Sparta (46 page)

Jenny shrugged. “It's just I hate to leave. I don't know. It's so awful, moving. This place seems safe to me, I know it.”

“Safe!” Jock said. “Come on. I'm not suggesting we move someplace dangerous.”

“No, I just mean I'm here, I know it,” said Jenny. “This is like my burrow, it's mine.”

“So you'll never move?” Jock asked. “This is it? Is that your message?”

“Maybe that is her message,” said Conrad. “Maybe you've got your answer. She doesn't want to move. If she wanted to move, she'd move.”

“Is that her message?” Jock said, looking at him.

“Yeah,” said Conrad. “Why don't you get it?”

Jock raised his eyebrows. “Why don't I.” He nodded, looking across the room. He looked back at Conrad. “Why don't you mind your own business? In fact, why don't you get your own fucking apartment?”

Conrad stood up quickly, knocking his chair over behind him. He looked down at Jock, elated.

“Great,” he said.

“Con.”
Jenny grabbed hold of his arm with both hands. Conrad pulled slowly away from her, looking at Jock.

“Stop it,” Jenny said. “
Sit down
.” She put her hands over her face. “You are total jerks. Both of you.”

Conrad stood waiting.

Jock stared up at him. “I'm not going to fight with you,” he said. “You know that, don't you.”

After a moment Conrad said, “I do know that. Yeah.”

Jenny stood up. “Both of you shut up.” Her voice was raised. “
Shut up!
I can't believe you're doing this. What is the matter with you?”

Conrad said nothing. He folded his arms, breathing hard.

He was fucking sick of Jock. Jock acted like he was in the trenches just because he was working at a hospital. He thought he should be treated like a fucking hero just because he was tired and working hard, but the truth was that he slept in clean sheets every night and no one was shooting at him or trying to blow up his car.

That night, Jenny and Jock went to his place for the night. Conrad drank beer and watched TV until midnight, then took a pill to get to sleep.

When he came home from class the next day, he heard Jenny on the phone in her room. He put down his books and went into the kitchen for a beer. The bedroom door opened and Jenny came out. Conrad brought his beer into the living room.

“Hey,” he said.

“We have to talk,” she said.

“Okay.” Conrad sat down on the sofa. He took a swig and looked up at Jenny as though he had no idea what was coming. But okay, he felt like an asshole: It was her apartment, after all. Her boyfriend. Still, Jock himself had done pretty well on the asshole front, swanning around like a hero and doling out favors. The skinny little arms, the hollow chest. The fucking Adam's apple and the skin like pink sandpaper.

“Look,” Jenny said. She sat down on the arm of the sofa. She was still wearing her clothes from work, black pants and a wide-striped gondolier's jersey. Today's earrings were little red globes.

“Okay,” he said, waving his hand. He didn't want to hear this.

“No,” Jenny said. “I have to tell you. You can't yell at my boyfriend.” She crossed her arms on her chest and looked straight at him. Now he saw that the earrings were little plastic tomatoes, cut in half, showing the sections.

Conrad waited for a moment. He wanted to say that Jock couldn't be an asshole to him, but that might start them down a road he didn't want to travel. He nodded.

“Got it,” he said.

She sat still, waiting. He knew she wanted an apology. But he wasn't going to apologize for identifying an asshole.

“I didn't walk in and call him an abortionist,” he said.

“What?” Jenny screwed up her face as if he were speaking Martian. “What are you talking about?”

“When I came in, he called me a student,” Conrad said.

“What's wrong with that?” Jenny asked. She sounded outraged. “What is wrong with calling you a student? Isn't that what you are at the moment?”

Who he was, was a Marine. Okay, he was a former, but he was still a Marine, he wasn't a fucking Continuing Ed student. What he didn't want to go near was the fact that he was not only a student but very possibly a failing student, a student who was fucking up so badly he'd be fucked for life.

“Let's say I didn't like his tone of voice,” Conrad said. “You can make anything into an insult with your tone of voice.”

