Red
Notes:
Welcome to the first of the Saturday Sessions.
Soleil Lumiere and I love to offer each other TAG writing challenges. Usually they come early in the week, to be finished by Saturday, when we send them to each other and then skype afterwards. Sometimes, we have no more than an hour, start to finish. The terms and conditions change each time! They've been a lot of fun, and have prompted some very fast, just-get-it-on-the-paper writing. Sometimes, the results have surprised us. We've met the challenges in very different ways, and it's been fascinating to see. We thought we might start posting some of these, purely for the hell of it.
This one was a challenge just for me.
After finishing Edge of the World, I found it was hard to get back to any kind of writing. The wonderful Soleil Lumiere gave me a story challenge to finish by the weekend, with just one word: red.
It took three weeks, not one, but gradually the muse cranked back into gear.
This is a little character piece, and most of the comments about warfare were written in that first week.
Work Text:
The first time Virgil went into the Triple X bar in Coniston, it was with four other high schoolers and a guilty conscience. It didn't matter that he came in with an ill-formed but compelling notion of looking after his ineptly rebellious friends. The mere fact of so egregiously trespassing against one of his father's strictest edicts was enough to have him sick to his stomach.
He still felt a little ill as he sat in there again, in the furthest corner once more, still looking to disguise his presence. No parental stricture, this time, to make him feel vaguely nauseous. This time, it was the look on his brother's face as he sat across from him, hands clasped on the table top as if to thwart a desire to hit out.
Gordon was at the bar, ordering their next round, when he could find time from flirting with the young women seated next to it. He'd left their own table more than five minutes ago, and there were less than twenty people in the entire bar, most of them already nursing a brew at the scattered tables, so he should have been back almost at once. But from where Virgil sat, it looked as though Gordon was propped at the bar and enjoying himself hugely, all ideas of bringing succor to his brothers in the corner forgotten.
"Look at this." Scott unclasped his hands and dug out a plastic flower from his front pocket. It looked misshapen after the time stuffed forcibly into its depths, petals askew and drooping. "Look at it. Seven years and millions of dollars, and this is what they've managed to come up with."
"Not all they've come up with." Once again, Virgil was playing devil's advocate, a role he was so used to it felt almost like a reflex. "They've built that centre in KC."
"Yeah." Quiet, ashes in the mouth dry, and when Scott's anger went underground like this, cold and weary and thick with disgust, that was when Virgil knew his brother was hurting. "One centre. You living in the city, you're looked after. Kansas country boys and girls, they can just get themselves over it."
Nothing to say to that. From the bar, Gordon's laugh, low and insinuating. Doing well, apparently.
It was a thankless task, with a foregone level of failure, but Virgil tried nonetheless.
"Your speech was good, Scott. You have the research, the figures. We lost this round, but – "
"But Bereznik's too much yesterday's news. Not even yesterday's. Seven years old. May as well be seventy. They just didn't want to hear it." Scott glared at him, and Virgil took the burn, a quiet act of grace his brother would only dimly perceive afterwards. "Do you know how many suicides there's been since? And god knows the levels of addiction. Who's looking after them? Who gives a rat's ass? Not the government, not the GDF, and not Joe Public, far as I can see."
Virgil stirred in his seat.
"There's gotta be ways around the funding issue. Tracy Industries could fund – "
"You know they can't." Scott spat it with sudden vehemence. "That's the bit that sticks the most. They don't want us funding further rehab because – because what, Virge? Politics. Goddamned politics. Don't want to be seen getting bailed out by private firms when they made such a big deal straight after the emergency. 'Vote for us. We'll look after our heroes.' Yeah, right. We'll do squat." He lifted the flower again. "We'll make plastic badges and flowers to commemorate. We'll make people feel good when they shell out two bucks on Veterans' Day."
"I still think there's ways we could channel money into it," Virgil persisted. "Now we know the committee's really not going to do anything, we should get Legal to do it. Get Tonia Gillard to take a look. See if we can't do it under some kind of back door approach."
"Do what?" Scott flicked the flower into the middle of the table. "Where? The department's got all the details. They'd know where the money's needed. I wouldn't know where to start. I just know where it's gone wrong. It's in the public records once you're dead. Yeah, that we can track real well."
