Trigger Finger

By Brian Kerg

October 21st, 2005. Stony Ridge, Ohio.

Dean Carver placed his right index finger beneath the blade of the power saw. He pressed his finger against the saw’s blade until it bit his flesh.
Dean snatched his finger away and dropped to his knees, sucking at the wound. Hyperventilating, he crawled back to the workbench, grabbed his phone with a shaking hand, and dialed.
“Come on, Billy, answer the goddamn phone,” Dean said, wiping hot tears from his eyes.
Dean gasped, relieved, when he heard Billy pick up.
“Dean? What the hell, it’s 2:00 AM. ”
“I need you to come over, Billy.”
Billy cleared his throat, then lowered his voice. “Dude, I’m with Sarah. It’s the last weekend my fiancé gets with me before we mobilize. I’ll be sleeping in the dirt next to you for a year. It can wait until tomorrow.”
Dean’s voice shook. “No, it can’t. None of this can wait. I need you here now.”
“I’m hanging up, man.”
“I’m going to cut off my finger and I need you to make sure I don’t bleed out.”
Dean breathed, deeper each time, straining to listen, waiting for a response.
“Billy?” Dean asked. He looked at his phone, confirmed that the call hadn’t dropped. “Billy?!” he said again, pleading.
“I’m here,” Billy said. “I’m on my way.”
Thirty minutes later, Dean saw Billy’s headlights cut through the black night at the edge of his driveway, the cold eyes of a roaming sentinel. Stepping out of his paint-chipped car, he stood silhouetted by the moon, a silver halo over a black figure in a white scarf. Billy lit a cigarette, shook his head, and met Dean outside his garage.
Dean seized Billy’s shoulder in a frantic hug, convulsing.
“In the dark, you look like a priest,” Dean said.
“You’re delirious,” Billy said, holding Dean back, looking into his eyes. “Are you on something?”
“Sober as a saint.” Dean turned back toward the garage. “Come on.”
When both men were inside, Dean shut the door behind Billy, then stared at his friend expectantly.
Billy stared back, exasperated and exhausted, then took another long drag on his cigarette. “It’s going to be like that, then? Okay. I’ll bite. What the hell do you mean you’re going to cut your finger off?”
“My trigger finger,” Dean said, pointing his right index finger up, as though punctuating a meaningful thought.
“And why,” Billy said, smoking again, “would you go and do something like that?”
“Because if I don’t have a trigger finger, I can’t deploy. They’ll even separate me from the Reserves. I’ll be combat ineffective.”
As Dean finished, the hint of a smile tugged at the edge of his lips. Billy leaned in close, looking at Dean’s pupils, smelling his breath, checking for any sign of inebriation.
“Fuck, man,” Billy said. “You’re serious.”
“As cancer.”
“This is insane!” Billy threw his cigarette on the ground and paced around the garage. “We joined the Reserves for this exact reason, and now we’re getting our turn to fight for something we believe in.”
“But it isn’t something I believe in. And it’s not just fighting. We could die for something, too.”
“Jesus, Dean, that was the deal you made when you decided to become a Marine!”
“I’m only a Marine one weekend a month and two weeks a year,” Dean said, with a weak, twitching smile, trying not to laugh, and trying not to cry.
“Not when you mobilize, Dean! You’re a Marine every day! You signed up for infantry! Didn’t you crack this moral dilemma when you enlisted in the goddamn Marine Corps infantry?”
“No,” Dean said. “I didn’t. I never thought this would happen. And who the hell would have? Afghanistan was in the bag and no one was talking about Iraq yet. Not seriously.” Dean turned away and looked at the floor.
“I only enlisted because you did.”
Billy ran his hands through his hair. His skin grew pale.
“You’re my best friend, man,” Dean said. “You asked me to sign up with you and I did, because I didn’t want you to go through all the bullshit of bootcamp and everything else alone. And all I want in exchange… is for you to be here with me when I do this.”
Billy put his hands on Dean’s shoulders. “I don’t just want you beside me in training. I want you beside me over there. We’ve known each other since first grade. You’re the only person I can really trust when we’re in the shit. I need you with me, man.”
Dean shook his head. “I know you can go to war without me. But I can’t go to war at all. You’re a leader, Billy. On your way to law school, on track for the American dream. I’m just a follower. I’m still schlepping at the same video store I’ve worked at since I was a sophomore.”
“If I’m such a good leader, then follow me,” Billy said. “One more time.”
Dean shook his head. “I can’t go to war. And I can’t do this,” he said, looking at the saw, “without you.”
Billy looked at the power saw, then up at Dean. “That’s like asking me to cut off my own finger. When we enlisted, we raised our right hand, and we took an oath.” He shook his head. “Oaths are sacred. I can’t help you do this, man.”
“Sacred to who?” Dean snapped. “You made a promise to a piece of paper. God’s not going to strike you down! He’s not even paying attention to this bullshit war and everyone caught in it!” Dean pointed both thumbs at his heart, jerking wildly, stepped closer, face to face with Billy. “But I’m right here in front of you, your best friend! I’m the only brother you’re ever going to have. Do this for me!”
“That promise was sacred to me!” Billy said, shoving Dean back. Dean slipped, fell, and landed on the ground. Billy fumed over him. “And you knew that when we put on a goddamn uniform, together!”
Billy turned, opened the door.
“Billy!” Dean shouted.
The door slammed shut. Dean scrambled to his feet. He got to the door just in time to see Billy’s car peel out of the driveway and race down the country road.
Heaving, Dean fell back against his workbench. His left hand grazed the saw, caressing it like a forgotten lover recalled in a fever dream.
He pressed the switch. It awoke with a buzzing tear, screeching like a harpy.
Dean placed his finger beside the saw.
“Do it,” he told himself. He looked at the garage door, looking for Billy, expecting him to race back in, grab Dean’s shoulder, and pull him away from the workbench and the saw’s hungry blades.
The door stayed shut, like a baffling riddle, a zen koan.
Dean looked back down at the saw.
He thrust his finger into the blades.

