At twenty-five pages, this is the longest thing I’ve ever written. If you read it, and have any comments, please send them my way. This is the second draft. I have one more to go. Thanks to James McPherson for all of his help. Thank you for your help,

Robert.

I

Henry drove up the long, rising road to the parking lot of the Fort Knox NCO club, the blue police lights on the dash of his unmarked Chevy Impala beating into the hazy night. The party had just ended and Henry moved the car slowly through the crowded parking lot like a shark. Groups of people darted away like startled schools of fish.

Edwards followed Henry in his marked cruiser, the light bar grinding above him and whirring blue lights over the parked cars and moving people. It was Saturday morning. Bouncers shoved the drunk and fighting out into the parking lot and the military police pushed them out of the parking lot and off post. They became somebody else’s problem after that.

“Where’s the fight?” Henry asked. They had parked their cars on a curb next to the front door and stood surveying the scene.

“I don’t know,” Edwards said. “Maybe they left already.”

“Stop it!” a woman screamed. Henry looked to where the voice came from and saw two men locked together and punching each other.

“Edwards,” Henry said, walking towards the fight.

A line of cars ebbed towards the main road while more military police flowed into the parking lot. Edwards spoke quickly into his radio, letting the approaching patrols know where to find them.

The two men were breathing hard and grappling and cursing at each other while a woman stood off to the side crying. One of them broke free, a skinny man with a polo shirt pulled out of his khaki slacks. His thin blond hair was disheveled and his face was covered with blood. He took a step back and the other man, a refrigerator with a bowling ball like head perched on top of it, punched him in the forehead. The sound of it cracked through the night like a gunshot.

“Stop!” Henry called. “Military police!”

The skinny man fell to the pavement and the monster reeled back his right foot, and, before Henry or Edwards could even think, kicked the downed man in the stomach.

“David, stop!” the girl shrieked.

Henry didn’t like the look of this at all. Edwards came up behind him holding the useless wood MP club in his left hand. No way could the two take him.

The man noticed them now. The skinny man was unconscious on the ground. Henry couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. It didn’t matter at this moment anyway. He pulled the pepper spray from his belt and started shaking the can.

“Fuck you,” he spat at Henry. “What are you going to do?” His face was red, his neck muscles tight and bulging, his head lowered like a bull ready to charge.

Henry answered with a thin stream of spray from the black and orange cylinder. The man clutched his face and fell to his knees. “You fucker!” he cried out. “You fucking blinded me. You fucking bitch.”

Henry and Edwards pulled the man’s arms behind him and looked in awe at the large silver ring, now covered in blood, hair and skin, on his right hand. It took two pairs of handcuffs to restrain him. They picked up the giant and put him in the back seat of Edwards’ patrol car.

“Hey Henry,” Edwards said. “You still have your pepper spray?”

“Yeah,” he said. He turned around and saw two patrols administering first aid to the beaten man as another tried talking to the sobbing woman. An ambulance was getting closer, its lonely siren calling out into the now empty night. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Johnson says we can’t carry it,” Edwards said.

“Why not?”

Edwards shrugged his shoulders. “Says we’re not certified. They’re supposed to certify us next week, though.”

“I thought they were certifying people in school now.” Henry had graduated from Military Police School seven years earlier.

“They are.” Edwards was only two years out of school. “I’ve already been sprayed with the shit once and I’m not too excited about being sprayed again. But what can I do?” Edwards asked. He wiped sweat from his forehead with his black beret—the new army headgear they weren’t quite used to yet. It was well after midnight, but the temperature hovered at seventy five degrees, humidity at eighty percent, and they were all weighed down with bullet-proof vests and gear.

“Shit,” Henry said. “What does Johnson want us to do with guys like this?” Henry asked, jerking his head to the back of the car. “And I was certified in Georgia.”

“Doesn’t matter. At least, not according to Johnson.”

“Fuck Johnson,” Henry said. “What does he know about anything?”

“Yeah,” Edwards said. “Nothing. But he’s the operations sergeant. Gotta do what he says.”

Henry sighed. Edwards was right. And he hated everything about it.

