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“You don’t smile anymore.” Joe's mother complained as she took her seat for dinner. She pinched his cheek playfully, but her deep eyes searched his own matching ones.
“He never did,” Barbara interjected, pouring herself yet another glass of wine, “He just kinda…bares his teeth,” she attempted to mimic his painful grimace.
It was never easy for him. There was something too vulnerable about genuinely smiling. Not that he didn’t smile, sure he did, in those moments laughing with his sisters and brother. In those moments when he drank himself stupid and let himself think of days past, and smiled at memories that melted and rippled until he wasn’t really sure what was memory and what was fantasy, both things living within him at once. Beyond that, Barb was right; he grimaced and sneered, but did not smile.
Smiling only makes him think of Webster; a lot of things did these days. He always smiled too easily, toothy and wide eyed. He would be the butt end of a joke, and he’d still chuckle, and his dimples would deepen. Even the memory of it now twisted Joe’s insides. He wished he remembered how many of those smiles were meant for him. He should’ve counted each and every one of them. Should’ve written down what he’d said to earn a flash of annoyingly straight white teeth. Those little grins that were Joe’s and Joe’s alone to cradle inside himself, selfishly reliving them over and over in a path of self destruction. A bittersweet pain.
“You should come see the house, Joe.” Liz told him while they cleared the table after supper, “Simon and I have really fixed it up.”
He agreed. Only God knows why. Santa Barbara was annoyingly bright and sunny and filled with tourists and transplants. The glittering ocean blew a cooling September wind over the hot city. Joe had to admit it was pretty, not as pretty as Austria had been, but still nice. His sister’s home was nice too, and he found himself holding his littlest niece on his lap, her back against his stomach.
“Careful, Joe, she’ll tip forward,” Liz advised, and he scoffed.
“I ain’t putting her over my shoulder to stare at the damn wall,” he kept a cautious hand around her middle to stop her from toppling over, “She deserves to see the world.”
England, France, Holland, Austria, and Germany. Despite what brought him to these places, he was grateful for it in a way. He could still resent it while being grateful. It felt like he’d seen it all. Breath taking beauty and grotesque darkness. He felt no need to see more. He was content with his shoebox apartment and the hum of his cab engine, day after day. The monotony was a comfort; let his mind go numb, didn’t have to think. Webster always thought too much. Always talked about new plans and hopes and dreams. It was as charming as it was irksome.
“So what comes after your fancy degree?” Joe asked one night in Berchtesgaden, head spinning with gin and tea. It felt plausible to think of the future in that moment.
Webster pursed his lips in that way that made him look stupidly doll-like, “Maybe I’ll come back here.”
“Here?” Joe sneered and glanced up towards the direction of the Eagle’s Nest, where he was sure officers were still using their rank to loot the best goods first.
“Well, maybe not here, per se,” the younger man rolled his eyes, “But Europe. I had always wanted to visit as a child, but never like this. These historic cities will rebuild, and I’d love to witness the restoration. The satisfaction of watching a scab heal over.”
Now it was Joe’s turn to roll his eyes. Webster was always saying shit like that. “Metaphors” and “smilies” Web had explained to Joe what the concepts were. He suspected he had a lot of those stowed away to be used at a moment’s notice. Maybe that’s what he was writing down in that damn leather journal that he hauled with him all through the war.
He had to get out of Liz’s home. It was too…too happy, and Liz deserved that. His sister deserved her loving husband and perfect gaggle of children. She was raising them right, he knew that, knew that Liz was dedicated to undoing whatever bullshit had been instilled in them as children. Joe wished he could do that too, but every time he tried, he always fucked it up somehow. Always hurt the people that he loved.
“Must’ve really liked that hospital…I’m sure you tried to bust out and help us in Bastogne.” God, even then, Webster had smiled at him. Hesitant and unsure, but it was there nonetheless. Why couldn’t Joe have just said what he really meant? Probably because he didn’t really know what he meant, even now he isn’t sure. He wouldn’t have wished that frozen forest on anyone, but maybe it would’ve been nice to have Webster around. He’d bitch and moan, and Joe would harass him for it. Joe would’ve smiled then. Yet, in Haguenau, he wanted to shake Webster, call him stupid for coming back at all.
