Book of the Month: AFTER I FALL
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CHAPTER 1
Parker
My day doesn’t always start with dicks, but when it does, they are usually unsolicited and where my supposed fiancé can find them. Like it’s my fault they show up, somehow.
“Stupid dick pic.”
Muttering to myself as I cross campus isn’t really normal behavior for me. But today, well, today has crossed the line into completely abnormal.
This is not a normal habit, but I’m just about this side of beside myself at the moment, and I really don’t know what to do about any of it.
Other than be pissed.
And yes, that means I have seen more than one unsolicited—and often rather sad and pathetic—penis arrive in my inbox. I’m really not sure what makes men think that random women will be impressed by their wildly disappointing penises.
None of the pics is ever anything to write home about. Not that unsolicited penis is ever something to brag about. But seriously. Do they all have to be so mediocre?
The latest iteration looks like a plucked baby bird that fell out of its nest. If this is what I have to look forward to when I get old, you can cancel that shit.
Old dicks are gross.
Which doesn’t mean I’m morally opposed to penises. On the contrary. Just not ones attached to men forty years older than I am.
“Who the hell thinks their dick is so fucking special that they send it to people out of the blue? Like ‘hey, I know you’re totally coming to work for me in a couple of weeks and bam, here’s my dick. Hope you like it.’”
I have exactly one week to figure out a new plan for my senior thesis project, which I need in order to finish my application for graduate school. Oh, and the company I was supposed to study…well, thanks to a certain ill-timed penis arrival, that whole plan just got flushed down the toilet and went swirly.
I’m scrolling through my phone, looking at advertisements on the student website, hoping an internship will magically appear and save me from having to go home this summer.
My phone vibrates. Thankfully, it’s not a dick. Well, not exactly, anyway.
Nope; instead it’s my dad.
Who I also don’t really want to talk to. Because I want to ask him for help but, well, Dad hasn’t really been all there since my mom died six years ago.
My dad’s going to ask me about the internship, and I don’t have any answers. At least, not any that he’s prepared to listen to.
I’m kind of tired of the constant disappointment. I’ve done exactly one thing right in my life where my father is concerned and that one thing involves my currently irritated fiancé.
How’s that for a nonstarter for a conversation? My life would be so different if I had a father who didn’t love my fiancé like the son he always wanted more than the daughter who was marrying the future son in law.
I reach beneath my glasses and rub my eyes, fighting the burning tears. How did everything get so colossally fucked up?
“Are you okay?”
I look up, surprised at the unexpected concern in an unfamiliar voice. The woman in front of me is…sharp. She’s athletic and sleek, but it’s the roses and thorns twisting up her arms that draw my attention. The red roses stand in stark contrast to the black and grey thorns. Her eyes are liquid gold, lined with black.
She looks just as lost as I feel at the moment.
So why she’s stopped and asked if I’m okay…surprised is putting it mildly.
I paste on a blinding, well-practiced smile. “I’m fine. Thank you, though, for asking.”
She narrows her eyes at me then tips her chin. “Last time I saw someone arguing with themselves like that, it didn’t end well.”
I pause, not really sure what to do with her standing there in front of me. I don’t normally have conversations with strangers and I certainly don’t introduce my mental health status in the opening interaction.
I toy with the zipper on my purse. “Um, how did it end?”
She grins and her expression shifts to somewhat wistful, something laced with memory. It has the odd effect of making her look sharper and softer. It’s an odd combination. “With me wrestling his ass to the ground and taking the crazy fuck to the fifth floor.”
I lift both eyebrows, not entirely sure about what she’s just said or if it’s even possible for a woman to wrestle a guy to the ground, but I’m not going to be the one to find out if she’s telling the truth. “Really? That’s kind of badass. Like all Zena: Warrior Princess and stuff.”
“It wasn’t nearly as exciting as all that.” Her voice is smooth and confident. Man, I wish I had her poise. She’d probably rip someone’s dick off through the phone if they sent her an unwanted penis. And she’d know what to do when her fiancé didn’t believe her when she told him where said dick came from. “You don’t happen to know where the financial aid office is, do you? I’ve been wandering around campus for an hour.”
“I think it’s over near admissions,” I tell her. “If you follow this road all the way out of the quad, you should walk right to it.” I point her in the right direction, then glare down at my phone again.
“Hey thanks.” She folds her arms over her chest and cocks her hip. “So what’s so wrong that you’re running around campus bitching to yourself?” Like she expects me to just open up and lay all my problems at her feet.
I take a deep breath. Part of me, the part that’s shrunk away from the world because the world sends you dick pics, the part of me that wants to run and hide, is actually reaching toward the care in her voice. Reaching out, craving… connection. Belonging, to someone or something.
“I’m trying to find an internship for the summer. Mine…fell through.” I don’t usually have a hard time finding words, but there you have it. I can’t bring myself to admit that I’ve been sent the image of an unwelcome sixty-year-old pecker. Davis’s words are an insidious whisper in my head. What did you do to deserve it?
