Chapter Five
Dwayne
I closed my eyes and started focusing on the effort it took to breathe, allowing my thoughts to drift outward with each exhale. I saw myself as a little boy, shaking in the back of the school room, where the children had been gathered. I was crying, screaming that I wanted to go home.
Breathe.
I focused on the material world – the feeling of the plane seat rubbing against my elbow, the sound of the flight attendant’s cart wheeling past. They seemed far away compared to that dark room where the jihadi in the burka was pulling on my hand, telling me it was time to go home. I didn’t want to go home. I’d be leaving a part of myself behind in that room, but the jihadi was insisting on dragging me out into the light, back into the plane cabin.
The real world was starting to come back into focus. I took a glance outside my window. Below us, I could see rich strands of green, spreading out across the landscape below. I knew we were getting closer. My body wouldn’t let me forget. My skin was buzzing with electricity, and my breath caught in my throat. I could feel the anxiety pushing through, breaking my resolve.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. Breathe. Go back to the moment.
It should’ve been enough. Usually it was…but there was no comfort in this moment. I was scared.
I had left for the navy the second I turned 18. There was no ratty apartment, no fast food job. My adult life began under the watchful eye and care of the United States government. I didn’t have to fend for myself. I had to learn to live with what was given to me and do without the things I couldn’t get. That became my normal, and I was used to it. I hadn’t known anything else for almost a decade.
Now, I was entering a world I didn’t understand, throwing normal out the window, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’d have to learn to live in a world so alien, it was hard to believe that it even existed or that I’d lived in it all.
It was the freedom that bothered me. I didn’t want to go lax and lose the discipline the navy had given me. I’d seen it before. People left and they started to act out, partying and doing drugs simply because they’d been constrained for so long that they had to do something to get rid of that pent-up energy.
I felt that energy surging across my skin, pounding my heart like a drum. There was so much I’d missed, so many experiences I’d never had. I felt like a sheltered child who had grown up in a bubble. I was ready to experience the world for the first time.
I wasn’t going to get any sleep, but I was fully present in the moment, so I looked out the window and watched the landscape pass by below. It was mostly flat, green ridges that grew into mountains, shadowed by the clouds above.
“This is your captain speaking. We will be landing shortly. Please make sure that your tables are in the upright position and your seatbelts are fastened.”
I sighed. The flight had been far too short. When we landed, I waited for the other passengers to grab their bags, then reached up into the overhead compartment and slowly made my way through the tunnel towards the gate.
I didn’t want to just run out. I wanted to delay the moment as long as I could. I didn’t have any direction, any idea of what I was going to do or how I was going to live. I had never planned for anything after the navy. Eventually, I had to reemerge. I couldn’t put it off much longer.
When I reached the gate, I was bombarded by a flash of black hair and familiar arms wrapping themselves around my neck. “Oh, I love you. I love you. I’m so glad you’re back home.” My mom pulled away to get a look at me. “You should grow your hair out,” she said as she rubbed her hand over my black buzz cut.
“Mom, I just got back. Can we save the fashion tips for later?”
“All I’m saying is-”
An arm wrapped around my neck, nearly cutting on off the airway. I reached my foot back and stomped down without even realizing what I was doing. “Ah, fuck!” I turned around to see my brother Jesse, hopping up and down on one foot, holding the other. His shaggy brown hair was bouncing with him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” my mother asked.
“Nah, it’s my fault.” Jesse let his foot down. “Shouldn’t be sneaking up on a soldier like that.”
“Damn, right,” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on your dope trip.”
“It’s not a dope trip,” he said. “I’m a travelling musician.”
“And, I’ll bet you smoked quite a bit of dope along the way.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he laughed. “I just wanted to see you get back, honestly. Nobody’s seen you in forever. How are you?”
“Jetlagged and pissy. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
The mountains, the river, the familiar buildings of downtown Chattanooga... They were all the same as I remembered them, but they still didn’t feel real. I had to get out and experience them, touch them — give them material form just to know that this wasn’t a trick, and that I wasn’t still sitting outside that school wondering how I was going to save those children.
