THE WAY IT WENT DOWN: COLD BLOODED

“Hey Carl, how’s it going?”

“Pretty solid, Danny. No complaints,” I say, and we shoot the breeze. I hung my hat in this trailer park when Bush (not Junior) was failing to secure his second term, and I guess it’s worked out. Danny has been here since that Arkansas fucker left after his second term, so it’s safe to say we’re just about the oldest residents here.

Still, that doesn’t make us the same. For one, he looks much older than me. Second, he don't know war. Not real war.

Danny was a veteran of the Gulf War—the first one—and that was more like target practice. I’m a veteran too, but I try not to talk about it much because of all the questions. Danny knows, though, I think. Just mannerisms and slang. I’ve never said anything to him, but that stuff bleeds through. Danny just chalks it up to plain old reluctance to talk about war, I suppose.

But that isn’t it.

I cashed out of the Army in the summer of 1977 and spent three glorious years in Port St. Lucie working the docks. Every night an orange sky, with beer, cigarettes, and girls. Perfect. I guess it’s what drew me back here after… it.

Here’s the thing: my war was Korea, and then some Vietnam as a chaser. When I hauled myself out of that hole of a country, I was done, I said. No more Army. No more war. No more death. Now, I know you’re doing the math and looking at me funny, thinking I’m lying.

But I’m not.

On December 12, 1981, I got called up again. By then, my life had become a string of beer, fights, and going nowhere, and I missed the order of the Army. Only this wasn’t the Army. They were from the Air Force—or so they said. Later, I found out that wasn’t true either.

Anyway, two years humping it doing things I don’t want to talk about for the National Reconnaissance Office, and the less you know about that, the better. So, I did it. I served my country—or the thing running my country. I saw things, a lot of things that…

Well, forget it. This isn’t about that. In 1984, the word came down—I had the big C. Probably from all that stuff they bathed us in during Vietnam trying to burn off the jungle, they said. Sorry, they said. They cashed me out, and I was on my way to find a hole to crawl in and die when a guy I knew from the NRO gave me a number to a firm in Delaware: GENOMIC. Some fancy genetics outfit associated with the program. Anyway, he knew a guy, and then I knew a guy, and I guess no one at the NRO was too sour on it because they let it happen. And nothing happens there that they don’t want to happen.

Inside three weeks, I was getting shots and feeling pretty fine. They hooked me up with the doc, a phone number, and a case officer. Saved my life. Remission, they said. But it wasn’t remission. That stuff was gone. Anyway, did three more years then, fit as a fiddle. Didn’t know what they put in me, and honestly, I didn’t care.

Then I cashed out and came here, and I’ve been here since. Only one time have I ever regretted what they did, and that was in 2001 when the doc vanished, the case officer turned up dead, and the number they gave me rang and rang. I spent two years just laying low, hoping I didn’t have to go to the hospital—they put me in fear of hospitals and doctors, you see. The stuff they gave me, well, let’s just say it wasn’t ready for prime time.

Then one day, the program rang me up again like nothing had ever happened and set me up with a whole new set of contacts, and that was fine. That was when I was… 70? It’s gone on and on since then. I try to keep busy. First, I would hike and bow-hunt. Later, I’d just run like an idiot, up and down the highway in the dark with reflectors on my ass so I wouldn’t get run down.

Can you believe the things the world makes you do these days?

Truth is, I don’t feel much different from when I got those shots in 1984, and I’m starting to think nothing is ever going to change. Can you retire forever? How long until someone notices? So far, no one has, or if they have, they took it to their graves. I’ve watched a lot of people put into the ground. When I get anxious about it sometimes, I sit in my above-ground pool. I pull myself under, exhale all my air, and sink to the bottom.

There, in the blue, I click my timer watch and settle in. In the water, you can hear it beep every minute. After a while, I see the wavering face of my neighbor on the surface—Danny.

I pop up and click the watch, and Danny says, “Hey Carl, how’s it going?”

“Pretty solid, Danny. No complaints.”

I glance at my watch; it stopped at 28:15:55.

But that ain't even close to my record.