Jessica Goodell & John Hearn

by Shade It Black: Death

  Miguel and I started seeing each other almost immediately. We loved watching movies and spent many evenings doing just that at theaters, drive-ins, and back at the base. Soon, we were having all of our meals together, occasionally at the chow hall and often at the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and Denny’s. We tried making a meal in the barracks once by microwaving macaroni and cheese and tapioca pudding, but spent more time cleaning up the mess than eating it. I didn’t know that rented DVDs and fast food could feel so good, and for those three months I was happy.

  I brought a picture of Miguel—in which he was sporting his straight-from-the-barrio “thug” facial expression—to Iraq and was quick to show it to those men who suggested we have an affair or a night of sex. In a situation like this, some men backed off to respect the relationship a woman was in. Others did so to honor a fellow male Marine. Many found their sex drive dampened by the sight of a muscular, angry-looking young man scowling at them from a cell phone. I emphasized the seriousness of our relationship by wearing Miguel’s dog tags around my neck, until I became convinced that my own death was imminent and Miguel’s tags would cause both sets of parents unnecessary grief.

  Miguel visited for a weekend shortly after my return from Iraq, and within a month we began looking for a place to live off base. At this point he was about to end his active service while I had several months left. We found a tiny, 350-square-foot house ten miles from base. His parents were kind enough to give us a very used bed and dresser that they had purchased at a swap meet, and we bought the dishes and pot holders and whatnot needed to set up a small home.

  Though he tried, Miguel could not find a job, and before long he showed a side of himself I didn’t know existed. He screamed at me and threatened me and scared me. The man was huge and his rage seemed uncontrollable. I would cower, unable to move except for my trembling. One night he threw a clock at me. It was a large clock that had the poem “Footprints” enclosed in its glass case. The glass broke against my body and shattered over and around me. I was wearing shorts and a tank top and was barefoot. Miguel was screaming at me to get up, but I couldn’t move. On another night he decided that we should split up between us everything we owned. I could hear him shouting loudly as he walked out behind the house to the shed, and when he returned I could see from my hiding place that he was carrying an ax. Yelling, he announced that he would chop everything in the house in half, starting with the dresser and bed. I scurried out from hiding and begged him to not go through with it and eventually he dropped the ax.

  Miguel took part in the initial Marine invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. Assigned to an MP (military police) platoon that was in charge of the POWs, his job was to collect and re-locate those captured to detainment camps. The MPs hog-tied the POWs with zip ties and threw them into a transport vehicle and tossed them back out when they arrived at the camp. Miguel said it wasn’t unusual for a shoulder or collar-bone or rib to break what with all the throwing around. Whenever I tried talking to Miguel about my Iraqi experiences, he refused to listen. He’d point out that because I wasn’t part of the initial invasion, I didn’t participate in the “real” war. My time in Iraq wasn’t even “war-like,” so I should just stop complaining.

  Though no longer in Iraq I was unable to gain weight or sleep well or relax. As the stress became prolonged, I grew certain that I could get my life back on track if I were free of Miguel, and I was equally certain that I could not.

  Support Our Troops. (Photo courtesy of Franklin Veaux)

  23

  Searching

  In 2003, I left the Marine Corps to pursue a career and a life as a civilian. After numerous combat deployments, a wall full of awards, and a chest full of medals, I figured I could just walk into whatever company I so chose and they would be blessed by my leadership and hard charging motivation.

  Yea, right

  My first job was selling insurance door to door. My second job was Starbucks. My third job—and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back—was waiting tables in a pancake restaurant. Turns out that the Corps did next to nothing to prepare me for the “real world”—chaotic, unfair, undisciplined, and unforgiving….

