The old guy paused a beat. Lifted his broom and crabbed back out of sight. Quickly as he could. Shouting incredulously as he went.
“When did you leave the army?” he asked.
“Say hello to my sister,” he called after me.
“What can I tell you?” I said. “It was an arbitrary decision. I was restless. I have to be somewhere, right?”
I looked at him and made a face. Didn’t speak.
Then in the service itself, that brutality was refined. I was trained by experts. Guys who traced their own training back to World War Two, Korea, Vietnam. People who had survived things I had only read about in books. They taught me methods, details, skills. Most of all they taught me attitude. They taught me that inhibitions would kill me. Hit early, hit hard. Kill with the first blow. Get your retaliation in first. Cheat. The gentlemen who behaved decently weren’t there to train anybody. They were already dead.