“So what name do you have picked out for your little girl?” the nurse asked with a bright smile as she took my tiny baby girl to clean her up better and do whatever it was they did to babies after they were born. She was so patient and kind, and I couldn’t believe that minutes ago I wanted to kick her in the face. I felt a little discomfited and hoped she hadn’t been able to read my mind.
“Remington Amelia… I want to call her Remi.” I thought of her father and how I would have named her Colton after him if she had been a boy, but since she was a sweet little girl, I figured Remington was a close second to Colt, which was close to her daddy’s name. My smile was bittersweet as I imagined how he would look holding her.
My mother held her after the nurse brought her back over, placing a soft kiss on her forehead, causing my little Remi to root around. My mother laughed as she handed her to me, saying, “I think she’s ready for you, Mommy.” I pulled my gaze from the window, where a soft January snow was falling, and reached for my angel.
As I placed her on my chest with the guidance of the nurse and felt the first tug at my breast from her tiny mouth, I knew there could be no greater or stronger love in the world than I had for this little precious baby. I softly ran my fingers through her silky hair and sent out a message on a prayer, thanking her unknowing daddy for the gift he had bestowed upon me.
January 2014
I JERKED AWAKE FROM a nightmare of the last ride in the Humvee my spotter and I were traveling in with our interpreter and a fresh-faced young driver—a young man who, unfortunately, would never bless his family with his youthful optimism again.
I tried to catch my breath and slow my heart down before it had my nurse running in again. I squeezed my eyes closed to try to stop the tears and to erase the sightless eyes of the interpreter and our scout from my vision. I covered my ears, as if it would block the screams of my spotter, and best friend, from my ears. It seemed nothing could erase the coppery taste and crimson stains of the blood covering us all, and I relived it every fucking night. As the room slowly came back into focus after I opened my eyes, I felt like the air was different, like suddenly I wasn’t alone and something had shifted in the universe. I shook off the strange feeling and reached for my water pitcher by the bed.
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d been told I was lucky to be alive. I didn’t know how they figured that. I hurt every day. I had nightmares every night. Mason and I had barely survived, but we lost two good men with families who loved, and now grieved, them.
Why did I survive when I had no one? It didn’t make any fucking sense. Why me, God?
I had my doubts there even was a God. How could there be? No God should allow people, with so much to live for, to die and allow someone with my sins, and no one to mourn me, to live.
I had been at BAMC—Brooke Army Medical Center—for about a month since the IED explosion along a seemingly deserted road in Afghanistan. For the first several weeks, starting with the initial stabilization by the flight medics, then the transfer to Landstuhl, Germany, and then to here was a blur of semi-consciousness. I remembered hearing screams and not being sure if they were my friends or my own. I remembered blackness. But most of all, I remembered the blonde hair, blue eyes, and gorgeous warm smile of a girl who had kept me going through everything. I clung fiercely to those memories. I couldn’t believe how one night had embedded her so deeply in my psyche that she was forever etched in my heart. I didn’t even know her name because I was a selfish, horny bastard who only cared about sex that night nearly a year ago. Back then, I had told myself there was no need since I would never see her again.
God, I was stupid. Such a conceited, self-righteous fuck. I hated myself more every day.
I reached down beside me, searching through the blanket for my phone, which now sported a cracked screen and what I repeatedly told myself were mud splatters on the back each and every time I scraped one off. I opened it up to the picture she had taken that night of the two of us. It was after one of our mind-blowing rounds of the best sex I had ever experienced. The pale blue sheets were tucked up over her breasts, and we both had flushed cheeks and ridiculous smiles. There was such happiness captured in that brief moment in time. It seemed fitting that the crack in the screen ran right between the two of us. I wasn’t good enough for her before, and I certainly wasn’t now; scarred and broken, both physically and mentally. But just the thought of her body held close and intertwined with mine, the smell of her hair, the feel of her lips against mine, and the look of complete satiation on her face kept me intact during moments that would have driven some men over the edge of sanity. For that, I would always hold her in my heart and love her like no other. Love? Shit. What did I really know of love? Maybe I shouldn’t even say that shit.
The accident happened in December. Mason and I had spent Christmas and New Years in the hospital—me, pretty much in a constant haze between drug-induced unconsciousness and surgeries. His parents had come down over the holidays and stayed in the Fischer House, kind of the military’s version of the Ronald McDonald House. I vaguely remembered them visiting my room with Mason. It was now mid-January and the world outside my window looked as bleak as I felt. I would almost give anything to be back in the drug-induced haze I had been in then.
Better to feel nothing than what I felt now.
I reached up, touching the scar that ran from my temple to my lower jaw. It was still thick and jagged. The doctors told me it would get better with time, but it would always be my reminder of that day.
