Art After War: The Visual Diary of Danish Soldier Henrik Andersen

As the memory of U.S. participation in the Afghanistan War fades in the minds of most Americans (the report on the exit fiasco notwithstanding), there was probably even less awareness that the military did not “go it alone” but had NATO allies, including Denmark (which entered the war 2001), one of the twelve founding nations in 1949.  In Afghanistan the Danish military suffered 43 deaths from combat injuries, with 214 wounded in action.  The raw number is low compared to the U.S. but was the highest number of deaths any country suffered if considered per capita, and so had an outsized impact.

That the Danish participation in the war still looms large in the country is reflected in an installation at The Danish War Museum in Copenhagen, which developed A Distant War – A Danish Soldier in Afghanistan over 10 years ago.  It reflects an on-going presence of the war and its aftermath, a memory embodied in a physical space.

Mai Stenbjerg Jensen, the curator, told me that “the exhibition was made in collaboration with the Danish Armed Forces, more precisely with soldiers from ISAF team 10. Objects in the exhibition have all been brought home directly from Afghanistan. The exhibition shows the Danish soldier’s journey during a deployment to Afghanistan. The story is told from the soldiers’ perspective” (personal communication, July 4, 2023).  The exhibit follows a ternary pattern of a soldier going to war, in country, and back home.

The return home to civilian life can be problematic, as soldiers of any country’s forces can be affected by PTSD.  In the same way that the war for the American public is largely forgotten, the effects of war on the individual are likewise ignored or misunderstood by the broader civilian population.  This can lead to a sense of dislocation and alienation.  For many vets, the arts can offer a pathway to understanding their feelings of estrangement upon return by creating a visual or verbal representation of those feelings. Another intention of veterans’ artistic creation is to share their work with both the general public and with other vets.  The artwork can provide the non-vet with a window into the veterans’ war and post-war experiences, helping to bridge the vet/non-vet divide, while sharing their work with other vets can both inspire and create a sense of community, thus reducing that sense of isolation and estrangement.

Henrik Andersen, now 40, served in the Danish army for 15 years and was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan from February to August 2017. He had the rank of Specialist. When he returned home he was eventually diagnosed with PTSD.  He decided that he would use artwork as a way of dealing with the various levels of how the diagnosis affected his daily life.  Starting on January 1, 2022 and until December of that year he created a new watercolor each day.  He notes in an artist’s statement: “Follow my painted diary for better or for worse with my daily companion PTSD.  A new picture every day in 2022 that both describes my world in and around me.”

Photo courtesy of Mads Ullerup

Andersen told me that “the diary concept was one my wife came up with, and for me a way to express myself daily through both good and bad days with a troubled PTSD mind, the thoughts, the emotions and sense of things which made an impact that particular day. I usually made the picture at the end of the day to make sure I got the most important impact of the day down on paper. It’s sometimes really hard to go to a mentally neutral place when you’re filled with anger, depression and loneliness. To empty your mind of judgmental thoughts and emotions and find that one thing that mattered just that day, that in itself can become therapeutic.”

He continued: “It would be really nice for me to be able to reach as many veterans as possible with my art.  I hope that it will make a difference and maybe even inspire others and others like me, who are battling with the aftermath of their deployment, to inspire others to find new ways to express their daily struggle. Even though I have my Instagram account, I’ve still not reached out to as many as I would like to. I do think it is an important message to get out to veterans and their families, that there are other ways to express yourself than you might think. My artwork is very personal to me, and it was a big deal for me to go public with it. It is meant as a daily diary in pictures and every day a new picture in 2022. My wife convinced me to make it public through Instagram, so I would post a new picture, describing my day emotionally or physically.”

Photo courtesy of Mads Ullerup

Andersen is not a formally-trained artist.  He was adept at drawing and painting from childhood and was influenced by an eclectic mix of comics, the figures in Warhammer, movies, and the classical sculptures and paintings in museums. Regardless of the medium or the genre he was always interested in how a thought, a question, or an emotion could be expressed. To him, the work begins with an idea and then the manner of expression evolves from the initial idea.  The finished product, he says “comes from trial and error, both so rewarding and frustrating.”

He does not plan any of his daily images but rather allows spontaneous moments to guide his work. The images are diverse, ranging from the relatively realistic to surrealistic to expressionistic. Even though they are created to reflect what Petersen is experiencing on any particular day they are not merely solipsistic and self-referential; they become a visual correlative that take on a broader meaning.  The titles to the works help in this regard.

Photo courtesy of Mads Ullerup

The early pictures set the tone for much of the rest of the year.  “Angsten og Vreden del. 1/The Anxiety and the Anger part. 1” is dated January 2, 2022, and depicts a fragment of a face in profile, just a nose and a wide-open mouth in a scream, with a ball of reddish-colored smoke emanating from the mouth.

“Selvvalgt ensomhed/Self-selected Loneliness” (January 3) depicts an empty chair in a barren room; a day later, “Fjernsynet viser ingenting/TV is Showing Nothing,” a TV set in a bare gray room has a blank green screen, connoting that there is nothing worthwhile being presented. Each depicts a sense of emptiness and the inability of some vets to re-integrate into the broader civilian society. “Mareridt i rodt, derefter sort/ Nightmare in Red, Then Black,” completed a few days later, shows a bleak, war-torn landscape with a few burned trees in red, mirroring a burned-out psychological landscape.

The January 5 work “Stenen i maven, mørk og varm/ Stone in the abdomen, dark and hot” refers to the physical impact of PTSD, and suggests that PTSD affects the vet not just psychologically but also physically.

As the year progresses the imagery takes on different dimensions.  A few works show recognizable scenes, like the river and bridge of “Ude for at se verden/ Out To See The World” (February 21), a floodlight on a lone power pole (“Sidst i rækken/Last in line,” March 6), steps going down a tunnel (“Sidst i rækken/ What happens if you look inside,” April 15),  a dilapidated house with collapsed roof (“Ja der er brug for genopbygning/ Yes rebuilding is needed,” October 11), and an isolated cabin (“Hyggeligt uhyggeligt/Cozy Cozy,” October 14).  Interestingly, none of these scenes include people, and even in “Cozy Cozy” there is a sense of isolation and remoteness, while in “What happens if you look inside” there is an intimation of foreboding as the steps lead to emptiness.

Faces, especially the eyes, and stylized bodies figure in a number of works, a few of which are self-portraits. “Sidder her bare del. 1, 2, 3/Just sitting here sharing 1, 2, 3” (August 26, 28, 29), is a triptych of sorts.  The first two panels depict a skeletal figure sitting on a rock leaning its skull on its right “hand.”  In 1, the background is a washed-out gray.  The same figure is in panel 2, but some color has been added.  In the third panel the figure is in the same posture but is now fleshed out in green. There are three human figures in the October 21 “Bare en fornemmelse/Just a Feeling.” The figures, in foreground, midground, and background, are dressed in brown and wear neckties, but are faceless. The two closest figures have flames around their feet, while the figure in the background is engulfed in flames. The figures appear impassive, accepting pain and death.  “Sådan føler jeg mig/This is how i feel” (October 30) is a self-portrait.  The figure is fleshed, not skeletal, yet the posture is reminiscent of the skeletons in “Just sitting here sharing 1 and 2.” The eyes are wide and the face anguished, suggesting the pain caused by PTSD.  Although the title “Trivialiteten er skræmmende/Triviality is scary” (February 8) might be considered a bit strange, it points toward the inability to fully reintegrate into the daily minutiae of civilian life. In this self-portrait, the predominant feature in the multicolored, somewhat blurred face are the eyes. Similar to other works, the eyes are wide, staring, fearful.  In the July 23 “Selvportræt/Self-portrait” the face is disembodied, outlined in gray and framed by red, and seems to be floating in the clouds over mountains, leading to a sense of disconnection and alienation from the world.

There is also a self-portrait entitled “Tabt forbindelse/Lost Connection” from October 11.  There is a disembodied head attached to tendrils with a green object next to the cheek.  Both of these works connote a sense of loss, even a dissociation from one’s own body.

Much of the work has an abstract quality.  “Drukner på land/Drowning on land” (November 10) depicts shapes of blue and brown, yet the title reveals a sense of struggle and suffocation.  The November 2 “Tankespin/Mind spin” is a burst of reds, and represents both the explosions of war on the battlefield and in the mind.  “Hvor brænder det ?//Where does it burn?” (August 20-22) is another series in three parts. In each piece, stylized and intermixed dark and lighter blue smoke rises from what could be hills. Looking closely at the first panel one sees what could be disembodied eyes in the smoke. In part 2 the eyes become a bit more pronounced. In part 3 an outline of a face in dark red, with what appears to be bared fang-like teeth, is revealed in the smoke. There is an agonized expression on the face. Again, the burning can refer to the destruction of war and also to a mind on fire.

Not all the watercolors represent negative emotions. The March 8, “Et sælsomt lille væsen er mødt op/A happy little creature has appeared” shows a rabbit in a field. In “Foråret kommer nu/Spring is coming” from March 9 a sprig of green grows out of a finger on a green hand, showing the regenerative power of Nature. There is the playful “Guleroden er der, jeg kan se den nu/ The carrot is there, I can see it now” (April 4); a teddy bear is the subject of the October 18 “Ren kærlighed/Pure love”; likewise, a bird is the subject of “Maskot/Mascot” (November 10). These more “gentle” works indicate that even with the traumatic aftereffects of war there is the possibility for beauty and clarity.

As he looks back on his visual diary he told me “this picture [the April 1 “Hænderne, der skaber og ødelægger/The Hands that Create and Destroy”] and others like it, of a withered, sick hand, gives a new meaning after I tried to take my own life in February 2023, and the attempt left me with exactly that, and really makes me think about the dual meaning in a lot of my pictures. I’ll admit that I didn’t succeed every day, but it was just as important to some days paint through a veil of tears or immense anger. I haven’t continued in 2023 with the diary but I am still painting, it is my little safe zone through the day and it has a calming effect to put paint on paper, the colors and the brush don’t expect anything from me, and as long as I don’t try to force something on to the paper it’s very fulfilling and stressless. My pictures surprise me in ways I would never have imagined.”

The range of Andersen’s images offers a broad insight into the post-war experience, including the effects of PTSD.  His images reveal the uncertainty and tenuousness of what any particular day will bring. At the same time, the very act of creation becomes a shield or bulwark against this uncertainty and provides a sense of order, not only in the finished product but also in the process itself, which provides a structure that my otherwise be lacking.

All statements by Mr. Andersen were from correspondence with him on October 7, 10 and 11, 2023.

All artwork images courtesy of Henrik Andersen.

All photographs of Andersen courtesy of Mads Ullerup.

Images available on Instagram:  henrikerladetmedptsd

References:

Danish casualties:  https://politiken.dk/udland/art4788077/Danmark-mister-flest-soldater-i-Afghanistan

A Distant War:  https://en.natmus.dk/museums-and-palaces/danish-war-museum/exhibitions/a-distant-war/

Mads Ullerup, “With Paintbrush and PTSD,” October 22, 2022, https://www.veterancentret.dk/da/nyheder/2022/med-pensel-og-ptsd/

The Oscar-nominated Danish film Krigen (A War; 2015, directed by Tobias Lindholm), with echoes of “Breaker Morant,” examines the moral quandaries that war occasions and reveals that these dilemmas occur regardless of the size of a nation’s forces. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/movies/tobias-lindholm-narrates-a-scene-from-a-war.html

There was a heavy snowfall that February night in 1946. A six-year-old boy watched from his bedroom window as the big snowflakes slowly covered everything. The  intrusive sounds of my Uncle Ray’s raspy cough and talking to himself sounded louder than usual.

When World War II ended, my father’s brother Ray, after serving 27 years in the Marine Corps, retired as a Master Gunnery Sargent and came to live with us. Ray saw action on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Midway, and the Philippines. Hidden in his dresser drawer was a box of combat medals including several Purple Hearts, none of which he ever talked about.

Three weeks of every month Ray walked around the apartment like he had a ramrod up his back. Never talkative or loud, always clean-shaven and neatly dressed.    But the arrival of his monthly pension check was the start of a tough four days for the family. Ray kept just enough of that check to finance his monthly four-day bender. Surrounded by enough beer and cheap whisky, he stayed almost legless for those four days. Eating very little, he just sat at the kitchen table, drinking around the clock.

Usually a somber and quiet man, during the daylight hours our drunken uncle suddenly became a talkative, funny and entertaining guy. At night, not so much. Ray raved, sang and talked all night to his buddies who lost their lives on those South Pacific islands. Nights like that always seemed longer than usual. The mornings always smelled of stale beer and spilled whiskey. The family tried to somehow adjust.

Along came that pristine snowy night in February ‘46 when the snowflakes fell

like in one of those snow globes that people shake. That night Ray crossed over some mental bridge into a land where things were not what they seemed. At 2 AM he barged into Mom and Pop’s bedroom. Loudly he insisted they both needed to get up and come into his room where he had this guy Martin Block in the dresser drawer.

Dad worked three jobs; Mom worked one. They got little enough sleep, so I was surprised to see them follow Ray down the hallway to his bedroom.

Being six years old and by no means at the top of my class, I still knew a few things. One  was that this guy Martin Block was a radio personality who hosted a music show on WNEW called “Make Believe Ballroom.” I was also pretty sure this Block guy wasn’t anywhere to be found in my uncle’s bedroom, let alone a dresser drawer. I crept into the hallway where I could watch.

The voices grew louder and took on a harder tone. My hands began to sweat. Ray shook the dresser, yanked open drawers and pulled clothes out. He shouted, “Damn it, Block, they’re here. Where the hell are you?”

Pop turned to leave. Attempting to stop him, Ray slipped and knocked Mom down. Seeing she was OK, Pop flew into a rage. He slammed Ray against the wall and threw him on the bed. “That’s it. I’m finished with you. First thing in the morning, I want you the hell out of here.”

Ray tried to get back up on his feet and slipped down on the bed, “You want me

out of here, I’ll leave right now.”

“Good, and take your cheap whisky with you.” With that my father led Mom to their bedroom and closed the door.

Ray, using the dresser for support, slowly pulled himself to his feet. Still cursing Martin Block, he staggered over to his closet and pulled out a ratty old suitcase. He crammed in whatever he could grab. Struggling out of his undershirt, Ray stood there naked from the waist up.

His misshapen body was covered with scars. There were long lacerations, incisions, and signs of wounds that had been crudely stitched up. Having never seen him shirtless, I suddenly realized the price he paid for those Purple Hearts.

Ray slipped into a fresh undershirt and took a clean-pressed khaki Marine Corps shirt from the closet. After some trouble locating the armholes, he finally got it buttoned and tucked in. He pulled on an old coat and placed his Marine Corps hat on his head. Straightening up, he looked at himself in the mirror, and saluted.

When he shuffled down the hallway I stepped into view. Barely upright, Ray leaned against the wall. “Uncle Ray, don’t go,” I pleaded. “Wait until tomorrow. It’s snowing hard out there.”

“Sorry kid. Not staying where I’m not wanted.” He stumbled out the apartment door into the cold. Bare fingers pulled the coat collar around his neck in the blowing snow.

From my bedroom window, I watched Ray leaving tracks through the deep drifts. He stopped and turned, as out of nowhere in the deserted street someone came running up behind him.

Falling snow made it hard to see. The two figures grappled, and the man ripped the suitcase from Ray’s hand. Then he put his arm around Ray’s shoulders and steered him back towards the apartment.

That’s when I spotted the dark grey pajama cuffs sticking out from the bottom of my father’s coat as he led his brother back through the snow. Mom was waiting by the front door as Pop led Ray into his bedroom.

My father never cried — never. But the snow must have left some dampness on his face as Mom reached up with her ever-present Kleenex and wiped away the moisture. Pop stammered as he tried to tell her not to worry. He would do something about Ray; he’d take care of it. Mom cupped both her hands on his face. “It’s OK, Frank. Come to bed.”

Still at my bedroom window, I watched those large, soft snowflakes slowly fill up the tracks on the sidewalk. Soon they’d be no sign that anything had ever happened out there. It’d all be gone. Except for the memories — those memories remain.

I can still see his smile as I settle into my desk and the normal morning wave shuffles in. First comes the pinstripes of the best and the brightest, carrying their expertise and experience like an expensive briefcase by their side, letting it swing around for all to see. They speak of exotic and noteworthy places all the same, making no distinction between a Washington and a Baghdad. Their presence and self-importance is ballooned by the special assistant that seemingly exists to fan the flames of their egos, oohing and awing with every detail of the important missions the guests recount, and gesticulating at the carefully placed references to impressive figures they dealt with on their travels. I tap on my keyboard to log into my computer and listen in on the personal odysseys of guests’ respective self-declared, world-saving pilgrimages. I place my second coffee next to the cheap frame at the corner of my desk and there it is, the smile.

Like every morning, I peer over at it and see the sparkle of Mulligan’s teeth above the sand-caked filth of our fatigues. I try not to smell the smoke or taste the dust, as I know that leads down a dark road littered with smoke, fire, and demons. That I cannot stand. So, instead, I distract myself from the tightening in my chest with a gulp of the warm brew and some shuffling of papers. I blink hard and take a deep breath as the final straggling dignitary drones on about the misfortunes of his delayed connecting flight and the plights of business class. I think he’s a former ambassador turned senior fellow of some kind with an expertise in economic development or the like. Just for kicks, I look at the special assistant’s schedule to find the reason for the wayward ambassador’s troubles. In block letters, I see the title of the conference he has been invited to attend: DIPLOMACY AND BUSINESS SYMPOSIUM: ADDRESSING POVERTY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH.

The worn down dirt roads and begotten mud huts along the banks of the Euphrates replace the calendar on my screen. The smell of wretched decay, sewage, and wastewater penetrates through the windows of our M-RAP. I hear the laughter of the little girl who chases a deflated and torn soccer ball down the trash-filled alleys of Al Baghdadi. She waves at our convoys as we pass by until, one day, she follows the ball onto an unexploded mortar cache that sends her flying high into the sky and litters her tiny bones and flesh across the same roadway.

“I’m Dean Miller’s 9 a.m.”

I look up to see another suit standing above my desk. This one is slim and powder blue, matching the relatively young man in it. He does not look at me. Instead, he is glued to his phone, which must contain urgent emails that will assuredly save little girls from blowing themselves up playing soccer. I begin to say that I am not a receptionist, but bite my tongue as I look at his expensive watch and down at his polished shoes. He’s never been near Al Baghdadi or any town like it. Instead, I give him a smile and lead him to the Dean’s office where they commence a discussion about their understandings of the harsh realities of intra-state conflict and prospects for resolution after sucking down their French-press and marveling at the Indonesian artwork on the Dean’s wall. From their air-conditioned haven, they will save the world, for they know war and violence.

Walking back to my desk, I try to guess the blue suit’s age. He looks as old as D’Angelo was when he died. Early thirties. D’Angelo played guitar and had a Harley at home. He showed me a picture of his kids once, but I can’t remember if it was one girl and two boys, or two girls and one boy. That’s about all I can remember about him. I didn’t know him well, but our few interactions were cordial enough. I wasn’t there when the IED ripped apart his legs into a mangled mess, either, but I heard on the radio that he was still alive when they put him in the medevac chopper. He bled out somewhere over Al Anbar province. I look back at the frame on my desk, focusing on the American flag we’re holding in front of a row of Hescos on our second week in country. We’re wearing boonie caps and our full combat load, flaunting our weapons, ammo, and Kevlar. I wonder if it was one of the boys or one of the girls who was handed the folded flag at D’Angelo’s funeral.

The computer bings and I look at my email to see an announcement about a new security studies fellow. I scroll through and skim the highlights. Army. Lieutenant Colonel. West Point. Intelligence officer. Always intelligence officers. Sometimes pilots or JAG lawyers. But no grunts. That must be the unwritten rule in the veteran’s affairs office down in admissions and financial aid. I imagine a not so distant reality where the security studies fellow conducts an intelligence briefing. He details the security of a road in the Hit district of Al Anbar and deems it free of IEDs. He declares it safe for travel by convoy and foot patrol. He stands in front of a PowerPoint presentation in a faraway headquarters in Kuwait or Qatar. That’s that, and so, off D’Angelo goes.

*

It’s 10’oclock now and all the suits have filed off to their respective conferences and meetings. With the fanfare died down, the stream of faculty trickles in. The pinstripes of the best and brightest are replaced with the tweed of the wise and prognostic. Reading some of their bios on the website, one wouldn’t be alone in mistaking them as manifestly prophetic. A well respected professor of gender studies decides to engage is some small-talk with an associate dean behind my desk. I can’t help but overhearing as I sort through expense reports of faculty research trips to Italy and Montenegro. They discuss her recent book on women in the US military and consider branding techniques to effectively showcase it on the website. The dean suggests a meeting with marketing.

“It’s remarkable work, Kathleen. The section on women in combat arms units was so inspiring.”

I hear the creak of Carhart’s door flying open from her chu as the clash of metal pierces through the silent air of the desert night. Thompson runs out as he pulls up his OCP trousers by the belt and holds his rifle in his left hand. He swivels his head from left to right and scans the surrounding compound before he runs off and disappears from the moonlight. I hear Carhart’s screams. But it’s more than screams, like the unrelenting howl of a wounded animal about to die. I walk into her room and see her sobbing on the floor, cradled into a ball, and notice the blood on her sheets and the gash above her eye. I follow the procedure. I get her to medical care, notify the commander, and pester him into opening an investigation. I tell her she can trust me. I promise her justice. “No probable cause” is the official finding. Three months later, we stand in the same rank of formation and watch him get promoted to first sergeant. I check my phone to see the last time she responded to one of my calls or texts since we got home. Three months ago, “don’t worry about me.” The second try at a sober living home hadn’t worked out. I hope she’s alive.

Professor Goff is next, the director of security studies, who is even more ancient than the academic institution itself. Carrying himself with a purposely relaxed gate and attitude, he emanates purported knowledge my way. He’s wearing his usual attire, knee-length khaki shorts, a wrinkled polo shirt, and his all-weather Birkenstocks. What’s Professor Goff up to today, I wonder, as he plods along the hallway towards the dean’s office. Pasted on the front page of the school’s website, I see the usual overbearing text and logo advertising “Great Power Symposium: Deterrence and Conflict in a Polycentric World.” Professor Birkenstocks is the headliner, calling all of the future national security leaders that roam the halls to be blessed by his presence in the large auditorium. I roll my eyes and take another sip of coffee. I think of the professor’s book about Iraq that launched him into the stratosphere of academia’s giants. It’s about Al Anbar Province, where my friends and I served, and deals with the Marines who “bore the brunt of the fighting.” I look up an op-ed of his from 2003. He’s arguing in support of the invasion. I find another from 2007 where he explores the logic and efficiency of the surge. He says losses are inevitable. I remember Mulligan’s obsession with reading. Sci-fi and flash fiction, I think it was. I see his smile. Don’t do it, I think. More coffee.

The dean comes out to greet Professor Goff with the normal platitudes and mutual self-congratulation. It’s almost noon and I decide to leave for my daily walk around the quad before eating lunch. I like to sneak away from my desk for fifteen minutes to breathe fresh air and see the finely cut grass. I see a group of undergraduates playing ultimate frisbee outside and try to guess their age. Probably 20 or 21. With some quick math, I realize that Mulligan would be a junior if he lived long enough and his GI Bill paperwork went through. The undergrads laugh as they toss the frisbee back and forth and I see Mulligan’s grin. I hear him chuckle as the older guys in the platoon mess with him. Thankfully, that’s how I remember him, smiling. I’m grateful I wasn’t there when they found his body. Blasted brains and blood all over his chu. His left hand still gripping the trigger well. No note. Nothing. Just Mulligan smiling one day and his own rifle in his mouth the next. I’m glad that I’m left with his smile.

Heading back into the school, I pass the framed awards and photographs that line the halls of the entrance to honor famed alumni who went on to shape world events. They include a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an ambassador, and a head of the World Bank. I see the students scurrying about, cramming articles, academic journals, and other forms of knowledge into their brains as quickly as they can. I look back at the pictures and wonder which one of them will be on the wall next. I wonder if anyone in the building has taken the time to look at the picture on my desk, at Mulligan. I think of all the current, former, and future leaders of geopolitics that roam the halls around me that could benefit from having known him, from having known his smile. Maybe it would make the world a better place. Maybe not. The idea brings a poem to mind, but I’m not sure why. The author escapes me. It says, “Call me nobody. Let me live.”

When I first saw the photo of David Spicer in a 2009 Army Times, I was excited to recognize my friend there on the page staring back at me.  The picture was closely cropped around his face, but I could tell he was in his dress uniform when the picture was taken.  I could see the globe and anchor on his high collar.  There was no smile, except in his eyes.  Marines don’t smile, but David sure looked happy to be one.  David and I were friends while growing up: grade school, middle, and high school.  He always talked about being a Marine, and he joined up before he even graduated.  The picture was lined up with half a dozen others, all servicemen and women, their faces inside their own individual boxes, names and ages typed out neatly beside.  Above all of the pictures in a much larger and darker font than the rest was a headline.  It read: “Photos of the Fallen.”  My initial excitement evaporated as I looked back at the picture of David.  Underneath his name and age was another block of text: “KIA, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.”

As most high school kids do after graduating, we went our separate ways in life.  Even though we had both enlisted in the military around the same time, I had heard nothing else about David until I saw the picture.  In that moment, we were jarred back together in recollection and sorrow.  I had known others that had been killed in the War on Terror, even served with some. But this was the first time I had grown up with someone who had been killed in combat.  I saved that issue of Army Times, folded it neatly, and tucked it away in the back of a notebook.  On the first page of the notebook, I wrote David’s name and the date of his death.  Beneath the inscription I added the names of others I had fought beside in Iraq but didn’t make it home.  In the years that followed, anytime I heard of a friend’s passing in Afghanistan or Iraq, I wrote the name down.  One by one, the names kept coming. A guy named Cota who I knew from Basic Training in Fort Knox.  A Sergeant named Rentschler I knew while stationed in Germany.  Sometimes months would pass between names, at times only weeks, but the list kept growing.  The wars in faraway lands kept chewing up friends and acquaintances.  I had more than one turn in the same meat grinder, and during these deployments I would lose men who were as close, and at times, closer than my own family.  Brothers.  Slowly and deliberately I inscribed each letter until the page bore their names with honor.  The names sat together, unified without regard to color, race, or creed.  Melo. Sherman. Tavae. Edens. Morris.

As days turned to weeks and months and years, the list kept growing but much slower.  The fog of pain surrounding the list would slowly lift and I began to look at the names with less sadness and more admiration and respect.  I began to understand their loss as a by-product of conflict and war.  It didn’t matter if we believed in the reasons or politics of the wars, we would always honor their memory.  In early 2015, it had been close to five years since my last combat deployment and I retired from service.  The list had stopped growing altogether.  The notebook was put up, tucked away along with the rest of my war memories.  Hidden, to be looked upon only through a haze of whiskey and tears.  At some point the ink used to write the names began to fade.

Now, with quite a few years since my retirement, most of the men I served with have gotten out of the Army and moved on with their lives, as have I.  Though my part in the war is done, or should be, I am still fighting.  There is still a war raging.  There is still death.  New names to add to the list.  I find I can’t add these names though, as the deaths are much harder to accept.  I don’t know if they belong next to the others.

I find out in the same ways, while doing the same things.  Someone from an old unit will call out of the blue.  Maybe a message on social media.

“Did you hear? Chad Golab just died.”

“How?”  I hope the answer is a vehicle accident, or a robbery gone wrong.  Murder.  Anything other than what it really is, but deep down I already know what happened to Chad.  The caller’s reply comes easily in a matter of fact way.

“Shot himself.”

Slowly the story is told.  There is little emotion given with the caller’s words and I give none in return.  We are both well versed in giving and receiving horrible news, numb to tragedy.  At least, on the outside.  Inwardly I feel sick.  I flashback to a memory from years earlier in Mosul.  I see Chad Golab leaning against a wall out of breath.  He had just sprinted across an open area through a hail of bullets and rocket propelled grenades.  He wore a smile from ear to ear.  He was laughing.  So very alive.  I can’t believe that the man I saw in that moment was the same one who was found outside of a convenience store in the front seat of his car, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.  But it was.

The same types of calls and messages have continued at a steady pace, to the point that I dread seeing the name and number of an old Army buddy pop up on the caller ID.  Each time a call comes I learn yet another person who made it back from “over there” decided they had had enough.  The question of “Why?” always lingers in the air, drifting along searching for an answer.  The answer never comes, only more of those horrible phone calls.  More names.  More questions.  I’m angry.  I feel a deep sorrow and love for these men.  I also hate them.  I hate them for what they have done to themselves and the unfair enigma they have left behind for us all.  We cry for those who have gone before us, yet they are the very ones who have created our pain.  What sense can be made of this?

Why did they do it?  Why?  We will never know what only they knew.  We are left to guess in wonder.  And mourn.

After these calls of notification are over, my mind floods with more questions than answers.  Deep down inside, my old wounds, the ones which don’t leave visible scars, fester once again.  The wounds never fully heal and the pain they create is always there, subdued, yet constant.  The hard, built-up crust covering these wounds is ripped away and the pain returns in full force, always stronger than before.  I sit with hot embers burning away at my gut, wishing for one more chance to talk with these men.  The chance for one more conversation.  I want to ask them questions and I need them to answer me.  What has caused their pain to be so great they decided to leave this world behind?  What was the whole point?  Why did we work so hard to keep each other safe when there was so much harm surrounding us?  Why end it now? You made it home!  You made it back to mom and dad and wife and child and friends!  Why now?  I want to tell them I’m sorry.  Sorry for their pain.  Sorry for my anger and hate.  Of course, I am left to render my own conclusions, more a meditation in pain than an answer.

War is a journey, a journey with many paths and roads moving different directions to different places.  In my own experience the trip begins and ends at the same destination.  Home.  Or at least whatever place each person finds most dear.  It might not even be a place.  It might be a person or activity.  This “thing,” whatever it may be, is what the warrior turns to when things are at their absolute worst.  It’s what they turn to after they have been away from home for months and it’s hot and it’s only going to get hotter and they are carrying 80 pounds of extra weight up the same fucking hill for the one thousandth time and someone they have never met tries to kill them and instead kills their best friend who was standing right next to them and then they have nothing to look forward to except that they get to do it again tomorrow. And the next day.  And the day after that.  When you go through days like that, there has to be something that keeps you going, makes you say, “I’m going to make it out of here.”  And then, finally, one day, you do make it out.  Make it back home.  Everyone cheers and is happy and claps their hands and you smile and you are truly glad to be home.  Home in a physical sense.  In body.  Your mind however is still in turmoil, still back in the desert or on the side of a mountain, stuck at a crossroads with no idea which direction to take.  I think everyone who experiences war travels down the same road passing the same intersections.  There are no signs to follow.  No light to show the way through the darkness.  Each intersection is a question which needs to be answered to make sense out of the senseless experience of war.  The questions are impossible to answer.  No one ever makes it completely back, but you can make it most of the way.  Maybe these people, these guys like Chad, never make it far enough back.  They take a wrong turn and lose their way. They get caught at a spot between the Hell of war and the comforts of home.  The division becomes blurred by expectation and guilt and shame.  Months of constant fear and excitement mixed with boredom and hate has made them question reality.  Their loved ones are foreign beings.  The precious people who occupied every waking thought and dream and fantasy are happy to see their soldier.  Glad they are home.  Home safe and in one piece. They give hugs and shake hands and have no idea the soldier is still fighting.  Still “over there”.

Of course, the soldier is glad to be home too.  But home is different now, not at all like he remembers.  His family and friends, like the soldier, have changed.  His fantasies were a lie.  He wants to talk about the war but can only do so with those who will understand.  Only his brothers in arms will do. The one’s he laughed and cried with and got blown up with, and shot at people with.  Killed people with.  They are gone now.  They live across the country or are out of the Army, working at a home store or drawing disability from the VA.  Some are buried and forever seared into the soldier’s mind.  The soldier wants to talk to the dead the most.  The situation is an ocean of impossibility.   They miss home while they’re at war but find they miss war when they get home.  To them, salvation can only be found at the bottom of a bottle or inside of a gun barrel.

I don’t know if it does any good to sit here and ponder these questions or make half-hearted attempts to understand why my brothers have killed themselves.  Wondering why they have survived so much only to give in at the last minute.  I won’t stop though.  I can’t stop.  I can only keep asking the questions.  And wait for the phone to ring.

Since getting back from deployment, Frank had gone soft. He was still a massive block of muscle, but the edges had rounded. Too much time off. Too much food and booze. He saw it in his reflection of the Vegas penthouse suite window that overlaid the view of the pre-dawn casino lights that blighted out the stars and blazed like a midnight sunrise. Frank had woken up too early and couldn’t go back to sleep—he couldn’t sleep well after he drank.

On deployment in Iraq, Frank’s body had been perfect. The life was perfect for it. Go on patrol, work out, eat, sleep, do it again. Just what the body needed. Out on patrol, while Frank sat in the Humvee or ran through a door or while he stood there and the guys loaded him up with extra ammo belts and gear, a tucked away part of both Frank’s body and mind would be waiting for the point when they, together as a pair, would return to the FOB and he would go to the gym. When he would swap cammies for his issued olive green Marine Corps PT gear and a gallon jug of water and leave the plywood box of his bunk for the one with the stacks of weights.

Frank would slide the weights onto the bar and into each other with a clang, position himself horizontally on the bench and beneath the bar as he readied himself for the energy transfer of metal to muscles. The results spoke for themselves: in the mirror and in the eyes of his fellow Marines, who oorah’d his massive frame starting day one of boot camp. The bodies who had observed him, and he them.

So many of those bodies, on deployment, had been hurt, disfigured, lost. So many minds of those bodies, from deployment, had been hurt, disfigured, lost.

Not Frank, though. No. He was all right, just hung over and tired and not out of shape, but slipping.

If Frank hit the hotel gym now, he could get in a full workout before Cameron woke up. Cameron, whose streak at the craps table the night before had gotten them two nights comped, was sprawled out on the couch–pants on, but no shirt–his half-belly half-hanging over his belt line, the tattoos on his torso like scars across his body.

Frank put on his PT gear, grabbed his room key, and slipped out the door.

*

Frank and Cameron walked side-by-side, just narrow enough to manage the busy Vegas sidewalks.  The sun baked them. Frank’s muscles were alive with a buzzing soreness, but he hadn’t done quite enough in the gym to burn off the effects of the night before. As he walked, he stared at his flip-flopped feet through his wraparound sunglasses. He thought of how his toes had their own little toe lives, every one of them.

Frank had met Cameron and his raspy, high-pitched Texas drawl at boot camp. They had been together ever since—after boot camp, infantry training, all the liberties out town, deployment, and, now, leave, in Vegas. From cradle to grave, literal or figurative–one way or another, everyone, eventually, left the Marines.

It was Saturday and was their second to last day of a long weekend in Vegas. Tomorrow, he and Cameron would drive back to Camp Pendleton, just north of San Diego. After getting back from Iraq, Frank made a quick stop to see his parents and some high school friends in Oklahoma, then went right back to the unit. Back to his routine. But then Cameron cashed in on the promise Frank had made on deployment. Frank wasn’t much of a Vegas guy, but he was Cameron’s friend, and he kept his promises.

Frank made his Vegas promise the night after a squad from a nearby platoon had been out in a Humvee and hit an IED. In an instant, four died. They were alive and then they weren’t. This was halfway into Frank and Cameron’s 12-month deployment. The next evening on base, as the sun went down and they waited for their mission, Frank and Cameron smoked cigarettes and drank Rip It, which would get them through the night and were the sole vices that Frank allowed his body–they helped keep him alive.

That night, Cameron, his face and helmet a shadowy blur in the dwindling light, grabbed Frank by his flak jacket.

“I swear to fucking God, when we get back, we’re going to Vegas,” Cameron, desperation in his voice, had told Frank. “You’re coming with me. And don’t you die before we make it back. Or I’ll kill ya.”

“Okay,” Frank said.

Doing so, Frank knew, meant that he couldn’t die, so, the next morning, when they got back from patrol, Frank hit the gym with a vengeance, pushing weights he had never pushed before, trying to take not just the energy from the metal, but their very essence, and make it his.  An IED could tear through flesh and bone, but not iron.

After a while of making their way down the Vegas strip, Cameron stopped walking and looked out over a small blue man-made lake. On other side of the lake was the Bellagio hotel, a tower of smooth concrete and tinted windows. It was built as if specifically to view from the spot where Frank was standing.

It stood in stark contrast to the charred remains of the buildings in Iraq, the ones militants had burned or bombed or the ones the United States had burned or bombed. When Frank had driven by them in the back of the Humvee, they all looked the same: charred and black. Just as the bodies had been equally burned, so much that it was hard to believe they had once been alive and human. They might have been mothers, fathers, daughter, sons; they might have been Suni or Shiite or American. But to Frank they just were as they looked: charred black over bone.

“What the fuck?” Cameron said.

“What?” Frank replied.

“Where are the fountains?” Cameron asked. “There are supposed to be fountains.”

“Where?” Frank asked.

“Where? Right fucking there. In the lake.”

“All the time?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know,” Cameron said, upset. “I just know they are supposed to be here. And I don’t fucking see any.”

Frank grunted in response to Cameron.

“Hey,” Cameron said.

Frank looked down at Cameron. Most everyone was shorter than Frank, Cameron especially. “What?” Frank replied.

“The fountains,” Cameron said, incredulous.

“Must have just missed them,” Frank said.

Cameron reached over the side of the wall and tried to touch the water of the lake. “The fountains restores youth to those who bathe or drink from it,” Cameron said.

“We’re only twenty-two,” Frank said.

Cameron, not able to reach the water, stood back up. “Whatever,” Cameron said. “People pee in there, you know.”

Frank wondered if Cameron was talking about himself. Cameron had built up Vegas over deployment for so long that there was no telling how far he would go to achieve his vision of what it was to be here. There was Cameron’s luck at craps the night before. And the woman whose hotel room he stayed at the night before that. Who knew what tonight would bring.

“Oh, look at the beautiful toes!”

Frank was surprised by a man who was bent over and looking at his feet. All Frank could see of the man was his headful off frizzy hair, like a brown brillo pad.

“They’re wonderful! They are such little treats!”

Frank was confused. Cameron jumped back.

As the man stood up, two people in black came walking towards Frank, one short, one tall. The short one Frank could take. The tall one, too.

As Frank sized up the situation, and looked at the man again, who was standing now, he registered the hair, the bronze skin, the light in his eyes, a gold silk shirt over white pants, the joyfully high register of his voice, when Frank realized who it was: it was Richard Simmons.

“Is everything ok?” the shorter man whispered into Richard Simmons’ ear, eyeing Frank at the same time.

Richard Simmons looked at Frank while he responded to his body guards. “Oh, I was just saying hi to these boys,” Richard said.

*

The Bellagio Baccarat Bar and Lounge was a cool reprieve from the hot strip, though just as bright. The pillars were made of white and gold marble, the chairs red velvet, and there was a glass statue that looked like a blue mix of a bouquet of flowers and jellyfish and gold flames made of glass that shot towards the sky. Richard greeted the hostess by name and kissed her once on each cheek. He was directed towards a set of closed oak sliding doors, which, when opened, revealed a large, circular marble table in the middle of a room. A large blue and purple chandelier hung over it.

Frank, who felt severely underdressed, was the first to sit at the table, which had about twenty chairs surrounding it. He sat in one. Cameron sat on his left, Richard on his right.  A woman in a dark blue suit and wearing rectangular glasses sat to Richard’s left. The bodyguards were nowhere to be seen.

Frank couldn’t really believe he and Cameron were here. With Richard Simmons.

A waitress appeared at the table, dressed in black and her thin, blonde ponytail pulled back.

“So, what’ll it be?” Richard asked the table. “It’s on me! It’s the least I can do, for what you did.”

Neither Frank nor Cameron had told Richard they were in the military, but they looked like they were, and they were.

It had been four years since Frank enlisted, right after high school in central Oklahoma. In high school, Frank had developed a smaller version of his current ox-like breadth as a freshman in high school, and had quickly been recruited by nearly every coach. He had accepted his fate with casual grace, excelling at varsity football, wrestling, and baseball, pleasing his coaches and classmates and teachers, if not himself. The glory of the field was nice, but he wanted something more. When colleges tried to recruit him, he balked at their offers. He wasn’t ungrateful, just uninterested.

Frank didn’t know what he was interested in–until one fateful school lunch in fall of his senior year. After Frank got his food and as he walked to find his table with his lunch tray, his eyes locked with the Marine Corps recruiter that stood by a table with an olive green drop cloth over it. The recruiter wore his dress uniform was built like a bulldog. His eyes widened at the spectacle of Frank. Frank walked over. As Frank stood there and pawed his two meatball subs off of his lunch tray, the recruiter spoke to Frank, using words like:
Honor

Loyalty

And the phrase the Marine Corps was known for:

Semper Fidelis—always faithful.

These words stuck with Frank. They were the words Frank would use to tell his parents when he told them his plans. Once Frank joined, they were all the words he needed to not quit and stay the course and get ready for war and, by doing so, staying faithful with his fitness. As a Marine, Frank got bigger, faster, fitter. The Marines always use a guy like Frank. And smaller guys like Cameron could use a friend like him, too.

And it had been nearly four years since Frank had enlisted for a four-year contract. In a few months now he would have to decide whether to stay or go. Same with Cameron. Frank didn’t know what he would do. He wasn’t sure what Cameron would do, either. Cameron was the type to stay in the Marines forever. Or maybe not. Frank had a hard enough time weighing the intentions of himself, let alone others. If he and Cameron went their separate ways, then so be in. Everything eventually ended, one way or another.

But Frank did know what he wanted to drink.  “Jack and Coke for me,” Frank said to the waitress.

“Make it two,” said Cameron.

“Make it four,” said Richard.

The waitress disappeared and left the four of them at the table. They all sat there in silence.

“Well, thank you, Mr. Simmons, for having us,” Cameron said. Frank was surprised with Cameron’s politeness.

“Mr. Simmons!” Richard said, delighted, “Mr. Simmons is my dad’s name, and he didn’t like being called Mr. either. I had to call him Sir.”

“Really?” asked Cameron.

“Not Dad. Sir. The one thing I have in common with the military. Well, one of the things.”

“Oh yeah?” said Cameron.

“You both know, like I do, the importance of being fit. I’m fit,” he repeated, bringing both his arms so that his biceps were parallel to the floor.

Richard did look fit. His arms were tanned and toned, with a small amount of loose flesh that could be excused given his age, and the fact that he also seemed to be on vacation. The Jack and Cokes couldn’t have helped, but then Frank was having them, too. This was Vegas, after all.

Richard gestured with his hands and scanned the room while he talked. “60 years old and I don’t feel a day over 30. I have my gym still. In LA. I can’t move like I used to, but I can keep up with most people. And it’s fun! I put on some music and we all have a ball. But that’s the first thing I noticed about you, how fit you are. But made in the real world, not just the gym.”

Frank was suddenly made aware of how much time he had spent in the gym.

Cameron motioned to Frank with his thumb. “Frank’s the real fitness freak.”

Richard looked at Frank. “The strong, silent type, I can tell,” said Richard. “Frank, what’s your routine?”

Richard turned towards Frank and looked up to meet his gaze. Frank and Richard were sitting so close to each other that Frank thought he could see himself in the pupils of Richard’s eyes, in the black mirrors of his pupils. Frank grew shy under the intensity of Richard’s gaze and looked away.

The waitress returned.

“Oh, thank you!” Richard said to the waitress, who put the tray of drinks on top of marble table closest to Richard’s assistant, who began passing them around. The drink Frank had thought was for Richard’s assistant was also for Richard.

After they all got their drinks, Richard lifted his two glasses in the air. “To the troops!” Richard said. Frank and Cameron lifted their glasses in the air and after they all clanked them together, they drank.

“Bench,” said Frank, in response to Richard’s previous question. “Deadlifts, clean, pullups, dips, all that.”

Richard was drinking when Frank responded and was initially confused by, then registered, the response, both with deliberate movement of his eyebrows.

Now that he had answered Richard’s question, Frank took a sip of his Jack and Coke. It went down smooth. He had drank way too many of these over the past couple of weeks.

“Wow, and all the military training you do, too,” Richard said.

Frank nodded. “70 pound rucks, not to mention the gear. Jumping out of trucks, hiking, running, sprinting up stairs, night missions. Really takes its toll on the body. All the stuff in the gym helps with that. But I’m kind of taking a break now. We just got back from deployment two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks,” Richard said. “So you really just got home, didn’t you?”

Richard made eye contact with Frank again, and, as Frank met it, he was suddenly struck with a familiar feeling.

Frank had never particularly followed the career of Richard Simmons, but Richard had been popular enough at the prime TV watching age of Frank’s youth that it would have been almost impossible to avoid his presence. Frank remembered the clips of people who were desperate in their situation, those who felt hopeless to make any meaningful change in their lives. Those were exactly the kind of people who Richard had wanted to help, who Richard sought out and went into their homes and sat right next to them and looked right into their eyes with genuine concern–the same genuine concern that he looked into Frank’s–and took their hands into his as he told them everything was going to be all right. And afterwards, for many people, it was. Their lives became better. Simply because they had met Richard Simmons.

Frank broke Richard’s gaze, grabbed his drink with his right hand, and took a long sip.

The waitress soon walked into the room again, holding another tray full of Jack and Cokes. Frank didn’t remember anyone ordering another round. Richard flagged her down even though she was already heading to the table. Once the drinks were again passed around, Richard gave the waitress his phone and asked her to take a picture of them.

After she took the picture, and after they finished their second round of drinks, but before they all departed, Richard asked for Frank’s and Cameron’s number, and he texted the picture to them.

When Frank received the text and looked at the picture, he looked at Richard, whose mouth and eyes were open and joyous as he stared into the camera and now met Frank’s gaze. Richard looked happy.

Cameron, who looked as he always did for the pictures they took on deployment, had a blank face, one devoid of emotions, except for the emotion he used to look hard. It was the face that Frank would put on when they were geared up and ready to go out on patrol or when he was at the gym and about to put up serious weights.

But that’s not the face that Frank had in the picture. He had the tinge of a smile and his face was relaxed. Frank didn’t look as in shape as he would have liked, but, like Richard Simmons, he looked happy, too.

*

“Do you think he’s gay?” Cameron asked.

Frank and Cameron sat on black leather seats in the back of stretch yellow Humvee that had been promised to Cameron over the phone.

After drinks with Richard Simmons, Frank and Cameron went back to their hotel, but not before Richard asked them to meet up later that night. While Cameron began to shake his head, Frank said they would think about it, and they departed. When they got back to their hotel, Frank watched Cameron lose money at blackjack, then slots, then they went together to the hotel buffet and ate plates of meat and potatoes. When they were done, they went back to the room to freshen up, then Cameron called the number for Larry Flynt’s Hustler Strip Club, which sent the stretch yellow Humvee they were now sitting in.

“Who cares?” Frank replied to Cameron’s question. “Why does it matter?”

Cameron fiddled with the power windows of the limo.

“It doesn’t,” Cameron said. “I’m just asking, damn.”

“Well, if it doesn’t matter, then it doesn’t matter.”

“He did ask us to go dancing with him tonight.”

“He was just being nice,” Frank said.

“Whatever,” Cameron grunted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank asked.

“Nothing,” Cameron said. He stared out the window.

Frank hadn’t been to very many strip clubs. He didn’t like to party like Cameron and the guys. They let Frank off easy because he looked like he could beat them up, which he probably could, even though he had never tried.

Most male Marines looked like Cameron, only a little taller, and lived a similar lifestyle. Pudge on top of muscle. They balanced a steady supply of cigarettes, alcohol, dip, energy drinks, burgers and fries, with pull-ups, running, cross fit, the weight room, and protein shakes. They looked like it, with thick necks and torsos that were tough, meaty, and tattooed.

Not Frank. There was no balance, only exercise. Not a drop of ink to found on him or alcohol in him. The other Marines would make fun of him for it if they weren’t so impressed or scared or jealous. The saying was “every Marine a rifleman,” the rifle their weapon of choice. Frank was a rifleman, too, but his body was the weapon. And the fortress. An impenetrable shell.  But that wasn’t why Frank worked out. He did it to feel whole. It didn’t quite work, though, so maybe there was something to way Cameron did things. He’d give it a try, at least.

The stretch limo dropped Cameron and Frank off under a giant open rooftop that was held up by green fluorescent pillars. They were ushered through the front door and entered a long, black hallway that lead to a black door. On Cameron’s suggestion, they got the VIP pass, which gave them two free drinks and a lap dance, and they went through the door and into the club.

Frank entered the club behind Cameron. As soon as he did, he was overwhelmed by it all:  the ivory white bar the sea of white leather chairs to his left, the poles everywhere, the pulsing hip hop.

A hand touched Frank’s elbow. He turned and was met with the steady gaze of a blonde woman. Her skin and hair glistened under the light. She gestured to his right ear, which he bent down towards her.

“Vanessa,” she said.

“Frank,” Frank replied.

“Do you want a dance?”

“Okay.”

She took him by the hand and began leading them up the stairs to the second floor. Frank looked for Cameron, who stood by the bar sipping his drink and watched as three of Vanessa’s coworkers gathered around him and contended for his attention.

When Frank got upstairs he was led to a booth, where Vanessa began to give him his dance. She stood in front of him and danced and then began to straddle him. He was allowed to touch her torso as she danced for him, which he did, with both hands. While she danced, he couldn’t help but notice her perfect hair and makeup, her slim and toned muscles and abs. And that look. The perfect combination of seduction and admiration, as if he was perfect.

Frank wondered what she had done to get everything so perfect as she did. And he wondered what she would do when it was no longer perfect anymore, when her body or mind wasn’t able to do this anymore, from age or exhaustion. When Vanessa got to that point, would she think that she best used her time now, or that it used her? Will she consider her life over, or that it had just begun?

Toward the end of the latest song, Vanessa leaned over so that her hair draped over him. She again spoke into his right ear.

“You’re body’s so hot,” she said.

Frank was excited despite himself–he liked women, but this was nothing but a transaction, and he knew it.

Out of the corner of Frank’s eye, he saw Cameron leading a petite brunette by the hand past Frank and Vanessa and into a back room.

Vanessa stopped dancing. She stood up, flipped her hair, and asked if Frank wanted to continue. Frank said yes. Vanessa said they should go into the back room. When she answered how much it was, Frank said that they should just stay where they were. She walked away and came back with a credit card reader. It was still too much money, but Frank swiped his card, and she started her routine all over again.

At the end of her next dance, Vanessa again asked Frank if he wanted to go into the back room. Frank said no. She asked if he wanted another dance. Frank said no. She said thanks, smiled, and walked downstairs.

Cameron was still in the back room, so Frank went downstairs and to the bar. Frank didn’t want to leave Cameron, but didn’t want to spend any more money on dances. He went to the bathroom and checked his phone. He had two missed phone calls from Richard Simmons. Frank looked at the time. It was nearly midnight. Frank shot a text to Cameron to ask him where he was. Cameron didn’t respond. Frank then thought of calling Richard back, but it was late, and his phone was almost dead.

When Frank got out of the bathroom, he saw a phone charging station next to the bathroom and attached to the wall. He swiped his card in the charging station and hooked up his phone. As he stood there, Vanessa and a co-worker walked by him and down a hallway. Neither of them seemed to notice Frank. In fact, no one did. Frank was in a bubble he could stand in, safe from the obligation of interaction. He would stay here.

From the hallway that Vanessa and her co-worker had walked down, a red head walked towards him. She glanced nervously from one side of the hallway to another. Her hair and makeup was overdone and she walked in heels and a black coat that came down to her knees. She held a sparkling black bag in the crook of her right arm and continued to shift her focus from one point to another as if she was scanning for something she had lost. Then her focus settled on Frank.

Frank looked away, but it was too late. She was headed right for him.

“Hey,” she said. She stood right next to Frank.

“Hey,” he replied.

“Sandra,” she said.

“Frank,” Frank replied.

She held out her phone, whose screen was black. “My phone is dead,” she said. “Would you be able to call me an Uber? I can pay you.” Before Frank had a chance to respond, she opened her bag, stuck her hand inside and pulled out a stack of one-dollar bills that were carefully folded in half. She held them out to Frank. “That should cover it,” she said.

Frank took the money, put it into his pocket, and touched the screen of his phone to bring up the Uber app.

“Where are you going?” he asked, and when she told him, he told her how long until the driver would arrive. She thanked him and then they both stood there, both of their bodies facing each other, but neither making eye contact.

Sandra began to shake her head as she looked at the ground. “I just failed my audition,” she said. She glanced at Frank then back at the ground as she used her right hand to put her hair behind her ears. “They want me to lose twenty pounds and to get work done. I mean, I could lose some of the weight, but I won’t get surgery. I didn’t have to do any of this shit in Portland.”

“I’m sorry,” Frank said.

They both looked at each other now.

“It’s different here, in Vegas,” she said. “The competition. The standards. Everyone wants you to be something you’re not.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” Frank said to her. He meant it.

“Thanks,” Sandra said. She said it like she had heard it a thousand times before.

Frank didn’t know what to say anymore. “Don’t let them change you,” he said. He had heard someone say that once.

Sandra touched his arm. “Thank you,” she said. She smiled and looked at him sincerely. “What are you in Vegas for?”

“Just got back from Iraq,” Frank said. “Here for some R & R with my buddy.”

Sandra instantly threw her arms around him. Frank, surprised, kept his arms by his side. Sandra let go and stepped back and looked sheepish, as if she had violated his personal boundaries. “Welcome back,” she said.

“Thanks,” Frank said.

Franks’ phone buzzed in his hand and when he looked at it, he saw that Sandra’s ride was here. She hugged him again and thanked him, and this time he hugged her back.

“Thank you for helping me,” she said into his ear, as she still embraced him. He inhaled the smell of her hair and perfume. “You’re so sweet.”

Frank was moved by her comment, and found Sandra attractive. This, whatever it was–he didn’t want it to end.

“Can I come with you?” Frank whispered.

Sandra looked neither surprised or offended. She shook her head. “Not tonight,” she said.

“Okay,” Frank said.

Sandra hugged Frank quickly again and left. Cameron still hadn’t come downstairs yet. It was just past midnight. Frank remembered the two missed phone calls from Richard Simmons. He figured it was too late now to call back.

Frank stood at the bottom of the stairs for another twenty minutes or so as he waited for Cameron to come down, and when he didn’t, he ordered an Uber for himself back to the hotel.

After the Uber, arrived, a black Honda Accord, Frank sat in the back. He pulled up the picture that Richard had texted him. Frank looked at Richard’s face again, the one where he had thought Richard looked so happy.

But when Frank looked at the picture now, he looked into Richard’s eyes as they looked back at him and saw the sadness that no amount of acting happy could hide.

As the Uber driver drove and talked to Frank about NBA basketball, Frank tried calling Richard Simmons. The phone rang and rang and then went to voicemail.

*

Frank woke up early the next morning, hung over. He walked to the windows and looked out as the rays of the sun took over duties from the lights of the strip. Cameron was passed out on the sofa, shirt on, but no pants. Frank hadn’t heard him come back last night.

Frank put on some clothes, grabbed his room key and phone, and slipped out the door. He was on the Vegas strip in minutes.  At this hour, the streets were deserted, except for the occasional pairs of older couples or friends who walked with purpose. Frank took his time– check out time wasn’t for hours. His muscles were calling for the workout he was sure to miss that day, but he tried to ignore their signals and the ones that called for food and water. He kept walking. He had spent too much time in his life sealed off, untouched by the secrets the wide world had to offer.

Frank took in the sights. The tall hotels. The fake pyramid and fake Eiffel tower. The people. He tried to think of the contrast between this and the streets of Iraq, but nothing came to him. When he thought of Iraq, he thought of working out, or of waiting to work out. Sometimes of bodies and the minds of bodies. Of the charred and black. But when his mind went to that, he thought of working out again.

Frank’s phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and saw that it was Richard Simmons. He answered.

“Hello, Frank,” Richard said to him. He sounded disappointed. Frank and Cameron had blown off Richard’s invitation last night. Frank didn’t want Richard to be upset.

“Hi,” Frank said.

“I know it’s early, but I woke up early. I had trouble sleeping.”

“I’m up early, too,” Frank said. “I’m sorry about last night. We did appreciate your invitation.”

“What are you up to?” Richard asked.

“I’m out walking the strip.”

“Oh, you are?” Richard asked. He sounded less disappointed now. “Where?”

