True Heroes (29 page)

              “Yes,” Caleb said in a flat, toneless voice, “that is how the world should be.”    

Chapter 7

             
Brantley Hughes shuffled through the stack of mail on his military-appointed, darkly stained desk. The green felt glued to the center could only be seen in fragmented pieces through the white and off-white envelopes as mumbled words followed the loud iPod’s song in harmony and tone. The large desk was devoid of personal effects; horizontally, the stapler stared dumbly towards the letter opener, which ogled the ceiling while lying next to the comatose phone receiver; vertically, a photo of the American flag emptily smiled and drooled against its golden frame directly across from the brain-dead intercom box. His focus couldn’t be pinned totally to his appointed task as the girl his age across the walkway was as strikingly beautiful as ever. They’re backgrounds melded: military children with growth sprinkled with the bloody medals of their forefathers and stuck inside the system as long as their bones were still attached to their names. Luckily for them, the time for military displacement of families was over. Relocating units in mass became too expensive to a government running low on military patience, so they remained here for their entire lives. Nearly twenty years of blind glances and silent helloes pushed them behind the panels of the well-furnished lifetime positions.

              Their scenery matched any idea of bland one could think of. Brantley gathered the letters by size and laid them towards the corner of the desk while glancing across the way to his busy counterpart. They smiled at one another through separate musical devices, and Stanley made sure the eye contact didn’t last too long. The walls served as his fastidious interest as her yellow eyes probed the side of his face. Old grenadier guns were crossed over a torn flag over the fake paneling of the wall, which was truly cement with a paint-soaked coat. The wall behind him held the mix of noble and infamous presidential faces the United States offered historically. Directly behind his head was the estranged and immortal posture of Abraham Lincoln. Next to Washington, Brantley had always heard the praise of the sixteenth President. He was the beacon of freedom, resting a few feet behind Brantley’s skinny, long neck.

              The doors burst open and the General walked into the open room. His high paunch and poured-in frame walked briskly over the green carpet right up to Brantley’s desk, causing the boy to snap up and habitually fold his sideways hand in a salute. The older man half-saluted, allowing Brantley to relax before looking down at his pile of mail. “Morning, Private. Any messages?”

              “No, sir, and I’m sorry that’s not organized yet, sir. I didn’t expect you in this morning.”

              A small smile came from the ranking officer’s lips. “Well, you don’t have to worry about surprises after next week. Didn’t seem fair to the military to come in late during my last week. I’ll be able to sleep all I want during my long awaited retirement.”

              “I wouldn’t know, sir. Haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I was born, sir.”

              “Heh, better get a jump on retirement then, son.”

              The older officer scooped up the mail in one hand and a small package in the other. Brantley smiled after the man while retaking his seat before the General disappeared behind his expertly crafted doors.

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              The General’s arms almost gave out from the light weight of the mail, even over that short time. Even his fit body felt more like tipping over the brink of seventy than balancing any longer. It wasn’t his desire; the passion he felt from servicing his country for nearly fifty years only sharpened his resolve and served as a crutch for him through the worst times of his life. His body was giving out, a plethora of evidence coming from the air that quickly escaped his flop into the lavish red chair. His sleepless nights weakened his mind. Blinking alone was a tiresome, torturous movement that offered no light at the end of the tunnel.

              His weathered back squeaked with his chair as it sat up straight and his rusted fingers unclasped themselves and scraped the mail closer. Military mail had become minimalist; it had never been incredibly sophisticated during the General’s tenure, but their new efforts to save money overlapped unnecessary. Every letter between bases was in plain white envelopes with no seals, just electronic barcodes for bases, ranking officers, and two letters abbreviating the topic of the letter. One scan under his desk edge and he could quickly disregard ninety percent of the allocated notices. His job had him looking towards injury control and placement throughout the west coast while his twilit days of work ticked by. Many within the base looked to him as the sole officer with remaining, leaking leverage to connect many problems with their solutions. Little did they know his apathetic cloud was spreading, and the thought of Hawaiian shirts and bulimic belly-dancers now played across the page instead of their silly complaints. He summoned his energy and reached for the larger envelope with dusty fingers and grunted. “You’re not from the military are you?”

              His old glasses fell a little off the bridge of his nose as one of his fingers begrudgingly slipped the sharp letter opener over. He felt slight anxiety. Letting his military mind rekindle whatever fuel hadn’t been smothered by age, he made three small slashes: top, diagonal, and bottom. He used the small utensil to open the gashes, one by one, to inspect the inside, all three angles revealing a simple envelope on the inside and no evidence of what he feared he’d see. “No one assassinating me today.” His muscles screamed as they ripped open the thin yellow carrier, and a grey envelope flopped onto his desk with his name staring him in the face in large, black letters: “General Robert Fink.” The letter flipped over at the will of his pinkie, and he suddenly knew what was inside. An old war emblem stared at him with bloody mountains; the internal markings inset with a lavender color and smell so sickly pleasant for the occasion that the military kindling on Robert’s mind began to spread.

              He snatched at the letter and jolted to his door. They burst outward under his forearms and his enthused voice nearly shouted, “When did this letter get here? The package, when did it arrive?”

              His intern, retreating from General Meyer’s female assistant’s desk, muttered, “Um, well, everything in the pile came in today I think, sir.”

              “You think? You better be damn sure before I open this letter and find out differently.”

              “I am! I promise that all came in with today’s mail. Private Carsie brought it in a few minutes after I got here.”

