Chris & Lil: The Angry Years

[will_marx 0]

Lilliana sat at her desk, ignoring the computer screen and putting all her attention into staring at the clock on the wall. It was amazing just how slowly the hands move when you spend all your time staring at them. Her assistant, Tanya, quietly stuck her head through the open door. “Mrs. Marx, you’re still here,” she asked without a hint of surprise in her voice.

 

“Still here. Still waiting,” Lil sighed, as she threw the pencil in her hand down on to the desk.

 

“Oh boy, the Major’s going to get it tonight,” Tanya said, trying to pick up on her boss’s mood.

 

The look on Lil’s face would have frozen saltwater at 20 paces. “You have no idea, Tanya,” she said, her teeth clenched in aggravation.

 

 

The person they were discussing was currently hunched over his desk, going through mountains of paperwork that were needlessly being generated by both US Space Command and the newly formed United Nations Space Command. A tickling at the back of his neck irritated him enough that, it drew his attention away from his paperwork…and to the clock. “Jesus Christ! Lil’s gonna kill me.” Moving like a whirling dervish, all the classified papers were scooped up and thrown back into the safe, the door slammed shut and the combination on the antique scrambled, grabbed his briefcase, and rushed for the door.

 

“Of all days to have problems with the test equipment,” he growled, as he jumped into his antique Volvo. The forty year old engine fired on the first go, and Chris tore out of the parking lot and headed towards the Comptroller’s building, breaking every posted speed limit on the base getting there.

 

Murphy was truly with him, because as he screeched to a halt outside the building, that was when Chris finally noticed the red and blue lights of the Security Forces Tahoe pulling up behind him. “Christ…what next?” He asked rhetorically, as a young Airman (E-2) walked up to the car.

 

 

Tanya saw the Major’s car pull up in front of the building, the red and blue strobes highlighting the office. “Uh, Mrs. Marx, I think your date is here. You want me to shut everything down, so you can go out and meet him?”

 

“No thank you, Tanya,” Lil replied. “He can come up here.”

 

 

The Airman approached the side of the car, cautiously. Most of the cops on Nellis knew of Major Marx, if only by reputation. “License, registration, proof of insurance, and ID card, sir.” Chris already had the necessary documents in hand. “Going a little fast back there weren’t you, sir?”

 

“Yes, I was, Airman. I’m late for a dinner date,” he replied. Ok, it was a lame excuse, but it was the truth.

 

“Sir, doing 60 in a twenty isn’t exactly a good idea. Especially since it was a housing area you tore through.” The Airman rendered the Major a smart salute, and handed back the documents. “Sir, we know your background, so I’m going to let you off with a warning this time. If you’re running late for a date with your wife, call her first.”

 

Chris sat there in shock for a few moments, saluted the cop back, shook his head to clear his thoughts, and then raced into the building. Tanya was just in the process of shutting down her computer, when he rushed by. “Evening Major…” Lil’s assistant suddenly wondered if being in the building’s fallout shelter might be a good idea.

 

Lil was sitting at her desk fuming. I just bet he’s got another damned good excuse for why he’s late this time, she thought to herself, when her husband walked in.

 

“Hi, Lil,” he said, with a bit of forced cheerfulness. “You ready to go?”

 

Lil stood, her chair rolling back against the wall and her face a mask of rage and anger. “Ready,” she repeated as she crossed from behind the desk. “I was ready two and a half Goddamn hours ago! What the hell was it this time? An ‘emergency’? Some sort of ‘test’? Or something else you can’t tell me about?”

 

Sure they had their moments, but Chris hadn’t experienced Hurricane Lil. But his reason was just as valid. “Did you happen to notice the fireball out at Groom Lake,” he asked, his finger pointing towards Groom Mountain, and the dry lakebed beyond it. “We had a certifiable disaster out there.”

 

“No, I didn’t,” Lil retorted. “I’ve been here, up to my nose in paperwork, making sure your Goddamned top secret project continues to get the money that’s been appropriated for it!”

 

Hurricane Lil, meet Typhoon Chris. “Goddamnit Lil! I thought you understood the necessity of security on a project like this. We’re dealing with things that aren’t even considered theoretical yet.”

 

Realization set in, as the phrase “a certifiable disaster” penetrated Lil’s haze of anger. “What did you say? A disaster?”

 

“Not here,” Chris said, looking around. “In the car.”

 

“Fine, in the car,” Lil growled, as she grabbed her purse and briefcase, then walked out of the office, not caring if Chris was behind her or not. She took off down the hall, but true to form, Chris had not only caught up with her, but managed to get in front of her, to hold the doors open. Even as pissed off as she was at him, she still had to concede that Chris was a gentleman. If bullheaded stubborn sometimes.

