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buttchuggthis40wme · 6 years

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12 Steps from Death

David stepped into the small empty conference room and flicked a switch. The fluorescent bulbs sputtered to life one by one with a gentle hum, like old men being roused from a nap. The shadows lingered for a moment though, and for the briefest instant David was gripped by a cold, sickening terror. He shook his head and suddenly the darkness had passed, warmth returned to his frightened husk. He collected himself for a moment, assuring himself that it was probably nothing, and that it was time to get back to the task at hand. David stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, a familiar smile taking shape as he began the weekly routine, the fear had now completely faded. He wheeled a plain-looking folding table into the corner of the room, frowning at the coffee stains that speckled its beige cloth. He lined up the towers of paper cups next to the two large black beverage dispensers, marked WATER and COFFEE. David surveyed the modest spread, setting a box of Costco brand cookies right next to the packets of sugar. David poured himself a cup of joe, made it the same way he always had, with two sugar packets and healthy dollop of cream. The clock ticked softly overhead. The silence broke as David brought in the brown metal folding chairs. The chairs clanged harshly under David’s armpits, revealing their age with every rusted creak. Their light brown metallic shine matched the color of his coffee. He brought twenty chairs, but knew all too well that no more than four of them would be filled tonight. He arranged them into a wide circle, all equidistant, all perfectly angled inward. David found pleasure in these little perfections. He briefly marveled at his work before adding the final touch, a laminated teal poster taped just beneath the wall clock. The poster was simple, just a numbered list of rules. At the top of the poster it’s title read, THE 12 STEPS: in bold, impact font. A second poster hung above the concession table, directly across from the 12 steps, as if they occupied two ends of a single spectrum. The second poster showed a young, military aged black man dressed in fatigues, his head tilted away from the viewer, saluting into the distance. In the background, a pair of jets fly through a soft pink sunset. The image is bound by a black border, in the style of a motivational poster. its tagline reads SEMPER FI: Respect the Corps, Respect yourself. David didn’t even see that poster anymore, it had been here since he got assigned to the room, and probably long before that. It and a million other posters like it decorated nearly every room of the Marine Base. By now all of them had combined into a single image in David’s head, and were as inconspicuous as the patterns that formed in the rough, cream-colored stucco walls. David checked the clock, then his watch. He sipped on his saccharine coffee and stretched his legs, the men would be here soon. David checked his watch again, 6:54. The sound of sneakers on linoleum squeaked toward the conference room, and David’s head perked up just in time to catch the first guest as he shuffled through the door. “Evenin’ Marcus” He said casually, standing up to greet him. “Aw Siddown David,” Marcus said, swiping a cookie with one hand and waving David off with the other, grinning as he did. Marcus was a short man, hunched over from years of a sedentary lifestyle. He had a short, well-trimmed beard that shone white against his dark skin. “How’d Lexi do on that Spanish test?” Marcus asked, not even looking up as he poured himself a cup of black coffee. “She says she hasn’t gotten the grade back yet, but she thinks she did pretty good.” David often forgot just how receptive Marcus was. David never liked sharing personal information with clients, but Marcus was always genuinely interested in what was happening in his life. David presumed it was because he didn’t have much else going on. Marcus waddled over next to David and plopped down next to him with a thud, almost spilling his coffee. The reflection of his glasses made his eyes hard to track. “I know I tell ya this all the time David, but you’re real lucky that Lexi takes to school as good as she does.” Marcus took an enormous bite out of his cookie, a few crumbs trickled down onto his green striped button up. He brushed them off then adjusted his seat. “I must’ve driven my poor momma crazy with all the bad grades I brought home, the things that I made that woman put up with.” He closed his mouth to finish chewing his food, chuckling a couple times under his breath, perhaps reliving some old memory. David opened his mouth to ask about Marcus’s week, but before he could utter a single word he was interrupted by cacophonous laughter. A pair of twenty-something-year-old men burst into the conference room, one voice was loud and commanding, the other voice was quieter but his laugh more than made up for it. Both were indifferent to David and Marcus’s conversation. “You think I’m fuckin’ with ya? I swear to god bro I walked up to this girl doin’ some squats in the gym yesterday, she’s lookin’ fine as hell. Way I figure, she’s prolly hitched to some jarhead who’s out in bumfuck nowhere for the next six months. So I get to thinkin’, maybe she’s feeling a little lonely? maybe she might some company…” The other man pours himself some water, from the look on