“Spare change, spare change” came the litany.

Mikey walked by the chanter, thinking that his roommate, Brian Michaels, was probably cooking pasta about now. Mikey Woodrow however, always went to the food court. Weekends and a BART ride meant homemade meals, but while at school he’d go for sushi.

Mikey had tried to use the kitchen once. Spaghetti was hardly considered a difficult dish, but looking at the ramrod back of his roommate, Mikey was lost after filling a pot with water. Brian crossed his arms, biceps bulging against his shirt sleeves as though ready to pop out. “Didn’t your mom teach you?” he said. Everything, from his clipped words, the blond crew cut, to the broad shoulders, flat stomach, and always impeccable posture, screamed Brian’s Marine background.

“Do they change color or something?” Mikey asked desperately, rubbing his normal-sized arms. The noodles overcooked. Mikey played Warcraft, so it was only when steam and smoke set off the fire alarm that he remembered his meal. He went to the food court that night too.

“You give me a quarter and I’ll give you three and a half wishes.” Mikey was snapped from his thoughts. A homeless guy was following him with bulging, shiny eyes. “I’m serious, man,” the guy’s gaze narrowed, his gaunt face slick with sweat. Mikey dug in his pockets. Berkeley was crazy-people headquarters. He didn’t want this man to find out where he lived, and if that meant losing a quarter, then all right.

The guy didn’t leave. “You have to make at least one now.”

Mikey kept his eyes forward and his pace rapid. He was closer to a run than a walk, but the guy wasn’t flagging. Ducking into waves of oncoming students wasn’t working, and telepathically messaging the police was a failure too. “Oh…uhm…okay, I wish…” Mikey’s mind raced, his thoughts went to Brian, who would never have been in this situation. “I wish I could cook pasta!” he said quickly. The homeless man fell back, and Mikey sprang away.

When he came back to his room in the boarding house, Brian was lying on the top bunk with sunglasses perched on top of his head, reading a book. “You wouldn’t believe what just happened,” Mikey said, throwing down his backpack and realizing he’d forgotten his sushi.

“I have a test tomorrow.” Brian flipped a page.

“I think I almost got mugged. I forgot to buy food it was so creepy! Geez!”

“Maybe you can cook some pasta.”

“Geez. Yeah, right.”

Brian looked up from his book. “Or you can starve.”

Brian was a charming guy. When they met freshman year at the dorms, Brian was already known as a popular guy. People liked him, and Mikey was no exception. They’d joked around and their conversations were fun. How hot was Jasmine from Aladdin in Catwoman’s suit? What had their floor mate with the beer in one hand, hookah in the other done now? The seventh paper extension Mikey got from the same grandpa dying seven times. Brian even coached Mikey through those panic moments with papers, letting him borrow his printer each time. When Brian eventually mentioned that he was in the Marines, no one in the dorm was too surprised but everyone was curious, pressing to know what it was like.

Mikey led the charge. Tales about boot camp and some funny incidents added to their talks, but Brian never liked to stay too long on it. There was something about the way Brian’s eyes fixed and his smile stretched that seemed forced, too friendly, but Mikey ignored it.

“What about you?” Brian would ask, trying to change the subject. “Stuff’s happened to you too, right, Mikey?” But there was no comparison to Brian. Mikey’s life was good, boring. Summers lounging on Half-Moon Bay, video games at home while his mom cooked. She wouldn’t let him go anywhere without a reflector vest, and his dad would fly in now and again between business trips to read the newspaper.

“Not really,” Mikey had said.

At the end of the semester, it was natural for them to find housing together. Mikey had gone home, and Brian hoofed up and down the block till he found a place. Now Brian was a good roommate; he kept things clean, was on top of bills, reminded Mikey to eat, and studied quietly. These were helpful traits especially since Mikey possessed none of them. Instead, he spent most of his life on MySpace, Facebook, or Warcraft, missing class and the last few days’ worth of garbage.

