Read Online The Cut (Spero Lucas) by George P. Pelecanos - Free Book Online Page B

anticipation of their favorite Mom-cooked meal, the Chevy or Ford truck they were going to buy, how high they’d get, which girl they’d fuck first. Once home, some said that their time overseas was the most exhilarating and rewarding of their lives. It felt as if nothing would ever fill them up like that again. So they looked for it. Lucas and Marquis had been lucky to find something. Most did, eventually. The ones who couldn’t were in for some long hurt.
    “You feeling all right?” said Lucas.
    “Better than a year ago. Much better than in the beginning, when they had me in a harness and on a leash. It’s no house party, walking on a stilt.”
    “Looks like you’re maintaining.”
    “Praise God, I’m here.”
    Marquis Rollins had taken a direct hit from an RPG. It had come right through a doorless, unarmed Humvee that Marquis was driving, ferrying wounded back from a hot spot of houses under heavy insurgent fire near the Jolan graveyard. He knew immediately that it was bad; he could feel the blood pooling beneath him, but he kept driving, weakening by the minute, never once looking down. He had a mission: to get the wounded back to safety. He felt the task would keep him alive. HQ kept him talking on the radio, kept him conscious until he brought the men in. Later, they told him that a piece of shrapnel the size of a cell phone had entered his thigh. The surgeons couldn’t stop the resultant infection. Two weeks later they took his leg off above the knee.
    Marquis was from Suitland in PG County and had grown up fifteen miles from Lucas, but they met for the first time in the war, both serving in the 2/1, the Second Battalion of the First Marine Regiment assigned to Fallujah. Their shared geographic background had made them close fast.
    “What about you?” said Marquis. “You maintaining?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “ ’Cause it’s hard to tell with you, man. The way you hold all your shit tight inside you.”
    “What do you want me to do, speak on my feelings about the war?”
    “You can, with me.”
    “Ask me a question. Not any old question.
The
question.”
    “Okay. You ever kill anyone over there?”
    “I did, Marquis. I killed someone.”
    “More than one, I remember correct.”
    “Course, they were all trying to kill
me
.”
    “Pretty simple,” said Marquis. “Now, when you get to the
why
of it, that’s somethin else. But it’s better if you stay with the basics: We fought to win and we fought for each other. That’s how we do.”
    “Except they didn’t let us finish it. In Fallujah they sent us in, pulled us back out, and sent us in again. The brass and the politicians played games with marines. They were concerned with perception, all those images on TV broadcast around the world. They let Al fucking Jazeera influence their strategy.”
    “That’s better,” said Marquis with a chuckle. “That’s my boy.”
    “Fuck it,” said Lucas, letting himself wind down.
    “Right,” said Marquis. “So I guess you
are
maintaining.”
    Lucas had a swig of his beer. “I’m keeping busy.”
    “Anything interesting?”
    “Workin on a thing. I need any help, I’ll let you know.”
    They drank slowly. Marquis nodded toward the side door. “Waldo been out there a long time.”
    “Bobby’s gunnin those smokes in tandem.”
    “He chews, too.”
    “But not at the same time.”
    “Yeah, that would be unseemly.”
    Lucas finished his beer, left money on the bar, and slipped off his stool. “Tell him I said good-bye.”
    “You gonna leave me here with him?”
    “I’m meeting a lady friend,” said Lucas.
    “That’s why you got that shirt on?”
    “You like it?”
    “Looks like a tablecloth to me.”
    “It’s gingham.”
    Marquis held out his hand. “Two-One, man.”
    “Two-One.”
    They bumped fists. Lucas left the bar.
    CONSTANCE KELLY was waiting for him outside his house. She got out of her Honda, crossed Emerson, and walked toward his Jeep. Her hair was down and she walked with