Toward the Sound of Chaos (2 page)

Jake

O
ne
foot in front of the other. I sing the Marines’ Hymn in my head. Funny how
those things never leave you. Even now, seven thousand five hundred miles away,
I still hear those words I whispered to the darkness.
Desert dust cakes my
skin, gunfire and chaos send my heart hammering against my ribcage. The blast
from an IED shakes the ground beneath my feet until I lose my balance. I can
only watch as two of my men are blown apart and the spray of sand and debris
rises into the sky like a plume, and then rains down over our shell-shocked
bodies
. The ringing in my ears is back.

So
are the screams.

Every
fucking cry for help or scream of terror, of loss, of agony from nine years’
worth of service. I hear it all on a loop in my head. Afghani, American, man,
woman, child—it don’t make no difference, because terror sounds the same in the
dark, no matter whose lungs it’s ripped from.

Those
sounds, tastes, smells—they burrow in bone-deep and they never leave.

Nuke
paws at my hip, jumping up. I’m snapped back to the present. And like a fucking
head case I’m standing in a busy street of Fairhope, my world on full tilt as
cars and people and overexcited children move all around me.

The
adults here don’t pay me much mind when I retreat inside my head like that, but
the kids often do. Maybe it’s because sometimes I stare at them and see
something else: blood, bone, a mass of raw meat where their faces should be. I
look down at my dog and pat his head. “Good boy.”

I
turn my back on the town as they make ready for the festivities. Unease
prickles down my spine. Everywhere I look the town is painted red, white, and
blue. The fourth of July.

God
bless America
.

This
is one holiday I could do without. When everyone in town gathers by the pier to
celebrate America’s independence. I’ll be holed up in my house trying not to
regress again when I hear the sound of the fireworks. On any given day I feel
as if I’m taking one baby step forward and eight giant leaps back. In my head,
I repeat the bullshit mantra of my shrink:
Every day may not be good, but
there is something good in every day
.

I
count today’s goods, marking them off in my mind with a big green tick just
like he told me to.

Coffee?
Good.

Running?
Good.

Seeing
the footbridge taped off and the massive tree at a lean earlier? Jury is still
out on that one. Mostly because the second I’d heard the crash, I’d dropped to
the ground like I was under fire. It took a few beats for Nuke to bring me
back, and when I’d realized I was here, and the beat up red Datsun was wedged
between the tree and the bridge, and there was a chance that the woman and her
kid were in danger, I hadn’t thought much of anything except that I needed to
get them out. That’s how it is with me. That’s why I find it so hard to
function like a regular adult, because half of me will always be in a war zone,
eyes always scanning for danger, seeking out ways that I can be useful and
fight, and the other half barely functions. My mind is fragmented, broken into
a million little shards, and no amount of meds or Zen quotes from my shrink will
change that. My brain fights me at every turn, and it wins, because how do you
fight a battle that only wages within your head? How do you undo everything
you’ve done? How do you forget the screams, and the faces of your brothers as
the light drains from their eyes?

Doctor
Crenshaw may be right—there may be something good in every day, but there’s so
much bad that outweighs it.

I
pick up the pace, loping into a sprint, my aching legs protesting with each
step I take. Nuke pants at my side as I run through town as if the devil
himself were chasing me. Truth be told, I think he jumped on my back the day I
deployed and the bastard hasn’t moved since.

When
we’re a little farther from the pier I can breathe easier, though the tightness
in my chest doesn’t fully let up. Sweat pours off of me. Despite the injuries I
sustained in that desert, I’m in peak physical condition so I know it ain’t the
jog that’s got me gasping for breath. I lean over, my hands rest on my knees,
and my dog jumps up to lick at my face despite his own exhaustion. I scratch
behind his ears and whisper in a ragged voice, “I’m good, buddy. I’m good.”

I
glance down the road. From here I can see the red and white tape sectioning off
the footbridge. It fights against the breeze off of Mobile Bay and I watch it
move in the wind and think about yesterday’s checklist.

Morning
Run? Good.

Crash?
Bad.

Blue
eyes and . . . what was it she said again? Whiskey lullabies? Jury’s out on
that one too, for far too many reasons.

I
unclip Nuke’s leash and allow him a moment to shake and just be a dog.
Normally, I’d never let him off-leash here or anywhere else around town, but
he’ll likely spend the next twenty-four hours cooped up inside with me so just
this once, I let him go. His eyes dart right to the ducks in the pond but he
doesn’t make a move towards them, though his head is high, his ears straight,
and his tail slightly wagging. I head for the beach, needing to feel the bay water
on my feet and the sand beneath my toes. It’s then that I notice the beat up
red Datsun parked a couple yards away. My eyes scan the beach for that mane of
windswept blond hair and that of her son’s. And there she is, watching the
water, as her son plays in the sand just a few yards away.

I
take a step forward and then falter.

I
should leave them be.

I’m
glad to see her doing better. The last glimpse I had of her was as an ambulance
carted her off on a stretcher, her son screaming for his mother as Olivia tried
to wrangle him into her minivan. Now, less than a day later she’s here, alive,
and clearly feeling well enough to get back behind the wheel, even if her car
is a little more beat up than usual.

Walk
away, you pussy, before this becomes another of those bad moments.

I
take another step forward and gunshots ring out. The squealing whistle of the
bullets assail the air around me and my body moves on autopilot. The kid
screams and covers his ears. Nuke and I take off down the beach, headed right
for the both of them. An explosion sounds, a loud boom overhead, and she turns
toward me just as I shout, “get down.”

Our
bodies collide. She hits the sand beneath me and I shield her from the hail of
bullets and debris.

