| Soft as a Breeze Harvey Stanbrough |
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Damn. It's been twenty-six years since Digger proved he wasn't so soft after all. Twenty-six years since the world imploded and I heard the scratching sounds --- sort of clawing sounds really --- somewhere to my right, I think. You never can really tell when you've just dropped into a tunnel and you've got a flashlight and the louie's pistol and then the lights go out anyway. I mean one minute a small circle of dirt's all lit up in front of you and you know where down is and where up is. And there's just enough glow on the walls to confirm your own space. Just enough glow so you know the musty dirt walls are there 'cause you can see the roots sticking out of them every now and then. And there's the light behind you, coming in through the tunnel entrance. 'Course you don't really know it's there 'cause you can't see it, but you sort of sense it. Sort of feel it coming in a few yards behind you, kind of a security cord to the outside. You know it's there because it has to be. I mean, things don't just go away when you turn your back. The hole is there. And if the hole's there, then the light's there. Just makes sense, right? I mean, you just dropped through it, for Christ's sake. So everything's okay, 'cause the light's there in front and behind, and the voices are still there. They're muted, but they're still there. And you know you're okay. On my hands and knees, pushing that light ahead of me, I could hear them. Maybe all of them, with the newbies sort of humming in the background. Newbies never shut up, not even when they're scared. I could even tell who was who out of the old guys, the ones who'd been there awhile like me. Mick talking shit. I mean pure, unadulterated bullshit, you know, about how bad he is and all. Big, dumbass Mick. And silly-assed Raymond. Can't-keep-his-sheets-dry Raymond from the Bronx. Pisses himself nearly every night and hopes it'll rain so we won't know. Only piss don't smell like rain, I mean even this drizzly, miserable rain that just don't hardly ever stop. Like he thinks we don't know he's got a little problem. 'Course we do know, but we ain't gonna say nothin' anyway. I mean, Ray's a silly ass, but he's here, like us. And Lieutenant Danforth, the louie. He was completely screwed up at first, all that Boat School bullshit, you know, but only for a few days. I mean he snapped in pretty quick for an officer, and he wasn't too bad even before he snapped in, really, but after a few days we knew we wouldn't have to coddle his young ass. Got to where he really was pretty okay. 'Course he sent me down the hole and all, but I mean hey, he had to send somebody and it probably was my turn. It wasn't like we kept a tally or nothin'. Then Digger. Poor little stupid friggin' Digger. The one guy we really watched out for, like it was a personal favor for his mom or somethin'. Little Jimmy Carson we called him until that damn tunnel broke on me. Little piano-playin', soft-talkin' Jimmy Carson. But don't get me wrong --- he pulled his own weight, you know? I mean it wasn't nothin' personal or nothin' like that. He was just soft. 'Course I don't mean soft like hard or soft, or like tough or soft. Jimmy was just sweet. He cared, you know? Been in country eleven months and always pulled his own weight, but sort of easy, always with a soft, quiet touch. Even when Sergeant Johnson'd holler Point, Jimmy! Jimmy'd just wave that little wave of his and move up to the point. Easy like, just sweet. Quiet. Sure, Sarge, he'd say, and we didn't worry about him that way either. Not a deep worry. Almost like he was too soft to get hit. Like a round might hit and he'd give just enough to absorb the thing and it would drop off him. That kind of soft. Like mellow, you know? Like pliable. But we still watched him like he was our kid or somethin'. I mean we always watched, like it was just a regular thing we did. Not like we had to think about it. Like somethin' you have to do but you don't mind 'cause it's just what you always do, natural like. Anyway, I was tryin' to make out what Mick was braggin' about when that hole broke. That's when Jimmy became the Digger. The guys said he never said nothin'. Didn't jump or scare or nothin', just ran, soft and easy like, glided like, to the hole and started right in diggin'. Then everybody else jumped and stumbled and cussed and fell all over each other tryin' to help him dig. They all dug, I guess, even the lieutenant, for most of an hour, 'cept the louie told me later it was only a few minutes. But nobody dug like Jimmy. And they said he never said a word and never stopped. Just kept on diggin', soft like, 'til he found my boot. Then he yelled Hey! they said, but never stopped diggin' even then, not even for a second. Just tore in a little quicker, I guess. Still soft-like, you know, but not quite as soft. Anyway, somebody said it was Mick that tugged on my boot, but he sure didn't tug like he talked. If he'd tugged like he talked he'd have tugged hard, hopin' just the boot and my foot or leg would come out. But he just gave a little tug, like he hoped it wasn't loose but still attached. 