An Insane World – Chapter Nine
His neighbor, Mrs. Meyer, and her morbidly obese Shih Tzu catch Alex just outside his apartment door and pin him there. He's still looking for his keys, can't make a clean escape. She bustles over and leans in close, eyes creased at the corners from her haughty smile. She's in perfect gossip mode – this time it's her niece's husband's alleged gambling problem – and Alex pretends to listen, staring at the dog who stares right back. It's beyond comprehension, the speed and ease with which Mrs. Meyer keeps up a one-sided conversation, and his already rain-soggy takeout boxes of Chinese noodles are getting cold. So five minutes going on five hours later he coughs, loud enough to dramatically derail her chatter, makes a borderline rude excuse and slams the door in her face.
He leans back against the wall with his eyes closed and allows himself to miss California and sunshine for a moment. He doesn't miss much else about the place.
The noodles are bland and rubbery when he finally gets to them, wet cardboard flavor. Alex uses the chopsticks in the paper that came with his dinner because he can't find a clean fork. He glances over at a week's worth of dishes stacked in the sink, thinks that he should maybe take care of that. It's one more thing piled on top of everything else and he starts feeling powerless, at the shore watching the tsunami roll in and nothing he can do about it. It reminds him of a day on the beach near where he grew up, the morning after a storm and he's walking on the sand counting dead gulls and fish and crabs scattered wretchedly. He remembers being sad, feelings of futility.
He decides to do some work to pull himself out of this self-pitying undertow. Tim's recorder is in his pocket. He puts it on the table and starts it. There's a rustling sound, something that might be a snort, derision, then Tim's voice, quiet. Alex doesn't get his hopes up.
"So there's something in all the shit in my past that's supposed to help me out here? I don't see it. I don't see the point of dragging all that up. Seriously. It's not like you can undo anything.
"Alright, so…what? I should just ramble into this thing? You said you're looking for a key to a room? What room? And, yeah, I know you're being metaphorical. Can't someone just say it's a room like this? Can you give me some hint what I'm looking for? 'Cause it's just not there. It's not there. Maybe there is no room.
"I have a buddy who's seeing a psychologist. The psychologist said that his flashbacks are a type of psychosis, memories intruding on reality or something like that. Psychosis... I met a psychic once through work – maybe she could come by and help us out. I'm willing to try anything just to get the fuck outta here."
Alex huffs a short laugh, pauses the recording to get a notepad and a pen and pour himself some tequila, the good aged kind, a gift from Bridget for his birthday. He settles on the couch, TV on mute, and forgets all about the mess in the kitchen. Tim is actually talking.
"And just how does a mind keep secrets from itself? That makes no sense…
"Aw, fuck, but it does make sense, really. I mean, there are things that I remember – I don't drag them up too often, least not on purpose – things that I wish my mind would shut out. Like I remember that time that Stover – his name was Steve, but we all called him Stover – anyway, Stover was… Shit, see, I don't like to bring up that memory. But I have to, right? You said to just record anything that comes to mind, so… Anyway, Stover, he… It was a mine. I just… He… I just remember helping pick up… Could've put him in that white box with his stuff, some of the pieces were small enough. I hated collecting a guy's stuff for the box. I had to do it a couple of times. It's supposed to be something to send back… I dunno, fucking memorabilia, I guess. That'd be hilarious putting in the bits instead. Here's an ear. Fuck. He was married – I remember that – so I guess it's supposed to remind his wife that there was once a man named Stover, Steve. Not anymore. He was a good guy. A bit of a geek, but he had your six. He never swore – I found that kinda weird considering... I didn't have patrols with him much. He wasn't on the sniper teams, but I remember him.
"I think the white boxes are way sadder than coffins.
"There's other stuff too that I'm wishing I didn't have the key for, rooms of shit that just shouldn't be remembered, just shouldn't be period. And not all of it from Afghanistan.
"When you're in law enforcement, the worst is when you have a case with kids getting hurt or dying. It's bad – it's hard for people to get past it and get on with it. But, I dunno, I seem kind of immune. I think I saw enough of it already. It wears you flat. Now I'm just like, oh fuck, not this again. I don't think Rachel understands it. I don't think even Raylan does. Art maybe – he looks at me when I do that thing and go flat, and he feels bad, I can tell. I hate it from most people but it's okay from him. It's funny how that is.
"I'm rambling. I suppose you're used to it though, huh, Alex? You're expecting rambling, aren't you? I just don't remember what you all want me to remember. I figured out enough from a few things people here have said to know that what got me in here was something that happened at work. But no one will tell me what it was. I'm scared to remember. Everyone said I didn't hurt anyone, but I don't know if I believe it. I know what I'm trained to do.
"So here's a question for you, Alex – a little Catch-22 – if I don't ever remember will they ever let me out? And if I do remember, maybe it'll fuck me up and then I won't ever get out. I'm kinda feeling like I'm screwed here.
"There's something waiting for me, I know it, and I don't think I want to remember it."
Alex plays the recording to the end, restarts it from the beginning and listens again. It surprises him. There's more here than he'd hoped for. He scribbles down more notes than is probably necessary and falls asleep on the couch to the mute images of Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel and the raspy and deep flow of Tim's voice. He wakes later, interrupting a dream about crabs exploding in ocean-colored cascades, mushy flesh and spidery orange legs scattered across the dusty pavement.
The office looks bleak and lifeless in the gray light from outside. The storm, the heavy rain and wind, beat against the glass and Tim feels like he's on a ship, not like a pleasure cruise though, and this one's sinking.
Alex stands by the bookshelf behind his desk, his hair messy. He looks young. He smiles over and Tim tries to smile back.