March 5th, 2006. Baghdad, Iraq.

Billy patrolled down the dirt road with his squad in tow, ten beaten, weary vagabonds hauling assault packs and rifles. He rubbed at his eyes, nearly sun blind from hours staring at sand and clay. He glanced back at his guys, sipped water from his drinking tube, then spat on the ground.
He leaned over to the assistant patrol leader, Corporal Peters. “We look like Spartans who won the battle and lost the war,” Billy said.
Peters smirked. “The Sunnis and Shiites are going to keep slaughtering each other whether or not we’re in the way. We aren’t fighting a war right now, man. Just stuck in the middle of one.”
“Yeah,” Billy said, his voice hollow. He looked at the rows of bullet-ridden buildings, some spattered with crimson blood stains. “It’s starting to seem that way.”
He glanced at the spot to his rear, where Dean would have been, covering his six. With Dean’s ‘workshop accident’ and Lance Corporal Green popping on a drug test during their pre-deployment workup, his squad was short two bodies and undermanned. He sighed, turned back to his front, and shifted his pack, trying to take the weight off his aching back.
“Where is everyone?” Peters asked, slowing down, cautious.
Billy’s eyes flicked left, right, saw only an empty street.
“Hiding,” Billy said. He raised a hand, halting the patrol.
“Hiding from what?”
“I don’t know,” Billy said. “But it can’t be good. Post security and call it in.”
The men dispersed, making a wide circle, eyes and weapons pointed outboard, scanning doors, windows, and alleys. The crushing heat was cooled by the shot of icy fear that ran down Billy’s spine, a forged sword quenched in cold water.
Peters got off the radio. “Big boss says to trust your gut and head home. Let’s take the alternate route back to the patrol base.”
Billy nodded. “Damn good idea. Let’s go.”
“Contact left!”
The Marines on the left flank oriented their weapons down a single alley. All instinct, Billy hefted his rifle and sighted down the barrel.
An Iraqi boy, no older than six, walked down the alley toward them.
“Jesus, that’s not contact, it’s a kid!” Billy said, gesturing at his Marines to lower their weapons. Relief caressed his shoulders like a healing salve, tinged with embarrassment at the rookie mistake his guys had made.
“Boots,” he muttered. “Jumpy bastards.” He let his rifle hang from its sling, reached into his cargo pocket, and pulled out a small pack of Charms candy. Billy held it out to the boy.
“Hal turid alhulwaa?” Billy said, offering the Charms to the boy. “You want candy?”
The boy reached out to Billy with an open hand, smiling, his eyes bright with joy.
“Shukraan,” the boy said. Billy knew the word – thank you.
Billy looked down, noticed the weight in the boy’s vest, saw the wires protruding from the bomb strapped to his chest. Billy’s extended hand froze.
“Shukraan,” the boy said again, smiling. The boy grasped the candy with his hand, and then he exploded.

