Buddies

by Kip Cassino

  The Captain awoke then, his throat raw from screaming―as it always was, after his dreams. He looked around, remembering where he was. The cell was dark, but the hallway beside it was lighted, and he heard the sound of footsteps hurrying toward him. A guard appeared at the front of his cell. “Something wrong?” The man asked. “You O.K.?”

  The Captain nodded, sitting up on his bunk. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m O.K. Just a bad dream. I get them once in a while.”

  The guard shined his flashlight into the cell. “Sounded like somebody was getting killed in there,” he said.

  “Nothing that bad,” the Captain said, allowing himself a wan smile. Somebody is being killed in here, the thought to himself, a little bit at a time.

  “Well, keep it down,” the guard said. “You’re scaring the other prisoners.” He walked away.

  The Captain laid back down on his bunk, but sound sleep eluded him for the rest of the night. In the morning, he rose and washed his face in the cell’s sink. A little while later, another guard came by to open his cell’s door. “Breakfast time,” the man said. “Follow me.”

  The mess hall was almost full when the Captain got there. He moved through the serving line, metal tray in hand, and was eventually given chipped beef on soggy toast and a cup of lukewarm coffee. He found a seat and ate. He’d had worse breakfasts, he decided philosophically.

  After the meal, he and the rest of the Mountain Orchard telemarketers were taken again to the large room they’d sat in yesterday. As before, they were told to pick seats and keep quiet―they’d be seeing the judge soon. Sure enough, a door on the room’s side was opened a little while later. They were led into what appeared to be a judge’s chamber. They all stood before a low rail. The magistrate’s seat was a few yards distant, behind a high, paneled dais with flags to either side of his enormous upholstered chair. “All rise,” said the voice of a bailiff. The Captain struggled to keep a straight face. They were all standing up already. There weren’t any seats.

  The judge, a small, pink, chubby man with thinning white hair wearing flowing black robes, made his way to his high perch. He slammed his gavel and called the court to order. A clerk came forward, handed him a file, and whispered in his ear. He looked at the seven people standing before him, as if seeing them for the first time. “You’re all charged with wire fraud and theft by deception,” he said. “They’re both class B felonies. I’m setting bail at five thousand dollars. Is there anyone here who cannot afford a lawyer, and needs one appointed to represent them?”

  All seven telemarketers raised their hands. “So noted,” the little man said. “We’ll have legal help for each of you today or tomorrow and take your pleas then. Court is adjourned.” He slammed gavel again, climbed from his seat and left the room. Sheriff’s deputies led them back to their cells.

  His mind in turmoil, the Captain sat in his cell once again. Pauley would be completely off his rails by now, but there was nothing he could do. His own sanity was beginning to short circuit. He knew that if he looked in a mirror, the eyes he saw would be growing wild.

  Nothing more happened for several hours. The Captain wondered if he would be given some kind of lunch. He heard someone coming toward his cell. A sheriff’s deputy unlocked his cell door and swung it open. “Good news, Taws,” the man said. “You’re released. Charges have been dropped. I’ll take you down to pick up your personal belongings, and you’ll be free to go.”

  The Captain was surprised, and puzzled. “What happened?” he asked. “Do you know?”

  “Three telemarketers confessed,” the deputy said. “They confessed to everything. The rest of you aren’t implicated. You’re free as the breeze.”

  As fast as bureaucracy would allow, the Captain retrieved his clothing, wallet, and watch and rushed from the jail. It would be a long walk back to the trailer, and the day was almost half over already. He hoped he’d find Pauley asleep in bed when he got there.

  Trudging through Grand Junction’s bright streets, the Captain remembered the first time he’d met Pauley―twelve years ago. It was after he’d left Grand Forks, driving south for days with no clear destination in mind. His car made that decision for him. It broke down in central Arkansas, and needed two days plus most of his funds to fix. No matter how broken he felt inside, Taws knew he had to find income and shelter, and that boiled down to getting a job. Memphis wasn’t far away. He knew some people in the trucking industry there. With any luck he could find work. He coaxed his wounded chariot east.

