This pot tastes kind of strange. Like a hospital, or a whorehouse. A stale rosy taste far back on the tongue and nose. I wash it down with a swig of beer. Walk out the door.

“Where are you going?” Heather asks as the door swings closed. I walk down the long hallway–the worn red carpeting is black under the few working lights–and down the stairs to the front door.

Fuck her, I think. I don’t have to tell her shit.

A light rain falls and globs of water drop lazily from the naked trees. The sky is already dark and heavy and the air is brisk. A lone car drives down the narrow street, a dimly-lit sign on its roof advertises a pizza restaurant.

I light a cigarette and watch the car, unsure of where to go. I turn left and walk towards Micky’s. The wind picks up, blowing cold water into my face. I tighten my jacket, lower my head, walk into it. My cigarette goes out and I spit it out onto the sidewalk.

I see the neon beer bottles, airplanes, and shamrocks. Micky’s is in a white garage between a lawn mower repair shop and a bridal gown store. A wooden sign hangs above the door and the American and Irish flags flank the picture window. I walk into the steamy bar and stand in the doorway wiping the water off my glasses. I sit down, order a Bud Light, and look at a TV with some athletic event or another going on.

John brings me the beer as I pull out another cigarette, light it, and fill my lungs with the dry smoke.

***

I met Heather when I was in the army living in Georgia. She was sitting on the edge of a beat up couch nodding politely as Kelly regaled her with his fictions of meeting the president and shooting at snipers in the Korea DMZ from the door of a helicopter. Her face was bright with curiosity and she took tiny sips from the red cup in her hands.

“Who’s that?” I asked Foster.

Foster looked up from the keg he was pumping, “What?”

“Who’s that?” I asked again, jerking my head subtly to where she sat.

“Oh, that’s Heather,” he said. “I knew her in high school. She wanted to talk with some real soldiers.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think she’s writing a paper or something,” Foster said and handed me a plastic cup. “Drink up, man.”

Foster was our squad’s machine gunner and I was his assistant-gunner. Our platoon had just gotten back to the barracks after living in the woods for six weeks fighting mosquitoes and boredom. We welcomed ourselves back with a few kegs to drink the weekend away.

After many hours, I was sunk into the couch clutching a bottle of beer, hoping the room would stop spinning, when Heather came in from the balcony smiling and holding her cup out to Foster, the perpetual host, who was still manning the keg. He filled her cup and they talked while I quietly admired her. She laughed with her whole body, head thrown back, mouth open, eyes pinched closed, fluffy brown ponytail bouncing against her orange shirt.

I regained consciousness the next morning to Foster pounding on my door like the fucking police.

“What?” I said, opening the door and shielding my eyes against the burning sun, before quickly retreating back into the darkness.

“Hey,” Foster said, following me in. “We’re going to lunch. Wanna come?”

“Lunch?” I slurred. “What time is it?”

“Two,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“All right. Let me take a shower first.”

“Well hurry up. We’re hungry.”

Heather was sitting on the couch reading a magazine when I came in.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling.

“Good morning,” I returned.

“You remember Heather?” Foster asked, coming out of the bathroom.

“Barely,” I said and turned to her, “Hi.”

“Barely?” she said, her face feigning disappointment. “We talked for two hours last night.”

“Really?” I said, lost. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

“I didn’t think you would,” she said, a playful smile in her eyes.

“I think you need to lose some weight,” Foster offered. “It’s no fun dragging your ass to bed.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my feet. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Heather said, standing up. “It’s no big deal. I can’t imagine what I’d do after living in the woods for six weeks. Where are we going to eat?”

“I don’t know,” Foster said.

“I feel like something greasy,” I offered.

“Ranger burger?” Foster asked.

“Perfect.”

“What’s a Ranger burger?” Heather asked.

“It’s a burger as big as a plate,” Foster answered.

“Sounds great,” Heather said. “I could eat a horse.”

Heather invited me over to her place in town that night to watch a movie. She lived in a small studio apartment near the community college where she took some classes. Before starting the movie, she pulled out a glass pipe and a baggie filled with dirty green buds.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Pot,” she said. “You expressed some curiosity last night.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah. I can put it away if you want.”

“No,” I said. “That’s okay.”

We sat on her couch passing the pipe back and forth while she told me about the college classes she hated. “I’m thinking about joining the army,” she said.

I choked and coughed. “The army? What do you want to do that for?”

“I don’t know,” she said, taking the pipe from my hand. “I need to do something.”

Heather was tired of Georgia, tired of school, tired of feeling like she wasn’t doing anything. She wanted to help people, she told me, and thought she would be a good medic. I didn’t doubt it, but I hated seeing people go into the army if they didn’t have to and tried talking her out of it.

I went over to her place almost every night after that.

“Where have you been man?” Foster asked me one day while we were cleaning weapons in the platoon office. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“I’ve been hanging out with Heather,” I said.

“Hmmm,” he said. “Be careful. We haven’t had a piss test in a while.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I will.” But I didn’t care. I was starting to see things differently and wasn’t worried about the army or piss tests anymore.