Virgil swallowed a sigh. This was a well-rehearsed argument, creaky with over-use. Moodily, he turned his empty glass in his hand. A change of subject, however feeble, sounded like a plan.
"We flying out tomorrow?"
"I guess." Scott picked up his glass too, and rapped it on the table. "That's if Gordon doesn't execute the best laid plans to get laid."
A wince. Scott was so rarely crude, it always felt wrong, a gash of red on a blue flag.
The dust on the window sill behind his head was at least ten years older than the acne defined youth lounging behind the bar, and Virgil recognised the images of triumphant teams on the wall as ones from before his own time in high school. Of all the refuges to find after the bruising encounters with politicians and journalists and PR hacks, this was the least likely to raise any spirits but a glass of Wild Turkey. Virgil knew that this was a long standing hurt in his big brother, one into which he'd been given much more insight recently with his own tragic encounter with dealing death to another human being. He was still trying to find his own balance between that monstrous weight and urgent familial need. There was no wisdom or comfort to give that he could provide. He was simply kind of hoping the beer might soften an edge or two.
He was too absorbed in the sheer unsuitability of the bar to register the presence of the other man until some hind part of his brain told him the shadow on the table had been there too long.
Scott let his head fall back and up to meet the stranger's eyes. "Help you?"
The skin of his face said no more than thirty. His hands carried and doubled the age of him, his hands and his eyes.
"I saw you. At the hearing. You spoke."
"Yeah." Scott leant forward, his weariness dragging him to his feet, a hand outstretched. "Scott Tracy."
"Colonel, right?" The man didn't even look at the offered hand, and after an awkward moment, Scott withdrew it. "Officer. Heard about you. So damn rich you could buy the GDF, you wanted to. Same as all them. Officers. You play at being heroes then scoot back to Daddy's millions, right?"
Virgil got half out of his seat, even as Scott gestured him back down. "Okay, fella, that's not – "
"No, course not. Billions. Millions, ha. What was I thinking?"
Scott straightened up, the invisible burden settling once more on already aching shoulders. "Can I buy you a drink?"
"Yeah. Sure." No intention whatsoever of drinking with either of them, that was painfully obvious. "Let's us have a drink and you can tell me just what the hell you and all those other those monkey ass-blossoms in KC and Washington and New York are doing with our money, huh? You can look at me, sectioned out, no pension and a farm no asshole wants to buy and I can't afford to run. You can order a round and tell me just how to fix what the 409th left of me. Go on, Colonel Trust Fund. I got all day."
Acne Boy behind the bar was looking towards them with one quirked brow. Do I need to call the cops? Virgil shook his head slightly. Scott could talk this guy down.
"I'm sorry you're having a tough time. I know there are a lot of guys who – "
"A lot of guys who ain't around here anymore to tell you just what colour shit you're peddling." The man poked a finger into Scott's chest, and Virgil gritted his teeth to stop himself from taking this up several notches. He could see Scott really didn't want that.
"The committee was a disappointment. I agree. What can be done to help you?"
"Oh, wait, lemme rephrase that for you. 'What can I do to shut you up and buy you off, stop pestering me?' That sounds about right."
Scott stared at the man, without belligerence, without answers. It was as though he was too tired to shift his gaze.
"If you don't want money, what do you want? I'm serious. If you could talk to the committee right now and tell them, what would you want to say? I'm listening."
"Yeah, you're listening. You're listening cos I got twenty pounds on you and you ain't swung a fist in seven years, am I right?"
Oh, you have no idea, Virgil thought. If this did go the way he was almost starting to hope it would, this guy was in for some kind of shock. But maybe a barroom brawl was what Scott needed after three days of listening to professional liars explaining why the Bereznik Veterans' Bill was being put on the back burner for a year or two, in this difficult time, in this current financial climate…
"Doesn't matter why I'm listening. I am." Ordinarily it was Virgil practising patience. He couldn't help but think this wasn't patience so much as emptiness on Scott's part. He simply had nothing else to give. "What do you want?"
