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On the first Sunday home from Iraq, Toby hauls his damaged body up the back hill to the old water tank standing guard over their ranch. Resting in its shade, he sucks in lungfuls of sage-scented air and counts Black Angus scattered across the grassy slopes above the Pacific. The house squats below, shaded by Monterey pines that he and Angelita helped plant years before. Digging into a shirt pocket, he palms two white caplets and downs them with a swig from his canteen.
Smoke curls up from the barbeque pit. A bell rings. His mother hollers, “Toby, come on down.”
“Yeah, Mom. I’ll be right there.”
They’ve come to welcome him back: neighbors, his teachers, former high school buddies with their new wives, guys from the track team, all scattered under the trees. The first keg is history and the second half gone. But after years of living with crowds, Toby savors this solitude. He searches the side of the rusting water tank and finds Toby ♥ Angie, scratched into its dull green paint when they were twelve.

“If we get caught, I’m gonna get it,” Angie said.
“Nobody can see us. Come on. You promised.”
“Oh, all right. Don’t get pushy.”
She unbuttoned her jeans and slid them around her knees. Toby did the same. The summer air felt cool against his legs as they sat side by side, hardly breathing. By silent consent, they slipped their underpants down, their bare thighs touching, Angie’s golden-smooth. She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips, giggled as the kiss aroused him. He twisted away, ashamed of his mottled pink skin. But she pulled him back and kissed him again.
They touched each other. A numbing freeze, like an ice cream headache, crossed Toby’s forehead. He shuddered then jumped as the farmhouse’s back screen door banged open. Angie stared, wide-eyed. His mother’s voice echoed in the afternoon stillness.
“Toby, will ya come on.”
“Ya, Mom, I’m coming.”
Rising, he leads with his metal leg and moves downslope, taking small stiff steps. Ritchie intercepts him at the crowd’s perimeter and offers a plastic cup of beer. “We can’t start serious drinkin’ without the Tobemeister.”
“Sorry, but booze doesn’t mix with my meds.”
“Hey, man. Ya don’ have to apologize. If I got fucked up, I’d want a lifetime supply. Ya know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yes, Ritchie. I know exactly –“
“Toby, get over here,” his father calls. “You get the pick of the barbeque before I serve these jackals.”
“Yeah, Dad, on my way.”
A line has already formed, friends carrying paper plates and drinks, gabbing with their neighbors. As he approaches, the conversation dies. They cut furtive glances at his floppy left pant leg, the slender rod for an ankle, the special shoe. He moves to the head of the line.
“Hey, no cuts,” somebody yells and the crowd laughs.
Balancing a plate of tri-tip, beans and garlic bread, he slumps onto a picnic bench next to Sarah Crawford and her husband. She’s just graduated from Stanford. They live in Palo Alto, already have mortgage payments and a kid on the way. Toby half listens to their chatter. He scans the yard, searching for Angie’s brown face, the face he’d pressed against his chest after the senior prom.

In their fancy clothes, they leaned against the water tank’s damp metal, watched wispy clots of fog blow across Estero Bay.
“So…so when do you leave?” Toby asked.
“Late August. We have a week of freshman orientation.“
“I still can’t picture you at UCLA. You’re such a screw-up in class and LA is a freaking mob scene.”
“The scholarship surprised me too. I figured I’d be headed to State.”
“At least at State you’d be closer.”
“I know, I know”
“So when will I see you?”
“At the breaks, over summer.”
“Ah, man, this really sucks”
“You could’ve come with me if you’d – ”
“Yeah, yeah. College is your thing. I’m just the dumb rancher’s son who —“
“Don’t say that. You’re as smart as any of us. Maybe after a couple years at JC you could –“
“Forget it. I’ve had enough classroom bull. I need a break.”
Angie stayed quiet. The foghorn at Point Buchon boomed out its monotonous tune and she shivered. Toby took her in his arms and pressed her hard to his body.
“I know I’m losing you, Angie.”
“No you’re not, silly.”
He pushed her away. “Don’t kid yourself. You’ll meet new people, get your degrees in whatever, start work. I know when I’m being left behind. It’s not your fault. It’s just...”
“Shush. Don’t freak out about what might happen. We’ve got the whole summer.”
“Yeah, the whole summer to say goodbye.”
Angie put her lips to his ear and shushed him gently. “Don’t worry, don’t worry…we’ll figure it out.”