  Once he hit the home of the blues, Taws was relieved to find that his reputation had preceded him. The biggest drayage company in town found a slot for him immediately. The pay wasn’t quite what he’d made in Grand Forks and he’d report to younger people with less experience, but it was a start. He embraced the opportunity, traded in his sputtering clunker for something better, found a place to live, bought some clothes, and got back to work. For a while, his life felt pretty good. He still missed the boys terribly, and thinking about Margie filled him with anger and frustration, but he was sure he would get over that. Sometime in the future―once he was back on his feet―he decided he would drive north and set things right.

  Looking back on those days, the Captain realized that his sanity hadn’t collapsed all at once. Instead, it fell apart in stages. The first signs were subtle. He’d go out on a short drive―an errand―and become confused. Sometimes it would take him an hour or more to find his way back to his apartment. He became irritable, then angry, at work. He was sure others talked behind his back, scheming against him. The intrusive thoughts began. On one occasion, he sat perspiring heavily in a team meeting―certain in his own mind that a huge black dog stood behind him, growling in his ear. He began seeing overlays of Afghan roads as he drove through places in Tennessee or Arkansas. He glimpsed bobbing turbans on top of buildings he passed, and thought sniper. Eventually, he made his way to the Memphis V.A. hospital and asked for help.

  It took a while to get an appointment, and his grasp of reality continued to crumble while he waited. Even so, when he finally sat in front of a psychiatrist, Taws wasn’t prepared for his diagnosis. “You’ve got a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder,” he was told. “Some call it PTSD.”

  Like many who have served in the military, Vernon Taws did not believe in such an ailment. “Doc, please excuse my language,” he said, “but that’s bullshit.”

  The V.A. physician leaned back in his chair. He was used to the response. “O.K.,” he said, “you’ve told me what’s been going on, and we’ve given you the tests. What do you think is wrong with you?”

  Taws frowned. “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. Nervous breakdown, maybe? The head injury? It can’t be what you’re saying. That’s just an excuse for people who are weak.”

  “Listen to me,” the doctor said. “There’s lots of misinformation around, but PTSD is as real as any other ailment. It has changed the chemistry and structure of your brain. You’ve got a severe case, and it’s causing intermittent, explosive rage. If you don’t address it, you’ll hurt yourself or others sooner or later―probably sooner. The thing is, I can’t help you if you won’t admit what’s wrong. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to prescribe you some medication. Take it for a couple of weeks. Once you begin to feel better, we’ll talk some more.”

  Taws left the hospital without bothering to fill the prescription. He knew better. He could push the demons out of his head by himself, if he tried hard enough. He was sure of that. Two weeks later, on a bright, hot Saturday morning, he put two full ten-gallon gas cans in the passenger seat of his car and drove it into a bridge abutment at high speed.

  To his shock and dismay, Taws lived through the collision. Since he hadn’t worn a seat belt, he’d been ejected from the car. He had burns, several lacerations, a broken arm, and a concussion. While recovering at Baptist Memorial Hospital, he attempted suicide again―this tim
e trying to hang himself from the room’s venetian blind cords. He was transferred to the V.A. hospital’s psychiatric ward.

  The day after his admission, the psychiatrist he had talked to earlier came to sit by his bed. “Two suicide attempts in the same week,” the doctor said. “That may not be a record, but it’s getting up there.”

  Taws looked away.

  “I’ve started you on Tegretol,” the doctor said. “I think it will help. You’ll need a week or two before it gets into your system. By that time you should be up and around. We’ll talk more then.”

  Over the next several days, Taws did begin to feel better. He certainly didn’t want to end his life anymore. The mental pressure, the suffocating feeling that things weren’t right, the fear that the Afghan roads were somehow nearby―all these had begun to abate. Their presence remained, but it had been pushed into the background of his thoughts. The terrible dreams continued, and he became wracked with depression. They gave him medication for that, as well. Nothing they gave him quelled the inchoate rage building at the far edge of his consciousness. Nothing ever would.

