?A few days, that?s about it. I?ve got a twenty-four-hour chip.?
?Twenty-four hours can be a bitch.?
?You work here?bouts?? Pete asked.
?I was hauling pipe between Presidio and Fort Stockton, up to last month, anyway. I got a service-connected disability, but my boss was a pretty hard-nosed character. According to him, time in the Sandbox was for jerks.?
?You were in Iraq??
?Two tours.?
?My tank got blown up in Baghdad,? Pete said.
The man?s eyes drifted to the long welted scar that ran like a pink raindrop down the side of Pete?s face. ?You start drinking when you came home??
Pete studied the deepening color in the sky, the hills that seemed humped against a fire burning just beyond the earth?s rim. ?It runs in my family. I don?t think the war had much to do with it,? he said.
?That?s a stand-up way to look at it.?
?How much sobriety you have??
?A couple of years, more or less.?
?You have a two-year chip?? Pete said.
?I?m not big on chips. I do the program my own way.?
Pete folded his hands and didn?t reply.
?You got wheels?? the man said.
?I hitched a ride with a guy who smelled like a beer truck. I asked him to come in with me, but he said Jesus?s first miracle was turning water into wine, and his followers weren?t hypocrites about it. I couldn?t quite fit all that together.?
?Want to get some coffee and a piece of pie after the meet? I?m springing,? the man in overalls said.
During the meeting, Pete forgot about his conversation with the man he?d met on the back steps. A woman was talking about going on a dry drunk and experiencing flashbacks that returned her to the inside of a blackout. Her voice, like that of a benighted soul forced to witness light, became threaded with tension as she told the group she might have killed someone with her automobile. The room was quiet when she finished speaking, the people in the pews and folding chairs staring at their feet or into space, their faces wan, each knowing the speaker?s story could have been his or her own.
After the meeting, the man in overalls helped stack chairs and wash out cups and the coffeemaker. He glanced in the direction of the woman who thought she might have committed vehicular homicide. He lowered his voice. ?That one is about to talk herself into Huntsville pen,? he said to Pete.
?What you hear and who you see here stays here. That?s the way it?s supposed to work,? Pete said.
?Anybody who believes that has a lot more trust in people than I do. Let?s get something to eat, and I?ll take you home.?
?You don?t know how far I live.?
?Believe me, I got nothing better to do. My girlfriend boosted my truck and took off with a one-legged Bible salesman,? the man in overalls said. He stared across the row of pews at the woman who had spoken of a dry drunk earlier; his forehead creased with furrows. The woman stood at a window, her attention fixed on the darkness outside, her hands resting on the sill as though they weren?t attached to her arms. ?Goes to show you, doesn?t it?? he said.
?Show you what?? Pete said.
?That woman over there, the one confessed to killing somebody who might not exist. She looks like she just figured out she?s created a bigger mess than the one she was already in.?
Pete didn?t answer. Ten minutes later he drove to a restaurant with the man in overalls, who said his name was Bill, and ordered a piece of cake and a glass of iced tea.
?You got a girl?? Bill said.
?I like to think I do,? Pete replied.
?She?s in the program, too??