Blackburn

VICTIM NUMBER FIVE

Blackburn walked into the U.S. Army recruiting office at the strip mall on East Kellogg and brought a blast of cold air with him. Papers on the Recruiter's desk went flying. The Recruiter, a burr-headed man in an olive uniform, left his chair and started picking them up.

"Sorry," Blackburn said.

The Recruiter grinned. "That's okay, son. Have a seat and I'll be right with you."

Blackburn sat in one of the two plastic chairs in front of the desk. His coat billowed and settled like a parachute. He picked up a model cannon from a stack of brochures and pointed it at the Recruiter.

"Boom," Blackburn said.

The Recruiter settled into the swivel chair on the other side of the desk. He stacked the papers on the desktop and placed a model of a Sherman tank on top of them. He nodded at the cannon in Blackburn's hand. "That's an authentic reproduction of a Civil War field piece."

"Union or Rebel?" Blackburn asked.

The Recruiter looked puzzled. "Either, I reckon."

Blackburn pointed it at him again. "Boom."

The Recruiter chuckled. "Are you interested in an Army career, son?"

Blackburn replaced the cannon on the brochures. "A friend of mine joined."

"I see. And that's inspired you, right?"

"Yes," Blackburn said. "That's a good way to put it. I'm feeling inspired."

The Recruiter frowned for an instant, and then his expression was all grin again. He held out his big, red right hand. "Master Sergeant Don Riggle here, son."

Blackburn stared at the Recruiter's hand. "You're the one," he said. He reached out and placed his hand in the Recruiter's. The sergeant's grip was like granite. Blackburn winced, and then was angry with himself. He pulled his hand back.

"And what's your name, son?" the Recruiter asked. His grin was still there, but suspicion crinkled the corners of his eyes. His eyes matched his uniform.

"Ernest Tompkins," Blackburn said.

The Recruiter pulled a piece of paper from under the tank and began writing on it with a steel pen. "And how old are you, Ernest?"

"I'm nineteen."

"High school graduate?"

"Yes." It was only a partial lie. Blackburn hadn't even had a senior year, but Ernie had.

"Which high school, son?"

"Wantoda Unified. East of here, in Tuttle County."

The Recruiter wrote it down. Then he looked up at Blackburn, his whole face smiling. The suspicion lines were gone. "And what sort of career training do you think you'd be interested in, Ernest?"

Blackburn considered. What would Ernie have said?

"I'm not sure," Blackburn said. "What have you got?"

The Recruiter's body made a gaseous noise. "You name it, son, and today's Army has it." His right forefinger, the size of a carrot, tapped the brochures under the cannon. "Communications technician. Air traffic controller. Smoke operations specialist. Automotive mechanic. Helicopter pilot. Chaplain's assistant. Sanitation specialist. Electrician. There's no end to the possibilities." He spread out the brochures. One of them was entitled Field Artillery: The Career with a Future.

"Lasers too?" Blackburn asked. Ernie had expressed an interest in lasers.

"Absolutely," the Recruiter said. "Laser technology out the wazoo." He laughed. His body made another gaseous noise.

Blackburn stared at the Recruiter. "Do you like the way I have my hair cut short, Sergeant?" he asked. His sandy hair was trimmed above his ears and collar. Ernie's hair had always been trimmed like that. Blackburn had never seen Ernie look shaggy.

The Recruiter frowned, then gave a chuckle. "Well, it's better than most young men these days, Ernest. Of course, it'll be cut shorter than that when you get to boot camp. More like mine." He ran a hand over his stubble.

Blackburn reached up and grasped the strands of hair hanging down on his forehead. He twisted them and looked past his hand at the Recruiter. "When I was thirteen I tried to grow it down to my waist," he said. "That was 1971. The sixties had just come to Kansas. That was the year the Student Union up in Lawrence burned."

The Recruiter's face turned stony. "I remember. I was at Fort Riley. Sure wanted to go over there and straighten things out. Looked for a while like we might get to."

Blackburn kept twisting his hair. "That was also the year Lieutenant Calley went to prison."

The Recruiter's eyes narrowed. "Are you here to sign up, son?"

Blackburn nodded. "Sure. Don't you remember?"

"Excuse me?"

Blackburn yanked out the twisted hairs and began to braid them. "This is what I wanted to do that year," he said. "I wanted to braid my hair and hide the braids in my coat. A long coat, like this one. This is Army surplus." He looked up from his braid. "The Army makes good coats."

The Recruiter scratched his jaw. "Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome." Blackburn looked back at his braid. "See, I figured that if anybody gave me any shit, I'd whip out those braids and snap the son of a bitch in the face. Pop his eyes out."

The Recruiter opened a desk drawer and pulled out more brochures. "Now, just take a look at these opportunities," he said.

