Boot Camp Blues II

Just when he was beginning to think the little one wouldn't shut up, he did.  He just stopped talking.  The flapping jaws went silent and the smile reappeared.  It caught the lawyers completely off-guard.  It was absolutely perfect and accomplished exactly what he wanted.  The hot air had been let out of those gasbags and the entire room was now full of steam.  Everyone seemed uncomfortable, that is, everyone but the merrymaker.

As he thought about what he'd heard, he realized the little one hadn't actually said anything.  It was all bluff, noise, and distraction.  You would have thought the lawyers knew this ploy.  He'd learned it when he was in boot camp, and again in law school.  Maybe they'd just forgotten.  As his company commander had said, "if you're a fox and you're hunting rabbit and you follow a rabbit into the dark of a rabbit hole, don't be surprised if and when you surface to the bright light of day, you find the rabbit is now the fox and he's smiling buck-toothed at you...looking one-eyed down the barrel of a shotgun."  He guessed his brother remembered that lecture, too.  Relaxed, now he could float away again.

When he joined the military, he didn't really have a goal in mind beyond getting out of town and surviving boot camp to see the world on the other side. Joining during peacetime made that a little more likely, but you never knew when some idiot would drop a bomb and start a war.  And he knew young men like him died every day, on the battlefield or not, one accident or another, one stray bullet or one particularly fitting floating comment. 

If he could have held his breath the entire time, he would have.  Life made a little more sense while holding your breath.  You knew that was the only thing you had control over, taking air in and out.  Somebody woke you up in the morning and screamed at you while you ate.  Somebody marched you to lunch and made you too upset to eat.  Somebody marched you to dinner and you tried to ignore him so you could eat and then somebody marched you off to bed.  Somebody ultimately tried to march you to death.  March, march, and march some more.  It was simple; just keep one foot moving in front of the other while walking in a line.  And watch out for airborne bird poop.  Any idiot could do it.

The day of their final calisthenics, while everyone was congratulating his brother and their troop for winning, he was beginning to feel a little unnecessary and following what was to become a repeatedly flawed path for him, he began to look far into the future for consultative solace.  The future didn't look particularly exciting or inviting, but it was forward, away from where he was.

When he turned around to focus on a more proximate source of distraction or aggravation or something, he saw 'fat boy' sitting on the hot tarmac, still trying to catch his breath.  Everyone knew you could get cramps sitting down like that so soon after exercising, but there he was anyway.  Almost imperceptibly, fat boy wobbled a little and then just slumped forward.  If he hadn't had that obtrusive belly, he probably would have toppled over completely.  Before he'd completed the thought, fat boy did.

He'd watched all this as if from afar, and could hear himself yelling as if in a tube as he stuttered then ran over to the fat kid.  He struggled to roll him over while all the other guys ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.  Those guys not running around just stood there with their mouths hanging open.  You'd have thought by the end of boot camp they'd learned some discipline; to duck a bullet; to tuck and roll; to keep your tongue in your mouth. 

He was still wrestling with fat boy when he suddenly got a boost.  It was 'little man' coming to help. He was always amazed at the cool strength contained in that little frame.  He was not surprised by the cool-headedness.

They both watched fat boy turn from bright red to purple to dark blue and inexplicably realized he had no pulse.  They began to fumble through CPR right there on the tarmac.  How they knew CPR, or how to find a pulse, no one bothered to ask.  No one bothered to notice if they did it right.  The company commander was on the phone calling for an ambulance while trying to calm down the little sissies.  'Little man' bent over and began mouth-to-mouth without the slightest hesitation while he did chest compressions.  They just knew fat boy was dead.  They never said it, but their eyes did.

A few minutes into their exercise, fat boy vomited and little man got a mouthful.  It was hardly noticeable as he spit out the vomit, wiped out fat boy's mouth and bent over again.  Not one chest compression was missed.  When it came time to switch roles, he got his own taste of what fat boy had been eating.  It tasted like some blend of cobwebs, snot, and dust balls.  Where did he get the food and why would he eat before a run?  What was he thinking?  Later they would giggle about how real men would have just swallowed.

Against all odds, fat boy survived.  He didn't have a heart attack, in the classic sense, but it appeared his heart did stop.  The doctors thought maybe he just overheated.  Big man and little man thought he just over-ate. Fat boy was known to eat just about anything that couldn't crawl or run away, and no one could eat more or faster.  Some of the smaller guys were afraid they'd be a snack.  Fat boy was amazing. All that brains and he had no willpower or control whatsoever. 

Since they'd shared such a great experience, of course they all became inseparable friends, eternally grateful 'fat boy' and the boot camp twins; one tall, one short.

Coming back into the steamy courtroom, he realized his glasses were misty.  He took them off and cleaned them.  He searched around him and saw his brother staring across the room at him with one of the most beautiful smiles.  The serenity brought tears to his eyes, again blurring his vision.  He struggled to turn away. 

The last time he'd seen fat boy, lawyers were surrounding him out in the foyer.  He was the same bright red color as he always was, and due to a personal trainer, just a few pounds shy of fat.  There was no telling what that hoard of lawyers were talking fat boy into now.

