Carl, Monica, and I sat behind trash cans in front of Carl’s ex-boyfriends house as we peaked through the crevices to see the instant mashed potatoes rise and egg yolk droop down his front door. I haven’t had this much fun since we snuck into an abandoned bunker in the fields where the soldiers train.
I could tell the adrenaline was wearing off though. They both looked at me cautiously as I placed my hand on my torso. The bruises were still fresh enough that they began to pulsate. Blood was going all throughout my body, which was a good and bad thing.
“How about… we just go watch a movie at my house? My mom said it’s okay to have you guys over for the Chiefs’ game.” Carl got up to dust the mud off of his hands and wipe the water droplets from his round glasses.
Monica grabbed my waist and hand as she pushed us back up. Carl turned around when I kissed her cheek.
“So, I don’t have to worry about you two love-birds touching each other under the blankets, right?” He laughed.
“Oh! My goodness, Carl.” Monica hit his shoulder.
“I would if I could turn my body without hurting.”
Carl scoffed at me. It’s true.
Carl’s a clean-freak, so when we stepped through the door he made us all take a shower before we could sit on his couch in the movie room. Monica offered to shower with me so I don’t hurt myself even more, but the purple spots around my torso, legs, and neck make me insecure. I compromised and told her she could just dry me off.
“In sickness and in health, right?” Monica laughed as she grabbed the towel to start drying off my legs. I tried to laugh off the feelings of insecurity as she moved upward.
“Yea, I guess so.” The rest of her drying me off was just silent. I tried not to cry.
When she finished, she put my underwear back on alongside Carl’s sweatpants and a t-shirt. I even smelled like him; vanilla and sandalwood.
After we were done adjusting on the couch, Monica and I let Carl cuddle with us with his huge bowl of popcorn, and we turned on the Chiefs vs. Eagles game. I couldn’t feel as excited about a touchdown like I used to. Everything hurt and I didn’t want to show it. Carl got into it more than I did, however, maybe he just needs to yell at anything.
“Alright, it's halftime. Are we still going to the homecoming game tomorrow?” Carl stuffed popcorn in his mouth.
It took me a minute to really weigh the cost of it. The publicity. The loudness. The looks I would get.
“I’m… not too sure about that one, Carl. I’m sorry.”
“Come on, man! Monica and I could help you with whatever you need. You could borrow my sunglasses and big clothes.” Carl began to give me his feel-sorry-for-me eyes, “It’s our last one.”
Monica didn’t say anything. She knew it was my choice at the end of the day. I asked her anyway.
“That’s up to you, baby. I’ll be with you the entire time.”
I told them I would let them know by the end of the game. We all faced towards the TV, but I could see them side eye me through my peripheral vision. I can’t hide a thinking face.
The game ended. The Chiefs won 42-38. Very close call. Popcorn was all over the floor and Carl lay faced down on the ground in defeat for the Eagles.
“You okay, Carl?” I asked.
“No.”
“Would ice cream make you feel better?” Monica chuckled.
“No.” Carl looked up grinning, “What would make me feel better is us going to the homecoming game tomorrow?”
I’ve spent years being a risk taker. Now, I can’t even let people see me have bruises on my eyes.
“Fine. Let’s go.” I said, and Carl got up to dance to my agreement, “But, Carl, I need your sunglasses and a big t-shirt.”
Monica put her hand behind my back, guiding me through the gates of the football field into the crowd of fellow sweaty teenagers blocking the entrance to the bleachers, probably all for a free ice cream cone. I tried hard to block out the pauses in mothers’ conversations and glances looking me up and down. Is it because of the rarity of an interracial couple in our town, or is it that they think I’m sick. My hands started to sweat.
“Let’s try to eat something. I can get you ice cream? It’s not a solid.” Monica noticed the glances too, but still she pulled out her wallet. I pushed it back in.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“You gotta eat something, baby. You haven’t eaten much today.”
“I’m just not hungry,” I said. “You think that one quarterback is back playing? I know his leg got smashed at the last game. Maybe this will be their first loss. He’s pretty good.”
