The Secret Corps

by Peter Telep

  The repair shop was about 5,000 square feet, with at least six boats under simultaneous repair by as many crews. Anyone unable to tolerate the smell of diesel fuel or grease or hot wax or burning rubber for any length of time would do well to keep their visits brief. The place smelled like summer to Johnny, and he could stay there all day long. He was reminded of getting his boat repaired, of watermelon, of corn on the cob, and of flounder fishing at night. He found Dominick Sattler up to his elbows in a Mercury outboard, his forearm tattoos covered in grease, his hair tied back in a ponytail. “Hey, Johnny, long time no see.”

  “Yeah, not since yesterday, right? So how you doing this morning?”

  “Well, thank God it’s Friday. This is the second powerhead I’ve put in this bitch in two weeks. I’ve had issues with both of them. Can you believe that?”

  “What the hell? Where’s the quality control?”

  “Yeah, right? I call the manufacturer, and they tell me installation error. I say, bullshit! Anyway, what brings you down? You got issues?”

  “Not with the boat, no. I’m looking for my boy.”

  Sattler winced. “I didn’t want to bring it up yesterday, but I haven’t seen him since the night of your brother’s wake. He said he’d be there.”

  “He told me the same.”

  “Yeah, and now today he’s a no show. I thought he was doing pretty good for a while. Maybe one or two meltdowns a month, that’s it. You were here back in what was it, August?”

  “That’s right. What do you think’s going on?”

  “Not sure this time.”

  “He willing to get any help?”

  Sattler made a face. “You try to get him help, but you know how he hates the VA, just like everyone else now. They drive him nuts.”

  “I think they hate him just as much.”

  “Well, that’s true. Anyway, you know I cut the guy a lot of slack. We’re all here to be a positive force in his life. But I think he’s taken a turn for the worse. It’s not good when he disappears like this.”

  “Where he is now? At his cousin’s house?”

  “I would expect. I was planning to check on him at lunch.”

  “I’ll head over.”

  “You been there, recently?”

  “No.”

  Sattler winked. “Good luck with that.”

  * * *

  Johnny parked in front of Bandar’s three-bedroom ranch house, climbed out of his truck, and paused to thank God he was not the landlord or real estate agent trying to sell the place. The front lawn was a patchy carpet of overgrown straw with a few crushed beer cans lurking within. A late 80s Dodge pickup sat up on blocks in the driveway like the corpse of a dinosaur, its windshield covered in a thick tar of leaves and dirt. The quarter panels and bumpers of more cars lay against the side of the house, along with stacks of bald tires and a landscaper’s trailer with a broken axle. Near the trailer were plastic garbage cans that had toppled over, spilling white kitchen bags shredded by the night critters. A rusting old basketball hoop with frayed net stood near the garage door, and the last time a ball had gone through that hoop there was a different president in the White House. The garage door itself had been repeatedly struck by an intoxicated driver (AKA a pissed off, disabled veteran Marine) and bent back into place. Obviously, the door no longer functioned and hung crookedly from its tracks. Furthering the home’s obscene curb appeal was the front entrance, which had once featured a charming white porch. The porch had since collapsed from termite damage, the railings lying like splintered bones across the dead weeds. A makeshift path of milk crates bound together by kite string led up to the front door, whose window had cracked from top to bottom and was held together by eleven pieces of strategically positioned duct tape. In place of a welcome matt was a hand-written message scrawled on a brown bag and taped to the door. The message read: Fuck Off!

  Bandar’s handicap van was parked just ahead of Johnny’s truck. The old GMC with rusting fenders teetered between the lawn and the street. This was a safer place to park when you could not judge distances to the aforementioned garage door. Bandar proudly displayed his Marine Corps bumper sticker and reluctantly hung his blue tag from the rear view mirror. His left front tire was low, and Johnny would remind him of that only after he tore the man a new one for the unsightly condition of the home. Where the hell was his cousin?

  Wringing his hands, Johnny headed up the cracked concrete driveway, mounted the milk crate porch, then shook his head at the paper bag and tore it off the glass. He rang the doorbell and waited. No answer. He rang again. He tried the door, which was open, and thrust his head inside. “Hey, Band-Aid, it’s Johnny.”

