God Is Dead (14 page)

Further applause from the crowd, slightly more subdued this time, but still powerful and sustained. Arnold's initial shock at the Colonel's announcement was already giving way to a deep, burning jealousy. He clapped along absently, standing on the tips of his toes to catch a glimpse of Mike Raboteau. But his view was mostly obscured by the podium, and all he saw was Mike's hand, clasped in the Colonel's larger one, pumping up and down in a warm, prolonged handshake.

Entering Mr. Oswalt's classroom on Monday, Arnold smelled Colonel Redmond before he saw him. Even with a window open the air in the room was laden with an unmistakably masculine scent, like Armor All mingled with cigar smoke. The Colonel sat on a stool in the corner, almost behind the door; Arnold moved to his place near the back of the room (past Mike Raboteau's desk, conspicuously vacant), wondering where the smell was coming from, and only noticed the Colonel when he turned to take a seat himself.

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Oswalt said when everyone was seated, “I've got good news for those of you who neglected your reading this weekend—you've got another day to get it done. You'll remember Colonel Redmond, whom many of you saw at the parade yesterday—except of course for Messieurs Davis and McCutcheon, whom I'll have words with after class. The Colonel has asked that he be allowed to speak with you, and I agreed to give him today's period to discuss the military's need for new recruits and, as well, the obligation that you bear to defend Postmodern Anthropology. Colonel?”

“I don't know about all that,” the Colonel said, rising from the stool and smoothing the front of his uniform. He grinned, revealing teeth too square and white to belong to a man his age. “Not to undercut your teacher here, boys, but I bet if I started going on and on about free will versus genetic predetermination and how PoMo Anthro is superior to Evolutionary Psychology in every which way—well, I bet your eyes would just gloss over and you'd drift off on some daydream until this old soldier finished with his spiel and left you alone. I mean, you get that sort of thing in here every day, and man, you're sick of it. Am I right?”

The grin widened, inviting them to admit they had little interest in yet another ideological sermon. Most of the boys, except for Arnold and Kelly McCutcheon, cast nervous glances in the direction of Mr. Oswalt, then slowly ventured smiles of their own.

“So what I'd like to talk about instead—well, it's two things. First thing I want to talk about is guns. You boys like guns, right?”

An affirmative murmur rippled through the classroom.

“Well, let me tell you, when it comes to guns nobody can hold a candle to the PoMo Marines.” The Colonel ran a hand over his stubbled scalp in the same gesture Arnold had noticed the day before. “Now some of you have probably gone hunting with a 12-gauge or some pussy-ass .22. You may even have an old man who's a gun nut and had a few beers one day and said to himself,
Self, the boy's growing up quick. Probably time to let him try the old .45 on for size.
But I'd be willing to wager my retirement—and it's pretty substantial, boys—that you've never even laid eyes on a CAR-15 assault rifle with a bottom-mounted M203 grenade launcher, much less fired one. If any of you have, tell me and I'll cut you a check from my pension right this minute.”

Silence from the group.

“That's what I thought,” the Colonel said. “How about an M134 minigun? We're talking a rate of fire near six thousand rounds per minute. Just one round can crack the engine block on a semi. No shit. Or how about the AT4 anti-armor rocket? Turn an Evo-Psych tank into a flaming hunk of junk with one little twitch of the trigger. Have any of you ever felt the kick from one of those babies? Sound off loud and clear so I can hear you.”

“No,” the boys said in one voice.

“No,
sir,
” the Colonel said.

“No, sir!”

“Well you will,” the Colonel said, his voice suddenly low and conspiratorial. “If you join the Marines.”

He turned away, taking a few steps back toward Mr. Oswalt's desk to let his words sink in.

“The other thing I want to talk about,” he said after a moment, turning on one heel to face them again, “is money. Now, you've got a nice little town here. I noticed some decent places on the waterfront on my way in yesterday. But let's be honest—no one here is getting rich catching alewife and flounder, and that's what you boys are looking at when you leave this school—a lifetime of popping Dramamine and stinking like fish shit, and when you finally kick you'll be lucky to have enough cabbage to pay for your own casket. Any of you looking forward to that? Sound off, now.”

“No, sir.”

“Besides, what little money there is in this town doesn't belong to any of you,” the Colonel said. “You want something, you've got to ask your old man to buy it for you. And that in my opinion is a shit state of affairs, for grown men like you not to be able to get what they want when they want it.”

The Colonel leaned against Mr. Oswalt's desk. His voice dropped again into the conspiratorial hush. “So listen here,” he said. “What if I told you that the Marines will give you twenty thousand dollars just for signing up? I wouldn't lie to you, boys. You show up at the recruitment center, sign a few forms, get a few shots, turn your head and cough, whammo—they cut you a check for twenty grand right there. Take it to the bank and cash it that afternoon. Now I want you to think about that a minute.”