Brian was intense though. He could talk loud and laugh so hard, but there were moments where his face closed up, he put on his wraparound shades, and he worked: papers and reading, cleaning or rearranging, weight-lifting or running. Brian tried hard. When he cleaned, he really cleaned: disinfectant, bleach, face masks. He sprinted six or seven miles, bench-pressed a small whale, squatted till everyone’s butt hurt, and all Mikey could do was watch, horrified. Even the way he did homework terrified. Five-page assignments became fifteen in a heaping of extra effort. From there he would whittle the paper down, contain it, bring it back to its original parameters. Mikey couldn’t focus without a deadline looming past him.

Brian was decidedly helpful, especially on the point to “Start earlier,” but despite the pressing recommendation, Mikey’s mind remained stubbornly blank. He couldn’t keep up with Brian’s exhausting exertions. It was worse when they were directed at him, the onslaught of tips, the soundness of advice, the rightness pounded at him. Mikey honestly wished Brian had no such good intentions.  Everything Brian did was overwhelming.  Roommate or not, Mikey got the sense he’d be run over.

There was a depth in Brian that Mikey couldn’t fathom, the shape of something between them. People said that Brian was clearly more capable, more mature, and Mikey knew it, but that wasn’t the key difference. Maybe it was that at nineteen, Mikey played beer pong while Brian leaned against his humvee, waiting for another night on the road. Mikey got his mom’s pasta while Brian bore eighty pounds worth of ammo and body armor, rifle in hand. There was the heat of sand under a bloody-eyed sun and bullet-ridden sky. The shape of something between them.

It wasn’t noticeable except in the pause between certain sentences, or the matter-of-fact way Brian picked up beer bottles to recycle, the wary smirk on his face when Mikey got a little too drunk. Then, there were those late nights, both of them lying respectively in their own bunks, aware of the thick quiet.

“You ever been to Iraq?”

When Mikey got home after pacifying the homeless genie, Brian was lying on the top bunk, his sunglasses on, and his hands under his head. “It’s dark out,” Mikey told him, but Brian shrugged.

“One of your drinking buddies invited you somewhere. A sorority of some sort. Said you could hook up with someone.” His voice was hoarse.

“Like that’s ever happened.”

“You plan on going?”

“Yeah, you?”

“No.” There was a long pause. “Shannon’s coming over.” The girlfriend, a good excuse. Brian climbed off the bunk and went to his desk. “Aren’t you going?”

“I’ll check out in a sec. I don’t think the party starts now anyway. Can you even see? I mean seriously, the light’s not great in here.”

“It’s fine.”

Mikey hesitated. Brian’s weight was tilted off-center and his back was in a rare hunch. “Have you been drinking or something?”

“No, why?”

“Your nose is super red. And you look kind of off-balance.”

“Allergies. Nothing.”

Mikey took every chance to bring Ronnie to the house. His housemates gawked.  All of them had told Mikey he was too awkward, shy, and nice to ever get a real girlfriend. Even Brian had advised Mikey to give it up. “Why do you go for lookers anyway? They’re the hard to get ones. They’ll bite you in the balls.”

Mikey had loved how Brian’s eyes widened when Ronnie was introduced. Ronnie’s eyes had widened too. “Cute roomie,” she’d said. About Shannon she sneered and giggled. “That fat girl is his girlfriend? Should have found another lard ball.”

“Shannon’s not so bad.” Mikey said, rubbing his arms. He thought of how she leaned into Brian, his hand cradling hers. “Brian likes her.”

“How does he stay so fit?”

Mikey explained that Brian was a Marine. She didn’t think he was cute anymore.

The next time Ronnie visited, Brian was typing an essay. “Hey, Mikey, Ronnie, how are you all doing?”

Mikey sputtered, “We’re just going to grab some change and go.” Ronnie eyed Brian, surveying the close-shaven cut of his hair, his spotless shirt, and creased blue jeans.

