“An admirable attitude. And how do you feel about your release? Generally speaking, I mean.”

  “Great. No offense to your setup here, but I’m happy as hell to be finally getting out.”

  Herman leaned forward to raise a finger. “Not just that you’re getting out, but that you’re getting out healthy. That’s the important thing.”

  “Right.”

  “What about medication?” the doctor asked. “Your chart says—”

  “Imipramine, four times a day,” John answered. From his pocket he withdrew a container of tiny off-orange pills and held them up for Herman to see; they made a sound like a baby rattle. He’d been spitting them out in the ward toilet for two years now, what universal psych-ward idiom knew as “dogging the meds.” “But, really, the depression hasn’t been a problem for the last year or so.”

  “I understand that, but to ensure that it doesn’t become a problem in the future, you must continue taking them, and you must continue out-patient check-ups at least a couple of times per year. Now, your ward doctor has indicated that you’ll be going to Florida, to your original hometown.”

  “I feel strange calling it my hometown, since I haven’t actually been there in a long time—probably ten years. But it seems as good a place as any to settle. I may hang around the area for a few weeks to look up some old friends. Eventually, though, I think I will be heading south.”

  “Just remember that wherever you do settle, check into the nearest VA hospital and establish out-patient status; that way you’ll be able to continue with your medication free of charge. If you have any problems, any doubts whatsoever, don’t hesitate to come in.”

  “Right,” John said. But it was more whimsy. The last thing he’d ever do was come back.

  Herman initialed the checklist and the VA Routing Form 10-2875-2; smiling, he said, “I won’t keep you any longer; I’m sure you’re itching to leave. Just follow the directories to travel and baggage claim.”

  They both stood up and shook hands.

  “The best of luck to you, John,” Herman said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  John left. Moments later he was back amid the confusion of the corridors. This time he passed the automat quickly and with caution, holding his breath to avoid the stench of microwaved plastic. The travel unit waiting room was packed; everyone looked irritable and very tired. John hated waiting. He decided he’d pay his own bus fare rather than stand jammed like a canned mackerel.

  He took the elevator to the basement. Behind the caged counter in the baggage unit a lean black man with short hair and beard sat atop a stool. He was reading a book called Night-lust and seemed electrified.

  John flashed him his VA card.

  “Out-process?”

  “Right.”

  Next, John handed him the claim stub. The man disappeared for less than a minute, and returned shouldering an OD-green air-freight bag with a brass lock on its clasps. Apparently the bag had been fluoroscoped and sniffed, not opened. John was sure, though, that the additional string bag tied to the top had been opened and searched by MAC MP’s. But it didn’t matter; if they wanted it that bad, they could have it.

  The man took out a ledger and said, “I need some info before I can turn over your stuff.”

  “Sure,” John said. “Just don’t ask about my sex life.”

  The man chuckled. “What ward are you coming off?”

  “2D West.”

  “And that’s the—”

  “The psychiatric ward.”

  The man nodded, disinterested. He paid no mind to John’s disfigured face. “Pay grade at time of separation?”

  “E-7.”

  “MOS?”

  “I have ten.”

  “Give me the two highest.”

  “11 Echo 40, 45 Bravo, Lima, and Zebra.”

  “Hey, how do you like that,” the black man said, at once enthused. “I was 11 Echo, too. ‘Clank, clank, I’m a tank.’”

  “Hell on fucking wheels, man. We ride in style.”

  This time the black man laughed hard. “Give me your C number. I got to make sure it matches the stub.”

  “C29541313.”

  “Legal first name?”

  “John,” John said.

  “Not Jonathan?”

  “Not Jonathan. John.”

  “Middle name?”

  “Victor.”

  “Last name?”

  “Sanders.”

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  He punched the radio buttons one after another. On one station was a talk show hosted by a botanist. “Root stimulants, such as indolebutyic preparations, exist to increase root-to-soil area ratios, to reduce production time of roots, and to extend the overall mass of the root system itself.” The next station played music that sounded like a sawmill. The next station played reggae. And the next—hip hop. Kurt switched the radio off with a vengeance.

