Full Measure

Chapter eight

Three days later, after ten hours of field labor, Patrick took the night off from delivery work. He showered and shaved and tried on clothes he’d left at home before deployment, which were too large for him after thirteen months of combat and meager rations. Zero hot meals a day. One cold shower a week. Some of his older high school clothes fit.

He met Iris Cash at Salerno’s. The dining room and bar had few customers on this weeknight, even with several Fallbrook restaurants having recently folded. Iris took a bar stool facing Patrick across a small round table. She launched straight into the arson evidence and the reward and who would do such a thing to this peaceful little town? Then she was off on Cruzela Storm and Georgie’s brave friends and lighted crosswalks, and how she’d already gotten the school district to lock in a date for Warrior Stadium, and a pledge of deeply discounted food and drinks from Major Market; and she’d been promised page one, an above-the-fold placement for an article and pictures in The Village View next Thursday, which would trigger the North County News and the San Diego Union-Tribune and the networks to follow and kiss my exhaust! Iris wore a frayed and faded denim jacket over a lacy blouse, and jeans tucked into boots. She had a quirky smile and smelled floral. Patrick earnestly faced this blizzard of words and expressions and sensations, easily the most pleasant minutes of his life for well over a year.

The waitress brought their drinks and Patrick told Iris about the irrigation and painting and how it took a long outdoor shower just to get the soot off him before showering inside. He tried to match her emotional energy, but since coming home, he was having trouble staying interested in himself. It was hard to stay focused on things that couldn’t kill you. Even when they were good and important things. He found himself arranging the salt and pepper shakers and the bottle of hot sauce in the same relative positions as Myers and Zane and himself at 2200 hours on December 10 on the night patrol up to Outpost Three, wondering for the thousandth time, at least, how it was that Myers — touching down in Patrick’s footprints while Patrick followed those of three other men ahead of him, and all of them behind Bostic with the Minehound and Zane with his splendid nose and instincts — had tripped the IED. How was that even possible? How had Zane failed to detect it? Bostic?

“So, are you going to stay in Fallbrook and work the ranch?” asked Iris.

“For now. I’m delivering pizza, too.”

This seemed not to faze Iris. “Do you like growing things?”

“Not really. I don’t seem to have farming blood. I want to guide anglers on the bay in a boat. But now, I’m trying to do what’s right.”

“I heard you lost almost all the trees.”

“Just a few left for sure, out of eighty acres.”

“You don’t have to talk.”

“I want to talk.”

“If you say so.”

Patrick returned from some far place. “Want to get a table and have dinner?”

“I’d like that. Can I ask you something?”

Patrick nodded and drank. He felt the strength of the liquor. After a year of almost no drinking, even a small amount hit him hard.

“Can you tell me three words that will help me understand you?”

Patrick thought for a moment. “I miss it.”

Her expression went from concern to astonishment, which she quickly dropped. “That’s... three words, all right. You do want to talk. Let’s get that table. The osso buco here is terrific. Oh, can I just say one thing to you?”

“Please don’t say thank you.”

“Welcome home.”

After dinner Patrick drove them out to Oceanside and they walked the pier to the end and watched the fishermen bring in mackerel and bonito from the flood-lighted sea. The landed fish spasmed wildly against their plastic buckets. Patrick nodded at some of the Marines in and out of uniform, and some of them acknowledged him. In town he took Iris to the Galleon, a bar popular with his fellow Pendleton Marines. They got two stools at the bar and Patrick bought a round for them and for the four Marines who were already there. The jukebox played a country song, then some metal, then “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” the opening notes of which brought shouts of “I can’t get no!” and raised glasses all up and down the bar. Patrick knocked back the bourbon and signaled for another round. Iris gamely drained her lemon drop, sat up straight, and took a deep breath. “Don’t let me get too stupid tonight. I have work in the morning.”

“I’ve got your back.”

