The Devil and Sergeant Danny Applewhite (2004)

The Angel on Sergeant Danny Applewhite’s shoulder sounded like his Memaw. Her voice was never mean, never angry, just perpetually disappointed in his bad choices. She asked things like “are you sure..?” and reminded him “you’ll have to live with the consequences…” and was always there after the fact to tsk-tsk his moral failings.

The Devil on his other shoulder had taken hundreds of different forms in the past twenty-four years. Lately it had the laid back, Southern California surfer dude accent of Danny’s old roommate at Fort Campbell. It was always whispering in his ear, egging him on, telling him “dude, it’s not illegal if you don’t get caught” and “bro if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’”.

When Danny was a young man the Devil’s voice had been far too persuasive, talking him into everything from shoplifting beer to driving around Nacogdoches in Chris Poche’s dad’s pickup knocking over mailboxes with his sister’s softball bat. Memaw and her youth pastor, teachers, cops, sergeants, and in one dramatic incident a battalion commander had all at one time or another tried to steer Danny onto the straight and narrow. Far too often The Devil’s voice proved more influential, but after three nights in juvenile jail, seven year in the Army, two article fifteens, Afghanistan and Walter Reed, Danny was learning to ignore it.

Samantha helped. Sam gave him something to do, something positive to keep him busy, but she’d been gone for two weeks, would be gone for two more, and Danny was bored. He’d tried. He really had. For fourteen days he’d spent his down time in the barracks, reading in his bunk or in the day room watching basic cable or trying to shoot pool with a warped cue and a missing nine ball. He’d even spent two Friday nights playing video games with the anime loving dorks who worked in the hospital pharmacy. Now it was payday, even the nerds from the pharmacy were gone to the bars in Alexandria or the Casinos in Lake Charles and Shreveport and Danny was tired of being alone staring at the beige cinderblock walls of his barracks room.

And the Devil had learned lessons too. He didn’t try to tempt Danny into any real chaos anymore. The voice didn’t try to talk him into driving to New Orleans or Fort Worth, or egg him into going to the shitty strip clubs in Leesville. “Neon Moon’s open.” it reminded him about ten minutes after he hung up from his nightly phone call with Sam. “They have a pretty good band and two beers won’t hurt.”

A cold beer and a good country music was Danny’s preferred Saturday night, but he worried about what Sam would think. They hadn’t really laid down any ground rules before the Army sent her to school. Whether they were officially even a couple was still up in the air, but it felt wrong going out to a night club without at least telling her. “It’s fuckin’ fine dude.” The devil told him. “It’s not like you’re TRYIN’ to get laid. Just don’t dress up.” So he didn’t bother changing out of the old jeans and faded country concert t-shirt he was wearing, he just pulled on his battered old cowboy boots and an equally broken in Texas A&M ballcap and grabbed a flannel shirt to ward off the chill of the late February Louisiana evening.

“Two beers.” The devil promised him, twenty minutes later as he pulled his old Ford Ranger into the gravel parking lot of The Neon Moon Lounge. “In an out before ten.”

There were plenty of bars, nightclubs, and strip joints scattered along the stretch of Louisiana Highway one seventy one that ran through Leesville, all of them designed to extract the maximum amount of money from the Fort Polk “community”. Most were ramshackle dives, dimly lit, low roofed, wooden structures cobbled together years before and barely maintained. One “lounge” had even started it’s life as a single wide trailer.

The Neon Moon was better than most. It was a long, low, windowless, cinder block building with a well lit gravel parking lot crowded with pickups. The interior was as clean and well maintained as the parking lot. There was a neon lit bar against one wall, pool tables and a smaller beer bar in the back corner. A bandstand and plywood dance floor dominated the center of the room. In between were rows of high top tables. Friday and Saturday nights they had the kind of house band that played Southern Rock, Country, and Swamp Pop staples well enough they could’ve maybe gone to Nashville if the front man had been younger and more stylish.

A local with a Santa Claus beard and an out of style western shirt checked Danny’s ID and took his cover at the door and Danny headed to the bar for the first of his two beers. There was a crowd, but the club was far from crowded and it only took a second for Danny to get the bartenders attention.

She smiled with recognition, “Just you tonight?” she asked, as she pulled a cold Shiner Bach out of the well and popped the top with practiced ease.

“Just me.” Danny answered as he placed a twenty on the bar.

