(no subject)
*
Surprisingly, they are not awkward with each other afterwards. Nate lets himself get lost in the technicalities of moving the staging area. Later, he knows, this will be another worry, but right now, he feels numb.
In the morning, at the platoon meeting, Brad offers the same surprising smile, slow and warm. Almost, he seems happier, calmer, a little bit more like the Iceman Nate found in the fog of a foreign desert.
Later, Nate thinks.
*
They leave Baghdad on a Saturday. After so many days of sunshine, the weather colors their goodbye by being overcast. Thunderclouds roll and break overhead.
It looks almost like a different country.
Nate wonders if this is how he’ll remember Iraq, not sandy yellows and palm-tree greens, but unforgiving grey.
In the open fields, no one shoots at them. It’s the first ride in Iraq that Nate’s not looking for mortar fire.
It’s a strange kind of ending. They’ve only been here for twenty-one days, not even long enough for midterms to begin back at school. Too short a timeline to invade a country, but they did it.
(Except, nothing’s fixed. Except, there’s still so much to do.)
As much as the Corps was about finding himself, Nate’s not even sure what he’s looking for anymore. That he can order men to their deaths? That he can’t?
Maybe, like the dragon in the Marine Corps commercial, what he’s looking for is imaginary. Maybe there’s nothing there.
Except, he found courage here, loyalty, camaraderie closer than family.
He found Brad here.
Nate likes Brad, loves him, probably is more than a little bit in love with him. Nate doesn’t know how else to define the complete confidence he has in Brad’s understanding of himself, the sense of belonging he feels in Brad’s company, the pleasure of Brad’s laughs.
And mixed in with that, he knows, is desire. Simple lust that hits him in spikes he can’t ignore.
He didn’t know that this want could condense into movement. Most days, he understood it as another surreality of war. Maybe it still is.
Suddenly, the sharp ache of home hits before he has a chance to breathe. Nate chokes with the memory of stateside: his family, his friends, his apartment. He misses them like air.
He wants to be clean. He wants to sleep in his warm bed with his cotton sheets and only the ticking of his alarm clock at night. He wants to have cold pizza for breakfast and listen to his mom rattle on the answering machine.
He wants to find his old favorite beach and run and run.
He wants to kiss Brad in the mid-day brightness of his living room and have it be as simple as happiness itself.
He wants to know what mistakes he can afford to make, which ones he has to bury.
He wants everything to make sense again.
*
Surprisingly, they are not awkward with each other afterwards. Nate lets himself get lost in the technicalities of moving the staging area. Later, he knows, this will be another worry, but right now, he feels numb.
In the morning, at the platoon meeting, Brad offers the same surprising smile, slow and warm. Almost, he seems happier, calmer, a little bit more like the Iceman Nate found in the fog of a foreign desert.
Later, Nate thinks.
*
They leave Baghdad on a Saturday. After so many days of sunshine, the weather colors their goodbye by being overcast. Thunderclouds roll and break overhead.
It looks almost like a different country.
Nate wonders if this is how he’ll remember Iraq, not sandy yellows and palm-tree greens, but unforgiving grey.
In the open fields, no one shoots at them. It’s the first ride in Iraq that Nate’s not looking for mortar fire.
It’s a strange kind of ending. They’ve only been here for twenty-one days, not even long enough for midterms to begin back at school. Too short a timeline to invade a country, but they did it.
(Except, nothing’s fixed. Except, there’s still so much to do.)
As much as the Corps was about finding himself, Nate’s not even sure what he’s looking for anymore. That he can order men to their deaths? That he can’t?
Maybe, like the dragon in the Marine Corps commercial, what he’s looking for is imaginary. Maybe there’s nothing there.
Except, he found courage here, loyalty, camaraderie closer than family.
He found Brad here.
Nate likes Brad, loves him, probably is more than a little bit in love with him. Nate doesn’t know how else to define the complete confidence he has in Brad’s understanding of himself, the sense of belonging he feels in Brad’s company, the pleasure of Brad’s laughs.
And mixed in with that, he knows, is desire. Simple lust that hits him in spikes he can’t ignore.
He didn’t know that this want could condense into movement. Most days, he understood it as another surreality of war. Maybe it still is.
Suddenly, the sharp ache of home hits before he has a chance to breathe. Nate chokes with the memory of stateside: his family, his friends, his apartment. He misses them like air.
He wants to be clean. He wants to sleep in his warm bed with his cotton sheets and only the ticking of his alarm clock at night. He wants to have cold pizza for breakfast and listen to his mom rattle on the answering machine.
He wants to find his old favorite beach and run and run.
He wants to kiss Brad in the mid-day brightness of his living room and have it be as simple as happiness itself.
He wants to know what mistakes he can afford to make, which ones he has to bury.
He wants everything to make sense again.
*