Redeployment(75)

“Did Jessie explain the project?” asks Sarah.

“You want me to tell you about the IED,” Jenks says. “For a play.”

“We’re working with a group of writers from the Iraq Veterans Against the War,” she says. “They’ve been doing workshops, a sort of healing through writing thing.”

Jenks and I trade a look.

“But this is different,” Sarah says quickly. “It’s not political.”

“You’re writing a play,” I say.

“It’s a collaboration with the New York veterans community.”

I want to ask what percentage the “vet community” is getting, but Jessie comes back, precariously holding two pints of beer, one diet G&T, and a glass of water, her left hand on the bottom and the other on top, a finger or thumb in each glass. She smiles at Jenks as she puts them down on the table, and I can see him visibly relax.

Sarah starts explaining that the point of the thing isn’t to be pro-or antiwar, but to give people a better understanding of “what’s really going on.”

“Whatever that means.” Jessie laughs.

“So you’re with the IVAW now?” I say.

“Oh, no,” Jessie says. “I’ve known Sarah since kindergarten.”

That makes more sense. I always picked her for the bleeds-green type. I’d bet my left nut she voted McCain, and I’d bet my right nut this Sarah girl voted Obama. I didn’t vote at all.

“IEDs cause the signature wounds of this war,” Sarah says.

“Wars,” I say.

“Wars,” Sarah says.

“Burns and TBIs, you mean?” says Jenks. “I don’t have a TBI.”

“There’s PTSD, too,” I say, “if you believe The New York Times.”

“We’ve got some PTSD vets,” Sarah says, making it sound like she’s keeping them in jars somewhere.

“No bad burns?” I ask.

“Not like Jenks,” she says to me, then quickly turns to Jenks. “No offense.”

Jenks makes one of those maybe-a-smile faces and nods.

She leans forward. “I just want you to go through what it was like, in your own words.”

“The attack?” says Jenks. “Or after?”

“Both.”

Most people, when they try to draw Jenks out, talk to him in a “here, kitty-kitty” voice, but Sarah’s all business—clipped, polite.

“At your pace,” she says. “Whatever you think people should know.” She puts a concerned face on. I’ve seen that face on women at bars when I open up. When I’m sober, it makes me angry. When I’m drunk, it’s what I’m looking for.

“It’s like a lot of pain for a long, long time,” Jenks says. Sarah puts one hand up, a delicate, pale hand with long fingers, and with the other she reaches into her bag and pulls out her smartphone, fiddles with some app for recording.

Jenks is tense again, which is why I’m here. For backup of some kind. Or protection. Jessie flashes him a smile and puts her f*cked-up hand on his, and Jenks reaches his free hand into his pocket and pulls out a wad of folded-up notebook paper. I look away, toward the other table with the other two girls. They’re drinking beer. I read a study somewhere that people who drink beer are more likely to sleep with someone on the first date.

“He’d remember the IED better than I would,” Jenks says, looking at me. I look at Sarah and know for a certified fact I’m not telling this girl shit. “I can’t even tell you that much after,” he goes on. “Scraps and pieces, at best. I’ve been working for a long time to put them together.” He taps the paper but doesn’t unfold it. I know what’s in there. I’ve read it. I’ve read the draft before and the draft before that.

“I know I was in a lot of pain,” Jenks says. “Pain like you can’t imagine. But pain like I can’t imagine either, because”—he reaches up and rubs a hand over his f*cked-up scalp—“a lot of the memories are gone. Nothing. Like, system overload. Which is okay. I don’t need the memories. Plus, they had me on a cycle of morphine, an epidural drip, IV Dilaudid, Versed.”

“What’s the first thing you remember?” Sarah asks. She’s talking about the attack, but Jenks is already sliding away from that.

“My family,” Jenks says. He stops and opens the paper, flipping through the first few pages, the pages she’s here for. “They didn’t act like anything was wrong with me. And I couldn’t talk to them. I had a tube in my throat.” He looks down at the paper and starts reading. “It must have been worse for my family than for me—”