Frank looked around him as he held the phone to his ear. “I don’t know. By some hotels.”
“Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Come to the Bellagio. They’ll send you to my room. How does that sound?”

“Okay,” Frank said.

When Frank got to the lobby of the Bellagio, an open expanse of marble ceilings and floors, and rainbow colored decoration, he looked for a hotel clerk to speak to. Frank realized he didn’t know where Richard’s room was. Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see a man in a burgundy coat and white gloves.

“Are you here for Richard Simmons?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Frank said.

“Right this way,” the man said. He stepped backwards and to the side and extended his right arm in the direction of where he wanted Frank to walk.

When Frank got to Richard’s room, the door was slightly ajar. Frank walked in. Richard sat alone with his back to the window, facing the door, and at the head of a glass dining room table in a yellow chair. When Richard saw Frank, he gave a tired smile. He wore a red sequin tank top and white pants.

“Frank. Come in.”

The place setting for Frank was at the head of the table opposite Richard. In the middle of the table, there was enough food for a platoon: French Toast, muffins, eggs, bacon, potatoes, prime New York steak, smoked salmon on bagels, carafes of coffee and orange juice. Richard hadn’t touched the food yet. Frank took his seat.

“I got a little of everything,” Richard said.

“I can see that,” Frank replied.

“Shall we?” Richard asked, and gestured towards the food. A genuine glow lifted his face and body.

Frank dug in. He put enough on his plate for at least two. Richard then got some food for himself, a small portion of eggs and potatoes and bacon. While Frank ate, he poured rounds of coffee and juice and water for himself.

Frank was done almost as soon as he began. Frank then looked at Richard, who ate his food gently and took his time. This was in sharp contrast to Frank, who, now aware of that fact, was embarrassed, but tried not to show it. Richard didn’t seem to notice, and was focused on the simple act of eating. Frank got some more food and ate it slowly enough that he wouldn’t finish before Richard did.

“How was it?” Richard asked. Frank was in the last chews of his second round of food.

Frank wiped his face with his napkin. “Really good, “Frank said. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Richard said. He cupped his coffee cup with two hands, brought it to his face for a sip, then put it down. “Did you have a nice night?”

“We went to a strip club, actually,” Frank said, who wanted the words back as soon as he said them.

Richard must have sensed Frank’s embarrassment and waved away his concern. “It’s Vegas. I’d be worried if you didn’t go to a strip club.”

“I was worried to tell you, actually,” Frank said.

“There’s nothing you’ve seen that I haven’t. And I’ve seen everything. Did you have a good time?”

Frank thought about it.

“I don’t know,” Frank said. “Maybe not.”

Richard gave a slight nod and a little shrug of his shoulders. He understood.

“What about you?” Frank asked.

Richard rolled his eyes and smiled as if he had already explained it to Frank. “Oh, I found the party, but the party didn’t find me, if that makes sense.”

It didn’t, really, to Frank, but he nodded anyways. Frank was deeply aware of the bounty of food he currently held in his stomach. He wasn’t going to throw up, but he was worried he might burst.

“Do you ever get tired of it all?” Frank asked Richard.

Richard put down his coffee cup. He was curious about Frank’s question. He put both of his elbows on the table in front of him and gestured with his hands to the majesty of the room around him. “Of this?” Richard asked. He meant it sincerely.

Frank felt bad, that he had overstepped. “No, sorry,” Frank said.

“Oh, I can get tired of this,” Richard said. “It’s marvelous at first—and it is marvelous—but after a while it just becomes normal. So then you look for something new to give you the feeling that the first marvelous thing did. After a while, when you get tired of all that, you just want what was normal to begin with.”

“And are you tired of it now?” Frank asked.

Slowly, Richard swiveled around in his chair and looked out the penthouse window. Down below was the small, blue man-made lake. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes yes, but then I take a break, and then I’m good again. But the breaks have gotten longer over the years.”

“I think I’m getting to that point,” Frank said.  “Of being done.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Ha!” Richard’s laugh rang out like a shot. He continued to laugh as he swung around in his chair. When he faced Frank, he covered his mouth with one hand and waved towards Frank with the other, as if trying to apologize for his behavior. Frank couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. Richard’s laugh trickled down into a sniffle.

“I’m sorry,” Richard said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Frank said.

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Richard said. “I just –”

“It’s okay.”

Richard stood up, walked over to Frank, and sat in the chair that was to Frank’s immediate left. He looked in Frank’s eyes, with the same gaze that had cast Frank into a spell the day before.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” Richard asked.

Frank looked at Richard and nodded. “And so have you,” Frank said.

Richard was surprised by Frank’s comment. He looked away from Frank and furrowed his eyebrows, not in disapproval of Frank, but in reaction something that only he could see. Richard stood up, walked over to the window, and looked out it. He stood there for a while.

Frank thought of when he had typed “Richard Simmons” into YouTube last night, when Cameron was in the shower, getting ready for the strip club. The first YouTube result was an hour long video of Richard dancing with a roomful of people, titled, “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.” Frank clicked on it and it was what he had expected: Richard and a roomful of his followers, all in leotards, dancing to the oldies. Frank exited the video and clicked on the second result, which was one of Richard’s David Letterman’s appearances.

In the video, Richard wore a turkey costume made of red and yellow feathers. The audience howled their approval of his costume, and Richard basked in their approval. Letterman smirked. Richard seemed to purposely annoy Letterman and Letterman responded by making fun of Richard–this was their routine. Richard then wanted Letterman to give him a kiss on the cheek, then he stood up in his red and yellow feather outfit and walked over to Letterman to try, and Letterman stood up carrying a fire extinguisher and sprayed Richard with it. Richard yelled at Letterman to stop but Letterman continued spraying him. The audience went wild. The video ended.

Frank felt conflicted by the video. Fitness wasn’t about celebrity. It was about fitness. Frank worked out to get strong and to look strong.

But then that wasn’t fully true. He worked out to kill. He worked out to distract himself from killing and dying and death and the charred and the black. Frank worked out to save himself. And while it was true he would eventually leave the Marines, one way or another, it wasn’t true that the Marines would leave him. Once a Marine, always one.

Maybe it was similar for Richard. His body would only allow him to work out for so long. But whatever happened, he would always be Richard Simmons.

Richard continued to stare out the window. Down below, Frank knew, were the fountains that he hadn’t seen.

Frank’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. Cameron was calling him. Frank let it go to voicemail.

Frank looked at Richard. “Hey, what’s up with those fountains?” Frank asked.

“What do you mean?” Richard asked.

“Do they work?”

“Yes,” Richard said.

“Yesterday when Cameron and I went by they weren’t on. And they’re not on now, too.”

“Well, they start only after a certain time. Four o’clock, something like that. What time is it now?”

Frank looked at his watch. “Nine A.M.,” he said.

“We’d have to wait for a while then.”

“I’ll be gone by then,” Frank said.

Richard, still looking out the window, nodded.

“I’ve never seen them,” Frank said. “In person, I mean. I’ve seen them on YouTube or whatever.”

Richard whirled around on his heels. “You’ve never seen them?!”

“No.”

Richard walked quickly past Frank and in the direction of his bedroom.  “Frank, what are we going to do with you? Hold, please.”

Richard slammed the bedroom doors shut behind him. Frank heard Richard’s muffled talking. After a few minutes, Richard opened both doors at the same time. He was glowing. “I’ve got good news!” Richard said. He started walking.

“They’re going to turn on the fountains?” Frank asked.

Richard pointed at Frank. “Bingo,” Richard said. Richard walked past Frank towards the window. Frank followed.

“How’d you do that?” Frank asked.

Richard put out both his arms and shrugged his shoulders like aw shucks. “One of the perks.”

Frank walked to the window and stood next to Richard so that they were shoulder to shoulder. They both stared out the window and onto the lake below.

“Any second now,” Richard said.

“Okay,” Frank said.

“What about your friend?” Richard asked. “Should we stop the parade and invite him?”

Frank stayed silent for a few moments as he thought of his response.

“Cameron doesn’t like fountains,” Frank replied finally.

“Oh,” Richard replied. “Oh, okay.”

As Frank and Richard waited for the fountains to come, Frank could see both of their reflections in the mirror.

Richard, who looked through the window with anticipation, seemed tired, but content. Compared to the one Frank had seen in the YouTube video on Letterman, his face was older, obviously, not quite as full of youth and vigor. But it was Richard’s.

Frank then looked at himself and his rounded edges. He didn’t look like he used to. But he looked like who he was. He looked like Frank.

Suddenly, from the blue lake below, two circles of fountains of water shot up from the lake, then, in the middle of both those circles, two towers of water shot up into the sky, so high up, that they seemed like they would never come down again.

Richard gasped.

Frank looked at his own reflection. “Don’t be scared,” he said.

In Some Distant Country

We have seen this before, in books
and on the screen, like dust plumes rising
in some distant country. Except,
some distant country is Michigan –
armed patriots (terrorists)
in the marble halls of a statehouse.
Long guns and body armor.
Stars and bars on the flags they carry
and nooses for the nervous traitors (lawmakers)
who can read the signs on the lawn outside –
TYRANTS GET THE ROPE.           

Now they are here, inside
the United States Capitol Building,
these armed patriots (terrorists)
smearing their urine and their fecal matter
on the floor and the walls, roaming
the halls with zip ties and body armor,
looking for traitors (lawmakers)
to bind, to carry outside,
where the gallows wait.

Their work is not finished.
Tomorrow, these armed patriots (terrorists)
will return to their homes, victorious,
triumphant. They will return
to towns across the fifty states
where they work at hospitals and gas stations,
at schools and police stations. They will smile
when they greet us in the grocery store
while they do their shopping.

They will tell us to unite.
They will tell us to listen
and be calm, that time
will grant amnesty (without repentance).
They want us to forget, but
their work is not finished.

Who will tell us how to love
our neighbors now?

Who can show us how to rescue
our would-be executioners
from the gallows they built?

How Will You Answer

What is the word for home
after houses become bombs
as they did in Baqubah and Mosul?

One afternoon your wife
has you drill pilot holes
to hang a flat screen-tv on the brick wall.
The mortar dust and shards of clay
erupt from the spinning bit
like bone ejected from kneecap
and skull in the Baghdad torture rooms.

At night, you put your son into bed
and draw the blankets up
over his freckled shoulders.
You stroke his straw-blonde hair
and wonder, what
is the word for son, now?

What can you call your son
now that you’ve seen another man’s son
burning?

How will you answer
when your son calls you father
in the world you turned
into ash and bone?

For thirteen years, I stored my boxes of army documents and medical records in various basements, closets, and attics, mostly not my own as I had fled the land for foreign adventures, eventually settling in Berlin. I couldn’t get far enough away from those boxes and what they reminded me of. But there, in those dark and musty corners, they waited patiently. Too hot in the summer and cold in the winter were my excuses for not sorting through them. Some just-right day, I intended to look more closely at the documentation of my suffering, but there they stayed: neatly arranged from the outside, chaos and pain detailed within. I always had another excuse—if you’re looking for one, any one will do, they say. Then came the novel coronavirus. Life halted. Riots erupted in the streets as America’s own darker corners came to light, regardless of the pandemic. With the distractions of overextended social calendars and freedom of movement gone, out of that pause arose the cry for justice in America, for the truth to be known and the past unearthed.

When the plague hit, I was back in the States, my homeland, and got stuck for four months at my mother’s while visiting her in rural Pennsylvania—living for free—but in close proximity to elderly and at-risk individuals. I couldn’t join the protests against police brutality for fear of bringing the pandemic back to our small community. My hands were bound already without zip-ties or handcuffs. What could I do with all my pent-up frustration and time to spare? The attic beckoned. I braved the muggy heat and dragged down the box of medical records. Inside I found five large, white envelopes from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs—a helpful guideline printed in all caps added clarity: DO NOT OVERFILL. Now you tell me.

My 3.5-year enlistment was one of the most intense periods of my life. It consisted mostly of a very long string of training events, bad romances, affairs, drunken flings, and physical and psychic pain. In retrospect, this might be the same for many civilian women in their late twenties, but my drama involved more early formations, uniforms, and abuses of power.

I enlisted after graduating liberal arts college at the age of 25 and went to basic training alongside 18-year-olds who had just finished years of high school football. They were used to being under intense physical strain and getting yelled at by coaches; I had been studying languages and philosophy! It was a hard landing in basic training, which never wore off. From basic on, my muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and then gradually, my spine bulged and rebelled. Things continued to deteriorate in Advanced Individual Training (AIT), where I learned to be a prisoner of war interrogator. Another year of learning Persian-Farsi at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) only exacerbated my condition.

Glancing through the timeline of my military service as revealed in my medical records, I was struck by the evolution detailed in the list of medical treatments. It’s a wonder I wasn’t inspired to seek a career in medicine as I cycled through the specialties gaining valuable experience as a patient in each. It began in general and sports medicine, then neurology, dermatology, optometry, orthopedics, and internal medicine. There was even a short spell in obstetrics, which lead to emergency medicine and mental health; at some point, I graduated to the experimental pain clinics and more mental health centers. I spent a long time at pharmacy school. I had signed up to do my part in the war on terror but found myself seeing more of the benefits of socialized medicine than the frontlines of combat.

I always loved the idea of the army and yet when people learn about my military service, they are often surprised, and I find myself laughing too. Did I really do that? I tried not to think about it for years, but the reality of it—the context and timing of my enlistment at the height of the surge in Iraq, even many of the people I worked with—I hated. Of course, not all of the time, but I was often bored by much of what my job entailed. I was outraged that, with all my education and training as an interrogator and linguist—us linguists were often reminded of how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the Department of Defense had spent on our training—I was often relegated to sorting papers or white-washing rocks or taking orders from semi-literate superiors.

I tried to hide this snobbery of mine, but sometimes failed. I would get yelled at for an arched eyebrow, that danged “attitude” of mine always found a way to creep onto my face, try as I might to suppress it. It was a love-hate relationship because despite my feelings of superiority in certain matters, I can see now how I desperately wanted the army to love me. This mattered so much because if the army loved me, then I could love me, too. But I would never rappel down a rope from a helicopter to storm a building or save a fallen comrade with a fireman’s carry. Not with this twisted spine. Try as I might to become a good soldier, I would never belong in the military, not really. And I would not be happy there either. There were some moments of glorious fun: That part of basic training when you get to throw a grenade or climb an obstacle course high above the trees come to mind.

I open another big white envelope and start reading about the stage when I finally was given a permanent profile restricting my physical activities. No more running, but I was permitted to walk the physical fitness test. Oh, the shame! Once I finally finished the endless AIT and language school phase, I got my orders to Ft. Hood, Texas, and was assigned to a Military Intelligence unit at West Fort Hood. Within a day, I was trotting around the Texas plains playing OPFOR—the bad guys—against our own troops who were training for deployment—and winning, a not so subtle sign of what awaited America in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was actually a lot of fun, getting to play a role that was not military, but the guerillas and terrorists who would reveal the allegedly invincible US military’s weakness. I would be rewarded in that role for my unique “solutions” and clever outside-the-box thinking.

I had wanted to be part of something bigger than myself; to pursue justice and be amongst the righteous. I wanted to be told I was good and doing the right thing. I performed well on standardized tests, and I loved being told “you done good.” I was an excellent linguist—top of my class even, earning an achievement medal for my language test scores and good grades. I lived for praise and was crushed by criticism. “You’re a piece of shit soldier,” I heard from a few NCOs over the course of my training, for various reasons: Not being able to perform a buddy-carry because of an injured shoulder, or for crying during basic training. And gradually, I believed them. They were the experts after all, they ought to know who was a POS and who wasn’t.

The military had seemed like a good place to get this sense of higher purpose I craved, of being in the right place, and “doing good.” I didn’t approve of invading Iraq, but genuinely wanted to minimize potential collateral damage with my language skills. But tolerating the inanities that the military is known for—mindlessly, obediently following orders—for example, was not my forte. My individuality strained against the inevitable petty exercises of military authority that abound where power is distributed to immature people. I had a knack for picking up on large and small injustices taking place around me. One roommate I had at Ft. Huachuca during AIT was a “holdover.” She had accused a fellow student of rape and was forced to stay in the same unit as her rapist until an investigation was completed. Out of frustration and despair, she tried to make it all go away by rescinding her accusation and was then prosecuted under the UCMJ—for making a false accusation! I watched helplessly, but learned the important lesson: Do not report, do not resist. It is futile and will result in further suffering. For a time, I doubled down on attempting to conform and “exceed the standards,” ignoring my increasing list of physical ailments.

I was reminded in my records, that already at DLI, I had gone to see the chaplain and confess my woes and frustrations. He informed me that women shouldn’t be in the army anyway. He referred to a recent case of a female linguist who had killed herself in Iraq and said that the same fate awaited me if I didn’t get out soon. Because he also claimed to have special knowledge of impending doom, “The world would soon go up in flames when the Antichrist, a new pope, would start World War III!” he had informed me—amongst other conspiracy theories—it was easier to discount his views overall. But the seed of doubt about my ability to handle things because of my gender had been sown.

One day in 2005, in the oppressive heat of Texas at Fort Hood, I found myself in tears after some classic Army-scenario of humiliation. This meltdown was related to another one of my “transgressions,” some injustice had been done to me—or another hapless private. I don’t even remember whether it was me or someone else who was the target, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and suffered in either case. As I attempted to maintain my military bearing and failed, a sweet sergeant from my squad, who had recently returned from Iraq, approached me afterward. While trying to calm me down, he said, “You know, you might have adjustment disorder. I’m taking Prozac for my PTSD; it seems to be the only way to make it through the day. They prescribed it to me after I bit a guy on the face. He came to my house, and I just bit him in the face. Yeah—adjustment disorder.” He was a smallish, pock-faced man also in his mid-twenties and had been a gunner on a Humvee. I didn’t ask him for details but knew he meant well with his tip.

I thought about my “disorder.” I didn’t want to bite anyone, but I sure drank a lot… Would I need to take medication just to exist in the military? Must I pretend that I had adjusted to it, when clearly, I had not? What does it say about a person who thinks it’s normal to be yelled at? And did I want to become that person? I hadn’t even been to Iraq yet. I knew enough—and was counseled by a psychologist—to avoid prescriptions that indicated mental health issues because of my security clearance as a linguist. There was a magic, red line that ought not to be crossed when discussing one’s mental health. No, I’m not hearing voices. No, I’m not going to kill myself or others. There probably was a clear line in the way security clearances were adjudicated, but that line remains a secret to those applying or even already holding such clearances. Nevertheless, according to my medical files and that long list, the number of medications prescribed to me by so many doctors in all those specialties in the last two years of my enlistment alone, was 29. But none of them were antipsychotics, whew!

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) which was released five years after my medical discharge, adjustment disorder and PTSD are classified as trauma and stress-related disorders. PTSD is triggered by an overwhelmingly traumatic event, whereas adjustment disorder is caused by “only” a stressful event or change in environment.

Already during my enlistment, I could see acutely how the very thing that made the military strong as a whole required the suppression of individuality and individual freedom. How could this be reconciled? I never figured it out. I couldn’t turn off my sense of self and couldn’t repair it either. So, I obliterated it in ways known to all soldiers: drugs and alcohol.

The truth is that I was high a lot in the army. When I got to my first real duty station at Fort Hood, my brigade’s motto was “Always Ready.” They didn’t specify what for. Most often, always ready to either drop everything to fulfill the whims of a superior—the so-called “Needs of the Army”—or to party, which meant binge drinking. On top of the doctors prescribed medications, a lot of us seemed to be self-medicating with alcohol.

Even with my favorite medication condoned and readily available, this constant state of readiness and being on alert—lest a male superior use the excuse of my rank insignia or beret being slightly crooked to talk to me and ask for my number—drove me crazy. I was like a rat in a glass case. Always being observed and with nowhere to hide. When I got out for a minute, it was to be petted and stroked by my owners. Being female presented a constant set of challenges that I hadn’t quite anticipated. The need to be extra “high-speed” all the time—lest I make all women look bad—made every occasion, even just walking down the street, a test. It was exhausting.

Already in the 1960s, psychologists developed a test for a person’s “tolerance of ambiguity,” which I took a few years after my time in the army. My score was not as high as I’d always assumed or hoped it to be. But it was finally official: I don’t like not knowing what is happening next. I don’t like “embracing the suck,” or living, “always ready” for the unknown next catastrophe. I mistook my desire to serve my country for the ability to submit to the powerlessness of the enlisted world. But I didn’t need Prozac to ease my mind. I could take an army doctor’s prescribed muscle relaxant (for my back pain) and sleep for sixteen hours. I could take a Tramadol, down a few beers and go chill out. I often would check out of my pained body and tortured soul with pharmacological assistance; I could immobilize myself with permission for a few precious hours. And I would, except that there were consequences.

The higher I got, though, the further down I pushed my real emotions. There, under layers of uppers and downers, they festered, the fumes of my rage and pain oozing out as from a forgotten trash can. Maybe I really did want to bite someone? Instead, I self-sabotaged. When the high wore off, I cried. Eventually, I couldn’t see the reason for staying in such a messed-up system with its outdated hierarchy and inefficiency in all things except matters of destruction. This was a system that took perfectly well-meaning people and turned them into the kind who would bite someone on the face because they don’t know how to deal with the horrors they’ve witnessed.

I was also part of a rotten scheme: The military I was a member of was being used to implement an illegal war by a president who hadn’t won the popular vote, and to oppress the powerless in multiple countries. I was both oppressor and oppressed—part of this system and equally suffering from it. I’m certainly not the first to observe this tragic conundrum.

I was a linguist, qualified in German, Spanish, Italian and newly trained in Persian-Farsi. I was getting paid extra to maintain four languages, but not doing anything with them. I had signed up to be an interrogator yet because of my physical issues could not deploy with my unit to Iraq. Nobody likes to feel incompetent and unqualified, and I felt like I was both. I was not going to save anybody with my precious language skills. But as every soldier knows, the only things worse than being a Fobbit (a soldier how doesn’t leave base while deployed) is not having deployed at all.

Finally, in 2007, I was ready to acknowledge that the army wouldn’t love me and to cut my losses. I accepted a medical discharge for back and shoulder injuries. But like some sort of institutional form of Stockholm Syndrome, it took me a long time to deprogram. Even after my discharge, I tried several times to deploy as a civilian. I turned down an assignment in Afghanistan because I was going through a divorce, but I still wanted to be a part of it all and prove that I wasn’t just a POS soldier. I wanted that pat on the back, and to be part of that coveted club of (mostly male) war veterans. I was so caught up in my desire to be part of it all, that I only gradually realized that if things sucked stateside, they would only be worse downrange, as a civilian or a soldier.

But now, thirteen years later I saw what was recorded in my medical file and reminded that it was not just that kind sergeant who saw the obvious: My record of diagnoses did indeed include, “ADJUSTMENT DISORDER WITH DISTURBANCE OF EMOTIONS”—all caps. I hadn’t realized it at the time, I was so eager to close that box of pains.

From what I can tell, things have improved for women in the military since my stint. I know that women, in general, are capable of all the things men are, but I still wonder how much I would have been capable of if the men around me believed I was or how much of my failings were due to my gender. The slow unpacking of pains on paper and through my writing has helped heal some of the issues on my long list, but practicing self-acceptance and love and rebuilding a sense of self is not a task to check off the To-Do list in just a weekend.

Tanana River

We followed your Hilux along the riparian zone,
a green snake blooming through the desert brown,
when you met in secret like lovers, and the way you
hugged each other in greeting showed an intimacy
I didn’t particularly want to consider at that moment.

The second before the Hellfire splashed down, you
looked into the sky, and I still wonder if you thought
it was a sign from god, but when your world went
black I think it must have confirmed your suspicions.

My first full memory was standing on a grassy shore
watching my father catch a salmon in the Tanana river.
And I can still see the coil of the fly line snapping silent
and how it unfolded and laid out onto the silty sheet.

There was something above elegance in those motions
as the salmon breached, and I saw the slick of its back
as it stretched the surface, the rippling kick of its tail,
and then it shot back down, the line gave, my father’s
back bent, the line went in, went out again.

As a modest crowd grew slowly along the muddy banks
watching my father race up and down the shallows,
it seemed to me that he was going to pull up a demon
straight from hell, and I remember the shouts and jeers
when my father finally dragged the salmon on shore.

And I remember my commanding officer’s laugh when
half of you was dragged gently under a shade tree.
I remember the grip on my shoulder as he told me
that it was a damn good job, a fuckin’ good job.
I remember the way his boots rested on the desk,
and how he donned his number twenty-four hat,
and how he drank his coke, turning his attention
to the NASCAR race circling on the other screen.
I remember the way the other man laid you back,
how he talked to your body under that shade tree.
I still to this day wonder what he was telling you.

I was scared when I stepped close to that salmon,
dancing and darkening the dirt with wet slapping flops,
its mouth opening and closing, sucking in nothing.
The great gibbous black mirror of its pupil asking
for something, something that I knew I couldn’t give.
I felt small and shameful in that goggle-eyed stare,
so I picked up a long stick and gouged out its eye.

The Heaviness of Age

Sometimes in my dreams the world is covered in sand
and I wonder why no one cares.
I can feel it in my sheets as I sleep, in my mouth
and crusted in my eyes. I kick and brush it away,
but it’s never gone, and the sand always returns.
But no one cares and they act like they don’t see it.
Why is it then that I’m treated so funny?

The custodian on my floor looks like a man
we tracked down and killed in Helmand province.
The custodian on my floor thinks I’m racist
because I avoid him and never look him in the eyes.
I have to sit in my chair to get over the nausea sometimes.
He once told me I’m not gonna bite you and laughed
and I laughed and I asked him about football
and then he walked away, and I took my fifteen minute
break to step into the utility closet and cry.

I don’t even remember why we killed the man.
I don’t remember anything but the face
That’s mostly all I remember now.
His mouth blood black and tongue lolled in a dog pant.
And I don’t know why we had to take pictures of them all.
It’d be much easier if they hadn’t taken the trouble
to fly out there and take their god damn pictures.

A child still visits me at night.
I see him sitting at the edge of my bed
He’s always looking away, out the window
and when my wife wakes up
and asks: what’s wrong?
I tell her nothing, it’s just a bad dream.

But he’s not a bad dream,
he doesn’t deserve that epithet.
I sometimes want to hold him like I hold my son
when he feels betrayed by the world.
I like giving that feeling of love and security.
I’d give it to him if I could.

I see paintings of heaven
and I never see any children in the paintings.
Where are the children?
Homer has no children in his underworld.
Just indifferent or spiteful adults.
Sometimes I think it must be the heaviness of age
that allows us to sink down and rest.

Five days ago at morning PT, Nate wasn’t in formation. Everyone assumed he was at sick call, and we did our workout without him. But when he didn’t show up for first formation after breakfast, tensions rose. He hadn’t checked in at sick call, he wasn’t assigned to any special details, and his roommate Specialist DiNofrio said he didn’t remember seeing him after the previous afternoon.

“Check his room,” Sergeant Martinez told us.

Dino and I followed Specialist Remington across the quad from the company building to the barracks. Remy was on CQ, so he was responsible for the large ring of key dupes. At five-one, he looked like a kid playing soldier. With the four-inch key ring jingling at his belt, he looked like a soldier playing janitor. I smiled briefly at the thought, but then we were in the barracks, up the steps, and at Nate and Dino’s room. Dino opened the outer door with his key, and after a full minute of searching the ring, Remy found the right dupe and unlocked the inner door to Nate’s room.

The room was clean and organized, and at first nothing seemed amiss. His bed was made, the floor was free of clutter, and his TA-50 gear was stacked neatly in the closet. He hadn’t packed his duffels yet, but we weren’t leaving for a few weeks. Plenty of time to get ready.

“Anything missing?” Remy asked.

Dino shrugged mechanically. He was always so stiff, like he was on guard duty every second he was awake. Being a good five inches taller than my six-one, it made him look a little like Frankenstein’s monster. “I don’t know,” he said, “I didn’t really come in all that much. He was closer to Winch than me.”

“How ’bout it, Winch?”

I felt around the room with my eyes, not sure what I should be looking for. All of his stuff appeared to be there; there were plenty of clothes in his drawers and on the hangers in his closet. Even his cell phone was there, resting in the charging cradle on top of his dresser. I was about to say that nothing seemed wrong, but then I opened the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed.

“He’s gone,” I said. I pulled the key ring out of the drawer, with the keys to the room, his duffel padlocks, and the lock for his Humvee’s cargo compartment.

“What?” Dino said.

“Car key’s missing.” The car I sold him. The car he said he just wanted so he could get around when he was by himself. The ugly piece of shit sedan that I made even uglier with the orange spray paint that he took off my hands for fifty bucks just a week earlier like he was doing me a favor.

When we returned to the company area, Sergeant Martinez reacted poorly to my suspicions. “What the holy fuck, Alpha team?” His bellow reverberated from the walls of the squad room. The rest of second squad discreetly slipped out of the room, leaving me, Dino, and Remy to face his wrath alone. “We’re in the desert in three goddamn weeks, and you let him go AWOL?” He looked at us, his eyes moving from one face to the next hungrily, the eyes of a predator.

“Any ideas where he’d go?” His eyes settled on me, and he gave me a look like he wouldn’t be happy no matter what answer I gave him. I looked at Remy and Dino, but they were intent on staring at anything but me or our squad leader. Alone against the world, I could only shake my head in reply.

He drew in close and bent down eye to eye with me. “Find him,” he said. “You’re team leader, Sergeant, this is your job. Find your soldier and bring him back.” Then he pushed past me and out of the room.

Now, as I reach the set of three small concrete steps that lead up to the front door of Nate’s mom’s house, it opens, and she comes out and stands on the porch. She’s a short woman, but she’s almost as wide as she is tall, an imposing presence there on the stoop, blocking my way. She’s breathing heavily and her face is an angry pink, though I can’t tell if it’s due to anger or a lack of exercise for the last fifty years. She folds her arms over the massive shelf of her bosom and says, “What do you want, Winch?”

“Looking for Nate,” I say.

“He’s on post.”

“No, he’s gone a few days now.”

“Don’t know nothing ’bout that,” she says. “Last time I heard from him, y’all were getting ready to leave.”

I take a step toward her, relishing in the crunch of a particularly dry leaf under my left boot. “So he hasn’t called you?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, just looks over my shoulder and says, “What the hell are they doing?”

I turn around and see Remy and Dino standing next to the car. They’re both smoking and Dino is doing his best to block Remy from hitting him in the nuts with the back of his hand, David annoying Goliath. Remy must get a shot past Dino’s defense, maybe taps the tip, because Dino suddenly turns and punches Remy above his right eye, knocking the cigarette out of his mouth and down his shirt. Remy laughs as he puts one hand to his head and pulls the shirt away from his body, billowing it to allow the butt to fall to the ground. Probably best to turn the conversation away from their stupidity. I turn back to Mrs. Browning and say, “I don’t allow smoking in my car.”

“Uh huh,” she says. “What do you want with Nate?”

An incoming call sets my phone vibrating in my pants pocket. The buzz is loud and annoying, but the phone is semi-new and I’m still not sure how to silence it without pulling it out. I do my best to ignore it and say, “We’re leaving in less than a month.”

“Think I don’t know that?”

“I know you do, I’m just saying he needs to come back before we leave.”

She pushes her arms away from her chest and flings them in my direction. Her face left pink and is rounding the bases toward a deep magenta. “Maybe he doesn’t want to go back anymore,” she says. “Maybe he did enough time and wants to stay home now.”

“It’s not up to him. He’s gonna be in even bigger trouble.”

“Yeah, well maybe that’s okay. If he’s in jail, he don’t have to go back.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head, “they’ll just send him over like nothing happened, and when he gets back, then they’ll send him to jail. And while he’s over there, they might decide to garnish his wages. I know he helps you out whenever he can.” We both look at the fading house, note its chipped paint and worn siding, the piece of cardboard duct taped over the broken basement window. Her eyes tremble a bit, and I know that I’ve reached the part of her that could help me. I hate doing this, hate laying guilt on her. If she were my mom, I’d be completely ashamed. But she’s not my mom, and this is the only thing I can do. It doesn’t last long, though, as she quickly closes me of.

She says, “He’s not here, I haven’t heard from him, and I want you to leave him alone.” Then she turns and begins to retreat back into the house.

Before she closes the door completely, I say, “If you do hear from him, could you tell him to call me?” As the lock clicks, I wonder if she heard me.

Back in the car, I pull my phone out of my pocket and see I missed a call from my mom. I delete the notification and toss the phone into the console next to my seat. Later. I can’t deal with her right now. I’ve got my own shit to worry about.

Dino says, “No luck?”

I just shake my head. “What’s with the grab-ass?”

“Just messing around,” Remy says, holding an unopened Sprite up to his new shiner.

Anything to keep the mind off what’s coming.

*

When I tell Sergeant Martinez that we haven’t found Nate yet, he says, “What the fuck, Winch,” and walks away, his fists clenching and releasing. Hopefully it’s not my throat he’s imagining crushing between his fingers.

The three of us sit against the wall at the back of the squad room. I feel like we’re marshaling our energy for another mission. What we’re doing isn’t difficult, but it’s exhausting, just trying to put ourselves into Nate’s shoes and think about how to find him. I wish that he’d call, say, “Hey, Winch, how’s it going?” like we just saw each other this morning.

Then I’d say “Been better, been worse,” and we’d all have a good laugh and he’d come back and we’d be able to continue getting ready to deploy. But my phone remains silent in my pocket, and we remain silent in our chairs.

Other members of third platoon walk past the door and look in on us, spectators viewing the massive blunder that has been my week. I hear my name, Nate’s name, other things. “Fucking second squad,” someone murmurs.

Lunch time rolls around and Remy and Dino want to go get something. I tell them I’m good and watch them leave. Food won’t help me right now. Sometimes lunch gets in the way. But then I remember how I met Nate at lunchtime in this very room, three years previous.

I was fresh out of Basic, didn’t know anyone. Sergeant Martinez showed me around the company area, led me from office to office, introduced me to anyone he could find. Faces and names blurred together and I got lost trying to keep up with what my new squad leader was telling me. I was sure it was important, but nothing was penetrating.

He left me in the squad room filling out forms and reading field manuals and SOPs. I said hello to people who came in, told them who I was, where I was from. Some were cordial, some were indifferent. I was the new guy, the fresh meat, the cherry. I hadn’t been anywhere with these guys, and they didn’t know me.

At lunch, three specialists came in and sat at one of the other tables. None of them looked at me, or acknowledged my presence. They were having a heated discussion about action movies and who their favorite actors were and for what reason. At one point, someone said something that I agreed with, and I tried joining into the conversation, attempted to make a friend or two, but they simply looked at me for a moment before continuing their discussion without me. I felt like a cricket in the corner, an annoyance that was easy to ignore.

Movement at the door caught my attention, and I saw another soldier motioning to me to come over. I got up and passed the three soldiers and their conversation and met the PFC with Browning on his name tape. “Yeah?” I said, not expecting much after my previous encounter.

He leaned in and said softly, “Fuck those bitches.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about, and I’m guessing my face said so.

He nodded to the three at the table and said, “Don’t worry about them, they’re assholes. If you don’t have a tab, you’re nothing to them.”

“What?”

“Look at their shoulders.”

I looked, and sure enough, all three had Ranger tabs at the tops of their left sleeves.

He pulled me out of the room and walked away down the hall, with me following close behind him. “I call them tab toadies,” he said. “They hate it, but I don’t give a shit. If they want to do something about it, they can fucking try it. I choked out Stephenson last year in combatives training, and I know I’m a better boxer than Mitchell.”

I hadn’t said anything yet. “You haven’t said anything yet,” he said.

“Thanks?” I managed to get out.

“No problem, that’s what I’m here for.” He reached his hand across his body as we walked. “Name’s Browning, Nate. One each.”

I shook his hand. “One each?”

“Yeah, like in an inventory, you know, ‘Cot, four each, rucksack, three each, Browning, one each.’” I must have still looked confused. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You doing okay?”

“It’s all a little much.”

“Been better, right?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “But it’s been worse, too, I bet.”

“I guess,” I said. We walked out of the building. “Where we going?”

“Lunch. You like sushi?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Too bad, we’re getting burgers.” He walked faster, and I did my best to keep up. And that was what we did for a while. He’d move fast and I’d try and keep up. I learned a lot from Nate about a lot of things, and it helped me to get better at my job, become a better soldier, a sergeant, a team leader. Eventually I was the one moving fast, staying in the lead, though he never tried to keep up. Nate’s pace was whatever he chose, not what was chosen for him.

We went to war together, bled together, lost friends together. Both of our fathers died within months of each other, and we each comforted the other’s mother. Nate got married before our first deployment and I was his best man. He got a divorce after we got back, and I was there with him in the bowling alley, throwing balls down the lane at stand-in ex-wives, ten at a time, all wearing white. Both of us had the other’s back. I knew I could count on him for anything, because I would do anything for him if he needed it.

Sergeant Martinez comes back into the room and towers over me. “Find your guy yet?”

“No, sergeant.”

“Sitting here’s probably not the best use of your time, then, is it?”

“No, sergeant.” I stand up and walk to the door, but he stops me.

“The CO wants the car brought in when you find Browning, for the report. Go.” He makes a shooing gesture with his hands, and I leave.

My phone buzzes in my pocket again. A text: “Come by for lunch, if you want. Luv u, mom.” I realize I can eat, so I leave the building and send a text to Remy and Dino saying I’ll meet them later to continue the search.

*

I yell hello as I enter my mom’s house, but she doesn’t answer. It’s noon and the washing machine and dryer are running downstairs. My mom has done laundry every Friday at noon since I’ve known her. The smell of fabric softener wends its way through the vents in the basement, filling the house with lavender. Every time I come here, I’m reminded of how nothing in the barracks smells this nice.

I’m rummaging in the fridge when Mom comes up the stairs, an overflowing basket of freshly washed towels balanced on her hip. “Here,” I say, and take the basket from her and set it on the kitchen counter.

“Thanks, sweetie.” She pulls a washcloth out of the basket and blots her forehead and the back of her neck. She’s going through menopause and recently she’s been breaking out into cold sweats at random moments. She’s just in her forties, too young for this, I think. I wonder if it’s because of me. I know it is.

She says, “So what’s new?” and smiles, but the strain around her eyes tell me that it’s forced, that she’s not happy. I don’t want to upset her, but I can’t lie to her. It’s not how I was raised. I tell her all about Nate disappearing and my search for him.

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” she says. “You’ve all been through so much, I can’t imagine going back would be something you’d all be willing to do.”

“Yeah, but if anyone were going to quit out, I just wouldn’t have pegged it to be Nate.”

“Why, because he’s so masculine and strong?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just—” I break off. What was my reasoning? Just because he said he was ready to go back, and he was jumping up and down when we got our orders? Did I actually expect him to be completely truthful about his feelings? I have nothing, so I say nothing.

“You could do it, too, you know,” she says quietly.

I must have been zoning out, because I’m not sure what she means, and I tell her so.

She doesn’t look at me when she says, “You could leave, like Nate. Find somewhere to hole up ’til the deployment’s over.”

“No, I can’t.”

Her face goes stern, like it did when I got in trouble as a child. “Why not?” she says, hands on her hips.

I don’t know what to say. Emotions and reasons and excuses jumble around in my head, like a load of clothes in the dryer, round and round. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Fair to who?”

“To everyone.”

“It’d be fair to me.”

“I mean everyone else,” I say. “All the other guys.”

“What do they have to do with it?” Her voice is starting to take on a plaintive pitch.

Crying isn’t too far off, but I can’t stop now.

“It wouldn’t be fair that I’ve been over there twice now, and nothing happened to me, and everyone else is coming back with scars and missing limbs and PTSD, and I’ve seen the same shit and I’m completely normal, and I don’t know why. Why don’t I get to be in pain like them? I don’t know how to help them because I can’t understand them. I need to understand!” I can’t keep it together and I start to sob. I think she is going to cry, but I beat her to it and collapse into her arms. She’s a foot shorter than I am, and a hundred pounds lighter, but she supports my weight easily. She was made to support my weight. It’s what she does.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I ignore it and let myself be held. I try to imagine the insistent buzzing as white noise, like what I might have heard in the womb. Something to calm me, to protect me against the noise of the outside world. Except this noise is the outside world, and I don’t have the option to ignore it any more. I pull the phone out and through the glossy blur of my tears I see Nate’s mom’s number on the screen. I take a deep, shuddery breath to try and rid myself of emotion, and press the answer button.

Her voice full of defeat and sorrow, Nate’s mom says, “Winch, I know where he is.”

*

When we arrive at the Browning family cabin fifteen miles into the country, the sun is sinking wearily below the horizon. The first thing I see is the car out front, that ugly piece of shit that I was glad to get rid of, not knowing what was going to happen. I’m still not sure why I bought it in the first place except that it was only three hundred bucks and I needed a car right away. I also don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to spray-paint the fenders and roof orange, causing it to resemble an Iraqi taxicab. I park in front of it and block it in. I don’t expect Nate to try and run, but I’m not taking any chances. The three of us get out of my car and slowly approach the cabin in a wedge. None of us are armed, and we’re in the middle of the US, but we can’t turn it off, that need to do what we were trained to do, to cover each other’s asses.

The front door to the cabin yawns open to greet us. I step up onto the decaying wood porch and the smell of gunpowder hits me immediately. It’s not a smell that you mistake for something else, especially in our line of work. I should hope for the best, that he was just out hunting, or he shot a wolf that wandered into the cabin, or he was spinning a gun on his finger like in the movies and it went off, harmlessly putting a round in the ceiling. But really, I know what I’m going to find. I pull my phone out of my pocket as I step through the doorway, because I know that in three seconds I’m going to be dialing 9-1-1. His mom thirty seconds later.

Except I don’t, because Nate isn’t dead. He’s sitting in an armchair that might once have been covered in some sort of floral print but now looks to be suffering from a combination of mange, fungal infestation, and dry-rot. Next to the chair is a cheap folding TV tray, which holds half a six-pack, a pair of sunglasses, and a Beretta 9mm. Nate’s fingers drum lazily along the pistol’s slide, as though he’s unaware of what it is, but I know that he can grab it in a heartbeat and do whatever he wants with it. I wave Remy and Dino off before they can enter the cabin, and they retreat back onto the porch and out into the gravel driveway. Now I’m alone with the guy with the gun. Smart move.

I look around the single room of the cabin. Not much in the way of furniture: an Army-issue cot on the opposite wall from Nate, a small rattan table, and the firewood rack. A handful of bullet holes trace a line in the floor in front of the fireplace and up the wall next to it. An empty beer can is in the fireplace with a matching hole through it. A second can is across the room, and though I can’t see a hole, I know it’s there. We don’t really miss that often.

Nate’s looked better. He’s wearing the pants to his uniform, but just a white tank top. He doesn’t look like he’s shaved or even bathed the whole time he’s been gone.

“How’s it goin’?” is the only thing I can think to say.

“Not bad, you?” he says.

“Been better, been worse,” I say. The third-platoon mantra sounds hollow in my ears, but I can’t not say it. I need something to be normal here. Every second that the sun withdraws from the sky, Nate’s face pulls a little bit more darkness from the air, like he’s a photo being reverse-processed back into a negative. I motion toward the fresh wounds in the floor and wall. “Target practice?”

He shrugs slightly, or else the fading light is playing tricks. “Just fucking around.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“What do you want, Winch?”

“I’m here for you.”

“To bring me back.”

I shake my head. “I’m here for you,” I say again.

His fingers stop drumming on the pistol’s slide. He picks it up, but he doesn’t point it at me. “I’m not going back.”

“Don’t care. I’m here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

He lifts the pistol to his head, scratches his temple with the tip of the barrel, almost lazily. “Can’t really see you stopping me.”

“Maybe not,” I say. I motion at the cot behind me. “Can I sit down?” He waggles an affirmative with the pistol, and I walk over to the cot and sit down. The canvas thrums as it stretches under my weight, the metal frame squeaks at the joints.

We just sit for a minute. There’s no need for words at this point. My eyes move from Nate’s face to the Beretta. He stares out the window next to the front door. I can hear Remy and Dino shuffling on the gravel outside. The smell of their cigarettes floats into the cabin with the darkness.

“Goddamn, I need a smoke,” Nate says.

“Remy or Dino’ll probably spot you.”

“Tell ’em to bring me one.”

I just shake my head.

I see pain in his eyes, sadness. He holds out his gun hand, palm up. “You think this is for you guys?” He sounds hurt, like I’ve betrayed him.

I say, “No,” and I mean it. It’s clear that he isn’t planning to shoot me or Remy or Dino, that there is only one possible target in this room. “Give me the gun, Nate.”

He shakes his head and pulls the gun back to himself. He cradles it against his chest. “Just leave me alone.”

I stand up and take a step toward him. “Not gonna happen.” I take another step. “Give me the gun.”

He points it at my chest, the first direct threat he’s offered since I came in, but we both know that it’s a bluff. I take another step. “You won’t shoot me.” Just a few more.

He puts the gun to his head and pulls back the hammer. “I don’t have to shoot you to stop you,” he says. Now I do stop walking. I can’t be sure this is a bluff. Nate’s always been unpredictable. “Get out,” he says.

“Why?”

“You don’t want to see this.”

I say, “There won’t be anything to see. Give me the gun.”

“Fuck off.”

“Give me the gun.” I take a hesitant step forward.

He yells, “Go away!”

“You know I can’t.” I cock my head and shout, “Remy, Dino, get in here.” When the mismatch twins walk through the door, I say to Nate, “Now we’re all here. You got something to show us, or are you going to give me the gun?”

His arm trembles, but he doesn’t lower the gun. I take a more confident step toward him and put out my hand. “Nate,” I say in a soft voice. “It’s okay.”

I’m not arguing now, I’m soothing, providing white noise against the world.

Another step. “We’re here to help.”

I’m three feet from him. I reach out and put my hand on his, on the gun. I don’t pull at it, because neither the gun nor the decision to let go are mine to take. “We’re here beside you.” Remy puts a hand on Nate’s left shoulder, Dino a hand on his right.

“You’re here with us.”

His arm drops. I slip the gun out of his hand and into my waistband as we all put our arms around him, and he around us. Four against the world.

*

Outside we stand in a circle, all of us smoking. I hate cigarettes, but right now it doesn’t matter. The other guys laugh at my hacking coughs, pat me on the back like I’m choking. It feels like I’m choking. I drop the cigarette and crush it against the gravel, my part done. Nate takes a long drag from his, and his face lights up red from the fiery ember before he flicks the butt toward the cabin and turns away. His gear is packed up in the trunk of the ugly-mobile, and we’re ready to head back to post.

“Who’s taking which car?” Nate asks.

“Yeah,” Dino says, “I’m not riding in the dumpster cab.”

Remy nods in assent.

“Can’t we just leave it here?” Nate asks.

I shake my head. “CO wants it for the report.”

“You gonna get in trouble for giving it to me?”

I shrug and say, “Fuck ’em.” We both smile. “You and me in the shitbox,” I say, “Remy and Dino, you’re in my car, right behind us.” They look overjoyed at this and I throw Dino the keys. As they get in the car, I say, “But no fucking smoking.” They smile and close their doors. The stereo blares past the closed windows. They better not blow out my speakers.

“This really is an ugly fucking car,” Nate says from the passenger seat once we’re in and ready to go.

I put the car in drive. “Sure is.”

We drive away from the cabin, a two-car convoy. The road winds around and through the small hills and ravines. It’s slower going in the dark. I intermittently lose Dino and Remy in the mirror behind me as we curve along, hugging the guardrail that sits between us and a twenty foot drop. Then they’re back for a minute or two until another curve separates them from my vision again.

“So what’s gonna happen when we get back?” Nate says.

“Don’t know. You weren’t gone that long, they’ll probably just dock your pay.”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks out the window.

“And Sergeant Martinez will want me to smoke the shit out of you.”

He turns back to me and smiles. “If that’s the worst that happens to me, I’ll be happy.” I smile, too, but I don’t say anything. We both know the worst for Nate will be going back. I hope he understands that he won’t be alone, that he’ll have all of us with him. That slogan from a few years back is bullshit. Each of us isn’t an army of one. We’re all an army of brothers.

“So, seriously, what were you thinking with the paint job?”

I’m about to answer, when I notice something in the rear-view. I can’t be sure what it is yet, so I slow down.

“The orange is all streaky. You could have at least used more than one coat.”

There it is again. A glow in the mirror, Remy’s face lit up red. “They’re fucking smoking.”

“What?” Nate turns to look out the back window, so he doesn’t warn me about the whitetail buck that pops out from the trees in front of us on our left. I see it in my peripheral vision first, so I over-correct in surprise. I yank the wheel to the left, which sends the rear of the car fishtailing to the right. I spin the wheel the other way to compensate, but it’s not enough and we simply drift along the asphalt, missing the buck by inches and hitting the curving guardrail broadside at thirty miles an hour.

The guardrail holds, but it can’t stop the momentum of the car. We spin over the rail and roll down the hill. We’re both wearing our seatbelts, so we just dangle in the artificial antigravity as the world turns around us. I hear the car’s repeated impacts with the ground, but it’s muffled, drowned out by the heartbeat in my ears and the screaming. It sounds like I’m screaming with Nate’s voice, or maybe he’s using mine. Maybe the car is screaming, in anger or pain. It doesn’t matter. I try and count how many revolutions the car makes, but I lose count at a million.

With a sickening crunch, we stop suddenly at the bottom of the ravine, right-side up. Nate and I just sit still, looking out the windshield. I can hear yelling above us. Remy and Dino. Are we all right? Eventually Nate and I look at each other, but neither of us knows what to say. Finally, he shrugs his shoulders and says, “Huh,” and gives a small snort of laughter.

He’s in shock. I watch as he opens his car door and hops out, apparently undamaged by our descent. He has to be in shock, massive blood loss is blocking the pain receptors. He doesn’t know he’s only got a few more seconds of consciousness. But he doesn’t fall down. I don’t see any blood. Maybe he’s not the one in shock. I try to open my door, but it doesn’t budge. It’s me, I’m the one hurt. I’m paralyzed on my left side, and I can’t do anything.

No. I can move my arms and legs, I can feel them. The door isn’t opening because it’s blocked by the large oak tree that we came to rest against. I unclick my seatbelt, slide across the seat, and fall out of Nate’s open door onto the ground. Jagged rocks cut my hands as I land. I make it my feet, my legs wobbly, and lean against the car. Looking down at my body, and patting myself with my hands, I find no injuries. I’m okay. Nate’s okay. Everything’s okay.

Nate runs over and hugs me, laughing.

“Why are we okay?” I ask when I get my voice back.

“Who knows?” Nate looks up and I follow his gaze to see Remy and Dino picking their way down the hill. The road is twenty feet above us. We probably only turned over twice during the fall. Nate releases me and walks around the car, inspecting it like he’s a claims adjuster. He kicks the tires and checks the glass in the side-view mirrors, both of which, somehow, survived the roll.

Remy and Dino make it into the ravine and come rushing over. “Are you okay?” Remy asks, his eyes saucers in the moonlight.

I punch him in the face, probably pretty close to where Dino hit him earlier. “Been better, been worse,” I say.

He looks angry at first, but his face softens and I think he understands why I hit him. Dino points at Remy and laughs. Then Nate comes up, smiling, and knees Dino in the nuts. “Been better, been worse,” Nate says. Dino groans at his feet, but the rest of us smile. None of this matters.

Nate picks up a softball-sized piece of granite and throws it through the rear passenger window of the shit-mobile. He finds a larger rock and smashes it down on the windshield once, twice, three times. With the third hit, he starts to laugh uncontrollably. He leaves the rock on the hood and searches for one even larger, laughing the whole time.

Remy, Dino, and I just look at each other, two of us in pain. Remy shrugs and picks up a rock of his own and chucks it at the passenger mirror. The mirror casing explodes. Dino pulls a knife out of his pocket and begins deflating the tires. Remy and Dino also begin laughing, echoing Nate’s loud mirth at this wanton demolition.

I watch them destroy the car, smash the glass, dent the body panels, tear the upholstery. I close my eyes and listen to the crunch of rock against metal and feel myself relax. Laughter and destruction fill my body and wall me off from the rest of the world. Right now, there is nothing but us and the car, a group of men wrecking something that used to have meaning. I don’t know how long this will last.

Warrior Songs is a series of albums created under the direction of Iraq War veteran Jason Moon, profiled here in Wrath-Bearing Tree (October 2020). With the release of Warrior Songs’ third CD, this time focused around the Vietnam War, journalist Larry Abbott wanted to revisit this collective effort among veteran-musicians to create musical anthologies around their experiences.

The Last Thing We Ever Do: Vietnam Era Veterans Speak Truth will be officially released on August 8 to coincide with the 57^th anniversary of the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The CD, featuring 14 cuts, is a collaboration of 19 Vietnam vets with 21 professional musicians and songwriters to create an eclectic compilation of rock, jazz, blues, and blue grass-inspired stories of the war and its aftereffects. The project involved 81 studio musicians and 14 studios in the United States and Vietnam. A total of 109 artists, 17 of whom are Vietnamese, were involved in creating the CD. The diversity of musical styles mirrors the diversity of the stories, from the Selective Service System to combat to coping with returning to the U.S., civilian life, and moral injury. In all, the songs on the CD chart the three stages of war: “going, there, and back.”

“Conscription” tells of the “going” phase of war and was a group effort by members of Vets on Frets and Lisa Johnson. The original poem was written by John Zutz and concerned the anxiety of waiting for one’s draft notice or lottery number.  The question of going and returning (or not), is at the core of “Conscription,” the first song on the CD. The narrator duly signs up for the draft at age 18 and as the lottery approaches his “nerves are taut as wires.” He has seen the war on television and the conflict that looked so far away could suddenly become his reality, a reality of “Rice paddies, helicopters, Agent Orange and a jungle trail, . . . ” Reminiscent of Creedence Clearwater’s “Fortunate Son” the song also takes a jab at the privileged who scheme their way out while “The rest of us stuck in the draft are left without a plan” and have to wait for Uncle Sam’s decision.  There is a tone of resignation in the refrain “oh, conscription.”

Other songs tell of perhaps unexpected experiences, like “Seawolf 7-6” by Kyle Rightley and Bill Martin.  Martin was a helicopter gunship pilot with the Seawolf Squadron whose call sign was Seawolf 7-6.  On his stops in various villages he entertained children with magic tricks and quickly developed a rapport with the youngsters, especially at an orphanage near his base. The song recounts his experiences performing his shows. At one performance a girl approached him “with unmistakable fear in her eyes” and told him that the VC were coming and that he and his crew had better leave. “This brave girl/Saved my life on that day.” His experiences stayed with him: “Seawolf 7-6, in the end, it’s all about the kids/And I fly my gunship high through all of my dreams./Seawolf 7-6, what a magical life I’ve lived. . . . ”

Another song takes a different approach to the war experience.  It does not deal with combat but with a subject that could be of equal importance: music. Doug Bradley served in Vietnam as an information specialist. While a professor at the University of Wisconsin (from which he recently retired after three decades) he and Craig Werner co-authored We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (2015), which discusses the music of the times and the impact of the music on the “grunt.” His song, “Look Out Sam,” created with Kyle Rightley, shows that music was a survival mechanism by providing an escape, however temporary, from the constant presence of injury and death : “Albums, tapes, DJs played on the AFVN/And just for a while they would help you feel at home/Look out Sam we’re staring down a gun/Running through a jungle that you can’t outrun/But far from home the music gave us grace/And we all sang ‘we gotta get out of this place.’” The song also shows that music can create a bond among troops and be instrumental to the post-war healing process.

The after effects of war, moral injury and PTSI, felt upon the return home, is the subject of “Disquieted Mind” by Jeff Mitchell and Steve Gunn. Gunn, who was a combat medic, talks of his moral injury but also holds out the possibility of healing and recovery, however tenuous. In what could be a memory of destruction Gunn writes “I did not look back to study your face/ And all that we were leaving behind/But now I see you/And I know what we’ve done/For I have a disquieted mind . . . .” But he also avers that “I can build you something out of my love . . . ” even if it might take the rest of one’s life.

