The Home Front (17 page)

Sasha’s handwriting always surprised him. The vowels were way too round, and the consonants had way too many curlicues. The logbook entries themselves were short and to the point, a no-nonsense record of what transpired during Max’s therapy sessions. But they looked like they’d been written by Hello Kitty. Good thing Sasha had typed her original job application. If she’d written it out longhand, she would have never even landed an interview.

Todd turned the page, expecting to find additional results. The next page was blank. Presumably, Sasha had left without completing the day’s log entry. Todd reread the results of the second exercise.
Pending
. Exactly how Max ended up with paint on his arms remained a mystery. Either he had actually responded to the prompt, covering himself with lines. Or Sasha had realized the futility of the exercise and painted them herself, not unlike the first time around. Todd assumed the latter. He was too afraid of being disappointed to get his hopes up too high.

* * *

Mommy and Daddy call them Harry and Ralph. They always call everything something. Harry is hairy. So is Ralph. They could have called Ralph Harry.

Harry’s tail mesmerizes him. He likes to push it back and forth with his thumb. His thumb and the tail are the same size. His thumb moves and the tail moves. Back and forth over and over rapidly but not rushed.

Ralph has a tail but it’s long and skinny. His ears are round. He likes to trace his fingers around one ear and then the other. Round and round over and over. He tries not to touch the inside of the ears. They’re old and worn and grey. They used to be pink.

Mommy and Daddy liked Harry and Ralph when their ears were pink. Then Mommy started looking at them funny. Harry and Ralph never noticed. But he notices everything, even when he pretends not to.

Mommy tried to take Harry away from him even before Sasha showed up. She threw Harry in the garbage. He took him out. She put him back in. He took him out and he stayed out. What’s left of him, Daddy said. Harry’s guts are falling out. Ralph’s aren’t.

Sasha didn’t like Harry either. She didn’t know about Ralph. He hid Ralph in his sock drawer where she couldn’t find him. Sasha tried to make him pay attention. He concentrated on Harry’s tail. She forced him to sit in a chair and he kicked her. He couldn’t hit her because he was holding Harry. Sasha is stronger than Mommy. No one is stronger than Daddy. He tried to get up and she held him down.

Good boy Max, Sasha said, good boys sit in chairs. She gave him four M&M’s. Three were brown and one was green. He threw one across the room and ate the other three. She didn’t take Harry away then. He ate lunch and took a nap.

When he woke up Harry was gone. Sasha stole him. Like the Grinch. He checked the garbage. The garage. He ran outside to check Sasha’s car. The backseat was filled with toys. Some of them still in packages. He hates new toys. They smell funny.

Good thing Sasha didn’t know about Ralph. She would have stolen him too. He ran out to her car whenever she drove up. Mommy thought he was happy to see her. He was looking for Harry. Sasha made him match things. Apples with apples. He watched her guide his hand back and forth. She gave him M&M’s but all he wanted was Harry.

At night he rescued Ralph from the sock drawer and they hid together. He lined up his trucks outside the bedroom door so no one could sneak in. Daddy found them anyway. How’s my old buddy Ralph, Daddy said. Nobody ever asked about Harry.

Once upon a time Mommy changed the sheets. She found Harry nestled in the bottom of the bed. Harry what are you doing hiding in here, she said. Harry wasn’t hiding. Ralph was hiding and Harry wasn’t stolen anymore. Sasha let him go and Harry found his way home like a pigeon. And they lived happily ever after.

Sasha keeps coming and Harry is still here. Ralph isn’t hiding anymore. Sasha makes him sit in a chair and put paint on his arms. It doesn’t matter because Harry and Ralph are safe.

~ V ~

C
olonel Trumble was in charge of adjudicating redeployment requests. He was an expert on the subject, having requested redeployment every chance he got, even after the dog shit incident. As far as he was concerned, his prosthetic leg was more an asset than a liability. He was more evolved, one step closer to the goal of wedding man and machine in drones and other robotic devices. One day even robots would be obsolete. Soldiers themselves would possess enhanced mechanical capabilities. Colonel Trumble slapped what he called his good leg with his ring finger by way of dramatizing his point. The sound of metal on metal reverberated in his office, making recruits in particular squirm.

“If you’re lucky, we’ll give you one of these,” he always said.

His macabre humor was lost on them. They hadn’t learned, yet, that everything except death is hilarious in the military. Failure to appreciate this fact results in post-traumatic stress disorder, whose most serious symptom is the inability to laugh off the horrors of war. Colonel Trumble had noticed a paradoxical trend. Soldiers suffering from PTSD were often inordinately eager to return to combat duty. At least they thought they were eager. Underneath their humorless determination, they were actually out to prove that they were still man enough for the job. Redeployment was an act of desperation. They couldn’t readjust to civilian life anyway, which was a sure sign they weren’t fit for combat.

Colonel Trumble was extremely good at what he did. He understood that combat was psychologically complicated. And he understood that good soldiers figured out a way to make it simple. Deployment czars like him saved scores of American lives. They were the Occam’s Razor of the armed forces, reducing troop morale to the simplest common denominator even before they stepped foot on the battlefield. The more complicated their states of mind, the more likely they’d make a mistake. The marines got one thing right. Best military practice was to act, not think.

