Incident
“Mr. Tanner?” said the Specialist at the check-in at the barracks. “Yes, Denny’s here. It doesn’t look like he’s expecting you.”
“He’s not answering my emails or phone calls,” said the tall, broad, dark-haired man. “Can you get him for me? Please!”
“Budd?” said the Specialist. “You still talk to Denny. Tell him his dad’s here? I can’t leave the desk and he’s not answering.”
“What’s wrong?” said Mr. Tanner. “No one talks to my son anymore?”
“He seems to like it that way,” said the Specialist. “As long as he follows orders and does his job, that’s on him.”
Budd knocked on Denny’s door. When he got no answer, he opened the door part-way. Denny was at his desk, on the computer, in his underwear.
“Tanner,” he said, sticking his head in the door. “Get dressed. Your dad’s coming up.”
Then, before Denny could answer, he closed the door and left.
Denny rushed to pull on jeans and a T-shirt. The freshest non-uniform shirt he had was the dragon T-shirt, which he hadn’t touched since Jake and Yael’s party. He swept a pile of energy bar wrappers and fast food sacks from his desk into the wastebasket, but some of it overflowed onto the floor. He was trying to figure out what to do about that when he heard a firm two raps on the door, and it opened again, this time all the way.
“Camden?” said his father, then looked over the room. It was a mess, his son was a mess, it looked just like his room back home when he’d hole up in there and never come out. He’d thought Camden had started to make something of himself in the Space Force.
Denny stared at his father. “What are you doing here?”
Mr. Tanner grabbed him by the T-shirt. “Visiting, I thought,” he said. “But it looks like I need to knock some sense into you.” And he shoved his son back, hard.
Denny stumbled back, tripped over some garbage on the floor, and landed on his butt. Then he got up again. “You don’t do that anymore, Dad,” he said.
“Don’t I?” said Mr. Tanner, and grabbed the shirt again.
This time, Denny punched his dad in the face, and the other man fell.
“Get up, Dad,” said Denny. “We’re not through here.”
“Finally learned to fight back, eh?” his dad sneered. But it was somehow different from how Denny remembered it. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, but seemed to stall there.
Then he collapsed.
Denny tried to revive him, but his dad seemed to have lost consciousness. He went out into the hall.
“Hey, my dad’s passed out.”
One of the other guys ran into the room and took a look. “Call an ambulance,” he said. “I think he’s gone into shock.”
Denny pressed 911 on his phone.
“Bring him downstairs,” he said, and helped Denny get his father down the stairs. While they waited, Denny checked himself out of the barracks. Meanwhile, his dad’s eye was starting to swell and turn red.
“What happened?” asked the Specialist at the desk.
“Dad fell,” said Denny.
The Specialist, and the guy who’d helped Denny with his dad, looked at each other.
When the ambulance got there, Denny got in and rode to the hospital with his father.
At the hospital, they took his dad to emergency care and someone started asking Denny questions. Name of the patient. His relationship to him. What had happened.
Once again, Denny said his father had fallen. The woman taking down the information had seen Mr. Tanner’s bruised eye, and entered a note on the intake form.
“How’s he doing?” asked Denny, when someone came out from the place where they’d taken his father.
“Still unconscious, but we’ve got him stabilized,” he said. “Mr. Tanner?”
Denny paused for a split second, not used to being addressed as Mr. Tanner instead of Specialist Tanner or Tanner or Denny. “Yes?”
“The intake form shows that your father fell. Was he having trouble standing before that? Do you know why he fell?”
“No, he wasn’t having any trouble,” said Denny. “I, uh, well, he kinda pushed me and then I just, like, sorta pushed back.”
The man looked at Tanner. He didn’t see any marks on the young man. “So he pushed you and then you pushed him back. And the black eye?”
“I…,” said Denny, “hit him.”
The man nodded. “Mr. Tanner,” he said. “This is important. Falling and a black eye shouldn’t have made your father collapse. Did you hit him anywhere else? We’re trying to determine what caused the collapse and it would save time if we knew where to look. He’s in critical condition.”