Similarly, “Face Down,” by the Mambo Surfers, posits that the effects of war can last a life time, but also that the effects can be mitigated and lead to healing. The song, based on the story of a Marine Corps vet, tells of his sexual assault when first arriving at his combat team. After the incident he was able to psychologically survive, lead his men, and regain his true self. He still carried the experience but was able to turn the experience around to help others. His story into song generates healing:

If betrayal or deceit has left you in pain, hopelessly broken
And indifference or denial have left the wounds weeping and open
I want to reach you with this song, soothe what hurts and make it good
I want to reach you where you hurt, walk away from the edge with you

“Cracks and Patches” is based on Brent MacKinnon’s battle with the effects of Agent Orange.  MacKinnon was a corporal in Vietnam from 1966-68 and was exposed to Agent Orange. As cancer took hold he sought to heal his soul through the arts and connecting to other vets. One aspect of this journey was Agent Orange Roundup: Living With a Foot in Two Worlds (2020), a book co-written with fellow Marine Lieutenant Sandy Scull. “Cracks and Patches,” by Paul Wisnewski and Aaron Baer, uses a final conversation with his estranged daughter to show that even though Agent Orange has taken his life there is still hope for reconciliation: “After all these lonely years,/Cancer did what I couldn’t do./It built a bridge that spans between us/And it brought me back to you.”

The most ambitious song, “Seeds of Peace,” is by Warrior Songs founder Jason Moon, who participated in Vietnam vet Chuck Theusch’s Children’s Library International 20-year anniversary trip to Vietnam. The song is about the importance of reconciliation work in healing moral injury. The recording is Warrior Songs’ first multi‐national effort. Son Mach, conductor of The United Saigon Orchestra, completed recordings in Saigon and Da Nang. Vietnamese school children sang the lead vocals.  The song was finished in Madison, Wisconsin with traditional American instruments and a local student choir. “Seeds of Peace” was inspired by Moon witnessing a meal in Duc Pho shared by Theusch and other U.S. Vietnam war veterans with former Viet Cong. The two groups had fought against each other 50 years ago in that province. In fact, during the meal at the school where Theusch built a library Theusch pointed to a hill “over there,” where during the war the two “enemies” fought and killed each other. Now they are building libraries. Moon wrote the song while riding a bus in Viet Nam, thinking about the meal he witnessed and the children who benefit from the libraries.

The new CD not only brings forth the experiences of women and vets of color but is also international in scope. Pauline Pisano composed “Orange Lipstick and Pink Uniform Taxes” from the testimony of women vets. In “Welcome to the World,” Parthon explored the experience of African-American vet Calvin Wade, who faced racism after returning from war. Actor, writer, and producer Elvis Thao created a song about the experience of Hmong veteran Chai Cher Vue entitled “Bloody Mekong.”

Warrior Songs was founded in 2011 by Iraq War veteran Jason Moon, who, diagnosed with PTSD, attempted suicide. He began to write songs about his experiences, and in 2010 released the CD Trying to Find My Way Home. This led to performances at educational sessions for non-vets and veterans’ retreats, which in turn led to vets sharing their stories with him. He realized that music could be an agency of healing for others if he could transform the stories into songs with the help of professional musicians and songwriters. He founded Warrior Songs in 2011, and the first CD, If You Have to Ask . . ., with Moon as executive producer, was released in 2016. The CD Women at War: Warrior Songs Vol. 2 was released in 2018 and represents the first time in the history of modern music that a full length CD was created from the testimony of women veterans. Eighteen women veterans and two Gold Star family members supplied testimony. 17 songwriters and 64 professional musicians brought the songs to life. 13 engineers, working in recording studios across five states, created the final recordings. In total, “Warrior Songs Vol. 2: Women at War” was produced by the collaboration of 95 people, of whom 49 were women. Women at War won the Wisconsin Area Music Award Album of the Year for 2019.

Moon has long-range plans for Warrior Songs. Volume 4 featuring songs by veterans of color is scheduled for a 2023 release. Future themes are “Family, Friends, and Support,” “Native and Indigenous Voices,” “Injured and Disabled Veterans,” “Rainbow Warriors/LGBTQ ,” “Tales from the Combat Zone,” and “Women Veterans of Color.” By 2030 he hopes to release volumes 1 through 10 as a full box set.  A supplementary 11th volume will explore the experiences of survivors of US wars.

The new CD, as well as volumes 1 and 2, are free for veterans and are available from Warriorsongs.org. A preview of the CD can found at: www.warriorsongs.org/WSV3

The following are some of the contributors’ notes on songs found on the album.

“Conscription”

Neil O’Connor: John Zutz wrote the poem “Conscription” about his experience with the Viet Nam draft lottery. He and Lisa (Johnson) then collaborated on writing it as a song, with Lisa creating the music. Lisa and I were acquainted through both musical and non-musical interests, and she asked me whether Vets on Frets would be interested in recording the song for the upcoming Warrior Songs III CD. We were, and we started on the project in December 2017.

Lisa provided a copy of the lyrics and a basic recording of the song. I shared it originally with Vets on Frets members Danny Proud and Mark Loder, since the three of us were the only members with access to digital/virtual recording equipment. Danny, an experienced songwriter, revised some of the lyrics, and we rehearsed the parts separately until we could set up a virtual server; that server (Jamulus) allowed us to rehearse the song together in real time. We then cut our separate instrumental and vocal tracks in our homes, which Mark mixed on his mixing equipment. We needed a 3^rd voice on the verses, so we recruited Rick Larson, one of the original Vo F members; we also asked Lisa to sing on the refrains. All the tracks were sent to Paradyme Studios in Madison, WI, where Jake Johnson fine-tuned the instrumentals, and Rick, Danny, Lisa and myself recorded the final vocal tracks in April. We sent the finished song to Jason, and it will be on the CD.

I’m also old enough to have been subject to that draft lottery in 1971, so John’s description of the lottery experience was very real for me (I was 52 when I served in Iraq; that’s a whole ‘nother story). The song very accurately communicates the uncertainty and foreboding of the times; it felt like life was on hold until you got that lottery number. I’m of the Viet Nam veteran generation, so I’ve always felt connected to their experiences, especially with the music of the time. My Iraq experience felt like it had some parallels with the Viet Nam vet experience, though our treatment upon returning home was infinitely more positive.

Vets on Frets came about when Danny and Mark, both Guitars for Vets instructors at the time, invited three of the recent graduates to informal jam sessions to encourage their continued growth as guitarists. They chose to have these sessions at the Madison Vet Center where I worked as a clinical social worker; the sessions were held on the one evening a week I staffed the Center. Rick Larson (Navy-Viet Nam), and brothers Jim (Army-Viet Nam) and Joe (Army-Europe) Ballweg formed the origin of the group. After a year, Danny and Mark challenged them to perform together in public at a Guitars for Vets fundraiser in a local venue. That was a real success, and they continued with that annual event for several years. About six years ago, they asked me to join them, since I played 12-string guitar and they wanted an additional voice in the group. We expanded to play at a number of local venues, and any donations/monies we earned went to local vets’ organizations (which continues to this day). Three years ago Thomas Hopfensberger (Air Force-US) joined us on guitar and vocals. COVID saw us on hiatus for 18 months, and we’ve just restarted performing in public again. We also recorded a song about the pandemic, co-written by Rick and Danny, titled “Swept Away”; it’s been played on a couple of local community run radio stations, and been submitted to our local public radio station for an airing.

John Zutz: I was born in 1949 and served U.S. Army April 69 – April 71, Vietnam 1970.  I drove a dump truck and covered the central third of South Vietnam pretty well. I was assigned by Jason Moon to write a song about the draft. I’m not a musician so he asked Lisa Johnson to work with me. I began working on the words, the message. Later Lisa provided the tune. Due to COVID distancing we worked separately with only one or two direct contacts over the computer. Vets on Frets came later, and made a few changes. So the song is the work of a committee that never met. I’m amazed at how well it turned out. The band communicates the feelings of loneliness and loss, the pressures we were under at the time.

Lisa Johnson:  John and I conferred via Zoom a couple times, and he gave me some more background on his experience as well as emailing me a copy of the poem the song was to be based on. I am a board member of Warrior Songs and Jason had asked me to work with John to develop the song (I had previously done a song on the volume 2 CD with stories from women veterans). I hardly feel like I should take any credit for this one; it is a lot of John’s verbiage (and Vets on Frets added some great lines and context as well). I just put it in a kind of sequential order that rhymed, gave it a chorus and came up with a melody. I just wanted it to be as true to his experience and poem as I could. I sang/played the song over Zoom for John. It is critically important when Warrior Songs does a story-to-song project like this that the veteran whose story it is agrees that the song reflects the feeling and experience he/she had. John suggested a few changes that VOF was able to work in at the studio, and we were good to go. I had the idea that because each verse was about a different facet of the conscription process that it would be nice if different people sang each verse, and if they were veterans themselves, so much the better. Vets on Frets immediately came to mind. I knew of Neil through a concert VOF did at a local folk music cooperative, the Wild Hog in the Woods Coffeehouse where I volunteer and because his wife took my master gardener volunteer training course. As it was during the pandemic and we couldn’t meet in person to have me play and record the song, Neil was very helpful (and patient!!) in helping get me set up with Jamulus software and a set of recording headphones so that I could play/record the song for him online. This took a couple weeks since I had to order various pieces of equipment, download Jamulus, and have Neil walk me through setting it all up, with various technology-related snafus along the way. Once recorded, VOF members listened to it and took it from there. They added a couple important phrases including John’s suggestions and gave it their special sound. I even got to sing on the chorus when we finally did get to go to the studio! I am grateful to have had the opportunity to meet/work with everyone!

“Seawolf 7-6”

Kyle Rightley:  I met Jason Moon several years ago at a folk music event called Wild Hog in the Woods when I was first doing solo acoustic music. We hit it off, and pretty soon we were getting together regularly to write songs. He mentioned his vision for the Warrior Songs project, and I was interested in participating as a songwriter, even though I’m not a veteran. That eventually led to the song “Brothers” on the first compilation disc. “Seawolf 7-6” is the story of Bill Martin. He piloted a gunship in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam conflict, but he was also an amateur magician who would perform for children in the local villages during his downtime. Jason Moon put me in touch with Bill, and I interviewed him over the phone and by email since he lives in New Mexico and I’m in Wisconsin. Bill has lived a very full and colorful life, and really my challenge was picking the most interesting stories to focus on for this song. I would write some initial lyrics and musical ideas, and Bill would give me feedback about what was working and what wasn’t. Eventually, the song came into focus. Working on these Warrior Songs projects has taught me the power of narrative in a song. The process of telling someone else’s story through music makes me look at my own music through a different lens. Even if I’m not telling a literal story, I try to make any new song have an emotional arc with a beginning, middle, and end.

Bill Martin: I met Jason Moon at Winterfest in Angel Fire. He was performing and my group <vetsandpats.org> followed him. He wanted to include a song about me in Album 3 of Warrior Songs. His particular interest was that I performed magic shows in the villages between fire fights. I flew helicopter gunships in Vietnam with the famed Seawolf Squadron. Flew over 500 missions and popped into the villages in my sector more than 50 times. I would set up and do a show while my gunners walked around making friends and gaining trust. Occasionally I would fly to my maintenance base for repairs. There was an orphanage with 200 orphan girls next to the base. I loved doing magic for them. I was slightly involved in their rescue from the clutches of the Vietcong during the fierce fighting of the Tet Offensive. My knowledge of trick escapes saved me from capture when two Vietcong tied me up on a jungle trail while I was performing in several villages during the Children’s National Holiday. My unit was made up of all volunteers. We were there to provide close air support for the River Patrol Boats (PBRs). My call sign was Seawolf 7-6. Most of my scrambles were called by Dick Godbehere. He was a boat captain leading from two to six boats on patrols and special ops. His call sign was Handlash Delta. He was the bravest sailor I have ever met. He took the fight to the enemy and never backed down. He would carry the flag into narrow canals, expecting to get ambushed, but knowing that the Seawolves would be there when scrambled. Dick had one boat shot out from under him. He and his crew were seriously wounded on their last mission, and medevaced to the States. Because of our close interaction under extreme situations, we have maintained contact, Dick became the Sheriff of Maricopa County. He is now a high-end home builder in Hawaii and elsewhere. I think that Kyle did a wonderful job on the music. I asked if we couldn’t put more of the combat into it, but Jason was more interested in the magic. I can understand that, since it is a bit unusual and has human interest. Nightmares followed me for many years. But the memories of the kids laughing keep me on track. I am honored just to be included in volume 3.

“Look Out Sam”

Jake Froelke: In terms of the collaboration with Doug, we had some phone calls and I read his book. I took ideas from our conversations and the book and put a song together. “Look Out Sam” refers to “Uncle Sam”, our nickname for the government and its relationship to the military and the men and women who put their life on the line for them.  It was another dark time in our country’s history. I wasn’t born yet but it was my parents, and aunts and uncles, generation. I’ve met and talked with quite a few people in that age group. This is the first time I took a specific subject and did research in order to create a song. Usually my songs come in other ways and are more personal. The point of view through different eyes made for a stretch in my songwriting. It’s good to get out of the comfort zone once in a while. This was a different approach, an interesting take on the songwriting process.

Doug Bradley: All credit goes to brother Moon for organizing this collection (and his earlier two). We wouldn’t be having this conversation if he wasn’t working his magic. That said, he connected me and Jake. We had a brief chat, I told Jake to read We Gotta Get Out of This Place (which he did), and then we drilled down a bit on what my Vietnam was like in the rear in 1970-71. As I told him more than once, music, lots and lots of music. Jake went off and did his thing, then sent me a demo. I gave him some minor (key) feedback and he wrapped it up. I believe Sam is Uncle Sam but maybe Jake has a different take?

“Disquieted Mind”

Jeff Mitchell: I’ve known Jason Moon for years from our overlapping time in the Oshkosh, WI folk music community and our many mutual friends. I’ve followed Jason’s work with Warrior Songs since its beginnings. I was looking for a few things from my experience, including an opportunity to be of service, to explore my personal thoughts and assumptions on war and those involved, and also for a spur to creativity as I’d been in a songwriting slump. So, I filled out the volunteer application and (happily) was accepted.

The collaborative process with Steve Gunn started with reading assignments (chief among them War and the Soul by Dr. Ed Tick) followed by a long initial telephone conversation. Steve was very generous in sharing his experiences of the war in Vietnam and his subsequent path to healing from what many mental health professionals now refer to as “moral injury.” After this call, I began my writing process, which occurred mostly during a series of hikes near my home in Milwaukee. Over the course of developing the song, Steve and I would check in and he kindly answered my follow-up questions and provided important guidance on the lyrics and the feeling of the recording. It is of utmost importance that the song should reflect the thoughts and lived experience of the veteran directing the project. I hope that I have at least somewhat approached that goal.

Steve’s healing process involved reaching out to those around him and offering his resources and talents in service of others. It seemed that the choral approach would reflect the importance of connection and community in the path towards healing and reconciliation. On a personal note, this song was created during the isolation of COVID-19. Pulling in collaborators was a wonderful way to connect with many of the dear friends I’ve made over the years of making music.

Previously, I have often centered my songwriting on my own experiences and emotions. While this song was still created through my personal process, the explicit goal was to share Steve’s story and valuable insights which may help others in their own struggles with moral injury. I can’t help but think this has expanded and deepened my creative process. I guess that remains to be seen! My main hope is that Steve’s honesty and generosity of spirit will bring some aid and comfort to at least a few of his fellow veterans.

Steve Gunn: I served as a conscientious objector combat medic with the 101^st Airborne Division. I served with Delta Company, 2/506^th, in the last major campaign of the Vietnam War, the battle for Fire Support Base Ripcord. My recovery from PTSI and Moral Injury involves daily meditation, service to my international meditation organization, the Self Realization Fellowship, playing music (guitar and vocal), serving with a Veteran/Community listening circle, and mentoring people recovering from addiction. I travelled to Vietnam twice with Ed Tick and a group of veterans and engaged in philanthropic projects there as a part of my recovery from Moral Injury. As a part of recovery from Moral Injury and service to fellow veterans, I gave a TEDx talk on the subject. I am a retired social worker psychologist and personal coach. Prior to retirement, I worked for 40 years in children’s behavioral health services as a therapist and administrator. I said yes when Jason Moon asked me if I was interested having a songwriter write a song about my experience. He assigned Jeff Mitchell to me and we began collaborating. Jeff and I conversed on the phone and I sent him photos, poems, my TEDx talk and he wrote the song based on that resource information. The major themes of the song are moral Injury and recovery.

“Face Down”

This contributor wishes to remain anonymous.

I am the Marine responsible for “Face Down.”

It’s the story of a young man who trained diligently for war and a Marine Recon team by foregoing dates and fun in high school and training by running from my home out to the prairies, doing countless pushups, sit ups, and studying metaphysical writings to prepare mentally. I then moved to Colorado after graduating and climbed 14,000 ft. mountains on my days off from working on a ranch in the Collegiate Range.

Then I joined the Marines and went through all the training and into Marine Recon school at Camp Horno. I also went through sniper school and worked with the ideas of the spiritual qualities of precision and accuracy rather than killing.

We were subjected to the brainwashing of objectifying ourselves and the enemy. We were asked to pray to kill and to scream “kill” over every obstacle. I reversed the objectification with the spiritual reality that I could not kill the spiritual essence of anyone.

When I arrived at my combat team I was sodomized in the dark under the guise of initiation. I had no idea of what was coming until it was over. Then I had to physically fight them all. That whole team went out and they were all killed.

I still had thirty long range missions to run to find and interdict enemy infiltration coming off the Ho Chi Minh trail out of Laos and into South Vietnam. At times I had to use my weapons to protect my team but for the most part I prayed for the enemy and our team so as not to ramp up the killing and for everyone’s protection. I did not accept the objectification that I was taught as I saw the enemy as real people and not “Gooks.” I felt much remorse when killing took place and I vowed that I would not go through life as a Marine but as a conscious Being. It’s not fair how 18 year old kids were indoctrinated into war and hatred. It doesn’t just go away and then we have to work on it for a life time. Refusing to hate and oppress . . . supporting the interconnectedness of us all and all life forms . . . being as gentle and gracious as we can be with ourselves and all others. It’s a privilege to be on this plane of existence and only Love can take us where we need to go. This is not a criticism of individual Marines at all. It is an explanation of the brutality of war and what it does to our young people.

“Cracks and Patches”

Paul Wisnewski: Jason Moon sent me a handful of writings by Vietnam veteran Brenton MacKinnon. The instructions were to write a song about Agent Orange. MacKinnon’s writings were jarring to read and were primarily about Vietnam and its effects. However, it was a few paragraphs about his evolving relationship with his daughter that really stuck in my mind. I thought this relationship could be used to express his story in a way that non-veterans could more easily understand.

Mackinnon had the following line in one of his writings:

“Cracks and patches in the ceiling plaster floated and danced above me in beautiful patterns sketching a map of my long journey from Los Angeles to Nong Son.”

The words “cracks and patches” grabbed my attention as a description of his life and relationship with his daughter. I think it also accurately describes most of our lives and relationships, so I wanted to use it as the basis of the song as well as the title.

My collaborator is Aaron Baer. Apparently I don’t get very far in my phonebook when looking for help . . . hahaha.

“The Last Thing We Ever Do”

Jason Moon: Anyone who came home who had PTSD knows something. These guys are home maybe 40, 50 years and they have some wisdom. The goal for the CD was to get that wisdom about how to live before they passed. The focus was to capture that wisdom and the different ways they processed their experiences. It’s like leaving a road map for the younger generation.

The songs are personal and express first-hand testimony. The songs are really about truth-telling. Vets are not a monolithic group. There is diversity among vets and we tried to show that. Originally the CD was planned as a double album because of so many vets we wanted to honor and to show that diversity, but COVID put a stop to that.

It was important to have an international dimension, like in “Seeds of Peace,” to show the reconciliation efforts. In Wisconsin, probably as elsewhere, there is a lot of ignorance and racism about the Hmong. I’m not sure many people even know about the sacrifices the Hmong made. It was important to have Elvis Thao’s song, “Bloody Mekong,” as a voice for them. I wanted that story.

                                                                                                after Henry Moore

Blasted, broken to frag-
ments, left arm won’t—
both legs blown &
absent, the spaces abuzz
w/ anger—but I edge
forward, shield up
as leg-stumps toe
for foothold. My mouth
is an X. Still-
ness. Yet I see. 
I’ve been left. 

Moonlight empties
onto my chest,
rivulets down
in a branching sheen
& I swell w/ a hunch
I’ll make it
as if an old tune
warms the heart,
as if I too
might sing
again to Shelly.

I’ve been        
PUT CHARAsome-              
PUT_CHARACTERS_HEREone     
else
PUT_CHARAonce 
PUT_CHARACTERS_HEREsome- 
body   
PUT_CHARAother:
PUT_CHARACTERS_HEREa child.
Dandelion
PUT_CHARApods
PUT_CHARACTERS_HEREtumble
past my
PUT_CHARAopen
PUT_CHARACTERS_HEREpalms.

Timothy Reyes (Danny Ramirez), a young Marine Lance Corporal veteran, spends his days riding subway trains throughout New York City.  As he travels he pops more and more pills, surrounded by uncaring strangers oblivious to his plight. Eventually he is found in a deserted subway car, dead from an overdose. Dave Van Ronk’s song “Luang Prabang” provides an ironic counterpoint to Reyes’ suicide.

This sequence opens Talia Lugacy’s new film This Is Not a War Story. The four-year project, a collaboration which she calls a hybrid narrative, stars Lugacy and Sam Adegoke, and features veterans from the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars who have found that the arts, music, poetry, and especially paper-making, prints, and handmade books, offer a chance to reconnect to others and to the broader society. Paper-making is a collaborative process with a tangible result, a transformation of experience, often traumatic, into art.

Lugacy plays Isabelle Casale, a Marine MP who, newly returned to the States from Iraq, cannot regain her footing. Her relationship with her brother is tentative, and her mother has rejected her, telling her before her deployment that “I don’t want to know nothing about you. You’re not mine anymore.” Incidents she observes on the street lead to flashbacks about her experiences in Iraq.

Lugacy is not a veteran, but she prepared for the role by immersing herself, she says “twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week” in the company of veterans at Frontline Paper. She continues: “I found the Frontline artwork online, and I was very moved by it. I got in touch with them and chased after them until they agreed to be in the movie. The genesis of the film goes back to when I was writing a script that was contending with suicidal ideation and trauma. I had characters that were dealing with those issues. I gravitated to personal accounts by veterans and realized there was a lot of cross-over in their experience and mine so I thought I’d dig into that.”

In a search for some sense of community, Isabelle reluctantly joins a veterans’ paper-making workshop. In the workshop old military uniforms are cut up into small sections and become the base material out of which paper is created. Eli Wright, a former Army medic, one of the paper-makers, tells Isabelle that the vets “make handmade paper from military uniforms. We want vets to tell their own story in their own words and images.” She admits that she “needs to be around people,” and gradually becomes more involved in the workshop activities but hesitates at first to cut up her old uniform. Although it represents the pain and suffering she and others feel, the uniform is also a connection to a definitive part of her past. She leaves the workshop, non-committal.

Another participant in the workshop, Will LaRue (played by Sam Adegoke) is a three-tour veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He too has returned home unsettled.  In order to regain a sense of meaning he became a peer-to-peer mentor for Timothy Reyes. Will feels intense guilt over Reyes’ suicide, thinking he should have prevented it. Even though Will’s peer-to-peer mentor, a Vietnam vet, tells Will that Tim’s death “ain’t on you,” this doesn’t absolve his guilt. The remorse interferes with his ability to maintain personal relationships.

The stories of Isabelle and Will intersect when he becomes her teacher in the workshop. On her second visit she ambivalently cuts up her old uniform and adds the shreds to the slurry, and Will tells her “everything goes into the vat . . . blood, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Carolina, sweat, Panama . . . ” All of these elements of individual and national military experience are incorporated into the final product, embedded in the paper, a visable record of war and its aftermath.

She looks to Will as a type of savior who will help her learn how to live again. Lugacy notes that “the confrontations and the bond between Will and Isabelle propel them into a deeper questioning of themselves, and into what it means, finally, to want to live.” Lugacy was deliberate in casting Adegoke, and indeed herself, in lead roles. She believes that it was essential to have a Black man portraying a more humanized vet than usually seen on screen. “The fact that our lead is a person of color representing the veteran experience makes the film extremely rare – almost all American films about veterans feature a white male protagonist and deal with the war through this lens.” She also felt it was important that the character of Isabelle not suffer from Military Sexual Trauma. She wanted her character not be defined by MST but to reveal how women “suffer, hurt, fight, and feel remorse and guilt for actions in war, no less than men do.”

Isabelle gradually opens up to Will and the other vets.  She tells of her confusion at checkpoints when her CO said that the “only way to tell the good guys from the bad guys . . . the bad guys don’t stop.” But she realized that the good guys, fearful of imprisonment, might not stop either. She also talks about her interaction with detainees that she had to deal with in Iraq, and the guilt she feels for putting sandbags over their heads and confining them for questioning. In a poem she reads to the group of vets, “Detainee” (written by Kevin Basl), she says “I felt the black hole open . . . now they’re ghosts in my thoughts.”

Midway through the film she arrives announced at Sam’s rural home in upstate New York, still seeking his help. “Show me how to fucking live,” she asks him, “I don’t want to be dead.” He is unable to be the guide she hopes for, but they do become closer and tenuously break down the barriers of guilt and confusion. Before she leaves, they inscribe Timothy’s name on luminaria and set them afloat at dusk on Seneca Lake, commemorating his life and in a way letting him go.

After she returns to the city she tries again to re-establish a relationship with her mother. In an emotionally-wrenching scene, her mother barely acknowledges her, more concerned with her makeup than her daughter.  Isabelle leaves, distraught, and walks the streets of Brooklyn while a voice-over by Vietnam vet Everett Cox talks about his PTSD and thoughts of suicide (“I could not cross a high bridge without thinking of stopping and jumping. I must have spent a thousand hours on the George Washington Bridge”). As Isabelle wrestles with her psychological turmoil there is a parallel-action shot to Eli Wright cutting off Cox’s uniform for the next round of paper-making, what Wright calls “a rite of passage,” a virtual ceremony signaling a transition from the military world to the civilian world. He adds, “while cutting Everett’s uniform off in the film, I said something about how we must expose the wounds in order to treat them. I approach the cutting of a uniform with care and compassion, just as I was trained to do as a combat medic.”

Isabelle’s stops on a bridge, staring down. Is she pondering a jump? The final shot of the film is her return to the workshop, choosing life, however painful, over death. There are no perfect resolutions.

*

Lugacy has said of her film that “a person who views it will have their heart stirred awake and their mind charged with thoughts and questions. The film isn’t telling you how to feel or what to think. It’s capturing an experience of trauma, and an experience of people trying to deal with trauma. The viewer goes through the emotional experience rather than being told what to think or believe.” A few lines from Jan Barry’s poem “The Longest War” could be a coda to the film:  “The longest nightmare/Never seems to/Ever/Quite come/To/An end.”

*

Lugacy was born and raised in New York City, and started watching movies seriously in her early teens. She worked in various positions in film production in her mid-teens, from production assistant to assistant director to writer, actress, editor, producer, and director. She graduated from high school a year early and received her degree in film from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Along the way, she was influenced by such directors as Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, and David Lynch.

Lugacy is currently Assistant Professor of Screen Studies at Eugene Lang College of the New School. She made her “breakthrough” film in 2007, Descent, starring Rosario Dawson. This Is Not a War Story is featured at the San Francisco IndieFest until February 21 and can be screened virtually. (https://sfindiefest2021.eventive.org/films/5fd0240a140bcb0075ea380e).

Cast Interviews:

Jan Barry, a Vietnam vet from “the class of ’63,” is a writer, editor, and activist.  He is the co-editor of two seminal anthologies of Vietnam veterans’ poetry, Winning Hearts and Minds (1972) and Demilitarized Zones (1976).  In 1981 he edited Peace Is Our Profession, in which artists and writers confront the threat of nuclear war.  More recent work includes Life After War (2012), Art Work in Progress (2015) and Hudson River Views (2015).

Kevin Basl served is the Army as a Mobile Radio Operator with deployments to Iraq in 2005 and 2007-08.   He co-edited the 2014 Warrior Writers anthology, and co-wrote Warrior Writers Guide:  How to Facilitate Writing Workshops for Veterans (2018), and is the author of numerous essays about veterans.  He curated “Rendezvous with Death:  A Century of War Poetry by Veterans” for the 2019 National Veterans Art Museum Triennial.  Basl received his MFA in fiction writing from Temple University.

Eli Wright was deployed to Ramadi, Iraq in 2003-04 with the 1^st Infantry Division and served as a combat medic.  His poetry appeared in the 2008 and 2014Warrior Writers anthologies.   As a social justice activist he worked as a medic at Standing Rock in 2016 as part of a contingent of veterans.  He now teaches paper-making to vets.

*

Larry Abbott: Can you describe the collaboration process for writing the script?

Kevin Basl: Talia approached us a few years ago, interested in including a papermaking workshop in a film she was writing. Over a couple years, she regularly visited our art groups in New Jersey and Ithaca, NY.  We would simply talk, make paper–just do what we usually do. She brought drafts of her script and we would give her feedback. In some instances, she asked us to create new work for the film. For example, Nathan and Eli made a couple silkscreen prints–one was a memorial to a friend who had died by his own hand during the writing of the film. I wrote two poems for Isabelle’s character, “The Detainee” and “The World You Once Loved.” I also wrote the song “The Wound That Will Not Heal.” So the process was fruitful for all involved. Incidentally, most of the dialogue between the veterans in the film is improvised. We’re just being ourselves. It’s all very personal.

Eli Wright: Talia consulted extensively with me and the other vets involved in the film to develop improvisational dialogue with very loose guidelines, and then allowed us to just be ourselves when the camera was recording. The dialogue represented our typical conversations when hanging around the studio space and doing work together. The bulk of the script was written primarily for the two main characters Will and Isabelle, which she wrote and revised for nearly two years before shooting.

Larry Abbott: What is the importance of the film to Vietnam vets?  Current vets? Civilians?

Jan Barry: It provides a window into the anguish of PTSD and survivor guilt and some creative ways of coping in collaboration with other vets and allies.

Kevin Basl: The film, hopefully, challenges a lot of cliches about veterans. Our attitudes toward military service are layered, nuanced. Many of us are not proud of what we did in the military. Hopefully the film will serve as a history lesson of sorts, too. I’m continually shocked by how little American citizens know about the post-9/11 wars–like the fact that we’re still fighting them.

Eli Wright: I think the importance of this film for both veterans and civilians is that it portrays an often unrecognized or under-represented story— that many of us carry home a deep sense of betrayal and moral injury related to our combat experiences which has rarely been honestly or accurately portrayed in the polished patriotic propaganda that Hollywood has given us over the years. This film finally challenges that convention by casting real veterans to tell our own stories, instead of exclusively casting actors to tell our stories for us.

Larry Abbott: Do you see similarities between Vietnam vets and today’s vets? In the film there seemed to be a feeling of camaraderie between the generations.

Jan Barry: Yes, there was a lot of camaraderie in this process of making art together. In many cases, vets of current wars are sons/daughters of Vietnam vets.

Kevin Basl: Many Vietnam War veterans have been mentors to us post-9/11 veterans, especially in anti-war activist circles and artist communities, precisely what’s represented in This Is Not a War Story. I’ve learned a lot from Jan and Walt [Nygard], the Vietnam veterans in the workshop in the film. We’ve sat in many writing workshops together, protested together, turned a lot of uniforms into paper together. What you’re seeing on film are natural conversations we had while the camera rolled, totally impromptu. It’s exactly the sort of conversations you’d hear if you stopped in at a papermaking workshop on any given Sunday.

Eli Wright: The camaraderie between generations that you see in this film is authentic because the elder veterans understood the anger and confusion that so many of us were struggling with when we first came home. We consider them as wise uncles and mentors who have helped guide us back to “the world” and divert us away from some of the self-destructive habits which were so rampant among their generation. They have taught us how to survive the biggest threat we face: ourselves.

Larry Abbot: In the film, paper-making is a path toward healing, transforming experience into art, finding new meaning. Jan, you’ve done some music with Darden Smith. What is the importance of the arts to the “healing process”?

Jan Barry: In making paper together from combat uniforms, vets often are triggered by an experience, which they may share with the group. The discussion then focuses on how to tell that story–visually, in writing, some combination. And work is done on it collaboratively. This is very different from vets getting together in a bar and feeling one has to top each other’s war stories. Making art suggests there are creative ways to deal with life’s current problems.

Kevin Basl: Art encourages people to see the world afresh, to transform things, to learn, to teach, to collaborate, to survive. In this sense, the process of traditional hand-papermaking is not only a great metaphor, but is literally all of those things happening simultaneously.  In my experience, art, writing and music especially, have allowed me to explore my memories, my conscience, my dreams, and my political convictions in a way I’ve not been able to elsewhere. I often write and make art with friends, but it’s also a private, daily practice for me, like meditation. And like meditation, it can be as frustrating as it is rewarding. But it always keeps my mind working, always keeps me moving forward, and often takes me to interesting places. It reminds me that life is worth living.

I’ve been a musician since I was a child. I played hand bells in church, then later drums in the school marching band and guitar in jazz band. I also played in a rock band with friends in high school and college before the Army—playing bars, festivals, parties. I always had a guitar with me in the Army.

I started writing as a teenager, but didn’t start taking it seriously until after the Army. What’s important about the Army and deploying to Iraq in my artistic development is that my military experience actually gave me something to say. I learned a lot about myself and my country in that five years’ time. After I got out of the Army and finished my MFA in writing, I got connected with a lot of veterans through Iraq Veterans Against the War and Warrior Writers who were using art to express themselves and build their own community and culture. It was a natural fit for me, and I got completely immersed in that world for about five years. I’m still deeply involved, but during those years that work is all I really did. Perhaps most importantly, I made a lot of great friends during that time.

Eli Wright:  The work we do has always blurred the lines between art and craft. I’ve always seen papermaking as an important bridge between worlds. Through the craft of papermaking, we learn to build connections between communities, between individuals, between cultures, and also between past, present, and future. Through the art we create on our paper, we’ve learned ways to make meaning out of complicated and difficult experiences. We’ve learned how to express through images that which cannot be said in words. Many of us tend to shy away from portraying this as a “healing” process, because it doesn’t necessarily serve that purpose to everyone who engages with it. But for me, it has been incredibly helpful in processing trauma and grief, learning the value of mindfulness through a simple and repetitive creative process, and teaching me the value of solidarity within a community of fellow survivors. I’ve never claimed this work will save anyone’s life, but it certainly saved mine.

Larry Abbott:  Any final thoughts?

Kevin Basl:  I sing “The Wound That Will Not Heal” in a bitter sort of voice–a voice often found in the poetry of veterans of unpopular wars. It’s meant to be a confrontational song. It’s meant to haunt the listener. The song is my answer to the question: why are so many veterans killing themselves? My answer–perhaps an unpopular one–has to do with the shame of participating in an unnecessary, costly war and then having the society that sent you want to simply move on as if nothing happened. No lessons learned, no change of course. Such circumstances can create a profound dissonance, warping a veteran’s sense of justice, sense of virtue, sense of purpose. It can lead to self-loathing, and can really make a person feel like an outsider unless they get connected with a group of like-minded people who can help a person understand and give voice to such sentiments in a healthy way.

Eli Wright:  I would like to point out something that I think is relevant about the recent storming of the U.S. Capitol. In the film, I tell a true story of how a large formation of vets, myself included, peacefully faced down an angry mob of riot cops at the 2008 DNC protests, without any injuries or arrests. So far, approximately 25% of those arrested for storming the Capitol are veterans. For far too long, many of us have been fighting against the stereotype that we’re all a bunch of crazy right-wingers who love violence. If you compare footage of our standoff in 2008 versus what recently happened in D.C., it’s clear that we are not the same. This Is Not a War Story shows the world that veterans are not a monolith, we are complex and unique individuals just like anyone else. Many of us who’ve been to war and experienced the worst of humanity have been fighting like hell to make peace in the world through the disciplined practice of non-violence. I hope this film can show the world that we exist, we’ve always been here, and, sadly, we’re not going away.

My
husband has downloaded a sleep cycle app for his phone. Every evening he tucks
the phone into bed with him, under the sheets so it can measure how many times
he moves during the night, and when he enters deep sleep. In the morning, the
app displays a dark graph full of his various sleep-cycle transformations.
Except, since we’ve started sleeping together again after more than a year
spent apart—he in boot camp and then a Special Operations nine-month training
program; me in different places but always waiting—he isn’t sure the app is
calibrating to his cycle alone anymore, and he begins to worry it is including
my movements with his.

Every night the sleep cycle app dictates when we get into bed, and every morning it shows whether we did the right things the day before. Every curve on the graph tells a tale. The little ones in the beginning, tiny dips through an otherwise straight line, tell my husband he waited too long to get into bed. If only we had eaten dinner earlier, or maybe if we had not had chocolate for dessert, he might have made a shorter line, might have descended into sleep, and then deep sleep, faster or better. If only the bed we’re sleeping in were bigger so we didn’t touch, but the extended-stay hotel where we live awaiting our orders doesn’t have any other rooms.

The larger curves are more troubling to him, though—I can tell by the way he studies his phone in the mornings with a frown—the peaks that rise and carry him awake. Those occur between the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 am. During those times, the graph usually shows a vast mountain of consciousness, my husband sometimes cresting ever so slowly upward, and other times shooting straight up into awake. Before he left for training, when I could feel him restlessly fidget in his sleep, I would reach out and touch his face, or maybe even pull him to me and comb my fingers through his hair. But now his hair is buzzed regulation-short. Now he dreams of gunshots and being chased, and he thrashes and shouts in his sleep and moves away from me when I touch him, curling into himself on the other side of the bed. Now he is full of heat at 2:00 am, so warm I have to peel the blankets back from my skin, which always wakes him. In the mornings, he looks at me earnestly and asks what he can do to help me sleep better.

When the graph shows 95% sleep quality, things are good for the day. When the graph shows 45%, things are not. He decides we need to drink less wine and shut off all screens an hour before bed. No more funny shows to take some of the tension away. We need to exercise before 10:00 am and eat three meals a day. We need routine and consistency. We need to resolve difficulties earlier in the evening or maybe not at all.

On my first visit I asked
A stock question about
Whether you’d been in the military.

Marines, nineteen sixty-six, you said,
A hint of menace in your eyes.
I never talk about it.

On my way out the door
I asked your wife about a
Tree in the front yard,

Its branches capped with
Blue and green and pink
Bottles made of glass.

It’s a bottle tree, she said.
Pointing at a cobalt blue bottle
Glinting with sunlight,

She told me it had
Special power to lure in
Ghosts and lurking spirits.

They get trapped in there, she said.
Then sunlight burns them up
So they can’t haunt us anymore.

Eight months later
You could no longer walk.
I rolled your wheelchair

Onto the warbled porch
Where we sat and talked
About how rough life is.

I never told you about
Vietnam, did I? You whispered.
I shook my head.

As you spoke,
Your eyes averted,
I looked at that cobalt blue bottle

And imagined it slowly filling
With blood and shrieks
And grief and the sound of

Rotor blades and the smell
Of burning flesh and the
Taste of splattered gore

And the sensation of
Adrenaline pulsing and
Memories of home and

Buddies who were killed
And of fear and rage and
betrayal and weeping

That lodge in your throat
Before you swallow
It all down

Into your belly.
Don’t ever tell anyone
About this, you said,

Your hands trembling,
Jaw shivering.
I asked if there was

Anything else.
You started to say something
But stopped yourself.

No, you said.

Part 1: The Healing Shed

In 2016, my husband burned our guesthouse to the ground. He left a t-shirt over a lightbulb while painting the eaves, and the fire inspector said the motion detector probably kept turning the light on in the wind, eventually causing a spark. Kent works meticulously and always cleans up; I think there was some moonshine involved in this oversight. But it was the year of the Gatlinburg wildfires, and by fall we would be seeing the worst inferno the East Coast had experienced in the better part of a century. Even in April, fires burned in the Big Cove, Yellowhill and Birdtown communities of Cherokee, enough to delay school due to smoke. So like so many things in our life together, he probably doesn’t deserve all the blame.

I woke up bathed in orange light feeling so cozy that it was hard to get out of bed. If it weren’t for his service dog’s persistent whimpering, I don’t think I would have budged. I stepped out onto the back porch and opened the screen door. The fire marshal would write a report using the words “fully involved” to describe the blaze—there was no stopping it, the best we could do was contain it. I got Kent out of bed and he stood still for long enough to yell fuck, fuck, fuck until something in his truck exploded and we started moving again. I gathered our dogs and our daughter Katie and drove to the bottom of the mountain to flag down the firefighters. The first volunteer arrived within seven minutes of the 911 call – he told me later he found Kent up on the roof with a garden hose, wetting down the siding and the deck.

For over a month, we let the pile burn, and salvaged what we could. A page from my thesis director’s first novel survived. Our neighbor Jim, a Vietnam vet with a steel plate in his head, asked for the metal hand tools, planning to hammer them back into shape somehow, or sell them for scrap metal. But everything Kent had saved from his infantry years with the 10^th Mountain Division went up in flames. His BCUs and his dress blues were still back in Idaho at his parents’, but he lost the kinds of things that Tim O’Brien might have mentioned.

It took about two years to re-build. We upgraded to a 500 square foot barn-style shed with a deluxe porch package. Half of the space would be used for his workshop and the other half would be shared by me and Katie to host guests, hang out, and have more privacy than the two-bedroom main house could provide. I chose colors from Sherwin Williams’ American Heritage collection to appeal to Kent’s patriotism—I was still all about pleasing him then. Fireweed red for the exterior, Salty Dog blue in the bathroom. I had him install cedar fence pickets in a shiplap pattern on the walls and he reclaimed wood from the fire to use as a countertop in the breakfast nook. It had rustic charm. I loved it. What I didn’t know was that he would soon be living in it.

In February, he was sent home on administrative leave from his position on the road crew of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park because a co-worker blew the whistle on him for carrying a personal firearm in his lunchbox. I had questioned him about this choice over the years, but he had his reasons. The most obvious is he’s been shot at, a lot. And although he was not in an urban environment like Mogadishu, he worked in remote locations where people often went to disappear. It can take an hour for law enforcement rangers to respond to a call, and they work alone. In Kent’s view, he was protecting himself and his crew. The gun never came out of the lunchbox until it was confiscated, which happened just a few days after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida.

I don’t like to make excuses for Kent, and as a schoolteacher, I am as concerned about gun violence as anyone else, but just a month or so earlier, he had finally approached his supervisor and asked to bring his service dog to work. The request had been denied. His claim for a service-connected disability rating with the VA had been denied numerous times over the years as well. His relationship with his boss was strained, and his irritability was high. This would be true for me as well if I had finally come to terms with the severity of my condition and found the courage to speak out and ask for help, only to be denied accommodations or even acknowledgment that my experience was valid. So although I always disliked the fact that he carried a weapon in his lunchbox, I believe he was resorting to the only coping mechanism he was capable of at the time. But unfortunately, his indiscretion cost him his career in federal service.

When the National Park Service finally asked for his resignation, he turned to a twelve pack of high-octane beer for solace. I found him lying in the loft of the shed surrounded by storage bins and staring at the ceiling, conscious but unwilling to talk. An hour later, I heard yelling and crashing noises. I had just started watching The Greatest Showman with Katie. (The soundtrack would make me cry for a year afterwards.) I went out to find him ripping open and overturning anything that was not nailed down: motorcycles, tool chests that were more like wardrobes, a rack of winter clothes that he had moved out of our bedroom so I could have a closet.

“I’m taking your guns,” I said.

“Take them!” he yelled, and I grabbed his Glock off the only upright surface left in the room and left.

I called my therapist who told me to call the police. “He can’t act like that. You have a child.” I was afraid for his safety, not mine. I was afraid for my daughter’s emotional well-being, though she only complained that I was on the phone too long and wouldn’t sit to watch the movie. Having him removed from the property seemed tragic, but so did finding him dead in the shop, so I called the VA-suicide hotline and tried to make him talk to them. He just mumbled about how he was “done.” They patched me through to the police.

“Does he have any firearms?” they asked.

“Yes. He has a Glock pistol and a semi-automatic rifle. But I locked them in my trunk and hid the keys and cartridges.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.” His other Glock, the one in the lunchbox, was supposed to have been destroyed by the authorities after he was found guilty of the misdemeanor of carrying without a permit, but it would be returned a couple weeks later at the federal courthouse in Asheville after the judge decided he had no legal basis for keeping his weapon from him. “Good luck to you, sir,” the man had said to Kent. I thought he should be talking to me.

“How does he feel about law enforcement?” asked the police officer.

“He doesn’t like them, to be honest.”

“And why is that?”

“I guess it’s because they’re always around when he gets in trouble.”

“What about dogs?”

“A rottweiler, a doberman mix, and a mountain cur.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t have any other weapons? Like a secret stash?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“My wife doesn’t know about half of my guns,” he said.

The officer’s confession felt much to casual, too conversational for the crisis I was facing in my mind. More than anything, I was afraid for what this incident meant for my life and Katie’s, and I knew at that moment that the men on the phone wouldn’t be fixing my dilemma. I had never wanted to leave Kent, but had often wondered whether I should, and I was already negotiating with myself on how I could justify staying with a violent man. He would have to stop drinking. He would have to go back to therapy. Maybe he could move into the guesthouse until he was stable.

The officers arrived and strolled over to the outbuilding, but by that time, Kent had apparently climbed out the window (since all of the doors were blocked by the demolition) and wandered off into the woods. I directed them to our neighbor Jim’s house, where they found Kent and brought him to the hospital. Knowing he was under someone else’s care that night brought a profound sense of relief. I heard myself saying, “I need help. I can’t do this alone anymore.”

He passed their test. He was not a threat to himself or others, so he was free to leave the next morning. I asked Jim to take him down to the VA in Asheville and let them do a full psychiatric evaluation. I set up the appointment. But Kent was hungry and didn’t have his wallet, and so Jim brought him home. I presented my demands. I told him I’d be giving his guns to a friend in law enforcement for safekeeping.

“Fine, but you have to stop drinking too,” he said.

I knew I couldn’t continue drinking. For thirteen years of marriage, and for many years before, the wine had guaranteed that I could find happiness and some form of companionship at the end of the day. Kent has never been much of a talker, but a beer or two, or sometimes three or four, would always help open him up. Now the stakes had gotten too high for even my moderate dependency. My husband was going downhill fast. I had watched him destroy things he needed, even loved, out of anger, and thought he might take the rage out on himself. Was I okay being married to someone who could do that? How would this affect my daughter? I didn’t know the answer, but I knew drinking made me complacent. I have been sober since that day.

He moved into the shed. Two weeks later, he said he was stable and wanted his guns back. “If you don’t give them back, next time I might not be so trusting,” he said. He had been sober and attending his mental health appointments. He was either comatose, or irritable, but the bulk of his anger seemed to have turned inward, so mustering all the trust I could find, I met my friend on the side of the freeway, and she loaded his guns into my trunk. I turned them over and invited him to move back to the house.

“I’m good,” he said.

Over the next several months, Kent took Katie to school and picked her up from dance. Beyond that, he was a ghost. I’d go out to ask him to eat with us, to come watch a movie, to give me a hug. On a good day, he would turn his face from the TV to say no. Most of the time, he wouldn’t even look at me.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

“Leave me alone,” he replied.

“Really? That’s really all you want?”

“I’m just trying to stay alive,” he said.

So I went back to my living room, where I binge watched Parks and Recreation with Katie, and let her sleep in our King sized bed for the first time in her life. From time to time, I’d try to talk to him, and fail, or try to seduce him, and succeed. Either way, such a lack of affection was evident that before long the effort became more painful than the loneliness. I thought there was another woman. I knew he wasn’t the type, but I couldn’t understand it any other way. If it were me, and I was treating him this way, it could only be that someone else was providing some of that lost connection.

“This has nothing to do with you,” was how he saw it, and in a way he was right. But I was being told “no” all the time. I would give him his space for as long as I could stand it, and then I would go out again to check on him, to let him know I was still there. I knew he was suicidal, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it except stand by. One day, he went out with his rifle into the woods. I hoped he was with Jim, but of course he hadn’t told me anything. I prayed he would come home alive.

He was drinking again—I found bottles in a wheelbarrow under the shed and soon saw him drinking when I popped in to visit. But by then I was going to 12 step meetings. I had a sponsor and a group where I could come undone and re-focus my attention onto myself. I didn’t get to decide whether or not he drank. I got to decide whether or not I stayed. That decision alone required all my strength. I had spent six months trying to help heal him with words, but words mean little to those who have lost trust in people, and for a man whose only need or want is to be left alone, my choices dwindled down to one. I finally had the strength to accept that our marriage was over.

I thanked God that I had taken a full-time teaching job to help us pay for the fire, and I would have my permanent license by the end of the upcoming school year. I began to prepare for a different future. I separated our bank accounts. I took him off the credit cards. I told him I wanted to be married to him, but I wouldn’t look back on 25 years with someone who didn’t want to be with me.

I remember telling Katie on the way home from school that his recliner had shown back up in the living room. She seemed interested if not particularly impressed. I remember him standing in the doorway of my bedroom saying, “Don’t give up on me,” and coming over to kiss me while I was reading in bed. I remember resisting the urge to get close to him in bed those first few nights, trying to let him settle in, just happy to listen to him breathe.

*

Part 2: The Date Dilemma

About a year and a half later, I rolled over one Sunday morning and asked Kent what he wanted to do that day. To my delight, he wanted to take us on a full moon paddle that evening. But while we were eating the croissants I had bought for my French class, a text arrived inviting Katie to the haunted corn maze in Asheville.

“What does everyone want to do?” I asked. No one spoke.

“I want us all to go. That was the plan,” Kent said, as if this had been on the calendar for days and not just an hour. Katie stared down at her plate, and I fought the urge to cover up the silence. Maybe I should make her come. But some time alone with him would be wonderful.

“I win either way,” I said. “I’ll get a date with my husband or a family kayak trip.”

Kent waited through another long pause and left the table. I let the fear of losing him to the TV subside and then turned to Katie.

“It seems like you don’t want to disappoint your dad,” I said.

“Yeah, because he’ll yell at me.”

I’m sure mother guilt is one of the strongest emotions at work in America. If believing we can’t be enough for our children weren’t insidious enough, infecting ourselves with baby daddy guilt—the sense that you should have done better in choosing a mate—that she deserves better, that you deserve better—is one of the biggest threats to my serenity. It does nothing to clarify my vision and only makes me feel like an idiot.

“Talk to him. It’s okay. Nobody’s going to get hurt.”

Her scowl turned the volume up on the voices in my head. Are you sure? I am aware of how his anger can be frightening, and I want to protect her from it, but after years of walking on eggshells, which only ever fuels anger and resentment on both sides, I have learned to trust them to their own devices. I explained how my fear likes to tell me stories; stories I’ve learned to ignore. “What stories are you telling yourself?” I asked her.

I was expecting all of them but one.

“I don’t want to make dad go kayaking without me. He doesn’t seem that into going with just you. I’m not trying to be mean, but he seems really awkward.”

Her words confirmed my fear that my husband didn’t want to date me, but I ignored myself. I had heard it time and time again; this was not about me.

“It’s okay. Go tell your dad what you want to do today.” And she went off to the corn maze with her friends.

*

Part Three: Power to Win

Kent pulled our kayaks off the truck while there was still some muted color behind the mountains. Our three-legged Rottweiler climbed into my boat, while the mountain cur tucked in with Kent and his pole, whimpering that she didn’t get to go with me. The Doberman had died in August.

“Don’t cut in too close,” he said as we left the shore. “I’ve got a line out.”  He moved into the dark shadows created by stacked ledges of slate rock, trying to hook a fish without the effort of casting. They call it trolling. I had to smile, thinking what a great metaphor for my marriage. But then I paddled out into the moonlight and watched it improvise on the water, happy to sit alone with my thoughts.

“Erin, where ya at?” he called out from the edge. “Come to the left.”

He knew where I was, and he wanted me closer. He was keeping an eye on me and it felt like love.

“It’s too dark to fish,” he called.

“How come? You can’t see what you caught?”

“I think I hit something.”

“Like a log?” I asked.

“Like Jaws.” He laughed. It sounded like those seagulls that pass through here on migration. Perfectly natural and totally out of place.

We moved out into the center of the lake. The occasional campfire flared, and drunken shouts and laughter could be heard. We rounded a piece of shoreline with a pine tree clinging to a ragged slope like it was the last bit of land the Earth had to offer. I felt something undermining my rhythm, forcing my body to struggle a bit more with each stroke. I looked back to the trusting eyes of my tired old dog for encouragement.

“Is it me or has it gotten very hard to paddle?” I asked Kent.

“Upstream,” he said.

We had come to that part of Fontana Lake that is also a river. By travelling for over a hundred miles to be impounded by a 480-foot wall, the Little Tennessee river held enough energy to produce the atomic bomb. What power there is in purpose. I wish I knew with such certainty where I was headed.

When Kent was at his worst, his father came from Idaho to visit and we took him to the dam’s release. It would be the only day we spent together during that whole difficult time. The spillway was open, and the spray was so massive that it appeared to form two cumulus clouds. I have a picture of Katie and I leaning against a railing looking like off-duty angels posing before the gates.

I’m not an angel—not that I haven’t tried. But commitment to my veteran has taught me this: love is a powerful force, but it does not flow unimpeded, it does not exist to carry me along to my next destination, and its fluctuations are often outside my control. At times we are forced to sit in its backwater, looking closely at how we contain ourselves and where else we can find sources of hope, until enough energy has built up to push us forward.

As Suzanne Rancourt notes, her work is a bridge between disparate worlds, attempting to make connections between these worlds, whether they be the Indigenous and Anglo worlds, or the worlds of the veteran and the civilian. Her poetry (but not only her poetry) reflects a healing process that involves artistic creation as a method of “finding our way back home.” 

Her first book of poems, Billboard in the Clouds (2004), evokes the prevalent themes in her work: the continuity of the past and its impact on the present, the interaction of childhood and adulthood, Nature, the enduring strength of family and heritage, relationships, and cultural loss.

For example, in the poem “Even When the Sky Was Clear,” she recalls childhood experiences of observing her father’s connection to and understanding of Nature: “I would watch him/through my mother’s kaleidoscopic den windows,/ . . . I would watch my father/stand in the center of the dooryard appropriately round/ . . . Even in the summer/he’d look to the clouds, to the sky/at dawn, at dusk.” Her father was able to read Nature for knowledge of snow, rain, and wind. As an adult she stands “in a circle” and sings “to the clouds/in the language/my father/taught me.” In this way both the family and the broader cultural heritage are remembered.

The idea of the continuity of memory is also shown in “Thunderbeings.” In this poem Rancourt recalls her “Parisienne farm woman” grandmother, Dorothy, whom she called Memere. Memere, killed in a freak lightning strike in 1942 (before Rancourt’s birth) while touching a post of a brass bed, was an artist who “painted in oils/the light and dark of all things— . . . .”  Rancourt recalls that as a child she would trace the brushstrokes on the paintings, “wondering where these ships were sailing/in my Memere’s head.”  Then, forty years later, the adult Rancourt discovers the bed and polishes the “spokes and posters,” with the bed transformed into a “brass lamp” which “illuminated images of a woman/I never knew.” As the poem ends Rancourt writes: “For years I slept in this bed,/and often heard her/still humming in the brass.” Rancourt creates unexpected connections through visual imagery and forges a link between the grandmother she never knew and her adult self, between past and present.  

That the link endures is also shown in “Haunting Fullblood.” Memere represented Rancourt’s European heritage, while in “Haunting Fullblood” Rispah is the Native “Grandmother to grandmothers” who embodies her Huron/Abenaki heritage and speaks to her “through the generations/ . . . Were you anything more than a photograph ?/Oh, yes, Rispah, Grandmother, my subtle bridge/over flooding time—shhh—/I am breathing proof.”  

Her second book, murmurs at the gate (2019), extends and develops the themes in the first. In “Harvesting the Spring” she reflects on past springs and recalls how frozen ground would thaw so that she could “sink my feet into” the mud and how spring would blend into summer and the longed-for wild strawberries. She ponders the familiar memories, the certainties, of childhood, that often stand in contrast to the confusions and losses of adulthood. The poem concludes:  “I long for wild strawberries/and the little girl/who used to pick them.”    

There are also meditations on Nature in such poems as “Along the Shore—Five Miles,” “Grace” (“Gazing across the valley, across the Sacandaga, across the surface/ . . . drinking the self/drinking the Universe”), and “Swimming in the Eagle’s Eye.” In this poem she sits by a “secret” pond in quiet observation. She would lose herself in the “reflections of backward worlds” and, echoing Thoreau, “I recognized something/in this Eagle’s eye/this everything and/nothing/striking calm.”

