by Kristin Borders
Sherrow had been sitting on the gray metal bench half the afternoon, deep in thought, when the moody stranger approached from the corner of Allan and Lamott. The kid was young, late twenties or early thirties maybe, but each step had a slight catch to it—a limp he tried to hide every time his left foot struck the pavement. He wore his anger like wet denim. It was heavy and clinging, accentuated by the dark scowl pulling at the scar over his left eyebrow. A warm, dry breeze pushed past him and rustled the long gray hair at Sherrow’s nape. It was a sensation he wasn’t used to and didn’t particularly enjoy, but getting a haircut had been far from a priority lately. Glancing over at the bank clock, he considered for the fiftieth time that day whether to get on the bus or not.
The ticket in his pocket was a one-way fare to Inerrata, Indiana, where his brother owned a restaurant on the lake and offered boat rentals. He also had a camping-supply store and a small shop where they worked on boats and ATVs. It was the perfect place for retirees or someone looking for a fresh start. For him, it was a place to come live out his days after Linda’s death. He was supposed to go be the broke-down widower who regaled vacationers with fish tales and war stories until a heart attack snagged him on the shitter or decrepitude finally carried him off into the sunset. Sherrow huffed and pressed restless feet hard against the pavement.
The hissing release of air brakes sounded before a bus bound for Detroit pulled away from the curb. Another bus had delivered Sherrow to a town like this one years ago. He was fresh out of the Army and carrying more baggage than the duffel slung over his shoulder. A nineteen-year-old Linda had come out of the Pear Tree Café, and time had slowed. She smiled, and calmness settled where his anxiety had been, giving him the courage to speak to her, and she’d been brazen enough to ask him back into the café for coffee. Sherrow knew it was selfish to accept the invitation. She deserved better than the mess in tattered boots standing before her, but he’d been unable to walk away. After that, she had quickly become his best friend and the love of his life. Their paths never deviating from one another. Until now. A familiar ache gripped his chest, and he took a deep breath with the discomfort of it.
A loud thud made him turn to find the angry stranger had dropped a green, military-style duffel beside himself and was now planted on the end farthest from Sherrow. He sat rigidly, with his hands clasped together tightly in his lap. Another warm breeze ruffled thick black curls at the top of his head. Definitely not regulation length, but the guy was military, no doubt. The way he sat, the bag, and the overgrown crew cut were all giveaways.
“What branch?” Sherrow asked.
“Huh?”
“Branch. What branch were you in?”
“What makes you think I’m out?” The young man was looking toward him but not in his eyes. More like he was busy cataloging details and assessing risk without appearing to do so—at least to the untrained eye.
“The limp in your left leg. Noticed it as you came stomping over here. I’d say medical discharge, maybe a little PTSD if I had to guess.”
“Not sure how you’d know that last part, old-timer, but you’d be correct on the rest.” He stopped taking inventory to turn his head back toward the bus station across the street. “And Marines. Ten years in,” he tacked on.
“A jarhead. Should have known,” Sherrow said with a slight smile and turned to look forward also. “As for the PTSD, most of us got it, whether it’s written on some damn piece of doctor paper or not.”
As if to illustrate his point, a dumpy little blue hatchback pulling into the bus station backfired with a sudden pop-crack. Sherrow managed to check his own reaction with decades of experience, but the newly cut-loose Marine jumped, clutching the blue jean fabric over his thighs tightly.
“Fuck,” he snapped out.
“Easy, kid. It’s just a shitty old car complaining about being on the road when it really just wants to curl up and go to jalopy heaven.” Some time passed as Sherrow let him relax a bit and take deep breaths. The car stopped long enough to let out a female passenger and then pulled away again.
“You were military?” Sherrow looked over at the young man’s face to find his eyes still closed but no longer scrunched with tension. His hands now moved meditatively forward and back on his thighs. He obviously needed something else to focus on.
