Beth
He leaves me at the same address as before. I’m not ready to show him the full reality of my life. Maybe that makes me a coward, but I’m enjoying the fantasy I’m building around Noah. That maybe he wouldn’t let me down. That maybe he could be someone I could trust.
He said he admired me.
I walk quickly to the house I share with my dad.
It’s not admirable to take care of someone you love. It’s just what family does. My dad went to war to take care of me. He sacrificed his health so that I could go to college. Taking care of him when he’s hurting is a small thing, considering the gifts he’s given me.
The TV is off when I enter the house, but I hear the music from his bedroom.
It’s never good when the music is playing. It means he’s remembering. Maybe good times, maybe bad, but I never know what to do when he’s facing the memories.
He’s sitting in the old leather chair in the corner of his bedroom. He’s showered and sober.
He smiles sadly when he sees me. His face is worn and lined, but he’s still the most handsome man I know. His dark hair is greying at the temples, and he’s not as big as I remember him from when I was little. But right now, when he smiles and he’s all there, I smile back because, in that moment, I’ve got my dad back.
I know it won’t last. The pain meds will take him away again soon enough, and I know that as soon as he tries to stand, the pain will tear at him all over again.
But I’ll still have that moment when he’s relatively sober and he hasn ‘t moved yet so the pain isn ‘t overwhelming him.
“You’re up.”
“Mostly,” he says. “How’s school?”
“Really good.” Because it is. I enjoy school so much more than I did in high school. I truly love my classes. “You doing okay?”
He shrugs. “Well, I got my pants on by myself so that’s always a plus.” He looks a little sheepish like he always does. I’ve had to put his pants on him before. “I could use some help with my shoes though.”
“Sure thing.”
I find his boots near the edge of the bed where I’d put them the last time I took them off. Kneeling down in front of him, I pull his socks on first, then slip his feet, one after the other, into his boots. I double knot them because I know if they come untied, he gets annoyed. Plus, any sudden movements caused by stepping on an untied lace could cause him to black out from the pain.
We’re going to take the car. I don’t drive it often because well, gas costs money we don’t have. And, well, there’s parking at the hospital. Add in that the idea of putting him on public transport to the ER involves too much pain and uncertainty and it’s just easier to drive him. When it’s just me, I tend to take the bus.
His mouth is pressed into a tight, flat line. I know he’s hurting and I hate it. I hate the VA for being incompetent in treating him. I hate whoever said his injuries weren ‘t service related. Just a few more percentage points on his disability and things might have been dramatically different.
I stand and offer him my hands. “Ready?”
He takes a deep breath. “Not really.”
“Can I get you anything first?”
“This is one of those times where I wish I could find something funny to say. The reality is that I just don’t want to move.” There’s resignation in his voice. We’ve done this drill one too many times.
He’s got to psych himself up to face the pain. Anyone who ever says back pain is just people making shit up has never seen what it does to someone. And the people who do fake it deserve a special place in hell because they take appointments from people like my dad, who need them.
He’s not faking. God but I wish he was. There have been too many times, though, when he’s tried to pretend he’s not hurting.
It’s not a good thing to see your father on his hands and knees in the kitchen because he can’t get to his feet. It’s terrifying when you’re sixteen years old and you don’t know what to do.
I learned, though. Just like I learned that right now, I need to let him find the courage to stand up. I can ‘t rush this.
All I can do is stand there and wait for my dad to take my hands.
Then I’ll lean back and help pull him to his feet. I’ll slide beneath his arm and help hold him upright while the pain passes.
Then we’ll shuffle out to the car. He’ll slowly lower himself into the passenger seat, and I’ll help him swing his legs inside. I’ll drive carefully to the ER where they’ll check us in.
And then the real anger management will start. Because they’ll pull up the bills we haven’t paid. And ask about insurance that he doesn’t have. And I’ll be frustrated and angry because all they’ll do is get him stabilized. They won’t treat him because they’re not required to.
But all of that comes after.
First, my dad has to take my hands.
Noah
Part of me wants to go with her to the hospital.
But I hate hospitals more than I hate snakes and spiders and being caught in small dark places.
Even if I went with her, I’d be next to useless. I’d have to double up on the anxiety meds just to walk through the door and that’s not counting what I’d have to do to stay there for longer than a few minutes. Yeah, me and hospitals have some issues.
It’s not like hospitals don’t send me Christmas cards or anything like that. It’s just that I really hate hospitals.
I need to get my homework done and prepare for our tutoring session tomorrow. I know Beth’s not going to look at me like I’m some kind of Neanderthal mouth breather, but I still don’t want to be a complete imbecile in front of her.
I’ve got some pride, after all. Just a little bit. You tend to lose a lot when you spend any quality time in a hospital. Tubes and nurses and needles do a number on any dignity you’ve got left. Who needs self-respect, anyway?
I love the silence of my place. I take my medication, the one that will wind me down but not too much. It’s not time for sleep yet. Then I settle into my homework.
