by Ponzo, Gary
The boy ducks his head and bulls past the rest of the boys. They try to stop him, but he knocks them with his shoulders, lashes out at them with his feet, swings wildly with his bare fists. His mouth is set. His face a slash of white. His lips a cruel line of red.
He breaks free and scrambles to the top, his hands and feet shoveling snow behind him like a badger digging a hole. He makes it to the top. And stands. The boys below momentarily pause to watch him.
The biggest boy’s arms are pinwheeling and he falls over backward, slides down the hill and comes to a rest at the bottom, his red, flushed face split by a huge grin.
The girl moves. She walks toward the mountain of snow. Her eyes meet the eyes of the boy at the top. Their gazes hold for what feels to the girl to be a long time.
And then she runs.
The path cleared by the big boy is still clear and she scrambles, her small legs pumping, her purple boots sharp and firm in the snow.
The boy holds out his hand as she nears and then her yellow mitten is inside it and he hoists her onto his shoulders. She is not scared. The breath comes from her lungs. She can look out and see the whole playground. She should not be here, she thinks. This is for the big kids. For the big boys. But then, a funny thing happens.
Slowly, her arms go over her head in a sudden inspiration of pure triumph. She reaches for the sky, her heart singing, her head thrown back. She is screaming. Whooping.
In her peripheral vision, she sees the boy’s bare hands, glistening with wetness, the fingertips looking almost blue. His hands curl into fists and the two stand atop the mountain, arms raised over their heads.
Victorious.
One
The killer pulls his white Ford Taurus rental car along the curb next to a Chinese restaurant, a few blocks past San Diego’s gay district and just before the first house of a quiet residential neighborhood. The kind of area where retirees sit in darkened living rooms alternatively watching television and any activity outside, ready to change channels or call the police, depending upon what action unfolds in either arena.
He shuts the car off and places the keys in his pocket. He steps out, shuts and locks the door, then walks up to the corner and turns right, toward the neon signs, loud music and sidewalks crowded with men.
The air is warm but dry, with a soft breeze that stirs the palm trees. A full moon hangs overhead, bathing the gaudy strip ahead in an eerie glow.
He tells himself that he can stop. That he can go right back to his car, climb in and drive away. That doing this…thing…will put him on a road with no way to turn back. Although his walking pace is steady, his stomach is roiling, a yo-yo full of acid. His head feels gauzy, as if his eyes and ears are filtering things, distorting them.
He walks by a clothing store and catches his reflection in the window. He’s tall and lean, with dark hair and a face that looks carved, with sharp edges and angles. In his blue jeans and denim jacket, he looks rugged. Capable. Even handsome.
His name is Samuel, and he keeps walking.
He has thought about this moment. From the very second the great injustice transpired, he has gone over it and over it in his mind. It’s all about goals. Deciding what’s important. What you want to achieve, and then putting together a plan, systematic steps to achieve those goals. There were many options. But this is the most direct, the most permanent, the best approach of them all.
It’s also the most dangerous, with the greatest chance of backfiring. Can he stomach it and survive?
He doesn’t know. At one point in his life, he was committed to a goal and never thought he’d fold…but he shakes that thought away. He is still committed to that goal. Now more than fucking ever. What he does know is that he will not be stopped. The part of his life that was ripped away needs to be put back. He isn’t whole. Until things are made right, he simply cannot exist in this state.
Samuel knows what he’s looking for. He peers into the first place, The Cock and Bull, and sees that it isn’t right. It’s not crowded, there’s no loud music, nothing going on. Just a few middle-aged men sitting around an oval bar in a faint haze of cigarette smoke. He walks on, staring straight ahead. Several men pass him, staring intently, but he doesn’t look at them. He’s fixed on his target. He passes several more bars but one glance into each tells him to keep moving.