Lil sat down in the passenger seat and resumed her own stubborn stance: eyes front, arms crossed. As he crossed the front of the car, she noticed that the registration and insurance card are sitting on the dash, and Chris is wearing his glasses again. “Eyes bothering you,” she asked curtly as her husband climbed in.

 

Starting the car, and shift the manual transmission into first, Chris finally replied just as curtly. “Yeah. My eyes have been bothering me recently.” He had to bite back the rest of the statement: ‘not that you’d notice anyway’. “I was called out of the eye doc today for the disaster. But before I left, he gave me a shot of some new wonder drug…Ritalin, no…Redjac, no that’s not it either…what the hell did he call it? Oh yeah, Retnax.”

 

“Never heard of it.”

 

“It just came out of Ciba…but it’s not working, so I think I might be allergic to it.”

 

“Then why don’t you go back and have something else done tomorrow? Christ, Chris…” she muttered, shaking her head.

 

“It’s almost as if my eyes are reverting back to before I had the Lasik surgery. Of course, it could just be stress. From multiple sources,” he said, choosing to ignore the barb.

 

Lil barely contained the urge to say something spiteful. “Would care to elaborate?” Because that would be a first, she thought, as she stared out the window.

 

“There was an…accident at the lab. Containment was breached on one of the testbed FTL units. Three years of experimental data, destroyed in an eye blink. Throw in last months UN ‘fact finding’ tour, and you can see what kind of stress we’re under for the next three years.”

 

“What about me, Chris,” Lil asked quietly, turning to look at her husband.

 

“What about you,” he repeated, his tone going from somber to light. “You have a loving husband, a great job, free medical. Jesus, Lil, what more do you want?”

 

“Oh yeah, right,” the sarcasm was filling the interior of the P1800. “I have a husband I barely see anymore, except for the occasional fight or roll in the hay; I have a job that I spend way too many hours at; and I’d like to use my medical benefits for more than my annual OB checkup. ‘What more do you want?’ indeed.”

 

“How many times are we going to have this argument, Lil?”

 

Lil rested her head in her hands, not wanting to show her husband the tears that were coming unbidden. “Forget about dinner. Let’s just go home, okay?” Silently, Chris turned the car around, and headed back to base housing.

 

*****

 

As they drove across the base, each one was occupied with their own thoughts. Lil finally broke the oppressive quiet. “You know, Chris, it’s not like I don’t want you to be successful. I want that as much as you do.” She turned her head to face him. “But what I didn’t expect was the loneliness.”

 

“Hey,” Chris said, trying to sound soothing, “it’s not like we’re light-years away. I do try to get home at a reasonable hour, but with us working double shifts to try to stay on schedule.”

 

Lil let out an exasperated sigh. “But that’s just it, Chris. We are light-years away. I knew more about what was going on when you were on deployment. But now, it’s like I have no idea what is going on in your life anymore.”

 

“Lil, you know I’d love to tell you what’s going on, but it’s all these Goddamned rules and regulations.” The agitation could be heard in his voice, as his hands gripped the steering wheel and gear shift tighter. “I can’t talk about it know, and even if the mission is successful, I won’t be able to talk about it then. And if it fails, that’s when you’re going to hear about it. Otherwise, it’ll be just a scientific curiosity.”

 

As Chris pulled the car into the driveway, Lil began gathering her bags. “Chris, there will always be some sort of rule or regulation. Don’t you see that? There will always be some project or deployment taking you away.”

 

“Maybe I’ve been wasting my time, wearing this blue suit for far too long,” he said quietly, after shutting the engine off. “Maybe it’s time to retire, even if this project is successful.”

 

Lil let out a sharp, almost sarcastic laugh, as she climbed out of the car. “That would be something to see.”

 

“What? My retiring, or that this project succeeds?” He asked sharply.

 

Lil looked back at her husband, and stomped on the urge to say something truly spiteful. “You’re retiring, of course.”

 

“Hey, I can always teach history in some small town high school. Nice, quiet, and utterly boring. Until someone goes postal.”

 

As she walked up the sidewalk, Lil answered. “Yeah, you could, Chris. But you wouldn’t. You’d miss this,” she made a sweeping gesture towards the flightline, “far too much.”

 

Chris stopped behind her, and held the door for her. “Lil, do you honestly have any idea just how sick and tired I am of all this. The promotion rat race, the pity I get from the other officers. You don’t hear it when you’re with the spouses, but I hear it. At every commander’s briefing, on the flightline, even in the goddamned BX, I hear it.” His voice took on a condescending tone. “‘Oh look, there’s Major Marx. Didn’t you know he was at Grand Forks during the Eugenics War? He lost buddies when his base was attacked. He’s seen the face of combat, haven’t you noticed? He’s got that Thousand Yard stare. And you remember what happened to Sydney? Well, I heard it got nuked because of poor intelligence, and most of the personnel at Grand Forks got sacked during the witch-hunt. But not him, he survived because he was awarded the Silver Star for bravery.’

