Chapter Four - Awakenings
Together, they turned and walked back to Ashley’s apartment. Sarah was waiting there with the door cracked partly open. When she saw Steven and Matt strolling up the path she walked out and hugged Steven tightly.
“I was so scared,” she said. “Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes suddenly growing wide with concern as she saw splatters of blood splayed across Steven’s shirt. “I’m fine sweetheart,” he said and moved past her, into Ashley’s apartment. Sarah put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I know I keep telling you this, but be gentle with her. I wasn’t able to get much out of her, but I have a feeling things are a lot worse than even she can admit.”
Steven caught her gaze for a moment and then slowly nodded as he walked into the apartment.
“Oh my god, what did you do?” Ashley asked as soon as she got one good look at
Steven in the light and saw the blood and his scraped up knuckles.
Steven began to speak but he was quickly cut off.
“What did you do?” she screamed, her voice trembling.
“I did what had to be done,” Steven muttered.
“Great,” she replied, exasperated, not really caring if she made a spectacle of herself or not “I don’t fucking believe you. You come barging back into my life and within a day you’ve fucked everything up.”
“Calm down Ashley,” he said to her, trying to calm her.
But this only enraged her further.
“Me calm down,” she said. “How about you fucking calm down? You come traipsing back here like everything is hunky dory, like you forgot you just fucking left all of us here. What? You don’t like to hear this? Little delicate Steven, with his Pulitzer Prize and his scary, bad dreams. And then you come rushing in, like a bull in a china shop, like you’re going to save the day. Big strong Steven. He’s going to just fix everything. But you can’t, can you? You can’t fix this. I hate you, you son of a bitch.”
Matt and Sarah were both too stunned for words. Sarah wanted to do something, wanted to say something, but hesitated because at the same time, she felt like a trespasser, as did Matt.
Sarah saw the brief but pained look in Steven’s eyes and she wanted to race to him and comfort him, but by the same token she knew that now might not be the best time. As
much pain as she saw in Steven’s gaze, the pain and hurt etched deeply in Ashley’s face
seemed tenfold.
Sarah knew with certainty that this wasn’t all about Henry any more, nor was it really about the death of their parents. No. This was something more. It was as if Steven’s sudden reappearance in his sister’s life had opened a giant, vacuous wound
“Your welcome,” Steven finally said, walking towards his sister.
“What did you say?” she yelled at him.
He placed his hands on her arms to try to keep her from flailing them at him, and she wriggled out of his grasp.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” she said. “What did you just say to me?”
“Well, I take it that was all you could muster in the line of thanks…so I said you’re
welcome,” Steven said and Ashley lashed out at him, trying to slap him in the face.
He caught her by the wrist though and pulled her to him, pulling her close to him, hugging her until she finally stopped struggling against him and instead, began crying. No one said anything and he just continued to hug her as they stood there, swaying back and forth the way a nanny would sway a small child.
He brushed her tears away from one cheek with the back of his hand and gently kissed her on the forehead.
“Let’s get out of here for a little while,” he said to her. “Just you and me. I think we have some talking to do. I shouldn’t have waited this long to do it”
She rubbed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.
“Fine,” she said. “Let me splash some water in my face though. I’m sure I look like shit right now.”
Ashley trotted upstairs and Steven turned to face Matt and Sarah, who had both taken strategic spots on the sofa.
“You sure have a way with women,” Matt said, but when Sarah looked at him suspiciously he added, “Well present company excluded.”
“I thought you handled it well,” Sarah said in a low tone.
“Look, Sarah. You don’t mind if we go out for a little bit,” he asked her.
“Of course not,” she said. “We had this talk on the plane. Right now Ashley needs her brother more than I need you. You don’t even have to ask.”
“And what about you?” Steven asked Matt.
“What about me?” Matt asked, with a playful smirk in his eye.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Steven said.
At that point Sarah laughed and said, “Oh my. Are you jealous? You trust me to be alone with Matt don’t you.”
“You I trust,” Steven said. “Him I know.”
“Right now I’ve got eyes for one woman and one woman only,” Matt said. “And
you’re about to take her out for drinks.”