November 20th, 2018. Stony Ridge, Ohio.

Dean parked his car outside the VFW and stared at it through his rain-beaten windshield. The old post was a wreck, covered in peeling white paint, with a parking lot full of brown weeds and cigarette butts. He tried to look through the windows to make out the people inside but could see only shadowy figures lurching in the post’s dull orange light.
They look like ghosts, Dean thought. He shuddered and shook his head.
“This was a mistake,” he said, put his hand on the gear shift, and nearly took the car out of park. He looked down at his right hand, saw the stub where his trigger finger used to be. The white, crumpled scar tissue around the knuckle was an accusation, a scarlet letter.
“Goddammit,” he said, and killed the ignition. He got out of his car, trotted through sheets of rain and ducked into the VFW.
Inside, a cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the dim light. Dean smelled cheap beer and fried food, and his stomach rumbled with hunger. He scanned the bar, saw only grizzled faces and gray hair; Desert Storm and Vietnam vets, but no one Billy’s age.
Wiping the rain from his forehead, Dean looked at the tables in the back. He saw one man, maybe in his thirties, hunched over in a long trench coat, with a bucket of beer bottles sitting on the table. The man raised his beer at Dean, waving him over. Dean approached.
Billy leaned back, set down the beer, then lifted a cigarette from the ash tray. “How you doing, Dean?” he said, looking him up and down, taking in the dry cleaned suit, shined shoes, and silver watch. “Never mind,” Billy said with a smile. “Looks like you’re doing just fine.”
Dean held out his right hand. “It’s good to see you, man. It’s been too long.”
Billy took Dean’s right hand in his left and pressed it down in an awkward shake. “Not trying to be rude,” Billy said. “Just can’t quite do it the old-fashioned way.” He shifted his shoulders, sliding out of his trench coat. His right sleeve was sewn up at the shoulder in a tight cinch.
Billy’s right arm was missing.
“Not a problem,” Dean said, wincing slightly, his eyes darting away from the missing limb.
Billy took a burning cigarette from the ash tray, puffed, set it back down, and gestured at the bartender. “What are you drinking?”
“Oh, uh,” Dean said, caught off guard. “Scotch, I guess.”
Billy stared at Dean, deadpan. “I don’t think they serve scotch here.” He grinned. “Must’ve run out some time ago and never restocked.”
“I’ll have what you’re having, then.”
Billy snatched a Coors Light from the bucket and slid it across the table. Dean didn’t move to take it.
“Got to be honest,” Billy said. “I didn’t think you were going to show. It’s a lot of trouble coming out all this way out to the boonies.”
“It’s really no trouble. The wife and I are back in town through Thanksgiving anyway, visiting family.”
“Sounds nice. What’s your old lady do?”
“Cindy’s an accountant.” Dean smiled. “She’s really good. It doesn’t seem like fun work, but she has a way of making it sound exciting.”
“Well hot damn,” Billy said. “A lawyer and an accountant. Quite a power couple.”
Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah. So, how is… Sarah, right? What’s she up to these days?”
Billy drank another swig of beer. “Guess you’re more behind on local news than I thought. The wedding never happened. Sarah wasn’t exactly thrilled to be marrying half a man.”
“Oh, God, Billy. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. That’s awful. And over what, really?” Dean glanced at Billy’s missing arm.
“You mean, over ‘just’ an arm?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Billy said. “The missing arm’s the least of it. There’s a lot more missing you can’t see. I got my bell rung pretty good too.”