It wasn’t just my face that was scarred or disfigured in the explosion though. I had suffered nerve damage, fractures to my skull, left arm, three of my left ribs, and my left leg at the thigh and lower leg. My left leg now sported enough metal to ensure I would set off every metal detector in the airport for the rest of my miserable, worthless life. A rod took the place of the center of my femur, and I had enough plates, pins, and screws in the bones of my lower leg to build a parking garage. They said I was lucky they saved my leg.
Fuck them.
The daily therapy pissed me off. I hated the pain and the fucking optimism of the stupid fuckers that pushed me to walk and use muscles that I would have been happy to let die.
Mason had healed up pretty well, all things considering. His left side caught the brunt of the explosion as well, but the shemagh scarf he was wearing as a dust mask, prevented the facial lacerations I suffered from. I was thankful for that because he was always such a happy fucker and, of the two of us, the outgoing one. He was a good-hearted guy and deserved to be able to have a chance at happiness. He did, however, suffer a Traumatic Brain Injury and minor burns and breaks to both of his lower legs, but had since healed, and he used them to walk in my room and pester the shit out of me every day of our recovery. He had chosen not to re-up when his window opened and was now on terminal leave. The faint scruff growing on his face did little to hide the boyish face that still remained despite going through hell with me.
He talked non-stop about going home and prospecting for some motorcycle club. I tried not to roll my eyes as he went on about his excitement to see his family and begin the hang-around and prospect journey. I was supposed to be out of the Army in a few months as well, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they extended me because I was still stuck here in this worthless shithole and would have therapy for a while. The doc said, if everything went well with the scans and tests they ran today, I should be discharged soon and moved over to the Warrior Transition Unit barracks to finish up my treatment on an outpatient basis. I didn’t have it in me to stay in anymore. I wanted out. I had failed to protect the soldiers under me. I had seen more senseless deaths than I could count. I had killed more piece of shit hadjis than anyone else on my team, and yet I still felt like it didn’t make a difference. They seemed to multiply like fucking rabbits to keep killing as many of my brothers and sisters as they could. I hated those motherfuckers.
Even though air entered and exited my lungs, machines con
tinued beeping around me, and the pain throbbing through the left side of my body all told me I was alive, I felt dead inside. I had not a single thing to be alive for. I was a waste of pathetic space in this fucked-up, hate-filled world. I was hate filled… rotting from the inside out from the empty blackness of my soul.
May 2014
I LOVED MY FAMILY, but it had taken me a while before I finally told them I was pregnant. They had been great through my pregnancy, despite the shock of their “good little girl” getting pregnant and not knowing who the father was. They harassed me incessantly at first about the father of my baby. My father and brothers, seeing the situation from a man’s perspective, were angry with me at first, thinking I actually knew who the father was and was just keeping the baby from him. For weeks after that day, my brothers wouldn’t speak to me. My mother, bless her soul, was always supportive and never condescending. She did try to gently persuade me to share the story with her, but I remained stubbornly mute regarding the subject.
I didn’t know if it was worse that my family thought me a heartless bitch for keeping a baby from its daddy or if they would think me a skanky slut for sleeping with a man whose only information I knew was his first name, he was in the Army, and he had a rocking body and a killer smile. I did try to find him, but do you have any idea how many soldiers are at Ft. Benning, Georgia? And good luck trying to find a soldier named “Colton”—no last name. I had no idea what he did, where he worked, or anything about him really. I did know his friend was from somewhere in Iowa and had friends who had been at the party, but that was another needle in a haystack considering I didn’t know his friend’s name either. What I did know was my little baby girl was her daddy’s spitting image.
I wondered if he would be happy if he knew about her. I wondered if he would want to be a part of her life. Sometimes I made up scenarios in my mind of finding him. In my favorite, he was thrilled to have us in his life and we ended up as a happy little family, white picket fence and all. Other scenarios played out with him being angry because he thought I only found him to get child support or him wishing I had “taken care of” the situation. That was one of the worst. Still others that he hated me for keeping her from him, like I had any other option. I tortured myself daily with all of the what-ifs and if-onlys.
When I received the phone call in April from a fairly prestigious dining establishment in Des Moines, I jumped on the opportunity to tuck my tail and run from my family’s censure. It took me a couple of weeks to find an apartment and get everything lined up before I packed Remi and our belongings into my little SUV and my brother’s truck, which translated to mostly Remi’s things. My mother waved with tears running down her cheeks and my father’s strong arms holding her tight as I drove off to start a new life for me and my precious little bugga-boo. The job wasn’t exactly a top-chef position. It was actually a position as a prep cook, but it was my foot in the door and it gave me the opportunity to get out of Dodge.
Remi was such a sweet baby. At times when I spoke to her, I swore she understood every word I said. She would stare at me with those big blue eyes as if she was looking straight into my soul. I prayed she never found it wanting and that she understood I was doing the best I could. I knew I was blessed to have such a calm, good-natured baby, and I thanked the good Lord above for her every day.
