Hell Chose Me

by Angel Luis Colón

  “What’s wrong?”

  Never call him out of the blue. He’s right to worry. I give myself a breath to pause and let his balls rise into his chest. “Nothing…nothing. Look, that gig you mentioned earlier today. What’s the payout?”

  “Oh, well.” That threw him off. Now he’s doing the mental gymnastics—trying to figure out how to put me over a barrel here. “I got a couple of guys interested, but for you, I can try to bring it up to maybe ten large.” It’s like he’s following a script.

  The gig’s worth fifteen minimum but I need the money—fast. “Fine, ten is fine. Want that in writing, though.” I make a mental note to kick my own ass for being in this situation. I had plenty of opportunities to make side money before. Shouldn’t have waited until the last possible minute.

  He laughs. “Sure, we can have a notary show up too.”

  “Ten. No shorting. I’m breaking personal rules here.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got it. Stop by tomorrow for the details.”

  I rub my eyes. There’s a storm brewing behind them. A pressure that’s gonna turn into knives by morning. Thanks, whiskey. “No stiffing me again, understood?”

  “When was the last time I lied to you?” I can hear the smile in his voice. “Don’t answer that. Not about to sit here for an hour while we talk about high school.”

  “I’m in no mood for reminiscing either.”

  “Call tomorrow and we’ll sort out the details. Use my burner number.”

  “Okay.” I disconnect the phone. Power it down.

  This is a terrible, terrible idea. I know that, but I can’t let Liam down. Not when he needs someone this badly. I’ll do what needs doing and one day, they’ll find a way to wake him up. Then we can go out for a beer again.

  Then we can be a family again.

  Deeds, Not Words—1990 to 1991

  7

  I asked my mom to let me stay in the funeral parlor alone with Grandpa’s casket before they came to drag it out front and into the hearse. I eyed the silver frame with his portrait in it. Someone handwrote Mairsial James Walsh—1918-1990. I didn’t like this picture of him. He looked tired and sad. That wasn’t the man I knew. That wasn’t the man who raised me. The man I knew was strong. He was hard, but for all the right reasons. I couldn’t understand why they chose to remember him at his lowest. Didn’t seem fair to him.

  The entire wake, I couldn’t find it in me to even approach him. Maybe because the casket was sealed shut—his body in such a state after the accident that there was shit-all they could do to make him presentable—or because I was terrified to admit that he was in a silver box that we were going to bury six feet underground at Saint Raymond’s cemetery. Didn’t matter.

  I spent two days standing near the funeral home entrance and greeting people. Occasionally snuck off with a cousin or two to get a free drink. The times I thought I’d muster the whiskey-soaked courage to get over there, my legs would give out on me. It happened twice before I decided to stop trying. Then the day of the burial came, and I was left with one last chance to close the book with him.

  Liam stayed near Mom the entire time. He was younger, more willing to be a rock for her. Me, I was at the height of my stupidity—an eighteen-year-old with a chip on top of the chip on my shoulder. I figured Liam was lucky. He was only nine; this kind of crap would wash over him. He’d be back with his Game Boy playing Pokémon in no time.

  So I waited two days to muster up the balls to stand next to a box they locked my grandpa in forever. Thought that would be the breaking point—the moment the tears would all pour out and every vile emotion bubbled up to the surface, but there was nothing. Of course, that only made me angrier. I leaned against the casket and willed myself not to punch it. Did it anyway. Felt a pair of hands on my shoulder and turned to see my mom. She was wearing a ridiculous black dress with sequins and a plunging neckline. There were ulterior motives there. A lot of guys her age from the old neighborhood were popping up. Smart money would be on my mother working an angle to land a new man. That was her way.

  Mom pulled me into a tight hug and whispered a load of bullshit to me—not so much to soothe me as to soothe her. The hug was unwieldy; I was taller than her by a head and she stank of perfume that gave me a headache. I pushed out of the hug when the stink and the feeling of her tears became too much for me to handle without lashing out.