We sat near the top of the bleachers. My hands kept sweating seeing families slowly pour in and fill the bleachers to where there was little to no space left. I forgot how big Lejeune is, or it could also be the sizing of the seating. Children screeching, babies crying, fathers talking loudly to each other, and the yelling of my classmates clustered up together as a singular noise in my head like white noise on a TV. Everyone was dressed in the colors of the American flag. I wore all black. Monica was wearing a sage-green dress. We stuck out like sore thumbs.
My shoulder twitched as a middle-aged man dressed in my school colors patted me, and the nerves shot through my entire body, making my stomach hurt.
“Hey Derek! It’s military appreciation night. Where’s your pop?”
My cheek got red-hot and I lifted a hand to try and soothe it. He gave me a wide smile, I think. All I could do was look forward.
“He’s in Hawaii.” I said curtly, “It’s also homecoming.” My dad also couldn’t bother to be in my life for more than one-third of it.
“Yeah! Yeah, give him my best, alright?” He said, like he didn’t know what else to say to me.
Monica rubbed her hand on the middle of my back gently again.
“When was the last time you called your dad, baby?” She asked.
“I don’t need to talk to him. He’s off doing whatever.”
“You know he still cares about you.”
I didn’t want to agree. My mom said the same thing when I got home last night.
“If he did, he would be here. But he’s not.”
A cold chill brought me to tug on my flannel to cover my hands folded in my thighs. She and I just looked at our sports medicine friends getting their tables and bags ready and our band friends tuning their trombones and tubas. It got colder the longer we sat there and Monica tried her best to keep me warm. I had decided to wear a thin black and white flannel over a black shirt and sweatpants. The sweatpants were the only thing that helped me. I felt Monica's arm around me jerk every time it wanted to droop off of my shoulder.
“You’re doing great for only healing for a week, baby.” She kissed my shoulder.
A grandpa turned around from the bleacher in front of me and reached to touch my knee, but it nearly jerked away from him. I had to play it off, smile a little.
“You’re looking great buddy! Tell your dad we’re thankful for his service. Deployment isn’t easy!” He smiled and turned around again. My smile dropped.
Monica and I looked at each other and chuckled because I caught her giving him a bad look the entire time. On the back of his hat said the word VETERAN in gold letters next to some flags like the ones my uncle and brother have.
She saw the ice pack drooping from my right side and repositioned it for me. The elastic bandages I stole from the sports medicine clinic didn’t work that well. I tried hard to make the lump of ice on my side not look like a lump of cancer, but parents who once looked at me like a European model now look at me worried, then look away quickly.
In my garage a couple nights ago, my uncle and my jobless-fuck of a brother sat with their legs wide open as they drank Corona beers. Probably on their seventh one. They offered me a beer, but I refused mainly because I hate the taste of it, and school was the next day.
My brother Daniel got to talking about his time in the Marines, and my uncle felt inspired to tell war stories but not the gorey ones; the ones where he had to shower with 20 guys at once or driving his Hummer through villages. They ignored their death stories. Nobody’s heard those.
Carl came over and scratched the top of my head. “Hey buddy! How are you doing? Need anything?”
“I’m good, Carl. Thanks.”
He and Monica sat on opposite sides of me, leaning around to talk about how Carl ran into his ex-boyfriend. They were interrupted by drum rolls and off-tuned trombones playing a song I’m still not familiar with, but we all stood. They formed a formation in a line facing towards us and Carl pointed out his ex-boyfriend followed by a loud “Fuck you!” which was going to bite our reputations in the neighborhood later. We failed to remember that military facebook moms never cease to dig their nails into a phone keyboard and type their complaints away about teenagers causing a ruckus around the neighborhood. Mom wasn’t too happy, and when she told my dad on the phone, he just sighed. He tries too hard to play nice.