Surprised, Sarah turned to him and said, “Oh my god, you and Ashley.”
“I wish,” Matt said. “Truth of the matter is I haven’t seen her in months before this morning.”
“Yes,” Steven said. “It’s a fairly well-known fact that Matt here has had a prolonged crush on my sister that dates back to well before our pre-pubescent days.”
“Matt does what?” asked Ashley, as she returned from upstairs. She was dressed in faded blue jeans and a gray pullover sweater.
Matt suddenly sat red-faced with an “if you say it I’ll kill you look on his face,” but Steven couldn’t resist.
“We were just talking about his undying love and devotion for you,” Steven said.
Ashley turned and looked at Matt, who was still sitting on the sofa. She looked at him, as if considering it for a moment, or as if this was the first time she’d ever heard this news.
“Sorry, but I don’t think I’d be very good right now,” Ashley said.
“I’ve waited this long baby,” Matt chided her. “I can wait a few more months.”
Everyone laughed.
“What?” Matt asked. “At least she didn’t tell me to eat shit and die like she used to. I’d call that progress.”
Ashley rolled her eyes and turned to Steven.
“You ready to go?” she asked and he nodded. Ashley then turned to Sarah and said, “I’m sorry about that little scene. All of it. I promise I won’t keep him out late.”
Steven pulled out a sweater of his own and slipped it on over his t-shirt, which was still bloodstained.
“Where are we going?” Steven asked his sister as he drove her car out towards the
lake.
“You’re the one driving,” she said.
“I know,” he replied, “but as you pointed out earlier, I haven’t been here for two years.”
“Up here on the left is a little bar,” she said. “It’s mainly crowded on weekends and on dart night, on Wednesday. It should be empty tonight.”
As he pulled into the parking lot he saw that it was fairly deserted, which was fine by Steven. He hated crowds, like the busy airport earlier. They made him feel claustrophobic.
They entered and made their way to the bar.
“What are you drinking tonight?” he asked her.
“You just want to share a pitcher of beer?” she asked him.
Steven raised a curious eyebrow and said, “What are you a frat boy?”
“Something like that,” she said. “I’m going to get us a table, maybe out on the back deck. It’s not too cold out. Is that okay?”
“Sounds good,” he replied.
The bartender, a woman in her early 40’s that looked like she’d been around the block a few times handed him the pitcher and two frosted mugs.
“Looks like you’re ready for a romantic evening,” she said to him.
“What?” he asked. “No. That’s my sister.”
“My bad boo,” said the bartender.
“It’s okay,” he said. “This isn’t the first time someone thought that,” he added, which was true. It had been a while, but shortly after Ashley turned 21, the two of them used to meet at least once a month for drinks, usually in some hole-in-the-wall sort of bar like the one they were in now.
“You do kind of favor each other, now that you mention it,” she said. “That’ll be four dollars.”
Steven slid her seven and told her to keep the change.
Ashley sat with her back turned to the back door of the bar, looking out into the waters of the canal that ran along the back of the bar’s property. The canals were used, for the most part, by boaters in Eden Isles subdivision, as an access route into Lake Pontchartrain.
It was quiet out and Ashley was smoking a cigarette as Steven set the pitcher and mugs on the table and sat down. He filled both their glasses and cleared his throat but Ashley didn’t stir or acknowledge his presence.
“You, a nurse of all people, should know smoking isn’t good for your health,” he said.
Without turning to face him she replied in a low voice, “I know you mean well Steven but I seriously doubt my health is the most relevant issue at hand tonight.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” he said matter-of-factly. “I think it’s a big issue actually. Oh Ashley.”
She slowly turned to face him and gently lifter her mug to her lips and swallowed a sip of beer.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?” he asked.
“That sigh thing you do when you say oh Ashley,” she replied.
He clammed up a little and she sensed it and then said she was sorry.
“Don’t do that either,” she said, reaching across the table and taking her brother’s hand in hers. “I do need you. I said some pretty horrible things to you back at the apartment.”
Steven just nodded and let his sister talk.
