Chapter 2

“I’m cold.”

Frick. That wasn’t good. It was a rather balmy day in early October. “Alright. Let’s see what we can do about that.” I took off my light jacket, one I hadn’t needed anyway, and carefully put it over him. “Better?”

“Hmm.”

Damn! We were back to sounds instead of words.

“Where are you going, Countdown?” he managed.

That was better. He had the alertness to notice my bags. His brain was working. “Boot camp. Joining the military.”

“Good for you. Thank you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You’re brave.”

“You be brave now, Sawyer. You’re going to be okay.”

“I don’t think so.”

My heart stopped. Something caught in my throat—not something tangible, but fear and sadness. “Don’t you tell me that.” I carefully picked his hand up off the asphalt and held it in mine. That was when we’d had our moment. His eyes opened wider. He looked right at me. I felt a prickle of…something, and it seemed to me, by the way he almost smiled, that he’d felt it too.

“Take my charm.”

“Huh?”

“The chain around my neck…the pendant…take it with you…to stay safe.”

“Dude.” I could see it then, the round piece of metal on a thin silvery strand that was up on his shoulder instead of at his chest. It didn’t look like a medal. It was sort of round, but more abstract. “Sawyer…I couldn’t. If it offers good luck and protection, you’re going to need it yourself,” I told him.

“No. Take it…please.”

“Sawyer…” I liked his name. “Are you sure?”

“I want…you to have it. Cops and army guys…are…”

Are what? I wondered. He never did say. Leaning in to unfasten the chain, I worried, despite his insistence, that he wasn’t fully cognitive. So close to his face, just for a moment, I wanted to kiss the clean spot on his forehead. I resisted—the urge and the idea of taking his necklace. I could see the clasp, but still, I hesitated.

“Take it.” He was a persistent motherfucker, even as he lay there near unconsciousness.

“Alright, dude. Chill.” I talked so stupid at eighteen.

I took the pendant. Half the people looking probably thought I was stealing it.

“I’ll tell you the story someday,” Sawyer Ettinger said.

We were still holding hands when the ambulance got there. Things got a little crazy then. Even though no one else had gotten down to help or talk to Sawyer, at least fifty people wanted to tell the police and the EMTs what had happened. I saw a cop walk off with the little girl. Whoever she was, I hoped he’d take care of her. No one came to me, so I didn’t offer up my account. I put the pendant on instead, a really thick piece of silver-colored metal—thicker than a coin—that dangled from a matching chain. I’d been expecting some sort of saint, Christopher, maybe, but all it had, roughly scratched into its flatness, was the number twelve on one side and the letter S on the other. S for Sawyer, I assumed.

With the help of another stranger, I’d finally made my way off to Grand Central. I’d headed to Texas, and eventually Iraq, Afghanistan, and then back to Iraq. I’d been wearing the pendant when I’d arrived in Afghanistan—my second time there. How many years ago was that now? Three? Closer to four, I guessed, since I’d been home almost one. The thing had literally saved my life there. It had stopped a bullet from ripping through my chest, but then its magical powers wore out.

* * * *

I looked up at Sawyer, serving a couple of guys who had straggled into the Westchester County Community Center at the last minute for their holiday meal. Maybe I could tell him about it, but then I’d have to admit I’d lost his pendant the day I lost my buddy, Caleb. I was careless. No. That wasn’t true. What happened was on purpose. I didn’t want to tell him what I did, because I dreaded disappointing him.

Wow! How dumb was I being? It was stupid. Maybe the guy with the ladle wasn’t even Sawyer Ettinger.

“Hey, Sawyer. We need you in the kitchen.”

Maybe it was another guy named Sawyer.

Okay. I knew it was him. He looked almost identical, except cleaner, and all of his limbs were pointing in their natural directions. I’d grown a full-on beard and had gained at least twenty pounds, ironic considering how much less I ate now than I had back then. Add to that a couple of layers of clothes, several years in combat and one of indignity and anxiety, I figured I hardly looked the same at all. It was difficult to shave in the men’s room at gas stations or McDonalds, though I managed to keep myself pretty clean and almost neat. I told my parents the laundromat at my nice southern Westchester apartment building was too expensive, so I still took my dirty clothes up to their place once a week and sometimes hopped in their shower when I knew no one was home. It was quite the ruse—my apartment, my alleged profession. I was an auto mechanic at a county bus depot. Except I wasn’t. I wasn’t anything, and I didn’t have a nice apartment. I didn’t have any apartment. I didn’t have a home. I had to beg for train fare or find someone who needed help with an odd job I could handle for money. I’d come back from my three tours unable to settle, a little messed up. It wasn’t work I minded, it was people. I’d been to a couple of interviews, but the formality of sitting across from someone and answering questions had somehow done me in. Even though I had gotten a call back for a janitorial position at a nursing home, I hadn’t gone. I’d convinced myself between the interview and arriving back at my parents’ home that I’d made a fool of myself. The positive message waiting for me from human resources couldn’t convince me otherwise. The US Army paid for counseling for a while. I got temporary disability payments—temporary—that had recently run out. I guess that meant I was supposed to be better by now.