  A month later Taws was released from the V.A. hospital. He still felt shaky and mentally tender, but he could sense he was on track to a better state of mind than he’d had in some time. He bought another car, went back to work, mended some fences with co-workers, and kept to himself as much as he could. Socializing was not important to him, right now.

  He saw his V.A. psychiatrist every month. The man became a friend and mentor as well as a physician to him. Then, four months after his release, he showed up for his appointment and found another doctor waiting to see him. The new doctor wanted him to recite what had happened to him since Afghanistan. “Isn’t all that in my records?” Taws asked.

  A bland smile followed. “I’d rather hear it from you,” the man said. Suddenly, Taws wanted to hit the man, to remove the insipid expression from his face. Instead, he willed his rage to recede and began his recitation. It soon became apparent his new doctor hadn’t bothered to look through the file at all. In years to come, though the many V.A. clinics he’d visit, his narration would become a litany presented to a host of uninterested men and women―removed from any real connection to him. From that time on, he remained aloof from his V.A. medical contacts. He only used them to assure the continuation of his meds.

  Taws refilled his meds every two weeks for a while. At that time, his doctors perceived the suicide risk of having possibly lethal amounts of his drugs available to him. One afternoon, as he waited for his prescriptions to be filled, he noticed a young man sitting in a seat across the aisle from him with his head in his hands. The man reminded him of someone he’d had in his unit, back in Afghanistan. He looked so dejected, so lost, that Taws decided to talk to him.

  As he approached, the man lowered his hands and Taws saw that he was horribly scarred. He decided to speak to him anyway. “Been waiting long?” he asked.

  “All … all … I do … is wait,” the man said. He spoke very slowly, as though each word had to be pulled individually from his mind.

  Taws sat down next to him. “Well, let’s wait together,” he said. “It will make the time pass quicker.”

  Just then, a pair of shabbily dressed men walked by. “There he is,” one said to the other, “fucking freak.” He turned to the scarred man. “Hey scabby, you fucking asshole!” he said. “Do they still let you come here?”

  Taws rose from his seat. “You eat with that mouth?” he said. “Watch what you say. This guy’s a vet, just like you. Probably saw more war, too.”

  “Yeah, who asked you?” the man said. “Look at him. Can’t hardly talk. They should put him in the fucking zoo!”

  ‘I’m starting not to like you much,” Taws said, “and I don’t even know you. Keep walking and keep that mouth to yourself, or I will rearrange it for you.” He was beginning to feel angry. On impulse, he picked up the chair he’d been sitting on and walked forward. The two men hurried away, looking over their shoulders.

  “They … tease me,” the scarred man said, as Taws replaced his seat, “…’cause … I get to … see the … docs … first.”

  “They’re assholes,” Taws said. “My name’s Taws. Vernon Taws. I’ll bet you’re worth ten of them. What’s your name, soldier?”

  The man shook his head. “Not … soldier,” the words tumbled out, “… Marine. Pauley … Pauley … Abbott.”

  Taws stuck out his hand. “Glad to meet you, Pauley,” he said, and shook the man’s strong, unscarred right hand. “You waiting here for meds?”

  “No …,” Pauley said. “Just … waiting. Better … here … than … in … front. Less … people … look … at me. Mom … picks … me up … at five.”

  Taws looked at his watch. “Five?” he said. “You’ve got two hours to wait yet. I’ll tell you what. How about we go and get a soda?”

  Pauley looked at Taws and a smile momentarily lit the unscarred side of his face. “O.K.,” he said nodding. “Get … a … soda.” Then he frowned. “Why … you’re … nice … to me?”

  “You remind me of a man I used to have in my unit, over in the Stan,” Taws said.

  “You … look like … my … C.O. … from … over there,” Pauley said. “I’m … going to … call you … Captain.”

