Returning to Civility

Days later- mid October- 2076

The physical therapy and drug treatments were really starting to help as the days went on. Savannah continued to work in her section of the hospital and leave me with the trainer for the day. She'd stopped in to get lunch with me, check my progress or just talk about anything all the time, but most time was spent with that trainer. The trainer's name was "Marta" and most of the time she helped me on a moving ground so I could get a feel for my legs again. The treatments and techniques I got were top of the line, or "Military Grade" as Marta says and typically used to get soldiers back into the fight. Usually when people say, "Military Grade" they are referring to excellence or reliability, but I just think, "Used by 10,000 people, paid for by the lowest bidder, and doesn't work anymore." Anyhow, the days in treatment and therapy helped a lot. Thanks to my prior service injury compensation insurance.

On top of my physical restoration, I had to inch back into civilian society and Savannah loved to introduce me to the people of her life. I didn't really have any friends back at home. Almost all my friends for the past 9 years had either been killed in combat or were likely moved to the Alaska Front. I still wondered about Savaren though, since he was the only one to return with me, and last time I saw him he was still passed out on a gurney being pushed towards the airport terminal. So, Savannah took me out to a few restaurants with her friends when I was showing a little more physical therapy progress and more of the bone refusion treatments. I would spend a lot of time getting into a nice suit or something for going out and then wait for her to finish getting ready. Her friends were usually really nice to me and thanked me for my service, but were thankfully more interested in their own domestic issues rather than everything I'd done in warzones.

Since most of her friends were couples, those little dinners were more like double dates with the other couple. The look on Savannah's face during those dinners definitely said how my presence was something she'd been waiting to do for too long: Show up with Her man. The evenings were fun and all, but each couple was the same or had the same story in my eyes:

"Nancy and Todd met in college and fell in love. They each majored in different subjects, and now they've been living the American suburban dream ever since they got married a month after graduation."

Savannah saw how blankly I stared at them and understood without saying how little reason they had to complain about certain things... I tried not to be judgmental though.

From Nancy and Todd, to Lou and Beth, to Gwen and Walt, all of them seemed the same to me. The women talked to each other about whatever, and then I was left with the husband or boyfriend to talk to. These guys were really nice but hard to converse with. They have never been through what I had to, and they didn't want to hear Savannah and I's love story throughout the years… Or maybe they did? but I didn't bother asking. Either way, talking with Todd, Lou, Walt, etc usually went along the lines of man #1 asking:

"So, Dave... You into baseball? Baseball team X had a hell of a season last year, eh?"

I'd respond, "Sports was the one thing we didn't focus on at LM-5 or Montreal" while thinking "Now ask me about Gilda Broscoe's jealousy of Dean's pet Vera, or my favorite pornos I watched during the HQ VIP Hunt of 73..."

I sometimes brought that stuff up to the guys when the girls were distant, only to be looked at like I was Antonio Escobar during the dinner car scene of "The Lusty Locomotive." (Looked at in tremendous fear mixed with astonishment.)

Anyway, I hit it off with Walt one time when I accidentally brought up some of the conspiracy theories I used to listen to. Walt had a little curiosity about the Intel Conflicts, but he backed away when he saw how ecstatic I became at the mention of the RobCo CEO buying out his brother's tool company to divert attention away from his immortality project being disguised as Las Vegas Casino renovation.

I didn't believe that crap either! I just wanted to relate to the guy!

So, meeting a new couple always brought up the question about the scar going down my face (the one going from my left temple to my mouth), or why I was in a wheelchair. Knowing questions about the scars and obvious chair were inevitable, I had answers all lined up but still ended up overthinking what I'd say. Telling them that I got the big scar right as I tried to "Single handedly tame a growing mob while my squad kept them at bay, leading to my guys gunning down the crowd, and mechanized troops showing up afterward to burn the carcasses" wasn't really dinner conversation.

I had to clean it up a bit and alter the story, with the last incident being: "Hand grenade went off. Ripped straight through my gas mask. Blood went everywhere and I got exposed to toxic gas, but my buddy Andrews patched me up good after the Verti Assault team showed up to tame the insurgents... Of course, this was early after the fall of Montreal, back when there were still some trouble makers in the streets. Everything calmed down shortly afterward..."

