January Dawn

by Cody Lennon

  It was a cool, sunny afternoon on base and Drill Sergeant Elroy had us out practicing hand-to-hand combat and personal defense tactics in the sand pits. I was excited to be learning something new. Elroy had me paired up with a kid named Jacobson, a nerdy, frail boy from Texas.

  We had been on the field over three hours and Jacobson still struggled to perfect the exercises. Elroy caught me going easy on the kid and gave me a good verbal thrashing, telling me to go hard or not at all. I started throwing Jacobson down to the ground with all my might. I gave him as many pointers as I could to try and correct his form but the kid just wasn’t a fighter.

  The next exercise we worked on was a process of disarming and immobilizing a gunman from the front. Jacobson stood in front of me holding a rubber pistol a few feet from my face. I quickly struck out for his wrist with my left hand and reached for the gun with my right as I took a step forward, rotated my hip into him and flipped him over my shoulder. Within three seconds, I had Jacobson laying on his back and his gun in my hands. Jacobson let out a painful grunt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, offering him a hand.

  “It’s okay.”

  The rest of the platoon was doing the same exercise. I looked down the line and could see recruits in different stages of being flipped through the air. Alex was down on the end opposite of me. He had just finished flipping a guy named Simms when Elroy approached him. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying.

  “Colton, you ready?” Jacobson asked.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead with a scratchy, sandy hand. “Yeah.”

  Jacobson stood up straight, put his arms to his side and waited for me. I leveled the rubber pistol. Jacobson struck out with his hand, striking my wrist. The pistol went flying through the air. Jacobson didn’t rotate his hip toward me enough and struggled to fling my weight over his shoulder. He didn’t have enough leverage on me, so I fought back, wrapping my arms around him and bringing him to the ground in a headlock.

  “Dammit. What am I doing wrong?” He asked.

  “Grab my wrist, don’t hit it. Then make sure you move in close enough to pull me over your shoulder. It doesn’t matter that you’re smaller than me. Use my weight against me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s try it again.”

  I picked the pistol off the ground and looked over to see how Alex was doing. There were at least twenty or more guys huddled around his pit. It was impossible to see what was going on inside the circle. It must be Elroy teaching a lesson. He does like to get his hands dirty every once and awhile. Anyway, get back to Jacobson.

  “Alright, ready?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I leveled the pistol and before I knew it the world turned upside down, the sky replaced the earth and I found myself in the dirt. Jacobson’s face blotted out the sun.

  “Are you okay?” He asked.

  “I’m fine.” He helped me to my feet. “Nicely done. I didn’t see that coming.”

  A smile crept across Jacobson’s face as I patted him on the back.

  “Let’s do it again,” I said.

  The crowd that had been forming on the practice line grew even bigger as more and more of the platoon made their way over to watch. The drill instructors stood off to one side with blank expressions on their face and their arms crossed, occasionally exchanging a few words with each other. Odd. Elroy was among them. Something felt very wrong. I looked for Alex, but couldn’t see him anywhere in the crowd.

  “What do you think is going on?” Jacobson asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  As I said that, a hole in the crowd opened up and two men entangled in each other’s arms came stumbling out of the circle. The duo crashed to the ground in a flurry of dust.

  I recognized Teague immediately. He had an ugly sneer on his face as he sat on the other guy’s chest, pounding his face with his fists. The guy on the ground reached up, wrapped his arms around Teague’s neck, rolled over and ended up on top. It was Alex. And this was no practice skirmish. He had blood running down his face.

  I took off at a dead sprint. Teague jabbed three left punches into Alex’s side, sending him reeling off in pain. Before he could wiggle away, Teague sprang to his feet and slammed his boot into Alex’s chest. He picked his leg up to stomp again, but his foot never came down. I speared Teague center mass, hooked my arm underneath his leg and carried him several yards before slamming him to the ground.

