What was his name? Whatever his name had been, Johnathan would never forget the image of the young boy, decked out in black garments and dark ringed makeup silhouetted against his pale moon skin. The boys of Suicide Squad sat together, snickering, struggling to hold in the chucks. Bobby was damn near out of his seat with a bad case of the chucks. Ricky had his hand held firmly to his mouth. Johnathan had whispered, “Oh sweet baby Jesus, is this kid talking about his mommy or what?” Another burst of muffled laughter. The emo boy eventually finished, thank God, and out walked Maggie’s little sister, Karen.
She was so frail looking back then. Not anymore though. Johnathan snuck a glance at his wife, admiring the curve on her hips. When Karen had walked on stage, this small seemingly mousy little girl, the girl they had voted not to allow in the club, Maggie had turned and given them the eye, the silent warning each and every one of them knew by heart. Her glare said, “You better not laugh, or so help me God!” They promised, of course, but didn’t need to. Once Karen started singing…my God…The entire auditorium fell into an ecstatic hush.
Johnathan had always had a crush on Mags. She’d been the only girl he’d ever really talked to, despite knowing somehow that she would never really feel the same way about him. But he couldn’t help it. Maggie was a member of Suicide Squad, he saw her almost every day of the year. However, when Karen took the stage, everything changed. Her voice was a siren’s song. My heart bled upon her jagged rocks, and never returned.
“Here, drink this, soldier.” Karen sat a steaming mug of coffee in front of Johnathan, jolting him from his thoughts. His chair rocked dangerously back. Tabitha giggled behind her box of cereal.
“Where’d you go?” Karen asked bemused.
“Just remembering something,” Johnathan said coyly.
“What?” Karen sounded curious now.
“A certain middle school talent show is all.” Johnathan winked.
Karen thought for a moment. “Our middle school? At St. Francis? What made you think of that?” She stood there, one hand on her hip. Eyebrow poised in anticipation.
“No reason,” Johnathan smiled, taking a sip from his mug.
Karen returned the smile with bewilderment and went back to the kitchen. He watched her beautiful form with a sudden awareness of how damn lucky he really was to have her, to be a part of this family and have a daughter. Sure, she was a step-daughter, not his own flesh and blood, but Tabitha had accepted him without condition. He often wondered, though, would she have been as accepting were she older? Maybe. Maybe not. That mattered little. What really mattered was the here and now. Karen loved him and so did Tabitha. Not many of his comrades could say the same thing, those who lived, that is.
“I love you,” Johnathan said, and though the phrase seemed to spring from him without much thought, he meant every single word.
“I love you too,” said Karen, beaming at him from across the kitchen island.
“Don’t make me barf,” said Tabitha, her small delicate voice came off as both disgusted and equally amused. Johnathan could feel her smiling from behind the cartooned pirate. Underneath the facade, he knew the little girl loved seeing her mama happy. Karen winked at her, coming to the table, placing a plate full of eggs, bacon, and burnt toast in front of Johnathan. She stooped and tenderly kissed him. He eagerly returned the gesture.
“Oh! Gross, you two!” Tabitha protested, mocking lurching motions.
“Hush. It’s perfectly normal for a mom and dad to kiss each other.” Karen went to sit, teasing her daughter with kiss-fish face. “One day, you’ll have someone special you’ll want to give a smooch.”
“Not on my watch,” interjected Johnathan, doing his best to sound stern, yet smiling underneath.
“Yuck! As if, Mom,” said Tabitha, returning to whatever was so interesting behind that cereal box. Johnathan said a silent prayer of thanks that it would be a long time until talk of boys. Secretly he wished it never would. She was his step-daughter, but she felt more kin than the most of his biological family. He watched her for a moment; strong profound love came on him almost overwhelmingly. Johnathan spooned a mouth full of eggs to avoid an emotional outburst. Tears were inching dangerously close. If he wasn’t careful, he could get carried away and start sobbing at the table. Karen would worry. And he would feel ashamed. He struggled. Too often his positive thoughts would intermingle with his negatives ones of friends lost, parts of him lost forever, and not just his leg.
“When’s your flight, hun?” asked Karen, tending to her own plate of eggs and toast. She didn’t seem to notice the moisture building on the surface of his eyes.
