I’d never been happy. Well, that wasn’t true. I’d been happy when I spent long summer weeks with my cousin, Jack, when we were kids, no matter whose father’s house we were staying in. His father was better, of course, because everyone’s father was better than mine. Mine was embittered by my dead mother, who had passed away shortly after giving birth to me, and I didn’t think he ever forgave me for taking her from me.
Jack’s relationship with his own father was uncomplicated, and that was something I really appreciated as a kid. The ability to just laugh and roughhouse and not get told off for being too loud or too ungrateful or any of that.
But that childhood jealousy transformed into resentment the older I got. Just after high school, I had to move back home, suspend the dreams I had for myself. Jack, of course, was in the middle of having all his dreams come true. He was even probably going to propose to that gorgeous girlfriend of his any day. Diane? Cheyenne? It didn’t matter. She was hot.
One free afternoon at my father’s house, I was watching TV, trying to distract myself, thinking about what life would be like if I was somewhere – anywhere – else. I tensed up the moment my father entered the room, because we just didn’t do casual interactions very well at all.
“You know what your cousin is doing? Joining the Army.”
I didn’t look away from the television. There was nothing good on, but the way the camera flashed from one person to the next, all of them illuminated with excitement at the chance to win some money, enthralled me. It wasn’t a ton of money. Maybe it’d pay the bills for them for a little while, or settle some debts. Or maybe they’d do something pedestrian, like take the family on a vacation. Get a new car. Boring. Now if I had that kind of money–
“James. Are you even listening to me?”
Only because he wouldn’t shut up. “That’s nice.”
“Nice?” My father snorted at me. “That’s the most heroic thing a person can do. Nice is all you’ve got? He’s a true American. Honorable.”
“If that’s what Jack wants to do with his life, good for him.”
“Don’t take that tone.”
“What tone?”
“That one. I wish I could slap the sarcasm out of you.”
All I wanted to do was watch the show. It was escapism, pure and simple. But could anyone blame me? I wasn’t happy, living here with my father. I knew he needed help with the rent, and help around the house. That’s why I was there, after all. Not because I had to be. If I could somehow get enough money to get him out of my life so I could move on with my own, I could be my own person.
“If you think you can sit there like an imbecile and ignore me, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Had he been talking this entire time? “I’m not ignoring you.”
It was useless. He’d already worked himself into a lather. “If you were even an ounce of the man your cousin was, I’d be proud of you. You’re a lazy, useless lump. You sit on the couch all day, staring at that TV like it’s the most important thing in your life. I’d throw it out if I thought it would help.”
“You watch it too, old man.”
“Is your life so terrible?”
“You seem to think so.”
“Because you’re not doing anything with it!” he nearly howled, making me recoil with surprise. “You’re a young man, James! And you’re just sitting here, wasting your life! Why can’t you be more like your cousin?”
And maybe that was the point when the seed was planted. Not that it was directly my father’s fault. He certainly didn’t tell me to get rid of my cousin and assume his identity. But if I had to put my finger on the moment in time that laid the foundation for what I would start preparing, it would be that conversation. It was one of many, and definitely not the first time that he had compared me to my cousin and found me lacking. Perhaps it was the shouting. He had never shouted at me like that before. He’d groused and complained and threatened, but the shouting had made its impact.
I didn’t want to live there with him anymore. I wanted my own life. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I would never have my own life. Even if I somehow managed to make enough money to move out and still support him, my father would always be flitting around the periphery of my existence, darting in and out like a bitter little hummingbird, attempting to peck away at whatever I was doing. Maybe I didn’t have a great job. But it was something. More than what he had. And I was trying to help him out, here. He could be a little more understanding on the days I just wanted to decompress in front of mindless game shows and reality TV.
I’d had an old journal in my room. Something I didn’t even recall coming into my possession. I’d stolen it, maybe, out of a drugstore, or someone had gifted it to me. What counted was that I hadn’t written in a single page, and I figured I could use an outlet to spout vitriol about my old man. How unfair he was being. What an asshole he was. The way he’d treated me my entire life. Who knew? People wrote books about their shitty childhoods all the time. Maybe my complaints would turn into gold, and I could get out of this dump and forget about all the bad things.
But my pen poised on the paper, I hesitated. I wasn’t a good writer. I’d never made good grades in any subject. Not like Jack. I heard about his good grades all the time, when I’d still been in school. Heard about the colleges he was going to apply to. The good things he’d do that I never would. All the ways that he was better than me, the latest being this whole Army thing.
Thanks a lot, Dad. I knew I’d never be as good as my cousin because my father wasn’t as good as his father. It was a sad, adult realization. I never had the right tools, growing up, to be as successful as my cousin was. I’d had a disadvantage from the start: a dead mother and a grieving father who would never quite get over the loss.
If only I’d been born Jack instead of James. It wasn’t as farfetched as it sounded. We were only a month or so apart in age. Looked alike because our fathers had looked alike. It had just been a twist of cruel fate that I had been born into my broken world, and Jack had been born into his perfect one.
But then, surprisingly, my pen started writing, my hand moving of its own accord.