"Maybe some respect? Maybe some recognition? My kids are hungry and I gotta explain that Daddy can't work 'cos of a war they don't know shit about. No one wants to know about Bereznik, do they? Nah, we got the GDF, we don't have wars now, we don't want reminding 'bout some shitty little firefight didn't even last a year." The man's mouth was trembling, and even as Virgil cursed the timing of the whole damn thing, he couldn't help feel a sudden surge of sympathy. The bottom of the boot was always a lousy place to be, and this poor sap had been trodden into the ground until he probably didn't know what it felt like to be the right shape of a man. The stranger crowded closer.
"Take a look, Colonel Sell-out. The guy in the corner? Shane Trelawney. Twenty-eight missions over Karazhal, needs surgery for his back after getting knocked out of airspace last day of the war. Guy next to him is Robbie Leung, he can't get a job 'cos of all the blackouts, can't even work a car. That's 'cos of the chemicals they used. You maybe didn't get to whiff any of that when you were flying your fancy desk."
Scott said nothing, even as Virgil wanted to argue with every ounce of vehemence in his body for just how hard his brother had fought, how much he wore the defeat of the Bill.
The man raised his finger to shove into Scott's chest again.
"And you get to go to all the fancy places, nothing but the best for a Tracy. How do you – "
"Hey! Hey, fella, did I hear right?" A blink, a bustle, and there was a sudden interruption – bodily, vocally, and tonally – as a bright and wide eyed Gordon swung in between Scott and the stranger. "Did you say you flew with the 409th?"
Oh shit, no, Gordon, not your nonsense now! Virgil's mind flared with alarm as his little brother buzzed at the table like an exceptionally annoying gadfly.
The stranger was nonplussed, his resentful stride stopped mid-step.
"Oh, wow, 409th. Man, I never thought I'd get to meet someone who flew with them. They were the best. Did you ever meet Kal Khalifa?"
"Uh – Khalifa? Yeah, sure." The man looked from Gordon to Scott as if to find an answer to the oddly cheerful kid who was gazing at him as if he was some kind of apparition. "We flew together, in his wing."
"No!" Gaping astonishment, along with the kind of contained enthusiasm to be found in a well-trained puppy facing a treat. "Seriously? You – no! Wow." Gordon pushed his hand at the man, who seemed unable to do anything but take it. "Gordon. I guess this is just the best thing ever. Can I – would you mind if I bought you a beer? I mean, wow, the guys at home will never believe it. Me, buying a 409er a beer."
The man shot a quick, ugly look at Scott, but the sheer exuberance of Gordon in front of him dragged his eyes back to the beaming smile.
"You heard 'bout us, then?"
"You kidding? That sortie in May, what was it? Fourteenth? Fifteenth?"
"Fourteenth."
"Yeah, sorry, lousy at dates, but man, you guys – that was something else. Hey, uh, Gary?" This to the pimpled youth at the bar. "We have four beers with whiskey chasers over to that table?"
The young man looked so startled to be asked to move from behind the counter that he nodded and began getting the beers. With a skill that looked like nothing more than eagerness, Gordon subtly shifted his body and began walking so that he and the man started to move back towards the table where his friends were watching in silent confusion.
"What was the commander like? Ferguson? He sounded awesome."
They couldn't hear the response, but Gordon's quick laugh was clear enough, and Virgil could see that one of the men at the table joined in.
He shook his head in reluctant admiration. His own chaser was one of gratitude. Nicely played, little brother.
Scott slowly sat back down, as if unwilling to trust that the danger had passed. Virgil gave him a rueful grin.
"Rescue comes in all shapes and sizes, huh? What do you bet that little con artist has the name and number of everyone in this place?" He lifted his own empty glass. "And meanwhile we're going thirsty."
Scott still had the dazed look of a man who had been standing in front of an out of control truck thundering towards him, only to see the wheels fly off and the truck swerve away at the last minute. He gave the tiniest of head shakes to mirror Virgil's.
"Guess he's still on the clock." And then the straightened shoulders slumped, just a little, and Scott looked smaller and older than Virgil had ever seen him. "How would he know about the 409th?"
