War For Eyes

He did six tours of Afghanistan.  What’s the record?  You could tell from the vein in his forehead that he was capable of setting the record.  They stopped letting him go.  Pulled out of formation and ushered into an office with certificates for walls.  They told him he’d done his part.  No more war.

Not unfit for duty.  Ten finger and eight toes, after six front line tours, isn’t a bad ratio.  His eyes were marbled molasses and he had hands that were always hovering around his hip.  Old cowboy blood, ready to draw, not intending to miss.  Those dark eyes were sharks in his head, swimming continuously about the room, never settling on one thing.

The military expected resistance. He gave it to them.  He wasn’t ready to hang up the boots, not cut in the shape of a civilian.  They knew he’d need some filing down before society would accept him. He knew there wasn’t a file in the world coarse enough.

When he walked out of that office his shark eyes didn’t glide.  They stuck straight forward.  People moved around his shoulders and scowled back at him.  He didn’t look back.  Kept marching, kept the same high and tight haircut, drives the same truck, and wears the same dull colored, desert-brown t-shirts.

He hasn’t spoken to me, but I’ve been around the game long enough to realize this stuff.  He’s not done.  He’ll need more than a transfusion to get that bug out of his blood.

He comes through my line at the grocery store.  I don’t know why, but he always chooses my line.  I give him a nod.  He doesn’t return it.  I don’t push.  He pays, takes his change, and gets on his way.

Mind you, this is six years after the fact.  His body hasn’t changed.  Keeping the same physical training regimen I’d guess.  His hands still hover around the hips.  I’m not sure if he’s licensed to carry in this state, but he’s not the type to abide by those laws.

When he’s looking over the register at me, I can see it in those shark eyes.  They’re swimming again. Evaluating and recognizing without any obvious notions.  People pick up on it. They might say a word or two at him, but when they meet those eyes, they pull back.  If he’s going this way, they’re going that way.  They go in a hurry, but they keep an eye on him.  I’m telling you, that boy isn’t done. 

Six year since they cut him loose and he’s only been arrested seven or eight times.  I say only because that’s less than I’d expect from a man who’s been in the thick of it for so long – not only a man who’s been in the thick of it, but a man who built a home in it.  A gravel living room, a rock for a pillow, and a hole for a shitter – that’s where he’s comfortable.

It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you get these predators.  You get these sharks and then they get released into a pond of guppies.  It’s only normal that they get themselves into trouble from time to time.

He’s got a couple offense pending, a few rough encounters with authority.  Police officers, security guards, probably men looking too intently into those dark eyes.  Asking too many questions about why they roam the way they do, and why his hands are always hovering around his belt.

My guess is the military has come to his rescue in more than one of these cases.  You don’t cream an officer and get away with it – not in this state.  But he has, and I’d bet my bottom dollar that he’ll keep on doing it until those murky eyes grow still.  I’m not talking about rehabilitation either.  They’re going to have to kill him.

Either that, or he’s going to kill one of them.  I don’t know who.  I can’t get much more out of those eyes.  He had a wife.  Beat her up something fierce.  She hit the road.  Had a motorcycle, road that into a tree.  Got up and walked off.  No family that I know of.  If they’re out there, they’re not coming out of the woodwork to claim him. 

He came through my line earlier today.   I could tell he was agitated.  That vein in his forehead was like a hose with a kink in it.  He didn’t say anything then, but I had Cody take my register.  If I was ever going to speak to the boy, that was the time.

I caught up with him at his truck.  He knew I was coming.  Those shark eyes caught my reflection as soon as I walked out of the building.  I didn’t want to spook him, but I didn’t want to chance letting him run off, being in the state he was.

Before I knew it, I was up against the side of a minivan. Piss dribbling down my workpants and him with a buck knife at my throat.  Those shark eyes were right over my nose, glassing back and forth.  He smelled like gunpowder.

I couldn’t get any words out with him on top of me like that.  He did the talking.  First time I heard that boy’s voice in six long years.  I won’t ever forget what he said.  And I sure as hell ain’t repeating it.  Just know – there’s still a whole lot of war left in that boy.