Then, I got dressed. And—shocker—more waiting. Finally, there was a hearing test with this really cute nurse chick. She had nice boobs, too, and she smelled good, and being all dickconscious from just being in my underwear, I was glad we were sitting down with a table between us because I totally got wood. Typical of The Horn.
Listening to all the buzzes and clunks and peeps with those heavy-ass headphones, I wondered how Neecie did on a hearing test like this. Or did she just flunk? And then I felt shitty. I’d been kind of shitty to her. But I still had a boner. And now I was thinking of Neecie naked with my boner while raising both arms every time I heard a buzz or a clunk or a peep.
Then they told me to go have a break because the doctor was eating lunch, so I went to this shitty lounge area where there were signs everywhere yelling in all caps to do things or not do them:
NO SHAKING VENDING MACHINES
THERE IS NO CHANGE GIVEN AT FRONT DESK
ALL VANDALISM WILL BE PROSECUTED
THIS LOUNGE IS A PRIVILEGE DO NOT ABUSE!
My lunch situation wasn’t great. A sandwich made by a robot inside a vending machine. Luckily, then Sergeant Kendall showed up and handed me a bag of McDonald’s to eat, which was, like, the greatest timing ever. And I almost wanted to get down on my knees and thank him and kiss his feet because it felt like I’d never see anyone normal or nice again (cute hearing-test nurse being the exception).
“How’s it going? Did you bend over and cough already?”
I laughed, and we chatted, and a Marine guy walked into the room and Sergeant Kendall popped up and saluted and I sat there with my mouth full, unsure of what to do, and then when the dude said, “At ease,” Sergeant Kendall smiled and introduced me and I stood up and wiped my hand on a napkin and then the guy was nice and cracking jokes and asking me if I regretted that nutsack tattoo now and I was like, huh? but laughed anyway, because Sergeant Kendall was laughing, and then the guy smacked me on the back and said good luck and some other junk and I was all, Thank you, sir, which I hoped sounded good and polite enough.
“Okay, I’m out of here,” Sergeant Kendall said, balling up his trash and my trash and putting it in the little garbage can, which had a big sign over it, too (PLEASE THROW ALL TRASH INTO RECEPTACLE! TRASH ON THE FLOOR IS NOT TOLERATED!) and then he said he’d be back to pick me up.
“I’ll text you. But don’t be checking your phone unless you’ve been dismissed,” he said. “Some of the Marines get pissy with recruits at MEPS acting sloppy.”
“Okay,” I said. Not knowing what “sloppy” meant but not wanting to ask, either.
He walked off. I admit, I kind of wanted to run after him.
So, more waiting. In this awful yelling-signs lounge. I could feel my phone in my pocket buzzing, but I didn’t dare touch it. It was probably just Eddie sending me porn pictures. So I just sat there, looking at the signs and wishing I wasn’t here and thinking that if the real Marines was a tenth as stressful as this, I would never survive.
But after all that, there was just an interview with another doctor, a different one from the dude who felt up my balls. (Why do doctors feel up your balls and make you cough? Why do guys just submit to that without asking why?) This doctor went over the medical records I had and was going down a checklist, asking me a whole bunch of questions, yes or no. When he asked if I ever drank alcohol or used illegal drugs, I said No and my hands were all sweaty where I was gripping onto the seat of my chair. Lying. I knew I was lying. But I figured, who the fuck would they ever find to be in the goddamn military if they were expecting complete law-abiding citizens like that? Everyone must lie. But the doctor didn’t even look up, just asked the next question.
When that was done, then I had another long waiting session in the yelling-signs lounge. But by then I was feeling okay. Like, none of this was anything I had to do but get through. Answer the questions. The waiting turned into something I was outlasting. Because I didn’t have to do anything but answer and react. None of it was my idea, and a lot of it didn’t make sense, but I felt like I was getting somewhere. Closer to the end. Like it was all a test and I was going to pass.