“Yeah, I went into the Army straight out of high school. Shipped over to Vietnam about two seconds after basic.” He remembered being that young, naïve kid, boarding a bus to leave home the first time, on his way to a hell he could never have imagined. His mother had refused to come to the station—hadn’t spoken to him much since he’d come home announcing his enlistment. His father had hugged him tight before stepping back to let him board. The look on the man’s face was something Sherrow only came to recognize years later—like he was seeing his son for the last time and never wanted to forget.
With a sigh, he let the ache of the memory slide away. “I was a scared-shitless eighteen-year-old kid from Indiana just trying to make his daddy proud.”
“Did you?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you make him proud?”
Shaking his head, Sherrow replied, “It was Vietnam, son. I survived. ’Bout all any of us who came home could say about that one.” He looked over at his benchmate now working to unscrew the lid on a stainless-steel flask and frowned slightly. “That stuff will kill ya, you know?”
The man smiled as he looked down and flipped the weighted cap over. “I’m not trying to drown my sorrows, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No, just thinking that’s a hard road to step off of once you’re headed down it.”
Lifting the flask to his lips, the Marine took a healthy sip before staring thoughtfully at the container. Finally, he looked up at Sherrow and offered it to him.
“No thanks.”
With a smirk and dismissive shake of the flask, he offered again. “It’s lemonade. No alcohol included. Just a little too much sugar, so you’re alright unless your old ass is a diabetic.”
Sherrow hesitated a second but took the flask and brought it up for a quick sniff.
Snorting, the man said, “You impugn my honor, sir.”
“Naw, just making sure you’re not trying to poison me with melted crayons from your lunch box.”
That caused a real laugh to come out, and Sherrow smiled wider in response. He tipped the flask up and took a sip of what was, in fact, very sweet lemonade. The grit of sugar made him wince and hand the container back. “Well, I wasn’t a diabetic before, but I might be now.” He wiped a small amount of liquid from the corner of his mouth and asked, “So, what’s your name, kid? And what’s with the flask if you’re just sipping sugar water?”
The amusement dampened, and his tone was resigned. “Formerly Staff Sergeant Westwater, sir, but you can just call me Faron now.” Leaning over, he offered a solid handshake. “Nice to meet you.”
“You as well. And I’m just Sherrow. No ‘sir’ needed.”
Nodding, Faron continued, “Well, Sherrow, you weren’t wrong with your initial assumption. I briefly had an issue with alcohol.” Lifting the flask, he added, “Now I just carry this thing and drink other stuff out of it for the comfort of the habit, I guess. Like people do with peppermint sticks for smoking, ya know?”
Sherrow nodded in understanding. “Makes sense. Whatever helps.” Too many veterans found their end at the bottom of a bottle, but it wasn’t the dying that seemed most tragic to Sherrow—it was losing all sense of who they were. A man should get to go out feeling at peace with who he was and where he was headed. It was something Sherrow had been trying to sort out all afternoon.
Beside him, Faron gave a final thoughtful glance at the flask before placing it back inside his duffel.
“Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but what had you in such a mood when you came stomping up here?” Sherrow asked. “You were parting the waters like an airboat in the Everglades.”
Faron gave a derisive smile at the question. “A girl,” he said with a shake of his head. “Why the hell else do we dumb-ass men do anything?”
“Hmm, you don’t know the half of it, son.”
“I know more than I want to.” His arms were crossed now, and he paused for a moment to watch a young couple cross the street with a stroller. “That’s where I thought my life was headed.” He gestured to the trio, looking back at Sherrow to see that he understood. Sherrow nodded, because tattered plans were the whole reason he was sitting here.
“Being in the Marines was my life. I had this whole plan. Get my combat time in, rank up, get married, have a couple kids, and eventually retire. Or stay in until they kicked my dusty old ass to the curb.” Shaking his head, he let his hands come down to grasp his knees. “I just wasn’t expecting it at twenty-eight. Not even fucking thirty and they tossed me out like garbage and I’m out here with a brain and body I can’t trust anymore.”