"My guess? He overheard the conversation and googled like mad." Virgil picked up the flower again, something to do with hands restless with unspent energy. "He's taking one for the team, you know."
Scott looked unimpressed.
"Well, guess that answers any questions I had about what the veterans think of our efforts. I'm meant to be fighting for them, and I do, but – yeah, what's that thing Parker says? Tits on a bull? Useless."
The flower caught Scott's attention once more, even as he drew in a deep breath, regrouping. He eyed it sourly.
"Look at it. They think that makes it better? Or – I don't know, that's some kind of poetic symbol? A flower? And why's it always red? Like those poppies in England."
Virgil twirled the flower between his fingers, creating a blur of tattered color. There were so many eddies and whirls of emotion in Scott's voice that he chose the literal question rather than dive down for the deeper, darker ones.
"I guess it's always been the color of honor, right? Soldiers. Guards. And it's royalty in China. Kind of represents the blood spilled, but suggests it's – I don't know, an honorable spilling, I guess?"
Yeah, he was floundering. He didn't need Scott's look to let him know how feeble that effort was.
"Honor, huh? That's what that is?"
"If you really want to get into it, it's probably meant to represent the heart, and courage. Blood drains from face means white for cowardice, blood into face with anger means red for courage."
"Is that what it says? To you?" Scott plucked it out from between Virgil's fingers and held it up so that the dull light of the late afternoon sun blazed it into brightness. "What even kind of flower is it?"
"You didn't read the pamphlet." Virgil tried for a low-key teasing. "Tulipa greigii. Grows in Bereznik. Known as Red Riding Hood."
"Well, you know what, Virgil?" Scott leant forward, his face tight with reined in feeling. "They should have found a black one. 'Cos most of the people I knew who died, they burned black. They blew up or rode their plane down to a fireball." He slammed his fist onto the table. "Why don't I go back and tell the committee that? Make a useful decision for once. Hey, you morons. Change your goddamned flower choice."
There was no balm for this wound. Virgil could only send every ounce of sympathy he had within him to his big brother, so honorable, so hurt. Failure was so unacceptable to Scott that when he did encounter it he would throw himself repeatedly against its implacable walls until he broke himself open on them.
Two whiskeys suddenly plonked themselves on their table, only just avoiding the flower.
"Uh – he said you needed these?" It was Acne Boy, clearly still a little surprised to find himself actually serving, and he gestured with his head back to where Gordon was seemingly engrossed in conversation with the three veterans.
"We sure do," Virgil said. "Thanks. And keep 'em coming."
"How did he get you to come over?" And that was typical of Scott, too, never simply accepting what had happened, always looking to know why.
Acne Boy twisted his mouth. Virgil suspected that was the height of animation for him.
"Gave me a hundred."
"Ah. Money gets it done, huh?"
"Well – yeah?" A world of 'duh' in that, as the young man slouched back to stand behind his bar again.
Scott was scowling. "It's a good thing Gordon was born rich. He throws money around like it's ticker tape."
"And life's one long parade." Virgil shrugged. "You know, that's not always a bad way to be."
"On someone else's dime? Oh, yeah, real admirable."
"Hey. Come on now," Virgil said, gently. "You're not really mad at Gordon."
Scott obviously decided that taking a long drink of his beer was a better option than answering that. The real anger was so disparate in its target and so horribly enmeshed in sorrow and sacrifice that Virgil could almost allow him a proxy. But not Gordon. Their brother didn't deserve it, and Scott would regret it. Maybe not today, but later, when they were back on the farm and the reminders of young lives and old responsibilities came with every glance.
They drank that round, and the next, mostly in silence. In tactical terms a move to another bar might have been advisable, but Virgil didn't bother suggesting it. Sometimes he understood his siblings so well that he didn't need to test his intuition. Scott wouldn't leave the bar. It would feel like retreat to him, no matter how sensible. He'd faced those assembled ranks of bureaucrats and professional liars, he'd face the increasingly drunk men in the other corner, and it was all futile, all wasted courage in the service of those who wouldn't thank him, in the name of those who couldn't.
Finally, Scott spoke.
"Gordon's not much of a whiskey drinker."
Virgil allowed himself a quiet chuckle.
