“Your mother’s watching things.”
“Sweet Lord, help us all.”
Darzell had unflinching eyes, five-inch hair, and no smile for us as the old man made the introductions. “Good kids, son, and looking for help. They’re here on account of Jason.”
“Jason French? Is that right?”
“He’s my brother.”
“I don’t doubt that. You look exactly like him. Come on. Let’s sit. You, too, sweetness.” He winked at Becky, and we followed him past the bar, and into a booth, Becky sitting beside me with Darzell and his father across the table. “You want to talk about Jason, huh? What is it you want to know?”
His eyes had the same cool dispassion I saw sometimes in Jason. Maybe it was a soldier thing or a war thing. “Your mother told us you and Jason trained together.”
“We did.”
“Have you stayed in touch?”
“Your brother’s not really a stay in touch kind of guy.” Darzell flashed four fingers at the bar, and the bartender nodded back.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“After the ’Nam and before he went to prison. Three years, maybe.”
“Nothing since?”
“Just what’s in the news. I don’t think he killed that girl, though. Don’t get me wrong now. If Jason had cause, he could kill every man in this joint, kill him and him and him.” Darzell stretched an arm across the back of the booth, pointing at random strangers. “But they’d be good, clean kills, and done for cause, nothing like what the papers are saying. Shit…” The big man shook his head, a difficult expression on his face. “Jason mother-effin’ French…”
“You sound angry.”
“Angry? Nah, life’s too short. But the motherfucker should pick up a phone once in a while.” The bartender came with a pitcher of beer and four glasses. Darzell took the pitcher, and started pouring. “Don’t get me wrong, I still love the guy. Hell, worship the guy.” Darzell lifted an eyebrow, and slid a glass of beer to Becky. “You know about the rattlesnake?”
“Your mother told us.”
“Well, that’s a story, and a story’s just words.” He filled two more glasses, passing them around. “You know how hard it is to carry a grown man for three miles, up all those hills and back down, half the time in deep sand? And not some little man, either, but one my size. Three full miles at a dead run. You think on that.” He gave us a few seconds for his words to sink in. “Did my mother tell you why he did it? Because he was my friend, and those other grunts weren’t. You want to understand my feelings for your brother, then you need to feel that.”
He drained his glass, and poured another. “Why are you asking about Jason, anyway? He’s your brother. You know him better than I do.”
I shook my head. “Not since Vietnam.”
“Hey, if Vietnam is the great divide, sign up for the war. It was still there last time I looked.”
“You mentioned the girl in the papers.”
“I did, yeah. And that was some cold, cruel shit.”
“I think Jason knows who killed her. He won’t tell the cops, though. I’m trying to understand why.”
“You want to help him, is that it?” Darzell lit a cigarette, and snapped the lighter shut. “Ride in like the cavalry, all junior G-man and shit?”
“Something like that. I’d think you’d want the same thing.”
“First of all, Jason French has never needed the cavalry, but let’s say this time he does, and that you, little man, and you, sweetness”—he pointed a cigarette at Becky—“you’re the ones on horseback riding to his rescue. What is it you need from me?”
I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed. “To understand him, I guess. He won’t go to the cops, and I can’t get my head around that. I guess I want to know how he’s changed, and why it happened. If I knew that, then maybe I could talk to him.”
“You want his stories. I get it. You want to know about war, and what it does to a man. All right, let me break this down.” Darzell pointed again with the cigarette. “War is personal, kid. You’re surrounded by other soldiers, but you’re fundamentally alone. Every combat soldier will tell you the same. You pull the trigger, and a man dies. You paint a tree with his brains or spill his guts out in the mud. The how of it don’t signify, except in the nightmares, maybe, or what you see in the mirror first time you find the courage to look. ’Cause the truth of it is this: whether you’re a good soldier or not, a coward or right as the rain, you own the bullet and the guts; and that’s just the way of it: who you kill or don’t kill, what buddy goes chickenshit and runs, or steps wrong and blows off his leg. Stories, motherfucker! That’s what the people want—reporters and draft dodgers and rich, white college boys. And yeah, maybe I’d be talking about you if this weren’t about your brother. But you got to be there. You dig? You got to be in the shit to understand the shit. ’Cause that was my friend, lost his leg, and me who carried the fucker out, choking on his blood, trying to keep him from bleeding out. You know how long it takes a busted femoral to squirt a body dry? Stories, man! That’s the problem, because the stories are mine, and they’re personal. Maybe I share them and maybe I don’t, but that’s on me, too. Now I have to ask myself if Jason’s any different, if he wants me telling his stories?”
Darzell ground out the cigarette, and leaned close. “You’re of a mind that Vietnam changed your brother, and you’re right, it changed us all. If you want to understand how, then you go fight the fucking war. And if it’s Jason’s stories you want, then you should talk to him.”
“Son, please…”
“Take it easy, Pops. We’re just talking this through.” His stare had grown hard, and his back was flat against the back of the booth.
“Listen, Darzell.” Becky reached for his hand, and what I saw in her face was real understanding and true compassion, as if the war, for her, had never been made so personal. “We’re trying to help. That’s all.”
“And you think he knows who killed this girl?”
“We do.”
“And that there is your problem.” Darzell withdrew his hand, but was gentle about it. “The man likes his secrets. That’s not on me.”
“It’s on me,” I said. “He’s doing it for me.”
“Why?”
“He’s protecting me, I think. Bad people, he told me. Inside the prison, or outside, I don’t know. He said they’d hurt me to get to him.”
“You don’t know much,” Darzell said.
“I know the DA wants to execute the man who saved your life.”
Becky said, “Please, Darzell.”
But Darzell kept his eyes on mine.
“One brother died in the war,” I told him. “Jason is all I have left. That means I am in the shit.”
Unsmiling, Darzell drummed his fingers. Eventually, he looked at his father, who nodded. “It’s the right thing, son.”
“All right,” Darzell said. “I’ll tell you what I know. It’ll take a while, and I need to do it in my own way. So don’t interrupt. Don’t ask questions. We can circle back later, but this isn’t something I want to do.” Darzell settled into the decision, not happy about it but willing enough to loosen up as he lit a second cigarette. “Jason is a hero, all right, and any marine that knows his story will tell you the same. Two full tours and most of a third. But it ended badly. Military prison, dishonorable discharge. That’s all most people see, so I’m going to start there, and then we’ll go back for the rest of it. Cool?”