“Yes, but he didn't,” Jenny said. “I was here. I heard him. Con, he didn't insult you.”

“Jock thinks he's a master of the universe because he's in medical school,” Conrad said. “But he's not. That doesn't make him master of anything.” The headache was starting to close in. It gathered itself somewhere overhead like a kind of miasma, and now it was beginning to descend.

Jenny shook her head. “You're being an idiot.” She stared at him. “You are welcome to stay here, Con. I love you. But you can't stay if you're going to start fights with my boyfriend.”

Conrad raised his hand, but he didn't want to cover his eye in front of her. “I didn't start anything,” he said. He could feel the thumping throb settling into his skull.

“You did, too,” Jenny said. “You completely and totally started it.
What is the matter with you?
”

Conrad put his hand over his eye and closed it.

Jenny stared at him, waiting. After a moment her voice changed. “Are you okay, Con? Is something wrong?”

“No, I'm fine,” Conrad said, because how could you tell someone—your sister—you were failing? And where could he go?

 

22

This time he filled out all the forms.

He was sent to the same waiting room, but this time a different woman sat behind the desk. This one was young and fat and white. She was wearing a red-and-white candy-striped blouse. Her greasy blond hair was strained into a tiny curved ponytail.

Conrad handed her the clipboard when he was done.

“Thank you.” She didn't look up.

“So, now what?” Conrad asked.

“Now what?” She looked up.

“Could you tell me what happens next?” he asked.

“First you need a medical assessment. We'll contact you for an appointment. Then, if you need further treatment, we contact you for that,” the fat girl said. Her wide cheeks rose up against her eyes like little hillocks, making them squint.

He waited, but she said nothing more.

“Could you tell me when I'll hear?” he asked.

“When the paperwork has gone through,” she said.

Looking down over the high counter, he could see that she had a little private nest back there. Her computer was on a ledge. Beside it was a big plastic mug, a couple of framed photographs. A little basket with a ribbon tied to it was full of miniature-sized chocolate bars. She had everything she needed.

“I mean, can you give me an idea of how long it will be?”

She shook her head. “Could be months.”

Behind Conrad someone said, “It'll be three months. It's always three months.”

Conrad turned to look. It was a Vietnam vet, thin and grizzled, wearing faded jeans and a baseball cap. He raised a hand, nodding. He closed his eyes politely. Conrad nodded back.

“Thanks.” Conrad turned to the striped woman. “So it'll be three months before I can get an appointment to see someone?”

“Are you suicidal?” The woman's voice was loud and indifferent. He felt it in his chest like a blow. “If you're suicidal, if you're a danger to yourself or others, put it down on the form. Then we'll be in touch sooner.”

She was in charge, and the space around her was filled with power. Her body, spilling out over the edges of the chair, weighing down the rolling wheels: all this was set up in opposition to him. She was the obstacle to what lay beyond, something that was waiting for him somewhere in the long corridors, open doorways, lighted rooms. Whatever he wanted was beyond her. Without looking down, she slid open a drawer at her waist. She reached inside. Still holding his gaze, she took out her hand and secretively popped something into her mouth. She began chewing. Her teeth made a crunching noise.

“Okay,” Conrad said. “I'll wait to hear, then.”

Three months would be late January. He turned to leave.

The Vietnam vet was watching him. He'd leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His flat face was raddled and red. His faded blue eyes were watery, his cheeks covered with gray stubble. The flesh beneath his chin had collapsed down his neck in accordion folds.
Thirty years,
Conrad thought.
He's been coming here for thirty fucking years and he's still no better
.

“Thanks, bro,” Conrad said.

The vet nodded, solemnly holding Conrad's gaze, as if it were a way to help him.

*   *   *

He was in the back row of the classroom. It was nearly dark; Professor Titchmarsh had dimmed the lights. A little glow came up from the podium, lighting her face from below. All three screens showed graphs. She was talking about international trade, and the way countries used political methods to limit one another's economic activities. She used a small laser as a pointer. The point of light rose uncertainly on the nearest graph, wobbling up and down the jagged line to show the intersections, the crossovers, the rises and falls.

