Content Warning: Language
Eventually Steve went the way of Pa and all the others. Mama chewed him up and spit him out. We had to move out the trailer this time. She'd made a mistake and thought it was true love, so co-signed with Steve at the last renewal. Trouble was it was Steve’s cousin, or uncle, or some such that owned the park. Made things difficult when Mama missed the rent. Especially as the guy was gay, and Mama couldn’t pay him in favors.
“Goddam faggots are killing the country. Killing the goddam country. S’like we’re living in goddam Europe. Goddam homos.”
“Y’cant say that Mama. Homosexuals got rights too. Teacher said so.”
“Is that the teacher from Californ-I-A. Bet she’s a dyke as well. Glad we gotta move. Get my boy out the grip of that degenerate bitch!” She slapped the suitcase lid, the old latch clacking shut as the worn spring bounced down.
We argued for a stretch, but it did no good. I wasn’t old enough to be by myself, I'd asked Steve and he threatened to just send me back to Mama if I tried. Told me I could last another six months. I didn’t know where dad was. No one had seen him since before Thanksgiving two years previous.
Run, dad, run.
A year or so later we wound up in Edmond, mama got a job in Oklahoma City. It was here I really started looking for dad. First off, I tried the local veteran’s places. Some nice guys, some dicks, plenty drunks. None of them knew dad. I think some of them had been drinking in the same bars since Vietnam shut down, never mind Iraq.
I went to the library. When I learnt who the Fred P. Snyder on the commemorative plaque was, I got to sit in the quiet room and read what I wanted in peace and quiet. The librarian became real nice when she realized I was researching my dad, a Purple Heart veteran; I didn’t mention him and a bunch of money being missing. She was even nicer when she realized the library was somewhere warm for me.
“Cody, son, when’s your Mama back from work today?”
I looked up from the newspaper I was scouring, “About ten tonight ma’am. Please let me read till closing. I’ll stay real quiet.”
“You just read away, Cody. But at seven I’ll come get you and we’ll have a drink in the canteen together. It’s not good for you to go without a drink for so long.”
We sat on the plastic seats, and she bought me fries and soda, making me tell her about my life. I tried not to make Mama a straight bitch, and dad a full hero. I’m pretty sure I failed. She offered to give me a lift home come closing time, but I figured that was just so she could grill Mama. I ducked out while she was booking out the History Club members.
The papers hadn’t taught me much about dad or the reason he disappeared. While I walked home in the cold and the snow, thoughts clicked round and around. The details were vague. Money from a Veterans account was missing, Pa had been the treasurer. I wanted to believe it couldn’t be true. He was a Marine, and he always told me it was the real deal, not just a tattoo. Though the tattoo was pretty damned cool; USMC on his left shoulder blade in fancy writing, an eagle mid-swoop on his right.
But then, if the charge was a load of bull, why was he still running?
Over the next few weeks things just went round and round in my head. Mama thought I was at school, but most days I stayed home, or came back home after she left for work. I tried to get a job, but there was nothing going.
Mama had been three parts drunk when I was born: Pa in Iraq, the first time round. Back then they lived out in the boondocks, and it was before nine-eleven, so paperwork could still be loose in places. Especially if the people doing it were vague, and between Mama drinking, and the local Doctor being stoned on weed most of the time I ended up with two dates of birth on two birth certificates. One of them said I turned sixteen October past, the other said eighteen.
I left the apartment before Mama, that was normal when she was working late shift. The bus took me down the freeway on seventy-seven and, as we came into the city, went past a football field. I was tempted to jump off at the next stop and go join the jocks out for their pre-school practice. I could almost feel the ball slapping down into my arms.
I killed a couple of hours around the National Memorial, reading the names on the chairs in the wet grass. I sat and looked at my scattered reflection in the pool, the way I hunched against the icy cold made me think of Pa in his wheelchair. Despite the papers and the Feds, I wanted to believe he hadn’t stolen the money. It was difficult.
I crossed the street, narrowly dodging a beat-up Buick as I jay-walked, and entered the recruitment office. My birth certificate said eighteen, my physique was inclined to agree, so screw my biological age.
Semper Fidelis.
Text by stuartcturnbull. Photo via Good Free Photos