“Hi,” she said coldly. “Mikey tells me you’re in the Marines.”

“Yeah,” Brian said.

“So they taught you how to shoot a gun?”

“Everybody who joins has to learn. It’s not too hard.”

“Did you ever shoot anybody?”

Brian’s smile wavered. “Well, we have to be prepared for that.”

“Would you ever shoot somebody?” Ronnie’s eyes narrowed. Mikey’s stomach plummeted. He took her arm, trying to lead her to the door, but she stayed still, her gaze fixed on his roommate.

“To protect the guys in my unit, yes, I would. To defend myself, yes, I would. It’s like what anybody under threat would do.”

Her eyelashes swatted at the air. “I wouldn’t shoot anyone.”

Brian’s smile was gone. “I do what I have to.”

“Do you think killing innocent people is a must-do?”

“We don’t go after innocent people.”

“Then why are so many kids dying?”

“Hey, uh…Ronnie, we should go,” Mikey pleaded.

“You both should,” Brian said.

“Don’t talk to me like that. I watch the news. I know what you people do! You’re baby-killers. Hundreds, thousands of innocent Iraqis! And you shoot them?”

Something in Brian’s eyes exploded, hot and blue, furious. His hand reached out, spasmed, closed over his sunglasses. “All right, I’ll go.” He stood up, his body lengthening and stretching, his shoulders spread outward, his chest high. His back was a knife’s edge. He let out a long breath and the air chilled, boiled. “Every one of those bastards deserved it.”

Before the encounter with Ronnie, Brian had only spoken about Iraq twice.

The first was when Mikey had seen a picture fall out of a binder. Brian was in the photo with his shades, a helmet tight against his head. He had a rifle in one hand while his other made the peace sign. He was grinning with a landscape of sand behind him. In front of him were three other Marines, all crouched, frowning.

“They called me Smiley,” he explained, snatching the picture up.

“You do look pretty happy. This Iraq? You slept out in the sand?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t your Santa Cruz mansion, that’s for sure.”

Mikey had tried to coax Brian into talking more about his overseas exploits, but Brian didn’t quite crack. At one point, his eyes locked on Mikey. “What do you think I did?”
Mikey thought for a moment. He saw war in news clips, sound bites, still pictures. People died, people killed in some far away place. “You’re some kind of star, right?” Brian looked like one. “Probably saved everyone in a firefight.” Mikey played sniper games sometimes. His mom used to buy tons of them. It kept him from getting too rowdy or bored. Bam, bam, pow. Duck, cover, shoot, occasional grenade. “Something like that?”

Brian flipped on his shades. “I can’t tell you.”

The second time was when Mikey decided to come home early during the weekend. He returned to pounding on the kitchen wall. “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn,” he heard, and as he snuck inside he saw Brian slumped by the mini-fridge.

“Oh. Uhm. Are you okay?”

Brian’s mouth twisted. “Just thinking.”

“That’s cool.” Mikey shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You need any help? I’m back early. I guess an awesome soldier like you doesn’t need it though.”

Mikey took Ronnie back to her place, but when he returned, Brian was sitting on the sofa. His eyes were ice-chips. “She’s got me figured out. Marine, Iraq, murder. Must be nice.” He got up, paced. “UC Berkeley, top university or something, and that’s what all your ideas come down to. Simple.”

“Man, calm down. She just got excited.”

“You think I’m a murderer?”

“Me? Uh, I don’t know.” Something told Mikey that was the wrong answer.

Brian’s pacing stopped. “You think they just want to talk, that they’ll just go away after a little while? Do you know anything about them?”

“Not really… they’re not nice?”

Brian’s voice was rising. “They hide behind power lines so we can’t return fire. They sneak back into the crowds they attacked us from. They send kids at us. Kids. Five-year old suicide bombers. Does your girlfriend know that?” His eyes were burning clear out of their sockets, blue fire, bright.