Up ahead, he can see a small group of men milling around an entrance that’s lit by a strobe light; swirling dots of color shower the men and the sidewalk. A pounding bass thumps the air around them. Samuel walks closer and can see a sign that reads: M & M. Beneath the sign is a vintage advertising banner that says “M & M Candy: It melts in your mouth, not in your hands!”
A low whistle sounds from the group and they turn as one to face Samuel. He ignores them and walks through the door. A muscular bouncer in a wife-beater T-shirt tells him there’s a five dollar cover. Samuel pays the man and walks inside.
It smells like a normal bar to Samuel, except maybe the scent of cologne is stronger. An empty stage sits at one end of the bar. The rest of the place is dominated by a circular bar with clusters of tables flanking it.
For a moment, Samuel freezes. His head is pounding, his stomach is surging toward his throat. He feels like a little boy who’s about to do something very bad. Even though this is the least criminal portion of what he plans to do tonight, he nonetheless wants to turn around and run. He wants to race back to his car and curl up in the back seat and cry. An image of his father floats before him and he nearly screams.
Is it worth this? He asks himself the question, but knows that the answer is yes. Years of striving, of dreaming, of imagining, of believing, come down to this.
Samuel walks past the bar toward the jukebox. It’s belting out a Doors song, something about a soul kitchen. He sees the sign for restrooms, an M & M with nuts, and follows it down a short hallway to a cheap pine door. He pushes in and walks briskly past the two urinals for the stalls. There are three smaller stalls, with a bigger handicapped one at the end.
He pushes open the first stall and looks. It’s empty. He scans the floor, but it’s clean. The door swings shut and Samuel pushes open the second door. It’s empty as well. He checks the third and finds the same result.
He puts his hand on the fourth door when he hears the sound of flesh smacking flesh. A soft groan comes from the stall. Samuel bends down and looks under the door. Two pairs of feet are facing the same way, partially obscured by pants and belts. One pair are topsiders, the other wing tips.
Samuel goes back into the third stall and sits down on the toilet. He waits. The lovemaking sounds continue. He looks at the graffiti on the metal stall wall. “Jeremy’s the best!” Phone numbers. Crude drawings of male genitalia. A note: “My mother made me gay!” Followed by a witty rejoinder: “Will she make me a sweater?”
The sounds in the stall next to him intensify, filling the small room. A deep moan fills the space and the sound stops. After several moments, Samuel hears the snap of plastic, and then pants and zippers being pulled up.
The men shuffle to the door and suddenly the sound of the jukebox fills the bathroom, the door shuts and it’s quiet again. Samuel moves quickly. He leaves the third stall, enters the fourth, and pulls the door shut behind him. From the front pocket of his denim jacket, he pulls a pair of surgical gloves and slips them on. From the other pocket, he pulls a plastic baggie.
Samuel looks around the toilet for the used condom, and spies it on the right side, beneath the toilet dispenser.
Samuel picks it up, careful to grasp it at the top ring, and slides it into the plastic baggie.
Samuel places the baggie into a pocket, strips off the plastic gloves and drops them in the wastebasket on the way out. He’ll need another pair for the next phase of the operation, but that’s okay.
He’s got several more in the car.
Two
He stands on the threshold of his destiny.
The streaking rays of sunset have faded completely from the sk
y. Reflections from the bonfire light the side of his face, shading the dark hollows.
Coronado, California sits behind him. Home to the North Island Naval Station and the infamous Navy BUD/S program: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. It is to this small island just off the coast of San Diego that young men volunteer to become Navy SEALs, knowing that in order to accomplish that feat, they must first pass the BUD/S program. They’ve heard the statistics: that over ninety percent of them won’t make it. That people have died during this training.
But on this night, Saturday night, they are not worried. They are drinking, celebrating, preparing.
Phase One of the SEAL training begins on Monday. This Saturday night party is a tradition, meant to punctuate the recruits’ last night of freedom before they turn their lives over to the BUD/S instructors.
