Something going on with K__

07OCT2009

When I feel lost, pulled in many directions, numb and on auto-pilot, I ask myself, Do you like him? I then revert back to Him.
I’m my Own company, so it’s important enough to motivate the switch. Mom and R__ taught me not to show up. They had the incident in the mustang in mind, and maybe more than I can remember. I only knew what a boy knew, so I was easily taught. I used the ensuing numbness to get through the House, so I feel it’s partly my fault. It’s strange, how easy and yet unfamiliar it is to show up, and be present in the moment.
I don‘t feel like the life I‘m living is true enough to honor the real me. So I think to myself:
.. Then create situations that reflect who you really are, instead of being reactive and allowing situations to happen to you ..
And it works. All it requires is my showing up, and being myself.
At times I catch myself feeling the need to defend my feelings, before I express them, or even feel them.
It’s why when I have an emotion, I tend to primarily register my intellect trying to articulate it, defend it, fortify it, while only feeling the emotion secondarily.
Lately I feel first, and leave it at that, because it’s something the House tried to take from me, so I know it’s valuable.
Like how it feels difficult to talk. When K___ tells his stories he implies that they are cool. But if he implies that, and my stories are the opposite, then to him mine must be uncool.
I think about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, one of our favorite stories. K__ prefers the movie, because of Jack Nicholson, I prefer the book, because of the main character, Bromsden
To K__, Jack Nicholson is _So cool._
To me Bromsden is.
Jack Nicholson is the caucasion, slightly spoiled, wild man. The guy who walks into the facility and changes everything by the power of his unapologetic humor and manner.
Bromsden is the non-caucasion, slightly traumatized, strong man. Though they are opposites they become like brothers. Nicholson has something to incidentally teach Bromsden about freedom, and Bromsden has something to teach Nicholson about Real life, though in the end he doesn‘t teach him in time.
When I thought of Bromsden, and how cool he is, I could talk, and did, two nights ago.
_You know H___? That guy I was telling you about who‘s kind of postal?_ I asked him suddenly, as we were walking back from the gym in the dark. _He had to take this refresher course today that starts at nine in the morning and ends around two. I took it about a month ago, and when I took it I didn’t come back into work to finish the day, same as I didn’t go into work at 0730 in the morning like usual and then go to the course at nine, I just slept in. It was like having an afternoon off, and the course instructor doesn’t put out how long the course lasts in order to help us get free the rest of the day. Well, I see H___ coming in and I tell him, You know man, most people just take the rest of the day off. When I said it I was being nice. I was implying I wouldn’t tell anyone I had seen him, and that he could turn around and do whatever it is he needed to do. Well he says, Well, I’m not most people. I was being nice, you know, so I said, getting loud Well, I am. I mean, what a pr-ck. No wonder he has no friends._
_Yeah,_ K__ says, _All he had to say was, ‘No, I’m good, or thanks anyway. I’m telling you, there’s some weird motherf-ckers around here._ And we laughed.
We got to out tent and sat down on the bench we’d built, as K___ lit a cigarette.
_And Sch___, man. He’s such a yankee. He’s a cool guy, but he goes over board. Like he’s always trying to imply that me and H__ are so weird._
I stumbled a bit, trying to think of how to say it, trying to be normal. _’Cause we’re from the South, I think. He’ll walk up to us working together and say something like You two are like two retards trying to f-ck a doorknob. Which is funny in a way, but I think he says it to separate himself from us, like he’s smarter than us. And it’s all in his head. Meanwhile, try working with him. The door knob ends up T-bagging him._
K__ laughed.
After that I talked about the soldiers we’d be going home to in our old units, ones that deployed already and were quick to tell a deployment story. _They were all so full of sh-t,_ I said.
It’s an epidemic in the military, deployed soldiers telling soldiers who haven’t deployed yet _war stories_, making them sound more impressive than they really are. _When I get home, I’m not telling a single story, I’m not gonna be like them. I don‘t even think I‘m going to wear the patch._
_I know, I know,_ K___ said, and he went on, especially about a certain sergeant we both knew from back home, and conversation flowed, and I felt like I had done my part.
The next day we worked out around lunch time. When I started talking -- about nothing, work, music, etc. -- I felt the need to keep talking, because it felt like a drastic switch.
