War Flower
Page 17
Freshman year of college I lay on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. The stars that I had plastered all over it in elementary school were still there. I had bought a new red couch, a coffee table, and a mini fridge. It looked like a dorm room, one that came free of rent and roaches. It wasn’t long before I was in with the wrong crowd, like John had been. I got mixed up with drugs and bad people, and before I knew it I was ditching class and spending my tuition money on blow, crystal, and booze. Weeknights I spent getting thwacked out of my mind and drunk, stumbling down a street in Lemon Grove, screeching punk rock songs, my Lower Class Brats T-shirt stained with puke and possibly someone else’s blood. Tattooed and rebellious with a loop ring hanging out of my nose, I thought I was unstoppable. Sitting on the red couch in my room doing lines of coke off the coffee table, playing my music at 2:00 a.m., not giving a fuck if I woke up Nana or Gramps, just that I was high and lying on my bed staring up at the plastic stars that were mashed onto the ceiling and glowing softly from the blacklight bulb I had installed in the ceiling fan. Fuck, life was good.
A few weeks after my second semester of college, Nana told me they were going to kick me out. Their eldest granddaughter, I was the one they had invested the time in. I had become a letdown. Their hopes for a prosperous adulthood were dashed by my foolish need to rebel from my family’s expectations. All I wanted to do was throw a big fuck you in everyone’s face, but in doing so I had become a “reckless young lady,” one that they were no longer willing to fund or help. I had, in short, become my father, and I was ashamed. I had sworn as a child never to become like him, but the truth is, as my dad always put it, we become the very thing we seek to avoid. When I told my dad what had happened, he asked me what I was going to do. I mentioned that Tony, my childhood best friend from down the street, was getting clean too and that he was joining the army. I had already gone with him to the recruiting station, and I had made up my mind to join as well. Dad was silent for a while and then asked if, when the time came to take me to the airport, he could drive me. I told him that when the time came, it would be harder to leave if everyone was there and especially if he was there.
A month went by before it was time for me to leave, but I had one last night in my room before I left. I sat on the bed and looked around. Boxes lined the wall closest to the door. The closet, dresser, and nightstands were empty. All my things packaged up. A large black duffel with my things for basic training was packed and lying next to the door. There was nothing left in the room but the red couch, my bed, and the stars on the ceiling. When I went to lie down that night, I didn’t draw the curtains shut. I left them open. The moon wasn’t out. The sky was black, covered with a layer of thick gray clouds that blanketed any chance at a nice night. I looked up at the stars on my ceiling and hoped that the room would be the same when I returned, just like every other time I had come back to it, but as I lay there, I knew that this might be my last night in this room.
Now older, war torn, I looked out at the moon again as I sat on the bed. The room was still the same shape, same color. My red couch was still next to the window. The curtains had been replaced, but they were still the same soft blue color. The walls, freshly painted, were the same low tone of blue. The dresser had been replaced; so had the bed. I lay down and looked up at the bare ceiling where the stars used to be, and just like that, I realized that my childhood was behind me. This room was no longer mine, and the one thing missing that made this house my constant home was now a memory. I got up from the bed and walked to the door. I no longer needed the room. I had been afraid to let go, afraid to let the pain in. I thought if I clung to what I used to be then Iraq wouldn’t swallow me whole. But that’s just it, isn’t it? Sometimes you have to let the pain in so you never ignore it again. I rubbed my belly as I looked at the room one last time. One of the boys kicked at my hand from inside my pregnant stomach, and I knew it was time to go. I walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open.
James (#5)
James had pleaded guilty, a plea agreement struck so that he could get out of Mannheim military prison before the boys were born. The names were picked out—Bowen Gabriel and Zachary Michael—but the nursery wasn’t nearly complete and I was a walking catastrophe of pregnant woman rage and PTSD. The crib lay in a shambled mess, the changing table half-assembled, and the rocking chair put together in between pee breaks and vomit sessions with the downstairs toilet. Before he left, I sent him a sonogram picture, one he said he would put in his Bible and look at it every day. It would be his only comfort. He was allowed to receive letters. I wrote him daily.
