by Erik Williams
VA rehab is like any other rehab except it’s full of vets. They’re still addicts and junkies and speed freaks, but they’re also vets. What’s that mean? Means some of them have killed people, but for “good” reasons.
At least that’s what we’ve been told. Of course, that’s not the way it feels sometimes. That’s why a lot of them are addicts and junkies and speed freaks. Oh, and drunks. Some are just drunks. Drunks only. Just one vice. They’re the unique ones.
I fell into the latter category. I’m a drunk that wanted to totally numb himself and be left alone and do nothing else other than drift into a sea of zero responsibility. Until I hit rock bottom and find myself either in the ER. Then I hit rock bottom again and found myself in the corner of a holding cell using toilet paper as a makeshift blanket because the A/C was on full blast and the guards refused to provide any real blankets. Then I sobered up and decided to get clean. For a while. Toe the line of living hard by not fucking up any more and not dying as a result.
Until I forgot where the line was. This time, I fucked up and didn’t have much of a choice. It was rehab and sobriety or five years in state prison. Third DUI in five years, this time with a car accident and minor injuries to the couple in the other vehicle, will do that. I took the obvious option. The good news was, being a vet with diagnosed PTSD, a service connection rating, and an honorable discharge instead of a dishonorable or Big Chicken Dinner, I qualified for VA rehab. The court was all for it since they didn’t have to pay and I’d save them money on feeding another prisoner.
In this rehab, this inpatient rehab, there are vets with a vice but also dealing with PTSD like me. It’s a special program, you see. One where you get treated for, let’s say, self-medicating with heroin while helping you come to grips with nightmares (me, I dream about swollen balloon people, kids with melting faces, or people with no faces at all chasing me everywhere, when I do sleep), lack of decent sleep, and the oh-so-lovely issues of dealing with crowded places, people, or loud noises. Anything to avoid what really bothers us. Here, they want you to deal with what really bothers you while being sober. Yeah, it sucks. At first. After a week or so, though, like anything else, it becomes routine.
Once you get the shit out of your system and get used to eating three square a day again and drinking coffee all the time and sleeping on a schedule (even if you don’t exactly sleep), you do get used to it. Actually, you get so used to it you start to bitch if meals aren’t on time or if they don’t have creamer for the coffee, or if the wi-fi isn’t working. It doesn’t take long to get spoiled.
Anyway, we had to talk in groups. And like anywhere, once you get to talking in groups, you open up. The things you avoided, buried deep down, you find it’s not so hard to talk about. Sure, you don’t paint every detail on the canvas, but other people are sharing and they’re vets, too, and hell if they can do it so can you, right? It doesn’t take long for people to come out of their shells. It’s kind of like vet magic. Even if you’re not telling the whole story or the exact truth. It’s enough to get by. The gist, though, was trauma, addiction, stuck points, challenging stuck points, and overcoming addiction with sound strategies, blah, blah, blah.
Point is, what I remember from those group sessions are a few stories. One more than any. One that gave me perspective. A life lesson. Make you think about things. Change how you do things.
I was sitting with my arms crossed, remembering I had to call my wife after the meeting, when someone started talking about someone that they’d forgotten about had died. Which led to someone asking how did they know they died and how did they know they knew them if they’d forgotten about them.
“I remember I knew him when I saw the name.” It was Cowboy Dan talking. No one called him that but himself. It’s how he introduced himself to every single new check-in and no one ever took the name to heart. Every one called him Dezen, short for Dezenhall, his last name. Most people went by their last names. Force of habit. But still, he introduced himself as Cowboy Dan, hoping beyond hope, I guess, that someone would latch onto it. Maybe in another time and place, but not with broken, worn-out salts like us. It would have helped if Dezen was interesting, but he wasn’t. Boring face, skinny, kind of guy that would turn to dust if you punched him hard enough. He did have this overly mushy forehead, though. Like he had an extra layer of skin that had no business being there. Hats were a good option for him, come to think of it. Yet he wore a Dallas Mavericks hat, not a Cowboys one. Go figure.
“Dezen,” Doc Culling said. He was our lead head-shrinker and steered most of our afternoon meetings. Nice guy, although his ears sat way too far back on the sides of his head. Kind of like an alien if they wore human skin. “You mean you recalled the person once you recognized his name?”