"He's gonna be fried. All in a good cause, I guess."
"Yeah." Bitter, equally quiet. "Another losing round for the Tracys."
He wondered if a pep talk at this stage was the definition of stupidity. Probably. "Another round, sure, but they did move a little on the timing of the next review. You knew this was going to be a long fight, and a reversal can be temporary. You don't have to look at it that way."
"Yeah, I kinda do."
"Okay." Patience in the face of Scott's intransigence, a default setting. "You may not be an optimist, Scott, but you can usually see your way to the next fight. It's like you're not even looking for it. Why is that?"
"Maybe because I don't want to?"
Virgil sighed, as unobtrusively as he could.
"I know fronting committees isn't your thing, but – "
"No!" Agitated, Scott sat forward again. "It's all of it. It's having anything to do with anything of it. Bereznik, my god."
A question that was a probe into darkness. "I'm not sure I know what – "
"This flower? This committee? It's all just a reminder of failure." Scott closed his eyes, a brief, indulgent gesture towards an age old certainty. "Every single time. Every time."
Virgil frowned.
"You don't – "
Scott's eyes were open now, and blazing. "Every time someone, somewhere, says hey, let's bomb. Let's just destroy who we can't control, let's just flatten who we can't silence, let's –" His mouth clamped against his own anger. After a long pause, he continued, more softly. "Every time we go to war, we've failed. Win or lose, we've failed by the fact of doing it. Do you not – how does no one see that?"
Virgil bowed his head. It was a deeply humbling moment.
"I'm sorry, Scott. Yeah, I see it. Jesus, of course I do." He leant forward, to meet his brother. "I'm so sorry. I never said it because I thought you wouldn't hear it."
"Me?" Scott seemed genuinely taken aback. "What didn't you say?"
Virgil opened his hands, a small helplessness in the face of this shared truth.
"That war sucked? That it's wrong? You – god, Scott, you and your people, you were – I mean, incredible. Amazing. I can't put into words what I think about how courageous you all were."
"No." Scott gave the smallest of smiles, but it was real. "You put it into music."
Virgil groaned, and hid his face in his hands.
"Don't remind me. Seriously, that was – "
"Pretty special. We loved it. Dad loved it." A broader smile. "The guys in the 501, they voted it their favourite music for making out in the morgue."
"What?"
"Service humor, Virge. No, they loved it. So did I."
"Yeah. Well." Virgil worked his shoulders, shifting the embarrassment. "My only requiem, trust me."
"Okay. Broadway melodies all the way from now on."
"You bet."
Scott kept smiling, affection in the way his eyes creased at his brother. "You were telling me what you couldn't tell me?"
Virgil looked up, his jaw set.
"That I thought any kind of war was just so deeply, deeply – deeply stupid. Just – just dumb, god, just so incredibly all-time champion pointless. But these guys over there and you, you were kinda magnificent in being so pointless, you know?"
Scott chuckled, and it came to Virgil like real sunlight, unfiltered through grime.
"Amen."
"Guess it makes sense that everything coming after it is matching it in the futility stakes."
Scott sighed, and picked up his glass.
"Yeah. When you put it that way…"
In the far corner, another burst of laughter, and then Gordon was getting up, and so were two of the others. Hands were extended, clasped, shaken; one of them put his arm on Gordon's shoulder. Then Gordon, clearly a little worse for wear, saluted lopsidedly to them then turned to stagger in a kind of sideways maneuver outside.
"Do we follow him?" Virgil asked, amused.
"I guess. I'd say we're done here." Scott drained his glass and stood, snatching up the bedraggled tulip as he did so. "And god knows where he'll end up if we don't go with him."
They followed him through the ratty old doors to where the streetlights had now taken over from the departed sun. Gordon was waiting for them, hands in his pockets, leaning against the nearest car.
"Hey. 'Bout time." He glared accusingly at Virgil. "You left me with them."
"Well, you did such a good job of kidnapping them." Virgil found the fresh air somewhat sobering, and welcomed it. "Thought you fancied him."
Gordon gave that the dismissal it deserved, and turned to Scott.
"Scotty, we've got a lot of money."
