Armor -- Part 16
by Martin H Slusser

Benny lay back and stared at the tiles in the ceiling. Casting glances at him, men shuffled back to their cots.

"You tried, Grey," one called out. "At least that mutherfucker didn't murder him out-right, the bastard."

Sam had to live. Benny didn't answer, and the man shuffled to his bed.


He awoke with a start. Myers was standing by Sam's bed. Tears in her rheumy old eyes, she smiled at Benny.

His heart squeezed. Benny swallowed the questions. There was no need to ask.

"Reckon I'm man-hunting again, kid." She stroked the indentation of Sam's head on the pillow. "Why'd that old coot have t' go and die on me?"

She began to cry, deep, gut wrenching sobs, and Benny opened his arms to her. 

He didn't need the Project's compulsion to comfort someone he loved. When she fell on Benny's chest his arms came around her and he murmured to her, hugging the old woman through the shock of Sam's death and the fact that she was the old man's wife. All this time he lay here, cracking dirty jokes in front of Myers and wondering who the blind jerk was that put the ring on her finger. And here had been Mr. Myers. Old Sam.

He felt dirty and ashamed. Men act like men. And women, especially old women, are sacred. He had come just short of blasphemy.

"I'm sorry, Myers. Oh, God, but I'm so sorry."

It wasn't Sam Tommy had been after. Wracked by guilt, Benny fought his own tears. Sam's death was as much his fault as it was Tommy Drobnicki's, simply because he screwed up and hadn't cut deep enough. Benny closed his eye. No, suicide was for morons who loved themselves more than they loved people like this old woman.

In silence Benny stroked her back with slow hands. In silence, dry sobs shook him through the dark, quiet hours before the dawn.


Deep in the night a spasm shook him. Not too bad this time, they seemed to be getting better. He hoped his bowels wouldn't loosen this time. A cool, dry hand touched him while he fought against being lost in the darkness of pain.

"Want something for it, kid?"

"Do-not-wanna-get-hooked." He gasped through the mask of a grin that cracked his jaws. Whipping his head back and forth, Benny grunted and rode it out.

"OK, kid," Myers said, her voice a worried mutter. "I'm here for you."

An eternity of time passed for both of them. Benny slumped back and sucked in a double-lungful of air. Myers pulled her hand from his and made a critical examination of it, to make certain Benny hadn't crushed the delicate bones. She shook her hand to bring back the circulation and grinned.

"Tough guy. Ha. Men are all alike. Always gotta do it the hard way -"

"Because we are men, Old-Woman." Benny coughed, the wind rattling in his lungs. He smiled. "If we acted like women, would the ladies wanna hang out with us?" He chuckled at the frosty look in her eyes. "My Grampa Wya always said it's the trials and tribulations that make a boy a man."

Myers patted his arm and nodded. "Sounds like my kind a fellah. He got a wife?"

In the back of Benny's mind came a gasp of horror.

"Too late, Myers. He's gone to his reward."

Myers sighed. "If he's as cute as you, maybe I'll look him up." She cackled at the thought. Grampa Wya disappeared from Benny's mind fast enough he left a tail wind. Benny winced.

"Hey, I want to thank you for being a friend to my Sammy. It meant a lot to him to have a pard at his side." She blinked and the tears darkened her lashes. "He said you had the making of a real man in you, kid. Had the brio to be a righteous warrior." She sniffled and sank to the bed.

Embarrassed, he flushed, muttering "From a dude like old Sam, that's high praise, Myers. I was proud to know him, and I mean that. He set me straight on a few things." Benny glanced away. "I- Myers?"

Benny took her hand.

"I owe you an explanation. It was all my fault he died -"

"It was a heart attack, kid." Myers gave Benny a peculiar smile and reached into the pocket of her sweater. She tossed a small book on Benny's chest. "If it weren't for his heart, he'd be alive yet. That Bible o' yours. It stopped the knife from killing you. He went like he wanted to. A warrior, a man's man."

She cocked her head. "So your dad was Ben Grey. Funny, but I never made the connection. That old biddy, Jarvis, will want to know. He was a good man. One of the best. Quiet, polite, but hell on wheels when it came to a fight. Maybe that's why he was sent in-country so much. God knows, he only ever wanted to get home to see you and your mom. He made quite a hellion in you, sonny boy."

"I . . . met him. Only once, a long time ago." Ten years, last October. It was snowing, thick, fat goose-down flakes covering the ground, the Stone, the victim on the Stone. Grandfather Grey raises the knife for the final stroke, Anna weeping in the background with Tommy Drobnicki laughing as he held her arms behind her back.

And Dad Ben walks into the hemlock grove, naked as the day he was born, smeared red with the clay of his grave.

And he died, hugging his only child, murdered by an insane old man.

Then the real hell began.

The Manse, the Mohawk-Buu. Benny flushed with shame and guilt.

Myers cackled and said in a hoarse mutter, "Sam never told me so much as a word about what you two were always gassing' about, but my girls did. Nobody gets much passed me," she boasted to him. "I'm the mother of a couple a hellions. Them two would make even you look saint-like, as devilish as you are." She cackled at that and slapped her knee.

A few of the men grumbled in their sleep.

Myers lay a hand over her mouth until the dim quiet filled the ward.

She gave Benny a rough pat on the arm.

"He left you a little something. Kind of a goin' away present, when they release you, permanent."

Shocked, Benny could only stare at her. He wanted to shout, Don't you see, Myers? It's all my fault Sam died. He couldn't face. Benny turned his head and looked at the sleeping man next to him. It hadn't taken long to fill the old man's bed.

Myers grew fierce. "Button your yap, kid," she told him in no uncertain terms. "Else I'll button it for you." taking a corner of the sheet, Myers daubed her eyes. "It ain't much. I got plenty coming, bonus pay from my time in del Sud, so you never mind. And he said you wasn't to get it till you split, hear? He didn't want you blowing it on some floozy over in Jacksonville." She glared down at him and he had to smile.

Her hand gave him another pat.

"You ready, kid?"

"For what?" A wary look came into his eye. Chrisake, she didn't want that, did she? The conditioning kicked in, and he felt his groin heating, swelling.

"I got to prep you for your operation. Last one, too, they tell me. Guess you ain't worth the effort." She cackled and Benny winced. It was too close to what he knew to be the truth.

Myers checked the tubing and came up with a needle. She giggled at the cross look on Benny's face and, for once merciful, stabbed it into the tube and not his body. Benny scowled his relief and the warmth crept over him, closed his eye, forced him into another place, another kind of hell.

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