A Heart On The River

A HEART ON THE RIVER

JOHN BAUER

A HEART ON THE RIVER

Copyright © March 2020 John Bauer

Published © March 2020 Lysestrah Press

Cover Art Design By: L. B. Cover Art Designs

Formatted And Edited By: S. H. Books Editing Services

All rights reserved.

The author retains sole copyright to his contributions to this book.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

For information and inquiries, please contact: John Bauer, via: john52us@yahoo.com.

This book is a work of fiction and any similarities to any persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

AUTHOR’S NOTE/DISCLAIMER

This novel contains intentional grammatical, punctuation, and/or stylistic miscues. The narrator is an imperfect human being, as well as a storyteller. I have created him in this manner, and he will not be changed. Please read his words with this admonition in mind.

Per my personal writing style guide, there may be fictional characters who intentionally speak with bad grammar. These are intentional deviations from known grammar rules, as it is part of my writing preferences. Therefore, what some readers or reviewers may deem or perceive as errors or mistakes are not, in fact, either.

We must also take into account that there may be regional dialects that have been modified/used with creative license that do not reflect actual regional dialects. With this is in mind, such dialects within the story are not mistakes or errors. They are intentionally written in such ways to reflect the speech/thinking patterns of certain characters.

Such disclaimer must be added because a good many seem to think that there are grammatical/typographical errors within the story itself when it is, in fact, a certain style of writing I've been using for certain characters.

ALSO BY JOHN BAUER

ALL THE BAY’S CLAMS AND ALL THE BAY’S MEN

(Available August 22, 2020.)

A SON’S LOVE

BOATS, KNOTS, OTHER THINGS

THE GRAY TREE

(Contributing author; Initial story written by the author, Donald Kemp.)

THE SALIGA

THEY DROVE ON STREETS PAVED WITH KINDNESS

TROPICAL STORM STALIN HEADS TOWARDS COAST

DEDICATION

This novel is dedicated to my father, the original Jack Bauer, who gave me the genes of hard work, common sense, and stubbornness.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

AUTHOR'S NOTE/DISCLAIMER

ALSO BY

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

DAY ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DAY TWO

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

DAY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my editor, Nancy Medina, who worked on this manuscript off and on over the past seven years. She made me sweat over every word through many revisions. The quality of the final product is a testament to her professionalism, patience, and perseverance. Full kudos to her, not me.

To all the writers’ groups to which I have belonged, constructive criticism received was appreciated and applied.

To all the folks who said I couldn’t, I did. And to all the folks who said I could, thanks.

To all the soldiers and Marines, Iraqis and Afghans, ministers and atheists, families and tribes who traveled with me, we’ll keep walking upright a while longer.

To God, I am indebted for blessing me with the desire to create, while cursing me with dissatisfaction at every achievement.

DAY ONE

Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit.

Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

James 4:13–17

CHAPTER ONE

CHITLINS IN THE MORNING

0535 EST

FRIDAY

23 DEC 2011

Washington, DC

Dulles Airport

International Arrivals

THE PILOT SLAMMED the brakes on the Boeing 747’s tires. The scent of burnt rubber wafted through the air ducts, as pungent as the KAF tarmac.

My noggin jerked back against the headrest, yanking my subconscious from the land of nod.

Unbuckling himself as if the plane had caught fire, Palatka George leapt from aisle seat 52H, cracking his considerable cranium on the overhead compartment.

Serves me right.

He rubbed his barren mountaintop and hulked down next to regular-sized me.

Customs doesn’t open until six.

I yawned, rubbed my eyes with both fists, and stretched my neck from side to side. My lower extremities had yet to awaken. I extended each leg, twisting and rotating one, then the other. Arteries hauled oxygen-loaded blood down to my ankles. After a few minutes, my toes welcomed the tingling pain.

You got a pen? I’ll give you my number. If you’re ever near Palatka, you can look me up. We’ll fix some barbecue you won’t ever forget.

Much too early for this nonsense.

Sorry, I don’t have one. I moved my right hand inside my lucky jacket, touching a pocket, which held three. We’ll catch each other on the return flight.

There was a snowball’s chance in Kabul we’d ever be seated next to each other again.

Sorry you can’t make supper with us this year.

"You’re going to have a full house."

Fifteen hours ago, before we’d taken off from Dubai, he’d downloaded his plans to me. He and his wife would be setting the Christmas table for his wife’s two kids, her brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews from her first marriage, his two kids from his first marriage, and his brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews on his side, as well as their mothers, fathers, and grandparents. His great-grandmother had turned a hundred and two.

I would have been a lost white heart swimming amongst a sea of black souls. Guess who’s coming to dinner in reverse?

Not for me.

