6

Next day after duty we ate dinner chow. At first I was eating alone, because W__ hadn’t been at his tent. But then he came and found me in the chow hall, knowing I was there, though he’d already eaten, which is why when I stopped by his tent he was absent.
No looking tentatively at me this time to make sure we’re still friends, instead he begins a full onslaught of funny stories.
Later, in an empty tent, one reserved for the incoming unit, we sat and talked more; he tells me that he notices how my adjective for most people is that they’re ‘crazy’ and that _I know you come from this hard background, so I get it, but you’re just so distrustful of people._
He tells me about how cops have to go out of their way to not become like that, to not lose their faith in human kind.
I felt like he had bought into the American ideal. Now that he has his bullet points down he has moved on to self promotion, to the point of making friendships simply out of making contacts, he finds ways to put himself out there. He explained to me that if he has to play politics, he will, but only according to the standards of his own conscience. He tells me that he’s gotten all these emails and phone calls from people that he would’ve never known personally before if he hadn’t been a deployed cop.
I understood, suddenly, that the reason he seemed to have all these big plans for utilizing these contacts was because for him they were the only good thing to come out of this deployment.
Really all he is, is incredibly confident. I distrust it. I distrust the way what happens to go well in his life is the direction he takes his life in. Does Want mean nothing?
_You have to see the good in ordinary people, man,_ he said, sitting on the cot, swatting a fly away.
I remembered those years in the House, all the ordinary good people who allowed a place like the House to exist.
At one point W__ showed me his pictures. I cringed at how normal and Southern he looked, just like the adults back then when I lived in the House. I’ve always felt the need to be separate from that. I hated them for it, even though what I was expecting of them seems unreasonable now. I refused to be so ordinary that I wouldn’t be able to see that a child in a house might be in that much trouble.
I tried not to be awkward, as I told him my issues, I tried not to be Debbie Downer, as I explained to him my underlying worries for the future, of how I seemed to dread going back to the states, dreaded facing J__ and his daughters, I tried to say funny things.
When I tell the truth, I feel like it can sound like a list of complaints and apprehensions. I see it as all temporary, maybe he doesn’t, so I feel the awkwardness of trying to be honest while still keeping his perception of me as close to the truth as possible.
I forgot to mention to him how much hope it requires to have lived an unlivable life. I forget to make a point of this because it seems so unarguable. Like the way I forget to make a point of being interesting, because I’ve lived such a tumultuous life it doesn’t occur to me that it is possible for me to come across as boring. I forget that once I start talking I can sound like someone with a hopeless outlook on life.
I wondered to myself: Is distrustfulness pessimism and hopelessness? Maybe, I guess.
I let him go back to his tent, and later ate midnight chow with a buddy of mine I hadn’t seen in a long time. W__ was there, but I didn’t see him. He joked about it as he walked past me to exit the chow hall, I tried to joke back, but it came out awkward. I felt embarrassed for being awkward, like I was still not normal.

__________

　
_You’re like the only one I can trust right now,_ Mo___ said the next day.
He happened to be at the console next to me at the internet café. He was showing me the two vehicles he was choosing between. He wanted my opinion.
_Was this deployment really that bad?_ I asked.
He gave me a look and I understood.
He’s getting older, I thought to myself, not the same nineteen year old he was when the deployment first started and me him and Se___ were battle buddies. He’s realizing that the people older and more mature than him aren’t necessarily giving him good advice or opinions.
Last night, W___ had smiled and said I was distrustful, that I tended to see the people around me as sheer insanity. He said it in just the right way, so that I wasn’t offended, but what he said has been on my mind.
R___ was my dad but then tried to rape me. Ms M__ the old woman in our apartment building who cooked for everybody, including me, began to make passes at me, and inappropriate comments. Turned out A__ and H___ were attracted to me, not just being nice to me, part of the sick game of the House, having thoughts about me. SFC T___ claimed to be my mentor, but actually only saw me as white, the whole time. J__’s daughter, B___, whose been sending me packages supposedly in the name of their family, is laying hints that she intends for us to get together when I get home. L__ and M__, my friends at the restaurant job I had worked, they were so nice to me, but turns out they thought they could pass me off to their friends who couldn’t get sex regularly. When K___ started hanging out with me I reminded myself that he was probably only doing so for the access and convenience my position implied for him, but after a few months, he gained my trust, at least gained it as much as was possible at the time.
If W___ could see these things, he could see me.
If he could see the pain each situation caused me.

__________