“I’m angry though,” she said.
“With me?” he asked.
“Mainly life just in general, but yes, I’m angry with you too,” she said. “You really did just leave us.”
“I moved to take a job out of state,” he said.
“There’s more to it than that and you know it,” she said, accusingly. “I don’t fault you for wanting to improve yourself, or for taking a job in a state that actually comes close to paying people what they’re worth…But you. It was like you were running away from something…From us, like you were ashamed of us or something.”
“I’ve never been ashamed of you or Mom or Dad,” he said. “That’s just ridiculous.”
“You say that, and maybe you mean it…but that’s not how it felt,” she said. “It felt bad and it felt wrong. All any of us ever did was love you Steven. Mom, Dad and me, and it’s like that wasn’t good enough for you. No. You were going places in life and we were just all holding you back. Those were your exact words Steven, the weekend before you
left, on Mom’s birthday no less.”
“I think you’re taking things out of context Ashley,” Steven said, now remembering the conversation, the argument that actually precipitated his departure.
They’d all gone out to dinner that night, as Ashley mentioned, to celebrate his mother’s
birthday.
He’d been edgy all the whole evening because he knew he had a lot of things to do,
packing and stuff, before he was to leave for the new job. A small comment, he didn’t even remember what, had been made by someone. He wasn’t sure if it was his mom or dad. And in a matter of moments the whole thing escalated and ended with him blowing up, blaming his parents, and Ashley for everything that was wrong in his life, and storming out of the restaurant in a fit of juvenile rage.
He’d apologized the next day to his mother, on the phone, but the damage had already been done. On moving day, he didn’t bother to tell any of them goodbye, and then- why he didn’t know - he shut them all out, calling home maybe twice in the first six months he was gone.
Even now, as he thought back on it, he didn’t really understand his behavior, save to say that his nightmares had recently come back in full swing, and he was less and less able to deal with them and the problems they had caused in his life.
The phrase miserable in his own skin came to mind…And, at that time, it seemed like moving was a means of escape, the only means of escape.
“I’m not taking anything out of context, and you know it,” she said to him. “Do you know how much that hurt? You were my big brother for God’s sake. I idolized you. But my whole life; there was Steven in his daze, oblivious to everything. I would have died for you just once to make an effort, to come to my rescue just once like you did tonight back at the apartment. But it was just too much for you. It was all just too much of an effort for you.”
He poured them each another mug full of beer.
“It wasn’t too much of an effort,” he said. “There were factors though, things going on with me that.”
“You mean secrets,” she said.
“No, factors,” he corrected her.
“Oh I know, poor tortured Steven with his nightmares,” she said. “They were secrets. Everything about you and your damned therapy was always so hush-hush. Sure, we could talk about famine, global warming, the price of tea in China, but God forbid we talk about Steven. That topic was off limits.”
“Mom and Dad were probably just trying to protect you.” he said.
“From what, God dammit, my own brother?” she exclaimed. “Do you know how
ridiculous that sounds? And what about you? You could have talked to me about your problems. I waited, for years, for you to just come open up to me, talk to me…just once. That’s what siblings do, they talk each other. They confide in each other.”
She began to cry, not loud or hysterically, but her voice broke and tears streamed down her cheeks as she lit another cigarette.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said.
“It’s a little too late for that,” she said.
“I,” he began. “Look, I didn’t really understand what was going on inside of me to talk about it. I still really don’t understand it. Do you want to hear about my dreams? Do you want to know what it’s like to be sunk into a muddy pit of water while you’re locked inside a bamboo cage with rats eating at your flesh?”
His own voice rose to a hysterical edge now, but he continued.
It was as if something inside him had broken open, and, even if it were for only a little while, it felt good and he couldn’t stop. No more than he could stop when he was beating and kicking Henry earlier in the evening…Sure, he’d played it tough with Matt earlier, talking about control, but the simple fact of the matter was that he had lost control.
