“I got all those shots for all those diseases and I died here anyhow, healthy as a horse.”

The tree shook. Some small fruit fell in front of Eddie.

“How you like them apples?” the voice said.

Eddie stood up and cleared his throat.

“Come out,” he said.

“Come up,” the voice said.

And Eddie was in the tree, near the top, which was as tall as an office building. His legs straddled a large limb and the earth below seemed a long drop away. Through the smaller branches and thick fig leaves, Eddie could make out the shadowy figure of a man in army fatigues, sitting back against the tree trunk. His face was covered with a coal black substance. His eyes glowed red like tiny bulbs.

Eddie swallowed hard.

“Captain?” he whispered. “Is that you?”

They had served together in the army. The Captain was Eddie’s commanding officer. They fought in the Philippines and they parted in the Philippines and Eddie had never seen him again. He had heard he’d died in combat.

A wisp of cigarette smoke appeared.

“They explained the rules to you, soldier?”

Eddie looked down. He saw the earth far below, yet he knew he could not fall.

“I’m dead,” he said.

“You got that much right.”

“And you’re dead.”

“Got that right, too.”

“And you’re … my second person?”

The Captain held up his cigarette. He smiled as if to say, “Can you believe you get to smoke up here?” Then he took a long drag and blew out a small white cloud.

“Betcha didn’t expect me, huh?”

Eddie learned many things during the war. He learned to ride atop a tank. He learned to shave with cold water in his helmet. He learned to be careful when shooting from a foxhole, lest he hit a tree and wound himself with deflected shrapnel.

He learned to smoke. He learned to march. He learned to cross a rope bridge while carrying, all at once, an overcoat, a radio, a carbine, a gas mask, a tripod for a machine gun, a backpack, and several bandoliers on his shoulder. He learned how to drink the worst coffee he’d ever tasted.

He learned a few words in a few foreign languages. He learned to spit a great distance. He learned the nervous cheer of a soldier’s first survived combat, when the men slap each other and smile as if it’s over—We can go home now!–and he learned the sinking depression of a soldier’s second combat, when he realizes the fighting does not stop at one battle, there is more and more after that.

He learned to whistle through his teeth. He learned to sleep on rocky earth. He learned that scabies are itchy little mites that burrow into your skin, especially if you’ve worn the same filthy clothes for a week. He learned a man’s bones really do look white when they burst through the skin.

He learned to pray quickly. He learned in which pocket to keep the letters to his family and Marguerite, in case he should be found dead by his fellow soldiers. He learned that sometimes you are sitting next to a buddy in a dugout, whispering about how hungry you are, and the next instant there is a small whoosh and the buddy slumps over and his hunger is no longer an issue.

He learned, as one year turned to two and two years turned toward three, that even strong, muscular men vomit on their shoes when the transport plane is about to unload them, and even officers talk in their sleep the night before combat.

He learned how to take a prisoner, although he never learned how to become one. Then one night, on a Philippine island, his group came under heavy fire, and they scattered for shelter and the skies were lit and Eddie heard one of his buddies, down in a ditch, weeping like a child, and he yelled at him, “Shut up, will ya!” and he realized the man was crying because there was an enemy soldier standing over him with a rifle at his head, and Eddie felt something cold at his neck and there was one behind him, too.

The captain stubbed out his cigarette. He was older than the men in Eddie’s troop, a lifetime military man with a lanky swagger and a prominent chin that gave him a resemblance to a movie actor of the day. Most of the soldiers liked him well enough, although he had a short temper and a habit of yelling inches from your face, so you could see his teeth, already yellowed from tobacco. Still, the Captain always promised he would “leave no one behind,” no matter what happened, and the men took comfort in that.

“Captain …” Eddie said again, still stunned.

“Affirmative.”

“Sir.”

“No need for that. But much obliged.”

“It’s been … You look …”

“Like the last time you saw me?” He grinned, then spat over the tree branch. He saw Eddie’s confused expression. “You’re right. Ain’t no reason to spit up here. You don’t get sick, either. Your breath is always the same. And the chow is incredible.”

Chow? Eddie didn’t get any of this. “Captain, look. There’s some mistake. I still don’t know why I’m here. I had a nothing life, see? I worked maintenance. I lived in the same apartment for years. I took care of rides, Ferris wheels, roller coasters, stupid little rocket ships. It was nothing to be proud of. I just kind of drifted. What I’m saying is …”

Eddie swallowed. “What am I doing here?”

The Captain looked at him with those glowing red eyes and Eddie resisted asking the other question he now wondered after the Blue Man: Did he kill the Captain, too?

“You know, I’ve been wondering,” the Captain said rubbing his chin. “The men from our unit—did they stay in touch? Willingham? Morton? Smitty? Did you ever see those guys?”

Eddie remembered the names. The truth was, they had not kept in touch. War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet it could repel them, too. The things they saw, the things they did. Sometimes they just wanted to forget.

“To be honest, sir, we all kind of fell out.” He shrugged, “Sorry.”

The Captain nodded as if he’d expected as much.

“And you? You went back to that fun park where we all promised to go if we got out alive? Free rides for all GIs? Two girls per guy in the Tunnel of Love? Isn’t that what you said?”

Eddie nearly smiled. That was what he’d said. What they’d all said. But when the war ended, nobody came.

“Yeah, I went back,” Eddie said.

“And?”

“And … I never left. I tried. I made plans… But this damn leg. I don’t know. Nothin’ worked out.”

Eddie shrugged. The Captain studied his face. His eyes narrowed. His voice lowered.

“You still juggle?” he asked.

Go! … You go! … You go!”

The enemy soldiers screamed and poked them with bayonets. Eddie, Smitty, Morton, Rabozzo, and the Captain were herded down a steep hill, hands on their heads. Mortar shells exploded around them. Eddie saw a figure run through the trees, then fall in a clap of bullets.

He tried to take mental snapshots as they marched in the darkness—huts, roads, whatever he could make out—knowing such information would be precious for an escape. A plane roared in the distance, filling Eddie with a sudden, sickening wave of despair. It is the inner torture of every captured soldier, the short distance between freedom and seizure. If Eddie could only jump up and grab the wing of that plane, he could fly away from this mistake.

Instead, he and the others were bound at the wrists and ankles. They were dumped inside a bamboo barracks. The barracks sat on stilts above the muddy ground, and they remained there for days, weeks, months, forced to sleep on burlap sacks stuffed with straw. A clay jug served as their toilet. At night, the enemy guards would crawl under the hut and listen to their conversations. As time passed, they said less and less.

They grew thin and weak. Their ribs grew visible—even Rabozzo, who had been a chunky kid when he enlisted. Their food consisted of rice balls filled with salt and, once a day, some brownish broth with grass floating in it. One night, Eddie plucked a dead hornet from the bowl. It was missing its wings. The others stopped eating.