***

Henry joined the army right out of high school. He wanted to be a cop. Had wanted to be a cop since he was old enough to want to be anything. But police departments only hired those over twenty-one. The army would let him be a cop at the tender age of eighteen and he jumped at this chance to gain some experience before becoming a real cop. And he loved it. Patrolling the streets in a police car with a gun strapped to his hip.

But Henry had soured on the army. Or maybe the army had soured on him. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the same anymore. People like Sergeant Johnson fucked everything up with their strange and arbitrary rules. The Johnsons of the army needed something to put on their evaluation reports and coming up with new training programs, new routines, no matter how sound the old, was at least something to write down. Johnson wanted to be promoted, he needed lots of bullet points on his evaluations.

Henry had been pulled into Johnson’s office several times over speeding tickets and drunk driving arrests. Henry had a bad habit of busting people who weren’t supposed to be busted. He didn’t try to piss people off, he just enforced the law in a way that frustrated those trying to get promoted. Henry didn’t care about being promoted. Now he spent most of his time now playing online video games in the office or watching TV in his room, responding only when called. Doing his job wasn’t worth the aggravation anymore.

“Johnson’s dangerous,” Henry told Woods during Traffic Patrol shift-change the morning after the fight in the parking lot.

“Why’s that?” Woods asked.

“Have you heard? He wants to take away our pepper spray.”

“Why?” Woods asked, slowly loading 9mm bullets into a fifteen round magazine.

“Who knows?” Henry said, spitting 9mm bullets out of his magazine with his thumb into a foam package. Thirty rounds issued, thirty rounds returned. A good night. “He says something about us not being certified.”

“Certified?” Woods slammed the magazine into the magazine-well of the 9mm Berretta semi-automatic pistol they carried and let the slide slam forward. “I was certified two years ago.”

“Where?”

“Washington. Fort Lewis.”

“Not good enough,” Henry said as they got into the patrol car. “I guess there’s a new training regime.”

Woods looked at Henry. His eyes hid behind dark sunglasses and his face was still pink from drinking and sleep and shaving. “Man, I’ve already been sprayed in the face with that shit. I ain’t getting sprayed again.”

“Amen,” Henry said. He got out of the car and grabbed his gear. “Have a good one.”

“Yeah,” Woods said. “You too. See you in a few hours.”

II

Pay sat low in a tattered chair outside his barracks room sipping beer from a sweating silver can and watched a heavy rain fall. Waves of Kentucky rain hissed like frying bacon and Pay watched the trees wilt and the rabbits cower under the onslaught. The muggy air smelled of lilacs and tangerines, urine and vomit. A slight breeze moved down the long brick balcony and Pay sighed in relief.

The rain stopped abruptly and Henry came out of his room two doors down. An angry disc of sun lurked behind the gray clouds and white steam boiled off the black-top parking lot. Henry broke into a sticky sweat and locked his door. He pulled on the black beret and walked towards the stairs, stomping in the fresh, dirty puddles in case anyone asked why his boots weren’t polished.

“What’s up, Henry?” Pay asked without looking up.

“Nothing much,” Henry said, walking past. “Off to work. Again.” He had worked the past six nights. After tonight he had three days off. He couldn’t wait for the night to be over.

“Have fun.”

Fuck off, Henry thought. The dark fabric of Henry’s battle dress uniform absorbed the sun like a solar panel and the dead weight of his bullet proof vest constricted his chest. Pay sat in threadbare shorts, no shirt, and sipped beer with a wet towel over his head.

Henry descended the three flights of stairs, walked across the parking lot towards his car, and, getting in, saw Pay go back into his room. He shook his head and waited for the air-conditioner to kick in.

The sun shone brightly now and nothing moved except Henry’s car. The earth was waiting for night, for the sun to mercifully slip under the horizon. Pay fell back into his chair with a fresh beer and watched Infantry soldiers partying riotously in the barracks across the parking lot. It was a combustible Saturday afternoon.

***

Pay was failing out of college when an army recruiter stopped him in the common area of the student union.

“How’s it going?” the recruiter asked. His voice was sandpaper, but friendly.

