4

I think of all the trouble I’ve accepted in order to have a friendship. Maybe at some point it began to seem degrading. It wasn’t like that before. But then he didn’t seem cocky before. I guess the way I handled it always held a great deal of risk to my dignity.
The first thing I notice about K___ is how good looking he is. The first thing I notice about myself is how ugly I am. Sometimes I think, in the back of my mind, that maybe K__ or W__ weren’t necessarily good looking, just normal looking, and maybe so am I.
The first thing I think now when K___ and I cross paths is: _I don’t care._
It’s the same thing I would tell myself in the House, during Abuse.
I have my own reasons for keeping so much to myself. If the people in my life want me to push aside twenty years of my life and never mention it or its consequences or lessons, then they certainly won’t mind me keeping most of my present life to myself either.
I was good at it by the time I got to the café. I never mentioned I was a reserve soldier even though the war and the president were hot topics. When asked later about it, I replied, _It never came up._
I never let on about my political orientation. I never let on about my sexual orientation either. The gays assumed they had a chance, as did the women, and I had lots of friends. But underneath my behavior, as innocent as it seemed to feel at the time, there was a stoic, silent anger -- a power.
Sometimes I feel like sh-t. Because it’s my own fault. Then why did you leave the friendship so quickly and completely? I think to myself.
Because of the anger. It felt like some great wrong must have been done, one that I couldn’t put my finger on but was so great that I had to get out of there.
It reminded me of the House and how when I was a boy I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was da-mn important, and guided me out of there.
It seems silly, all this trouble I’m going through and have caused. This stark and volatile internal reflection. It’s not motivated by choice. The motivation is its own entity, sometimes manifesting in my mind as the knowledge that if I don’t make profound progress now, I’ll go home to the same life I had before, void of meaningful relationships or human connection -- the ultimate consequence of child sexual abuse.
I know why _Dexter_ doesn’t resent his sister. Because he’s in touch with his power. He effortlessly acknowledges exactly what he’s doing each time he forgives his sister. It’s not assumed, reactionary, or done on auto pilot. Despite ninety percent of his life being hidden, despite his being different, he doesn’t feel a hint of shame or inequality concerning his sister.
Dexter chooses not to resent his sister because of the bond. It’s the bond that causes him to go through all the trouble. And it’s all the trouble that pulls him through the Darkness. It’s love that’s to blame.
Maybe it didn’t work because despite the ninety percent of my life I was writing down and keeping to myself, the way I felt was always written on my face and body language. I’m always Him. I’m always in the moment, no matter what I do.
I have my own burden to carry same as every one. Maybe mine is heavy. Out of exhaustion I have forfeited my independence before, then regretted it deeply. I wish I could be normal: excepting a bit of burden and independence, along with a bit of companionship and compromise, without feeling uncertain.
It’s true that despite my Discipline my body wasn’t used to friendship, was surprised to deserve it. My body betrayed me by naturally taking the number two position in the friendship -- the one who cared more about the friendship than the other -- since K___ was the experienced, effortless one in the friendship.
All along it’s me who has the power to make friends, relationships, connections -- a life. It’s in my hands. Real life is not as chaotic as the House,
It’s me, not others, not Life itself, it’s me who has that power. I don’t have power of what might happen, but I do have that power. Just because there’s Difficulty does not mean there’s Inequality.
If my life were a movie, K__ would respond to any signs of my lowered self esteem by disbelieving it, and telling me so. In Real life maybe my signs of lowered self esteem slowly taught him that I was less and he was more.
It’s like whenever I get this far in a relationship, my issues well up from the deep, to give me another chance to resolve them, deal with them. I’m not pushing K___ away. I’m pushing That away, that welling up from deep inside me.
The truth is, one reason friendship with K___ was preferable was that I didn’t have to speak much, or even show up much. It’s like I would be friends with K___ in order to be cool, instead of just being cool, in order to be cool without having to face my power.
Still, the anger seems just as much a mystery as ever. It always happens like this, I think to myself. My power shows up with so much Aggression and deep seated Stuff that I don’t understand.

__________

　
The other night, K__’s liquor had come in the mail. Since we haven’t spoken, he chose to drink it with some guys in his platoon.
He kept coming in to our room to grab another drink out of the refrigerator. I was trying to sleep. He did it four times in twenty minutes. I got up, unplugged the refrigerator, dragged over to my side, hid it behind some totes where I knew he’d never find it, and went back to bed.
As I was doing it, I thought to myself, What are you doing; what you’re doing doesn’t make any sense. In retort I thought, I’m pissed, and I’m sorry that what pissed people do doesn’t always make sense.
The refrigerator had been intended as a sign of our friendship. I haven’t had the heart to pull it back out and plug it back in. I remember seeing the look on his face as he stepped into the room to grab something else out of the refrigerator, and he saw it wasn’t there. He looked hurt, not thwarted.
That’s the thing about K___, he doesn’t protect himself with anger, he’ll feel hurt just as easily as any other emotion.

__________

　
(Reading The Kite Runner, with its foreign words and sounds.)
Let go of the words, B. I think to myself, Let go of the words. Let go of the words. They’re just words. Get out of your head.
If what’s in your head is true, I think to myself, If it’s from the soul and not just meaningless thoughts .. make it Real then -- Feel.

__________

　
I don’t sleep much anymore, because for the last few weeks the nightmares have been strong; now my body seems to refuse sleep.
Due to the nightmares I’ve become a night owl. I work out in the gym at two a.m. I can feel the House on my skin, in the air, all around me, as if there are not seven years between us. The buildings here on the FOB are as dilapidated as that House was, in that rural country. I feel like I might as well be twelve again, or six, or four. The gym equipment is worn, it reminds me of the abandoned school and abandoned gym I would play in as a boy.
As I was walking back from my 2 am work out, K__ sat in the dark on the bench outside our tent door, smoking a cigarette.
He squinted at me first, his gaze unwavering. I said, flatly, _What’s up,_ just before I entered the tent, not expecting an answer and not getting one.

__________

　
(Stepping through a room, a football game was on, the team poured a cooler of ice and water over the coach.)
We did that, one soccer Saturday when I was little. I stayed back a little. I never felt a part of things. I never felt welcomed into the human race.