***
Dinner was quick. Eric even woke up halfway through but still wasn’t strong enough to join them. John and Emily didn’t say much. Once it was over, Emily stumbled back over to the floor in front of the television, and John lay on the couch.
“I guess you’ve been on the road for a while,” Dave said, taking the plates from the table.
“Yeah,” Brooke answered.
Brooke pulled her hair back and gathered it in a ponytail. She had thought the warm meal would energize her, but all it did was make her want to pass out. Her entire body felt like it was made of lead. She watched Dave wash off some of the plates and got up to help.
“No, you don’t have to do that,” Dave said.
“It’s fine. Really.”
Dave washed while Brooke dried. After the dishes, she helped wipe down the table and counters. She tossed the dirty rag into the sink and heard the distinctive crack of a beer opening. Frosty vapor escaped the brown bottle as Dave extended it to Brooke.
“Haven’t had one of these in a while,” Brooke said, taking a sip.
“I figured you could use one.”
The golden liquid washed down the back of Brooke’s throat, cooling the perpetual dryness that seemed to be stuck there no matter how much water she drank. The two of them sat at the kitchen table in silence. With each sip of beer, she could feel herself wake up a little bit. Her kids, however, ended up passing out right where they lay.
“I’ve got another bedroom they could sleep in,” Dave said.
Brooke carried Emily, and Dave scooped John off the couch. The second spare bedroom was at the opposite end from where Eric was resting. It was slightly smaller, and the two kids barely fit on the twin mattress, but it was better than the floor. Brooke closed the door behind her, and they walked back into the kitchen to finish their beers.
One by one, the empty bottles multiplied on the kitchen table. An hour later, thirteen long-neck soldiers joined their brothers, and both Dave and Brooke were rosy cheeked and trying to quiet their laughter.
“Wait. Wait. I’ve been wondering this since I met him. How the hell did he get that nickname?” Brooke asked, swaying back and forth slightly in her chair.
“Scratch?”
“Yeah.”
“It was right before we deployed for our first tour in Iraq. He must have been nineteen at the oldest. If you think he’s a smartass now, you wouldn’t believe what came out of his mouth at that age.”
“I can imagine.”
“Skinny as a toothpick with the energy of a cracked-up six-year-old. Anyway, the unit went out on the town. We drank, fought, drank, and then drank some more. I think you get the gist. Well, toward the end of the night, Eric sees this girl at the bar we were at. It was almost closing time, and the last-call bell had just rung. He could barely stand, let alone walk over to her, but he was determined to go home with somebody. So after some heartfelt chants from us egging him on, he eventually made it over to her and then disappeared out the back door with the woman pulling him by his shirt collar.”
“So why the nickname? He didn’t scratch or strike out.”
Dave’s body started shaking as soundless laughs escaped him. His face was all scrunched up and red, and just the sight of him caused Brooke to break out in a giggle fit. Dave attempted to tell the rest of the story through deep breaths between laughs.
“She was… a hooker… and he got crabs.”
Brooke wobbled and almost fell out of her chair. Her hand slapped against the kitchen table to help stabilize her.
“He scratched himself for weeks before he finally went to the medical unit. He didn’t know what it was,” Dave said, wheezing from laughter.
Tears formed in their eyes. Brooke’s cheeks started to feel sore from laughing so hard. She rubbed them to try and get the stiffness out. Her fingertips brushed the round edge of the bottle and missed, triggering another laughing fit from both of them.
“I can’t… grab it,” Brooke said, clutching her stomach.
It took a few minutes before the two of them settled down. Brooke could feel the heavy calmness wash over her after regaining her composure. Her nose was stuffy, and she had to keep wiping away the water still leaking from the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard.
Brooke tried to think back to when she felt happy. Not just good or content but having the genuine feeling of pure joy. She searched through her beer-soaked mind for memories that would have granted her such a release, but the only things she could find were the fright-filled moments of the past week: the president’s announcement, the desert marauders, the Mexican gangs, the police, the violence, the bullets, the blood, the vibrations from the explosions.
The brief moment of escape that the empty beer bottles had granted was merely that: brief. Once the ambrosia wore off, it was back to reality and the dangers that came with it. Brooke could feel the light expression of laughter on her face be replaced by the heavy burden of consequence.
“That’s all it is, isn’t it,” Brooke said.
“All what is?” Dave asked.
“Consequences. Life is about consequences. The choices we make, good or bad, right or wrong, there’s always a consequence on the other side of it. And that’s what this is. A consequence.”
The rim of the bottle found Brooke’s lips one more time as she took another sip. The choices of previous generations had led to the consequences that her family and millions of other families were now forced to bear. It all just seemed to be an endless cycle of debt owed to the next generation. And now both Emily and John were charged with the consequences of her debt.
“I should have gotten out sooner,” Brooke said.
Dave set his bottle down. Brooke could see the lines and creases of his face lose their joyful curves. His face now looked like Brooke’s felt: sad.
“You did what you could,” Dave said, reaching out and taking her hand. “Your family’s alive because of you. Eric’s alive because of you. You’re alive. And as long it stays that way, there’s always a chance to make it to the other side. I promise you that.”
“Thank you.”
Brooke wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that there was still hope for things to change for the better. But it seemed that every time she was close, every time she thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel, it was stamped out by acts of violent hate.
When Jason was alive, he had told her stories of some of the soldiers that were under his command and what they’d seen while on duty. The horrors of war were hard to forget. A lot of them never really came home. He had told her that a man can only compartmentalize so much before he forgets which box he’s supposed to be in, which box is real.
Brooke could feel her mind struggling to do the same thing, trying to compartmentalize everything. Home, family, water, survival, death, murder, blood, life, death, life, death. All of it circled round and round. She felt dizzy. She held her head in both arms, trying to stop the room from spinning.
“Oh, God,” Brooke said.
“Well, I think we’ve both had enough,” Dave said, finishing his beer.
Dave helped her up from her chair and guided her to the couch. Brooke felt herself fall backward onto a cushion and then the cool feeling of cotton being pulled over her body as she gripped the sheet and closed her eyes.