  He drove through Annapolis directionlessly. At least the rain had stopped, but the weatherman promised clear skies for the next two or three days, which meant that it would rain again in a few hours. Last night when he’d taken Vicky to the hospital, the doctor had been vague and had not disclosed the seriousness of her injuries. Kurt would return today before his shift, and he hoped he’d get some answers. He hoped she would be all right. And he hoped this time she would press charges.

  Meanwhile, he drove dizzily through strange streets. He lit cigarettes and let them burn down in the ashtray. Several times at traffic signals he found himself stopped at green lights. He’d driven first to the Anvil, and informed the manager that Vicky had had an accident and would be out for at least a week but probably more. The manager had muttered some dissatisfaction, to the effect of: “I got a business to run, you know? If she misses more than two days, I’ll fire her.” Kurt had smiled then, assuring that Vicky’s excuse for missing work was legitimate, and he’d raised the possibility that if Vicky lost her job, the Anvil might very well lose their liquor license through some entirely unrelated quirk of fate. After that, Kurt had gone to Glen’s, for what purpose he didn’t quite know. But Glen hadn’t been home.

  Lenny Stokes hadn’t been home, either.

  The midday sun made him squint. Downtown Annapolis had become a maze, and he was the rat seeking a way out. Buildings and old shops seemed to lean inward at incongruous angles. Streets were very narrow and paved in cobblestone, which made the car ride like a trolley on bad tracks. He turned left on Cornhill Street, passed Harbor Square and the Market House, and suddenly the entire city smelled of salt and fish. Jagged fragments of sunlight lay flat and cold on the Chesapeake as he glimpsed the City Dock in the rearview. As his concentration lapsed further, the city appeared more grim, more abandoned. A girl in a pink shirt stood on a corner selling flowers; she was deathly thin and gazed ahead glassily, as if drugged. Another girl stood mannequin-like in the window of a shop; she stared at him as he drove by, her features bled of color through the glass, but when he looked again, she was gone. Four midshipmen in summer whites loped surreally slow along the sidewalk, their faces bright by nefarious, sun-diced grins. It was all a freeze-frame from a Dali print, to mirror Kurt’s despair. He thought that if there were such things as ghosts, this city was full of them.

  He’d frittered enough time here. The drive was only upsetting him, fraying his nerves. He’d hoped a leisurely drive might take his mind off Vicky, but the city’s drear only made her easier to see. Last night’s final glimpse of her made him cringe now, as though lanced in the neck by a needle. She’d been placed immediately on a stretcher and covered to the chin with a shiny white sheet on which warped splotches of scarlet quickly formed and grew. He could picture her face, which somehow seemed very small despite the swelling. One eye remained shut by a seam of black matter; it looked daubed with tar. Her hair lay in strands, caked by blood, and a bruise on her forehead had swelled to the size of an oyster. He knew how foolish he might seem, and how presumptuous, to fend for her now. He was in no position to enact himself as anything more than a concerned friend—but still, he would not allow this to happen again. She had suffered enough. And that reminded him, the Ford now cruising on West Street, toward 154—before checking on her at the hospital, he had something to do first, something he’d wanted for years.

  Two cigarettes later, most of 154 was behind him; he’d arrived at his destination unconsciously. Lenny Stokes’s flat-gray Chevelle was now parked in the drive like a dumb, bulky pet.

  With dissolving awareness, he walked coolly up the steps to Stokes’s porch, a cigarette stuck between his lips. He gave the front door four solid raps, then lowered his arm.

  He waited, as if bored. He could hear his watch tick.

  Four more raps, and now his knuckles ached dully. Just as he prepared to knock again, the door opened.

  Lenny glared from the open doorway, clad only in jeans. His eyes were fierce and bloodshot; lint flecked his hair. There was a crescent of scabbed blood on his forehead. Somehow, Lenny looked at home with it.