Denny stood there, breathing heavily. “I didn’t… no, I didn’t… I didn’t do anything else. I punched him and that’s when he fell. I didn’t hit him when he was down.”
“Did you kick him?”
“No!” said Denny. “Nothing like that!”
“Mr. Tanner, your father could die.”
“I just… it’s just a black eye and then he fell.”
“Okay,” said a different man. “I have his statement.”
Tanner whirled around at the other man. “What? You were recording me? I thought you needed to know….”
“We did. We do,” said the other man. “We still do. And you didn’t tell us the truth, all the truth, before.”
Then a man in a business suit came forward. “Officers,” he said to the civilian policemen who seemed to have just shown up, motioning to Tanner.
One of the officers came up to him. “You’re under arrest for assault and battery,” he said, and pulled Tanner’s hands into handcuffs. “You have the right to remain silent.”
He was in the holding cell at the jail when First Sergeant Anders showed up.
Tanner had never seen the first sergeant, except from a distance, and stood at parade rest when he entered the room.
“Don’t say anything here,” he said. “You’re being transferred to the base guardhouse. I told them you weren’t dangerous and didn’t need to be handcuffed.” He gave Tanner a pointed look that said, And I better be right about that.
Denny sat quietly as they drove to the main admin building on base. Denny had only been in this building once, as part of in-processing when he had arrived from boot camp. Everything else was handled on-line. He walked with the first sergeant to the elevators, and went up to the top floor, where the base commander, Colonel Bakshi, and his staff had their offices.
Before he entered the colonel’s office, the first sergeant looked him in the eye and said, “Don’t argue. And tell the truth.” Then they went in.
Colonel Bakshi said something to Anders, but Denny couldn’t hear anything he was saying. All he could focus on, all he could see, was the other person in the room. Budd.
“Specialist Tanner,” came the voice. “Are you listening to me?”
“Sir?” said Denny, snapping back into focus. Somehow, he was sitting now and the first sergeant seemed to be gone.
“I asked you if there were any mitigating circumstances. Why were you fighting with your father in the barracks?”
“He pushed me,” said Denny.
“According to your record, you have never been prone to violent outbursts before,” said Bakshi. “Did your father say or do anything to provoke you? I’m trying to avoid a court martial.”
“I hit Budd,” he blurted out, instead of answering the question.
Colonel Bakshi was taken aback. That wasn’t why Budd was there.
“Specialist Budd was just telling me that you didn’t do things like that. Is there anything else you’d like to add?”
“Um, no,” said Denny. He had the feeling that he should be saying something more in his defense, but he couldn’t think.
“The Specialist at the barracks desk told me that he sent Specialist Budd up to get you because you weren’t responding to his question about your father. Is that true?”
“Budd told me my dad was there and I better get dressed.”
“So you didn’t want to see your father?”
“No.”
“And Specialist Budd knew that, and sent him up anyway?”
“Well, I was avoiding everyone. He didn’t know there were any real problems with my dad. He’s been pushing me to leave my room more.”
Colonel Bakshi nodded. “And what problems do you have with your dad?”
Denny shrugged. “He didn’t like all the time I spent on the computer.”
“Go on,” said Bakshi.
“So he’d pull me out of my room.”
“Go on,” said Bakshi.
“And, uh, yeah, he believed in corporal punishment.”
“Did you ever end up in the hospital?”
“No!” said Denny, shocked. “It wasn’t like that! He just used his belt on me.”
“So he found you hiding in your room, on the computer, and he tried to pull you out of your room,” said the colonel.
“Yes, sir,” said Denny. “He shoved me and I fell and then I got up and then he grabbed me again, and I punched him. And then he fell and said that I’m finally fighting back and I told him to get up and then… he collapsed.”
“So he actually talked to you after he fell?” said Bakshi.
“Yes, sir.”
“I think that’s enough for now.” Colonel Bakshi pressed a key on his computer, and the first sergeant came back in.
Before he could say anything to the first sergeant, Denny interrupted, “How’s my dad?”
