Chapter One

Introducing James Heartsock

I was driving, a ’69 Chevy Nova 370 four-barrel with mag wheels and a duel exhaust. It’s a kick-ass car. I took the muffler out so it sounds like a Harley. People love it. I was staring at myself through the window into the driver’s-side mirror, I do that all the time. I’ll stare into anything that reflects. That’s not much of a flattering quality, and I wish I didn’t do it, but I do. I’m vain as all hell. It’s revolting. And yet, at the same time I’m not even sure if I exist. Most of the time when I’m looking in the mirror, I’m checking to see if I’m still here, or else I’m wishing I was somebody else; a Mexican bandito or somebody like that. I have a mustache. Most guys with mustaches look like fags, but I don’t. I touch mine too much though. I touch it all the time. I don’t even know why I’m telling you about it now. I just stare at myself constantly and wish I didn’t, it brings me absolutely no pleasure at all.

My fingers were frozen around the steering wheel. Albany in February is a black sooty slab of ice. The woman on the radio announced the time and temperature: 8.42 and twenty-three degrees. Christy and I had broken up fifteen hours earlier, and I was in a tailspin. I had my uniform on, the dress one, it’s awesome. Military uniforms make you feel like somebody, like you have a purpose, even if you don’t. You feel special, connected to the past. You’re not just an ordinary person, a civilian — you’re noble. The downside with this ‘Walk of Pride’ is: it’s a fuckin’ lie.

This is my story.

My orders were unbelievable, my lieutenant is an out-of-control high-speed prick. This was his job. I had to inform some dude’s wife that her husband had been shot in the head. The soldier’s name was Private Kevin Anderson and he’d been killed outside of Paradise the night before. Paradise is a bar where all the black dudes hang. Probably drugs or some kind of bullshit high jinks. I didn’t know him at all.

Not to mention, I was all cracked up myself. I hadn’t been to sleep, doing speed all night. Crystal Meth. Breaking up with Christy had been a giant mistake, I knew the minute I walked away. The army is more lame brain than you can even imagine. My lieutenant sometimes has me and my men go into town and stand guard over parking spots. Securing position.

I joined up because I wanted to be of service to something. I’d tried college, Kent State for two years but screw that. Who wants to pay all that coin just to drink beer and get V.D.? My dad had been in the army, and I grew up constantly drawing pictures of machine guns and soldiers killing the hell out of each other, shit like that — so I thought joining the army made sense. I figured it was my destiny, and it was, but just because something’s your destiny doesn’t mean it’s gonna be any good.

I thought that maybe someday I’d be in a Dairy Queen and some bonzo lunatic would whip out an automatic and start wasting people and I’d be the one guy there who’d be able to stop him; to show some signs of personal heroism or integrity. There are a lot of people in the world, it’s difficult to find a way to set yourself apart. When I was twelve, I built a working crossbow with bolts that I could sink into a tree. That’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

Now, the only thing interesting or worthy of remark about me was my car. It was tits. Silver with bold black racing stripes straight down the center. I never had any trouble getting laid.

 I was hauling ass through North Albany into the ‘darker’ part of town looking for this Anderson kid’s address. 2376 ½ Hawthorne apartment B. I had all his information in a folder on the passenger seat. The streets were icy and lined with piles of crusty pollution-stained snow. I found the house easy, a big old place divided up into eight apartments. All the homes on the block were done the exact same way. Obviously, this was the swank part of town once; about eighty trillion years ago.

I sat in my Nova just under a giant barren old sycamore tree that grew adjacent to this Anderson’s driveway. Trees are wonderful. My dad was a tree-man. He planted and trimmed trees for a living. Sometimes he’d be 180 feet up in the air repelling around with a spinning chainsaw, dead and sick branches bombing down onto the ground. I loved my dad. If I could give you the sensation of being eight years old watching him up in some magnificent maple singing to himself and talking to the branches, if you could hear him yell down, “JIMMY, WHEN YOU’RE THIRTEEN, AND YOU COME LIVE WITH ME, WE’LL HAVE OURSELVES SOME LAUGHS THEN, PAL. YOU CAN BET YOUR SWEET ASS ON THAT!” If you could be inside my guts for that moment you’d know exactly what it is like to be me. Summers, growing up, I worked with the ground crews, chopping and clearing. I was Mr Know-it-all about landscaping. This sycamore in front of me was close to 200 years old. Unless some ding-a-ling cuts it down it’ll right there on Hawthorne Drive long after I’m dead. Can’t tell you why, but that makes me feel good.