The last time they met, Colonel Trumble told Todd that he had forwarded one of his memoranda to the Pentagon, who had seriously considered his recommendation that drone pilots should be rotated in and out of combat duty. Todd was forever writing memoranda, all of which harkened back to less automated, more hands-on tactical operations. One phrase in particular had impressed the Joint Chiefs.
Too often, drone pilots lack the martial ethics that transform killers into warriors.
Regrettably, they had been forced to reject Todd’s proposal on the grounds that ethics were just too darned expensive. Congress had to slash military spending somewhere, and ethics were the first to go. The colonel kept a straight face until Todd finally got the joke, and then exploded into his signature hilarity. They laughed it off. But it was a big deal to Todd, one of several reasons he desperately wanted to redeploy, none of which he could safely mention to Colonel Trumble. Questioning the ethics of the drone program was grounds for discharge, not deployment.

Todd scheduled his interview with Colonel Trumble on his day off. He wanted to signal that nothing, not even his desire to redeploy, would ever compromise his commitment to the task at hand. He had spent the entire morning making sure all his ducks were in a row. The crease in his trousers was knife sharp. His boots were buffed and every button and buckle was spit shined in strict accordance with air force regulations. As usual, Colonel Trumble dispensed with formalities, undermining Todd’s efforts to put his best foot forward. When Todd marched into his office, the colonel was just finishing lunch. There was a spot of mustard on his left cheek.

“Care for a cookie?”

“No thank you, Sir.”

“Watching your waistline?”

Duty compelled Todd to laugh. He appreciated the fact that Colonel Trumble was trying to put him at ease, which made him wonder if he appeared nervous.

“How are things out at the trailer park?”

“Things are hopping.”

“Lucky you. The only thing hopping around here is jack-rabbits. Know what I mean?”

“Not exactly, Sir.”

“Sometimes I envy you, Major. I haven’t seen any real action in years. All I do is read reports day in and day out.”

“I know how you feel. All I do is write them.”

“Is that why you want to redeploy?”

Todd took a second to regroup. Colonel Trumble’s jovial mood caught him off guard, and he’d almost been lured into a trap. This was no time to grouse about being stuck in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from the nearest combat zone. He needed to present a clear-cut case for redeployment, not because he was disgruntled but because he could best serve his country in Afghanistan. He had rehearsed what to say and what not to say, over and over, and within thirty seconds Colonel Trumble had called his bluff. Now he knew why the colonel was so good at his job.

“Of course not. I want to contribute wherever I can. As much as I can.”

“How’s your wife?” Colonel Trumble asked abruptly.

Todd almost faltered. The colonel was firing off questions like a drill sergeant, first in one direction, then in another. He’d have to hustle to keep pace without losing balance.

“Great.”

“The kids?”

“Great. Thanks for asking.”

Todd noticed that Colonel Trumble was studying his face, something he had never done during their previous meetings about recruiting and retaining drone pilots. This meeting was about Todd. He returned the colonel’s gaze evenly, hoping to ward off further investigation. He hid behind an opaque expression designed to convey that he had nothing to hide. Colonel Trumble studied his face for a very long time. Too long.

“Didn’t I hear something about your son?”

“Sir?”

“Playing dumb won’t fly with me, Major Barron. Cut the crap.”

“He’s autistic. But we’ve got it under control.”

“How does that figure into your request for redeployment?”

“It doesn’t, Sir.”

“Should it?”

“No, Sir.”

“What does your wife think of all this?”

“She’s an air force wife. It goes with the territory.”

“Answer my question.”

“We all have wives and children, Sir. With all due respect, I can’t see that it’s relevant to the question of deployment.”

“It’s relevant if it affects your motivation.”

Colonel Trumble finally broke eye contact. He leaned back in his chair and seemed to focus his attention on a pair of picture frames on his desk. Todd had never noticed them before. They were angled in such a way that he couldn’t see the pictures. It occurred to him that he had no idea whether or not Colonel Trumble had children. Now was definitely not the time to ask.

“Like I said before. It doesn’t.”

“We’re men, not robots, Major Barron.”

Todd wanted to say this was precisely why he was petitioning to return to actual combat duty. But once again he refrained from delving into the ethics of drone offensives. He wondered if the irony of Colonel Trumble’s line of questioning was yet another trap. Todd was trying to avoid waging war with robots and the colonel was calling him one.

“I’ve had a year and a half to come to terms with my son’s condition, Colonel Trumble. I purposely postponed requesting redeployment until I was sure it was for the right reasons.”

“You’ve really thought this through,” Colonel Trumble said. For the first time during the interview, he seemed pleased.

“Yes, Sir.”

“I want to redeploy as bad as you do, you know. But they’re not keen on taking old geezers like us. Why should I recommend you over some of the younger guys?”

“The same reason we’ve got four-star generals running the show, not newly minted brigadiers. I’m seasoned. I have more to contribute.”

“What if I told you I thought you were contributing more effectively by supervising RPA pilots?”

“I’d tell you that’s no longer true. Now that the facility is up and running, my talents are being wasted.”

“Is that a fancy way of saying you’ve paid your dues?”

“I have, but it’s more than that. I feel very strongly that RPA commanders need to rotate in and out of active duty. To stay sharp.”

“You certainly have your fair share of ideas about how to run things.”

“Only when asked, Sir.”

“Fair enough. But you’re awfully particular about which questions you’re willing to answer.”

“Sir?”

Colonel Trumble leaned forward. He was watching Todd again.