Down in the Zero

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The first two kids stepped off together, holding hands.

By the time I got mixed in it, they had company down there.

I'd been quiet a long time. Since I went into that house and killed a child.

Killed a child. I can say it now. Every word.

I took out each word and played with it. Over and over again, the way I used to do in prison. The way you try and take something apart, see what makes it work. Words. Like … in war, they call the bodies "casualties." I was in a war. Casualties. Casual. You think about it, it makes sense. No, that's wrong. It doesn't make sense. But it fits.

Each word. One at a time. Over and over again.

Facing it.

I went into that house. Me. I knew what I was going to do in there.

In Africa, I served with this Aussie. Malcolm, his name was. A cheerful guy, I once saw him greet a man in a bar by butting heads with him. An old mate, he told me, from Rugby days. I didn't know what he was doing in the middle of that miserable war— one of the rules was that you didn't ask. Malcolm was telling a story once, about someone who had done something to him. When he was just a kid, in Sydney. "I got my own back," he said. I finally figured out what he meant. Revenge. Get your own back.

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