Under the Green Sea
The church Mike worked for wasn't a big one. They didn't have the cops help with parking on Sundays and Wednesdays for church and Bible Studies. They didn't have a daycare, or a youth pastor, or a Sunday school. They were just a typical Southern small town street church, made of stucco and tin, with folding chairs instead of pews. They had a small parking lot and side of the street parking. They had a pastor, and his wife, and a kitchen, and a mission. Jesus fed the poor with bread and wine, but Mike's church used soup, and day-old doughnuts donated by the Krispy Kreme, and bread from the discount bake shop. The kitchen was open for breakfast and a dinner in the middle of the day, six days a week. On Sundays, after service, they served brunch. The small food bank they ran was open on Thursdays, between breakfast and dinner.
And then there was Mike, who did deliveries, whose mission was his own. Pastor John's mission was to feed the hungry, their bellies and their souls. Mike's mission was to feed the homeless vets he knew, the ones on the street corners, the ones in the woods, the ones standing at the front of the day labor place, waiting for a job, any job. He fed them, and he found them clothes, and, if they let him, he'd find them a job and a place to stay.
The new guy was tall, broad-shouldered, with the military bearing he still carried with him and which was so hard to disguise, even with uncut hair and an unkempt beard. He was standing in the day labor parking lot, a little ways off from the other men, some of whom were still hungover. He looked strong, like he could do a decent day's work, but he also had that weariness (sadness) about the eyes Mike recognized. Mike knew he still carried the weight of that sadness himself, even though Vietnam had been over for almost forty years.
He parked his truck, and a few of the regulars came over to help with the coffee and the boxes of doughnuts. Then he made his rounds, asking how everyone was, checking if anyone needed boots, or a sleeping bag, or a belt to hold up sagging pants.
He took a doughnut himself, because you always ate with your men.
"Who's the new guy?" he asked Chaco. Chaco was his age, but could still do a day's work. He'd been in Laos, and then in a hole. "I ain't seen him before."
Chaco slurped some of his coffee. "Hot," he said. Then, "Dunno. New today."
"Think he's hungry?" Mike asked.
"Shit, who ain't?" Chaco said.
Mike nodded, finished his coffee, and brushed the doughnut crumbs off his shirt. It was only April, but already hot. Still Mike didn't wear anything but a long-sleeved shirt. He didn't want anyone to see his scars.
The new guy acknowledged him with a cautious nod. He'd been beaten about the face recently, Mike noted. A blacked eye, fading. A cut cheekbone. Mike glanced at the man's knuckles and saw they were still bruised.
"There's fresh coffee," Mike said, "and doughnuts. They ain't real fresh, but they're edible."
"What's the catch?" the man asked. He had a strong voice, low and pleasant; Mike wondered if he could sing. The man nodded towards Mike's truck, which had a sign that read "Church of Holiness, Pastor John Gindl, Worship Sundays 10 am" on the cab.
"No catch," Mike said, "not unless you want to get caught."
The man shrugged, slightly, and then gave a small smile. "Fair enough," he answered. "Coffee would be good."
Mike brought him a cup and a doughnut, even though he hadn't asked for one, and the man ate the doughnut quietly and sipped his coffee.
"Thanks," he said.
Mike stuck out his hand, knowing he'd get sticky sugar icing on it. "I'm Mike," he said, "Mike Battaglia."
The man hesitated; Mike figured he was trying to come up with a new name. He took Mike's hand and said, "Will. Will Riker."
"Good to meet ya, Will." Riker's handshake was firm, but not crushing, and his hands were not calloused, not day-job calloused. In for a penny, he thought. "Iraq, or Afghanistan?"
Riker hesitated again, and Mike wondered if he would lie. Some vets did. Dishonorable discharges, mostly; drugs, fighting. It might fit Riker's bruised face and knuckles.
Riker didn't answer. He finished his coffee, and crushed the cup. "I'm not looking for any trouble," he said, his voice low. "Just some honest work."
There was something, Mike knew. The hands weren't soft – they were working hands – but that work wasn't digging holes or banging nails. Riker easily stood four inches taller than he, and he was six feet. "I'm guessing," Mike said, "you were an officer, and you don't want those guys to know. Like maybe you're afraid you won't get work, because of how your resume reads."
Riker shrugged. "Somalia. One of the hellholes I was in."
"Navy, then." Mike took out a cigarette and lit it. "You want one?"
"Sure." Riker took the fag and drew in.
"They're bad for you." Mike nodded towards the pickup turning into the parking lot. "Contractor. This one's okay. Won't ask questions, pays what he says. Name's Doug."
"There might be better jobs. Computers." Mike paused. "Just a thought."
"I don't mind working hard," Riker said. "Do me good."
"Doug's all right, then."
Riker nodded, then tossed his cigarette down and ground it.
