by Tia Lewis
“Jerk,” I muttered. I double-timed it under the weight of my gear to retrieve the photo while Jack laughed his ass off. I caught it in mid-air and quickly returned it to the safety of my jacket pocket. Irritated, I turned to give Jack a piece of my mind. Jack was still laughing and took a backward step away from me.
The air split with a loud bang, and the percussive force sent me flying into a sand bank. My head jolted painfully by the collision with rock covered by sand. I may have been unconscious, but even when I realized I was still alive, I laid stunned for I don’t know how long. My head raged with sickening pain, my ears rang, and my body refused to move. Slowly, feeling returned to my limbs, and I twisted with achingly glacial motion, stupidly hoping that Jack had gotten to some sort of shelter in the face of the blast.
But what I saw instead ripped a scream from my throat.
Meleyna
I parked inconveniently at the front door of Hertford’s Feed and Seed, so I had to work quickly. The parking lot was postage stamp size for such a busy store. On the chaotic weekends, I would have to call my order in ahead of time to slot my pickup. Robbie, old man Hertford’s son, would then load supplies as the farm trucks filed in one by one. But there was a reason I didn’t usually shop Hertford’s on the weekend and why I chose Tuesday instead. So I was without Robbie’s help, who had a day job in Russellville, and I hefted fifty-pound bags of animal food into my old truck. I was on the fourth of five when a sheriff’s cruiser pulled in behind me and angled to block the exit of the parking lot. I held in a groan. It was Randy Barker’s day off, but apparently, the man didn’t get the memo.
Randy shut the door to his cruiser and walked up to me with a smile.
“Need some help, beautiful?” He grinned widely, greeting me like an old friend, which at one time I was.
I stiffened involuntarily. The last person I wanted to see was Randy.
“No, officer,” I said. I didn’t say it in the playful way I used to. Now my voice was all business and Randy frowned.
“It’s ‘officer’ now?”
“That’s how we left things,” I said, remembering our last bitter argument. “Nothing between us.”
He looked nervously to the door, and I scoffed.
“Hertford is behind his cash register, and there is no one else here. You don’t have to worry about being found out.”
“Meleyna, I think you are taking things too seriously.”
“Yeah, I got that, Randy.”
“Stop calling me Randy. That sounds…”
“What? Gay? Bi? Get over yourself, dude. The reason we broke up was because you finally discovered your true sexuality, but you’re afraid to own it. You want to stay in the closet, that’s your business. I’ve grown past secrets.”
This time it was Randy’s turn to scoff. “I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m just not being obvious about it. I’m sorry if it’s gonna make you embarrassed when everyone finally finds out.”
I frowned. “Finds out what? That I’ve been your beard all this time? There’s no need to make a big deal now, is there? We’re done.” I grunted as I hefted the last bag of animal food into the pickup.
“We don’t have to be.”
“Yes, we do.” I hit the last syllable of the name extra hard as I slammed the tailgate of the truck shut. “We’ve had this conversation, and I don’t want to revisit it. Not unless you want to stop stuffing me in the closet along with you. I’m tired of being someone’s dirty little secret, and you can’t have me while you’re secretly pining away for a man.”
I was speaking with real heat now, allowing old emotions to surface, which I hadn’t intended to do. I had spent too many years, since high school, in fact, helping him hide the fact that he was gay. I had been his beard for all these years. There were too many nights where I waited on him to finish with his latest hook-up before we could spend time together looking like a couple. That merged with too many functions where we had to act like a couple to the eyes of the world. There were too many damn angry moments that made painfully apparent I was only a convenient beard for Randy when he got into the mood for some “strange” and needed to hide who he was really fucking. I’d had enough. But he wouldn’t get that message through his thick head. He felt like he still needed me as his crutch.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Let’s get some drinks.”
Meaning, let’s go to the local bar and be seen together as a couple.
“I’ve got to feed the animals.”
“The animals can wait.”
“Maybe the animals can, Rand, but I’m done waiting.” I climbed into my truck and slammed the door. The engine rumbled to life as I turned the key, but the cruiser sat blocking the entrance to the parking lot. Randy stood at the truck’s driver’s side window.
Reluctantly, I rolled down the window. “What?” I snapped. I was getting irritated and anxious to be on my way.
Randy plastered his cop face on his mug—no emotion, no hint of his thoughts. It was his way of protecting himself, and it pissed me off.
“I never meant for it to go bad, Meleyna. I miss my best friend.”
I shook my head and cursed to myself. I hated when Randy played on my emotions. And I did miss him, too. Well, more than that—I had actually had a crush on him at one point in high school. We’d even fooled around some and had a fling for almost a year before he finally told me how he really felt, that he was ambivalent about his sexuality. I think it was then that I started to realize I was half in love with him, but he was interested in exploring things with men. Afraid to be outed, he begged me to stay with him so no one would know he was gay. I lived with it as long as I could, hoping he would realize I was the one for him. But it was time for me to take up for myself and what was important to me, and that didn’t include continuing a fake, non-existent relationship with him. Apparently, he still wasn’t ready to come out yet.
