[band of brothers] i say no world can hold a you
Lewis (he’s Lewis these days, uncomfortable and awkward, no longer Lew but not yet Nixon) marries Cathy on a Saturday in mid-autumn. His mother sits in the front pew, elegant and poised and thin-lipped, with her perpetual air of vague disapproval. Lewis doesn’t look at his father.
Cathy’s pretty and radiant, of course–she’s not beautiful and probably never will be, but Lewis can live with that. He likes her; which isn’t love and probably never will be, but he can live with that too. She smiles at him when she gets to the altar, bright and happy, and Lewis feels a little guilty that she’s not marrying another man, a better man, a man who doesn’t slouch in rumpled disarray during marriage ceremonies.
There’s a reception afterwards, extravagant in only the way old money can buy. Cathy’s smiles are a bit twitchy at the corners but Lewis figures that she ought to know what she married into, and so is content to leave her in the clutches of his (evil) aunts.
On his way out, slinking past the guests and after a brief detour hiding from his mother–he sneaks a bottle of Bordeaux under his tuxedo and goes to get shitfaced in some oak-paneled, gold-leafed bathroom.
It’s not an auspicious beginning to a marriage; but auspicious isn’t what Lewis wants anyway. It’ll be an unhappy marriage probably, once Cathy gets over her illusions of romance and ideas of love–but Lewis has always been able to hold his own in arguments and he’s never been afraid to raise his voice against women. He’ll be all right, he thinks.
He’ll be all right.
–
Seven months later, he yells, “Good grief, woman!” and slams the door on his way out of the house and doesn’t think about why Cathy’s crying and doesn’t think about why he’s so tired these days and doesn’t think about his parents and doesn’t think about his job and doesn’t think about the empty whiskey bottles in the kitchen sink. He scowls up at the sky, hands fisted in his pockets; wonders about the dog and considers doing something monumentally stupid.
–
And he signs up for the 101 Airborne Division.
–
He buys Vat96 in bulk.
There’s little else that need looking after. Cathy’s farewell is perfunctory, not that he’d been expecting more. (Still, he wishes she wouldn’t be so angry all the time about everything. He has not fucking idea what the hell she’s angry about anyway.) He tells the Kid “G’bye,” and the Kid echoes back, “Bye-bye.” He ruffles her hair, and thinks she won’t remember him in two months, tops. He isn’t sure what he ought to feel about that: so he doesn’t really feel much of anything.
“Look after the dog,” he instructs Cathy, and Cathy says, “Sure, sure;” and he frowns, “I mean it, Cathy,” and Cathy frowns back, “All right, Lewis;” and he really hates how she says his name, all rough edges and sharp disappointment and acrid bitterness, like the aftertaste of Vat96 burning in his throat.
–
He remembers: he doesn’t look back when he leaves.
–
There is a dichotomy to Dick Winters that Lewis–no, no; he’s Nixon now, because that’s what his dogtags spell: Nixon, Nixon, which thankfully, means nothing here–a dichotomy to Dick Winters that Nixon finds fascinating. A summer child with a winter name; a water spirit with a head of fire. Nixon takes perverse pleasure in listing all of the ways Richard Winters does not make sense: quiet and kind and good-hearted, who all the instructors expect to become a superb field officer, killer machine extraordinaire.
(When Nixon met Winters, the latter extended a hand and half-smiled, all slow and quiet and kind, and had said Hello and I’m pleased to meet you. The thing is, thinks Nixon, half in disbelief and half in love–the thing is: Winters may actually mean that.)
Later–much, much later, tens of thousands of years later, which still doesn’t seem long enough–Nixon tries to say goodbye and says, “Come with me,” instead. Winters–but he’s Dick these days, eyes warm and smiles soft–Dick says, “I’ll think about it.” Nixon figures: what the hell.
It’s a little like this, see: he’s spent the past couple of year jumping out of planes when there are people trying to blow the shit out of him. He doesn’t really know if there’s another way of living at this point; he doesn’t really know what else to do but jump: scared the fuck out of his mind, but still jumping. There nothing else for it; so he follows Dick. He jumps.
(And it’s also a little like this, see: sometimes, Dick catches the sun just so, golden light all warm and molten and beautiful on his skin, and maybe this is just Nixon wasting that Yale education by waxing poetic, but he doesn’t think so. Sometimes, Dick catches the sun in that perfect way, like the sun is actually under his skin.)
What the hell, thinks Nixon. And he says, “There’s–there’s this place in New Jersey. It’s, uh, it’s called–Nixon.”
And Dick smiles, the same smile from Toccoa, from Carentan, from Bastogne, from their several eternities of acquaintanceship, the same smile of old: “Sounds picturesque.”