No. He couldn’t stop now any more than he could earlier. He continued to unload on his sister, trembling as he spoke, the flesh on his arms breaking into goosebumps and a cold chill, sweaty and uncomfortable running own his back
“Do you want to know what it’s like to see your comrades blown apart by Claymore mines?” he yelled at her. “Or what it’s to actually smell the stench of burning flesh and see the bodies of men, women, and children, tossed into a pile like garbage. I shouldn’t know these things but I do. Can you explain that? I sure can’t. Neither could all the money in the world that Mom and Dad spent on shrinks either. Is this what you wanted to hear?”
Ashley sat silently, tears still in her eyes, and a look of sheer horror etched across her face.
“Fucking answer me!” he hollered, slamming both his hands down on the table. “Is this what you wanted to fucking hear?”
“Yes,” she said, in a small, tiny voice. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I just wanted my brother. I want my brother back.”
“Well I think we’re both shit out of luck,” he said. “I’m not sure I know who he is, or who I am for that matter.”
Neither of them spoke and Steven downed the rest of his beer, about half the mug, in one long and thirsty swallow.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked him.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she concluded. “I love you anyway.”
He got a hold of himself and breathed in deeply, using a breathing technique Eric had taught him early on in his therapy, one that he hadn’t had to use in over a year.
“I love you too Ashley,” he replied. “And I’m sorry for everything. You’re right, of course.”
“This isn’t about whose right or wrong,” she said. “This is about us, we’re now alone in the world. That might work for you, as you proved to us all when you moved, but it doesn’t work for me. Not now, not ever. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me. You’re all I have left. You and a job that I hate. A life that I hate.”
She suddenly changed gears and said, “It even looks like Henry is finally gone.”
“What’s going on with that situation by the way?” he finally asked her.
“I think you can figure out that one for yourself,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I mean how long? To what extent?”
They poured another beer and she began, he told him how and where she met Henry. She met him at the hospital shortly after she began working there. She told Steven how happy she was when they first met and how their future together seemed like one filled with infinite possibility until the problems began. There was stress, she told him, stress over long hours, stress over bills and loans, stress over Henry’s residency.
It began…
She called it “it”, unable to actually use the word “violence”.
It began after they’d been together for three months, beginning with a play fight that ended up with him shoving her hard into a wall, and it lasted until this past weekend.
The beating was so severe, she said, that she finally had enough. No, she had no black eye or busted lip because he was always careful to never hit her in the face…in the body…on the side or back of her head - but never anywhere above the neck where it could leave visible marks.
She said he would tell her that he had a reputation to uphold and that if she ever so much as told a single soul he would kill her. Yes, tired of it, she packed all his things up and left him a letter stating that if he didn’t move his things out and leave immediately, she would call the police.
And then she fled to a hotel on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
“Jesus,” Steven said. “Did you ever tell Mom or Dad?”
“Of course not,” she said. “Mom knew something was wrong. She asked me about it frequently but I’d just lie to her, tell her everything was fine, or that I was just stressed out over work. I talked to her on Sunday, the afternoon before her and Dad went out to dinner. She saw the Mississippi number on her caller I.D. and she panicked. She wanted to know what was wrong. I told her I needed to meet with her, but not that night. I told her Monday or Tuesday. I told her I was going to tell her everything. She tried to press the issue, but I finally convinced her that after two years it could wait a day or two longer.”
The brevity of what his sister was telling him settled in the pit of his stomach, like something rotting and festering. He knew, God how he knew.
“I bought a gun at a pawn shop on the Coast that afternoon and snuck back to my apartment late Sunday night,” she said. “I didn’t see his car, and there was no answer on my phone. He would have answered, I think if he had been there. He’d called me all weekend on my cell phone, messages ranging from teary apologies to death threats. I guess it was stupid to come back to my apartment alone, but fortunately he wasn’t hiding in the shadows waiting for me.”
“You’re lucky he wasn’t,” Steven said to her.
“I know,” she said. “Surprisingly, when I came in, he had done just what I told him to do in the letter. He’d packed up all his shit and moved out. I was still scared to death. I took a Nembutal, again not the brightest move in the world had he decided to come break my door down in the middle of the night. I was zonked out cold. I’m surprised I heard the phone when the police called to tell me about Mom and Dad. When I first saw the sheriff’s office on the caller ID, I thought I had called them or something in my sleep. That bastard. I hate him. I hate what he did to me. He should be the one that’s dead. Not Mom and Dad.”
