by Mariah Dietz
Tiny was a ghost as I helped Herron and Shadow secure things to the deck. I wasn’t sure where Jameson had gone, and the distraction kept my eyes from the task at hand.
“Why wasn’t there some kind of warning or advisory?” I asked, tying down another rope.
“We provide those weather advisories, kid,” Smithy growled.
“She came in quick!” Shadow added, barely discernible over the howling winds.
Water ricocheted from the deck as a giant wave that sounded more like a bomb exploding than actual water, hit us. A window broke with the force, and the boat rocked again with such strength that we all lost our footing and slid to the edge.
I was just able to see Smoky fighting to free his leg from a crab pot as another wave pelted us.
Shadow bellowed for us to get below deck, and I watched him crawl in the direction of Smoky, who was fighting wildly as the ropes began racing through the pulleys.
“Go, Beaches!” Shadow yelled as I ran and slid beside Smoky.
I reached for my knife, my thumb brushing against the release. My blade sliced through the rope, freeing him seconds before the crab pot was swallowed into the ocean.
So much adrenaline was pumping through me that my muscles shook. I felt as though every single one of my senses was heightened and literally vibrating inside of me. Shortly after, I felt sick and ready to sleep for days, but in that moment, that very second, I saw Smoky’s fear transition into a mix of gratitude and awe, starting a new beginning for me. I felt the words my mom had once told me about the rush of saving someone’s life. It was more addictive than tattoos, or chasing skirts, or raising my batting average.
By the end of crabbing season, Jameson told me he was done. He couldn’t take the storms, the hours, or the grueling labor any longer, and proposed that I go with him, promising we would continue looking for my dad. I was friends with the other guys on the boat in the same way one would when forced to be with the same people day in and day out over a long period of time. However, Jameson had become my brother.
I rationalized with myself that as long as I continued looking, I wasn’t really quitting. I was just re-organizing and redistributing my efforts.
Jameson and I stayed on an extra month after crabbing season so we could depart in Sitka, since it was still on the ocean but not as desolate as other areas. Tiny took our home addresses for payment since neither one of us had any idea where we’d be staying. Then we trudged through town, looking for a cheap motel.
There were a few colleges in the area, including the southeast campus of the University of Alaska, the school I’d applied for late admission and been accepted to. I didn’t know if they’d still accept me, especially being spring already, but it was the first place I stopped after standing under the shower for too long and going through three disposable razors, cutting off all of the scruff that had accumulated on my face over the last four months.
“You looked better with that whole Grizzly Adams thing you had going on,” Jameson said, meeting me outside of my motel room door with a grin. “Didn’t have to see so much of your ugly mug.”
“Well you look a whole hell of a lot better, except for that long hair you’ve got going on. You’re going to need to buy some rubber bands for those pig tails soon,” I teased, ruffling his hair with my fingers.
He pushed my hand away with his forearm and moved to place me in a headlock, something he’d been struggling to do since we met. Before he could get his arm far enough forward, I ducked and slid behind him, wrapping my elbow around his neck and tugging him backwards.
“Show off,” he muttered through choked words.
I released him with a laugh, and the two of us started through town as the snow began to descend on us. Being cold and wet had become so normal, neither of us seemed to notice or care.
When we arrived on campus, we aimlessly wandered through a few buildings, searching for the administration office. For the first time in months, we saw people our own age and of the opposite sex. Jameson was like a kid in a candy store, pointing girls out.
“That chick wants me,” he said with a cocky grin.
I turned to see a girl with dark brown hair wrapped in a single braid over her shoulder, standing beside a couple of other girls and a guy. The other girls she was with took fleeting glances in our direction, but she boldly stared.
“Nah, she’s just trying to figure out if you’re a dude or some ugly chick with big biceps.” I jabbed him in the side with my elbow and kept walking.
Perhaps it had all been a part of my charted path, because summer registration had just opened, and they seemed to be more than eager at the prospect of us signing up for classes.
“My parents are going to freak out. I refused to go to school. I told them I didn’t believe in continued education because who in their right mind goes to school, racks up a hundred g’s in debt, and then goes to work flipping burgers for minimum wage? Me apparently.”
“It’s just your pre-recs at this point,” I replied with a shrug. “What do you want to be eventually?” There were many days on the ship that we discussed where we’d rather be, or what we’d be doing if we weren’t getting drenched and reeking of the sea, sweat, and grime. Jameson swore he wouldn’t go back to Yakima where he was from, but that had been the extent of discussing our futures.
“The husband of a CEO.” I laughed at his response that was so Jameson. “What?” You don’t see me being a trophy husband?”
“No, I see it all too well. That’s the problem.”
As Jameson flashed his grin at me, I noticed a sign for a barber shop.
“Come on, if you want to catch the eye of a future CEO, we need to clean you up a bit.”
After a month of living in hotel rooms, we decided we needed to find something more permanent and cost effective. We’d been holding off, just in case things didn’t pan out with school, but once we received our acceptance letters and schedules, we began apartment hunting.
