— I just have some questions. Once I ask them, you’re free. Especially if you answer them honestly. And I know you will; I’ve admired your candor and integrity since the beginning. And again, I’m very humbled by your service to this country. I know it must have been quite a sacrifice to lose two limbs in Vietnam.
— Son, I know that you’re a confused young man, and I want to help you. I saw a lot of people like you back in the day, especially when I rotated back to the States, so I know where you’re coming from. I really do. If anyone understands the mind of a young man whose skull is fastened one turn too tight, it’s me. But I want to say for the record that I think you doing it this way is deplorable and bizarre, and you would be best off cutting your losses and calling this quits.
— Nah, I’d rather not.
— If you left right now, and told the authorities where we are, I would personally see to it that you were treated with some compassion. That you got some help.
— See, but you’re the help I need. If you cooperate, I will be helped. I don’t need medicine or therapy. I need my questions answered.
— What kind of questions, son?
— Not all that difficult. Basic stuff. You’ll know the answers.
—
— So we’re ready?
— Hell.
— Great.
— For the sake of getting this over with.
— Okay. Okay. My first question — and the main one — is, Why isn’t my buddy Kev Paciorek in space?
— Pardon?
— He’s an astronaut. The guy next door.
— You kidnapped your buddy?
— It’s all worked out now. He gets it.
— What’s that?
— I’ve known him fifteen years. We understand each other. And back when we were in college he looked me in the eye and he said, Someday I’m going up in the Shuttle. At the time, I thought, Bullshit, no way. But then he kept getting closer to it. He cleared every hurdle. He was fucking Jesus. He walked on water, water into wine, everything. He did everything they told him to. Joined the Navy. MIT, grad degrees. He speaks Urdu for fuck’s sake. And all because he wanted to go up in the Shuttle or maybe to a lunar colony. And then twelve years later he becomes an astronaut, and a few months later, they kill the Shuttle, and they defund everything NASA does, and so instead he’s waiting in line to maybe get a ride on some shit-ass Russian rocket to some piece-of-shit Space Station full of pussies.
— Son, did you really kidnap me to talk about the Space Shuttle?
— Mainly, yes.
— Holy Jesus.
— Kev said he was going to be an astronaut, and he did everything he was asked to do to become one. But now it means nothing. That just seems like the worst kind of thing, to tell a generation or two that the finish line is here, that the requirements to get there are this and this and this, but then, just as we get there, you move the finish line.
— Now son, just so I understand. You’re saying I’m the one who did this, that I personally moved the finish line?
— I think you were in a position to hold the line.
— You do see me sitting here, do you not? Do you see a man who is missing two key limbs? Do you think a man missing two key limbs and a thumb, all of them taken in a piece-of-shit foreign war, is part of the machinery you’re talking about? You think I’m the enemy?
— Well why were you in Congress if you weren’t part of the machinery?
— I was in the machinery to try to fix that machine, you dummy! Why the hell do you think there were a half-dozen Vietnam vets on the Democrat side of things in the Senate and House? Someone had to talk some sense down there.
— How did it happen, by the way? I know I should know, but I don’t.
— How did what happen?
— What happened to your leg and arm? Sorry to be indelicate.
— I don’t think you’re in danger of being confused with a man of delicacy or subtlety, son. Before I tell you, I should ask, did you happen to bring any of my prescriptions here? I need them for my stumps and for my arrhythmia.
— I grabbed what I could. I didn’t have much time. They’re in the duffel bag behind you. I also brought the bottle by your bed. Which was a surprise to me, that you have a bottle of gin by your bedside. That seemed like some kind of cliché, the aging vet drinking himself to sleep.
— Now you actually are being indelicate. That’s really none of your goddamned business, kid. And just because there was a bottle by the bed doesn’t mean this is some kind of long-standing habit or ritual.
— Fine.
— I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to you.
— You’re right. No need. It’s not why you’re here. And anyway, I understand if you need some help getting to sleep. I haven’t had to go through what you did, I haven’t really seen fuck-all compared to you, and I need eleven hours every night to sleep six or seven. So I would never judge.
— Thanks. That’s a comfort.
— No problem.
— Son, in your head, is this what qualifies as bonding?
— See, you’re being so condescending, and I didn’t want you to be that way toward me. Do you think I’m somehow inferior because I wasn’t part of some war? Because I wasn’t drafted and grew up in peacetime and never had to struggle the way you have?
— No. I don’t.
— I do.
— You do?
— I do. I grew up next to this base, sir, and my father was a contractor here. And I’m pretty sure that I would have turned out better, and everyone I know would have turned out better, if we’d been part of some universal struggle, some cause greater than ourselves.
— And you think Vietnam was that?
— Well, no, not necessarily.
— So what the hell are you talking about? Do you know how fucked up most of the men who came back from Vietnam are? You’re damned lucky your dad didn’t have to fight. You wanted to be part of that?
— No. No, not that exact conflict. But I just mean …
— You wish you were part of some wonderful video game conflict with a clear moral objective.
— Or something else. Something else that brought everyone together with a unity of purpose, and some sense of shared sacrifice.
— Son, judging just by the fact that you’re kidnapping people and chaining them to posts, I knew you were confused. But in actuality your brain is plain scrambled. One minute you’re complaining about your astronaut buddy who didn’t get to ride on a cool spaceship, and the next you’re saying you wish you’d been drafted. I mean, none of this squares, son. What exactly brought you to this point?
— I don’t know. Actually, I think I do know. It’s because nothing’s happened to me. And I think that’s a waste on your part. You should have found some kind of purpose for me.
— Who should have?
— The government. The state. Anyone, I don’t know. Why didn’t you tell me what to do? They told you what to do, and you went and fought and sacrificed and then came back and had a mission …
— Kid, do you know how I lost my limbs?
— That’s why I was asking before. I assume you saved lives. You got a Bronze Star and …
— No. I didn’t save any lives. I was eating lunch.
— What? No.
— I lost my limbs because I was eating my lunch near the wrong dipshit who hadn’t secured his grenades.
— That can’t be true.
— Listen. I was alone, eating my lunch. This kid had just rotated in from Mississippi, and he was some idiotic bumpkin with too much energy. He thought we were friends, so he came running toward me, pretending he was charging at me like a moose. Just some dumb thing young men do. A grenade fell off his uniform, the pin was pulled, and it rolled directly to me and landed at my feet. I just had time to turn my head away when it went off. That was the moment of unified purpose and shared sacrifice that separated me from my limbs.