“Geez!” Mikey stepped back. “Okay, okay, so it was pretty stressful!”

“Stressful! Some guy on the side of the road waved at us when we rode by, and then he blew his truck up. I couldn’t sleep after that. None of us could.”

“All right, but you didn’t really hurt anybody, did you?”

Brian turned away, his hands trembling. “Had to. I had to.”

That night Mikey lay awake in his bed. Above him he heard muffled sobbing, hushed and ragged. “Uh, Brian? Are you…”

Brian’s day started at five in the morning. He would go to the gym, and then knock out some excess reading or assignments, but he generally was around when Mikey woke up near noon. He wasn’t this time.

“Ronnie, hey, uhm…I think you really should apologize,” Mikey said on the phone. “Why? I mean geez. Don’t tell him, but I think he was crying.”

Ronnie was unrepentant. Instead, she assured Mikey that he should have taken her side instead of his Nazi roommate’s. All Mikey could think of was how bright Brian’s eyes were. It was enough to get him talking to the genie.

“The other night was kind of heavy. I know that, I always knew Brian was edgy about something, and it came out. But now…” Mikey shrugged, the homeless guy hobbling after him. “He’s crazy.” Mikey scanned the street. “And Ronnie! She got mad at me for letting him ‘talk back’ to her. She’s the one who started this, and I’m supposed to take a beating for it? Geez!”

“I guess you could have wished for a nice girl.”

“Maybe a sane one. All she wants to do is party and go out. I don’t think she likes my pasta either. And I know it’s good.”

“Thanks to me.”

“Yeah…right.” His head turned left, then right. “She’s supposed to meet me here for lunch, where is she?”

A homeless guy was not the best lunch date. He sat kicking his feet on a bench in loose orange pajamas. “Busy?”

“I don’t know. I kind of wish I hadn’t met her. I can’t ever relax around her.” He paused, feeling how much thinner his wallet was. “I’m thinking hot girls are overrated.”

“Sounds like a half-wish to me.”

“We’ve broken up,” he told Shannon. She was waiting outside his room.

“We have?” she asked slowly.

“Me and Ronnie.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Mikey unlocked the door and showed her in. “We didn’t exactly click.”

Shannon’s brow furrowed, her neck tilting to the left. “Are you okay though?” Mikey looked away from her. The light.

“Yeah. Waiting for Brian?”

“I am.” There was a pause as she moved to the sofa. “How long do you think he’ll be there?”

“Where?”

“The psychologist’s.”

“What?”

“The—oh!” Her hand fluttered to her mouth. “You didn’t know…” She perched at the edge of the sofa. The sunlight haloed around her head in red-gold, her eyes molten in it.

“Oh. Well, why would I?” Mikey shrugged his shoulders, they knotted, loosened. “He doesn’t tell me anything.”

Shannon glanced sidelong at him. “He tells me you ask a lot of funny questions.”

“He went to Iraq, that’s kind of cool, you know? I never did anything like that.”

A slow smile appeared on her face, a mere upturn at the corners. “What’s wrong with your life?”

Mikey found his foot tapping and his fingers fidgeting. “There’s nothing that great about it.”

“There doesn’t have to be.” Shannon leaned forward. “Brian would’ve liked one more like yours.”

“But I never did anything that interesting.”

She quieted, waiting, thinking. “You still can. At least there’s nothing you’d take back, right? Brian, he…maybe he’ll tell you. He’s wanted to. Some things you have to tell again and again because it won’t stay quiet inside you.”

“Why doesn’t he already? I bet that homeless guy at the food court knows more than me.”

“Which guy?”

“The one with the ‘Arabian Nights’ thing going on with him, he offers wishes or something for spare change.”

Shannon pursed her lips. “I haven’t seen that guy. He’d be hard to miss.”

“No way, he’s always there!”