I didn’t explain the ‘full house’ double entendre to him. In less than seventy-two hours, at one p.m. on December 25th to be exact, I planned to be feasting at a different kind of Christmas Day dinner table—one with green felt serving cards and multi-colored chips—the first ever five million-dollar Winner-Take-All Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tourney.

You sure you never been in the movies?

Yesterday, right after we’d belted up before I put myself into la la land with two Dramamines and a glass of wine, he’d asked the same question.

I swear, without your glasses, you look like that movie character. Man can act. Joker played a dumb guy. Not saying you’re stupid. You didn’t bang your head like me.

His eyes widened. He grinned.

I helped him out. Gump. You’re thinking of Forrest Gump.

Wasn’t the first time a movie buff opined I favored him. My high and tight haircut, putty nose, dog-eared eyes, and high forehead created the strong resemblance.

Everybody has a doppelganger somewhere.

I thought his name was Bubba. He scratched his head.

Bubba was his friend.

You’re Bubba.

You related?

I guess everyone’s related by DNA somehow. You and I are probably related. But no.

I didn’t have Tom Hanks’ money or his height, or Forrest’s penchant for storytelling. Or Palatka George’s. Wedged against the window, he’d imprisoned me as his one-person audience.

You know Palatka used to be a hopping town. The mill cut jobs way back. Nothing back there now. God blessed me with a good job. Been trucking supplies since ‘03 on a LOG train for KBR. You’ve heard of us?

Who doesn’t know KBR? Sure.

I nodded, aware of the fact that Big Army hired private companies like KBR to haul food and supplies from one base to the next. The military contracted with civilian firms to provide non-combat services, so they could keep troop counts down. Helped keep the unemployment rate down in a place like Palatka.

Uncle Generous Sam.

I churned some numbers in my ‘butter urn,’ guessing he’d packed away a hundred to two hundred ‘K’ per year. If he played his cards right, he wouldn’t have to pay any federal income taxes. He had to be close to being a millionaire. Palatka George wasn’t a short-lived Bubba about to get shot full of bullets in a far-off jungle.

You’ve been at it a lot longer than me. I’ve just been at it for a few years.

I’m hoping we’re there another ten. I could retire before I’m fifty.

They’ve pretty much shut things down in Iraq. They’re talking about doing the same where we’re at.

Going to ride this mare for as long as she lasts. He smiled, like he knew someone or something I didn’t. Then, I’m opening a barbecue and ribs joint beside the St. John’s River, just over the bridge coming into Palatka.

I hear you.

I let him dream. I knew for a fact that Big Army, whether they wanted to or not, was winding things down in Afghanistan. Thanks to President Obama’s promises, we’d probably be out in a couple of years.

You opening a restaurant too after it ends?

Oh, no. I’m no cook. I meant I’m going to keep working OCONUS for as long as they keep funding it.

He changed the subject. You ever had chitlins?

I didn’t know what in God’s name chitlins were, though I knew they had something to do with barbecue.

Can’t say I have. Sorry. That some type of soul food?

Raised in white suburbia, my ethnic culinary awareness had its limits.

You like bacon? You like ham? You’d like chitlins the way I makes ‘em.

His conclusion, not mine.

I reflected he’d traveled seven thousand and six hundred miles to eat pork on Jesus’ birthday. Didn’t Christ have a parable about kicking out demons from a pack of insane hogs? Marie’s Bible lessons had found a niche in my memory.

You must have seen some action, driving for KBR as long as you have. Ever been hit with an IED or RPG?

Only been in Kandahar for a few years. He shook his head. Mosul and the desert roads out in Western Iraq were worse. Hajis wouldn’t fight. They’d plant shit everywhere. Got hit a couple times, but God protected us.

You ever worry about going outside the wire one too many times?

Being an amateur gambler, I’d always calculated using probability theory, math odds, and a pinch of Lady Luck.

You’ve seen the rounds the guys carry? I’ve seen our guys light their guys up. We’d run them over if they got in our way. Push through. Don’t stop for nothing. They don’t show them videos on Fox News.

We smiled.

I’d heard stories, but never personally saw our soldiers unloading multiple rounds into Al Qaida or Taliban. I’d never seen trucks running over a civilian or two. Villages didn’t have streetlights like the small town of Palatka, Florida, or big ones like Atlantic City, New Jersey.

They’s movin’.

He glanced northward toward the cabin, where folks were shuffling forward.

Lucky me. Lucky us.

The civilian behind us passed wind big time.

Couldn’t he have waited a few more minutes?

I peeked over my shoulder at him.

He stared straight ahead, attempting to avoid blame with a nonchalant face.

Jerk.

I grimaced, sneered at him, and turned my nose up.

Palatka George grabbed my brown knapsack from the storage compartment and handed it to me.

I slung it over one shoulder. Thanks, man. Good luck to you.

Bless you, Mister Gump. Remember, Palatka on the St. John’s River and George’s Barbecue Pit.

