you are only coming through in waves.
pinprick
1. just nod if you can hear me
Swoff realizes it eight months and two haircuts later, staring at Troy's folded hands, at Troy's face (too clean, unnaturally flushed), at Troy's shoulders in a suit he never could have afforded while alive, that up until that very moment, he'd still had some measure, some tiny traitorous piece of hope.
Even on day one hundred and twenty-one in the desert, he'd expected there to be a battle to fight, an enemy to kill. Even four months after coming home, he'd expected a phone call or a letter or a voice on the answering machine, someday, sometime. Even after all of that, he'd hoped, because waiting is only waiting when there's something there for you at the end. And Swoff had always thought, a little blindly, instinctively, that there would be that something, had lived day to day telling himself that there would be. Now he's back to waiting - just waiting, only waiting, nothing but it. The pathetic part of it is that he's not waiting for something to happen anymore. Now he's just pacing his breaths and waiting until he wakes back up in that goddamned empty endless white desert. Not because there would be somebody to shoot, not because there would be a war to fight, but because there was hope there. Something to dig his hands into, a pair of eyes and a flat voice and the promise of somebody waiting for the same thing, familiar with that nervous itch at the base of his neck, in his fingers. A hand on his shoulder. A body by his side. The sky, gleaming and vicious. Minutes, hours, days - time, more of it. Swoff wants to go back to that waiting, that breathlessness; not having an ending is better than the one he's got now. He wanted out of that desert. He's out but not gone, and maybe insanity's preferable to grief, maybe it's always been. Maybe he was just too stupid to realize it, too scared.
2. now i got that feeling once again
So after Fergus tells him about his parents and teacher sister, the yearly camping trips to the mountains, the car his father restored for him, his freshman year of college, and how he smoked a joint for the first time two hours before his high school graduation ceremony, what Swoff really wants to do is grab Fergus by his shoulders, turn him around, and march him back to that biomedical engineering major at Dartmouth. Dartmouth. Swoff had gotten into Columbia, early decision and all that goddamned jazz, before he'd accepted that there was no way in hell that he was going to be able to pay the tuition. That little fact and an incredibly badly timed fifth of life crisis had rendered him, well, basically fucked.
That's the first thing he wants to do. The first thing he wants to say to Fergus is, "How did someone with SAT scores as high as yours end up here?"
The second is, "They let you through with those glasses?"
The third, "I would've given just about anything to grow up the way you did."
He says nothing in the end.
(He feels bad, later. Bad for terrorizing the fucking kid who's really only a year younger than him. He feels bad and he says sorry and Fergus nods like it's almost okay, but Swoff knows that he's never going to understand his reasons, his 'why'. Fergus is scared and everybody can see it, but the easiest, kindest sort of fear is the one that you show to the world. Ferguson has that kind. Swoff doesn't. Fergus is scared of dying. He's scared of never seeing his family again, of not going back to college, of his parents crying at his funeral. Swoff's scared that the desert is going to swallow him whole, that this not-war is going to take him and never let go.
And even later than that, Swoff finally realizes that this kid's more than just book smart. When Fergus shows up on his doorstep, he sees it. He came back from the war and he realized that he'd changed, but no one else had; he came back and the months made him bitter, internalized that fear into something deeper, something sharp and permanent. Swoff's not surprised when Fergus tells him that he's flunking college. He's not surprised at the blood shot eyes and shaking hands and hunched shoulders. He almost wishes that Fergus had been book smart and only that, that Ferguson had never started asking questions, that Fergus stayed the same Fergus that he'd pointed a gun at, but he's not that kind. Swoff knows he looks like the better adjusted one. Fergus probably thinks that he's okay, fine. Normal. That's the worst part. Swoff was better at hiding it in the desert, and he's still better now.)
3. i can't explain, you would not understand
Swoff gives Troy a blowjob the night he gets Kristina's letter. Knees in the sand, left palm picking up splinters from the wood post. Afterwards, sitting on a rock and wiping his mouth, he keeps seeing the soft way Kristina's hair would fall over her neck, her light, light skin. Troy squats down in front of him, gives him a look - long and not unkind, and all he can think about is how Troy's shoulders are a little too soft for a Marine, the tiniest bit unbalanced. Troy says, "Don't take it too hard," and he says, "Yeah, course," because it's easy, right? Why would it be hard? He's fine. He's fine. Furious as hell in that helpless sort of way, jaw aching and stomach twisting, but fine. Swoff's not special. This sort of thing happens to everyone. If they can deal with it, so will he.
4. just the basic facts
These are the things Swoff remembers most clearly:
The sharp, clean taste of sterile metal in his mouth, the indistinct ridges of his name. How the water started tasting salty after his fourth bottle. Troy's voice in that tower; incomprehensible, hysterical, wet with tears and forced resignation. How he'd kept thinking, you should've been the shooter, I should've given the gun to you, you would have done it before he came in, you would have-- How strong the sun was, how painful it was on his skin until late afternoon. The times it rained, when he'd wake up the next morning and maybe see a hint of green here and there until midday. That little white box he'd found buried by the tent - the sand had been blown away, and when he opened it, the scorpion was still there, perfectly preserved in the heat. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. How that horse had looked at him in the darkness, the whites of its eyes large and pained. The silence of the bomb site. The white prints his boots made in the ashes. The sound of gunshots reverberating in the empty desert all around them, the way the gunfire had lit their faces, how terrified and relieved and disappointed he'd been.
5. can you show me where it hurts
He'd kissed Troy, once and only once. It was in the tower, after the commanders had left. Swoff didn't know why he did it - they were slumped against the wall, silent. He'd been staring at Troy for the past few minutes and then he just leaned over and kissed him briefly - body propped up awkwardly, arms on either side of him, careful not to touch him anywhere else but his mouth. It lasted barely a second. Swoff remembers that Troy's lips were dry and cracked. He had drawn back a few inches but didn't move otherwise and Troy looked at him, face still, for what felt like minutes. All Swoff could do was mutter, sorry, sorry, not for kissing him, but for everything else. He didn't know why he did it, just that it was the only way he knew how to say, I trust you, please don't fall apart on me, this fucking sucks and I know and I get it and I'm sorry and please, please, please don't give up after this is all over, I need somebody to not give up.
6. your lips move but i can't hear what you're saying
Some people, when they come back from war, talk about dead bodies and screaming civilians and bombed buildings following them everywhere. That's what you're supposed to see screened on your eyelids - the faces of people you killed, the brief flashes of limbs and eyes, destruction, the ugliness of it all. Swoff sees the sky, brutally clear and blue like nothing else he's ever looked at, the desert whiter and finer and softer than beach sand. The sky and the desert and Troy's face when they branded him, that desperate, exhilarating sort of joy. Pride. That's how he remembers Troy, frozen in that moment, never to change again. Swoff never got the brand. He didn't believe enough, wasn't smart enough to be that vessel, to stop thinking and looking and always, always wondering. But maybe it's all the same - you're supposed to see the faces of people you'd killed. Swoff never shot that goddamned rifle at anyone, but he sees Troy everywhere, everyday, and every fucking time, he doesn't even realize that he's holding his breath. Counting. Waiting.
Nothing ever happens.
Note: I haven't read the novel and this is entirely based on the movie's characters/story. In no way whatsoever was I trying to write about the actual Anthony Swofford - consider the characters here and in the movie fictional, I guess. Section titles because I was listening to Dar William & Ani DiFranco's cover of Comfortably Numb on repeat while writing this. :x For those of you who haven't seen Jarhead (do it right now!), Swoff is played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Troy by Peter Sarsgaard.
And, uh, I don't really know why I wrote this. But. Yeah.