"Infantry," Blackburn said.

"Excuse me?"

"I want to be in the infantry," Blackburn said. "That's where the shooting is, right? I know how to shoot."

"Well, now, son," the Recruiter said, spreading the new brochures on the desk as if they were a deck of cards, "there isn't much shooting these days. We're at peace."

"I know. We lost the war two years ago."

The Recruiter's nostrils flared. "We didn't lose anything," he said. His voice was low and hard.

"The communists took over South Vietnam," Blackburn said.

"The United States Army has never lost a war," the Recruiter said.

Blackburn considered. "I can respect that," he said. "If it's true, I can respect that a lot."

The Recruiter's eyes were steady. "It's true. No matter what you read in the papers or see on TV, you remember that. The U.S. Army doesn't lose. Ever."

"Would you stake your life on that?" Blackburn asked.

The Recruiter nodded. "I already have, son."

"Then sign me up."

The Recruiter and Blackburn filled out the rest of the form. Blackburn lied where necessary. Then he signed at the bottom of the page. The name he signed was "Ernest T. Tompkins III."

The Recruiter looked at the signature. "Carrying on the family name, I see."

"You don't remember?"

The Recruiter raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"My name. 'Ernest T. Tompkins III.' You don't remember it?"

The Recruiter's stomach made a grinding noise. "No, son, I'm afraid I don't."

Blackburn reached into his coat, into the pocket he had cut into the lining. "Then you lied. The Army has lost."

"I'm not following you, Ernest."

"The Army has lost its memory. It doesn't remember Ernest T. Tompkins III."

The Recruiter pointed at Blackburn. "But you're right here."

Blackburn shook his head. "You shouldn't have forgotten that name. Not after what happened. He sent my mother a letter a year and a half ago after you went to Wantoda Unified and signed him up. He hoped I would call her sometime, and last month I finally did. She told me he'd joined the Army."

"Who?"

"Ernest T. Tompkins III. Who wanted to serve his country after its ignominious defeat. Who was interested in lasers. Who had asthma, and told you so. And you said come on ahead."

The Recruiter stood. "Now look here, son-"

Blackburn pulled the Colt Python from his coat. "So you sent him to boot camp last year, in the summer. In Texas. He died. He died running. He couldn't breathe."

The Recruiter backed away from the desk. He held up his granite hands. "Now look, son," he said, his voice soothing. "Every recruit is given a physical. If that had shown anything serious, he wouldn't have been let in."

"The physical must have missed it," Blackburn said. "But you didn't. Ernie told you. His letter said so. And you don't remember."

The Recruiter licked his lips. His stomach rumbled. "Sure I do, son. I told him that the doctors would check it out and make the decision. It wasn't mine to make. You can't kill me for that."

"What color was his hair?" Blackburn asked.

"Excuse me?"

Blackburn stood and pointed the pistol at the Recruiter's abdomen. "You say I can't kill you for not keeping him out of the Army because of his asthma. So I won't. I'll kill you for lying. You say the Army never loses anything. That must include memory. So what color was his hair? It was wavy on top. Very distinctive. What color was it?"

The Recruiter was sweating. He farted. "Look, son, I talk to hundreds of young men a year. I can't possibly remember everything about every one of them."

Blackburn cocked the pistol. "But this wasn't just anyone, Sergeant," he said. "You signed him eighteen months ago. His name was Ernest T. Tompkins the Third. He told you that he had asthma. He died at boot camp. It was reported on all three TV stations and in the Wichita Eagle. When I called my mother, she told me that she has the clipping, and that it includes a quote from you. 'It is always a tragedy when a young man dies,' you said."

"Oh," the Recruiter said. His gut moaned.

"What color was his hair?"

"Dark brown. Almost black."

Blackburn lowered the pistol. He looked at the floor. He wished he still knew how to cry. "Ernie had asthma. He died at boot camp."

The Recruiter stepped forward. "I'm sorry, son," he said. "These things happen. All we can do is grieve, and go on." He held out a hand. "Give me the gun."

Blackburn looked up. "Red," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"His hair was red." Blackburn raised the Python and shot the Recruiter in the belly. The Recruiter stumbled backward, then lurched forward, yelling. Red ooze bubbled from the olive cloth. Blackburn shot him again. There was a hissing noise and a smell of shit. The Recruiter dropped to his knees and rested his cheek on the desktop. His fist smashed the tank. His eyes glared at Blackburn. They didn't blink.

Blackburn put the gun away. "Ernie had asthma," he said. "Ernie died at boot camp. Ernie's hair was bright red." He reached down and pushed the model cannon across the desk. "Ernie was my friend."

He stopped the cannon a quarter of an inch from the Recruiter's nose.

"Boom," he said. Then he turned and went out to the sharp wind of the Kansas autumn.