“Steady Eyes”
Steady Eyes
His eyes didn’t change when Hairston shot him. That was the part that stuck with Hairston. If the movies had it their way, his eyes would’ve been wide with shock, his pupils quivering and dilated as he glared at his killer. There might have even been a tinge of innocence in that stare, one final swing at redemption as the last dregs of life trickled out of his crumpled body.
But that’s not what happened. His eyes didn’t change.
He just died.
It was strange for Hairston to be thinking of that guy, that night, in the cafeteria of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. He knew it was strange. Even so, standing in line for coffee surrounded by doctors and nurses in their scrubs and white coats—people who dealt with death every day, who were more familiar with the intricacies of mortality than he would ever be, but who’d never seen the side of death that he had—he couldn’t shake the thought.
It wasn’t a question of regret. Killing him had been the right thing to do. Given the circumstances, he’d do it again in a heartbeat. But that didn’t make it any easier to forget.
The ward was plaintively quiet, only some chatter from the nurses’ station and the odd call bell to disturb the peace. Visiting hours were long over, but an exception had been made for Hairston’s family.
“Decaf, right?”
Hairston’s brother took the coffee. He nodded, then turned his attention back to his phone.
He seemed distracted, standing there outside the room, though it struck Hairston that he wouldn’t know what distraction looked like on his little brother anymore. His other brothers—the dozens he’d deployed with, the ones he shared a bond stronger than blood with—he could feel even their most marginal shift in mood. It was different with them, though. He’d gone to war with them. He would die for them and they would die for him. But his actual brother? A man who shared his DNA? Hairston couldn’t manage a phone call once a month? A text every now and then? A “Happy Birthday” on his 30th?
He ceded his brother the space he clearly needed and entered the room. There were Hairstons from wall to wall. Uncles. Grandparents. Cousins twice removed. Most of them he hardly knew outside of old framed photos and recycled stories. Some he hadn’t known at all until a few days before when the entire family started to convene. Yet every single one of them knew him: Captain John D. Hairston, United States Air Force Special Tactics Officer. American Hero. Pride of the Hairstons of East End.
“Who else had decaf?”
A volley of hands, mostly older, shot up. Hairston distributed the insulated cups.
“And the real stuff?”
There were a couple of laughs, then a couple more hands. Hairston distributed the remaining cups, waved off multiple offers of repayment, said something about “the least I can do.”
He put aside his own coffee and sat down at the chair next to the bed. It was warm. He reached out to brush the hair from her face. Her brow was even warmer.
He smiled.
She tried to smile back.
“Hey, Ma.”
--
The mission itself hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. Terminal air control—managing a little airstrip in the eastern part of Afghanistan. It had been a quiet deployment, much less kinetic than either of his previous two. They’d taken some fire, had a few close calls outside the wire, but by that point they’d made it through six and a half months more or less unscathed. The mood was as light as it could be.
That it happened in the chow hall was what was most alarming. Not that anywhere in that country, at that time, could ever truly feel safe. But if any place was off limits from the toils of war, it should’ve been the DFAC. It was a late dinner after a long day, he and a few of his troops musing over cups of shitty instant decaf about the first meals they were going to order back home. Then a chilled hush washed over the entire tent.
Fenton was the toughest of all of his troops. A grizzled TACP from outside Detroit. He’d been there during the surge. He’d seen more shit than most. Yet, frozen there by the door, an arm around his neck, a stolen M9 pressed flush against his temple, there was fear in his eyes.
It was so quiet you could distinguish Fenton’s frantic breathing from his captor’s. No one moved. No one said a word. Hairston, though, stood up. He didn’t think. He didn’t even consider what it was he was going to do. He just stepped forward, his arms outstretched, his palms wide open. “Hey, man. I’m gonna need you to let him go. Okay?”
The gunman shouted something in Arabic. He was shaking. Hairston could see the beads of sweat on his brow.
“Listen, man. I need you to let him go.” Hairston took another step forward.
The gunman flinched. He pressed the M9 deeper into Fenton’s temple.
“No, you’re not understanding me.” Hairston smiled, almost laughed. “I need you—”
Two bullets ripped through the captor’s skull. Hairston’s sidearm was holstered before the blood started pooling on the floor.
Fenton stabled himself against the wall. His troops moved to secure the tent.
But all Hairston could think about were those eyes.
--
The doctors hadn’t painted a very positive picture. Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Metastasized to the liver and the lungs. Survival rate less than 1%. They were already talking about hospice before Hairston had found a flight home.
He’d been in Djibouti when he got the news. It damn near took an act of Congress to release him early, but he’d tackled that hurdle with the same relentless vigor that had defined his entire career. It was just before midnight when he landed at Newark and just after 0100 when the cab dropped him off outside the hospital. By the looks of it, he’d made it there just in time. Yet, sitting in that chair, holding his mother’s clammy, trembling hand, he couldn’t help but feel like he was years too late.
“Sweet boy,” his mother said, stroking the hand of the man she’d raised on her own.
Hairston leaned in and kissed her brow. He promised to take care of the house. He promised to take care of his brother and the rest of the family. He promised to make her proud.
Her eyes didn’t change when she died. They just closed. And though it wasn’t Hairston who killed her, sitting there, holding her lifeless hand in his own and thinking about all the promises that died with her, he felt more regret than he’d ever known before.
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Andrew MacQuarrie is an Air Force veteran and a doctor. A native of Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. MacQuarrie has previously published in The Montreal Review, The Write Launch, Pennsylvania English, and On The Premises.