Usually I’m quiet about my life, and am set up that way -- fiercely independent, cautious in my dealings with others. When I start to talk I feel different, as if I can’t be that person and be talking, so I feel like another person -- disingenuous, disconnected.
I told myself, in between sets and topics, _Stay yourself. You just need to talk some, not talk all._ For a brief moment I felt whole. I felt the boy, and felt that he was just older now.
There is something going on with K___. The first time it showed up it caused problems in our friendship. There are two of him. The real one is the coolest guy you’d ever want to know. And then there’s another him, who is the same except that he thinks he’s the coolest guy you’d ever want to know.
The second guy shows up intermittently, and I seem to be the only one who can tell between the two. When the second K___ talks, he sounds more like a politician on a talk show than he does the real K___. His voice has an extra energy behind it as if what he’s saying is rehearsed, when he tells stories they sound formulaic.
He’s like a generic, material version of K__, like a good actor playing the role of K___. When Mace__ comes by, K__ talks to him the same way, but Mace__ doesn’t seem to notice. K___ talks to the other guys that way, and they don’t seem to notice. They don’t notice the condescending air a person like that seems to have.
I’ve tried to fix it, but knew I couldn’t. While K__ isn’t himself I am less responsive because I am careful not to encourage the generic version of K__, some Beast pretending to be K__.
I also cover my bases. Yesterday afternoon before our workout he told me that his Dad may have cancer. Even though K___ is twenty-four his dad is almost seventy. After the workout, K___ was folding and putting away his laundry in our room. I made the point that he could always talk to me. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind I knew we hadn‘t been talking much lately.
_I had some heavy stuff going on lately,_ I said, in a low, quiet voice, while leaned against our refrigerator, looking at the floor. _I didn’t talk to you about it because it would have been inappropriate. My Dad isn‘t sick; it‘s other stuff._ I paused, wanting to try to fix it, feeling ridiculous. _It’s easier to talk to Mace__ sometimes, you know? You’re so The Wonder Years meets The Waltons. It’s been difficult -- to talk -- to you lately, I don’t know why._ I stopped; feeling the awkwardness. _So, you sure everything‘s alright?_ I said, looking up at him.
_Yeah, seriously, I’m fine,_ he said.
_Okay,_ I went over to my bunk and started getting my gear together. K___ had given me a new spray bottle of foot powder, which I put in my locker, pulling the two old cans out. _No more need to try and squeeze the last drop out of these things._ I said, as I went to throw them into our trash can.
K___ suddenly turned and said, _I mean, I’m not clammed up, you know?_ He looked at me standing there with a trash can lid in one hand and two empty aerosol cans in the other.
I paused. _I was talking about the foot powder,_ I said, and we chuckled.
I sat down at my laptop and K__ said, _So how did it go with the money transfer thing?_
I needed to send some money home to the person taking care of my Jeep. I didn’t know how to do it, and wasn’t sure if I trusted the idea.
_I knew he wouldn’t go for it,_ I said, _That town is full of share croppers. They’re not just gonna start learning about international wire transfers._
I started to tell about my Hometown, the place I went to after leaving God’s Country when I was eighteen. I told him about how I started working when I was fourteen and rarely saw a person my age. I was mostly around people in their thirties and forties. People who’s parents had been sharecroppers, both black and white.
I explained that despite the generational distance, I fit in, due to how bad the place I come from was. If I didn’t trust the idea of wiring money, I knew J___ wouldn‘t. I tried to explain J___ to K____. To explain all the jobs I’d had since I was fourteen. I tried to explain what it was like to be a mule. To know you were a mule, all the power inside of you performing that high level of hard labor, and the proud anger behind your eyes and in your veins.
The job I got from J___ was under the table and helped me in my new tactic toward getting out of poverty. I was learning to be bad, back then, but not wrong.
I stressed what it was like as a teenager, what it was like after I was on my own and still a mule. K___ tells stories from when he was a little kid and a teenager all the time. It’s natural. His funny, light hearted stories.
After twenty five years of struggle I hadn’t come out with too many stories I wanted to tell. But I stressed those proud, strong years of my existence so he might see that they matched the cool stories of his less harrowing existence. I fought off a grown man when I was four years old. That’s just as cool as K__ played well on a tee ball team. I told the stories awkwardly, to the best of my ability, in a low, quiet tone, while trying not to look at the floor.
