Tough Day for the Army Read online

  The other thing Nelson did in preparation for the party was bake. Chocolate brownies with walnuts. Peanut butter cookies with deep fudge swirls and brickle. Rice Krispie treats. All laced with hash. Lots and lots of hash. Nelson had spent the better part of his most recent Survey Circle, Inc., paycheck on hash, which can be acquired anywhere, including Provo, Utah. Jürgen sat in the living room rooting against BYU basketball, occasionally asking if Nelson was sure he wanted to do that.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because these kids don’t do drugs like we do drugs. They don’t do drugs at all.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Nelson removed the latest batch from the oven and began flipping the cookies to the counter for cooling. “It’s time for them to snap out of it, to have their minds altered, to realize that things are not always as they seem.”

  “That’s probably illegal,” Jürgen replied.

  “If truth is a crime, then lock me up,” Nelson said.

  There’d been a plan, but then things stopped going according to it. The first thing that went wrong was the number of people who showed up. The Survey Circle, Inc., work crew came in bunches and drank Nelson and Jürgen’s uncaffeinated soda and ate their salty snacks and even danced in the middle of the small living room to Jürgen’s iPod mix of house music. Eventually the salty snacks ran out, and someone went looking through the cupboards and found Nelson’s stash of psychotropic baked goods and promptly dug in.

  The second thing that went wrong is that seeing this, Nelson had an immediate attack of conscience about these nice people who had been speaking to him in friendly fashions and enjoying Jürgen’s music being dosed by him and his hash-laced brownies/cookies/Krispies. However, he knew he could not tell these nice people that the delicious treats were “special,” because then when Chelsea Stubbins arrived, they would warn her and she would not partake, so thinking quickly but probably foolishly, he made a joke out of grabbing the brownie/cookie/Krispie out of each individual’s hand, shouting, “Cookie monster!” and then shoving them in his own mouth. This got a lot of laughs, and some people started taking a brownie/cookie/ Krispie just to see Nelson do it again.

  I am taking a tremendous amount of drugs, Nelson thought while he was doing this, which would spur him to the bathroom to purge, after which he would come out only to find that even more people were eating the treats, rinse and repeat, until one of the times he came out of the bathroom and found himself face to face with Jürgen, who gripped him by both shoulders and said, “You are tripping balls, my friend.”

  “I am tripping balls,” Nelson replied, nodding. Jürgen pinched Nelson’s wrist between this thumb and two forefingers, counting his pulse. He tilted Nelson’s head back to grab the light and looked closely into each pupil one at a time.

  “You’re OK,” Jürgen said. “But no more.”

  Nelson nodded.

  “This is,” Jürgen said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the increasingly strange scene behind him, “what it will be.”

  Nelson nodded again, and tears filled his eyes. He hugged Jürgen and wept into his best friend’s shoulder. “I love you so much, man.”

  Jürgen squeezed back. “Love you too, dude. Now, I gotta go do something about this.”

  Nelson watched Jürgen go back into the living room, where he turned off the music and in his best cruise director voice asked, “Who wants to watch a movie?” To which just about everyone, at least those that weren’t already completely engrossed in studying the lines on the backs of their hands, cheered.

  “Get comfy, friends,” Jürgen said, and then he grabbed his and Nelson’s bootleg copy of Koyaanisqatsi, which they liked to break out for special hallucinogenic occasions. “I think you’re going to enjoy this,” he said, sliding it into the DVD player. When the Philip Glass score kicked in, jaws dropped and eyes saucered, and Nelson saw Jür-gen grin and give a big thumbs-up.

  This was the moment when Lance Riggins and Chelsea Stubbins decided to show up.

  It’s hard to say if this was the third bad thing or not.

  Lance Riggins walked through the apartment door chest out, like he expected a hale and hearty greeting, but his friends were piled like puppies in front of the big screen, their minds being blown by video of an imploding building and the surround sound. One or two of them might have been openly weeping at the beauty of the whole thing, which was the point after all. Chelsea Stubbins edged in behind Lance, peeking around his arm. Nelson saw the golden blond of her hair against her navy-blue parka.

