The Secrets We Keep

by David Horne

  In the spirit of this, Curtis checked to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping before he leaned in as much as he dared, eyes still on his plate and his mouth moving as little as possible. “You know it’s so hot when you do that.”

  Hartley didn’t immediately respond or give any sign that he had heard him, except for his face going red at this, which Curtis took to mean that he was pleased.

  “So,” Curtis said casually. “What do you think the combat sim is going to be like tomorrow?”

  Hartley shrugged nonchalantly. “I can’t say for sure, to be honest. All I know is, the combat simulation isn’t the real game, not for me. It’s just the means to an end, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t even say for sure that I’d even be here if The Invictus wasn’t up for grabs. You know?”

  Curtis shrugged. “I don’t know about all that. I get what you mean about it being a means to an end and all that but who’s that author that said, “the thrill is in the chase and never in the capture”?”

  “Agatha Christie,” Hartley said immediately, as Curtis was all but certain he would.

  “Yeah, her,” Curtis nodded. “Don’t you think she has a point there? Like the journey is all the good bits, the ending is just, like, the climax, you know?”

  On the word “climax”, Hartley suddenly smiled very mischievously, and it was Curtis’ turn to go red. “Really?” he asked exasperatedly. “I thought you of all people would be a bit more mature!”

  “Why on Earth would you think that?” Hartley chuckled. “Like what about me that you know up until this point has given you any kind of reason to suggest that I, Hart Erose, would be, in any way shape or form, mature?”

  He had a point. Curtis should really have known better than to expect maturity from Hartley. Sometimes, and more than once in fact, he’d wondered if he was a bad influence on Hartley. Their meetings always went the same way. When they first encountered each other after a long stint, Hartley was himself. A tad cheeky, but for the most part, mature, grown-up and respectful. The kind of guy you would bring home to meet your parents.

  But as they were together more and more; sometimes it took hours, sometimes days, it was like Curtis’ personality would rub off on Hartley’s. He would become more and more like the person that he was when they’d been together in basic training. Almost like there was something intangible about Curtis’ personality that brought out the troublemaker in Hartley’s. On the one hand, Curtis felt honored to be that special person that could turn Hartley into a complete scoundrel, but on the other hand, he couldn’t help but feel a little overwhelmed by the thought. And, if truth be told, a bit guilty too. Almost like he was unwittingly, and very much unwillingly, brainwashing his best friend.

  Although Hartley had been on the same level as Curtis back in the day Curtis didn’t want to be the reason he got stuck in the past because even though that was how they met everyone naturally grew up over time.

  All in all, Curtis wasn’t sure how he felt about his own personal hypothesis, and whether or not he even believed it, or if he was just second-guessing himself like he always did.

  “You okay there?” Hartley asked, his tone edged with amusement like it always was. “You look like you’re doing some serious thinking there.”

  Curtis realized he must have looked very strange, sitting there with that expression on his face. He scrambled for an excuse and tossed out a quick fib. “I was just thinking about tomorrow, you know. It’s going to be a big day. Or, you know, big three days. It is seventy-two hours after all.”

  “I can barely keep my mind on tomorrow,” Hartley admitted. “All I can think about is The Invictus.”

  “I wonder what kind of obstacle course it is,” Curtis said, his voice full of wonder. “It must be an absolute beast if Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, US Marines, and SAS and all of those guys can’t even beat it. Those Polish Grom guys knew what the hell they were doing when they made it, I’ll say that much.”

  Hartley laughed at this. “You’re not wrong. To be honest, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship where obstacle courses are concerned.”

  Curtis frowned. “Why?”

  Hartley looked equally confused at this question. “Have I never told you this story?”

  Curtis cracked a huge grin. “What story? This sounds like a good one!”

  Hartley couldn’t resist smiling too. “I’m literally always talking about this incident, so I’m surprised you haven’t heard it. The one about the obstacle course? And the wall? And... well... me?”

  Curtis shrugged. “It’s not ringing any bells.”