The Colonel folded his arms and gazed at the class, still smiling.

“You thinking about what you could buy with all that money?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. Take your time. There's lots of things a man should want.”

Arnold, incredulous at the Colonel's performance, watched the red second hand wind slowly around the face of the clock on the wall behind Mr. Oswalt's desk.

“Okay,” the Colonel said brightly, clapping his hands together. “That's it, boys. I don't need to sell this anymore, and you know it, because this shit sells itself. I assume you know where the recruitment center is here in town. Open seven days a week. Thanks for humoring an old man.”

The boys looked to Mr. Oswalt, who nodded, and they rose and began filing out of the room. The Colonel stood at the front of the class, laughing and clapping backs, but when Arnold tried to slip through the doorway the Colonel put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed with surprising strength.

“Son,” he said, “I noticed you weren't sounding off with the rest of the boys.”

“No.”

“No,
sir.
”

“No, sir.”

“Did you not like what I had to say?”

“No, sir, it's not that. I—”

“Son, I think I have an inkling what the problem is,” the Colonel said. “You're a smart kid. That old guns-and-money routine won't work on you. But you're exactly the kind of young man I'm trying to reach. I'd trade in all the boys in this class for just one of you. And you know why?”

“No, sir.”

“Because you know why we're really in this fight, and you care about it,” the Colonel said. “So do I. What you saw here today, that's just a little recruiting razzle-dazzle. A sales pitch. I don't feel good about it. Never have. But we need warm bodies on the field, now more than ever. And this is the way to make that happen. Do you understand?”

“I think so, sir.”

“More than that, we need men like you, son.”

“Like me, sir?”

“Men with conviction,” the Colonel said. “Men with heads on their shoulders. Men who can lead the guns-and-money bunch.”

The Colonel unfastened the top button of his jacket, reached in, and removed a business card. “Take this for me,” he said. “You think about it, and you give me a call. We'll talk.”

“Sir, I don't—”

“Take the card, son. In a few days you'll be glad you have it.”

Selia and Arnold hadn't spoken more than a few words to each other since the argument, but on Tuesday morning she stopped him on his way out to school and offered a bagged lunch of smoked Atlantic salmon, Brie, stone wheat crackers, and homemade pudding. Arnold knew his mother well enough to realize this was not a peace offering or an apology so much as an attempt to resume the discussion in a more civilized tone.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the bag.

“Listen,” she said. “Let's you and me take our dinner up to the natural pool tonight.”

“Okay,” he said. “What about Dad?”

“He's a big kid. He can feed himself.”

The natural pool was a large bowl-shaped formation of granite on the north coast of the island that filled with seawater and small fish at high tide. As the sun retreated toward the mainland later that day, Arnold and Selia picked their way along the rocky shore leading to the pool, iridescent shards of clamshells snapping and gritting underfoot. They cast long early-evening shadows on skittish Jonah crabs and knots of seaweed that waved and shimmered in the unsettled water. On a flat slab of granite overlooking the pool, they spread a blanket and set out their dinner from the basket Selia carried.

Arnold knew his mother wanted to talk, but he offered no openings, giving curt one word answers to her questions about school and gazing for long minutes out toward the horizon, where the delineation between sky and sea was fading along with the daylight. By the time they finished eating Selia had given up trying to spark a conversation. She lit a cigarette, the second of the two she allowed herself each day, and joined her son in watching the whitecaps roll in from the open ocean.

Arnold took his phone out and typed a message:

Selia pushed her sunglasses back on her head and looked over at him. “I wish you had half as much to say to me,” she said, smoke drifting from her mouth as she spoke. “Hours and hours, typing away. What
do
you write about to that girl?”

Arnold didn't answer. Instead he began another message:

“I asked you a question,” Selia said, snatching the phone from Arnold before he could finish the message. She stood quickly and turned away from him, giggling as he got to his feet and tried to reach around her to take the phone back.

“How the hell do you work this thing?” she said.

“Mom,” Arnold said. “Mom, give it back.”

“I want to see what the big deal is,” she said, turning to block his reach. “
Scroll up/down.
Okay, now we're getting somewhere.”

“Mom!” Arnold said.

“Oh!” Selia's eyes went wide with amusement.
“Divine Amanda,”
she breathed, pressing the back of one hand to her forehead in a mock swoon. “Oh, this is rich, kiddo. This is really rich.”

“Selia!” Arnold yelled. He'd stopped trying to take the phone from her and stood with his fists clenched at his sides. “Give me the fucking phone!”

But suddenly Selia wasn't laughing anymore, and she seemed not to hear him. The hand dropped from her forehead as she continued reading, scrolling down, reading. Arnold waited, breathing hard. His face burned with equal parts anger and shame. When Selia was finished she held the phone out to him, and he unclenched his fist and took it.