I checked my nose to make sure that it wasn’t bleeding. Four hours before I’d blown my last line with Tony, Eric and Ed. Ed brought the crank. I wasn’t gonna do any, but they started chopping ’em down, and I’d just broken up with Christy, and bada-bing bada-bam, next thing you know I’ve been talking about Patrick Ewing and John Starks for nine hours. Tony, Eric and Ed are a bunch of numb-nuts, but I hang out with them all the time. Anyway, it makes me sad to think I’m like them. “Better to be alone, than to wish you were.” My father used to say that, but I never listen to anybody. I don’t say that with any pride, it’s good to listen to people.

In no way did I want to get out of that car. My lieutenant is a motherfucker. When I think about him, my body can palpitate with rage.

Only 8.30 in the morning and already things were going so terribly. “THE ARMY. WE DO MORE BEFORE NINE O’CLOCK . . .” isn’t that the ad line on TV?

I’d always considered the military, but that movie Top Gun put me over the edge. Tom Cruise on that Nija, banging that girl. Fuckin’ A. That was me. Sounds idiotic, and I’m savvy to that now; but walking out of the dark theatre into the mall parking lot, that blazin’ hot August sun screaming down, I felt that film move me like calling from God.

Needless to say, I’m not among any elite faggy batch of specialized pilots. Drugs were by far the most invigorating thing in my life. At first, I had aspirations. I wanted to go into Special Forces, Airborne Rangers, eventually maybe the FBI. Now my confidence was broken. Christy had been responsible for all the best elements of my life. I missed her. I wanted to die, so the unavoidability of my disappointing her would be avoided.

“You’re leaving me, aren’t you?” Christy had asked.

She worked in the hospital and we were on the seventh floor sitting in the cafeteria breaking up. Both of us dressed in our uniforms. She in her usual hospital garb, a blue skirt and a blue blouse with her Social Services ID badge pinned to her chest and me in my normal office greens. Her tall lanky body was awkward and uncomfortable in the small red plastic chair, her skin was translucent, and her big apprehensive gray eyes were trapped underneath tortoise shell oval glasses. God, I didn’t want to hurt her.

“Come on, Jimmy, you’re leaving me aren’t you?” she asked again.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh my God . . .” She jammed her knuckle in her mouth like she light vomit. I tried to hug her and she pushed me away.

“No, no, no,” she said. She forced herself to breathe and recompose herself.

“I hate you so much.” she smiled a big cracked broken smile. Sometimes it looked like Christy might not be in her body — as if her spirit was a fire or a constellation that was somehow staked and unhappily chained around her spine. She has big tits and a great back but she moves around kind of clumsy, as if she’s been assigned her body five minutes before.

“People have always told me about this feeling, but I’ve never had it. It’s awful,” she said with empty eyes as if it were already two years later.

She stared at me, taking me in deeply. Her beautiful black hair sharp in contrast with the now stark white skin of her face. We’d been going together for well over a year and I don’t know why but she loved the holy hell out of me.

“When you go back to your pee-brained friends and tell them how you’ve left me and how unstable I am, and they tell you what a psycho bitch I am, and all that garbage, just remember that all they are is glad you’re back drinking beer with them. They don’t know you. They don’t give a shit about you. And I do. I love you with my whole soul best, and if somebody else ever loves you as good as me, please, remember there’s nothing you have to DO, just let ’em.” She let out a short laugh. “You’re my greatest disappointment. Please don’t fall for some blonde in a candy-red camaro — it’s beneath you.” She didn’t kiss me goodbye, she just gave me another empty half-cocked smile turned and walked on down the hall, her black leather shoes clacking on the shiny hospital floor.

