“Now, where was I? Oh yeah. She was only staying ‘til ten. Her parents have to head back to Brooklyn early in the morning,” Sammie said.
Chase’s eyes lit up.
“She’s from Brooklyn? Where?”
“I don’t remember. It’s not like I write letters and stuff.”
Chase slouched and reconsidered the bonfire, its craning flames liking the darkness above.
“Oh my, God,” Sammie exclaimed. He looked back to her. “Chase loves Heather! Chase loves Heather!” Her tonality mimicked the sound of teasing children at a playground. And he felt just as small.
He looked around at the other guests. Some smiled, others ignored it. Tina glowered at him from the other side of the fire pit. He dropped his head and turned away.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby. I’m playing with you,” she smirked and slapped him on the back. Paul returned with a milk crate full of sloshing beer cups.
“Whoever wants, come grab it,” he said and flopped back onto his seat. He turned his head.
“Hey, Chase, a little advice. Next time you like a chick, talk to her instead of asking my sister a million questions.”
V
Rick, Jackie and most of the teens retired to their tents a few hours later. Before sleep, and inebriation crept in, the roar of applause thundered in Paul’s ears as he stood upon the long-dead and drained keg, victorious, triumphant.
Chase sat alone in front of the dwindling fire, its glowing embers radiated a slight warmth through the chilled night air. And thanks to the leather jacket Rick had replaced,
He pawed at the tree stump table beside him and shifted around the cans and red cups in search of a nightcap. His eyes fixed on a pack of cigarettes.
Without hesitation, he flipped open the box and drew a cigarette from it with his teeth. His thumb slid the blue flip book of matches from the plastic sleeve.
He lit the cigarette, drew a breath, tilted his head up, and blew out a thick cloud which hung in the night air like a photograph.
He thought of his friends. He thought of Tina. He thought of the magic.
The weekend dissolved into one word.
Heather.
Her name was Heather.
TINNITUS
I
The female paramedic scrambled through the cabinet drawer and yanked out a fresh IV line and tossed it to her partner. She spun around towards the cabinet and scanned the inventory while the other paramedic unwound the plastic tubing.
“Oxygen levels down, Jess,” the other paramedic said.
“Ventilate,” Jessica ordered as she looked through the refrigerator. She watched the liquids shift in their bottles and bags as the ambulance lurched onto Seventy-Seventh Street.
“Rob. Set up the line. Administering one milliliter, Aprotinin,” she said as the bag bounced in her hands with each pothole.
“Mr. Romano, can you hear me?” Robert said and cleared the line over the stretcher.
Jessica inserted the IV port into Chase’s other hand and rolled open the dial in the line. “Temperature’s down. Get him under the thermal blanket.
“Pupils unresponsive. We have to pack his wound. He’s bleeding out again.”
She tore free the gauze pads from the sealed pack and pressed it onto the pouring wound. “What the fuck? Tape’s not going to hold. I got him. Wrap him up for me.”
Robert ripped the bandage roll with his teeth and spat the paper to the floor as Jessica hoisted Chase under his shoulders.
“We need to administer a half milliliter of epinephrine. His systolic dropped to forty-five. Find a faster route, Pete,” she said.
“We can’t. Not while he’s still breathing,” Robert said.
“He won’t be for long at this rate.”
Cars and vans drifted to each side of the road as the cruiser and the ambulance split the traffic, dodging pedestrians lost in their cell phones, and late-night drunken wanderers tripping off from the sidewalk. Peter followed the cruiser as it raced through the traffic light.
II
The ride home from the Island was longer than his physical capacity wished to handle. But shorter than his anxiety begged for.
It wasn’t the twenty plus hours in transit that seemed to go on for days. It was the sorrow, the grief, and the failure which ripped through him like a freight train through wandering cattle as he traveled north.
