by Mark Tufo
I went home; I wanted to spend the rest of the night hidden deep in a bottle of Vodka I’d been saving for just such an occasion. Chloe, Holly, Henry, Riley, Ben Ben and even Patches, to a degree, had other plans. Spent the majority of the night on the floor. I think Tracy ended up throwing my clothes away. Between the volumes of snot and tears on my chest, and the slobber and fur on the rest of my clothes, they were barely salvageable.
For once, I did what was requested of me and kept a low profile. I went out once with the squad, and only because we were going to honor Halsey. I talked to the bartender before they started drinking, made sure that my vodka shots were water, slipped him a twenty to make sure there were no mistakes. I thought I was going to get busted halfway through the night when a boisterous BT ended up doing everyone’s shot for them; he never even noticed as he powered through them all. I stayed sober; I was worried that Randing might try to set me up, wait until I was drunk and have someone under his command start a fight with me. Never materialized, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. Even walked back home, in case I got pulled over and the MP’s smelled the liquor that had been sloshed all over me. You know, they say you don’t need to drink to have a good time, but if you’re going to hang out with people that are drinking, it’s best to join them otherwise they’re fucking nuts. Basically, they’re a bunch of people slowly going insane as they downed poison.
When I got home, it was late. Everyone was already in bed. Everyone except Chloe. It was pretty funny; as a deaf dog, she should have been the easiest to sneak past, but she was very sensitive to changes in air pressure when a door was opened and even more so to the vibrations caused by people walking. She greeted me halfway across the living room. I’d not planned on the intensity, severity, and suddenness of the breakdown that struck, but there I was. Kneeling, face buried in her fur as I silently sobbed. It came in heavy wracking heaves and hitches. As the supposed leader of the family and of my squad, it was my job and duty to appear unflappable. Right now, I was anything but. The accumulated stress and loss was shaving thin my humanity; soon it would be see-through–if it wasn’t already.
More than a half dozen times I thought to soak up the puddle of myself and head for bed, but each time, crippling anxiety overwhelmed my diminished defenses and I couldn’t make it. It was Chloe, who was soon joined by the rest of the menagerie, that stayed around me. Did they realize the depths of my distress? Or perhaps they liked the novelty of me sleeping with them. I hoped it wasn’t going to be difficult to explain to Tracy, come morning. It was the aromatic wafting of coffee and the savory smell of bacon that got our little pile moving. That, and the sun shining in my face
Tracy slid a cup over without saying anything.
“Am I in trouble?” I asked after taking a sip.
“What for?” She turned to look at me.
“I’m thinking you probably think I drank to excess last night and could barely stand, much less make it back to the bedroom.”
“Is that what happened?” she asked the question, but somehow she already knew the answer.
“No, but how would you know?”
“Mike.”
“Right, I know…you know all.”
“I was wondering when you were going to come to that conclusion. Are you going to talk to someone? Scarborough, maybe?”
I was about to protest and ask what would I talk to someone about, but we’d already traveled past that marker in the ground. She took another sip of her coffee; her eyes never left mine.
“Him? He couldn’t counsel a teenager to wash their gym shorts. Plus, it was an isolated incident,” I protested weakly.
“And the screaming out at night? That an isolated incident as well?”
“What? That’s news to me.” And it was.
“You professed your undying love for BT.”
“What?” I tilted my head. “Makes sense, though.”
“Seriously, Mike. You yell out the names of those we’ve lost, and in a way that sounds like you’re trying to save them. It’s unnerving…no, it’s more than that. It’s terrifying. It’s not like I sleep peacefully most nights, and to be awakened in that manner–it instantly brings me back to the danger. Like maybe we’re being attacked.”
“I’m sorry.” I let my head sag.
She grabbed my chin roughly and pushed it up. “I don’t want you to be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I want you to get help, Mike. This is bigger than you, and it’s not something you can outrun, or fight head-on. Not alone, anyway.”
“I go to get head counseling and I lose my command. Scarborough reports all of the sessions back to command.”
“They’ll pull your bar because you went to seek help?”
“They’ll put me on a desk.”
“Is that the worst thing that could happen?”
“It’s not that easy. I keep those men and women under my command alive, Tracy.”
“And if what happened last night happens while you’re out in the field? What then?”
I looked at her face; there was pain and hurt in my gaze.
“I heard you come home. I was going to see if you wanted me to warm you up some dinner. Mike, you were as pale as a ghost when you crossed the room. When you dropped to one knee, I thought it was on purpose to say hi to the dogs, but that wasn’t it. It was like it gave out on you.”
She was right, and the fuckery of it is, I can’t even finger what the trigger was. If I could avoid that, there was a chance I could soldier on, but if it reached out from my blinded angles to drop me, what defense could I muster?
“After the trial. I can’t do it before.”
That was the wrong answer. Tracy looked like she was going to bite through the edge of her mug. Her battleship grey eyes prepared to do battle.
