Savages

41

They find Ben in baggage claim waiting for his green duffel bag, like he’s still some college kid coming home from a field trip to Costa Rica.

He looks thin like he always does when he comes home. His skin, in that particularly weird, Third World way, is simultaneously tan and pale—dark from the sun with a sub-layer of infection-induced white underneath. What is it this time? Anemia? Hep? Some parasite that’s crept under his toenail into his bloodstream?

Bilharzia.

Ben sees them and smiles.

Big white even teeth.

In a different generation Ben would have been in the Peace Corps. Shit, Ben would have been the director of the Peace Corps, played touch football with Jack and Bobby on the lawn at Hyannis Port, out sailing on the yacht. Tan and smiling. A life of vigor, moral and physical.

But that was a different generation.

O runs up to him, throws her arms around his shoulders, wraps her legs around his waist. It’s no prob, she weighs, like, nothing.

“Bennnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!”

The other passengers turn and look.

Ben holds her up with one arm, pivots, and extends his other hand to Chon.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

His bag comes down the conveyor belt. Chon picks it up, hefts it on his shoulder, and they walk out past the statue of

The Duke—

And, by the way—

Fuck him.