“Mr. Tanner still has not regained consciousness, but he’s in stable condition. They’re still trying to figure out what’s wrong with him. And you haven’t asked, but Specialist Budd has accepted an Article 15 for failing to get your permission before bringing your father up to visit. Seven days restriction in the guardhouse, a Letter of Reprimand, and broken back to Spec1.”
“Colonel, sir, that’s not fair,” Denny said. “He didn’t know. He was trying to help. I’m the one who fucked up.”
“Yes, you did,” said the colonel. “First Sergeant?”
“Come with me, Tanner,” he said, taking Denny’s arm. “And shut up!” he added in a harsh whisper.
Guardhouse
Denny sat in the guardhouse cell, Budd in the cell next to his.
Budd had a steady stream of visitors during visiting hours. No one came to visit Denny except Jake, and he was just polite. After visiting hours, Budd couldn’t help talking to Denny from time to time, although he didn’t smile.
“You’re too friendly, Budd,” said Denny. “What if you ever had to fight? Hurt someone?”
Budd looked at Denny and shook his head. “What makes you think I haven’t? Here we are, both in the same place, and you can’t even be friendly here.”
“So have you?” Denny asked. “Ever hurt anyone?”
“Well, I suppose so,” he answered. “If killing someone counts.”
Denny stopped breathing for a moment, took a breath, then realized. Another joke. “Ha ha. Good one. You almost got me.”
“It was a justified homicide,” Budd continued, looking perfectly serious. “Self defense. I thought of being a cop for a while. But they always get there too late. And they don’t get to go into space. My folks weren’t thrilled that I joined up, but they got used to it. At least it’s honorable.”
“But, you didn’t even hit back….” said Denny.
“Because you weren’t a threat, man,” he said. “No threat, no violence. And I still don’t know why you hit me.”
“You didn’t tell Colonel Bakshi about that,” Denny said.
“No, you did that,” said Budd. “What for?”
“They already got me for not admitting I hit Dad right away. I just said he fell. I figured this was more of the same.”
Budd nodded, and for some reason it made Denny very happy that Budd agreed with him. Denny smiled for a second, and now there was the beginning of a smile on Budd’s face.
Denny noticed. “Why do you like me?” he asked.
Budd rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, I don’t much,” he said. “You hurt people. Not on purpose, I don’t think, most of the time, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Jake thought you just needed to be told stuff, that you couldn’t figure stuff out on your own. So I went along with it and tried to do my part. But then at Jake and Yael’s party? And dropping Sammy like that?”
“She said I didn’t own her!”
“Of course you don’t!” said Budd. “What did that have to do with anything? Does Jake think he owns Yael? Hell, he didn’t even think he owned Sammy, but he still stood up for her against that creep.”
Denny lowered his head.
Then someone came to the guardhouse. It was the first sergeant. “Colonel Bakshi suspended your Article 15,” he said, and the guard unlocked Budd’s cell and let him out.
Budd had seemed in his usual good spirits, except around Denny, but now that he was free, he cried. And the first sergeant let him, actually hugged him and patted his back awkwardly. It was only for a moment, and then Budd got control of himself again. Denny hadn’t realized how worried Budd had been that his Space Force career would be over. It looked like it wouldn’t even still be in his record in a couple of years. As if it had never happened.
All that, just because he was trying to get me out more, thought Denny. And he didn’t even like me much.
Camden Tanner sits in the guardhouse cell alone, not thinking, staring into space, eyes unfocused.
Budd is gone. The guard is across the room at his desk. He’s the night guard, from Air Force security, who just came in at 9pm. The night guard could tell Cami things, about his “lunch break” and the drunks and idiots he usually gets on his night shift, that is, if he gets anyone at all. But Cami doesn’t start conversations even at the best of times, and this is not even within shouting distance of a good time. But it isn’t the worst day of his life. There have been worse.
Cami had taken off his stetson when they brought him in here. It’s sitting next to him on the cot. There’s a “window” behind the night guard’s desk. It just looks out on the hallway behind him, but the hallway itself has real windows on the outside world on either end. Some concatenation of light rays, from street lights or maybe vehicle headlights, comes from the outside windows through the inside window and a flash of light comes from the stetson. It catches Cami’s eyes. It’s a reflection off the gray metal studs in the black hat band.
