know. 

So not being an idiot, I accepted the deal.

But I turned the tables. After Ferguson left I made some calls to some friends, and a month later, when he visited again (checking up, really), I had some jarring news for him.

I told him I was fully aware that sometimes Uncle Sammy forgets his promises, so to keep things on a level playing field I’d made full documentation of everything, with verbal testimony, hard copies, and CDs of the same, safely squirreled away in several sites around the world against the day anything untoward happened to me.

I went on to say if a week ever passes without me checking in with the people who hold that proof, then the lid comes off, the lights come on, and the shit hits the fan. Then no doubt Mr. Ferguson and his bosses will be invited for a command performance before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee to explain exactly what they’d pulled.

That said, I awarded him a sunny smile. He opened his mouth, and closed it. Then shooting me a hard look, he stalked out. On reflection, I suppose what I did makes me a jerk.

But I sleep well.

And it gets better. Rather than spending the rest of my days slurping
mai tais
with beautiful brown-skinned women on a Costa Rican beach, I now assuage my guilt by unofficially taking on hopeless tasks that just skirt the edge of the law.

For free.

After leaving the gym I headed home, and fifteen minutes later found me pulling my car, a 1965 candy-apple red Mustang, into an open spot in my apartment house, concrete parking lot. Still stiff and sore from the attack, I’d just slid out cautiously, black field bag in hand, when I heard a young boy’s high, familiar voice calling out to me. “Hey, Mr.  Brenner! Hey, coach!”

Turning around and looking across the lot, I smiled. It was Mark Brantley, one of the ten-year olds whose football team I coach for the Butler County urban league. He was pedaling his ancient, faded red Schwinn bike toward me, coming so fast his legs were almost a blur. A second later the boy skidded to a halt, his brow knitted in concentration, leaving twin foot-long trails of stinky rubber from his already thin tires.

“All right, Mark! Pretty slick.” Shutting the car door with a solid thunk, I turned to face him and gave him a high-five. “Looks like you got that move down.”

“You like that, huh?” Beneath his thick thatch of yellow hair, his corn-fed, freckled face now beamed. Ever since he told me he’d seen a kid on some TV show do that stunt, he’d been practicing. The last two times he’d taken a nasty fall, but he was game.

I removed my sunglasses, hanging them from my red tee shirt by an earpiece. “You think you’re ready for the big screen yet?”

“Pretty soon now.” His nod was absolutely serious. And then, as kids will do, he completely changed the subject. “Have you seen Billy?”

“Billy Cahill?” Billy and Mark were best friends, sticking to one another like rare-earth magnets. “I think I saw him down the street at the corner store a few minutes ago.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah, he’s supposed to be gettin’ us some red licorice whips. But I think either he got lost, or he’s readin’ that new
Blue Menace
comic.”

Licorice. The most foul candy known to man. “Now then, what can I do you for?” Locking the car and pocketing my keys, I turned and started heading around to the front of the old building, where the entrance was, knowing he’d follow. “And this being Monday, how come you’re not in school?” I matched Mark’s stride as he walked his bike alongside. The traffic on this narrow side street was light this time of day.

“In service day,” he explained. “All us kids got off.”

“I used to love in service days.”

He watched the spokes of his front wheel as we walked. The cardboard, New York Giants trading card he’d inserted there chattered like a machine gun. “I was wonderin’ when we’re gonna run those new plays you were talkin’ about.”

“I was thinking about introducing those at practice next week. The city has that open area at Park and B streets reserved for us.”

He pulled a face. “I wish we could run them at the school field.”

“The high school team gets first dibs on that, Mark. You know that.”

He pulled a face. “Yeah, and it sucks.”

I couldn’t argue with him. Many times they don’t let us use the field even when it’s available, but I don’t tell the kids that. By then we’d reached the front sidewalk. “Remind the guys, Sunday, three o’clock. And be on time.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial mutter. “I’ve got a quarterback sneak play up my sleeve we used on my college team. It’ll catch those Highland momma’s boys flatfooted next Saturday.”