  Again, no reply. The air inside the house reeked of something that had burned on the stove, macaroni and cheese, perhaps. From another corner came the faint trace of urine. Johnny pushed open the door and surveyed the living room and kitchen beyond. Bandar’s Rent-A-Center furniture looked like it had fallen off the truck en route and had been repaired by a team of blind monks equipped only with more duct tape. The love seat’s arms and legs were practically mummified in silver. The sofa’s cushions were ripped, the polyester stuffing bulging like puss. The tan rug beneath it all had not seen a vacuum in years. Against the far wall were boxes stacked haphazardly with their tops ripped off. Clothes, books, old video games, VHS tapes, and sports equipment spilled over the worn cardboard and across the floor.

  Johnny called once more as he moved through the living room and toward the kitchen on his left. The tile felt gritty under his boots. A homemade ramp system of plywood and two-by-fours rendered the countertops and sink wheelchair accessible, although that no longer mattered. The linoleum countertops were hidden beneath so many pizza boxes, empty two liter bottles, and fast food bags that one had to assume a little league team met there nightly for dinner. Given this disaster, the sink should be overloaded with dirty dishes; that, however, was not the case. Bandar ate off paper plates and with plastic utensils that, along with dozens of beer cans, overflowed from the nearby trash bin. In point of fact, Bandar’s sink was being used to store engine parts in various stages of degreasing.

  Off to the right, in the nook area, sat a butcher block kitchen table sagging on one side as though it had had a stroke. Atop the table were two empty bottles of Jack Daniel’s, an 8x12 photo album, and a yellow legal pad with a pen neatly positioned beside it. Johnny scanned the pad. This was the information he had given Bandar about the wake and funeral. Johnny turned back a few pages and found paragraphs from some essay or book Bandar was writing, the pen pressed so hard onto the paper that it almost cut through. He chose one paragraph at random and began to read:

  Which brings me to my next issue, what we really are: disposable heroes. The pogues in D.C. pull us off a pegboard at Walmart, plop us on the battlefield, and let us perpetrate acts of violence they can’t stomach or even imagine. Like Jack Nicholson said in the movie, they can’t handle the truth. So we eat the shit while they hold their noses and look the other way, and everyone’s happy. But if we survive, they’re pissed. They wish we were killed in action. If we make it back home, they secretly pray that we’ll cap ourselves so there’s no chance of exposing their corruption. Those lucky enough and can still walk are on a goddamn tightrope, and there’s no safety net. The only thing we got are battle brothers who can ease the fall and help uncover the lies that the pogues ram up the liberal media’s ass. I’m so tired of it all. I’m so tired of living in a country where fat pussies sit at home playing video games and gorging themselves on Big Macs and Doritos until they vomit, a country where the media blows its nut every time some pop star gets into trouble but doesn’t care about a Marine who bore a burden they can’t even fathom. I grew up in war-torn nations. I grew up scared for my life every day. I kissed the ground when I got to this country. I was a patriot. I sacrificed my ability to walk. To be with a woman. To stand up like a man. And now I ask, What am I doing here?

  Johnny had heard them all in their various inca
ntations, the battle cries of the desperate, the depressed, and the disillusioned. He used to tell Bandar to “turn all that anger into rocket fuel—because rocket fuel lifts you up, and rock stars always fly first class.”

  Setting down the pad, Johnny stole a quick look at the photo album, mostly pictures of Bandar during his early days in the Marine Corps, boot camp, some of the admin shit he had done, and a series of pictures of him out on a patrol in Iraq. There was even a hard copy of a defense.gov article where Bandar had been interviewed about becoming an interpreter for the Corps. He discussed how proud he was to serve America and how his language skills would be an invaluable asset to his unit. He could communicate with friendly forces regarding enemy movements, booby traps, and so on. He could also help interrogate prisoners.

  The photos, the empty bottles of whiskey, and the information about the funeral were the narrative of a wounded man desperately trying to make sense of his past, present, and future.