“Randing catches wind I’m getting my head shrunk, it won’t just be a desk job. He’ll drum me straight out. And while I would like to have my fighting days behind me, I’m not cut out for any of the higher skills that are needed here, and you know what that means. How low do you want me to go with this?”
“You bring in how we’ll have to take the kids out of their schools and I’ll throw this at you.” She was referring to her coffee, which I’m sure was still very much hot enough to do some damage.
“It’s the truth though, and you know it.”
“I’m worried, Mike.”
“So am I woman. I figured I had the insanity thing under control, didn’t figure I had so much further to go.”
“That isn’t funny.” Although it was the first hint of a smile I’d seen on her lips.
“Why didn’t you say anything last night?”
“You know as well as I do that if I’d turned the light on you would have played it out like you stumbled. You would have come to bed, we’d never have mentioned it. Sometimes the best thing you can do is let it out, and besides, you looked like you and your girlfriend were getting close.”
“She’s a better kisser. Sure, her breath smells like wet meat most of the time, but yeah…”
Tracy smacked me. “You’re going to promise me right now, that the moment that farce of a trial is over you’re going to get some help.”
I was tight-lipped.
“I’ll go to Bennington right now, tell him you can barely manage to tie your shoes in the morning.”
I wanted to protest, to come out with some worthy argument as to why I didn’t need to do that.
“You’re flapping your gums like a fish out of water. Mind’s working a mile a minute but no words are coming out. That’s because there’s nothing you can say right now that disproves anything I’ve said.”
“Well that’s not fair. Nothing I’ve said in all the years we’ve been married has ever disproved you.”
“That’s true, but this time deflection isn’t going to work for you. You get help or I’ll get it for you.” She was adamant.
Chapter 13
Mike Journal Entry 11
The trial came swiftly.
Time is a funny thing; as a child, I can clearly remember that Christmas seemed as if it would never come, but just like the end of summer, as an adult, it rushed at you with a speed that defied reality…or was it relativity? The trial split those cross-hairs, sort of. At times, I felt like it was so far away I wasn’t going to worry about it, and then in the wink of a faulty sphincter, I was being led into the proceedings by a bevy of MPs. What the fuck they were for, I don’t know. If I was going to do something, which I’d thought about a lot, I would have done it when I didn’t have an escort. Then I got worried that perhaps Bennington had been screwing with me and wasn’t presiding and I was about to get railroaded. Seemed like a lot to go through for one lousy Marine, though. Plus, if that were the case, his safest bet would have been to have kept me locked up. Even with my reasoning, I was happy to see him sitting at the judge’s table. The room mirrored what you would expect in a courtroom, though the judge’s seat was not raised, and yes, there were seats for a jury, but they were not tiered, nor were they occupied. Only civilians got to have their fates determined by twelve total strangers.
Randing was sitting at the prosecution’s desk. He still looked as salty as he had the day we left New York. That is a seriously long time to stay pissed off, can’t be good for your system, probably hadn’t had a decent shit since then. My council was Captain Alomar, nice enough guy, but he absolutely hated that I would not take any of this seriously. Would go on and on about how we needed to practice my testimony and how I was going to respond to Randing’s accusations. I realize I should have listened to him; I just didn’t want to be continuously reminded of the event. Would have been like watching movies of dental procedures every day until you got your root canal. Who needs that shit?
My entire squad, my family, and the Civilian Council board that Mrs. Deneaux now headed up, were in attendance. She’d wasted no time garnering what power she could. She was beaming, which I found exceedingly disturbing. What did she know that I didn’t? Most likely a lot, but was it pertinent to this case? The prosecution led off with their star witness, Randing, then his entire crew, who, not surprisingly, echoed everything the major had said. Talk about practiced. Next came Eastman and his crew; they were much more favorable to my cause, but not a slam dunk. The prosecution lawyer, Captain Collins, then for some reason thought it might be a good idea to bring my squad up. He started with BT. Hostile witness didn’t even begin to describe how that went down. Collins wisely refrained from going any deeper; if he thought he was going to get something out of them, he was sadly mistaken.
Finally, I was called up. The desire to walk a few steps to my right and smack the back of Randing’s head was nearly irresistible; oh the joy it would have brought me to watch his aristocratic nose bounce off the table. I wisely chose to get sworn in without incident. I made sure to work on keeping any anger Collins was bound to stir, in check.
“Lieutenant Talbot, can you state your name for the record?” Collins asked.
“Really? We’re this far into this and nobody knows who I am or bothered to check?”
Bennington sighed. “Answer the question.”
“My name is Michael Talbot; I am a lieutenant in what is left of the United States Marine Corps. I go out on exceedingly dangerous missions to help keep the rest of you safe and ensure your survivability while constantly endangering not only myself, but my squad.”
“Colonel, could you please have the defendant refrain from adding to my questions?” Captain Collins asked.
“You can ask me that, I’m sitting right here.”