From the white-trash hookers at the first bus depot in Georgia, past the campy, South of the Border rest stop between the Carolinas, beyond the Philip Morris USA headquarters, and more hookers of diverse ethnicities at the penultimate bus station in Richmond, Virginia, he battled his weary heart and wondered why things went so horribly wrong.
It was supposed to be his see you later, alligator, in a while, crocodile. Arrivederci, adios, goodbye, go fuck yourselves.
But was that ever the case? Can one really run away from their problems and start anew?
As with countless hopefuls before, Chase had no idea that problems never seem to go away. They only linger, in some form of mental stasis, just waiting for the right opportunity to poke its ugly head up and say hello.
But new problems always seem to sneak up and stick their cold, KY jellied finger deeper than they originally warned.
He had become familiar with that finger, that molester of sanity, who laughed every time Chase would collapse into the psychological corner and convulse with nothing but his tears to help him feel something more than rape.
He thought he had finally escaped his torrid past, that fucking O’Connor family tree should have been chopped, mulched and burned before it even had a chance to bear fruit. Instead, those few, termite-infested, straggling roots dug itself into Chase’s seedling and choked it before germination could take hold.
He had hoped that the blinding fights would become a blurred nightmare of a life once lost and never found. No more could she be drunk or high and throw him out of the house, only to be dragged back after she called the cops and accused him of running away. No more late-night beatings in his sleep when she blamed him for Stephanie’s disease and death. No more air horn canisters to wake him the fuck up when he overslept from a nightly bender. No more welfare for kids, and no more—
“Bullshit.”
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, a passage he heard Jackie say once in one of his Jack Daniel’s inspired, monotheistic stupors. And Chase’s innate comprehension regurgitated it in layman’s terms.
“The shit you came from, is the shit you go back to.”
He looked out the window and read the sign, WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY - THE GARDEN STATE, and he felt the remains of hope empty out from his soul like an enema treated colon. Only two hours left before he would begin the next phase of his life. And he didn’t see much promise.
He remembered the day he told Linda he enlisted in the Marine Corps. It was supposed to be the proudest moment of his life. The FUCK YOU WORLD, I MADE IT speech.
He had rehearsed what he wanted to say the entire way home. By the time he made it up the front stoop, his grin nearly split his head.
Linda sat at the kitchen table, as always. Cigarette butts overflowed in a chipped coffee mug, burns and stains from heroine residue over the red and white checkered tablecloth, and the perpetually almost empty bottle of Gordon’s atop a stack of utility bills and payment reminder postcards scattered around it.
Every time she vowed to get help, clean herself up, her demons dragged her deeper into hell. And Chase believed it made her evil stronger with each setback.
“Why the fuck are you so happy?” she said.
He breathed deep, stood at attention and stared at the kit-cat clock. His practice speech eluded him, and he slumped. “Hey, Linda. I have to tell you something.”
She didn’t bother to look at him.
“When are you leaving,” she said.
“In two weeks. After my birthday.”
She twisted in her chair and glowered at him.
“Where’re
you going? You have nothing without me.”
He grinned at her.
“I enlisted in the Marines.” His chest puffed up.
“Ha! You? Fucking loser. You’ll never make it. You’re too much of a fucking cunt.” Spittle flew when she finished.
“Fuck you, Linda. You’re the one who’s not going to make it,” he said and stomped down the hall.
“With any luck, you’ll be dead by the time I reach the Island.”
He heard the chair shoot out from under her and crash into the stove.
“What did you say? What the fuck did you just say to me,” she howled.
Chase stopped at the bedroom door.
“You heard me.
“Cunt.”
The dull thud of ceramic rang in his head before the bolt of pain knocked it sideways. Yellow, stagnant water and over saturated butts clung to his face and neck. Legs gave out as he smashed face first into the door.
“What the fuck, you stupid bitch?” he yelled and grabbed his head.
Linda remained at the foot of the hallway, fists balled up and heaved every breath.