Cami watches, mildly interested, to see if there’s another flash. He notices the streaks of light coming in from time to time through the inner window. No more flashes off the studs, but maybe if he lifts the hat like this…. He moves the hat in the air, at random, as far as the guard can tell. Then Cami gets another flash off a gray stud, and is inordinately pleased with himself. He plays this game for some time.
Then it occurs to him to take the black hat band with the gray studs off the hat. He holds the band in his hands, moving and twisting it, making light flash off the studs. The night guard looks over at the weirdo and notices him playing with the band of cloth.
“Where did you get that?” He walks over to Cami’s cell.
“My hat band,” Cami answers.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Looking at the light,” he says, turning and twisting the band. A flash temporarily blinds the night guard in his right eye. He is not amused.
“Give me that,” he says.
Cami’s eyes scrunch up. He doesn’t want to lose the hat band. He’s not sure why, but he doesn’t want to give it up. But he knows that tone of voice. It means he has to, whether he wants to or not. He hands it through the bars and the night guard grabs it. The night guard wasn’t paying close enough attention, though. He hadn’t given Cami the chance to let go from his side of the bars, so Cami’s hand is trapped on the other side of them.
Cami pulls back on the band to give himself enough slack to get his hand out, and in the process, pulls the night guard’s hand back to the bars. For a moment, Cami has the night guard’s hand trapped against the bars, just as his own was a moment ago. The night guard notices and pulls the band to free his own hand, but Cami won’t let him. For a timeless moment, Cami sees that he’s the stronger, that he has the night guard trapped, and the night guard looks into Cami’s eyes and recognizes the same thing.
But Cami’s expression doesn’t change at all. Just sadness that he’s losing the hat band. He takes his hand out of the band and frees the night guard. His dad said he’d finally learned to fight back, but he hasn’t really. He’s still the geek that everyone beat on, including his dad.
The night guard, though, walks back to his desk with the hat band, shaken.
Now, he’s running his hands over the hat band, twisting and turning it, touching the studs, seeing how they reflect the light.
Somehow, Cami likes seeing the night guard do that. It’s almost like they have something in common. “My girlfriend put the studs in that,” he says.
“Yeah?” the night guard says. “That why you didn’t want to give it up?”
“Yeah,” says Cami. “I guess so. She said the gray brought out my eyes.” Embarrassment stabs him then for an instant. Guys don’t talk about things like that.
But the night guard doesn’t snicker or mock him. “Gray eyes?” he responds instead. “My girlfriend says stuff like that. Except it’s not my eyes she talks about. She talks about bringing out the red highlights in my hair.”
Cami smiles, then. Like all of them, the night guard’s hair is short. It’s not crew cut short, though. He sees that there’s actually enough hair on the top of his head to show its color clearly.
The night guard sees Tanner’s smile and smiles back. “So, yeah. Dee doesn’t like the crew cut,” he says, and runs his hands through the hair on the top of his head.
The night guard looks at the visitor’s log and sees only one name down for Tanner. Specialist J. Blacksmith. “So is Blacksmith your girlfriend?”
“Uh, no,” says Cami. His unfocused mood starts to dissipate. He’s starting to come back to the real world. “He’s a guy. Used to be my roommate in the barracks.”
The night guard doesn’t notice the change in Tanner. “Oh, sorry, man,” he says. “My bad. Just thought….”
“I guess I should have said she was my girlfriend,” Cami answers.
“Over this?” the night guard asks, waving an arm to indicate Tanner’s incarceration.
“Nah,” said Cami. “This is for getting into a fight with my dad. I… did something dumb and now Sammy….”
The night guard sits there, quietly, not knowing what to say. Then he walks over to the cell and sets the hat band on the floor inside the bars. “It’s yours. Might as well keep it. As long as they let you.”
Denny waits for him to step back from the bars, then goes over and picks it up. “Thanks,” he says, standing up and walking back to sit on the bed.
“No problem,” says the night guard. Then the night guard goes back to his screen. And Denny lies down on his cot, and goes to sleep.