UNDIAGNOSED PTSD

In retrospect, Chicago had been bad. For me. But I should have stayed. Sergeant Al had fit in to that fluid place. He knew people. Me, now in Boston, I was having trouble navigating. I'd come here way, way, way too quickly - got enmeshed in High Commander Pryce intrigues without my senses. Got entwined in that wacky Waterford household. The Commander wasn't just power hungry, the man was insane. A sex pervert. Serena Joy, not much better. You'll never believe what she had me do.

Into that walks June Osborne. Ok, ok, she was the first victim of all this. As you will see. And then they decide I need a fifteen year-old wife. Fifteen. I have to get ahead of this runaway train. I have to sit and think, but soon the carriage house above the garage won't be solely mine. Nowhere to think. Nowhere to process.

And no more Pryce. I'm lost.

LOOSE BOWELS BLAINE

My first memory was how much my head had hurt. Was throbbing. Badly. The second was the bright light. Migraine inducing brightness. Apparently I had just said, "Could someone turn off the floodlight?" There had been no floodlight.

I heard more voices, but they faded to black. I guess I'd blacked out. Again.

It must have been later, my next memory. Head not as bad, and eyes not as sensitive. This time I could open them. I was lying on my back in a medic's tent. My buddy, Sergeant Al, was seated a few feet away, chatting on a cellphone. Seeing me looking at him he just said into the phone, "Look I'll call you back. Loose Bowels Blaine, the hero-Michigander is back!" At that he put the phone away, stood and smiled at me.

"Dude, you're a sight for sore eyes. It was touch and go. We'd been using twitchy ordinance from the resistance. It's just you and me left, dude."

Ok, now for the tough part. Trying to recreate how I'd got there on that cot, with this headache. I did not want to rely on what Al said - he was, even more than me, a 'little twitchy' as you will soon learn. Mayday twitchy. There. I said it.

Our lieutenant had told us to advance, and true to form he came with us. He never gave an order he wasn't willing to do hmself. It's why he could get us to do stupid things. As his senior sergeant, he never did anything without consulting me - and I would never share my doubts with the other men, only with him. I'd told him, "Sir, you've lost the plot. These aren't American irregulars. They're not like the militias back home. They have a coordinated command, look at the way the manoeuvre. Don't assume you'll know how they'll fight back."

Cut to the chase. Our advance had been a mistake - Like I'd told him. A murderous one. The lieutenant was the first to fall, so the rest fell to me. Our numbers had been cut in half and we'd been flanked. Being overrun was imminent. One of the grunts said, "Great. Loose-bowels Blaine wants us all to crap our pants." He was cut down soon after, by one of their snipers.

My analysis? The radio operator came over, without thinking I ordered a strike right on our position. Right on top of us. If we were going to be overrun, we were going to take the bastards with us. That's all I remember.

There, that's the ballad of 'loose bowels Blaine'. Or it should have been. Since, I've lost the 'loose bowels' part - I was now being called the 'saviour of Chicago', in official Gilead Despatches. That's how I became a somebody.

THE STORY AL TOLD

The connections junior Sergeant Al had had in Chicago were not something we liked to talk about. Especially with the lieutenant. Let's just say that Al had a good working relationship with the very people we were fighting. Not the American regulars, but in the margins. The boundaries were never very clear. The grand myth of some unitary resistance, was the myth that the Sons of Jacob out east had used to scare the populace. (At least that's what I think now. Back then, I just enjoyed never being called 'loose bowels' again.)

Our ordinance mostly came from the resistance, as ragtag as they were. To use on other ragtag resistance groups, and occasionally on people with American insignia on them. Sergeant Al had secured it all, because headquarters kept us ever under-gunned. When the American regulars hit us, and when our lieutenant ordered us to advance, it made it look to the Americans like we were better armed than we actually were. I mean, that was the story Al had told me.

It was then when the United States, what was left of it, bugged out of Chicago. Leaving the resistance disorganized and on their own. Sometimes fighting each other. In Chicago's chaos, my enemy's enemy still was my enemy, unless they had something to trade.

What did Al say when speaking up the chain of command? He had his reasons for wanting to stay under the rader. Ok, the story that Al told to them was that it had been me, and me alone. A unified resistance, American regular army…. he told headquarters that my order for a strike on our own position had so spooked the Americans, that a general retreat had been ordered. By evening they were in Sault Ste. Marie, on the Canadian side of the Saint Mary's River. So claimed Al.

Our advance had been a murderous mistake. My insane order for a strike had saved the day. It had left only two - count 'em - two survivors. Me, heavily concussed, and Al - let me call him by his name, a Mayday operative. In our very unit. Al had controled the narrative. Typical. Mayday Al. About whom our lieutenant looked the other way. Why? Al got us food. Al got us ammunition. Al got us girls. Girls hungry for our rations as meagre as they were.

