3

The four of us became an instant clique. We went swimming and ate at Chili’s. Dan, somehow, joined us, he was even more obviously in love with Jon and it was very awkward.
Afterwards, we got lost, trying to find the USO and make it in time for a comedy show and our three drinks. Being lost ended up being the most fun we had during our time at _____.
Tank had forgotten to pack civies, so he had to raid the free closet. He came out wearing a Hawaiian shirt that might as well have been a target the Russians could see from space.
We all decided to raid the free closet and find the weirdest items to wear. Jon came out luckiest with a green smoking jacket. I wore a polyester Grandpa shirt, and Joe wore a bright yellow bowling shirt too small for him.
A running joke was our nicknames. Mine was instantly Chuck, of course. Tank’s was already Tank. And Jon’s became baby face, for the obvious reason.
The three of us discussed Joe’s nickname and asked each other about references in infantry movies, etc. We decided on Gomer. Joe didn’t like that at all, so we decided on Murphy. Joe couldn’t believe this, so I finally said Joe would be his nickname, _You, know, like a GI Joe._
_Joe’s already my name,_ he said, exasperated.
_Well, now you can’t argue,_ I said laughing.
We thought Joe was just play fighting, but four hours later he was still joking about how insulted he was about being Gomer for a few hours, and then Murphy. Suddenly he seemed a little off to me, and I wondered about him.
I was impressed with him at first, an incredible confidence that was always on full blast. It was so strong everything seemed to just roll off him. Now I wasn’t so sure.
The next day we went to the beach, where we snorkeled and swam and played volleyball. I remembered my month in Kentucky, the May before last, those days playing volleyball, how normal I felt.
I looked at some of the pictures they’d been taking. I looked like a brute. My head looked like it was made of dented rocks and could be used to drive in nails. My eyes and lips seemed small for such a head, and my nose just a little too big. I felt insecure.
Jon really did look like a Calvin Klein model, with eyes maybe slightly too close together, but I would catch him sometimes, when I stretched, looking at my sinewy-ness, and I remembered how everyone feels the grass is greener, even though there‘s no such thing.
I was larger than Jon and Joe and tittering on being larger than Tank. I joked about how in the pictures they had snapped I looked like an oaf, towering over the others, as if I was just as likely to eat them as to be their friend, it didn‘t help that I was the oldest in the group.
Joe said, _Oh come on, you look like you’re twenty two._
Tank said, _You’re just very muscular, that’s all.
_I look like a WWF reject. I look like I started taking steroids when I was seven and had some kind of bad reaction. I look like I’m on my way to becoming the next hunchback of Notre Dame._
There was a running joke about how I was always trying to catch a bus. Whenever the four of us decided to go somewhere I was always the one who suggested we take a bus.
Finally, after some more teasing, I said, _You know, when I was sixteen the bottoms of my feet were split wide open. I had bloody socks for three months and I still worked eighty hour weeks --_
_Why are you telling us this?_ Tank asked.
_Because when my feet hurt it’s not because I’ve got sand in my p-ssy, it’s because my feet f-cking hurt._
But I still felt the sting of how Tank had asked his question. There were still some things I couldn’t say without coming across inappropriate, or like I wanted pity.
It felt special, the moments with Jon, because he seemed normal, untouched, relevant, so when I was with him, it felt like I was living a normal, untouched, relevant life.
It’s always felt like that with K___, and before him, with W___. Special like P_ and S__ special, my uncle and aunt. They were young, cool, relevant, during my childhood. They lived in the mountains.
They were always fostering and adopting kids, they were well-educated about abuse and its signs. While the House seemed like a black hole, their world seemed present, alive. S__ came from sexual abuse herself. They must have known. They always seemed to prefer A__ and H__ over me.
When I was little I realized that I had a worse story than the kids they were fostering and adopting. I hated them for that, from an early age, maybe nine or ten, for visiting a couple times a year but always leaving me there. They had to have known, they just didn’t want me.
I never remember being comfortable enough with them to tell them anything true. I felt like they didn’t like me much or I had already grown to hate them.
I’ve done this before, I thought to myself. I was in a group of four guys in Kentucky, the May before last. They treated me like I was normal, and it was so important ..