Vacant apartments were everywhere you turned in California, except in some of the nicer areas where you’d find yourself on a waiting list. Here, there were hardly any vacancies, and when I asked about a waiting list, they looked at me like I spoke a foreign language. We wanted to remain on Jeponski Island, where the school was located, but eventually settled for renting a place on a month-to-month lease across Harbor Drive, on Griffith Island.
“Do we look at getting a car? Or should we check out the busses?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really want to be reliant on public transportation, but at the same time I don’t think we’re really going to stay up here, and it’s not like we’re not used to finding our way around. Compared to the last six months this is luxury,” I said, falling to the couch we picked up on clearance. It was hideous and too short for either of us to lie on comfortably, but it was cheap, and they delivered it.
“I know. Is it strange that sometimes at night I have a hard time going to sleep because it’s too quiet now?”
I understood him all too well. On the ship there was always some sort of noise, whether an advisory, an announcement, a creak, a person yelling, someone walking above you, there was always something.
Jameson opted to get another job. After being on the ship where the breaks were far and few between, he got restless. He landed a job with a local construction company, and it wasn’t long before I headed out to work with him.
I tested out of three classes and filled my class load in an attempt to make up for the two missed semesters. With having a direction again, everything felt more comfortable. I knew what I wanted and how to get there, and my determination and focus set in.
Jameson turned out to be a math genius, something I never knew. The guy got numbers the way I could deflect a punch. He brushed it off, explaining that all his life he had to deal with numbers from going over projections of what their farm would produce in crops, to income, to planting, watering, and wages; it was all about numbers.
Six months later, Jameson a
rrived home with a flyer and an anxious glint in his eye. I didn’t bother asking him what kind of grand scheme he was masterminding, I didn’t have any interest in being a part of it. I was buried in trying to memorize Latin for a Biology final after covering a shift I should have declined on the new construction site we were working.
He stood in front of the small, rickety table I was seated at. We’d found it on the side of the road and took it home only to realize two of the legs were busted. After re-attaching them with copious amounts of super glue and nails, we set it up. Then we learned that either the table legs were different lengths on each side, or the apartment slanted. I think it was both.
We’d used an empty cereal box and folded the cardboard up several times to get it thick enough to slide under two of the legs to keep it from rocking each time you sat down.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s going on?”
I looked up from my study guide, and shook my head.
“I found a new place for us to live!” he cried, ignoring my attempt to ignore him.
“We have a place to live.”
Jameson rolled his eyes, and slammed a neon green flyer to the table. He jabbed his finger to it multiple times, obscuring the words. “It’s within walking distance to campus.”
I stopped. I had been so sick and tired of public transportation that the idea of being able to walk to school had me ready to move in with a basement full of meth heads.
“I called and the dude says he wants to meet us. We’re supposed to be there in an hour.”
I raked a hand over my head, knowing I should object because I needed to study for my damn final, but I was too tempted to get two hours of my life back on the days I went to school.
“Let’s go!” Jameson called, slapping the table several times with his palms.
We headed out to the bus stop with Jameson grumbling about wasting four hours of his day for what would have only been one if he had his own car. I don’t know why we lived so damn cheap, but neither of us seemed to want for much after having nearly no space of our own while on the boat. Even our old apartment felt pretty nice.
We arrived in town and walked four blocks in the wrong direction before I ripped the flyer out of Jameson’s hands and turned us back around. Jameson was great with numbers, but he was shit with directions, something I had committed to learning soon after moving to California.
The house was small but clean and well tended to on the outside. Jameson practically ran as we headed to the front door and knocked.
When the door swung open, a guy with curly brown hair looked at us before holding out his hand. “Landon Turner. Is one of you Jameson?”
Jameson accepted his hand and streamed through the introductions. Originally, I’d thought, who gives that information when you open the door? What if we hadn’t been Jameson?
“So are you both going to school here?” Landon asked, taking a seat on a folding chair in the living room. His furniture was sparser than ours.
“Yeah, we just wrapped up crabbing season,” I answered, glancing at his arm as he pulled his shirt sleeve up, revealing a heavily tattooed forearm.
He nodded a couple of times and then looked between us. “I heard that’s tough work.”
“If you don’t like sleeping and enjoy smelling like a rotting corpse, it’s a dream job,” Jameson said.
Landon’s eyes had been focused on me, but they flickered to Jameson and rose ever so slightly, like he wanted to smile but didn’t want to reveal anything, which had me instantly wondering what in the hell he was hiding.
“Do you go to school?” I asked, feeling out where to start my line of questions that would uncover his secret.
Landon’s eyes settled back on me, and then he lifted his chin in a silent yes.
“How come you’re looking for roommates? Are you from here?” I continued.
“I just got released from the armpits of hell. I’ve been in Afghanistan for the last three years. Before that, I grew up in Florida.”
