I cut him off right there. “You can’t enlist in the Marines just because you’re desperate for pussy.” I swear, it was the only thing the guy ever talked about. He was so desperate he reeked of it and girls could smell that from a mile away.
“Yeah, I know. That’s not the only reason I want to do it. It’s just a bonus.”
I shook my head. “You need a better reason. It’s a huge commitment. It’s not the kind of thing you can just walk away from or quit if you decide it’s not for you.”
“I know all this,” he snapped. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. And it’s what I want.”
I side-eyed him. He looked determined but I wasn’t so sure about this whole buddy thing. “We might not end up together. There’s no guarantee.”
“I’m doing it with or without you. But I’d still like to do the buddy program. I did the research. We’d go to boot together for sure and our names are close in the alphabet which would give us a better shot at ending up in the same platoon. We don’t have to sign a contract until it has everything we want in writing.”
I was impressed that he knew all that so I guess he had done some research.
“You cool with that?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to answer. I’d never considered going with a friend. For as long as I could remember, I’d wanted to be a Marine and everyone knew that. So I stayed silent, trying to formulate an answer to his question as I turned onto his dirt and gravel road flanked by scrubby bushes. There were no trees around to give it some shade and it always felt ten degrees hotter than other parts of town.
Reese lived in a double-wide on a patch of dirt and sparse grass that never seemed to grow. His mom bartended at The Roadhouse, a dive bar out on the highway, and it was just the two of them. He didn’t take family vacations to the beach like he used to claim he did. In reality, he used to visit his dad in Galveston. But I got the feeling his dad didn’t really want him around because he hadn’t seen him since the summer before we started high school.
“If it’s what you want, it’s not like I can stop you,” I said, pulling up outside his trailer. In all the years I’d known Reese, I’d never been invited inside. I suspected it was because he was embarrassed. Not like it was his fault. Not that I’d ever judge him on something as superficial as where he lived or how much money he had.
Brody hated this neighborhood. A few months ago, he’d had a run-in with Reese’s neighbor who kept his hunting dogs in cages at the side of his house. When Brody confronted him and called it cruel and inhumane, the guy came after him with a shotgun. He claimed it was within his rights to shoot Brody for trespassing. For weeks, all Brody talked about was those dogs. Now I noticed the cages were gone and so were the dogs. Huh.
“Give it more thought before you commit,” I urged Reese.
“Why are you doing it?” he asked, turning his head to look at me. “Give me the number one reason why you’re so set on doing this. Because, man, I gotta tell you... from where I’m sitting, your life is damn near perfect.”
I stared at the junkers parked on the neighbor’s front lawn. The front porch heaved under the weight of all the shit piled up on it—an old sofa, tables with missing legs, and rust-corroded white appliances. Why did they have a freezer and a washing machine on the front porch?
“I guess it always felt like my call of duty,” I said in answer to Reese’s question. “For as long as I can remember, I knew it was something I was meant to do. It feels like my purpose. My responsibility to protect the people I love.” It sounded corny as shit when I said it aloud but it was the way I’d always felt so I was being honest with him.
“I can respect that. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Their own reason for wanting to join the military.”
“I never said you weren’t entitled to that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what you implied.”
False. He’d given me a lame-ass reason for wanting to enlist so I didn’t know where he got off saying that. “So what’s your reason?”
He was quiet for a minute, just staring out the windshield at the mustard yellow double-wide with brown trim.
When I was about to give up on waiting for a valid reason, he admitted, “I want some direction in my life. I don’t have the money or the grades to go to college and I don’t wanna end up in some dead-end job, working at a plant or doing concrete work and have nothing to show for it. I want a purpose in life, you know?”
I looked at him and it felt like I was seeing him in a new light. Reese had always been the joker, and a lot of people didn’t take him seriously. Until now, I hadn’t either. “Yeah, I do. I get it.”
He nodded and reached for the door handle.
“I’ll wait until your eighteenth birthday and if it’s still what you want, we’ll go together.” His birthday was in November. Anything could happen between now and then. But if this was something he really wanted, who was I to talk him out of it?
“Cool.” He bumped my fist before he grabbed his sports bag and got out of my truck.
As I drove away, my tires spitting gravel, I thought about how different Reese’s reality was to mine. Not everyone was as lucky as me.
I hit the speed dial on my phone and waited for Brody to pick up. “What’s up?”
“You wanna go for