I got out my phone, then. But made sure I was sitting up straight and not looking “sloppy” while I did it. And I was basically texting with Eddie, not even acknowledging his pictures of some pregnant chick getting it from behind, but asking him what I missed in school and him asking where I was and me avoiding that question. I really wanted to text Neecie with some dumb excuse, like asking for the Global Studies assignments, but I didn’t. Maybe I was feeling crappy for being a dick to her, still? Maybe I knew I should apologize. That pretending everything was okay was babyish. She deserved something direct, face to face. Maybe I knew I wasn’t ready yet for any of that, though.
Tight Ponytail Lady came back. “We’re going to the job selection review now,” she said. Her voice sounded rusty. Like something in her throat was scraping on something else rusty. I stood up right away, slipped my phone into my pocket.
“You can’t have phones in there,” she added, then explained that like nine more times in case I was deaf and mentally retarded, and I think she was just huffy that we had to reroute to the storage lockers where all our backpacks were stored.
We went into a little room to go over our ASVAB results, which I guess were good and which meant I was probably going into infantry/rifleman or communications, and I just said “Yes, sir” a million times and the guy repeated how much of this was subject to the demands of the Corps, and I just said “Yes, sir” some more, and finally, he handed me everything to sign and then Sergeant Kendall came in and said, “You’re ready for the oath now?”
And I nodded. “Sure.”
And he looked at me funny. So I said, “Yes, sir,” but he’d already turned and maybe didn’t hear me.
As if I wasn’t already a sweating mess. Jesus Christ. Sitting there waiting for everyone to be quiet and get set up and whatever. And it was all stiff and important and there was a flag and a dude in full serious mode and the other dudes beside me looked as blown-out and hacked-off as I was, but you could tell we were all tired from duck-walking and blood tests and lying about smoking weed and feeling shitty and tense all day about everything and now we just wanted to do this part, get it over with. Though it felt like a wedding. A wedding with dudes. A dude wedding with no party afterwards.
“I, Sean Alan Norwhalt, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
I didn’t believe in god. But I repeated it. And then, there was hand-shaking, and my palms were clammy but I shook hands with every guy in there, even the dudes I didn’t know, and then I just wanted to, I don’t know. Collapse. Run twenty miles. Jump off a pier into the ocean. Get completely fucking drunk.
Sergeant Kendall hit the Burger King drive-thru and we ate in the car, Sergeant Kendall driving and eating fries from the bag, me just spreading everything out on my lap. Normally I don’t like people eating in my car, so it was hypocritical of me, but it felt good to just be able to eat as fast as possible. And everything tasted extra delicious for some reason.
“Bet you’re tired,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t know why, though. There was so much waiting and sitting around.”
Sergeant Kendall sipped his Coke, wiped his mouth with a folded napkin. I needed to start doing that more. When I even bothered to use napkins, I just bunched them up into a greasy sticky ball.
“Waiting and sitting around constitutes most combat situations, actually. It’s kind of funny that this is your first experience with MEPS. Because there’s going to be more. There always is.”
The rest of the drive home, he just put on the sports tal
k radio thing. I mean, I could have asked him a lot of questions, beyond the running in combat boots thing, which was only half true; Marines ran in both, and I should bring my normal running shoes to basic training. But after that, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to blurt out a bunch of shit. And now I had these lies on record and I had to be careful. I felt like going home and scrubbing out my sock drawer of all the weed shake and condoms and whatever the hell else illegal I had. Felt like apologizing to everyone for everything I’d ever done, too. Wiping everything clean.
Chapter Fifteen
The beginning of the spring was mostly me and Eddie at track practice. Though there was some drama with Eddie and Libby and their breaking up and him hanging around with Ivy and all sorts of other shifting around. And a few wedding chores, tuxedo fittings and special dinners and tours of the Kiwanis camp out at the lake where the whole thing was happening. Steven-Not-Steve offering me endless streams of community college literature. Lots of shitty melting snow and mud. Lots of sore muscles and shin splints and mornings where I wondered if my body was ever going to stop hurting and get used to this.
