Weston
Rain water streamed off the brim of Drill Sergeant Denroy’s round-brimmed hat. If he were cold under his rain slicker, he didn’t show it.
“Who’s smirking now, Turner?” he bellowed at me. “You? You still smirking?”
“Sir, no, sir,” I breathed between push-ups. The mud squelched between my fingers. The cold water soaked me through, making my jaw shake.
“Are you going to cry now, maggot?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
“I heard you were a fast one, is that right?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
My shoulders were screaming, my biceps were on fire. Halfway through the fourth set of fifty push-ups I’d been forced to do today.
Three weeks into Boot Camp, and I still couldn’t keep my disdain for the entire operation off my face. Call it Sock Boy Psychology, but the only grown man who had authority over me had given up the job. In the real world, it built me a rep for being an asshole. Here, it got me push-ups. Hundreds of push-ups.
“A braggart, are you, Turner?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
“Sounds to me like you are. Three weeks of you walking around here like your shit don’t stink.”
Thirty-seven, thirty-eight.
“You got a problem with authority?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
My face was a grimace as I pushed through the last ten push-ups that made two hundred on the day. So far.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me, Turner. I’ll ask you one more time and if you don’t tell me the truth, you’ll clean the latrine with your toothbrush. Do you have a problem with authority?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
Drill Sergeant Denroy bent lower, red-faced, a vein bulging in his neck as he screamed at me.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Turner? You must be some kind of Einstein to disrespect authority and then sign up for the Army. A shit for brains. Are you a shit for brains?”
“Sir, no, sir,” I gritted out.
Forty-eight, forty-nine…
“The hell you aren’t. Get your ass up.”
I jumped to my feet and stood at attention, the cold rain making my standard issue shirt cling to my body. Gooseflesh broke out over my aching arms.
The rest of the company had to stand at attention and watch me do push-ups, instead of going in for dinner. Sarge walked up and down the company line with his hands behind his back, the rain sliding down his slicker in rivulets.
“I learned a few things about Einstein just now. He’s not a fan of authority, he enjoys the ever-loving hell out of push-ups, and he’s a fast runner. Faster than all of you. We can’t have that, can we? No, indeed. We got to get the rest of you slugs up to speed. Bravo Company is going to do fifty fifty-yard sprints.”
No one grumbled. No one said a word. No one’s shoulders even slumped. But I could feel the wave of animosity and exhaustion coming off the company. It was the end of the day, almost chow time and the pouring rain would not relent.
“Sure, you might be saying to yourself, But Sarge, it’s dinner time. I could give a rat’s puckered little asshole what time it is. You got a problem with it, take it up with Einstein. Now, move!”
Sarge had me stand at attention while the fifty men of Bravo Company ran to the fifty-yard mark and back twenty-five times. By the time the last guy staggered back into formation, most were shooting me looks that promised retribution later.
I made it through dinner and Personal Time at eight p.m. without incident, but as I came back from the shower in Bravo’s barracks, Sam Bradbury and Isaiah Erickson were leaning casually against my bunk. Connor and a bunch of other guys were playing poker at the rec table in the corner. The rest were reading, sleeping, or writing home.
“Do you want to get your ass kicked?” Erickson demanded. “Are you some kind of fucking masochist?”
“I hate running, Turner,” Bradbury said. He was a no-nonsense, quiet kind of guy who looked like he worked for the Genius Bar, took a wrong turn to work one day, and somehow ended up in the Army. “I mean, I really fucking hate running,” he said. “We do enough of it as it is.”
Erickson crossed his thick arms over his chest. “Maybe Sarge won’t be able to see your fucking smirking face if I beat it all to hell.”
Other guys, smelling blood in the water, gathered around, glowering. I braced myself for an ass kicking. My Southie street fighting instincts coiled in my muscles, feeding off the murderous anger in the hostile eyes all around me. It was a rush. I’d fed off it on the track and missed it. I hadn’t realized how badly. If I fought here, I was going to lose, but at least with physical pain you could point to the source and watch it heal.
I got up in Isaiah’s face, chest to chest. “You don’t scare me, Erickson, but A for effort.”
He shoved me back. “Fuck off, Turner. That was your one fucking warning.”
“Do I look like I want a warning?”
Connor pushed through the crowd and wedged himself between Isaiah and me. “Chill…the…fuck…out,” he said to me. “This is only Week Three, guys. We’re all going to be where Wes was today before Basic is over.”
“Sarge makes him drop and give him fifty at least three times a day,” Erickson said. “Only it’s going to be on us when he fucks up from now on.”
“I hate push-ups almost as much as I hate running,” Bradbury muttered to no one. “Maybe the Army wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
“It’s cool, guys,” Connor said. His smile was relaxed and calm, as if we were on a beach in the Bahamas instead of South Carolina in a hurricane, getting our asses handed to us every day. “Wes gets that, right? He has our back.”
I nodded. For Connor. I had his back and no one else’s.
“Yeah, guys,” I muttered. “It’s cool.”
For a moment, I thought nothing was cool at all, and my ass kicking would go on as scheduled. But out of deference for Connor, the guys disbursed, many of them shooting me dark, warning looks.
Connor shook his head. “Dude.”
“I know.”
“You gotta stop with the face.” He reached out to slap my cheek lightly and laughed as I ducked out of his reach. Connor was having the time of his life. He was physically fit enough that the PT didn’t kill him. The DI’s grilled him but he was hardly ever singled out. And the guys loved him.
In other words, business as usual.
“You want to join us?” he asked, with a nod toward the poker table.
“No, I was going to write to Ma.” I glanced at him sideways. “You going to write to Autumn?”
“Oh yeah, I should,” Connor said. “I miss her.”
“You do?”
He gave me a look. “Of course I do. But I suck at writing, as we’ve established. You could write something for me. Since you’re already writing letters, and all.”
Yes, I could. But for me. Not you.
It was wrong and stupid, but I needed to write to Autumn. I needed her, any way I could.
“Drop her a line for me,” Connor said. “News and weather. Tell her I’m thinking about her and I miss her.” He grinned and chucked my arm. “But make it pretty. No harm in that, right?”
“No harm,” I muttered.
Connor beamed, chucked my shoulder again, and headed back to the table.
“All right, boys, what’d I miss? You cheating, Mendez?”
I retrieved a pen and notebook from my footlocker and lay on my back on my bunk. Since email and cell phones weren’t allowed, we had to resort to pen and paper. Which was how I did all my writing anyway. A flow of thoughts and words into the ink and onto the page felt natural to me. Like breathing.
But this is wrong…
I should’ve told Connor to write his own letters. The last time I’d spoken to Autumn on the phone, pretending to be Connor, was months ago when she was in Nebraska, and I’d felt like shit for deceiving her. It was wrong and risky, but I missed her too much. The disgust I’d felt was distant compared to the hunger that gnawed at my insides now. I was starving. No matter how hard I tried to resist, the machine of Boot Camp was hollowing me out. Its job was to strip men down, turn them into war drones who could do the job that needed to be done. To kill if necessary.
Staying connected to Autumn was like holding onto a piece of myself. I needed to indulge in her now; gorge myself on my helpless, hopeless feelings for her, and hate myself for it later.
I’m in love with her.
The truth was bold and stark on the blank page of my heart.
I put my pen to paper and began to write.