“Okay,” Pay said and stopped. “How are you?”

The recruiter, Staff Sergeant Davis, smiled and shook his hand, introduced himself. He wore a crisp green uniform with many colorful badges and ribbons on his chest. His black hair was cut short on top and the sides of his head were shaved clean. When he smiled, Pay could see a gleam of silver. One of his teeth that had been knocked out many years ago in some distant land.

“Pretty good, man, thanks.” Sergeant Davis looked Pay up and down. Davis hated working in a university town. College kids were full of big ideas and thought they could change the world. But they didn’t want to change it in the army. They hated the government and were especially angry towards the military. But he had a job to do and talked to as many of them as he could and just smiled at their naïve rhetoric and insults.

“Have you thought about what you wanted to do after graduation?” Davis wasted no time.

“Ha,” Pay snorted. “Graduation? They’ll be kicking me out of here at the end of the semester.”

Davis brightened up. “Why?”

“I’m failing my classes.”

“What classes are you taking?” Davis asked.

“Mostly philosophy. I can’t read the books. Gibberish.”

“I know what that’s like,” Davis said. “I got my associates a couple of years ago and that was enough for me. But they’re not really going to kick you out, are they?”

“No,” Pay admitted. “But I’m going to lose my scholarship and won’t be able to pay for it.”

“So what will you do next?” Davis asked hopefully. He already knew the answer.

“I’m not sure. Have to think of something I guess.”

“Ever think about the army? We can help pay for college.”

No, Pay had never thought about the army. No one has until Davis brings it up. Three meals a day, clothes paid for, buddies around, making money, seeing the world, learning skills. He could go on for hours without mentioning the tedious routine, the raging boredom, the complete submission to everyone and everything.

Pay was nodding his head, but he wasn’t convinced. “But what about wars?”

“Wars?” Davis scoffed. He hated this question. What was happening to this country? Wars? They’re worried about wars? But he had a quota to make. “I can get you into a job that doesn’t go to war. There’s lots of jobs in the army. Did you know that for every soldier fighting, there are three in the rear supporting him? Most of the army is non-combat,” he lied.

Pay was thinking. He wasn’t sure. “Yeah,” he said. “But I don’t know if I could make it through basic training.”

Davis nodded. Pussies all of them, this worthless generation. But this one was tipping in his direction and he smiled warmly. “Yeah, I didn’t think so either. But basic isn’t all that bad, it isn’t as bad as it used to be. Everyone hates it, but most everyone gets through it. And after basic, the army is like any other nine-to-five job,” he lied again.

“I guess.” Pay picked through the pamphlets on the table.

“Here, let me show you this one,” Davis said picking up a pamphlet. “Do you have student loans?”

“No,” Pay said. “I was here on a scholarship.”

“Oh,” Davis said. He put the pamphlet down and picked another one up. “Here, look at this one.”

Pay took it from his hands and looked at it. The shiny cover showed smiling soldiers wearing camouflaged uniforms and working on helicopters.

“It has all the jobs of the army listed in it. What did you say your major was again?” Davis would keep talking as long as Pay stood there.

“Philosophy.”

“That’s right,” Davis said, stumped. “Well, what did you want to do with that?”

“I don’t know,” Pay said. “I didn’t know what to do so I took philosophy.”

“Well,” Davis said, switching tactics, “you’re a big guy. Ever think about being a cop?” Military police were in demand and Davis got an extra five hundred dollars for everyone he signed up.

Pay brightened a little. “Yeah,” he said. “Who doesn’t?”

Davis reached for another pamphlet. “Hell yeah. Driving around in that souped-up car, carrying a gun everyday. And MPs are the only ones in the army who get to carry a gun everyday.”

Pay looked through the pamphlet. Smart looking soldiers in white gloves and mirror black boots issued a traffic ticket. Others guarded gates at exotic locations. He smiled. Davis smiled.

And why not? Pay thought. What else do I have to do? I’m sick of college, of papers and classes, of old professors who don’t know anything. I’ll go see the world. I will be a military policeman.

“Yeah,” Pay said. “That sounds good.”