“I did it!” Heather exclaimed a few weeks later when I picked her up to get something to eat.

“Did what?” I asked.

“Joined the army,” she said. “I leave for basic in three months.”

“The army,” I said. “Shit. Why did you do that?”

“I need to do something,” she said. “And this will be doing something with my life.”

“I guess,” I said and didn’t say much more.

At four the next morning my cell phone rang. It was my squad leader telling me a piss test had been called and that I needed to get into the company area as soon as possible with my ID card to provide a specimen.

“Shit,” I moaned after hanging up the phone.

“What’s the matter?” Heather asked.

“I have to go piss in a cup,” I told her. “Still want to join the army?”

She turned over and went back to sleep.

I drove to my barracks room to shave and put on a uniform. I was supposed to have the day off and Heather and I were up until two smoking. I was still a little high and I looked at my blood-shot eyes in the mirror. This wasn’t what I wanted anymore–piss tests, field training, the rain and heat and cold, having no control over anything.

I dropped the razor into the sink, wiped the lather away from my face, and walked into the closet. I packed a bag with underwear, socks, and all the clothes I could and drove away from the Spanish-American War era barracks. I stopped by to see Heather on the way out of town.

“Are you sure you know what you�re doing?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m getting the fuck out of here.”

“But what if they catch you? What if they arrest you?”

“Arrest me?” I laughed. “They don’t arrest AWOLs anymore.”

She looked doubtful but I pushed ahead. “I have your number. I’ll give you a call when I land.” We hugged, she kissed me on the check and told me to be careful.

I ended up in the middle of the country and took a dish-washing job. The work was nasty and hot, the pay sucked and I lived in a run-down, rat-infested apartment. But it beat the army. I sold my car and got rid of my credit cards.

It was three months before I talked to Heather again and when I did, she told me she was going to Iraq.

“What?” I asked. “Iraq?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I volunteered!”

“What? Why?”

“I need the money,” she said. “Besides, I can actually do something for people there.”

I told her that there were many things she could do to help people without going to a bomb-infested country. We talked until my phone card ran out about how her family was doing, how I was making out as a fugitive. “No complaints,” I told her. Then a nice woman chimed in and told me my phone card had sixty seconds left. I gave Heather my address and told her to write and to keep her head down.

I received sporadic letters from her and even a post card–heavily armed soldiers surrounded by smiling Iraqi kids waving American flags and standing next to crumbling walls. Heather wasn’t having a good time. She was up all the time, driving trucks up and down the roads, and the liberated kept shooting at her and blowing up bombs along the right-of-way.

She wrote me at the end of her tour asking if she could come up and stay for a little while. She wanted to get away from Georgia. Maybe start school again. Do something different with her life.

I was excited. I remembered the nights we would hang out, lying in her bed, passing joint after joint between us, watching TV and talking about nothing until we both fell asleep. Her place became my island and I never wanted to leave it. I couldn’t wait to see her again. Maybe build a new island.

The first couple of weeks were great–stoned all the time, losing track of the days, waking up at night, going to bed in the afternoon. We became refugees inside my small place and the world couldn’t touch us. But I had rent to pay and started having trouble breathing and ventured out during the days for work and air. She seemed happy to be away at first, content to be surrounded by green trees and quiet neighborhoods.

But two weeks became a month, a month became six months and six months a year. She never moved from the couch–a stoned zombie looking into a TV and not seeing anything. Whenever I asked her about school or work she would scrunch up her face and shake her head. And then, “I don’t think so. I don’t feel ready.”

“What can you do?” I spat regretting it. “Sorry.”

She looked at me with her wet, brown eyes. Walked into the bathroom, closed the door, locked it.

***

I came home today filmed in grease, wanting to get stoned and take a long, hot shower. When I walked into the apartment, a gray cloud of smoke lingered in the air like a weak fog. Heather was sleeping on the couch, her right arm hanging down to the floor. Next to her hand, a knocked-over bong, its water emptied into the carpet.

I went into a drawer in the kitchen to pull out my stash. It was gone. I looked down at the empty drawer, to the couch, her mouth hanging open, and slammed the drawer closed.

“Hey,” I said loudly. Heather didn’t stir. “Hey!” I yelled and kicked the foot of the couch. She looked up at me through half-closed eyes. I held the empty plastic bag up in the air. “What’s this?”

“What?” she asked, her voice raspy and far away.

“Where”s all the fucking weed? Did you smoke all of this today?”

“Oh,” she sat up slowly. “Yeah. Was that all you had?”

I shook my head and turned away.

“That’s all you had?” Desperation leaked into her voice. “I thought you had more in your dresser.”

“This was from the dresser.”

“Oh. Well, can’t you buy any more?”

“No,” I started pacing the small living room. “I can’t buy anymore,” my voice rising, “I won’t have any money until next week.”

“Well,” she said, bending down and picking up the spilled bong. “I think there’s a hit or two left.”

I grabbed the pipe from her hand, marched into the kitchen, filled it with water, and inhaled everything that was left and walked away.

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