The Free (P.S.) by Willy Vlautin Page B

the swelling had gone down. She went to the computer in the corner of the room, looked at his chart, and then checked his chest tubes, the drainage canister on the floor, and his medication and IV drip. She charted her visit and left.
     
    Jeanette found her clothes in the corner of the room. Leroy looked at her legs and saw the mark. Her right foot and calf were dark green and purple and black.
    “Now you know,” she said.
    “I don’t care about that,” he said.
    “Yeah you do. Everybody does.”
    “You’re wrong,” he wheezed.
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m not sure.” He stood up slowly. He leaned against the living-room wall and watched her put on her underwear and bra, her black tights and pants and shirt.
    “I’ve never told anyone I had it,” she said. “How would they find out?”
    Leroy shook his head and tried to catch his breath.
    “Maybe someone from work saw it,” she said. “But how could they? I always wear tights under my pants no matter where I go. Even if I just go to the store. There’s no way they could see. And I never go out anymore, never.”
    “Maybe they see you in here somehow?” Leroy said.
    “Do you think so?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Do you have it?”
    “I never got the shot.”
    “How did you get away with that?” she said and found her shoes. She sat on a chair in the kitchen and began to put them on.
    “They just screwed up. They missed me. I’m from a small town,” he said and staggered to the kitchen table and sat across from her. Sweat leaked down his forehead and his breath was short and pained. “Everything’s more ramshackle in a small town. Like I told you earlier, my uncle was in Vietnam, and while he was there he said he saw and did unforgivable things, and those things scarred his heart. He said his heart had so many scars on it that it was hard to breathe. That from the moment he woke he could feel the scars trying to stop the air coming in. For years he was drowning in that. When they developed the test they told us it was to weed out unfit soldiers, to save those kinds of soldiers like my uncle who were ruined by war. Not everyone was meant to be a soldier and not everyone is ruined by war. They said the test would save those people who would be forever scarred by it. They’d get the injection and if the mark appeared then they wouldn’t have to go into combat. They would be free from it. But then the wars kept going and people started protesting. So they began testing more and more people, and where we lived they tested the entire town. Now we know it’s a test to weed out those who think from those who are soldiers. Those who are easy to manipulate and those who aren’t. A bad citizen from a good citizen. But back then we weren’t sure what they were doing. We just thought they were trying to do something good.”
    “That’s the way it was here, too,” said Jeanette. “At first it was just for people joining the army and then they added all men from eighteen to fifty and then they added all women from eighteen to fifty and then it was everyone. They would give them the shot and if they got the mark they’d take them away and no one would ever see them again. Is that what happened to your uncle?”
    Leroy nodded and paused for a long time. “When my uncle got back from Vietnam he worked at a lumber mill, but then they laid everyone off and closed it. The jobs dried up. They went to foreign ships off the coast that had mills onboard and they would buy our trees and sell the lumber back to us. So he came to live at our place. My mom got him a job as a stocker at the grocery store she worked at. He got on the graveyard shift, he moved out of the cabin he was living in, and he and my mom bought a camping trailer and moved it to our backyard. He lived in that. He didn’t want to live in the house; he wanted to be alone. As the years passed he slowly faded away. He disappeared right in front of us and there was nothing we could really do