“Really?” Davis was a bit surprised. He thought Pay would take a little more work, offers of signing bonuses he could now save the army. “Let me get your name and number and I’ll give you a call tomorrow so we can set something up.”

“Okay,” Pay said and wrote his name and phone number on the card Davis handed him.

***

Pay was back at home the next weekend to visit his mother. His father had left long ago and she was a feisty single mother and especially protective of him.

Pay came down the stairs Saturday morning to find her up and drinking a cup of coffee while complaining about the news.

“Hi, mom,” Pay said.

“Hi, honey,” she looked back at her paper, took a sip of coffee.

He took a box of cereal and bowl down from the cupboard, milk from the refrigerator, and sat down across from her. His hands trembled as he poured milk on his cereal.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked in a motherly voice. He didn’t come home often anymore.

He looked up at her and took a deep breath. “I’m dropping out.”

“Like hell you are,” she stood up. “What do you mean you’re dropping out? You’ve got that scholarship.” She paced back and forth in the small dining room.

“Not anymore,” Pay said, his eyes tracking her. “I’m failing out.”

“What?” she gasped. “How?”

“I don’t know, it’s not important,” he said and stood up, went to his bag still sitting next to the front door. “I’m joining the army.”

She sat back down and tried to catch her breath. “The army!” and she didn’t say anything more, just looked at him through wet brown eyes.

Pay felt very small. He should have done this better. But it was started now. “Don’t worry mom,” he said feebly. “It will only be for a few years and then I’ll start over again. I just wasn’t ready for it.”

“But you’ve been doing well.”

“I know, I know. I don’t know what happened.”

He didn’t want to talk about it with her. His moods were very black all that semester. Nothing made him happy anymore. He dated a girl for a few months when he first got to college and fell in love with her. But he scared her, his neediness, and she withdrew. He couldn’t pick up the pieces in time for the spring semester and everything got worse. But he didn’t tell anyone this. Didn’t tell anyone about the drinking or the smoking. The thoughts that it would be better if he ended it all.

“But this will be good,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be a cop and I’ll be making money.” She nodded. “And I’m young. All the young have adventures. And it’s not like we’re at war or anything.”

She nodded again. Clinton had made everything seem okay. The new century brought high hopes of an era of peace. The Soviet threat had vanished and the American army was engaged in peace-keeping missions, stopping slaughters with broad international support and help. Nobody could know what horrors lurked just over the horizon. “You’re sure about this,” she said. She couldn’t refuse him. He was her only son, a spitting image of his father. She could never refuse him, either.

***

“Pay!” It brought him out of his daydreams. “Hey, Pay.”

Pay opened his eyes. Sergeant Stacey looked down at him through his gray eyes. “Yes, sergeant,” Pay said.

“The commander wants you at the company tomorrow to cut grass. It isn’t supposed to be raining,” Stacey said.

“But tomorrow’s Sunday,” Pay protested.

“I don’t give a shit what day it is. All days are the same in the army.”

“Shit,” Pay breathed.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing sergeant. What time?”

“0800hrs. Bring some work gloves. Be in uniform and I’ll see you in the morning.” Sergeant Stacey walked away.

Pay went back into his room for another beer. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking anymore, but nobody really cared what he did. The army wasn’t what he expected at all. He thought he would drive around in a patrol car, that he would enforce the law, make traffic stops. And he did do that for a while. But he didn’t expect everything else.

He spent his first two weeks on Fort Knox in the woods getting rained on. The red clay turned to mud that their tents sunk into. The platoon sergeant went crazy yelling at everyone like they could stop the rain. And then barracks clean-up. Every Saturday no matter what time you got off work the night before.

His depression got worse. He drank more and more. And one night, after drinking all day, he got into a fight with Corporal Peterson. Pay lost the fight, spent two nights in the hospital. But he got in trouble for fighting with an NCO. Pay couldn’t even remember fighting him. He woke up the next morning and panicked. He didn’t know where he was.

They pulled him from law enforcement duties and ordered him to attend alcohol counseling. But it was all a joke.