Man, when I first met Christy — and this is no joke, a cliché, but no joke — it was like my heart was literally stuck on my oesophagus. I couldn’t fuckin’ talk to her — I was mute. I remember the first thing I ever said to her. We were over at Coach and Horses Tavern in downtown Albany. We’d been introduced maybe fifteen minutes before and I leaned over to the guy who introduced us and said, “Does everybody fall in love with her?” She was sitting at this circular wooden table smoking cigarettes like some people eat grapes. I don’t remember what she was talking about — something to do with the Apollo theatre in New York, I was just hung up on her voice, the cadence, and the confidence. She had CLASS man. No shit, not one person in a hundred has intrinsic class — not affectation of money or, you know, some lame brain drinking a highball or a private school chipie sashaying around like her daddy owns the building, but natural poise, grace and dignity. She had that. You could take her and rub her around in the mud and kick her in the head and she’d still have it. Seated there in the green tavern light, with six or seven people listening to her every word, I lean over and say, “Does everybody fall in love with her?” Why did I say that? I don’t know. But still, I couldn’t talk to her ‘cause I knew I’d just come off like another goomba trying to score — so I played it cool and didn’t say a peep until later. We were standing in the bar hallway waiting for the bathroom right next to one another in silence for like three or four minutes and then I just blurted out, and she’ll back me up on this, I said, “I’m not afraid of you.” A bald faced lie — but gutsy — I’ll give myself that. The men’s room door opened and I walked in and closed the door. In the mirror I could see myself and I looked good, I don’t often say that about myself but that night it was true. I was clean-shaven, wearing a suit (there had been some function earlier, a buddy of mine was graduating from a special forces program or something) and I looked good. Later on, we all went back to the apartment Christy shared with her roommate, Chance. We all laughed and drank and Chance played the guitar, I remember that, and slowly people started going home and then Chance and her boyfriend went to bed. Somehow, I guess I’d been angling for it all night long, Christy and I were left sitting across from one another on opposite couches and she said,

“So you’re not afraid of me, huh?”

I smiled, and she did the strangest thing — she just lifted up her skirt and showed me her pussy.

A family was coming out one of the neighbouring houses and strolling onto Hawthorne Avenue all dressed up in suits, dresses and matching cute little outfits. They were heading off to church looking genuinely happy. I liked them. It’s easy to like strangers, but difficult to like people you know well. I was sure I’d like the Andersons. Jesus, I didn’t want Kevin to be dead.

Ohio University, my lieutenant went to Ohio University, that’s all. Anybody can go to Ohio University. This was his job.

In one quick motion, I got out of my car and shut the door. I could hear how cold it was by the way the metal snapped shut. My body felt delicate like if my fingers touched anything my whole hand might shatter like glass. Small rodents were racing through my intestines and up into my arms. My head felt like a tarantula was gonna crawl out of my nose. Things appear differently to me when I’m coming down off of drugs, like the kids climbing on trees are connected to the branches, and the tree is connected to the blowing breeze and the breeze is connected back to me. Now if someone asks me if I believe in God, I shake my head like I couldn’t give a shit, but the truth is, I do. I just don’t know what to do about it.

Anderson’s front yard looked like a frozen-over version of Satan’s lair. There were places the snow had melted and then frozen again into thin waves of ice. Thousands of cruel weeds were poking their way through out into the air. I could hear Ed’s obnoxious laugh mocking me like a skipping CD inside my brain. What a moron. Walking up the driveway I checked again to make sure my nose wasn’t bleeding. The next drug test was in a couple of weeks, I was boned. Always, I had to push it. I tried not to be too mad at myself right then. There’d be plenty of time later.

Anderson’s driveway was loaded with green bags of garbage. I wondered if the sanitation department was on strike or if Kevin had spaced on trash day. I didn’t want to go inside. The front porch was all loaded up with broken toys. A big Wheel with the front plastic tyre all worn through, action figures twisted with their legs curled up around their shoulders and wrapped around their back in impossible positions. All kinds of pathetic toys in neon colours were half buried in the icy snow.

The front porch was made of wood and had started rotting probably thirty years ago. Stepping up, it seemed to be held together by the half an inch of ice. Somebody was bound to slip and crack their head wide fuckin’ open. Why didn’t Kevin shovel his front walk? He was obviously not an outrageously gifted soldier. Being dead should’ve been my first clue.

It was unfathomable that I had to do this. Ridiculous.

Recently, I’d been having a problem where I couldn’t stop crying. More like weeping, really. The realization that I was not someone I was proud of would erupt from my guts. I’d be in the Blue Sunrise laughing or drinking, or smoking a joint, or rambling on about boats or cars or guns or pussy or some newfangled anything and then I’d just go into the bathroom and sit in the stall and bawl my eyes out. I wanted to be alone, but I leaped at every bullshit opportunity possible to surround myself with more people.