              The kid’s sweating and stammering broke Robert’s temporary haze. He quickly opened the envelope—careful around the seal—and brought it close to his face. “Clear my schedule for tomorrow.”

              “Sir, you have a meeting with the Major tomorrow, sir.”

              “The Major can wait. My brother just died.”

                            -                            -                            -                           

                   Robert fell into the lawyer’s red, leather chair and let the weight of the world fall to the floor. His head was barely caught in his hands as all the grief his militarily-trained mind tried to block was putting up a more and more vicious fight. Various friends he didn’t recognize and family he’d only seen at reunions came shuffling in, all of which were at least in their eighties. “We’re the new fifty…,” his own mumble made him smile a bit. “So peaceful in life, the trip to heaven must’ve been a jar. Mom’s funeral….” He needed a distraction; his legs hoisted his body up and he walked around the large office, offering a hand on a shoulder or a handshake anytime it seemed appropriate. He introduced himself to nearly everyone in the room before two men in suits walked in, one with a briefcase and the other obviously not able to work a standard tie. The messy one leaned against the back wall while the other began apologizing for his tardiness. Robert worked his way to the back, nodding to the skinny man against the wall before taking his seat again. He was young, the man now on his right, too young to be a part of this crowd, too young to feel the pain of a lost brother or even a life-long friend. Robert felt his eyes resisting a glare, and he noticed a great deal of the room resisting the same. They’d give him sideways glances or gawk at his bald head or brilliantly colored eyes, surely judging similarly. “An elephant in the room,” he whispered.

              “One more apology for being late to all of you. I know how difficult this is for everyone here. We’ll get started. Thomas’ will was extensive and very carefully planned out, much as some of you said he was in life so none of us should be surprised by that. First party is his brother Robert.”

              Robert stood and took only a half step to the desk, not overly zealous for anything as it would do nothing but chip at his emotional defenses. “General Fink, if you please.”

              “General, with whom I leave the only remnant of my work, and a caution: Please, brother, open this container when only your eyes are present.” The obviously hurried lawyer picked and pushed a medium-sized silver container to the opposite edge of the desk. “You can go through the other door at the back and use that to view them, if you’d like.”

              Robert Fink, a carved path through the crowd forming before him, carefully lifted the heavy package and returned across the silent plain. The graceless General barely lifted himself and the container long enough to get to the back. He nodded again towards the younger man while going through the door, instantly spotting the small set-up the lawyer had provided. A flat-screen and an old-fashioned DVD player were plugged into the wall and sitting on a shined table. “That can’t be right.” He quickly put the container down and carefully lifted the lid. “DVD’s? They’ve been obsolete for years now….” He picked one of the cases up. “Ah, adapter disks for the minis to work in a DVD player, that makes sense.” A last gasp of strength dragged a chair under his backside before his lower body collapsed into it. He dragged the deposit box closer and carefully stacked the large collection of old DVD cases in order. A folder with his name unearthed from beneath the twenty cases. He quickly fiddled open the fastening device and let a single, typed note spill onto the table, the large print simply saying, “Suspend disbelief until you reach the bottom of the box.”

              The saying was placed aside as his eyes went further into the deep container. A brown book, a crinkled manila folder, and another disk that had a big number “1” on the front was all the container still held. He put the papers into a pile and moved the cases closer, seeing quickly they were all numbered up to twenty-seven and dated back to the eighties. The first disk carefully found its way to the tray and the television flipped on, instantly shocking Robert. He looked back at the date. “May 26
th
, 1989. That explains the haircut at least.” His late brother was staring at him from behind folded hands and a brightly penetrating sun from a nearby window. Thomas’ hair was still full and thick with its brown glory, not yet feeling the sting of his one-man crusade to save the world. The young man fiddled with the focus and glare, his stethoscope fluttering in front of the lense of the camera like a hypnotist’s watch. He soon grunted down in front of the camera again and looked excited with sparks jumping from his eyes. “Doctor Thomas Fink reporting on patient who will be known as ‘Little Titan’ for anonymity’s sake. Today…how to begin about today…I gave birth to Audrey’s baby boy about a month ago. Seven-and-a-half pounds, twenty-two inches long, fairly average. Everything was fine until we tested the boy for sensation, and he caught my hand before it could slap his bottom. That sent me for a loop for another few weeks, and here, about a month later, I’ve finally got all of his test results back. They tell me that the boy is riddled with diseases; his genetic markers….”

              “You’re awfully excited. What are you even doing with this kid? He can’t be fixed, but you’re still trying. Always the puzzle, never the image….”

              He ejected the disk and snapped it back in place. “Don’t care about the medical jargon you and your elitist group talk in, Tom.” He thumbed through the rest of the disks, and noticed the final case had only “27” and no date. He shrugged and quickly inserted the disk. The difference was instantly noticeable. His brother’s hair diminished into errant grey strands while his formerly chipper skin had drooped and dripped the life into puddles as he walked. The walls around him were different, smooth and white unlike the paneling nightmare that had been his background in the first entry. Shades were drawn against the twilight of whatever day he’d recorded this, but his old brother still fiddled with the focus before leaning against his desk. “Robert…,” his voice was barely audible from beneath the gruff of breathlessness, “I hope you’re the one watching this final entry; I hope the lavender seal made it to you before you disappeared from the grid completely. Mother always loved lavender, and you always loved her fiercely…ah, enough listing. I’m sure you started with this entry, as that’s who you were. You always looked to the end to learn how to deal with the beginning and middle. Maybe that’s why we were never best friends. We simply never saw the same things at the same time. Either way, I did love you always, brother, and that’s why I trust you with this.