  Kurt didn’t waste time. He said, “Hi, Lenny. How ya doin’?” and then slammed his fist squarely into the middle of Lenny’s face. Kurt reveled at the sound of the blow, like the snap of wet leather, and grinned as the transfer of impact sent Stokes reeling backward toward the center of the living room. At the end of the comic journey, he fell and landed on his back, where he lay splayed like a flabbergasted gingerbread man.

  Kurt flicked his cigarette over the porch rail; he went casually back to his car. It had been better than he’d hoped, a near-perfect punch in the mouth.

  He made a quick stop at the Jiffy for more cigarettes, and was again on his way. Maryland Route 3 appeared as a smooth, tedious stretch of highway, bisected by a treed, unusually wide median. Endless acres of farmland breezed by to the right and left, quartered fields aching to push forth corn, wheat, and tobacco.

  The highway wound away, trafficless, silent. Kurt blew past periodic roadside taverns, produce stands, and general stores, all with such speed that he barely noticed them. Farther on, the median widened, elevating to a series of green, brushed hills.

  Last night, he’d risked the extra few minutes on the road, and had taken Vicky to Parkview Hospital rather than South County General. The county hospital was a meat house, where cut-it-off-first-ask-questions-later was the medical order of the day. Parkview appeared sparkling and immaculate, just past the turnoff. Kurt parked illegally in a reserved staff space. Inside, he found the charge nurse and conned her into amending visitors’ hours. “Five minutes,” she told him, as if issuing a death threat. “She’s just coming off pain killers. And don’t give her any cigarettes, no matter how much she begs.”

  Kurt smiled, thanked the nurse, and stepped into Vicky’s room.

  She didn’t look nearly as bad as he’d feared, not when compared to last night. She was lost beneath blankets, her form diminished by a bed which threatened to devour her. Much of her forehead was padded by a thick, white bandage. At first he thought she might be asleep, which probably would’ve been all for the best, but next her head turned lazily in the pillow. She looked at him for a distended moment, then managed a small smile.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I guess this is a dumb question, but how are you feeling?”

  She laughed out loud. “My head feels three times its normal size, my wrist feels like it’s in a grape press, and my whole body hurts like hell, but other than that, I’ve never felt better.”

  “Sorry I asked. What’s the damage report?”

  “Minor concussion, minor blood loss, an interesting assortment of scrapes and bruises, and one fractured tubercle, whatever that is.” She raised a plaster-cast wrist.

  “It could be worse, I guess. At least it’s not as serious as I thought it would be.”

  She shook her head. “No, they don’t make Vickies like this one anymore.”

  Kurt turned, hands in pockets, and faced the wall. “I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to joke about it. But last night, when I found you in the driveway, I thought…”

  “That I was gonna die? Well you’re not the only one.”

  Kurt’s voice was deliberately soft, as if loud talk might make her rattle. “All you have to do is give me the word, and—”

  “Forget it, Kurt. I’m not going to press charges.”

  “Shit, Vicky! Goddamn!” he exploded. It was an invitation to tirade. “I don’t fucking believe you. I suppose you enjoy getting the crap kicked out of you every other day. That guy almost killed you last night, and you act like you couldn’t care less.”

  Her words came out enfeebled. “Kurt, don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he recited. “Don’t worry about it.” He quickly crossed the room and aimed his finger at her. “How much longer are you going to let this go on? You won’t be able to press charges if you’re in a coffin, and it’s a miracle you’re not being measured for one right now. Last night you were lucky, and all the other times, too. But you might not be so lucky next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” she said. “I’m not going back to him, and he knows it. This was my going-away present; if you ask me, it was worth it. I’m free of him now, Kurt. Forever. Last night was the last time. So there’s no point in pressing charges. I’m just going to forget about him once and for all. It’s better this way, and a hell of a lot easier.”