They put in back on duty, but he showed up to work drunk and held his pistol to his head before the patrol supervisor finally talked him down. Pay wasn’t allowed to carry a weapon after that and was pulled from duty permanently. After that they started the paperwork to separate him from the army. That was six months ago. The commander sent him to work with the supply section and the supply section tasked him out to do whatever the platoons told him to. He was always cutting grass, cleaning toilets or buffing floors. He wanted to go home, start college again. He wouldn’t take it for granted this time.

Pay drained the can down his throat and watched the sun disappear behind the brick-red barracks and wondered if he would ever go home.

***

At the MP station, Henry knocked on Sergeant Johnson’s door. Johnson was a lanky man with salt and pepper hair cut close to the skull wearing a red tank top that exposed his thin arms with grotesque tattoos. He was the operations sergeant and had held the position for six months.

“Hello sergeant,” Henry said. “Woods said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes,” Johnson answered gruffly, waved him in and looked back down at the report he was reading. “Just give me a second.”

Henry stood in front of Johnson’s desk while he finished reading the report. The office was painted a sour-milk color and Johnson had hung various awards and certificates on the walls. Against one wall he had put all his books on criminal justice and police administration. Henry thought of rich snobs who surround themselves with expensive books they’ve never read.

“So,” Johnson started, still reading the report. “I understand you pepper sprayed someone last night.”

“Yes, sergeant,” Henry answered.

“Why?”

The office seemed to get hotter and Henry adjusted his bullet proof vest. “Because I wasn’t going to fight him with my fists,” Henry said.

“No?”

“No, sergeant.” It must be nice, Henry thought, to sit in this office everyday and not have to do anything, see anything. To be safe and only read about things that had already happened. Johnson didn’t stare down the bull, didn’t know what it was like.

“Why not? Are you scared? Do we need to pull you from duty?”

“What?”

“Why did you pepper spray the subject?”

“I’m not scared, sergeant,” Henry’s voice trembled and his hands balled into fists behind his back. “I have common sense. I could have shot him I guess.”

“At ease!” Sergeant Johnson yelled. “Don’t get smart-assed with me. I’ll have you on extra duty for a month. Now, are you supposed to be carrying pepper spray?”

Henry hesitated before answering. He didn’t know the answer and didn’t say anything.

“Are you supposed to be carrying pepper spray?” Johnson asked again.

“I’m trained and certified, sergeant,” Henry said. “I’ve carried it for five years.”

“Has Traffic not gotten the memo?”

“What memo?”

“Jesus, what is Kitchner doing over there,” Johnson mumbled under his breath. “The memo where I ordered all MPs to turn in their pepper spray until they’re certified by Sergeant Franklin. Sergeant Franklin has just come back from Fort McClellan and has been certified to certify the company. Knox spent a lot of money to send him there and he’s going to re-train everyone using a new method.”

“But I’m already certified, sergeant,” Henry said. “They sprayed me in the face back at Benning.”

“I don’t give a shit what they sprayed you with. You’ll be sprayed with it again. Now, give it to me,” Johnson ordered.

Henry pulled the sleek can out of its leather holster and placed it on his desk.

“That’ll be all,” Johnson dismissed Henry with a flick of his wrist.

Henry stood there for a couple of seconds staring at Johnson before walking out of the office and to the car. He seethed behind the wheel and pulled out onto the quiet road. He was done for the night. No more, he thought. Never again. I’m not going out without pepper spray. He flew back towards the barracks, not caring about the speed limit.

Pay still sat on the balcony and laughed to himself when the unmarked traffic Impala pull into a parking space and Henry got out.

“Hey, Henry,” Pay teased as Henry walked by. “Going to work?”

“Yup,” Henry said. “I got half a pizza in my room I’m going to work on. And then I’m going to work on watching some TV. Maybe even work on a nap.”

“Have fun,” Pay called out after him.

Henry slammed his door and locked it.

Pay finished another beer before going into his room. He sat in front of a small fan and let the air blow over him before getting up to close and lock his door. The room spun and spun and spun and he fell onto his bed and into blackness.