“Yeah!” Excitement filled his blue eyes, and Mark flashed a grin from ear to ear as he climbed on his bike. “Well, see ya, coach!” A moment later he and his machine were fading away fast down the street, his legs pumping like pistons.

Once inside the building I climbed the stairwell to the second floor, and down the hall to 3-B, my place, to grab a shave. Slipping the key into the lock, I wrestled with it a moment before the tumblers clicked. As I did I heard the most ungodly screeching erupt from inside the room, followed by high-pitched alien sounds of a loud wolf whistle, ending with, “Hey, baby! Hot stuff!”

Opening the door I found the source of all that noise: Smedley, my eight-year-old, green-tailed, one-eyed parrot. He’s a good pet, relatively clean, even-tempered, and he takes peanuts from my hand without biting. His only fault is his upbringing.

Being reared by his original owner, a Cincinnati saloon keeper who served a twenty-year hitch in the Navy, may have its good points, but a clean vocabulary isn’t one of them. As a kid I’d always thought it would be a hoot to have a parrot that could curse with the best of them, but Smedley’s incessant filthy mouth and raucous comments had embarrassed me more than once. It wouldn’t be so bad if what he spouts has anything to do with the moment at hand. It doesn’t, of course. They came up with the word “birdbrain” for a reason.

“Have you been good today?” I asked him. He simply cocked his head in reply, showing me the black cotton eye patch I’ve slapped on him. Don’t snicker. I wasn’t trying for a pirate look (much); it’s just that the injury from another bird that took his eye before I got him was so stinking ugly.

Smedley’s vet is the one who made the suggestion of keeping the socket covered, for appearances sake if for nothing else. He’d said that after a while he’d leave it alone. He has. The fact he ended up looking like Long John Silver’s boon companion is something we’ve both had to deal with. If I could just get him to sing buccaneer ditties, we’d be golden. I have drawn the line at sawing off his leg, though.

After lathering my face with Gillette’s best and waiting while warming up the safety razor under hot water, I scrutinized myself objectively in the bathroom mirror. It’s never a good experience. My late wife Megan had always said I was “ruggedly handsome,” with a “boyish charm.” But as the saying goes, love is blind.

The intense, weathered visage of the blue-eyed gent staring back looked quite a bit worse for wear these days, but that was to be expected. Battle and grief can scar a man in many ways, and life’s taken a heavy toll on me.

The eyes reflected lasting grief mingled with hardship, eyes that had seen too much, but still somehow managed to retain a sense of humor and cussed stubbornness. Many times I’m amazed there’s anything left of the curious boy who hunted and fished around the towering forests of rural West Virginia.

Regardless of my injuries my muscle tone remains good, and since I try to get in a run each day, my legs have kept their strength. In spite of the injuries to my spine my six-foot-three frame still stands straight, and my medium length, wavy, dark brown hair only holds a few gray ones. Plus I’ve been favored with straight white teeth, and so far have somehow managed to keep them all.

Strolling into my bedroom I hung the wet towel on the back of the door and began rooting around in my walk-in closet for something clean; like most men I know, I hate doing laundry. Before pulling on black Levis and short sleeve, navy and gold striped tee shirt, for a moment I regarded the tats on each of my deltoids. They’re still as bright and clean as the day I’d gotten them, more than twelve years ago.

That was no surprise: the man who’d put them there is an artist. His parlor is located just outside Fort Campbell’s gates, and over the years he’s done similar work for countless other members of the 101st Airborne Rangers, my outfit. Some of the soldiers in my particular group, the 2nd of the 502nd Infantry, HHC Company, had even gone so far as to have our official nickname, “Headhunters,” inscribed on their chests.

I didn’t really want that, so I just chose our other unit-approved emblems: on my upper right arm I had him put a picture of a nasty-looking, spread-out eagle talon, and below it a gold banner reading “Strike.” On my left shoulder he placed a profile of an eagle’s head with “Airborne” inscribed above it, and “
de oppresso liber
,” our unit’s motto, underneath.