Congratulations Quiet War Hero!

When you get off the plane, there’ll be fanfare galore. Your family, a bunch of your friends, a few random people who just greet soldiers returning from warzones for shits and giggles. They’ll all be there smiling and waving at you. You’ll step right up, hug your little brother, kiss your mom on the top of her head and walk right by the rest of the crowd on your brand spankin’ new steel legs.

You’ll file right past the cheering crowd and into the car your dad has parked outside. Then you’ll ride home and, in true hometown fashion, eat a big plate of your mom’s slightly burned chicken parm. You won’t talk about Over There at all, though you will talk about the rehab center where you learned to walk on your new robot gams. You’ll talk about how it was a lot like how you’d imagine a boy’s school dorm to be: lots of high-schoolish politics, lots of backtalk, a handful of quiet people you actually wanted to be around. You’ll make it very clear you’re more excited to be at home in the quiet than you are to be there, surrounded by men moaning into the night with phantom limb pain, quietly masturbating to sleep in the darkness.

A week from now you’ll emerge from your house for the first time and walk around the grocery store, legs squeaking softly as you walk up and down the aisles, surveying the bevy of things you don’t really need arrayed on the shelves around you. While you sit and quietly enjoy the humming fluorescent lights, trying to figure out exactly what quinoa is, a middle aged woman in the saddest khaki pants and most disappointing denim jacket you’ve ever seen will tug on your shirt behind you.

“Excuse me,” she’ll murmur. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

You’ll be puzzled. “Sorry?”

She’ll point to your shirt. “For that.”

You’ll be wearing the shirt you got for the 31st MEU. It’ll be worn with sweat and a dozen washes. Along with the legs, it’ll be clear with what you were. Are, you’ll suppose.

“Oh. Right.”

You’ll push your cart away from her, vaguely angry at her for choosing that moment and that way to say anything to you about it. You’ll miss the cities in the south, where people wince when enlisted men come in and then smile when they take in their money. You’ll think of every officer who goes out to karaoke bars in his dress blues and, for a moment, you’ll want to go back and tell that woman that she can go up her own ass with her thanks.

But you won’t. You’ll just keep pushing the cart until you see a few boxes of Annie’s Mac ‘n’ Cheese, curious rabbit staring back at you. You’ll pull two off the shelf, extra dollar a box be damned. You’re home. Why not splurge?

The rabbit will take your mind off of it, right up until you find yourself back in your car, driving home. When you pull back into the driveway and start removing bags from the trunk to bring them back in for your mom you’ll remind yourself not to wear your MEU shirt anymore when you go out.

Better that way.

Congratulations Quiet War Hero!

Congratulations on Entering Graduate School!

Briefly after returning to Madison you’ll be reminded of why you left when Gary, your best friend from high school, taps the window of your car with the barrel of a revolver. You’ll sigh and roll your window down to avoid being shot in the face.

“Hey Gary,” you’ll say, exhaustion from driving for eighteen hours overshadowed by the dead tired feeling you get just seeing Gary here on the same street corner you left him on eight years ago.

“Hey shitbird,” he’ll say, eyes flitting nervously. He’ll barely seem to know he’s holding the gun, his wrist slack and tired. When he holds it pointed towards you it’ll seem almost accidental. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

You’ll shrug. Time won’t have been kind to Gary, his eyes hollowed out, his arms too thin and his beard a bit too unkempt, even by the standard of the hipsters you’ll just have abandoned.

He won’t be happy with that.

“Open the door,” he’ll say, and you’lll comply, letting him twitch into the passenger seat. He’ll smell like an exhausted animal, like a man on the verge of a seizure. His twitching won’t help, but it will give him a touch of madness that makes him seem capable of anything. When he finishes settling in and says “Drive” you’ll drive.

He’ll guide you through familiar streets filled with landmarks that, for all your time away, haven’t changed much. It’s like everything in Madison was locked in time just for you. Everything except Gary, who will gingerly and considerately point for you to turn well in advance until the two of you reach a bar on the edge of the warehouse district.

Then Gary will give you directions on exiting your vehicle, turning off the engine, opening your door and handing him the keys. Then he’ll put his gun right against your spine and push you towards the bar’s waiting door.

Inside Gary will calm down a little, sitting at the bar with you, still at gunpoint, by his side and ordering a drink, making sure that the bartender knows to tell Julio that he’s found you and has you here.

Gary will go through three more scotches while the two of you wait. The place will be like a rogue’s gallery of people from your high school. Mary Keating, the girl you lost your virginity to, will be sitting on a man’s lap in a corner. Max Fairingway, your math tutor, will be nervously selling coke to Farah Thomson né Franks, the lead cheerleader who ended up pregnant towards the end of senior year and married her sweetheart of the time who, rumor had it, was not the father of her child.

It’ll be almost exactly like what you expected your high school reunion to be like, but two years before you expected it. When Julio steps in the front door the gathering will be complete.

“What the fuck are you doing back here, you fucking snitch?” he’ll ask before he even sits down, advancing towards the bar with violent intent.

You’ll explain that you are starting graduate school tomorrow at the U of W in Madison and that you will hopefully have a degree in music theory completed in around two years time. He’ll shake his head.

“Maybe that shit will help you get out of loans to the federal government, but it won’t help you with me.” He’ll nod to Gary, who will pull his gun out again and cock it.

You’ll ask him, puzzled, what he’s talking about. He’ll answer by detailing a scenario, almost a decade ago now, where he covered your ticket to the last Lord of the Rings movie for which you still “owe” him. You’ll ask if you can treat him to a movie and call it all Even Steven, but he’ll shake his head mournfully.

“It’s too late for that now,” he’ll say. Then he’ll nod to Gary, who will be shaking a little bit again. His grip won’t be too steady on that pistol and you’ll notice but you won’t think about it. You’ll just move.

You’ll grab the pistol by the barrel and jerk it forward, smashing your fist into Gary’s face. Then you’ll toss the pistol into your free hand in and endless heartbeat and point it at Julio. He’ll have begun to speak but the words won’t have left his mouth before the revolver interrupts, leaping in your hand and leaving your wrist with a broken feeling.

The shaped .357 won’t so much hit him as it will leave him, a hole the size of a quarter just to the left of his heart. You won’t see the exit wound, but you’ll know what it looks like: torn flesh and jagged bone pushing through meat decorating a fist sized hole. He’ll be on the ground in a few seconds, in shock before Gary even has senses back.

You’ll mutter at Gary before you pull the trigger again.

“Sorry,” you’ll tell him. You won’t be sure what you mean exactly.

As you leave the bar and re-enter the car you’ll feel strangely calm. Tomorrow’s a big day for you. Everything’s going to change, and today was, in a sick way, the perfect prelude to it. You’ll put the car into first, start the engine and drive to your parent’s house from muscle memory. It’s going to be weird to sleep in the same bed you grew up in after all that’s happened.

Congratulations on Entering Graduate School!