  “What’s going on here?” Lance said.

  Jürgen stepped forward. “They’re having a religious experience,” he said. “Here, let me take your coats, and help yourselves to the brownies.”

  Chelsea Stubbins slung her parka over her arm and shook her long hair free and Nelson could see little static lightning bolts arc from strand to strand.

  I am tripping balls, he thought. Lance Riggins handed his coat to Jürgen and took a big bite of one of the brownies. “Good stuff.”

  “Indeed,” Jürgen replied. “And for the lady?”

  Chelsea Stubbins held up her hand in defense. “I’m not one for sweets,” she said.

  Nelson’s spirit sank to his shoes. He watched Jürgen try again, and receive a second demurral. Nelson couldn’t bear it anymore, so he did the final bad thing and went outside to the balcony, the cold air sucking the breath from his lungs to the point they hurt, and then he looked up at the stars.

  Whoa, he said to himself. I am tripping balls. Vermont had lots and lots of stars, but Utah, somehow, had more. Maybe it was the altitude of Provo or the lack of humidity or the limited light pollution, but from Nelson’s balcony, it looked like there were more stars than there was darkness, so the whole firmament was like snow on the television, and that’s when Nelson had the visions.

  It wasn’t clear if the stars were plunging toward him or he was zooming into space, but either way, Nelson was among them. They were impossibly bright, but he, Nelson, could look directly at them. They were impossibly hot, but he, Nelson, could touch them.

  Joseph Smith also had visions, which he called revelations because he was founding a religion. While touching the stars, Nelson realized that Joseph Smith might not have been a con man or crazy, but instead might have been tripping balls on some kind of native wacky weed, and this started to change Nelson’s perspective on the man, in that Joseph Smith and Nelson had something important in common, namely that they were both capable of traveling in space without a rocket ship. That’s got to be an exclusive club.

  Nelson waited for his revelation, the message that would catapult him to a raised consciousness and turn him into a leader of men and women across the plains of the country to a promised land where there were so many stars. What a place to guide your people to!

  He felt capable of withstanding the skeptics, their slings and arrows —which were literal in the case of Joseph Smith—but would more likely be words in Nelson’s. Nelson had withstood these things already, truth be told. Nelson’s body swelled with importance as he imagined the multitudes with which he would be filled. Nelson knew Mor-mons believed that with sufficient devotion and dedication, man could become God, and in that moment, zooming among the stars above, he thought they were probably very wise.

  “You’re, like, super-high, aren’t you?” Chelsea Stubbins said to Nelson.

  “I am tripping balls,” Nelson replied. He was flat on his back on the concrete slab of the balcony. His eyes were closed, but he sensed a figure looming over him. He knew he was cold, but at the same time couldn’t feel it. Maybe he was not flat on his back on a concrete slab but was still floating through space, and Chelsea Stubbins was floating with him. He squeezed his eyes more securely shut in case Chelsea Stubbins speaking to him was a dream.

  “It’s in the brownies?”

  “And the cookies and the Krispies, and everything else,” Nelson said.

&nbs
p; Nelson heard Chelsea Stubbins put her parka back on before sitting down next to him. The Gore-Tex rubbing was like tires squealing in his ears, and he winced.

  “Things feeling a little… enhanced?” Chelsea Stubbins asked.

  “I am fully alive. I extend to every corner of the universe.”

  “That sounds like a lot of work.”

  “I like hearing your voice,” Nelson said because it was true. It soothed. “Are you here, or am I there?”

  “I’m going to take your hand, OK?” Chelsea Stubbins said.

  Nelson nodded, but he was afraid. He didn’t think he should be touched under these circumstances, but the warmth of her skin and then her thumb rubbing over the tendons on the back of his hand felt good. He considered opening his eyes, but then reconsidered.

  “I’m filled with rage,” Nelson said.

  “What does that feel like?”