his face David can tell that he’s invested in the story. “I’m about to hit on her, and guess fucking what dude?” “What?” “I was so busy lookin at her ass, I didn’t even see this broad was squatting more than I am!” Both men started whooping with laughter, the one with the water laughs so hard that he spills a little on the carpet. The other man caught his breath and continued. “So now I’m fuckin stunned, right? How’s some high school sweetheart out here crushin’ my PR’s and still lookin’ like she’s ready for the homecoming dance? So, I check her name tag, and later I looked ‘er up in the database. Turns out the bitch is a friggin Scout. Sniper. Bro. First in her goddamn class! I’m just a fuckin marine thinkin’ I’m gonna get some tail, and I almost got it in with the deadliest woman in the room! who knew!” The two laughed again but less hard, then finally turn to acknowledge David and Marcus. “Howdy boys” The loud one says, sitting down in the seat closest to the door, about as far away from David and Marcus as possible. “Hey guys” says the water boy, who sits down next to the loud one. “Aaron, Andre, glad y’all could make it” David said warmly, as though he wasn’t made uncomfortable by Aaron’s loud and misogynistic banter. Marcus gave them a small wave. Both Aaron and Andre were dressed in their fatigues, even down to the boots. The only reason they were even in here was to keep from getting court-martialed. David pursed his lips and drummed his hands lightly on his thighs. “Whelp, we got a couple minutes till session starts, but seeing as this is about as big as our crowd usually gets I think we can just move right alo-” “Excuse me?” David looked up at the young man standing in the doorway. His hair was short, but it’s not high and tight like an active duty jarhead. From the look of him he probably just got back from a tour. Maybe he was just on some R&R. “This is the AA meeting, right? Am I in the right place?” “Oh yes of course!” David says. It’s been over two months since David’s seen a new face shown up to one of these meetings, and suddenly he didn’t feel so silly about all those empty, perfectly-spaced chairs anymore. “Please, come take a seat with us, we have cookies and coffee if you’d like, we were just about to recite the Serenity Prayer.” “Welcome to the fuckin’ cult” Aaron mutters to the new guy as he sits down. “Ahem,” David says, quieting the room. “Okay, repeat after me” David bowed his head and recited the prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” * The men repeated David’s words, though it felt slightly awkward. The Serenity Prayer didn’t sound very good as a call-and-response. “Okay” David said, turning to the new guy. “Since you’re new here, would you mind introducing yourself and maybe telling us why you’re here?” “Uh, okay, my name is Royce, I’m from Topeka Kansas and-” “And you’re an Alcoholic” David interrupted. “You have to say that you’re an alcoholic if you’re here” “Oh” Royce says, annoyed because he was just about to say that. “And I guess I’m an alcoholic.” “Hi Royce” The men all say, unaware of how weird it is that they have to recognize the new guy by his alcoholism before his humanity. Royce continues, “Anyway, I’ve been stateside for over a year now, and I’ve downed a fifth of Jack almost every day since.” Royce scratched his neck in discomfort. “My wife filed for a divorce two weeks ago, and I didn’t know where else to turn. I heard the base held AA meetings and that’s how I wound up here.” Royce chuckles uncomfortably and doesn’t say anything else. The lights hummed loudly for a moment and began flicker. In those seconds of darkness David felt a chill rising in his lower back Marcus was the first to break the silence. “Mind if I ask where you served Royce?” “Korengal Valley,” Royce responded, “two tours.” “Holy shit,” Aaron whispered to Andre. “This dude’s the real deal.” David thought about interrupting, some people didn’t like to talk about fighting, especially on day one. But Royce seemed open enough. David knew enough about the Korengal Valley to know that Aaron was right, it was the real deal. The Korengal Valley was a remote wilderness in northeast Afghanistan, defined by snowy mountains and thick pine forest. The few outposts that the Marines had there were small and remote, making air support and troop reinforcements a rare luxury. It was a place for survivalists. The Afghan fighters who occupied the region were some of the toughest in the country, and they knew the terrain far better than any American. Nobody could go to a place like that and come out clean on the other side. “To tell you the truth, I almost miss the Valley,” Royce said. “Every day I was out there I felt like I had a purpose. One day we would be raiding a weapons depot, another day we’d be negotiating with the local tribes. There were a lot of days where we just did nothing, but we always had a goal.” Royce looked down at his hands. “Out there you know what’s important. All that matters is protecting your buddies, and keeping the bad guys away, but over here? I can’t make heads or fucking tails of anything.” He bit his lip and took a deep breath. “I came home and learned that everyone thinks the war is bullshit. They think that the war I lost myself and my friends fighting for was a mistake. They either let me cut in line at the airport or they call me a baby killer, but nobody actually wants to deal with me, nobody cares what I think.” David thought about saying something, but was