Living in Quiet Rage

by Michael English Bierwiler

  Doc seemed to be one of the few flight members who understood the gravity of what was happening to them while the rest were satisfied to play the game of assimilation. He was figuratively alone in a bay of forty-five men. Doc retreated to the cool showers not only for reprieve from the baking heat of the summer sun on the ancient building, but for a few minutes of peace and quiet between his ears and a chance for a few covert tears hidden in the spray of the water until the next man yelled out a claim to the shower head.

  A familiar routine was soon established starting with the clamorous lights and sounds erupting early every morning, the promise that every six hours or so, Sergeant Adams would march them down to be fed (so at least there was always something to look forward to), and finally collapsing on top of the white cotton sheets in the sweltering San Antonio heat at lights out, too tired for insomnia on most nights.

  As the second week staked its claim, Doc began to assimilate to the everyday pattern of up at dawn, march here and there, scarf down the food that was offered, clean the barracks, polish his boots, and fall into his bunk at an hour that hadn’t been familiar since Anna tucked him in in grade school. He began to shout out the chants with the rest of the soldiers as their marching formations carried them to classes, to the range, to the obstacle course. Doc stayed so busy during the daylight hours that he was actually enjoying being part of a team rather than an individual. The first-day individuality of the flight members melded into the collective uniqueness of spending time as a group, of suffering together whether the perpetrator was one man or the entire flight, of sharing successful days on the obstacle course, and of knowing that each of them was pining for those they left back home.

  There were three types of young men in the flight: a third were seeking a job and benefits or escaping a lack of opportunity back home; a third were inspired by the chance to serve the United States of America or to follow in their male relatives’ footsteps; and the remainder were motivated by having a pregnant wife or girlfriend, whether it was to assume responsibility or to run from the situation. Doc was moving from the last category to one of the earlier two groups as boot camp wore on.

  After the first couple weeks of being held incommunicado the young soldiers were allowed to receive mail from home. On the first mail call Sergeant Adams passed the stack of envelopes to the flight’s dorm chief for distribution and faded back into his small office at the front of the barracks.

  Adams knew from experience that strong and private emotions were often tied to the trainees’ first letters from home. They had been so busy adjusting to military life, classes, physical conditioning and field training that thoughts of home occurred mainly after lights out at night for the few minutes before sleep overtook them. The first letters shocked them back to the reality that life was going on back home without them, for better or worse, or perhaps the lack of a letter reminded them how alone they really were save for their forty-five new brothers.

  Doc claimed two letters: one from John and Anna and a second from Amelia. He had never seen his name with a title on an envelope before: A1C Bill Harrison from John and Anna and A1C William Harrison, Jr. from Amelia. For a moment he held Amelia’s envelope up to his nose to try to detect a scent of perfume as he had seen in the movies, but there was nothing but the scent of dry paper. Life was not the movies.

  Doc ripped open John and Anna’s letter first. He could hardly wait to feel the emotion in his mother’s letter. Had her disappointment passed and been replaced with pride, or was she quietly angry at being abandoned? Doc shuffled over to his bunk where he would not be disturbed and lay down to read.

  “Dear Son, we have missed you and hope you are doing well.” It was Anna’s perfect cursive which opened the letter. He wondered if the letters to boot camp for his older brothers read much the same. Doc read on, but the casual tone of the letter did not betray any deep emotion. It was only one small blue page front and back with no new information of substance. She wrote only that she and John were fine, working in the yard, going out to lunch on Saturday.

  Doc found it hard to believe that his life was changing at 100 miles per hour while his parents were repeating the same day after another as always. What struck his heart most was the fact that he was no longer as essential in their everyday lives as he had assumed a few weeks ago. He had been culled from everyday family life without leaving the catastrophic void as he expected. Doc realized that his new life apart from John and Anna was unfolding.

  Doc folded Anna’s letter and replaced it in the envelope. Amelia’s letter was still unopened as a tear formed at the edges of his eyes. He was scared that the envelope would contain nothing which would add value to his life. They had known each other for such a short time that they were essentially still strangers. A letter from Beth would have been comforting since they had known each other so well and for so long.

  Doc closed his moist eyes, shielding them with Amelia’s envelope so prying eyes would not pick up on his emotions while he decided to open it then or later. No matter what Amelia wrote, it would be a disappointment. He wanted to be free from all of the past. He hid the letter under his pillow unopened to read in the bathroom after lights out where no one could see its effect.

  The flight marched down to dinner, cleaned the barracks top to bottom and set out clothes for morning before the lights went out. Doc lay awake for a short while in his bunk sweating in the Texas heat, concentrating on clearing his mind so he could sleep. He gave up, pulled the letter from under his pillow and sauntered off to the head - the only lighted refuge for a boot camp trainee at night.

  He carefully ripped off a quarter inch along the side of Amelia’s envelope with his thumbnail and forefinger and pulled out the pink paper with flowered borders. “Dear Doc,” it began and Doc sighed audibly with relief. He couldn’t handle any forced mush.