Ignoring his own excuse, Toby downs a half-dozen beers, which combine with the Vicodin to push thoughts of Angie away. He staggers around the yard, thanking his friends for coming, for their encouragement, for their restraint. He’s grateful that nobody asks what he’s going to do…or what he’s done.
The evening sea mist rolls in across the ranchland. Jackets are pulled on. Toby and his parents offer goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. The crowd disappears. Inside, his father clicks on the television and 60 Minutes. They’re showing another exposé about some military screw-up in Baghdad. His mother grabs the remote and surfs the channels before clicking it off.
His father scowls. “You can’t hide from that stuff, Margaret. It’s everywhere, ya know.”
“I’m not hiding from anything,” she snaps. “Toby’s already seen enough of that…that war.”
“Guys, please,” Toby begs. “Don’t start. It’s been a long day.”
“Sorry, sweetie. You’re right. Why don’t you go in and rest.”
Toby escapes to his paneled bedroom, its walls covered with framed track ribbons and certificates. Lying quietly, he stares at the ceiling and forces his mind to think of boyhood kayak adventures along the coast, exploring sea caves, hidden coves with protected beaches where he and Angie ran naked, made love, and shivered in each others arms. But it all feels like a cliché now. After three tours in the sandbox, he’s heard every heartbreak story possible. And unlike insurgent IEDs hidden by the roadside, most of the guys could feel it coming. Afterwards, they’d go quiet, get drunk, start fights, or worse.

Back from a morning patrol just outside the Green Zone, Toby swung by HQ to check on mail. At the barracks, he slumped onto his cot and thumbed through the short stack of envelopes, stopping when he reached one addressed with Angie’s clear handwriting. It had been two months since her last letter. Toby tore the envelope open and unfolded the single sheet, hurrying over the pleasantries to the meat of the matter.

“By the time you get this letter I’ll have graduated. Then it’s off to San Diego to work on a new dynamic engineering project. Steve knows the family who owns the firm and I signed a two- year contract with them. I’ve got to tell you about Steve. He’s become someone special to me and we’ve been together for six months or so. I know this news isn’t what you want to hear. But since you keep volunteering for more time in that terrible country, I need more than your letters with XXX’s on the bottom. Why are you still there? Does it give you such a strong sense of purpose that you can ignore a future beyond the Army? A future that might have included me?
Sorry, didn’t mean to unload on you. I’ve never understood your decisions. But I do know your heart, and there’s more in it than macho patriotism. That’s the Toby I wish would come home, the one that took me uphill to that old water tank, our own totem, and told me his dreams.”

Toby folded the letter and dropped it inside his footlocker. He barely remembered the dreams that Angie was talking about…him running the ranch, building a dock at Coon Creek Cove and starting a sportfishing business. He’d tucked all of those things away in the back of his mind, as if they belonged only to his childhood.
His platoon leader pushed inside the hooch. “Come on, Sergeant. Better get over to the dee-FAC and grab some chow before afternoon patrol.”
“Where to this time?”
“Just cruisin’ Haifa Street. Same ‘ol, same ‘ol. Say, you okay?”
“Just got the Dear John.”
“Shit, sorry, soldier. But there’s plenty of other fish.”
“Yeah, but I’m a lousy fisherman.”
“Give yourself a break, and think sharp. We’ve got reports of insurgent activity close in. Be careful out there.”
“I will, Lieutenant.”