stunned by how open Royce was about his feelings. It took Marcus over a year to start talking about his experiences in Vietnam. Aaron and Andre still hadn’t talked at all about what they saw in Iraq. It was a strange position to be in as a social worker. Normally the talks here were about day-to-day struggles with sobriety, and it was rare to see someone cut down to the root of the problem on day one. Marcus looked up, his glasses reflected the ceiling lights so that his eyes became two perfect glowing orbs. His voice was cold but reverent. “I take it you met Death a few times out there didn’tcha Royce? David raised a finger, about to tell Marcus off for asking such an inappropriate question, but Royce responded before he could get a word out. The lights dimmed slightly as he spoke. “In the Korengal, everyone meets Death. It’s hard to explain.” “What did Death look like to you?” Marcus said, leaning over his chair, taking the final bite from his cookie. “It varied. Sometimes when we felt strong, Death was like a pack of wolves. They followed us on raids, howling like mad when we shot our rifles. We felt like reapers when we got into firefights. Death made us fearless, and we would watch them tear our enemies’ limb from limb. I remember feeling unstoppable when Death was on our side. I think our boys stopped praying to God while we were out there, because Death was the only one who brought results.” “Sorry Royce,” Marcus interrupted. “You okay David?” he asked turning his head, his eyes still hidden behind those reflective glasses. David was utterly confused. Normally he was the one in control of these meetings but now he was out of his depth. Was this some kind of weird metaphor? Was Royce blackout drunk? “Sorry,” David said, “Please continue.” “But yeah, Death could be anything at any time.” Royce resumed. “When we shelled Taliban outposts, Death was a huge black giant. It smashed trees and stomped buildings, screaming and vomiting fire as it went. We would go down after the bombings to inspect the damage and find all kinds of horrible things, and it gave us comfort to know that it was Death who did it, and not us.” Royce stared at his shoes. “I’m sorry I feel like I’m hogging the conversation, does anyone else wanna talk?” The room was silent. “What about when Death came for your buddies?” Andre asked. “We formed a weird relationship with Death out there.” Royce answered, frowning as he looked downward. The look in his eyes fell somewhere between shame and frustration, but it was hard to read. “Some days it would turn on us. I watched my best friend get taken right in front of me. Death was a giant black screaming banshee, with long talons made of lead. It tore his throat open not six feet away from me. And my buddy just slumped down under a tree. We took his dog tags and that was it. I barely even remember his name. Death constantly reminded us of the nature of our relationship, and we were wise to stay in our lane. I brought Death six more souls that day, and in return I was safe.” Marcus squinted at Royce in confusion, but with his eyes hidden away only his voice gave away his puzzlement. “You weren’t ever scared of Death?” Royce paused for a moment before speaking. “Not for a while, no. But there was one day when all of that changed. For a long time the enemy never knew the exact location of our base. They would shoot mortars off in our general vicinity, and we’d hear the mountains shake as they missed their targets entirely. One day I was out with a couple squads on patrol, and our radio starts goin’ nuts, they’re saying our base got hit. I get back as soon as I can, and its absolute chaos. They’ve already got body bags lined up, two of our barracks look like the surface of the moon. And Death is everywhere, a flock of black vultures picking at bodies and squawkin’ like hell. After that day Death didn’t ride with us no more.” David watched Royce’s face as he told his story, noting that he described this phantom of death with the same emotional clarity as his earlier commentary. His mind buzzed with questions but chose to keep his mouth shut instead. “What the fuck man.” Aaron said, squinting at Royce. “So Death was like a demon or something?” David looked over to Aaron, feeling some sort of relief that he wasn’t the only one in the room confused by Royce’s angel of death. “I dunno” Royce said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “Death doesn’t look like that at all, man.” Aaron said, “I saw it too.” Marcus butted in, “Death looks like a lot of things to a lot of people.” Now Andre spoke, “Nah man, Aaron and I saw the same thing, Marcus. Ya don’t forget a thing like that.” Aaron spoke up again, his deafening voice obscuring all others. “’Dre and I were both in the first battle of Fallujah, AKA Operation Vigilant Resolve AKA a shit-show to end all shit-shows.” He paused for dramatic effect, it was this professional storyteller act that was Aaron’s least attractive feature from David’s point of view. “We were in that whole mess from day one. At the time, it was glorious. Just imagine being in a convoy of 2000-plus jarheads, rollin’ in on Humvees at night, fighter jets rippin’ by so loud that you worry the sky itself might rip apart. We made the helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now look like kids playing in a sandbox. We were apex predators, tippy top of the food chain, and boy was there prey to be had.” David was perplexed. If Aaron was so proud of his combat in