This was supposed to feel good, like I was getting out of prison or exile. Afghanistan was torture, but this world was even worse. It was too mundane, too simple. My mother and brother kept on talking about nothing in particular, asking me questions. I answered them as best as I could, but I was still lost in thought, drifting back and forth between the Afghani desert and my mother’s luxury sedan.
When we left the city and quiet settled over us, I relaxed a little. This was familiar. We traveled all the time. The landscape was nicer – and there were no IEDs. “Why are you so quiet?” My mother asked once we’d made it into Gatlinburg.
“I don’t know. I’m just thinking.”
“Well stop thinking and have fun,” Jesse said.
“That’s your motto, not mine,” I countered.
“It’s a damn good one. It’ll keep you sane.”
“And high.”
“Nothing wrong with that every once in a while.”
My mother turned into our neighborhood. “I’m sorry your other brothers couldn’t make it, Dwayne.”
“No, it’s fine. They have lives of their own. Besides, it looks like you’ve got a full house.” I didn’t really want to see everybody in the world. My eyes were drooping and everything was hazy. I wanted to collapse on my old bed and fall asleep.
Instead, I walked into a crowd of clapping people, many of them already in various stages of inebriation. I was bombarded by long-forgotten faces, familiar names, people I grew up with and laughed with in what seemed like another life. Nobody understood why I was so stoic or quiet, and I didn’t think anyone would understand, so I kept to myself and slumped into a quiet corner in the backyard.
I was staring down at the grass when I heard a familiar voice say, “You still don’t know how to have fun.”
I looked up to see Michael, the only person who’d ever come close to understanding me. He was holding two beers. He reached out to hand me one. “I don’t drink.”
“You should’ve been born in Utah. You’re the perfect Mormon choir boy.” He sat down next to me. “How are you?”
“Jetlagged and pissy.”
“Does it feel weird being out?”
“It doesn’t feel real. I feel like I’m in a completely different world — I am.”
“You look subdued.”
“When is this all going to be over?” I asked. “I want to go to bed.”
“It won’t be long. Jesse brought a bottle of tequila.”
“He has no shame.”
“Are you glad to be back?”
“No… I don’t know. Everyone talks about how great it must be, but that’s been my world since I was a kid.”
“You got used to it.”
“Yeah, I did, and I still feel like I left a part of myself back there. I’m not the same man, Michael. It changes you – and not in a good way.”
“It’ll get easier.”
“Sure, but things will never be the same. It’s like all of the fun has been drained out of everything. Those ribs,” I pointed at the grill, “taste like plastic. That beer, like water. When it comes to the thrill of battle, everything else pales in comparison, and that feeling that you get while you’re fighting doesn’t go away. It dulls over time, I’m told, but something always brings me back to that moment. It keeps me from experiencing the present the way that I should.”
“You’ll get it,” he assured me.
“But in the meantime, it’s torture.”
“You need to find something that will keep you distracted.”
“Like a hobby?”
“Anything — just so long as you can focus on it and it doesn’t piss you off.”
“Good point. Who’s all here?”
“Got the Fergus girls and their husbands.” He pointed at a pair of ginger twins wrestling toddlers. “Then there’s Tom. He’s out back in the alley smoking with Jesse.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Some of your mom’s friends are here. They’re all sitting in the kitchen, and then there’s Gillian.”
“Gillian? Your sister? I didn’t see her anywhere.”
“Dude, she’s right there. How could you not see her?” I saw her; I just couldn’t believe that that was Gillian. She used to be short and a little pudgy with a mane of black hair she couldn’t seem to straighten.
The woman I was looking at was skinny, with full hips, wearing a tight white shirt, short shorts, and long black hair that fell down to her butt. “She looks different,” I said. “I didn’t recognize her.”
“Well, that’s her. Come on,” Michael lifted the beer he brought for me. “Have it.”
“Fuck it.” I grabbed the beer and chugged half of it.
“Yeah, that’s right.” He laughed and stood up. “Let’s get you another.”
“No,” I said.
“You’re coming with me.”
“Fine.” I followed him into the kitchen.