In the morning, Toby and his father load hay bales into the ratty pickup and drive south across flat terraces to the feeding pens. The wind is down and the sun hot. He clumsily lifts the bales, his stump chafing in its prosthetic cup. The pain saps his strength and he rests often. It’s only been six months since he lost his leg and the ache remains constant, impossible to ignore, changing him into something bitter, something desperate.
When they return to the house for lunch, his mother meets them in the yard.
“Toby, you got a letter from the Army.”
“Simply fucking great. Probably more shit about the rehab program – ”
“Watch your mouth, son,” his father warns. “You’re not in-country anymore.”
“Sorry.” Toby smiles. Even after forty years, Vietnam-era Army terms still slip from his father, along with the tales of risk and triumph in the deep jungles of the central highlands.
“Well, go ahead and open it,” his mother says.
The sheaf of paperwork is topped by his orders. He scans the material and frowns.
“What is it, son?” his father asks.
“I’m to report to the VA Medical Center in Long Beach on Wednesday.”
“But you just got here,” his mother complains.
“You know the Army, hurry up and wait.”
“How long are you going to be there?” she asks.
“Probably for the rest of my hitch. They want to try fitting me with a new type of leg and it requires, ah, preparation, then training afterward.”
“That’s good news,” his father says.
“Yeah, if it works.”
His mother looks away and doesn’t speak. Toby holes up in his room and pores over the materials sent by the Army: photographs, terse medical descriptions, glossy brochures. He’s one of six West Coast GIs that have been selected to participate in the program. He’ll be in Long Beach for nine months, live at special housing near the hospital, report daily, be confined to a wheelchair much of the time. Great, this is fucking progress? He stuffs his duffel bag with military and civilian clothes, still wrinkled from being pulled from the same bag three days before.
On Wednesday morning, his father drives him south into the smoggy soup of the LA basin, fighting mid-morning traffic. As they rattle along the 405 near the airport his mind drifts back to that day on Haifa Street.

“Step on it, Meadows,” Toby ordered, pointing to the column of smoke rising above the three-story buildings ahead.
“Shit, this don’ look good,” the corporal muttered, snaking their Humvee down the street choked with traffic, past bazaars and shops selling bootlegged CDs.
They pulled up next to the remains of a towering silver water tank. Burning cars littered the street along with smoldering bodies. Toby rode shotgun in the lead patrol vehicle. He scanned the area, cracked his door and stepped out just as a beat-to-shit Toyota pulled up on their left. Inside, a bearded man with blazing eyes stared at him and smiled. The car disintegrated, taking Corporal Meadows and the Humvee with it.
Toby came to on the ground, pushed against a building face, with Johnson and Opalewski bending over him. Someone was screaming and he realized it was himself.
“Take it easy, Sarge, we gotcha,” Johnson said and tightened the tourniquet around Toby’s left thigh. His knee and everything below it was gone. A huge smear of red covered the pavement. He vomited down his chest, lay back, trembling as the light began to fade and the street’s chaos melted into an image of Angie, standing next to the green tank, beckoning for him to join her.