“Take international airline routes, for example,” Professor Titchmarsh said. The point of light vanished, then reappeared on the next screen. In the dimness, Conrad could see the ranks of students, the rows of their backs stretching out in front of him. He didn't like taking notes in semidarkness. He couldn't really see the paper; it felt like writing on water.

“Countries use these for negotiation. They offer permission to land in their airports in exchange for something else—political or economic status. Not all international airlines are permitted to land at JFK—this is actually a ‘most favored nation' situation.”

The three screens were troubling. She was pointing at the one on the far right. He tried to focus on the jagged line, where it climbed and plunged. He should have his NVGs. He thought of slipping them on, pulling them down from the top of his helmet over his eyes, and the landscape turning dim and greenish. In-country they owned the night. Though he wasn't wearing a helmet. It was like double vision: he was here, in khakis and moccasins and a sweater, his parka at his back, but at moments he was also still in his cammies and boots, Kevlar. There was something troubling about the three screens, about having to shift back and forth. When he looked at one, he was aware of the other two. It made him uneasy. The headache hovered just over his right eye.

“Here you can see the intersections,” Professor Titchmarsh said. The point of light began to flicker. There was something sickening about the way the tiny brightness moved up and down, silent and loose, on the light screen, and there was something unsettling about the three screens side by side, glowing against the darkness, and as he tried to take all three of them in, the headache descended like night and he had to put his hand over his right eye. But covering his eye made it hard for him to hear. What she was saying was now dim and confused because of his clouded eye. Or there was something else wrong, something was going wrong, he was having trouble concentrating on her words. He was writing everything down, but something was wrong with the way he was hearing it.

Professor Titchmarsh changed the right-hand image to a new chart showing a varied pattern of response. A series of bright red circles glowed against a pale background, and in the darkness Conrad saw the pattern on the wall. The spatters high on the wall of the house in Haditha. That room flooded over him again, the smell of the bodies on the floor, and the blood. The awful way they lay, so heavy, so final. The woman, still climbing onto the sofa. His heart rose up in his chest as though some kind of alarm were going off. It was like an echo chamber, because there was the pattern on the wall again, and his whole body was reverberating as though he were right there in that room, and he put his hand over both eyes and closed them and tried to let blackness come over him and not to think and not to move and he willed for that room to be over. Three more months.

*   *   *

The Ambien took forty minutes to work and lasted three hours. He took one pill to get to sleep, usually around eleven. Sometimes he waited until twelve or one, trying to stretch the sleep. It was like a blanket, never big enough or long enough. He pictured himself pulling at it, tugging to make it cover him completely, make it last all night. When the pill wore off, he woke up again. He'd made a rule: after four o'clock it was too late to take another. If he woke after that, he lay awake.

This morning, when he looked at the clock, it said 4:18. He'd gone to sleep around twelve-thirty or quarter to one, so a little over three hours. He wouldn't take another. Another rule was that he couldn't let himself turn on the light or watch TV. He lay in the dark, his eyes sharpening.

The windows were always paler. The three tall shapes in the bay window glowed faintly. He had put up blackout shades, standing on a chair to hammer into the hard old plaster, chips of paint flying. Still, the light seeped around the edges like water. It came in, rising from the streetlights below.

He looked at the shapes outlined in light and then rolled over, turning away. He closed his eyes, but found himself watching. He was staring into the dimness. His whole body tense. Not violently, just barely. His hands were clenched. He opened his fingers.
Release,
he told himself. The thing was to keep yourself away. The thing was to keep clear. He heard someone walking down the sidewalk outside, the footsteps regular, soft, steady
chuck
,
chuck
,
chuck
. Then a pause:
What?
He listened; his own breath stopped. The sounds went on.
What?
When he was listening, he forgot where he was, lying on his sister's foldout sofa. He was there with the sound. He didn't like hearing footsteps in the dark, didn't want to hear them.