I think the sheriff caught me smiling at the memory.

He took down some information on his notepad with a pen he held with four fingers: name, insurance company, number, address. There wasn’t much more to tell him. He tried to be my buddy then, like we’d go out for beers after. Asked me where I was from. That question. I never know how to answer. I’d been telling people I was from Boston. I said Texas because guys like Sheriff Horton aren’t too fond of Yankees.

I asked Sheriff Horton if I could get my things out of the trunk, see if anything survived—the chem-warfare suit I’d been issued for Egypt that I still hadn’t returned; souvenirs I’d bought in Giza: a chess set for my dad, a painting on papyrus for my mom, a hookah for Mikey, little trinkets for my sister’s kids. He said I’d have to wait until they were done processing the car. Everything was evidence now.

He asked how I liked South Carolina, the Air Force. I said it was all right. But I was going to Greece in a month.

He said, “We’ll see about that.” And he snapped his notebook shut.

* * *

—

   It’s hard to think of even now. I was so close to leaving that damn base. I never could figure out why I’d been sent to Shaw in the first place. I was the only one in my graduating class to volunteer for an overseas assignment and the only one assigned stateside. I’d hoped for Germany, would’ve settled for England. I got fucking South Carolina.

Shaw was a fighter base, but I worked at CENTAF, the Air Force part of CENTCOM. It doesn’t matter. What matters is I worked in a tiny office in one of those tiny units with a separate mission from the main base, a unit where everyone knew everyone else. The officers worked on their promotions. The NCOs worked on networking with contractors. The airmen drank and counted days to their next assignment.

I’d hated Shaw upon my arrival two years before. I’d only been there a few weeks when I heard this guy who worked in my building complaining at the smoke pit that he’d been handed orders for a three-month stint in Saudi Arabia. His wife was pregnant. They didn’t have a car. I told him I’d go for him if he could get permission to switch.

He tried to convince me otherwise. I didn’t blame him. I can relate to a suspicion of altruism. But I wasn’t motivated by altruism. No one joins the Air Force because they’re dying to see more of South Carolina. I wanted to travel, even if that meant Saudi. But more than that, I needed somewhere to keep me out of trouble.

I was gay and didn’t know what to do about it. I needed time. It’s not that I’d put much thought into going to Saudi. But, determined to avoid the problem I couldn’t solve, I saw three months in Saudi as the perfect way to buy that time.

   We shook on it. And I went to Saudi. I left him my car keys while I was gone. I preferred Saudi Arabia to Shaw. I preferred being locked on a base that we only got to leave twice, and only in full-body abayas with the hijab. And because we were all locked on base, I’d had something of a social life. I’d go to the base bar where they served near beer and play cards with all the others who had nothing better to do.

When I returned to Shaw, nothing had changed. But slowly, I did. I turned twenty-one and could escape to gay bars in Columbia and Florence, larger cities where, for a few hours, I didn’t have to hide who I was. I bought a Gateway computer and spent hours each night in my room, chatting on AIM and Gay.com, where a world outside South Carolina seemed to be racing forward, quickly becoming less dangerous for someone like me. People in New York, D.C., and Boston told me they could walk down the street holding hands without catching a beating.

The Air Force was a job, not an adventure, not my life. Just a job. And when I took off my uniform, I was almost myself. I occasionally tried to make friends, and when I did, I occasionally told them I was gay. It seemed like an interesting thing about me. No one cared, or it didn’t feel like they did. Sure, I’d have to answer the standard 101 questions you’ve always wanted to ask a lesbian—is scissoring real? But this was the late ’90s—Friends aired a lesbian wedding, Ellen came out on national television, and sure, they canceled her, but then Will & Grace aired and Will was okay because he was handsome and celibate, Tammy Baldwin was elected to Congress, and okay, Clinton signed DOMA, but he didn’t mean it. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still the law, but my early paranoia seemed unfounded. I thought, As long as I’m careful, don’t date other military, don’t give anyone details, don’t trust the wrong person, as long as I’m careful, it’ll be okay.

   The part of my life spent in uniform, in an office playing solitaire, seemed less important, almost temporary, like the world outside the gates was changing so fast, it was only a matter of time before the Air Force changed too, and either way, I wouldn’t be at Shaw forever.

A couple years passed without major incident. Then the threats started on that trip to Egypt. But like I said, I had orders to Greece. I couldn’t even tell you which came first. But I returned to Shaw and tried to keep my head down. Some asshole sending me threats wouldn’t matter once I left.

* * *

—

A few days after the fire, my new buddy Sheriff Horton called my office. He said someone had seen a white car speeding away from the house. Asked if I knew who drove a white car. I couldn’t think of anyone. Then he asked me take a polygraph.