  Hartley’s smile suddenly went from amused to sheepish. “Okay, This story is a bit stupid, so bear with me and whatever you do, don’t laugh.”

  Curtis pretended to look offended at the mere notion of this. “I take offense to that, Hartley! I would never!”

  Hartley rolled his eyes. “Sure, you wouldn’t. Anyway, let me get into it. This happened in basic training, maybe six to eight months after you left.”

  “Sixty-eight months?” Curtis exclaimed.

  Hartley made a face.

  “Sorry,” Curtis said apologetically. “Continue.”

  Hartley shook his head and carried on. “Yeah, so, maybe six to eight months after you left to go join Cicada. We were running the old obstacle course down on Base Camp Foxtrot. You remember that one, right?”

  “Of course!” Curtis exclaimed. “How could I not? Mr. Collier made us run punishment laps on it, remember?”

  “No, he made you run punishment laps on it!” Hartley corrected passionately. “You were a troublemaker in basic training, I was the golden boy. I remember that half of the reason you went back to the UK was because you were afraid they were going to expel you and you wanted to go out on your own terms.”

  Curtis winced at this. “I’d forgotten all about that!” he exclaimed.

  “I know, right?” Hartley said brightly. “You’d be surprised what I remember about the old days. But anyway, back to the story, before I get sidetracked again. One day, we’re running that assault course down on Foxtrot. Do you remember the twelve-foot wall that you have to get over?”

  “The one after the rope swing?” Curtis checked, squinting as if that would trigger his memory.

  “No, before the rope swing, but after the A-Frame,” Hartley clarified.

  Curtis snapped his fingers. “Right, right, yeah, I know which one you mean. Why, what about it?”

  “So, I’m the last man in the team going over the wall, right?” Hartley began to set the scene. “And we’re setting a really good time so far; we’re off the A-Frame before the one-and-a-half-minute mark, so ninety seconds in and we’re doing awesome. You remember Wilson and O’Reilly, right? They go up the wall first and hang on top. Then Dodds and Hughes go over and touch down in the gravel, nice and dainty-like. Me, the team’s short-ass, I have to go over last. Still with me?”

  Curtis nodded, trying and failing to hide his knowing smirk.

  “So, Wilson and O’Reilly are trying to pull me up, but back then I was pretty bottom-heavy if you remember,” Hartley said, a little shamefacedly.

  “What do you mean “used to be”?” Curtis smirked. “You still are, fat ass.”

  “Have you been looking?” Hartley asked quietly, and Curtis blushed again.

  “So anyway,” Hartley went on. “They give me a massive tug, and I go up and over the wall, but at a weird angle. So basically, the edge of my knee, like the gap between the kneecap and thigh, it goes right into the wall, the edge bit as well. Full force.”

  Curtis winced at this. “Ooh! That’s a yikes from me, hoss.”

  Hartley smiled. “You used my word!”

  “I used your word,” Curtis nodded. “How does it feel?”

  “Pretty good,” Hartley nodded. “But that was your one freebie, so if you want to use it again, you have to pay a toll. I call it the Hart Tax.”

  Curtis snorted. “Somehow I think I’ll survive if I can’t say the word ho
ss.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Hartley shrugged. “It’s surprisingly hard to stop once you’ve started. Oh, and you just said it, so you owe me five bucks.”

  Curtis rolled his eyes. “If we’re doing a “worst injury” story, then I can certainly beat that.”

  “No way you can beat that,” Hartley shook his head. “It didn’t hurt in that exact moment, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I felt it afterward. According to the medic, I chipped the bone.”

  Curtis waved this away. “Trust me, I can beat that. This didn’t even happen in the military, this happened when I was a kid. Before I even came to the US for the first time.”

  “Oh, how I love hearing about rainy England,” Hartley rolled his eyes, but he sat back in his seat to listen to the story.

  “Okay so,” Curtis rubbed his hands together, ready to tell the story. In telling and retelling this story to family and friends, it had become less of an honest recollection and much more of a choreographed dance. “So, I used to live in South London, right? I still do, in fact. When I was growing up, there was this football pitch that was next to a residential park on the estate, and the two are separated by a big, tall fence.”