Shannon shrugged. “Maybe I pass by at the wrong times.”

Mikey made pasta after the wait had lengthened intolerably. The work was distracting; he couldn’t sit still with Shannon. It seemed inappropriate to cruise the net, as did continuing to chat with her. So he made spaghetti for three people. When Brian came back though, he ignored the steaming plates of noodles. “Hey sweetie,” he said to Shannon, walking past Mikey. “Were you waiting long for me?”

“Mikey made dinner.”

“I’ll whip something up for us.”

Mikey cleared his throat. “There’s enough for, you know, all of us.”

“A psychologist. He really is crazy.”

The genie slurped at his spaghetti. “You’d know; you live with him.”

“And my pasta’s better than his.” Mikey avoided the genie’s look. “It’s the one thing I’m better at than him. Even if it is because of you.”

“It is.” The genie sighed, patting his belly. “But if it makes you feel better, I’m really happy you wished for that.”

Mikey laughed, the throbbing, pulsing laughter rippling through his body, choking at his lungs. “I’m down to one last wish, right? I guess this is serious. Or do I get more with every quarter?”

“I’m not a vending machine here.”

When Mikey returned, the place was different. The floor glinted in the fading light, freshly waxed, the furniture had been moved and realigned, shelves tidied, kitchenware arranged. The stovetop was spick and span, the dining table was missing its mug stains, there were no sticky vestiges of beer in the air or on the floor, and the sofa had been fluffed and vacuumed. The sterile neatness of it all depressed Mikey. Brian had gone on cleaning sprees before, but this was his most extensive yet.

Mikey stepped inside, resisting the urge to remove his shoes. The floor squeaked as he moved across it. It didn’t look like he lived here. His desk was cleared, empty, just his laptop with no accompanying flurry of papers. Even his laundry, which he’d been meaning to wash all month, had been taken in for him. The bag lay folded at the foot of his mattress, a flat, geometrically precise square. All signs of sloth and carelessness had been eliminated. None of his mess.

“Brian?” He went to the closet, saw the coats expertly draped over the hangers, and threw his jacket on the ground. “You cleaned again? You didn’t have to.”

“Couldn’t help it. You’re a slob, Mikey.” Brian slammed the door and came inside. He’d just gone to take out the garbage, but he now stood in the living room, his arms crossed, shades down.

Mikey surveyed their room again, letting his eyes graze anywhere except on Brian, but the heat still rose to his cheeks. The more he looked around, the hotter it grew. There were no signs of him at all, a cleansing of Mikey. “You could’ve asked me to clean up.”

“When have you ever? Someone’s always cleaned up after you. Your mom, the maids at the dorm, now me.”

“You always do it before I can.”

“You’ve got some nerve.”

“I never asked you.”

“And I didn’t ask you to make pasta.” Brian smirked. “Shannon got on my case because of you. Said I couldn’t treat you like that.”

“She did?”

“Why didn’t you take your food and shove it?”

“Shannon got mad at you?”

Brian was quiet. “You always get in my business, don’t you?” His head slanted. Sanitizing the entire room should have taken hours, but there was no sign of tiredness on him. He was spotless. “Always this question, that question.”

“Just because you’re a Marine,” Mikey managed to say, “geez, you can’t act like you own the place. So you’re some golden boy, so you killed people. That doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. This isn’t Iraq, man!” Mikey watched Brian closely, edging toward the front door. He didn’t want his roommate killing him next.

Brian chuckled once, short. “That’s what you think?” The sunglasses prevented any semblance of expression. There was just his voice. “You don’t know how hot it was that day. The sun did things to you; it was so white it burned your eyes out. You think it was easy out there? Cake walk? It was—” His throat caught. “Forget it,” he said, quieter. “Just forget it.”

His head lowered, but Mikey saw the faint tremor in Brian’s lower lip. It reminded him of the homeless guy. He was trying to tell Mikey about empty spaces, about Brian, and Mikey hadn’t wanted to listen. That Brian the other Marines called Smiley, out in empty spaces. He didn’t seem to smile that much at all.