  Amelia was doing fine without him. She was back upstairs in her old room with all its creature comforts while Doc had nothing left of his former life. Moreover, he was losing the essence of who he was and fast becoming another cog in the military machinery after just a couple weeks. He would never fit back inside the confines of his previous life again. It crossed his mind that he could have settled the whole matter with a child support check every month and gone on with his life more or less as planned.

  Asleep outside the doorway were several young men who made that very decision in the past weeks. But that was not the son that John and Anna raised; the die had been cast and the future ordained although the path from here to there was murky.

  The next evening Doc wrote back a couple short notes without mentioning anything of importance other than he was working hard and lamenting the oppressive heat. It was better if he did not divulge the changes he was undergoing until the metamorphosis was complete because he was not convinced that his loved ones would be accepting of the man he was becoming nor was he strong enough yet for their rejection.

  One night toward the end of boot camp Doc found congruence with the man in the simple unframed mirror on the gray wall of the head. His face was tanned from the weeks in the Texas sun and the stiff new bristles of hair stood at attention on his scalp. Doc felt the confidence of having been tested and found worthy.

  “You about done admiring yourself?” Gar asked as he charged through the doorway on his way to more important affairs.

  “Nope. There’s a lot to admire in this face.”

  “You’re a good lookin’ devil, Doc,” his fellow soldier remarked facetiously.

  “You’re not my type, Gar.”

  “You mean desperate?”

  Doc felt a jab that Gar had not intended. He told himself that Amelia had not been desperate. He had not been trapped like a rabbit in a snare. Or maybe people simply delude themselves with the impression that they make choices when they are really victims of their own behaviors.

  The tech school assignments were posted on the board by Sergeant Adams’ office on the afternoon before graduation. Some of the young soldiers w
ere double-checking the promises made by their recruiters while others were discovering for the first time what choices the military made for their follow-on training. As expected, Gar was listed for Camp Bullis for security police training, but a few names below him ‘Harrison, William H.’ was also listed as assigned to Camp Bullis for security police training.

  Doc stared at the list in unbelief. He had been promised the legal technician career field. There was a misprint on the assignment listing. Doc knocked on Sergeant Adam’s doorframe and asked permission to enter. Adams was used to seeing young soldiers shocked that their intended assignments did not materialize and sent Doc over to the consolidated personnel office to let them explain to an angry young man how his recruiter made promises that were not to be kept.

  Doc steamed as he spent forty-five minutes waiting for accountability in the personnel office. The clerk pulled his enlistment records, thumbed them through to the appropriate page, and stuck the point of his pen under the first words of the paragraph Doc signed back in Spokane agreeing to serve as a legal technician or ‘as the needs of the military required’. The contract was worthless to Doc. He was trapped for the next four years.

  “What’s the deal?” Gar questioned when Doc stormed into the barracks.

  “I can’t believe it! Irwin promised me an assignment as a legal technician and I ended up in military police. That’s not going to get me anywhere in civilian life.”

  Gar tried to be sympathetic. “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you,” he offered.

  Doc turned and glared in exasperation at Gar’s attempt to summarize the travesty in a time-worn homily. “I’m about to waste the next four years of my life and that’s the best you’ve got to offer? Sometimes the bear eats you?” Doc vigorously shook his head from side to side in disgust. The late summer heat caused the sweat to roll down his temples adding to the discomfort of the perspiration already soaking his white t-shirt under his greenies. “You just don’t get it, do you, Gar? I gave up Gonzaga for this.”

  “There’s a little bit more to that equation, Doc. Remember that you’re talking to the guy who was taking the aptitude test with you back in Sergeant Irwin’s office in Spokane. Maybe you didn’t get what you wanted, but you gave up Gonzaga by choice to start a family. I’m sure a smart guy like you could have figured out a way to keep your family and go to Gonzaga at the same time. You just didn’t get your own way and threw in the towel too soon.”

  Doc hadn’t suspected that Gar was so observant. He was breathing heavily through clenched teeth, mentally sorting possible responses that would send his friend back to his subservient position in their relationship.

  “’Nuff said, I guess,” Gar concluded and walked away toward a group of young soldiers at the back of the barracks who would doubtlessly provide more congenial conversation.

  Doc was a late summer storm in the mid-Atlantic. Everyone in his path kept a watchful eye out for impending activity, but figured his wrath would expend itself without affecting anyone else. He had just railed to his best friend that Gar’s much anticipated career choice would be unthinkable for a man of Doc’s caliber. Doc might not have been able to alienate everyone in his life, but credit was due for his attempt. The best course of action would have been to apologize to Gar, but the best course of action was rarely a well-traveled road.

  The next three months of tech school dragged on until late December when Doc was allowed a Christmas leave before his first assignment at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas. John and Anna sent Doc an airline ticket home to Spokane to recoup his young wife and worn-out Civic. Gar also flew home for the holiday to pick up his beloved Chevy coupe, but left on a late night flight the previous day.

  Doc sat alone amid fifty other passengers in the waiting area of the bustling San Antonio airport. The red tail of the jet peered over the extended jetway in anticipation of its holiday guests. The patch of sky framing the tail was an aqua blue with billowy white clouds coasting from west to east in the warm afternoon sky. It was difficult to believe that Christmas was a few days away.