“The problem, Rand, is that you and I were never best friends. Either we were more than that or less. You pick. And when you figure it out, let me the fuck know, because I never could figure it out. Now, move your damned cruiser before I run my truck through it.”
Randy backed away with his hands in the air, got into his cruiser and moved off slow enough to draw another string of invectives out of me. But it was a strategic retreat, not a surrender. Randy Barker was nothing if not persistent. It was his best and worst trait. The man was afraid the good people of Buncombe County would reject him as Sheriff when it came time for the election to that high office. Otherwise, he might come out. Or perhaps that was just an excuse to deny who he was.
I admitted that western Arkansas, the land of Baptists and Evangelicals, good Christians all, provided powerful motivators for Randy to hide what he was. From our earliest days, we both heard from the pulpit that fornicators would burn in the sulfuric fires of hell. As children, we didn’t understand what fornicators were. But when we grew older, the reverend of our church made sure we knew that anyone who committed sins of the flesh would suffer the most awful of God’s punishments. This included those that “spilled their seed on the ground” or committed the crime of Onan or perpetrated the atrocities of the Sodomites. Attitudes like that persisted in this largely rural community despite this enlightened day and age. If it wasn’t for my grandmother, I would have convinced Randy to move to a more accepting part of the country.
My eyes flicked to the dashboard clock, and I cursed again. I had left my grandmother alone too long, and I had precious little time to pick up the grocery items she wanted. I rushed through that task as fast as possible. Then I got back on the road hoping my impossible grandmother wouldn’t take it into her head to get up from bed to make herself a cup of tea. The last thing she needed was to fall and fracture her hip again.
My truck bumped along the rutted dirt road that led to Gram’s house, and I noted that I needed to bring the truck out and grade the road again. Early spring rains made the road too muddy to level it out, but now i
n later spring, with the trees sporting fresh light green buds, the rains dried up. It was time to make the road easier to drive on again.
I pulled up to my spot between the house and the kennel, and instantly its current tenants greeted me with wild barking. Some were long-term clients, staying with Harris’ Animal Heaven while their families vacationed. Others stayed as day tenants dropped off daily to have their needs tended to while their humans worked or went to school. The last group comprised of overflow from the county pound, for there were always more animals without homes than with. Neither Gram nor I could refuse these requests from the county, even if the reimbursement barely covered the care for the animals. I had inherited my love of animals from my Grammy, the woman that raised me. We both admitted we were suckers for sad animal eyes and happy tail wags.
“Give me a few minutes,” I shouted, though my voice didn’t have the calming effect I wanted. But I grabbed the plastic grocery bags and hiked them into the front door and to the kitchen.
“Gram, I’m home.”
“I hear ‘ya,” she said from the bedroom. “I’m here and in one piece, so stop worrying.”
“What do you want for dinner?” I called through the house. Gram’s room was on the first floor next to the kitchen. It used to be the study, but with the hip injury she couldn’t navigate the stairs, and there was no way I would be able to pick her up if she fell, so I moved her to the first floor.
“Take that stew from the freezer and warm it in the crock pot.” I frowned. More potatoes, more carbohydrates. No.
“We used the last of the stew two days ago. Besides, I bought chicken. How about I make stir fry?”
Her doctor had warned me of Gram’s dangerous pre-diabetic condition. That came with a lifetime of drinking too much soda and eating tons of carbohydrates with her meals. Grandma was a meat and potatoes woman, and the thought of vegetables made her irritable.
“I don’t want no damned Chinese food.”
I popped my head into her room.
“It’s not Chinese food. It’s vegetables and chicken.”
“No.”
“You are cranky. Your sugar is dropping.”
“Then fetch me a coke.”
“No. No corn syrup. Didn’t eat your lunch, did you?”
Grandma placed her hand protectively on the blanket.
“Now let me see, you stubborn old woman,” I admonished.
She let out a huff that came out as a groan.
“Here,” she said grumpily, taking the plate from under the blanket. She shoved the plastic wrapped salad at me roughly. I noted, however, she ate the roll.
“You are the only mountain woman I know that refuses to eat her vegetables.”
“And you are the only granddaughter I know that lectures her grandmother on what to eat.”
“If you’d eat proper, I wouldn’t have to. And I am your only granddaughter, so you’ll just have to put up with me.”
“I suppose,” she grumbled.
“I bought you an apple pie, no added sugar mind you, so how about a slice of that before dinner?”
She gave a small smile.
“You are a good granddaughter.”
“A small slice,” I warned, and she twisted her lips. “And drink your water,” I said, pointing to the large full glass on her nightstand. “You don’t want to get dehydrated.” I turned to make my way back to the kitchen.
“Did anyone tell you you’ll make an excellent wife one day?”