Even then, the lies I was spilling out of my mouth felt like comforting explanations but instead left the prim and proper couples in silent fright. Sure, there were a few parts I could've cleaned even better, but something occurred to me. For some reason I imagined terrible but conventional battle as far more preferable or appropriate as opposed to brutally atrocious occupation incidents. Although, the underlying reality was that I simply didn't know how to talk to civilians anymore. So, it was after that last introduction incident that we were on our way home, driving through the quiet Georgetown streets when I asked my love a direct question;

"Can you teach me to talk like a normal person?"

Her response was, "What?", but didn't sound too surprised.

I told her, "I don't feel like I can talk to your friends without saying something improper or war-related. I literally plan out what I'd say in my mind, but even then it still comes out in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable."

She asked, "You mean like when my friends ask about your scar? With the grenade?"

I replied, "Yeah, I'm more used to talking with other soldiers who don't even hear the details, or aren't affected by them. I try to tell your friends how I got the scars in a way that is more friendly, but it never comes out right. It's honestly really bizarre talking to these young suburban house couples when I have zero things in common with them."

It occurred to me on that car ride that the "grenade" explanation for my scar was what I told Savannah and mom as well. Why hadn't I told them the true incident?

Maybe at the time, it was just still too early because... Never mind, we'll get there.

So, she started giving me "speech lessons." It wasn't much, and actually a little funny. She would ask a typical question and then tell me precisely what to say. For example:

"How did you get that scar?"

Answer: "If it's okay with you, I'd rather not talk about it."

I'd completely forgotten that I simply didn't have to answer some questions! But, during those speech lessons, it was funny hearing her imitate my voice during the answers, but in an overly innocent and polite way. I obviously knew how to respond to basic questions like, "What time is it?"... Sorta... I knew how to respond, but my answer would still instinctively "1732" or some other military time that always took a second for civilians to calculate. Those silly little lessons brought about responses like the baseball example, which were vague enough to continue on without going overboard in my instinct to relate innocence to atrocity. However, the instinct remained and sometimes slipped through even in some simple questions that still ended up being somewhat war-related like,

"What was the weather like in Montreal?"

Those ones were tricky in their own way. I never even told Savannah what the weather was like over there. "Toxic, forever smelling of decaying flesh and gasoline, and permanently overcast" was how it was, but I always found myself responding with, "A lot like DC."

Like I said, learning simple discourse was pretty strange at the start. Soldiers tend to tell each other everything and I was trapped in that military environment for nine years where the way soldiers talk is a lot different from other English variations (Street, Midwest, east coast, southern, etc). The military environment was far less censored, and soldiers in Montréal were their own breed within that already strange environment. "If it's okay with you, I'd rather not talk about it" isn't something a soldier stationed in Montréal has ever said. Other examples of typical soldier talk are the use of repeated acronyms and terms that take on different definitions, but the other big distinction is the topics of conversation. In the military, especially in Montreal and those who were there, conversations were usually about sex, alcohol, gambling, and bitching about command; all of which were on grand display at the Rec. Center, or preferred banter on guard duty or fire watch. That isn't even to mention the hefty amount of psychosis we all grew to enjoy discussing, so take those topics and turn them up to 11 when you think about a psychotically blood seduced Sherman loving Monte Boy like I used to be.

As things changed and the little lessons worked their magic, the internal struggle continued in ways I was able to keep a hold on. Like, one time a love song began playing over the restaurant speakers and caused everyone at the table, Savannah included, to begin singing quietly and joyfully along. When Sarah, Sue, or whatever saw me sitting there in silence, she asked playfully why I didn't recognize or know the song. I implemented a "I never heard this song before since it came out while I was away" during that couple dinner.

As the sappy lyrics entered my ears, I continuously thought I should mention the times I'd heard a sergeant from the 1st platoon order a new PFC to describe in detail his last sexual encounter before shipping out. Hearing more of the lyrics, I remembered one particular incident where the private had a heft amount of Sherman and was oddly poetic about his description of vigorous sex. I joined the packed crowd to hear it as well and even joined the other ashy Monte Boyz in shouting for an encore... Bottom line, I didn't mention that incident, but my instinct to do so said there was still much I had to re-learn about social discourse despite being able to keep the action in check.

