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 Feigning Death to Avoid Helping Your Mom Go Get Groceries!

When you hear the first footstep on the first stair you’ll know, just by the creak of her weight and the moan of the wood that it won’t be enough to just say you’d rather not go to the grocery store. You know that pretending to be asleep won’t be enough to keep your mom off your back either. Hell, even telling her in a totally reasonable tone of voice that “fifteen is too old for a young woman to accompany her mother to the grocery store” probably wouldn’t get her to leave you alone.

So here’s what you’re gonna do.

By the time your mother hits the second step you’ll have the toy gun and the M-80 you stole from your little brother out. By the time her foot hits the third step you’ll have the M-80 lit and sitting on your desk, underneath one of the cleaner bowls you’ve brought up to your room so you can eat dinner alone over the last week. By the time her foot hits the fourth step you’ll have all that stage blood you swiped from the drama department out and you’ll be smearing it on yourself and by the fifth step you’ll be just covered in it. By the sixth step you’ll have laid yourself out on the floor next to a nice big pool of fake blood and after the seventh step you won’t have to count her steps no more: you’ll be still and the toy-gun will be a little bit away from your hand on the floor, splayed out.

When the M-80 goes off the steps will hasten and by the time they reach your room they’ll be more like a gallop.

Your mother will crack the door and gasp, then fall to your side weeping. You’ll stay still, as best you can, never moving, not even breathing. You won’t want to make this into a thing. You’ll just want to stay at home instead of watching your mom avoid thinking about how much she hates your dad by choosing between nearly identical brands of popsicles with you in tow.

Sure, when the police come and discover that you are, in fact, totally alive, she’ll be upset. But then you’ll have some other people there to help you out and witness, along with you, just how crazy your bitch of a mom is. And that’s worth the hassle of faking your own death, I think we can all agree.

Congratulations on Feigning Death to Avoid Helping Your Mom Go Get Groceries!