"Hey, Tim."
"Hey." Tim remembers how big this room felt the first time, like something could happen here; today it feels small, insufficient somehow, a speck in the storm.
"Come on in. I, uh…I was thinking. I noticed before that you were looking at the books and I thought if you want something to read maybe there's something… I don't know. It's mostly old course material but… Do you read much?"
"Not since I got here." Tim turns his entire body around to face the door to illustrate what he's about to say, gestures vaguely. "Jesse…um, the nurse, he lent me a book." He turns back, slowly. "It's a thriller. I can't concentrate enough to read the fucking thing. I read a sentence and then," he rolls his hand, "read it again. It doesn't stick."
"Huh, might be the medication."
Tim lifts an eyebrow, doesn't bother to hide his frustration.
Alex turns quickly and searches the shelf, finds a slim paperback tucked into a corner and pulls it out. "What's it about, uh…the thriller?"
"I don't know," Tim snaps. "Like I told you, I haven't got past the first fucking paragraph."
Alex grimaces realizing it was a stupid question. He covers it with some humor. "Maybe Jesse just has really shitty taste in books and it's not you at all. Here, try this one."
Tim takes the book on offer, eyes the cover dully, reads the title. "Tao Te Ching? Are you shittin' me?"
"That's the Tao Te Ching." Alex adds some enthusiastic hand movements. "There's some heavy wisdom in that tiny little book, man."
"Maybe you're the one with shitty taste in books."
Alex laughs, once. "Maybe. But humor me. Try it."
Tim knows he's stuck here for the hour, so he'd better fill it. He opens the book randomly, a good distraction from talking about himself, reads, "Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them." He looks at the doctor. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
Alex slumps into his chair, silently curses a poor choice of phrasing by the translator. "No. No. Uh…it's not like you have to agree with it all." He scratches his head, a bit awkward, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his face. "That sentence though, it's gonna stick, isn't it?"
Tim reads it again; Alex watches him mouth it silently.
"Yeah, it's gonna stick alright." Tim sidles up to his chair against the wall, sits slowly. "And what does that say about me, Doc?" He flips through the book, stops at another random page, reads, "The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil." He huffs. "Isn't that contradicting the last bit?"
Alex sits up, thinking. "Yeah, it is kinda, isn't it? Maybe contradictions are just part of human nature, something we can't ever escape?"
Tim is still thinking about it, sluggish, misses his cue to comment.
Alex plows on. "Or, maybe one is about the nature of the, uh…Force, and the other one is more focused on the Jedi. What do you think it says about you that this sentence sticks but you can't get through the first paragraph of a crappy thriller?"
"That maybe I don't like crappy thrillers, or maybe I'd make a shitty Jedi Knight – I'm not very mindful."
"Yeah, okay."
There isn't anything that doesn't bring back something. A cup of coffee is the respite of making it to base alive from that helo crash that one time; tying up laces is a glimpse back to that day Stover broke his getting ready and didn't live through the patrol; hard candy is that morning he grabbed a red one from the gunner on the truck and sucked on it as they sped through the outskirts of Kabul throwing the bright sweets out ahead of them and to the side to scatter the kids and get them off the road.
There was an IED waiting for them at the next intersection under some construction debris.
That was a good day. Someone in the lead truck spotted it, called it and they stopped – three hours sitting security with the convoy waiting on EOD to disarm the explosives. He didn't want their job. It was hot that day in the sun between the buildings, hot under his helmet with his rifle too big to be really useful. He and his team finally got permission to climb to the top of the nearest building with two others for security, scaring the locals who lived there. They set up on the roof, back to back, and swept their respective 180s looking for a guy with a phone. It was a tense three hours, weirdly quiet. They turned the convoy around afterward, plans all shot to hell, went back to base, filled balloons with water and had a water fight. Somebody had brought the balloons from home, so balloons brought it all back too.
The memories are sometimes mixed up, incomplete, inaccurate, they might differ from what the gunner saw or what the driver remembered, but they're always vivid. Tim can smell the smells, feel the textures, taste the dust or dark or diesel. It's like he's there again, all over again, every feeling, every time. That's why he changes his laces often and loves his coffee.
And he reads his books.
He can't pinpoint the exact moment when he decided to leave the military. He'd planned to go till his knees gave out then apply for a transfer to the sniper school and train the new guys. It seemed like a good path and he loved shooting and the job was certainly entertaining. But at some point he couldn't shut it out anymore, couldn't shut it down, couldn't turn it off and on again. He stopped laughing as much, drank more and hid himself on his bunk down days, lost in a book.
He's through the Tao Te Ching in under an hour, starts to read the author's translation notes for something to do. It's not sticking and it gets him agitated. He can't focus. Then there are noises in the hall, angry voices, and he stands up behind the door, watches.
Jesse calls from the other side, "Tim, buddy, it's me. I'm coming in." He pokes his head around, grins. "We got us an argument about basketball, but I settled it. Told them I'd slam dunk their asses in a basket if they didn't keep it down. You alright?"
Tim nods and sinks back down on the bed.
"How's the book, man?" Jesse asks.
"Apparently you've got shitty taste in novels."
Jesse laughs and leaves.
Tim hears some more arguing, hears Jesse cajoling. It reminds him of the soccer game, the dust kicking up – he can taste it on his tongue – the sniper bullet sinking in the dirt near the group standing around arguing with the guy who offered to ref. They all scrambled for cover and Tim and two others went hunting. He was sitting in some shade when the bullet broke up the game, reading a shitty novel about vampires, so now vampires bring it all back.
He can't read a book about vampires without remembering that day. It was a successful hunt, more entertaining than the book.
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