A week later- Late October- 2076

Nearing the end of my first month home, and after being introduced to the bulk of people Savannah had known while I was gone, I was still bound to the 1st floor of the house, but that was okay. Mom bought a ramp up into the house, so I could just roll on up to the front door, so that made things easier. During days I wasn't in therapy, but Savannah had to work, I enjoyed rolling around the block to pass time with mom or on my own. Mom was still largely comfortable at home like I remembered, but she did occasionally go out for some errand or another. I knew this from letters, but a while back she started going to little classes around the neighborhood or joining little clubs for things like knitting, book reading, or other household tasks and pastimes. That was where mom made her friends, or how she knew the neighbors. It really was good to see mom as a new person from the one I remembered before leaving. Though I enjoyed walking (rolling) I didn't usually do that till the end of the day when the days where Savannah and mom were both away.

I liked watching TV on those lonely days, and idleness made that TV not entirely useless. The news showed that the army was still just outside Anchorage, the navy was at a standstill with the Chinese fleet in the Arctic Circle, the Marines initiated the siege of Shanghai, and the Canadian restoration was progressing like never before. Even international news showed that the EUCO disbanded some time ago due to resource distribution problems, France and Germany were on the brink of war, and the middle east situation collapsed in ways that weren't relevant to me in the slightest. By this time, the entire world was fighting each other worse than ever. Things on the home front were mostly good despite hearing that the Midwest was protesting the lack of food availability, but every issue regarding America was all tied to the fact that the war was still going on. Hopefully, Uncle Sam could kick the communists out of Alaska soon, then everything could be right back to the past I left so long ago.

So, the news about the home front was the same, but after years in the armed forces, it was nicer to hear about the things that mattered to me. The news of the world was always depressing and seemingly pointless since I was no longer part of those events, and if I got truly bored, I had our Robot "Peter" to keep me company. It was pretty hard talking to a robot who mistook much of what I said for commands, so I quickly subscribed to some of the magazines I got at LM-5 just to keep up.

After getting my fill of the usual news sadness, the TV was almost always set to the Hollywood news channel. With the TV locked on the station I actually cared about, and being subscribed to every pointless celebrity-related magazine I could find, I later found out that the bet I made regarding Dean Domino and Vera Keyes' TRUE relationship was still strongly supporting my old wager. Upon learning that, I thought about the specialist I debated who supported Sinclair and laughingly thought, "What an Idiot." Then I remembered what happened at LM-5 and the guy's likely demise.

Still, on those off days, I went to the store about twice a week to buy groceries. I rolled on down to the corner store and bought food with the ration coupons that mom or Savannah gave me. The price of food had definitely gone up a lot since I'd been gone. It seemed as though everyday food got more and more expensive. Food was nothing compared to gas though. There were few gas stations in DC at all, but I saw how a gallon of gas could cost up to $800! It was a good thing most cars used a nuclear fission battery or two by this point. The fission batteries powered cars very well, but a bad enough collision in the right spot could make a car explode into a small nuclear detonation. Yep, most of the gas was being used by the army to sustain the war effort, especially given the continuing nuclear power takeover.

When I reminded myself that I wasn't interested in the world, Savannah was at work, mom was out, and when I was satisfied with my consumption of nonsense, I sometimes enjoyed a bit of alone time. I used to have a tremendous fear of loneliness, but walking (rolling) helped alleviate some of that, especially in Georgetown.

There was always something going on in Georgetown between the kids playing in the streets and the neighbors putting up decorations for the holidays. Those walks helped keep me occupied for most of the lonely times. But, by the end of those days, I would always find myself sitting off to the side of the house where the patio looked over the canal. The canal was so pretty in the fall, and the scenery around it prevented even the memories of war from surfacing. The leaves were orange and gently falling to the ground or laying to a rest atop the water as time slowly drifted by and the hour drew nearer. Always sitting in the same place by 5 o'clock (1700), I sat there watching the sun slowly disappear below the tall rooftops next to my table, just waiting for her to lay her hand on my shoulder as she took in the same view.