There was this empty hole in my chest, I was aware of only because I sensed its hollowness. I could almost hear it. Sometimes I’d think I was hungry, or that I had to take a shit, or that I needed to get laid, or maybe have a cigarette, or maybe if I drank five shots in rapid succession I could wet it and fill it up, but I’d do all that and this desolate hole under my rib-cage would still be there. Right above my stomach and below my heart.

If I sat still and took a deep long breath I could grab it or touch it — almost. But when I’d do that, I’d get scared like there was some big lie about to burst open.

‘God, I don’t want to change.’ I thought, ‘I just don’t.’

Turn on the radio, go to the movies, you know, drive out to the drop zone, and jump out of a friggin’ airplane. Do anything you want. Just don’t sit still.

As I knocked on the hard wood door with my bare cold knuckles my hand shot with pain. I wondered what I’d do if Jesus Christ himself answered the door. My dad loved Jesus, he talked about him all the time. The value of powerlessness.

For a moment I considered my appearance, brushing off my pants and jacket, running my fingers through my short, cropped hair, softly padding my mustache, checking again to make sure my nose wasn’t bleeding. The wind blew effortlessly through my rayon uniform and my teeth started chattering. I knocked again, this time with the butt of my fist. There was the faint sound of cartoons coming from inside. When I was a kid, they didn’t have cartoons on Sunday.

An older black woman with a long down purple parka hanging over a crimson dress opened the front door, but left the screen door closed. Nobody’d put up the storm windows yet. A welcome mat at my feet read, “GO AWAY.” The old woman had thick gray wool socks on over her black stockings and no shoes. She was overweight with healthy bright skin. Her eyes were extremely light brown, the whites of which were a faint yellow. Two children, a four-year-old boy and what looked like an eighteen-month-old girl were seated behind her in the kitchen eating Honey Nut Cheerios and watching a sixteen-inch television that sat on the plastic tablecloth.

“Yes?” she said. She had a soft rich voice, probably sang in the church choir.

I didn’t say anything.

“Who is it? Who is it?” the eldest child shouted out.

“It’s nobody,” she yelled back, “Eat’ch your breakfast and watch the TV.” She turned back to me and smiled. “If you’re looking for Kevin he’s not here.”

“No,” I said, “I’m looking for his wife. Is that you?”

“No, sweetie, I’m his mother and Tangerine’s upstairs asleep but I wouldn’t recommend waking her up for no reason.” She smiled expecting me to leave.

“Well that’s OK, I guess. I can talk to you if that’s alright?” I didn’t have the first idea how I was going to go about doing this. This wasn’t my job.

“Sure, come on in,” she said pushing open the screen door. “Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, sure,” I lied, gesturing quickly and concealing Anderson’s folder.

“Well you don’t look to good, darlin’.”

“Oh no. I’m just cold.” I checked my nose again. It still wasn’t bleeding.

“Kevin’s not in any trouble or anything is he? You’re not with the MPs?”

“No, no I’m not with the MPs,” I laughed, as if it was nothing at all that serious. The heat inside their place was oppressive, I thought I might pass out. My head began to swell and I was forcefully aware of its weight.

“Does this mean we don’t have to go to church?” the little boy asked hopefully, looking up from the television.

“Does WHAT mean WHAT?” the old woman said looking back over at the kid.

“You said that if there was someone here to watch us, we wouldn’t have to go to church,” he stated simply.

“This man ain’t gonna save you. Your only hope was your father and it don’t look like he’s gonna show up in time.” She took the kid’s head in her hand and rotated it back towards the television set.

“Have a seat,” she said turning to me and removing some newspapers from one of the chairs around the table. I sat down next to the boy. The table was littered with lottery tickets.

“What’s your name?” I asked the kid. He looked up at me, handsome with shortly cropped hair, light brown skin and huge black eyes.

“Harper,” he said.

“That’s a cool name.”

“I know,” he nodded.

“So, what’s your business?” the old woman asked me. She was standing up by the refrigerator lightly rubbing her arms over her parka. The kitchen was pretty clean. The walls were painted blue. There were too many knick-knacks and junk, but over all the house was well kept.

“I used to hate to go to church too,” I said smiling.

“And now you go all the time?” she asked cynically.
“No, I still don’t go too much. Not at all actually, but I would like to go sometime.” In that moment I seriously contemplated the possibility.

“You should try,” she said. She was from the south. I wondered why she made her way up this far north.