  I didn’t want to fight Teague. I only wanted him off of Alex, nothing more. Thinking it all to be over, I left Teague dazed on the ground. Hayes and Beauregard had Alex sitting up. He clenched his chest and was grimacing in pain. The blood in his mouth dyed his teeth a pinkish white.

  Hayes pointed at me and yelled something. I saw his mouth move, but I heard no words. The only thing I was conscious of was the gong-like thumping of my own heart. Finally, I understood, “look behind you.”

  Teague hit me from behind. My neck jerked violently from the hit as I fell to the ground with him already on my back. He had his hand on the back of my head shoving my face in the dirt. The sand felt gritty in my teeth.

  This was getting out of control and the drill instructors still were doing nothing about it. I didn’t understand why they were letting Teague loose like this.

  He grabbed a tuft of my hair, turned my head and spoke into my ear.

  “You little shit. I’ll destroy you. I’ll crush your skull right here in front of your little self-righteous boyfriend.”

  From where he had me pinned, I could see Alex a few yards away and the drill instructors a few more beyond him. Elroy stood there with his arms crossed. He looked right into my eyes. Then I understood. He wasn’t letting Teague loose, he was giving us free reign to lash out.

  The rest of the platoon stood around us in a school yard circle, hooting and hollering and calling for blood. I could feel the rage inside of me begin to heat up and the blood in my veins pump faster. My temples throbbed violently as the thoughts in my head cleared and my focus narrowed to block out everything around me. Everything but Teague.

  I thrust my elbow backwards, striking Teague in the chin. I planted my hands firmly on the ground, pushed up with all my strength and managed to get one leg underneath me, which gave me enough power to launch myself upward and backwards. We landed with a thud, my full weight landing squarely on top of his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. I heard the sickly sound of two of his ribs cracking.

  Before he could recover, I rolled, placed myself on top of him and pounded my fist into his face. He put his arms up to defend himself, but I kept delivering blows relentlessly, blow after blow.

  This is for being an asshole.

  This is for what you did to Carrigan.

  This is for hitting Alex.

  This is for Mr. Jeffries’ death.

  This is for Mr. Stephens.

  This is for my parents who gave me up.

  This is for eighteen years of slavery.

  I stopped. My arm ached and I struggled to catch my breath. I looked down at my hand. What did I do? My knuckles were scraped and bloody and bruised.

  Teague’s face was drenched in blood. He coughed and gurgled a blood bubble. Who am I? This is not me. I’m not an animal.

  Just when I thought Teague had had enough, he grabbed me by the shirt, brought his knee up into my backside and sent me rolling head over heels. I lurched to my feet and faced him, ready to continue fighting. That’s when I realized how silent everyone was. The entire platoon stood frozen, their mouths hanging open.

  Teague got to his feet, blood dripping from his face and my shirt firmly clasped in his clenched fist. My shirt!

  What a sight I must have been, standing there with my scarred back visible for all to see, my hands covered in Teague’s blood, my chest heaving in and out with my panting breaths and the hard look of wrath in my eyes.

  They all stood there, staring at me like I was some kind of monster or circus freak. Ma
ybe I am.

  This was exactly what I feared would happen. I was living my nightmare.

  Teague spat out a clot of blood and took a step toward me. He wanted more. He wanted me dead. Before he could take any more steps, a few men broke from the crowd to restrain him. He tried pushing through them, but they were determined to hold him back, for his sake. Maybe they saw something in my eyes that told them that I wouldn’t stop, that no level of pain inflicted upon me would have made me stop fighting. They would have been right.

  “I’ll murder you,” he said, finally walking off after heeding his friends’ advice. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will kill you.”

  I stood there, panting, as the whole platoon gawked at me like a caged animal. Their muffled murmuring sounded to me as deadly as a snake’s hiss.

  “Colton.” Alex stepped out from the crowd.

  He stopped a few feet away from me, the look of utter confusion on his face. I could tell he didn’t know what to do or say. He stood frozen in shock like the rest.

