Billy Walker, Hero

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD BILLY WALKER, driving home from bagging at Win-Dixie, eases his beat-up Kia through cackling pea-sized hail on State Road 40, right outside Ocala, on the rim of the national forest. Ahead, off the shoulder of the road, a yellow Ford Ranger, tires mud-sunk, tilts like some beached boat. Billy pulls over, steps into painful rain. A girl sits in the truck’s cab. He shouts, “Hello,” but the girl can’t hear him because of the storm and her crying. He knocks on the window. She screams. Then her fright settles into a wary, all-teeth smile.

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On their one-month anniversary, Billy tells the girlfriend that he loves her. He gives her a Hot Wheels truck.

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Billy introduces the girlfriend to the mother. The mother tells her that it’s the prettiest yellow dress she’s ever seen. The mother gets emotional. She tells the girlfriend about Billy’s father. Cancer. Billy was just five. The mother says, “Billy didn’t cry. He just kept hugging me.”

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Billy Walker has a second meeting with the Army recruiter. He can’t imagine doing much else. That night, he tells the girlfriend about his plans. They are alone for the night, and he has gotten his hands on some Jim Beam. While they kiss, he touches her more than he has before. Then the girlfriend is completely uncovered. Neither knows exactly what to do. Eventually, they fall asleep.

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The mother pleads with Billy not to sign the papers. “It’s only the reserves,” he says.

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A month into Military Police School, a private who wears his spandex to sleep has a wet dream. He runs with it during all five miles of the morning run.

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Four months into Military Police School, the drill sergeants march Private Billy Walker’s company to driver’s training. Billy adjusts his duty belt, gets into the patrol car, clutches the leather-wrapped wheel, and relaxes into his platoon’s collective sweat dampening the seats.

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A battle-buddy in the company cuts a hole in a life-sized princess doll.

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Private Second Class Billy Walker reports to his unit in Crystal River, Florida. His rubs his damp palm along his fatigue blouse before shaking the commander’s hand. The commander pats the unit patch into the Velcro on Billy’s arm. The mother is so proud.

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On the night of his fourth drill, Billy drives a white government van full of his platoon leadership to a Jacksonville strip club. At three in the morning Billy’s lieutenant barges drunk into the van, saying, “The tits were glorious.”

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The company’s executive officer, First Lieutenant Kayla Gray, had a boyfriend who always demanded road head. “I wonder what it’s all about,” she says, reaching over the gear shift to claw a drunk private’s neck.

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On the Saturday night of his seventh drill, seven months in, Billy drinks alone in his room at the Oasis Hotel. He misses the girlfriend. Across the hall, his platoon mates, Private John M. Campbell, Specialist Joe C. Clemmons, Specialist Gabriel M. Figueroa, and Sergeant Gerald M. Brown watch the parking lot through a window, giggling like boys. When they see the prostitute, they argue about who will talk to her first.

The prostitute has an unlabeled bottle of red liquid. She removes her sequin top, revealing stretch marks on her belly, and says, “I have one rule, don’t drink my shit.”

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During annual training, at Camp Blanding, Billy listens as platoonmates swipe women on their phones. He downloads the app. He gets his first match. He keeps swiping.

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The mother cries when Billy is sent to Afghanistan. The girlfriend is angry at him for the pornography she found on his computer, but she cries too.

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The volume of the IED explosion outside the forward operating base is indescribable, something like a fleet of spaceships gaining atmospheric reentry, is what Billy thinks—being from Florida, that Space Coast. Four bunks down, Private Allen T. Evans drops a taco. Shredded lettuce, processed cheese, and ground beef confetti his gear. An alarm sounds. The barracks lights flicker on. Private Evans pulls on his pants and rushes outside.

In the bunker, Private Evans, with lotion beading his fingertips, sits across from Billy. A limp lettuce shred glues to his thumb.

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Private First Class Billy Walker writes a letter to the girlfriend describing their future. It includes a house. It includes a dog. It includes a brood of sons.

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Specialist George T. Jones interrupts PFC Billy Walker. “I tried to write a letter once. Only thing that came out was a suicide note.”

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Back in Florida at Fat Daddy’s, following the company’s return-from-deployment party, a fifty-year-old woman pulls two young soldiers together and says, “I want you both.” None of them come, but the two soldiers gain an unexpected admiration for each other’s bodies.

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One night, the girlfriend brings up that letter. “What color door?” she asks. “And what breed of dog? What about names?”

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Three years in, Billy approaches three girls outside Fat Daddy’s. “Kick you out?” He chuckles. They exchange numbers, and the girls text him inquiring which of them he wants most. He responds, “But you are all so beautiful.” They tell him to meet at a Motel 6. Billy waits in the parking lot and starts on a six-pack of Yuengling.

He receives a text: Joke’s on you, pig.

Billy jettisons an empty bottle over a chain-link fence into a retention pond and begins knocking on doors. What is that he wants? Anyone who wants him, it seems.

The tenth door he pounds. and the third to open, reveals a lanky, shirtless man with a distinguished, dimpled chin. Behind, at the mirror, is Kayla Gray. “Let him in,” she says. “He wants to watch.”

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Billy starts his beat-up Kia. He drives fast through rain back to Ocala, back to the girlfriend. He’ll be AWOL and his confession will go terribly, but he’ll feel just a little better.