The Unit Read Online Free Page A

and even the silly things that didn’t work anymore, worthless digital cameras and iPods and video game players. Christmas presents were opened on the road to placate the children, and the freeway was littered with ribbons and bright wrapping paper. We joked about our early Christmas. We didn’t have to merely make the best of it, because it was a lovely day and we didn’t believe otherwise.
    Jerry was carrying something wrapped in our traveling blanket. I learned later that he was carrying three guns: the shotgun, his Beretta pistol, and Scott’s .22 rifle. The long guns were disassembled and rolled into the blanket we’d brought to keep our children’s legs warm. The pistol was loaded, and Jerry carried it at the small of his back. All that sunlight. All those jokes and smiles. All that solidarity and politeness and kindness. Jerry knew it wouldn’t last, but he chose not to rain on our parade. He smiled and pitched in with the carrying and sharing and encouragement. He tousled Scott’s hair and said we were some pretty fine-looking refugees. We laughed because we didn’t believe we
were
refugees. But Jerry was watching everything and everyone. He’s not a naturally trusting man. Not since his time in Beirut. He was armed and ready during that entire walk, and I don’t hate him for it.
    He’s hell-bent to get us to a safe place. I can see the fight in his brown-black eyes. He holds his rifle in a natural way that I can never quite match. He walks very quietly, just as he must’ve walked on the training patrols of his youth. This must be a nightmare for him now, to be older and softer and walking here with us. And for the first time ever, I’m glad he served in the Marines and went through the trials and tribulations of Beirut. It’s one of the reasons he’s suspicious and quick to anger and prone to binge drinking, even in the best of times, but everything has a purpose, and I’m a fool if I don’t believe it.
    The road climbs again and cuts deeply into the mountains. A rock wall rises on one side, and a cliff falls on the other. Jerry has no choice but to take us onto the road. It feels fine to have hard asphalt under my boots, and we make good time until we come to a tunnel. It’s a hole of darkness set in an impassable ridge. A few scrubby pines grow at uncertain angles around it.
    It’s bad enough to walk the road, but it’s quite another thing entirely to march our children into a mountain’s dark gullet. But life is still a matter of faith and probabilities, and the demands upon us are great, and it’s no accident that we don’t have a choice.
    I pray for us. Two weeks ago I was agnostic, and the taste of prayer is like an astringent on my lips. Jerry gives one sharp nod. He’s not exactly exuding confidence, but our fate stands before us. We walk inside and leave the daylight behind.
    I let the children pass, and I take up position behind them. The kids are stumbling beneath their packs and I catch glimpses of the whites of their eyes. I’m sure they’re desperate to see only stationary things, nothing but the continuation of rock and road and the corrugated lining of the tunnel. I want to cry that it’s come to this, my children walking into a place where even a blind idiot could kill them, but there’s no time for crying.
    The tunnel is unlit and it makes a shallow uphill turn. We come to a place of thick darkness. We walk blinded through the mountain’s guts and there are only our amplified footsteps and breathing and the clinking of our packs and a dripping sound to remind us of the relentless power of erosion. And then after walking through the shadow of forever, we see the tunnel exit. It seems to remain at arm’s length for a very long time, but finally we straggle back into the overcast day.
    Scotty kneels and kisses the road. Our laughter is weak but true as we put the tunnel behind us. The road winds down from the hills into a small valley. I’m numbed by the rote of walking,