12

As far as I can remember, the first time I’d experienced brotherly love was with V____, but he was a goner already, and neither of us taller than our parent‘s hips. There were others, here and there, like breaths of fresh air, before their own bad stories over took them also.
Like Eric___, and his older sister, and my one night as a teenager, before his family fell apart. Even W___, if the reason he left was because he felt he was better than me, then even his story overtook him, too.
Knowing the reason for my decisions, and my actual decision making, have always been wildly out-of-sync. But much more often than not, they have been the right decisions. Decisions I made years ago that saved my life, or that changed my life forever. Decisions I can only now give accurate explanation for.
The reason I joined the military and the reason I stayed were totally separate and unconnected. The reason I joined is easy to remember. All I wanted was Basic, just those nine weeks. The two months after Basic, when I would go to Advance Individual Training and the other years of service also on my contract were details. All I wanted was Basic, what Civilians and Marines called ‘boot camp.’
Walking through the grocery section at work, away from the bakery, at five in the morning, on the way to the break room for my lunch break, trying to think of whether I should join or not -- especially wondering if it were morally responsible. If I joined, it would be like I was lying, saying I was like them, when my entire life begged otherwise. I couldn’t decide which was truer -- my story or my self. _But that’s why you go. To see which one is true, to see if you can make it or not,_ I thought.
So I did.
Staying, was a different matter. It wasn’t long after Nine Eleven, so the basic training facilities were packed full, plus the people who would’ve been training these recruits were needed overseas. There were waiting lists just to get in. It would be almost a year before I would ship off. Until then I would ‘drill’ (train) with the reserve unit I would be assigned to, once I had graduated Basic and was deemed a soldier.
At first, I dreaded drill. I was nineteen and down to forty-hours weeks; the first time this had happened to me in several years.
In the civilian world, I was considered of the ‘lower’ classes. Which was fine with me, because I was around so many people like myself all the time. People with haunting pasts of abandonment, abuse, Southern fields, and great tragedy, and, some, from nooses still hanging from trees.
We all came from Claims and simply understood each other. We gave a knowing, acknowledging look when a person would tell a seemingly simple story, while keeping its heart, and its most heart-felt aspects, wordless.
These people, at drill, were of a different cloth. Many from worlds totally un-acknowledging of mine, the classic American sotry: the one the rest were built on.
I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with these people. And simply figured they felt the same about me. I was wrong.
At first, I was the only new recruit, and given jobs like filing paperwork all day, or inventorying supplies. Later a few more recruits trickled in. The First Sergeant called a formation and had all the new recruits post in front and introduce themselves.
I had been there a few months, so when I introduced myself, I began with, _I’ve been here awhile, and most of you already know me but .. _ And I got a laugh.
They genuinely did like me. Maybe I was a bit goofy, a bit different, but they did like me. I just didn’t believe it. It never even occurred to me to.
The Roaring was so loud that there was no room for anything else, including that idea. It was like everyone else knew how to Be. And I didn’t, I couldn’t remember, there wasn‘t room.
That’s why I had such a hard time with S____, my first Battle. We were eating chow with the other recruits, all from the suburbs. He was half Filipino and half Irish, so he stood out.
I had sat down at a table of soldiers who had all been sitting there awhile. So after they got up I sat alone at the table, still eating. It was a habit I had and had gotten unusually good at: staying by myself with dignity.
S____ looked across at me and said, _You know you don’t have to sit over there, alone. You can sit over here with us._
And I did. And from then on, me and S____ just seemed always together.
Drills were two day-long each, and I couldn’t afford to drive that far home if I didn’t have to, so I would stay the night at the Armory. And later so did S____.
We kept working out and doing pushups trying to see who would develop a chest first. I had a Mazda RX-7 that M____ had sold me. It was my best thing. S____ was into street racing, and would take me around the capital city, and I would race through tight tunnels and alleyways and curvy, walled-in, once-were-highways, before the city out grew them; and he would keep turning around in the passenger seat, cheering as I pulled ahead of the pursuing car, its headlights now in my back window.
He lived in the beautiful historic district. He came from an interesting past. A military school instead of high school; a Filipino mother on psyche meds who carefully looked at my calloused, scarred-up hands and said sadly, _These are the hands of a man .._ ; a brother a couple years younger than him with these puppy eyes, who was anorexic to the point his muscles were tearing inside his skin, and who only wanted to hang out with us -- if S____ would allow -- ; and a fat, bright-pale skinned, bright-red-bearded Dad, who sent child support and an inconsistent strict hand, bordering on Hate.
Even though S___ was good looking, with an athletic look, he made the bulk of his money, and even his Mom’s money, from fixing computers, and the like.
He once confessed to me his love of those playing cards with the Japanese cartoon characters on them, and brought me to this shack of a card shop, with a room in back where the game was played, as if he were secretly confessing a penchant for murder, and was walking me through a crime scene, carefully studying my expressions, looking for judgment.
Before he directed me, and the RX7, to the shack, he said, _Have you ever had something about you that was so nerdy, you never told anyone? Do you have anything like that?_ I thought I did, but the best I could do was my books, which I silently thought paled in comparison.
High school had been a reality for him. He knew a lot of people his own age, many of whom were his neighbors, and he knew a lot of girls. He had a strong heart, where despite his being so different than everyone, he knew he was just as good as everyone else, and just as deserving of everything Good.
He didn’t mind getting into fights, and would show up to drill with black eyes.
I used to have a strong heart, years and years ago, so strong I did something in a blue mustang that seemed to shock a whole community, and cost me the rest of my childhood. But I had forgotten it long ago, and found his amazing.
S__ reminded me so much of W____, and his strong heart, that sometimes I still get them confused, as if S___ was the younger version, and W____ the older.
S___ disappeared just as unexpectedly as W____ did. We were to meet up at Fort Sil. He wasn’t where he said he’d be, and I never heard from him again.
I felt like I had failed yet another friendship. I hadn’t been good enough. I simply accepted it, and tried to aspire to be good enough in the future.