  There was nothing I could say to soften this humiliation, so I walked away, and the only way out of this embarrassing scene was through the crowd. I walked the walk that felt like a three-mile gauntlet. The stares and the judgment emanating from their faces berated me with every step I took. Endless. Agonizing. Mind numbing.

  I was a slave.

  Yeah…I WAS a slave.

  Was.

  Now I’m not.

  And there’s nothing that can stand in my way.

  *

  That night Elroy had Alex and me on firewatch duty. It was our punishment for what happened on the practice field that day. He allowed us to administer a little social justice to Teague, but it came at a cost, and if firewatch was the only price we had to pay then I’d gladly do it over again. I didn’t mind, I never slept much at night anyway, not since I left the plantation.

  Alex and I would split the night shift. I’d sleep first and then take over at 0130.

  Elroy announced lights out and everyone hit the rack. I lay there with my hands folded on my chest. I couldn’t sleep. All their faces were stuck in my mind.

  The way they looked at me. It was like they were scared of me. And Alex…he had the same look.

  I got up out of bed, quietly, and shuffled across the ice cold floor to the front entrance of the barracks. Alex wasn’t there. He must be outside.

  I stepped out the door and a beam of white light flashed my eyes.

  “Geez-us. You scared me, Colton,” Alex said.

  “Sorry.”

  Alex checked his wristwatch. “What are you doing up? It’s not your watch yet.” He turned the flashlight off and resumed his patrol around the barracks. I followed alongside.

  “I know. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “You never do.”

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, thinking about today’s episode.

  “Alright. My chest hurts a little though,” he said, lifting up his shirt, exposing a boot-sized purplish bruise. “Could have been worse.”

  We walked in silence for a while, silently enjoying each other’s company. It was a nice night, but a little chilly. The moon would occasionally peek through the fast moving evening clouds and cast its bluish gloom on the earth. I tucked my hands up underneath my armpits to keep warm. It didn’t help that I wasn’t wearing shoes. My feet prodded the cool moist soil.

  “I’m ready…to talk.” I said, wondering if his offer still stood. Maybe I had already caused too much damage between us. Irreparable damage. Either way, I owed him an explanation.

  “You don’t owe me an explanation. I understand now, why you are the way you are,” he said.

  “You’re my friend and you deserve to know the truth.”

  We continued walking.

  “I grew up a slave. I spent my whole life working for a man named John Stephens. He owned me. He forced me to work on his farm and that was the only world I knew for eighteen years. I ran away back in January and never looked back. I thought I was safe here in the Army, but the other day in General Gammon’s office he came for me.”

  “Who did?”

  “Mr. Stephens.” Just saying his name put a bitter taste in my mouth. “He tried to claim me as his own. He said he was my legal guardian, which was a lie.”

  “And your parents?” He asked, clearly trying to wrap his head around what I was telling him.

  “I don’t remember’em. I don’t even know their names, or where I came from. All I can remember is my life on that plantation. Mr. Jeffries became my family.” Alex glanced at me from the corner of his eye, asking: who? “He was the other slave that Mr. Stephens owned. He took care of me. Hell, he practically raised me. He showed me how to work the fields. The tricks of the trade and such. Taught me how to be a man, you know, like honesty and chivalry and patience and hard work, things like that. Without him, I wouldn’t be here right now. Joining the Army was his idea.”

  We rounded the backside of the barracks and Alex did a cursory scan with his flashlight. Nothing. We continued on.

  “And where is this Mr. Jeffries now?”

  “Dead,” I said flatly. “Mr. Stephens killed him. And he wants me dead too for burning down his house. I don’t know how he found me, but seeing him in that office scared the daylights out of me. It brought back memories I would prefer to have forgotten.”

  “What did Gammon do?” Alex asked.