“I’m not saying I’ll do it…” And then what followed was an almost beautiful unraveling of the most depraved plan I’d ever considered. I had lots of schemes, ways to get rich quick, to leave my father behind, ruing the day I was ever born. But this one was the most complete. The most visceral. One that sprang up from a subconscious battered by years of yearning for even an ounce of the kind of life my cousin had. Jack would never fail because he’d had so many safety nets cast under him by his loving father. I would always fail because my father never encouraged me. He only berated me, made it normal for me to fail.
It wasn’t fucking fair.
I didn’t mean to take it so far, but once I filled that diary with ideas and concealed it in my box springs, I found myself helplessly dragged along. I enlisted that very week, surprising everyone who knew me, particularly my father, who didn’t have a single thing to say to me, good or bad. I called up Jack, and started spending more time with him.
“I’m going to say something, so don’t get mad,” he told me one night over beers, sitting around a campfire with a few of his friends. Most of them were passed out in their lawn chairs, crumpled cans littering the ground around their feet. Cheyenne was heavy-lidded, sprawled out in Jack’s lap. I wondered if she would become part of the deal, when I became Jack. If I became him. If she’d think I was him. If I could play the part that well enough.
“Go ahead,” I said. “We’re family. You can say whatever you want.”
“I think it’s cool, but a little weird, that you decided to enlist.”
“Why? You enlisted.”
“Yeah. I did. And then you did.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” I said, grinning. “Don’t you think there’s room enough in the Army for the both of us?”
“Sure, but you’re going to be a Ranger with me. Even in my same unit.” Damn right, I was. The training had been hell, and I’d been working out on my own to make sure I was ready for everything. Jack was one of those people who treated exercise like it was essential – his day wasn’t complete unless he’d pumped however many pounds of iron – so I knew I had to do some makeup work.
“You’re my cousin, Jack.” I tried my best to look meaningful. Sappy, even. “I was worried about you. I wanted to be there for you.”
“By joining the Army?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. You’re kind of inspiring me, here. Don’t make me feel like an asshole.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Cheyenne said. “James, you better keep Jack safe.”
I saluted her. “I’ll do everything in my power to do so.” Even if it was pretty much opposite of what I was planning.
The tattoo was one of the last things I got done. It was the thing I was most worried about, mainly because I realized you were naked in the Army so often. Jack would be even more suspicious of me than he already was if he figured out I had it. But once it was done, I knew it was just a matter of concealing it. Getting the ink made everything real. Took everything to the next level.
I was really serious about doing this, wasn’t I? My misery had reached a crisis level, and I was plunging through to the end, almost whether I liked it or not.
Things changed when we shipped out. They changed in ways that I never would’ve anticipated or imagined. Ways that weren’t covered in my secret diary that I’d tucked away back home.
War was a distraction. Take any miserable human being out of a comfortable situation and punt them into a war zone, and I could guarantee that they’d find perspective on everything really fast. Almost immediately. When we weren’t working to protect people defusing bombs placed with the intent to kill us, we were going on missions, putting ourselves on the front lines, because we were Rangers – the most elite of the Army. It was harrowing, but rewarding. I got closer to Jack than I had been in my entire life, and it was a good thing. I completely shelved my plan to get him killed and assume his identity for the sole reason of finally feeling fulfilled, happy, like I belonged somewhere and was doing good work.
And if people confused us all the time, as I guarded my tattoo like my closest secret, it was gratifying to be compared to my cousin. He was a good person.
I was becoming a better person.
The ambush was just that – an ambush. If the plan had still been in play, it would’ve been the perfect cover. A field full of mines and IEDs, automatic and sniper gunfire coming in from all sides. They’d planted the bombs there to lure us out of base, then waited. And we’d come because that was what we did. It was our duty.
I was laying down covering fire, some of our teammates already on the ground, bleeding from wounds I was struggling to assess, guessing if they were going to be able to get evacuated in time to stop that bleeding, when Jack stepped on the mine. Both of us knew what had happened the moment we heard the click. And he looked at me with as much love as he could muster before stepping away, triggering the bomb, the resulting explosion that knocked me out cold and apparently scattered the attackers, giving a support team enough time and cover to get in there and get us out.
Even if I was the only one who survived.
Back in my childhood bedroom, in absolute shock of the knowledge I’d just uncovered, the memories of the person I’d been, the lengths I was willing to go through to ensure my own happiness, the awful person I had been before trying to be better. Even if I hadn’t intended to assume Jack’s identity by the end of his life, I had tried to be like him more than I thought I would. And it had uplifted me. Made me be a better person, truly.
Even if it wasn’t the person I thought I was.
My hands shaking, I slipped the diary back into its slot in the box springs. No one had found it there so far, so it would be safe. I was the one who wasn’t safe. I felt like the living, breathing adage of “be careful what you wish for.” I had wished Jack dead so I could be him, and now everyone thought I was him, even if I hadn’t pretended. My plan had been close enough to completion that I’d fooled everyone – even myself. I needed to get out of here, run away from this reality. Run away from my memories, if I could.
Even if I knew I couldn’t.