I stopped in my tracks suspended in the doorway of her room frozen with a curious sense of fear. She didn’t suspect, did she? I’d never discussed my hopes and dreams with her, but I wondered if she knew Randy and I weren’t really a couple. I hated to make her feel like she was being abandoned just because I had hopes of going to veterinarian school and becoming a doctor, and I know she really wanted to see me marry Randy. As far as Randy and I knew, Gram had no idea that Randy was gay. While she never outright condemned homosexuality, I knew I had no reason to suspect her attitudes weren’t that of any Christian woman in this part of the country. But I decided I was just being paranoid. Gram had never hinted she suspected Randy was gay. I sighed. Randy was right. I was just as much in the closet as him for not forcing the issue more.
“Someday I might make someone an excellent wife,” I said carefully. I didn’t mention Randy’s name because that was a conversation I didn’t want right now.
“I’ll bake the chicken breast I bought, and we’ll make this a hot chicken salad,” I said.
“You do that,” she said. “The wife part. I’d love to see great-grandchildren. The chicken salad thing I’m not excited about.”
“That’s what you get for not eating your salad. And as for the other. One thing at a time. I have to find someone to marry first.”
“Well, you can’t do that without going out on dates. You should call Randy, maybe go out with him again. You need to start somewhere.”
I whipped back and poked my head into her room.
“I don’t have time for that. Besides,” I said before she said another word. “Randy’s too busy as well. If you notice we haven’t been seeing each other anymore.”
“I noticed,” she said sourly. “And I don’t understand why.”
“That is between Randy and me. And none of your business. Now if you’ve finished discussing me, I’ll go get your pie. I warn you,” I said with a smile, “the longer you keep talking, the longer it will be before I bring it.”
“You’re a cruel woman, Meleyna,” she smirked.
Matthew
I laid in the fading Iraqi sun as an extraction team came looking for me after Jack, who laid somewhere on the sand, and I failed to check-in. I could barely move, my head hurt like a bitch, and I felt sick to my stomach. Things didn’t quite make sense, and thoughts floated in my mind but wouldn’t string together. I knew Jack was hurt, but he didn’t answer when I called him.
A medic came into my limited field of vision and asked me questions.
“Help my partner,” I said weakly. “Help Jack.”
The medic looked over his shoulder and pursed his lips.
“Other people will do that, Sergeant. Let’s see what I can do for you.”
It had taken a week before I pieced together what happened. That’s when the nightmares started. They started with a blast, and Jack flew into the air. Only it wasn’t Jack, it was me, and when I hit the ground, everything went black.
Time passed in bits and pieces. The day began. It ended. In between were doctors and nurses helping me to bathe and dress. Tests. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. But no answers.
“Is Jack, okay?” I’d ask the corpsman helping me shave.
“Right now, you just need to concentrate on getting better.”
“But he’s okay, isn’t he?”
“He’s not one of mine, and I’ve got other patients, Sergeant,” the corpsman said, wiping my shaved face. “Get some rest.”
I waited as days blurred into nights, and the nights brought the nightmares again. I wondered why the guys in my unit didn’t visit. Then I figured out that I wasn’t in a field hospital, but a hospital in of all places, Germany.
“Why,” I asked the doctor.
“You’ve had a significant head injury.”
“When can I get back to my unit?”
“Sergeant, you aren’t going back to your unit.”
“But I’m fine. I just need a little R and R.”
The doctor shook his head.
“You’re going home.”
“But—”
“You need more care than we can give you here.”
“But—”
“You don’t remember what happened yesterday do you?”
“Nothing happened.”
“So, you don’t remember smashing the corpsman in the face and then putting the razor to his neck?” Fuck…I did that??
I flew home and spent a couple months at a veteran’s hospital while the doctors helped me put together
my fractured life. But the one thing they couldn’t help me with was the guilt I felt over Jack’s death. I didn’t deserve to be a Marine, didn’t deserve to serve. I was in charge and was supposed to be watching out for the kid. Instead, I chased a damned photograph while Lance Corporal Jack Caldwell stepped on a land mine and blew apart in pieces.
The night I had a dream that recalled that horrible day was the same day the doctors discharged me. There was nothing more to do in the hospital.
“Just keep taking the anxiety medication and keep your stress to a minimum,” the doctor said.
As if that would happen.
I settled into my old bedroom at my dad and stepmother’s house and filed for disability. Eventually, when I received it, I’d get my own apartment. I didn’t think I could handle living under the same roof with the way I was feeling.
But the dreams didn’t stop. In fact, the waking nightmares increased where I saw the sandbox and tasted the grit in my mouth. In the dark places of my mind, I patrolled an enemy that merged into the sand. I’d scan the faces of the locals, into the assets that helped them with their effort.
I’d take to patrolling the perimeter of my parent’s house at night, to the consternation of my stepmother. And then that thing happened in the living room. When I snapped back to the present, the pillows from the sofa were cut up, and their insides spilled out on the floor. Later, I overheard a conversation between her and my father where she expressed her fears.
And I had to admit that everything she said was true. I couldn’t keep my shit together enough to stay in the service. Why would I expect I’d do the same at the house where I had spent my teenage years?
My father stood up for me, told my stepmom that he wouldn’t throw out his son, especially since he served his country bravely. No. But he agreed with her. I needed help, and yes, he’d insist on it.
I sat on the back porch and pulled out the photograph of the blond-haired woman and stared at it.