His “normal” table was taken by a pair of young couples, clearly on a double date, but with Sam gone Danny didn’t need the space, so he found a stool at the end of the bar and sat facing the dance floor while he sipped his beer and scanned the crowd for familiar faces. Aside from a waitress and the bartender there were none, but it didn’t bother Danny much. He’d spent a lot of time alone at the corner of a bar and he rather liked it. There was something natural about sitting in the neon shadows, like his long body was built to slouch on a bar stool. The smell of beer and cigarettes, the hum of the crowd, the loud country music, the cold beer in his hand were all as comfortable to Danny as the faded, broken in boots and jeans he was wearing.

The band was good too. They played a solid mix of country and swamp pop classics designed to keep the dance floor full and by the time he ordered his second beer Danny was wishing he had someone to dance with. Sam was a mid-westerner, born to clap on the one and three. She had two left feet and refused to be lead and was the single worst dancer Danny had ever experienced, nearly hopeless, and yet he still found himself wishing she were there. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and feel her soft curves while she lay her head on his shoulder and they stumbled through a bad two step.

He didn’t notice the brunette at first. She walked out of the crowd and leaned against the bar beside him and Danny assumed that she just wanted to buy a drink. He slid over slightly to give her some room but she filled the empty space between them until her thigh rubbed against his and he could smell her cigarettes and shampoo. When he looked up at her she smiled brightly.

“Hey.” She said, offering her hand. “I’m Crystal.”

She was in her mid twenties, tall and slim, with shoulder length brunette hair. She wore jeans and a plain blouse that felt almost too old for her, like she borrowed them from an older sister’s closet, more appropriate for a PTA meeting than a barroom. It was her eyes that caught Danny. They were big and dark and sad…

“You could easily get lost…” The Devil either warned or goaded, Danny wasn’t quite sure.

He smiled and her hand was warm and soft in his when he shook it. “Danny.”

“You wanna dance Danny?” she asked.

Danny told the truth then. “I got a girlfriend.”

Crystal had apparently been watching him. “She ain’t here though is she?”

It had been two years since a girl walked across a bar room to talk to Danny. Since before Afghanistan, before Walter Reed, and he was surprised, flattered, and a little confused. He’d hoped the admission that he had a girlfriend was enough to deter her but then Crystal had barreled right past his objection. Unsure of what to say, Danny told the truth. “She’s in school.”

“It’s just a dance.” She told him, sounding very much like The Devil. “She won’t mind.”

Won’t she? Danny wondered.

“You never talked about it did you?” The devil reminded him.

Crystal took his hand without asking and smiled again. “Come on.” She demanded as she drug him off of his barstool and pulled him toward the dance floor.

Twenty-four years old, infantry sergeant, combat veteran, recipient of the Purple Heart and yet, deep down, when it came to women, Danny Applewhite was still a coward. He out weighed Crystal by almost a hundred pounds but he still let her drag him to the dance floor.

“It’s just a dance.” The devil told him.

It’s just a dance. He reminded himself.

It would have been easier if she hadn’t been a good dancer. If she refused to follow, lost the rhythm, and stepped on his feet like Sam did, but Crystal was as graceful as any partner Danny had ever had. He’d started with what his Memaw would have described as “room for the Holy Ghost” between them but she seemed to slide just a little bit closer with every verse. It was too easy. Too comfortable. She locked her big, brown, eyes on his and smiled softly and told him about herself as he steered her through the crowd on the plywood dance floor. She told him about her divorce and how she was out on the town for the first time with her friends. She told him it had been a long, long time since she’d been out. She told him she didn’t normally do this and when the song was over and he’d twirled her and smiling, tipped his hat, she asked him to go around again.

Danny would’ve made excuses. He would’ve walked away, but the band played a George Strait song, and the second time around the floor Crystal left no room between them. She held him so tightly he could almost feel her heart beating. She leaned her head on his shoulder and Danny knew he should do something, but he couldn’t, and he didn’t, and when the second song was over Crystal asked if he’d like to join her at her table.

“I can’t.” Danny told her honestly. The disappointment on her face, in her big, dark, sad eyes almost made him falter. He almost gave in. Instead he smiled and told her, “I hope you have a nice evening.”

“I’m gonna come get you to dance again.” She warned with a smile and she squeezed his hand before they parted company.

Danny knew he should pay his tab and leave. He’d had his two beers. He’d gotten to dance. It was time to go, but there was a fresh, cold, long neck waiting on the bar when he got back to his stool and he was thirsty from dancing. “Three beer’s is the same as two.” The Devil told him. The Shiner Bach was cold. The music was good. The neon lit shadows, crowd noises and clinking of beer bottles were familiar and comfortable, like white noise lulling Danny to sleep. Before he knew it, three beers became four and then Danny had a new problem.

