Macombe’s Burden

By Christopher Mitchell

It was his fourteenth meeting, and Alex Macombe had yet to speak. It was a survivor’s group, one where they shared their feelings and cried and sang kumbaya and hugged out their sadness. Alex couldn’t understand how they did it—couldn’t fathom how it was so easy for them to speak of their wives and sons and daughters in the past tense. They were gone, ripping a hole out of you as they left and—

He blocked out the crack of a round impacting with sand. The kick of dirt and splintered lead and copper that tore into his face and blinded him—

Focus. He thought and turned his mind back Debbie.

She’d lost her son at a sleepaway camp. She was telling them for the fourteenth time how she’d heard the news. “I don’t even remember the person’s voice,” she recounted, dabbing at the reddened corners of her eyes, “only the words ‘we regret to inform you’ and the sound of my coffee mug hitting the kitchen floor.”

The group leader thanked Debbie for sharing when she’d finished, then turned to the group at large. “Let’s thank Debbie for sharing.”

They did; everyone except Alex.

The group leader continued, adjusting his thick, black-framed glasses on his nose. “We all are forced to deal with the chaos of life. No one wished for this, for ill to fall on our loved ones, but—”

The door hit the gymnasium wall with such a resounding clang that they all jumped. They all spun to a man in a faded Army jacket, gray dusting his dark hair at the temples and his beard. He was haggard and walked with a limp. He hobbled his way to the nearest open seat and let gravity carry him down, letting out a grunt of relief as he stretched his bad leg out in front of him, rubbing at the knee cap. “Damn thing ain’t what it used to be.”

“Good evening Mr….” The group leader let the honorable hang out in the open.

“I’m not here for me.” The old man said, not looking up. Instead, he curled his fist and bashed at the offending kneecap which now seemed seized in place. Almost like—

“Top?” It was the first time Alex had said a word since he’d been court mandated to attend these bullshit meetings, but he knew that movement. He’d seen it all through his last deployment.

The old man looked up and found Alex. He grinned, then slowly raised his finger in Alex’s direction. “I’m here for him.”

***

The group leader put them on break. Sets of puffy eyes and red noses clumped together and spoke in hushed tones, shooting sideways glances at Alex and his old First Sergeant standing by the coffee machine.

Alex poured each of them a cup. “You still take yours black?”

First Sergeant Gary Anderson’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Just like my heart and my women.”

They shared a chuckle. It was nice to see Top hadn’t changed; retirement was treating him well.

Alex handed him the small Styrofoam cup. “Why are you here, Top?”

The twinkle in his old First Sergeant’s eyes went out, hardening just like they used to when it was time for business and people had to die. He took a sip of his coffee and nodded approvingly before continuing. “I already told you, Jabroni. I’m here for you.”

Alex tried to keep the confusion from his face, but Top could read him like a book. He just smiled again and guided them back to their seats, where the rest of the survivors had started to gather again.

“Well,” The group leader began as the voices of those around died down, “would our newcomer like to share?”

“Actually,” Top said, shifting the room’s gaze from himself to Alex. “I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

Alex never had anything to share. His story was his burden to bear, not theirs. These people had lost those they love to random chance. Alex, however, had—

“No.” Alex said, shaking his head tersely from side to side. “No, thank you.”

Top sighed and looked down. “Okay, then. I’d like to tell a story instead.”

Alex’s blood froze. He wouldn’t dare.

“Six month’s ago, Alex and I were attached to a unit in a no-name valley in Afghanistan.” Top stretched out his bad knee again, as if the old bones remembered. “The enemy had pinned us in, using the mountains nearby to pelt us with small arms rounds and rockets.”

He leaned back, letting out a deep exhale as he went on. “Our platoon leader had the bright idea to take a small contingent to a hut with a better view of the mountainside.” He pointed to Alex. “And this man right here was one of them.”

Please. Alex thought. Don’t.

Top was quiet. He went on staring at Alex and wouldn’t look away. It made him shift in discomfort. Those eyes showed worship, reverence even.

“Please…” Alex whispered, shaking his head.

“Their lead scout stepped on a pressure plate.” He looked around at the faces of the survivor’s group, like they understood—like people stepped on pressure plates every day. He pointed once again at Alex, “The ambush started, and Alex here took over with the help of Dominic Guzman.”

Pain speared Alex through the chest at the name.

Guzman—Goose to the rest of them—was Alex’s best friend and team leader.