“Well, rest assured, he came pretty close tonight,” Steven said.
They sat silently for a moment, sipping their beers.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” Steven said. “I should probably consult with Sarah first.”
“You’re lucky to have her,” Ashley said. “I really like her. I like her a lot.”
“Ashley, I want you to come back to New England with us,” Steven said.
“What?” she said. “I just can’t pack up my life and go.”
“Why not?” Steven asked. “Ten minutes ago you were telling me how you had nothing left in the world but me.”
“I’ve got a job here though,” she said.
“There are hospitals in New England,” he said.
“I have to think about it,” she said. “And you have to clear it through the proper channels. Besides, what will I do about my pining suitor.”
“What?” Steven asked.
“Matt,” she said.
“Matt,” he replied. “You mean there’s interest there?”
“I should probably have my damned head examined even thinking about it this soon, but well yeah,” she said. “I could see it. It seems weird, but I could see it. He’s got potential. He’s grown up a lot since back in the day. He’s been nothing but good to me since I ran into him this morning at the video store. There is no way I would have been able to drive into the city ”
“My advice is to take your time,” Steven said. “Don’t rush into anything. Especially now. And whatever you do, go easy on him. That last girl he was with, Lynn, Linda, whatever, she really hurt him. He hasn’t been right since and that was like four years ago.”
They both drained the last of their beers and rose to leave. Steven put his arm around her as they left the bar.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she asked him as they walked outside into the starless night.
“I don’t know,” Steven said.
Overhead, in the air, he heard the sounds of a helicopter. He shook his head as if to make sure he really heard it, but he did. It was definitely a real helicopter. Be that as it may, the sounds of the blades cutting through the night air seemed to reverberate through his entire body, shaking him to his very core.
And for the first time, in a very, very long time, he was deathly afraid of what sleep would bring to him that night.
The base camp was nothing more than a squared off area of cleared out jungle, sealed off by a crudely constructed fence made of sharp razor wire.
If there had been a moon, or stars, the light would have reflected off the sharp snags of the barbs and razors. But there was no moon. Or, at least, if there was, it was completely blocked out by the tree canopy overhead.
The only thing that seemed to be alive, besides the men, most of whom were stirring restlessly, was the dampness of the jungle. Its odor, which was earthy and smelled of rotting vegetation, was always pervasive, day or night.
However, at night the dampness of the night was a thing unto itself. It wasn’t different than the jungle itself, always mysterious, impenetrable and crackling alive with danger. The dampness hung in the air like ghosts. It enveloped everything and everyone, wrapping them in a haze that was difficult to function in on any level.
The elements themselves could be your worst enemy, every bit as silent and deadly as the NVA, who were definitely out there, creeping silently in their black pajamas.
There was no such thing as a benign noise out in the jungle, beyond the perimeter of the compound. The slightest sounds, the snapping of a branch or the stirring in the bushes, had to be treated as a potential threat. To ignore any noise out there, however slight, or to blow it off as just the sound of an animal, or the sounds of the wind, was like literally signing your own death warrant.
There was no noise in the jungle though. Only the dampness. So when the object, small and dark, arced through the air, falling toward the base camp, his actions were quick and fluid, as if they’d been practiced a thousand times, not unlike a dress rehearsal for a Broadway play.
The piece of metal landed at his feet with a thud and he recognized it as a Chi-Com grenade almost immediately. Its fuse began to glow white, phosphorescent smoke.
“Incoming,” someone hollered, and the men snapped to attention, all of them suddenly realizing that this is how it was going to end, that this would be the end of their lives as they knew it. Some were angered, while others were just relieved. Some of them, still groggy from sleep, didn’t care one way or the other.
He made a move toward the thing, hoping there was split second enough to grab it and lob it back over the outer wall, but he stopped in mid lurch and reflexively turned away and dropped to the ground in a fetal position, amazed at the irony of it all- that he entered the world in this position and now that he would die in it. He clenched his eyes shut tightly and waited….