But there was no Neecie. No telling my mom. The hollow in my chest still empty, no matter how far I ran or how many push-ups I did or how perfect my pull-up technique got.
And then, in April, the first of April, April Fool’s Day, to be specific, though I hadn’t planned it, it just happened. We were all having a dinner at our house on a Thursday night, because Krista had to do some more wedding things.
“Set the table, Sean,” my mom said, whisking through the kitchen, pushing a stack of plates into my arms.
“Are we in the kitchen? Or back deck?” Brad was grilling hamburgers on the deck, so I figured we’d just eat out there, less formal.
“Deck’s all wet and dirty,” she said. “We’ll be inside.”
Krista walked in then and set her purse down. “How can I help, Tabitha?” she asked my mom, and my mom had her stir some lemonade while I set plates around the table.
“Oh my god, will you get out of here,” my mom said, shooing Otis, who had parked himself in the kitchen, lying on his big fat beefy side in the middle of the linoleum, as if that was a natural place to relax when all the humans were making dinner.
Right in the middle of me setting out the plates and my mom mixing up a bowl of salad and Krista carrying glasses to the table, my phone rang: Sergeant Kendall.
I ran downstairs to my room and shut the door before I answered it.
“Sean? It’s Anthony Kendall. Sorry to call you so late.”
“No big deal,” I said.
“Good. I’ve got some good news for you. There’s a slot open for an upcoming class at the MCRD at San Diego and I want to verify that you will graduate by June tenth.”
“Yeah, no problem. Commencement is June third.”
“Okay. Well, it looks like we can set you with the class that begins June eighteenth,” he said. “I just found out about this and wanted to double check before I call them back and confirm your spot.”
My hands started shaking. “All right.”
“Great. I will have a confirmation for you, but for now, you’re slated to stay at one of the hotels we use by the airport on June seventeenth. Puts you on the yellow footprints about noon on the eighteenth.”
“Yellow footprints?”
“Yeah, I didn’t tell you about those? Every Marine ever born never forgets them.”
“No.”
“You’ll see. It’s your first time in formation. It’s the first introduction to the Corps. It’s . . . well. It’s intense. But good. It’ll be good. So, I’ll be arranging your flight and overnight hotel accommodations. I’ll call you when I have everything set.”
“I can get myself to the airport.”
“We arrange for that, Sean. So you’ll be right on time and everything. No delays.”
No excuses. No options. No more secrets.
“Right. Great. Okay.”
“So, I’ll have more specifics soon, but know that’s your date. June seventeenth. Get it on your calendar.”
“I will.”
“Congratulations, Sean. This is very exciting news. I was worried you’d be delayed until November, but this turned out to be very lucky, timing-wise.”
“Yeah, cool. I’m really glad,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt, and a minute later we said good-bye and hung up.
Then I sat on my bed.
Thought for a minute.
Just tell her.
You are leaving. For boot camp.
Just tell them you are leaving.
You are leaving (and never coming back).
No delays.
I could hear everyone upstairs, Otis barking and his claws clicking on the kitchen floor and my grandpa’s voice and my mother murmuring. My hands were shaking still. Then Krista called my name and I went upstairs.
Uncomfortable dinners in our family were rare. When we all lived together, my dad worked late. Or my mom had school. Or Brad and I had sports. So we didn’t do a lot of circling around the table pretending to love each other a lot. Which was good, because when my dad was home, that was when he liked to get shit-faced. He wasn’t a bar-goer, really, and he traveled around for work selling farm equipment, and so he had to be sober on the road. He was pretty strict about that. So the second he hit the front door, he was done with being sober.
