Page 21 of Angel Down

XXIX

and when Bagger awakens, Veck’s sitting right there, facing him, elbows on knees amid the rhinestone motes of snow, sawblading his jaws through cooked pigeon, black crisp hissing down with every bite, and it’s a mark of how ravenous Bagger is that his first thought isn’t Shit, is that Veck? but rather Give me some of that bird,

and that’s despite the bird still having feathers, which means either Veck never learned to properly pluck or he just found the pigeon torched like that, probably tastes like crude oil, not that it stops Bagger’s salivation as Veck sucks the bones clean, then chews the bones, then licks his fingers,

and Bagger feels he could watch all day, it’s better than any photo-play anyone could devise, and only when Veck tosses the last denuded bone does he notice Bagger peeking from the tented overcoat, and Veck doesn’t look startled, doesn’t look anything, doesn’t even look like he enjoyed the pigeon or was especially aware that he’d been eating it,

and Bagger says, “Hi, Veck,” and his visible breath applies an opaque dream over Veck’s already opaque face, and the flamethrower operator just sits there, still as Buddha, tongue mining molars for bird bits, and it’s only because the lights of Veck’s eyes are so dulled that Bagger recognizes what kindly eyes they are, he’s unexpectedly grateful they were the last eyes Arno saw,

and to be certain, Bagger asks, “The kid?,” and Veck’s granite stare is the only reply necessary, and Bagger’s cored all over again,

and he manages, “You bury him?,” and Veck licks lips glossed with pigeon fat, as if debating whether Bagger is capable of understanding, before shaking his head, to which Bagger hastens to nod, he wants Veck to know he doesn’t blame him, no Yank out here has buried more men than Bagger, and he knows it’s pointless theater, one day when the Argonne grows back, it’ll grow back through doughboy skeletons as capably as from them,

and Bagger realizes Veck has quit shuddering, absolutely quit, he’s as steady as, well, the only steady thing out here, which is the dead, either something’s cured Veck’s shell shock or the opposite, something has pushed him to a place where madness has burned into vacancy,

and Bagger’s about to ask Veck how he tracked him down, when Veck removes a small note from his coat that, when he unfolds it, shows every sign of hellish deliverance, water-rumpled, mud-pimpled, half-sullied with a brown stain Bagger identifies as blood, and Veck holds it out like he didn’t hold out a morsel of pigeon,

and Bagger takes it and squints at it, blood has made the typing illegible, only the pre-printed header is clear, U.S. ARMY FIELD MESSAGE, some communiqué between officers, and there’s enough sharp Vs for Bagger to understand the note is about Veck, must have something to do with Veck’s original reassignment to the Butcher Birds,

and because Arno was the runner who did Veck’s ferrying, Veck must have found the note folded into the kid’s clothing, and Bagger feels a stab, because sure, he would have preferred The Son of Tarzan as a memento, but here’s an item Arno felt was important enough to hold next to his heart,

and hearts, though, they bleed, and Bagger realizes the blood on the paper is Arno’s, he’s touching the kid’s blood, and he freezes, he doesn’t know what to do, drop the note like it’s on fire, or thrust it back at Veck, or apply it like a bandage over his own heart, so he looks at Veck, perhaps for guidance, and Veck only tightens his eyebrows to tell Bagger to look harder,

and Bagger does, and there it is, hidden in the blood’s deepest brown, words that, had they been typed, would have been lost, but they are penciled in the fanciful cursive that could have only come from Lyon Reis, a nine-word oath the major general wanted Arno to deliver to whatever charming château housed Army HQ, and once Bagger reads it, there’s no doubting why Arno never delivered it, the kid, after all, always had a soft spot for old Veck,

and the note reads, I SHALL NOT FORGET YOU SENT ME A NIGGER,

and so what, it’s a word Bagger’s heard all his life, fashionable among gamblers, surely Veck hears it so often it no longer penetrates his helmet, but when Bagger glances at the man, who is not, in fact, wearing a helmet, he gets the impression this particular shot traveled all the way into Veck’s brain, destroying whatever parts still pumped pride and circulated self-respect,

and Veck opens his coat, and Bagger perks up, maybe The Son of Tarzan is next, but Veck only takes the coat off, bizarre behavior in the frigid woods, and worse, takes no care to fold it atop something dry, he drops it right in the mud, so idiotic that Bagger snaps, “Watch it, dummy,” even as he abruptly has an awful realization,

