wizard-of-the-pigeons

Someone loomed over the table. He turned to look up at her. But it was a
stranger who bent down to put her face close to his as she whispered.
“You dummy! If you had listened, you would understand. War,” she hissed,
her breath vile, “is a sin, and it has to be atoned for. Penance. That’s the only
way out of it.”
That old accusation. Someone had beaten her recently. Her features were
swollen and blue, her ragged hair caught back in a ratty old scarf. Her words
accused and snagged on old scars. “I didn’t start the war,” he tried to explain. “I
didn’t want the war.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “Listen to me. It’s not a sin you commit,
fool. It’s a sin that happens to you. Passed on, like heredity and original sin. Like
your mother’s dimples or syphilis. It might not have been yours to start with, but
once you’ve got it, it’s yours. Are you going to let it infect you and eat up your
whole life?”
“It wasn’t my war,” he insisted, begging her to say it was true. But she only
smiled evilly.
“No? Then whose was it? Are you going to tell me it wasn’t a hell of a lot of
fun, when it wasn’t just plain hell? Are you going to tell me that you’ll ever feel
that alive again? Isn’t your life all the same now, day after day, beset by
problems you’re not allowed to solve? Wasn’t it all simpler with a rifle in your
hands?”
“What do you want of me?” he groaned.
“Get up. Come on. This one is your war, and yours alone. Don’t run away
from it. You have to fight.”
He stared up at her, shaking, trickles of sweat or rain funneling down his face.
She was so ugly and so close. She kept leaning closer, leering at him with her
puffy eyes and squashed mouth. She was making him want to hit her, just so she
would go away.
“Excuse me!” Lynda’s voice was politely venomous. “We’re together.” She
shouldered past the woman with the professional grace and balance of a
waitress, to land food on the table before him. A huge sandwich like a torpedo
for Wizard, salad for herself, and two foaming mugs. “Michelob on tap!” she
said with a flourish, and slid one over to him. She plumped down on the bench
beside him, squeezing him up against the wall.
The old woman wandered off muttering. Lynda glared after her. “Jee-sus H.