She smiled at him and Patrick saw the doubt in it. The bourbons seemed strong to him. He ordered beer backs with the next round and Iris declined. The alcohol kicked in and Patrick felt calm and alert. He knew he was drinking for all the good things he missed, and he wondered what it said about him that what should have been the worst thirteen months of his life were in fact months of excitement, purpose, and selfless loyalty. Good things. Two rounds of drinks later the young Marine next to him asked where’d he’d been and Patrick told him Helmand, the Three-Five, and the boy nodded respectfully. Patrick’s Third Battalion, Fifth Regiment had suffered more casualties than any Marine battalion in the war. They were known through history as the Dark Horse Battalion, and their motto was “Get Some.”

“I wondered if that low fade made you a Dark Horse,” said the young Marine.

“Yes,” said Patrick, the low fade referring to his haircut — long for a Marine, and permitted only to grunts who had seen action. The low fade was not to be worn by new Marines, who were relegated to shaves or the traditional high and tight worn by most officers.

“You guys kicked serious ass,” said the Marine. “Too bad we’ll give it back to the terrorists and dope growers.”

“It’s their home,” said Patrick. “And it’s hell anyway. Let them have it.”

“How many did you lose?”

“Twenty-five very good men. Two hundred wounded.”

“How many’d you kill?”

“Four hundred seventy confirmed but a lot more in reality.”

Someone on the other side of Iris said something but Patrick couldn’t make it out. Whoever said it, said it again. Patrick leaned forward and looked past Iris at the red-faced boy who was drinking Patrick’s generosity. A high and tight cherry if Patrick had ever seen one. “I’d go and kill another four hundred if they’d let me,” he said.

“You’re a POG, so you don’t have to worry.”

“How do you know I’m a POG?”

“What’s a POG?” Iris interjected.

“Personnel Other Than Grunt,” said Patrick. “And I can tell by looking at you.”

“I’m a Marine air mechanic and proud of it. Jason Falk.”

“Lance Corporal Patrick Norris. You guys wouldn’t land for our wounded in Sangin if there was fire. The Brits did it all the time, but not you.”

“Watch your words. The pilots I know would fly down the barrel of a gun. All I said was I’d go over and—”

“Don’t waste your time,” said Patrick.

Jason considered this, then chugged the last half of his beer. “Twenty-five is a lot of Americans.”

“It’s a lot of Americans to waste.”

“I don’t agree it was a waste. Freedom is worth dying for.”

“But Afghanistan isn’t. That’s what I’m trying to get through your thick fuckin’ skull.”

“Lance Corporal Norris, there’s a lady present,” said Jason Falk. “That’s in case you didn’t notice. I told you once to watch your words. I’m Marine air and I don’t back down.”

“Tell your pilots to grow some.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Boots like you,” said Patrick. He drank and stared straight ahead.

“Time to clear out,” said Iris, sliding off the stool.

Patrick turned to where she had been, and the blow landed blind. After that, pure reaction. As Jason chambered another punch Patrick crashed a fist hard into his face, then an even harder elbow. The sound whap-cracked through the music and Jason’s face exploded with blood. Patrick heard Iris scream at him to stop, but he hit Jason twice more on the way down. Then he felt the weight of someone on top of him, went to one knee, and threw the first Marine over his shoulder. Iris pulled him up and Patrick took her arm and guided her to the door, but hustled back and put the half-risen man back down with a short hook to his middle. Outside they ran down Sundowner to Pacific Coast Highway for the truck. The cuffs of Patrick’s too-large pants flopped down past his ankles and almost tripped him. At the truck he opened the doors with the key fob and they clambered up and in. Patrick made the U-turn too fast and the tires chirped and the headlights of a police cruiser parked across the street came on.

“Do not consider trying to outrace that cop,” said Iris.

Patrick checked the rearview and saw he had about a fifty yard head start and that the cruiser was coming fast, lights flashing and the siren loud. He looked at the Galleon and there was no one yet in pursuit. “I’m good. We’re good. We’re okay.”

