Chapter XI
XI
and here’s the scammer’s tightrope, to really scam someone you need to get to know them, but the worst thing you can do is get to know someone too well, you want to flirt, not fall in love, Bagger watches Butcher Birds make the mistake every day, an offered cigarette, a smile of acceptance after some expulsion of fear or bodily fluid, the trading of photographs, this sweetheart for that, friendship is what Army leaders count on, that a buddy’s struggle becomes your struggle, and for them you’ll gladly die,
and it’s propaganda, the same pablum peddled by every cop who’s ever dragged Bagger off a riverboat by his collar, don’t you care about your fellow man, Mr. Bagger, not really, sir, what has this so-called fellow man ever done for me, but the problem with Lewis Arno is that the kid never shuts up, and so Bagger knows things about him he wishes he didn’t,
and that includes how Arno’s an orphan, a sad little pauper straight out of Dickens, and though the kid’s never explicitly said he fibbed his way into the Army to procure a family, it doesn’t take a genius to see it, orphanages are staffed with, at best, backward nuns and, at worst, opprobrious careerists, and are either way devoid of adventure, leading the little dope to seek adventure above all else, safe enough when listening to Bagger read dime novels, but lethal when plunged into the murder machine of the War to End All Wars,
and now their shared sagas of jungle avengers, false kings, desert plunderers, and viperous pirates twist between them like taut rope, Arno watching Bagger so ardently he worries the kid might salute, this feels less like a game now and more like he’s re-delivering Reis’s assignment, and as much as he hates to do it, he knows it’s best to deliver it with axe brutality,
and the kid says with a pained smile, “Didn’t win a single one.
Just unlucky, I guess,” which requires no reply from Bagger, yet he feels himself shrug and say, “Wild was the way to play it. You did right. Just wasn’t your day,” and Arno winces upward, Reis’s blue sky still permeating the battlefield smoke with the luminescence of hungry bluegill beneath frozen Lake Zabriskie, the cracks of distant guns nothing but expanding ice,
and Arno asks, “What happens to Korak?,” and Bagger replies, “You want to know how it ends?,” and Arno nods, “In case I don’t make it,” and Bagger is reminded of dressing deer as a boy, he’s got a hunch Arno has hunted before, how else to explain how the kid knows how to cut a heart out while leaving other organs undisturbed,
and so Bagger says, testily, “You haven’t lost yet, kid.
Like I said, play it wild,” but the smile Arno returns is that of a kid who knows Santa Claus isn’t real but appreciates an adult’s attempt to preserve the ruse, and Goodspeed cries, “What’s all this chitchat?
It’s cold and getting colder, get on with it!
,” while Popkin glares with spooky red eyes and Veck holds his clackity jaw shut with both hands, and all three scratch their ears, the shriek a scythe through skin, muscle, and bone,
and Arno raises his fist like he’s holding his neck out, and Bagger’s briefly furious at the world, what sadistic author plotted their dime novel to this disconcerting climax, but as the shriek dives about their heads like a conventicle of magpies, Bagger just does the fucking thing, lifts his fist in the air like felled men do to signal stretcher bearers,
and quickly he whispers, “Korak and Tarzan end up having to fight to the death,” and Arno gasps, “To the death? Does Tarzan win?,” to which Bagger nods sagely, saying, “There can be only one Lord of the Jungle,” an ending he’s just made up, but Arno ponders it, before smiling and declaring, “Good ending,”
and at that, the kid drops his fist and Bagger, too well trained, matches it, one, and now he’s scrambling to recall the kid’s symbol history thus far, two, before realizing the kid’s doing what Bagger suggested, truly playing wild with no idea what symbol he’s about to throw, the kid’s Korak and Bagger’s Tarzan, and the only way for the son to defeat the father is to become the Killer, three,
and Arno drops his hand a beat too soon, an error that gives Bagger the split second he needs to choose whatever symbol is required to win, which makes him wonder, in that flash, if he has it in him to deliberately lose, but the symbol Arno chooses isn’t rock, or paper, or scissors, his hand is curled into a C-shape like he’s back home, a home he never had, hand wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate made by someone who loves him,
and it’s the biggest choke Bagger’s ever seen, he could fucking murder the kid, and Popkin howls, “He lost! Arno lost! You all saw it!” and while Arno examines his hand like it’s a reptile he’s got by the tail, Bagger’s own fist, symbol still unchosen, melts away, and he really feels the melt, skin and muscle sliding off his bones, seems fitting, his inability to choose a weapon only his latest failure to fight,