Except that my phone vibrates on the table next to me.
Hey we’re meeting up at The Pint.
I frown. We?
Me, Caleb and Nathan. Nathan is celebrating or some shit.
What’s he celebrating?
No clue. Quit bitching and just meet us there.
I have homework. I need to get it done, but I figure I can meet the guys for burgers and beer. Well, maybe not beer. Not really willing to go down the fun little wormhole of beer and anti-anxiety medication. I did that a couple of times. And the few memories I have involve police.
Too many people have pulled too many strings for me to be here for me to screw it up. I text Josh that I’ll be there in a bit and get one of my assignments done. I crack open the stats homework, but my eyes cross at confidence intervals.
Beth will help make that clear tomorrow. I finish my reflection essay for ethics. I’ll reread it later to make sure it’s at least marginally coherent. Then I grab my keys and head into the downtown area where the old tobacco mills have been repurposed into luxury apartments and a foodie paradise. Gentrification at its finest.
I’m not so unaware of the history of the area not to notice the clear lines of demarcation between the problem areas of town and the newly upscale areas. You don ‘t have to be a local to see it. It’s stark and there are few areas that serve as bridging areas. Streets are either well off or poor.
The Pint is a microbrewery and there is so much hipster essence vibrating off the walls, I’m sure the guys have picked the wrong place. It’s a far cry from Scruffy Murphy’s on Broadway where I used to mix it up with guys in the Ranger Training Brigade. The Pint stays open all night, transitioning from a bar to a diner in the early morning. It’s a strange mixture of businesses, but it works.
“Slim pickings on bars?” I ask, slapping Josh on the shoulder.
“Wait ’91til you have the summer ale before you complain,” he says.
I get a beer and pull up a chair to the table. Nachos and potato skins appear magically from the kitchen. Josh is right. The summer ale is awesome.
“What’s the occasion?”
Nathan raises a beer. “To lost friends.”
Ah, shit. This isn ‘t a celebration. I feel like stabbing Josh for not warning me about this. I don ‘t want to commiserate over people I don ‘t know. I’ve got enough of my own bad memories.
Caleb raises his glass and I do the same. Solidarity and all that. You never leave a buddy alone when nights like this happen. I wish I didn ‘t understand that. Caleb and Nathan had been deployed together, apparently. “Big firefight outside of Ramadi when we were not fighting in Anbar.” Caleb makes air quotes around “not fighting.” “Nathan always takes the anniversary hard. Figured I’d get you two sticks in the mud out to help me run herd on him tonight.”
Nathan is already well in the bag. The fact that Caleb is looking out for him tonight makes me respect Caleb, at least a little bit.
Nathan leans in a little closer. “You know what pisses me off?” He’s slurring. “The fact that all these fucking pussies in this goddamned place have no idea what we’ve sacrificed for them.”
A big guy sporting a thick black beard and trademark hipster glasses looks over at the pussies comment. Both arms are covered in full-sleeve tattoos. And they’re big arms. A hipster who likes the gym, apparently. Ah hell. Scruffy Murph’s it isn’t, but clearly, Nathan running his mouth isn’t going to go unobserved. I hold up a hand to Glasses. “He’s having a bad night.”
“Clearly.” And Glasses is German. Excellent. Never met a German who didn’t appreciate a good bar fight, but I’m hoping that maybe hipster Germans are different from the guys who hang out in the fest tents at Oktoberfest.
Hopefully, it won’t come to that.
But Nathan is not going to simply drown the memories. And as he gets down and dirty with his, some of my own decide to come out and play.
Jack Johnson’s Flake comes on. My throat closes off, and I take a sip of the beer. It’s impossible to swallow. I can smell the fucking sand again. It got into all the nooks and crannies but right now, I can feel it burning into my cheek again as I lay face down on the ground. The rocket fire keeps coming and through it all, Flake keeps playing on my iPod as I pray that I won ‘t die beneath a pile of concrete and debris in this shithole country.
I knock back another pull from the beer. Not a pleasant memory, that’s for damn sure. But not much else I can do beyond ride the wave until it decides to leave me alone. Until next time. Or the time after that.
Because it’s a funny thing about going to war. It never leaves you alone for long. It’s always there. Lurking. Waiting. Skulking in the dark.
And as I sit here with Nathan and Caleb and Josh, it dawns on me why I feel comfortable with them in a way that I haven’t felt around most of my classmates.
They’ve been there. They get it.
I take another pull off my beer and wonder how things are going for Beth at the hospital with her dad. I wonder if her dad has nights like this where the memories come out and play and all you can do is sit back and hope they’ll eventually leave you alone again.
I want to text her. To see how she’s doing.
But I don’t. Because I’m off kilter enough to know that I shouldn’t be around people tonight, and Beth doesn’t need to put up with my shit.
I’ll take a cab home later. My homework will have to wait.
Because it looks like I’m crawling into the bottle with Nathan and Caleb and Josh.
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