“Decided you wanted to cool down?” Jameson asked, his tone light with the joke.
“You should feel how cold it gets in Afghanistan during the nights.”
“If it’s anything like being out on the ocean, I think I’ll keep my ass here.” Jameson’s voice was still friendly, but I could tell by his expression he was concerned he’d said something inappropriate.
Again, Landon’s eyes looked like they were smiling, though he wasn’t at all. I could feel Jameson watching me, obviously a little uncertain of the guy as well. I kept my attention trained on Landon, though, waiting to catch the details he was hiding.
He nodded a couple of times. “There’s no drugs in the house. I also don’t tolerate big parties. If you want to have a chick over that’s fine, but I don’t want their shit in the bathroom.”
His eyes roamed to Jameson for an instant then back to me as he finished. I could see something behind his eyes that haunted him, and it gave me the chills. I had no idea what it was, and I didn’t want to. I couldn’t decide if he was trying to manipulate us in some weird way, or maybe he had some desire to play a screwed-up mind fuckery game with us. Either way, I had no intention of staying.
“Sweet. When can we move in?” Jameson asked.
Landon didn’t even turn to Jameson to acknowledge his question. “I’m not some sort of crazy psycho.” His eyes squeezed at the corners, and for a brief second I could see a flash of emotion across his face. He hid it as quickly as it came, and pulled the sleeve of his shirt up on his other arm. My eyes searched the dark splotches of ink covering it.
“What branch of the military were you in?” I asked.
“Marines.”
“What happened?”
Landon stared at me for a long moment, waiting for me to retract my question. Then he released a long sigh. “One of my best friend’s, my brother, was killed by a bomb. For a while it made me hungrier to fight, but then I realized I was doing it to seek revenge, not to create peace, so I left.”
My eyes focused on his forearm again, noticing a set of dog tags wrapped around the distinguishable eagle and globe.
“You already knew that, huh?”
I looked back to his face and his guard seemed to lower a bit. He wasn’t pissed like some people get when they realize I’m testing them. He seemed almost comforted by the fact. I didn’t find it nearly as assuring that he was trying to test us, but I knew from experience, living around military families, what demons and nightmares some face after war.
“I moved up here because my girlfriend from home came up here to go to school. When I got out, I followed her like a lost puppy. She forgot to mention in her letters that she moved up here with another guy.” He shrugged dismissively, but I noticed his fists clench, revealing it was still a sensitive subject. “I don’t need a house to myself. I’ve been with my brothers so long, I thought living alone would be peaceful, but it’s boring as all hell.”
My arms crossed instinctively over my chest and my head nodded to Jameson as I maintained Landon’s attention. “You knew he was Jameson.”
Landon’s lips finally cracked into a smile. “Facebook.”
I shook my head and smirked. “We’ve got a piece-of-shit couch, but it won’t fit all of us. We’ll probably want to get something bigger.”
Landon shrugged in return. “I’ve been sitting on cots and sand for three years. I’m pretty easy to please.”
We still had two weeks until the end of the month, but we used an old truck Landon had acquired and moved our things out that weekend.
I’d always been told that I studied people. I did. I watched them to learn their signals. It started as a need for self-preservation with my brothers. By the time I had hit ten, I almost always knew when one of them was about to blow their fuse and lash out. Watching people became a habit, and I learned how to read others so I didn’t only hear their words, I heard their intentions.
Landon was a prodigy at reading people, though. Sometimes it w
as disturbing what he could read from just watching you, especially when you didn’t know he was. He never spoke much about his time in the service, or what he saw and experienced, but I know for a while he had some pretty shitty nightmares that would wake all of us up.
The first time he had one it scared the hell out of me. I thought someone had broken into our house and was murdering him. I jumped out of bed and nearly fell, tripping over my blankets, as I stumbled and grabbed my aluminum baseball bat that I kept leaned against my bed and went running down the hall.
When I opened his bedroom door, holding the bat propped over my shoulder, ready to swing, I saw Landon thrashing around on his bed alone. Jameson stumbled over a few seconds later, holding a large butcher knife from the kitchen, looking terrified.
“Nightmares,” I whispered.
“Shit!” he replied quietly, letting out a deep breath. Jameson slept like the dead, so I knew Landon’s cries were as loud as I’d imagined.
He didn’t have them every night, usually two or three times a week. I knew not to wake him up, but it ate at me like acid each time I woke up hearing his cries.
One morning when it was just the two of us, we sat at our dining room table—which required less cardboard folds at the house—quietly eating our bowls of cereal.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters besides your military family?” I asked.
“Yeah, I have two little sisters, twins.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, they’re seventeen. It’s probably a good thing I’m so far away, according to their Facebook pages, they like to date.” Landon’s eyebrows rose as his head shook. “What about you?”
“Two older brothers. My oldest brother’s married and has three kids and is about to have another. He lives in Arizona. My middle brother just got a job and moved back to Arizona too. That’s where I grew up until we moved to California.”