And then looked as the grenade burned out harmlessly and inert.
“It’s a dud,” someone yelled, “A God damned mother fucking dud.”
He rose to his feet, perhaps feeling, before seeing what would happen next. The aggressor was out there and he stood, raising his M-16 before the shrill scream could even pierce the night.
And then the enemy came, a loner, running wildly, screaming, and charging the base camp with his AK-47 aimed and firing.
He shifted to the side and then released a six-round automatic burst from his M-16
The bullets whacked silently, like dull thuds, and tore literally tore the enemy apart from
his crotch up to his throat, knocking him back, until he fell to the ground in a useless heap.
The men in the compound began to lay down fire into the foliage where the lone enemy had emerged from, staccato bursts of gunfire rupturing the stillness of the night.
And then, as if nothing had happened, everyone was asleep again.
Another grenade, spectral and silent, floated through the air. It was lobbed into the compound and this time he heard a click and the explosion that followed and then….
Steven jerked to, sitting up in the bed, gasping for air.
The digital clock read 3:15.
He slipped silently out of the bed and wandered out of the bedroom his heart still racing, his nostrils still filled with the smell of gunpowder and rotting vegetation.
He was disoriented, mostly from the nightmare, but also from waking in a strange
place.
He tried to shake the nightmare, and then realized the horror that awaited him in his own world, the sudden loss of his parents and the way their faces looked in death.
Peaceful, their eyes closed, only a small jagged gash, not too long, not too deep that ran
across his father’s brow.
He figured it was better than what it could have been, and for a moment, heard a
scream and a young man, faceless, clawing at his own stomach as he tried to hold his own intestines in…
Steven actually shook his head again, wondering if he had, somehow dozed back to sleep. Usually, once a nightmare was over that was it, there was no spillover, and there were no residual effects.
He couldn’t shake the feelings. The walls of Ashley’s apartment seemed to be closing in on him, so he made his way to the back sliding glass door. He opened it and slipped out into the night, situating himself into one of the deck chairs.
He breathed deeply and paused. His eyes fell on Ashley’s pack of cigarettes and lighter. There had been a time in his life when he used to smoke. It was years ago and not for very long. He wanted a cigarette now though.
He was just about to reach for the pack when, is if he’d touched a hot stove, he suddenly jerked his hand back instinctively.
Smoking at night was off limits. It was the fastest way to end up with a sniper’s bullet in your face. The glow from the tip of a lit cigarette could be seen from almost a mile away in the jungle. He might as well turn on a spotlight or holler out, “Here I am come and get me.”
“But I’m not in the jungle,” Steven reminded himself through gritted teeth. “There is no enemy. I am at my sister’s house.”
He was in the process of trying to mentally affirm his reality when a sound splashed in the water, forcing him to jump, startled.
It was just a fish, a mullet or perch splashing across the silent waters.
He calmed himself. His eyes scanned the glassy waters of the canal and his gaze fell once again to the tall weeds of the marsh land on the other side of the canal. His gaze had fallen there earlier when he’d been out here talking to Ashley.
He studied the grasses now, and for a second, thought he saw a figure there, crouched down in the tall grass peering back at him. He breathed deeply and shut his eyes and focused on the spot again, but the shape, the outline was still there, unmoved, unflinching. He could feel its eyes, which seemed to him to be filled with a hatred he did not understand or even dare try to fathom. The eyes were watching him, staring at him, studying him.
“It has to be a clump of grass, just oddly shaped,” he said out loud to himself. “It has to be. It just has to be. No person could sit there and be so still for this long.”
Still though, he could not pry his eyes from the shape and sat staring at it until he fell back into a fitful slumber.
Steven woke again at dawn, just as the sun began to peek from behind a purple black horizon that looked forlorn and bruised. He was glad to see the night slide away and felt safe as the sun began to slowly move into view.
His eyes fell back out to the other side of the canal, but in the
dim morning light, he could not find the misshapen clump of grass that had looked so much like a man.
Everything looked different in the light of day.
