We forced them down as we hustled south. Then I spent twenty
minutes watching Summer. She had small neat hands. She had
them resting lightly on the wheel. She didn’t blink much. Her
lips were slightly parted and every minute or so she would run
her tongue across her teeth.
‘Talk to me,’ I said.
‘About what?’
‘About anything,’ I said. ‘Tell me the story of your life.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m tired,’ I said. ‘To keep me awake.’
‘Not very interesting.’
‘Try me,’ I said.
So she shrugged and started at the beginning, which was
outside of Birmingham, Alabama, in the middle of the sixties.
She had nothing bad to say about it, but she gave me the
impression that she knew even then there were better ways to
grow up than poor and black in Alabama at that time. She had
brothers and sisters. She had always been small, but she was
nimble,, and she parlayed a talent for gymnastics and dancing
and jumping rope into a way of getting noticed at school. She
was good at the book work too and had assembled a patchwork
of minor scholarships and moved out of state to a college in
51
Georgia. She had joined the ROTC and in her junior year the
scholarships ran out and the military picked up the tab in
exchange for five years’ future service. She was now halfway
through it. She had aced MP school. She sounded comfortable.
By that point the military had been integrated for forty years
and she said she found it to be the most colour-blind place in
America. But she was also a little frustrated about her own
individual progress. I got the impression her application to the
110th was make or break for her. If she got it, she was in for
life, like me. If she didn’t, she was out after five.
‘Now tell me about your life,’ she said.
‘Mine?’ I said. Mine was different in every way imaginable.
Colour, gender, geography, family circumstances. ‘I was born in
Berlin. Back then, you stayed in the hospital seven days, so I
was one week old when I went into the military. I grew up on
every base we’ve got. I went to West Point. I’m still in the
military. I always will be. That’s it, really.’
‘You got family?’
I recalled the note from my sergeant: Your brother called. No
message.
‘A mother and a brother,’ I said.
‘Ever been married?’
‘No. You?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Seeing anyone?’
‘Not right now.’ The either.’
We drove on, a mile, and another.
‘Can you imagine a life outside the service?’ she asked.
‘Is there one?’
‘I grew up out there. I might be going back.’
‘You civilians are a mystery to me,’ I said.
Summer parked outside Kramer’s room, I guessed for
authenticity’s sake, a little less than five hours after we left
Walter Reed. She seemed satisfied with her average speed. She
shut the motor down and smiled.
‘I’ll take the lounge bar,’ I said.”You speak to the kid in the
motel office. Do the good cop thing. Tell him the bad cop is
right behind you.’
52
We slid out into the cold and the dark. The fog was back.
The street lights burned through it. I felt cramped and airless.
I stretched and yawned and then straightened my coat and
watched Summer head past the Coke machine. Her skin flared
red as she stepped through its glow. I crossed the road and
headed for the bar.
The lot was as full as it had been the night before. Cars and
trucks were parked all around the building. The ventilators
were working hard again. I could see smoke and smell beer in
the air. I could hear music thumping away. The neon was
bright.
I pulled the door and stepped into the noise. The crowd
was wall-to-wall again. The same spotlights were burning.
There was a different girl naked on the stage. There was the
same barrel-chested guy half in shadow behind the register. I
couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was looking at my lapels.
Where Kramer had worn Armored’s crossed cavalry sabres
with a charging tank over them, I had the Military Police’s