  From: “Surviving Civilian Life: Part 1,” Modernmarinecorps.com, October 6, 2010

  My last day as a Marine was a normal workday, but when we were dismissed from formation at 1630 the platoon was called into the office where the sergeant said a few words about how I was a good Marine, then he shook my hand and walked away so that the real good-byes could be said. My friends gave me a plaque, which is customary when a Marine EAS’s, or ends active service. We hugged, and then I walked out to where Miguel was waiting for me in his “baby,” a custom painted Impala. The car—silver on the bottom, light green on the top half, and layered with five coats of gloss— was filled to the brim with our belongings and our new yellow lab puppy, Grizzly. We were headed east looking for a new life. Neither of us could live alone so we chose to live with each other, with another Marine, someone tough, who could pull their own weight, and yours too if need be. Someone with Marine Corps values who would watch your back, even save your life while giving his own if circumstances required—like the two Marines we pulled from the lake back in Iraq. Together, it was as though we had left the Corps, but not really, not entirely.

  We stopped at the Grand Canyon. The views took my breath away and temporarily cleared my head. For a moment I forgot about where I had been and what I had done and was mesmerized by the vast expanse of the canyon. I wondered what was in there— in the rock and in its history—that we couldn’t see. What mysteries did it hold? Miguel actually climbed out onto a ledge, and then lowered himself down several feet into the chasm to take pictures.

  We left the Canyon and headed north toward Utah, enjoying breathtaking, panoramic views of a landscape dotted by huge golden rocks atop deep red sands. We traveled through this spectacular scenery for hours on end without seeing another soul. The highway stretched into the horizon like an endless ribbon, winding up and down mountain roads through rocks and dust and hills. When night began to fall, we pulled into a roadside motel and ate next door at an old Indian diner. Later, we took Griz for a walk until we found ourselves so far in the middle of nowhere that we were engulfed in utter silence, except for faint wailing sounds in the distance. Miguel thought it was the wind whipping through jagged mountainsides and fissured ground. To me, the noise sounded like human cries, especially when I remembered the Indian graveyard we had passed earlier in the day. When even Grizzly got scared, I decided that my interpretation was the correct one.

  The next day we headed towards Goosenecks, Utah. We stopped only long enough to step out of the car and peer in awe into the deep, winding crevice scarring the earth. Its depth was surprising and its colors so vibrant and beautiful. We drove on to Mexican Hat, a rock formation that looks like a huge sombrero sitting in the middle of nowhere, as if it were once taken from the head of its giant owner and alighted atop a large rock. Long hours of driving passed mostly in silence, broken by conversation that revolved around Grizzly. It was hard to pick up radio stations, so for much of the ride we listened to my old Diamond Rio CDs.

  We’d frequently pass vehicles displaying the yellow ribbon “support-our-troops decal,” but we never once mentioned it. We probably passed a hundred or more decals—two hundred if you count the multiple decals decorating the cars of the more patriotic motorists—and yet neither of us even once said, “Look, more support from the citizenry. Let’s give the ‘thumbs up’ as we pass.” We didn’t even say, “Look, another decal.” We didn’t even point. I’m not sure why Miguel ignored them, but I assumed he felt the same way I did. I knew that these people on their way to work or home or dinner had no idea what it was they were supporting. They did not have a clue as to what war was like, what it made people see, and what it made them do to each other. I felt as though I didn’t deserve their support, or anyone’s, for what I had done. No one should ever support the activities in which I had pa
rticipated. No one should ever support the people who do such things. Plus, the yellow ribbons tended to be displayed by drivers who were hardworking, church-going, family men and women. They were the people we wanted to be. They had the lives we believed in and fought for and wanted for ourselves. But here we were, having all we could do to get up in the morning and act half normally. Here we were, behind them, with our belongings in the back seat and gruesome memories flashing randomly in our heads. Here we were, leaving the ribbons behind us as we sped up on our way to Hell, probably, where we would pay for the sins these magnetic decals endorsed. There was an irony of sorts shaping the dynamic between our ribbon decal supporters and us. They were uninformed but good people, the kind whose respect we would welcome—if it were based upon something true. It was when we were around them that we had to hide the actual truth most consciously. It wasn’t enough to not mention the war or being a veteran, because they’d bring it up after noticing the Twentynine Palms decal on the car windshield or Miguel’s haircut. They’d extend a hand—but only to him, as the thought that I might have been a Marine didn’t occur to them, despite the vacant look that had already begun to settle behind my eyes—and say, “thank you for your service.” And then we were in a bind. So, as it happened, the civilians we were most anxious around, and therefore tended to most avoid, were exactly those good citizens who thought they were helping us.