“Can you pass the test?”

“Pretty sure.”

Patrick pulled into the Harbor House parking lot and the cop car whirled and screamed in behind him. He drove to the rear and parked. In the sideview he saw the cruiser flashing. He waited while the cop ran his plates and he hoped someone back home had paid up the registration in his absence. “Just be nice and be yourself,” said Iris.

“Can’t be both.”

Patrick watched the prowl car door open and a chunky uniform cop climb out. The cop had his hand on the handle of his sidearm in a casual way and in his other hand was a long flashlight. He stopped short of and slightly behind the driver’s window and raised the beam of the flashlight into Patrick’s face. Pat sat up with both hands on the wheel and looked straight ahead. His breathing was normal and his pulse felt right.

“What’s the hurry?” said the cop.

“Just heading home.”

“Ma’am. How are you tonight?”

Patrick saw her squint. “Just fine, Officer. And you?”

“License and registration.” Patrick dug out his wallet and handed over his military ID and driver’s license. Iris had opened the glove box and Patrick leaned across and caught her scent and the curve of her legs illuminated faintly by the compartment light. He rummaged through the bin and found the registration folder. “Step out.”

Patrick opened the door and got out just as another police car pulled into the parking lot, lights flashing but silent. Then another. He looked across the tops of them toward the Galleon but still he saw no people or commotion there. The two new units penned him in. An officer from each car got out and stood between Patrick’s truck and the first cruiser while the lead responder walked back for a warrants check. Patrick looked through the open window at Iris, then leaned against his door and waited.

“Be cool,” said Iris.

“How many cops does it take to arrest a jarhead?”

“I mean it, Patrick.”

“They shouldn’t leave those lights flashing.”

“Did your dad ever tell you bedtime stories?”

“Mom did. Dad read me the Weekly Newsline of the California Avocado Commission.”

The first cop came back and handed Patrick his documents. “Been drinking, Patrick?”

“I had two beers.”

“Smells like more than that.”

“Precisely two, sir.”

“Are you returning or deploying?”

“Just home.”

“I’m going to do a nystagmus test.” The cop pulled a penlight, stepped close to Patrick and played the beam back and forth, eye to eye. “Hmmm. Can you walk a straight line for me?” The cop stepped back ten paces. “Extend your arms and look up. Straight line now, walk directly to me.”

Patrick heard muffled laughter from the other cops, who stood just beyond the lights and flashers of the first car. A group of people watched from the sidewalk. His plan was to focus on the North Star but the marine layer offered him nothing but a pale fuzzy firmament. Marine layer, he thought, that’s funny. He wished he could Marine lay Iris. He stared up into the fog as he walked but sensed he was just a little off course and when he lowered his gaze he saw that he was off almost thirty degrees. He stopped and sighed deeply and heard the truck door slam. Iris advanced through the flashing lights and the headlights with a hand out, proffering what looked like a business card. “Officer, I’m Iris Cash with the Village View newspaper in Fallbrook? Can I talk to you for just about two seconds? Please?” Patrick saw the other officers converging in her direction and he felt his adrenaline spike and he was more than ready to fight again.

He heard the first cop say, “Yes, you may.” The other officers moved closer to Patrick and he watched Iris and the cop talking but could not hear their words. They stood by his car just out of the flood of the headlights. The cop had that feet-spread, arms-across-the chest stance that looked nonnegotiable. Patrick saw the red, white, and blue bands of light flashing across their bodies. He looked toward the Galleon and saw that the door was open now and there were men looking up and down the street. He tried to count how many drinks he’d had and could not. Iris came through the flashing lights, walking fast with her hand out, palm up. Patrick saw the men outside the Galleon looking his way. “Keys,” she said. “Now.”

Patrick held out the truck keys and saluted the officer partially visible in the whirling colored lights.