Lastly, Al had got us intelligence. He always seemed to know who was manoeuvring where. The lieutenant had been sure that Al was never 100% forthcoming.

Which is my way of signaling to you, dear reader, that as I was leaving Detroit by train, heading for Boston to a civilian assignment with New Gilead's High Commander - as I was leaving Al said to me, "Here are a few names. Of Bostonians. Guys - and gals - not exactly thrilled by Gilead. Keep those names in your back pocket. Tell them, 'Al sent me'. When you get sick of it, they'll save your life."

At this point I dare not say much more. Indeed, Pryce had shown me around The Eyes of God complex in New Gilead. Pryce encourged me to talk myself up to them. "It never hurts to have Eyes on your side, son." It also didn't hurt to have one Eye in their cafeteria come up to me and say, "Al says hi." In the frikkin' Eye cafeteria!

From that point on, I was counted as on the Eyes of God Service. I can't be positive, but I think that Mayday guy on the inside had arranged that.

Pryce? He'd been pleasantly surprised to be told by the High Eye of God that I'd been so appointed. Not even Pryce was an Eye. "You're on your way up from the mailroom, son!"

THE SELECTION

Ok, back at the holding centre. Still being run by clowns. Seeing the disorganization, hearing the salvagings - I should have done something about it. Me, I did not want to jeopardize the appointments my notoriety was garnering.

But I did what I could.

One day, the main man wanted two women in his office. One named Tricia, the other was a woman I'd picked out of the gymnasium, someone named Rita. Both of them looked worse for wear. Last legs sort of stuff.

I will tell you more about Rita later. I'd been the one to escort her to the main man's office. Rita was a tall Black woman, quite quiet. Looked shellshocked. She had that look of fear in her, that I'd only seen out at the front, in Chicago. This was a woman who could fold any minute.

Tricia, what I remember of her was different. A small white woman, man oh man could she take a punch. Or a slap. It's not that she was indifferent to it, but it did not seem to instill bone-chilling fear - like it had with most of the other women.

The reason why I remember Rita? It's because during her interview - right below the window of the man man's office, five other women were salvaged. Gun shots rang out. Their loud and near cries and screams silenced one by one. It was so bad that it had interrupted the main man's train of thought. And worse, Rita began messing herself. Up until that point she had not said much anyway - all she was doing was shaking.

Then she said something about Tricia - something about being a gender traitor. By all that's holy, no one at the holding centre cared about that. But the smell - of urine and feces - it was taking over the office. So I was told to take her back to the gym.

A couple of hours later, the main man called me in. Tricia was going to the colonies, Rita was going to the Domestics Centre. He told me to arrange it. Which I did.

By then I'd done a few driving chores for Commander Waterford. Including down-time at Jezebels kitchen, being entertained by martha Beth. I was to find out later more about it, but in those convos with her, I was sure she must have known Al. I mean, Beth had once innocently slipped into the convo, "Say, Nick, if you ever need a truck….."

Fast forward, because you know where I'm going with this. I've read what Rita wrote about the holding centre (from Canada). Let me say she mostly has it wrong. I'd got her the martha-gig at the Waterfords where I was (by that time) their permanent driver. I was the one who told her not to 'screw up' when the Waterford's senior martha, Sarah, had been dismissed. I talked Rita down from a panic attack for being, now, on her own as a sole-Martha.

Through that particular panic, she asked why I had 'adopted her', and had not 'laid a finger on her'. I didn't tell her all of it - I just knew what it was to be bullied as 'loose-bowels Blaine'. All I told her was that I'd seen a lot of panicked pissing at the front, and thought she could use a friend. Besides, in those days, I was doing nothing without Pryce's say-so. That's how much he'd meant to me.

I was the one who introduced her to Beth (who, by the way, knew Al after all, big time.) As for Rita, she split the difference with Beth - kept her distance, but kept on her radar, not that marthas in those days got out much.

I'd talked Rita down from hysteria when the first Offred had committed suicide. That had been a real low. I'd sat Rita down to explain to her what Serena had meant by saying to The Commander, "What did you expect would happen?"

All Pryce had said about that was, "We're going to clean up Gilead, son. We're going to clean it up."

JUNE OSBORNE

Rita had been a true friend through it all, since beginning with June. She had said, "Your girlfriend, she's a badass." Me, I had missed the most exciting part of it - the trafficking of those 86 children.

But all of it, what I have to write about June Osborne, I'll leave for later. I hope you will agree with my reasons for leaving it for now.

It was dangerous being at the Waterfords. For June. For me.

Then everything changed. Forget Rita, it was me having panic attacks. Waking in cold sweats because of Chicago.

What had happened? Pryce had been killed. Waterford on life-support in the hospital. Commander Cushing raging. It was all falling apart. Lord above, I crapped right there in the SUV driver's seat. I was losing it.