“You can’t drive after four beers.” The angel warned him, whispering in his ear for the first time since he’d left the barracks two hours earlier.

“She’s got a point.” The Devil concurred.

So Danny ordered a Dr. Pepper and a glass of water and drank them both at the bar while the band worked their way through a long set of Lynyrd Skynyrd covers. He was surprised when the next slow song played and he spotted Crystal walking across the room toward him. He’d hoped in the long stretch between dances some other young soldier would catch her eye but he still couldn’t find the words to say “no” and after four beers he wasn’t sure he cared too. Crystal was drunk, but she was pretty and a good dancer and Danny was getting bored sitting at the bar.

“Besides, dancing will burn off the booze.” He wasn’t sure if it was The Angel, The Devil, or Crystal that suggested it, but after four beers the thought had some logic.

On their next trip around the dance floor Crystal asked Danny about himself and he told her the sanitized version of Afghanistan and explained why he was now working at an Army hospital in the middle of nowhere.

“So you’re from around here?” she asked.

“Nacogdoches.” He answered.

“I’m sorry.” She said with the kind of laugh that he should have recognized marked her as an outsider, someone not from Southwest Arkansas, Western Louisiana, or East Texas and thus, most likely, military.

Once again when they finished their dance Danny spun her around and tipped his hat and was just about to tell her goodnight when Crystal hugged him. “Sure you won’t join us?” she asked quietly as she ran her finger across the back of his neck. Danny could almost hear the sparks as she touched him. It was all he could do not to shiver. He wanted to pull away. He wanted to pull her closer.

“I gotta hit the pisser.” Danny replied in desperation.

Crystal jokingly pouted as she let him go.

There was a line for the restroom and it allowed Danny to buy some time and try to think. It’s time to go. He decided. Before things get out of hand.

He splashed water on his face in the sink and checked his eyes in the mirror and asked himself if he was sober enough to get past the Vernon Parish Sheriff’s and the MPs manning the front gate. One more glass of water, close out your tab, and get gone, he promised himself as he dried his hands and straightened his shirt, but Crystal was waiting when he got back to the bar.

“Would you believe my friends fuckin’ left me!” she announced, sounding far more cheerful than disappointed. She smiled and put her arm around Danny’s waist. “You can give me a ride home huh?”

Danny knew then that he’d messed up. He understood in an instant that he should’ve stayed in the barracks and re-read a W.E.B. Griffith paperback and jerked off in the latrine. He should have left after two beers. He should have never accepted Crystal’s offer to dance. He damn sure shouldn’t have done it twice. Standing by the bar, with a strange girls arm around his waist Danny knew almost instinctively that there was no good ending to the evening. He was in trouble.

“You can’t just abandon her though…” someone, Danny wasn’t sure if it was The Angel or The Devil, whispered in his ear.

I can get her a cab.

“Ain’t no cabs in Leesville at midnight.” The Devil replied. “Come on. Be a decent guy. Give her a lift home.”

“Buy you a drink?” Crystal interrupted.

“Can’t.” Danny lied. “I got duty in the morning. It’s actually time for me to go.”

“But you’ll give me a ride?”

He couldn’t just leave her.

A cold front had passed in the time that they were indoors. A light rain had fallen and the parking lot lights reflected off puddles in the gravel lot. The night sky was clearing. The stars were coming out and the weather was turning cold when they stumbled out into the parking lot. Danny could see his breath. Crystal shivered as she lit a cigarette.

“You should offer her your flannel.” The Devil suggested. Danny ignored him, but there was the faintest hint of The Angel making disappointed tsk-tsk sounds about his lack of chivalry.

“I’m parked over there.” He told Crystal, gesturing across the lot to where his truck sat in the shadows.

“You want to grab breakfast?” She asked. "It's the least I can do if you’re going to drive me home.”

“I gotta be up at zero six.” Danny lied again.

“No you don’t.” The Devil reminded him. “And you’re fuckin’ hungry.”

Crystal hesitated for a moment when she saw his battered and rusty hand me down Ford Ranger. “I thought you were a sergeant?”

“I am.” Danny said as he opened the passenger door for her. “I’m saving for a new truck.”