III

Pay came into the night several hours later. It was still hot and muggy and mosquitoes hummed in the air.

A party poured out onto the balcony and people sucked on green bottles and drank from red cups while smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. Pay walked towards the party and could feel the bass pounding through the concrete floor.

“Hey guys,” Pay said.

They all looked at him, said nothing, and went back to their conversations. Pay walked into the smoky room and looked around. He wasn’t sure who the room belonged to. He had never been in it before and he marveled at the beat-up couch against a wall and the large TV screen blaring out music videos. His own room was sparse. Only a bed and small TV and smaller refrigerator which was always packed full of beer.

A girl he had never seen before sat on the couch sipping delicately from a red plastic cup and watching the TV. Pay stood and watched her, still sipping from his can of beer. She felt someone watching her and looked over, saw Pay looking at her, and smiled slightly.

Pay slipped out of the room and listened to an argument about which gun was better—the AK-47 or the M-4. He didn’t really care and didn’t pay attention. The two soldiers, dressed in baggy shorts and cut off t-shirts with shaved heads, drank noisily. Pay sipped at his beer and thought about the girl on the couch.

People were coming in and out of the room. The girl with short dark hair and green eyes came out onto the balcony. “It’s hot,” she said to no one.

“I know,” Pay said.

She looked over at him and smiled.

“Hey, Carr,” Peterson called out coming up the stairs from the parking lot. “Glad you could make it.”

Carr looked over at him and gave a small wave.

“How are you liking the barracks?” Peterson asked, now standing in front of her. “Get settled in okay?”

“Yes, corporal,” she said.

“Don’t call me corporal,” he said and held up two cases of beer. “We’re off the clock,” he smiled and looked at Pay. “Pay?” he said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Pay was about to answer but Peterson went into the room. The music pounded dully and he could hear Peterson laughing and joking inside the room. Carr, that was her name, was new and Peterson had already picked her out. Peterson preyed on the new girls. He would get her drunk and fuck her, then disappear into the night leaving her to wonder if anything had happened at all. Pay couldn’t stand it.

“Are you new here?” Pay asked softly.

Carr turned around, unsure if she had heard anything. “Did you say something?”

Pay looked down into his cup. “Are you new here? What platoon are you in?”

“Oh,” she smiled. “Yeah. Second.”

“Oh,” Pay nodded and took another pull from his cup. “When did you get to Knox?”

“Just today,” she moved closer to Pay to hear him better. “How long have you been here? It’s hot here.” She was already a little drunk and laughed at her own joke.

Henry walked by the gathering and eyed them warily.

“What’s up, Henry?” someone called out. “Come have a beer.”

Henry flipped them the finger and walked down to the parked Impala that hadn’t moved in hours.

“Almost a year,” Pay said. Jesus, he thought, has it been that long? “Where are you coming from?”

“McClellan,” she said. “Just got out of training two weeks ago. Can’t wait to get started.”

Pay nodded and Peterson came out of the room. His long face was red, his shaggy hair blond, and he had a strange way of walking, like he was always straddling a bull. “Pay,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” Pay asked.

“What do you mean, corporal,” he corrected.

“What are you talking about?” Pay said. “You said we’re off the clock.”

“I said that to Carr here because she’s in my platoon. She’s a real soldier. A real MP at an MP party. I’ll ask again,” he sneered and smiled at Carr, “what are you doing here?”

Pay looked at Peterson’s fat red face. “I’m drinking a beer,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Oh,” Peterson said. “Pay’s getting tough.” He finished off his can of beer, staring at Pay. “You see,” he said, looking at Carr. “Pay here wishes he was still an MP.” Carr looked at Pay and then at Peterson and then down into her cup and shifted on her feet. Something was happening that she didn’t understand.

Pay stared at Peterson, his face hard and trembling.

“Ha,” Peterson laughed. “Look at him! He wants to hit me.”

Pay lunged at him and fell over. Peterson kicked him in the stomach and kicked him again before a group of people pulled him off. “Come on, corporal,” one of them cried out. “Calm down. The commander will have your ass if you send him to the hospital again.”