  He felt comfortable in his thick cotton t-shirt, pressed blue jeans and the unscuffed athletic shoes he purchased that week from the base exchange. Dry cleaned, starched and pressed jeans were a new look he started experimenting with after watching some of his new Texan friends sporting the style. It gave a slightly formal, grown-up feel to the simple cotton Wranglers he was used to wearing in high school.

  There was a quiet in the recesses of his mind although the waiting area was buzzing with small talk and cell phone conversations. Doc calmly examined the course of his life during the last six months as the two-hour wait to boarding time clicked away on the round, plain Simplex clock high on the wall above him. He had not yet turned nineteen, but was already a husband, a soldier and soon-to-be father.

  Last year at this time he was escorting Beth to the winter dance with the prospect of a two week vacation from his senior year at George Clark High School. Back then his order of business was to sleep in every day and stay up late every night even if he had nothing to do. His next plan back then was to eat groceries as fast as Anna could bring them in and either go to the mall or to the movies to escape before he got tagged with household chores.

  That night, after wheels down in Spokane, Amelia would be waiting when he reached the baggage claim area. They had been married almost six months, but lived together for only a few days in her parents’ basement. They wrote a few letters and exchanged a few awkward telephone conversations, but had not accurately pictured each other during the absence. Their relationship had not grown in the critical early months.

  Doc felt like a single man in boot camp and tech school although he had not acted upon it. He endlessly stressed over the changes in his appearance, speech and mannerisms, and worried how well the new Doc would be greeted back in Spokane.

  A woman with a few years on Doc herded two active toddlers into the chairs across from Doc and collapsed from exhaustion into the remaining seat on the bench. She flashed a quick, friendly smile of apology for introducing such a ruckus at Doc’s bench of seats and began digging in her purse for toddler diversion equipment.

  Doc smiled back and felt a cold shiver run up his spine. He had been visualizing the image of the Amelia he left at the front door of the Donelson house months ago. He counted to seven on his fingers from May to December and suddenly realized for the first time how significant Amelia’s physical changes must be. For the first time the tiny beating unborn heart in Spokane became a child in his mind. He or she was no longer an abstract future event, but a very real person who would soon emerge and manhandle his life. He didn’t feel like a teenager anymore with such a weight on his shoulders.

  Doc thought back to his own father who initiated a brood of six only to abandon them without leaving a trail for them to follow. When he got settled in his new assignment, he might consider trying to use military locator sources to find his dad to ask him why. Then again, Bill Senior could not have an explanation to placate a nineteen-year old father-to-be.

  The sky turned gray as a light rain muscled in on dusk. The plane was over four hours late due to storms in the Midwest. The navy blue jacketed airline agent called for those needing assistance in boarding and for first class passengers. The woman gathered her tired brood and tripped over to the jetway for boarding. Doc followed her with his eyes trying to imagine himself coping with airline travel with two restless wards. He could do it on a good day. The jury was out on his fatherly capabilities under stress.

  The big jet landed at Lindbergh Field in Minneapolis late into the night after several unsettling hours in turbulence. Most of the passenger connections were lost, so the lucky few who were at their final destination went home, those with deep pockets found hotel rooms, and the few ragged remainders stretched out on benches or on the floor against the wall until their rescheduled early morning flights carried them away.

  John and Anna were waiting at the airpo
rt in Spokane that afternoon when Doc arrived with his carry-on backpack. Anna’s enthusiastic hugs and kisses took precedence over John’s warm welcome. Amelia’s presence had been forfeited in the shuffle of flight times, but Doc was actually relieved. The reception from John and Anna was all he needed at the moment. He didn’t have to keep up the pretense that he was in complete control of his life.

  On the way home to John and Anna’s, Doc used a borrowed cell phone to call Amelia at her doctor’s appointment. He was originally supposed to accompany her to the appointment that morning as a launch into the family planning adventure, but he dodged that bullet. There would be plenty of time to wade in gently over the next two weeks.

  John pulled into the Ford dealership unexpectedly. “I’ve got a little something for you,” he said with pride as he cut the engine and hopped out. “Let’s go.” Doc got out and followed his leaps and bounds up the steps and through the heavy glass showroom doors. Anna trailed behind the men’s long strides.

  “It’s been ready and waiting since yesterday afternoon, John,” the salesman said with hearty handshakes all around. He led them out the side door to the new red SUV and dangled the keys at eye level. “Look it over and we’ll sign them papers, son.” Doc hated the salesman at first sight; he hated the way the term ‘son’ was used generically. However, the bright red truck overshadowed the existence of the greasy little man.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Doc tried to acclimate to his new responsibilities concerning Amelia over Christmas leave. However, his best attempts to acclimate resulted in practical plans for driving to Texas, packing and sorting the belongings they could stuff into the new SUV, and speculating on apartment availability at the other end of the trip. Emotionally he was still cautious in his reclaimed role in Amelia’s life.