Sam had been gone for two weeks so there were fourteen days of Dr. Pepper cans and McDonald’s wrappers littering the passenger floor board. An empty can clattered onto the gravel of the parking lot when he opened the door for Crystal. Danny scooped it up and tossed it in the truck’s open bed as she carefully climbed into his passenger seat.

“I wasn’t expecting a passenger.” Danny explained as he slid behind the wheel.

Crystal looked down at where her feet resting on a pile of trash and for the briefest moment Danny thought he saw a hint of disgust. “Obviously.”

“Where can I take you?”

Her smile returned. “Sure I can’t buy you breakfast?”

Six months earlier Danny would have no problem spending the rest of the night with Crystal. Tall, slim, dark eyed and drunk had long been his type. It was tempting to take up her offer. There was a Waffle House in town and then, after breakfast….

But he had Sam now, with her soft curves, shoulder length blond hair, ice blue eyes, freckles and shy smile. Sam who preferred art galleries to barrooms and books to beer. Sam who liked to snuggle on the couch and watch bad television. Sam who would drive home with him on the weekends to visit his Memaw and help in the garden. Sam who was sleeping in an Army barracks completely oblivious to what he was doing.

“I really do have duty.” He lied again as he put his key in the ignition.

“You don’t have to lie to her.” The voice seemed muddled again, like The Angel and The Devil said the same thing simultaneously but both meant something vastly different.

Again Crystal pouted. She obviously thought it was amusing. She thought it made her look cute, like a school girl. It had clearly worked on someone, sometime in the past, but Danny couldn’t help but feel manipulated and it irritated him. The annoyance must have shown on his face because Crystal’s pout became a genuine frown “Take a right.” She said, sounding exasperated. “Head back to post.”

It was only after he’d signaled his turn and pulled the truck onto the highway that Danny realized the implications of what she had said.

“If she’s still living on post she’s still married.” The Angel pointed out, wholly unnecessarily.

“You didn’t even fuckin’ look at her left hand while you were holding it!?” The Devil asked with bemused laughter

Out of the corner of his eye Danny glanced at Crystals left hand and he swore he saw the faintest hint of a diamond flashing in the glare of on coming headlights. Once again The Angel once again made that disappointed “tsk-tsk” sound and Danny could almost see his Memaw, arms crossed, slowly shaking her head.

Jesus fucking Christ you’ve really fucked up now, he thought without any outside input.

“What?” The Devil asked. “You’re just giving a drunk girl a ride.”

Sam wouldn’t understand. Goddamn, she’s only been gone two weeks.

“Probably some commo POG sniffing after her right now.” The Devil accused without evidence.

Doesn’t fuckin’ change the fact that there’s a drunk, married woman sitting in my truck.

Danny’s eyes must have lingered too long on Crystal’s left hand. She began twisting the diamond nervously, spinning it around her ring finger. “We are separated.” She told him softly.

She said she was divorced! Danny protest silently.

“Like that makes it any better?” The Angel asked.

Crystal leaned against the passenger door and smiled at him sadly. “I’ve been home with the kids for months.” She said. “All I do is clean and cook and change diapers. Meanwhile he’s off fucking the new privates in his company.”

“That sucks.” Danny muttered, unsure of what else to say.

Crystal must have sensed something in the way he answered, read something in his tone of voice, because her smile changed. It lost the melancholy that had momentarily weakened Danny to her plight and broadened into something close to a grin. “He hasn’t touched me in forever.” She said as she straightened up and slid across the bench seat until she was pressed tightly against Danny’s side. “And my kid’s are with their grandparents…”

She put her hand on Danny’s thigh and it was all he could do not to jump. Panic shot through him, but it was mixed with something else, something just as electric and primal. His brain flashed back to all the women in his life, all six, and he could never recall one coming on half as hard as Crystal was. Danny was nervous. Hell, Danny was scared, but at the same time, for just a moment, he was flattered… Crystal was tall and pretty and she’d looked across a crowded bar at easily hundreds of men and through some unknown process had chosen him. She asked him to dance. She left with him. She very clearly wanted to fuck him.

“You want to fuck her too.” The Devil said, and Danny could feel the truth of it in his groin.

Sam wasn’t ready. Maybe it was because they were technically in the same unit. Maybe it was because he technically outranked her. Maybe it was because he was leaving soon for home and she could deploy at any time and there was so much uncertainty about their future but Sam wasn’t ready. She was probably right to wait. Hell, she WAS right. But Danny hadn’t touched a woman since before September 11. He hadn’t been laid since before Afghanistan, before Walter Reed. For three years he’d jerked off in Air Force cargo aircraft, sleeping bags, porta shitters, crowded tents and lonely guard towers, hospital beds, his childhood bedroom and barracks latrine showers. His balls hurt and he was tired of it.