  “Gammon wouldn’t have none of it. He had the MPs put him in some deep dark hole somewhere.” It was such a good feeling knowing that I would never see Mr. Stephens again. This time for good. I would no longer have to look over my shoulder in fear. “You have no idea what it feels like to live in fear your entire life. I broke down in Gammon’s office because I thought I had left my past behind me. The Army gave me a choice of freedom and I took it. When Mr. Stephens showed up I thought my freedom would be taken from me again.”

  Mr. Stephens’ face flashed in my mind. That cracked, jagged-toothed smile. Those dark, callous eyes. And his sweaty, matted hair.

  “And those scars on your back are from?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Mr. Stephens, yes. He would always find some excuse to whip us. He had a switch hooked on his hip all the time, but if he was feeling especially mean he’d go for the bull whip hanging up by the screen door on the porch. He’d stumble out of the house, drunk most of the time, and order me to strip down. I’d sit there, my hands clawing at the ground as he cracked the whip on my back ten, twenty, thirty times.”

  Alex shook his head in disgust.

  “That’s a helluva story. I’ve heard about people like you on the news before, but I never really thought much of it. Maybe I refused to believe it. I don’t know. There are cranky, old racist bastards that live out in the country, who refuse to accept change, yeah, but slave owners? That’s crazy. This is the twenty-first century for Christ’s sake. Slavery was outlawed a hundred years ago.”

  We stopped again at the front entrance of the barracks. Everything looked normal so we took a seat on the cold concrete steps.

  “Before he was killed, Mr. Jeffries told me to keep my mouth shut and my ears open and don’t trust no one. He had been a father to me. Everything he had ever taught me was for my own good. He’d never been wrong before. Until now. I tried to do what he said. I tried not to trust anyone, but I found that to be easier said than done. I met you, and Shannon and Carrigan and the other guys, and at first I kept my distance, but something inside me kept telling me to trust. I want to make a new life for myself and forget the past, but I can’t do that alone. I realize that now. I need help. So, can you forgive me?”

  Alex nodded and said, “There’s nothing to forgive. Besides, it’s me that should be apologizing. This afternoon you saved my stupid ass from getting beat by Teague and I should have thanked you. But when I saw you standing there, I stared at you with some foolish look on my face. I hated myself for doing it, but I stared like everyone else. I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen an
ything like it before.”

  “You did nothing I wouldn’t have expected you to do.”

  “Yeah, but I insulted you and I shouldn’t have.”

  The surrounding buildings were dark and nothing stirred within their halls. Outside the barracks across the courtyard we could see a flashlight appear at the front door. The dark figure disappeared around the corner to scan the area around his barracks like we had done.

  Alex had me thinking about my parents. What were their names? Did they love me? Did they give me up knowingly? If only I could meet them. I wouldn’t be mad at them if I did. I just wanted to know them and understand the reason behind my unusual life.

  “What’s it like to have brothers and sisters?” I asked after the long silence. What if I had a brother or a sister somewhere out there in the world?

  “They’re a pain in the ass.” Alex laughed. “No, they’re great. I love them to death. I have a twin, did I tell you that? My sister Tessa. We’re fraternal twins. People say were basically the same person. She likes to say she’s the oldest, but she was born three minutes after me. And then there’s Sam, he’s fifteen and Sarah, fourteen, I think. Benjamin is ten and little Lucas is seven. I’ll introduce them to you someday. They’ll love you.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  We watched as the flashlight came into view across the way and disappeared back into the barracks.

  “I need to thank you,” Alex said.

  “For what?”

  “You’ve really humbled me, Colt. Listening to your story has really put my life into perspective. I say that I love my family, but I haven’t shown them that I love them. I was too focused on myself and wanting to get out there that I neglected the most important people in my life. I took everything for granted. Being raised a Redman was like being raised in royalty and I took advantage of that. I lived in a big house, ate upscale, full course meals, and went to the best schools. I took it all for what it was and didn’t question it. The world outside of Savannah mattered little to me. I drank, I smoked, I partied and I didn’t care. Man, I can’t believe I was so pompous.”