  “Come on, Johnny, let me fight.”

  Johnny could have told Bandar, no, you’re too valuable to go out there. But he understood what was in the Marine’s heart: to prove himself worthy of the blood stripes than ran down the sides of his dress blue trousers. Those stripes represented the blood of Marines killed during the Mexican War, but as far as Johnny was concerned, they represented every Marine who had paid the ultimate price. All Bandar had wanted was to do his job, and Johnny, the platoon sergeant responsible for his safety, had given him the chance. The terp never blamed him. He didn’t have to. Johnny spent weeks torturing himself over how Bandar saved their lives but had given so much in return.

  With a deepening sense of urgency, Johnny left the kitchen and entered the hallway leading to the three bedrooms. Along the way, he counted three fist-sized holes in the drywall at wheelchair height. The master bedroom door was cracked open, with sunlight wedging through.

  “Band-Aid? It’s Johnny? Wake up call. I’m coming in.”

  As he drew closer, Johnny realized why that unholy smell was so familiar: Bandar’s bedroom reeked like the men’s room at the Trailer Bar. As the name suggested, the bar was literally a single-wide trailer, and it was one of Bandar’s usual hangouts. Tensing, Johnny pushed open the door. His eyes were assaulted by freeways of dirty clothes connecting the closet with the bathroom; by more junk food Styrofoam and empty liquor bottles and stacks of pistol cases crammed onto both nightstands; and by the man himself, lying naked on his waterbed, with a pale yellow stain swelling across the white sheet like an abstract sunflower near his crotch. If only the horrors ended there. He had always been rather hairy, given his ancestry. Remove the razor from his cheeks for a few months, and you had a heavy woodsman’s beard. His haircut, or lack thereof for several years, suggested he played backup guitar for Aerosmith. In just a short time he had gone from slightly unkempt veteran to desert island cannibal.

  Grimacing, Johnny hustled into the room and threw open the windows, despite the wind and temperatures barely hitting fifty degrees. He needed to air out the ungodly odor. He leaned across the bed and shook Bandar several times by the shoulders. “Sergeant Band-Aid, did you pee in your rack again?”

  “No, Gunny.”

  “Rise and shine. We’re going to the head.”

  “No, Gunny.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Johnny crossed into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and began to fill up the tub. He found a fresh bar of soap under the sink, tore off the packaging, then drew a wash cloth from the linen closet, surprised to actually find one there. Holding his breath, he scooped up Bandar, carried him into the bathroom, then slowly lowered him into the tub. He slapped Bandar’s hand onto the safety rail mounted along the wall and ordered him to hang on.

  Bandar finally opened his eyes, the veins thick and glowing. He had a world class hangover. Legendary.

  “Good morning, Sunshine,” Johnny said.

  Realizing what was going on and that Johnny was now bathing him, Bandar shook his head and raised a finger. He wanted to say something, then began to sob.

  “Why you crying, son?” Johnny asked. “The water too hot?”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “What’re you doing here?” Johnny asked. “And where the hell is your cousin?”

  “He left about six months ago. Said he couldn’t take me any more. He shows up once a month when my disability check comes in—so he can get his rent.”

  “Well, that is some shit, isn’t it? And your house looks like a dump.”

  Bandar chuckled under his breath, even as the tears continued. “You code enforcement?”

  “How about this? How about I’m still the platoon sergeant, and you’re still under my command.” Johnny spoke more slowly for effect. “This train don’t stop at the pity party. Are we clear on that?”

  “Roger that.” Bandar could have issued those words in a normal, respectable tone. The fact that he had chosen sarcasm changed their meaning entirely.

  Johnny’s tone grew more serious. “Hey, dude, don’t tell me off—because you already did by missing my brother’s wake and funeral.”

  Bandar covered his face with a hand. His voice cracked. “I’m so sorry, Johnny.”

  “A haircut. A clean shirt. It would have been a done deal. Why didn’t you call me and tell me you needed a hand? I would’ve been down here in a second.”