Then, the Montgomery high school angels, the football team, ran out from their red, white, and blue balloon arc onto the middle of the field. Everyone around me clapped and whistled with their fingers. Monica put her hand on my back and kept it there looking straight ahead with me. Carl put his hands in his pockets. Uncomfortable.
Some woman put her hand on my shoulder and yelled in my ear, “I knew I recognized you! Tell Gerald I say hello! Tonight is his night.” then pulled away. It’s homecoming night. Monica looked at me as if she were trying to prove a point– the point being to talk to my dad.
“I think you should talk to him.” Monica had to reassure me with a kiss on my shoulder.
“He just tried to make that night a lesson.”
“Derek, your dad is trying.”
“No. He’s driving trucks on the beaches of Hawaii.”
In the garage, they talked about their ex-wives moving on to new military men, probably for the health care and children’s benefits that give the mothers full custody. Apparently, they are psychotic, nervous-breakdown-prone women who stalk their every move. My mom brought me another root beer and butted into the conversation agreeing with them and even saying she saw one of their cars slow down and take a picture of the house, before going back inside. They slurred swears across the room while I scrolled through every app on my phone. First the photos, then a mini crossword puzzle, then Instagram.
The game announcer asked everyone to be silent to watch three lanky teenagers in the JROTC walk the field and do the Colors while holding rifles half their size and suits that cosplayed grown military soldiers. One girl on the right was shaking and looking nervously at the crowd. You’re not supposed to do that. The six-foot boy in the middle was growing a mustache that looked like dirt on his upper lip, and the guy on his left just looked like his younger brother. Probably is. Pathetic nerds.
Monica kept rubbing my back with her hand in circles as I stood still. She forced herself to look straight ahead to the field.
I remember it was reaching midnight and Monica had given me a goodnight text. My phone lit up on my lap and they both peeked at my lockscreen to see me smiling on the bleachers as she was giving me a kiss on the cheek.
“Look what we have here!” Uncle Jared pushed himself up on the armrest of his chair to swipe my phone and his fat ass almost fell back but he caught himself, unfortunately. I got up and yelled to try to swipe my phone back but he pulled away. My brother and he examined the lock screen a little more.
“She can’t be your girlfriend!” My brother laughed.
“Why not dude?”
He let out a big burp. “She’s black.”
“Why does that matter?”
“You know why it matters… She’ll stick out like a sore thumb in this family.”
“She doesn’t have to meet the family.”
“Oh! And you think Mom is gonna accept that?”
“I just don’t see why you’re trying to tell me what to do about my love life.”
“I have every right to.”
“You don’t even have the right to see your own children.” And immediately I regretted it.
The kids finished their gun show and the announcer asked for a moment of silence for our veterans tonight. I whispered to Monica that a cherry slushie sounds pretty good right now and that we should go over fifteen minutes into the game to get one. She nodded, probably because she was happy to see me ingest something.
“Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in honor of those who served for our country.” The veterans put their hats to their chest and the lanky one in the middle raised the American flag shakily.
The insides of my palms were bleeding as I sunk my fingernails deeper with every second of that fucking song. White knuckles clinging to my hips, seething.
“Come on! You can get up!”
“Get up, fucker! Fight like a man! Pathetic little piece of shit!”
They tossed me onto my stomach as I kicked my feet, Jared holding wrists together with one hand and punching my back with the other as blood came in rivulets from my nose. My head bounced on the ground. Darkness.
I gained consciousness again. I shouted for my mom repeatedly, then my dad, then God. No one answered. All I could do was put my forehead to the cold concrete and endure it. Jared’s fat body sat on my ass to keep my wrists finger-handcuffed together. Daniel kept kicking my legs like he was playing whack-a-mole, and then he kicked my crotch. I couldn’t feel anger anymore. Or sadness. I couldn’t cry anymore. Maybe if I didn’t grow up constantly hearing Be a man! from my dad all of my life, I would have had the confidence to fight back.
The song was finished. I sat down roughly and shoved my head in my hands to hide. Look at what you’ve done to them. You created monsters.
The unhealed bruises around my eyes started to hurt from the way they twitched.