His clenched jaw ticked with rising agitation, and Sherrow felt the pause in his speech like the swelling billow of a flag just before the inevitable snap of fabric. The feeling was familiar. Sherrow had spent as much time being angry in the last three months as he had grieving.
“I know all this shit wasn’t what she signed up for, but me neither, ya know? She just gave up on me, on us. Hell, she gave up before my last deployment. Been fucking a client of hers for the last year. Makes me wonder if I would have ever found out if I hadn’t been blown up and sent home.” Throwing his hands up, he huffed, “I can’t even say home anymore, because I’m a damn idiot.”
Faron released a deep breath. As quickly as the wind of his mood had built, it died down, leaving him deflated and appearing lost. Sherrow saw their situations were vastly different but so similar all at once. He understood the torture of coming home and trying to fit into a life untouched by war—of feeling like the one thing that no longer belonged.
“What about family? You have anyone you can lean on for a bit?”
“Naw. My grandma raised me, but she’s gone now. No other family. None that I ever met anyway.”
It was tough to feel alone in the world. Linda had saved Sherrow’s life. If not for her, the world would have been a much darker place. Even so, he, at least, had his brother. With that thought, an idea came to him, and he felt a hint of that peace he’d been searching for. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed the bus ticket and took it out to look at it. The clock down the street let him know the bus heading to his hometown would depart in about fifteen minutes.
“So, what you’re saying is, you have no place to go and nothing to do?”
“I’ll figure something out. I’ve slept on the ground plenty of times before. Of course, I had a job then . . .” Faron looked at his hands and scratched at the palm of his right hand, the uncertainty clearly visible.
“You won’t be sleeping on the ground today, kid.”
Faron stared at him like he was talking gibberish.
“In ten minutes, you’re going to use this ticket”—Sherrow handed the slip of paper over, and Faron accepted it—“and you’re going to take a bus to Inerrata, Indiana. A man will be at the station waiting to pick you up by the name of Robert Canton. He’ll give you a job and a place to stay while you get your life together and figure out your next move.”
For a moment, all Faron did was blink at him until finally he opened his mouth and said, “Wait a minute. You’re giving me your ticket? What is this place and who is this guy? He doesn’t know me! Why would he do that?”
“It’s the perfect place to find a little peace, and it sounds like you need that right now. Robert is my brother, and you wouldn’t be the first person he’s helped out.” Lifting himself from the bench, Sherrow stepped toward the younger man and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You’re gonna be just fine. You’re made of tough stuff, Marine, and where you’re headed is the best place in the world for you right now.”
Faron looked up and spoke, his words sounding like a final attempt to make sense of the gift. “If it’s such a great place, why aren’t you going back there?”
Sherrow smiled lightly with the ease left by his decision. “I’ve been there, kid. I got all the good it could do me a long time ago. Now it’s someone else’s turn.” He paused for a moment, his mind traveling to another place before he tacked on, “Besides, I have someplace else I need to be.”
Faron nodded, and Sherrow turned, his steps carrying him away from the bustle of departing travelers. “Good luck, kid.”
“You too, old man.”
Sherrow smiled at the countered words. He reveled in the stretch of his rib cage as he breathed deep and noticed the smell of bus exhaust and warm rubber on pavement already fading away. The fading sunshine cast his shadow beside him like a familiar, silent companion—both of their steps a composed synchrony of movement. He had a call to make to his brother. There would be disappointment and concern, but his brother would focus on keeping the kid busy until he had time to heal. Faron wouldn’t fix all his problems in an hour spent on a park bench, but he might be well on his way after six months or so in Inerrata.
As for Sherrow, an hour had made a monumental difference. Not so much in the landscape of his outcomes but in the manner with which he traveled. He possessed the equanimity of a man who knew his destination and carried no baggage because all he needed would be waiting for him. And that was a ticket he would keep for himself.