Norm works his way down the receiving line. By the time he reaches Billy, the young soldier is feeling faint. “Specialist Lynn,” he says, pausing to give Billy an appraising up and down, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” and Billy can feel himself levitating, borne upward on a froth of white-hot video lights and stinging camera flashes, a kind of fulminating photo-op meringue, and being stoned gives it all a swoopy, slow-motion feel. Norm grips his hand, yow, a real alpha-dog crunch — dude, just hike up your leg and spray the room! Pride, he says, but like a tape played too slow the word warps and fattens in Billy’s ear, ppprrrrRRIIiiiddde. Then courage, coooOUURRraaage. Service, sssserrrRRRrvvviccce. SsssacccrRRRIiiifffice. HooooONNnnorrrr. DeeeterrRRRminaaaAAAtion.
“You’re a Texas boy,” Norm says, and there’s a chewiness to his words, a faint thickening of the palate like he’s got those braces that go behind your teeth. “From Stovall, correct? Out there in the oil patch?” He takes note of the medals on Billy’s chest and asserts that he’s especially proud of Billy “as a fellow Texan,” but not surprised, not at all surprised, it’s only natural that a native-born Texan would distinguish himself in military service.
“Everybody knows Texans make the best fighters,” Norm continues, and he’s smiling, it’s not exactly a joke but more a teasing form of Texas boosterism. “Audie Murphy, the heroes of the Alamo, you’re part of a famous tradition now, did you know that?”
“I never thought of it that way, sir.” Billy must have said the right thing because a warm swell of laughter rises from the crowd, yes, people are watching, their faces rim the bubble of media lights with a fish-eye arcuation and ovoid bulge. Adrenaline sings in his head like a power saw. Norm is talking. Norm is making an entire little speech. He stands an inch or so taller than Billy, a fit, stout-necked sixty-five-year-old with peach-tinted hair and a trapezoidal head, wide at the bottom, then narrowing through the temples to the ironed-down plateau of hair on top. His eyes are a ghostly cold-fission blue, but it’s the proving ground of his face that awes and fascinates, the famously nipped, tucked, tweaked, jacked, exfoliated mug that for years has been a staple of state and local news, Norm’s very public saga of cosmetic self-improvement. The result thus far is compelling and garish, like a sales lot for reconditioned carnival rides. His mouth seems winched a couple of screws too tight. The vaguely Asiatic folds at the corners of his eyes speak of seductive and even feminine sensitivities, as if modeled on a sexy illustration of the Pocahontas myth. His complexion is the ruddled, well-scrubbed pink of an old ketchup stain. For all that work the sum effect is neither good nor bad, just expensive, and Billy will later reflect that you could get pretty much the same result by plastering your face with thousand-dollar bills.
“You have given America back its pride,” Norm is saying, information that takes the form of tiny bubbles effervescing in Billy’s brain. America? Really? The whole damn place? But people are clapping and Billy lacks the nerve to argue, then he’s being introduced to Mrs. Norm, a well-maintained lady of a certain age with a poufed-out cloud of dark hair. She’s pretty. Her dark violet eyes don’t quite focus. She smiles but it’s purely social, gives nothing of herself, and Billy decides she’s either medicated or ruthlessly conserving energy. If it’s a snob thing he’s just fine with that, for what woman is more entitled to the rights and privileges of flaming bitchdom than the First Lady of the Dallas Cowboys? In fact her bitchiness makes him a little bit hard—Dude, he’s thinking, DOWN, she’s old enough to be your mom—but now the rest of the clan is coming at him, Norm’s children, the husbands and wives of the children, then the teeming gaggle of grandkids, every one of them blessed with the Oglesby quadrilateral head, and once they’ve had their turn the receiving line collapses into a genteel rave. People are pumped; proximity to Bravo jazzes them full of fizzing good spirits, even these, the high-profile and the well-to-do, they go a little out of their heads around Bravo. Is it because they smell blood? Strangers make free with Billy’s young body, kneading his arms and shoulders, clutching his wrists, clapping a manly hand to his back. They gush. They swear allegiance and undying gratitude. A regal older lady asks how old he is, “You look so young!” she cries, and at his answer she tosses her head and turns away in disbelief. Little boys in coats and ties ask for his autograph. Someone hands him a Coke in a plastic cup. Before the Victory Tour he hated big parties with all their nervous chitchat and stressful shifting around, but it’s not so bad when people actually want to talk to you.
“You were at the White House,” one man queries him.
“That’s right.”
“You met George and Laura?” the man’s wife says hopefully.
“Well, we met the president and Cheney.”
“That must have been such a thrill!”
“It was,” Billy says agreeably.
“What did yall talk about?”
Billy laughs. “I don’t remember!” And it’s true, he doesn’t. There was a certain amount of joking around, good-natured guy stuff. Lots of smiles, lots of stage-managed posing for pictures. At some point Billy realized he was expecting the president to act, well, embarrassed? Ashamed? For how fucked up everything obviously was. But the commander in chief seemed well pleased with the state of things.
“You know,” the woman says, leaning close like she’s divulging privileged information, “we sort of claim George and Laura as our own. They’re moving back to Dallas when their time in Washington is up.”
“Ah.”
“We were at the White House a couple of weeks ago,” the man says, “they had a state dinner for Prince Charles and Camilla. Listen, those royals are just the finest people, no pretensions whatsoever. You can talk to Prince Charles about anything.”
Billy nods. There’s a silence. Just in time he asks, “What did you talk about?”
“Hunting,” the man answers. “He’s a bird man like me. Grouse and pheasant, mostly.”
Several tanned, glamorous couples have engaged Major Mac in intense conversation. The major nods, frowns, purses his lips — he does an expert mime of undivided attention. Dime and Albert have been absorbed into Norm’s entourage, and Billy finds it reassuring, this proof that Dime’s stuff is so strong that it flies even at these lofty altitudes. Americans, he says to himself, gazing around the room. We are all Americans here—it’s like suddenly becoming aware of your tongue inside your mouth, an issue where there was none before. But they are different, these Americans. They are the ballers. They dress well, they practice the most advanced hygienes, they are conversant in the world of complex investments and fairly hum with the pleasures of good living — gourmet meals, fine wines, skill at games and sports, a working knowledge of the capitals of Europe. If they aren’t quite as flawlessly handsome as models or movie actors, they certainly possess the vitality and style of, say, the people in a Viagra advertisement. Special time with Bravo is just one of the multitude of pleasures available to them, and thinking about it makes Billy somewhat bitter. It’s not that he’s jealous so much as profoundly terrified. Dread of returning to Iraq equals the direst poverty, and that’s how he feels right now, poor, like a shabby homeless kid suddenly thrust into the company of millionaires. Mortal fear is the ghetto of the human soul, to be free of it something like the psychic equivalent of inheriting a hundred million dollars. This is what he truly envies of these people, the luxury of terror as a talking point, and at this moment he feels so sorry for himself that he could break right down and cry.