  “Big tall fence,” Hartley echoed, seemingly pointlessly.

  “If you didn’t live in the estate, you weren’t really supposed to play in the park, but we did anyway,” Curtis shrugged. “We were kids, I don’t know what they expected to be honest. The gates were all locked, but we’d just climb over the fences.”

  “Rebels,” Hartley snorted.

  “We certainly thought so,” Curtis agreed. “Anyhow, I’m in the park playing with some of my friends, right? We’re not up to anything sketchy, we’re just playing. And right next to the park, my brother is in the football pitch, so we can literally see each other, only we’re separated by the aforementioned big, tall fence.”

  “Right, I get you,” Hartley nodded. “Can you get to the actual injury, it’s nearly nightfall!”

  “Okay, okay!” Curtis exclaimed. “Anyway, two of my friends - well I say friends, but they were really much more like acquaintances - anyway they were throwing rocks at each other.”

  “Such a good idea,” Hartley murmured.

  “I know, right,” Curtis snorted. “Ironically, these two friends both had the same name, they were both called Jay. What are the chances, right? We used to call them Jay One and Jay Two. Or White Jay and Black Jay. Because one of them was white and one was black, it’s not racist. Anyway, they’re throwing rocks at each other, right? And I’m there thinking that this can only end one way, so I decided to defuse the situation. I go over to them and I say, “If you guys don’t stop throwing rocks at each other, someone is going to get hit in the head with a rock”.”

  “Let me guess, they don’t listen,” Hartley shook his head.

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Curtis laughed. “No, surprisingly, they thought that made sense. So, they decide to stop. Now, one of the Jays has one last rock in his hand, and he thinks “boy, it sure would be a shame to waste this last rock, so let me throw it somewhere it can’t do any harm”. So, he decides to throw it at a tree, that’s like five yards away.”

  “How thoughtful,” Hartley stifled a laugh.

  Curtis rolled his eyes. “This rock flies out of his hand, bounces off of the tree trunk, and now I can see it coming toward me out of the corner of my eye, so I do what any reasonable person would. I duck. Now, if I’d been able to see it properly, I would’ve been able to judge the height it was coming at. What I didn’t realize was that it was a lot lower than it appeared. If I had done nothing, it would have hit me in the stomach and done literally no harm. But since I ducked, it smacks me in the corner of my head and puts an inch and a half-wide hole in my skull. When I come up, the blood’s pouring down the side of my face.”

  Hartley’s face was twisted into a gruesome wince. “Okay,” he said distastefully. “That one is definitely, definitely worse.”

  Curtis smiled in a self-satisfied sort of way. “Told ya.”

  Hartley suddenly broke out in a huge yawn, and his startled expression suggested that the yawn snuck upon him. “Wow,” he said. “Guess I’m more tired than I realized.”

  “Yeah, same,” Curtis grinned roguishly.

  “I’ve no idea why!” Hartley said indignantly. “You had a big ten-hour nap!”

  Curtis grinned. “What can I say, you tired me out.”

  Hartley blushed at this, but Curtis wasn’t done, not by a long shot. “Plus!” he exclaimed. “I’m bigger than you. I use more of my energy per day than you do, little man.”

  “Little man, am I?” Hartley exclaimed, as the two cleared away their plates and left the Mess Hall, their bellies full. “You do realize that we’re the same height, right?”

  Curtis laughed boomingly. “I understand nothing of the sort. That last inch doesn’t count, because your hair is all sticky-uppy.”

  “Sticky uppy?” Hartley echoed, seemingly not believing his ears.

  “That is what I said,” Curtis said seriously. “Sticky-uppy, it adds extra height and so it shouldn’t count. And so officially, you’re shorter than me by, like, a few inches. Case dismissed.”

  “No, case still open!” Hartley exclaimed. “My hair is part of me, Curtis. You can’t just lop off bits to make your point. Like what if I said you’re only taller than me because of your neck, so you’ve got to get rid of it.”

