December 31st

A story of a soldier abroad on New Year's Eve.

A new beginning, a room of a hundred doors to unlock.

And behind each one, a brick wall.

                              -- unknown poem

 

 

It was cold. The wind brought knives with it, kissing against bared skin with sharp edges. Even the wild country stopped in its tracks for the cold.

Dodge breathed on his hands to restore the feeling. If his muscles stiffened, he might not be able to shoot, and wasn’t that what he was here for?

According to his watch, midnight�"U.S. East Coast midnight, specifically�"was less than twelve hours away. He had been snatching peeks at his watch for the past two days, as if without careful monitoring time might leap ahead. As if it were an unruly child who needed his supervision.

The year was old. It was full of days that had already been filled up with things: births, deaths, sentences written and words spoken. Things, memories. Dodge tried to imagine how many periods had cut a sharp end to how many sentences during all those days, and his head was filled with little dots. Millions. More than millions. The year was old, and by twelve o’clock U.S. East Coast time its death certificate would be signed and sealed. ‘Twelve hours,’ he wanted to tell the others, but they were buried deep in themselves and would not hear him. They had been waiting for some time now, and may have to continue waiting for some time more.

 

Dodge shifted, very slowly. He was extremely uncomfortable, both from holding the same position for so long and from the relentless gnawing of the chill. It was as bitterly cold here as any December afternoon in New York�"something Dodge knew very well. He could see himself now, wrapped in a dark coat and leaning across Time Square against the wind, the cold all over him like a wild animal, last year’s red Christmas scarf curling out behind him. He could see himself arriving at his parents’ house and coming in without knocking, stamping the snow off his boots on the front mat. Snow was everywhere, clinging to his coat and his legs and his hair. He struggled from layers of winter gear like a moth from its cocoon.

Back then, a sudden flash of bluewhite light meant camera. ‘Haha, your face!’ she said, waving the camera in it. ‘Candid shots are my new thing. They’re very revealing.’ Dodge remembered standing awkwardly in dripping boots with his sweater halfway over his head. “Oh no, does that mean I’m making some weird face?”  Alicia refused to say, so Dodge chased after her, grabbing for the camera. They ran in circles, Alicia slipping in puddles of snowmelt in her socks, until she finally stopped and let Dodge watch over her shoulder as she deleted the picture. He could still hear Alicia laughing.

In the foyer Alicia reached out and took Dodge’s hand. ‘C’mon, Jay, mom and dad are in the kitchen, they made that pot roast crap you love.’ Dodge followed. The house was warm and full of soft sounds and he knew what lay behind every door. Back then, he thought he would always know what lay behind every door.

 

In the present, in the wild country where doors could open to anything, Dodge blinked and stirred again, exhaling spirals of fog. A few yards to his right, Ace spat crossly, like a cat. “D****t, Dodge, you’ll upset the snow,” he hissed. “This is a stakeout. Stakeout. You want me to spell it?”

 

Nearer at hand, Dodge could hear Ince turn his head slightly leftwards and begin to count, faintly, under his breath. Only Dodge was close enough to hear him. “Four�"three�"two�"”

 

Breaker spoke up, loud: “He’s not a f*****g infant, Ace, he’s not any more likely to attract attention by moving a few inches than you are by bitching him out about it. In case you weren’t sure, this is a stakeout. Stakeout, that means quiet. Want me to spell it?”

 

Ace cut his eyes at Breaker, or what small snatch of Breaker he could see from his position. “What a convincing argument from the one who’s doing the shouting,” he shot back acidly. “Keep your voice down. Jackass.”

 

“I think in the case of unrepentant douchebaggery, i.e. yours, hypocrisy can be excused.” Breaker sounded smug. “You�"”

 

Locke cut him off. “Now now, children,” he said mildly, “Let’s all get along.” Beneath his mild tone was iron, hard and cold. He booked no argument.

 

The others quieted. Dodge almost wanted to laugh; they were so contentious sometimes, Breaker and Ace especially, and when blow and parry and blow and counterstrike flashed back and forth like a tennis match it could be hard not to laugh. Dodge did not, but he felt the laugh quiver in his throat.

 

He checked his watch. Eleven hours. Almost ten. Dodge sat back. He waited. He conjugated Spanish verbs in his head.

 

Amar. Amo. Ama. Amamos. Aman. Ten hours. Amaré. Amará. Amarás. Amarámos. Amarán. Amaría, Amarías, Amaríamos, Amarían. Amá. Amó, Amaba.

 

The fact that somewhere in the world people were preparing for New Year’s parties and calling friends and making plans was amazing. Dodge couldn’t quite believe it; he couldn’t quite believe anything from home anymore. ‘Home’ had become to him what China had been to him as a child�"a place he knew existed, a place he had read about and seen on TV, but so far away it was almost mythical. This place was real. The fierce, living cold and the smell of gunsmoke and the slickness of blood, that was reality. Somehow that made everything else irrelevant. But try as he might Dodge couldn’t quite pin down why.

 

In ten hours, everyone he knew would be raising their glasses and shouting numbers that got smaller in steps. Five, four, three, two. One. Zero, happy new year. Happy new year, Dodge. Everyone would shout and do shots and couples would kiss. Alicia would be sipping a glass of sparkling grape juice because Maxie would be there, of course; Alicia could never get a hold of a babysitter for holidays.

Would Maxie’s hair still be blonde? Perhaps it had gone dark. Dodge and Alicia did not look alike; she had the soft, round features and full lips from their father’s side, and his face was all their mother’s, his features sharper and more angular (their mother used to like to call it the ‘aristocratic’ family look, which put Alicia in stitches). But they had the same hair. It fell straight and dark and so soft it did not shine in any light. When he saw her last, Maxie’s hair had been fitfully treading the line between blonde and brown, although that didn’t mean much�"he and Alicia had been born blonde too.

 

Dodge wondered if Maxine remembered him.

 

“Heads up,” Ace breathed abruptly. His voice was a ghost. “Movement in the trees.”

Everyone tensed, guns coming up in short arcs, silently. The chill was for waiting; now the wait was over, and warmth returned in a soft glow, driving the numbness from fingertips and faces. The sudden heat was an illusion�"the cold was as omnipresent and ferocious as ever�"but Dodge welcomed the relief anyway. Like the thudding of an engine, he could feel his own heart cycling up, rushing adrenaline through his system like a California wildfire. Arteries to arterioles to capillaries to venules to veins, he thought. Then around again.

 

His eyes were the sharpest. “Enemy soldiers. Between a dozen and half a dozen, hard to tell through the trees. Say fifty yards. Moving north-northeast,” Dodge said. He adjusted his grip on the M4, breaths rasping thinly in and out in a slow, tidal rhythm. “In just a moment they will be moving between copses and they’ll be in the open.” The snow dulled sound. Dodge felt deaf. He felt trapped in a bubble blown from a child’s bubble wand. Time was passing somewhere else. Somewhere else, the year was growing old and slipping away, to be replaced by a new one; here, there was no new year. There was only more and more of the same year. He could hear his breathing and he could hear the clicking of his gun. He could hear nothing else.

 

Far away in New York, people were buying their firecrackers and their wine. Within a few short hours the ball would drop and the calendars would flip, leaving him pressed between the pages of a dead and interminable year. Nine hours. 540 minutes. 32,400 seconds.

 

Then, very faintly, he heard Locke give the order.

 

The flashing of the guns was almost like fireworks.