“You fucking loser! I’ll be dead before you call me that again!”
All reasoning drained from his mind as Chase lunged at Linda. A hand squeezed her throat as the other balled up and cocked back.
“Go ahead, hit me, you little shit,” she choked through his grasp. “Chasey-fucking-pissy-pants thinks he’s a man? Come on, cock sucker! Let’s see what you got!”
If she strikes you, do what thou wilt.
III
The violet, rose, and gold sunset over the Lower New York Bay seemed dull and listless in its otherwise glorious magnitude. The container ships that drifted between Coney and Staten Islands chugged along, oblivious and uncaring of his turmoil.
Chase sat on one of the benches along the Shore Parkway Greenway and tossed his cigarette butt into the bay. His elbow upon the armrest, he put his head to his hand. Two weeks suddenly felt like two years in his confounded distress.
He couldn’t wait to leave, but his eighteenth birthday and high school graduation were two important requirements. Thankfully, that year, they both fell on a Friday. And he was due to report to the Fort Hamilton Military Enlistment Processing Station that Monday at zero-seven-hundred hours. But what the hell to do over the next two weeks seemed like an unanswerable question.
He removed the pack of Morley’s from the top pocket of his leather jacket. Flipping the top open with his thumb, he drew out another cigarette with his teeth. The other hand fumbled through the pocket in search of the Bic lighter.
“Got one for me,” a voice questioned from behind. Without looking, Chase lifted the pack over his shoulder.
“How’d you know to find me here?” he said.
“You’re always here when you want to be alone.” Rick sat beside him. “Linda called.”
Chase huffed. “What did she have to say?”
Rick took the lighter from Chase and lit his smoke.
“She’s drunk. Said you hit her and the cops are looking for you.”
Chase leaned onto his knees and considered his feet.
“Did you?”
“Did I what,” Chase said.
Rick pushed an elbow into Chase. He looked up.
“Almost.”
Rick wrapped his arm around Chase’s shoulder. “Wanna talk about it?”
Chase remained silent longer than he expected as his belly knotted up.
It wasn’t that the question suddenly replayed the fight in his mind. The images, the words, the hatred, rooted itself deep and wouldn’t allow anything other than confusion grow in his psyche.
He had no idea of how to talk about it anymore. After all those years, it was frustratingly redundant, on the border of fucking crazy.
She hated Chase. Or so he thought. What else would drive out her malice?
Bruce? Not his fault, nor did he receive blame.
Stephanie? Again, not his fault though Linda ignored all signs of her daughter’s proclivities towards older men, and money no honest teenager would earn. But somehow, she did blame Chase for that.
From early on, she put the fear of God into him if he dared to tell the social worker that he’d rather be back at Spofford. And she promised what she would do to him was a stroll in the park compared to what those dirty little animals would do to him. A pretty, little, white-boy like Chase would be beaten and raped within his first week. Dead by the second.
Chase was a source of income, nothing more. And it wasn’t that she deliberately tried to break his spirit. She didn’t care. And the last thing she wanted was for her meal ticket to cause any problems for her.
After Bruce was sentenced to twenty-five years to life, eligible for parole in fifteen, she succeeded in acquiring his pension, thanks to her close friends, union agents and representatives in the NYPD, that she did “favors” for before and during her marriage. But that wasn’t enough. As a single parent with two kids, Stephanie’s medical bills far surpassed what the insurance was willing to pay, and if it wasn’t for, what Stephanie called, welfare-for-kids Foster care, she might have lost everything.
In nearly every way, Linda needed Chase more than he needed her. And because of her unyielding abuse, he never needed Linda. Unfortunately, that realization didn’t crystallize until after his seventeenth birthday. But if he legally emancipated himself, or disappeared, or brought himself back to the Juvenile Home, would he have seen or heard from Rick or Sammie, or the rest of his friends that became an emotionally adopted family that cared, ever again? Or even Estelle, Sammie and Paul’s mother, who cared for and treated him like a son. A real son. He didn’t believe so.
