The Hardest Thing

bang, crash, roll credits? Fine, go ahead. But like I said, I have a taste for liberty. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on death row.
    So I thought—Chicago. Big city, and I had a couple of old service buddies out that way. People who would put me up for a couple of nights, not ask too many questions—even if I was with Jody. Tough guys, like me. Useful if there was trouble. Talk to the Chicago cops, put Jody under their protection.
    Establish base. Consolidate forces. Plan and execute.
    Textbook stuff.
    And then my mind wandered as I drove through the night, heading toward Albany where I’d pick up Route 90. We’d sleep somewhere—a rest area, a parking lot, didn’t matter—and set off as soon as I’d found coffee. Probably sounds like hell to some people, but it’s familiar territory to me. Roughing it is sleeping in the open, under fire. A truck with doors and seats? Luxury.

    What would be better than that? A bed, yeah, okay. A bed and a bathroom and a door with a lock. Peace and privacy. That’s what I used to long for when we were out in Afghanistan. Just somewhere we could be alone together—a little hidey-hole big enough for two. We managed it a few times. Twice, to be precise, and although the door would have come down with one good kick of an MP’s boot, and the walls were so thin that you could hear the TV in the next room, it was good enough for us.
    Will and me.
    The memory hit me in the guts like a punch, and the taillights of the car ahead got blurred. Shit? Was it raining? Must be. Can’t be tears.
    Will—so beautiful, as he lay naked on the tacky bedspread of that cheap hotel in Kabul. Yes, seriously, Kabul. That’s where we went on our furlough. We didn’t want to waste time traveling, and we didn’t want to hang out with the guys. We found a place where the U.S. dollar would buy us a bit of privacy—a small room on a noisy street with dirty walls and a nylon bedspread, and in that miserable setting Will Laurence shone like a fucking diamond. His skin was smooth and brown, his body firm and warm, and he looked up at me as I stood over him, one hand behind his head, the other playing with his balls, and he said, “Fuck me, Dan. Fuck me.”
    Tonight that warm, brown body lies in a cold cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee, mourned by family and friends. Not me. No, sir. Not invited to the funeral. They probably never knew I existed. Why should they? After all, what did it amount to? Furtive fucks on military bases, a couple of nights in a Kabul fleapit, a lot of
implausible bullshit spoken under the stars by perimeter fences.
    A sniper’s bullet put an end to that.
    Jesus Christ, my head hurt. I pinched my brow, just above the nose. Too many unshed tears. Time to stop the car, pull over, get some sleep. And hope I don’t dream. I can’t stand waking up when I’ve dreamed that he’s alive.
    I turned off into a little town, quiet streets, not even a cop car or a dog sniffing the lamp posts. There was a church up the way with an empty parking lot. That would do. Jody stirred when I turned off the engine. There were a couple of blankets on the backseat—considerate Kenny—and we improvised a bed. Of course Jody wriggled his butt against me and tried to get his hand in my pants, and although my dick was hard I was too tired and too sad to do anything about it.
    I wish I had. Because the next day I lost him.

    Everything was fine until we got to Buffalo. That’s a long, hard drive down Route 90, stopping only for fuel, and there were times when I didn’t think the truck would make it. I had to change the oil around Rochester, which took too long; Jody went for a walk while I talked engines with the slob who ran the garage. But we were back on the road in twenty minutes, heading west, and we were both excited. Jody sat in the passenger seat with his feet on the dash, drumming on his thighs, singing and talking nonsense—someone had too much sugar and caffeine in his diet. But it was good to see him cheerful after the rollercoaster moods of the last couple of days. Once this was all behind us, I’d get
him up into the woods and mountains, wean him off junk food and cosmetics, and make him into the man I wanted him to be.
    Pathetic, right? A middle-aged man trying to turn a young hustler into the husband he’s always dreamed of. But it was a nice idea, and it took my mind off my troubles. I was feeling pretty happy when we pulled into the motel parking lot. I figured we