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    “Health problem,” Blanchard said.
    “What?”
    “Health problem. Says so right here. What’s your health problem, Mr. Lambert?”
    Dan remained silent.
    Blanchard turned around. “You sick, or not?”
    Dan put one hand up against his forehead. Oh, Jesus, he thought. To have to bare himself before a stranger this way was almost too much for him.
    “You aren’t on drugs, are you?” Blanchard’s voice had taken on a cutting edge. “We could’ve cleaned house over there if so many of you fellas hadn’t been on drugs.”
    Dan looked into Blanchard’s sweating, heat-puffed face. A jolt of true rage twisted him inside, but he jammed it back down again, where it had been drowsing so long. He realized in that moment that Blanchard was the kind of man who enjoyed kicking a body when it was beaten. He leaned toward Blanchard’s desk, and slowly he pulled himself out of the black leather chair. “No, sir,” he said tersely, “I’m not on drugs. But yeah, I am sick. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”
    “I’m listenin’.”
    “I’ve got leukemia,” Dan said. “It’s a slow kind, and some days I feel just fine. Other days I can hardly get out of bed. I’ve got a tumor the size of a walnut right about here.” He tapped the left side of his forehead. “The doctor says he can operate, but because of where the tumor lies I might lose the feelin’ on my right side. Now, what kind of carpenter would I be if I couldn’t use my right hand or leg?”
    “I’m sorry to hear that, but —”
    “I’m not finished,” Dan said, and Blanchard was quiet. “You wanted to know what was wrong with me, you oughta have the manners to hear the whole story.” Blanchard chose that moment to glance at the gold Rolex watch on his wrist, and Dan came very close to reaching across the desk and grabbing him by his yellow necktie. “I want to tell you about a soldier.” Dan’s voice was roughened by the sandpaper of raw emotion. “He was a kid, really. The kind of kid who always did what he was told. He drew duty in a sector of jungle that hid an enemy supply route. And it was always rainin’ on that jungle. It was always drippin’ wet, and the ground stayed muddy. It was a silver rain. Sometimes it fell right out of a clear blue sky, and afterward the jungle smelled like flowers gone over to rot. The silver rain fell in torrents, and this young soldier got drenched by it day after day. It was slick and oily, like grease off the bottom of a fryin’ pan. There was no way to get it off the skin, and the heat and the steam just cooked it in deeper.” Dan drew up a tight, terrible smile. “He asked his platoon leader about it. His platoon leader said it was harmless, unless you were a tree or a vine. Said you could bathe in it and you’d be all right, but if you dipped a blade of sawgrass in it, that sawgrass would blotch up brown and crispy as quick as you please. Said it was to clear the jungle so we could find the supply route. And this young soldier … you know what he did?”
    “No,” Blanchard said.
    “He went back out in that jungle again. Back out in that dirty rain, whenever they told him to. He could see the jungle dyin’. All of it was shrivelin’ away, bein’ burned up without fire. He didn’t feel right about it because he knew a chemical as strong as that had to be bad for skin and bones. He knew it. But he was a good soldier, and he was proud to fight for his country. Do you see?”
    “I think so. Agent Orange?”
    “It could kill a jungle in a week,” Dan said. “What it could do to a man didn’t show up until a long time later. That’s what bein’ a good soldier did to me, Mr. Blanchard. I came home full of poison, and nobody blew a trumpet or held a parade. I don’t like bein’ out of work. I don’t like feelin’ I’m not worth a damn sometimes. But that’s what my life is right now.”
    Blanchard nodded. He wouldn’t meet Dan’s eyes.