“That fucker tried to hit me,” Peterson laughed. “Did you guys see that?”

They stood Pay up and brushed him off. “Get to your room, Pay,” Peterson ordered. “I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Pay staggered to his room and turned on the lights. After throwing-up, he fell on the floor and cried. He thought of his mom. She had warned him. He didn’t pay any attention. She was so far away. He had to wake up in the morning and cut grass. It was Sunday. She would be at Mass. He would be pushing a heavy lawn mower through wet grass and throwing up from the heat. She was so far away. He crawled to his dresser and opened the bottom drawer.

Pay pulled the knife out of its sheath, watched the light dance off its shiny surface, marveled at the razor sharp blade, the serrated edge meant for ripping. He stood up and looked in a mirror, his right hand clutching the knife. Tears cut canals down his dirty red face. His eyes were small and hollow.

He wiped his face, stood up straight, took a deep breath, turned around, pushed into the night.

***

Henry walked into the dully lit station feeling groggy, his eyes heavy from sleep.

“What’s up, Henry?” Sergeant Williams asked. “Anything moving out there?”

“I don’t know,” Henry sighed. “I just drove from the barracks to here.” He fell into the leather desk chair behind the radio console. Garcia, the dispatcher, played video games on a TV perched on a metal filing cabinet. “Although the MP barracks seem to be letting loose.”

“Oh yeah?” Williams said without looking up from the blotter he was editing. “I hope they keep it quiet.”

“I don’t care what they do,” Henry said and looked up at the TV. Garcia walked through a dark room blowing zombies apart.

Henry closed his eyes and relaxed, a fan blew cool air over him.

“Heard Johnson had your ass today,” Garcia smiled.

Henry liked Garcia. Garcia was the only dispatcher who ever knew what was going on. He hated working the road. “Man,” he would say, “why do I want to drive around in a car going to fights. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” And he would smile like a boy and you couldn’t help but to like him. “Who told you that?” Henry asked.

“Man, I know everything,” Garcia said.

“I believe it.”

“What’s going on at the barracks? Was the new girl there?” Garcia asked hopefully.

“Who?”

“The new girl, man? You haven’t seen her? You should,” Garcia said, not looking at him, still engrossed in blowing zombies apart.

“Why?” Henry asked. “What the fuck do I care? I should be out of here in a few weeks.”

“Yeah right,” Williams laughed. “You ain’t going anywhere Henry. The army’s got you for life.”

“Fuck the army,” Henry said. Garcia giggled.

“Yeah,” he said. “Fuck the army.”

“What are you talking about?” Williams said. “You’ve only been in six months.”

“Yup,” Garcia said and turned around. The zombies had just overtaken and eaten his avatar. “And I’m already sick of it.”

“Shit,” Henry said. “You got a long road in front of you. How much time you got left?”

“Four years,” Garcia said proudly and started the game over.

Williams and Henry laughed. Williams still hunched over the paperwork he was working on, Garcia killed zombies, and Henry spun around lazily in the leather chair listening to the radio. Edwards called in a traffic stop and Henry took down the information. The phone rang. It was a strange, empty sound, like the air had been sucked out of the room. Garcia paused the game and picked it up.

***

Henry pushed the car down the road. It was empty, the night still early, everyone at the clubs, and he pushed the accelerator past sixty miles per hour, lights and sirens exploding into the still night.

He drove into the parking lot of the MP barracks and ran up the stairs to the third floor and walked into the crowd gathered on the balcony. The loud party he passed earlier was subdued. The music had stopped and people milled about like ghosts. A brown-hair girl was on the couch crying, Peterson sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders.

“He’s fucking crazy,” Peterson cried out when he saw Henry. “Fucking crazy.”

“Shut up,” Henry told him. “Where is he?”

“I think he’s in his room,” someone answered from behind.

Henry walked down the corridor. Pay’s door was open. Sirens floated lazily through the air, seemingly a world away. He walked into the room.

Pay crouched in a corner like a wounded animal. Two drunken off-duty MPs stood inside the door with their beer trying to talk him down and his eyes shot back and forth between them. Pay was breathing loudly and holding a big, shiny knife in his right hand. It was the biggest knife Henry had ever seen. That shouldn’t be in the barracks, he thought, but it hardly mattered now.