He blushed when he realized Crystal hadn’t moved her hand. He blushed deeper when he felt himself reacting to her touch.

“I got a girlfriend.” He croaked for what felt like the hundredth time.

“She ain’t here though.” Crystal pointed out once again.

“She has a point.” The Devil agreed.

Crystal’s hand slid a millimeter higher on his thigh. “She’d never know if you don’t tell her.”

The Angel was silent.

It was the gate that saved him. The bright flood lights of the Military Police checkpoint loomed out of the cold darkness like something alien, like something from the opening scenes of a horror movie and it forced Danny to slow down. Crystal sighed with disappointment as she took her hand off his thigh and dug her dependents ID card out of the pockets of her too tight jeans. “I hope no one from my husband’s platoon is working tonight.” She said as they pulled up to the gate and the MPs stepped out of their heated guard shack.

Her husband is a fucking MP!

Crystal must have read the panicked realization on his face because out of the corner of his eye he saw her shrug and smile as he slowed to a stop at the checkpoint and rolled down the truck’s window.

If the baby faced PFC manning the gate recognized Crystal from a unit function he didn’t say anything. He shined his flashlight into the cab then gave their ID cards a cursory glance before handing them back, never once asking why the sponsor name and rank on Crystal’s dependents ID didn’t match the name and rank on Danny’s military ID. “Have a nice evening sergeant.” He said as he waved them through the gate.

Crystal grinned as she unbuckled her seatbelt and once again slid across the bench seats until she was close enough Danny could feel the warmth of her thigh pressed against his. “Guess they didn’t recognize me…sergeant…”

Her hand found it’s way back to his upper thigh and once again Danny felt sparks.

Jesus fuck her husband is an MP!

The thought struck him again like water from a cold shower. Adultery was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, technically a crime in the Army, but for lower enlisted, especially Infantry sergeants like Danny, it was generally ignored unless it became a problem. An Infantry Sergeant fucking an MP sergeant’s wife was a good way for it to quickly become a problem, officially or unofficially.

Danny knew he was in trouble. He’d lost control of the evening and now he was confused, maybe a little drunk, and not at all sure what to do. On one hand there was Sam, fourteen days and miles away. Goddamn he missed her. He should be sitting on his Army issued bunk trying to convince her it was okay to stay in his room instead of being stuck in the cab of his shitty little truck with an MP sergeant’s drunk wife. On the other hand Crystal was warm, slim, pretty and there with her hand already on his thigh and Jesus Fucking Christ he wanted so badly for her to move her hand just a little bit higher.

At the same time he feared it.

He realized The Angel and The Devil had both abandoned him. The only voice in his head was his own and it sounded weak and confused. “Where am I going?” he asked finally.

Crystal smiled and squeezed his leg. “Home with me if you want.” She answered.

Clear as day, Danny could see his future then, stumbling up the stairs in her cramped and cluttered government housing, kicking children’s toys out of the way as he kicked off his cowboy boots and she tore at his shirt. They’d sweep the dirty laundry off the bed before collapsing onto it. It’d been so long for Danny that it felt like his virginity had grown back so the first time would be quick, awkward, and amazing because sex was almost always amazing. Maybe they’d smoke a cigarette in bed after. Maybe they’d smoke on the back porch. Maybe there was beer in the fridge. There would certainly be a round two. Maybe in the shower.

But there wouldn’t be a round three. They’d have to wake up early, before the neighbors got up. Before her kids came home. He’d sneak out in the predawn twilight, exhausted, hung over and ashamed of himself. Then he’d drive back to the barracks alone. If he could get upstairs without someone from Sam’s section seeing him staggering in, he’d pass out on top of his comforter and sleep until he missed afternoon chow. Sam would call after eighteen hundred. She’d ask what he’d done the night before and he would either tell the truth and hurt her, or he’d lie and devastate her.

“I can drop you off.” He said aloud without thinking. “But I can’t stay.”

He couldn’t hurt Sam.

But Crystal didn’t take “no” for an answer. “I’ll make it worth your while.” She cooed in his ear.

He moved her hand away then, before she could discover the affect she’d had on him, before she figured out what it did to him when she whispered in his ear. “I can’t.” He said more firmly, meaning it then. “Sorry, but I got a girlfriend.”