“Top.” Alex begged. “Please…”

Top ignored him. “They saved eight men that day, including the scout who stepped on the pressure plate.” Top’s eyes suddenly became wet, and he had to pause, closing his eyes and coughing before he could carry on. “That’s when the kid came out of nowhere.”

This was the part Alex dreaded; the part he didn’t want to think about. The crack of a round impacting with sand. The kick of dirt and splintered lead and copper—

He stood abruptly, knocking over his chair and power-walking to the gymnasium door.

“Don’t you dare walk away from your Senior Leader, Boy!”

Top’s booming voice stopped Alex in his tracks. He turned back to face his old First Sergeant, whose face was red with a mixture of anger and grief.

Top stuck out a gnarled digit, blown off by Dishka fire in the same battle. “Don’t you dare walk away from your story!”

Alex felt a new sensation worm its way into his emotions: hate.

A seething rage for this man churned inside him—a man he was once ready to die for. Alex disliked the feeling. Resentful, he returned to his seat and crossed his arms.

Top sat down, apologizing to the room for raising his voice. “Some habits are hard to break, folks.” He rubbed his bad knee and started up again. “Where was I? Right, the kid. He was eleven, maybe twelve years old—”
 “Thirteen.” Alex corrected, causing Top to pause.

Top smiled, holding his hands out as if to let Alex finish the story. Alex buttoned up again, and the old man was forced to continue.

“Like Macombe said,” Top shifted in his seat, eyeing Alex. “Thirteen. The kid had grabbed his dad’s old musket—some old bolt action thing that looked like it had taken down Italians in North Africa back in the forties— and took aim at our boy here.”

Alex closed his eyes tightly, trying to block the memory that played like a horror film in his mind. Day in and day out. Over and over. , How he would have done it differently. How he’d have widened his stance, so he wouldn’t have tripped. That way he could have taken the full impact of the old round as it left the muzzle at thousands of feet per second. The it had been Alex to absorb the 7.62-millimeter flake of hot lead right in the body armor as it was meant to…

…That the round had killed Alex instead of sinking itself right between the eyes of Daniel “Goose” Guzman.

“Nobody saw what happened. Only the crack of the rifle, the slump of armor meeting sandy soil, and the return crack of Macombe’s rifle.” Top paused for a moment and sighed. “The kid had managed to chamber another round and fired, sending the shot wide and a splash of sand and debris into Alex’s eyes and blinding him. He didn’t know Guzman had been hit.”

The gym was quiet—like the valley had been when air support came through and saved them all.

At least, until Alex had turned to check on Goose.

Then it was not silent, and those who couldn’t see what happened had thought a child mourned the loss of an older brother.

 Alex couldn’t see any of them anymore. He could only see hot tears, and a thirteen-year-old boy ready to kill to protect those he loved.

Alex’s bullet didn’t miss like the kid’s had.

It created a red halo behind the child, beautiful against the bright azure backdrop and cotton clouds of September. It reminded Alex of a time when he was little, when they’d gone to a museum and had seen all sorts of paintings. In one, a woman had a yellow halo as she held a suckling child to her breast. Now he knew the art of the painter to be false. Halos weren’t yellow; they were a mixture of blood and skull and dura matter, neither holy nor sacred.

“One of the Soldiers woke up yesterday.”

Top’s statement halted Alex’s wallowing self-misery instantly. “He finally filled us in on what happened out there.”

Alex held his breath. Top continued.

“It’s funny how we remember things.” The old man said, leaning forward and rubbing his hands between his legs and looking around at the circle of people. “Alex here would tell you that he tripped and that’s the reason Goose died.” Top met Alex’s eyes. “But Thompson said he saw Goose push Alex forward intentionally.”

What?

Top’s smile was pure. Genuine. “It wasn’t clumsiness or oafishness that killed Goose, Macombe.” His voice broke, and he didn’t try to hide it this time. He finished with a quote he used to say before every mission. “We don’t do this for ourselves…”

A boulder had been lifted from Alex’s shoulder’s and he half-laughed, half-sobbed the rest of the quote. “We do it for the ones around us. For the one’s we love.”

Alex broke. He hadn’t killed his best friend. He wasn’t the reason he carried this weight with him wherever he went. It was the love of a brother, and a decision of self-sacrifice.

He would not let such a decision be a burden. Not anymore.

 A dozen hands embraced him as a flood of pain and violence and guilt left his soul like blood from a festering wound.

He wasn’t cured. Not by a long shot.

But now he could start to heal.

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