However, she is more explicit in murmurs about the violence of war and her military experience. “When We Were Close” details a lover’s PTSD.  “The Execution” uses “the photograph I grew up with,” Eddie Adams’ photo of the execution of the Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon, to ask about this incident, which is metonymic of the brutality of war, “You will remember, won’t you? Won’t you?” “Iron Umbrella” notes that “The burden of war is strapped to the backs of the survivors.” Other poems address her MST, as in “Against All Enemies—Foreign and Domestic.”  The anger at her violation is palpable:  “I wanted to kill you/assailant/because you violated my home—my body.” The story “The Bear That Stands” discusses in more detail her rape and its aftermath.

Rancourt also utilizes music to express her experiences. “Sisters Turning,” (co-written with Anni Clark, who also did the music), is based, as the liner notes indicate, on the “testimony and writings of Army and Marine Corps veteran Suzanne Rancourt.” In the song she recounts her military sexual trauma (MST) as a “naïve Marine” at the hands of a Navy man. This is her first betrayal. She tells another woman what happened, but is initially not believed. This, she writes, is her second betrayal. The song suggests that healing from MST can be facilitated by women trusting in the truth of the others’ experience: “Where do we turn/if not to each other . . . If we lose each other/we’ll never get home.”  

Rancourt utilizes music, dance, photography, writing and other modalities to help others heal from various types of trauma, substance abuse, domestic violence, and Traumatic Brain Injury. Using her education, life experience, and training as a photojournalist and information specialist in the Marine Corps she created an integrated Expressive Arts program that promotes healing.  She lives in rural New York State and works locally with veterans in a peer to peer program but also travels internationally to work with others to help them regain a sense of home.

*

The novelist Henry James wrote that “A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost.”  If I expand James’ aphorism to include any creative artist, then Suzanne Rancourt is that artist “on whom nothing is lost.” Through memory, emotion, and observation Rancourt reveals the truths of her experience in all its dimensions.

LA: Let’s start with discussing your new book of poems.  How does it continue or differ from previous work?

SR: My third book of poems, Old Stones, New Roads, has been picked up by Main Street Rag Book Publishing and is scheduled for release in Spring of 2021. Old Stones, New Roads differs from previous work in that I am further down the road in age and healing. The continuation aspect is seen in the things that simply remain the same, my spirit, temperament, how and where I was raised, my culture, and various trauma events. All of these factors propel my continued self-exploration, figuratively and literally. For example, this book is dedicated to my father’s mother, Alice Pearl, who collected stones. I clearly remember, as a child, sitting beside my grandmother in front of the stone hearth at the Porter Lake camp. I was incredibly young. I recall Grammie pointing to each stone and telling me where it came from and who brought it to her. Each stone had a story, a life, a history. Since a small child I have also collected stones. 

I come from independent people who enjoyed travel. Mobility was supported at young ages: hiking, bicycling, driving, travel in a variety of vehicles, learning, exploring something about resonance of place and how some places “feel” more than others. I was encouraged to observe, ask questions, take note of how people lived, to respect differences and similarities and to figure things out. It is interesting to me, and hopefully readers, how where we come from is always brighter the further we travel from it. Part of this phenomenon helps me take a look at what is identity narrative and what is trauma narrative. Post-traumatic growth, for me, is being able, first, to recognize what is a trauma “story” and accept that that trauma “story” is not my identity, and then to ask, how do I transpose the trauma stories, tones, and images into syntactic stones, and new discoveries?

LA: Various themes emerge in your work: relationships, family/history, Nature, Indigenous heritage, impact of the past on the present, loss.

SR: The themes that emerge in my work are simply the themes of life that everyone has in various intensities and manifestations. It is in our commonalities, our collective consciousness, and shared experiences,that metaphor can rise up into our forebrains. Sometimes this happens subtly and sometimes not. Part of traveling to ancient and sacred sites strikes me as collective resonance. Maybe this is a type of empathy?

Perhaps there is something about dowsing. As you may know, I come from a family of dowsers and was taught to sit quietly in the woods, to be attentive. This clearly supported my multi-modal sensory development and still does. Some folks may refer to this as situational awareness, or Zanshin, or synesthesia or being present. Either way, it isn’t by living in the past that I explore the past. Au contraire. I must be firmly in the present to view the past, present and future. This is why stacking wood is one of my favorite meditations; I’m in constant movement while fully conscious of the past, present and future. I am willing to step into all the memories to find the beauty, the strength, and yes, grief and rage, and then emerge. I don’t heal or get stronger by denial, or by pretending that something never happened, or that I wasn’t involved in something. I am but a part of the natural world and the natural world is a part of me. No more, no less. Perhaps this is a way of annealing the Soul. 

Furthermore, life isn’t linear. That is a Eurocentric perspective. Life is circular, non-linear. Some people experience life as an upward rising spiral, as opposed to Dante’s Inferno; we traverse through levels and layers of increased awareness that each experience offers in support of our progression. What stays the same? What changes? My writing is always a journey, an exploration, always something to learn, and yes, things can get pretty dark. One of the most profound lines of poetry I carry hails from a fortune cookie: “It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.” Art- making is my light.

LA:  Part II of murmurs at the gate seems to be more about military experience with reflections of the Vietnam War, like in “The Hunt,” “Iron Umbrella,” “Tsunami Conflict,” and “Ba Boom.” In “Throwing Stars” a “hyper-olfactory” stimulus sets off a memory of a traumatic event.

SR:  murmurs at the gate is a deep exploration of events, memories, incidents, character development that ultimately reflects decades of exposure to war trauma in some variant form. Part II indeed dove into war and conflict experiences. All things in the physical realm change molecularly, atomically, when under pressure, and the intensity of fire. Elders always taught “that all truth is found in nature” if we know how to simply see that which is before us, no matter what the environment. My concreteness of a metaphor’s abstraction is always the natural world and/or my current environment.  For example, when I taught creative writing at Clinton Correctional, the windows still had that old blue glass with the bubbles in it and it had the same thickness and blue hue as my Grandmother’s old Ball canning jars, the ones that had a rubber seal and a latch to hold the glass lid. The lessons of seeing what is before me, the environment, whatever that environment may be, offers an endless vocabulary for metaphor, similes, tension, meaning. Images and lessons from nature fuel my questioning that hopefully inspires others to question, wonder, consider.

As a writer, I distinctly recall being extremely young, fully open, and experiencing with all my senses, the outdoors. I had the good fortune of no video games and incredibly limited TV. For some reason, Western society attempts to lead us into a false belief that there is a magic this or that to eliminate memories and residuals of trauma. From my individual trauma survivor perspective, my experiences are what bring depth to my humanness. My poem “The Execution” is a true event, both the execution and my seeing the corner of the photo as a writing prompt. 1  I was trained in the Marine Corps as a photo journalist/journalist/public relations person. This training has made me keenly aware of how words and photos can spin propaganda, politics, and deliberately mislead the masses. That’s what this poem is about and when I read this poem at events, I read it once through without commentary. Then, I ask how many people recognize the photo I described.  I follow that up with questions about the two main people in the photo. I follow that up with the truth about the individuals, the complete story to properly place the image in its true context. We have to look at the era, what type of film and photo equipment existed, and how point of view and images out of proper context can be manipulated to mean the exact opposite. The poem is a warning as much as anything. I end the brief discussion with a re-reading of the poem and note the measurable change in the audience. Think about it.  

I believe the artist is a witness. This is my mission and perhaps this has been the mission all along right up to this specific moment for you to ask these questions and to whoever is reading this word literally, right now. I want people to ask questions. Many of the poems you have mentioned are true word for word. Some poems hold a person, image, of event that is nonfiction and then I enter into it and allow the narrator to question, answer, apply the “what ifs” without editing, just the freedom to express.  This is where the surprises can emerge in the movement. Telling our stories is a bridge. Telling our stories is an action that connects generations, human to human. This is healing, this is “medicine.”  

LA:  How much does your military experience figure in poems like “The Hunt,” “Iron Umbrella,” “Tsunami,” “Throwing Stars,” and “Ba Boom”? You were in both the Marines and Army.

SR: My most recent time served was from ’05 – ’08 in MEDCOM. In “The Hunt,” for example, one place I was working at was an Airlift Wing where I had to pass through a hanger of Black Hawks. They seemed so docile cycled down and their prop blades really did remind me of the long ears of hunting hounds I grew up around as a kid, “their hound dog props pick up to attention/at the sound of clips, bolts, boots.” Also, worth noting, I know the difference between a clip and a magazine. Clip refers to snaffle-type or carabiner-type clip. Everyone was always on alert, always training, training that triggered rapid response. Sounds, smells, heart rate, respiration, everything in response to a hunt. A hound dog sound asleep only has to hear a minute sound and they’re by the door and fully alert. “Iron Umbrella” was inspired by a black and white photo prompt of an indigenous father and son clearly in a tropical country that, of course, was in the throes of violent conflict. I gave myself permission to ask questions of those characters and let my narrator respond freely. I allowed my military experiences and being a parent to inform and fuel my narrator. In this way, the tone remains authentic, the story plausible and real. The poem “Tsunami Conflict” is what I call truth-inspired because the shell is a gift that a Viet Nam era vet gave me decades ago. It was something that he acquired when on leave and carried in his A.L.I.C.E. [All-Purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment]. I still have the shell. It is on my desk and I can reach out and touch it even as I write this. I hold the shell, sometimes. It brings comfort, simply brings comfort. “Throwing Stars” is a true account. Smells. “Twenty years later when I’m at the park at Saratoga,/You’d hardly notice that I knew anything./And if it weren’t for my hyper-olfactory,I would have forgotten you.” Some smells one can never scrub clean of. “BA BOOM” is a tone poem that is driven by the adrenalized beating of one’s heart – hard, strong, the type of beating you hear from the inside of your body, the type where it feels like your heart will explode violently through your chest. The title, in bold capital letters, when spoken is one’s heartbeat, you know, that onomatopoeia thing, while also exploding. There is a tension of hypervigilance in this poem that hopefully helps people who have never felt such things, to feel with their bodies via the vagal system, primitive brain, not the forebrain.

All of my experiences get transposed into an “experiential” vocabulary for my art- making. A metaphor requires two parts: a bass line and a melody, concrete and abstract. Our bodies are naturally wired to remember sights, sounds, smells, air tension displacement and much more than we are even consciously aware of, like the situational awareness/hyper-vigilance combat and other threatening situations require. How could I not draw from my military experiences? Or any of my life’s data? Writing as craft is the skill of shaping, forming and transposing these stories into a form that people can receive.  

My military time is what they refer to as broken time, meaning I was in, out, in again. When I first went into the Marine Corps, the times were way different. I am an MST survivor, veteran, and have been the spouse and partner of combat and non-combat veterans. Thus, my military experience is multi-faceted. 

My MST happened while in the Marine Corps attending my photo journalist/ Public Affairs/Information Specialist training. Things went downhill rather quickly after that. My next stint was in the Army because back then I would have had to give complete custody of my child over to someone else. I declined. My second MOS was a Medic. I fulfilled my commitment and moved on after also working as a Chaplain’s Assistant. My most recent time in was from 2005 – 2008. By then a whole lotta shit was catching up with me that I had never addressed. That’s when I connected, for the first time ever, with Travis Martin’s organization Military Experience and the Arts, now headed up by David Ervin. My life changed significantly and for the better. I’m still in contact with many of the folks from that first MEA 2012 Symposium. murmurs at the gate is what I refer to as my heuristically-inspired “poetic dissertation.” It was the first time in my life that I could safely acknowledge how much the military was, and still is, who I am. The word is validation.  

LA: In Native Voices the editors note that ‘Fabric’ and ‘The Smell of Blood’ are fine examples of her ability to intertwine personal experience and communal history.”  2  Is this what you try to do in your work?  What is your creative process?

SR:  Ahh, my poem “Fabric,” so much love and loss in that poem. Better to have had some good love than none. I wrote the first version literally decades ago and was told by an academic that it was garbage. I did not throw the piece out as suggested. I trusted something deep inside me that said no, that it was a strong poem and I held onto it. I held on to myself. In 2015 I was invited to write a piece for a special women veteran’s issue of Combat Stress magazine 3 [released January 2016] entitled, “Women Veterans and Multi Modal Post-Traumatic Growth: Making the Tree Whole Again.”  By then I had experienced several failed marriages, lost so many people that I had truly loved, been retraumatized in a variety of ways linked to unresolved military experiences, that I rediscovered the poem.  I renamed it “Fabric.” As a result of new connections with the military community, I had finally been receiving the help I needed to make sense of things and recognize unhealthy patterns and beliefs. And, I was always writing. I tweaked the poem and added the last two lines about  accepting life, love, and loss. I am a human being and so are my readers. The causes of our specific experiences, i.e. love, loss, violation, may be vastly different, however, our humanness connects us. By diving below the surface of self, into the currents of hurt and love, I give myself permission to validate with words and images. And this, I feel, lets others know that they are not alone in their existence. We see each other. Indigenously, if I say, “I see you,” it means that I see ALL of you and it has really nothing to do with your occupation or your wealth or poverty. I see who you are. I see you. We see each other. Sometimes it is but a flicker in one’s eye or a microexpression, but the soul is there. This reflects my work experiences with people in comas, or people who are quadriplegic – this skill of seeing isn’t really about using my eyes to visually see. Recognition is something far deeper than that.

Because of the types of trauma that I have experienced, coupled with a rich memory base of the powerful smells from the natural world, and also my quirkiness, I have always had a strong sense of smell. Bears can be like that. I did not sit down with the intention to write “The Smell of Blood.” It could have been something as subtle as passing a person in a store who wafts a certain odor or literally a restroom with old trash. I used my writing to release the reaction that became a list poem of sorts. When I do the first write of a piece I just let ‘er rip. Patterns, rhythms, meter – all that reveals itself in the rereading and editing process. I am an honest writer, meaning, I just say it. This poem offers an opportunity for people who have not experienced trauma to feel on a cellular level anxiety, a triggering event, run-away thoughts. As a writer I had to be responsible of the climactic curve and tempo. This poem had to have that final line to allow for breathing, release, resettling. When a person’s PTSD is triggered, it doesn’t make sense to most folks. This poem lets people know that I hear them.  It offers validation. We are not alone here, in the in-between “…in the lives outside of reasoning.” 

LA:  You mentioned that you were influenced by Robbe-Grillet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugene Ionesco, among others.  What impact did they have on you?  

SR:   My mother used to sing that Cinderella song to me, the one that goes “In my own little corner…I can be whatever I want to be.”  As a young child this is possible.  However, one hits a certain age in child development and realizes the outer world can be quite cruel. That’s when creativity gets shut down and injured on so many levels and in so many ways. Much later in life I reignited my creative self. This rebirth, if you will, was definitely fanned by the freedom that Robbe-Grillet, Beckett, and Ionesco said yes to. Trauma, especially when it occurs to children, can close us up.  The innocence of being open is no longer safe. As I matured intellectually, spiritually, physically, I discovered healthier ways to be open and safe. Some folks may refer to this as “self-regulation.” To finally have the go-ahead from significant creatives to ask questions, explore and discover through art-making, I was finally able to feel comfortable in my own essence as writer and human being. Just think of me as an example of the 100th Monkey, the one that breaks the pattern, walks point, changes the outcome, someone has to do “it” first.

LA:  What do you mean by “I Am My Own Evidence”?

SR:  I am my own evidence. Yes. And my evidence and experiences are as valid and, in some cases, more so than any individual in any hall of academe or therapeutic field. My experiences as a kid, my theories, came from very physical experiences, often pain- related, like profound migraines, for example. Only within the last decade has neuroscience been able to offer data that I frequently wrote about in various fields in the 80’s, ‘90’s, and early 2000’s. I am multi-modal, which is no different than cross-fit training. I am making sense of my world through the senses and art-making modalities available to me and that includes what is culturally specific, whatever those cultures may be. Be authentic. Be yourself. Let your narrators tell the story because there is absolutely no way your own experiences will not find their way through your narrator. For people who would like to research this more, look into Heurism as research method. A fantastic text is Clark Moustakas’s book, Heuristic Research:  Design, Methodology, and Applications. 4  This understanding and method is one reason why I refer to murmurs at the gate as my poetic dissertation. 

LA:  You work in various modalities:  poetry, song, photography, dance, drum-making. How do these all connect? 

SR:  The various modalities that I express and create through connect within myself as a human being and also as a living, neurological organism. Each modality has a predominant or primary sense that it requires for expression. For example, dance for me is physical and relates to all that movement requires, singing actively engages my auditory mechanisms including self-soothing, photography fires up my visual cortex and all that that requires, and so forth. Writing is like the piano for me in that to learn the piano one learns all the keys and therefore can read music for all instruments. Writing is my primary modality where I can use all sensory mechanisms to better engage the reader and/or listener. This is my cross-fit training and I do include actual physical fitness! The connection is the whole person that is me. It has taken time for me to get here and I certainly didn’t get here on my own. I had to ask for help and thankfully there have been and still are really good people who are there for me. This is called Community, with a capital C.  

LA:  You did some songs with Songwriting with Soldiers: “Running Out of Flags” and “Just This Side of Freedom.” How did these come about?

SR:  It took me a long time to get up the courage to apply and attend the Songwriting with Soldiers retreat in New York. Those two songs were written in 2015 and I had just finished up about a year and a half of seriously intense work with the MST doc at the local VA. I was still pretty squirrely. An Air Force woman vet and I were teamed up with James House to write “Running Out of Flags.” Again, I brought what I know to the table. I am the recipient of two of our nation’s casket flags. I know what it’s like to have people in dress blues show up. I know intimately that grief that I still carry. I lived through the Vietnam War. I remember the Kennedy assassinations, MLK assassination, Civil Rights movements, war, violence, more war, more violence … what are we creating? How many generations will forever be scarred by our actions? 

Oh oh they’re running out of flags
How many more are they gonna have to make
Another one flies in the cold at half-mast
Take a thousand years to call out all the names

“Just This Side of Freedom” is a song that came forth when I was paired up with Darden Smith.  5  There are two versions of this song. I brought to the table my original version to which Darden applied his professional songwriting skills to create the second, Songwriting with Soldiers version. The first version I titled “Sacred Light” and it emerged from one of my lowest life points. I gave myself permission to let the weight of my plight flow. I wasn’t in a good place. I was on the verge of being homeless. No job. Life was bottoming out and shitloads of unresolved trauma – decades worth – was all bearing down on me. I have had trauma events where I was dead, without life, and had to be brought back. Western medicine doesn’t talk much about this type of death experience phenomena with trauma survivors or even acknowledge it. So, one aspect of the song was to give voice to that in-between place and to validate my fellow in-betweeners. Western medicine will call us crazy when, in fact, what we’ve experienced is most real. The “Sacred Light” version speaks of a clear memory of one of my experiences. My Indigenous ceremonies that I participate in and conduct are what bring comprehension to my experiences that I offer up for others’ validation:  you’re not crazy; when the Soul, spirit, life force – whatever you want to call it – leaves the body, it is a type of self-preservation; and, I’m still here because you need to hear what I am telling you, we can get through this too. You are not alone.

After I wrote the song, I would listen to it from the inside out. I felt the chords, the incredibly slow tempo, the tone. I was too close to an edge. This song is when I realized I must get help. When I play this song out in public, I always pay attention to the people who respond to it and have even stated generally to the audience my story and that we are not alone on this journey.  There is help right here. Right now. There will always be wars. There will always be warriors. There will always be warriors, both men and women, coming home and therefore there will always be a need for an empathetic Community to welcome them home, validate their experiences, be present in the Coming Home process, which for some of us has taken decades if not lifetimes. 

I have also had the great experience of working with Jason Moon’s program, Warrior Songs, where I teamed up with Anni Clarke for Women at War Warrior Songs Vol. 2, “Sisters Turning.”  6   Ironically, Jason didn’t know that I was from Maine when he paired me with Anni Clarke who  attended U.M.F. [University of Maine at Farmington] at the same time I did.  Synchronicity…is it?

LA:  Can you talk about Expressive Arts Therapy? How does art help “find your way back home?” How does art lead to healing?

SR:  Expressive Arts Therapy  7  is a relatively new field for Western/colonized societies. 

Positive psychology, I have found, focuses so intently on keeping all things positive that it negates and fails to validate the trauma experience of the trauma survivor. Granted, this method creates a bubble-pack buffer zone around the therapist/counselor that better protects the therapist/counselor from client trauma transference; however, from a military trauma survivor perspective, especially military sexual trauma, this active practice of only perpetuating the positive exacerbates the “same ol’ shit” of non-validation wielded stringently when attempting to report rape in the military system. I mention this to better clarify that Expressive Arts Therapy draws more from the Phenomenological and Heuristic philosophy schools where we use a variety of art-making modalities in safe, respectful settings that support the natural emergence of experiences via the art modality in action. There is indeed a sound paradigm from which methods of application are skillfully employed. The process remains fluid within a frame designed to support the modality being used, the participant(s), and the experience as a whole.  Healing is usually an uncomfortable and sometimes painful experience. Just because we deny its existence, doesn’t mean it isn’t constantly working in the back ground like some software worm.  murmurs at the gate is what emerged when I delved into those hurtful places.  There are also poems of profound beauty and sensuality in murmurs at the gate that emerged from the darkness of trauma. Neurologically, the brain is a fascinating mystery that Expressive Arts Therapy is accessing when application practices are comprehended. I was way ahead of my time with multi-modal practices and the more I worked with adult survivors of Traumatic Brain Injuries, the more I realized I had to keep learning. Hence, this learning led to numerous degrees, certifications, cultural immersion, and a reclaiming of identity, because back then there simply wasn’t anything close to Expressive Arts Therapy. My entire life is the validation of existence and all my experiences that have brought me to this point and wherever I travel to next. A friend in the Army, a very long time ago, called me “Pathfinder.”

LA:  In your essay for Combat Stress, you mention your 1978 MST.  How does trauma and the experience of the military and war come out in your work?

 SR:  I’m more of a Wilfred Owen fan because he describes the in-between weirdness of PTSD along with what we now refer to as moral injury. No fanfare. His work offers what he sees and what he feels, not what he interprets…Holding on to the concrete is a way to remain “in body,” so to speak, to remain present in the unreality of trauma events swirling about you. When brain chemicals are released en masse and tsunami into your physical body…shit happens…sometimes literally. This neurochemical wash of neurotransmitters can be akin to dropping acid. There are specific things that happen that only another who has experienced may recognize.  I recognize this in Owen’s work. I also recognize this in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.  When I’ve read and watched documentaries of J.D. Salinger, I also recognize behaviors that reflect experiences, perhaps, from his WWII trauma, and I wonder if Salinger wasn’t attempting to deliberately trigger this neurochemical dump to comprehend or re-create a tone or a sensory experiences. Neuroscience has indicated that trauma can change our DNA.  Perhaps that’s where my idea for a PTSD equation emerged from. [(trauma event over intensity) x (duration over frequency)] x by length of time, i.e. 1 week, 3 mos., 18 mos. 2 yrs., 20 yrs. 

I’m finally at an age where all of my experiences are a part of me and I’m O.K. about that. Therefore, to quote another one of my favorite writers, “How not?”

LA:  How has your work evolved over the last 20-30 years?

 SR:  My work has evolved because I have evolved as a human being. I never give up. Giving up is never an option. It’s just who I am, it’s my temperament. In this process I have become more informed in my professional fields and more accepting of who I have been, am now, and becoming. Outward Bound winter survival when I was sixteen. Wow. Then Parris Island. Again, I am alive because somehow my upbringing and who I am was able to transpose events into strength. I still do Aikido and Iaido. This quarantine is profoundly difficult for many and I miss my Dojo.  Ceremonies have helped me make peace with being solo. The natural world, my land, I remain in relationship with. Self-discipline is crucial. Being in recovery essential. The last 20-30 years I have gathered tools.  

I have had, and continue to have, some amazing elders, mentors, editors, and my family who have painstakingly kept me going. I will always have profound gratitude for my family and the future of my family. Being able to ask for help and then being willing to receive help is key not just in my survival, but in my thriving. As a writer my craft is strengthening and changing. I love it. I never know what will emerge, what new relations will I meet and make, and where will this next thread take me. The wind, you see, it’s always in the wind.   8

1   The poem appears on pp. 50-51 of murmurs at the gate and refers to Eddie Adams’ famous photo.  See, for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html

2    Native Voices:  Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations, ed. by Marie Fuhrman and Dean Rader, North Adams, MA:  Tupelo Press, 2019, pp. 270-279.

1. Combat Stress, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2016, https://stress.org/wp-content/themes/Avada-child/lib/3d-flip-book/3d-flip-book/?mag_id=16192, pp. 72-86.
2. Clark Moustakas, Heuristic Research:  Design, Methodology, and Applications, Sage Publications, 1990, Moustakas, Clark. Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications. United Kingdom, SAGE Publications, 1990.
3. See Songwriting With: Soldiers video:  https://www.pbs.org/video/klru-tv-their-words-songwriting-soldiers-episode/;  web site:  https://www.songwritingwithsoldiers.org/; 
4.   Women at War:  Warrior Songs Vol. 2, available through warriorsongs.org
5.   See https://www.ieata.org/
6. Suzanne Rancourt website:  https://www.expressive-arts.com/index.html; books:  Billboard in the Clouds (2004), Curbstone Press, https://nupress.northwestern.edu/content/curbstone-books; murmurs at the gate (2019), Unsolicited Press, http://www.unsolicitedpress.com/; Old Stones, New Roads (forthcoming, 2021), https://www.mainstreetrag.com/

Homecoming

He doesn’t feel quite right, being there—
same house, a little run down, dirtier
than he remembers. They smile and shake his hand,
escort him to his room—with everything
just where he left it.

+++++++++++++++++++++Then, they surprise him—
they leave. He hasn’t been alone in years.
When night arrives with no boots to shine, 
no weapon to clean or letters to write,

he listens for threats that never come.
He’s up and moving before everyone
to stalk the house, lock and relock each door,
his family asleep in separate rooms.

*
Days later, he finds a retail job at Sears,
takes orders from some stateside twit named Greg.
When he’s had enough, he slams Greg into a wall—
Then, no more job.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++He starts to drain his savings.
His family adjusts to him being home.
They start ignoring him, which he prefers.

*
Deer season now. He packs his rucksack, grabs
the shotgun, leaves the family a note
and hikes out to the deep woods of Ohio.
First time he’s felt himself: carrying
and wearing his BDU’s, scarfing MRE’s.

He sets up camp near where he tracked a deer-
swatches of scraped oak-bark and tramped ground
mark its territory. On the cold, hard ground,
he sleeps the best he has in months.

*
He wakes, packs up his gear and climbs the oak.
Wandering back to friends, to when he knew
what was expected, back to when he had
a purpose, when he knew his life mattered.

In the tree stand, he sees the shotgun’s dirty—
a stick jammed in the slide and around the chamber.
He pulls it out, unloads the shells, and wipes
the weapon down with the pre-oiled rag

he carries in his pack. He does a functions check,
reloads, then sees a deer, a five-point buck
breaks cover and stands, looking him in the eye.
He aims the shotgun, breathes. The deer just stares. 

On Not Dying

I’m glad I didn’t pull the trigger
on the .44 magnum while

the barrel was in my mouth.
Oh, I’ve done crazier shit—

Walking at night along
the handrails of bridges, backwards,

to entertain laughing friends.
Drinking rotgut whiskey

on top of abandoned buildings, hoping
never to wake, but always waking again.

After the war, during a protracted
divorce, unable to see my kids,

I’d wake from a nightmare to grab
my gun and patrol the perimeter

of my ranch-style in Richmond,
Indiana, to make sure everything’s

secure, everyone’s safe.
Finding no threats, I’d sit

on the couch, in the dark, feeling
stupid, still fighting—

for what? I didn’t die there
and I refuse to let it kill me now.

Nocturne                                                                                                        

I’m awake-the bed shakes
as I bleed out, alone, a blade still
buried in my thigh.

I feel the warm wet
on my legs but it isn’t blood.
I throw the sheets in the washer,

retreat to my favorite chair.
Flipping through reruns,
I settle on a comedy I’ve seen.

It’s dark. I hear his breath
wheezing slow. The odor  
of cigarettes as he drives the blade

deeper. I scream—my dog barks.
The windows blush:
I’m on the floor, the TV

flickering the news of a new day.

MISSION 376: PATIENT X

There’s dirt in his mouth now

                                                                                    you
know that for sure.

There’s Earth inside his bloated belly

                                                                                    you
know that for sure.

The worms might have eaten away his ragged skin by now

but the metal is still there.

Splayed on the satin or cotton lining

like sad coins of a wishing well.

His casket might be oak, or cherry wood

                                                                                you hope it was something sleek

and aesthetically pleasing

                                                                             you hope the flag was soft enough

for hands and cheeks that needed touching.

PROLONGED EXPOSURE THERAPY

Ten minutes staring at
a fountain pen stabbing,
scribbling paper.

A rocket hit a concrete wall
I told her.

Water spots on bifocal glasses
blurring iris’s, flickering like
burnt out pixels on a screen.

A desk placard bolded
with professional credentials
hooraying the study of mental illness.

A rocket hit a concrete wall and

Tic-tacs shaking in my red purse
snapping the container at its neck
revealing the candied-mint nonsense
delaying my esophagus to stretch
in the direction of answer.

A rocket hit a C-130 fuel tank spraying
shrapnel

Her voice dives
down into the depths
of her vocal cords
pulling out
forced tonal sympathy
an octave of care.

If
you’d like, I can prescribe you Zoloft today.

The rocket hit a concrete wall
the metal
a rocket
hit
the fuel tank
a concrete
w
a
l
l

DOXIES AND RUM

My Dachshund

                   watches me pour

                                                my
third

                                      rum and
Coke.

                                                          His
bowed legs sit

                                      firmly
under

                                                                   his robust

                             chocolate colored
chest.

                                                          Eyes
beaming

                                                                             not
in judgment

                   but acceptance.

                                                Captain
Morgan’s

                                                                   leg
swung firmly

                                      resting on
a barrel

                                                                    he winks, opens his mouth

                                                and
howls a whistling screech

a
rocket’s screech.

A
hand over his mouth

                                      I quiet
him.

Pouring
the rest in the empty glass

                                                                             the
ice breaks up

                                                                                      dissolving
into

 themselves.

                                      Spice,
sugar, caramel,

                             washes away the
dryness in my throat

and
salt from the sinuses stuck there.

                   Salt that I refuse

                                      to expel

any
natural way.

                             My Doxie jumps on
my lap

                                                                   smelling
distinctly of corn chips

for
no reason at all.

                             He rests his head
in the crevice

          of my arm

                             sighing deeper

                                                than
I thought he could.

INTRODUCTION

Emily Yates joined the Army at 19, spent six years in, from 2002 until her “release,” as she puts it, in 2008, finishing as an E-4, and served two deployments to Iraq in 2005-06 and 2007-08.  She calls herself a former “public affairs minion, writing heartwarming news stories about the Iraq War to help build fellow soldiers’ morale.” 1  She worked under David Abrams (author of the novels Fobbit and Brave Deeds), and as “the only snarky female specialist in his unit,”  she sees some of herself in the character of Carnicle. She says that she wishes to “use my experience in the military to make my civilian life richer . . . [and] help those who are struggling.”  2  As a self-proclaimed “eventual ukulele superstar” she often uses humor to express her concerns, and utilizes juxtapositions of joy and disillusionment, humor and aggression, and gentleness and vulgarity to communicate those concerns, whether they be about the VA, the precariousness of freedom, sexuality, the military, certain personality types, or how “not to be a dick.”  

Yates works in a variety of media, also doing photography and writing. Her photographs run from “Food” to “Faces” to “Nature” to “War.”  The latter document scenes from her time in Iraq, like “On Patrol” and “Perimeter Secured,” as well as scenes with children, often with soldiers.  3  

Like the diverse subject matter of her photographs Yates’ writing touches on a variety of themes.  In “A Veteran’s Affair:  How Dealing With the VA is Like Dating a Douchebag” (2016)  4, she uses humor to highlight a serious issue.  “Unfortunately, because only one percent (roughly) of Americans serve in the military at any given time, there’s a massive cognitive disconnect between veterans and, as we lovingly call the rest of the population, civilians. But there is hope for us yet to bridge the communication divide.” In the essay she points out the multiple ways that the VA falls short of expectations.

Two essays for Truthout also express her concerns. “American Propagander: Six Ways Paul Rieckhoff’s ‘American Sniper’ Column Deeply Bothers This US Veteran” (2015) Yates presents a scathing critique of Rieckhoff’s praise of Eastwood’s film. She feels that in his discussion of the film Rieckhoff exploits veterans and ignores the complexity of the war. In her view, he ignores the real story of the war, such as PTSD and veteran suicides (although to be fair, Kyle’s PTSD is depicted), and the complexity of American involvement. She ends her essay “All of these points illustrate the larger issue that when veterans’ traumatic experiences are exploited as freely by veterans themselves as they are by the powerful few who send us to war, it’s a sign that we ourselves have internalized the destructive system that our bodies were used to support.”

 In another essay, “Who Am I, Really?: The Identity Crisis of the Woman Veteran Returning Home” (2013), she describes the psychological split she and other women face trying to “recalibrate” their lives and “relearn” how to be a civilian. “I’m referring to the particularly awkward division between women veterans and women who have never been in the military – the division that leads to women like me getting out of the Army and finding it nearly impossible to relate to 99% of other American women.”  5

One of her poems, “I Am the Savage,” reflects on her war experience. She writes about the “rubble beside the Tigris river” and troops’ entering Iraqi homes, instilling fear in the citizens. But the military power she observes, wielded against ordinary citizens, is the source of her dejection:  

My job is to tell the story of victory–
victory!
Victory?
But I am defeated

Another poem, “Yellow Ribbon” (also a song and video), is critical of civilians who refuse to see the reality of war, believing that a yellow ribbon on their cars and the formulaic “thank you for your service” excuses them. She feels that civilians are willfully blind to what is being done in their name, and are content to follow the trappings of patriotism. She writes “But you can’t bring back the dead by throwing a parade.” The poem closes:  “Don’t make me your hero, just lend me your ear/Oh, and wipe the tears I cry/While I apologize for that goddamn yellow ribbon on your car.”  6

Yates is best known for her music. In 2012 she released I’ve Got Your Folk Songs Right Here and in 2014 Folk in Your Face. She also released a children’s album under the nom de musique Fancy von Pancerton. In I’ve Got Your Folk Songs Right Here there is a humorous dimension to “Plant Some Weed,” where growing marijuana is a better economic choice than working at McDonald’s or taking tickets at a movie theater. “In Your Mind” and “Shut Yer Face” criticize ego-centric males who believe that they are “the best and the brightest/Your teeth are the whitest/Except that it’s all in your mind.”  “Foreign Policy Folk Song” is reminiscent of Phil Ochs and protest songs of the 60’s placed in a contemporary context:

Just bomb their country
Just bomb their fucking country
Kill all of their children and destroy their infrastructure
Just bomb their country, put holes in all their history
Then take all of their resources and bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb their country.

Folk in Your Face echoes many of the themes of the first album.  There is the whimsical, upbeat “Porn!” (“Everyone likes porn!”) and the more serious “Just a Little Cog,” in which she declares that she will no longer be a cog in anyone else’s wheel, whether it be in a relationship or the military:  “I was just a little soldier in your war/I’m not fighting anymore/I’m no longer just a cog in your machine.”

One of her strongest songs is “You’re the Enemy,” released on the 2018 Women At War: Warrior Songs Vol. 2, as a response to the prevalence of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and her own assault, which she did not report “because I knew the investigation, if one even happened, would be even more demoralizing than being assaulted by people I knew.” She is especially demoralized that there is no escape from the situation. She sees her attacker daily and the supposed trust within a unit is meaningless:  

I was trained to fight,
To kill and to die
But never thought that I’d be fighting
Someone on my side

Yates has made numerous music videos, some of performances and others more illustrative of the songs. “Yellow Ribbon”  (noted above) is set in front of a recruiting station, with Yates playing a banjo. The more-active “Land of the Free” (released July 4, 2017) is in “honor of those for whom this is not the ‘Land of the Free.’” It is an attack on corporate greed, consumerism, militarism, and any force that restricts personal freedom. As Yates skips through Boulder’s streets draped in an American flag, she.sings “you’ll be convicted for your convictions” and “you’ll be tried for tryin’ to speak the truth.” The video ends with Yates bound with duct tape with a strip of tape over her mouth. On the strip is written “patriot,” suggesting that in the current political climate the real patriots, the truth-tellers, have to be silenced and held in check.

What Emily Yates says about her work could also be applied to artists Vince Gabriel and Jason Moon:  “Through my art, I express my many opinions and observations, casually brushing aside social stigma in the interest of breaking down communication barriers and shining light on the many ties that bind humans together.” 

1. http://emilyyatesmusic.com/bio/ 
2.  Syracuse.com, August 16, 2013 (updated March 22, 2019)
3.  http://emilyyatesphotography.com/
4. https://brokeassstuart.com/2016/02/08/a-veterans-affair-how-dealing-with-the-va-is-like-dating-a-douchebag/  
5. https://truthout.org/authors/emily-yates/; site includes additional essays
6.  https://www.warriorwriters.org/artists/emily.html
7. (http://emilyyatesmusic.com/page/2/ 

INTERVIEW WITH EMILY YATES

Larry Abbott: To start, I was just wondering about your poems “I Am the Savage” and “The Yellow Ribbon.”  How did they come about?

Emily Yates: “I Am the Savage” was a long time ago now, but I was looking through photos that I had taken during my first deployment and thinking about how we had turned the city of Baghdad into complete rubble. Yet, we were calling the people there backwards, or savages, or just all kinds of derogatory names. 

I was thinking how that was actually the opposite of what it was because only savages would go in and bomb a complete civilization, a city, a metropolitan area full of civilians. Then, mock or criticize those civilians for having to make the best of it. 

I started to think about how we as American soldiers, as U.S. soldiers, were not any better than these individuals whose homes we were occupying. In fact, we were invaders. So, I had a lot of guilt and shame around my participation there, seeing a place where civilization was formed, the cradle of civilization at the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, being reduced to complete rubble. 

As far as “Yellow Ribbon,” it was really almost a gut reaction. I had been involved in a lot of conversations with other veterans right around the time I wrote that song, and talking about the disconnect between people saying thank you for your service and displaying these yellow ribbons, but then not being interested in hearing about our actual experiences or opinions about the war, or asking us how we were doing, or really saying anything other than “thank you, now move along.” 

The yellow ribbon, to me, was sort of emblematic of that attitude, even though I know there are plenty of people who really mean it sincerely. I think many of those people are just as misled by our government as I was.

LA: You seem to be attacking the hypocrisy or phony patriotism of some civilians.

EY: Yes and no, because I understand the hypocrisy and the phony patriotism. To those people, it might not seem hypocritical or phony. They are products of a very effective national indoctrination system. They came by their perspectives honestly.  I was pretty angry when I wrote that song and maybe didn’t have as much empathy for those people as I do now. But it was more of just “pay attention.”  If you really want to be patriotic and say thank you, pay attention because none of this death and destruction needs to be happening, and it shouldn’t be.

The military is a job. It’s not a service. It’s a job. We join because we need a job. We’re told that it’s some kind of noble job, but it’s not. That’s what they say so that we don’t feel bad about all the horrible things we’re being trained to do. 

Some people do really have a willingness to serve, but they wouldn’t do that shit for free. I think of the work that I’m doing now, speaking out, as more of a service than anything I did in the military. That was a job I did to get money for school and life security, to get out of my hometown and have some new experiences. 

But it’s a sacrifice of your own personal freedom, so I encourage people to acknowledge the sacrifice. But saying thank you, thank you for anything, it doesn’t make any sense to me. You don’t thank someone for working at McDonald’s. They’re actually feeding you. You don’t thank someone for working in a nonprofit. That’s service. You don’t thank someone for going and picking up trash on the side of the road. 

Why are we thanking anyone for not having any better option than the military? Or for not thinking very clearly about what’s going on? Maybe I’m sorry for your pain. Or, how are you? Or, welcome home. Or, I’m sorry you were deceived. I’m sorry you were used. 

The thanking makes me uncomfortable because the military hasn’t done anybody any favors. At all. Whether or not we’re paid for it at all. We’re not doing anything positive for freaking anyone. Other than Dick Cheney, maybe.

LA: You also do photography with a variety of different subjects. They seem to be a little disparate. You have some war photographs on one hand, and then nature on the other hand. 

EY: Yeah. I try to think of myself as a multi-polar person. Maybe not bipolar. It’s got such a negative connotation. I feel like too often, we humans are pressured to define ourselves as being one thing or another thing. I love butterflies, and I care about militarism. 

I think that acknowledging the multiplicity of humans is something I try to do all the time. I try to give myself permission to be as many people as I need to be. I think the more we do that, the less we run the risk of erasing parts of people that we don’t want to see.

LA: Your songs reflect that multiplicity. Some are cynical, some are critical, satirical, whimsical, political. Would this be accurate, that your songs have this multiplicity to them? 

EY: I’m even veering into hopeful in the next album that I’m working on.

LA: How did you get into songwriting?

EY: I started writing songs just by accident, in a way. I was learning to play the ukulele and I had been listening to a lot of Kimya Dawson and Bob Dylan. I became aware of how songs can be anything. 

The thing I loved about Kimya Dawson’s songs is that they sound so sweet and cute, and they often say such powerful and provocative things. Her song, “Loose Lips,” was one that I first heard when I was deployed. 

It was absolutely adorable and she had the lyric, it was, “My warpaint is Sharpie ink and I’ll show you how much my shit stinks.” Let’s see. “I’ll tell you what I think because my thoughts and words are powerful. They think we’re disposable, well both my thumbs opposable are spelled out on a double word and triple letter score.”

She had the line, “Fuck Bush. And I’ll say fuck Bush and fuck this war.” She said it so cutely, and I was like, yeah. Let’s just say things cute. I listened to that and I was like, yeah. How do you be angry at that voice? How do you be angry at that song? 

So, when I was learning to play the ukulele, I was practicing three different chords and thought, I bet I could put some words in here and that would make it easier to practice, and more fun. So, I did. I put in words that were an answer to the question people were always asking me at that time, as I had just gotten married.

Which was, “When are you gonna have a baby? Are you gonna have babies? Are you gonna have kids? When are you having babies?” I was just like, my answer was always, “I’ve got so much to do. How do you think I have time to have kids right now?”  I would answer these questions over and over, and try to be polite. 

So, when I was practicing my ukulele, I just started with, “I don’t want to have a baby,” and went from there, and wrote what I think is probably my most vulgar song that I’ve ever written. 

LA: This is true.

EY: But it was cute enough to where people just kind of laughed, instead of hating me when I was done singing it. So, thank you Kimya Dawson for the influence, and thank you other people for asking me questions I don’t want to answer except in a song.

LA: You’ve mentioned that it’s better, maybe more powerful, to use humor in a song even though the topic is serious, rather than beating people over the head with a club about the topic.

EY: Yeah, I’ve always tried to use humor almost as a defense mechanism really because if you say things people don’t want to hear in an aggressive way, then they become aggressive back. But if you can make it a joke, then they laugh a little bit and maybe the proclivity toward aggression dissipates a little bit. Maybe people are more open to hearing what you have to say if you can make them laugh while you say it.

LA: Were you a musical person growing up? What led you to the ukulele?  You’re a self-proclaimed “next ukulele superstar.”

EY: I was not a musical person growing up, other than singing, which I did in choirs and such. My mom tried to teach me a couple of different instruments when I was a kid, but I didn’t pick it up quickly. I didn’t have very good hand/eye coordination. I didn’t have any good rhythm, and my mom got very frustrated with me at a young age. I decided that I was just never going to be able to play an instrument, I guess. 

Everyone else in my family played instruments. My brother is a fantastic musician. My mom plays cello and guitar. My dad plays hammered dulcimer and a bunch of other stuff. I never played any instruments. 

Then, I started dating my now ex-husband, who was a musician, a multi-instrumentalist, and he happened to have a ukulele that he never played because he was always playing other things. But he had this ukulele and I was like, “This is so cute. I want to play it!” He was like, “Okay. Here’s how you play a couple of chords.”  I was like, “Great.” 

But I didn’t have rhythm until one of his bandmates decided that he wanted to go on this trip to Africa, to Ghana, and record an album. Even though I was kind of pissed that he scheduled it during the time my new husband and I had taken for our honeymoon and invited him, I was like, all right. That’s kind of rude, but sure, let’s go to Ghana. Fine. I don’t play any instruments, but I had never been there. Why the fuck not? Sure. Let’s do that. Then, we’ll go to Italy. Okay. Great.

So we went to Ghana. His bandmate had set up these drumming and dancing workshops that we had to get up ridiculously early for every morning. He had set up different levels of drumming workshops. The real musicians were in the advanced drumming. Then, the wives were in the beginning drumming class to keep us busy.

So, we did three or four days of drumming workshops, and it turns out muscle memory is a thing. I got rhythm, all of a sudden. I came back from Ghana, we went to Italy.

I picked up a ukulele at a music shop in Venice and I started strumming it. I was like, holy shit! I can strum! Neat. Then, when we got back, I picked up the ukulele again and started practicing, and wrote my first couple songs. No one’s been able to shut me up ever since. Now, I also play the banjo, the bass. There you go. 

LA: You called yourself a folk-punk singer. What do you mean by that?

EY: I’ve since learned that there’s a term called anti-folk that a couple of other artists, like Ed Hamell or I think Ani DiFranco, probably relate to that is a better descriptor. I related to punk because I felt like punk rockers were also putting messages in with their songs that a lot of people didn’t want to hear. 

I related more to that because a lot of folk songs I knew were very sweet and earnest. I’m very earnest, and I think my sound is kind of sweet, but I’m not really, because I tend to veer more toward sarcasm than actual deep earnestness in a lot of my songs.  I tend to put a lot more winking in than a lot of my favorite folk singers. I was like well, I’m not quite folk. I’m kind of folk, but I’m not quite folk. 

I love punk. I listen to the Dead Kennedys and the Ramones, and whoever. I related more to that sort of aggressive style than to “the answer is blowing in the wind,” for example. 

Even though I love Bob Dylan, misogynist though he is. That’s a whole other conversation. Although that did inspire me to write some parodies of Bob Dylan’s songs, called Boob Dylan. 

LA: You said that you were influenced by Boob, I mean, Bob Dylan, but also Jonathan Richman and Eric Idle. What do you draw from those two?

EY: I feel like from Jonathan Richman, I draw a lot of openness and wonder, and a lot of I don’t give a shit what you think about this style that I’m doing. I’m just gonna do it, and it might not be what you’re expecting, but fine, with a lot of “wide-eyed here I am” type of vibe. 

Eric Idle, I grew up with Monty Python. I grew up with the songs of Monty Python and the comedy of Eric Idle’s songs. “The Galaxy Song,” “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” stuff like that that were very pointed and profound, but hilarious. I really feel like I need a solid amount of profundity in my ridiculousness. So, that’s what I draw from Eric Idle. Also, just his lack of give-a-shit about who you might be pissing off.

LA: You were in the military for six years. What led you to that decision? 

EY: Well, it’s funny you should ask because I just finished my book draft, which is inspired by a lot of questions like that, and details my journey. So as not to discourage you from reading it . . .it’s essentially inspired by all the questions people usually ask me about being in the military. Why did you join? What did you do? What was it like being a woman in the military? What was it like being deployed? Did you see combat? Were you on the front lines? I feel like it’s important to show people how there really are no front lines in the current occupations that the United States is involved in.

People usually ask this blanket question, what was that like? And I’m just like, well, buy me a drink and sit down. How much time do you have? Now, I was like, fuck it. I’m just going to put all of the answers in stories and show rather than tell. I don’t want to beat people over the head with my opinions about my experience. I just want to explain what I went through and show what I went through. You can see for yourself how I came to the conclusions I did. 

Last night I just finished editing my most final draft, as I’m calling it. I feel good about it and started to send it around to whatever agents, and try to work on getting it published. 

It’s around 53,000 words, so digestible, ideally. I’m not trying to write frickin’ War and Peace.  Maybe the condensed version. 

Anyway, the military seemed like the best idea at the time, a way to get college money, the job training. I wanted to be a journalist. A recruiter offered me a job as an Army journalist, which is the alternate title for Army public affairs specialist, which, if I had actually been a journalist at that time, I would have been like, hey, those two jobs shouldn’t be the same thing, actually. I learned the technical skills of journalism, but not the critical skills. 

LA: You’ve said that you use humor or satire to express the serious. You wrote an essay, “A veteran’s affair: how dealing with the VA is like dating a douche bag.” The essay certainly uses humor to make your point. How did that essay come about and what were you trying to?

EY: You know what’s so funny? I had totally forgotten about writing that until you mentioned it. I think I came back from a really fucking frustrating experience at the VA, and it felt like every bad relationship I’d ever had, because I couldn’t get away from it. I had to deal with this entity that could be so much of a better institution than it is. 

I have a love/hate relationship with the VA. I’m glad that I have access to healthcare from doctors and nurses who are familiar with the military experience. But at the same time, we don’t have another option.

There’s a push right now towards privatizing the VA. They’re not coming right out and saying we’re privatizing the VA. They’re just contracting out and contracting out, and underfunding the VA, and understaffing the VA, and calling it things like the Veteran’s Choice Program.

Well, if you can’t get an appointment for months, you have this amazing option of going to one of our network providers. It’s framed as this option, but what needs to be happening is the VA needs to be fully staffed and fully funded because there’s absolutely no reason for it to take months to get an appointment. There’s absolutely no reason.

And the reason we need the VA is because we need health professionals who are intimately and specifically acquainted with the experiences that veterans have. Most civilian doctors aren’t, and you have to tell them all these things. You have to explain to them. 

In the military, they pretty much train you to not take your own health seriously because any time you seek help, they act like you’re trying to get over and game the system, and to get out of something. So, soldiers specifically, because I don’t really have as much experience with the other branches, are put in these positions where even if there’s something legitimately, terribly wrong with us, we’re forced to downplay it. 

If we speak frankly about the seriousness of what we’re experiencing, if we are able to actually give ourselves permission to have something wrong with us, half the time we’re told that we’re making it up, or we’re exaggerating. Or, we’re forced to exaggerate because we won’t be taken seriously unless it’s seen as a huge, huge problem. 

If you go into the VA and you’re like, “Hey, I’m having some trouble sleeping,” they’re like, “Well, what’s your pain level on the scale of 1 to 10?” You’re like, “Uh, I don’t know. It’s 1 or 2.” “Okay.” You immediately aren’t taken seriously. If you’re not in excruciating pain and you don’t look like you’re actually falling apart, they just stop caring or stop asking questions. 

It’s like, well, maybe you’re not sleeping because you’re plagued by thoughts about your experiences. Maybe you’re not sleeping because you’re depressed. Maybe your depression is legitimate because you were part of a machine that de-humanized you. You are never able to get to the root of the problem because if you were, then every single problem would come down to how you’ve been treated like—one of my veteran friends said it best—a cog in a machine that hates you. Or a natural outcome of being in these situations that nobody should be put in in the first place. 

I think that the past administration, Obama didn’t address the fact that literally every person who goes to a combat zone comes back with some kind of post-traumatic stress. It’s not a disorder, it’s a natural outcome. People are treated like they’re broken because they have post-traumatic stress because they’ve been in traumatic and stressful situations. That is an absolute dehumanization. It’s an absolute denial of the fact that these situations are inherently traumatizing. 

Trump created a war crime, as did Obama. Obama bombed Yemen for his entire eight years in office. He didn’t end the Iraq war, he just privatized it. It’s absolutely horrifying to see the way these politicians talk about the situations that they put actual human beings in and expect them to come out of it okay.

Nobody is okay. None of us are okay. Some of us are better at functioning than others. Some of us are more resilient than others. But resilience isn’t a good thing. It’s just some of us have gotten better at dealing with the impact of trauma, or we’re not as traumatized, or we’re not traumatized in the same ways. 

Pretty much the whole reason I do the work I do is because I am wracked with guilt if I don’t. I feel like I was a mouthpiece of the Evil Empire, and the only way I can make myself feel okay about it is by trying to correct that narrative, and use my entire life to do so.

I don’t feel like I can go work for any person who isn’t okay with me being extremely vocal about exactly what I’m seeing. That has made it pretty much impossible for me to have any other job other than myself, or any other boss than myself. 

LA: You’ve said that, “I want to use my experience in the military to make my civilian life richer and to help those who are struggling.” So, you feel that your music can help in that process?

EY: I feel like if it’s helping me, then it’s hopefully helping other people. Because I see the fact that most humans are a lot more alike than we are different. Nobody’s experience is completely unique.

Yes, there are differences in the specifics of what we’ve gone through. But if I feel comforted by a thing, then I generally conclude that someone else out there in the world can also be helped. I see the work I do to heal myself as instrumental and my ability to be a better person in the world. 

If the songs I write make me feel better, then that will hopefully reflect on the way I’m able to communicate with others and understand them. I’m still an asshole a lot of the time, don’t get me wrong. And I’m working on that. 

I feel like if I can write these songs that help me make sense of things, and if they can help anybody else make sense of things, and feel like someone else in the world understands and is able to articulate the fuckery of this shit better in a way that helps them communicate it to others, then that’s a thing that I can do. 

I don’t really see any other purpose to life other than to live it, and to live it in the most authentic way possible. And to be as kind as possible, even though I do struggle deeply with kindness a lot. I feel like ideally, if I can write songs that help people, maybe that will make up for the times when I’m an asshole. I don’t know.

LA: Let me ask about your music videos. One that struck me was “Land of the Free” because at the end, you’re bound and gagged for your freedom of speech, or so-called freedom of speech. What were you trying to express in the song and the video?

EY: I was just trying to express what I’ve experienced. You get to maintain the illusion of freedom as long as you don’t actually use the freedoms that you’re told that you have. I happened to have a couple of new friends at the time who were a photographer and a videographer, and they believed in me. 

I was like, “You know, Fourth of July is coming up. I’ve got this song I’ve been wanting to make a video of for a while. Why don’t we get all America-ed up and go prance around in downtown Boulder?” 

LA: Your first album, 2012, I’ve Got Your Folk Songs Right Here, includes the “I Don’t Want to Have a Baby,” which is probably responsible for your parental advisory sticker. Two songs, “In Your Mind” and “Shut Your Face,” reflect anger against a certain personality type.

EY: Well, the parental advisory thing, it was really just like, I just put that on there to be silly because I don’t think of anything as being not for children.

I think if you can say it, say it. Truth shouldn’t be restricted to adults. Kids are more honest than everyone. I just thought it would be a funny thing to put it on there. Especially because “The Bad Word Song” is also on there, which was inspired by George Carlin’s bit about the seven words you can’t say on television. I think I put every little word in this album that nobody wants me to be saying in front of their kids, so why not just do that?

But yeah, it was really a response… All those songs were just things that I had always wanted to say, and felt like I could just put them into a cute song and say them.

LA: “The Please Don’t F with Me This Christmas” is along those lines. 

EY: Yeah. I felt like I should write a holiday song. I got to get in on this holiday song market, but I don’t feel like I want to say the same things everyone else does. Honestly, the holidays are a time of enormous conflict for a lot of people and I felt like that was something that I could bring to the table, and maybe other people would relate. I write the songs I write as a way of finding my people. 

LA: In the “Happy Ever After” song, you seem reconciled to life’s ambiguities, and to the ups and the downs of life.

EY: That one actually was the last song that I recorded with my now ex-husband, ironically before I realized we were going to be splitting up. I had started writing it a while back. Sometimes I just get lines in my head and start putting them down. 

Then, a friend of mine, another musician, and his partner, who was also a musician, they were in a band together, had just split up. And another friend was going through some relationship issues.

The one friend was having a hard time, and I ran into him at a coffee shop. Before he left the coffee shop, he pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Here, write a song today.” I was like, “All right. Well, here’s an idea. You write down a line for me, I’ll write down a line for you. We’ll trade and we’ll see what happens.”

So, he wrote this line down and handed it to me, and I felt like I could use this to finish that song that I’d just written a fragment of. It all sort of fell into place. Then, I ended up recording it with his bandmate, who produced it. I sent it to him and said, “Here, maybe this will be comforting.” 

It was prophetic because I ended up going through a pretty horrible divorce after that, and actually released the song no longer on even speaking terms with my ex. So, it was interesting. It kind of forced me to come to a place of acceptance, honestly. Like oh, neat. I wrote my own divorce song. Great. Good job, Saul.