Hi James!September 20, 2007
Well, the boys are getting big. The left baby is aa and he is 2lbs 2 ounces. The right one is bb and he is 2lbs 1 ounce. Both of them are facing the same direction now. The doctor said they’re both breech, which means they are both facing feet down by my cervix and head up near my stomach. The right one is giving me hell and just will not stop kicking, punching, and moving around. Last night he grabbed hold of his umbilical cord and just started yanking on it. Lord did that hurt!! I think he gets it from you. Well, other than that they are doing great and we all miss you and want you to come home soon. Stay safe, babe.
Love you with all my heart,
Brooke and the boys
James,September 23, 2007
Every day I wake up hoping to see you next to me. But I open my eyes and roll over and realize that you aren’t there. I feel the boys inside me and know that even though you aren’t here physically, you’re here in spirit. . . . We are both about to become parents. . . . I’m scared about giving birth without you here . . . and I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t be late. . . .
Your loving wife,
Brooke
A large black stamp reads, “Soldier letter,” and the paper, now eight years old, still holds the smudge marks from where the tears fell on it the day I wrote it.
Dear James,Oct 17, 2007
Sunday: I went to church and saw the cutest thing! a set of twin boys! Oh, they were so cute! There’s a new priest. He’s Irish, accent and all. I said a prayer for you. I say one every day, praying for your safe return. Me and Nana are going on Tuesday to pick out the car seats and stroller.
Monday: Well, I went to the VA today. I’m enrolled now. They’re letting me pick my own doctor for the delivery. They gave me some spiel about not enrolling the kids until they’re born, blah blah blah. Oh, they diagnosed me with PTSD and some brain disorder due to combat stress, whatever that means. These people are so full of shit. Fuck this place. Anyway, the boys are fine and I’m getting huge!!! I mean Aretha Franklin huge. I don’t even fit into my overalls. We started moving everything from the upstairs to the downstairs. By the end of the week the nursery should be done. It’s so silly. By the time you get this letter, you might already be here. I’m so proud of you, James. Anyway, take care of yourself and keep reading that Bible!
Love always,
Brookie
Hi Baby,October 1, 2007
I know it’s been a very long time since I talked to you last, but I wanted you to know that I’m still here thinking of you and loving you just the same. Ever since I had to say goodbye, I’ve felt like there’s this big cloud over my head. Like nothing I do makes me happy anymore and nothing I do can keep me from my own thoughts, or the nightmares. I don’t sleep anymore, not without you there to comfort me.
James, why does my heart feel so empty without you here? It’s like there’s a big void where you used to be. I don’t trust anyone anymore. Please hurry home. All I want to do is hold you again and have you whisper into my ear that everything will be ok, that the nightmares will stop, that this hurt will go away. Just get home to me, James, as fast as you can.
With all the love I possess,
Brooke
Weeks go by with no response. I began to question if he was getting my letters or if they confiscated them. Did he still love me? But when hopes of a response began to wane, a letter arriv
ed with a stamped logo of Army Europe Post Office and my name on it:
James Haislop
Unit 29723
Box LL
APO AE 09028–9723
My Beloved Brooke,October 2007
I received your letter today. It was good to get one. Can’t wait to see the latest picture of the boys. And of course you. Of what you said about missing me and can’t wait to be back in my arms; I think of you all the time, baby. You just need to hang in there a little bit longer. I have 14 days left. By the time you read this I’ll have roughly a week left in here and I can call you all the time. Brooke, I can’t wait to get back in your arms and hold you, kiss you and make sweet passionate love again. I have not been the same since you left, but I know I will see you soon and hold your hand while Bowen and Zachary enter this world. I can’t wait to be a father and start a family with such a wonderful thoughtful woman as you. You are my everything.
With love,
James
There were tears, a longing, and a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. It had only been a week since the letter came, and already I was lost again in my own thoughts, nightmares, and unrest. I opened the letter again and again, reading the words scribbled in chicken scratch writing, trying to give myself hope, a reason to keep fighting back against the sadness, a reason to fight at all.