  The friendship between the two men flowered from that beginning. Every two weeks, Taws bought Pauley a coke or a sandwich. They talked and got to know each other. Taws came to respect his new friend, and to comprehend the suffering he endured.

  Several weeks later, Taws found the Marine sitting in the front lobby, where he’d said before he didn’t want to wait. Pauley explained in halting half sentences that his mother wanted him out front from now on, so he had to wait there. She wasn’t very nice to him, Pauley explained. He was always hungry. She kept him in a small dark room, back in her apartment. All she wanted was his pension check. She thought he was too brain damaged to realize it. “I’m not … dumb,” Pauley said. “The drugs … they … make me … slow …but … I’m … not … dumb.”

  Taws became angry, then sad. Pauley, in his own way, had been cast aside just as he had been. The V.A., his own family―all had failed him. Taws had wounds, but they were inside him. He could move through society more easily. Pauley wasn’t so lucky. He needed more than a friend, Taws realized suddenly. He needed someone he could always depend upon, someone to watch his back. He needed a buddy. “Do you want to go back there, Pauley?” he asked.

  “No … Captain,” Pauley said. His frown showed his determination.

  “Then it’s settled. You’ll come with me. You need a buddy, and I need one too.” They had been a team, a unit, since that moment. A tight smile crossed the Captain’s face, as the memories faded. We’ve sure had our share of ups and downs since that day, he thought.

  He stopped at a convenience store to buy a soda. After walking for more than an hour, his throat was parched. He knew he still had at least another half hour’s journey before he’d reach the trailer they had rented. As he began his walk again, memories his first year with Pauley―some good, some bad―flashed through his mind. He smiled as he remembered his friend’s delight as he discovered his new freedom to come and go as he pleased, to eat and drink what he liked. He frowned as recollection of the first murder flashed through his mind.

  It had happened less than three months after they began living together. The victim had been a burglar, who broke into the little garden apartment at night. He may have hoped to quietly snatch some home electronics or other valuables from slumbering residents. Instead he was accosted, viciously knifed, and killed. When the lights came on, a tall, heavy man lay on the floor of the small apartment, still bleeding from the wounds that had ended his life. He had been stabbed more than twenty times.

  Little was said. The facts spoke for themselves. With Pauley’s help, the Captain quickly wrapped the body in a living room rug. T
he men then cleaned the place of any blood they could see, packed their belongings and loaded everything in the Captain’s pickup truck. They drove the rest of the night, through Arkansas toward Kansas City on interstate 71. A short detour outside Black Rock let them dispose of the body in a nearby lake. Less than a day later, Pauley and the Captain arrived outside Aberdeen, South Dakota―more than a thousand miles away from Memphis. So ended the first leg of what became their decade-long odyssey.

  After another forty minutes of spirited walking, the Captain finally reached the decaying trailer park that held their rental. He hurried to their unit through row after row of squalid boxes. As he approached, he noticed that the door was ajar―not a good sign. He mounted the rickety steps and rushed through the old single wide. “Pauley,” he called. “Pauley, are you there?”

  There was no answer. The little trailer was empty. There were scratches and dents on the padlocked cabinet where Pauley’s meds were kept. He’s tried to get to them himself, the Captain decided. He sat down on the worn couch he used as a bed, trying to put his thoughts in order. He needed a plan to find his friend. He decided to walk to the burger joint where Pauley worked, using the route he thought his buddy took. Maybe he’d find some evidence along the way, or maybe the people at Banner Burger could give him some more information. Anyhow, moving forward was better than just sitting where he was. He rose, opened the padlocked cabinet, and measured pills to meet Pauley’s dosage. These he wrapped in tissue and put in his shirt’s breast pocket. Then, he moved to the nearby refrigerator and retrieved a can of soft drink. Now, he’d be able to administer his friend’s meds, if and when he found him. He carefully secured the trailer’s door and started out.