  “But then you would also have to get rid of your neck, so you’d still be shorter,” Curtis said. “Also, my neck can’t come off.”

  “You want to bet?” Hartley asked dryly.

  Curtis and Hartley bickered back and forth all their way back to their assigned barracks for the night, in Block 23. When they got there, most of their bunkmates had already arrived, and set their things up, leaving the last two bunks in the end room vacant. The two kept talking back and forth, fairly loudly, as they prepared their bunks for the night.

  They didn’t notice the hulking figure crossing the block to stand behind them, a grin on his face, until he spoke, seemingly at the top of his voice. “Well, well, well!” he boomed, turning several heads. “If it isn’t Wizzy Wisconsin!”

  It wasn’t a clever nickname, not by a long shot, and Hartley could tell it was meant to be insulting, though how he wasn’t so sure. But he knew it was nevertheless simply because of the man who said it. A man with a distinctive voice, Hartley didn’t even have to turn around to identify it. But turn around, he did.

  As he did, Hartley’s eyes fell open a massive hulk of a man, with what looked like the largest size of US Army Ranger uniform that could be actually issued stretched across his massive chest. His hair was shaved down to a number one, and his eyes were small, dark and beady. Hartley definitely recognized him - it was pretty hard to mistake him for anyone else on sheer size alone!

  “Ross,” Hartley said tightly.

  This was Private First Class Charlie Ross, an Army Ranger whose platoon Hartley had worked with on occasions before.

  Charlie Ross squinted at him. “You don’t sound happy to see me, Wisconsin.”

  “Don’t I?” Hartley asked sarcastically.

  “No, you don’t,” Ross said, placing a heavy hand on Hartley’s shoulder. “That’s not very friendly, is it? And I heard you were really friendly.”

  He snickered, and a few of his buddies, who wore the same Ranger uniform, tittered along with him. Hartley frowned, not getting the joke, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Curtis looking confused too.

  “Something funny, Ross?” Hartley asked promptly.

  “No, no, nothing funny,” Ross lied. “I just I heard you were pretty friendly. You know...to other men.”

  Then it became clear what he was trying to say. Hartley almost felt like laughing. Homophobia was it? Hartley felt disappointed if nothing else. He’d expected a better class of insult, to voice the truth of it. But before Hartley could even react, Curtis had moved, faster than
Hartley knew he could. Curtis reached out, cool as a cucumber, grabbed Ross’ thick wrist and twisted it, in a way that Hartley knew from his martial arts training could snap a man’s hand like a wishbone.

  Ross suddenly cried out in agony, and Curtis twisted his hand again, more savagely this time. “Apologize!” he growled.

  “Curt, let him go!” Hartley cried out at once, and Curtis didn’t look happy about it, but he did as he was bid.

  Ross glared at them through rage-filled eyes. “Who’s he? Your English butt-boy?”

  “Pardon?” Curtis was already fired up again.

  “He must be a fag-boy just like you, with that tea-sipping accent of his,” Ross growled.

  “Ross, you better piss off before I get really mad!” Curtis said dangerously.

  Ross was sensing that he’d bitten off more than he could chew, and even as he withdrew, he couldn’t resist the temptation to throw one last threat back at them.

  “This isn’t over!”

  Chapter Five

  Something like that always happened. That was what reality was like, on the face of it. Curtis had always known this, or at least he had for as far back as he cared to remember. In fact, this was what humans were like. When there was no one left to victimize them, they started victimizing themselves. With things like racism, and homophobia. Curtis was pleased to be able to say that he wasn’t exposed to much of either, racism or homophobia. But then again, one shouldn’t feel too sorry for them, because there may not have been much racism or hatred for gay people in that particular region of South London in the eighties, but there was plenty of knife crime to around.

  When one door closes, another must open, as the good book says. To be honest, having lived through it, Curtis would rather have taken the “knife crime” door, as opposed to the “racism and homophobia” door. Because at least knives wouldn’t scar you forever. Unless, of course, they did, in which case you were kind of in the same boat.