LA: You also did a kids’ album in 2014, Don’t Kid Yourself, using your alter ego, Fancy von Pancerton. Some of the songs are reassuring, like “Don’t Be Scared” and “Happy Heart.” “Go Out and Play” is about importance of imagination. “Just Because You Can” is a kids’ version of an adult song, a couple of words changed.  How did you come to do the children’s album?

EY: The children’s album was a therapy project. After I was brutally arrested at a demonstration in 2013, I was feeling really cynical and despondent. When I was on tour that summer, right before that arrest happened, one of my friends had told me he wanted to come to my show but he couldn’t because he was just going through a pretty nasty divorce and his daughter was having a hard time with it. I was like, oh man, that’s terrible. I feel like I want to write her a song. 

So I wrote “Sometimes Life,” the shortened title of “Sometimes Life Sucks.” I wrote that and I was like, man. This is actually a kind of song that I wish I had heard when I was a kid. What other songs do I wish I had heard when I was a kid? So, I just started writing songs for my own inner child, my own past self. 

Then, after that arrest, I got back to California and a friend of mine was like, “Man, I’m just so sorry you had to go through all that. Is there anything I could do to support you?” I said, “Well, you seem to have this really cool little home studio that you’ve created as a hobby. Would you be interested in helping me record some of these songs that I’ve written for kids?”

Of course, he said, “Yeah! Let’s do that!” I had only written four of them at the time. It was over the course of about a year, I’d go up to his place on Tuesdays and we would just track songs. My then-husband would come in and play all the different instruments. I had a couple other friends who played too. 

It was really a labor of love and a therapy project.  There are 13 songs. The last song in it, “Arise,” is one that I had written with my friend Bonnie. This song is so sweet. It’s just not like any of my other songs. I wouldn’t put it on any of my other albums, but I bet it would work on this one. So, I recorded it for the kids.

All in all, I didn’t want to release an album for kids under the name Emily Yates, and have them Google me and come up with all the songs about porn, and drugs, and militarism, and get traumatized. So, Fancy von Pancerton emerged. I also decided to make a coloring book. So, the drawings I did for the coloring book were also therapeutic.

Yeah, it was a therapy project for my inner child that I’ve been giving to all my friends’ kids. I made a little bit of money on it because I basically recorded it for free.

LA: On the opposite end of the spectrum is “You Are the Enemy,” on Warrior Songs.  There is a lot of anger and bitterness in that one. 

EY: Jason [Moon] asked me to write a song about military sexual trauma and I tentatively agreed. At first, I was annoyed with him. I was like, how do you just ask someone to write a song about that? That’s fucked up, it’s terrible, it’s traumatizing. Fuck!

As I started writing it, I realized that I couldn’t put any humor into it. There’s absolutely nothing funny about it. Absolutely nothing. Even just thinking about my own experience, I was just getting angrier and angrier. So, the song that came out was, I think, the only really purely angry song I’ve ever written that has no sense of humor and ends with a group primal scream because that was the only thing I felt like it could have. I specifically wanted other women musicians to play on that song with me. Michelle the drummer is absolutely fantastic, and Julie the bass player, they’re fantastic musicians. 

It was an intense song to record. I needed to smoke a lot of weed after that song, after I recorded it, and do a lot of long walks in the woods. But I was glad to do it.

LA: “Smoke Break” also recounts your military experience, where there is a split between having a cigarette and shooting the bull, and then a few minutes later, we go back to war.

EY: “Smoke Break” actually started as a poem that I wrote in a Warrior Writers workshop at an Iraq Veterans Against the War convention in Baltimore, I believe in 2012. We were just doing a workshop and the prompt was to take a small detail of your military experience and expand on it because there’s so much power in the details. 

I tend to write a lot about concepts, but I don’t tend to focus in on details too much. The detail that immediately sprung to mind was sitting around having a smoke in a war zone.

It was like a tiny window of normalcy or mundanity in this absolutely surreal experience. The smoking area was right by the headquarters. We would just be sitting there and hear mortars land, and talk about who had been killed, and about our shitty bosses, and how this fucking war was like Groundhog Day, where today is just one shitty day after another, the same shitty day every day. 

The smoke breaks were the only breaks that you were able to take. In the Army, you can’t just be like, I’m going on break. That doesn’t exist. You go on break to smoke cigarettes so that you don’t start screaming at people, and that’s respected. Okay, you’ve got a nicotine addiction, go take care of that. Please. 

I smoked when I was a teenager in high school. It was the thing that kids like me did. But I stopped during reform school. Then, when I was in the military, my first year in the Army, everyone smoked. It was the only way to get to take a break. 

So I started taking smoke breaks. They were the one opportunity to regain a tiny sliver of sanity in the day. I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore; I quit a couple of years after I got out. I smoke weed now. 

I’ve actually started getting better at weaning myself off of that a little bit, as a dependency thing. I still love it, of course, but trying to not be as dependent on it as I have been.

LA: Just to finish up, what is the status of the “Try Not To Be a Dick” movement?

EY: Well, I still play the song every time in a show. I add new verses as appropriate to reflect current situations. The global “Try Not To Be a Dick” movement has a Facebook page, which I discovered is the way to start a global movement. You have to have a Facebook page and a hashtag, and you’re good. I mostly use it to share pertinent relevant memes and articles that I think speak to the idea of trying not to be a dick, both the personal and the political, and the funny and furious ends of the spectrum, and all over the place.

I could post that on my personal page, and I do a lot of the time, but I feel like having this page where I share all that stuff takes my face away from it and puts the idea in the forefront, which I like better. 

He had one scar when I met him, a single blow to the back of his neck in the soft fleshy space between head gear and body armor. He liked to say, I’ll tell you this for free. I’d move in close and listen. His voice was a lyric tenor. A murmur, a whisper, sometimes a songbird’s call.  In the medic’s kit were the trappings of his profession: butterfly clamps, a triangular scalpel, and three items for clearing a blocked airway. He packed these into a metal case the night before he left.

Another case was filled with antibiotics, antifungals, and the antimalarial drug Mefloquine, which caused one soldier to have a psychotic break and go on a rampage in Qandahar. In the third and final case, he kept morphine, oxy, and a handful of drugs whose names I can’t recall.

That whole case was reserved for pain. He was constantly having to refill it.

The medic had a silver star, a purple heart, and an enormous pair of jump wings. On his neck, he had one scar. I wasn’t his wife or life partner. I was just his girlfriend but I loved him. For six blissful months I loved him. In the Carolina woods, on the Roanoke dunes, under moonlight and firelight, in oceans and cars. We had our own special places, our own secret codes. We had summer and sand, and autumn and wind. We had indigo and sepia, and waves and retreats.

By Thanksgiving I learned to play first-person shooter games. Left 4 Dead—his favorite.

I’d get shot or lose a limb. He’d pick it up and replace it. After that, he packed his metal cases. The first month of his tour passed quickly. He called to say his team had arrived safely somewhere between Kabul and Khost, but soon they’d have to move. South, I figured, then we lost contact.

I spent the next few months feverishly knitting. I didn’t know how to knit, but I couldn’t think or stop thinking, so I taught myself to knit and I made three sweaters. By the time he called, I had started an afghan blanket. It was the color of a storm cloud, between black and white.

Mela? he said.

He drew out the vowels in his sing-song voice. He knew not to say Philomela. My parents had been cruel to name me after the bird-princess who lost her voice, and let’s face it, I was no princess. Still, I felt some affinity with the bird-like qualities of the fallen Athenian. I admired her metamorphosis and had chosen for myself a perfect match: an airborne army medic who could heal people and fly.

I could hear the medic breathing and pressed my ear to the phone.

Mela, he said. Can you please pick me up?

I drove to airborne headquarters, parked my car, and ran to him. We crashed into each  other like dive-bombing birds tangled in flight. He cut his lip on my kiss; I tasted his avian blood.

Yes, I did pick him up, but we didn’t quite make it home. We stopped at a co-op for migratory creatures where we loved for hours on end. He brushed a lock of hair from my eye. It caught on an eyelash, which was thick with mascara and fairy dust and moonbeams and tears. I mirrored his motion, sweeping his brow. That’s when I noticed a fresh scar. I ran my finger along the jagged edge. It fell from his face but I caught it. I was cradling his wound in the palm of my hand. I wanted to mend his cut, put everything back in order, but I couldn’t.

For the next six months, we tried to remember. We took long walks in the steel blue fog of the Great Smoky Mountains, but only the ravens and the falling leaves spoke. We drove to Roanoke Island and waded in the sea foam, but the cold bit our toes and a massive cloud formed, dumping hard wet rain atop our two heads.

By spring, the medic started train-up. All the things a smoker loathed: running, climbing, jumping out of planes. Schlepping his shit through the Carolina swamplands. For weeks, he was a tortured, exhausted, sweaty mess.

Then came the desk sergeant with the paperwork.

Death preparations, the army called it. Where was his property? Who was his beneficiary? Who was his next of kin?

The closer it got to go date, the more detailed the process became. What type of casket would he like? What song should be played at his funeral?

He came home furious that day. He’d picked a tune by Alice in Chains, it was my favorite, too, but the admin didn’t know it, so he told her to play Bad Romance. Lady Gaga, he’d said. Play fucking Gaga.

Nowhere on the forms was a place for my name. I wasn’t his wife or the mother of his child. I was just his girlfriend and that’s the way the army liked it. Stateside commanders had learned a thing or two since smiling housewives were used to sell war bonds and make hungry young men think they wanted to fight. Girlfriends, they reasoned privately in their secret quarters, were cheap. Why buy the bird when you can rent the feathers?

I didn’t care about any forms. I held my lover’s wound in the palm of my hand.

When it was time for the medic to redeploy, I drove him to post, went home, and picked up my afghan. The thing was ten feet long by then, witness to my waiting.

I thought about giving it to a family member or friend, but what would they do with a woolen blanket? I considered this for several minutes before deciding I would send it to no one. The blanket was a harbinger, more salient for the absence it signified than the object it had become. Each stitch echoed the promise of return, and even though the medic had left voluntarily, I felt like he’d been taken.

Halfway through his second deployment, the afghan had grown another ten feet. Why hadn’t he emailed or called? Was he sick? Was he hurt? Had he lost his men or his mind? I scoured the internet for information. If you can estimate a soldier’s whereabouts within a fifty-mile radius, you might get some information. You might find a newswire about a firefight or an ambush. A special missions team can usually survive those. What you don’t want to find is an accident like a Humvee over a cliff or any kind of explosion. What you don’t want to find is a roadside bomb planted by a starving Afghan who’s been paid ten times as much to blow up your boyfriend as the Afghan National Army can pay him to guard bases.

I sat at the computer with coffee and cigarettes, digging for an Associated Press report or two sentences from a military embed. All I could find were things like, Predator drone kills twenty civilians in South Waziristan. Or, Suicide bomb kills eight U.S. soldiers in Khost, followed by, A spokesman says the attack was waged in retaliation for the death of twenty civilians killed in South Waziristan.

With no further contact from the medic, I decided to take action. I purchased the sequel to Left 4 Dead, threw myself into the zombie apocalypse. When I could fight no more, I went back to my knitting: knit two, yarn over, slip slip knit, knit three. I had altered the pattern midstream and now half of the blanket had the tightly-woven look of knit stockings and the other half was an intricate lace with empty spaces forming the shape of inverted wings. The transformation had come about quite by accident. I had slipped a stitch and decided to work in the mistake. It was pleasing to see the little holes, I wanted it to be more transparent. This is what I was thinking as I held the afghan to the light, and when I did, I realized I could see my way through, and I felt a charge in my body, a quiet yearning followed by something more vexing. The sensation was overwhelming. It had a distinctive taste and smell, a clean, utilitarian scent with an aura of hand wringing and finality, of having been useful to the entire enterprise.

The medic would understand this, I thought. For, he had been utilized too. Except, I never told him anything. When finally he called, I had traveled very far and had reached the state of Catatonia, overcome body and soul by a force with the strength of an entire army.

Still I picked him up. This time we didn’t go to any hotel, co-op, or Outer Banks beach. The medic was exhausted so we went straight home. He stumbled through the door and fell on the bed, a heap of defeated manhood, nothing but feathers and bones. I took off his Danner desert combat boots and his jacket. He was still wearing his bird tags: name, social security number, blood type, religion. All the important stuff.

I removed the tags and set them on the nightstand. I’m not going to tell you his name but I’ll tell you this for free: somewhere downrange, his wings had been soldered to his armor and he’d converted from Catholic to Holy Order of the Jedi Knights. Said so, right there on his tags.

I removed the rest of his clothing—his army gray t-shirt and ACU combat pants with the pixilated universal camouflage pattern, a mix of desert sand, urban gray, and foliage green, which made him invisible in any battlefield, all contingencies covered.

His feathers came off last. That’s when I saw the scars. Every inch of him was marked, and there was a deep black gouge beneath the skin, on his soft, fleshy heart, which was barely beating.

I reached for a salve and rubbed it over his body, counting the scars, dividing wounds over time. There were exactly three thousand scars, a thousand a year for his travels, each one concerning a distinct war story. How could his commander have missed these? I decided I was the only one who could see them or the only one who cared.

Another season changed and it started again. Fourth deployment for him, third for me. The medic dragged himself to train-up, this time coughing and hacking, sweating alcohol from his pores.

Did I forget to mention his drinking?

He came back nine months later. Families were gathered in the parking lot of the great airborne fortress, waiting for their beloved songbirds. Some came home walking, some were sitting in wheelchairs, others were missing entirely.

I stood beside my car as the medic ambled toward me. A line of cars extended behind me, each one with a lone woman sitting in the driver’s seat. The line wrapped all the way around the garrison and out the gate to Bragg Boulevard, a yellow ribbon of girlfriends all the way to the

Atlantic Ocean, not one of them crying because, let’s face it, who would hear?

The medic got in the car.

Paddy’s? I asked.

He nodded. I drove.

We walked inside and sat at the bar. He motioned the barkeep and then he looked at me and then I looked at him.

How was your tour?

Not good.

I missed you.

Me too.

I sent you an email.

The internet was down.

Where were you?

Can’t say.

Did you receive fire?

We had an accident. And the team hit a roadside bomb.

The bartender stood before us, arching his brow.

Straight up, the medic said, and knocked twice on the bar.

The man poured two glasses of whiskey and the medic downed them both. You should  find someone else, he said. He had nothing left to give.

I cleared my throat but I couldn’t speak. He had nothing to give?

He put his hand over mine. He was staring into an empty glass like he wanted to dive in.

What’ll you have, he asked.

He drank another shot before I could say beer then knocked once more on the bar.

My eyes traveled the room. Photos of fallen team guys lined the walls, their names carved for posterity like signatures of ghosts in the great mahogany countertop.

The bartender poured another whiskey and the medic turned to me. Light or dark, he asked.

I knew which one I wanted but my vocal cords were frozen, and as I watched him swallow, I thought about flying away.

Your beer, he said. Light or dark?

Excerpted from the collection Black Coffee by Daniel Ford, September Sky Press, June 2019.

“Are we ever going to leave this bed?”

“God, I hope not.”

“We have to at least attempt to do something today.”

“I’d argue that we’ve done plenty already.”

“I mean real things.”

“That all seemed pretty real to me. Seriously, what could you possibly want to do out there when you could keep making love to me in here?”

“You’re insatiable. Aren’t you hungry? I’m hungry.”

“One of us can go get food and the other could stay here and hold down the love fort.”

“Don’t say ‘love fort’ ever again.”

“Roger that.”

“Trying to get used to the lingo already? Can you believe the draft went that high?”

“With our luck, yes.”

“The news says things are improving, but now we need more muscle over there?”

“I’ll give you a full briefing when I get back.”

“I prefer you give it to me right now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ugh. ‘Ma’am’ doesn’t sound good on me.”

“Everything sounds good on you.”

“He bedded the girl and is still in hot pursuit. You’re not going to use those lines on other women over there are you?”

“Come on, give me some credit. I’d never reuse old material.”

“Bastard.”

“We’re not going anywhere, so get back under the covers.”

“Fine, but only because I’m chilly.”

“Pretty sure all my heat is gravitating to one place at the moment.”

“Well, I’ll just have to go where the heat is, I guess. Consider this your incentive to come home.”

 “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now I’m using teeth.”

*

Mike’s fifth therapy session didn’t go well.

He didn’t mind talking about things, which made his panic attacks even more arbitrary. If he were anyone else, every session would feature a breakthrough. For him, it was chatting with a therapist who seemed just as disappointed that they hadn’t found anything close to a root cause.

Damn my parents for being loving and supportive, Mike thought. Would have been easy to pin all this on an abusive mother or absent father.

“Are the attacks happening more or less frequently?” Ernest asked.

“Same amount. More powerful.”

“Takes time.”

“I’ve been back a while.”

This room reminded Mike of most of the accommodations over there—federally mandated gray walls and IKEA-like furniture built by the lowest bidder. Ernest didn’t have a beard, which unnerved him a little bit. The guy could probably go a month or two without shaving.

How much knowledge and life experience could he actually have without the ability to grow facial hair? Mike thought.

Ernest paused his questioning to write a few more illegible lines in his notebook. He did a lot of writing during these sessions, which also caused Mike anxiety. His pen movements were swift, especially when he was crossing out full paragraphs. Mike was impressed that someone could think out loud and on the page simultaneously—even if that person was wrong most of the time.

“Do you feel like killing anyone during these episodes?”

“No. Feels more like high school heartbreak.”

“Did someone break your heart in high school?”

“Of course. Feels like we’re fishing here.”

“We are. Could you possibly have anything else to reveal?”

“I was an altar boy as a kid.”

“Did you get molested?”

“No.”

“Too bad. You’d be rich.”

Mike had told him about the killing. The fear, the sweating, the loneliness, the firefights, the bullets he took, the blood, her death, the crying. The ability to open up about it all only provided more questions.

Ernest rubbed his cheek where his therapist beard should have been.

“Can you still get it up?” he asked.

“You’re pretty old. Can you get it up?”

“Nothing wrong with your sense of humor. So you didn’t think of any fresh ideas?”

“It’s pretty random.”

“Like the duck?”

“Like the duck.”

“Thinking about her doesn’t necessarily trigger an episode then?”

“If it did, I’d be in an asylum by now.”

“You think about the good and the bad?”

“Everything. I cry about it. I have a drink. I usually don’t have to flee the premises or check myself into the emergency room.”

“You don’t remember going?”

“Not until I regained consciousness. Woke up to a pretty hot nurse. Wish I hadn’t soiled myself when I walked in.”

“What were you doing before?”

“Can’t remember. In line for a movie maybe? I vaguely remember a woman screaming into a phone.”

“How many of your buddies died over there?”

“We lost guys too fast. I didn’t have time to make friends. I can’t picture faces. I only have snippets of a couple of guys. How he was shot. What info was on his dog tags. A hometown or two.”

“Ever feel guilty you survived?”

More old territory, Mike thought. Spinning in circles.

“Yeah, but I’ve always had bad luck. I guess I was saving up all my good luck to make it back. Living and carrying on seemed the best way to honor those guys who didn’t make it. Certainly better than being angry all the time.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“You’re well-adjusted.”

“I know. Pisses me off, too.”

I.

Under a ceiling topped by swirling fans and surrounded by walls whose windows had no glass, the Private lay on the bed like a slab of stone as hands went about the routine tasks that evidenced that, despite all probability, he was still alive, even if no longer whole. The hands stuck a thermometer in the Private’s mouth, which opened instinctively, and fastened a cuff around his bicep, then inflated it with a whoosh, whoosh. The hands searched his wrist for a pulse, and paused a while when it found one. They patted and tugged at the bandages that covered his pelvis and thighs, not in an intruding manner but with inquiry, before retrieving the thermometer from between his lips. 

The hands were soft and delicate with smooth short fingers and nails that occasionally scraped the Private’s skin. Sometimes, before leaving him, one of the hands would rest gently for a few minutes on the mound of bandages that encased the Private’s face. Then the soft hand would seek out that small square of his cheek that had been left uncovered like a forlorn orphan. The fingers  would stroke the Private’s cheek as if to convey to him that they knew he still existed, that he still was there, somewhere under the mountain of gauze and adhesive and plaster. 

Several times a week there were other hands, meaty and calloused, that would grasp the Private and roll and lift him  on and off a bedpan. Other times they would lift him onto a gurney and set him aside while they changed the bedsheets stained with the blood and slime that oozed from his wounds or and with urine and shit when he had gone without the pan being under him. The strong hands would wipe along the exposed parts of his body with deliberation and efficiency, but with no more tenderness than if he was a  tub that needed scrubbing. While he was set aside, they would change the sheets and then lift him roughly and return him, like an item being restocked, to his place in the middle of a bed smelling of bleach. 

These things were happening to the Private in the dark silent space that he had come to inhabit ever since the day he had been on a hill in Kaesong with Randall. One minute they were trudging up the slope same as any other day, then there was a click⎯just a low barely audible sound, like snapping with butter on your fingers⎯and he had been thrown into the dark silent void. 

Sleep came and went for the Private in the dark space, but there was no rest. Sometimes in the void, the Private smelled his Momma’s buttermilk biscuits baking in the oven or his Pops’ corncob pipe rich with his special blend of tobacco that he made from the first leaves of the harvest, which he reserved for himself and cured with slices of apple or pear until it had a sweet intoxicating aroma. And when the void seemed too deep and so dark that the Private was sure he might never leave, the musky scent of sweat that rose from Marren’s cleavage just after she came held him from the abyss. All through basic training at Fort Jackson, all during the long trip to Kaesong, and the stops at places with names he could hardly pronounce or remember, and then, even into the darkness, he had remembered lying beside Marren after they’d gone at it like a couple of rabbits in heat. He  would close his eyes and suddenly he would be beside her watching her ample chest heave and inhaling her special scent. 

The Private hoped that maybe one day he would have enough strength to leave the dark void.  He was willing to go to Hell and back just so he could bury his soul in Marren’s plump soft breasts until the light came again.

*

One day the Private heard a woman’s voice singing “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,” and it was like the voice of an angel because it had been a very long time since he had heard anything at all. 

And then there were other voices⎯the fast, accented repartee that went along with the meaty calloused hands that lifted the Private on and off a pan several times a day and instructed him to piss or shit, which the Private sometimes did, and sometimes didn’t. When he didn’t, the meaty calloused hands were accompanied by foreign curses. 

Most of the time what filtered through the Private’s dark void was a general chattering and a low dirge of constant moaning. But from time to time, he would hear a car horn or a scratchy radio station, and all too often a nightmarish wail. Nighttime in the ward brought the low hum of the man who mopped down the floors with a strong ammonia odor that whipped across the Private’s nose when the man splashed the mop under his bed. Then, the man’s melodic self-serenade floated over to the Private like a jazz riff demanding to be heard. 

Less frequently, other voices came; deep and authoritative, they invariably sounded irritated as big words flowed out. These voices were accompanied by the ruffle of papers, unanswered inquiries put to the Private, hurried questions to the singing voice, a few pokes and prods and occasionally the splat of a dropped metal chart. 

“Now keep your eyes closed,” one of the deep voices said one day as it unwound the bandage that had been tight around the Private’s head and eyes. “The glare may hurt at first, but you will get used to it. You won’t notice at first that the one is not there but eventually you will realize that you have a restricted view.”  

The Private struggled to open his eye lids against the crusty muck that had built up across them and the tears that flowed without effort. He finally succeeded with the help of a warm cloth pressed to his face. After a minute, he saw a midget of a man with very hairy eyebrows looking back at him.  The doctor stretched to shine a small flashlight into Private’s remaining eye and squinted through another instrument causing his eyebrows to move like fuzzy caterpillars.  

“How’s it look, Private?” said the doctor. “Looks pretty good to me.”

The Private didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say. Didn’t the doctor know that at that moment anything, everything, looked good to him?

“There’s some shrapnel in your eye, but it’s too risky to try and remove it. You’re lucky that it’s not worse. Over time your vision may worsen as it moves around. Can’t say how long before you notice a difference. Could be years, could be a decade. But it’s just too risky to try and get at it.” 

The midget doctor continued with his detailed explanation. He was an animated fellow and his face and caterpillar eyebrows bounced up and down as he looked at the chart then back at the Private throwing out words that pained the Private’s still recovering ears.

In response, the Private looked all around the ward trying to figure out just what he could see, and what he could no longer see, now that he was a one-eyed jack. The room’s lights cast an irritating glare that stung like a lightning bolt. It caused him to keep closing his eye even though that was the last thing he wanted to do. 

The Private heard the singing voice approach and turned to face a petite woman the color of toast, not Negro Colored like him, but different with a generous length of wavy black hair that fell down her back like a fine mule’s tail and almond shaped eyes, very pretty. 

“Good to have you back among the seeing, Private,” the singing nurse said patting him gently on the arm. The Private looked down and saw the smooth delicate fingers that he had previously only felt. 

“Maybe now, we can get you to say something too?” the nurse teased.

The Private watched the nurse with the singing voice as she cleaned up the spent bandages and scissors and returned the metal chart to the foot of his bed. She arranged his sheets and fluffed his pillows. Pausing by the head of the Private’s bed when she’d finished, she smiled down at him. The smooth square of his cheek that had not been covered by bandages now lay in what would have passed more for a plate of raw hamburger than a face; red and craterous. 

“I guess you’ll just talk when you’re good and ready, and not before,” she said squeezing gently his hand that swallowed hers. 

Once the singing nurse had left, the Private raised himself up the little bit he could; and saw what he had before only felt, the bulkiness of a cast that started under his armpits and ran down the length of his torso. He gingerly lifted the sheet and saw other bandages, great white mounds that were fitted uncomfortably around him like a diaper (but open in the middle), and which spread down his right leg, devouring his knee but not his calf. His breath quickened at the sight and he hurriedly dropped the sheet letting it hide the mess he had become.

Later, when the Private felt that he had to pee, he wasn’t on the pan and the men with the calloused hands were long gone. They had told him someone would come if he called. But he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe he was so messed up from the torrent of drugs that they were giving him to dull the incessant pain that he didn’t know what he was doing. But some part of his brain told him that a man did not piss lying down flat on his back. So, he was determined to try. 

The Private struggled out of the bed and onto his feet. It was rough going because the body cast did not allow him to bend. But he  managed to get his feet to the floor and to grab hold of a chair that they had planted beside his bed. Placing all his weight on to it, he proceeded slowly like a bruised leviathan, stopping every few feet as he crept towards the light that signaled the bathroom. 

At the bathroom door the Private stopped to heave breath into his lungs, exhausted. His atrophied muscles were overwhelmed by the effort and the weight of the cast. He almost hadn’t made it the twenty feet. He backed into the bathroom pushing the door with his ample body weight. He reeled and almost lost his footing from the harsh storm of whiteness that assaulted him. Glare from the fluorescent lights bounced off the white tile that covered the floor and crawled up the walls, where it met white paint. Along one wall were a long porcelain trough and a row of sinks, all white and shiny. The Private turned the other way, towards the stalls, barely seeing through his half closed eye. It was not the manliest approach, but he needed to sit. Suddenly, a  blurry image in one of the mirrors above the sinks caught his attention. He had thought he was alone. Out of instinct, despite the pressure in his bladder, he shuffled closer to it and as he did, the image multiplied into the neighboring mirrors. He rested a hand on the sink below him and leaned into meet the image, trying to make sense of it, and gasped. Then he lost his grip on the sink, and then the chair started to slide away from him. In the next instant, just as he lost his footing, and right before the floor became stained with his urine, his consciousness also fled as he realized that the horrific one-eyed monstrosity squinting back at him from the mirrors was, of course, him. 

II.

It had been a crisp sunny day when the Private and Randall had started on the recon mission shoulder to shoulder, slowly winding their way up a craggily path on the side of a foothill that had been used by local farmers and their goats for centuries.  The hill ringed their main target, the Hook, the bigger mountain in the distance outside Kaesong where the Communists were taking a stand even though they had heard solid rumors that a ceasefire would happen any day. where Movement on the backside of the hillock had been reported and the Private and Randall were just going up to scout the area. It was to be just a quick reconnoiter mission and back down to report. They hadn’t even been told to expect mines. 

About half-way up the path narrowed, and Randall took the lead. A few minutes later, the Private bent to tie his boot and Randall got ahead of him. When the Private heard the click, he instinctively looked up and reached out to Randall, but only grabbed air. Randall turn towards him as if in slow motion and mouthed the words, “Oh Shit!” Then, the Private saw Randall explode, his arms and legs flying in different directions, a bloody burnt hole where his chest used to be. In the next instant he saw that Randall had no more mouth, no more head; there was no more Randall. There was just a mass of bloody slime where he had been and then the Private felt that bloody slime all over his face and body and felt it choking him, and felt a thousand pieces of shrapnel and rocks cut into him like a storm of bees. He flailed about and screamed trying to escape but it propelled him to the ground and then into the dark space where he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and couldn’t think or move. 

*

The Private had liked Kirby Randall, a gangly white boy from Minneapolis, Minnesota with enough height, at six foot five, to look him in the eye when most other men of any age or persuasion couldn’t . Randall would hang out with the Colored soldiers, drinking beers and listening to their special brand of foolishness that was so new to him. None of the other white boys hung out with them in Mr. Truman’s newly-integrated army.

Before Randall, no white boy had ever walked right up to the Private and offered him his hand like he too was white as rice, not in his whole seventeen years of living. But that’s just what Randall had done when he had first entered the barracks in Fort Jackson and saw the Private rearranging his army-issued supplies in his footlocker next to the only open bunk on account that there was sure to be an inspection that afternoon. Even though they were in South Carolina where folks just didn’t do that kind of thing, Randall had done so like he didn’t know no better. Right then, the Private had said to himself⎯ maybe this army gig was going to be all right after all, if he could just manage to stay alive. 

After a few weeks,  the Private had come to believe that the real reason Randall acted like no other white man he had ever met was that Randall just didn’t much care for the south’s special brand of divisiveness. He hadn’t known any Colored folk in Minneapolis, but his parents had been committed Lutherans who taught him to honor the dignity of all men since they were all God’s creatures. So, much to the chagrin of most of the other white soldiers, Randall treated the Private and the other Colored soldiers like they too were human and like he might one day soon need to rely on one of them to save his neck. 

III.

The Army patched the Private up. The eye doctor returned bearing a replacement made of glass that filled the caved-in socket on the right side of the Private’s face. They sent another doctor for his hearing who shouted that there was not much that could be done there. Likewise, for the discolored blur resembling raw hamburger that now was the right side of his face. They said that it would just take time. Shrapnel was like a million little red hot daggers; it makes a mess. In time they would know how much more they might be able to do for him.

The next doctor was the one who carved patches of skin from the Private’s buttocks and thighs and grafted them onto his torso to close up deep rips in his skin the exploding mine had left. He chatted away at the Private like he was a tailor who routinely applying patches to the elbow of a coat. 

And then the Army sent a doctor who removed the Private’s diaper bandage and pronounced that he was still a man after all.

“It could’ve been worse”, said the doctor while casually tapping the Private’s thigh with the little metal instrument that he had used to lift his penis and examine the underside while straddling a small wheeled stool in front of the examination table. The room was cold and the Private felt colder down there without the bandage diaper. 

“You’re a lucky boy. You are,” the doctor went on. “We’ve seen much worse.” 

The Private didn’t respond as the doctor lifted his Johnson, moved him about, and then scribbled notes on his chart. Instead, he ignored this doctor whose teeth flared out like a mule’s and were way too close to where they were never supposed to be.  He focused his one eye on the rows of bottles filled with colorful pills inside the cabinet on the wall behind the doctor. The doctor scooted back his wheeled stool and stood up, checking his notes and nodding in that way that indicated that he was satisfied with the job he had done. 

“Here’s the deal, Private,” he said while loudly snapping off his rubber gloves. “You took a bad hit down there, lucky to still have it, you are. But there was  lots of shrapnel. We did the best we could. Had to take one of your testicles; it was just shredded, a damned mess. But we managed to save the other one. The swelling and discoloration you see, that should go away over time.”

The doctor paused and waited for the Private’s response but the Private was trying to ignore the chill on his Johnson and was desperately taking inventory of how many bottles in the cabinet on the far wall held the all green capsules and how many held the half-orange, half-blue ones. He wondered what they were for and just how many of each, separately, or in combination, he would have to take to die. 

“Private, I know this is hard,” the doctor continued. He moved closer and laid a  hand on the Private’s shoulder and the Private realized that the mule teeth came with sour breath.  “But you need to understand what’s what, so I’m going to give it to you straight,” the doctor continued “It could’ve been a lot worse.” 

Maybe, the Private thought, if he just swallowed a handful of each color, that would be enough. It would be a coward’s way to die, the way a woman would take her life. He wished he had his pistol. One shot to the head and all this talk about whether he was or was not a man would end. But they must have taken his pistol so here he was contemplating the pussy way out. He’d just take the whole bottle, that should be enough to do the job.

“Once the swelling goes away, you should be able to go at it. Even with just one testicle, you should be able to get an erection and ejaculate,” the mule teeth and sour breath droned on. “It might take a while for you to get your confidence back, that happens, the body has to remember. But physically you should be OK. Remember that… I gotta be honest though, son, your sperm count, it’s just not there. . .  But you never know, Private, these things sometimes work themselves out. You have fun trying. With your luck, you just might be OK. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

*

They said the same thing again and again at every hospital over the next two years. The Private came to believe that it was something doctors were taught to say no matter how bad the injury─Tell the patient it could have been worse. The Private wondered─How? Lose two eyes. Have half his face blown completely away instead of being roasted and riddled by a storm of red hot shrapnel? Lose a leg? An arm? One of each? Loose both testicles and end up a total freak? How could it have mattered anymore?

They said it to him in Guam, Hawaii, San Francisco, Kentucky and Virginia⎯“You’re a lucky boy. You are. We’ve seen much worse.” 

The Private had never believed them. Their words had never held one ounce of comfort for him. He had never reconciled to this luck that everyone spoke of. He was nineteen. He’d been in the Army just eight months and in country only thirty three days, and just days before the whole damned shebang was over, his life had been torn apart. Some fucking luck!

IV.

The Army sent him home, back to the tobacco farm he loved and loathed because it was home and because his family had worked it for a white man for generations, something he’d vowed never to do, which was why he had enlisted in the damned Army in the first place. His ten younger brothers and sisters acted skittish around him, even though his mother, who had given him his stature,  kept telling everyone to stop being foolish. She insisted that he was the same boy who had gone away; the same giant manchild who could wring a chicken’s neck by the time he was seven, hand as many rows of tobacco as she by thirteen, and consume half a dozen of her buttermilk biscuits nonstop. She would not admit the truth to herself , even as she slathered fatback on his mottled patched skin and calmed her littlest ones when his screams in the night woke them.

But his father did. And this small man, from whom the Private got his redbone coloring and his fierce wanting for more, this man with a frame made smaller from years of bending to the tobacco plants and hands grizzled from tussling with the red earth and wrenching a life from pure adversity, he knew immediately that his first-born had left a great deal on that hill in Ko-re-a. He would load his giant of a son onto a wagon hitched to a tractor or a mule and drive him out to the backfield where the constant acres of cash crop finally broke and a kitchen garden bloomed. 

In these alone moments, the Private’s father would roll cigarettes with his special tobacco and they’d take long drags  as the cicadas sang their forlorn song and the bees violated one flower after another with impunity. In the shade provided by the full leafy crowns of the clustered trees, with the air swathed in the sweet aroma of the tobacco, the father would go to work.

“Son,” his pops would say, “ You got to talk about it sometime. You got to get it out of you.” He’d pull a long drag on his cigarette before continuing. “I’m not saying you can make the memories go away. Cain’t no amount of talking make something like that go away. But you needs to talk about it, to get some of it out, or it will just become a big pile of rot inside of you. It will rot you if you don’t get it out.”

The father would  let his words sit with his son as he wandered back among the garden rows to find the perfect melon.  He would quarter the cantaloupe, scoop out the web of seeds and hand the fleshy orange quarter-moon to his son. Under the cool of the elms, away from the blazing sun and everyone, they would slurp mouthfuls of the delicate fruit with gusto, wiping their mouths with the back of their hands. And eventually, the father would listen while the Private poured out some of the horror that was inside him. Then the father would hold his son as he shook with the dry crying that men do only when they can no longer stand the pain. It was his father who convinced the Private that life, though different, could still be worth living.

*

V.

The first time the Private rode to town with his father, children started to cry at the sight of him and even adults shrank away. It didn’t matter one bit that he was a war hero who’d been awarded a  Purple Heart, that he had been injured fighting back the Communist hordes, protecting the American way of life and keeping the world, their world, safe for Democracy. After that, the Private shrank into himself a little more and when his Momma hid his pills that kept the pain at bay, he tried to drown out the world with bourbon. 

He waited for Marren to come see about him.

She was the only girl that the Private had stayed with for more than a couple of months after she’d let him go all the way. Even at sixteen she had a way of making a man believe that Heaven lay right between her size 38D breasts and plump but sturdy legs. 

The Private had hooked up with her at the beginning of his junior year of high school and spent the Fall driving her around in his pick-up truck, which was a hideous green color and rusted around both front fenders. But that didn’t matter to the Private. He had bought it for only one hundred dollars with the money that he made the prior summer washing dishes at a beachfront hotel in New Jersey with his cousin Ray-Ray. The Private had brought Marren RC Colas for months before she finally gave up her stuff after the Christmas social at the Shiloh Free Will Baptist Church.  

By the next summer, when he left for the Army, the Private had made up his mind (but had not told Marren) that he would marry her when he got back. He thought that maybe they’d move north where his cousin Ray-Ray said he could get them even better jobs working indoors wearing  uniforms and waiting tables; they could make tips in addition to a wage. But he’d grown impatient waiting for Ray-Ray to send word to him and joined the Army instead.

Marren didn’t write to the Private while he was away. She wasn’t good at words or writing, but that he forgave. The other stuff he could not. 

He knew that Marren knew he was back as soon as he arrived. Everyone knew; it was a small, tight, community that prided itself on caring for (and gossiping about) one another fervently. About a week after his return she had sent word to his house that she was sick, then, that she had to tend to her sick mother, and then, that she had to watch over her sick brother. Well over a month passed before the Private had his brother Odell, who was just fourteen months younger and whom folk often mistook for his twin, drove him over to her place because he just couldn’t believe what he already knew to be true. 

By then, the Private’s face no longer looked like raw hamburger, but it didn’t exactly look like a face either. The chickens scattered as Odell brought the truck to a stop under a crooked old oak tree whose long branches spread majestically to overhang the front porch  thankfully shading most of the dusty yard. It had been scorching hot for the past few days and everybody was craving any little piece of shade.

Odell climbed down first and went around to help his brother out of the truck, but the Private gently pushed him off even though he had to stop every few minutes to steady himself, holding tightly to and leaning on the Moses-like staff his father had fashioned for him. He hobbled to the house and made the Herculean effort of climbing the two squat steps onto the porch, pausing to catch his breath before moving to the screen door that had seen better days and which was clearly losing the battle to the flies and mosquitoes that snuck through its many rips. He banged on the screen door, too loudly and too urgently because of the tremor in this hand, which he fought to control even as he desperately grasped his staff in the other.

 “What y’all banging on my door like that for?” Marren said sashaying towards the door full on like he remembered her. She was wiping her hands on a dish towel head down as she came but paused midsentence when she looked up and saw  him. She finished wiping her hands deliberately before tossing the towel aside and closing the distance between them. 

“Heyyyy TJ, I heard you was back, “ she cooed smiling brashly from behind the screen door. She didn’t rush to give her big teddy bear baby a welcome back hug and kiss and press her soft body into his as had been their usual greeting when they’d spent any time apart. 

“Been back over a month,” he mumbled. “Thought I’d a seen you before now.”

“Oh, you know how it is, folks getting sick. I’ve got to take care of them, she protested. “I didn’t want to come over there and bring all kinda germs on top of all that you got going on.” She narrowed her gaze and took a step backwards before looking him up and down, as if she could see just by looking at him all that he had going on.  Satisfied, or unable to reach a conclusion, she started to fan herself with her hand. “Sure is hot today.”

“All that I got going on,” he replied with a half-hearted chuckle, “ain’t none of your  germs going to make a difference.” He shifted his weight from one side to the other trying to keep the staff out of her view.

He saw that she’d put on a few pounds, which only made her curves more curvy. She wore a thin cotton dress, a slight, sleeveless number in a muted yellow with tiny red flowers all over. The dress had a deep “V” held together by four small white buttons that looked totally inadequate to the task of containing her glistening cleavage. It fell over her body perfectly, across her flat stomach and broad hips, ending at her calves.

“You look good Marren,” he said with as much of a smile as he could muster considering the scarred skin of his face, which at that moment felt  like there were maggots crawling all over it. “How you been?”

“You know, been fine. I’m fine, about the same. This my last year; graduating in the spring. Class of 19-55!” She did a quick twirl and raised her arms in celebration, before coming back to face him full of giggles.

“Yeah, that’s great. I knew you’d make it,” he said with a sigh. “Kind of wished I’d stayed and graduated.”

“Don’t you tell that lie, TJ,” she said sucking her teeth. “You been places, done things. You always wanted to go somewhere, and you did. TJ You’ve seen the world! Not many folks round here been to New Jersey and Ko-rea.”

She fanned her face and let out a few deep breaths. Then she rested her arms on top of her head. “It sure is hot as hell today.”

It was a habit of hers, unusual for a colored girl. They were usually so finicky about their hair, especially after pressing it with a hot comb. But Marren had just enough Cherokee on her father’s side, and enough gumption of her own, to make her auburn hair loose enough so that she didn’t bother with that.  She stood winding her fingers in her thick braids and shifting her weight from one trunk-like leg to the other. The Private couldn’t help noticing that her arms had been bronzed a deep chestnut color by the sun and now gleamed with perspiration. He loved how the sun just kissed her all over glorifying her even more.

Each of her armpits sprouted a tuft of curly auburn hair and every time she lifted her arms they flashed a torturous musky scent at the Private. Every time she took a breath, her glistening cleavage threatened to pop the tiny buttons that barely contained it. Her nipples pushed at the thin cotton as if desperate to escape. 

Without warning, she lowered her arms and leaned against the door-jamb. For the first time, she looked him full in the face and in the eye, “What was it like?”

He  looked down at her and tried  not to be too obvious about sucking the sweltering air. For a long minute he couldn’t bring himself to answer as the sweat ran down his temples and beaded up in his crotch and armpits. A bee buzzed at the screen door agitated that it couldn’t find one of the tears to enter through and finally moved away.

As he stood there, the Private admitted to himself that he had never looked at Marren’s eyes much before, but now he did. They were a warm brown, large and doe-like, surrounded by thick lashes and set deep in her beautiful dark face with its slightly broad nose and full lips. He saw genuine curiosity there in her eyes, but he was hoping for so much more. 

He shifted his weight from one side to the other and then back again, and opened and closed his right hand to calm the tremor before speaking. 

“It was war,” he finally responded flatly, not wanting for a minute to sully her with even the slightest hint of what he had  done and witnessed. “War is hell. Don’t let nobody tell you different.” He inhaled deeply, stopping himself from saying more and fighting the ache that was beginning to burn in his right side.

Marren crunched up her nose at his confession and twisted her mouth around as if tasting his words and considering what to make of them. “That’s all?”

“I thought about you every day, every minute of the day,” he blurted out. “I just wanted to stay alive to get back here to you. You kept me alive, Marren.” 

He poured out his heart to her, blabbering on through the screen. He stood  there like an idiot and clutched his staff as if for dear life, no longer able to obscure its presence. He tried not to show how badly he hurt just standing there mustering every ounce of muscle strength to stay on his feet and still the tremor, so he didn’t appear a spastic moron. 

He knew he was losing the battle as he  reached up with his trembling hand to wipe the sweat from his face. “I came back for you, I did.” Spent, he lowered his head and took a few deep breaths inhaling her scent as she fidgeted and played in her hair. She bit her lip and started to speak a couple of times but managed nothing but fidgeting.

He waited, wishing for the courage to reach out, yank open the door and pull her towards him. He so wanted to sink to his knees and bury his face, scarred and mutilated as it was, in the sweat of her cleavage for one last time for one fresh memory of the feel of her to go along with the memories that had sustained him through those cold wet mountains in Korea and then the dark silent void of a dozen hospital beds. 

But the strength eluded him as did the courage. What if he toppled over when he went to reach for the door? What if the door was latched? Which almost nobody did, but he couldn’t be sure what all had changed in the three years that he’d been away. If he reached for the door he could miss and punch through the flimsy screen. And even if he did open the unlocked door and reach for her, would she recoil from him as so many did?

 “I’m sorry,” Marren said finally. She peeled herself from the door jamb with an audible sigh and began shifting her weight from one leg to the other, which he saw  were just as bronzed as her arms, and which ended in bare feet whose stubby toes were painted a harlot’s red. 

“I missed you too, TJ. I really did, “ she purred benevolently. “You was my first and some of the best loving I ever had.” She closed her eyes for just a moment, and he saw her tongue slide absently across her full lips before she looked at him again.  “Not that I got whorish since you left,” she quickly added. “But I’ve grown up. I’m graduating. I’m a woman now, and I got to think of my future. . . .I just needs me a whole man.” 

The words, coming out of her succulent lips, out of that beautiful dark face that he knew so well and loved with all his being, cut into him like the storm of shrapnel that had attacked him on that hill in Kaesong. For a minute, he stopped breathing. Then he started coughing and  he desperately, jerkily, fought to regain his breath while fighting not to lose his footing. After a moment that seemed like an eternity, some instinct of self-preservation gave him back his breath and compelled him to retreat. The color of auburn and the smell of seduction painfully blended into one and chased after him like a taunting demon. 

The Private lumbered down the stairs like the rejected, defective soul that he was, tilting heavily.  Odell rescued him as he started to shuffle across the dirt yard. He had waited just five minutes as their momma had instructed him before getting out of the truck and standing at the ready. Equal in stature, he caught his older brother’s weight, and this time the Private did not resist as he bore him the remaining yards to the truck. As Odell reached for the truck’s door handle, they heard the screen door screech open and slam shut. Looking back, they saw that Marren had now dared to venture beyond her threshold and was standing at the edge of the porch.

“You lucky, you know,” she called after him, as if tossing a stray dog a bone. “You could’ve died over there. Don’t know what yo Mama would’ve done if you’da died over there.” 

VI.

The encounter with Marren chilled the Private for a long time and almost knocked him back to the dark void. It made him remember the stink of human flesh exploding and suffocating him on a hill in Korea and hospital beds that he knew only by their feel. It made him struggle with the taste of a revolver, steel mixed with bourbon and self-loathing. It made his momma order his ten siblings, from Odell down to three-year old Little Bit, to never leave him alone. And Little Bit, who had fearlessly taken to chasing the chickens around the dirt yard like a demon as soon as she could walk, took her instruction extremely seriously. She became her brother’s anchor and his shadow. When he woke up, she would be perched on the edge of his bed staring at him. When he ate, she ate. When he headed out to the outhouse, he had to convince her that no, she could not come into the little shed, but had to wait outside until he returned.  

Over time, the Private somehow managed to push the haunting thoughts that plagued him back to a far corner of his being. He knew he needed to stay out of the dark silent void. He knew with certainty, without knowing how he knew, that the next time he went there, it would be his coffin.

Eventually, he began to tell himself what his parents had been saying all along, that he wasn’t dead. He could hear most things. He could see out of his one eye. Thanks to the Army plastic surgeons, his face looked less like raw hamburger as time passed.  He didn’t yet know if he could get a woman, but at least he still had most of his equipment so maybe he could, and maybe one day it would work properly again. 

Little by little, day by day, the Private went on living. He limped around leaning heavily on his staff with Little Bit skipping beside him. And then he hobbled along without it. And then one day, after Marren and the Class of 19-55 had made their ceremonial walk down Shiloh’s center aisle, with the whole community, except him, cheering, he shuffled down to his old school and asked the teacher to help him study for his diploma. 

Mrs. Ruby Dee Jackson had received him with perturbation and reticence, rather than sympathy and enthusiasm. She had chastised him about going into the army in the first place. She had even driven out to the farm to try to convince his parents to forbid him from enlisting. 

“He should at least wait until he graduates,” she had plead. “A high school diploma is a valuable asset, especially for a Negro. TJ is a smart boy. He could make something of himself, if he applied himself.”

But he hadn’t listened, and his parents had backed his decision. 

Now, he spent hours listening to Mrs. Jackson, who had a face as plain as a paper sack but a mind as full as an encyclopedia, read him his lessons. She had graduated from Howard University in Washington D. C., and when she read to him the books and problems that he was to figure, her voice sounded like a news broadcast on the radio. His eye tired easily as he struggled to make out the words on a paper held an inch from his face and his damaged hearing was challenged to grasp the words as they tumbled out of her thin flat lips that she always colored in cherry red lipstick. But he persisted. 

They spent months with her patiently repeating a passage or stopping to explain a word that produced in the Private (who despite her high opinion of him had never been more than the most average student) only a blank look of confusion or a frustrated pounding on the desk. But over time, he absorbed enough, and he finally became a high school graduate years after he had become a disabled veteran.

The day after he received his diploma, the Private counted his discharge pay and the money the Army had been sending him. It wasn’t much in the big scheme of things, certainly not enough to compensate for all he had lost, maybe not much to somebody else, but it was something to him. The Private used some of the money to buy his parents the first Frigidaire they ever owned.  And to show his gratitude, he bought Mrs. Jackson a handkerchief on which he had her initials embroidered and a hat with a real ostrich feather sticking out of it that he sent for all the way from Raleigh. Mrs. Jackson burst out in laughter when he presented the hat to her and she caused quite a storm when she boldly stepped into the Shiloh Free Will Baptist Church with it perched on her head.

 Mrs. Jackson told the Private about the G.I. Bill and how this time  they were even letting Colored soldiers benefit too. She said that it could pay for him to go to college. He hooted at the thought, remembering the long painstaking hours it had taken for him to earn his diploma. “Don’t tell me you want to spend your whole life reading my lessons to me.” 

Mrs. Jackson assured him that as much as she liked him, she had other plans for her life. But she also told him that he could get a job with the Veteran’s Administration and a loan to buy a house. That got the Private’s attention.

“Now you talking,” he exclaimed, with one of his still infrequent grins. Since he was going to go on living, he would need a job. “Hell, that’s why I joined up in the first place. So, I wouldn’t have to hand tobacco for some white man all my life. Any job with the VA got to be better than that.”

And why shouldn’t he take advantage of all  the VA could offer him, after all that he had been through? And as for the house, he hadn’t thought much about it. But when  he did, he wasn’t thinking to live with his parents all his life. As far as he knew, none of his kin had ever owned any property; if there was a way that he could be the first, he might just have to do that too.

In the following months, as Mrs. Jackson and he worked through all the required forms and applications, the Private would often whisper to himself ─I’m alive. I’m going to go on living. He said it to fix it in his mind and to firm up his resolve.

But there were moments, despite his new-found prospects, when waves of despair would bulldoze him. Some new insult from someone in town would compel him to go out to the back field to sit alone and eat cantaloupe fresh off the vine, his body and soul aching so much that he often vomited. Or he would masturbate for what seemed like an eternity, until his flaccid penis was raw, without relief, which even a river of bourbon could not provide.  At such times, the Private’s thoughts would roam back to that hill in Kaesong and to that day that had changed everything. He knew in his mind he was lucky to be alive; but often he didn’t feel lucky. He could walk, but now his journey through life was an obstacle course paved with hot coals and barbs he had to navigate barefoot, scarred, half-blind and half-hearing, maybe always alone. He didn’t even know if he was truly still a man. 

At moments such as these, the Private would think that maybe Kirby Randall from Minneapolis, Minnesota was the lucky one. Randall, who was crazy about his mother and his Labrador Spike and who carried pictures of both in his fatigues, whom the Private had called friend and seen become a flying mess of bloody body parts the instant before his life changed forever, who had been granted the dignity of a body bag and a closed coffin in lieu of the best medical care the U.S. Army could provide⎯maybe Randall had been the lucky one.

Maybe.

OLD IRONSIDES

she is
most days
a ship armed to the chin
cannons at her sides
her mast a sea of kelp and urchin

melting down my iron sides
for ammunition
she pours me
hot and slick
into molds I want to fit
but cant

what does her
naked belly show to sea’s floor?

I want to see
I rubber my neck to her sides

only to take in salty sick
and the brim of her
matted cap

I pretend I am inside her—
below deck
she aches with barrels of cider
churning into
drink
to feed her crew
I want to be that crew
get paid little to feed her fuel
to work the nights
as the sea works her over
pandering toward open casks of
sea here
inlet there
till we drop anchor

FISH IN THE CREEL

At the end of summer we had a party for you
do you remember why you didn’t show?
You’d been fishing in central park again
with your rod and your tackle box.
You told me you’d use the flies I tied
the ones I made to look like junebugs.
You said they were the most cunning things
you’d seen, that they’d put fish in the creel.
I had no idea what a creel was and I
didn’t care. I just knew we’d be eating
fish for dinner and maybe after we ate
you’d show me your lucky tooth collection.

When you left the apartment I got the neighbors
to come over and made your favorites—lime jello
and ants on a log. I waited about three hours, the sun
had gone and the neighbors left too. That’s when
I heard the phone ring. It was the police. They’d
found you in the Harlem Meer. You’d caught
the big one they said, you’d hooked a willow and
sank thigh deep into the muck. They hung up
when I asked if they’d bring you home.
It was late and I had my rollers in.

I hosed you off in the alley. No fish for dinner
instead we boiled your boot strings. You said
when you were flopping in the Meer you thought
a lot about my recipe for bran muffins and
where I got the hair to tie those flies. I couldn’t
bring myself to tell you that hair was mine
that they may have looked like junebugs but
they were tiny red-eyed me’s destined for
a mouth or three.

ANSWERING MACHINE: APRIL 29th, 1992

for Rodney King

Rodney. Rodney. If you’re there pick up. You haven’t answered my
calls for months. I’m worried. This isn’t like you. You may be in pain
and that pain is very real but we could talk about it. We could get
lunch Rodney. We could go to Joe Jost and get a pickled egg.
It’s on me. I’ll tell my old lady I had to step out, buy some smokes.
Remember that night in Monterey when she came down the street
in her curlers holding that baseball bat? I saw my balls flash before
my eyes and I’d never seen you laugh so hard. She hated you because
you liked the drink. I’m a horrible drunk but I love a good story.
Rodney. If we go to lunch you could tell me about the time you met
Larry David in that carpark in West Hollywood. I wish someone
famous pissed on my door handle. I liked that story and I like you.
Always have. What do you say? Those eggs won’t stay pickled forever.

FAMILY TREE

I come from a long history and as such a lineage entails, it started rather far back into
antiquity. this is important because the past is neither present in this narrative or
relevant. it is somewhat disturbed as soil often is because if it were undisturbed it would
be a fossil waiting in vein for the unearthing.

my death began like any other—with my birth. I was, for lack of a better word or
phrase, entangled prolapse of a hemorrhoidic kind.

for I, my heart was beating and my blood did it’s gyrating as gravity let on to itself and
the core of the earth(made, they say, of ore, of silken iron) pulled me toward it’s
embrace.
this embrace had been stalled for 7 months 8 days and a handful of empty bucket nights.

the hole in mom’s throat. lump. puss. cyst. anchovies. pizza hut.

back seat sister

baby baby amy grant

du-rag

batman shirt

I come from a long line of liars. the kind that look you in the eye and say trust me and
then walk to your house and throw
themselves on the porch, their hair pasted to an awkward side in autumn sneaking out of
their parents house to kiss you on the mouth.

I misread the signs misspell at the spelling bee uttering instead, thinking that I was going
north. I was so far south that the snow had leapt off the pavement, off of the back
window till the skin on my eyes rose a quarter of an inch off my face.

holy hello to you and that
braided mustache halo you wear on a lipshits tone. your mother says that only we can be
spun like this we can only be thawed
on the defrost setting. my freezer burn itches and peels in monochrome white.

daddy found his way into a type of trope a type of makeshift reminder that if I keep up
the tune I might as well be a dumfounded thirty watt light bulb.

lozenges

I come from long lines of card players
I come from a long line of card player
breathing for the tobacco that fills the air, the acid rain that comes washing down and
the inlets that form a secret sharer. Their secrets hide
past loves and the fold of older men
that seem to haunt me or just never leave, always leaving their dentures soaking on the
night stand.

ninja turtle gummies melting on the dashboard

banana boat sun screen

pores so big we soak in them

techno music on the radio

the family home now a car park, sleeps in sediments and the time capsule we planted will
grow a tree with no trunk. a briefcase with no lips. a leaky faucet spits out blueberries.
mother buys frozen orange juice concentrate. an ice core orange grove thawed out as the
tree frogs watch from the window. I step on one as I crouch in the bushes. its lungs push
up and out gasping for air it cannot use.