“That’s what I fucking said, wasn’t it?”
“Just clearing it up for everyone. No need to escalate.”
“Shit, no escalation. Just saying that’s what I said.”
“Well, got more to say?” someone else chimed in.
“Matter a fact, I do.” Dezen sipped coffee. “It was weird why I remembered him. I knew him as a kid. Sort of.”
“Uh-oh, is this where we learn we should be calling him Pedo Dan?” That was me, inserting myself into the conversation. If it were a Scorsese movie, the scene would freeze-frame on me, sitting there, arms crossed, in a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a polo shirt. Balding early for forty. Still in decent shape.
“Ha-ha,” Dezen tapped his front teeth. He always tapped his front teeth before he launched into a long-winded story. I steeled myself for the deluge. “No. Nothing like that. This was back in ninety-two. Sometime between when I was in Kuwait and when we into Haiti. I was still with the wife and I was helping with Sunday school, of all things. No, that’s not right. It was catechism. Helping with older kids that still hadn’t gotten their first communion. Most of the time, they’re younger, seven or so. But these kids were ten, eleven, twelve. Getting caught up so they could move on to confirmation classes later on, or something.”
“Didn’t know you were such a good Catholic,” someone said.
“That was the wife.” Dezen laughed. “The only thing I was good at was being a Marine.”
“Sure, about that?”
Dezen rolled his eyes before saying, “Anyway, we would work with the kids on their religious education. But there was a lot of kids’ stuff in there to keep them occupied if we were waiting for the priest or deacon to come talk to them. Well, this one time we had them sitting, reading, waiting, when this one ten-year-old boy comes up to me and says, ‘Do you have a dog?’
“Well, I look up from the paperback I was reading and say, ‘Yeah.’
“‘What’s its name?’
“‘Jake. Like Jake the Snake, the wrestler.’
“‘But it’s not a snake or a wrestler, it’s a dog.’”
I laughed. “Got you there, didn’t he?”
Dezen continued without paying any attention to me. “I didn’t reply to the kid, because I didn’t want to talk about my dog anymore and the deacon would be there at any moment and I wanted to get back to my book. But he said, ‘Do you have a mom?’
“I lowered my book and stared at him. I had no idea what to say because answers didn’t seem to matter. Answers wouldn’t matter for this fucking kid. Then I remembered his dad was deployed in Somalia and maybe he just needed a guy to set him straight a little. Not to ask random questions and if you mean a question, appreciate the answer.”
“Did you do that?” Doc Culling said. “Set an example for him?”
“What’s this got to do with you remembering someone that died?”
Dezen ignored my latest question and turned to Doc Culling. “Kid didn’t give me a chance. Started in with more questions. Do you have a mom? Do you have a dad? Do you have a house? Do you have a kid? Do have a wife? Are you a Marine like my dad? Do you know my dad? Where’s my dad? When will he be home?
“Doc, I tried to answer him. Felt like I had to. Like if I didn’t, I’d, I don’t know, suffer something. The way he stared. His flat tone. How he didn’t care what the answer was. Just questions. Question after question. Like an accuser.
“But then he stopped. He moved on to a woman that was helping. Can’t remember her name. Nice lady. Started asking her the same questions. I was left sitting there, mumbling the answers I couldn’t spit at him, while he moved on and started peppering this middle-aged woman with the same questions. Do you have a dog? Do you have a mom?
“Well, she did have a mom and she was in heaven, according to her. Now the boy froze on this answer. He didn’t keep rattling off questions. He maintained his stare but then asked how she knew she was in heaven?
“The woman started to answer but the boy didn’t let her. He kept on with more questions. Like he already knew the answer was her mom wasn’t in heaven. What’s your dog’s name? Do you have a dad? How do you know he’s in heaven? Where’s your husband? Does he know my dad? Do you know my dad? Do you love my dad?
“She didn’t even try to keep up. She was still thinking about her dad in heaven, or something. That was the last answer she gave before clamming up. He didn’t stop, though. Like a maniac sculptor attacking a slab of granite with a hammer and spike. No rhyme or reason or direction. But he was making shapes. He was causing, I don’t know, existential crises confined to that time and space.”
“Where the hell is this going?” I said.