I’ll be sure to look you up one day when this is all over.

Like not.

I ducked my head under the carry-on luggage compartment. I tensed my thighs, readying myself to quick step behind him, like a halfback following his blocker, intent on trotting up the gangway, zigzagging from one sign to the next, running up and down several flights of stairs, getting my passport stamped at Customs, and hustling onward to the Philly gate. My connecting flight was leaving in forty-five minutes.

I stepped off the plane onto the gangway and sucked air like I’d just trotted through muddy grape fields with D company in Zhari. Only I hadn’t run anywhere. I’d been sitting on my ass for the better part of fifteen hours.

Out of breath, I gulped oxygen like water, gasped, and jibber-jabbered to myself. My legs wobbled like the orange Jell-O served during a bumpy patch crossing the Alps.

Whatsamatta? Wossamatta U? Rocky . . . Bullwinkle . . . Mr. Peabody . . . Sherman . . . Where was the ‘Wayback Machine’ when I most needed it? Mr. Peabody, take me back in time to when walking was easy and I could run like a deer.

Why was I sweating in an air-conditioned airport gangway?

Winter. You’re not supposed to perspire in December in DC unless you’re a politician.

Come on. Get going. Keep going. You can make it. Don’t be a pansy. Stop here.

Hold the railing. Rest a bit. That’s it. Catch your breath. Do it. You can do it.

Some jet lag crap I’d never experienced in prior cross-Atlantic journeys must have caused my condition. Or maybe nicotine withdrawal. I’d bummed my last butt frosting my ass off at Kandahar Air Field, while they kanked a flight because of bad weather.

Perhaps the ordeal over the past sixty-three hours? The flight’s fifteen, preceded by two waiting in Dubai Terminal One, preceded by two from KAF to Dubai, preceded by twenty hours waiting inside KAF’s icebox, preceded by the prior day’s flight delay, cancellation, and standing in line. Mechanical difficulties, bad air, and heavy wind, we were told at KAF. Preceded, preceded, preceded, and preceded by a lot of crap.

Two short steps. Big inhale. Big ol’ Palatka George was flying toward his pot of chitlins. He’d left me in the dust, never looking back. I couldn’t see him, huge as he was.

Two short steps. Inhale. Gasp. Ridiculous.

I’d rested quite well on the flight over. Slept fourteen hours straight, not once stirring to take my old man’s morning pee.

Not one single dream. Much unlike Sneezy. His subconscious was as active as his country was violent. I’d half-listen to his Afghan nightmares, soon after rousting his lazy, linguist butt from his cot to go on a morning mission. Good, bad, or indifferent, God hadn’t blessed me with vivid slumber memories.

What bizarre trick brought Sneezy, and then God, into my consciousness at that very moment? I hadn’t clung that close to either.

I worried about his little Muslim ass surviving. The day before I’d left the base, we’d had an explosion outside the district center. Moments before the blast, Sneezy had boarded a taxi for his home in Kandahar City. Of all the crazy ass things to do, he planned on getting married at the Afghan-proper age of seventeen. I’d given him twenty bucks for a wedding gift.

Generous me.

I regretted tricking him into thinking the hamburger he’d bitten into was really pig, not beef. That was why we called the meat ‘ham.’

He’d choked, his face reddened, and he’d almost vomited, then and there, in the chow hall.

Maybe my decrepit pace was God’s punishment for my ruse or being a cheapskate. Maybe He wasn’t happy about my playing poker on His birthday. No maybes about it—Marie’s chiding me about a vengeful God had worked its way into my explaining my situation as a God-awful divine intervention.

Well, whether He was happy or not, I had to get there first. I pulled myself along the railing and up endless stairs.

At the landing, a female ‘traffic cop’ instructed people to turn left or right, depending on whether one would be transiting to DC or not.

I rested on a bench, the final passenger from the flight.

How much did she get paid? Did it matter? How much was her job worth?

My internal conversation continued alongside oxygen-starved neurons.

What do you do?

I provide directions. It’s my duty, my job description.

What’s the pay?

What business is it of yours?

A robot could replace you.

And you? You couldn’t be replaced?

I drink chai. Smoke cigarettes. Listen. Write SITREP’s. I can’t be replaced.

Get up and walk, then. Don’t be so cocksure of your immortality.

After playing my death card, I didn’t want to trash talk with myself anymore.

At least the traffic cop wasn’t covered in black clothing from head to toe with ebony eyes peering outward. She would have scared me and the rest of the folks shitless.

Time to get my proverbial ass in gear again. I rode the escalator, de-escalated, searched for logos, found and rested in a men’s room. The toilet seat was about to become my best friend forever.

I girded for the mandatory operation. To save space packing, I wore two pairs of pants. Cumbersome to unbuckle and drop them, plus the briefs, I managed like a practicing magician.