  She stepped back and let out an audible sigh. “You can’t get like this.”

  “Get like what?” I picked at one of the dozens of ornate funeral wreaths surrounding the casket. This one was from Uncle Sean—white roses in the shape of a crucifix, a photo of Grandpa and his half-siblings from the Stone Age. They all wore tight smiles except for him.

  Mom waved a hand over me. “The way you always get, angry.” She shoved a finger in my face. “And don’t think I don’t know you’ve been drinking. Your Aunt Ellen told me she saw you at the bar.” The finger was joined by its sisters and she slapped me hard against the arm. “You hear me?”

  I rubbed my temples. “I don’t need this shit right now, Ma.”

  “And I do?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Don’t fucking curse.” Another smack.

  “Seriously, Ma, you’re going to turn this into something about you?”

  “It’s my father…” She wiped her eyes with a shredded wad of napkin. “I had to identify him, Bryan, you wouldn’t…”

  “…understand. Yeah, nobody fucking understands you. Wave that flag some more.” I looked back to the casket. “I asked for time to say goodbye. Didn’t ask to have another one of these dick-measuring contests about which one us is more bent.”

  She stared right through me—didn’t flinch. The immovable force that was my mother. “You haven’t even hugged your brother.”

  “Jesus Christ, he’s been attached to you this whole time.”

  “He lost his grandfather too.” She eyed the casket.

  “And he can mourn like the rest of us.”

  “You’re being selfish.”

  I turned back to her. My face was hot. “Are you seriously going to have this argument with me next to your father’s dead body?”

  “He would have said the same thing. Not a day before he left us, he was ready to help you get a job.”

  “I told you I’m going to the recruiter’s after graduation. They were the only ones with anything worth listening to at that stupid job fair.” I scratched the back of neck. I’d shaved my head to get a feel for it before they forced it on me. It was strange—and itchy—but I liked it. Left my face alone, though. For the first time in five years, a razor hadn’t touched it in two weeks. My beard was patchy, but I was proud of it. Thirteen years of Catholic school be damned.

  She narrowed her eyes. “And I said no. No son of mine is going to go off and die in the middle of fucking nowhere. You’re smarter than that.”

  “It’s not about my intelligence, Ma.” I turned my back to her. “It’s the best way. I can get an education after I do my part. If I stick around, I get a pension and benefits and shit.”

  “Oh, bullshit. You don’t give a fuck about any of that.”

  She was right, but I wasn’t about to admit that. “Doesn’t matter. I’m an adult; I’ll make my own decisions.”

  “What happens when they hand you a fucking rifle and they tell you to shoot a bunch of people? What then? Are you gonna be a murderer?” She leaned in and looked into my eyes.

  “I’ll do what I have to do. The Marine Corps ain’t murderers.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  My mother picked up the picture of my grandfather in the frame and slipped it into her purse. “Last I checked, shooting someone in the head was murder.”

  “There’s no guarantee I’ll get sent out anywhere to fight.”

  “But what if you do? You’re a spoiled little brat. You think a handful of bullshit bar fights made you into a big man?” She shook her head. “That must come from your asshole f
ather, because I certainly—”

  “Oh, fuck off, Ma. You bullshit about your fights as a kid all the damn time.”

  “Didn’t make me join the fucking Army.” She crossed her arms. I won that one.

  “Marine Corps.”

  “Same difference. You know, your uncle offered to fly you out to Killarney for a few weeks. You can work at his pub, maybe meet a few cute girls out there.”

  “I ain’t flying overseas to work at a fucking bar.” I dropped my hands to my sides, sick of the repeated arguments. “Can I get my time alone now? The guy is probably waiting to get the procession going.”

  “I don’t give a shit about who’s waiting. We paid for this.”

  “Uncle Sean paid for this.”

  She lit a cigarette. “Family paid for this.”

  “You shouldn’t…”

  Mom gave me a look like I owed her money.