Fallujah why hadn’t he talked about these events sooner? Despite his tough guy attitude Aaron had always shied away from talking about the war. Regardless of how strange the conversation sounded, David was getting some real insight into Aaron’s history, and was intrigued to hear more. “I was up in the turret, and ‘Dre was our driver. We spent most of the night circling the city while our jets rained hell. Now keep in mind, this was all because some hajis blew up four Americans a few weeks earlier, made a big fucking parade out of em. They dragged the bodies through the streets, and hung em up over some big bridge, then sent the footage to the news so everybody could see. It was disgraceful, the biggest fuck you to our country since 9/11. So needless to say we were all pretty pissed. They could’ve drowned the city in blood that day and I wouldn’t have batted an eye.” Aaron paused after he said that, as if he had misspoken. But a second or two passed and he resumed the story. “After that first night, we went all in. I’m talking house-to-house sweeps, shootouts ‘round every corner. And the whole time, I notice this weird little speck hovering above the center of town, no matter where we are you can always see it, especially me, since I’m up in the turret this whole time. Most of the time we’re too busy looking for snipers and trying not to run over IED’s to notice, but throughout the day I see this speck getting bigger and bigger. It was the kind of thing that on a normal day would be a big fuckin’ deal if it showed up in New York City, but under the circumstances at the time I figured there were bigger fish to fry.” Aaron leaned back, letting the weight of his story sink in, looking around the room to gauge the interest level of the audience. To David he looked a lot more like a kid telling a ghost story than a grown man reliving the horror of his past. Yet just as David thought this, Aaron leaned in again, his eyes fell quietly onto a piece of dirt at the center of the circle. “That all changed when we got to the center of town though. We had been told to hold back while a couple tanks cleared a building of snipers. I heard the shot and the whole building came down, you could hear the foundation screaming as it went down. And then we were given a green-light to proceed. Just beyond where the building was, as the smoke cleared, we could see the speck. It was a lot bigger now, and we could see it in much greater detail. That’s when I realized what I was looking at. The object was a huge ball, but it was pulsating, sorta like a heartbeat. I could see hundreds of arms and legs sticking out of it, and the whole thing was jet black. It was dripping tar and smelled like shit.” Aaron’s eyes went around the room again. “From then on, I noticed that with every person that died in that city, every child, every woman, every haji, and every jarhead, it got bigger. We moved around the city like cats hunting mice, chasin’ and fightin’ ‘til we cornered them, then finished ‘em off. But Death was always looming above us, slick with oil and dripping all over us until we couldn’t bear to look at ourselves. Death left a stink on us that we couldn’t wash clean. Fallujah counted as a victory in the history books, but it wasn’t one we wanted to write home about. 800 dead, most of them civilians.” Aaron sat there twiddling his thumbs, a uniquely introspective look soured his face, and the room went quiet again. David had never seen anything like it from a guy like Aaron, and half expected him to jump up and yell ‘gotcha bitch!’ but that moment never came. David searched within himself for something to say, but found himself speechless. What could he possibly say that would resonate with these warriors? He had always tried to see the best in his clients, but it had become far too easy to see people like Aaron as broken drunks who didn’t even have their own best interest at heart. For the first time David saw through to the heart of what these men were saying, that they saw something they couldn’t explain, and were forever hurt because of it. He glanced up at the clock, 7:58. Time was up. David ended the session abruptly and watched the men get up and leave. There was a silent frustration as they left, a certain unfinished business to the whole affair. Marcus seemed especially hurt, perhaps he had his own story to tell. David gathered up the chairs and set them back into the storage closet. He wheeled the table out of the room, putting away the cups and sugar and cream, then dumped the water and coffee into a bathroom sink. Last of all he took down the 12 Steps Poster, disappointed that none of his knowledge of the Big Book** had been relevant for tonight’s meeting. He stepped into his silver Volvo and turned the key. A black cat sat in the grass across from his car illuminated in his headlight beams, licking its paw for a moment before running into the darkness. A primordial fear moved up his spine, and David felt the presence of something unearthly in his vicinity. He pushed these feelings aside and drove into the night.

*: The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr is commonly read at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings **: The Big Book, By Bill Wilson is a general guideline for the Alcoholics Anonymous Dogma

#short story #quick shoutout to anyone who actually reads this whole thing #you da real mvp #myart #nanowrimo #nanowrimo2017 #entry 1

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