“Oh; well, you’re in luck.” She stuffs a sheet of paper in my hand. I look down. In bold black letters, my saving grace may have just been handed to me on a silver platter lined with tattooed roses.
Wanted: Intern. Learn about small business skills and entrepreneurship. Apply in person only. References must be non-family and from the last year.
My smile is hesitant. Unsure.
People just don’t do things like this.
It’s weird and a little…nice. I don’t really know what to do with nice these days. It’s in rather short supply.
“Wow, thank you so much.”
“No problem.” She grins and suddenly looks much, much younger. “You should come by tonight. I’ll introduce you to the owner. It’s salsa night and I make a mean margarita.”
“You’re a bartender?”
She nods and her eyes are glittering in the bright light. “Yep. Over at The Pint. I’ve got a few side gigs to help pay the bills.” She motions toward the paper. “Seriously, come by tonight. It’ll distract you from whatever else is going on. You look like you need a night out, anyway.”
The paper in my hand has my salvation inscribed on it in smooth black letters. “Thanks. I think I’ve got plans tonight but I’ll swing in tomorrow? Will the owner be there?”
“Yeah, he’s always around. Like a mother hen, to be honest.” But there’s no venom in those words. Only a disgruntled affection that has me curious. I’ve heard people describe their bosses using many terms but mother hen isn’t one of them.
“Thank you,” I finally say. Because she may have seriously saved me from the most awkward conversation I never want to have.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the first non-frenemy female interaction I’ve had in years.
Miracles, it seems, might really exist.
Eli
People always look at me like I’ve got a dick growing out of my forehead when I tell them I miss the Army. ’Course, I suppose I have to consider my audience these days. I’m not bouncing at Ropers out in Harker Heights any more or dragging drunk GIs out of that esteemed institution. No, my life at Fort Hood is long gone.
The dirt parking lot at Ropers was filled F-150s and Dodge Rams, complete with truck nuts and NRA stickers. The cars here are valet-parked in a lot around the corner and out of sight. They are Mercedes and BMWs with the occasional McLaren thrown in.
It’s about as far from Fort Hood as I can possibly get, at least culturally. You wouldn’t think I was still even in the South with how different things are here.
I suppose there are worse problems to have than dealing with rich dicks who buy the top-shelf liquor and run up five-hundred-dollar tabs in a few hours’ worth of drinking.
They keep my business in the black, so I don’t really have any reason to complain. Especially when my other customer base likes to start bar fights as though we were back at Ropers.
Which is why, at the moment, I have a former West Point officer squared up with a business school escapee and they’re getting ready to start breaking furniture if me or Deacon doesn’t step in. Like now.
I’m standing in the shadows, looking out at my bar. My place. My merry band of misfit toys. Everyone one of us is a refugee from civilian life, desperately reaching out to our small circle of veterans just to feel fucking normal.
Deacon is behind the counter, doing his thing with a dark-haired girl with perky tits and an ass just made for gripping. And Kelsey Ryder is clueless as ever that he’d drop everything for her. I grin as she slaps him on the ass with a bar towel. The crowd eats it up.
Out of everyone in my fucked-up little tribe, Deacon is probably the most normal, despite everything he’s been through. Or at least he’s the most honest about it. He drinks when the bad times come; he fucks hard when they’re gone. His dick is probably going to fall off one of these days, but one thing he’s never done is tried to pretend that everything is honky-fucking-dory.
I scrub my hand over my beard.
Deacon knows more about the area than I ever will, and I’ve been using the shit out of him to navigate local politics as I try to grow The Pint’s position and stature in the community. It’s tricky down here in the South, and even though I’m not exactly unconnected, the connections I do have I don’t want to call in.
He catches me in the shadows and wanders over. About as subtle as ever. “What are you moping about tonight?”
“Not moping. Contemplating life choices,” I mutter.
He lifts one eyebrow and continues to wipe down glasses, stacking them on a towel near the ice. “You could have fooled me. It very much looks like you’re moping.”
I shrug. Deacon will see what Deacon wants to see, and nothing I say will change that. It’s better not to argue with him, especially when he’s actually right.
“Let’s just say recent events have got me rethinking what’s really important.”
I look out at the bar in time to see Kelsey taking a shot off the bar with just her mouth. “Yeah, we’ve got a real family element here.”
“It might be more Addams Family than Leave it to Beaver but it’s still a family. And maybe I’ve realized that there are some things more important in life than a good paycheck.”
I jerk my chin toward Caleb and some guy who is wearing clothes far too expensive for a bar like The Pint.
“Your turn or mine to deal with Captain Pain the Balls?”
“Your turn.”
Kelsey’s rocking it behind the bar tonight. I’m glad. Sometimes, there are too many gaps between her good nights.
“You really care about your people, don’t you? About us,” Deacon asks, nodding in Kelsey’s direction.