  “Bad, mostly. Sometimes good, potentially useful.”

  “Useful how?”

  “Rage has potency, at least that’s how it seems.”

  “You’re lucky,” Chelsea Stubbins replied. “I got sorrow.”

  “I don’t believe you. You are sunshine.”

  “It’s hard to fathom, I know,” Chelsea Stubbins replied. “I didn’t believe it myself for a long time.” She cupped Nelson’s hand in both of hers, applying firm and even pressure. “How’s that?” she asked.

  It was wonderful. “It’s wonderful,” Nelson replied. “There are things in this world that are full of wonder, and this is one of them.”

  Time passed. Maybe eternities, maybe seconds. You can divide every moment into an infinite number of smaller moments, so both those things can be true simultaneously. Nelson concentrated on the one part of his body that felt real, his hand in Chelsea Stubbins’s hands. He kept his eyes closed, but he pictured it in his mind perfectly— her blond hair brushing down along the sides of her coat, their breath clouding the air together, their fingers entwined—which felt like the kind of thing only a God could do.

  “You seem to know a suspicious amount about drugs,” he said.

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Mormons don’t take drugs.”

  “I haven’t been Mormon all that long,” Chelsea Stubbins replied. “Technically, I’m still a Mormon in training.”

  Nelson concentrated on keeping his body still even as his heart leapt. Separating Chelsea Stubbins from the Mormonism was going to be cake; the ties binding her to the nonsense were both fresh and weak. “You’re going to have to explain,” he said.

  “We married into it—my mom, I mean. I’m from Jersey originally. I had some issues back there.”

  “Because of the sorrow,” Nelson said.

  “That was the start, sure, but then it became its own thing. A greater weight than the sorrow, even.”

  “I’ve not experienced that,” Nelson said. “I am weightless when I’m like this.”

  Because in that moment Nelson was so in tune with the world, he could hear Chelsea Stubbins’s lips stretch past her teeth as she smiled. “It’s different for everybody. You probably have not sucked some guy’s dick outside a 7-Eleven for a rock of meth, have you?”

  Nelson winced. “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. That was a violence.”

  “My therapist says it’s important to name things as they are, so I try to do that now.”

  Chelsea Stubbins slid her hands under the sleeve of Nelson’s hoodie, rubbing his forearm. “Is that OK?” she asked.

  “It’s heaven.”

  “You’re coming home.”

  “I hope not. I like it better here.”

  “You’re a funny kid.”

  “I’m no kid,” Nelson said. “I am a man among men. I have the heart of a stallion and the courage of a lion. I am an unstoppable force combined with an immovable object.”

  “Then I’m very fortunate to have met you,” Chelsea Stubbins said. She removed her hands from under Nelson’s hoodie sleeve and moved to straddle him, slowly lowering her entire body on top of Nelson’s; he felt the pressure of her everywhere at once, and he was warm. She turned her head and rested her ear on his chest. Eyes still closed, he breathed deeply and smelled her hair.

  “Lilacs,” he said. “Just as I figured.” Nelson felt her rib cage rise and fall against him. His breath joined hers. “The universe is ordering itself around my thoughts because I am at its center.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Chelsea Stubbins said. “But not necessarily unique.”

  Nelson wanted to give some thought to this, but not right then.

  “Why Lance?” Nelson said. “Surely Lance Riggins does not help with the sorrow. He is no lion. He is a peacock.”

  Nelson felt her sigh ripple through his body. “No, not really.”

  “Then why?”

  “Sorrow doesn’t exist in Lance’s world, so I figure maybe it’s worth me trying to live there.”

  “I would use my rage to destroy your sorrow,” Nelson said. He was starting to feel the hard concrete of the balcony on his back. “It could not withstand my fury. I would batter it into submission.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good plan.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t anger and sadness seem related? Like after you’re angry, don’t you feel sad?”