“You got something you need to share?” Doc Culling said.
I held up my hands. Surrender.
“The woman is checked out,” Dezen said. “Like when you see people go into shock. That’s the effect this kid had. I was watching her now, wondering if I should do something because I’m starting to feel like I’m back in the desert dealing with bleeding Bedouins, when all of the sudden, that kid pivots a ninety and turns and walks right back to me. Puts his face about ten inches from mine, and fixes me with those eyes. And he says, ‘Do you have a fish?’”
Everyone kind of reeled back like they were hit with a mini jolt of electricity. A few even said, “A fish?”
Dezen nodded. “I had a hard time answering for some reason because I didn’t have a fish. He asked again, super intense, like the little fucker was going to punch me if I didn’t answer. So, I told him I didn’t. I felt like I disappointed him, admitting it. But then he said I should get one. He had one, after all. His dad said it was good for him. Said if he ever got so mad he wanted to hurt someone he should take a hammer and see if he could break the aquarium and smash the fish. And if he couldn’t, his anger wasn’t worth it and to let it go. Then the deacon walked in and the kids all gathered around and they started talking about catechism stuff.”
I don’t like to say we were all in rapt silence, but we were. I don’t know if it was because of the story or if we were piecing together images of a ten-year-old smashing fishes in our own minds. For me, I couldn’t help but realize the dad hadn’t taught the kid to resolve his anger. Instead, it felt more like he had dared his son. How destructive are you, son? What’s your reason? I dare you to show me. It was then, oddly enough, I knew there was no healing for me. There was only the ritualization of coping. My gut folded over, because, for a moment, I felt closer to that kid’s dad than I even had mine. I felt closer to him than any doctor or woman or relative that had told me things would get better. That things would be okay one day.
“Later, I met the mom by chance,” Dezen said. “She asked if he behaved. I said yeah but he asks a lot of questions. She agreed. Said he started doing that once his dad went on deployment. Said he refused hugs, too, for some reason.”
There was another beat or two of silence before Doc Culling said, “How do you think this is related to the person who you learned was deceased?”
Dezen smirked. “Man, he was the little boy.”
“Damn, that’s rough,” I said.
“No shit.”
“I meant the story.”
Dezen saluted me with the finger.
“But what about the boy?” someone said.
“What?”
“He turn out to be a serial killer or something? Get a lethal injection?”
“Nah,” Dezen said. “I read about him on the web yesterday. My hometown newsite. He was on it. Obit.”
“What happened to him?”
“He ended up joining the Marines. Pretty successful, I guess. Officer. Well, until he got blown to hell in Ramadi.”
Everyone sat with their arms crossed, shaking their heads.
“The funny thing is, what got me thinking about it, too, was that it said he died in someone’s arms. A comment, on the website, posted anonymously. Because you know they don’t put those details in the obits. I remembered the mom saying he refused hugs after his dad deployed.”
“Maybe he started again after his dad came back.”
“Dad never came back.” Dezen rubbed his thighs. “But maybe he did start hugging again at some point. Or maybe he refused until he was dying and had a hug forced on him. Who knows, right?”
There was another beat of silence.
I decided to break it because I didn’t want to sit in the silence any longer and think about dads or the rituals we construct to deal with shit. “You know this begs the question? Did he leave behind a fish?”
Everyone chuckled. It only lasted a second or two. But it was enough to move on to some other bullshit.
Of all the stuff I heard in rehab groups, this is the one that has stuck with me. It’s the one I think about every time the darkness of the world creeps in and I want to lash out against it. When I can’t sleep. Or when I do and still dream about the swollen balloon people or the people or kids racing toward me with melting faces. Or when I’m awake and I start to believe there’s no place for me in it anymore and I’m just hanging around because someone hasn’t given me permission to stop.
I think about it every time I stand over my fish in its aquarium with a sixteen-ounce ball peen hammer in my clasped hand, knuckles white, jaw clenched, and hating everything around me.
I have yet to smash it. But I’m starting to believe I’m running out of reasons not to.
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Erik Williams is the author of the novel Demon and numerous other small press works and short stories. He’s also a former naval officer and defense contractor (but he’s not allowed to talk about either, nor does he really want to). He currently lives on the U.S. Gulf Coast with his wife and numerous children.
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