Free Throw Like A Girl by Jean Thompson Page A

for themselves. Here we’re supposed to be what, the evil empire? And they’re the ones blowing everything up.”
    There wasn’t anything more to say to that, since everyone was in agreement. When they were through eating, Jack and Kelly Ann got up to go, and they all said, Nice to meet you, to each other.
    When they were outside, Jack said, “Texas,” and shook his head.
    â€œI’m glad we’re not from there.”
    They went back to the motel and took off their clothes and lay on top of the covers with the air conditioning turned on high. It was muggy for so early in the year and it felt good to be out of the sun and back in this place that was as much theirs as anywhere else, now that they’d made love in it. Jack said, “Two nights and three days. That’s all we got.”
    â€œI don’t want to be counting,” Kelly Ann said.
    Once Jack had left the country, there was an anxious time before they heard from him again. Kelly Ann knew that word would reach them if anything truly bad happened, so that no news was good news, of a sort. But it kept her from sleeping, trying to imagine it all: heat and sandstorms and women wrapped up in robes like in the Bible, and the dark, angry men you saw on the television, gathered into furious crowds. She watched for Jack on television too, every time there was any footage of GIs. Now that was silly, but she couldn’t help it. Whenever they showed soldiers out on patrol, swinging their rifles from side to side, or speeding along in a Humvee, she tried to see the faces beneath the helmets. After a while she knew she wasn’t going to see Jack, but she still paid close attention. She wanted to be able to follow along when he told his stories.
    Finally he called, although he called his parents instead of her, and Jack’s father had to come upstairs and get her. That upset her but there wasn’t an opportunity to say so in the excitement and hurry-up of talking. Jack’s voice sounded tinny and flattened, squeezed through a long series of relays until all the feeling was beaten out of it. The parents went into the next room to let her talk, although there wasn’t any such thing as privacy. She said that she was fine, the baby was fine. “What are you doing over there, what is it like?”
    Because of the long long distance there was a lag or hitch in between saying a thing and getting an answer, so that conversation had an outer space quality. “Ah, it’s OK, I guess. Parts of it are really wasted. Blowed-up cars. Blowed-up buildings. What kind of people trash their own country? Makes you wonder. Other parts are nice. Base is pretty nice.”
    â€œDo you have to…” She wanted to ask if he had to shoot people, but that was probably something he wasn’t allowed to talk about, and she didn’t want to get him in trouble in case the Army was listening in. “I hope you don’t have to do anything real terrible. Or see it either.” She didn’t want him coming home all crazy and dangerous, like some of them did, because the war had turned them mean.
    â€œChow’s pretty good, for the Army.”
    Maybe he hadn’t understood her. She wasn’t going to ask him again. The mother wanted another turn to speak, and Jack was running out of time on the phone, so she told him to please be careful and call again real soon, and he said he didn’t know when he could do that but he could probably e-mail.
    Hey there,
    I’m kicking back with a cold one just like Friday nights at home the difference is its no bullshit one hundred and five degrees at ten o’clock at night. I have a pretty good adjustment to the heat but its not a natural way to live. Maybe if your born here. Don’t worry too much, the guys in my unit are the best there is and everybody watches out for everybody else. Just about every day is something you wish hadn’t happened but it is a job like