Ghosts (#2)
He walked in front of me, but after our brief encounter in Iraq and the fact that I was pregnant, I thought for sure he wouldn’t recognize me. The time apart had put age around his eyes, burying them in crow’s feet and covering them with a furrow at his brow. A weary face, downtrodden from so many years of worrying, and still it seemed as though his eyes were still the same shade of cobalt blue. He saw me. Our eyes met. He looked away, sure that he had seen a ghost, a memory from the past that couldn’t possibly be in front of him begging for him to feel the same again. But he looked back again, and it was then that I said his name. Kyle. He smiled and began to walk up to me, but he stopped short. He saw my belly—pregnant. It wasn’t his, and so he naturally assumed I was married. I wasn’t. Not yet anyway, and so I reached out for a hug, parting the distance between us with a friendly gesture I was sure he would accept. We hugged, exchanged small chitchat about our lives now, but it was when I told him that I was engaged to be married, still waiting on my divorce to be finalized, that he gave me a look of disapproval, not as though I was wrong for falling in love with another man while married but that it wasn’t him and these children weren’t his. He told me that I should’ve waited, for him, for us, for all sorts of things that timing and place would’ve reconciled in the end. I nodded. I knew he was right, but that had always been our thing, timing. And though looking at him, with all the feelings rising within me, I couldn’t bring myself to run away with him. We walked to the nearest bar, sat down, and talked in code that only lovers would know, the slow, steady remembering of touches, lost memories, and things forgotten by age. I told him that I’m not the same person anymore, that the war had changed me. He told me he knew but that he could’ve brought me back. He was right. Of all the men in my life, he was probably the only one I could’ve emptied Iraq onto and who would still have loved me the same, as though not a day had gone by. Still, I shielded him, told him half-truths, fuzzing the edges around what I had done in Iraq, gave short answers that amounted to more questions than answers. When I told him that I couldn’t really articulate what it was like being there for so long, I mention our encounter in Iraq, hoping that I had imagined it somehow. He nodded his head yes and gulped some of his beer. I tried to explain what that day had done to me, almost as a way of apologizing for the present, but he stopped me and said, “You know, there’s nothing we can do about the present, but the past is something to hold on to. You remember me, the times we had while dating, that shitty apartment, the sex. God, the sex. And, me, well, I remember you always writing. Sitting there in my room on my bed scribbling away in your notebook. One day, you need to write all this down, the good, the bad, the horrible, and the amazing, but don’t forget that there is a world beyond Iraq. We’re here for you. I’m here for you.”
I looked down at the table unable to stare into his eyes because I knew he was right. Fuck him. He was right. I had been trying to do all of this on my own, but I didn’t need to. So I opened up to him. He was the only person I trusted enough. I told him about Iraq, James, Rob, the missions, good and bad, the nightmares I’d been having, all of it. When I finished, all he said was, “Fuck me, you’ve had it rough.” I smiled at his honesty, but when he insisted on driving me home that night, I didn’t say no. I should have. When he walked me to the door, I didn’t hesitate. I should have. And when he kissed me goodnight, I should have resisted, but I couldn’t. I had let the war beat me down until I had no fight left in me to give, and so I let Kyle kiss me goodnight, give me a hug, and walk to his truck. I had needed that kiss. I needed to know that someone who wasn’t my family was still capable of loving me. Even though Kyle hadn’t gotten a full glimpse of what I was like now, it was enough for me that he cared, that he genuinely wanted what was best in my life, and that he hoped James would be it. I watched the headlights turn on and roll down the street until his truck turned the corner. That was the last time I saw Kyle, and though I still talk to him from time to time, the what-ifs of that night become glaring. I should’ve talked to him more, let him in the house, or anything really that would have made him stay, but I didn’t and I’m not sure I will ever forgive myself for letting him drive away. Or maybe it was the right thing to do. Either way, he was gone, another ghost created.
