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Buck stopped dreaming of his father when he left for basics. A man like that - it didn't pay to remember him. All he'd ever done was bet his son's life and limb on a foolish venture a ten-dollar fortune teller crank would have called stupid; his exit from the dreamland of Gale Cleven, 19 and some change, overcautious son of an under-weighed father, didn't seem like too much of a thing to take notice of.
Training took up the high stream of his mind in any case, a thick blank wall of concentration to cover up the rapids coursing under the surface. Rocks and tidal waves; that was Buck's brain. A scattershot ricochet caught under six tonnes of steel; he'd spent years compressing his father's inherited urges down to the size of a dime, dropped down the well in the back of his head. Dredged up on occasion by the guy who manned the dreamworld; a little nudge from time to time, from one side of his brain to the other, as if to say hey, he's still in here. Don't go gettin' lax on me now, boy.
Chance'd be a fine, fine thing.
But there: the dreams go away in basics, and they stay away all through the long months at Thorpe Abbotts, even through the bad parts where John would get quiet and sullen, or loud and sullen, and both times drunk as hell - even when Curt went down. No dreams. No Dad, popping up on that still surface of Buck's steady lake mind, ready with the shotgun and the stack of betting slips. No IOUs in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other, and both of 'em swinging. No sir. Nothing like that for Major Gale Cleven, commanding officer of the 350th, undisputed leader, One-Engine Cleven, mama's boy. Worth a buck or two if you bet on him in a fair fight, John says.
John says a lot of things, most of them meaning a whole lot of nothing, some of them meaning John needs another drink; but every now and again, when he's feeling maudlin or he's not thinking right - both of which occur more than Buck thinks is necessary - he'll say something that sounds an awful lot like, I'm not gonna make it through this.
And Buck, now, Buck hates that. Buck's howling rager of a dad would hate that even more, would have got right up in his face about it and screamed something out of a nightmare; would have taken him out back and shot the ground at his feet to make him run. Faster. Run, kid, and just you keep on going, til the shooting stops.
Damn waste of bullets, even back then.
John says things like it'd be me and it'd be you, Buck, and now how's anyone supposed to take that? How's a man to hear that and not get dragged straight back to sixteen, knocked on the tiles of that kitchen floor, jaw not settled right, Cleven, Sr stood awful and looming in the shaking flashbulb sky overhead. Dreams'll come back, just you wait, the guy in his head says. Buck's taken a beating before; he's never gotten used to doing it sleeping. Feels worse, feels somehow more real; like if he wakes up from this war he'll find he's back in that one.
How's a man supposed to take everything John's giving him, and come back up not reeling from the sucker punch of it. How do you tape up and brace for a blow you never know is coming; how is it that kindness bruises different to cruelty, and both make him so damn quiet. Can't get himself to say a word; not a single red-cent thing. No good kind words for John, no I'd bet on you, no let me tell you something, when you gave me that name you took me right out of jail and set me free.
Gale; could have been a girl's name, and maybe it is. Buck's not cut up about it now; not for a while now. Dreams haven't been back for years; not since John Egan gave him that sucker punch of tenderness, the kind that hurts worse than a fist, deep in the soul, clenched so tight he can feel it going black and blue around the impact. Old wounds. John Egan landed an elbow in his gut and rearranged the organs til Buck came out the other side, six foot three, straight back, the kind of man you'd go to war with.
John Egan; unknowing savior. Don't ever tell him that; he wouldn't know how to take a genuine good word from you.
Buck tells him in other ways; stupid, little ways. Small things. He doesn't flinch when John throws his arm around Buck's shoulders, doesn't even brace up when he comes in close behind him, not even when he's drunk and smelling of whiskey and Buck's long-departed dad. Things like that'd never measure up to words, but this is what Buck trades in; this is all he's got.
John won't get it, but maybe someday Buck'll look over at him (and pray he's not looking over first), and tell him how good it'd felt to settle down around another person; how the distance between his skin and John's skin, his body and John's body, had never been a matter of calculation and intent: never a constant internal checklist of threats. To threaten him John would have to be able to look him in the eyes and say something cruel; look him in the face and keep his eyes away from the parts Buck knows he watches, out the corner of his eye, when he thinks no one can see him.
Buck can always see him. Buck was raised by an alcoholic; he can always tell when someone wants something they're not allowed to get.
He took a single sip of it, once; alcohol. Not the other thing he's always wanted; that one is harder to try out. Even Buck - this new and altogether improved Gale Cleven - can't have everything his heart has a hankering after. Not one single damn thing.
Like his old man, at the very end of it all, Buck knows there's not one thing he can do to make the dice fall the way he wants them; nothing in the world he can do but stand at the table and watch them spinning in the air and put all his faith in pure dumb luck.
Nothing to do but wait and see where they land.