Billy opts not to bother Ed Crisco. Two pale, thin, completely hairless children are moving about the room collecting autographs, accompanied by their bravely smiling parents and a team representative for each family group. The kids’ skin gives off a bleached silver glow, the radiance of cirrus at high altitudes. Whatever they have, it must be bad; Billy can’t tell if they are boys or girls, so extreme is their condition.
He continues down the line. Durrell Sisson, # 33. D’Antawn Jeffries, # 42. Octavian Spurgeon, # 8. Octavian speaks as he takes the ball.
“What it do.”
“Solid. Yourself?”
Octavian nods. He is sitting in a chair in front of his locker, and save for his helmet he’s completely suited up for the game. He’s coiled, cool, broad through the shoulders and slim through the hips, with a long, tapering nose and high, almost delicate cheekbones. Elaborate tats crawl up his neck and twine around his arms, and a black do-rag is knotted at the nape of his neck. He scratches the pen across Billy’s ball and hands it back.
“Thanks.”
“No probl’h. Yo, hang ona second.”
Billy turns back. For a second the Cowboy seems at a loss for words.
“Like, you been in Iraq an’ all?”
“Um, yes.”
Again he seems to struggle for words. Billy is tempted to think the Cowboy is punch-drunk from years of taking blows to the head, but his eyes are quick and alert.
“So whas it like?”
“What’s it like? Well, it’s hot. Dry. Dirty. Boring as hell, a lot of the time.”
Octavian speaks in a slushy murmur. “Butchoo, like, ona front line an’ all? You been in some battle?”
“I’ve been in some battles, yes.”
D’Antawn and Durrell step over. They are the same physical type as Octavian, lithe, dark, supremely controlled. A look passes among the players, but Billy can’t read it.
“Huh, fah real doe. But like you ever cap somebody you know of? Like, fire yo’ piece and dey go down, you done that?”
That. It doesn’t occur to Billy that he doesn’t have to answer.
Yes, he says. The players glance at each other. Billy sees it is an intense moment for them.
“So whas it like? You know, like what it feel like?”
Billy swallows. The hard question. That’s where he bleeds, exactly. Someday he’ll have to build a church there, if he survives the war.
“It doesn’t feel like anything. Not while it’s happening.”
“Hunh. Yeah.” A few more players have drifted over. Billy realizes that the entire Cowboys starting secondary has gathered around. “So whatchoo carry?”
“What do I carry? It depends. It depends on the mission and what my assignment is. Most of the time my weapon’s the M4, standard semiautomatic assault rifle. A few times I’ve had the M240, that’s a fully automatic, heavy-volume weapon, lays down nine hundred fifty rounds per minute. Then if you’re riding top on the Humvee you’re gonna be on the.50-cal.”
“M4, what kind a round it take?”
“Five-five-six mil.”
“You carry a side?”
“Beretta nine-millimeter.”
“You ever use dat?”
“Sure.”
“Like, up close?”
Billy nods.
“They issue you knives?” asks Barry Joe Sauls, a white guy old enough to have lost most of his hair.
“Ka-Bars,” Billy says. “But you can carry pretty much any blade you want. A lot of guys get their own knives online.”
“What about AKs,” someone asks, “you carry those?”
“AK’s an insurgent weapon, we aren’t issued those. Though plenty of guys’ve picked them up along the way.”
“They bad?”
“Bad enough. The AK fires a bigger round, so there’s more of a crush factor. You definitely don’t wanna take an AK round.”
“Huh. Aiight.” Octavian glances at his teammates, chews his lip a moment. “So what it do, you know, yo’ M4. When you pop somebody.”
Billy laughs, not that it’s funny. It’s not anything, in fact. He wonders if nothing’s an actual feeling, or just nothing.
“Well, it fucks them up.”
“Like, one pop? Stoppin’ power what I’m gettin’ at.”
“Body shot, no. It’s a high-velocity round and usually passes right through. But they go down, yeah.”
“But they ain’t dead.”
“Maybe not with a body shot. That’s why we aim for the face.”
The players suck in their breath. “Unh,” someone murmurs, as if biting into something juicy and sweet.
“The 240,” says Sauls, “you said that’s fully automatic. What does it do?”
“What does it do? Fuck, what can I say. The 240’s pure evil.”
“Yeah?”
“You hit somebody with the 240, it fucking takes them apart.”
Before they can ask him anything else Billy says thanks good luck nice talking to you, and leaves. He is definitely done getting autographs, which more than ever seems like a dumb and pointless exercise. After some furtive casting about he spots Dime at the far end of the room, studying the giant greaseboard on which the team’s depth chart is displayed. “So if it’s not a democracy,” Dime is murmuring as Billy approaches from behind, “and it’s not communist, then what is it?”
“What is what?”
“Nothing. Enjoying yourself, Billy?”
“I guess.” He sidles closer to Dime and lowers his voice. “Some of these guys are crazy, Sergeant. Not right in the head.”
Dime laughs. “And we are?”
Whatever. He notices Dime’s football is bare of autographs.
“Sergeant, can we talk?”
“Yes.” Dime is back to studying the depth chart.
“It’s kind of a personal matter.”
“I’m the best friend you’re ever going to have.”
“Well, what happened is, well, I met a girl. Like, today. A little while ago. One of the cheerleaders, actually.”
A flummery blat sprays off Dime’s lips. “Congratulations.”
“Yeah, I mean, no, I mean we all did, I know. But this girl and I, Sergeant, we sort of connected.”
“Billy, don’t be a moron.”
“No, Sergeant, we did. Something happened.”
Dime perks up. “She blow you?”
“Well, no. But we made out.”
“Bullshit.”
“Swear to God.”
“Bullshit! When did this happen?”
Billy briefly describes the encounter, though for the sake of honor and decency he says nothing about Faison’s orgasm.
“You bastard,” Dime says softly. “You aren’t lying, are you.”
“No, Sergeant, I’m not.”
“I can see that.” Dime starts laughing. “You are a motherfucker, Lynn. Though how the hell you talked her into—”
“Actually I let her do most of the talking.”
“Brilliant. Smart man. I think you’re gonna get laid a lot in your life, Billy.”
“Thanks. But what I wanted to ask you… well, the reason I wanted to talk…”
Dime eyes him patiently.
“Well, I don’t wanna lose her, Sergeant. How do I keep from losing her?”
“What? Jesus Christ, lose what, Billy, how long were you with her, ten minutes? You guys mugged down, great, excellent, I’m really happy for you, but I don’t think you’ve got anything to lose. She was being nice, all right? You’re a hero, she was doing something nice for the troops. And we’re on post as of twenty-two hundred tonight, so I don’t know when you think you’re gonna see her again. Tell you what, see if you can get her e-mail, maybe that way yall can e-fuck once we’re back in Iraq.”