“Man, Dude, you are such a pig!” John says, laughing and shaking his head.
“Yeah, but I’m gonna be one big smiling pig,” Brian beams.
Brian and John are sitting in the bus station, waiting for their respective buses. John’s will take him back to Texas, Brian’s is taking him to North Carolina. Their going home on leave for a week before they ship out on their first deployment.
“Dude, if you change your mind about coming and hanging with me at the beach for a week, just call me, man, my parents are cool with it,” Brian tells John again for the hundredth time.
John had told Brian a little about what he’d left behind and what was waiting for him when he got back. Nothing but misery and depression. The only thing he wants to see, the only person who he wants to show that he made it, is Chief Standing Bear.
“Thanks man, but I’m cool. I’ve got to go see the old man and make sure he’s still kickin’ it, you know?” John tries to laugh and sound offhanded. But it’s obvious to his friend that this trip home is tearing him up inside.
“Whatever man, just remember, mi casa es su casa,” Brian says giving John a hard slap on his back.
John catches himself from falling off the hard plastic chair and clips Brian in the back of the head. The two boys are still running on the testosterone overload from boot camp.
“I’ll remember that, Bro,” John laughs. He can’t stop the giddiness that he’s feeling.
Boot camp weeded out the boys from the men, the others got sent home. The training might not have changed them dramatically on the outside, but it caused an incredible metamorphosis on the inside. From the minute they’d stepped on the bus to boot camp, the military began to break them down. They were forced to keep their heads down and eyes averted, so that they could not see where they were being taken. The yelling started immediately when they arrived and didn’t stop for almost ten weeks. One of the sergeants stepped onto the bus when they got to boot camp and yelled at them to get off the bus and stand on the yellow prints. Those damn yellow prints, the recruits would never forget them as long as they live. Then they were shuffled into a room to complete their documentation and listen to their instructions, because you would only be told what to do one time. They had to listen closely to hear the instruction given by their specific sergeant over all of the other booming voices. They were then instructed to call home and tell their families, “Recruit So and So has arrived safely.” After that, you were cut off from the rest of the world and would officially begin your transformation into becoming a Marine.
John received his platoon and squad bay assignment, Brian was his rack (bunk/bed) mate. He was stuck sleeping on the small cot next to Brian for the entirety of boot camp, having to listen to Brian’s wistful tales of his life back in Wilmington, NC. Before long, the stories began to soothe John’s angry soul taking him to someplace else, a place he found himself longing to see with his eyes and not just his mind. A place that could become a home.
During the following weeks Brian and John became inseparable, sweating their asses off next to each other in the Pit. The drill instructors saw the friendship forming between John and Brian and used it to make life hell for the two. Everyone’s bodies and minds were being broken down and pulverized, readying them to be molded into the best of the best.
For twelve long arduous and tortuous weeks they were pushed, beaten, insulted and broken until they were just mere fragments of the men they were before. Then and only then would they be ready to become the Marine they’re meant to be. Finally, the day for Crucible arrived, their final test. After John and Brian completed the test, they hiked, it was more of a dead crawl, back to their site. They were each handed their Eagle, Globe, and Anchor proving they had made it, that they did it. All of the pressures, all of the stresses and all of the internal and external agonies they endured during the past weeks came pouring out of them with this Holy Grail. They both sobbed. But John’s pain had etched much deeper within him. The tears washed away the loathing he had for himself, for his mother, and for God.
Forgiveness was finally beginning to dawn on his broken heart.
*
As John’s taxi pulls into the reservation, depression and the demons he carried with him for all those years start clawing at his psyche. He feels all sense of goodness and happiness being sucked from him, like a vampire sucking the last drops of blood from his body. Even the sky looks gray and somber, almost like the sun never shines here and no life blooms. There’s only barrenness swirling around, like a dust cloud wrapping itself around you slowly and quietly until you choke from its grasp.
It’s this fucking place, he growls silently to himself. This shithole is cursed, everyone here is damned and will always be cursed if they don’t get out. How Chief Standing Bear managed to keep sane all these years is beyond me, John thinks to himself, scowling. But Chief is not a regular human being. Nothing can get to him, he laughs to himself at the thought. Looking out the car window, he flips off all of the invisible negative entities he thinks hover over the reservation, damning everyone inside to a life of a misery. Everyone, he thinks, except the chief. Fuck you!! You