Scott regarded him solemnly.
"This is true."
"And they don't."
"This is also true."
Gordon waited a beat, and then rolled his eyes. The action nearly took him sideways off the car, and Virgil shot out an arm to straighten him back up.
"Maybe less eye-rolling 'til you got your land legs," he said.
"Whiskey chasers, Virge."
"Mm-mm."
"I don't norm – I don't usually drink whiskey chasers."
"You don't."
"But I did."
"They gang up on you."
"They do."
"So much ganging. Don't trust 'em."
"Whiskey chasers?"
"Yep. Sneaky little suckers."
"S'why I don't drink 'em."
"That's right."
Scott tilted his head slightly.
"This going anywhere, Gordo?"
"Oh. Yeah. Well, duh."
Scott looked up the street, at the emptiness of it, then back to his little brother.
"So we've got money, they don't ..?"
"Oh. Yeah. Right." Gordon waited again, then swung his arms up in impatient emphasis. "Do the math. Or the other thing."
"The what now?"
"We should give them money."
"We should," Virgil agreed before his other brother could say anything. There was a devil in his eyes as he looked at Scott, but his question was for Gordon. "How much do they need?"
Gordon snorted, and then lifted his fingers up before his face with the intense concentration of he very drunk. "Thass easy. Jayden's mortgage is ninety grand. Shaun, he's got the back, he's got doctors' bills for eighty grand then he's out from under it, and Ronnie… huh. I forget Ronnie." A blink for retrieval and his eyes lit up. "No, wait, no, I got this. Ronnie's, he's – oh man, Ronnie! Wait, no you guys, Ronnie is the worst, it's like, wow, so sad. Like a hundred and twenty sad."
He grabbed for Scott's upper arm and shook it, an importunate child. "C'mon, Scotty. We wouldn't even notice it."
"Wouldn't we?" All smiles were gone from Scott now, but there was something peaceful in his expression that Virgil's heart leapt to see. "I guess not. So you think we should help them out?"
"There's more than one way to rescue," Gordon said earnestly, if a little lopsidedly.
"This is also true, brother mine." Scott looped his arm around Gordon's neck, the plastic tulip in his hand. "Okay. I'm for it. How do you want to do this?"
"Anon – ananomen – anomusly." Gordon scowled at himself. "Anomossly. Whatever." A wave of his hand and it was fixed in his mind. "By order of the secret society of scuzzballs."
"By order of the Five Brothers," Scott said.
Virgil plucked the flower from Scott's fingers and held it up.
"By order of Red Riding Hood."
"That's… suitably creepy." Gordon swayed a little under Scott's arm. "That would freak anyone out. Your mind, Virge. It scares me."
"It's the name of the flower," Virgil said, and he wanted to feign indignation but he couldn't. Something had cleared from Scott's face, and he knew exactly what did it.
A plan of action. A different kind of rescue. Red for courage. Red for honor.
"That's a really stupid flower," Scott said, but he slid it carefully into the buttonhole of Gordon's lime green shirt, and somehow Virgil just knew that flower was coming home with them. It would find its way onto the refrigerator door, or the noticeboard, or maybe the piano. And every time he saw it, he would think of stupidity, and arrogance, and failure.
And he'd think of courage, and loss, and painful trust in a greater good.
Gordon looked down at it, eyes crossing to do so.
"It's a cute flower. Thanks, Scott."
His oldest brother scowled, a reflex.
"The car's this way."
"Yay driverless cars," said Virgil.
"Kansas is crooked," Gordon said, weaving out even as Scott dragged him back in.
Virgil grinned. "No, they shortened your leg."
"They did? How come?"
"It's a new tax. For disorderly sailors too far inland."
"Oh. Yeah, well, they would." Gordon peered at his legs, causing Scott to haul him upright again. "Which one?"
"Right leg."
"Oh." Gordon leaned to the left, into Scott. "Oh, yeah, right. That is better."
"I swear, Gordon…" Scott muttered, and Virgil laughed.
"By Order of Red Riding Hood." He grinned at his brothers, who both knew too much of combat, who both carried too many scars and too much love. "Aw, Scotty. You're going to look so cute in red."