Billy wonders if Norm will run for office someday. He’s as polished a public speaker as any of the politicians Bravo has encountered over the past two weeks. He has the presence, the werds, plus he’s mastered the wounded, vaguely petulant tone that is the style of political speech these days. If there’s a grating artificiality in the performance — Norm’s awareness of himself as performer, sneaking peeks at a mental mirror off to the side — it’s no worse than any other fixture of the public realm. Billy has noticed that audiences don’t seem to mind anyway. All the fakeness just rolls right off them, maybe because the nonstop sales job of American life has instilled in them exceptionally high thresholds for sham, puff, spin, bullshit, and outright lies, in other words for advertising in all its forms. Billy himself never noticed how fake it all is until he’d done time in a combat zone.
“I had the pleasure of visiting with our president recently, and he assured me we are winning this war. We are winning, make no mistake. We have the best troops in the world, the best equipment, the best technology, the best home-front support, and as long as we maintain our resolve, it’s only a matter of time before we prevail.”
The medias look, if not downright sullen, then definitely peckish and bored. Norm is talking longer than anyone expected, and even the Bravos, who are tired of answering questions from the press, grow impatient. Billy’s attention swings back to the cheerleaders and he does an experiment, walking his gaze down the row of women to his right. As he catches each cheerleader’s eye she breaks into pyrotechnic smiles — it’s like flipping on a row of klieg lights, bam bam bam bam. But somewhere down the line his gaze stops, backtracks of its own accord to a petite, fair-skinned girl with a teased-out corona of strawberry-blond hair, soft bolts of which drape the rising tide of her chest. She smiles again, then silently laughs and crinkles her eyes at him. He knows it’s her job, but still; his stomach does a drop-kick sort of bounce. A nice girl doing her part to support the troops.
The press is definitely sulking. All the little recording gadgets they were holding up at first, all of these have disappeared. Billy forces himself not to look at the cheerleader for the next thirty seconds, but he’s careful not to look at the TV cameras either. Nothing makes you feel more like a geek than seeing yourself on the tube staring straight back at yourself, there’s some peculiar quality of guilt or cluelessness that the camera seems to catch in the direct gaze.
“Ladies and gentlemen, nine-eleven was our national wake-up call. It took a tragedy of that magnitude for us realize there’s a battle going on for the souls of men. This is not an enemy that can be appeased or reasoned with. They don’t negotiate; terrorists do not unilaterally disarm. In a war like this, mixed signals only encourage our enemies…”
When Billy at last looks back, she’s waiting! She gives him a stupendous smile, then another eye crinkle, then winks. Of course it is all professional courtesy but Billy allows himself to pretend that, yes, she really digs him, that they’ll meet, exchange digits, go out on a date, go out on more dates, have sex/fall in love, marry, procreate, raise excellent children, and have incredible sex for the rest of their lives and why the hell not, dammit, humans have been doing it since the dawn of time so why can’t Billy have his turn? He has looked away, and when he looks back they both smile and silently chuckle over this little thing they have, whatever it is.
“… these fine young men, these true American heroes,” Norm says, and at last he serves up Bravo for direct consumption. Welcome to Dallas, says their first interlocutor, which prompts cheers and pom-pom-flapping from the cheerleaders.
What have you been doing since you got here?
The Bravos look at one another. No one speaks. After a moment everyone laughs.
“Here, Dallas, or here at the stadium?” Dime asks.
Both.
“Well, in Dallas, we got in late yesterday afternoon, checked into the hotel, and went out for something to eat. Then we did some sightseeing.”
At night?
“You can see lots of interesting things at night,” Dime says straight-faced. This gets a nice laugh.
Where are you staying?
“The W Hotel downtown, which is probably the nicest place we’ve stayed the whole time. We feel like rock stars there.”
“W Hotel,” Lodis pipes up, “that have anything to do wif—”
Nooooooo, half the room bellows at him.
“Hunh. ’Cause I just thought maybe the president—”
No no no no no.
What’s been your favorite city so far?
“You mean besides Dallas?” Sykes says, which gets a shout-out from the cheerleaders.
Have you had any trouble sleeping, readjusting to life back home?
The Bravos look at one another. Nah.
What was your most unusual mission?
The raid on the chicken farm.
Hardest mission?
When we lost our guys.
Hottest?
Any trip to the port-a-pot.
Are we making a difference over there?
“I think we are,” Dime says carefully. “We are making a difference.”
For the better?
“In some places, yes, definitely better.”
And other places?
“We’re trying. We’re working hard to make it better.”
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the Sadr insurgency. What can you tell us about that?
“The Sadr insurgency. Well.” Dime reflects for a moment. “I wouldn’t bet on any group whose leader looks like Turtle on Entourage.”
Big laugh.
Do you play any sports over there, like intramural stuff?
“It’s too hot for sports.”
What do you do during your downtime, for fun?
MASTURBATE!!! they all shriek, or would, except Dime would slowly kill them one by one. “The Army’s real good at task saturation,” he says, “so we don’t have a whole lot of downtime. Most days we’re putting in twelve, fourteen hours, lots of days more than that. But when we do get some kick-back, I don’t know. Guys, what is it we do for fun?”
Play video games.
Lift weights.
Buy stuff at the PX.
“I like to kill my enemies and listen to the lamentations of their women,” Crack says in a lumbering German accent. The room freezes, then exhales a laugh when he adds, “That’s from Conan. I just always wanted to say that.”
Billy and his cheerleader continue their face work — glances, smiles, brow-scrunching mugs, then this amazing soulful stare that lasts for several seconds. He feels strangely porous, as if his vital organs have turned into Nerf balls.
What was it like meeting the president?
“Oh the president,” Dime enthuses, “what a totally charming guy!” The rest of the Bravos strain for studiously blank expressions, as Dime’s loathing for the Yale brat — his words — is well-known within the platoon. When their deployment began, Dime soaped “Bush’s Bitch” on the front passenger door of his Humvee with an arrow shooting up to the window, where he, Dime, usually sat, but the Lt. finally noticed and made him wash it off. “He made us feel incredibly welcome and relaxed, like, say, if you went down to your local Chase branch to get a car loan, he’s the nicest banker you’d ever hope to meet. He’s friendly, easy to talk to, you could sit down and have a beer with this guy. Except, hunh, I guess he doesn’t drink anymore, does he.”