Billy waved his hand, dismissive. “Can’t say I blame Sarah for dipping. No woman wants to spend the rest of her life as a live-in nurse. Especially not when I’d promised her the picket fence and two-and-a-half kids. Before I deployed, anyway.” He waited a beat. “She’s married now, though. To a lawyer, too.”
Dean felt his stomach curdle.
“Billy,” Dean said, leaning forward. “You don’t have to keep twisting the knife. What’s this about? What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you.” Billy met Dean’s eyes. Looking closer, Dean could see the riddled scar tissue surrounding Billy’s right eye, saw the discoloration of the transplanted skin grafted to replace the true flesh ripped from Billy’s face in the blast. “I just wanted you to see.”
“See what?” Dean said.
“That you took my place.”
“What?” Dean said, leaning back as though he’d been struck.
“You’re a changeling,” Billy said, spitting the words out like a curse. “You took my life, and gave me yours. And all it cost you was a trigger finger.”
“What the fuck, Billy? That’s not fair! I didn’t do this to you!”
“I was in your spot on that patrol. If you’d have been there, you might have seen the kid sooner. Or seen the bomb, and tackled me to the ground in time. Or, hell, would have taken the blast yourself, and you’d be sucking down beers in a VFW in Nowhere, Ohio instead of me.”
“This is insane,” Dean said.
Billy smirked. “I remember telling that to you, once.”
“I’m leaving.” Dean pushed away from the table, stood, turned to walk away.
“I’ve got just one more question,” Billy said.
Despite himself, Dean stopped, glanced back at Billy.
“Now that you know, would you have done it any different?” Billy asked.
“Done what different?”
“The night you cut your finger off. If you knew what it would have done to me, and what it could have done to you, would you have done anything different?”
Dean licked his lips, felt an involuntary answer rising in his throat, then forced it back down into his belly. “I don’t know that. How could I know that?” Dean was stammering. He was suddenly dizzy and wiped sweat from his brow.
“You should know,” Billy said. “You’ve had almost fifteen years to think about it. I think it about it every day.”
“Oh yeah? So how about you?” Dean spat. “Would you rather we trade places, that I got blown up instead of you?” He straightened his back, pressing, surprised to find himself on the offensive. “If you could go back, what would you have done different?
Billy caressed the stump of his shoulder, like a forgotten lover recalled in a fever dream.
“Not a damn thing.” He met Dean’s eyes. “Because you’re my best friend, man. You’re my only friend. I’d do it all over again for you.”
Dean stumbled backward, knocking his chair over, and raced out of the VFW.
Running to his car, he slipped in a puddle, and fell to the ground. He scraped his knees and the palms of his hands. Bent over in the rain, he clutched at his stomach, fighting off waves of nausea.
A hand closed on his shoulder, and Dean flinched. Looking up, Dean saw Billy staring down at him. The cold rain poured on them both, Dean shivering, Billy unmoving, silhouetted by the moon.
In the dark, he still looks like a priest, Dean thought.
“I need to know, brother,” Billy said. “If you could go back. What would you do different?”
Dean’s lips trembled. Gripping the stump of his missing finger, he answered.

****

Brian Kerg a writer and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. His fiction has appeared in Line of Advance, The Deadly Writer’s Patrol, CIMSEC, Proceedings, and in the short-story collection Our Best War Stories. His non-fiction has appeared in War on the Rocks, The Marine Corps Gazette, Proceedings, CIMSEC, SIGNAL Magazine, and The Strategy Bridge. Follow or contact him on Twitter @BrianKerg.