Joe steadily worked his way through his pack of Luckies, wandering up and down Santa Barbara streets. As he glanced into display windows, he passed a shop of men’s fine apparel, and he vaguely thought he should go in. If he died today, they’d put him in whatever was his best clothing, which were his Class A’s. He never wanted to see another shade of olive drab or khaki ever again. He’d be willing to spend money on a suit, if only for that sake. Maybe he could save up a few paychecks, and cut back on going to the bar every damn night.
A few shops down was a bookstore. The front display was fairly plain, just a few book stacks with their spines presented and a couple of books propped up on little easels. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. Joe actually laughed out loud at the title. His eyes slid to the golden cover of the next book, Return of the King, and he found himself admiring the intricate woodland art on the dust cover. Joe wasn’t much of a reader; his comic books served him just fine. The pictures were always more interesting to him.
He and Web had talked about that one night. “Art can speak just as loudly as words.” Web had said regarding comic books. Joe didn’t know anything about art or its meaning. Web did, though. Talked about characterization through body language and facial expressions, and how the color of a scene set the tone. Joe noticed those things now, too. He reread comics he had left behind before the war and realized that he’d missed details; there was a deeper meaning now.
He was about to keep walking when the final book caught his attention. In bold letters, he read Parachute Infantry: in smaller print, it followed, An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich. He almost wanted to laugh again because what self centered cocksucker would have such a long winded title? His eyes drifted down over the rather plain cover – apart from the copious amount of text – and down to the author. He read it once and froze in place. David Kenyon Webster.
He didn’t move. Just stood there on the sidewalk, forcing people to walk around him as they cast dirty looks his way, one woman even clucking her tongue. He lifted a hand to bring his cigarette back to his lips again and realized his hand was shaking. He immediately dropped the cigarette and crushed it underfoot, twisting his leg back and forth a few times too many, until the concrete ate at his sole. David Kenyon Webster. Son of a bitch, the lengthy title made sense now. A little flame of pride burned within Joe’s chest. Webster was a writer, always was. Always taking his little damn notes and spinning fancy phrases. Webster was always meant for something more, something greater. Joe’s eyes refocused on the glass, and he blinked at the sight before him. Crooked teeth reflected back at him, his smile slightly askew, one cheek hiking up higher than the other.
A little bell rang overhead when he entered the shop, and he inhaled the distinct scent that all bookshops have; a little musty and woody. There was a small stack of each display book on a table not far from the window, and Joe wasted no time swiping up a copy. He stared at the cover, it was simple and yet eye catching. He supposed it was a lot like Web in that way. Webster was fairly conventional in his appearance and yet Joe always found his eyes tracking him, noticing his subtle widow's peak, the watery quality to his sky blue eyes, his pouty, open lips, and dimpled cheeks. Joe had noticed him pretty quickly and kept an eye on him all through Europe. He held the book spine in one hand and opened the cover to the flyleaves. He poised his thumb to feather through the pages before he paused and decided against it, snapping the cover closed once more. Whatever Webster had to say, Joe didn’t want to read it here. At first, the woman at the counter didn’t look at the title of the book, merely typed in the price at the register. Glancing over it again, her eyes lit up with recognition.
“So tragic about this guy, right?” she asked. When Joe merely stared at her, she continued, “This author, he’s been a local for some time, studying fish or something. He went out on his boat last month and hasn’t been seen since. I hate to think of everything he went through only to have an accident out on the water.”
Joe said nothing. Didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stared. The woman paused, waiting to see if Joe might say something, agree with her in the very least. Eventually, the awkwardness grew too great, and she hesitantly glanced at the register again.
“That’ll be two fifty,” she added. Joe dug into his pocket, grabbing a few bills and several coins to slap down onto the counter. He swiped up the book and hurried out the door before the woman could even count out his change.