“Get
off me,” she yells, beating my arms and chest. On shaking limbs, I lift my
weight off of her and turn to see my dog attempting to console the screaming
child. There’s a
boom
from overhead and my gaze zeroes in on the idiots occupying
a wooden row boat. They’re setting off fireworks. The afternoon sky is ablaze
with red, white, and blue starbursts.

“Get
OFF!” She shoves at my chest more forcefully this time.

The
kid screams with every bang and the woman is frantic beneath me. Disorientated,
I sit back and yell for Nuke to heel, but for the first time since I adopted
him, he doesn’t obey. I get to my feet. The blonde is already running down the
beach, and despite the fatigue in my muscles I run across that sand faster than
I ever ran across any battlefield.

I
reach her son before she does and find the kid flat on his back, squealing in
delight as Nuke licks his face and whines.

“Nuke
heel.” My dog clambers off the kid’s body and sits by me.

 Breathing
raggedly, Ellie drops to the child’s side. “Baby, are you okay?”

“I’m
fine, Mamma.”

“Did
he hurt you?”

“No.
He about licked me to death though.”

Assessing
that there’s no permanent damage, she turns on me. “Your dog needs a muzzle. He
attacked my son.”

“I’m
sorry, ma’am. He’s not usually like that.” I grab Nuke’s collar and clip on the
lead. He whines, but sits awaiting my next command. “He’s trained to detect
distress. Granted, he’s only supposed to talk me off the ledge, but I guess
your son needed him more.”

“He
could have killed him,” she snaps and crouches down in the sand by her kid. She
doesn’t touch him, or offer him physical comfort, which surprises me. “Baby,
are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m
fine,” he says, impatiently. “What’s your dog’s name, mister?”

“Nuke.”

“Oh
my God, you’re bleeding.” She takes his arm to inspect his wounds further, but
the kid pulls away.

“Don’t
touch me. Don’t like to be touched,” he shouts, covering his arm from her view.

His
hands make a warding gesture and she nods, speaking slowly and calmly as she
says, “I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I
silently observe this exchange. The kid scoops up fistfuls of dry sand and lets
the grains sift through his fingers. Nuke whines and butts his head against my
hand. The woman sits, studying her kid for a beat before rising and turning her
angry glare on me.

“Your
dog did this.” She points to the scratch along his arm.

I
feel sick that he got hurt, but I know Nuke didn’t mean no harm. “I’m truly
sorry, ma’am.”

“Don’t
you dare ‘ma’am’ me.” She pokes her finger at the air in front of me, and I
flinch as if she were really making contact with my skin. “Spencer, we have to
go.”

The
kid continues sifting sand through his fingers, watching on as if mesmerized, and
I think I understand the peace he finds in that one repetitive motion.

“Spencer,”
Ellie says, all patience gone and the smallest bit of hopelessness leeching out
of her voice, as if she were battle-weary but summoning the morale to keep on
moving. “Please, baby?”

He
jolts back to the present and stares at his mother. There’s a vacant kind of
recognition there as he assesses her and the grains of sand sticking to his
hands, and then he brushes them off and slowly gets to his feet.

“I’ll
pay for the doctor’s visit,” I say, as if that makes up for throwing her on the
ground in one of my episodes and allowing my dog to hurt her son, even if it
was an accident. “For you both. I guess I hit your head pretty hard, and you
should get it checked out after yesterday.”

She
flushes beet red and glares at me. “I don’t need your help. Just put a leash on
your damn dog.”

My
dick twitches with her anger. It’s been a long time since I felt anything but
distrust towards another human being, but this woman stirs something within me
that I thought was long dead.

“Yes,
ma’am.” I grin down at her. The insane urge to invade her space, to lean into
her and provoke her even more, just to see what sort of a reaction I’d get, fucks
with my head, and causes sweat to bead across my brow. She turns on her heel
and stalks away, her little boy waving to me and Nuke, and then trailing along
behind her.

“You’re
supposed to keep me outta trouble, not in it.” I flex my hand and Nuke butts
his head against it. If he ignores my commands and deserts once more, I’ll have
to speak with Olivia, but I can’t risk anyone taking him away from me. I know
my dog. He charged that kid because he believed he was in distress—sometimes he
just doesn’t know his own strength.

“Pull
that shit again and I’m gonna head straight to your supervisor,” I say, but I
smile as we set off for home. “Now don’t go gettin’ ahead of yourself. I ain’t
asking for her number. Can you imagine datin’ a woman like that?”

Nuke
glances up at me as he trots along the beach at my side.

“Don’t
look at me like that. I’m serious. That kind of woman would have your balls in
her handbag by the time you’d paid the check on your second date.” Even as I say
those words, though, I know they aren’t true. Her mamma bear instincts had been
out in full force, but I’d watched that woman from afar a number of times. I know
she’s fiercely protective of her son, but she don’t strike me as a bitch, even
if she did chew me out like I was back in the Marine Corps.

I
decide to go easy on Nuke on the way home and we stroll by the water, even
though everything tells me to hurry because those morons in the rowboat were
just the very beginning. The later it gets, the more anxious I become.

Once
we make it back, I dish up an extra-large portion for Nuke’s dinner. I don’t
bother fixing myself something. Instead, I go around closing all the curtains
in the house and retreat to my bedroom. I start off on the bed, but within
seconds I huddle on the floor beside it, and I’m sweatin’ so bad the carpet
beneath me is damp.

The
first pop sounds and the trembling begins. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed. I
cover my ears and the explosions get louder. My bedroom window lights up with
each bright starburst of fireworks painting the sky. My quiet tree-lined street
explodes with color.

Outside,
the whole town celebrates. I imagine the kids are squealing as they chase one
another with sparklers and celebrate a freedom they know nothing about, but in
this room, my dog’s even breathing and the licks to my face are the only thing
keeping me from puttin’ a gun to my head.