Samuel looks west, out into the ocean. Behind him, the others are drinking, talking with slurred voices, dealing with their fears and anxieties the only way they know how: mainly, to deny them. But Samuel Ackerman is not in denial. He knows what’s at stake. Ever since his father told him he’d been a frog man for the Navy; the same group that later became the SEALs, it has been Samuel’s dream. To be the most complete, most highly trained, most physically fit soldier in the world: a Navy SEAL.
Samuel takes a drink from the can of Budweiser. His free hand, the right one, goes to his face and he rubs a spot just above his right eye. Whenever he thinks of his father, he does this. It is the very spot where the old man’s boot crunched his skull-
-but Samuel doesn’t want to think about that now. This is his moment, not that monster that came back from Southeast Asia with the mind of a killer and the body of a junkie.
Samuel sits down abruptly and takes off his shoes and socks. He scoops up the can of Budweiser and takes a long drink. He walks forward, into the water. Southern California or not, the water is cold. It is something the BUD/S instructor are acutely aware of and use to their advantage at every moment. It is the cold, mainly, along with the sleep deprivation, that cause so many to drop out, to ring the infamous bell that will be within reach at all times. When a recruit rings the bell, it means they quit. They are given a hot meal and a warm bed.
Samuel will not ring the bell.
He stands there, his feet sinking into the rough textured sand, feels his toes descend. The water is cold, and he knows that at some point he’ll be linked arm in arm with other recruits at some ungodly hour of the morning, sitting in the surf as wave after wave of ice-cold water smashes into them. It’s called Hell Week, and it’s when the majority of recruits drop out of the voluntary training program.
Samuel won’t drop out. He’s waited too long. Thought too much. Worked too hard.
He looks into the water, at its murky depths. It will be settled there, he thinks. Despite the running. The push-ups. Carrying the boats on their heads. The complete sleep deprivation. The BUD/S instructors with their relentless taunting, pushing, deriding.
The water is where it will be decided. It is the water that washes away the will. That erodes the desire. That softens the heart.
Samuel is glad. He is good in the water, has been all his life.
Samuel spits into the ocean and drinks the rest of his beer in one long swallow. He looks off across the water, at the dark horizon.
His destiny is there.
Waiting.
Three
Samuel drives along the row of bars a block from the Naval base.
The sidewalks are crowded with sailors, sailors and their girlfriends, or girlfriends-to-be. Occasionally, groups of men can be seen leaving one bar and walking into the next one. They are drunk, alive, and ready to make the most of their time away from base.
Samuel drives for two blocks before he sees The Outer Bank, a clapboard tavern painted blue with a life ring and a pelican affixed over the front door. He drives past and circles the parking lot, looking for a black Chevy truck with the Navy SEAL bumper sticker.
He sees it and goes past, taking a parking spot at the other end of the lot that affords him privacy and an unobstructed view of the Chevy. He puts his car in Park and shuts it off. The engine ticks.
Samuel turns the ignition far enough to work the electrical systems and he rolls down the driver’s side window.
A gust of cool ocean air invades the car’s space and Samuel breathes deeply.
Any thoughts of turning back are gone now.
From beneath the front seat of the Taurus, Samuel pulls a nylon scabbard. It’s big, nearly a foot long, and heavy, weighing a couple of pounds. Samuel holds it tenderly before popping the clasp and sliding out the knife.
Someone shouts and Samuel glances up. A group of sailors crosses the parking lot at the end opposite from Samuel. They won’t see him.
Samuel turns his attention back to the knife. It glistens in the moonlight and Samuel’s tempted to test the edge but he doesn’t; he knows it’s razor sharp. He worked with it into the small hours of the morning last night to get it so that it would cut like a razor.
He slides the knife back into the scabbard and stows it beneath the seat. Samuel glances at the Chevy, sees it sitting quietly waiting for its owner to return.
At the thought of the truck’s owner Samuel instantly begins going over his plan one more time. Has he forgotten anything? Is there some minor flaw that he’ll realize at this late moment and cause him to abort? The machinations go through his mind quickly. He looks at it from every conceivable angle. There are places things can go wrong, definitely. But if things fall into place, he is prepared to move.
