The Subtle Art of Brutality

The war was a success in the sense that there was a vermin population and we eradicated it.

There was no hope for the continent or its nations; as soon as we cleared their streets of the current threat, we were shunned in the very towns we kept from being burnt down. Oh well. I wasn’t into nation-building.

I returned home to the same fanfare the Vietnam vets did. Fine. Shitbird hippies and protesters were waiting when we got off the plane, screaming that we didn’t get enough in ’Nam and there were more babies to kill. More women to rape. Some fool in the crowd actually held up a small child and asked if we were going to come over there and murder that baby too.

Then someone spit. Protest signs hit us. We soldiers were like rodents in a Whack-A-Mole arcade game walking through the crowd; our heads popping up and down as signs chopped at us. I got about halfway through the throng when a goon with a flavor-savor and blue-tinted glasses bitch-slapped me. “Be ashamed,” he said.

I punched him so hard his nose folded flat and I could feel his jaw crack in two underneath my knuckles. His glasses crumbled off to the side and all the soldiers around me started giving the hippies their rightful due.

Ten seconds later and all us soldiers were clearing the crowd with little more than spit dribbling down our faces or shirts. Our knuckles chewed up, our teeth gritting. The hippies all on the floor, writhing and cradling broken arms or faces. Or both.

I left. I needed to get my discharge and start my life.

My high school girlfriend was two years younger than I. I came home in the late winter. She graduated that spring. She developed cancer at eighteen. We married in the middle of her lost cause chemo because I’d rather be joined to her for all eternity as she withered away than to not have her at all. She died. I protect her memory from the soiled life I lumber through and keep private her name and all I love about her.

Just for me.

James Dobbins lives in Three Mile High.

I’ll take the rail tomorrow. Three Mile High is nestled into the mountains a few hours away. For right now, I go looking for Delilah’s old camp.

Delilah Boothe used to live on Carolina Avenue. It’ll be a drive coming from White’s office. Jeremiah’s sled squeals in all the rank, gritty slush. Bad for winter driving.

On the way I call Derne. I’ve got about three miles to go before I reach her old place. This will kill time. I can hear him inhale on a cigarette as he answers. “Hello?” I can almost smell the mentholated smoke as he exhales with that word.

“It’s Buckner. How are you?”

“Gotta smoke outside now, Mr. Buckner. The wife, she’s on a tank. Oxygen. Some green bottle she takes everywhere. It has replaced her damn purse, only there’s no pocket in it to put my smokes. What has my life come to?”

“Sorry to hear.”

“Oh. Thanks,” he says. I cross Maple parkway. Two miles now. “Any word?”

“Well, Pierce White said he’s seen Delilah recently.”

“Recently?”

“Yes. Said they had seen each other for a few days. A loose kind of dating thing. Then she took off.”

“Good God. When was this?”

“Right before Halloween.”

“So before she disappeared.”

“Yes. It’s not quite a lead but hash marks on a timeline always helps.”

“That’s what you’re goin’ for? A timeline?”

“I’m trying to find an adult who is free not to be found. Knowing she was with Pierce White a few months back might not sound helpful, but it lets me know where she laid her head for a night. Who else has she visited since?”

“What? Are you goin’ just knock on all her ex-boyfriends’ houses and trace her one night stands like a trail of bread crumbs?”

“Yes I am.” I cross Revelation. One mile left. There’s a great little Italian place on the corner here.

“I see,” Derne says. A deep, long inhale. I can hear the paper burn he drags so hard. “Well, I hate to know you’re havin’ to do such a thing to find her, but if it gets her safe...I just want her safe.”

“Every clue is forward motion, Mr. Derne.”