He couldn't read the book at his sister's house, not after Liz saw the title and the author and looked curiously at Joe holding the book so tightly. He tried, alone inside the guestroom, he'd peel back the fly leaves and then freeze, unable to go further. So he held it in his hands, staring at the cover, letting his fingertips trace over the indentation of Webster's name. Here Webster was, cradled in his palms.
The last time he held Web, they hadn't really spoken. At the time, he thought it wasn't necessary. Webster had tried, and he took Web’s face in his hands and leaned in until their gin laced breaths intermingled. He still remembered the startled look in those wide blue eyes. They didn’t quite kiss, not really. Joe could still feel the hot caress of Webster’s quickened breath on his own lips. Could still recall the way their lips brushed ever so slightly, the briefest little nudges without ever actually coming into full contact. “Joe…” He vaulted himself from the bed. He hurriedly pulled on a jacket and gave Liz some rushed half excuse before bolting out the door, book in hand.
He found himself on a bench near the beach. Book in hand and brown paper bag beside him. It was a stupid location, considering. The ocean gently lapped at the golden beach as innocent as ever, but Joe knew better than to believe its facade. He took a long drink of bitter liquid and opened the book.
Joe didn’t like reliving the war, but through Web’s eyes, it was different. There was a veil laid between Joe and it. Where Joe saw mud and rain and misery, Web saw it all too, but he also saw honeysuckle and rolling fields. Opposites in the same moment, both being true at once.
He stumbled back to his sister's house when the evening grew too dark to keep reading. Her husband eyed Joe suspiciously as he entered, wavered for a moment, and retreated into the guestroom. Logically, Joe knew that he couldn’t hear Liz and Simon whispering about him in the next room over, but he knew it was happening all the same. Despite his headache the next day, he returned to the beach with another bottle of liquor and repeated the process. It took three days total to finish the book.
Joe wasn’t so presumptuous as to think that Webster would write about him, but there were moments when he wondered. Their private conversations, whispered in lulls of battle. Joe wasn’t particularly social, but eventually he reached a point where if he was just gonna die anyway, what did it matter if he told Webster these things or not? Sometimes Joe swore he saw reflections of it in Webster's words. He wondered if he existed there in Webster’s thoughts as he wrote, existing but also not. Webster does actually mention him, casually, in passing. He writes about Joe’s anger and gruffness, but he also writes about Joe’s smile and laughter. He writes about Joe’s Yiddish-German mixture being better than Webster’s own broken German. He finds himself grinning at that because he knows for a fact that Webster didn’t believe that at the time.
Joe hated reliving battle, but he hated the end of the book even more. The retelling of being drunk constantly under an Austrian sun and Webster’s complete disenchantment with the service. He looked harder for pieces of himself there, for any hint that Webster looked back at those memories with the same twisted fondness that Joe did.
Once he reached the end, he looked at the back flyleaf pages and their empty space, then lifted his eyes to the expanse of endless water. He sat there until the horizon swallowed the sun, until the beach emptied of lovers strolling along the damp sand, until he spied a homeless man emerging to pick through the trash cans for a half eaten sandwich. He had drunk until his body was not his own. He watched his hands tear at the flyleaves, the sound of ripping paper so satisfying. He watched as he fisted the pages, grabbing multiple, giving them jagged, uneven edges. Destruction and anger were so much better to feel than anything else. It burned within his veins and bubbled in his stomach; it pushed down anything else that tried to exist there. He stood, and the world whirled. He staggered across the sand, his hand tightening around Webster’s words. He wound an arm back and chucked the ball into the ocean. Gradually, the water weighed down the clump until it got washed away. He repeated the process, over and over, until nothing remained but a shell. A hardcover with nothing in between.
“Fuck!” he screamed and hurled that too. Standing there, breathing hard and uneven, Joe suddenly realized that his face was wet. He’d started crying and didn’t even notice. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, and now that it started, he couldn’t seem to stop. His chest burned as he attempted to keep it contained, and eventually, he had no choice but to release a sob. This awful pain that lived under the heat of rage. Both emotions were always there. He swallowed air and hiccuped. Bracing his hands on his knees, he screamed. He screamed, and he wailed, and he cried, and he wretched. His body convulsed, and he threw up. It burned his throat and tasted acrid.