“Everybody out,” Henry ordered. The two MPs turned and glared at him. “Get the fuck out of here,” he shouted and they moved slowly out the door.

Henry stood in the door frame. “How’s it going Pay?” he asked. The sirens were louder now and Pay grew more and more agitated. The patrol supervisor’s voice screamed from the radio wanting to know the situation. Was anyone there yet? He was pissed about being called off from chow. Henry shut the radio off. “Can you put the knife down?”

Pay stared at him. Said nothing. His eyes worried Henry

“Pay?”

“Fuck you,” Pay slurred. “You all walk around here like you’re tough shit. Fuck you and your fucking car and your fucking gun. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fucking shoot me.”

Henry took a step out onto the balcony. He didn’t know what to do but he didn’t want to be in that room anymore. Way too small for that knife. He wouldn’t shoot Pay, but he couldn’t let Pay keep waving that knife around either. He couldn’t figure out how to solve this. Henry liked traffic accidents because they didn’t involve human emotion. There was nothing more than mangled metal, melted rubber on the road, measurements and mathematical equations. Henry hated emotions. “Pay, I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Why not?” Pay cried, stood up, moved forward. “Shoot me. I’m not doing anything else around here.”

“Calm down, Pay,” Henry said and reached for his pepper spray. He unsnapped the leather holster and grabbed at the air. Fuck. “Why don’t you put the knife down and talk to me?” Henry tried. “I just talked to you this afternoon for fuck’s sake. I’m not going to shoot you.”

Pay glared at him. “You didn’t talk to me,” he spat. “None of you talk to me unless you’re making fun of me.” Pay stumbled forward a couple of steps and stopped.

“What are you talking about?” Henry asked. “Didn’t I just see you talking to some girl at a party? Come on, Pay, put the knife down.”

“I’m fucked,” Pay cried. “I attacked an NCO.”

“Who?” Henry asked. “Peterson? Fuck that guy,” Henry pleaded. “Nobody cares about him. Just put the knife down. I’ll write this up. You’ll come out smooth as silk,” Henry lied.

Pay stared at him. His chest heaved up and down violently. He moved quickly towards Henry slashing at the air with his knife. Henry fell back onto the railing and Pay was over him, slashing at his chest. The knife went through the vest and into Henry’s chest. He could feel the pressure, no pain yet, and then the warmth of blood. And that was it. He pulled out his pistol and shot Pay, point blank, in the stomach. He didn’t stop pulling the trigger until he ran out of bullets.

Pay fell back, dead before he hit the ground. Screams ripped the air and the barracks across the parking lot stopped their party. It was eerily silent. Blood pooled quickly around Pay’s body and began streaming down the balcony. Henry’s legs collapsed under him and he fell to the ground holding his pistol and looking at the knife still sticking out of his chest.

***

Edwards slammed the brakes, slammed the car into park, slammed its door. The parking lot was filled with people. They all stood silent. The loud music had been turned off. Edwards heard the sound of sobbing and sirens screaming in the air. He ran up the stairs.

“Henry?” he said as he came up on him. “Holy shit.”

Henry clutched at the knife in his chest. Edwards grabbed his hand. “Henry, hey, don’t touch it. Everything’s going to be fine.” He looked over at Pay and saw the impossible amount of blood. “Dispatch this is four-one,” he said into the radio.

“Go ahead four-one,” Garcia said back.

“Shots fired up here. MP down. Subject down. Need an ambulance ASAP.”

“10-4, four-one, got a few on the way to you.”

“Henry?” Edwards said and put his hand behind his friend’s neck to support it. His eyes were closed and his breaths weren’t normal. “Henry?”

Henry looked up at him and chill shot down Edwards’ spine. He didn’t know these eyes.

“Henry? Everything’s going to be okay, okay? Just hold on. How are you feeling?”

Henry smiled, thin lips slid over dry teeth. “Where’s that fucking Johnson?” he gasped and slumped over.

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