No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,12
Dandy Andy, who the prettiest guy in our unit. Couldn’t keep his hands off the girls, or their hands off him. He’d gone off with the most beautiful local girl any of us had seen, and he’d come back in the morning white-faced and shaking. Never said a word, just died by noon, and when the doctors stripped his body to put him in dress greens, he looked like a hundred vampire leeches had gotten to him.
After that everybody listened to Danny, and listened good. He never knew how to stop ‘em, just to stay the hell away, so that’s what we did. And now, fifty years later, we all sat there starin’ into our beers, still tryin’ ta stay the hell away.
‘cept I’d spent the past fifteen months hangin’ out with a girl who wouldn’ta done that, even if it’d been the smart thing to do. Especially if it’d been the smart thing. It didn’t matter that they wouldn’t believe me. What mattered was trying to make them believe there were people out there who could fight the monsters.
And maybe, just a little, it mattered to me that they learned I was one of ‘em. “I do wanna talk about it,” I said abruptly. “Because didja know every one of us who came back from the war, every single one of us has died of a heart attack?”
They didn’t. I could see it in their eyes. Andy rubbed his chest again, makin’ me pull a deep breath too, just to make sure I could. “Every one of us, even when we were young. Died of a heart attack in our sleep. That’s thirteen heart attacks.”
“Lots of people die of heart attacks. You just said you almost did too.”
“Yeah, but—” All of a sudden I felt sorry for Jo. You couldn’t just say, “Yeah, but I was witched into it,” even if it was true. The poor girl had spent the last year trying to offer up sensible explanations where none existed, and now that I was trying to, it was harder than it looked. “But I had Joanne,” I finished.
They laughed at me again. I couldn’t blame ‘em. “Arright, arright, yeah, I got myself a sweet young thing and she healed my heart. Gotta use that big fat military retirement check for somethin’, right?”
Ack-Man snorted. “You can use it to buy me another drink. Mick would’ve had us all under the table by now. Let’s show him he’s not forgotten.”
There was nothin’ to say to that but buy another round, an’ hope mentionin’ all the heart attacks might get one of ‘em curious enough to ask me about it later, when we were all too drunk to see straight. In the meantime we took turns talkin’, telling tales about the past year, remembering old friends, and thankin’ God we were happy drunks instead of miserable ones. Danny kept us that way by stayin’ sober and dragging us out of self-pity when we went that way.
But him bein’ sober meant he noticed I wasn’t talking much about the past year after all, but about Annie and older times instead. He called me on it, too, after last call and we’d been poured out onto the street by a bunch of kids impressed with how well the old guys held their liquor. We staggered through San Diego toward our hotel, arguin’ over who snored worst and should have to bunk together, and Dan stepped up alongside me to say, “So what’s with the girl?”
“You don’ wanna know. You don’ wanna talk ‘bout it. You don’ wanna…woo. Too much booze. Shoulda shtayed shitting. Sitting. At the bar. Booze woozing. Shick. Ah, hell, Danny, I gotta get shome water. D’ya shee a water fantain? Foun. Tin.”
Dan did a good job of not sounding like he was laughing too hard. “In the mall, come on.”
“Mall’sh closhed at thish hour.”
“It’s open-air, Muldoon, come on. You get some water in you, you’ll be fine. Never heard of you having a hangover.”
“Yesh. Rep. You. Tay. Shun. To main…tain.”
Dan, grinning, got me pointed toward the mall and found me a water fountain. I leaned on it and drank til my head stopped spinnin’. My gut felt worse with the sloshing, but I could walk again. Danny got me pointed back toward the other two, and we were snickering at me like a couplea school girls when The Ack’s voice roared down the street: “Muldoon! Danny! Jesus, somebody call 911!”