At the last minute, Toby’s father jerks the steering wheel and the pickup shoots down the off ramp and onto the Long Beach Freeway.
“We’re almost there. Now remember, ya gotta call us when you get settled. You’re not in this alone.”
“I know, Dad. Thanks.”
“So what were ya daydreaming about?”
“I was thinking about Angie.”
“After what she done, I’m surprised.”
“It wasn’t her fault. If I wasn’t so damn gung ho about the Army…”
“Hey, son, you’ve got your whole life to live. We’ve got the ranch and you’ve got friends and…”
“It’s still not the same.”
“I…I guess not. When I came back from Nam, I felt alone, cut off. Then I met your mom and you came along. Things change…get better.”
“I’m banking on it, Dad.”
At the hospital Toby meets with Dr. Swanson who’s in charge of the trial prosthetic program. The other guinea pigs have already arrived. They spend an hour in orientation then a couple more in the cafeteria telling lies about where they’ve been, what they’ve done, and lastly, how each got damaged. They decide to call themselves the “Legless Lizards” and make crude jokes about it, becoming hyped on bad coffee. After a bland dinner, they’re loaded into a van for a short drive to their housing. Toby shares an apartment with a Latino dude named Chuy, an ex-gang banger from across the bridge in San Pedro.
“Hey homes, I know some hot babes from Wilmington I can call if ya want.”
“I don’t know. I’m too nervous.”
“About what? Ya never screwed a Latina?”
“Jeez, that’s not it. It’s the – ”
“Surgery, yeah, I hear ya. Hacking off the end of my thigh bone and screwin’ in a big ‘ol titanium bolt freaks me out too.”
Toby grins. “Thanks. Since you put it that way, I feel much better.”
“No sweat, man. Now where the hell’s the remote.”
They flop onto the sofa, unstrap their artificial legs and watch TV, dozing in the blue light as the horns of passing ships sound in the harbor.
The van picks them up at o-dark-thirty the next morning. The Legless Lizards are quiet as they eat breakfast, then attend the day’s first session. Snatches of Dr. Swanson’s presentation stick in Toby’s mind.
“…the new prostheses may not work for all of you…possible infections…new bone must bond with the titanium implant…new legs should offer better control…less pain…four months in a wheelchair…three months training…home by Christmas.”
The doctor drones on and Toby’s eyelids grow heavy. He struggles up and helps himself to coffee at the back counter. Others fidget in their seats.
Dr. Swanson clears his throat. “Before we take a break, I’d like to introduce a member of our team, representing Applied Biotics, the company that designed your new legs.”
Toby stirs creamer into his coffee. The room erupts with whistles and catcalls. A young brown woman wearing a snug three-piece suit strides into the room and stands next to Swanson. Toby grasps his coffee cup with both hands and turns his back.
“Gentlemen, this is Angelita Gonzalez. She’ll be visiting with us throughout your stay and monitoring the project.”
Toby shudders and sets his cup on the counter, spilling its contents. An adult version of Angie’s voice fills the room.
“I’m very pleased to be here. I hope to see all of you walk comfortably. If you have any questions about the design of your new prostheses, or have problems with it once you get fitted, feel free to ask me.”
The scraping of chairs and loud conversation. Slowly, Toby turns to face the front. Angie is surrounded by the Legless Lizards, answering questions, and edging toward the door. When she finally sees him, her face pales and she pushes into the hallway and disappears.
Toby hobbles after her. The clack of her high heels on the linoleum grows fainter as she retreats.
He yells: “Angie, wait.”
She slows and stops. He catches up, gasping. She won’t meet his gaze. He grasps her hands. There are no rings on her fingers.
She finally looks into his face with glistening eyes. “I…I’m sorry. I just can’t do this. I though I could but…”
“What are you talking about?”
“I knew you were part of this group and I wanted to come and say…say I’m sorry.”
“Don’t need to. It was me that was obsessed with being all I could be. I never thought how it might hurt others.”
“Yeah, but sending you that letter, then…then hearing nothing.”
“I figured you and Steve had enough to, ah, talk about without a peg-legged GI butting in.”
“Don’t say that. You’re going to walk just fine.”
Toby thinks about the months ahead: two more surgeries, confined to a wheelchair, weeks of painful training, and in the end, still a gimp with a funny metal leg. He wonders if he should push Angie out of his life and just be done with it.
“But what about you and… and Steve?” he asks.
“Yeah, about that.”
“What?”
“He’s history, turned out to be a creep in gentleman’s clothing.”
“Huh.”
Angie lets out a deep breath. “Can you forgive me, Toby? You were right. Going away to school, I met all these…these intelligent people.”
“Yeah, and now you’re one of them, an engineer.”
“You don’t have to say it with such disdain.” Angie laughs.
There’s a rumble from down the hall as the other Legless Lizards file out of the conference room and see them holding hands.
Angie’s face darkens. “We’d better find some place to talk away from your friends.”
“I don’ know. We could look for a water tank close by.”
“I’d like that. One where we won’t be seen, out of the wind.”
“Don’t say that, Angie. It takes me right back to when…”
“Yeah, me too. You still thinking about running your Dad’s ranch, building a pier at the cove?”
“I’ve been too busy studying the blues. But, yeah.”
“You’ll need an engineer to design that pier.”
“You’re right. You know anybody?”
Angie digs him in the ribs and puts an arm around his waist. The guys down the hall let out hoots and whistles.
“Come on, hop-a-long, let’s find that tank.” Angie tugs at his arm, her knowing laughter rising around him like fog clearing off the headlands.