Send Down the Rain(39)



“Did you love her?”

“I don’t know that I was capable of that. I liked having her around, and she took my mind off of you, but there was so much beneath the surface. She saw it, and I think it scared her. By my third year I was having some pretty bad dreams. I woke up one morning, and she was black and blue and lying unconscious on the floor. I had no memory of doing that. Later that week, she took a gig somewhere in Europe. For the next decade or so, whenever she’d put out a new record or song, I’d listen.”

“How many men were in your unit?”

“Sixty-two.”

“How many came home?”

“Including me?”

She nodded.

“Four.”

She swallowed and stared through the windshield a long time. “Do you keep in touch?”

“One committed suicide. One died of cancer. I lost touch with the last when they put him in prison. Don’t know if he’s still alive or not.”

She sucked in a deep breath and covered her mouth.

I continued, “The military would fly me home to deliver my men to their families. Sometimes it was just me and one casket. One time it was me and twelve caskets. I’d leave over there, fly thirty-six hours, deliver my friends, or their pieces, to their loved ones, fly thirty-six hours back alone, land, hop on a helo, and they’d drop me back in the jungle. Somewhere in that process, the place in my heart that felt things like love and desire died. It just quit feeling.”





22

We drove a long time in silence. She looked at me, at the road, back to me. She did this a lot. I wasn’t sure what we were going to find when we got where we were going. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were going. Our drive took us through Cordele, onto I-75 North, and into Atlanta, where we stopped at Das BBQ for lunch. Hands down, best barbecue I’ve ever eaten. We split a slab of brisket, a rack of ribs, and five separate side dishes.

On I-26 I continued my story. “When the war ended they kept me around for a year, intelligence mostly, moving between countries, but by then I’d had my fill. They brought me home, more war treatment program, more interviews, more intelligence, and finally at age twenty-three they discharged me and I flew home and entered what I call my Peeping Tom Period. I returned to the island, just trying to see clearly. Just smell the ocean. By then, you and Bobby were living behind a white picket fence. He was gone mostly, drinking or shooting up, and when you weren’t at the restaurant working, you would sit in your kitchen and watch The Carol Burnett Show. I’d stand outside your kitchen window at night and, because I had little to laugh about, I’d listen to you laugh. But then Bobby would come home and whatever hole in me your laughter had healed, his presence tore open, and ugly stuff poured out. So I forced myself to leave before I hurt him.”

“You really did that?”

“Lots of times.”

As this sank in, a look of shock spread across her face.

“With so much anger, and a lot of training in how to hurt other people, I started what I call my Fighting Period. I joined this underground bare knuckle thing. We moved from Mexico to South America. India. Some time back in Asia. Cash payouts, and they were big. We moved from destination to destination on private planes that sort of skipped the whole customs and immigration thing. Seeing an opportunity, I started running guns. Lots of guns. People came from all over to see the fights, which exposed me to a lot of not-very-reputable people who wanted stuff that I could get them. I got really good at it.

“So five years pass. Whenever I was home, I’d land in Miami and drive north, stopping on the Cape. I’d sit in the dunes and stare for days at your cottage with binoculars. My idiot brother was high on the next latest and greatest drug. I wanted to knock on your door, but I knew that as bad as your life was, it would be worse if I unleashed me on you. I guess I was just hoping that somehow I could get back to the me I used to be.

“Over the months, I watched your stomach get bigger and I was happy for you. But then came the delivery and I didn’t know what happened, but I knew Bobby wasn’t there and you had trouble and the baby didn’t make it.”

When I looked at Allie, tears were streaming off her face.

“So I stayed until you were stable and then paid for a funeral, and since you’d mortgaged the restaurant to pay for his rehab, I paid the hospital bills.”

Her eyes widened. “That was you?”

“I needed to do one good thing. I rented a room at the motel on the island by the week, and kept an eye on you while Bobby was in rehab.”

“I never knew you were there.”

I shrugged. “The military spent a good bit of money training me not to be seen. Then I had this fight. Pretty good payday. Miami. Got cut up. Stitches. Hospital. Same old stuff. But then I walked by a room and saw your name on the clipboard. Poked my head in and saw you were beat up. Face bloody. Eyes swollen. I sat through the night. If my brother showed I was going to kill him. And it wasn’t going to be fast. It’d be slow and he’d hurt and beg me to make it fast. Then early the next morning, I came out of the bathroom, and there was Bobby on his knees crying. Holding your hand. Begging forgiveness. I walked out. I knew I needed to get as far away from you two as possible.

“The years rolled by. Bobby was in and out of rehab. Your debt skyrocketed. He went to prison. He was running a lot of drugs and had run up a lot of debt on the restaurant that you didn’t know about. Finally you divorced him and ran the restaurant alone. I found you one night walking the beach, booze in one hand, Smith & Wesson in the other. You were way bad drunk. A rip tide pulled you out, I found you on a kayak, nursed you sober, took you home.”

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