 

“Did you know I got passed up on my last promotion, Lil? No, you wouldn’t.” His voice was just as thick with sarcasm as his wife’s had been. “Because I never told you, because I didn’t want you to bear that shame. But, I’m sure you found out anyway from the Wives Club. I wear the shame of the ‘Grand Forks Incident’ around my neck like a noose. And it’s dragging my career down.”

 

“So? Put in your papers, resign your commission. Get the hell out. My income is more than enough for us to live on and have fun with. You could even be a stay at home dad.”

 

“I’m no good with kids, Lil. Never have been, never will.”

 

Lil watched Chris flop down on the couch, the weight of the world on his shoulders. She sat down next to him, and placed a hand on his knee. “How do you know, unless we try,” she asked softly.

 

“You’ve seen how I am with my sister’s kids. I’m just no good around kids.”

 

“Those are your sister’s kids, Chris. It would be different with your own children,” she said, as she kicked off her shoes to curl up next to him. “Just imagine, a little Chris, Jr. running around.”

 

Chris draped his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “I don’t know…but it is fun trying at least.”

 

She shook his arm off of her, the mood ruined. “You just won’t discuss this seriously, will you?”

 

“Some other time, alright?” It was evident in his voice, that the stress of the day’s events had worn him down, and now Lil was about to snap that last nerve. “I’ve got a full plate as it is now.”

 

“So why not now, then? You’ve been dodging this question for nearly five years now; ever since you got this assignment. It’s always some other time…well, you’re not getting any younger. And I sure as hell am not.” Looks like Tropical Storm Lil just moved back to hurricane strength, and is increasing in strength quickly.

 

“Look,” Chris said, trying desperately to keep his voice calm, “having a family is just not on the agenda yet.” Oh dear, looks like Hurricane Lil just jumped up to a Category Five storm.

 

Lil’s eyes went wide with shock, and anger. “The AGENDA? THE AGENDA! Just who’s agenda are we talking about? What about the agenda for Mr. and Mrs. Marx? As I seem to recall, that agenda called for children. Now, all of a sudden we’re living by Major Marx’s agenda, in which there is no time for children. Is that it?”

 

“Damn straight!” Chris matched her tone. “I have no time for kids right now. You said it best yourself, Lil. I barely have time for you.”

 

“Well, what about me, Goddamnit? You expect me to live by your rotten agenda? I happen to have plenty of time for children.”

 

Getting up, Chris began pacing the living room. “Look, all I ask for is three more years. The project will be over, and then we can start a family.”

 

“Yeah, right.” Lil spat out scornfully. “If you survive that long. I, on the other hand, want to start a family NOW!”

 

He stopped his pacing, and looked at his wife. Anger was plainly etched on Chris’s face. “How many times are we going to have this discussion, Lil? Every month? Every week? Every night?”

 

“As many nights as we have to. You told me that you wanted a family when we got engaged, and again when we got married. Now it’s later. Later; later. Well, I’m getting sick of later. What do want me to be; the first 60 year old to conceive?”

 

“How was I supposed to know that my life would be going in this direction?” Chris resumed his pacing. “Hell, for all I knew, I thought I was going to be spending the rest of my career in an intel billet or commanding an F-15 squadron. And you know how insane my life was after college. Undergraduate pilot training, intelligence school, command and staff college, Air Warfare College, overseas duty assignments, deployments; hell, I didn’t even have time to breath.”

 

Lil watched him pace for a few moments. “Chris, past or present it shouldn’t matter. Other people attached to the project have families. What difference should that make?”

 

Chris stopped his pacing, the emotions on his face clouding over. “Because I have this feeling that if I go on the mission the project is going to do, I’m not going to be around to see my family grow up. And I adamantly refuse to have my kids raised without a father.”

 

“Great,” Lil exclaimed, exasperated. “So you’re telling me you’ve got some psychic sixth sense that’s telling you you’re going to die on me, and because of that BS, you’re telling me we’ll never have a family?”

 

“If you want to simplify it like that…yes.”

 

“Get out,” her tone was venomous. “I have never been so angry at you. Get the hell out of my house, now!”

 

Chris reached for the keys on the hall table and opened the front door. “Until you calm down, I’ll be at the Q. I’ll come get my things tomorrow.”

 

“Don’t bother,” she said, refusing to look away from him. “I’ll have them sent over.”

 

Emotionally drained by the demanding schedule, as well as the fight, Chris let out an exhausted sigh as he pulled the door closed. “G’night, Lil. I’ll be seeing you around. This life or next.”

 

Lil watched him close the door, then went back into the bedroom, and threw the model of his project against the concrete block wall. As the pieces landed on the floor, Lil growled out “Bastard. You goddamned, heartless bastard.” And collapsed on the bed, as emotionally drained as her husband.