Page 5 of Road Refugees

“The one and only!”

Crybaby used to go with us outside the wire. He’d finished his stint with a Combat Action Badge and two Bronze Stars. He had vanished, as far as I knew. “What’s he up to?”

“Get this. He lives in a town called Happy Jack in Arizona. And he’s a weed cultivator.”

That really piqued my interest. I’d always felt a yen to farm—what, I didn’t know. One fellow Joe had gone back to Kansas to farm wheat. Another had gone to Nebraska to farm corn. “That sounds outstanding. Did he give you any idea how profitable it is?”

“Through the roof!” blathered Slappy. “He’s killing it!”

This was food for thought. I’d worked alongside Crybaby during the Raqqa Offensive. And yeah, he did cry a few times. Once when I had to pull shrapnel out of his stomach and apply a field dressing. Another time when he’d married a Syrian girl but had to leave her behind.

“Hey, why not weed?” I said, uplifted.

“Hell yeah why not!” agreed Slappy. He cradled his hand around his belt buckle, so I knew I’d done some damage. But I was too drunk to drive him to the emergency room.

The liquor guy gave me his usual sneer, but at least this time I had someone with me. On the way back to my condo, I blurted out,

“Maybe I’ll pay Crybaby a visit. Happy Jack, you said? It’d be a good excuse to take my Harley on the road.”

“Yeah, it’s south of Flagstaff in the mountains. Farm name of Leaves of Grass. And get this. He’s in a biker gang.”

I didn’t know then that you weren’t supposed to call it a biker gang. “Not Crybaby. You must mean riding club, like Toys for Tots runs on a rice rocket.”

Slappy shrugged. “He called it an outlaw club.”

I’d have to be sober to undertake a trip like that, but with all the new sights and activities I probably wouldn’t mind. A fresh adventure might be just the thing. When we got back to my condo, we got even more wasted and blasted music. Slappy passed out, this time on top of my Dingo boots, and I surfed on the computer for Puppies Behind Bars. Inmates trained the dogs to be service animals, and some were allotted for vets who qualified.

The idea had come to me more often lately. I’d been officially diagnosed with PTSD, although the counseling the military offered me was extremely feeble. A dog could pick things up for me. Bring things to me. And, most of all, be a companion.

A companion. Oxytocin poured through my brain just thinking of it.

There was a one-year-old puppy named Linus, an adorable curly Goldendoodle who just barked “good natured.” The blurb on him said he needed a special match. I wondered why. He had begun training when three days old, before his eyes even opened. Then why hadn’t anyone snatched him up? He was born to be the highest of all canine highs, an assistance dog to the disabled. Why hadn’t he graduated?

I’m disabled. I’d never thought of myself that way before. But when I reached for the phone to call Puppies Behind Bars drunk as a fiddler’s bitch, I knew I was.