“You couldn’t have shot people for no reason. That’s crazy.”

“What’s it matter?”

“You never told me. What happened to you?”
Brian sighed. “You want to hear funny stories, Mikey. You don’t really want to know. Like your girlfriend.”

“She’s not anymore.” Mikey rubbed at his arms. “You said a truck blew up. Were you okay?”

“Was I okay? Sure I was, I wasn’t dead, right?”

“That’s not the same.”

“What do you want to me to tell you?”

“What happened?”

Brian shook his head.

“You can tell me.”

The air was thick for a moment, the quiet spreading out, thinning. Brian glanced off to the side. “It took out four of us,” he said slowly. “Four of us in one day. Their coffins got loaded on a C17 for the states and we got their boots and dog tags.  Then we’re at a checkpoint. We were holding our rifles to keep people away. Even if somebody got too close, they left if you yelled. We had to know some Arabic, we could tell them to leave. Efficient, right? Just live long enough to complete the mission. That’s all we had to do.”

“What happened?” Mikey asked again. Brian had mentioned terrorists, but not just any. “Were there kids?” he blurted.

“What do you know, Mikey? Nobody wanted to do it, it wasn’t that simple!”

“Brian,” Mikey said, “I don’t mean—”

“At that checkpoint—I don’t know when he started coming.” His motions were emphatic, large, frantic. “He can’t be older than seven, he’s small, this skinny little boy with something in his hand. We told him to get back, but he kept coming, this huge smile on his face. They told him we had candy. Don’t worry about the guns; give them this and the Americans will give you candy.” He wasn’t looking at Mikey. Even with sunglasses it was clear he wasn’t looking at Mikey.

When Mikey next saw the homeless guy, he gave him a lamp. It was dimly gold, like the one in Aladdin. “Where’d you find this?” the genie asked him.

“At some garage sale.”

“Ah.” He grinned. “Good.”

“I know now,” Mikey said, “about Brian. I guess it helps to know, but…” he looked at the genie, “…it sucks too.”

“So tell me I’m a monster,” Brian had said. “Like I don’t know it.”

Mikey couldn’t.

Brian’s breath heaved, his shoulders bowed in, but he didn’t cry, not then. His sunglasses stayed on. It was only when Shannon came by the next day that he took them off. His eyes were red.

“I made pasta again.” Mikey stared at his shoes. “They ate it this time. Shannon said it was great.” He smiled to himself. “She also said ‘thank you.’ I didn’t do anything though.”

She’d hugged him too. “Ask him about the sky,” she whispered.

Mikey’s own clutter had already started to soil the room. Brian told him next time he’d have to clean it up. “I can’t do it like you,” Mikey said, “Just so you know.”

“You’re not getting out of it.” Brian had something of a smile on his lips. He answered Mikey’s final question. “It’s a beautiful country,” he said, “beautiful. That’s what hurts about it.” The sunrises were petal pink, delicate and soft until the sun burned the colors away. Sunsets were dusty orange, a hue brightened by the scarlets that spread outwards.

Nights were filled with so many stars he felt he was falling upward. The heavens were heavy with them; they bulged out, impossibly infinite, pinprick eternities of light. He waited under there, itching for rain. When it stormed, thunder and lightening streaked white, etching the heavens, shocking the darkness. The downpour fell in hot heavy drops, staining the dusty sand that spread out to catch it, thirsting for it. Rain wet his upturned face, warm even on flushed skin, making it impossible to tell whether it was him or the sky that was crying. Nights ached with the hope of it, the promise of rain. He’d stood on top of his HMMWV, just waiting, the day he left.

“That place,” Mikey said. “It takes a piece of you, doesn’t it?”

“Desert places,” the genie said, “I’ve been there. Not going back.”