It is a good plan. It is the tactical part that pleases him the most. The other part, the slaking of his thirst for revenge, is just an added bonus.
That’s what he tells himself.
But he knows it isn’t true.
The fact is, he’s been shit on his whole life. Never really given a fair break. The cards have always been stacked against him. So he retreated. He withdrew. Told himself that he really didn’t want the things every one else wanted. He lived a life of denial. Because he was forced to.
But then they took the one thing that he had allowed himself to desire. The one thing he truly wanted all his life.
It reminded of the times when his father used to…
Stop!
This wasn’t about the old man.
This was about him. Samuel.
And the bastard who had hounded him from BUD/S training.
Nevens.
Four
It is Hell Week and his strength is gone. Not ebbing. Not dissipating. It is gone.
His muscles have gone from rock hard to soft rubber. He is surprised that they even have the strength to hold his bones together. He is exhausted to the core of his being. Everything he sees, hears and feels is distorted by bone-numbing fatigue. He has never been this tired.
Samuel figures he has run at least a hundred miles. He’s been in the water so long that he can’t remember not being wet. And cold. The cold is the worst. He can’t remember the last time he was warm.
The recruits have been divided into six-man boat crews. Samuel’s crew is one of the worst and has been singled out by BUD/S instructor Nevens, a narrow-waisted broad shouldered man whose face has taken on a nightmarish quality to Samuel. Like the killer who wears the hockey mask in the slasher movies.
The boat teams have been ordered to carry their boat up and down a series of hills. Samuel is in agony. The boat feels as if it’s on his shoulders alone. He grits his teeth. The burning in his shoulders and chest is intense. There is yelling and Samuel pumps his legs as they try to climb the hill. The man in front of Samuel trips and falls. The boat sags perilously before the recruit scrambles back to his feet.
Ahead, the other boat crews have made it. Samuel and his team cajole the boat up the hill and over.
They are the last group over the hill.
Before they can rest, BUD/S instructor Nevens is in their faces. Screaming at them. Calling them names. Quitter
s. Losers. Pussies.
In the back, Samuel flinches.
His father used to call him a pussy.
And then Nevens is in Samuel’s face. Telling him to quit, that he doesn’t belong out here. Spittle stings Samuel’s cheeks. Nevens tells him to go ring the bell. He turns Samuel’s head so that he can see the bell sitting on its wooden platform.
Waiting to be rung.
Samuel turns his head and stares straight ahead, but doesn’t really see. He senses Nevens there, can make out the man’s hatchet face, the crewcut, the blazing eyes.
For a brief moment, Samuel sees his father yelling at him. Cursing him. Beating him.
And then Nevens is gone.
Samuel’s boat crew is put on Nevens’ goon squad: meaning by finishing last they are given extra running and push-ups to do while the other boat crews rest.
Samuel knows that if they continue to be on the goon squad, they’ll never make it through Hell Week.
He does his pushups. Sand is in his mouth and he grinds it between his teeth. His jaws are clacking from the cold.
Nevens is wrong. He’s got the fire, he’s got the heart. And right now, that flame is being molded into a pure cold hatred for Nevens.
Samuel’s got the heart.
He wonders, Does Nevens?
Five
It is nearly two in the morning when Samuel hears the sound of a woman’s high-pitched laugh. He glances in the direction of the Outer Bank’s front door and sees what he has been looking for.
BUD/S Instructor Nevens. Larry to his friends, is walking out of the bar with his arm around a big-haired blonde. Samuel’s heart quickens. He’s seen it before, the last three weekends in fact, Nevens has come to this bar and picked up one of the local floozies. They’re easy pickings to him, Samuel thinks, just like the SEAL recruits.
Samuel watches Nevens open the door for the blonde. When he steps back to let her by she puts her arms around his neck and they kiss. Nevens grinds his pelvis into her.