'Course the boot didn't come out alone, neither. It never came off 'til I took it off myself, later. Digger brought me a beer that night, soft again. Wantin' to help a little bit, I think. Thought maybe my nerves were shot or somethin'. "Stan?" he said out of the dark, whispery like. I looked up easy, not jumpy, 'cause it was more like a breeze. Not like a snap or a body movin' past a blade of elephant grass or nothin', but like a real breeze. Just soft. Like it's almost there but not really. "Yeah?" I couldn't do it as soft as he could. The breeze passed me a beer, then smiled and settled next to me on his heels. "You okay?" Whispery. "Yeah, No problem." A raindrop filtered off a leaf and streaked across my glasses. Quiet. "Everything works out, huh? I been here eleven months and ain't never come that close." "Everything works out," I said. Still couldn't get as soft as he could. Soft. "Well, I gotta get back home." Lifting himself from the ground, the breeze drifted toward its sleeping bag. "See you in the mornin', Digger." "See you." Being there was mostly boring. Long periods of nothin' to do but wait for somethin' to happen. Quiet and soft and sweet, a lot like Jimmy, 'til that one blinding-white instant when all hell breaks loose and then is reconfined. All in that split second. I mean there's a big lead-up that's sort of excitin' and scary and lasts longer than time, when things are happenin' all around you and you're divin' for a hole and grabbin' your rifle and tryin' to stick a magazine in upside down and throwin' ammo to your buddy and dodgin' sounds all at once, kind of like a spooked house cat. But it's still okay 'cause it ain't happenin' directly to you. Then there's that scalding-hot second of pure hell when the whole damn mess centers on you. Just you. When you're all by yourself and so is your buddy who's only a foot away. When you think the earth is spitting little puffs of dirt at you 'til an eternity-long split second later when you remember it's bullets. When all the rain in every drizzly, miserable cloud on earth is falling within a two-foot radius of the center of your head, and everything and everyone is screaming at you or past you and you can't do anything as fast or as well as you have every day of your life. Like duck or run or get out of the mud or find a trigger or remember a friend who pulled you out of a tunnel two weeks ago. Then the instant ends, and you're alive. And you've got to get capable again. Well, you start to stop shakin' and you think of a cigarette and reach for one. Then Mom flashes a disapprovin' look through your mind, but you reach anyway. Then you want to joke with your friend, show him you're both still bad, tell him Charlie'd rather sandpaper a bear's ass in a phone booth than mess with you. And he smiles kind of soft in your mind and you want to offer to split that extra beer in your pack with him, you know? Split a beer with the wind, you think. Maybe help his nerves a little bit, and you smile. So you think to reach for it, but decide to joke first and get the beer in a second and you're smilin' and turnin' your head and openin' your mouth to tell him about bear's asses in phone booths --- But his face is gone. Then your body is turnin' inside out and you can't hear, and all you feel is screamin' and scaldin' water on your cheeks, even in the rain that's too damn hard and cold and miserable to care about anything. And four guys jump on you like the rain and the wind, hard, like thugs. They take your not like a breeze, and they yell things like Shhh! and Shut up! and they use your given name like they know you. But you scream right through their hands, right through the blood and the bones and the grimy meat of their filthy, muddy, bony hands. Screaming.... Screaming for a breeze, just a soft little breeze. But the breeze is gone. The louie came up the next day with his head down. Said how Digger took a round to the side of his head, how it looked like it hit square on his right cheekbone. And he said how he was real sorry, not because he had to like some lieutenants would, but because he really was sorry. But he had nothin' to be sorry for. Hell, I mean, even Jimmy wasn't soft enough there, you know? Nobody is. And even twenty-five years later you say damn sometimes, kind of whispery, 'cause nothin' else does any good. Besides, damn's about as soft as they come when you do it just right. You know? |