  From Mexican Hat we headed to the Four Corners, which is where the states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah meet. I expected so much more than what we found. We were, again, in the middle of what most would think of as “nowhere,” on a stretch of lonesome road along which sat several stands selling inexpensive Indian jewelry, purses, and artwork. I wondered if this is what would one day become of Iraqi culture, if a hundred years from now, men in their white dishdashas and women in black hijabs would be relegated to roadside stands selling cheap imitations of a life long gone. On the exact spot where the states touched there stood an unremarkable cement slab, next to which I posed with Grizzly to have our picture taken. Then we hit the road again.

  The following day we were cruising across New Mexico’s desert with nothing at all in sight in any direction. We were, though, able to pick up a radio station and were listening when a song by Neo came on. I said, “I love Neo.” That was that. Miguel was instantaneously furious with me for expressing my “love” for anyone other than him. “Yeah, well I love Paris Hilton! How does that make you feel?” He fumed and drove for a mile or so then pulled the car over to the side of the road, screamed “Get the fuck out of my car,” tossed me from the vehicle like I was one of his Iraqi detainees, a prisoner of war, and took off. It was bright and sunny and hot. There wasn’t any water around, anywhere. There wasn’t any cell phone reception. I didn’t have a map or any idea as to how I’d get to the next town. If gazing into the Grand Canyon momentarily took me away from Iraq, this put me back into the middle of it, but in this version, I was the lone pedestrian, strolling along a barren landscape, close to nothing, lost. That sole Iraqi man the convoy sped by a year earlier had to have been scared, I now realized. Eventually, I noticed a car on the horizon heading my way. It was the Impala.

  Our next stop was Amarillo, Texas. We made Amarillo a destination because of a restaurant Miguel had heard about from a fellow Marine. The Big Texan Steak Ranch was a sprawling dining hall with a cowboy theme. It featured a staff dressed in Western gear, stuffed wild animals (bison and deer heads, a huge bear ready to attack), snakes (to view in their cages or to eat), and a video shooting gallery. We were drawn to The Big Texan by its “world famous” steak-eating contest, which Miguel was certain he could win. To do so, he would only have to consume a salad, dinner roll, shrimp cocktail, baked potato, baked beans … and a 72 oz. steak, along with a beverage to wash it all down. Making the challenge even easier was the fact that he’d be given a full sixty minutes to enjoy the meal. The contest was one Miguel would probably have taken on even if there were no external incentive, but there was one: once victory was his, he’d be given a Big Texan mug and t-shirt and the meal itself would be free.

  Miguel was seated at a red-table-clothed dais flanked by a gigantic digital clock. The chef came out to the table and, under his supervision, Miguel was allowed to taste the steak to ensure it was cooked to his satisfaction. He swallowed the bite of steak, reflected for a moment, nodded, and the battle was on. I was sitting in a nearby booth rooting him on, trying not to look at the four-and-a-half-pound slab of charred meat, but wanting to be the dutiful girl-friend-cheerleader. He started strong, but slowed and lost the verbal support of the nearby diners, and stopped before he could finish. We left stunned and empty-handed except for the $100 check.

  We put Grizzly into a laundry bag the next morning, ran him out to the car hoping the staff wouldn’t catch us violating their no pets policy, and continued driving eastward, into the bright yellow sun.

  Grizzly and me at a state park near Twentynine Palms, California. (Author collection)

  24

  St. Louis

  What got in his head? Former Marine died one year ago after mixing heroin and Xanax.

  A year ago today, Eric R. Jines died.

  Twelve days shy of his 23rd birthday, Eric died in a hospital emergency room suffering acute respiratory arrest—the result of mixing heroin with the anti-anxiety drug Xanax …

  Eric’s death ended a trajectory that had carried him from early graduation so he could join the Marine Corps, to combat in Iraq and to a return home, where he struggled to readjust to the civilian world …

  His struggle was intensified by a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychiatric disorder linked to life-threatening experiences. Its symptoms include nightmares, flashbacks, depression, anxiety and mood swings.

