4

K___ received a red cross message, saying that his dad was in the hospital and not looking good.
K___ would be leaving shortly.
Just when I’ve figured out how to be a good friend, I thought to myself. Now he’s leaving. In private, standing outside in the dark, smoking a cigarette, I forgave myself for trying so hard this past year, trying to be a friend, trying to get it right. I just barely learned it before he announces he has to leave.
He said he’d have to travel back to us in country, just to turn around and redeploy back to the states with us. I felt relieved. He’ll only be gone a month, I told myself.
Later he told me that the red cross message would most likely be extended, and that K__ probably would not be back, since we were so close to getting back to the states as it was.
I tried not to feel it, tried to be a gracious friend -- you’ll write it all out later, I thought to myself. I remembered being on pass in ____ and how I had to say goodbye to Jon and Tank and Joe, and how I felt like that would be impossible, but I was still okay, because I had my own.
I felt sick-to-my-stomach bad that K__ and mine’s friendship had been infringed upon by my past, how I had given the friendship an unfair importance because of all the things I was learning for the first time.
It made things unfair for K___, made me a substandard friend. Our first fight was last June, July, and began because he stopped looking me in the eye.
We used to be able to communicate effortlessly from across the room, just by eye signal, we were so used to each other.
Due to my past, I may have over reacted to the change. What would’ve been bumps in the road became pitfalls.
Whenever the nightmares skyrocketed, they would affect my perceptions and feelings in waking life, so that I couldn’t trust them, and could only rely on the Toughness. I didn’t necessarily do so great a job of it.
It’s hard to be Tough and feel powerful at the same time. I resented the unbalanced dynamic between us, all the extra work I had to do, and I didn’t handle things properly.
Once we’d arrived in country and saw that we didn’t need each other quite so much anymore, it was difficult. Maybe the friendship normalized.
I tried to keep the status quo by acquiring things for him, it was what I was good at. He was working nights for awhile, and told me how much he relied on these energy drinks they had in the chow hall. Soldiers were only allowed to take two at a time. I woke K__ up at seven pm as always, for his shift, and his night table had over thirty cans of the energy drink stacked on it. He smiled, and shook his head at me. Friendship reaffirmed.
But after awhile there was nothing left to acquire, and K__ didn’t even need me for that.

__________

　
It would turn out to be his last night at the FOB.
He talked a lot, like old times. He said often, _when we get home,_ as if we’d continue to be friends, as if his leaving was just routine, like when he left for NTC a few days before me back in March. No big deal. My heart was in my stomach, but no big deal.
We played ping pong, and it was like those early days when we first hit Kuwait, and played ping pong for six hours at a stretch, while waiting for our next company movement. The best part was he started talking again, like he used to, with the obvious honesty.
He asked me if it would be wrong for him to get his red cross message extended.
I said no.
But then I wouldn’t come back, he said, this would be it.
Even though it hurt me to say it I told him he should stay with his dad, the deployment was so close to being done with, there was no point in coming back.
_Yeah, you’re right,_ he said.
He started talking about college, and how he had changed his outlook now, he didn’t want to go to third world countries as a cultural anthropologist anymore, he didn’t want to spend a year of his schooling in Africa like he had wanted to when I’d first met him. _I hate these people, now,_ he said. _I hate the Iraqi’s I hate the Arabs -- not as individuals, but just being around them all the time, it pisses me off. I just hate them._
I had grown to hate Iraq. It made me feel angry all the time. Not in a bad way, I don‘t mind anger in and of itself. But the anger implied a change was needed, but I was deployed so I didn’t have much choice.
To me his talking was so important I stopped playing ping pong altogether. I stood there with the ball in my hand.
He motioned with his paddle for me to start playing again. _I just wanted an experience, you know,_ he said. _Of some kind. This deployment was supposed to kind of take the place of that but, it turned out to be just a load of sh-t._
I understood him in a new way. I always felt intimidated by his stories of schooling, like he was bragging about his education, but really his education was the only difficult thing he’d ever done, the only real experience he’d ever had on his own. His world was the opposite of mine -- civilian, lacking of abuse. I was always forgetting that, forgetting to take it into account.
_I can’t believe I have to start college from scratch when I get home,_ I said. _I’ll be the oldest freshman there, it’s going to be weird. I don’t see it as an experience, you know._
_If I could go home and start college over I would,_ he said. Him saying that sealed the deal for me. I had felt wary about starting college with such advanced age, or working a fulltime job at the same time, of having to try that hard. But him saying that, put the wariness to rest.
It’s gonna be hard, I thought to myself. Not having him anymore. It’s gonna be real hard. No -- you have your own, you have your self.
He started telling stories of what he did when he was on leave, and how he might not go that far now that his dad was in the hospital.
I joked that that wasn’t likely, since his brothers would be right there. _No, I don’t tell my brothers that stuff. The don’t know that I do drugs and stuff. Not that I have to keep it a secret, I just don’t talk to them about that stuff._
It dawned on me that K___ told me more than he did his own brothers, and I felt a little more relieved.
When we got back to out tent, it wasn’t long before a runner from the CP came up and told K__ he was to immediately get on a convoy to start his journey.
He had a lot of last minute notes for me, as far as getting his stuff home, some laundry he hadn’t done, etc. He acted so casual, as if it wasn’t goodbye, which made things worse for me.
Mace___ blurted out, _So when are we going to see you again K___?_ and I held my breath.
K__ had given me his email but out of uncertainty I said I’d never use it unless I had to. None of us had found each other on face book because there was no point in it when we lived together.
He said for me to absolutely email him, we’d find each other on face book and we’d get together when we all got back to the states.
He left. Shortly after, Mace___ looked at me and said, _Chuck, you look like you’ve lost your best friend,_ and laughed.
I thanked him for asking K__ when we’d see him again. I was so unsure of it, I couldn’t seem to say anything.
_How is that possible?_ M__ asked.
_I mean, I wasn’t sure, if you’re friends during deployment if that means you’re friends outside of deployment._
_All I know is that since the beginning it’s always been K__ and Chuck. Chuck and K___._
_Yeah, okay._
K__ suddenly walked back in. He looked at me sheepishly and said he needed to borrow yet another pair of eye pro.
We both knew I’d never get this pair back either.
It had also been that way with him always needing to borrow something. We laughed, and then just like that, he was gone.

__________