  Nelson pondered this. He thought about waking up one morning not long before he left home for good, one of the nights he gave as good as he got from his pops. He had a knot above his brow, tender to the touch. He kept kneading it all day, reminding himself it was there. For two days, his father wore a shirt crusted with his own blood thanks to a blow to the nose from Nelson, like some kind of martyr, until Nelson sneaked into the old man’s room at night, grabbed it off the floor, and threw it in the laundry.

  “It’s the smile, isn’t it?” Nelson said. “What is up with that? It seems to mean something.”

  “That’s Lance knowing that he belongs to the only true and living church on the face of the whole Earth. He is one of the Chosen, and that joy can barely be contained, and so he smiles,” Chelsea said.

  “And you believe that?” Nelson felt another sigh, this one longer. It was the sorrow. It waved through him. It felt far more potent than rage.

  “I do not, but I would like to, so I’m going to try. They say it comes to you if you let it in.”

  “Are we breaking up?” Nelson said.

  Chelsea laughed into his chest. Is there anything better than a beautiful girl laughing into your chest? Nelson could not think of anything better. “We were never together,” she replied.

  “Au contraire,” Nelson said. He raised his arms, wrapped them fully around Chelsea Stubbins’s body and squeezed her to him. “Do you feel how strong I am?”

  “I do.”

  Nelson held Chelsea Stubbins until his arms grew tired, his grip slackened. His whole body was tired. It had been quite a journey.

  “I’m leaving soon,” Chelsea Stubbins said. “Lance ate a brownie.”

  “It’s not going to work out, you know,” Nelson said.

  Chelsea Stubbins raised her head from Nelson’s chest. He felt her chin press at his sternum and knew that if he opened his eyes, there she’d be, but he did not.

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “I’ve got my doubts, but it’s the plan for now.”

  “I have nothing,” Nelson replied. “I have nothing but a phone that is trying to kill me.”

  “Life is a disease that only death can cure.”

  “Who said that?” Nelson asked.

  “I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “You’re not the first.”

  “Nor the last.”

  “I can make you laugh,” Nelson said. “Lance may be filled with joy, but he is without mirth.”

  This time Chelsea Stubbins nodded into Nelson’s chest, her chin digging hard. “He’s going to be pissed if he figures out you dosed him.”

  “I could never be afraid of Lance Riggins.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll tell him it was food poisoning. We had fish tacos before we came.”

  “What kind of asshole orders fish tacos in Provo, Utah?”

  Chelsea Stubbins laughed again.

  “You see? See?” Nelson said. He tried to keep the pleading out of his voice. He’d removed that tone a long time ago, when his pops had told him that whiners got no place in the world. “And he has terrible taste in music, I bet.”

  “Nickelback rules.”

  Nelson felt some small measure of the rage return. “This is what I’m talking about. It’s what’s wrong with America.”

  “Nickelback is Canadian.”

  “We’ve infected them too.”

  “What makes you so sure we’re right?” Chelsea Stubbins asked. “Who, exactly, is on top in this world? Where do you see the rage and the sorrow? Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “It’s just all so ridiculous,” Nelson said.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Another of those moments subdivided into smaller and smaller moments passed. Nelson tried to count them.

  “I’m getting up,” Chelsea Stubbins said. Nelson felt her rise until she was kneeling between his legs. “I think you’re OK now,” she said “You have Jürgen, and your phone that is trying to kill you. That’s something.”

  Nelson suspected that her kneeling that way in front of him might have been the most beautiful thing he’d ever have a chance to see, but he kept his eyes closed just in case it wasn’t, because he couldn’t bear to know something like that.

  “Will I see you again?” Nelson asked.

  “Probably Monday, right? Third shift?”

  He nodded at Chelsea Stubbins and raised his hand in farewell, gesturing from the wrist like a king.

  Nelson heard the balcony door open; a blast of heated air washed over him. The chant Ko-Yaa-Nis-Qatsi, Ko-Yaa-Nis-Qatsi reached out from the living room. Nelson knew on the screen a rocket was exploding, its flaming pieces drifting beautifully to the ground.