  After a year of grieving, Jines, a dentist who practices in St. Louis, plans to speak next week to an assistant U.S. attorney in hopes of launching an investigation into whether Eric obtained the heroin that killed him at the VA Hospital at Jefferson Barracks in south St. Louis County.

  When Eric came home from Iraq in October 2005, he refused to talk about his experiences with the 1st Marine Division, Jines said. “Absolutely, when he came back he was so clammed up, he wouldn’t say a thing. You wouldn’t know he was in the Marines except for the tattoos he had,” Jines said.

  “I think it was the guilt he felt,” said Eric’s mother, Laura Jines. “I tried to get him to talk to somebody. I do think it was the guilt he felt for whatever he did.”

  —Mike Fitzgerald, Belleville News-Democrat, Dec. 6, 2009

  Who knows how it was that we decided to live in St. Louis, Missouri. Neither of us had been there. We didn’t know anybody there. We didn’t have jobs waiting for us there. We weren’t life-long Cardinals’ fans. But there we were, in St. Louis, the Gateway to the West. Waking up at seven every morning, we dressed ourselves in casual business clothes, and scoured the city for jobs, with each of us submitting at least three or four applications a day. We talked to a kind, elderly woman at a Wackenhut security office and were offered jobs as security guards. Miguel got to work days, armed, for $12 an hour. I was told they’d let me work third shift, unarmed, for $9 an hour. I had a green belt in martial arts, one level higher than his grey belt; we were both expert marksmen; I EASed with a higher rank than him, but none of it mattered. Miguel took the job while I continued my search for a week or so more, until I found employment with a company that sold equipment to machine shops around the country. Shops would call us for parts when theirs broke down. My job was to answer the phone and type the order information into the computer. I probably got the job because of my background as a diesel mechanic. If a caller asked for an O-ring or a level or a gasket, I knew what he was asking for and was often able to help identify the exact part and send out the right one quickly. And I probably got the job because I was female.

  I liked working at the machine equipment supply company. It was easy and fun. The other six girl
s in the business’ front-end office were friendly and polite to me. The walls surrounding our work cubicles were low enough for the gab and gossip to flow freely and uninterrupted. The chatting would continue during the breaks in the lunchroom we shared with the warehouse workers and in which the television played what seemed to be an endless loop of COPS reruns and episodes of Judge Joe Brown. I began to make friends.

  One weekend, Miguel and I joined one of my co-workers and her boyfriend and attended a car show in downtown St. Louis. Another girl, Shanna, would host a girls’ night at her place on Tuesday nights, the night her boyfriend worked late at Best Buy. We’d watch movies and exchange recipes. Still, Miguel would scream at me as I’d leave our apartment to head to Shanna’s, accusing me of carrying on an affair behind his back.

  We split the bills down the middle, 50/50, but I did everything around the apartment—making us a big breakfast every morning, lunches to take to work, and a full dinner each night. I’d bake muffins and cookies and send them to work with Miguel for his co-workers. I did the vacuuming and the laundry and I cleaned the bathroom. I tried to be the ideal girlfriend. Despite the continued abuse, I sensed that life was improving. Or maybe I was just hoping it was.

  I feared Miguel and knew that he was capable of hurting me physically, but I believed in his fidelity to me. My trust was implicit. It was the trust of a heart not yet irrevocably damaged by the selfishness of a lover. And it was a trust fortified by the fact that we were both Marines, tied to each other with a bond closer than that of brothers, by a willingness to sacrifice our life for that of the other. Semper fidelis! And so when Miguel asked me to get his credit card from his wallet for an online purchase he was making, I thought nothing of the post-it note that had a telephone number and the name Monica written on it. I mean he just moved across country with me and we were fellow Marines! I joked with him: “Oh, some girl named Monica has it for ya, huh?”