Since I had found the apartment, sight unseen, before we headed down, I was both excited and dreading moving in. From what I could find out, it was in a so-so neighborhood. Neither great, nor the ghetto. I just prayed it was safe enough for my little angel. It was only a one bedroom, but I figured with her being so little and us sharing my old room at my parents’, it would be okay for a while. I pulled up in front of the older building that my GPS brought me to, noting the four apartments with open stairs going to the second floor apartments. My brothers pulled into the spot next to me.
Remi started to stir when I shut the car off, and I quickly went to unbuckle her from her bright pink car seat—a gift from my high school friends at my baby shower, along with the matching stroller I had crammed in the back. She opened her tiny Cupid’s bow lips in a delicate yawn, rubbing her eyes as I pulled her close to me and placed a soft kiss on her downy black curls. She reached up, entwining her chubby fingers in my hair as she looked around as if to say, “Where are we, Mommy?”
“Here, Steph, let me hold her while you go get the keys.” Sam said as he plucked Remi from my arms. Quiet little nonsensical sounds came from Remi and she grabbed at her uncle who was making crazy faces at her. Shoot, if I had stayed at home they would have spoiled her rotten.
The manager lived in the next building over, obviously newer and much bigger. I approached her door to collect the keys for our new home. Mrs. Burns answered the door with a ready smile. She looked to be around her early-sixties with light grayish-blue eyes, graying brunette hair, and a stature so small, she barely reached my shoulder. She walked over with us to let us in the apartment, cooing at Remi, still snuggled in my brother’s arms, as we walked over.
“She’s around my grandson’s age. How I wish they lived closer.” She smiled and unlocked the door. “If you all need help unloading your things, my husband is the maintenance slash handyman here, and he’s not up to anything but watching some old western on that dang TV. I’d be more than happy to send him over if you want. That way you don’t have to leave little miss, here, sitting while you unload.” She looked at me with such kindness. I felt instantly grateful to be blessed with a kind apartment manager.
“I think we can handle it, but thank you so much for the offer.” It wasn’t like I had much and my brother’s would have it unloaded in no time.
“If you change your mind, I’ll kick his butt this direction!” she chuckled and walked back to her apartment tossing a “see you later, then!” over her shoulder.
Lost Battles
I let the night set in around me
I poured a whiskey, hard and pure
Maybe tonight, this booze will drown me
Maybe then I’ll find a cure
It’s been years since I’ve been happy
Before these shadows found my face
It’s like Pandora’s box has trapped me
And I’m the perfect picture of disgrace
And come tomorrow, if you hear tonight I died
I drowned in sorrow, it ate me up inside
I don’t know if you ever saw my battles behind my mask of pride
But I’ve been lost and drifting like a dingy on the tide
I let the night set in around me
Looking back on pictures of my friends
When the reinforcements found me
How come I lived instead of them
And though they’ve long been buried
They still visit me now and then
These ghosts I’ve carried
The scars beneath the skin
And come tomorrow, if you hear tonight I died
I drowned in sorrow, it ate me up inside
I don’t know if you ever saw my battles behind my mask of pride
But I’ve been lost and drifting like a dingy on the tide
I let the night set in around me
I pour a whiskey, hard and pure
And if it doesn’t drown me
Maybe it’ll drown my memories of her
And come tomorrow, if you hear tonight I died
I drowned in sorrow, it ate me up inside
I don’t know if you ever saw my battles behind my mask of pride
But I’ve been drifting like a dingy on the tide
~ Craig Dew
July 2014
I HAD BEEN OUT of the Army for going on three miserable fucking months. I hung around San Antonio, mostly because I really had nowhere else to go and no fucking motivation to look for anywhere else to go. My disability check and the money I picked up from odd jobs here and there when I needed it was enough to keep me in the lap of luxury here on the south side of SA.
Yeah
, yeah, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. What the fuck ever.
My apartment was a tiny furnished efficiency. Absolute. Shit. Hole. I could see daylight from the uneven space under the door, which had been splintered and patched up with the knob and lock moved; total evidence of someone kicking it down. Sometimes I wondered if it was the cops who kicked it in or some other nefarious excuse for a human that did it. Most times I didn’t give a shit. When I was able to sleep, I slept with the lights on partly due to my fear that the cockroaches would take over and partly in fear that the darkness itself would take over. The AC ran nonstop it seemed, and yet it was still hot as fuck in here. The shades on the dirty-ass windows were broken and didn’t close, so most of the time I kept the dingy curtains drawn to keep the nasty, nosy motherfuckers around here out of my business—not because I was worried they would try to break in to steal anything.
I lifted the bottle of whiskey to my lips, draining the last of it. I tossed it in a drunken arch toward the trash, amazing my own drunk ass when it hit the trash and landed with a clatter of glass on glass. Lord knew if it was hitting beer bottles or liquor bottles. I stood up, wavering on my feet for a minute before I took the three steps from my bed to the fridge. Yeah, I said the shithole was tiny.
Colton's Salvation: A Demented Sons MC Novel Page 5