  “Fine. Give me a minute. Check on your other kid.” I turned back to the coffin and placed my hands on it. Imagined what he must look like—wasn’t fair that I couldn’t see him off properly. I heard Mom walk off. Smelled the smoke of her menthols all over me. That was the moment I began to hate her—not as a mother, as a person. I remembered hearing a saying about how you couldn’t choose your family. I understood exactly what that meant in the hours before we buried my grandfather.

  “We’ll be discussing all this later,” she said from the door leading back to the halls.

  I ignored her. Waited to hear the door close. “Pa. Why’d it have to go like this?”

  The room was scary quiet. Could only hear the low hum of the ventilation system they used to make sure these rooms didn’t reek of the dead.

  “I don’t know what to do.” I grabbed the flowers from Uncle Sean and threw them across the room. Punched down on the casket with arms as hard as I could. Pain shot up from my fists and into my elbows, but I ignored it. I screamed—primal, incoherent. Grabbed the other flower arrangements and tore them apart, cleared them away from the casket in one big sweep. When there was nothing left in front of me but the casket, I stared at it.

  I was mad at him.

  None of this was his fault, but I was so mad—couldn’t think quite right. I had a flask in my inside jacket pocket. Pulled it out and drained the last of the cheap Powers whiskey I stole from Mom’s liquor cabinet.

  “You left me.” I spoke to the coffin as if it would answer back. My fists clenched hard enough for my fingernails to press into my palms. I breathed through my nose—overdramatic, like a toddler.

  I don’t know what I was waiting for. Maybe I expected the casket to swing open, for Grandpa to rise—mangled face and all—and tell me what to do next. There was no way out, nobody to give a damn about anymore. I loved my family, sure, but I couldn’t continue with this mess. Enlistment was the way out. I’d travel a few years, learn a few things about being a man. The same as Grandpa, the way he did when he was a kid. He traveled to New York and made his own life. Didn’t give a shit about the family he left behind. It was time for me to do the same thing. Time for me to step up and get away from everything that was holding me down—keeping me from being the man that I wanted to be.

  It was the right thing to do.

  “Bry?” Liam’s voice broke the silence—a tremble in it.

  I lowered my head. Felt more blood rush to my cheeks, but not from anger. Rubbed my eyes—still no tears. Took a long breath and turned to him. He was a wreck—looked like his eyes would burst right out of their sockets. I opened my arms to him and he rushed in, wrapping his own arms around me like a vice. He shook as the tears came out of him. I embraced him back. Rubbed the back of his head. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I was broken—somehow disconnected from proper emotion. Maybe I was some kind of monster. Liam was sad. He felt the loss honestly—the way I wanted to. All I could think about was how all of this wronged me, and no matter how hard I tried to be cognizant of that, the more I fell into the pity party spiral I’d thrown myself into.

  “Please don’t leave,” Liam said into my chest.

  I sighed. Hugged him tighter. Kissed the crown of his head. “I gotta. Need to make my own way out there.”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t. You can stay here with us. I can keep Ma off your ass.” I wanted to push him away—tell him to man up. There was no way I could do that. With all the shit I dealt with, with all the darkness I carried in me, Liam was the only light I had. I knew he needed me, but there was nothing I could do for him the way I was. I needed to be something better and I knew that I couldn’t be that if I stayed in the Bronx. Especially not without Grandpa.

  I rested my chin on Liam’s head and closed my eyes. “It’ll be okay, Liam.” There wasn’t a trace of emotion in my voice. I absorbed every one of his sobs and held it deep inside for him. I was stone. “I love you. Remember that. I always will—no matter what I do.” That wasn’t a lie. I meant it.

  “I love you too, Bryan,” he said.

  I finally started to cry.

  8

  I made a mistake. A huge, terrible, awful mistake when I enlisted in the Marine Corps. It was obvious the minute I showed up to basic, and that growing sense of dread kept building straight through Quantico and San Diego and to Kuwait.