Mike watched him walk away. He spoke briefly with Doug, then jumped into the bed of the truck with four other guys. Chaco stayed behind; too old. He could lay brick, though, and someone, Mike thought, would come by for him. He made sure the parking lot was picked up before he left. Shifting into gear, Riker was still on his mind. He turned back onto Pace, then turned again on Cervantes. He had more stops, more parking lots, more guys to check on. Riker faded away, but not before Mike had figured it out: medical discharge. Sometimes those discharges turned into dishonorable ones, if the diagnosis had been PTSD.
That was a thought Mike didn't want to chase, and he turned the radio up, so he could sing along with the Beach Boys.
On Tuesdays Mike met Chaco for supper at Sonic, a few blocks away from the church and a few streets down from the day labor place. He and Chaco had fought in the same war, although in different years and in different ways. Still, there were enough similarities – they way they both had volunteered, the way they both carried wounds from the war and from their homecoming. Chaco's dad had died while he'd been on a boat in the jungle, and he'd come home to a stepfather who viewed him as a rival and a baby sister he didn't want to think about. Mike had come home to a wife he barely knew, and then a daughter who learned not to love her daddy but to tiptoe around him.
Both of them had wandered into this small city on the Gulf, familiar to them because of the bleached white uniform they'd worn and the dark grey ships they'd slept on. Now Chaco lived in the woods with the other tent city men, and Mike had a studio – if that's what you could call it – behind the church that he rented for fifty bucks a month plus all the small jobs Pastor John needed.
It was still over ninety, even as the sun lowered itself towards the shimmer in the air that was the Gulf, but Sonic had tables and benches outside, decorated with plastic vases and plastic flowers.
Chaco had the same order every time: chicken tenders, Tater Tots, and a sweet tea. Mike liked to change it up sometimes, but this afternoon was hot and sticky and the sky promised of weather on the way. He ordered a chili cheese Coney and onion rings, with a large Coke, the plastic cup slippery with condensation.
He worried about the weather. Tornadoes usually bounced along above I-10, but sometimes they'd swoop in as water spouts and skip across the city like the flat stones his daughter used to find for him on the beach. You could waterproof a tent, or a tarp and a sleeping bag, but wind would pick up lodgepole pines and toss them like javelins.
"You worry too much," Chaco said. "It don't change nothin'."
This was true, but Mike couldn't seem to stop it. His worries were like the trains that rattled across the midsection of this old city, shaking windows and shattering the night noises with its wails.
"Something about that new guy," Mike said.
"They didn't kick him off the job," Chaco answered. "Came back in the pickup same's how he left."
"How new is he?" Mike spilled some of the chili on his shirt and smeared it with his napkin.
Chaco shrugged, slurped his tea. "Never seen him afore."
"Weather comin' in. Just wonderin', do he got a place to kip."
Chaco chewed an ice cube. "He didn't stay," he said, finally. "Walked off by his own self, didn't see him no more."
"You see him again." Mike gathered up his trash, and Chaco's, and dumped it in the can. "Tell him to come to the shelter."
Chaco stood, then took a cigarette out of his pocket. Mike fumbled for his lighter, and then lit one for himself. "Can't smoke here no more," Chaco said. "Getting' so's a man can't do nothin'."
Mike said nothing. He took a drag, blew out a smoke ring, the kind that used to make Karen giggle. "You want a ride?" he asked.
Chaco eyed the horizon. "Yeah, that'd be good."
"Won't hurt your reputation to be seen in a church ve-hicle?" Mike pronounced the word as if he were from the woods.
"Fuck off," Chaco said amiably, slamming the door and rolling the window down.
Mike grinned. He pulled out of the parking lot, turning down past the pecan place and out onto Fairfield. Chaco's woods was down a spell, by the overpass. Mike read in the paper that the county was going to clear it out for some new exit ramp.
Chaco said, "That boy too young to be in our war."
"He said Somalia."
"EOD?" Chaco tossed his butt out the window, rolled it up. There was a splat of raindrops on the windshield, first one, then two, then four. "Here she comes," Chaco said.
Mike turned on the wipers, peering through the rain-smeared windshield. "You might could come to the shelter tonight too," he offered.
The windows steamed up, making visibility impossible. So much of driving in the summer was based on chance, Mike thought. He could just make out the light up ahead of him, and he tapped the breaks twice before stopping. His tires were okay but the road was now a sheen of oil and pooling water.
"I be okay," Chaco said.
"Maybe." Mike flicked his indicator on, pulled over onto the verge, hoping not to get to near the rivulet that had been a dry ditch. "Officer, surely."
"'F I see him, I tell him," Chaco agreed. "But that boy, he got too many demons for a church shelter."
"Nowhere dry tonight," Mike said.
"Little water never hurt nobody. That boy, he be needin' a bath anyways." Chaco opened the door and jumped down, somehow missing the ditch. "No work tomorrow, rain all night."
"Yeah." Mike sighed. "See ya."
Chaco slammed the door and vanished into the rain and the woods.
Mike turned the defogger up full blast and pulled back out onto the road. Most likely the fella would find an abandoned house somewhere, one not full of druggies, for tonight. Linda Sue had called him a dog with a bone. He shut that thought down and headed back to Pastor John and the church.