Preparations
Seven months pregnant. The nursery was finished. The blobs on the ultrasound now looked like mini human beings. The house still didn’t feel like home. And when I walked in each time, I still touched things to make sure I wasn’t still in Iraq. The soft linen fabric of the old blue couch that was worn with ass indentations. The chip in the corner tile of the breakfast bar that I had created when I slammed my skateboard into it as a teenager. Each time I walked into the house, it took me twenty minutes to figure out that I was home. Nana would watch me go from one room to the other as she sat in her recliner reading her book. Open and close the french doors. Sit on the piano bench in the den. Walk up the brown carpeted steps to the second floor. Sit at the top landing. Walk back down. I wanted to tell Nana why I did this but still couldn’t find the words. But that was just it, I had no words. There were times I carried out the routine and the silence that fell in between my task and hers made it easy to realize that words were too much. It was what made what had happened to me in Iraq a perfect understanding between us, the simple moments of just being in the house; it was all we needed it to be. And so each time I sat back down in the living room in the recliner next to hers, we said nothing, content with the stillness to just be.
Childhood
I remember little things about growing up with my dad. Thirty-six packs of Natural Ice were cheaper than Budweiser. When trimming pot, make sure you cut the stems at an angle. The best way to make a fire was by stacking the wood in a square, putting the kindling at the bottom. The words of Shakespeare were to be savored, not flipped through lightly. Never eat the marshmallows at a Grateful Dead show.
It is early June. 1994. Cal Expo in Sacramento. The Grateful Dead are playing a three-show series, and my dad scored tickets in the recording section. I am nine.
It is the second day. It is hot, the sun beating down on the unshaded section we are standing in. Dad laid down the Kodak blanket, the bright-colored yellow, orange, and red star emblazoned on its face. I watch as Dad sets up the microphone, the tape cassette, and the plastic milk carton crate that covered the contraption so that no one stepped on it while dancing. I hold the tape, waiting for Dad to put his hand out again for another piece. The crowd is filing in. Hippies in bright-colored tie-dyed shirts, patchwork pants, and some just naked walking around. Dad had made me a sweater or bought it, I couldn’t remember. It had
a red heart with tie-dyed rings surrounding its shape. I wore my plaid Converse sneakers. Dad was in his tie-dyed Steal Your Face shirt, jeans, and brown Birks. The sun was starting to set, the lights coming on in the stadium where fans lit up sticks, glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets, and when the music came on, camera flickers lit up the sky like stars twinkling in iridescent glimmers of faces melting together smiles and fuck yeahs. Dad and I danced to the music, and I remember asking for food. Dad smiled and handed me a bag of Twizzlers and a bottle of water. I was still hungry. What happened next was nothing short of a child’s misunderstanding about adult music shows and a variety of misguided concepts about free food. The crowd had gotten louder. “Sugar Mag” was playing, the melody rhythmic, the swaying hips of the dancers in the standing-room section. Everyone singing along, the words as clear and gargled through the microphone Jerry was singing into. His guitar electric, the crowd wild with the anticipation of the break-off jam session coming after the chorus, and the band kept playing on, waiting for their cue to solo.
In the midst of the chaos a concert-goer had begun to fling marshmallows into the crowd. One hit me in the head. I picked it up. A dancing bear in green ink was stamped on its face. Without permission, I went around the perimeter of our blanket gathering as many as I could find, using my skirt as a basket. When I had collected enough to be a smorgasbord of sugar, I plopped down on the blanket. I ingest the first one with ease, but before I can consume another, Dad snatches my arm, smacks the sugar treat from my hand, and asks where I got them. I point and tell him that they are all over the place. Free food. I smiled, but Dad did not. He lifted me up, grabbed one of the marshmallows, and ran me to the med tent. Inside they asked me questions like how many did I eat, did I feel funny. They asked my dad if he wanted my stomach pumped, to go to the hospital, but before he could reply, I told him I was fine. I don’t feel weird, just happy. Dad smiled. I had taken a hit of acid at nine and was handling it better than most of the adults in the tent. The medic suggested that we leave, go to the hospital, but when I started screaming, saying that I didn’t want to leave the music, the medic and Dad decided the best thing to do was to just let me be, keep an eye on my progress, and if I got worse to come back. I smiled. Dad looked concerned and the medic was deeply upset. I refused to stay in the tent. So Dad took me back outside to the lights, the music, and the people. I don’t remember much after that, but I do remember being up on my dad’s shoulders the rest of the time, seeing a dancing bear in lights spinning in circles and dancing to the music, seeing the stage, the band, and the people. I’ll never forget dancing among the Deadheads.