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Eleven Years Ago
With little to live for, Al fell into routine. Out of bed before the sun, and awake well before that—mostly because of the nightmares. Coffee at the dining room table with his Pops, but no talking. Just staring into the swirling steam and welcoming the burn of his throat. After that, he put on a pair of overalls that his mom washed once a week, about the same frequency that he washed himself. He stopped shaving. Stopped looking in a mirror, really. He didn’t like what he saw there.
Neither his Pops nor his mom tried to change his course. Maybe they didn’t know what to do with him. Hell, he didn’t know what to do with him, either. But they gave him his space. Let him help out with the pigs and the goats. Let him hide away in his room when guests came over. Let him eat the food without paying for any of it, or even offering to help prepare it or clean it up. Sometimes, his mom would gently ask him if he’d like to go into Glenbury with her for the groceries, but he always declined, and she never seemed surprised.
They were getting on in years, his folks, but still devoted to a tradition they’d done every October for as long as Al could remember. All through September and October, they left Al to tend the animals while they hiked a quarter mile into the woods to set up the Weiss Family Haunt in time for Halloween. As a kid, he’d reveled in helping set it all up, planning it, thinking up ways to scare the other kids that came through. Now, he could barely see the appeal, and the memories of it didn’t come with the love he’d once felt for the tradition.
He no longer sought fear.
After his folks disappeared into the woods every morning, Al took his time slopping the pigs and herding the goats to a new area of the property. He’d find something to sit on and then just watch for a while. Damn animals would eat anything. Living garbage disposals. The pure evolution of it intrigued him. It felt like something he could understand—being railroaded into just accepting whatever the world provided, making the best of it, and learning to draw energy from it all the same. He found strange inspiration in the goats and pigs.
Joey—the name he’d given to the goat who’d scared him on that first day back—almost seemed like the reincarnation of its namesake; one of the best friends Al ever had. As angry as he’d been with it, this mischievous little thing managed to worm its way into Al’s life. When the silence became too much, he could always talk to Joey, who would usually stop chewing on garbage long enough to look up and bleat. He confined the other goats to a particular area that needed clearing, but not Joey. Joey roamed free, never wandering too far. It wasn’t exactly a friend, but it was the closest Al got to feeling like maybe he’d eventually find his way back to normalcy.
The hope never lasted, though. By lunch, he went in for the bologna sandwich his mom made him every day. Then ate a half-bag of Ruffles before downing a couple bottles of water and heading out into the woods. Sometimes Joey followed. Sometimes Al went alone. He went under the guise of hunting, carrying his Pops’ double barrel shotgun with him, but he never intended to kill an animal with that gun. Surely his folks knew that. Nobody hunted deer with a shotgun. But they didn’t question him. They just gave him his space. Never a lecture. Never a question. The lack of concern just made him feel that much more alone.
He had a place that he liked to go. Deep in the woods, where he could forget that everyone and everything else existed. There was a stump there, in the middle of a clearing. He wondered who cut down the tree in the first place, wondered if maybe they knew he’d need the seat one day. He’d started to believe in that sort of thing. Karma. Destiny. Whatever people called it. He’d stopped feeling like he was in control of the path he’d taken back in that sweltering desert hellhole.
Sitting on his stump, he liked to just listen. He’d close his eyes and try to focus on the birds. Or the bugs. Or, occasionally, Joey’s rustling and bleating. Over time, his focus would dwindle and then he’d start hearing other things. Things that didn’t originate from the woods, but from his memories. Or his imagination. The two blurred together sometimes.
Out here, no one could judge him for carrying on conversations with ghosts. And sometimes he did.
He still owed so much to so many of them. Didn’t seem fair that he sat here with his freedoms while they sat six-feet under somewhere. Especially Joey—the man, not the goat. Through all the pain and agony, Joey always had a humor about him. He kept things sane and light. He saw the bright side of everything, even the guys who tried to kill them every day. Joey understood love in a way that Al never would. Al asked him where it came from once, and Joey gave credit to God, to his church, to his parents. In that order. All the benevolent things football players say after they win a game. Joey was hardly an athlete, though; short and stubby, with thick glasses.
He was one of those Mormons. Pops always decried them as crazy cultists, but Al knew better now. If Joey was any example at all, they were hard-working people with an unshakable faith and an indomitable will. Al wished he could be that certain of what lay beyond death. For Joey’s sake as much as his own.
Somehow, Joey seemed invincible.
He wasn’t.
Al didn’t think about Joey every day on his stump, but more often than not, he did. Seemed like maybe the two of them should have traded places. Joey deserved to live more than he did.
What did Al have to bring back to his country? About this time every day, whether the thoughts turned to Joey, or another soldier, or even the poor civilians that got caught up in it all, Al felt his will to live dissolve into the shadows of the woodland. When it fell quiet, then he knew it was time to end it all. To let his parents get on with their lives. To let him live beyond death without the overwhelming suffering—if Joey was to be believed.
And that’s why he always brought the shotgun. Without fail, he’d cock it, put the butt of the gun against the ground, and lean his chin on the two cold barrels. It took some contorting, but he had long enough arms to get a finger to the trigger. He didn’t know how to pray, so he talked to Joey the ghost instead. Begged him to put in a good word to his God. Vaguely, he knew that it was un-Christian to commit suicide, but somehow he believed God would understand in his case.
Then, the birds would start singing again. Every day. And killing himself with such a joyous, unfettered song echoing in the woods seemed wrong. So he’d un-contort himself, un-cock the gun, and lay it on the ground. Oftentimes, he’d follow that with a string of curses, blaming it all on Joey—surely, from beyond the grave, he controlled the birds. If goat-Joey happened to be around, he’d always offer an Amen in the form of a rambunctious bleat.
Somewhere in the anger, tears would tumble down Al’s cheeks.
And he’d sit on that stump for another few hours until the tears dried up and his thoughts turned to the next day. The repeat of his routine. The pigs that needed slopping, the goats that needed moving, and the bologna sandwich that wouldn’t eat itself. Somehow, he’d work up the strength to remember that although his parents didn’t pressure or push him, they might be devastated by his passing. And if he did kill himself all the way out here, his Pops might kill himself trying to find the body. Al didn’t want to be responsible for that.
So, he’d eventually pack it up and head back home, usually just in time for a solemn dinner, a little bit of television, and then back into the bed. He always hit the pillow hard, and fell asleep quickly, drained of both energy and will.
After a few hours, though, his body would recover and get right back to work on the never-ending nightmares.