He had nearly forgotten about his trip. “2:00 p.m. I’ll need to leave by noon. I’m flying out of George Bush. Security normally takes longer there, nowadays at least.” Johnathan took a deep chug of hot coffee, grateful for the burning warmth pouring into his belly and for the calming effects of caffeine and for the distraction. Maybe I’ll get something stronger at the hotel, later tonight.
“When will you land in D.C.?”
“Itinerary says 5:30 p.m., but we’ll see I guess. I’ll call once I get to the hotel.”
“Please do.”
“I will.”
There was a momentary silence. The only sounds were the clanking of forks and plates and the suckling of milk from behind the Cap’n Crunch cereal box. Johnathan surveyed his trip. Tomorrow he would play the part as guest speaker for the Wounded Warriors Project at the Washington D.C. VA Medical Center.
Randall was supposed to go, but something came up. Or the old geezer wanted me to get my feet wet and decided to purposely sit this one out. God, am I ready for this? Can I really give this talk in front of a crowd of veterans? I can sell this positive attitude bullshit to a crowd of civilians, but wounded veterans? Civilians are easy. Veterans can smell dishonesty. How can I feed them hope when I’m not even sure what that is?
Johnathan tore a chunk of golden-brown toast and began to munch. He reached for the mug to wash down the dry scratch at the back of his throat. Just below the surface of the rippling dark roast, he could see old faces. He saw the dark face of Private Mooney, the gunner from Charlie team who always watched those old ’70s Blaxploitation flicks, or at least the bootlegged DVD’s he’d somehow find at the Haji-Mart back on Victory. God, what was that one movie he was always watching? Blacula, was it? It was either that one or Blackenstein.
Beneath Mooney, Johnathan could see Sergeant Cobbett’s barreled chest and pudgy gut, with more chins than a Chinese take-out, cussing more than a sailor on shore leave. Guys like Cobbett could only exist in the Army during wartime, only when Uncle Sam needed warm bodies to swell troop surges. Johnathan watched these faces and many more floating just beneath the brim of his coffee. There were flashes of sound, as well. Shouts. Laughing. Screaming. Gunfire intermittent with small talk about home, about what they were going to do with their deployment capital, the moolah they’d earned while in theater, combat action pay, hazard pay, basic allowance for housing, basic allowance for substance, etc., etc. If you were careful, he recalled, you could blow your entire savings at AAFES. The one on Victory was like a fucking Walmart in the sand. Potbellied fobbits getting fat on Burger King and burning money on nonsense junk like basketball shorts, Slurpees, television sets, Xbox, Playstations, Tim McGraw and Cash albums, magazines, every assortment of shit to make crazed hoarders believe they’d found the Promised Land. Anything and everything they could grab up and make themselves feel like they were home, but that was the lie, wasn’t it? The desert wasn’t home and making it feel that way was dangerous. It was all junk food. And junk food kept you docile, complacent. Soon you’d find yourself on mission, with your mind far from the field and back at home, thinking about mama’s chicken dumpling soup or your wife’s soft lips and blush cheeks. You’d think of Christmas trees and caroling, even though you never went caroling a day in your life, but because you couldn’t you wanted desperately to do it. You’d sit there, swinging dick in the turre
t, thinking about everything but where you were and—BOOM! You never saw the IED.
Or maybe you did. Maybe we all expected to die over there and when those of us who did come home came home confused all to hell. Like, ‘shit, what are we going to do now?’ We’re told we were lucky, brave, and heroic even, but we, I don’t fucking feel very heroic. I feel like a bastard cut loose in a world that’s hardly recognizable anymore. Is this the story I’m supposed to share tomorrow?
Johnathan began to pray, not that he believed in such things. Why couldn’t Randall mind his own fucking business and go himself? I’m not ready for this kumbaya bullshit. This ‘be proud of your wounds’ lackadaisical baloney. The ripples in his mug ceased. And from the dark brown murky depths his heart froze. Down below, he looked into the young boyish face of his dead friend, Ricky Smith. He was wearing his Kevlar helmet, the chin strap hanging loose against his Kevlar collar. His Specialist Shield, or sham shield, as Ricky and the other E4’s had a habit of calling themselves. Johnathan watched his best friend floating in the mug, watched as his young vibrant face transfigured into molten ash. He was screaming from beneath the ripples, screaming for the pain to go away. Screaming…screaming…screaming…
“How are you coming with your speech?” asked Karen.