I come from a long line of lovers. lovers of farmer’s tans and personal pan pizza. if we
can meet in a chatroom we can meet in real life, use the back of our throats as putting
greens or even better sand down the chimney stack and use its remnants for homegrown
tattoos.

Fish photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife service.

It was not rare to see horses on Main Street when I was growing up in this town. I was spindly and spry then, when distances were calculated by how much jerky and water to pack, when the idea of pocket-sized computers was still the realm of science-fiction, the same stuff as teleportation devices and alien invasions. Around the house an intricate network of deer trails canvased the woods like a sense of smell. I’d run them through the sagebrush and chokecherries, shivering in the shade of dense lodgepole pine stands. Still panting, I’d knock on a neighbor’s door and ask a mother if her child could go to the river.

We’d walk miles in our minds, finely-tuned to the snapping of dry branches in the needle-cast, summoning to our soft skin the possibility of predators emerging with the warmth of a late spring day. The distant sound of swift water rushing over boulders always made us start running.

Rays broke on the surface and scattered as if through a fractured emerald onto the slick stones below, shimmering off the scales of large trout and made hazy where their tails whipped up a cloud of fine silt, spooked by our careless approach. In the deeper pools heated by afternoon sun there was no place for our bodies to know their own boundaries. It was a richer kind of air through which every motion rippled to the bank and returned to us, but slower, expanding.

Where the May and June runoff cut the bank from beneath a large cottonwood its roots reached exposed like tentacles into the water. By mid-summer we could entwine our arms in them and float on the surface cutting the gentled current with our heads as we looked to the bottom and into the shadows, hoping the fish might not mind our company and maybe even glide along the length of our bodies. We would bask on the smooth, day-baked stones, let the sun dry us, scratch the sand from our scalps and feel clean, even a little magical walking home.

In late summer my father would wake me before dawn with his large hand on my shoulder, the smell of coffee drifting in behind him. A quiet blue light through the trees laid our shadows down before us on the trail, fishing poles sprouting from our heads like antennae. Sleep still in my eyes, I imagined being led to the river by some dreamed extension of myself, one who might rather do anything than trick a fish into swallowing a hook just to turn it back to the current, stunned and bleeding. Tearing barbs from their mouths and throats then holding them like trophies while they mouthed the air was a suffering I learned to fold into layers of pride. I’d ask why we didn’t keep them and was told there was no need.

The temperature dropped sharply near the river as soon as it could be heard. My skin raised with the chill and my heart sank to hear my father’s pace quicken. He inhaled the cool morning into his nostrils with pious vigor. Later, looking upstream, he welled with pride to see my pole bowed down to the weight and fight of a large trout. He laughed and shouted, “Fish on!” as he made his way toward me with the net in his hand.

————     

I knew they were Cal’s boots stomping around on the hardwood. His restless energy vibrated through the floor and into my head. I gathered my jacket back into a lumpy pillow and tried to fall asleep again. He opened the front door then stomped back, smacking me on the head as he passed with the rolled up newspaper he had retrieved then trumpeted the first few notes of reveille through it.

Every minute or so, just as I started to doze off, he’d loudly clear his throat, pick up the paper by either side and pop it as if to freshen the news before smoothing it back down on the table. I squinted with one eye and leered at him across the room with all the hungover evil I could conjure. His hair was cow-licked where his head had finally come to rest after the long night of drinking and dancing, embellishing war stories, and doing whatever we thought those stories gave us license to do.

Every couple of weeks it seemed we began making feints into blackout territory, each night a fresh chance to regain the thrill of courting death and going once more unto the breach, as Cal liked to call it. Empty bottles stood gathered together on the table. From my floor’s-eye-view they looked like a city of glass buildings. I remembered Cal upending one then musing woozily to it, “Thank you for your service,” as he added it to the skyline. I remembered dancing wildly to Louis Prima and an almost inhumanly beautiful, dark-haired young woman yelling at me and storming out into the snow—Oh, Marie! Tell me you love me. I let out a long dramatic groan and rolled onto my back.

“Where’d she go, Cal? Where’s the girl of my dreams? The love of my life?”

Even when he wasn’t reading the paper he never really listened to anybody. He ignored me and started reading out loud: “At 3:36 a.m. a woman reported a nude man at Main Street and 3rd Avenue jogging with a hammer and chanting….” In the seven years I’d known him, reading the police blotter had become something of a ritual, one which required coffee to be fully appreciated first thing in the morning. I reminded him of this. He told me to get up and make it myself.

“Wouldn’t go in there barefoot,” he added without looking up from the paper as I pulled myself off the floor.

“Why not?”

He scoffed.

I stepped into a pair of Cal’s beat-up cowboy boots by the door and walked to the kitchen. It looked like a grenade had gone off. Cabinet doors were splintered on the linoleum or dangling from their hinges, the breakfast table and chairs laid upended surrounded by shards of bottles and dishes. In a corner the coffee machine was in pieces, all of it soaking in pools of wine. My eyes rolled over the scene turning up little flashes of memory. My stomach began to turn. I knew what had happened but I asked Cal anyway.

“You happened, you crazy bastard. You went dark as the devil.”

I was locked inside my skull again, where Cal’s voice echoed absently like some tired machine switched-on and abandoned. I remembered a dream-like space where time and gravity unfixed themselves and there was nothing to give my body shape but vague, immovable objects where the waves crashed; where I wanted wild and inexplicable things; to catch a rattlesnake, kiss it on the mouth, grip it by the jaws and pull it over my head like a balaclava. I wanted to vibrate. To hum and rattle into pieces.

————

Cal and I would jog from downtown calling cadence like the ghosts of soldiers, released to haunt everyone’s dreams on those snowy, sleeping streets. We would call on the emptiness to recognize us, to embrace us as its own: Mama, mama can’t you see…what the Army’s done to me? We’d wake up and drink coffee and read the paper like we’d aged a hundred years overnight.

Cal said we needed to quit blowing money on hangovers and buy a couple horses already. I could usually count on this train of thought after a night of dragging our drunk bodies around town. “All my old tack’s just gatherin’ dust in my aunt’s barn. Bet she’d probably cut us some slack on a couple geezers. Get us started anyway. Get us outta this shithole and into the wild anyway.” He’d dream us there and try to convince me it was what we were put on earth to do. That one cool morning we’d saddle those horses and disappear like phantoms into some blue shadowland, as if somewhere just beyond the horizon a paradise was waiting to be reclaimed. “We’ll sell everything and just go. What’s the song say? Rob the grave of the setting sun.”

He’d pop the paper as if to set it all in motion. I’d go along, too sick and tired to pretend like I had a better idea. Not to say he didn’t have something. Cal had vision. If anyone did, he had the drive to turn back the clock, or if not, at least smash the damn thing and start from scratch. He accused the world of trying to pull one over on him, trying to wash his brain clean of some ancient instinct. He knew better though. He could see it all happening right before his eyes. And he’d be damned if so-called progress was going to catch him sleeping. He’d roll a fat joint and lay on his back on the hardwood floor, blowing clouds of smoke at the ceiling, picturing exactly how he was being screwed out of his destiny.  

————       

In a sterile, over-air-conditioned conference room Cal pictured a three-point-plan written on a dry erase board. He could hear the whisk and thwack of an aluminum pointer striking the whiteboard under each number as a buttoned-down agent eyes one of the many pale faces around the table. “One,” said the agent with detached authority, “Disenfranchise.” Cal saw him swat the board under the next word, scan and lock eyes with a different face. “Two,” he shouted this time, making his victim pucker and quiver, “Romanticize.” Then a thwack and a new face for the third and final pronouncement: “Commodify.”

The room nodded in obedient assent. “It’s that simple, men. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” He then led them in a three-count, swatting each word down the list for punctuation and lastly under the slogan written above them all, which they uttered in solemn unison. I heard Cal’s voice before I walked in. He was laying on the floor, chanting at the ceiling: “Kill the Cowboy, save the boots!”

      ————

When Cal came home from areas he often referred to as the “wild west,” he felt everything harassing him, closing in on him, telling him he was too late. “Too many goddamn people on this earth. Zombies,” he’d correct himself, “and their kiss-ass little cyber-lives; big-money buyin’ up the whole goddamn valley, pricin’ out real goddamn people; fuckin’ movie-star wannabes turnin’ working ranches into playthings….” He’d work himself up and have to roll a joint. Though he would never admit it, he was paralyzed with fear. He saw the way of his father and grandfather, his birthright, the way of the cowboy “going the way of the Indian,” as he put it. He laid on the floor throughout the day exhaling thick clouds at the ceiling and rubbing his temples. Images of conspiracy and betrayal loosened and drifted from his mind. Like Judas, he thought, feeling suddenly a new, special kinship with Jesus.

He pictured a resurrected Christ clinching a thin cigarillo between his teeth and squinting through the shadow of a sharp, felt brim. He saw the hand of God drawing the cold, heavy steel from his holster as he considered a man in a business suit kneeling before him, shielding the sun from his eyes. Arrayed in that righteous light, thumbing back the hammer and tenderly touching the muzzle to the man’s impure lips, Jesus smiled—Cal smiled. “Kiss this,” they said.

————

When I came home I burned my uniform with all its ribbons and badges. Made a ceremony of it and everything. Cal considered it an act of treason and shunned me for months. But, for better or worse, I was bound to him. And him to me. Without Cal’s kind of animal sensitivity and callous justice, I might not have made it home at all.

————

We put it behind us, both desperate for an old kind of familiarity, even if a false and decidedly immoderate one. I had developed lofty ideas of self-deconstructionism, that I was somehow dismantling something broken inside my head. And I did truly believe this. But after a couple bottles of wine it became tiresome and all I had was bleary aim at something near pleasure. I could at least hit the present moment, it being a pretty big target. In it I surrendered to a sense of time and gravity backing their screws out of my bones. Every motion seemed fluid, intuitive, rippling out from my body toward some mystical integration, but ultimately retuning a kind of lazy hypnotism—the kind of magic you long to believe but also loathe for the weakness that longing betrays. That was the general, dull ache of it. Things that could never truly be, maybe never were at all. Out of place. Out of time. But we soldiered on through the illusion, allowing the selves we remembered being to manifest friction for traction.

————

It was a Friday night. Every Friday night art galleries on main street opened their doors and offered complimentary wine to anyone who entered so long as they pretended to care about the stuff inside. Cal and I used to make it our duty to impose and make sure that no wine went to waste. We filled and refilled plastic cups as if hydrating for a mission. Once loose enough, we’d liberate bottles from the table and walk around with them, standing in front of Western landscape paintings, probing the air for volatility.

“Me. Oh. My,” Cal would say, adding a little whistle. “A damn sight better than the real thing, you ask me. Who in his right mind would ford that river horseback in real life? You know there’s rattlers in there will swim right in your saddlebag and take a nap, and you never even know it till you reach in there happy as an idiot for the wineskin…then fffft, ffft fft…,” he struck my forearm, shoulder then the side of my neck with his fingers as fangs, “It’s goodnight, Irene, goodnight.”  

I’d hum and turn the price-tag, speaking with a degree of dismay, “How could you live with yourself knowing someone else walked out of here with this beauty?” Then feigning a scan of the gallery for someone to talk to, I’d say, “I must have it.”

The night would go on like that until we reached a kind of critical mass, finally just walking out the door, bottles in hand, whistling, humming, leaning into a kind of warning buzz.  

      ————

Some mornings after a night of unraveling Cal and I would meet in a coffee shop to spool back into the form of something socially acceptable. We’d read the paper at a corner table and psychically loom. The walls were almost always hung with big glossy photographs of wildlife. Under each photo was a little wooden placard with a title and price. Above Cal’s head was a photo of a herd of bison. Hungover and slightly nauseous, I sipped my coffee and stared at it osmotically.

I looked down at Cal. His head was lowered to the paper. Not moving his eyes from an article he took a sip from his mug and made a sound like he was expelling steam.

“Did exactly what I knew they would,” he said without looking up, after a minute going on, “Abandoned their tanks and guns…our tanks and guns…burned their uniforms and ran away like babies from the boogeyman.” He loudly folded up the paper in disgust and stared off toward the front windows. “You can lead a horse to water,” he said to himself, raising his mug again. “Fucking cowards.”

I looked up at the photo then down at Cal. Nothing mattered all of a sudden. I felt the urge to throw my coffee in his face, walk out and never think twice about anything ever again.

Cal had his visions. I had mine.

The feeling surged then dissolved. I looked back up at the photo and imagined us just out of frame sitting our horses, Cal’s eye laid down the barrel of a rifle. Very near us the photographer stood aiming his camera down the slope. Cal tested the wind then reached to make adjustments to his sights as the photographer made adjustments to his camera. Seasons altered when I blinked. The river valley below flashed white and frozen then vibrant and lush, full of grazing bison, then hazy red as if lit by a smoke-veiled sun.

Cal spun his horse a half-turn then kicked up his legs and spun his body the opposite way. He laid his barrel across the horse’s hindquarter, lowered his body behind it and wrapped his legs around the horse’s neck. Chinning a mocking glance at the photographer then looking down at the heard, he wagered he could shoot more of them. They both squinted with one eye, fingertips poised.

I couldn’t discern the explosion of gunpowder from the snapping of the shutter. They were simultaneous and unmitigated. Cal seemed to levitate above his horse, purring with the recoil and instantly, expertly retracting the bolt with the meat of his palm, extracting each cartridge with a shimmering ting, then racking the bolt forward, slightly adjusting his aim and firing again. His zeal was as lethal and endless as his ammunition. The stampeding herd was swallowed up in a cloak of dust but Cal continued shooting, now indiscriminately, wildly into the cloud until finally spinning on his haunches back riderwise, sheathing his rifle and trotting down the slope.   

Streams of blood merged into pools, gathering momentum through dirt for the river, then dripped viscous over the bank and into the current, carried down-valley, frothing over boulders and swirling into sun-warmed eddies. Our horses emerged on the other side as if dipped up to the withers in rusty oil. We made camp atop the opposite plateau.

I saw our fire spitting embers up at the night. I saw Cal’s face warping through the flames, a mesmerized glimmer there. I saw him get up, walk to his horse and reach into his saddlebag for the wineskin.    

I wanted to tell him he was nothing, tell him to swallow his tongue and get out of my head. But I drank my coffee and agreed. “Fucking cowards.”

————

We rolled cigarettes and sauntered from one art gallery to the next, getting drunker, whistling and humming obnoxiously. Cal hurled a wine bottle like a grenade over his head and didn’t look to see where it shattered. All glass started to pulse with fragility. From the street the galleries looked like snow-globes, I thought. We watched them sip their drinks and attempt to shake their evening into something special. Cal and I joined them. I overheard someone suggest that the price-tag dangling from a bison skull was “irrelevant, really.” I laughed out loud. Everyone seemed to be laughing. I drank deeply from a bottle and laughed again. A laugh I hardly recognized.

From the sidewalk I peered back inside through my reflection in the window, suddenly paralyzed. They swirled their cups. A weird light shifted through the window onto them. I saw a race of aliens discussing a different skull: “This,” one said, cupping it like a wineglass, “this was one of the snow-globe dwellers. They were the first to be eradicated or relocated. They seemed to possess no memory nor useful skill to contribute to the re-cultivation of these once fertile lands.” The alien swirled it and took another drink. “We were baffled, and quite frankly horrified, to see them building their settlements on the richest soil in the valley. Even worse, they hunted large creatures for the size of their crowns, not the yield of their sustenance. They tricked fish into swallowing hooks on strings that they might enjoy the suffering and fear transferred to their hands, just to rip the hook from their flesh and throw them back to repeat the ritual.” Exhaling sharply then making a motion to drink but balking, the being continued, “In fact, we have discovered evidence that their economy relied heavily on these ‘sports,’ as they called them.” They all drank and another chimed in, “Where they got the food they actually consumed is another story entirely.” Their long antennae wobbled as they shook their heads and sipped from their cranial vessels, “Savages, I tell you. Real savages.”

Apparently, there was one more gallery, though I couldn’t really say.

————

The last thing I remember is standing in front of a hundred old machine parts—gears, springs, brackets—all tack-welded into the form of a giant bison skull. Its hollow eye-sockets glowed with electric lights timed to change every few seconds from white to green to red. I looked around and saw everyone taking photos of the sculpture with their phones then bow their heads. Their faces glowed piously, bathed in the light of their screens.

I saw them growing undead, praying as though from that liquid crystal had whispered a promise of immortality. I saw the ghost within it baiting them, desperate for them to vacate their own minds that it might take up residence and power there. I saw them offering their knowledge and memory, their lives as tribute.

I saw horses and a long, cold winter. I saw ribboned stacks of paper bills, photographs, paintings and furniture piled high in the center of a room. I saw fire in the floor, fire licking at the rafters. I saw blood rising to my skin in a vacuum ravenous for it, inhaling me as if for the marrow in my bones, as if to extract from my body that which my dreams had promised it.

I saw white then green then red.

————

The judge gave me my own private cell and some time to think about my life choices, as he put it. Miraculously, the only book I could get my hands on when the library cart rolled by was The Death of Jim Loney by James Welch. Jim Loney is my age, estranged from his community and going “gently insane” on his drunken descent toward “noble, inevitable self-destruction,” as one reviewer suggested. I had to laugh. I read it in one sitting. Then I cried. Simple tears at first as I reluctantly turned the final pages, feeling that the resolution would be far too costly. Then involuntary, spine-binding weeping to the edge of suffocation and back. An hour, maybe two, three before the waves subsided. Rolling over, I mouthed silent, unknown things at the ceiling, staring holes through it. I traced forms of animals on the naked cinder-blocks and wanted to die.

The night before I was released, I dreamed. I stood under bright stars at arms-length from a fire. I reached in with my hand and held it there, entranced by the impossibility of not being burned. There was a metallic clink followed by a voice. “Will is fate,” it said. I turned to see him bent to the ground with a hammer in hand. Around his wrists were manacles attached to a length of chain rooted in stone. He set the hammer to mark his aim then raised it above his head and swung it, sending the sound into the night and a splash of sparks to the ground. Without looking up he said, “Until it breaks,” and marked his aim again. He punctuated himself with the slow but deliberate rhythm of a simple machine made to mark its own rate of function: “Will is fate…” clink… “Until it breaks…” clink…. And on and on, chanting through the night.

I turned back to the fire and felt the memory of stepping into it. There was a vibration each time the hammer struck. The light began to pulse. A step closer brought a roar like waking up at sea in a terrible storm followed by a deeper vibration, a kind of rhythmic thudding and a drone of voices. As I stepped fully into the flames figures appeared to be weaving themselves into each other, their bodies bound up in one form of writhing then another, their desperate faces mouthing the air, their arms and hands hitting me unfeelingly as I pushed my way through. Everything mounted into a violent, unbearable wave of anguish. I was knocked to the ground and began scrambling furiously. The thudding grew in my hands and knees, in my stomach, vibrating everything into one densely concentrated center until it could no longer contain itself. Light flashed from the core of an explosion, consuming everything. Then darkness. Silence. I felt the coolness of night as if directly on skinless muscle.

I woke up and stared at the ceiling, something inching its way from my stomach into my throat and finally over my lips, so delicately that even I could not quite make it out. Though I understood. Kill the soldier, save the man.      

————

Cal picked me up. He rolled around the corner of the jail in my 1986 Land Cruiser. The old leaf spring suspension had long since lost its spring and took all bumps under the tired, squeaking protest of its joints. From a dead stop it coughed up a little cloud of exhaust and could putter up to sixty-five mph given a long enough, flat enough stretch of highway. I smiled to see it parked at the curb.

Cal waited for me to move but I just stood there and stared at him through a fog of breath. His hand went up as if to ask if I was getting in or not. He eventually got the picture, opened his door and circled around front to the passenger side, lunging toward me, shouting “Shotgun!” in my ear as he passed. He didn’t even have a driver’s license.

In fact, I wasn’t sure if Cal existed at all. As far as I knew he had gone completely off the grid. In his mind, veterans of our stripe were all on a secret government watchlist. He believed the state was not so obtuse as to train us to abandon empathy, kill on command, send us to war, and then simply release us back into the world with a pat on the back, an unlimited prescription for drugs and a suicide hotline card without at least keeping an eye on us, see if we could still play the game without getting too wise. Cal had it all worked out. When he smoked he became very lucid, almost telepathic, he claimed. He’d lay on the floor blowing thick clouds at the ceiling and intercept conference calls from the Pentagon between a handful of politicians, a data-storage gate-keeper, and a spooky DoD agent going on about “the imperative to track and, when necessary, guide liabilities as they are released back into the mainstream.” There would be unofficial requests for sensitive information and off-the-books transactions.

Cal would close his eyes, point to both of his temples and see top-secret memos appearing in encrypted email inboxes regarding a surveillance operation to acquire location- and activity-intel on veterans who meet signal criteria. He’d start listing them: “…combat…college…debt-free…single…,” as if straining to receive each word which, according to him, constituted a probability of ideological disillusionment and sedition sufficient to red-flag an individual for life. According to Cal, one of us was on the fast-track to being “disappeared.” He’d relight his joint and blow smoke, occasionally mumbling another paranoid stream of thought: “If credibility is established by credit…and credit is debt….” He’d take a long drag and ash in the big planter pot then keep going: “…and debt is forced labor, and forced labor is the mechanization of humans, and…,” and on and on.

He tapped out a short couple of beats on the dash board. “The Colonel’s looking for guns,” he said to the windshield, waiting to see if I’d respond, then continued, “I told him we’d meet just as soon as I could spring your sorry ass.” What he meant was hired guns. The Colonel was actually a retired Army Colonel who by whatever nebulous network of connections was eager to put together a private security team to head back into high-conflict areas. His types of teams ran defense and often offense for god-knows-who, doing things that made for long redactions in official reports. The one certainty was the money. “A hundred fifty Gs for six-month’s work, boy.” I could tell by his voice Cal was already there. He never really left. “Fuck it,” he said, “I’ll text him right now.”

I don’t know why I didn’t tell him not to. The cold, clean air drafted through the window and I was just glad to be feeling and breathing it. I couldn’t summon the energy to negate anything that was going to happen. He plugged the auxiliary cable into his phone as he read the Colonel’s text. “Sanctuary. One hour.” He cocked his head at me, “There it is. Let’s get a few freedom beers in you, partner.” He scrolled down his screen and selected Oh, Marie by Louis Prima, rolled the volume knob, drummed the dash with his hands and yowled as the cymbals and sax really kicked in, “Once more unto the breach!”

————

I righted the table and chairs, found a broom and swept all the glass, mopped the floor and fastened the cabinet doors best I could back on their hinges. Cal sat at the table with the paper, occasionally reading out loud something that twisted up in his mind just right. I finished putting the kitchen back in order, poured myself a glass of water and sat down across from him. Without looking up he said something about meeting the Colonel again to iron out the details, sign some papers for clearance. It hadn’t registered to me that a decision had been made, as though I was simply caught up in some kind of entropic undertow. I didn’t even know how many days I’d been waiting to get spat out and wash ashore. But there I was. He told me I better go warm up the beast.  

On cold mornings, because the cable was broken, I had to pop the hood of the Cruiser and manually wedge the choke closed with a stone that had sat in the console for years and just so happened to be the ideal size, apparently waiting for that very purpose. We cut tracks through a couple inches of fresh snow, hit main street and headed downtown. The sidewalks were empty. We sipped coffee at our usual table in the corner and waited for the Colonel.

Every few feet on the walls were different glossy photos—a silhouetted elk, spotted whitetail, nesting blue herons, rainbow trout. Above Cal’s head was a photo of a single bison, its eyes like polished obsidian squinting against wind-driven snow directly into the lens. Written beneath it on a little wooden placard was the title and the price: Winter Hunt, $290. It was number four of twenty-three prints. I scratched out the math on a napkin and said the amount to myself. Cal asked what it was. Ignoring him I looked around the shop counting the photos with similar placards and did that math. “One hundred thousand, fifty dollars.” I sat there waiting for whatever else was rising to the surface.

Cal sensed a shift and switched to recruiter-mode. “Don’t get weird on me, son. We’ll be out of this sorry shithole by tomorrow. There’s a zero-six-thirty to Seattle, Seattle to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to a nice desert paradise, eighty-five degrees. Masters of our own destiny again.” He kicked my chair to get my eyes off the photo. “Hey, you listening to me? Don’t forget you’re getting paid to get the hell out of this phony-ass town to do some real shit again. It should be the easiest decision you ever made.”

I stared into my coffee and spun the mug a half-circle by the handle and muttered it back to myself. “The easiest decision.”

“The easiest. What’s there to think about?”

“You ever wonder why it’s easy?”

“Christ almighty. Is your head screwed on? I just told you why.”

“I don’t think I need easy. I don’t need a way out of here.” I sort of rolled my eyes around the coffee shop then leveled them across the table. “I need a way out of here,” I said, reaching across the table and tapping Cal’s temple with my finger. He grabbed my wrist and stared at me, then through me as he let go. He wasn’t there anymore. I stood up sharply, knocking my chair over. A couple heads turned to see what was happening. I picked up the chair, gathering myself upright, then pushed it back under the table and inhaled slowly. “Thank you for your service, Cal.” I apologized to no one in particular then turned and walked out the door.

     ————

The Cruiser stuttered faithfully into action. I pointed west and drove until all signs of civilization faded but the road itself and a few old ranch houses. I drove for an hour, then two, in silence except for tires on pavement and crisp air whistling through a crack in the window. I knew where I was going. Soon the road turned to frozen dirt and up ahead cut through the crest of a ridge at the base of a giant V in the earth before descending sharply into the river valley. I could hear the glimmer in my father’s voice telling me I’d better hold onto something as the truck accelerated toward what looked like the edge of the world.

Even though I knew what was coming my stomach would rise into my throat, out of my body it seemed, and stay suspended somewhere above in a moment of perfect weightlessness before rushing back into me like a flood as the wheels received the full weight of the truck again. With a big youthful grin he would gently apply the brakes and, taking in the view, exhale as though to slow down his heart. I let myself believe that was the memory which accompanied him over the edge when his heart finally slowed to a stop.

The width of the valley was marked distinctly by sheer plateau walls like far-reaching bookends. It spanned maybe a mile at most and was never so narrow that you could throw a stone from one side to the other. The road sort of disintegrated into a primitive two-track used occasionally to hay cattle and check fences. But there were no cattle to be seen and all the post-latch gates were laid open. Where the way intersected the river I turned left paralleling it upstream through dormant, snow-dusted grass and sagebrush. In the narrow sections of river the water was frozen solid like frosted glass and I wondered how thick, if it could be driven across without breaking through or getting stuck. A couple of times I passed large stones and nearly stopped to hoist them from the bank down onto the ice but decided to keep going.

Eventually the road curved out into the field and then back toward the river-crossing. I held the wheel at an angle and the slight pull felt like being in a slingshot. Depressing the pedal and bracing either side of the wheel my head hit the roof as I sped over a sharp dip at the bank. Ice shards and water instantly cascaded over the hood and windshield. I instinctively ducked and held my breath, pinning the accelerator to the floor, feeling each stone under the tires claim a little more momentum. And like a beast whipped to the brink, hissing plumes of steam and coughing, the vehicle limped up the bank on the other side. I managed to coax it to the foot of the escarpment, where it sputtered to a halt alongside a small juniper. There was no sense in trying to start it again but I tried anyway, turning the ignition over and over until there was nothing. I opened the door, stepped out and closed it, reluctantly accepting I was stuck there.  

When I was just a boy, standing very near that same place, I’d look up the steep slope to the base of the cliff with dread anticipating the burning in my lungs and thighs, the terrible thirst and having to claw through the crevice at the top. Somehow everything I’d seen since in no way diminished that feeling of dread. I started hiking.

Halfway up I kicked through the snow a bit, more for the memory than anything. In the summer if you dug around in the talus you could sometimes find tooled stones, pieces of spear or arrowheads, even bison remains, bone shards. I was so much smaller then, when the world went on forever yet seemed closer somehow. Peering up to the top of the cliff I would shudder to imagine an entire herd leaping one after the other from the edge and plummeting toward me, the frantic adrenaline in their eyes, the earth heaving under the impact of their massive bodies. Young men would peer panting from the edge down to the bloodied arms of women expertly stripping those bodies of their hides and carving the meat from their bones. They would be all around me as I made my way up the slope to the base of the cliff wall.

The only way to the top was through an opening there wide enough for one person. It led through the stone where water had eroded its way for thousands of years through weaknesses and where very little light penetrated. Acute claustrophobia held each breath just out of reach as I inched my way up and through, relieved only in the assurance that at least in the winter, rattlesnakes lay dormant, brumating in their dens, their hibernacula. In my mind they were coiled tightly together, purring through dreams in the buried warmth of the earth around me. My skin ran flush with a surge of heat then shivered in the last shadow as I pulled myself finally from the hole at the lip of the plateau. Catching my breath, I turned to survey the valley. Behind a thin veil of clouds the sun was soft and low on the horizon. I stepped back from the edge and picked a couple of rocks from beneath the snow. Flinging them underhand I watched them spin silent in the air and tumble down the slope. I threw one half-heartedly at the Cruiser before sitting down and staring out across the valley.

It seemed there was nothing in sight to indicate when I was. It was all time and no time at all. I plucked a sprig of sagebrush, rolled it in my fingers and held it under my nose, inhaling its sweetness, cool like mint in the back of the throat. I scratched up a small handful of icy snow, compressed it in my palm and sucked the moisture from it. Tracing the river upstream I saw sun-baked ground and fine clouds of dust rising along the banks behind horse-drawn travois, the sinew-lashed lodgepole bowed under a winter’s rations. I saw naked young men and women washing blood from their bodies where the current was swift. I felt everything slow and waited for darkness.                     

Andria Williams: Brooke, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with Wrath-Bearing Tree. We are all excited to feature an excerpt from your debut memoir, War Flower: My Life After Iraq. In a starred review, Kirkus called it “an absolutely compelling war memoir marked by the author’s incredible strength of character and vulnerability.”

How long was this book in the making? How does it feel to finally have it out in the world?

Brooke King: It is a bit nerve-wracking to have it out in the world, but then I remember that it took me four years to get it there, and even longer to try and write the book. I struggled with what people would think of me and what I have been through in my life, and then it dawned on me. The 19-year-old girl I was then doing all those things is not the same person that I am today, and so I gave myself permission, in a sense, to just let the criticism slide away. Yes, there are going to be people that judge what I did or shame me for falling in love with an officer when I was a married woman, but to me, that girl no longer exists. A mother of three no, I don’t even know who that girl is anymore because I am so far removed from who she was and to me, that is what makes it okay to have this book out in the world for all to read.

AW: I have to ask, because my kids (especially my 11-year-old son) are magnetically drawn to the book’s cover: what’s the significance of Boba Fett? Is that your tattoo?

BK: So, it’s funny you should ask. The Fett tattoo is mine. It’s located on the inside of my left forearm. I originally got it because I wanted to get a tattoo that symbolized my nickname, “War Flower.” And because I am a writer and symbolism is everything, the meaning behind it is kind of cool, but also very nerdy. Boba Fett is a bounty hunter form the Star Wars lore. And here is where my nerd shows through…. He ultimately was a war byproduct of his father Jango Fett who was a general for the Clone Army during the Clone Wars. The symbolism behind it is that during his hardships of growing up, he turned away from the traditions of the Mandalorians and chose to follow his own path, and so having him blooming out of a flower seemed to be a perfect metaphor for War Flower. The design staff over at University Nebraska Press asked for what my interpretation of War Flower was and I mentioned that I had it tattooed on me. I sent them over the image of my tattoo along with the meaning behind it and they loved it so much, they decided to use it.

AW: I’m a fan of the Fetts, so I think that’s pretty cool. (I have even dressed as a Mandalorian, but that’s another story.) Anyway, I love your tattoo, and it makes a perfect cover.  

So, the book’s synopsis begins, “Brooke King has been asked over and over what it’s like to be a woman in combat.” I found an intriguing hint of an answer to that in the line, “Here is where a girl is made into a woman and then slowly into a man.” What does that mean, exactly?

BK: It means that there is a time in every female soldier’s service where she is forced to grow up. But for me, as a female soldier who saw a lot of things that normally I wouldn’t have, I was forced to grow up, but then thrown into a situation that normally is reserved for a male soldier sort of forced me to become emotionally and mentally like a male soldier. In a sense, I was forced into survival mode by adapting to what male soldiers would normally go through in the harsh condition of combat.

AW: And yet, even though many women have served in combat over the last decade and more, you share an anecdote about being driven by your grandfather to the local VA upon your return home and encountering not one, but two VA employees who meet your explanation of combat trauma with disbelief and even hostility: “A man comes in, asks me to follow him to the TBI and spinal injury ward. He points to the men inside the room, tells me to think long and hard about lying about combat before I tell him anything more.” 

First of all, what an asshole. But also: How is it possible that such a disconnect can exist, not only between female veterans and the civilian public, but even between women vets and the civilian professionals meant to serve them?

BK: I think it stems from the concern that women are supposed to be the bearers of life, so to think that a woman can be hurt in the same way as a man at war, it makes people uneasy. However, I think the disconnect about female veterans comes from lack of knowledge. Civilians just didn’t know to what extent women were involved in OIF and OEF, and because of that, they have a hard time believing when a woman comes in for help with combat PTSD or combat related injuries. In order for this stigma or misconception to diminish, the government and female veterans really do need to speak up and account for that missing link of information. I know that personally speaking up has helped thousands of other women because I was one of the first women to go through combat PTSD treatment from OIF. I went through a lot of trial and error for years until I was able to find a regimen that worked for me.

AW: War Flower alternates between sections of traditional first-person memoir, and brief chapters of creative nonfiction in which you imagine your way into the minds of other people–a teenage Iraqi girl, a tormented young boy–and even (as in “Dog Tags”) inanimate objects. How and when did the structure of the book become clear to you? Did it begin as a more traditional memoir, or did you always know that you wanted it to be more of a kaleidoscopic view of war and homecoming? 

BK: I began writing the book several years ago and it wasn’t until I ran into a part of the memoir where I couldn’t remember all the details correctly enough that I began to imagine what it would be like to be that person. I am referring to the section “Ghosts” where I imagine what it would be like to be an Iraqi girl on the other side of the war. After I wrote this section, I realized that memories are a jumbled mess of information recollected over time, and someone with combat PTSD has memories that are distorted by their trauma, so when I went back to rethink the structure, I decided that the structure should mimic my memories; fragmented, disjointed, and at times kaleidoscopic.

AW: Your wartime experience appears to have given you an empathy with veterans of former wars, and particularly for Vietnam veterans. In the chapter “Legacy,” you very sensitively craft a sort of plural voice of Vietnam vets: “I am nothing, they would say. I am the fault of my government, my father. I am plagued with nothing but lies. I did what I was told.”

This tone seems matched by one of your early observations about your time in Iraq: “We didn’t know the names of the streets or which roads led to nowhere. When shit hit the fan, sometimes we didn’t know which direction to fire the bullets…In the end the only thing we knew for certain was that we were all soldiers stuck in the same godforsaken country until the military let us leave or we died, whichever came first.”

Do you think there is a particular understanding between veterans of Vietnam and the GWoT?

BK: I think there is a sort of “oneism” that comes from being a combat veteran. There is a silent understanding that even though your war was somewhere different, you can still share that bond of knowing they went through hell as well. So you adopt with it this perspective of empathy towards other combat veterans of foreign wars. You know their struggle because you are silently struggle with the same issue. Though by no means was the homecoming I received the same as the Vietnam veterans, but it is that quiet understanding amongst us that to suffer and see war changes you into someone else, that there is a slow coming back process that each veteran must take. Some get there sooner than others and some never find their way back to the person they were before war.

AW: You mention reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises while in Iraq. I’d love to hear more about your reading (and listening!) life during your military service–boot camp, wartime–because it seems that this kind of inner world is so linked to a person’s state of mind at difficult or transformational moments. (Did you listen to the Grateful Dead in Iraq, for example, or did that just bring back too many memories of your dad?)

BK: When I was deployed I listen all sorts of music. On days when I needed to unburden my soul a bit, I would turn on the Grateful Dead and listen to Jerry’s guitar in “Stella Blue” crying out to me, allowing me to feel the emotions that I needed in order to get through another day. Other days, I would stare at a blank page in my notebook unable to write a single line. Halfway through my deployment, I stopped reading and writing all together. I stopped listening to the Grateful Dead and listened more to heavy metal like Cradle of Filth and Dark Funeral. Some of soldiers around me listened to Slipknot. Sometimes I went days without anything but the sound of mortar rounds exploding and helicopters flying overhead, soldiers laughing and arguing in the smoke area, and sometimes, I just listened to the wrench I was holding while I laid underneath a truck ratcheting a bolt down. The sounds of war and of home coagulate if you let them, so I made it a point to never let the two intermingle for too long because I become either homesick or pissed off that I was still stuck in Iraq.

AW: Metal! Were you a fan before you went to Iraq, or did you start listening to it there?

BK: I listened to Pantera and Slayer, and I think I even listened Iron Maiden, but I really didn’t listen to it too much before. I was a punk rock kid growing up so I listened more to the Ramones, Rancid, Anti-flag, and Bouncing Souls, that sort of stuff. It wasn’t until the guys in the PSD team put on Slipknot and Cradle of Filth that I began to listen to more mainstream metal. And even then, it was only because one day I was smoking a cigarette and I began to really pay attention to the lyrics and was honestly blown away by how poetic Corey Taylor’s lyrics were, and it sort of resonated within my soul how I was feeling at the time and gave me some sort of tragically fucked-up sense of peace to know someone else had a dissonance within themselves they were wrestling with, in a way listening to it made it few as though there weren’t two different women inside of me trying to tear my body in half so that they could both be free. I felt that the war for me was a constant struggle between who I wanted to be as a human being and the person I had to be in order to survive, and for me, music sort of helped calm the tearing apart of my soul.

AW: Well, I think that’s a really powerful explanation of what music does best.

Is there anything you left out of the book that you wish, in retrospect, that you’d included?

BK: I think every writer wishes they had put something in the book that they forgot, but for me, I struggled with whether or not to include more about my late ex-husband. He passed away right after I signed my contract and though he was happy that the book was getting published, I wish I had incorporated more about our marriage, more about how he was the one to save me in Iraq from not only the war, but from myself. He truly was a wonderful man and I wish I had incorporated more of that in there. The next book, however, does pick up where this one left off, so maybe there is time to redeem myself.

AW: I was very sorry to hear of your loss. For what it’s worth, I think the book paints him in a positive light–as a mostly helpful, concerned person for whom life was not particularly easy.

What were the hardest and most effortless parts of the book to write?

You always want to say that the easiest parts of the book are the ones where you talk about your family, but for me, the easiest part to write in the book were the wartime sections. Because I had gone through so much therapy and introspective at myself and war, it became very easy to write it down. To me, the hardest part was writing about my family. I really didn’t want to write about my upbringing. It wasn’t something I wanted to put in the book simply because I couldn’t dedicate enough space to the matter that it needed, and so I ended up summarizing those parts and it really pained me to do that in  particular because I knew I would be leaving huge sections of my life out that needed to be discussed fully. I also feel bad about it because I shed some of my family members in a very negative light, much to their dismay, and I have gotten flack for it by them, but in my defense, I did tell them that the next book was going to discuss more of family and less of war. It also was extremely hard to dissect my marriage that at the time I was writing the book was in steady decline. How was I supposed to write about falling in love with my husband when I knew he was somewhere else with another woman? But I found another reason as to why to tell that love story; my twin boys, who the book is dedicated to. I wanted them to know who their father was when I met him and even more so now that he has passed, so I wrote everything down as though we were still in love and tried to remember those memories instead.

AW: In the Sierra Nevada MFA program, you were able to work with writers who were not just talented at their craft but are also combat veterans. What did this mean for you in developing confidence as a writer? Do you think your MFA experience would have been different if it had not included other veteran-writers?

BK: Being in the SNC MFA wasn’t just about being surrounded by combat veteran writers, it was about being surrounded by talented writers. I found that I was more so inspired to tell my story from the non-veteran writers than I was the faculty that were veterans. Of course, it helped that I had other vets cheering me on in my journey as a writer, but writers like Patricia Smith reading “Siblings.” Gah! It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it now. Colum McCann. Rick Moody. Writers, truly amazing writers inspire and light a fire underneath your ass, and I think the director bringing those writers is what really helped me become the writer I am.

AW: I love hearing that. I had a similar feeling when I went into my MFA program, too–that I was finally joining a creative culture that I felt I’d been seeing from the outside for a long time. And we can all use a creative fire lit under our asses, I suspect. What projects are you working on next?

I have started writing my new book, nonfiction of course. It really does pick up where “War Flower” left off, and traces the roots of my childhood while raising my children, the ups and downs of my marriage to James, my struggle with PTSD, and the death of James which damn near almost broke me. To say that this second book is going to be a hard one to write is an understatement, but I think will be almost like an emotional enema, and will really be interesting for readers who are struggling with PTSD, or the loss of a veteran to suicide, or even being a parent struggling to raise your kids. What made “War Flower” so unique was that I was a woman with combat PTSD, but having PTSD while trying to raise kids is a whole other beast that I really didn’t tackle full on in “War Flower” so the next book is really going to explore transgenerational trauma and female veteran related issues that surround combat PTSD.

AW: Can’t wait to read it. Thanks so much for talking with me, an sharing your work with Wrath-Bearing Tree.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a friend named Ted. Ted is a fellow veteran, and classmate of mine from the Air Force Academy who may be forgiven his obsession with Moby Dick. We were pushing our kids across the ice of Westchester Lagoon, a large pond here in Anchorage that the municipality grooms for ice skating, exhaling thoughts on books and writing into the winter air. Phil Klay’s Redeployment had recently been released to critical acclaim, and our talk turned to authenticity in war literature. There was something about this war—this forever war—that we agreed was allowing for a wider interpretation of war. A public affairs officer, and not an infantry type, had written a well-received story collection that felt like it might end up as thebook of our wars. It seemed to signal a paradigm shift.

Jon Chopan’s Veterans Crisis Hotline (2018, University of Massachusetts Press) reinforces the idea that war literature is no longer the sole dominion of those who’ve participated directly in combat. A winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) 2017 Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the collection joins a growing canon of quality writing about war by authors who lack the first-hand combat experience traditionally associated with war literature.

As the title indicates, Veterans Crisis Hotline focuses on contextualizing war from the individual level. More specifically: how the Forever War affected those who voluntarily participated in it. This connective tissue links each story. With the exception of the first short story, which shares (roughly) the book’s title, each story that follows begins with a title page that includes a partially redacted name, location, tour dates, and call duration that frames the stories as having originated from a call to a veterans crisis hotline. It’s a somewhat effective artifice that allows Chopan to present narratives told, without exception, from a first-person point of view that establishes immediacy and narrative authenticity. I only say “somewhat” because the title story is the sole piece in the collection that relies on a fictional narrative built on interactions between a crisis hotline caller and operator. The crisis hotline itself does not appear in the remainder of the stories, which results tension between the collection’s physical narrative structures. I wasn’t looking for a collection built off transcribed fictional dialogue, but the greatest harmony between structure and narrative in the collection exists within the pages of the first story, titled “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1.” It’s a haunting piece in which the narrator, a veteran named Byrne, works at a crisis hotline center, where he fields calls from not just veterans on the brink.

“[O]ld widowers. Some were lonely bachelors who were looking for dating advice. Others were fine, except they needed an audience to tell a war story to, someone who’d yet to hear it. Reliving it gave them a sort of pleasure, or maybe catharsis. One man who was in his nineties called me every week. Each time he called he asked for me by name, caught me  up on the news from his neighborhood, “current events” he called it. Mostly it was gossip about the young soccer mom next door, the cheating husband. He talked about them so much that I felt like they had become characters in my own life. He was a veteran of the Second World War, but he never talked to me about that.”

Byrne goes on to establish a friendship with an amputee named Eddie who shares a bus with him, and the relationship progresses to an intense level of intimacy that Byrne cannot replicate with his girlfriend, a nurse at the local VA hospital. In one scene, Byrne finds Eddie in his apartment, sick for days and burning with fever. Before Eddie can go to the hospital, he asks Byrne to help him take a bath.

“Later, they would diagnose him with pneumonia, He would recover, of course. He was young and strong and had a great desire to live. I’d learned that much in my time with him. But there, in his dimly lit bathroom, as I scrubbed him and rinsed him clean, as I put shampoo in his hair and gently poured water over his head, he wept and I said nothing knowing, finally, that this was the only comfort he would ever ask of me.”

It’s a gorgeous literary moment that illustrates the bond that can exist between men who’ve shared war, and a stirring rejection of the unique brand of toxic masculinity the military tends to breed. This isn’t to say Chopan shies away from the ugly side of veteran homecomings. There’s the vigilante justice executed in “Men of Principle,” the wanton self-destruction of “Battle Buddy,” and the veteran suicide of “On Leave.” But Jon Chopan goes to great length to ensure Veterans Crisis Hotlinepeels back stereotype in his quest to understand the complex nature of military service.

The book suffers from a couple of little inconsistencies that rang hollow: the mention of a recently closed paper mill in Anchorage for example, when I’ve been unable to find record of a paper mill at any time (I live in Anchorage). But these are mere chips in the facade, and have nothing to do with Jon Chopan’s ability as a civilian to effectively convey the post-9/11 veteran experience. No, the trouble with Veterans Crisis Hotline is the company it keeps. As a short story collection that relies on first-person narration, it belongs on a shelf next to Phil Klay’s Redeployment. Sitting next to a National Book Award Winner, well that’s just tough.

The most audacious of Chopan’s stories, however, does not feature a veteran come home, but the son of a soldier whose father goes missing for some time before being declared dead. Child narrators, even the teenage boy of the story “The Cumulative Effect,” are tricky. Writers must walk a fine line between over-privileging their narrator with sophisticated language that strains authenticity, and infantilization. Nothing about the story’s narrator rang hollow, however, and at all levels, the story is a beautiful heartbreaker.

I’ve long argued that it’s time to replace Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courageas an example of good war literature produced by a civilian. The last time I read through, I found it a hackneyed appropriation of veteran material manipulated to further an individual viewpoint. I firmly believe it doesn’t survive the modern era’s standards for writing outside one’s experience. And frankly, there’s no time like the present—in which a fraction of the American society fights on behalf the rest—for a non-veteran to step into the arena. Jon Chopan has achieved this feat with Veterans Crisis Hotline. With great care, he has written outside what he knows, and in doing so proven willing to grapple with societal norms and uncomfortable issues. Viewed this way, Veterans Crisis Hotline is a welcome addition to my shelves of war literature, neighbors be damned.

We came home

And had nothing to do and nowhere to go and too much freedom and money and space and women and cars and booze.

No more mission

Like a marathon runner collapsed at the end of a race and across the finish line and not really sure how to stop running or what to do next.

We missed each other

These other humans didn’t get it and had never been in that place where it was not fun but we had fun anyway because we had the love of combat brothers

We were bored

Because no matter what, nothing we would do in a week back home was even close to being the team with unlimited government funding using state of the art weapon technology

And none of us yearn for combat

But we do wish we could go back to a time where our actions mattered and our friends were nearby and we all had a great goddamn adventure ahead of us.

And now we know

That “in our youth our hearts were touched with fire” and that everything that comes next will probably suck in comparison because life needs us to be paying cable bills and walking dogs

And it’s hard

To find meaning in things of little consequence when we learned so early on that the world is big and scary and violent and can be filled with acts of valor and sacrifice and hate and love.

So our only option

Is to live such a great and full life of found meaning in meaningless tasks as to make the sacrifices of those who didn’t come home and don’t get to walk the dog all worth it.

So we try

To draw as much life out of life and to execute a new mission of a great and purposeful existence

Because not all of us can

Because some didn’t make it back.

Tracer

There is one round among many
Painted with that iridescent color of night time illumination
Designed to mark the path
Of bullets flight in jet black fear fueled midnight battles

Zips towards the enemy
A laser of lead and anger

Ricochet path betrayed by a bright glow

The rule is

That for every one you see

There are many more you don’t

Just like the veterans suffering back home years later
We can see one every so often
Glowing in pain

Tracing the path of alcohol fueled rage and family splits and no jobs and hard times fitting in

But we all know
For the one we see
There are lots more

Descent

On the escalator at the airport

I saw a young man headed down as I was moving up

He wore that same familiar ripstop nylon rucksack that I knew all too well

It had patches from his units and friends and adventures

It had the same contents as mine

He carried in it lots of sadness for the friends he had lost

And guilt that he had made it back

And fear for what to do next

And memories of things he should not have done

And dreams of little girls dying

And lessons about leadership

And instincts to make his bed

And tears from current day family strife

And resumes to find new jobs

And drinks for when times get hard

And pills from the doctors

But it wasn’t his rucksack that made me know he was a combat veteran

It was the knowing dead look in his eyes that gazed right past me and through me at the same time in that one brief moment where our missions intersected.

It was in the news. On a bright summer day in Helmand Province, Lance Corporal Wickie did his duty and killed an insurgent. A suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into the berm of Outpost Shir Ghazay. Wickie returned fire, then applied a tourniquet to someone’s wounded leg. He earned a Combat Action Ribbon, a Commendation Medal, and a Valor Device. He was promoted to Corporal, then Sergeant, and he reenlisted.

Before we deployed, Wickie told me he was getting out as soon as possible, that his contract couldn’t expire fast enough. He would eat the apple, and fuck the Corps.

I first met Wickie at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I was a Private First Class with a single chevron on my shoulder. I had orders to report to an office inside a warehouse, and the Corporals told Wickie to show me around. Wickie was small, with a round head and big brown eyes, like someone’s kid brother. He brought me to a wall locker covered in dents and bootprints. He opened the door and pulled out a plastic cowboy hat. “Check out this bad boy,” he said. He dusted it off affectionately and rapped it with his knuckles. “OSHA approved.”

Outside, Wickie led me to the far corner of the lot, where rusty forklifts were parked in a row. He began to tell me about his dad. “Yeah, he was Secret Service for a while, before he got contracted for Blackwater. You know, spec ops. Assassin shit.” He pulled out a camouflage wallet and opened it with a rip. He handed me a black business card with a longhorn skull in the center. It said, Robert P. Wickie, Blackwater Operative, with a phone and fax number.

“There’s no address,” I said. “And why is there a fax number?” The card felt like printer paper.

“Obviously, ain’t no address,” he said, and took the card from me. He stuffed it into his wallet. “Works where he wants, when he wants, my old man.”

“How much does he make, doing that?” I said.

He took a while to answer, like he was making something up. Then he told me twenty thousand a week. “Bull crap,” I said.

Wickie sucked his finger and felt the wind. The sun was setting. “’Bout that time,” he said. We walked to the formation for dismissal, and Wickie realized he’d left his blouse out back. He was wearing a green t-shirt with a toothpaste stain shaped like a lollipop. The Corporals made him stand in his own formation for a while, facing a brick wall.

I’d been in Afghanistan three months, on an outpost called Shukvani. The base was situated in a depression surrounded by hilltops. The day Wickie arrived, he threw rocks at the windshield of the forklift I was driving and shattered it in three places. The Sergeant Major sent him away, to Outpost Shir Ghazay.

In the early months, I photographed things. I had a mattress in a metal bunk frame, a luxury, and I took a picture of it. The previous occupants had left us a mini fridge, a black loveseat filled with knife punctures, and a small TV. I took a picture of the sun setting behind an abutment, helicopters landing at night. A frozen steak grilling on wire mesh over burnt wood scraps. I uploaded the images to my Facebook profile.

One night, a short burst of gunfire woke me up. The noise echoed around the base, then stopped. Everything was quiet. I climbed out of bed and pulled on my flak jacket and helmet. The radio crackled with chatter. “Everyone to the berm, now,” said the voice of the Sergeant Major.

Outside, dust blew in the breeze. The ground was pale blue with moonlight. We sprinted across the packed gravel of the helicopter pads. I imagined I might shoot and kill someone tonight, then I stopped imagining. I racked my bolt while I ran, chambering a round. I reached the berm and lay against the baked earth. I caught my breath. Nearby, I heard a radio. Someone spoke.

They told us that a small convoy operated by the Afghan National Army, our allies, had parked just outside the base. They were on their way to another part of the desert and needed to pass through. They had no radios, so they fired their AK-47s into the air to get our attention. We were not in danger.

I walked alone across the crushed stone, back to the tent. I lay awake on my mattress, and felt nauseated from unspent adrenaline. I listened to mice as they ran around the tent, invisible, chewing holes in things and attacking one another over food scraps. Their tiny screams. I awoke when the sun shone through a rip in the canvas by my eye. The next day, I went to the computer tent and logged into Facebook. I checked my album titled Afghan 2013 for likes. People had commented on my pictures of our small television, the mattress, the single steak. Someone wrote, “Wow, really roughing it over there.” I deleted each of the pictures, then the album entirely.

A month passed before the big explosion happened. It felt nearby and sudden. It was like a punch of breeze, a gentle concussion. Across the desert, at this moment, Wickie was becoming a hero.

When the deployment came to an end, we kicked the sand from our boots and flew home in cargo planes. They searched every other bag for rocks and vials of moon dust. “Leave the country how you found it,” they told us.

Back at Camp Lejeune, I found Wickie sitting in a pickup truck outside the warehouse. He’d used his deployment cash to buy a black Chevy with four rear tires. We got talking about Shir Ghazay. “No one believes me, man.” He reached up and slammed the truck door.

I’d read the official report on the Division website, and I’d heard from others who were there. Private Cody talked about how Wickie just shucked a bunch of rounds from his magazine so that later, it would look like he’d returned fire. Rucker said he saw Wickie crouching beneath a truck, covering his ears during the firefight. Wickie stood in front of me and twisted his toe in the dirt. He told me that, last week, he’d been eating a sandwich at Chick-Fil-A when someone dropped a tray of dishes. He ducked beneath the table and barricaded himself with chairs. People laughed at him, he said.

I’d been out of the Marines for six months. I grew my hair long and wore flannel shirts. I was in college studying literature, and I’d recently signed up for a course in war poetry. On my way to classes, I walked past the campus veteran’s lounge. It was an oversized closet with a computer desk and a silver mini-fridge with Capri Suns for the veterans to drink. The students inside laughed often. I never went inside. I didn’t feel like one of them. Most of them wore combat boots with blue jeans, t-shirts from the infantry units they’d been in. Their hoodies were smattered with graphics of skulls smoking cigarettes. Aces of spades, fanged dogs. They probably had good stories, and I couldn’t think of any of my own.

In the poetry classroom, students took turns reading stanzas from Brian Turner’s “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center.” The poem was about a veteran walking through aisles and seeing weaponry in household items. The students sat in a circle, reading aloud. They were careful to pause when appropriate, to read with continuity from one line to the next. In the poem, a box tips over, and nails trickle out like shell casings from a machine gun. Paint spills and expands like a puddle of blood.

A student with a combover read a stanza about dead soldiers lying on the conveyor belt at the cash register. I listened to the description of the body. A year ago, I had been standing in a medical tent watching an Afghan civilian dying. He had fainted from blood loss. He was naked, with a catheter inserted. His toes were all crossed over themselves, and he had gashes that peeled and showed the muscle beneath. I watched the Navy Corpsmen bustle around, wearing tied-on paper scrubs over their cammies. At the far end of the tent, a little girl lay on a plywood table. She would soon have her legs removed. She would live. On the wall were x-rays of her femurs and pelvis. I saw the faint gray silhouette of her flesh on the outside, cracked white bone on the inside. She had stepped on a doormat bomb the day before. The man in the bed would die after amputation. The next day, I would drive a forklift and carry a cardboard box containing his legs, and those of the little girl, to the pit where they would be burned. I’d drop them off, and I’d smell them burning as I drove away.

In the poem, none of the shoppers see what the narrator sees. I set my photocopied page on the table because my hand was shaking. I looked around the room and was conscious of my heart beating in my ears. The students kept reading and reading. I grabbed my bag and left the classroom before it was my turn.

I walked down the hallway, touching the wall at intervals. It was cool beneath my fingertips. Billboard flyers fluttered as I walked past them, promoting frisbee tournaments and drag concerts. In the bathroom, I dry heaved. I flushed the toilet with my foot and waited in the hallway for the hour to end.

