Spare

Sadly, however, I could only see Cress at weekends. I was busier than ever, doing my final preps for deployment. And then I got my official orders, my actual deployment date, and the clock was now loudly ticking. For the second time in my life I needed to tell a young woman I’d just met that I’d soon be going off to war.

I’ll wait, she said. But not forever, she added quickly. Who knows what’s going to happen, Haz?

Right. Who knows?

Easier to just tell myself, and others, that we’re not together.

Yes. That is easier, I suppose.

But when you’re back…

When. She’d said when. Not if.

I was grateful.

Some people said if.

49.

My mates came to me and reminded me of the Plan.

The Plan?

You know, Spike. The Plan?

Oh, right? The Plan.

We’d talked about this before, months earlier. But now I wasn’t sure.

They gave me the hard sell. You’re going to war. Staring death in the face.

Right, thanks.

You have a duty to live. Now. Seize the day.

Seize the—?

Carpe diem.

OK…what?

Carpe diem. Seize the day.

Ah, so it’s two ways of saying the same thing then—

Vegas, Spike! Remember? The Plan.

Yes, yes, The Plan, but…seems risky.

Seize the—!

Day. Got it.

I’d had an experience, recently, that made me think they weren’t altogether wrong, that carpe diem was more than empty words. Playing polo that spring in Brazil, to raise money for Sentebale, I’d seen a player take a hard fall from his horse. As a boy, I’d seen Pa take that same fall, the horse giving way, the ground simultaneously smacking and swallowing him. I remembered thinking: Why’s Pa snoring? And then someone yelling: He’s swallowed his tongue! A quick-thinking player jumped from his horse and saved Pa’s life. Recalling that moment, subconsciously, I’d done likewise: jumped off my horse, run to the man, pulled out his tongue.

The man coughed, began to breathe again.

I’m fairly sure he wrote a sizable check later that afternoon to Sentebale.

But equally valuable was the lesson. Carpe your diems while ye may.

So I told my mates: OK. Vegas. Let’s go.

A year before, after exercises in Gila Bend, my mates and I had rented Harleys, ridden from Phoenix to Vegas. Most of the trip went unnoticed. So now, after a farewell weekend with Cressida, I flew to Nevada to do it again.

We even went to the same hotel, and all chipped in on the same suite.

It had two levels, connected by a grand staircase of white marble, which looked as if Elvis and Wayne Newton were about to descend arm in arm. You didn’t need to take the stairs, however, since the suite also had a lift. And a billiard table.

The best part was the living room: six massive windows looking onto the Strip, and arranged before the windows was a low L-shaped sofa where you could gaze at the Strip, or the distant mountains, or the massive wall-mounted plasma TV. Such opulence. I’d been inside a few palaces in my time, and this was palatial.

That first night, or the next—it’s a bit of a neon blur—someone ordered food, someone else ordered cocktails, and we all sat around and had a loud chat, catching up. What happened to everyone since we’d last been in Vegas?

So, Lieutenant Wales, raring to go back to war?

I am, I really am.

Everyone looked taken aback.

For dinner we hit a steakhouse, and ate like kings. New York strips, three kinds of pasta, really nice red wine. Afterwards, we went to a casino, played blackjack and roulette, lost. Tired, I excused myself, went back to the suite.

Yes, I thought with a sigh, sliding under the covers, I’m that guy, turning in early, telling everyone to please keep it down.

The next morning we ordered breakfast, Bloody Marys. We all headed off to the pool. It was pool-party season in Vegas, so a big blowout was raging. We bought fifty beach balls and handed them out, as a way of breaking the ice.

We really were that nerdy. And needy.

That is, my mates were. I wasn’t looking to make new friends. I had a girlfriend, and I aimed to keep it that way. I texted her several times from the pool, to reassure her.

But people kept handing me drinks. And by the time the sun was dipping over the mountains I was in rough shape, and filling up with…ideas.

I need something to commemorate this trip, I decided. Something to symbolize my sense of freedom, my sense of carpe diem.

For instance…a tattoo?

Yes! Just the thing!

Maybe on my shoulder?

No, too visible.

Lower back?

No, too…racy.

Maybe my foot?