Johnathan jerked, spilling some of the coffee on the table. Karen looked at him with mild concern. Tabitha was still behind her cereal box, seemingly unaware.
“Still working on it,” said Johnathan gruffly, wiping the brown spill with his napkin.
“You’ll do great. I know you will.” Karen beamed. Her face, her eyes, felt warm and reassuring. Though she may worry about him from time to time, she had no doubt he would be okay, especially in a group of his own fellow wounded veterans.
Looking into her smile, Johnathan could feel the resurgence of tears coming back up. He quickly collected his empty plate and mug and hobbled over to the kitchen sink.
“You’ll get there, John. I know you will,” said Karen, standing, collecting Tabitha’s Cap’n Crunch box, much to her young protest, and joined Johnathan in the kitchen.
Johnathan smiled and took hold of her. He held her close and kissed her, slowly and deliberately. “Thank you,” he said, pulling back, still holding her in his arms. “Thank you for believing in me, even when I can’t.”
Karen said nothing. She pulled Johnathan closer and hugged him, hard. It was a deep meaningful hug filled with warmth. He closed his eyes, breathed in her sweet shampoo. What is that? Fructis? Whatever it was, he loved it. When he opened his eyes again, he could see his coffee mug still sitting on the kitchen island. Ricky’s burnt corpse was screaming silently beneath the dark brown ripples.
CHAPTER 7
BOBBY’S CURSE
Bobby
Dusk was coming. Bobby had spent the entire day walking, partially running, something he hadn’t stopped doing, even after his hasty exodus from the Army and the embarrassing Chapter 5-13 handed down from some quack fifth-floor wizard. Bobby was heading south, on a wayward journey toward Santa Fe, toward Luna’s place in Hitchcock, toward his cage.
Bobby had to stop several times to scrape shards of broken glass from what remained of his shoes. These were his best pair, his only pair. Worn to the bone Nike Jordan’s. The elongated check mark well faded beyond recognition. These were Bobby’s old running shoes from his soldiering days, back when they had been pearl white and the logo burned bright red. Now the only thing that burned was the heels on his feet. He could feel blood pooling in his socks.
Bobby ignored the pain, as much as he could. He could not stop, not without consequence. Not for drink. Not for food. Not for anything. Not even the itching desire to panhandle on some littered intersection holding another poorly constructed cardboard sign inked in blood to make enough change for a bottle of whiskey. No. Not today. Bobby kept his feet moving. Dusk was coming and tonight there would be a full moon.
Luna would have taken off the locks. Please God, let Luna have unlocked the cage. Bobby prayed. Over on the horizon, the sun was dying into a ridge of commercial buildings and multiplexes. From the look of the sun, Bobby knew he hadn’t much time.
He started trotting as fast as his bloodied feet would carry him. Each step was a painful reminder that he desperately needed new shoes. In an attempt to block out the pain, he thought of Luna and the last time he’d made the trip toward that old, rotting batting cage, his temporary salvation.
Luna owned land on the outskirts of Hitchcock, land her grandfather had left her. It wasn’t much to look at now, overgrown with rotting logs and orange-rooted Oriental bittersweet weeds, but Bobby could tell it had been something else entirely in some past era, perhaps when her grandfather had been alive. From what little Luna had mentioned of the man he seemed the type to enjoy gardening, mowing, and battling with stubborn weed-eaters, a real panorama of blue-collar culture.
The batting cage was hardly visible now, blanketed with a vast civilization of vine weeds. Bobby favored the Madeira vine the most because the weed made everything it covered seem like large green sleeping giant. Though most of the cage was covered, the east side of the fence, which faced Luna’s modest two story country home, was free of debris, as was the gate and the curious collection of Master Pad locks and the three thick steel chains wrapped around the post.