“It’s just once.” Crystal pouted. “She doesn’t have to ever know.”

“Sorry.” Danny said again, unsure of what else he could say and feeling suddenly ashamed of himself, as if he’d intentionally led Crystal on, as if he hadn’t told her the truth from the beginning.

Crystal must have realized he was serious because she slid to the far side of the trucks cab. “Turn left at the next light.” She snapped as she dug cigarettes out of her pocket and angrily lit one.

For the rest of their short drive Crystal gave terse, one sentence directions and Danny followed them without speaking. They wound their way through the dark, empty streets of the housing area, Danny driving precisely at the twenty mile per hour speed limit to avoid any possible encounter with one of her husband’s MP squad mates. Crystal sat on the passenger seat smoking furiously, staring out the passenger window at the passing pine trees until finally they pulled into a cul de sac.

“There.” She said, nodding toward one of a dozen identical government condos. “Behind the Toyota.”

Danny parked his battered Ford Ranger behind a brand new Toyota Tacoma with MP cross pistols on it’s license plate frame and an “Army wife” sticker in the back window. On the right rear window was a stick figure family, a father, wife, and two little girls all smiling.

“Look…” Danny began to apologize as he put his truck in neutral.

Crystal shook her head. “Fuck you.” She said as she crammed her cigarettes back into her pocket, opened the car door and stumbled into the driveway along with a trio of empty Dr. Pepper cans. “You had your shot.”

She grinned at him then, not the sleepy drunken smile or even the lecherous leering grin she’d had before but something different, something predatory and mean. “I’d have blown your fucking mind too.” She told him before slamming the door shut and stomping off toward the front door.

Unsure of what else to do Danny sat in the driveway and watched as Crystal fumbled with her keys and staggered through the front door. Once the door closed behind her and he knew Crystal was safely home, he put the truck in gear and backed out of the driveway. He’d never been in the housing area before and wasn’t sure how best to get to his barracks from there, so he backtracked the way they’d come. Crystal’s cigarette smoke lingered in the cab, a reminder of her and one last temptation for him. There was a Shopette on the corner that was still open and he could easily pick up a pack of Marlboro lights, but he’d promised Sam and his Memaw both that he’d try to cut back. So he rolled down the windows to let the cigarette smoke out and the cold night air in and drove the rest of the way to his barracks in silence.

The medical company barracks were dark and silent when he arrived, the partiers were still out and the rest of the medics were either working a night shift in the hospital or sleeping in preparation for a morning shift. No one saw Danny walk through the back stairwell and up to his room. There was one cold beer left in his fridge and he cracked it open as he kicked his cowboy boots across the room.

I’ll have to clean this place tomorrow, he thought as he stripped off his shirt and jeans and staggered, beer in hand toward the shower he shared with the two Pfc medics that lived next door.

He sighed when the hot water hit him and stood for a moment letting it flow over his neck and aching shoulders, washing the cigarette smoke and tension away. He sipped his beer and savored the simple pleasure of a cold beer in a hot shower, but the beer bottle emptied quickly, and his groin ached and he couldn’t help but think of Crystal and what might have been as he took care of himself with practiced ease.

“You could’ve fucked her.” The Devil told him, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours. “No one would have ever known.”

As Danny toweled himself off he glanced at a photograph stuck to the door of his wall locker. It was a four by six snapshot, taken with a cheap disposable camera that had somehow made it to Afghanistan and back without being fully used. Sam was sitting on the tailgate of his truck in faded old jeans and a flannel shirt she’d borrowed from him. Her blond hair was pulled out of the back of a camouflage ball cap she’d stolen from behind the seat of his truck. There was a beer in her hand. She was smiling, and even the cheap film and a scratched lens couldn’t hide the laughter in her blue eyes.

I would’ve fuckin’ known. Danny told himself as he tossed his towel in the bottom of his wall locker.

Despite some of the deeply personal things I've written and published on this blog I find it incredibly hard to share this work of fiction. I don't know why and I don't know if I'll ever get used to the nervous feeling of letting strangers read my stories. Somehow it feels more personal than the essays. But it has to happen, so here we are. Thank you for reading.

When I write I have a soundtrack in my head. I know the song Danny listened to on the drive off post. I know the songs they dance too. I know the song that was playing softly in the background as they pulled up to the MP checkpoint. But there was one song that helped spark the idea for this story so I figure I should share.