“Why are you here, son?” she asked again. There was only a slight trace of impatience in her voice. The sound of the imbecilic television show seemed to be growing in volume. It’s amazing how immersed children can be in cartoons without laughing at all.

“Could I have something to drink? Would that be alright?” I asked, touching my face. There was something wrong with my mouth. That always happens to me when I do drugs. Like I’m trying to chew my face off from the inside out, I can’t stop cranking my jaw around and gnashing on the inside of my cheeks.

“All we have is tomato juice,” she said without moving.

“That would be great.”

“You want tomato juice?” she asked incredulously, forcing me to meet her eyes.

“If you don’t mind.”

She opened up the fridge, took out the tomato juice and poured me some in a blue plastic cup.

“Harper, take you sister in the other room.”

“Why?”

His grandmother gave him a sharp look. “Are we not going to church?” he asked softly.

“Maybe not,” she said looking at me.

“YES, YES, YES,” he cheered and grabbed his and his sister’s bowl and put them both in the sink. “HOT-DIGGITY, BOOM WHATCHYA DO TA ME,” he shouted at his sister and then grabbed her hand and ran dragging her into the other room, chattering to her the whole time about the benefits of blowing off church.

“Ah, look here’s the deal,” I said the millisecond we were alone, opening up the army file I had had tucked under my arm, “Your son, Private Kevin Anderson, was shot and killed last night outside the base in an altercation that occurred in the parking lot of the Paradise bar. His body is being held at the Fort Sutner medical center, where the exact time of death and complete medical outline, and the profile of any criminality are waiting for you.” I was doing good, looking down at Kevin’s folder and occasionally back up at her. “Kevin is owed a military funeral provided for by the US army. Other benefits and outstanding information will be given to you with the body. It is army priority and policy to inform the next of kin at the earliest possible conveni… opportunity. And ahhh ... that’s been my job.” All that crap jettisoned out of my mouth. I’ve been living with the army long enough that their whole mumbo-jumbo vocabulary comes pretty easy to me, even when I’m swishing my mouth around like a coke fiend.

There was a long silence as this woman looked me square in the eyes. I tried to sit still.

“Do you do this all the time?” she asked with no visible reaction to the information I just gave her.

“No, it’s no one’s job. It rotates. This month the responsibility falls to my lieutenant who in turn assigned me. In fairness, however, I should reiterate, this is not supposed to be my job.” I checked my nose again and took a sip of tomato juice. The juice was warm and gnarly-tasting. The refrigerator must’ve been on the fritz. “I’m awfully sorry,” I added. I was feeling a tiny bit better.

“Are you on drugs?” she asked me. My whole body tightened as if I were about to have a seizure. I lightly shook my head no.

“Are you on drugs?” she asked again.

“Yes,” I nodded meekly.

“Is my son really dead?”

“Yes,” I said.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE,” she shrieked and threw the jar of tomato juice at my head. It bounced off the table and rolled onto the floor without breaking. Violence is so tame in real life. The cap had fallen off, and there was tomato juice everywhere. The mess would take for ever to clean up. Quietly behind their grandmother the two children crept up the hall grabbing her leg and the bottom of her parka.

“What’s wrong, Grandma?” Harper asked looking at me.

“Get out of my house,” she said, this time quietly and sternly. I didn’t move, I couldn’t. I wanted to tell her that I understood how she felt — I never wanted to be in the army, it was a whim that turned into two and a half years of drinking. I was better than this. This was the worst day of my life.

My father had committed suicide and the life I was supposed to be living died with him. I promised myself that if I lived till tomorrow, if my nose didn’t fall off my face, I would make my behaviour up to this woman. The first thing I’d do is get Christy back, and she’d help me figure out a way to make all this better.

Kevin’s mother walked over to the door and opened it for me to leave. With the file still in my hand, I moved over to the door and went to step out. I turned around to tell her one more time how I was sorry and she bitch-slapped me hard on the side of my head. My nose started to bleed. I stepped out, pushing open the screen door. The cold air numbing my throbbing face.

“Hey, you,” she called out, pissed off tears welling up in her eyes. I turned around.

“What’s your name?” she yelled through the screen.

“What?” I said, still holding my nose. Any second, I was gonna start sobbing.

“You never told me your name. You never even introduced yourself.”

“James,” I said, “Staff Sergeant James Heartsock Jr.” My father would’ve been so disappointed in me.

“Well Jimmy Heartsock, I will never forget you.”

© Ethan Hawke