His knees met the damp sand, and he shifted onto his butt in a way that mimicked a tantrum of one of his nieces or nephews. His hands clawed at cold, wet sand, and it seeped between his fingers, water whisking that away too. He grabbed at more over and over, desperate for purchase, and he found nothing, over and over. David Webster slipped through his fingers.
When he came back to himself, he was shivering, and his pants were wet, and his head ached. He looked around for a minute, searching for the goddamn green cover – too close to olive drab – that he’d held so desperately over the last three days before he remembered that he’d thrown it into the ocean. The last thing he had of Webster, and he’d thrown it away. Well, wasn’t that just like himself to do, he thought bitterly.
Liz’s house was silent when he returned. Joe merely stripped down, pulled on dry boxers, and crawled into bed. He slept solidly. He slept well into the morning, slept through his niece’s hungry morning cries, slept through Liz’s delicate knock on the door, and the soft sound of her opening it to check on him. He slept until his bladder woke him with urgency, and he slunk into the bathroom, not even bothering to get dressed. He pointedly did not look into the mirror. He intended to crawl back into bed, wallow there until the mattress swallowed him whole into a memory where he could maybe live there. He paused in the hall, noticing distinct quiet and a singular muffled voice from the floor below. He yanked on clean pants and haphazardly buttoned up a shirt, leaving one shirttail longer than the other. Joe crept down the stairs quietly, picking up on the sound of Liz’s voice. She sat in the kitchen, talking on the telephone.
“I don’t know, Mary, maybe he’ll talk to you? Or Stephen? . . . No, don’t tell Barb, least not yet, you know how persistent she gets…”
Joe cleared his throat and stepped into the kitchen, moving with a nonchalant singularness to the coffee pot on the counter. Liz glanced up at him, fighting a guilty expression before muttering into the receiver,
“I’ll call you back later,” and quickly hung up. Joe took his time retrieving a mug and filling it. He turned to face Liz, leaning back against the counter, cradling the warm ceramic to his chest and breathing in its steam.
“Where is everybody?” he asked.
“Simon took the kids to the park.”
The silence was loud. Liz wanted the house empty so she could talk to Joe; they both knew that. Joe refused to meet her eyes.
“Where’s your book?” Liz hesitantly spoke, “Did you finish it already?”
“I threw it into the ocean,” Joe replied plainly, now looking at his warped reflection inside the cup. He looked like shit. The coffee burned his tongue when he took a sip, yet he still drank more.
Liz simply nodded, as if she understood. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. She knew her brother, knew that he often felt angry when he really meant to feel sad. Liz didn’t know, and yet she did. She’s read the local papers. It didn’t connect until she saw Joe with the book that the name had been familiar. That she’d heard Joe mention the name in passing when he talked about trading rations and mixing gin with bitter tea. Those are the only things he’ll discuss about war. Fleeting moments of easy joy in a living hell.
Joe returned home to his ramshackle apartment, where pipes clunked within the walls, and the street hummed outside. Home sweet home. He almost missed the hubbub of Liz’s home, despite having secretly held a grudge against it. Funny how that works, not realizing the value of something until it’s gone. He drops his bag beside his bed and leaves it there. He returned to work, driving San Francisco streets with their hills and fog. He chainsmokes even though it burns his throat. It isn’t until he’s forced to address his laundry that he hauls his canvas duffle onto his bed and unzips it.
Standing there, hands aloft and throat constricting, Joe stares down into the bag. On top of saltwater stained pants and smelly shirts lies a book. Olive drab and golden yellow lettering. A shaking hand tentatively reaches out; he half expects his fingertips to pass right through the object. Maybe it isn’t actually there. Maybe it’s a figment of his fucked up imagination that conjured every form of Webster he could muster. He finds the book solid and whole and utterly undamaged. He stares at it in his hand, its existence indisputable. His other hand absent mindedly reaches up to the side of his neck, where a gnarled scar had formed. Something in the sensation under the fingertips of each hand felt the same. These undeniable things from the past that would haunt him into the future. Companionable ghosts. Always there, always true.