on the table. I pull it away from him. “You’re seriously going to sit here and not say anything?”
Jake’s eyes dart to mine as Wayne says, “Thomas, c’mon.”
I ignore him. “I’m tired of this bullshit, Jake. I’m tired of covering for you every single time people ask how you’re doing. Every time they get a glimpse of how fucked up you are. Do you realize how exhausting that is?”
Nothing. He picks a scab on his knuckle, expressionless. I slam my hands on the table, rattling the plates and the sugar caddy, the windows, it seems. Everybody in the restaurant looks at us, but I don’t care.
“And what were you doing over at Clem’s?” I ask, my voice growing louder. A couple of guys in the corner stand up and start walking toward us. “Can you answer that? Can you say anything?”
Jake looks up, his face clear and angry. Like he’s going to take another swing. Before he can swing or speak, a man wearing a VFW hat covered in brass and silver pins, easily old enough to be my grandfather, puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Y’all are getting kind of loud over here.”
I try to shrug him away, but his grip is iron. “My friend and I are trying to have a conversation, and all we can hear is you fellas carrying on.”
“You know what?” I turn and face the man, to tell him exactly what he can do with his complaints. But as soon as I move, he locks his hand harder on my shoulder. Immediately Jake is up and trying to get past Wayne. The man laughs.
“Boy, you better sit back down. You don’t even know the shit I’ve been through in my life.” He holds out his free hand. “Semper Fidelis” is tattooed in slick black ink across his forearm. “If you don’t know what that represents, I’ll be happy to give you a free lesson.”
Jake pauses, and for a second I think he’s going to jump over the table. If the man didn’t have me in such a vise, I’d already be between them. Jake rolls up his sleeve, all the way to the shoulder. And I can’t believe it. Or maybe I can, but the tattoo is still shocking. The words are done in thick block text: “Death Before Dishonor.”
The man laughs once. “A soldier? What, were the marines not recruiting the day you decided to join?”
“Nope,” Jake says with a casualness I haven’t heard from him in months. “I just wanted to be with the real men.”
The man smiles bigger this time. “Well, it could be worse. You could be air force.”
They both laugh. The man turns and yells to the waitress, “Doreen, Ray and I are going to pull our table over here. You good with that?”
The waitress nods, but her eyes flit over all of us nervously. Whether that’s because of us or them I don’t know. When VFW Hat’s friend stands up, he’s got a prosthetic leg underneath his jean shorts. He’s maybe ten years older than Jake. They’re both wearing the same blue work shirt with “Hickory Hosiery” stitched on the chest.
“This is Ray, second Iraq,” VFW Hat says. The man smiles but doesn’t say anything or reach a hand out. “I’m Phil, Vietnam.”
The waitress brings a pot of coffee and six cups to the table, but Phil shakes his head. “Leave the cups, but you can take that coffee away.” He pulls a mason jar from his coat and puts it on the table. As soon as Doreen sees it, she shakes her head.
“Do you want to get arrested?” she asks. “What if Brickwell shows up?”
Phil ignores her, telling us: “Lawman. Good dude. But probably wouldn’t be too happy seeing a jar of ’shine on the table.” He shakes the mason jar’s clear liquid and then looks at Doreen. “As soon as I see him pull up, it’s gone.”
When she doesn’t object, Phil slaps the table and unscrews the jar. The odor hits my nose like fire.
“Well, this should get interesting,” Wayne says as Phil starts pouring the homemade liquor into the coffee cups. Everybody takes one. Sinclair swallows his in one shot, his eyes watering as he puts the cup down. When I reach for mine, Jake stops me.
“You’ve got to ship in the morning,” he says. It gets a couple of groans from the table, Phil telling Jake to “let the boy drink, and that’s what’s wrong with the army, not a set among