My next class was American Education. I arrived early. There were two veterans in this class, and they always came in together. The guy was bald and in his late thirties. He wore cargo pants and brown shoes. The girl wore a pink sweater that looked like shag. They didn’t fit in with anyone but each other. They seemed to like it that way.

Today, we were giving presentations about our Personal Community. The guy went first, and he talked about the Army. He had a deep, loud voice. He shook a little, being at the front of the classroom. He spoke in short bursts, like a Sergeant addressing a group of young soldiers. He had to project confidence, because of his rank. He clicked through a slideshow of himself in various states of undress, posing with weaponry outside plywood buildings. The class clapped for him when he finished talking about the camaraderie he knew in Iraq.

The class was mostly queer and transgender students studying music education. The next person to speak was Skye with the green and black hair, the pierced lower lip. She spoke about her friend who leapt to his death from a parking garage. Another friend had opened the passenger door of Skye’s car and rolled onto the freeway while she was driving. The people who understand Skye’s post-traumatic stress, she said, are her Personal Community. Someone turned on the lights, and the classroom erupted with applause.

I stood next. I kept mine generic—my family, my friends. There was no camouflage in my slideshow pictures. I clicked through the photos as I talked. A camping trip. My uncle’s ’78 Nova. I imagined it wouldn’t take much to make them think I was someone, a person of valor. I’d just have to show the right pictures, ones with sand and smoke in them. I could tell them the story of how Wickie became a hero. I could talk about the sound and the blood, and the way it felt afterwards. I could be anybody. I could be Wickie. It wouldn’t have mattered what I told them, really. They would still applaud for me. They might even call me a hero.

I walked down the hall after class and passed the lounge. Someone had just told a joke, and there was an explosion of laughter. I thought about leaning in and knocking on the door. I thought about stepping over the threshold, pulling up a chair. Maybe they’d tell the joke again. Maybe I could hear it, too.

A bare bulb in a hooded fixture illuminated the sign. Fog obscured the wooden placard, and as Joseph neared it, the black lettering seemed to recede into the white plywood. It read:

WEST CALLAHAN CREEK
POPULATION 1,187
EST. 1866
CITY LIMITS
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Prosecuted for what? Joseph Hunter walked his bicycle along the highway shoulder; the rear axle ticked off his progress like a metronome, tires crunched on the gravel. He paused and stared across the embankment at the billboard, and then chuckled.

The ashen fog had intensified since Joseph battled the shadows earlier that afternoon, enshrouding him more thoroughly than the day before, clouding his concentration and fuzzing his perceptions. The attack came as suddenly as an ambush. He’d developed an instinct for anticipating the murkiness, but it had descended upon him with viciousness soon after he crested the tallest of the hills on Highway 22, which paralleled the Loup River. He had pedaled off the road and kicked down the bike’s stand, then squatted and caught his breath. Under an overcast and featureless sky, he rolled onto his back and locked his hands behind his head. Then the choking shadows, their edges indistinct, (they lacked clarity, which he assumed meant he lacked it as well), assaulted in full force. His chest constricted and the panic rippled; the sensation felt like his organs were being drawn through seams in his skin. Deliberate breathing, measured and slow. Fingertips pressed firmly against the temples in circular rotation, eyelids lowered while his thoughts focused upon past recoveries.

No one had agreed with his decision to undertake this journey, not parents, therapist, or friends. To a person they fretted about the solitude, about his coping mechanisms, about tendencies they dared not name. His therapist warned about the risks of self-diagnosis, the danger of assuming Joseph knew what was best for Joseph. It’s the brain telling the brain how to fix the brain, she’d said. It’s unreliable.

He opened his eyes and glanced around, assessing the location for possible campsites. He made out a barely visible fence line beyond the sign, rows of barbed wire on wooden posts, and continued rolling his bicycle slowly, keeping to the edge of the highway in the limited visibility, fearful that in the fog a vehicle would encounter him with no time to react, to swerve and avoid striking him. He’d witnessed IEDs heave men and metal skyward in sooty, sandy-brown plumes, and believed the mockery of a collision on an American roadside might prove more than he could process. In the distance he spied spires of evenly-spaced lights vanishing up into the fog, each encircled by a woolly halo. Silos, he realized, like so many he’d encountered in towns across the prairie. They sharpened in definition as he neared the gated entrance to the co-op. Farther down the road he saw a dome of diffused light.

As he approached, its structure materialized: a Gas’n’Go with two pumps and a manual car wash bay. A widow sign advertised cold beer.

A hundred yards or so beyond the store, Joseph crossed a bridge with a low, steel railing, peered down at the slow-moving water, and imagined it must be the creek that offered the town its name. On the other side of the bridge, the gravel edge gave way to asphalt. The entrance to a parking lot; a single pinkish bulb cast an aura on the space. Joseph read the redwood sign with mustard-colored, inset lettering: West Callahan Creek Park. Below the lamp, a path led away from the empty parking lot; Joseph wheeled his bicycle and the small trailer in which he towed his camping supplies past the circle of light, along that dark path, navigating more by intuition than sight. He stopped, retrieved a flashlight from a pouch on the trailer, and switched it on. The fog refracted the beam into a ball of hazy illumination, affording little visibility of his surroundings, but he did discern a curtain of drooping tree branches a short distance from the path. Willows. They favored stream and creek banks, he knew; he switched off the flashlight and steered his bicycle toward them.

Joseph managed to pitch the tent in the foggy twilight (the mechanics had become rote during the two weeks of his trip), and when he’d spread the foam camping mat and unrolled his bag, he lay quietly on his back and listened to the environmental sounds: a sluggish hint of water, feathery wisps of the willow branches chafing when a breeze rippled, and (undulating along the creek like a current), the metallic clatter of a hog feeder. He dined on dried fruit, a handful of mixed nuts, two strips of beef jerky, and a packet of cookies, checked his cell phone for messages, surprised when he saw three bars in the upper corner (it seemed West Callahan Creek had a cell tower nearby), and then lifted the tent flap to go out and relieve himself. It was an evening routine he followed with rare deviation. (One afternoon when the western sky portended thunderstorms, he stayed in a no-name motel, lavishly soaking in a hot tub in the dark bathroom as the thunder bouldered, lightning illuminated the room, and the rain strafed the windows). He lay on his sleeping bag, reading of a North Vietnamese soldier who had survived that war on his Kindle for an hour before stripping to his underwear, rolling to his side and closing his eyes, wondering what dreams he might encounter, and how much of them he would recall in the morning.

—

Hello, someone called. Wake up in there.

Joseph stirred and rose to a sitting position as he realized someone stood outside the tent.

Hey. Open up.

Joseph said he was awake and slid into his jeans, then unzipped the tent and crawled out into bright sunlight. The fog had disappeared and as he stood, he glanced quickly at the topography of the park: flat ground, the willows trees he had discerned the previous evening lining the bank of the narrow creek.

This isn’t a camping area.

Joseph shaded his eyes with his hand and looked at the sheriff’s deputy who had retreated a step or two from the tent entrance.

Sorry. Last night in the fog, I couldn’t make out much and I needed somewhere to sleep.

Well, it’s a violation. I’m going to have to take you into town. Judge will probably fine you. Let’s go.

The sheriff removed handcuffs from his equipment belt and gestured for Joseph to turn around.

Are you serious? He couldn’t read the man’s eyes behind his sunglasses, to determine if his tactic was to scare Joseph into quickly moving on, not lingering in the town.

Dead serious. Turn around.

Joseph stepped toward the man, who gripped his wrist and sefficiently around. The sheriff affixed restraints to his wrist, gripped his elbow and guided him toward the path.

What about my stuff?

We’ll collect it for you.

During the short drive, while the deputy radioed in that he had a prisoner in custody, Joseph tamped down anger and worried about a rise of the shadows. The patrol car, with emergency lights flashing and siren keening, circled a three-story, red brick courthouse, situated in a town square ringed by storefronts. The deputy completed a loop of the building before steering the car to the rear of the structure. He parked beside a set of concrete steps leading to an iron door.

He opened the rear door and rested a hand on Joseph’s head, as he had when he placed him in the back seat at the park. Up the steps, he indicated. His tone, calm, without inflection.

The heavy door opened onto a small holding area with a polished wooden floor; another deputy behind a half wall, the upper section caged with chain link fencing, except for a small slotted opening on the countertop.

Vagrancy. The arresting deputy nodded to his counterpart, who smirked as he reached under the counter. A loud buzz sounded and he steered Joseph through another door, into a windowless, high-ceilinged corridor; creamy globes Joseph associated with school rooms hung from the ceiling.

Is this really necessary? Joseph loathed the plaintive quality of his own voice, as though he’d galvanized the words with solicitousness.

You can ask the judge.

At the end of the corridor, the deputy turned a polished brass handle and ushered Joseph across the threshold, into a courtroom filled with people, who rose almost in unison and began applauding. He turned his head to the right, where a woman wearing black robes rose from her chair behind the elevated judge’s bench, and with a wooden gavel in her hand, motioned for the deputy to bring Joseph to the area directly before the bench. She extended her arms and patted the air a few times, urging the people in the gallery to sit and grow quiet.

What is your name? Her voice startled Joseph, her tone officious but her smile playful.

Joseph Hunter.

The deputy gripped his wrists and unlocked the handcuffs. Joseph swiveled his head and studied the people in the wooden rows behind him. Everyone smiling, a few nodding and waving to him. His imagination flashed visions of horror movies through his mind, of human sacrifice cults and inbred cannibal creatures, and then he turned back to the judge, asking what the hell was going on.

You’ve been found guilty of violating our municipal code, Joseph Hunter. Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?

Twittering and laughter from the crowd.

What is happening here? Are you kidding me? He rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had bound him.

I’m quite serious. The judge leaned across the bench and aimed the gavel at Joseph. You do have a choice how you serve your sentence. Three days in jail. She paused and her eyes glinted as she surveyed the rows of people behind Joseph. Or you can serve as the honorary mayor of our town for this weekend’s sesquicentennial celebration.

The entire gallery erupted once again in applause as the deputy clapped Joseph on his back, leaned in and whispered an apology for the cuffs.

Personally, the judge said, I recommend you accept our offer as mayor.

Joseph stood dumbfounded as people streamed out of the wooden seats, entered the area beyond the counsel tables, and crowded around him in front of the judge’s bench.

He wanted to ask again if the judge was serious, but within the new context of the celebrity she had asked to confer on him.

Quite a bait and switch, he said to the deputy, who stood with his arms behind his back in a parade-rest position. The man, his eyes unmasked now, squinted as a smile enveloped his face.

We like a little theater, he replied.

A balding man gripped Joseph’s hand, pumping it as he introduced himself as the office holder Joseph would supplant for the two-day celebration of the town’s one-hundred-fiftieth celebration.

Ben Hampton. Happy to relinquish my duties and responsibilities, young man. Welcome to West Callahan Creek.

The judge banged her gavel several times, calling for quiet. The prisoner hasn’t chosen his sentence yet. What do you say, Joseph Hunter?

Joseph wagged his head, glanced around at the folks in the courtroom, and then looked up at the judge. That’s Mayor Joseph Hunter, your honor.

More laughter and applause, as Ben Hampton led Joseph out of the courtroom, trailed by townspeople. Let’s get you settled at the hotel. It’s really more of a bed and breakfast. Only four rooms, but they’re clean and comfy. You’ll like it there.

How did you choose me? Joseph followed Ben Hampton outside the courthouse, down a wide set of stone stairs, and onto the green expanse of the tree-lined lawn.

We left it up to the sheriff. The town did the same for its centennial and it seemed like a fine gesture for this anniversary. You kind of surprised us, though. We thought he’d nab a speeder where the limit falls from fifty-five down to twenty-five. The twenty-five-mile-an-hour sign might be blocked by a low-hanging tree limb. He chuckled. But finding you was good fortune. I hope all the festivities won’t inconvenience you unduly.

They arrived at a stone walkway in front of a two-story Victorian, crowned by a cupola with a pheasant weather vane, bedecked with gingerbread trim, trellises along the wrap-around porch laced with blooming vines; two women Joseph assumed were mother and daughter stood on the porch, smiling as he and Ben Hampton climbed the steps.

Good morning, mayor, the older woman said, looking directly at Joseph. Her gravelly voice reminded Joseph of the sound of his tires on the roadway edge in the fog. Your room is ready and I’ve laid out your things. She wore a wrap-around denim skirt and a pale blue cotton blouse.

Joseph paused until he felt a hand on the small of his back. He glanced sideways at Ben Hampton, who arched his eyebrows, nodded.

The younger woman, light brown hair pulled back in a long braid, wore black shorts and a sleeveless blouse, flesh-colored, pale against her tanned arms. She held open the screened door and Joseph entered the house. In the foyer stood a round oak table, covered in a lace cloth, upon which rested a vase of black-eyed-susans. To his right he saw a sitting room, with several upholstered wingback chairs, a red brick fireplace, and a settee with carved wood legs. To the left a dining room with a long table that he surmised cold easily sit twelve people.

I’m Sally Hutchins and this is my daughter Peggy.

He noted resemblances between the two women: blue-gray eyes, brown hair (worn longer by Peggy than her mother, and with straw-colored highlights), the square shape of the hands.

Here’s your room key. It’s up the stairs, last one on the left, with a view of the gardens out back. Why don’t you take some time to freshen up and I’ll come get you around noon for lunch?

Joseph thanked her, mounted the staircase, and turned left along a corridor papered with a pattern of alternating rose and lavender stripes. The door to his room hung open and as he entered he saw his clothing laid out on the canopied bed. In the adjacent bathroom, his sparse toiletries had been arranged on the black granite vanity. The floor was covered with white, octagonal tiles, the walls with white subway tiles; he twisted the taps of the claw foot tub and tugged the pull-chain handle of the old-fashioned commode; the water tank elevated above the bowl whooshed, and Joseph chuckled. He wondered how he could have achieved a greater contrast between the claustrophobic fog of the previous evening and the expansiveness of the morning’s surprising revelations.

As he had the night of the thunderstorm, Joseph drew a hot bath and lay with a wet washcloth over his eyes, recalling what have given him the impetus to begin this trip: sessions with the therapist, isolating himself in his parent’s house, watching marathon reruns of Law & Order and its spinoffs, eventually switching off the television because he needed no reminders of how horrible people could be to one another. Deciding to act according to his nature as a fighter, to learn to cope with the shadows without assistance, but not pushing himself to exhaustion. Going the distance, but not at a sprint. Trimming away life’s excess to reveal a core, essential truth about himself.

The darkness imposed by the washcloth reminded him of the previous day’s fog, how at twilight it had enshrouded him in a gray chrysalis. Something his father had expressed as Joseph left: hopefulness that his quest would be successful. He may not have fully understood his son’s need for this journey, but he identified with it as a mission. He had served in Vietnam. His father’s father had served in the second world war. Joseph associated singular smells with each man: cigarette smoke with his grandfather, Lava soap with his father. As a child, Joseph watched TV shows with his father about war: Combat, Twelve O’clock High, Hogan’s Heroes. When he asked why there no shows about Vietnam, his father said they didn’t make TV shows about wars that were lost.

As he dried himself with the plush bath towel, Joseph wondered: if he had a son, what smell would the boy associate with him?

Through the window overlooking the back yard, he watched Peggy clipping herbs from a raised-bed garden. Her braid slipped over her shoulder and she flipped it back; as she moved down the row of plants, it continued to slide over her shoulder and she continued to flip it away from her work. Retaking the same ground again and again, he observed.

—

When he sat at the dining room table with Sally and Peggy Hutchins and saw the size of the grilled pork chop on his plate (an inch-and-a-half thick, stuffed with a sage dressing), he nearly chuckled. After the meal, Ben Hamilton arrived with a garment bag: khaki slacks, white Oxford shirt, red tie, and Navy blue blazer. We guessed your size, he said. Weren’t sure if you were traveling with dress-up clothes. Why don’t you change and then I’ll take you on a tour of the town? Introduce you to some of the people who’ll be attending the dinner tonight at the lodge.

Joseph nodded, slinging the garment bag over his arm and retreating to his room. He had urged Sally and Peggy Hutchins to talk about themselves during lunch. People enjoyed that, he knew, and regardless of whether they blared like a horn or whispered secrets, it kept them from asking questions of him.

The clothes fit: not tight but also not loose enough to make him appear clownish. When he descended the stairs to the foyer, Ben Hamilton offered a thumbs-up. Sally Hutchins brushed an imaginary fleck of lint from his shoulder and bestowed a proprietary smile.

The two of them walked back toward the town square, which Joseph noticed had been transformed: patriotic bunting draped from building fronts, lamp posts, and second-story windows; a grandstand in front of the courthouse; and a banner stretched across the street proclaiming the celebration of the town’s founding in 1866. He and Ben Hamilton greeted folks who extended their hands, welcoming and congratulating Joseph. Most of the people on the street fit a curious demographic, old people and teens; there was hardly anyone Joseph’s age and he imagined them fleeing the town for more exciting settings as soon as they reached the age of mobility.

They circled the town square. The barber, pointing a finger at the hair falling onto Joseph’s collar, offered a free trim, which Joseph declined. At a florist shop, a woman pinned a red carnation in the buttonhole of the blazer lapel. Hand-crafted caramel was presented at a candy store. Every stop brought excessive yet heartfelt generosity and hospitality. He developed a soreness in his neck from the frequent nodding and tension in his jaw from the repeated grinning. But his anxiety of meeting new and unfamiliar people remained submerged as Ben Hamilton introduced person after person, names that floated away like windblown pollen, faces that morphed into a single countenance of genial salutation.

Fear of the shadows often menaced more frighteningly than the shadows themselves; he’d described the fear to the therapist as a light gray hint of the ebony darkness. Being enveloped by them was the least amniotic feeling he could imagine. When he told her he was unsure how to live, she counseled that PTSD was not a weakness.

Acknowledge it. Understand what it is, she’d said, and you’ll learn to control and handle it.

But it had not been in his nature to wait, so he embarked on the trip, and in a paradoxical twist, conceded that patience was one of the trip’s most constructive lessons.

Many of the people they encountered expressed hope that Joseph was not too inconvenienced by his honorary incarceration, to which he responded that all he was losing was time. Thoughts of loss had consumed him when he returned from the army, but one stood out above the others: loss of feeling that his childhood home was home. The absence of people his age in the town and his urge to leave home reminded him of an old song lyric: How you gonna keep’em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree.

For Joseph it was the shadows; for the town’s youth it was the escape of the gritty sameness of their lives. Had any of them chosen the army, he wondered? And would they come to regret their decisions? The therapist told him regret was punishment levied by an internal authority. Self-imposed penance, she said. Forgiveness doesn’t always come at a cost.

As they approached the bed and breakfast, Ben Hamilton laid out the schedule for the celebrations: a dinner that night at the lodge, a parade the following day (during which Joseph would serve as the Marshall), and then a cookout at the park and fireworks.

Sally and Peggy will drive you to the lodge tonight. I’ll see you then, he said, and then walked away, a man with purpose in his stride.

Instead of mounting the steps to the porch, Joseph followed a flagstone path around the house to the garden in which he’d seen Peggy Hutchins clipping herbs. In a gazebo at the rear of the yard, he removed his blazer, reclined on a padded chaise, and closed his eyes, birdsong in the trees surrounding the yard serenading him. He had encountered so many birds on the trip and lamented not having brought a field guide to help identify them. One vestige of life in the army: the ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime, under nearly any conditions.

—

The lodge hall struck Joseph as a haphazard fusion of a high school cafeteria and a roadhouse bar. It was cluttered with folding tables and chairs. Large, metal-framed windows overlooked  the gravel parking lot on one side, and on the other a corn field. Framed photos hung on the wall of stiff men in dark suits, aligned in stiffer rows in front of the building. Guided to a raised dais, Joseph passed folks he’d met that afternoon, who greeted him with the intimacy of an old friend. The closeness of the space and the volume of people (more than a hundred, he estimated), sparked worry that the shadows would harass him. He envisioned them reaching out from the walls to harass him; a fear of reacting to them in the environment that engendered them often doubled the anxiety. A nagging feature of fear: it rarely emerged in a pragmatic location. Of course, what sort of location would that be, Joseph mused.

Remarks followed dinner. Ben Hamilton. The judge who had sentenced him and other town officials, but the keynote address was delivered by Selma Fenstrom, introduced as the town’s unofficial historian, a retired teacher and part-time librarian.

Joseph Patrick Callahan, veteran of the civil war, served in the 18^th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, fought in several notable battles: Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Petersburg, where he sustained a bullet wound to his lower left leg, and as a result, he walked with a slight limp for the remainder of his life. Achieved the rank of sergeant. Returned to his home in Bristol after the war, but soon embarked west, by train to Omaha, and then, burdened with the tools and trappings of a farmer in the bed of a buckboard, followed the Platte River, turning north where it was joined by the Loup River and diverting then again along a then-unnamed creek. He paused one night to camp and, according to his journal, (the prized possession of the West Callahan Creek Library collection), determined he’d put enough distance between himself and Massachusetts to forget his home and memories of the war.

Joseph Callahan quickly learned he possessed no aptitude for farming and after two disappointing seasons turned instead to shop keeping, establishing and managing a general store for neighboring farmers and ranchers. The town of West Callahan Creek grew around the store, (Selma Fenstrom noted that the official date of incorporation differed from the date of Callahan’s arrival on this stretch of prairie, as detailed in his journal; they preferred the latter for purposes of marking anniversaries).

She spoke of Callahan’s service as the town’s first mayor, a thirteen-year tenure, his reluctance to observe the tenth anniversary of the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, his contrary attitude toward the neighboring Pawnee, Ponca, and Arapaho, (contrary to that of other settlers, Callahan advocated peaceful relations), and how he riled many townspeople by banning the wearing of firearms within the town boundaries. But he was overall a popular, if at times moody, citizen and public servant. Selma Fenstrom continued with her biography of Callahan, but Joseph latched onto the single word: moody. Was there within his journal a more detailed account of the cause of his moodiness? Sipping from his water, Joseph scanned the crowded room: Many of the attendees nodded at her recollections about the town’s growth, its sons who had served in both world wars, Korea, and Vietnam. No mention of any active duty service members or casualties from Afghanistan or Iraq, and Joseph hoped the town’s youth had wised up to the nationalistic rhetoric of army recruiters.

One hundred and fifty years on this prairie we call home, Sarah Fenstrom said, born of a wanderlust by a man from Massachusetts who answered the call of his country to preserve the union.

Joseph side-glanced at her as she neared her conclusion. A birdlike woman, with closely-cropped graying hair, wire-rimmed round glasses that reminded him of photos of John Lennon. Her voice belied her slight frame. Strong and confident. The commanding projection of a teacher accustomed to corralling fidgeting children.

In his final journal entries, Callahan reflected on his life, and logged his life’s greatest regret: he never married, never fathered any daughters or sons, remained disheartened within his pride that the town bearing his name would never be home to any descendants. But, Selma Fenstrom concluded, we are all the children of our founding father, Joseph Patrick Callahan.

The crowd applauded as she shuffled her pages and nodded once, then twice, and waved a hand at the audience, returning to her seat on the end of the dais opposite from Joseph. Ben Hamilton rose to the microphone, as Joseph stared at Selma Fenstrom, determined to speak with her at the conclusion of the dinner. Reminding everyone that during the town’s centennial, an honorary mayor had been drafted to oversee the celebrations, Ben Hamilton indicated Joseph with an extended arm, his palm up, gesturing for him to stand. Joseph complied, facing the room, grinning, bobbing his head, glancing at Selma Fenstrom, whom he discovered had been studying him in profile, squinting through her eyeglasses, smiling in a manner that made him feel she recognized in him something he didn’t wish to reveal.

Mayor Joseph Hunter, would you care to say a few words?

Ben Hamilton’s request startled Joseph, and he glared at the man for a moment as applause rippled through the room and people stood, chanting Speech! Speech!

Ben Hamilton beckoned him with a wave of his arm and stepped from the microphone.

Refusing was an untenable position, so Joseph stood, walked to the tabletop lectern, gripping it with both hands, and surveyed the crowded room as a tightening in his sternum warned that the shadows lurked patiently on the periphery of the room, awaiting the most inopportune moment to cloak him in debilitating fear and anxiety. But they remained at a distance, and he wondered if the good nature and the good will of the assembled people kept them at bay.

Thank you all, he said, hopeful his amplified voice repelled the shadows, even if temporarily. It’s an honor to be your honor.

Laughter coursed through the room. Joseph wondered if cheerfulness and good spirits could also inhibit his shadows.

I’ve been given every hospitality. I’m very grateful and looking forward to tomorrow’s festivities. Thank you all. He waved an arm above his head in a sweeping arc and stepped back from the lectern, nodding and smiling like a campaigning politician, and then returned to his seat. He glanced quickly at Selma Fenstrom; she stared at him with a close-lipped grin and nodded at him as she sluggishly blinked.

As Ben Hamilton announced an official end to the evening, Joseph side-stepped behind those seated on the dais until he stood beside Selma Fenstrom’s chair.

I’d like to hear more about Joseph Callahan, he said. If you have some time.

The woman’s eyes softened as she rose from her chair. Why don’t I meet you at Sally’s and we can talk there?

Joseph nodded. Thank you.

—

Selma Fenstrom’s late husband, a Marine veteran of the Korean War, exhibited symptoms of PTSD, although the condition then was called combat exhaustion or fatigue. His spells, she called them, never turned violent, but her research into the life of the town’s founder uncovered what she called common singularities.

It’s a contradiction in terms, I know, but too many quirks in their character aligned like fence posts.

Callahan’s journal alternated between brief and lengthy discourses. The short entries recorded mundane, day-to-day goings-on, notes about the weather (an unremitting concern in an agricultural community). But the longer entries revealed the man.

Bared his soul, she said. It was tortured at times by recollections of the war. He wasn’t alone in that out here on the prairie. Many veterans from both sides went west after the war. Seeking what they couldn’t find any more at home.

Callahan wrote that he knew when to stop his travels because it was in his nature to recognize it.

As I suppose you’ll know as well. It’ll be in your nature to know. Selma Fenstrom sat on the settee in the sitting room, cradling a glass of bourbon in both hands. Sally Hutchins had escorted them to the room, returned with the bottle and glasses, and then withdrawn as though she and Selma Fenstrom had choreographed the scene.

You mentioned he had a reputation for being moody. Joseph traced the rim of his glass with the tip of a forefinger.

Those were other people’s observations. Nothing too erratic. He mentioned trying to control his spells. That’s what he called them. He described how his conscience haunted him, like a specter, often at night, and at other, inopportune times.

Joseph chuckled at the mention of inconvenient timing.

Like yours, right? Selma Fenstrom lifted the bourbon to her lips and gazed at Joseph over the rim of the glass.

Sconces on either side of the fireplace and a floor lamp behind the settee illuminated the room in a golden glow, casting shadows in a variety of geometric forms against the walls, papered in a pattern of tiny roses among giant peony blooms. No good time for them, Joseph said. Did Callahan mention how he coped with his spells?

No. Only that they occurred. But he wrote about how coming west affected them. Founding this town gave him a new flag under which to fight. That’s a direct quote. An allusion to his war experiences, I’m sure.

A new flag. I like that, Joseph said.

A flag that represented him, not a nation at war. That’s what I want to believe. And that Joseph Patrick Callahan founded this town as a form of occupational therapy, long before the benefits of such an approach were even anticipated. He never called his spells demons. He understood what haunted him. Not a single incident but the cumulative experiences of his wartime years. We’re a curious lot, you know, people. We strive to isolate a problem’s cause, then fix it.

One fell swoop.

Exactly. Ridding the body of a parasite, but without destroying the host.

I’ve been questioning whether that’s possible.

Oh, my boy. It’s possible. Callahan wrote that toward the end of his life he felt like a husk, but he didn’t have the resources available to you today. Ironically, he was surrounded by men who shared similar experiences; talking to them might have helped quell the spells. Selma Fenstrom laughed at her own rhyming phrase. He could have held a group therapy session in his general store. Wouldn’t that have been a sight to set tongues wagging!

It would have done them a world of good.

I think that’s exactly what Callahan sought. A world of good. Not of war. Not of destruction and death. Juts a world of good. And he tried to establish that here. His writings reveal his wishes in that regard.

He sounds like an interesting man.

He was. Like many public figures, we’ve mythologized him, sanded down his rough spots to fashion a presentable figure. But I’ve glimpsed into his soul, as trite as that sounds. He possessed the breadth of a prairie sky and the depth and of the deepest well. A fascinating man.

Do you think he ever achieved his redemption?

Fascinating question. In all his writing, I’ve never seen him use that term. Unlike a lot of the people at the time, he was not religious. But I suppose redemption was wrapped up in what he sought. What about you, Joseph Hunter. Do you seek redemption?

Not by that name. Maybe reconciliation.

Selma Fenstrom nodded, braced herself on the arm of the settee and rose. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. She extended her arm and Joseph gripped her warm hand in his own. Trust your nature to help you recognize when it’s your time to stop. She clasped Joseph’s hand in hers as he walked her through the foyer to the door.

—

Seated in the grandstand in front of the court house, Joseph (wearing a blue sash with the word MARSHALL emblazoned in gold satin letters) applauded bands, floats bedecked in crepe-paper flowers and tugged by tractors, a convoy of fire trucks from neighboring towns, a procession of antique automobiles restored to pristine condition, and a bearded man in the uniform of a Union sergeant, riding a black horse and waving a sword at the crowds lining the streets that enclosed the square. Trailing the Callahan figure in a ragged picket line, half a dozen other men in Union garb paused every few yards and fired off a volley from their antique rifles. Joseph winced at the first report, but with repetition grew more confident the gunfire would not trigger the shadows.

He recalled his conversation with Selma Fenstrom, realizing his predisposition to try and glean wisdom from her familiarity with Callahan. Tracing the name of his spells through the histories of war: shell shock, battle fatigue, stress response syndrome, PTSD. Even Job, the embodiment of patience, was said to have suffered mental disturbances from battle. Every person around him bore a smile and he imagined that later circumstances in their lives might enforce grimaces or expressions of sadness; nothing was permanent. But then, the grimaces and expressions of sadness held to impermanence as well. He remembered moments when he and his brothers rested, post-action, guzzling water, leaning their backs against walls, removing their helmets and shading their eyes beneath blinding, cloudless skies, and then regarded one another as similar smiles and then laughter erupted to rinse the amassed tension from the clustered squad members. The parade. Could it be his victory parade? The conquest of fear. The taming of the shadows.

At the cook-out in the park, Joseph wandered among the crowd, asking questions, listening to the answers, and revealing some of his story to those who asked about his life. Person after person thanked him for his service, to which he nodded and told them they were welcome. His father early in young Joseph’s life had emphasized the importance of how to receive a compliment. It’s a gift to the giver to acknowledge their thanks, he’d said. Tell them they’re welcome and look them in the eye.

The fireworks that night drew a collective oohing and aahing approval of the gathered onlookers, and although Joseph flinched at the first noisy bursts, he soon relaxed on a grassy spot in the park, watching the display with what he could only define as a lightness in his heart, a sensation he wondered if Callahan had ever experienced in this town that bore his name. The deafening finale brought him and those around him to their feet in explosive clapping, and as the quiet night replaced the booming echoes, Joseph joined Sally and Peggy Hutchins for the ride back to the bed and breakfast.

As they wished him good night and walked toward their rooms at the rear of the house, Joseph felt an urge to ask them to linger, to engage them in conversation, could envision night stretching into dawn, as it had sometimes in Iraq, as man after man talked, the subjects varied and unimportant, camaraderie being the unspoken objective.

In the morning, Joseph descended the stairs for breakfast, with Ben Hamilton, Sally and Peggy Hutchins. He had hoped to say good bye to Selma Fenstrom, but reasoned such a farewell might seem anticlimactic. She’d provided Joseph all the assistance she had to offer the night before. At the conclusion of the light meal, the mother and daughter flanked him as they descended the steps to his bicycle and trailer. At the curb beside the sheriff’s squad car, the conjoined vehicles rested, cleaned and polished, the blue frame glinting in the morning sunlight.

As befits mayoral transport, the sheriff said, emerging from his car. I’m going to escort you to the town line.

Joseph grinned, gripping the hand of Ben Hamilton, looking him in the eye as the man thanked him for being such a good sport, accepted hugs from both Sally and Peggy Hutchins, and then mounted his bicycle and followed the sheriff’s car, its emergency lights flashing, as it crept back toward the town square, where several people paused and waved at Joseph, wishing him good fortune and a safe journey. No one had gathered to see him off or welcome him back from Iraq. A few blocks from the square, the sheriff steered to the shoulder and turned off his lights. Joseph pulled astride the driver’s window.

I know you’re not a marine, the sheriff said, but Semper Fi.

Joseph eyed him and the sheriff chuckled.

First gulf war.

Thanks, Joseph said. For everything.

Our pleasure. Stay safe.

Watching the car complete a gravel-spitting U-turn and speed back toward town, the sheriff blasting the siren briefly as he waved his farewell, Joseph recalled Selma Fenstrom’s confidence that his nature would allow him to recognize his destination, if not his destiny, that he would receive a signal that he finally knew himself. Shadows, he considered, might darken and diminish his vision, but they need not blind him.

Night Flash

You’ve been having nightmares again.
The cruel shaking of a body
resisting slumber.
Hands twitching,
chest jerking to beats
of unknown song,
playing over and over
like memories you sold at a tag sale,
buried on the Tuscarora trail,
dumped in a white room
at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

I awake to the moon beaming
unto a lonely bed,
find you out back where dreams
smear on a blurry canvas of recollection,
and ghosts rise from wooded corners of truth.

I climb under the poncho liner
that covered you through
countless peaks of ice
and frost, Persian sandstorms,
fighting holes where you used
the cloth to shield you from walls
of claylike dirt.
The June breeze dries the sweat
around your lips.  I lift a rifle
from your chest, place it beyond
the reach of ready palms.
A single leaf rests
on your cheek.
Cicadas cry for their lost
as I hush your silence with a kiss.

The Homecoming

It rained for a week
after our mailman’s son
died in a roadside bomb
attack near Al Karmah.
The sky wept
as half-mast flags
blew gently
on the prairie’s haze.
Signs of well wishes
bowed in store windows,
bellowed from alters of diverse
domes of prayer,
rested in alms of flowers
and fried dough.
A Corps led procession,
thick with mourners,
crowded the lot
of the pearly
mountain church.
Bagpipes sang
for a Lance Corporal
draped in dress blues,
mother betrayed
by dark dismissals
of nightly pleas,
father wilting
to soft hymns
for his broken boy.
The lone sibling
stared at the casket,
wondered why he survived
the trashings of war
while his brother
lay in a box,
waiting for rifles
to speak his praise,
a dark tomb to welcome
another lost Marine.

Seal of God

Foxholes and submarines led you to farm life
where you graze the vast splendor of still land.
Crickets speak to the quiet hush of night
as an elusive sky captures secrets,
spits sins in large chunks of hail,
disrupting the tranquil flight of time.

Faith’s armor shoves you in church
where peace is offered between pews
and sounds of crossfire muffle
the graceful hum of atonement.

You sneak home through cornfields;
stalks reek with bruised dents
of blistering flesh.
Wounded frogs leap past
thick tridents of reticent thought,
darkness dismantled by the crippled promise
of a swelling cherry dawn.

The euphonies of children
replace cancors of slivered screams
as the wind blows you
toward our kitchen, where we break bread
with an Amish farmer
and wait for God to heal us.

You Leave for Afghanistan

If I’m writing this, it means I can’t sleep and that
the rain outside my window drops blindly in the dark.

The crops need it, the cashier told me earlier, ringing
me up for a pint of milk, making small talk, making change.

And now the tipped carton has marred the pages
on my too-small desk. I’m trying not to make too much of it—

this mess, the disasters my life and pages gather.
I’m trying to be kinder to myself, more forgiving.

Outside, a leopard moth lands on the screen, shudders
to dry its wings. One touch from my finger would strip

the powdered coating that allows it to fly in rain.
I wish it might have been so easy to keep you

from boarding the plane that took you to war.
In the predawn, my neighbors still asleep, I am the only one

to hear the garbage truck grind to a stop,
its brakes the sound of an animal braying.

The rain has stopped, too. I look over the smudged papers
on my desk. Nothing important has been lost.

When you come home safely to me in six months,
we will be able to say, nothing important has been lost.

You Send Very Little News

You don’t know all the time I’m killin’.
I watch it pass ‘til nothing’s left . . .
I let my memory carry on.
—Buffalo Clover, “15 Reasons”

I try to imagine where you live now, try to read
beyond what operational security allows.

You say it’s dirty there and hot. There’s sand
everywhere. You have a French press for coffee.

Here, I keep things green for you—lie in the fresh grass
with the dog until we no longer smell like walls,

make entire meals out of honey and peaches. I choose
fields in Connecticut that remind me of the farm,

stare up at the now goatless clouds, imagine that the distant
bird I see is the shape of the plane that will bring you home.

They Lie Who Don’t Admit Despair

I’m trying not to think about you,
but when this combine rocks and rolls,
it shakes my mind and shakes my body,
the way your leaving shook my soul.
—Chris Knight, “Here Comes the Rain”

I’ve had some dark moments
while you’ve been gone.
Mostly I’ve been okay, having
made up my bullheaded mind
to just get through it.
But last night you said
that in a few weeks you will
ask me to stop sending mail,
because you are that close
to coming home. And I felt
a lightness I haven’t known
since meeting you.
From that first day,
this absence weighed on us.
When you return, we will
be together for the first time
without the threat
of imminent departure.

I imagine you this morning
with warm flatbread, steaming coffee.
I imagine you smiling.
I’m smiling, too, listening
to the house creak.
Imagining you here.

You Call from the Airport to Say You Are Home

When we began, our hummingbird bodies
did a thousand anxious pirouettes midair,
dazzled and unfazed by the sour nectar
we had to drink at end of season.

You are back now, and we will do it
all again, but with sweetness.
All the beauty of bodies in love.
How generous is war
to give us two beginnings.

At the Harbor Lights Motel After You Return

The fish aren’t biting on Key Largo
the morning we spend together
after you return. You nap all day,
sheets spiraled like a carapace
around your torso and legs.

Next to you in bed, I touch your head,
stroke the hair you’ve grown long,
and ask what it was like over there.
But you pull the blankets higher
and turn away to face the wall.

Hours later, I call to you from the doorway
to show you a snapper on my line. You dress,
find me on the dock where we drink beer
as the sun slumps behind the palms.

You sleep through the night, and in the morning,
before you leave for a dive on a coral reef,
you tell me that turtles sleep like humans do—
you’ve seen them at night tucked into the nooks
of wrecks, heads withdrawn into shells;
you’ve seen their eyes blink open in the beam
of your dive light; you’ve even seen one wake
and swim away when a fish fin came too close.
They have nerve endings there, you tell me.
They can feel when something touches their shell.

When you return from the reef, I ask you
again how it was over there, and this time
you begin to tell me what you can.

The Persistence of Measurement

There’ll be a thousand miles between us
when I pass the border guard.
Is that thunder in the distance,
or just the breaking of my heart?
—Chris Knight, “Here Comes the Rain”

The morning he leaves me, my lover buries
a lamb—a runt who’d only lived a few days—
on a hill of the Tennessee farm where we met.

Does he think, as he digs the grave,
as he presses his face to the cold wool
to say goodbye, of the last time he caressed
my hair or pressed his body against mine?
Or are his thoughts already in Memphis, with her?

I wouldn’t know. I was not given the dignity
of a burial, just an email sent after he’d been drinking,
blaming me for asking too many questions, asking
too much of him, for failing to give him space.

In Connecticut, winter refuses to relent.
It is still the season of waiting.
I look out the window of the room
where I waited faithfully for half a year,
where I wrote him daily.
The sky is cruel: clouds still take the shape
of farm animals, and birds become the plane
that never brought him home to me.

Part of me will always be waiting
for the return of the man I met in summer,
before the deployment changed him.
But that man is thousands of miles away.
He will always be thousands of miles away.

STORM

The wolves are restless this morning. Pacing the woods, huffing and murmuring. It’s not that they’re hungry; Rin fed them each four squirrels. No, it’s a clenching in the sky like a gathering fist. The wet heat pushing in on her temples.

Juney feels it, too, her head swaying, fingers splayed. She is sitting on the wooden floor of their kitchen, face raised, rocking and rocking in that way she has. Hair pale as a midday moon, eyes wide and white-blue.

“It smells sticky outside, Mommy. It smells wrong,” she says in her clear, direct voice, no hint of a whine. Soldiers don’t whine. And Juney is the daughter of soldiers.

“Nothing’s wrong, little bean. Maybe we’ll get a summer storm, that’s all. Come, eat.”

Juney is nine years old, the age of curiosity and delight before self-doubt clouds the soul. Fine hair in a braid to her waist. Bright face, wide at the temples, tapering to a nip of a chin. Delicate limbs, skinny but strong.

She lifts herself off the floor and wafts over to the kitchen table, a polished wooden plank the size of a door, where she feels for her usual chair and settles into it with the grace of a drifting leaf. Starting up one of her hums, she dips her spoon into the granola Rin made for her—sesame seeds, raisins, oats, and nuts, every grain chemical-free.

“More milk, please.”

Sometimes, when Rin is not hauling feed, chopping wood, weeding, or fixing some corner of their raggedy old farmhouse, she stands and watches Juney with wonder, her miracle daughter, and this is what she does after pouring the milk; she leans against the kitchen counter, still for a moment, just to absorb her. Juney moves like a sea anemone, fingers undulating. She can feel light and sun, shadow and night, and all the myriad shades between.

“I want to go weed,” she says when her bowl is empty, sitting back to stretch, her spindly arms straight above her, twiggy fingers waving. The scrim of clouds parts for a moment, just enough to allow a slice of sun to filter through the windows, sending dust motes spinning and sparking into the corners of the kitchen. She rocks on her chair inside a sunbeam, hair aglow, fingers caressing the air. She can hear their cats, Purr, Patch, and Hiccup, stretching out on the floor. Smell their fur heating up, their fishy breath slowing into sleep.

“Me, too,” Rin says. “Let’s go.”

Juney was born in the upstairs bedroom, amid Rin’s outraged yells and the grunts of a stoic midwife; she knows her way around their ramshackle house and land as well as she knows her own body. Rin only helps by keeping unexpected objects out of the way, as even the dogs and cats have learned to do. No tables with sharp corners; no stray chairs, bones, mouse corpses, or drinking bowls. The house itself might be a mishmash of added rooms and patchwork repairs, windows that won’t open and trapdoors that will, but everything inside has its place.

Out in the backyard, Juney stops to sniff the thickening heat—the clouds have closed over again, gunmetal gray and weightier than ever. “Itchy air,” she declares, and makes her way to the vegetable garden. Ducking under the mesh Rin erected to keep out plundering deer and rabbits, she squats at the first row of tomatoes. Weeding is Juney’s specialty. Her fingers climb nimbly up the vines, plucking off the brittle spheres of snails, the squishy specks of aphids. Her palms caress the earth, seeking the prick of dandelion leaves and thistles, the stubs of grapevine and pokeweed, and out they come, no mercy for them.

Her father loved planting. Jordan Drummond was his name, Jay to all who loved him. Jay, flaxen-haired like Juney, face white as a Swede’s, eyes set wide and seaglass blue. Tall and rangy, with enormous feet, and so agile he might have been made of rubber. He, too, was born and bred on this property, back in the time when it was a real farm. Helped his parents raise cows and corn all his life, until the farm failed and drove him into the army. When his platoon razed the date groves around Basra, acres of waving palm trees, their fronds a deep and ancient green, their fruit glistening with syrups—when they ploughed those magnificent trees into the desert just because they could, he wept as if for the death of a friend.

Now Rin arranges her days around forgetting, pushes through a list of tasks tough enough to occupy her mind as well as her muscles. Juney comes first, of course, but her wolves take concentration, as do her chickens and goats and vegetables. She has staked out her ground here with all her companions. If anyone wants to find her, they have to negotiate half a mile of potholed unpaved driveway, barbed wire, electric wire, a gate, and her four dogs, who are not kind to strangers. Not to mention her army-trained marksmanship.

Juney feels her way around the spinach and carrots, pulling and plucking. “Mommy, what are we doing today?”

“Going to town. The clinic. Not till we finish the chores, though. Come on, let’s feed the critters.”

“Which clinic?”

“Yours.”

She hesitates. “Have I got time to do the birds first?”

Juney’s favorite job is tending the bird feeder. Rin wanted to throw it out after that mama bear knocked it off its squirrelproof stand, plunked herself on the ground and dumped the seeds down her throat like a drunk—Rin watched the whole thing from the kitchen window, describing the bear’s every move to Juney. But the feeder means too much to Juney to relinquish. She judges how empty it is by feeling its weight in her palms, plants it between her feet to hold it firm, fills it to the brim from the seed sack, and deftly hangs it back up. Then she sits beneath it, head lifted while she listens and listens. “Shh,” she says this morning. “There’s a nest of baby catbirds over there.” A faint rustle, the quietest of hingelike squeaks. “Three of them. They want their breakfast.”

Leaving her to sit and listen, Rin kicks the sleepy cats outside to make their way through the day and eases her car out of the barn. The barn sits to the side of her house, on the edge of a flat field that used to hold corn. Beyond that, a hardscrabble patch of rocks and thistles meanders up a hill to scrubby hay fields and a view of the Catskill Mountains to the south. Otherwise, aside from her yard, the ancient apple orchard in the back, and the vegetable patch, she is surrounded by woods as far as the eye can roam.

Ten acres of those woods she penned off for her three wolves, leaving them plenty of room to lurk. Wolves need to lurk. They are normally napping at this time of morning, but the seething heat has them agitated and grumbling. Rin can sense their long-legged bodies moving in and out of the shadows, scarcely more solid than shadows themselves. Even her absurdly hyperactive mutts are feeling the unwholesome weight of the day, but instead of expressing it with restiveness like their cousins, they drop where they stand, panting heavily into sleep.

The entire compound is preternaturally still. The yard, the woods, the porch cluttered with gnarled geraniums and fraying furniture; the rickety red barn with its animal pens clinging to its side for dear life; the piles of lumber and rusting machinery—all are as somnolent as the snore of a summer bee.

Rin looks at her watch. “Time!”

Juney straightens up from under the bird feeder, wipes her earthy hands on her jeans, and walks toward her mother along the little path planted with lilac bushes, a path she memorized as an infant. She puts her head on Rin’s chest, reaching the exact level of her heart.

She smells her mother’s fear even before she hears it in her voice. The sweat breaking out slimy and oyster-cold.

Juney was conceived in the back of a two-ton, Camp Scania, Iraq, under a moon as bright and hard as a cop’s flashlight. A grapple of gasp and desire, uniforms half off, bra up around Rin’s neck, boots and camo pants flung over the spare tire. Jay’s mouth on her nipples, running down her slick, sandflea-bitten belly, down to the wet openness of her, the salt and the sand of her, the wanting of her, his tongue making her moan, his fingers opening her, his voice and hers breathing now and now and now.

Wartime love in a covered truck, that desert moon spotlighting down. His chest gleaming silver in its glare, eyes glittering, the scent of him sharp and needing her, the voice of him a low growl of yes like her wolves.

But even through the slickness, even through the wanting and wanting, she felt the desert grinding deep into her blood. Toxic moondust and the soot of corpses.

As Rin drives her rackety maroon station wagon along the rural roads that take her to town and the clinic, Juney hums again beside her, rocking in her seat, her warbly tune following some private daydream. The windows are open because the AC refuses to work and the sweat is rolling down Rin’s arms, soaking the back of her old gray T-shirt, the waistband of her bagged-out work pants. She glances down at herself. She is covered with dirt from the yard. Probably has burrs in her hair. Once she was slim with just enough curve and wiggle to make Jay smile. Long hair thick as a paintbrush till she cut it for war. These days, squared-out by childbirth and comfort food, she looks and moves more like a lumberjack. Still, she should have had the decency to shower.

Juney is mouthing words now, rocking harder than ever to her inner rhythm. Rin should teach her not to do that—it makes people think she’s retarded—but she doesn’t have the heart. Juney rocks when she’s happy

“Tweetle tweetle sang the bird,” she croons in some sort of a hillbilly tune.

“Twootle twootle sang the cat.

You can’t get me, sang the bird.

I don’t want to, sang the cat.

Tweetle and twootle, tweetle and—”

“Juney?” Rin is not exactly irritated but needs her to quit. “You’re going to be okay at the clinic, right? No screaming like last time?”

Juney stops singing long enough to snort. “I was a baby then. And they stuck me with that long needle.” She takes up her song once more, then stops again. “Are they going to stick me this time?”

“Soldiers don’t mind needles. It’s just a little prick, like you get every day in the yard from thistles.”

“Yeah. Who cares about needles?”

“It’s just an annual checkup to see how much you’ve grown. Nothing to worry about. They’ll probably tell you to eat more, skin-and-bones you.”

“That’s ’cause you won’t let me have candy. I’m going to tell the doctor to order you to give me candy.”

This is an old battle, Rin’s strictness about food. She is strict about a lot of matters. No TV, no cell phones. No radio, either, not even in the car. Yet there are limits to how much even she can cushion her daughter. Thanks to the law, she is obliged to send her to school, and there, as if by osmosis, Juney has absorbed the need for the detritus that fills American lives. Despite all Rin’s efforts, Juney has caught the disease of Want.

Rin wonders if Juney’s daddy would approve of how she’s raising her: Jay, the only man she’s ever wanted, ever will want. Jay, gone for as long as Juney has been alive. And look what he left behind. A broken soldier. A fatherless daughter. The wolves who patrol the woods like souls freed from the dead, their thick-furred bodies bold and wild—the ones who won’t be tamed, won’t be polluted, won’t be used.

It was Jay’s idea to raise wolves. His plan was to do it together once they were done soldiering—he had always wanted to save them from extinction, the cruelty of zoos and those who wish to crush them into submission. “They need us, Rin,” he said to her once, his big hand resting tenderly on her cheek. “And we need them.” So when she found herself alone and pregnant, she decided to carry out the plan anyway. She tracked down a shady breeder over by Oneonta and rescued two newborn pups, blue-eyed and snub-nosed, blind, deaf and helpless, their fur as soft as goose down, before he could sell them to some tattooed sadist who would chain them up in his yard. One was female, the other male, so she hoped they would breed one day. As they did. “Never try to break wolves,” Jay told her. “They’ve got loyalty. They might even love you, who knows? But we must never tame them. They’re wild animals and that’s how it should stay.”

Her guardian angels. Or devils. She hasn’t decided which.

“We’re here!” Juney sings out. She knows the town of Huntsville even when it’s midmorning quiet and raining: the asphalt steaming, the wet-dust funk of newly soaked concrete.

Rin drives down the main drag, a wide, lonely street with half its windows boarded up and not a soul to be seen. A Subway on the left, a Dunkin’ Donuts on the right, its sign missing so many letters it reads, duk do. The CVS and three banks that knocked out all the local diners and dime stores. A Styrofoam cup skitters along the gutter, chipped and muddied by rain.

Pulling up the hill into an asphalt parking lot, Rin chooses a spot as far away from the other cars as she can get, her stomach balling into a leathery knot. She hates this town. She hates this clinic. She hates doctors and nurses. She hates people.

Pause, swallow, command the knot to release. It won’t. She sweeps her eyes over the macadam, down the hill to the clinic, over to the creek bubbling along behind it. Back and forth, back and forth.

“Mommy, we’re in America.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” One breath, two. “Okay. I’m ready.”

If Rin could walk with her wolves flanking her, she would. Instead, she imagines them here. Ebony takes the front guard, his coat the black of boot polish, eyes green as a summer pond, the ivory curve of his fangs bared. Silver brings up the rear, her fur as white as morning frost, her wasp-yellow eyes scanning for the enemy, a warning growl in her throat. And the big stately one—the alpha male, the one Rin named Gray, his body a streak of muscle, his coat marked in sweeps of black and charcoal—walks beside her with Juney’s fingers nestled into the thick fur of his back, his jaw open and slavering, ready to tear off the head of anyone who so much as looks at her.

With her invisible wolves around her and her daughter gripping her hand, Rin plows through the now-strafing rain to the clapboard box of a clinic and up to its plate-glass front, on which, painted in jaunty gold lettering, are the words Captain Thomas C. Brittall Federal Health Care Center’s Pediatrics/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Department of Vaporized Adolescents,” she mutters, pushing open the cold glass door and its cold metal handle. They step inside.

***

Naema Jassim is standing in the white starkness of that same clinic, suspended in one of the few moments of tranquillity she will be granted all day. Her hands, long-fingered and painfully dry from constant washing, press down on the windowsill as she gazes into the hot wetness beyond. The sky has turned an uneasy green, tight with electricity and tension. Even from inside her clinic office, the air smells of singed hair and rust.

“Doctor?” Wendy Fitch, the nurse, pokes her head into the room. “Your nine a.m.’s here. We have four more before we close. TV says the hurricane’s due around two.”

“Yes, the rain, it has already come.” Naema turns from the window, so slight she is almost lost inside her voluminous white coat, her black hair gathered in a loose knot at her neck. Face long and narrow, eyes the gold of a cat’s. A star-shaped scar splashes across her otherwise smooth right cheek.

Behind her, a sudden wind catches the weeping willow outside, sending its branches into a paroxysm of lashing and groaning. But the tightly closed windows and turbine roar of the clinic’s air-conditioning, set chillingly low to counteract the bacteria of the sick, render the premature storm as silent as dust.

Naema slides her clipboard under her arm and moves to the door.

Outside, the trees bend double and spring back up like whips. The clouds convulse. A new deluge drives into the ground, sharp as javelins.

A mile uphill, the wind seizes a tall white pine, shaking it until its ninety-year-old trunk, riddled with blister rust, splits diagonally across with a shriek. It drops onto the Huntsville Dam, already thin, already old, knocking out chunks of concrete along its crest until it resembles a row of chipped teeth.

***

Rin grips Juney’s hand while they sit in the waiting room, her palms sweating as she scans every inch of the place: walls too white, lights too bright, posters too cheerful, a television screen as big as a door blasting a cooking show. But she refuses to look at the other women. Their calculating eyes. Their judgments. Their treachery.

The monologue starts up in her head, as it always insists on doing at the VA, even though she is only in an affiliated pediatrics clinic, not a full-fledged hospital full of mangled soldiers and melted faces. She fights it as best she can, trying to focus on Juney, on her wolves growling in their hot fur by her feet, but it marches on anyhow, oblivious to her resistance: Where were you ladies when I needed you, huh? I saw you fresh from your showers; I saw you listening. Scattered, every one of you, like bedbugs under a lamp. Where were you when, where were you. . . .

“Stop.” Juney pulls Rin’s hand to her chest. “Mommy, stop.”

Rin looks for her wolves. They are crouched around her still, tongues lolling, their musky fur and meat-breath reassuring. She should have brought Betty, her service dog. She keeps telling herself she doesn’t need Betty. But she does.

Juney lifts her nose and Rin can tell she is smelling the medicinal stinks of the clinic. All scents are colors to Juney, an imagined rainbow Rin will never see. The disinfectant in the wall dispensers, sickly sweet and alcohol sharp—this is her yellow. The detergent of the nurses’ uniforms, soapy and stringent, she calls bright orange. The chemical-lemon odor of the floor polish: purple. The pink of freshly mown grass, magenta of oatmeal, green-bright breath of their cats, black of their dogs panting. The glaring white of her mother’s alarm.

Rin sends her mind to her hand, still clasped against Juney’s narrow chest. Juney’s heartbeat reminds Rin of the chipmunk she once held in her palm, soft and weightless, alive and warm—a tiny bundle of pulsating fluff.

Another soldier mother is squeezed into the far corner, holding a feverish infant to her breast. A second sits by the wall with her child, its back in a brace. A third walks in with her toddler daughter, whose right hand is wrapped in a bandage. The beams of the women’s eyes burn across the room, avoiding one another yet crossing like headlights, smoldering with their collective sense of betrayal.

Time inchworms by.

Finally, a hefty nurse with frizzled blond hair steps through the inner door, the name fitch pinned loudly to her bosom. She runs her eyes over Rin and Juney and all the other mothers and children suspended in this stark, white room. “Rin Drummond,” she calls.

Rin cannot speak.

“Mommy?” Juney lifts Rin’s hand off her chipmunk heart and jumps down from her chair. “We’re ready,” she tells the nurse and pulls her mother’s arm. She and Rin follow the nurse’s broad back down the corridor and into an examining room.