“Lieutenant Talbot, I realize that taking these proceedings seriously is difficult for you, but if you could answer the questions as posed, that would be helpful,” Colonel Bennington said.
I nodded.
“Verbal confirmation,” he prompted.
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant, Major Randing has levied some serious charges against you, the first being that you disobeyed a direct order. Do you deny that?” Collins asked.
“I do.”
“Anything more to add to that?”
“You just ratted me out to the colonel for giving too much of an answer and now you’re saying I didn’t give enough? I think you need to work on your litigation. Fine,” I said before Bennington could say anything. “How is insisting on bringing dogs on a flight disobeying an order? That’s the question that needs asking. Did I go above and beyond getting those scientists and their valuable information out of their lab and back to base? I did. Did I make sure the primary mission was a success by retrieving a lost package and making sure it was secured on the plane? I did.”
Deneaux perked up at that; the scientists were no secret. Bennington made sure to release as much information as he could regarding what they were working on. It was a hell of a morale booster. The nuke? That he kept tight to the vest, and it looked like it was something Deneaux did not know anything about. I would imagine she would begin to work diligently to expose the truth. Bennington looked like he was trying to swallow his breakfast a second time.
“I lost a good man out there making sure that I obeyed the orders given to me. I don’t consider Randing…excuse me…Major Randing telling me to not bring dogs that I saved, and that also saved me, on board a plane, an order. You going to tell me that you would have turned these two away?” I held up a small poster I’d made.
Bennington let his head fall a bit into his palm.
“Damn right!” BT stood up and clapped his hands together, loudly, twice.
“Gunney!” Bennington shouted.
“Sorry, sir.” He sat back down.
This went on for a couple more hours. Randing really had nothing. It finally got to the point where Randing’s lawyer was trying to prove how much contempt I had for the major. I didn’t even feel the need to hide that; last I checked that wasn’t a punishable offense. The further we went, the more agitated Deneaux became. I was certain she was going to ask the court if she could approach the bench. When she realized that this wasn’t going the way she wanted, she and the entire civilian council up and left. Bennington looked over to me; I only shrugged.
“Prosecution rests.” Captain Collins seemed exasperated.
“Captain Alomar, it is your turn to present your case.”
Captain Alomar stood up, never moved away from the table. “The prosecution did a wonderful job presenting our case, sir. The defense rests.” Then he sat.
The way Randing was looking at Captain Collins, I had to figure the man was in danger of becoming the same rank as me by the end of the day. Though I couldn’t imagine Bennington getting onboard with that.
“I’ve weighed all the evidence in this case. I do not need to retire for deliberation.”
“Please stand,” an MP off to the side directed.
“Major Randing, I understand your anger at Lieutenant Talbot; he has an uncanny ability to worm his way under your skin, moving quickly from a minor irritant to a fully enflamed, burning rash.”
“Mm hmm. Amen to that,” BT said loudly. I turned to look at my friend.
“Truth is truth,” he replied.
“But with that being said, I do not see anything here that would lead me to believe he disobeyed a lawful order that pertained to the mission. In fact, Major, I question your ethos. Instead of swallowing a modicum of pride, you would have let those two magnificent beasts die upon the tarmac that day. If we demoted or pushed out of the military every person that questioned authority or groused and complained about command, I fear that we would have only ourselves left. Lieutenant Talbot.”
I was beaming as Randing was getting called out for his pettiness. I was not ready for the Colonel’s spotlight to shift toward me.
“You are not guilt-free in all of this. Don’t.” He held up a finger when he saw I was about to speak. “You have mostly won your case; don’t screw it up now.”
I wisely shut up.
“Most of my life, I wanted people to speak their minds, to not leave somet
hing unsaid. Then I met you, Lieutenant. You seem to have taken that to a whole other level.”
“The truth will set you free.”
“BT!” I turned. He had his eyes closed like he was in the middle of a rousing Baptist sermon.
“You’ve changed that for me, Lieutenant. I now want people to think very carefully before they speak, perhaps place a filter on their thought-to-speech translation, to avoid, at whatever cost, those cringe-inducing words. I can see how you could so completely incense Major Randing, and for that, I am going to levy some punishment, in the hopes that it will give you time to reflect on your actions and how you can improve upon them.”
I looked back to Tracy; she smiled back, but she was nervous.
“For the next two weeks, Lieutenant, you and your squad will be prohibited from leaving this base. I remand you to the grounds. You will be required to wear civilian clothing for that entire time period.” He stood and walked out of the room.
“Court is dismissed,” the same MP said.
Randing was yelling at Captain Collins. BT came over gave me a big hug, then he started looking at my uniform.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked him.
“Looking for the Teflon.”
PFC Kirby came over; he looked pale. “Remanded to the grounds? What’s that mean?”
“Means we’re on leave,” Corporal Stenzel told him. “Congratulations, sir.”
There were smiles and handshakes and then I told them to head out and enjoy themselves. That if they had any problems, they knew where to find me. Lot of back clapping as they left.
