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Roy didn't drink often. Usually these evenings spent in his garage on folding lawn chairs were accompanied with potato chips and soda.
But Roy was in a mood. Had been since they handed off a patient to Rampart the other afternoon. A veteran who was caught in a flashback he couldn't escape from. Johnny was pretty sure there was something bubbling, boiling under the surface, scrambling to get out if Roy would only give it a chance.
But he seemed more content to try to drown it.
By the time Johnny arrived, Roy already had a few empties around him in the living room. Johnny took one look at the dark television screen and Roy hunched on the couch with a bottle loose between his hands, and dragged him out to their spot in the garage.
It wasn't so bad out there. The air wasn't so stale and heavy. The main door was open to the driveway and the sunshine and the breeze that smelled like freshly cut grass.
And now, sometime later, there were a few more empties on the cement around them. Johnny wasn't trying to catch up to Roy. Two beers were enough for him, and he reached into the garage fridge for a soda, handing one to Roy as well, though it was ignored in favor of one more beer.
"So," Johnny broke the comfortable silence once he figured Roy's tongue was looser than his ability to shove the memories into oblivion. "What's weighing heavy on your mind today?"
"Mud."
"Mud? That's it? Just… mud. You've been off since we dealt with that veteran."
Roy snorted into his bottle. "Dealt with."
"Since we handed him off to Rampart," Johnny amended more quietly. "What did he say in the ambulance?"
"Nothing but nonsense. He was delusional, stuck in a flashback." Roy waved his hand, brushing it off.
Johnny wasn't so easily deterred. "You were okay when you got in. Then, when I saw you at the hospital, you were white as a sheet."
"Mmm," Roy nodded, accepting that he was.
"So whatever he said, it wasn't nonsense. Not to you."
"He thought we were putting him back in the hole." The word 'hole' was enunciated too crisply as Roy swung the beer bottle loosely.
"And that meant something to you." Johnny surmised. Roy shrugged.
"Lotsa holes in 'Nam."
"Roy."
"Pits, tunnels. Graves, bomb craters, spider holes, booby traps…" Roy took a drink. "Take your pick."
"So which one are you trying to stay out of?"
Roy's hand stopped. Johnny wondered if he'd pushed too hard. Roy swallowed and set the beer bottle down on the floor. Not carefully. It wobbled and Johnny caught it before it tipped over. Roy watched him set it aside.
"I was stuck in a camp for a little while."
"Camp?" Johnny asked, thinking of army tents and temporary bathrooms, general misery.
"Prison camp." Roy chewed at his thumbnail with nothing left to occupy his hands. "More'n one. They moved us around."
"I didn't know you were a POW," Johnny whispered. That earned a glare from Roy. Either he didn't want to be interrupted once he got going or he really hated the title. Johnny figured he could ask later.
"The fourth, no, third camp…. was there during the rainy season. Was covered in mud the whole time. From the march in until we marched out. And in between. Never got clean."
Johnny looked down at his feet. Didn't know what to say, how he was supposed to respond to that. Except to keep listening to Roy's lazy voice, finally loose enough to tell someone who would hear it.
"There was a hole." Roy said after a moment. "Called it The Pit. But it was just a hole in the ground in the middle of the jungle. Deep enough that when you were in it, you couldn't see anything but the sky above you."
Roy's fingers grabbed at the fabric of his shorts, smoothing it and rubbing it, a soothing motion Johnny only saw him do after bad scenes and bad calls.
"Far enough away from the huts that you couldn't hear the rest of the camp. Couldn't tell if anyone was still there. And in the dark, it was worse. There was no light. I could feel things moving. Crawling on me, slithering up my legs. Bugs, snakes, things. Just things. They'd get in your clothes and you couldn't shake them out because there was nowhere else for them to go."
He shifted in his seat as his face tightened, like he could feel the creatures on his skin again and couldn't shake the memory.
"And they were loud. Buzzing and chirping. The whole jungle, but nobody else. No talking, no voices. And…" Roy swallowed thickly. "At first you think it's okay. It's better than the huts and the cages. Because at least you aren't getting worked over for once, ya know? But the longer you're down there, the more you start thinking maybe they forgot about you."
Roy brought his hands up to his face and scrubbed, trying to clear his head.
"Roy?"
Roy shook his head.
"If they forgot you," he continued. "Then maybe everyone else forgot you too. Maybe the war forgot you. Your own people. Maybe you're not on a list anymore and nobody's looking for you and nobody knows you're there. And when it rained…" Roy looked up at the rafters of the garage. "It rained so much. When it rained, the bottom turned to mud. Thick. Creeping up your legs and sticking there. And the rain kept coming and then pooled up."
Roy's breathing picked up.
"And you can't sit because it's getting too high. And it's cold, and you're already cold, and it's just in your bones, and you wouldn't think the wetness could hurt," he looked right into Johnny's eyes now. "But it does. When it never stops, when your feet never dry and your skin splits and your muscles ache, and the only warm thing is the piss running down your legs."
Johnny closed his eyes, hadn't noticed he'd been crying until he felt his wet lashes close against each other.
"And after a while you start thinking the only reason you're still down here is because nobody remembers you exist. Maybe everyone moved on without me. And I'm just here. In a hole. Filling up with water."
Johnny's eyes shot open, and his back straightened as a red flag waved in his brain.
"Whoa. Roy. Not here. There."
"Right," Roy nodded, only half convinced. "There."
Johnny set his own soda down beside Roy's beer bottle. It clicked loudly enough against the concrete that Roy's eyes flicked toward it.
"No, really I mean it. Roy, look at your feet. Do you see any mud?"
Roy spread his knees and obediently took a glance down. His feet, in sandals, dry and on flat concrete in his garage.
"No mud. I know where I am, Johnny. Just got… carried away."
"Well, maybe don't. Stay here. At home. With me."
Roy chuckled at Johnny's worry. "I'm okay, Junior. I promise. I just… don't like rememberin' much. And when I do, it's got nowhere to go."
"Me." Johnny volunteered. "I can be where it goes. Just talk to me. And I'll make sure you stay here while you do."