and it has to do with the reverence with which Veck spoke of Reis while the rest of the squad lambasted the prick, He chose me as they hurried along the front, He chose me as they hunkered by the howitzer, but this memo reveals it’s all bullshit, Reis didn’t choose Veck, he didn’t give a fuck about Veck, turns out Reis considers Veck to be the biggest middle finger HQ could have possibly given him,

and come to think of it, that’s probably why Reis kept plunging Ben Veck into harm’s way, not because he thought Veck had the makings of a hero, but because he wanted Veck to die so HQ would send him a second Negro, then a third, a long, murderous game between rival officers with the men of the 368th as disposable pawns,

and Veck removes his blouse and skins off a filthed undershirt, becoming less olive by the second, his brown torso gleaming oak, sprigs of chest hair bedraggled by sweat, and Bagger says, “Hey,” all the brilliance his mind can muster, and Veck stands, plants a foot on the Fahrpanzer cannon, and removes his right trench boot, rotted laces rupturing like scabs,

and Bagger, brilliant again, shouts, “Hey!,” and with both boots off, Veck starts on his puttees, the leggings unraveling like intestine soiled by their own feces, his stripping down is getting serious, and Bagger tries to think what might make this nincompoop stop, and remembers Veck had a daughter, what was her name, ah yes, “Naomi, Veck! What about Naomi? Keep your shit together and get home to Naomi, you hear me?,”

and when the puttees are tossed into a witchy hedge, most of Veck’s stench goes with it, which leaves only the subtle but insidious smell of burnt sugar, but Bagger can’t focus on it because Veck’s unbuckling his belt and dropping his trousers, and like that, Bagger’s out of options, he needs to tackle this lunatic before he does something stupider, so Bagger lets the woman slump to the ground and surges at Veck,

and a few inches is all he gets, he’s jerked like a leashed dog, what the fucking fuck, and when he throws aside his overcoat, he finds his left wrist handcuffed to the Fahrpanzer, what in the fucking world,

and Veck reaches into the only garment he’s still got on, pee-stained army-issue drawers, and draws from it a little silver handcuff key, which he holds so that Bagger gets a good look at it before placing it on top of a rock six long feet away,

and Bagger explodes, “Veck! What are you doing? Veck, you can’t leave me here!” and Veck goes back to ignoring him, removing his drawers, cock and balls in winter shrivel, and Bagger pleads, “Jerry will find me! They’ll torture me, Veck! They’ll tear me to pieces!,”

and Veck kneels, not to help Bagger but to strap the P3 onto his naked shoulders, the flamethrower has been waiting in the frosted weeds, Veck tightens the waist support hard enough for it to bite into his pubic shrub, and Bagger twists around as much as the handcuff lets him, screwing his neck so hard vertebrae crunches, and though he can’t see much, it looks like the Germans are gone, the only men left are dead ones,

and that’s not good enough, there’s foxes in these woods, there’s wild boar, there’s bears, there’s the cold, Bagger rattles the handcuff, the hollow Fahrpanzer chuckling, and since there’s no Squareheads about, Bagger flat-out screams, “You listen to me, you bare-ass ignoramus! You leave me here and I’ll find Naomi, all right? And you know what I’ll tell her? I’ll tell her her daddy was a fucking coward! That he died trying to defect to the fucking Heinie! What do you think of that, Veck?,”

and this halts the crackpot, and Bagger pants with the bestial satisfaction of a threat well dealt, but it lasts only as long as it takes Veck to lift the P3 lance, the igniter pointed at Bagger’s easily engulfable face, and though Bagger’s instinct is to wilt, the only option he’s got left is intimidation, so he gives Veck a lupine snarl,

and Veck’s red eyes only look tired, they roll upward to watch a biplane trundle across the slate sky, and to Bagger’s dread, there’s no fear in Veck’s voice, no anxiety, only a soft, desolate, homesick sorrow,

and he says, “Sorry, Bagger. For what I gotta do. It’s nothing personal. But it’s like I said. If the angel’s granting wishes, there’s only one wish I got left. You read the letter. There’s no place here for a man like me. Back home neither. They think shell shock is hysteria. Like I’m a hysterical female. You know how they treat hysteria? Electric shock. They’ll cook my brain, Bagger. Burn the hysteria right out of me. And it’s not just me. Look around. There’s no place left for any man, not anymore. It’s all gotta end, Bagger. It’s all gotta end right now, and she can make that happen,”

and it’s apocalyptic but also an opportunity, so Bagger says, “You’re dreaming, Veck! We were wrong! She’s not some magic fucking fairy! She’s just a woman! No, she’s worse! Can’t walk, can’t speak! She’s more fucked in the head than you! She can’t do anything to save us! To save anybody!,”