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What a pity.”
    “A
pity
?” said Agnes.
    My mother was a humped, bent little woman even then, bowed in the shoulders, her spine distinctly curved. She wore a denim shirt and corduroy trousers and a string of large wooden beads. The black hair with its silver streaks was swept back off her forehead.
    “Yes, my dear, a
pity.
Such a waste. To make that sacrifice, and then turn against his country.”
    “Danny hasn’t turned against his country.”
    “So what would you call it?” She turned to face Agnes full on, her dark eyes bright and her lip trembling a little.
    Agnes gave out one of her small barks of laughter.
    “Danny thinks his country’s turned against him.”
    It was as though she had invoked some sexual practice known only to the most grievously depraved.
    Late that night, back at the loft, I sat out on the fire escape by myself watching the lights of the traffic on West Street. I could see Agnes as she sat there staring at Mom, the force indomitable, with no trace of fear. I was much affected by this. I needed a strong woman. Like many in this profession, I had experienced my own need for love as a destructive force. It’s what attracts us to the damaged birds, but in Agnes I could see no damage at all.
    I came to the conclusion that what had angered me that evening was my mother’s attitude to what she’d called Danny’s sacrifice, her assumption that he was motivated by a kind of pure, uncomplicated patriotism. There were times when I regarded the pathology of the damaged men I worked with as emblematic of a far greater malaise, and I was apt then to be seduced by my own grand diabolical vision in which America played the part of a mad god eager to devour its young, the willing slave of its own death instinct. Danny wasn’t alone in his mute recognition of his damage, and his anger was exacerbated by the recognition that it had occurred in the service of no noble cause.
It was meaningless and it was unnecessary, and I saw, every day, that a great part of the difficulty faced by men like him came from having to balance expectations like my mother’s with memories of insane slaughter. The irony was that fighting for your country rendered you unfit to be its citizen.

    Later, when Agnes and I were living together in the apartment on Fulton Street, a few blocks up from the fish market, Danny would show up when he felt the need of human company, or of people, at least, with whom he had more connection than he did with the stranger on the next bar stool. He was no more talkative than when we’d first met. I would like to say that he was getting better. Agnes said she’d seen signs of improvement, but it wasn’t the case. The drinking was starting to take a toll. He was usually unshaven, and beneath the stubble his face was coarsely inflamed. He was growing a hard, swollen belly and he had the unmistakably bloated look of an alcoholic. The heavy intake of unfiltered cigarettes had brought on a harsh cough he was unable to shake.
    He had keys to the apartment but never once showed up at bad times or stayed too long; the reverse, in fact. He’d shake my hand when he came in and then look around for
Cassie, whom he adored. He would lift her high in the air and she’d shriek with laughter when he threatened to drop her, and at times like this I’d watch his face and he seemed a child himself. Agnes saw it too, and we had an odd sense, sometimes, that he was
our
child, ours to protect, for his pain and vulnerability were heartbreaking. I could tell when he was flashing back to the war. He would sit very still. His mouth fell open and his eyes became glazed and empty, his face masklike. After several seconds, sometimes longer, he came back to the here and now with a shake of the head.
    “You want to talk about it?”
    “Nah,” he’d say. “Same old bullshit.”
    He was a stoic. I had some idea what this
same old bullshit
looked like. Other times I would see him violently startled by the telephone, or