I scrub my hand over my beard once more, wishing Deacon was a little less perceptive. “What makes you say that?”
“The way you watch them. There’s a thousand little things you do every day to take care of people.”
I shrug. “Guess I’m hardwired that way.”
“What about you, though? Who takes care of you?”
I suck in a deep breath, then let it out with deliberate slowness. “As long as what I do still matters, then I’m okay.”
A simple, uncomplicated truth.
I slide a bottle of tequila over to Deacon. “Guess it’s my turn to break up the fight tonight?”
Deacon grins and slaps me on the back. “You know I’m on probation from the last one. I’d prefer not to spend the last week of classes hoping you can hit up a GoFundMe to bail my ass out of jail.”
I touch the tips of my fingers to my brow in a mock salute. “Touché.”
Bracing myself, I wade into the argument between a community organizer wannabe and Caleb, the resident pain in my ass who has recently refused to attempt sobriety and as a result, has assumed the mantle of the person most likely to get into a bar fight.
Caleb is back in his usual spot at the bar. Not sure how I feel about him continuing to hang out at the bar, considering he just got out of the hospital for almost drinking himself into a coma. It’s pretty fucking dumb that he’s here.
Caleb is one of those guys who just rubs people the wrong way, but tonight, at least, he’s not alone if he’s here. Kelsey is chatting him up. She’s good for that, even if she’s been a disaster in every personal relationship she’s ever attempted.
I don’t talk about the Army much. Not with my wealthier customers, anyway. Every so often someone will notice the 82d Airborne Division tattoo buried in the swirling black ink lines on my bicep but most people don’t bother to look closely enough.
People see what they want to see. That’s how Caleb found his place among the misfit Legos and toys that are drawn to The Pint. He saw a fellow veteran and started talking shit about killing ’em all and letting God sort them out and I politely told him to shut the fuck up. Which apparently endeared me to him for life because he has become a semi-permanent resident over the last year or so.
And I’m a fucking sucker, because I keep letting him come back where at least I can keep an eye on him and make sure he’s not drinking himself into a coma like he did a few weeks ago.
I can’t stop him.
And I can’t cut him loose. No matter how much he might piss off my higher-paying customers.
It doesn’t work that way.
But tonight, they’re not going to see a former company commander with a life full of regrets. They’re going to see a big guy with a beard and tattoos breaking up yet another bar fight.
I drag Caleb off the suit. “Out. Both of you.” Caleb holds up both hands and tries to look innocent. “I don’t really want to hear it.”
“Oh come on! Dickless over there took my chair.” Caleb’s version of veteran outrage syndrome is annoying on a good day. I’m not in the mood tonight.
Not that I ever am.
“Call me Dickless one more time.” This from the suit wearing a pair of three-hundred-dollar Cole Haan shoes. You’d think someone with that much money wouldn’t be insecure about the state of his manhood.
I sigh. Too often Caleb reminds me of all the reasons I despise my alma mater. Guys who sign up, thinking the Army is going to make them into men.
Or maybe I just loathe guys like him.
No one would ever look at me and see a West Point grad. And if Caleb doesn’t settle down immediately, I’m going to confirm everyone’s stereotypes about tattooed, bearded bar owners.
“Either knock this shit off or you’re both gone. It’s a fucking football game.”
Caleb holds up his hands again and heads to the latrine. Three-Hundred-Dollar Shoes stumbles to the bar, I hope to settle up rather than keep drinking.
When someone is that far in the bag, it’s no longer about having any fun or running up a tab.
Crisis averted, I head back to the bar. The news is on. Another soldier wounded in Syria. Christ, what a shitshow.
I stand there, mute, absorbing the details of the latest bombings.
I’ve got inventories to run and paperwork to file and drinks to pour. But instead, I’m standing behind my bar, trying to chase away the memories. Trying to forget what the news in Syria reminds me of.
Wishing that it wasn’t a lie when I tell people I have no regrets about the decisions I’ve made. I would change everything.
I pour a double shot of tequila. In the quiet din of the corner of my bar, I raise my glass toward the TV. Just a little. I don’t want to draw attention to my small tribute.
I lift the glass in silent tribute to the men who’ve died in this pointless war, wishing I could just drag my ass upstairs and drink myself stupid.
I catch Deacon watching me a moment before he lifts his own glass in quiet tribute. I toss back the shot and close my eyes, trying not to see, trying to ignore it. Hoping to numb the dull ache in my chest that never seems to go away. It’s just some days, I’m busy enough to pretend it’s not there.
He gets it. I wish he didn’t. I wish Kelsey didn’t carry around the scars that she did. But that’s the way life goes in our little band of misfits. The war is behind us but none of us has ever really come fully home.
It’s why I can’t take a knee. I might not be in the Army any more, but I can’t just leave.
I have to keep going. This is my place. And there are men and women counting on me. Maybe not to protect them from bullets and bad guys. But what we have here…it’s important. It matters.
Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I’ll actually believe it someday.