It was too bad boot camp was the high point in their lives.  Each had gone to college; two pre-law and one engineering.  Fat-boy actually had a doctorate in nuclear physics and started his own business in nuclear energy salvage.  Big twin had gone into corporate law and little man had done something in the government having to do with national security, though he wasn't too forthcoming about it.  Each had dutifully married and unhappily divorced, so that was settled.  None had children and none were known for kindness or altruism.  The last kind thing he had done was not let a fat boy die, and even in that case, he'd thought fat boy was dead.  To this day, he wasn't sure he was really trying to save him.  After little man had begun mouth-to-mouth, he'd felt compelled to continue.  Otherwise they would have just been kissing.

Beyond the laughter after boot camp, they hadn't discussed it in all these years.  He thought that odd, but life was odd, so what.

The last kind thing fat boy had done was give a vicious corporate lawyer a job doing hostile takeovers of minor competitors where he could share his working hours with a twin who never seemed too far away  The little twin's last kind act was that smile.

Following the performance of little man, the grand jury felt there was no evidence to support a crime, maybe some shoddy bookkeeping, but no crime.  Most of the plutonium had been accounted for.  They even had a witness who testified that some of it might have evaporated.  And there was not a reliable witness in the bunch, anyway.  It seemed all they did was lie their way in and lie their way out of their lies. 

That night they sat around trying to figure out the lies of why they were together; the boss and the twins; one tall, one short.  Perhaps their lives could have had a purpose if they had just bothered to choose one.

Later that night, as he was having his second or third beer, he heard a knock at the door.  He was so prepared not to answer it when he heard a key in the lock.  It must be little man; the only one with a key to his place besides the cleaning lady and it was much too late for her.

"Have you read your mail?" little man sang out.

"No.  Should I have?"

"Dammit.  You never read.  What is the matter with you?

"Come on bitch, be nice to me."

"Look at your mail.  There's a letter from the C.C."

"What?"

"A letter from the C.C.  Just read it."

He snatched the letter out of little man's hand.  He began to read:

Dear boys,
If you're reading this letter, then I'm dead.  You missed my funeral.  Don't worry.  You weren't invited. These two letters were in my last will and testament.  I asked them to be mailed since I figured you might not trust another lawyer calling you into their office, so mailing them seemed a good, cheap, idea. 
I've followed the career of you two since the day you graduated.  You've done pretty well.  Of course, you're both still dumb as posts.  I thought I taught you better, but year after year you keep doing the same dumb things and hanging out with the same dumb people. 
Remember the story about the rabbit and think real hard.  I know it might hurt a little bit, but do it anyway.  If you're still working for that fat kid (note: he's no longer fat), remember he wasn't fat when he got to boot camp, either.  Now why do you think he became fat?  Why did he beg me to join little man's troop?  Is it possible he knew more about you two than you thought or is it possible that you two didn't bother to think?  Even today?
I bet you haven't really thought about boot camp since you left.  Most people don't.  If you had, you might have stumbled across the fact that those eight weeks molded the entire rest of your lives.
Now put down the letter and talk.  The question you need to answer is: How has my relationship with fat boy affected my life?  Think hard.

"What the hell is he talking about?"  His head was beginning to hurt and he was rapidly approaching a foul mood.

"Think about it.  We all met in boot camp.  All this time, we thought we were working fat-boy.  Maybe he was working us.  He introduced us to our wives.  He was there when they divorced us.  He picked us up after they destroyed us.  He gave us these jobs that we really didn't deserve or want and then he involves us in this ridiculous scheme of smoke and mirrors from which we feel duty-bound to rescue him and show what a really good guy he is."

"You're thinking maybe he didn't need rescuing."

"I'm thinking this may go all the way back to us giving him CPR in boot camp.  Remember the rabbit."

"What?"

"Maybe he didn't really need saving.  Remember how you used to always say you held your breath through boot camp.  Maybe he held his."

He picked up the letter to continue reading.  His hands shook a little, but by then his mild buzz was gone and besides, only little man was there to see them shake, and he'd seen him through much worse.

I'm reasonably sure you've figured out who's the rabbit and who's the fox.  You boys need to put some safe distance between you and fat-boy.  He's no good and hanging out with him can be unhealthy.
That's all I have to say.  You boys take care.
C.C.
P.S.  If something went missing and suddenly returned or didn't appear to be missing any longer, it was preparatory missing.  It will really go missing and relatively soon.  Remember that.

"Okay, little man, take it real slow and explain this to me."

"I'm going to stop looking up to you really soon.  Remember how I said a couple of those companies we were selling energy to didn't look kosher?  Well, suppose the energy was never produced and never sold?"

"Then, there'd be no plutonium by-product."

"Precisely.  There'd be nothing to lose or misplace.  So those government snoops would think something was missing, only to find out it couldn't be missing because it never existed."

"But what good would that do?" He was really feeing quite stupid.

"Okay, now I don't respect you anymore. ' said little man.  "When government inspectors are made to look stupid, they think very hard about ever coming around again and possibly looking stupid.  In actuality, they don't come around, not for a very long time and not without a significant amount of evidence.  I don't know why I didn't see this sooner."

"Shit, dude, this really looks bad.  I think I understand the preparatory missing angle now.  Do you think the plan is for us to be the fall guys here?  I sure as hell do."

"So do I.  I think now is an excellent time to move on, especially as I ponder what missing plutonium can be used for and how soon I would have it go missing if I were running things.  What do you think?"

"I'm gone whenever you go.  Let's do it, but let's have another beer first. I'm more tense than the fox or the rabbit."

They had barely finished their beers when they heard a key in the lock.  They looked closely at one another.  Who's the rabbit and who's the fox?