“Why didn’t you just come to my house,” Rick said.
“Didn’t you say she called the cops? They already know to knock on your door first.”
Rick stomped out his butt and ground it onto the sidewalk.
“This military thing. You sure this is something you want to do? I mean, I support your decision, but you have to remember, there’s no backing out once you’re in,” Rick said.
“Too late. I got sworn in today. Thought I’d sail through the next two weeks. Should’ve just disappeared. Fucking cunt.”
“You’re staying at my place. I already talked to Pop. He agrees.”
“What about—”
“Worry about graduating in two weeks. I got everything else covered.”
IV
His last day on Parris Island was silent. He and the other discharged recruits were made to stand at attention as they waited for their departing bus for no apparent reason other than a final admonition that once a Marine, always a Marine.
But he wasn’t. He felt it in his torment. And neither were the other fifteen dischargees who waited for the long bus ride home. After all, they were shown the dignity and respect as they were all flown into South Carolina as first-rate citizens, and now they were being bused back to their cities of origin like homeless derelicts.
He scanned the line. Most he didn’t recognize, especially back in their civies.
Three places ahead, he noticed Private, or formerly known as Private Rory McDonough. “Red,” as Drill Instructor Holcomb called him. “The Big-Mac” as everyone else referred. A stereotypical, “fighting Irishman,” the Big-Mac landed himself in the brig for three days, with a nice, shiny BCD, bad conduct discharge, upon his release. For the two weeks he spent in Casual platoon, never did he show any remorse for beating the living snot out of Private Marcus Jones.
“Fuckin’ wanker tell me I have no soul? I’ll fuckin’ take his,” he said. His inherent Brogue pronounced it fooking.
Unfortunately, Jones was also discharged due to a broken arm and jaw.
Just ahead of Red, Chase saw an African-American boy, impatient and resting on his crutches, knee deep in a plaster cast.
In Chase’s imagination, these recruits at least had stories to tell when they got home. Chase, not so much. Where was the heroic, blood-curdling,
gut-wrenching tale of a young man who was let go from the Few and the Proud, because he failed the hearing test with flying colors?
Just barely making it past the requirements during his initial medical screening, it was no surprise to him that the tinnitus became evinced over the last four months prior to his first day of Boot Camp. The screaming, the air horns used as alarm clocks and the regular ricochet of blunt objects off the side of his head, ensured the damage that Linda provided went far beyond emotional.
V
The microphone clicked over the vice-grip like headphones in the isolation booth. Chase winced and cocked his head. The technician on the other side of the soundproof glass ignored it.
A hiss of air filtered through the red and blue plastic muffs before the technician spoke. Chase considered the low, steady tone in his ears and depressed the button in his hand.
“Private Romano, there’s no need to press the button. We haven’t begun yet.”
Chase cleared his throat, closed his eyes and released the button.
“Sir. The Private apologizes. It was an accident, sir.” He hoped he sounded convincing.
He listened to the clicks of switches and the whir of knobs over the hissing air and tone that wasn’t part of the test. The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, within and without. It was something he never noticed before, save for after the screaming, the air horns, and coffee mugs to the noggin.
“We’re about to begin. You will hear a series of tones in which the decibels will increase in small intervals until you press the button. Do you understand?”
“You got it.”
“The Private will refer to the Ensign as Sir.”
“Sir, aye, sir.”
“Very well,” the officer said.
The microphone switched off and the hiss silenced. Chase closed his eyes and shifted all his focus away from the incessant tone that wouldn’t end.
VI
The invasive examinations from the team of doctors were nothing to be desired. Neither was their collective prognosis. Chase remained silent, nodded when asked if he understood and signed his name repeatedly within the endless file of paperwork which stated that Private Chase Romano of Brooklyn, New York, would not contest the medical findings.
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