The War Cloud

3

USAF Colonel Joseph Kozlowski woke up and shifted under the huge down comforter that covered the king-size bed. He reached to feel for Sherry, but she was gone, without so much as leaving a warm spot.

Kozlowski turned onto his back and blinked his eyes open. He could hear the hair dryer in the bathroom. He held up his watch and squinted. Then he slipped out of bed and plodded toward the curtains and pulled them back. The bleak January light seeped in as he looked across H Street at the White House. The snow was still coming down, burying the Rose Garden and Ellipse. He could barely make out the towering spike of the Washington Monument beyond.

He smelled coffee and saw that Sherry had room service bring up breakfast for one. All that was left was some picked-over fruit and a pile of newspapers screaming about yet another crisis in the Far East. He fished out a melon cube with his fingers and poured himself some lukewarm coffee.

He was halfway through his cup when Sherry emerged from the bathroom with her blow-dried blonde hair draped over her terrycloth robe with the Hay-Adams Hotel logo on it, which she left open just enough to remind him why he never turned her down for these hotel hideaways.

Kozlowski said, “Leaving so soon?”

“Got to finish Vanderhall’s reaction to the State of the Union address,” she said, sliding open the closet door to reveal her Armani suit next to his uniform. The same uniform he had been wearing for eight years now, still a colonel.

“So where am I going, Sherry?”

“You’re going nowhere, Koz.”

Kozlowski watched her dress. “You finally figured that out?”

“The snow, silly.” Sherry helped herself to his Purple Heart medal from his uniform.

“What are you doing?”

“The colors go with my jacket,” she said as she pinned it beneath the lapel of her blazer.

“You ever been wounded while serving your country?” Kozlowski asked her. “That’s what it means.”

“I won’t lose it.” She put on her gold earrings and spoke to him from the closet mirror. “It’s not like it’s actually worth anything.”

No, thought Kozlowski, just a couple of lives. But it was no use arguing with Sherry. She was 27 and wouldn’t understand, he concluded as he watched her grab her Gucci soft leather briefcase and walk out the door, off to more important things like personal advancement.

Kozlowski walked over to the open closet and looked at his blue uniform where the missing medal belonged. Sherry was right. It was just clothing, bland at that, with some cheap ribbons and medals.

Cheap like his bosses. Cheap like the promises they made and the company they kept.

Everything he grew up to believe in — the armed forces, the presidency, even the United States — no longer seemed mythic, but quaint and kindergarten. There were no rules anymore. The current occupant of the White House was yet another empty suit, and he wondered if America was even capable of producing a leader worth following into battle anymore.

He unbuckled the holster sitting on the closet shelf and removed his sidearm, a.38 standard-issue automatic pistol. He felt its weight in his hand.

Almost ten years of his life had passed in two overseas wars, he realized. Just like that. What could I have been by now? A general like Brad Marshall? Certainly a father if Mary hadn’t left him. They could have had three or four kids by now. He could be sledding or having snowball fights this morning instead of sitting here, feeling old, used-up, worthless.

He pointed the gun to his head and put his finger on the trigger.