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“You need some food?” I ask him. I don’t like the idea of him going through the fucking garbage, and there aren’t any hotels in the near vicinity. He’s thin, and he still doesn’t have any decent clothes for the weather.
I get him to agree to wait for me, and I run back inside for a sandwich and coffee to bring to him. When I get back out, he’s made a bit of a nest out of all his plastic shopping bags, and he’s sitting in the middle of it.
“There’s shrapnel in my leg,” he says as I approach. His eyes are dim and confused. “They couldn’t get it all out. There was a nurse there though. She was a looker, too.”
He’s babbling, but I still get it all. I start to smile, but I can’t. It’s all too familiar.
“I bet you were all over her.” I hand him the sandwich, and he tears into it immediately. “What hospital?”
“Some place in Virginia,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t remember the name.”
“That’s where they took me. The nurses there were hot.”
“You were in ‘Nam?”
“No, sir,” I say, shaking my head. “Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“You Army?”
“Marine.”
“Fuck the Marines,” he says, but he’s smiling when he says it. “You fuckers never showed up until us infantry already made it through.”
I’m not about to argue with him. I knew enough Army guys back in the day to have heard it all before. All the branches poked fun at the others, but in the end, we were in it together.
“How long were you MIA?”
He blinks a couple of times, and his eyes glaze over a bit. I reach out and touch his arm, but he flinches away.
“I was gone eighteen months,” I say. “Spent most of the time in a hole, wishing they’d taken me out along with the rest of my unit.”
He focuses on me for a minute and then grabs my hand.
“Two years,” he says quietly. “They had me for two years. The only guy left in my unit got cancer from that Agent Orange shit. He’s been gone a while now. They had to leave the shrapnel in my leg. Too much tissue had gr
own around it, they said.”
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Sergeant Donald Hansen,” he says.
“Lieutenant Evan Arden.” I squeeze his fingers in some semblance of a handshake.
“Marine officer!” Donald says with a snort. “You took me to that hotel.”
“Yes, I did.”
“That was a nice place. They had really good food.”
“I’m glad you liked it. Where are you staying now?”
“The shelter on North Sangamon. I got a few days left.”
“I’m gonna give you my phone number,” I tell him. “If they kick you out, you call me, okay?”
“Okay.”
He produces a pen and paper from one of his plastic bags, and I scribble my number down for him. I have no idea if he’ll use it, but I want him to have the option.