We went outside so he could smoke a cigarette. Then I told him about when I realized I could trust J___. He was a working man of the same share cropper stock I’d always worked with.
He had children my age. He was like a good natured, blonde, blue-eyed version of Hank on _King of the Hill._ All my life I knew that I was on my own. But J___ knew my sister and saw something that didn‘t add up. He was a normal adult who looked at me and my sisters and picked up on it, and asked me about it, as I was working with him. I explained to him the Darkness and he naturally believed me. I then told K___ about the darkness, for the first time.
I told K___ about last thanksgiving when I went to J___’s house. He and his wife complained of strange phone calls they’d receivied the last few weeks. It got to the point where J___ was telling them not to call back and was hanging up on them.
When I went through pre-deployment processing the month before I had gotten stuck when they asked about family contacts. I asked the clerk if the word ‘foster’ was a legal term. He said it wasn’t. I put J__ down as my foster father, and his wife down as my foster mother in order to get through that processing station. I thought no one would be the wiser.
At thanksgiving, I awkwardly began with, _Funny story. You’re gonna laugh when you here this,_ and explained what I had done.
J___’s wife, who is also of the same stock of people I’ve always worked with, now sends me cards, and their daughters treat me kindly.
_They’re gonna have a cook out when I get home from deployment,_ I told K___. _A whole family I don’t really know. It’s gonna be so awkward. I really like J___ and his wife. I would eat dinner with them all the time, I can talk to them all day long, you know. But I don’t know their kids. And when they have these family get togethers, they’re nerve-rackingly huge. So many people I don’t know, you know. And now the next get together will be in my honor. Holy sh-t. I dread going home from war, K___ -- because of that cookout._
We laughed and K__ said he was sure it would be okay.
It hurts to try and make out which K__ I’m dealing with, and how much the two overlap. It hurts me to tell my story so awkwardly, accidentally leaving important pieces out, accidentally telling more than I had meant to. In a way it’s hopeful, too.
__________


10OCT2009

_Remember that argument Mo__ and Se___ had?_ K__ said three nights ago, as we were walking across the FOB to the gym. _I wouldn’t have thought it would go that way. I thought Mo___ would’ve been the alpha male between the two._
_What?_ I said. _Just cause Se__ has those big ears -- it’s not all about looks,_ I felt suddenly defensive., and inexplicably angry. I’d been triggered, so I dropped it, and we talked about working out.
The trigger wouldn’t leave me alone and I felt the anger, rising urgently. I wanted to get away from K___, to get off by myself. As we reached the gym door, and K___ stepped through, I turned toward a nearby porta-jon, as if I was going to take a piss.
I didn’t go to the latrine. I stood out in the dark and drank a bottle of water, while trying to calm my emotion. I told myself I’d write all the notes in the world after the work out. I threw the bottle away, and went inside.
Some guys near us were from our company, the same ones who ask me for workout tips. The first exercise K___ and I were to do was a shoulder exercise. At first I tried the weight I had used the last time I’d done the exercise, but it was so heavy I couldn’t get into position.
The guys acted surprised. I blew it off saying, _Must be something with my shoulder._
Then I tried weight twenty pounds lighter -- what should‘ve been too light -- I got into the position but couldn’t lift. I found that unbelievable so I pushed up anyway. The arms gave way and K__ had to reach out and catch the barbell before my shoulder ripped.
I felt stunned and embarrassed. K___ and the guys assumed my shoulder was hurt. I stepped outside, with K__ following. He suggested we skip working out today. _I mean, it’s just one day,_ he said, _And I don’t want to risk hurting your shoulder any more than it is already._
But the trigger was still strong, and I still wanted to be myself. I convinced him to work out on his own and went back to our room.
I had to leave on a convoy at 0400 the next morning. I went to shower, so I could get on to bed. I felt depressed and numb, so I thought sleep might not be a good idea.
I tried to write, but couldn’t make enough sense of my feelings. I chose to allow the feeling of being triggered to stay in my bones, instead of pushing it away, even though the trigger seemed inexplicable, with no rational beginning or foreseeable end.
I showered and shaved, and looking in the mirror, thought, Can the body do that? It wanted to get off by itself. I told it to hold on just a little longer, till I finished the work out with K___. Then it seemed to refuse that, forcing my hand. What could’ve been so affecting?
I seemed to know it had something to do with the way K__ said the words alpha male.