I do miss the Army.
And I didn't want to be in a purely Air Force town. And at least my arthritis isn't too bad here. And home . . . well, it hasn't been "home" in a very long time.
"It sure sucks to get old," Stauer muttered, "and I'm not convinced that the alternative is worse." He sighed, looking down toward his feet. Briefly, his eyes rested on his stomach. "Two years ago, you miserable bastard, you were flat." Traveling further downward, he scowled and said, "And don't you even think about getting old. At least you still have a purpose."
From inside the residence he heard the purpose's plaintive call, "Honey, come to bed."
Philomena Potter-Phillie, for short-stirred in the big bed, reaching for the man who should have been there but who now stood on the balcony. Her questing hands coming up empty, she awakened and sat up. Immediately she called out, "Honey, come to bed."
Phillie, ER nurse, aged twenty-seven, five foot, ten inches, thirty-five, twenty-three, thirty-six, was a quarter English-eighth German-eighth Irish-half Mexican self-propelled monument to mixed marriages. She had short blond hair that had not come out of a bottle, large emerald green eyes, and skin that was essentially white but tanned really, really well. Long legs were a given. She was quite pretty without being painfully so, having a regular, straight nose, full lips that were almost pouting, high cheekbones and a rather endearingly delicate chin.
She was also one of those not entirely rare human females predisposed toward older men. Perhaps "hard-wired" would be more accurate. Indeed, Phillie was so hard-wired for older men that she'd hung on to her virginity-technically, anyway-until well after turning seventeen, precisely so she'd be legal for the class of men that interested her. At the time, the minimum age for that had been thirty-five. She'd added a year and a half, on average, every year since. Her current lover-Wes Stauer, presumably sitting on the balcony watching life crawl by-was a little young by those standards. If young, he was also a soldier, had been, anyway, for about thirty years. That had the effect of making him look older. It was also the other area in which Phillie was hard-wired: Soldiers; yum.
Oh, she'd tried doctors, naturally enough, being an RN and all. Leaving aside the potential problems at work, she'd decided they were, on average, a bunch of arrogant pricks, and especially the specialists. She'd also tried Air Force types. The student pilots from Randolph AFB were interesting, but they were mostly arrogant pricks, too. And she tended to be taller than them, which was awkward and operated against the third area of her genetic predispositions. At six-two Wes is just about right. Why won't the bastard come back to bed?
The Special Forces medics, training at Fort Sam, downtown, had been her most enjoyable group. She'd even thought about marrying one of them. Then he'd been killed in Afghanistan and a colonel had come to tell her how very sorry he was and all, and how much the country appreciated . . . and that colonel had led to another colonel and that colonel . . .
***
"I'll be there in a few," Stauer called back. No I won't. Not tired, not horny, not even lonely. Just miserable. "Go back to sleep."
Nice girl, though, he thought. And, unlike most women that age, I can't say she has neither the charm of innocence nor the skill and grace of broad experience. And she's not even immature. She'd be a good match for an old fart like me. If I wanted a match. Family? I put all that off-"married to the Army"-and never missed it. And now I've no Army and no family. She says she wants kids. I just don't know if I'm up to it. Or if I'd be a decent father. And why the hell am I even thinking about this? I don't want to get married. Christ, I'll "be stone dead in a moment."
A car was pulling into the complex's parking lot as Stauer stood up. He ignored it. Walking inside and gently closing the sliding glass door behind him, Stauer padded quietly on stocking feet to the bedroom he'd set aside as an office. The hardwood floor underfoot didn't so much as creak.
Which is just as well. Phillie will put up with my staying on the balcony. She's good about leaving me space. But if I've come inside and not to her she's likely to get a little testy.
Instead of returning to bed, then, Stauer went into the office and closed that door even more gently and quietly than he'd closed the glass one. Only then did he flick on the light.
Even after two years of living here, most of his books were still packed up in boxes in the upstairs bedroom. Thus, the fifteen book cases were half empty. They'd have been even emptier if Phillie hadn't brought down, unpacked, and shelved about a thousand volumes. The walls were marked, too, with little holes, the only remaining traces of the various nick-knacks he'd picked up in service. He'd put them up when he'd first moved in. After a year or so he'd discovered they depressed him more than anything. Fortunately, there were the empty boxes from Phillie's unpacking of books. The plaques, awards, certificates, commendations . . . they'd all gone into the empty boxes and up to the upstairs bedroom, there to await the judgment day or the auction that would surely follow Stauer's eventual death.
He'd left some things out, still up on the walls, or in cases, or on stands. These were his weapons: forty-seven odd bayonets, knives and daggers, two dozen swords, including a matched fifteenth century daisho that had set him back forty thousand dollars, two crossbows, one modern, one medieval, sixteen rifles of various calibers and capabilities, nine pistols, one morning star . . .
Man without a family ought to have a hobby, at least.
He sat down, as lightly as he'd closed the doors and then cat-footed across the apartment.
Maybe I actually should have taken a job, Stauer thought. But what was there available? Office work? Being a body guard for some State Department maggot? Supervising guard details on a gate in Iraq or Afghanistan for seven hundred bucks a day? That shit got old when I was eighteen. And if I'd wanted to do direct action the options were not only limited, I'd have been reporting to some ex-SEAL who inherited a pile of money. Maybe I should have gone with that Ph.D from King's College London . . . but what would have been the point? It's not like I need the money. Military pay isn't extravagant, but when you don't have a family to support, and have no moral qualms about keeping Uncle's fingers off your money, you can invest yourself to a not inconsiderable wealth. Toss in the retired pay and it comes to quite a sum.
But I'm just so bored . . .
And it isn't just me.
Stauer flicked on the computer monitor, a twenty-inch flat screen, and pulled up his email. He tried to keep in touch with old comrades, such as wanted to keep in touch. And the refrain from them was so common as to be stereotypical. "I'd give up a year's pay for just one day back in the jungle . . . I am bored out of my gourd, boss . . . What the hell was I thinking when I punched out? . . . There's no work, sir, not for people like me. Not that isn't government make-work . . . "
Guys, if I knew how to help, I would, Stauer sighed. Maybe we should all get together sometime. But . . . nah . . . when it's over; it's over.
Alone in the bed, Phillie lay on her back, hands behind her head and fingers interlaced. I've never felt this way, she mused, and I don't just mean horny. He looks right, acts right, smells right. Everything's right. I'd be proud to be his wife and bear his children. And I think he cares for me. Loves me? I wish I knew. But if he doesn't, it isn't for anything I've failed to do. He loves history so I enrolled in a couple of history courses at UTSA so we could discuss it. That helped some, but would have helped more if he hadn't thought all the profs but one were idjits. Rollin, Wes said, knows what he's talking about. But then Professor Rollin left for greener pastures, so . . .