  Kurt went tinglingly rigid. He fell silent. Is she just saying that to shut me up? he thought. Or is it true? This was good news, so good he didn’t trust himself to believe it. When he finally got around to speaking again, all he could say was, “Are you kidding? You’re really not going back?”

  “I may be a glutton for punishment and a diehard, but enough is enough. If I didn’t leave him after this, then I’d deserve another beating.”

  Kurt smirked sourly. “That makes sense, so how come you didn’t leave him a year ago?”

  “Various reasons. Reasons I’d rather not go in to. Just take my word for it, you don’t have to worry about finding me in your driveway anymore. I wouldn’t go back to that house for a mil— Oh, no, that reminds me. I do have to go back at least once. To get my money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For the past year I’ve been putting away little bits of my Anvil pay. Now I’ve got about five hundred dollars stashed, and I’m going to use it to get away.”

  “Get away where?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ve lived in Tylersville for twenty-six years. I figure I can spend the next twenty-six as far away from the place as possible.”

  The words sank hooks into his brain. “You mean you’re going to leave town?”

  “You act like I’ve just said something crazy. I’ve had my fill of that dumb, backward, redneck turd of a city. Just as soon as I get the divorce papers rolling, I’m gone.”

  Now Kurt stalled. He wanted her to leave Stokes, but not Tylersville altogether. Of course, he had no way of telling her that, and could imagine how he’d sound if he tried. In that moment of quiet, he admitted the facts. Tylersville was nothing. Only a jackass would want to live in Tylersville, and that idea made him think very hard about himself. There was no reason for Vicky to stay; in fantasy, though, he wished he could be the reason.

  “So when’s the doctor letting you leave?”

  “Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.” She gave an achy shrug. “He says he’ll see.”

  “In the meantime I guess you can file your entry blank for the Miss Battered Wife Pageant.”

  “Don’t make me laugh, Kurt. It’s not easy when you’ve got a mouth full of cotton.”

  This time Kurt’s smile was forced. “Give me a call if you need anything.”

  “Sure, Kurt… And thanks for last night.”

  “Don’t mention it. Who knows? Maybe someday you’ll find me in your driveway. Then you can return the favor. See ya.”

  Kurt exited the hospital as if pressed for time. He drove home sullen and a little bit sick, yet he knew full well that it was childish to feel this way. He just couldn’t help it.

  Later, at work, he sensed something awry the instant he stepped into the station. Mark Higgins, whose shift had just ended, sat back behind the report desk as though fatigued or exasperated or both. There was something reviling about the way he looked at Kurt.

  “I’m not late, am I?”

  “No,” Higgins replied. “Ten minutes early as a matter of fact.”

  “What’s wrong, then?”

  “Chief wants to see you.”

  Kurt stopped what he was doing. He eyed Higgins suspiciously. “What about?”

  “I don’t know,” Higgins said in a way that indicated he did. “But he’s pissed, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Kurt said shit under his breath. Then he walked into Bard’s office. The chief glanced up in a single, abrupt movement. He appeared squat, munchkinlike behind the desk, and his face was pink, the way it always got when formidably angry. Before Kurt even had time to shut the door, Bard said, “What, no ten-gallon hat?”

  “Huh?”

  “Everybody’s got to be a cowboy, ain’t that right. That’s just what I need—another cowboy.”

  Kurt’s expression turned jagged. “You mind telling me what’s going on? I don’t know wha—”

  “Did you punch Lenny Stokes in the face today?”

  Shit, he thought. Shit. All he could muster to say was, “Who, me?”

  Bard slammed an open palm on the desk, so hard Kurt’s heels came an inch off the floor. “Damn it!” Bard yelled. “I fucking knew it! What’s the matter, didn’t God give you a brain like the rest of us? You’re supposed to be a police officer, and police officers don’t go around bashing citizens in the chops.”

  Kurt slumped standing up. “Relax, Chief. Stokes won’t file a complaint.”