The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,48
When you finish your enlistment, this will probably be forgotten.”
She wiped her fingers with a paper napkin. A campus security car pulled up next to us; behind the wheel was a guy wearing aviator shades and a cap with a lacquered bill. “You cain’t park here without a sticker, ma’am.”
“I’m moving in just a minute, Officer.”
“You have to move now, ma’am.”
She shot him the finger without looking at him, then started the engine and drove out to the street and parked under a live oak.
“Is that how you deal with everybody?” I asked.
“Shut up. Do you know what ‘in the life’ means?”
“No.”
“I don’t know why I’m doing this. I should let you drown. I feel like throwing an anchor chain around your neck myself.”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this, either.”
She looked straight ahead and blew out her breath. “Grady Harrelson’s father is a silent partner with some nasty people. Jaime Atlas will get his pound of flesh, or he will no longer be doing business with Clint Harrelson. It’s you or your friend. But there’re no guarantees on that. It could be both of you.”
“I can’t change that.”
She pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. I moved my head away from her hand.
“I go out of the way for you, and that’s how you feel?” she said. “You’re a strange kid. Maybe you’re a lost cause, not worth the effort. What’s your opinion?”
“I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
“Tell that to the people who voted for Hitler.”
She put on her shades and started the engine, then clicked on the radio. I thought she might play some music. She turned the dial to the stock market report and didn’t speak on the way back to the filling station. When I got out, I turned around and thanked her. She drove away without replying.
I WENT HOME AT three P.M. and bathed and changed clothes. I was about to go to Valerie’s house when my father pulled into the driveway and parked in the porte cochere. He got out of the car with a paper bag in his hand.
I met him outside. “You’re home a little early.”
“Where’s your mother?” he said.
“At the grocery.”
“If you have a minute, come in the backyard.”
He opened the gate and sat down on the back steps and waited for me to sit down with him; the bag rested on his knees.
“Yes, sir?”
“The most frightened I’ve ever been was the first time I had to go over the top in early 1918. I went over it four more times, but nothing could equal the fear I felt the first time. No one who was not there can understand what that moment is like. No one.”
He rarely spoke of the Great War, and when he alluded to it, he never mentioned his experiences as a soldier. Most people who thought they knew him well were not even aware he had been to Europe. When others began to speak of war—especially when they spoke in a grandiose fashion—he left the room. The paper bag was folded in an oblong, humped shape, as though it might contain a rump roast or a couple of odd-sized books.
“You think I’m quitting school and joining the army?” I said.
“No, I think you’re worried about evil men coming into your life. That’s what I want to talk to you about. When we went up the steps on the trench wall, it was likely that the man in front of you had soiled himself. You had to breathe his odor and stiff-arm him in the back so he didn’t fall on you, and you hated him for it. Once you were in the open, there was no going back. You had to run through their wire into hundreds of bullets while your chums fell on either side of you. I did it once and thought I could never do it again. I told this to the lieutenant. He was a Brit serving in the AEF and a fine fellow. He said, ‘Corporal Broussard, never think about it before it happens, and never think about it after it’s over.’ I remembered that the rest of the war. It gave me peace when others had none.”
I didn’t know why he was telling me any of this, and I said so.
“Can’t blame you,” he said. “These men who wish us harm may come to see us or they may not. If that happens, we’ll confront them as necessity demands.”