Luna would keep it locked. Except for today, she keeps the batting cage locked…Oh God, I hope she unlocked it. What if she didn’t? What are you going to do hero? What if she’s not there? The area is rural enough, but there are still people around. How far would It go? In towns miles away. No telling. No telling. Jesus, I hope she unlocked the gate…I hope she’s there.
Bobby turned right down some unnamed, war-torn back-country road, the afterbirth of Houston proper. There was an awkward signpost, bent deep at the gut, its head hanging low in an overextended bow. Route 510.
Kicking up pebbles and trash, empty soda cans, and beer cans, Coors, Bud Light, Lone Star…God I could go for a drink about now. Bobby pressed on. The debris tumbled down from I-45, disregarded from the countless thousands of travelers heading either toward Galveston or north toward downtown Houston. The roar of passing cars grew steadily lower, much to his pleasure. Bobby hated the noise.
Getting ready to cross the road and into the underbrush, a cantankerous rumble rattled up from behind. He twisted his neck and watch as an old aqua-blue colored Volkswagen Bus pulled by. The driver must have been a novice, grinding between second and third gears. Bobby smiled. A puff of angry grey smoke plumed out of the exhaust. A snap-crackle-pop proceeded as the driver found his gear. The Woodstock era van with the flat nose and near oval windows and wood paneling down the skirts reminded him of when he first met Luna.
A dizzy woman with a head overflowing with lush red hair, which he thought was odd at the time. He’d never known a black woman to have natural looking red hair before. Portions of it she had pulled together by rainbow-colored juju beads and a flower-print bandana, covering most of her clumped and crusty looking dreadlocks. She wasn’t old enough for Woodstock, but perhaps she’d been to Burning Man a time or two. Not much older than me. Her skin was moderately brown and smooth. Her eyes told the story of a few traveled off-beaten paths. Yet, despite the weathered bags clinging beneath her remarkably bright greens, she beamed with absolute tranquility. Despite the discovery of a full-grown, naked homeless man sleeping—more like passed out—near a shallow brook around the northern reaches of her estate, she stood there smiling, amused perhaps. But she wasn’t scared. That in itself said something about her character.
Yes, Bobby remembered the morning well. Naked. Cold. Hungry. The bitter taste of iron in his throat. Dear, God, what did I eat? He recalled wondering. His nails were dirty; the ground around him looked patted down, the way deer beds look in the woods amongst a thicket of underbrush. He was covered in an unpleasant mix of sweat and grime. The transformation always took a toll.
Bobby could see vaguely in his mind, running toward the rura
l south of Pearland, trying desperately to reach the old oil pumps, the ones that ran without the need of a crew, or at the very least, the bayous. He wanted to get there before…the change. Bobby could recall only flashes. Pain mostly. But sometimes he could remember an image. He remembered once looking at his hands, the skin kneading like dough, stretching beyond rational limit in hellish Polaroids. The feeling of changing was always the strongest. The change itself was an echo of memory that clawed up his spine, memories of bones snapping with a sound eerily similar to pecan shells cracking, revealing the delectable nut inside, black fur sprouting with the sting of needles. His teeth would grow, sharpen. Nails would elongate and curve downward. His human form would disappear; reforming into something else…something Bobby did not have a word for, because he’d never actually seen the form itself, only the shredded memory of it.
And then he would black out. His mind protecting him from the horror, or so he’d assumed. Then he would come to, in the morning, waking with a terrifying jolt from the nightmarish dreamscape. Naked. Cold. Alone. Lost. Where had It gone this time? Did It—I—hurt anyone? And there was Luna, smiling down at him.
If she only knew, Bobby remembered lamenting.
Luna had been collecting flowers, or something, from the overgrown juniper bushes near the outskirts of her property, her grandfather’s estate—land he’d left her in his Last Will and Testament. Luna didn’t talk about her parents much, but had mentioned something about a car crash and…well…Bobby could fill in the blanks.
The morning of their first meeting, Luna had found him the way Bobby typically would find himself, dirty, naked, and unabashed. Waking in his birthday suit, as he remembered his mother always called being naked, but it never bothered Bobby the way normal folks would be bothered by it. Being exposed felt cathartic. What surprised him the most was how normal Luna seemed with it all.
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