The Medals Jeff Crouch “Need some help?” she said as she glanced me a look. “I’ll be right with you.” From the looks of things, she’d be a least three or four minutes making her way to the front. “No, ma’am. Just looking.” The stuff looked kind of cheap, but I couldn’t afford it. Well, maybe I could have, but why did I want to purchase what was mine? The place smelled of some sort of industrial cleaner and mothballs. No telling what lurked in these wardrobes and walk-in closets other than the smell of cedar or pine. I was trying not to let the smell get me sick. I remembered the time when I had to I to disinter a village with a shovel. But then I had to clear the image from my head. I had dreamed too often of the clacking jaws with leather wings for tongues and the hands of children clutching for their mothers. I had dug the ditch for the burial. I had scooped out plenty of earth with the bulldozer. In fact, the dirt pile became a temporary ski slope. Then someone higher up decided we should burn the bodies. Supplies brought in fuel; only it wasn’t fuel—it was a trick. The villagers had loaded their fuel tanks with something else, something like thinned out molasses tainted with diesel. But whatever it was, after the bodies were soaked, the fire wouldn’t start. But I buried the bodies deep with the bulldozer. I worked it so that the burial ground served as set of bunny hills. I wasn’t that good with the bulldozer, but I needed to stay busy. My squad lost the bulldozer on the way to the next village. The next summer, when we came back through the bunny-hill village, someone decided we should dig up the bodies and burn them. Of course, we didn’t have a bulldozer then. I learned to keep a cigarette burning so I could keep my breakfast in my stomach. Just keep shoveling. I wasn’t fighting a war, and I didn’t even have a gun. The shock of another face beneath the shovel blade. One night I had a nightmare where the faces of the unburied (and only partial faces at that) became flesh ribbons that turned to leeches. I was being drained by the leeches. I stared at the medals trying to get a bead on their position for the side and rear. Had they been dipped in turpentine? I got sent for a psych eval when one day I cradled one of the corpses. Well, almost. We burned the bodies and moved on to the next village. My paperwork got lost. Something smelled like rotted leaves, and I began to grow nauseous. The old lady ruining the store had pulled out some quilts. I was sure I heard the overflow of that tea-tinted sewage. The next village was a bombing run, and he were left to do clean up. Gasoline mixed with burning oil, smoked-out RVs, animals filled with maggots and flies festering next to a shallow and receding pond, a refrigerator full of frozen fish after two months with the power off, singed hair. I felt the floor. It was cool concrete. Command gave me a camera to take pictures. I didn’t have time to focus on my breathing. One time, a buddy of mine thought we might make a mile-high mountain of fingernail trimmings. I was holding my chest, trying to keep from throwing up. My face flushed. Silver and bronze stars and what looked to be a few British and American campaign bars. An Iron Cross, maybe one that the Fuehrer himself had pinned on somebody, and a gold sun-ray with a purple ribbon right beside it. Something was in the center of the sun ray. Medallions, some of them with exquisite ribbons. Purple Hearts. Something that looked like a Congressional Medal of Honor. Perhaps from FDR or Truman. I let my change drop out of pocket so I could pick it up. I probably should have checked to see that it was all American. I had a spare quarter in my hand to “throw” in case the spill went otherwise than where I needed it. Some of the change rolled behind the medals case, and as I crawled around to pick it up, I slid the door on the back of the case open. It wasn’t even locked. Occasionally, people would still be holed up in their rooms when we came through a village. Sometimes they were ready to kill us; mostly though, they cowered in corners. I picked up the medal with the purple ribbon and put it back. I nudged a few of the stars. I flashed a Purple Heart in the light. I finally got the medal I wanted and slid the door back into place. Once, on a mission, we were greeted with chocolate bars, but the girls Command sent us were just too young. Most of them were only fourteen. I ate my chocolate and watched them dance. Not bad for fishing blind. I put the medal in my pocket. I was near to hacking. I felt a cough coming. I began to feel around for my cigarettes, but I gave up smoking. The old lady was coming back toward the front of the store to see what all of the commotion was. I relocated myself in order to field a few pieces of silver out from under the chairs. “Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry, I