Free Tumbledown by Robert Boswell

and he was furious with the military, the U.S. government, Iraqis, his father, women in general, and the able-bodied men who had not enlisted. In short, he was angry with everyone except his mother and a few buddies. He had done whatever Candler or the technicians asked of him, but he seemed always just a degree shy of boiling. Yet he had come to the eval hub for three days, and his Vesuvius never quite erupted.
    He appeared now in the doorway to Candler’s office, wearing his usual fatigues and usual scowl. The pink skin of his skull showed through dark, clipped bristles. Candler beckoned him in. They exchanged what passed for pleasantries, and then the War Vet demanded, “What do the tests say?”
    Candler proposed that they sit. The IQ tests indicated that the War Vet was college material, and the interest evals suggested a predilection for the arts. A battery of psychological exams showed that he was easily annoyed with others and self-hating; however, none of the scores put him at risk. They merely implied he was bad company. Beyond these core matters, Candler had information about his fine and gross motor skills, abstract reasoning skills, and so on. Everything was in the average or above average range. The War Vet didn’t have any great talents or glaring deficits. Usually this meant the client should simply pursue his interests. However, Mendez was committed to another year and a half of active duty.
    “Before we discuss your scores,” Candler said, “I’d like to know what you hope the results will say.”
    The War Vet colored and frowned. Candler feared he would finally see a display of the anger that floated just beneath the surface like a persistent snorkeler, but it turned out to be embarrassment showing in the War Vet’s face.
    “You want the long answer or the short?”
    “We’ve got time,” Candler replied.
    “The smaller deal first. I’d like to hear that I could go to college. I want to do something with computers and design stuff. Like art things. My parents, my friends, my teachers are not so supportive. I wasn’t the best student. Couldn’t see the point. Your tests say anything about that?”
    Actually, they did, Candler realized, though he hadn’t put it together yet. There was almost no chance he could do this kid justice in his current state. He merely nodded.
    “No one seems to think I’m capable of such stuff, like to be an artist you have to have the tap of an angel on your shoulder when you’re a toddler. Otherwise, you’re a sap to think it might be a way to spend your life.”
    “That’s one of the small matters?” Candler asked. “Sounds like a big one.”
    “Everything’s relative, no?” He launched into a story about a girlfriend who had once meant the world to him, and how one night in his bunk in Baghdad he had been unable to recall her middle name. “It’s Iris,” he said, “like your eyeball. I had to get out an old yearbook to find it. The weird thing is I don’t even know what time zone she’s living in these days. See what I’m getting at?”
    “Things that seem terribly important to you at one stage in your life may later seem inconsequential.”
    “Bingo.” He touched his finger to his nose. “I had it to do over again, I’d have a different line of attack for school. That’s not an option, so . . . Another small deal would be what the tests say about me being . . . about if it’s possible for me to get better, not so uptight, if I could be like I used to be. I’d like the tests to say that one day I could be happy and shit. Doesn’t have to be soon. I’m no pansy-ass, gotta have it now. Just a possibility down the road.”
    “That’s another small issue?”
    “There’s no guarantees, I know. I’m just hoping you’re not going to tell me my head’s screwed on so tight that the threads are permanently stripped.”
    “You want to hear my responses to these small matters, or you want to put the big issues on the table?”
    “Only one