Sitting at the table, eating hamburgers and fried potatoes—my mom didn’t consider potato chips food, even though this was basic picnic shit we were having—my mother and Krista and Brad and Grandpa Chuck and everyone was all clueless and acting like they’d been born for nothing else but to sit here and pass the ketchup bottle and pour each other lemonade and talk about the groom’s dinner, which was going to be at this restaurant that one of Krista’s friends managed, and there was going to be a big chocolate cake, Brad’s favorite, and wasn’t that so fucking awesome?
“Sean, can you pass the potatoes?” my mother said.
And I looked up, looked right at Grandpa Chuck and Brad and Krista and my mom and said, “I am going to boot camp. I joined the Marines. I leave the day after Krista and Brad get married. June seventeenth. I just talked to the recruiter.” Then I passed my mom the potatoes.
No one said anything. No one moved. Except for Brad. He kept eating. Shaking his head, smiling.
Still no one said anything.
So I kept talking. “He called just now. I did my MEPS appointment a few weeks ago. That’s kind of like an intake thing. So I’m all set up and everything. But, it’s lucky. Sergeant Kendall didn’t think I’d get in with a class until next November. But anyway, it’s a sure bet I’ll get in with that class. It’s in San Diego.”
No one said anything.
I am leaving and never coming back. And no one says anything.
“Shouldn’t it be Parris Island?” Grandpa Chuck asked, finally. “Because you’re east of the Mississippi?”
“Sergeant Kendall said it was San Diego.”
“Is that Camp Pendleton?”
“What does that matter?” my mother shrieked.
“Just commenting,” Grandpa Chuck said. He sounded a little miffed. At me or my mom, I couldn’t tell.
My mom looked at me, tipping her head to the side. Laying down her fork very specifically and slowly. “Well,” she said. “I guess I just don’t know what to say. Mostly I’m surprised.”
“Me too,” Brad added, shoveling potatoes into his mouth.
“Sean, I just can’t . . . I’m so sad you’re leaving the day after!” Krista squeaked.
“Well, aren’t you going on your honeymoon, anyway?”
“Not for two weeks,” Krista said. “I couldn’t get the time off.”
“Oh,” I said.
My mom pushed back in her chair, ran her hands through her hair so that the top part stuck up weird and you could see all these little greyish/white hairs sticking up on top, like little wires or bolts of lightning.
“They’ve got bugs in San Diego, too, I bet,” I said.
He nodded, pushed back from the table, rested his hands around his plate a little, his hands big and wrinkly. He still wore his wedding ring, though my grandma’d been dead for years.
I stared at his wedding ring hand. I didn’t want to eat anymore. My mom looked like someone had told her somebody had died. I knew she was going to cry next. I could feel it. I couldn’t be with these people. But I couldn’t be alone. So I stood up and headed out to my car. Not in a huff or anything, no door slamming. Just, like, escaping, slowly, like a slow leak from a tire.
I dialed Neecie. When she didn’t pick up, I texted that I was coming over.
Then Grandpa Chuck, in the driveway, calling for me.
“Sean? Sean! Where you headed?”
“Nowhere,” I said. Then I thought I’d joke. “Or San Diego.”
He didn’t laugh, of course.
“You know you launched quite a bomb there, son.”
“I know.”
“Just so you realize, we’re not upset or anything. We’re just surprised.”
“You speaking for everyone, Grandpa?”
He stepped back. I was never rude to my grandpa like that. Because he was old. And also nice. I never wanted to be a dick to him.
“No. No, I’m not. I shouldn’t be.”
“What’s the big deal? I’m eighteen,” I said. “I don’t need anyone’s permission. Or approval.”
“I understand that, Seany,” he said.
“I gotta go,” I said.
“That’s probably a good idea. Give your mom some time to absorb this.”
“Right.”
“Remember when Brad wanted to join the Army?” He scratched a hand over his bald head; it wasn’t quite warm out yet. The breeze picked up across the highway, and we watched a plastic cup fly into the chainlink fence.
Perfectly Good White Boy Page 18