“Just strip to your undies, honeypie, and hop up here,” the nurse tells Juney. “Doctor Jassim will be here in a jiffy.”

“Thank you. I know what to do. I’m nine years old and my name is June Drummond.”

“Of course it is,” the nurse says, unruffled.

“Did you say ‘Jassim’?” Rin asks, finding her voice at last. “Who’s he?”

“Doctor Jassim is a woman. She’s been a resident with us for half a year now. She’s very good, don’t worry.”

“Where the fuck is she from?” Rin’s hands curl up tight and white.

“Mrs. Drummond, relax, okay? She’s the best physician we have here. You’re lucky to get her.” The nurse leaves, closing the door with a snap that sounds more as though she is locking them in than giving them privacy.

Juney peels off her T-shirt and shorts and kicks away her flip-flops. Both she and Rin are dressed for the heat of the August day, not for the clinic’s hypothermic AC, so her skin is covered in goose bumps. Rin finds a baby blue hospital robe hanging on the back of the door and wraps Juney’s shivery body in it before lifting her onto the plank of the examining table, its paper crackling beneath her. She is so fragile, her Juney, a wisp of rib cage and shoulder blade, legs pin-thin as a robin’s. Rin holds her tight, not sure who is comforting whom.

***

The wind rampages through woods and parking lots, streets and gardens, seizing sumacs, maples, and willows and shaking them until their boughs drop like shot geese. Up the hill, the rain-bloated creek presses its new weight against the crumbling dam, pushing and pounding until, with a great roar, it bursts through, leaps its banks and rushes headlong down the slope toward the clinic; a foaming wall of red mud, branches, and rocks flattening every shrub and tree in its path.

Inside, the air-conditioning hums. Voices murmur. Babies whimper.

Wendy Fitch hovers by the door of the examining room, checking her watch. Dr. Jassim might be great with her patients but the woman has zero sense of time. Whether this has something to do with her culture or is only an individual quirk, Wendy doesn’t know, but the doctor needs to finish up here and fetch her son from his friend’s house, the boys’ summer baseball camp having sensibly closed against the impending storm. The rain is beating on the windows now and Wendy can feel the patients’ parents growing more restless by the minute, as eager as she is to get back to their canned food and bottled water, their batteries and candles. Her pulse quickens. As a lowly nurse, she has to bear the brunt of the parents’ ire, and these are no ordinary parents, either. They are all military veterans, half of them ramped up or angry. Like that pit bull of a woman, Rin Drummond.

“We better hurry, storm’s coming on quick,” Wendy says when Naema emerges at last from the first examining room. “Watch out for this one,” she adds in a whisper, touching her temple. “Room three.”

Naema nods with a resigned smile and walks toward the door.

***

Rin can’t believe they gave Juney an Arab for a doctor. Typical of the VA to hire the second-rate. The woman probably bought her certificate online, did her training on YouTube. Probably blew up some sucker of a soldier or two on her way here, as well.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?”

Rin takes a breath. And another. “It’s okay. It’s just this place.” She strokes her daughter’s hair and pulls her close once more, feeling her frail body shiver.

A knock on the door. Gentle, yet it sends a spasm through Rin’s every nerve.

The door opens and in walks a woman in a white coat, as if she’s a real doctor. No head scarf, at least, but there’s that familiar olive-brown skin and blue-black hair. She’s carrying a clipboard file, which she reads before even saying hello, which Rin considers damned rude. Then she looks up.

A splattered white scar on her right cheekbone. Most likely a shrapnel wound. Rin would know, having some fifteen herself.

“Good morning,” the doctor says to Juney, voice snake-oil smooth, accent not much more than a lilt but oh so recognizable. “You are June, right?”

But Juney isn’t listening. Her head’s up, cocked at the angle that means her mind is elsewhere. “Mommy?”

Rin is shaking. The face. The scar. Her breath is coming short and airless.

“Mommy?” Juney’s voice is more urgent now. “I hear something.”

“There is no need to be frightened, dear,” the doctor says, and Rin can’t tell whether she’s talking to Juney or her.

“Mommy!” Juney jumps down from the examining table, her robe falling off, leaving her in nothing but white cotton underpants, skin and bone. “Something bad’s happening!”

“Get out of here!” Rin yells at the doctor.

“What is the matter?” The doctor looks confused.

“No, not her!” Juney cries. “Run!” And she hurls herself into the dangerous air, unable to see the metal table covered with glass bottles and needles, the jutting chair legs on the floor.

Rin reaches out and catches her, but she wriggles free in true terror. “Let us out!” she screams, and the doctor turns around, bewildered, saying something Rin can’t hear because at that moment the window bursts open and a torrent of red water crashes through, smashing them against the wall, knocking them over, pounding them with a whorl of mud and branches and shattered glass. . . .

Rin’s soldier training, her war-wolf heart, these are not in her blood for nothing. She struggles to her feet, seizes Juney around the waist and forces the door open, kicking away the flailing doctor tangled in her white coat, her long hair, her scar, and her legacy.

Rin slams her face down in the water and steps on her, using her body to lever her daughter through the door and out of the water to safety.

***

Excerpt from WOLF SEASON. Copyright © 2017 by Helen Benedict. Published by Bellevue Literary Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Helen Benedict is the author of seven novels, five books of nonfiction, and a play. Her most recent novel, WOLF SEASON, is this month’s fiction selection on The Wrath-Bearing Tree.

WOLF SEASON “follows the war home,” as a starred review in Library Journal puts it, examining war’s reverberations on the lives of three women and their families. There is an Iraq war veteran named Rin, who keeps three wolves from a pack she started on her land with her late husband; she is raising a daughter who was born blind, perhaps from lingering effects of Rin’s service. There’s Naema, a widowed Iraqi doctor who has come to the U.S. with her son. And there is Beth, a Marine wife raising a troubled son, who awaits her husband’s return from Afghanistan even as she fears it.

Helen was generous enough to take the time to speak to me about WOLF SEASON, war, writing, the strengths of fiction vs. nonfiction to speak to specific themes, Charlottesville, and more.

The Wrath-Bearing Tree (Andria Williams): Helen, you’ve said that your newest novel, WOLF SEASON, is about “the long reach of war.” Can you tell me a little more about that?

Helen Benedict: The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have affected all of us in America, whether we know it or not. Our morality, our politics, our pocketbooks – all have been profoundly changed. But, of course, the most affected are those who have either served or suffered in those wars, and those who love them. Of the women in WOLF SEASON, Rin is a veteran of the Iraq War, Naema is an Iraqi refugee, and Beth is married to a marine deployed to Afghanistan. All three women are raising their children alone because of the fallout of war. Of the men in the novel, Louis is also a veteran, Todd the marine, and they, too, are profoundly affected by their experiences of war. The characters in WOLF SEASON personify the ways that war has permeated the little town of Huntsville, NY, the people who live there, and, in a sense, us all.

But I don’t want to characterize WOLF SEASON as purely a war book, for it is just as much about tenderness, love, and hope. It is also about the way human beings can rise above through horror and trauma to find and help one another, even when the odds are against them.

WBT: To which character in WOLF SEASON do you hope readers will feel most attached?

HB: I hope that all my characters are compelling in their own ways, but I suspect the answer to this has more to do with who a reader is than anything else. Already, I have heard a full range of reactions to the characters in WOLF SEASON: some readers like the women best, others the children, while yet others especially love the wolves, and some relate most to the men. One of the aspects of writing I love the most is seeing how varied the reactions of readers are, and how everyone brings their own interpretations to a book that can be quite independent from mine.

WBT: Helen, I’ve read that you grew up living all over the world, on islands in the Indian Ocean; in Berkeley, CA; and in England. You’ve said that during your years of island living you did not attend school and were allowed to “run wild,” and I was instantly reminded of Margaret Atwood’s youth, and her wild-and-free summers in remote camp sites with her entomologist father, her mom, and her brother.

Do you think the period of free time you experienced had an effect on your imagination, or somehow helped foster a writerly way of thinking?

HB: Yes! Largely because of these travels, I spent a lot of time alone as a child, so learned to read early and took comfort in books. I was an addicted reader by the age of six or seven, so much so that I’d be heartbroken when a book ended. Then I discovered I could continue the magic by writing myself.

I also learned about poverty and suffering by living on those islands, which were poor and disease-ridden at the time. Even at the age of three, I was profoundly saddened by seeing starving children and people living in shacks. Children understand these things much more deeply than we adults realize.

WBT: With such an international childhood and youth, how did the issues facing women in the American military first come onto your radar? Your nonfiction book, THE LONELY SOLDIER, was the first book I read by an academic discussing female service members; if it was not the first, then at least it was the first one I heard of, with the largest impact and starting the most national discussion. Most academics I know, at least in my experience, rarely think about the military at all. What brought you to this topic, and with such conviction that you’ve continued to address it across at least three books?

HB: I am not really an academic, but a journalist and a novelist who happens to teach. The research I did for THE LONELY SOLDIER, which was indeed the first book to look at women who served in the post-9/11 wars, was essential not only for my journalistic work, but for my related novels, SAND QUEEN and WOLF SEASON. Over a stretch of more than three years, I interviewed some 40 women veterans of the Iraq War, and then later I also interviewed Iraqi refugees. These interviews, along with other research, informed my imagination, allowing me to plunge deep into the interior lives of refugees and soldiers to create my fictional characters; something I would never have dared do had I not spent so long listening to real people.

As for why I came to this topic, I’ll start by saying that all my work, whether fiction or nonfiction, has looked at the powerless and the outsider, and much of it has especially focused on women. When I saw the U.S. invade Iraq for no reason and learned of the destruction and death we caused there as a result; and then also learned about the epidemic of sexual assault in the military and the moral injury that the war was causing to women and men, I had to write about it. I care passionately about justice, and the right of the oppressed to be heard.

As for why I turned from journalism to fiction – from THE LONELY SOLDIER to my novels, SAND QUEEN and WOLF SEASON – that is because I wanted to get to what war does to our interior lives, our hearts, our morals, our souls, our minds. That is the territory of fiction.

WBT: I first read THE LONELY SOLDIER as a relatively new officer’s-wife, and to be quite honest, felt like I went through several stages of grief while reading. It was difficult to reconcile my husband’s recent, major life decision, and his well-intentioned enthusiasm for it, with the book’s description of the military as based on a model of predation, and occupied by, in essence, various levels of predators very graphically rendered (recruiters who force teenage girls, for example, to give them head in parked cars). It was also difficult to consider our family’s new path from the perspective of my conviction that I was a feminist, with a deep concern for other women. How had I not known this was happening to female service members? I remember the striking detail that the women profiled in the book asked to use their real names, as a way of “fighting back.” THE LONELY SOLDIER was the first step in a long and rather painful exposure of, what may not necessarily be my experience with the military, but what is the truth for many women.

I guess my question here is one that’s bothered me to some degree for more than thirteen years: Do you feel that a person whose life work is spent within an institution like the U.S. military has chosen, in effect, to side with an oppressive regime? Is it possible to still be an ally to others, those often ignored or hurt by war and by institutionalized racism, sexism, and violence?

HB: I think this is a brave question, and in a way, my answer lies in WOLF SEASON, as well as my other related books, because my veteran characters are all struggling with questions like yours, especially how to push back against injustice and wrongdoing within the military, and how to feel like a good person when you have come to feel you were used to do wrong.

My veteran characters have been distorted by war and its inherent injustices, yes, but they also want to love, mend, and amend. This is the essential struggle in the aftermath of war for us all – how, having done a great wrong, we can grope our way back to doing some right.

Another path, and I do see veterans doing this, is to help the real victims of our wars: the innocent Iraqi citizens whose lives we have destroyed. This, too, is a theme in WOLF SEASON.

But going back to the earlier part of your question, yes, I do think that joining the military is to give yourself to an institution that usually causes more harm than good. But that said, I also think it’s important to fight wrongdoing from the inside. Part of our duty as citizens of a democracy is to hold governmental institutions accountable when they go wrong, and to expose and fight and correct that wrong wherever we can. I know how much courage it takes the military from within, but I’ve seen active duty service members and veterans do it, and I admire them deeply.

WBT: You were in Charlottesville, VA, during the horrifying neo-Nazi rally this past August. How did you end up there at that time, and what did you observe, on the ground? What, for you, did that event say about America circa 2017-18?

HB: I have written about that terrible day in Charlottesville before, so all I’ll say here is that I was at an artist’s residency nearby, so went to bear witness and counter-protest. The main point I made in this essay is that, as a writer and reader, I know that using one’s imagination to put oneself in the shoes of others is the key to empathy and compassion. The racists, Islamophobes and anti-Semites who attended the rally that day refused to use their imaginations to do any such thing, thus freeing themselves to dehumanize the people they wished to hate. It was a sickening sight to behold, the screaming red faces of those who relish hatred; the opposite of what writers and artists stand for.

WBT: You’ve addressed themes of systemic violence through both fiction and nonfiction. How do you feel these genres are uniquely suited to addressing political issues? 

HB: Nonfiction explains it, fiction explores it. In WOLF SEASON, as in any novel, I was able to plunge into a character’s heart to show how it really feels to be the victim or the perpetrator or violence, and what that does to the human soul. The field of fiction is the human interior – our hearts, our minds, our morals. I love that. That’s why I read novels, and that’s why I write them.

—

WOLF SEASON is available from Bellevue Literary Press or wherever books are sold. A reading group guide is available for download here. You can find out more about Helen Benedict’s writing on her web site.

The veterans of the Standard had been back from their wars for some time, trying to figure out how to live lives in the face of newfound civilian freedoms. No one barking orders but their girlfriends, wives, and mothers. Fuck them. The vets could do anything they wanted anytime—they were Americans in America—though what they wanted wasn’t what they needed.

They had good cause to bolt home and wind up straggling in the streets of New York City, where they couldn’t qualify for hud/vash benefits, having exhausted the good graces of the dom program, unable to uncover any information on Project Torch, given the run around by the administrators of Operation Home. They had multiple DUIs, student loans for what the GI Bill 2.0 didn’t cover to attend the University of Phoenix, credit cards with 20 percent interest rates. They were drug addicts, closeted queers, amputees, alcoholics. They were Born Again. They were Black Muslim. They were violent offenders and ethical vegetarians. They’d done short time in county lockups, charged with violating restraining orders, lewd and lascivious conduct, six counts of animal cruelty for selling a litter of kittens with pierced ears over the internet. To say they all expressed both the loss of physical integrity and a response to an event that involved terror and helplessness—the hurting-for-certain hallmarks of PTSD—would’ve been too easy. The harder truth was that they were men unmanned. More than the sum of the bullet points in the revised DSM-5, they were the very reasons for some of the revisions. They were outliers. They hadn’t fallen through cracks. The ground opened up and they dove in face first—hooah! But they could only live like beasts for so long, so they’d gone with Milt, who gave order to their days, even if his orders were crazy.

The vets mustered at the center of the Alpine village. Over their secondhand camos bought in bulk from Liberty Military PX, they wore full alpaca pelts fastened with lengths of catgut. The pelts, worn casually, were their uniforms, part of Milt’s psyop campaign to ward off trespassers while keeping alive the legend of the Catskills Sasquatch.

They called their hides ghillie suits, except for Stotts-Dupree, who called his a yowie, which was how they referred to them at Camp Robinson, Army National Guard Sniper School, where Stotts-Dupree flunked out after contracting a bad case of the yips.

Most of the vets were accustomed to the notion that in uniform they looked like Germanic shepherds being retributively raped from behind by a herd of lanky sheep. Come winter, they’d again be grateful for the warmth the pelts provided. But here it was, end of a scalding, droughty summer, and they were in furs. They were uncomfortable and irritable.

Their routine had been busted. They hadn’t eaten lunch. Midday Simon Says—part military drill, part camaraderie builder—had been canceled, the daily briefing pushed back to evening. All so Milt could make one of his weekly milk runs.

Scratching their beards of varying lengths, the Standard vets stood at a remove from the old fountain pool they used to contain their cook fire. The two Marines of the company climbed in, kicked over the sewer grate that served as a grill, and stomped out the coals. Smoke tumbled up around them. They sought to settle a grudge and, despite the disruption, the entire company was glad for a diversion from their standing orders—split wood; set snares; see to the meat rabbits, chickens, and alpaca; gather their droppings to age, mash up, and water down to fertilize the three-acre garden after they tilled; weed endlessly, harvest, seed the fall crops, on and on. Readying for winter was a nine-month means they got a break from only while trying to survive its end. This unrelenting work distracted them from their real-world guilt over the families they’d abandoned, and from the certain knowledge that these families were, to a one, easier off for their absences.

For most of them, the Standard was their last potshot at a decent life. Once they left, they’d be on their own, and most of them wouldn’t make it alone.

Like Luce, who will leave in the middle of a biblical plague of bats to bum his way out to Greenport toward the end of the North Fork of Long Island. There, he begs his ex-wife, on a Tuesday, on his knees, on her sunken front stoop, to let him in, and when she does, as soon as the door closes behind them, he’s back to begging her, back on his knees. He wants to get her off with his stump. She can’t believe it, and against her bad judgment, she undresses and lets him. Despite her reservations and the ugly, unsanitary look of the thing, she appreciates it, enjoys it even, the bizarre behavioral therapy. Trying to turn loss into love. This alone gets them through the first month, but it doesn’t erase her suspicions. In month two, she catches him picking up Asian men on Craigslist, using her computer, and she throws him out. He rents a room in Riverhead at the Peconic Inn, next door to a pizza parlor, a long commute to Greenport for a job crewing aboard the Shelter Island ferry. Before work, he buys a fifth of the cheapest vodka at the closest package store. Nipping from the plastic bottle, he walks to the Riverhead train station. Moments after a train passes, he can be seen, on his knees, as if in prayer, resting one cheekbone, then the other, against the tracks. The vibrations jostle, warm, and loosen the mucus in his sinuses, the tracks heated on the iciest days by steel wheels worn to a mirror shine. For a few seconds, his head clears. He can go about his day crossing and re-crossing Peconic Bay.

One blustery winter morning, he rises off the track lightheaded and chases after an unloaded freight train picking up speed. He heaves himself aboard with his good hand, his only hand, and settles into an empty unlocked stock-car, its floor covered in frozen manure. There, he eases into the long, windy ride, sub-zero, kept company by a fifth of Kasser’s Kavkaski, and twenty-four hours later he’s found dead, no ID, his one hand rigor stiff and curled through an opening in the steel slats. The responding firemen and medical workers are confronted with the choice of cutting through the steel wall of the cattle car or breaking the poor hobo’s wrist to free his body. An EMT tries a forearm massage to loosen up the hand. Nothing. Guy’s hard as rebar. After a call to Anacostia Rail Holdings Company, they decide against cutting the cattle car. With a hair dryer, they take turns thawing the wrist and fingers, the freight train outrageously late by the time John Doe lets go.

The YouTube walkthroughs have names, like action movies or episodes of a serial TV show. Judgment Day. Suffer With Me. Fallen Angel. Old Wounds. If you were playing, you’d fire up your console, scroll through the list, pick your game, and go. But Tracey Knox doesn’t play. She’s only here to watch. One quick click and SchoolofHardKnox is leading the way through the war.

She’s watched them all, headphones on, grinding through anti-tank fire, lobbing grenades at ditches, clamoring for weapons, hoping there’d be one, just one, with a voice-over and a howzit goin’. How else is she going to hear Geoff’s voice? Flat Michigan vowels with those U.P. dips and stalls: a sound she doesn’t get a lot of in New York. She’s spent hours patrolling these deserts. It’s only grown worse since she lost her job at the architecture firm. There’s nowhere she has to be at 9 a.m. No project manager to look over her shoulder. No more designing cat fences for rich ladies in Connecticut. She is thirty-nine and can do as she likes.

There are thousands of views. Who was Geoff making these walkthroughs for? He didn’t do voice-overs, didn’t narrate, never popped up mid-scene in a Fugazi t-shirt, flashing his tats, to explain strategy. Each episode is like a movie he lived once and forgot about, one long jittery dream that Trace lives over and over.

“Old Wounds.” She likes the sound of that one. He dies too soon in it but it’s badass and medieval to gallop on horseback, brandishing a sword pried from a skeleton’s ribcage. She clicks on the name and lets it roll.

*

It’s Friday night at the Hampton Inn in DC. Tracey Knox is incumbent on a queen-sized bed, surrounded by plugs and remote controls. A screen flickers from her lap, lighting her face in flashes. Her eyes glazed, ears snug under industrial-sized headphones. She’s been dressed in the same clothes for a week straight—baggy cammie trousers bought discount from the Gap, $4.98, an end-of-summer deal, and a faded Jackass t-shirt. She’s skinnier than usual. All week it’s been nothing but sunflower seeds and Arizona iced tea, but then, the anniversary usually has that effect. At the moment she’s knee-deep in a YouTube k-hole and doesn’t care who knows it. Each fresh burst of gunfire grinds her guts with a bad longing. It calls back the barrage of explosions drifting down the hall from under Geoff’s bedroom door. The on-screen desert had been Geoff’s playground. Virtual Sergeant Foley, a stand-in for Dad.

Tracey’s best girlfriend, Constance Lawson, is knocked up and across the room, embedded in a nest of Hampton Inn pillows. They’ve decided to do a girls’ weekend in DC. Just the two of them, like the old days, one last hurrah before Constance, now Connie, becomes an FTM, or full-time mommy.

Connie had planned everything. Two queen beds and an all-you-can-eat menu of reality TV shows and room service mocktails. Right now Connie’s reading to Tracey from an upbeat email. Connie’s writing a book about her experience of IVF, half memoir and half how-to. The future for mommy lit is apparently bright. She’s landed a slick agent on the basis of a sample paragraph and outline and is already in negotiations for a book deal for her WIP.

“What’s a W-I-P?” Tracey asks, slipping off one headphone.

“Work in Progress,” says Connie, who’s superstitious about names for unborn projects.

Tracey, for her part, has no reason to fire up her email on a weekend. She recoils at the memory of the last exchange before HR sent her the marching papers, a “reply all” that should very definitely not have been a “reply all.” Tracey nods, says it sounds promising. She switches to half-listen mode and goes back to the screen.

On her laptop, a menu of a dozen other options pop up, all listed under her brother’s screen name. She’s stopped talking to people online after a Skype with their LA office went balls-up and cost Tracey her job. She’s been living off her severance package above a tire shop in Greenpoint, buoyed by the salary of her Dutch bicycle-parts designing husband, Niels. Her job search is equal parts day-drinking, flirting with bartenders, and experimenting with the font size on her CV. If there’s a café with free wi-fi, she’s freeloaded. Whenever either of her parents, divorced of course, gets her on the phone, Tracey says the same thing: she is pursuing other options.

“Do you think I should come up with a new name for TBD?” Connie asks.

“To be determined?”

“No, no, Trace, T-B-D. The Baby Dance. It’s what the What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Be Expecting book calls sex.”

“Why don’t you just call it sex?”

“Because,” Connie says, “That’s so louche.”

Connie reclines in yoga pants and places her hand on her swollen belly. She balances the phone on top and shows Tracey a new app, plugging in a set of hot pink earbuds. The app’s main feature is the frantic liquid throb of a fetal heartbeat so Connie can eavesdrop on her unborn infant. The baby, in all its amniotic fury, pounding away. It is just a cluster of nerve endings and cells and life pushing blood through its fetal chambers, but listen to it go. The heartbeat hypnotizes her with its systole and diastole, evidence of its miraculous, furious progress. Connie is transfixed in the dull spell, fingers slack on the edges of her iPhone, earbuds shoved in, the better to hear the back and forth of the protean sludge. Tracey tries to ignore it but Connie insists. Through the wire comes a birdlike thrum, frantic and pulsing, the life that is both part of her yet apart from her—primordial—she is life-giving—this baby-to-be, sloshing over and over just for her, the sound (she makes Tracey listen. Listen, Trace!) going mama mama mama oh god.

“But Tracey, don’t you think about it sometimes?”

Sure, Tracey thinks about it sometimes. The possibility of new life. The thing her friends are all doing, the thing she knows Niels wants. It’d be a beautiful baby: half-Dutch, half-red-blooded-American. Niels would have the kid on training wheels in no time. She could forget about the architecture. Embrace the FTM. Make their offspring her avatar.

But Tracey Knox pursues none of those things. She unhooks herself from Connie’s app and slinks back to pole position, head hunched, knees curled, itching to get back to her trance. She’s not even playing the game, a level way worse, just watching virtual violence, eyes glued to the stuttering screen, explosions collapsing around her in bursts of orange and red, choppers snip-snip-snipping the sky above.

Outside the hotel room, DC lurks. Connie had come to grad school here. Tracey, dragging an art history degree behind her, had followed her out and spent a year mopping gallery floors, playing the mistress to a fastidious art buyer who lived in Dupont Circle. DC never spoke to Tracey in quite the same way it did for Connie. When Connie had first suggested it, that if they came to DC, Tracey could visit the grave, Tracey blanked.

“The grave,” Tracey said, nodding. “Right.”

As she fires up the next episode, she thinks maybe she’ll look Danny up again after she gets back from DC, hit him up for a couple of cold ones and ask him more questions about what else he knows about Geoff. Now that she knows the story, or enough of the story. Maybe it’s that she knows too much?

Blood and Gore Intense Violence Strong Language Suggestive Themes Mature 17+ Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB

Let’s roll—

She adjusts the headphones so they’re snug and then wham! she’s back at the helm of the war machine, flexing assault muscles and tactical ops, leaping out of choppers as shrapnel rains from tall sheared-off buildings. Jump cuts, jittery exterior shots, implausible musculature and digitized MRAPs. Quick flash of landscape porn, desert mountains and desolate horizons, fade in then fade out, the Ken Burns effect plus amphetamines, amplified and sped up and pumped out, life through the barrel of an assault rifle. She hijacks a chopper and mainlines that view from above—I don’t see, I fly—then whoosh, she’s back at ground level, hand to hand combat, slow sexy focus on metal and skin and tattoo and blood. She swims and she flies with her entourage, industrial war machine overhead in twenty parts glittering. Down below in the rubble it’s all dirt and desert and fumes, the phosphorescence of foreign war, choppers rising up in clusters and scattering.

She’s shooting lasers from what looks like a souped-up staple gun, exuding godlike luster in a landscape of smoke and red sand. She’s busting into hideouts and blowing up bodies, dodging the splurge of vermilion enemy blood, no time even to blow on the smoking gun. Here she is no one, she is cranked up to full speed and smoothed down to her essentials—blood and muscle and armor—kicking down doors, spitting steel. She has no womb, no wounds. Tracey Knox is a killing machine, trained to close and destroy, breach and clear, dismantling all the architecture, trafficking in the invincible.

*

When Geoff Knox came back from his first deployment in Afghanistan, he was full of stories. They weren’t usually what you would think of as war stories but more about things going wrong—stupid stuff, just everyday things: bad latrines and gravity-fed showers and pranks with packages. Over time the Afghan villagers had picked up certain American phrases. Sex was “up-and-down.” Bombs were “bang-bang.” The one word pretty much all of them knew was “killed.”

One day, Geoff said, there’d been a bomb in a neighboring village. The usual shit—IED—and their interpreter—their “terp,” Geoff called him—was off meeting with some village elders. So there’s Geoff, asking around, trying to get a tally of the civilian dead. There was this one kid, maybe eleven or twelve, name of Omar, who spoke some English and was trying to translate. And the kid had told Geoff, “One killed, dead. Two killed, not dead.”

Geoff scratched his head. “Two killed, not dead? The hell does that mean?”

Omar kept saying it. “One killed, dead. Two killed, not dead.” It took Geoff some time to realize that by “killed, not dead,” Omar was trying to say “hurt.” The kid didn’t know the word for “hurt.”

There’s a lesson in that now, Tracey thinks. Every wound, especially in the war, killed you. It’s just that some wounds left you dead, and others left you alive.

I have two siblings, Tracey Knox says. She’ll say it to this day, will say it to the end, whenever anyone asks. I have two siblings, a sister and a brother. One older sister: killed, not dead. One younger brother: killed, dead.

Tracey lost her brother, and her brother was in the war. At thirty-nine years old it was her saddest story. Some days it was her only story. Maybe she should just fix people in the eye and say, My brother died in the war. Or: My brother was killed? She’s always hated the passive voice, hated the linguistic gymnastics she had to do around the topic of her brother, who was dead, and it had nothing to do with just causes. He didn’t die in the war, he died during the war. And that’s as close as Tracey will ever get to telling Connie the truth.

*

After 9/11, Geoff Knox marched up to Lake Superior State University to the fold-out desk. The Army recruiter had been a bemused bruiser who, learning he had an eager fourteen-year-old kid on his hands, didn’t change much about his pitch. Geoff didn’t tell the recruiter about his big sister Tracey, who was living in New York when it happened. The desk was busy that September.

The Soho firm had been Tracey’s first job after architecture school. She’d landed a position with an architecture firm in the city and had been downtown when the planes struck the towers. She got to the eighth-floor window just in time to see the fireball roar through the second tower. Through glass she watched the haggard red stripes of flame rip the steel beams and the confetti of paper and debris that had fluttered out of the twin towers from gaping black maws. She called home, unable to get through till almost midnight, called that night and every night after to talk to their mom and Geoff, trying to describe the scene. What does she remember? The smoke, mostly. There was the smoke, first the black plumes and then the blanket of white ash and then the nauseating waves of air for days after, the rank stink of rent steel and rotting flesh.

As for New York? Vigilance—that was the word on the street. That was the order. Be vigilant. But what did it mean to be vigilant? Semper Vigilans. You’d better know, because you were supposed to be it at all times. If you see something, say something. The city’s nervous system ran on a code. Orange alert. Red alert. Tracey played into the system like the compliant citizen she was trained to be, reduced to stimulus/response. Tracey tried with the subway but she couldn’t be underground. She started taking buses. Goddamn buses. They were inefficient and made her late. But she had to see the world through windows, had to be near the yellow tape so she could press it at the first sign of mayhem and get the fuck out.

The American flag hung in every window. Stars and stripes stabbed into every lapel. Passing strangers on street corners, or sharing an stuffy elevator ride, Tracey looked into their eyes and asked them with her eyes, If I look at you, if I show you my humanity right now, can I stop you from blowing yourself up? Or: If this top floor gets blown to kingdom come, will you hold hands with me? She looked down at a stranger’s hand and pictured its entangled with her own. She pictured their two hands, severed, fingers entwined, lying on a pile of smoking wreckage. She saw the first responders finding their mutilated remains, heard the heavy goods vehicle carting off the load to Fresh Kills, all in the time it took an elevator to climb four floors and the stranger to scratch his nose.

There’d been the thing with the shoe bombs and the nitroglycerin. There’d been the anthrax letters. Investigating, Tracey learned the word cutaneous. Cutaneous, subcutaneous, airborne: it could get you any of those ways. Weeks of tension and indigestion. Ash and aftermath. Couldn’t look at headlines. While Tracey Knox was commuting to work in Soho and coming home to hide in her Tribeca basement bunker, workers ten blocks south were down there shoveling through the rubble. Firemen, policemen, EMTs, contractors and volunteers, picking through smoking wreckage. Deadly particles seeping into skin, latching onto lungs. Outside the Century 21, finding actual human remains. But then somehow, over time, the terror here was wrapped up, boxed, and shunted back to its place over there. Till Ground Zero became just another construction site. Till the whole thing just deteriorated into a cycle of hearsay and fear—whispers and rumors—a ticker tape terror feeding the twenty-four-hour newsroom beast. Till the rumor of war had hardened into the certainty of war. A war that, fifteen years on, would know no end.

There’s a longer history than the story she tells herself. But she still thinks back to that blue-sky morning. The day when, fresh out of Harvard, from the eighth floor of the architectural firm, she watched the towers burn.

Maybe Tracey feels at fault for the stories she has told. But the truth is, it didn’t matter at all what she had or hadn’t said all those years ago. All he had to be was an American citizen, clap eyes on those collapsing towers, and his mind would be made up. He would want to do something for his country. For his sister. For all the usual words. Freedom. Terror. These are laden words. Tracey doesn’t get them, didn’t then and doesn’t now. She understands form and function, angles and AutoCAD, blueprints and markups. Geoff hadn’t seen the things she saw. He lived in a different aftermath. For a while, he put off enlisting. There was that degree he’d decided he wanted after all. He was so close to not being a part of it. That scholarship, Tracey thought, had saved him. But through four years of university, through a trail of tailgates and chemistry lectures and test prep on Red Bull and Adderall, he never forgot the towers. After all, Geoff Knox went off to war.

*

The third tour was to be the last. It is three years since Tracey stood in that moon-drenched kitchen and heard the story of Geoff’s death, and she can’t shake that phone call. Elyssa—it’s always Elyssa who’s the first to know everything—calls to tell her sister the news.

So it’s happened at last. Their brother has died in Afghanistan. The first thing Tracey thinks when she get the news is that it’s not Geoff who’s died. She doesn’t think of her brother dying in Afghanistan. She can’t. She thinks of her brother, alive, in Michigan. She thinks of him back from basic training, planting green plastic army men on the Christmas tree for hide-and-seek the way they used to do as kids. The sniper was always the hardest to find, laying low in the bristles and garland, aiming his plastic gun at this ornament or that: the macaroni candy cane, the cradle in the manger. Or she thinks of her brother with skinned knees and gap teeth, climbing the crabapple tree in their old backyard. Or maybe she’s remembering how he was the last time she saw him, at home on the couch at Thanksgiving, lean and muscled and laconic, eyes glazed after his second tour, dream-weaving his way through Call of Duty while she was trying to talk to him, you know, actually talk to him about his deployment. But she’s hard-wired against accepting such bullshit, that her brother would actually go to Afghanistan and get himself killed, of all things.

All evidence to the contrary—in four days she’ll be carrying that urn—and she refuses to believe Geoff’s mortal. Won’t buy that it’s her little brother who died in the war. She’s going to watch him get hitched to some cute, fake-tanned Michigan chick and raise a crop of cornfed kids. He’ll settle down in some government job, spend his weekends with his buddies at the Joe watching the Red Wings lose, eat red meat and wipe his ass with Foreign Affairs. Such news—her brother dying in Afghanistan—doesn’t register. And as Elyssa keeps talking, the details really don’t line up. In this story, there are no notifying officers, no Army chaplain. There are ER doctors and paramedics. She distinctly hears the word Detroit.

And so when it turns out that her brother dies but it’s not in Afghanistan, that Geoff never went back on that last tour like he said he was going to, when it turns out her brother dies less than a mile down the road from DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital, that he’s died all right, but it’s in a squat with festering walls and peeling linoleum floors, when it happens that Geoff’s been kicked out of the Army and OD’ed on oxycodone, Tracey tries to to piece together the unbelievable story she’s hearing with the scenario she didn’t even know to imagine. And none of it makes sense.

Tracey books the flights from JFK to Toronto, Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie, pronto. She pays way too much for the tickets but what is she going to do, it’s her brother’s funeral. She flies back to Sault Ste. Marie with Niels, who is Dutch and has never been to an American funeral before.

One day after the phone call, just before she flies home for the funeral, Tracey meets up with Danny, Geoff’s war buddy, and gets a debriefing in a Queens sports bar en route to the airport. Tracey rings Danny on their way to JFK because he’s local and he’d once given her his number and said, If you ever need anything, give me a ring. The place reeks of Windex and buffalo wings. Tracey and Niels sit next to Danny at the sticky bar under flickering screens. They bear hug and order a round.

“You didn’t know about Geoff’s TBI?”

Danny blinks at Tracey, then at Niels, dipping a wing in sauce and gnawing chicken from the bone. Know about it? Tracey doesn’t even know what the letters mean. Danny has to spell it out for her. Traumatic Brain Injury.

“Is that like PTSD?” she asks, timid. It’s hard to make herself heard over the din of the bar and the Eagles-Patriots game.

Danny talks, gesturing to his temple with the chicken bone. “After the blast. He was bleeding from the ears, man. It scrambled his brains. He was all messed up. They had to send him off to the unit.”

Tracey doesn’t get it. Danny washes down the gnawed meat with a Rolling Rock and tells all. Things that didn’t make sense before start to make sense. Geoff’s fuzzy details about the last deployment. Her letter, stamped Return to Sender. And the discharge, unearned in Danny’s humble opinion, of Other Than Honorable. Tracey feels her face flush. She hasn’t touched her Jack and Coke. Danny, wide eyed, looks from Tracey to Niels, Niels back to Tracey.

“You don’t know he spent that time on a wounded warrior unit?”

“Geoff’s Humvee got hit with an IED and he didn’t tell you?”

Well, and what if he didn’t? That was always Geoff’s way. If he was sick, he wouldn’t admit it. Wanted to take care of himself, always did, didn’t cry even when he was six and Tracey, who’d more or less brought him up, went off to college. And here’s the big sister, not one but two higher degrees. Graduates from Michigan with honors, goes off to Harvard and can’t tell when her own brother is lying about his last deployment. But why would Geoff do that that to her, to all of them? Who had he been trying to save?

Trace feels sick so they leave the bar early. They hail a cab on the parkway to take them to the airport. Niels loads her luggage in the trunk. Tracey’s eyes are hot with rage. The driver rollercoasters them to the terminal, and all Tracey can think about is their mom. Geoff’s not going to have the military burial, that’s one thing. Their mom had been hysterical about him going off to war in the first place, said she had a premonition. Now the premonition’s come true, so good luck with that anxiety disorder. At JFK Tracey pushes her purse down the conveyer belt, is patted down by TSA, goes with Niels to the gate. There’s that sense of being cheated. There’s that Other Than Honorable. The discharge hung Geoff out to dry, now it’s going to leave their mom without any benefits. Mom’s on disability, their stepdad’s a barely functioning alcoholic, and their dad, their real dad, oblivious in Grand Rapids with his new wife, will be no help at all. Remember when their mom was a successful marine biologist? Remember when Geoff was still alive? Tracey does. That life. What is it now but history?

At the gate, Tracey goes online to find out what’s she’s missing. She learns a lot of really awful vocabulary in the process, like the word repatriate, but she does gain some intel. It turns out when you take the whole foreign war component out of it the whole thing can be over and done in a lot faster than you imagine. The body didn’t die in Afghanistan, so it doesn’t have to be repatriated, it doesn’t have to be flown into Dover on a military plane. A quick trip in a fast ambulance to the ER of DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital doesn’t cost as much, and it’s much quicker. You can place a notice in the paper days later of the general death and keep details quiet. All you have to say is “in a private ceremony” and everyone has to respect that. They won’t ask, you don’t tell. Except when it’s your best friend involved, and you happen to lob her a fib. Then it gets complicated.

He wished to be cremated, so they honored his wishes.

She’d been distraught at the sight of the urn. Who wouldn’t be? She’d always imagined it as an elegant container, a silver goblet with a name engraved, displayed on a mantelpiece. This, though, was decidedly not that. This had been an industrial plastic tub stamped on one side Detroit Crematorium in an inelegant sans serif. The plastic lid screwed on and off. It looked like it held weed killer.

There’d been debate after the ceremony about what to do with the ashes. This was the Knoxes. Of course there was debate. The whole thing was ghoulish, Geoff’s body stashed into a Ziploc in the Detroit Crematorium tub, but Tracey had wanted to give him the honors he deserved. And so the day before she’d flown back to New York, Tracey had unscrewed the lid and made off with a scoop of her brother’s ashes. Is this the story she is supposed to be telling Connie over room service mocktails?

Because there’s the story Tracey told Constance, the story she’d told all her friends. The one about the military burial, about Geoff dying in the goddamn war. And here is Tracey Knox, anniversary number three, stationed for two days in hallowed DC. From the Hampton Inn, Tracey Google Maps the directions: 2.3 miles from that cemetery. That great green ground of tended graves. She ought to do something. She ought to lay it to rest.

*

It’s bone-chill weather, mid-November. Week before Thanksgiving. Tracey is stalking the grounds near Washington Mall alone. She gets to thinking about monuments. You can’t avoid it. Here, Lincoln parked in an armchair on that grand staircase. There, that obscene obelisk, rising up out of the ground like Mother Earth with a concrete hard-on. Tracey takes it in, drinking coffee from a to-go cup, her hands in mittens. A couple of people with clipboards and smiles, college kids, come at Tracey on the curvilinear walkway wrapped in bright red smocks that say Save the Children. Tracey dodges them, staring at her feet as she hurries past. Does she have a few minutes today for saving children? It would seem not. She cannot save children. She couldn’t even take care of her little brother, the one child that had ever been entrusted to her. She let him go into that war. Is the people in the red smocks’ plan to not let the children go fight wars in foreign countries? Because maybe she’d have a few minutes for that.

Tracey pitches her coffee in the trash and keeps walking, hands in her pockets. There’s the packet of ash in her right pocket. She feels its uneven lumps through her mittens. She thinks maybe she’ll find another Knox, a namesake, and scatter the dust there. But so far, no Knoxes, and the mission’s making her sweat.

Tracey dreams, as she walks, about designing a monument for Geoff. Or no, monument isn’t the right word. A memorial. She thinks back to her architecture school days and calls up a quote from Lewis Mumford. “The more shaky the institution, the more solid the monument.” So, a memorial then. She can imagine it. There’s a field lit in a haze. Lemon-colored light. Reeds and grass and stems. There’s a crop of pink and red poppies, swaying and bending. She’d call it “The Poppy Field.” It would be a vast stretch of land designed so you could walk through it. No sign would tell you not to touch the flowers or not to step certain places. You could press the velvet-soft petals of the poppies to your cheek. Or you could stand in the middle of the field and let the wind blow through your hair. You could breathe in the scent of earth, of sweet prairie grass and Queen Anne’s lace. There would be no bodies buried underground. There would be no bodies at all, no ash, and no plaque to tell you what to think about. No why, no when, no who.

What can she say about the evenly spaced rows, the dignified engravings, the markers of moral purpose and patriotism? She can only wonder: Where is my brother? Where was I for him? She is insurgent milling through the manicured lawns. As she walks, she thinks about the memorial she wants to design, the one with the poppy field, and thinks it shouldn’t be called “The Poppy Field.” It should be called “Old Wounds.”

Tracey hadn’t meant to tell Constance, those years ago, an untrue story about her brother’s death. It had started as a story Tracey was telling to herself, a story she could use to comfort herself with, a story that he had died for a just cause. She wasn’t thinking when she typed it into a screen and hit send, and then the whole story had gotten out of hand. Tracey doesn’t know how to say it. That she never flew to DC for the funeral. That there had been no honors, no gun salute. That they’d scattered most of her brother’s ashes in Chippewa County into the St. Marys River between Michigan and Canada. All Tracey knows is, she didn’t tell the real story right away, and at some point—who knows when?—it had become too late. Connie, who has planned the whole weekend, has carved out a grave-shaped space into Sunday, assuming Tracey will want to use the time to visit her brother’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery. And who is Tracey to say that Geoff is not buried there?

That morning, Connie had asked if Tracey wanted company when she went to visit “the grave.” Now, coming back into the hotel room, cheeks flushed from the cold, it’s all Tracey can do is turn to her best friend and say, “Geoff’s not here, Connie.” It’s her attempt to come clean, and Connie misses it entirely. She thinks Tracey is being figurative, that it’s something spiritual. So close to telling the truth, Tracey lets the confession drop. She hangs her coat from the plywood hanger where it swings, the packet of ash still sitting in her right coat pocket.

That night, Tracey crawls into the hard bed and snaps on the bedside light. She takes it out of its drawer, the little green Gideon’s Bible. But all she’s thinking about as she rifles through the tissue-thin pages is Geoff’s copy of The Art of War and how she’d claimed it as her own. Geoff’s secondhand paperback copy, underlined and dog-eared, is the closest she’s come to his idea of a theology. The book’s not with her. She hears Connie’s breathing deepen. Tracey puts down Gideon and opens her laptop. She opens a browser tab and searches Geoff’s username until she finds what she’s looking for. No graphics, no explosions, just a careful set of instructions. She reads through the list for “Suffer with Me.”

Throw a knife at the guard at the post.

Spam the FIRE button when Woods climbs to the first guard post.

Survive enemy RPG blast which causes collateral damage (to buildings).

Her tasks, here, are clear. Destroy enemy chopper with mortar round. Destroy tank with anti-tank mine. Her eye scrolls down to the last lines.

Kill 8 enemies in the clinic.

Collect all Intel.

Do not die.

From The Art of War to Call of Duty, military theory boiled down to one order: Do not die.

And if you do?

Tracey dips her head, plugs in the headphones, goes back down into the Black Ops forest.

*

“All Hunter victors, this is Sergeant Foley. Prepare to engage. We’re taking sniper fire from multiple directions.”

“Prepare to engage, we’re going in! Spin it up!”

The screen is flecked with blurs and drops of crimson. It’s an ambush. She moves forward but with difficulty. The explosions now have ceased to be controlled, now she surges forward with a deep nausea through the exploding mortar and shrapnel. Tracey hears the breath of the soldier come in hard, heavy bursts, so intense she can’t tell if it’s the soldier breathing or if it’s her. A message flashes on the screen: “You are Hurt. Get to cover.” The hands in front of her, her hands, Geoff’s hands, stay set on the gun as they stumble deliriously through the wreckage.

They are under sniper fire. She sees clothes and rags draped on a clothes line, a banner on which something is written in Arabic. Her head jars with every lurch. It feels like she is under fire from the very infrastructure. Her hands don’t leave the rifle. She falls into an alley between a chain-link fence and a corrugated steel shed. The sky is a smudge of smoke and rifle fire, the tracers of bullets garlanding the background. It feels like being drunk, stumbling to find a doorway she cannot find. Gunfire goes off but it’s a muted spray. She can hear Sergeant Foley screaming directions through a walkie-talkie but she can’t move her mouth to answer. Breathe. Breathe. The message flashes again, small, insistent: “You are Hurt. Get to cover.” Geoff does not get to cover. Tracey is spinning with him, stumbling each inch forward. She cannot rescue him, cannot get him to cover. The screen is streaked with fog, her eyes stung with shattered glass, drops of crimson, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but—

“Trace.”

Tracers, rocket launchers. Connie is saying her name. How long has she been saying it? How long has Tracey been holed up in this hotel room in DC with her pregnant friend? There is nowhere to go. Her neck is clammy with sweat, her heartbeat going like mad, its pulse wild and lone and unmeasured. The screen is flashing but the sound no longer fills her ears. A desert stretches up to her feet, all the way up to the dull upholstery of the olive-colored couch, the beige wallpaper, the styrofoam coffee cups. Her hands, shaking. It would be so easy to snap the laptop shut, but she can’t bring her hands to do it. She’s still waiting for orders.

Photo Credit: the yes man

In The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell argued that every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. There is truth to this. Some soldiers do go to war expecting an exciting adventure. Some don’t expect to be killed or even think about their chances of being killed. Some don’t dwell on the fact that they have guns and will have to shoot the enemy. But most do. Most are rational actors with the same evidence we all have at our disposal: namely, war involves violence. So why are they so often surprised when the war they go to turns out to be, well, violent?

Though concerned with what happens to soldiers after war, the question of imagined experience versus actual experience haunts Laurent Bécue-Renard’s powerful documentary Of Men and War. Following several veterans at the Pathway Home, a California facility established to help traumatized veterans find meaning in trauma, Bécue-Renard reveals that the men fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan did not find the experience worse than expected, not exactly—they found it more humiliating than expected. 

According to the documented counseling sessions, many of the veterans at the Pathway Home participated in firefights, staunched the bleeding of ruptured bodies, and helped collect dead bodies. That they did these things should surprise no one. I would be hard-pressed to imagine anybody who did not know these things happen when you bring rifles and bombs to a place with a bunch of rifles and bombs. And, not surprisingly, the Pathway veterans tell very few of these traditional wartime stories. Only a few seem particularly upset by the fact that they had to kill an enemy, or lost a battle buddy or even their own combat injuries. This is not to say that these things did not upset them, only that they do not explain why they are at Pathway Home.

The veterans do, though, tell a whole lot of accident stories. One tells the story of how he kicked in a door and broke the neck of a little boy who was about to open the door. One tells about getting a lifelong disability because he jumped from a helicopter five or six feet to the ground and landed wrong. One tells about watching a tanker pull a gun out of the turret and how the tanker blew his own head off.  Another tells about leaning into a fridge to get his best friend a Monster energy drink and pulling his M-4 trigger and killing his best friend. 

After the release of American Sniper, Americans had a national conversation about PTSD (or what passes for a national conversation in America). In the movie version, American Sniper Chris Kyle’s decision to kill a child and save American soldiers haunts him. But most soldiers would not be haunted by this. This is a straightforward exchange, a decision that involved conscious volition and a commitment to save fellow soldiers. It is the same logic with which we drone bomb and carpet bomb and drop nuclear bombs on cities—horrible, morally suspect, but (for many) a necessary utilitarian sacrifice that comes with war. Moments like this do not haunt the soldiers at the Pathway Home. In the Pathway Home version, the sniper would have tried shooting the boy and shot an American soldier or shot the wrong boy or failed to make the shot and all the soldiers died. That’s what haunts. Accidents haunt.

Kicking in a door and breaking a child’s neck cannot be rationalized. The soldier who did this in Of Men and War—an obviously decent and empathetic man—tries to blame it on bad Iraqi parenting. He tries to blame the boy. He tries to blame it on himself. But it can’t be explained. It can’t be reduced to any schema. It is just stupid and horrible and unfair. The boy is dead and you didn’t mean to kill him. That’s it.  It is a stupid accident. It is humiliating. It sucks. It is impossible to lend meaning to such a moment and such a story because embarrassments like that don’t deserve meaning—they resist explication not through their horror but their arbitrary horror.

In “The Chaff,” a short story by Brian Van Reet, the narrator describes how what troubles veterans is seldom what most would consider traumatic. Instead, the narrator finds himself overwhelmed in civilian life by a trivial moment, an action and event not especially traumatic. The narrator of Matthew Hefti’s novel, A Hard and Heavy Thing, obsesses for years over a practical joke involving a pebble—“the stupid, galling, rebarbative, pestilent, abrasive carking rock”—rather than the actual violence the pebble supposedly caused. The opening line of Phil Klay’s National Book Award winning Redeployment, “We shot dogs,” has similar implications. Soldiers go to war to kill humans. Soldiers (and civilians) do not expect to kill dogs. Soldiers remember the dead dogs, not the person of whatever age or gender they had to kill to save friends or because some Captain told them to (the ending of Klay’s story suggests the multiple moral ironies inherent in such logic). 

From different angles, Van Reet, Hefti, Klay and Bécue-Renard approach the idiosyncratic nature of PTSD—not its horror, not its thousand-yard stare, how war was so much worse than expected, but its very ridiculousness, the awkward and absurd and pathetically embarrassing nature of war. There is nothing dignified about the denizens of Pathway Home. These veterans do not stare into the abyss. They do not see any heart of darkness. They have no access to some existential truth. They have not returned sadder and wiser men. They are simply lost men stuck on what might not have been, how something as silly as forgetting to un-chamber a round or buckle a seatbelt killed their best friend.

Young men and women do not join the military thinking that it will all be a walk in the park and that war’s violence won’t affect them. They are not imbeciles. What soldiers do miss is that the violence they will face is often desperately pedestrian, something that could have happened to them back home, which has no meaning other than the fact that it happened. Wrestling with sheer happenstance is not an easy thing to do for civilians. It is even harder to do with several thousand years of war mythology and sentimentalizing telling you that an accident has a larger meaning when it clearly does not. By immersing us in the experience of the men at Pathway Home, Bécue-Renard’s provocative documentary wrestles with this disconnect. Let us hope the people who send these young men and women to war start wrestling with it too.

There are two substantial issues facing the American military and veteran community today. The first, a logical and narratively unified reaction to years of hero-worship, is a backlash against the impulse to thank soldiers for their service – a tendency, made explicit in recent media pieces, to vilify veterans and stigmatize them as prone to violence, hatred, racism, bigotry, and murder. The second issue is less dangerous than the first in absolute terms, but based on real statistics and empirical evidence: a growing problem with suicide.

This topic has been examined under a microscope. 22 soldiers and veterans die per day in America by their own hand, victims of some unknowable, tragically preventable plague. Especially tragic given the notion that a person who has cheated death should have some sort of inherent attachment to life. We believe that a man, having avoided bombs, bullets, and grenades from determined foes as variable as the enemies we’ve faced over the last seventy years, should have a higher reason to live. We believe that a soldier-veteran, ennobled by the experience of having come close to an end to their existence, should far more than others be eager to embrace the world, to love life. We imagine that we, in our dull day to day lives, which include regret, and trifle, and petty annoyances, have got it bad, and that veterans have seen clear through to some transcendent truth. Like a sunset over the water after a thunderstorm, with rays of light reaching up into the heaven, and beyond ourselves. Like encountering a known limitation, and moving beyond it.

Of course veterans are people like everyone else. Different in the sense that they’ve made a choice many non-veterans think – wrongly – that they’re incapable of making, fed on a steady diet of propaganda from movies, books, comics, video games, and history. Think, then, how disappointing it must be for a servicemember – a soldier, marine, airman, sailor, or coastguardsman (what do they call themselves?) – to discover that they won’t see war? Or, having seen it, that there’s no transcendent truth behind a dead face – friend or foe? Imagine that every meaningful assumption you’d made about the order of things was up-ended – good, generous, industrious and clever people died or were thwarted, while bad people, lazy and unscrupulous people profited and prospered? How would you feel, to know that life and death meant nothing?

I’m laying aside the question of faith in a higher power, and refraining from offering my own thoughts on the subject because a great many different ideas have occurred simultaneously in war on the topic of who believed what about which God, and praying to each of them seems to have had about the same effect (which is to say, nothing). Also, men of faith have taken their own lives, and agnostics and atheists have done the same, and out of respect for their service to God and Country, I should like to imagine that their lives are better or easier now.

During my time in the military, I came to believe that one reason there were so many suicides – apart from the proportional wealth of toxic leaders I encountered who likely did much to encourage their soldiers to take their own lives – was that it’s the single area over which the military has absolutely no jurisdiction. Each individual is instructed from the earliest moments in training that authority is violence, and violence is authority, and who can do the greatest harm to whom determines rank. A salute isn’t just a gesture of respect, it’s an acknowledgement of hierarchy. One person must awake at four in the morning to clean an area so that another person can walk over it with dirty boots. Infractions are punished. Individuality is punished. Thoughts are punished. Feelings are punished.

But suicide can’t be punished. Threats of suicide and suicide attempts are taken seriously by military units – very seriously – with the offending soldier often being carted out to behavior health and instantly transformed into a walking pariah, at least to the extent to which that soldier is still allowed to be a part of their unit. The impulse or desire to commit suicide, vocalized, is the worst type of offense possible – likely because it undermines the possibility of corrective violence, which is the military’s only organizational / institutional ability to correct misbehavior. For a toxic leader, who relies only on the threat of violence, suicide must be an evil. For a good or scrupulous leader, suicide is an unparalleled catastrophe.

Some people are afflicted with medical conditions that prevent them from taking any joy in life, or the world. Depression – suicidal depression – is a real condition. For these people, sights and smells and sentiments from which reasonable people would take pleasure offer nothing instead. These people require help – medical assistance, psychiatric guidance – and should be in places, surrounded by professionals who are capable of giving them said help. I’ve had brushes with depression in my own life, had my share of beautiful summer evenings that unaccountably tasted like ash – enough to know that people who must live with depression, with existential crisis, on a daily, hourly basis are truly cursed.

But this is different. These active duty military service members are killing themselves not because of a biochemical predisposition toward self-murder, but as an alternative to a torture that must feel infinitely worse than the idea of painlessness.

Veteran suicide, meanwhile, points at a similar but more diffuse problem – the problem of finding suitable engagement for veterans habituated to being employed, accustomed to using themselves in a way that creates meaning and value for their societies (but unable to do that in the context of the military any more, for a variety of reasons). Society itself becomes the problem for which the only solution is painless release – a society where service members are allowed to transition out without having jobs ready for them, or livelihoods assured.

So long as the military has toxic leadership, and a promotion system that encourages toxicity, many service members will take their own lives. So long as society does not have adequate room for veterans who wish nothing more than a steady pay check and some sort of useful employment, veterans will take their own lives. Perhaps the answer to the scourge is not to vilify the preventable suicides – but vilify the systems that make them possible in the first place. Otherwise, the prudent solution could be to stop vilifying suicide in the first place – make it an acceptable option in the event that a person’s life is truly unbearable. Of course, the system of financial servitude we live in could not bear such a situation – it would quickly collapse.