  I wasn’t the right kind of man for the Marine Corps, even if the Gulf War was a joke. We dominated the Iraqis for six months and I barely broke a sweat with the air support we had. The Iraqis threw everything they could at us and we laughed, seriously, their military power against a coalition of thirty-four countries? It was no wonder the opposition we faced was scattered and only rarely strong enough to pin us down for longer than a day. Not like I was some war hero. Most of my detail involved helping repair our armored units. It wasn’t until we entered Iraq, after we finished up with Kuwait, that I saw any conflict.

  Al Busayyah changed everything. That was the worst of the fighting. Saw more bodies than I’d see in Ireland or back home, but that barely registered. I had a job to do, so I did it. Kept my head low and followed my orders. Turned out my mouth wasn’t so big outside of the Bronx. Made a reputation as “the quiet one” with the crazy eyes. It bothered me, but all I really wanted was to get home. This life wasn’t for me—the discipline, the structure—it was all too much. If it were only the violence and the bad-ass stigma, sure, I would have stuck with it, but as it was, I lost the determination to do anything but stay alive well before I even shipped out on my tour.

  At the tail end of the fighting in Al Busayyah, we got orders to clear out a street of tightly packed homes. Simple work, you go with a team and sweep. Make sure there are no assholes with machine guns or mortars holed up somewhere to ambush the other guys headed down the main streets. I ran point, meaning I would be the first one to stick his neck out after my partner kicked a door open. Like I said, easy and rarely dangerous since there were enough of us to handle most situations. The routine had become boring by this point. We weren’t seeing any of the resistance we were promised. Hussein’s army was a joke.

  We were at our last house. I heard some shuffling through a blown-out window. I signaled to my group and we fell into position. The door was kicked open; I tossed in a flash bang. Counted off in my head—boom. I charged in screaming “Hands up” in Arabic, relieved that bullets weren’t flying in my direction. We either pacified the situation or it was a false alarm. I could live with both.

  The actual result—the dead kid with his face shorn off and a mother screaming his name—that was something nobody could be prepared for.

  “How you holding up?” One of my squad mates, Nikolavic, ducked into my tent.

  I was busy smoking a cigarette and drinking whiskey we stole from some of the fancier houses weeks back. I ignored Nikolavic. I was too busy staring at the little boy without a face at the foot of my sleeping bag. He sat cross-legged with his head down. Rocked back and forth. I could still hear his mother screaming. I remember wondering what his name was. For some reason
I felt like if I knew his name, I could ask for his forgiveness the right way.

  “I’m good,” I muttered.

  “You don’t look good.” Nikolavic sat down beside the boy. I found it weird that he seemed to give the kid little berth. “They’re asking about you.”

  “What’s there to ask?” I pretended to inspect a pair of sneakers my mom sent a few weeks back for spiders. “I ain’t Section 8, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Nikolavic shook his head. “Nah, man. It’s not like that. We’re still on the clock. Tomorrow we’re back at it.” He paused. Reached a hand out. “Can I have a sip?”

  The ghost of the boy slipped over and positioned himself on Nikolavic’s lap—the same position his mother held him in, but with only air to support him. Try as I could, the details of his face were lost to me. There was that deep, red mess. Beneath the surface, a pulse, the muscle fibers twitching. Something beneath coiling up as if to burst forward.

  I handed Nikolavic the flask I was drinking out of and the little boy faded away.

  Nikolavic took a long draw. He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Maybe you can hang in the rear?”

  “I said I ain’t so shook up that I can’t do my fucking job, Nik.” I snatched the flask away from him. “We saw plenty of bodies so far, shit, that fucking highway alone.”

  Nikolavic nodded. He stood back up. “Yeah, well…”

  “If I need a shoulder to soak in my manly tears, yours will be the first I look for. Until then, fuck off and let me relax.” I continued my vigil with my little victim. I forced a smile. “I need some sleep to get myself straight. I’ll be good by the morning.”

  I don’t think I convinced either of us with that one.

  “Whatever you say, man.” Nikolavic moved to step out of the tent. He stopped. “Oh, yeah. Sergeant said maybe you should call home.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “A lot of guys said it helped.”