Seating acknowledged. Bombs away. Mission accomplished.

I needed to get moving, or I’d miss the 0735 boarding for the connecting flight. My butt felt at home sitting there a minute or two after I’d flushed. Sooooo much better than the Port-A-Toilets back at the base. I wiped my ass several times, arose again, re-buckled my pants, and washed my hands upon stepping out of the stall. If death came soon, I wanted to be autopsied wearing stainless underwear.

No chest pains. Heart attacks created chest pains, didn’t they? Wasn’t anything to worry about then. I’d pedaled the stationary bike, the elliptical machine, and weight lifted in the KAF gym three days ago. A potbellied old man, I’d forever missed becoming a world-class bodybuilder. Still, I was as buffed as I was ever going to get.

Maybe the change in cabin pressure?

That didn’t make any sense either. I’d done the flight nine or ten times before.

Hold onto the railing. Pull, Woody, pull. Breathe, Woody, breathe. Walk, Woody, walk.

Sweat sprung from every pore. My layman’s medical reasoning dictated I’d ought to feel cold and not perspire so much IF I was about to croak. I’d read about death in books and witnessed murders in movies. I feel cold, the bullet-riddled gangster would mutter and then exhale his last breath. Detectives found bodies on whodunits, afterwards determining their hours of death by their frigid countenances.

Perspiring, not cold. I wasn’t going to die!

My feet tripped. I fell to my knees, like a beggar. I gathered strength and stood up again, inching forward and dragging my bag, very much alone. I turned a corner, spying the other passengers in the winding, roped off passports and visas line. Envy would be an understatement.

No Samaritans, good or otherwise, returned to aid me. The wonderful Christian Christmas spirit. In fairness, back in Jesus’ day, His Samaritan didn’t have to deal with lawsuits, airport, camel connections, visiting relatives, nor holidays celebrating His very birth. His ‘do-gooder’ had more limited choices.

I would sidle up to where they were, eventually. I’d hand my US Department of State Diplomatic Passport to the Customs official. He’d review it and see I’d served many months in conflict zones. Then, he’d say the two sweetest words my ears would ever hear, Welcome home.

I’d stick out my chest, proud of who I was, where I’d been, and what I’d done.

I held tight to the post connected to the felt-covered rope that wound maze-like, channeling the lucky ones toward the exits. My ten-dollar watch read, 0705 EST.

Inch forward. Baby steps.

What About Bob?

Baby steps. Funny movie, funny man, Bill Murray.

Baby steps. I could make it. I didn’t get to be this old by being too careful.

Move, man. Tiny baby steps. One foot forward. Two breaths of air. Two feet forward, four breaths of air.

As if I didn’t have enough stubborn excuses to dismiss my condition, I blamed the DC oxygen. The atmosphere might not have reeked of open sewage, but it was still full of bullshit. Too much Obama. Too much Pelosi. Way too much Boehner. Too much Beltway air pollution.

I sank to my knees, letting my knapsack drop to the floor, stretching my arms and hands out, resting my head on the recently trampled carpet. I must have looked like a Muslim prostrating toward Mecca, though I couldn’t tell in which direction I wasn’t praying.

Was I scaring the others shitless? I kind of hoped I was, since none of these Christians offered to help me.

Okay, God, You got me. Figuratively, okay? When I win the tourney, I’ll tithe a tenth to charity. I’ll get back with Marie. My next tour will be my last. I’ll even be less sarcastic, less cynical, hell, less bigoted.

I couldn’t be certain, but someone gently, but firmly, kept my face pressed against the sweet-smelling rug’s fibers.

An anonymous Dudley Do Right?

My stubbornness didn’t resist. Letting my eyelids drop, I planned to rest a bit and catch a later flight. Self-diagnosis. All I needed was a little rest to catch my breath.

Mr. Peabody . . . Wayback Machine . . . Poker tourney . . . Sneezy . . . God . . . Smokes . . . KAF . . . Palatka . . . Muslims . . . Christians . . . Chitlins . . . Chai . . . Customs . . . Bob . . . What about . . . Welcome . . . home.

CHAPTER TWO

SORRY, MAN

0735 EST

FRIDAY

23 DEC 2011

Washington, DC

Dulles Airport

International Arrivals

I SPRINTED LIKE a furless cheetah on all fours, scrambling up hard scrabbled, gray-brown barren hills, then down into pillow soft, poppy-laden purple valleys. The flowers’ opiate aroma filled my lungs, dumbing my brain, fueling my joyous romp.

My twelve-pocketed, green cargo shorts, Army-issued hiking boots, and knee-high white stockings didn’t slow my pace. Though bare-chested, I neither perspired, nor gasped for oxygen.

I wasn’t the lead dog. Each time I notched up to another warp level, those in front of me increased their velocities. I accelerated. They mimicked me. My view