dropped some change.” One time, I used a similar line to disembowel a guard. I almost knocked over a chair, which would have been a catastrophe the way things were stacked. I stood up and continued to put my change in my pocket and made sure my medal wasn’t visible. I had a stabbing pain in my leg. I saw a nickel and picked it up too. “There any thing I can help you with?” “Yes ma’am.” I had to catch myself. I was almost mouthing: “I’d like to see the medals.” I looked around. It was missing! I should have checked to make sure it was there; it was part of my scam, and it was gone. I had better look at the display case. “Did you want something over here”” the old lady asked. “You were over here a while.” I was trying to work the embarrassment of dropping a pocketful of change as a cover for my guilt. I answered spontaneously, and my response felt right: “I’m saving up my money for something.” “But you want to buy something today?” Did I dare ask where it had gone? I returned my gaze to the display case. “Yes, if it doesn’t cost too much,” I said. Where had her customer gone? She smiled at me. I’d seen her plenty of times before. It was ridiculous. Not a filling in the back of her mouth, a bright, shining piece of gold glared back at me. Right up front. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Another dart of light across the mirror. I was almost staring down her throat. Where was the gold light coming from? It wasn’t a tooth anymore, it was her whole face. I felt the shovel blade slipping across flesh, and bone, and mud. I turned around, and there was that customer playing with some sort of stage light. A gold beam went down her throat like a pillar of fire. I thought of the time we had bombed an orphanage. I got the job of collecting the toys. “That’s one explanation,” I thought out loud. “Did you need something?” the old lady asked. “Yes,” I replied. It wasn’t there, but the belt buckle beside it was. “I’ve got five bucks for this belt buckle.” “Sorry, but it’s four thousand.” It said CSA. “She’ll hate me now,” I thought. “Why didn’t I notice that before?” “Four thousand?” “Yes.” I should have made myself come off as more of a nut. I had certainly given her a means to remember me. “How much you want for this light?” asked the customer. “Whew!” I almost breathed out loud. “I’ll be right back.” “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll find it shortly.” “I issue1 you didn’t really want the belt buckle,” she said, walking away. “Four thousand,” I said to myself. Where did that price come from? My leg was beginning to throb. I started looking at the coins just so I could buy something and leave. But why was I reviewing the price? The customer was playing with a stage light. When I turned to look, I felt queasy. The light blinded me. I begin to lose my bearing. “Where is it?” I asked the old lady. “What?” she replied. “I sold all my comic magazines to a trader last week.” I was pointing to a steel penny. I needed to buy something just so I could leave. “How much?” I asked. “Three dollars.” “I’ll take it.” My hand started to twitch. It was nerve damage from a bad date. I could use the coin as another piece with which to barter. The light show began again, but I got the old lady her money. I fished my money out of the pocket that didn’t have my medal. I had a few loose ones and a five or two along with almost two dollars in change prepared, but I had lost almost all concentration. I don’t remember the total with tax, but she stared at the quarter I gave her. “Where’d you get this?” she asked. I realized I had taken my father’s collector’s quarter off his nightstand when he was dying, but it was an odd realization since it wasn’t true. “Oops,” I said, and I fished into my pocket for another quarter. I eyed it carefully. Was I even thinking through my lies? “Please,” I said. “It’s my father’s quarter.” “Be careful with things that aren’t yours,” she said. “Or a better memory,” I almost muttered aloud. I was mumbling. Med usually gave me a shot when I started mumbling. She’s going to think I’m crazy if I keep this up. “Thanks.” “Don’t!” the old lady implored. I glanced back inside: what a light show. The windows in the stores across the street were sparkling. I could rub my war wound now. One more medal. “How many heroes had we had?” I asked myself. I asked the waitress for a booth. “Would you like anything?’’ “I’ll have the spaghetti and a water. Thanks.” “Toast?” “Sure.” “Yes, glory is ours,” I thought. I was already studying the place trying to figure out how I might walk my check. It’s hard to get a pension from a failed government. There were mushrooms in my spaghetti. I started thinking about toes. I wiped my face with my elbow and noticed that the tea tasted like sewage, but sweeter. I sipped the water. The water reminded me of my daughter.