  “I was too embarrassed. After you asked me to come, I couldn’t stop thinking about that night in Fallujah. What an idiot I was. Oh, please, I want to go out there. I want to get shot and get paralyzed so some fat bitch on welfare can hold up a poster of Marines pissing on Taliban bodies while the casket of one of my buddies comes off a plane.”

  Johnny lowered his voice. “You know what your problem is?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not on TV. I told you, you’re a rock star, dude. You go off on these rants. You’re an intellectual, you think that shit up off the top of your head. You got a gift. It’s like rap or poetry or music shouting shit or something. They should put you on TV like Dennis Miller, one of those guys, you could go on and on...”

  “You think Fox News would air some raghead Muslim talking about how screwed up America is?”

  “Look here, son. I want you to get this through your head, because I don’t want to hear this Haji or raghead crap ever again.”

  “Johnny, please, I know what I am—”

  “No, you just listen to me. You swore an oath. The same one I did. You stood next to me and fought with everything you had. You gave your blood. You gave your legs. You are a Marine. You are my brother. That’s who you are. I don’t care what God you pray to. Would I watch you on TV? Hell, yes I would. I wish you had spent more time with my brother. You two smart asses could’ve shaken some trees.”

  Bandar glanced up at Johnny, his lower lip thrust out, his eyes swollen with fresh tears as he nodded. “You know what the hardest thing is, Johnny? I’m downrange the second I wake up. I’m downrange trying to get onto the toilet. I’m downrange when some asshole parks too close to my van and I can’t lower the ramp. I’m downrange till the last second before I fall asleep. Some days you’re just too tired to fight.”

  Johnny widened his eyes to a madman’s proportions. “Well, I got some good news. You know what today is?”

  “Let me guess...”

  “You’re absolutely right. It’s an easy day. No drama. We’re going to get you cleaned up. Then we’re going to square away this house. I got a contractor I’m going to call. He’ll roll down here and do some work on the outside.”

  “Johnny, I don’t have any money. My cousin doesn’t have shit, either.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Bandar covered his face again. “I used to think I’d never get to this point. There were a couple of years where I was just a hardcore mother, you know? I was doing good at the marina, too. But last month some redneck came in, and I heard him telling Dom he didn’t want the crippled A-rab working on his boa
t. I could’ve blown right there. But I didn’t. I just thought about how this guy summed up my whole life: crippled A-rab. And it made me think I didn’t deserve to be at your brother’s funeral.”

  Johnny tapped a finger on his temple. “You put that on yourself. All we see is a Marine we respect even more because you wear your sacrifice every day. Hell, son, if I were you, I’d go high and tight with the haircut. I’d wear a Marine Corps T-shirt to the job, and when Mr. Redneck comes in to call me a crippled A-rab, I’ll ask him to bring in his wife, so I can wink at her, and she’ll know what a pussy she married.”

  Bandar started laughing. “You stole that from General Mattis.”

  “He told it a little differently,” Johnny admitted. “But you get the idea. You can tell that bastard you’re ten feet tall when you’re carried on the shoulders of your brothers, the greatest fighting force on Earth.”

  “You’re right, Johnny.”

  “Okay, so now you scrub up, call me when you’re done, and we’ll get this easy day rolling along. I need to give Elina a shout and link up with that contractor. Be right back.”

  Out in the hallway, Johnny gave Elina a capsule summary of Bandar’s condition, then added, “I really need to stay with him right now.” Elina whole-heartedly agreed. She would take the girls to the grief counselor without him. They would try to meet up afterward for lunch. She told him to call if he needed any help. He would.

  Unfortunately, this was not the first time he and Elina had discussed Bandar’s situation. Bandar had some highly marketable skills, but sadly he had never exploited them. When he had been medically discharged from the Marine Corps, he should have relied upon his college degree and his fluency in four different languages to work as a civilian interpreter or government contractor for an intelligence agency. He would have been rolling around the hallways of the NSA instead of the dirt roads of the Redneck Riviera. But no, he had allowed the depression and alcoholism to destroy those opportunities, and now he could barely function at the marina. How could he throw away so much and continue along this downward spiral? It had to stop.