“Good luck son,” scratched off the roof of First Shirt’s throat as he impatiently waited for me to step outside of his red 1974 Cadillac with a blue pin stripe so madly thin it look liked God had keyed it. For the past two years he had been my and 500 fellow airmen’s head cock leading us home to roost. Every time, I saw his face I’d see Uncle Sam yelling, “I want you!” I decided that the man could have my body because I didn’t have a revolution within me anymore after my father had died and my mother had passed away. She isn’t dead. She happened to leave for 12 years and never return. But, now Uncle Sam no longer wanted to be my pimp. He said that his best paying customers, Lady Liberty and Madame Justice, were complaining that I was crazy and it affected my appearance in the ranks. My once pristine uniform and shiny boots had morphed into a worn potato chip bag with dragon fly stripes and boots that looked like they had been shined with a bar of “ I don’t give a shit no more.”
I was being kicked out for dereliction of duty; too much drinking off the job will put a strain on the Air Forces three core values: Excellence in All We Do, Integrity First, Service Before Self.
***
About 6 months prior, my demons who I thought I had left in North Dakota’s winter cold decided pay me a visit in Arizona summer heat with a script.
Two forty bottles of Old English Malt Liquor by mouth every evening at 1700 hrs.
They said that it would be the medicine I needed in order to find purpose in life. But, if I couldn’t bare living in my Black skin after consuming two forties they recommended me call Dr. Popov for a fifth of vodka. Most days after work I couldn’t bare living in my skin for six hours alone and then fall asleep only to end up boxing death with one short arm in my nightmares. But, it was a vicious cycle I ran in like a mouse in a hamster wheel. Every morning, it dawned on me that I had lost the rumble with the devil and woke up feeling like I had hit my head on the floor.
***
I stepped onto the boiling concrete into a puddle of sweat that had coagulated in the arch of my boot as First Shirt made his retreat. Fear cankered the inside of my mouth restricting words to shout, “Wait, help!” The taste of acid paraded rest on my tongue. It had been trained to swallow Uncle Sam’s metallic nuzzle for so long that I had lost the taste of pride. The door slammed shut and the Cadillac’s tires sadistically laughed at me, as I stood speechless.
“Now what?” I thought to myself.
While standing there inconveniently abandoned on Circle K’s front porch I decided it was a great day to go swimming in a couple bottles of alcohol. It was my way of passing time and surviving. I didn’t feel worthy for heaven or hell and the Air Force’s most valued core, “Service before self” had latched onto to me like an Ostomy Bag that I couldn’t shake off. I went inside the store and provided my script to the gas station pharmacist. I was given my only two friends I had left, two glass bottles with golden Jeannie’s bubbling and prepared to grant me my inebriated wishes. Everyone else had disappeared into last week’s tequila sunrise.
I walked outside and two police officers were talking to a homeless man sitting by a icebox and trash can that looked like it had threw up last nights garbage. The homeless man was drinking from a paper bag and held a sign that said, “War Vet Down On My Luck. God Bless America.” The irony aggressively poked the top of my stomach with anxiety forcing me to dry heave into the hot air. The police officers looked at me briefly and then went back to pestering the homeless man.
“Sir, what do you have in that paper bag?” one of the police officers interrogated the dingy old black man in Desert Storm fatigues and sandals.
“What the hell? Why are ya’ll always boverin’ me fo’? It’s water. Look! Take a sip if you want. It stays betta’ colder in a brown bag,” the old man responded.
The police officer grabbed the plastic bottle, twisted the top off, and snorted a sniff like a professional. His snorts caused me to force out the remainder of last night’s golden classic 40s. The police officer, annoyed, twisted the top half way back on, splashing most of it out on the pavement.
Handing the bottle to the homeless man, the police officer said, “Alright. Well, we’ve had complaints of loitering and you panhandling, so its time to go. Get up! Be on your way!” They lifted the old man onto his feet and he limped off the premises and across the street to the neighboring McDonalds.
Sweat baptized my forehead. I felt like I had been submerged in Jesus’ angst and fell 13 years backwards without a care in the world. Sometimes, new endings mark new beginnings, but I refused to be born again.
Fragments of life began to flake like dead skin in the dry heat ever since I landed in Phoenix. I had inherited my father’s broken legacy and joined the United State Air Force at 24 years old. For 22 years I watched my father be physically abused by Mrs. America and sexually exploited by Uncle Sam. It was all I knew as success. It was the American Nightmare camouflaged in the American Dream and it was all mine or so I thought.
* * *
A twenty-minute drive later, I walked up the stairs to my second floor apartment until a pink sheet pinned on the door stopped me half way. The letters, E.V.I.C.T.I.O.N were easy to read standing in what I thought was purgatory. However, it was no surprise, I had been waiting for the dreaded pink note since I hadn’t been able to pay rent and instead paid my car note. It was a difficult decision to choose between an apartment and a car. I figured it would be less room for my past to fit in my car so I paid my car note with my rent so I could have a place to sleep. At least until the repo man or death found me.
Each day forward I woke up to a daydream hanging from my rear-view mirror. I hydroplaned on sweat puddles from the Public Library to the Wal-Mart parking lot. I found reprieve from the through wandering dusty bookcases. I read books about the forgotten, the unwanted, and unforgiven. I read through the pages as if they were bars to prison cells and I was able to listen to their lives develop in the dark much like mine was blossoming from the rays of the moon. The best stories were those on death row because they didn’t have anything to win or lose, but share the truth of their thoughts and experiences moving closer to the door of eternity. They were finally able to be themselves.
Then when the library closed I went back home to my car. I would slowly walk, counting each step dreading the long night alone. It took me approximately 435 steps to reach my right front door. Then I’d drop down into my favorite love seat and drove from the library to the local gas station pharmacy to get my daily medication. After a few drinks, I would scratch marks into my skin to test the numbness I wished for. If it still hurt then I was able to drive to the local bar. If I was able feel the scratch and or saw a blood dancing on my skin then it was a night in at the Wal-Mart parking lot. Most often, I decided to spend my evenings in the local Wal-Mart parking lot. I didn’t sleep much, but I because my mind would start playing tricks on me. Loneliness would pick old scabs and I would remember painful stories from my childhood.
The Wal-Mart parking lot was my sanctuary. The Phoenix homeless shelters proved to be cemeteries filled with people who lived for the moment. The first night I tried to stay at a shelter someone was shot and killed. I decided to take the risk of sleeping in the trenches of public parks and benches to lessen the chance of losing my life with the rest of the forgotten.
Nightly, people walked their lives across my windshield. I imagined my windshield was a 40 -inch screen LSD television and I was watching reality television. As I took my sweat ridden t-shirt from the passenger seat I used it as a tourniquet for my right bicep. Then took my bottle of Popov Vodka to inject into my forearm as I began to reclined a burst of euphoria took my body hostage. Slowly my skin seeped into the tan drivers seat like a coffee stain. But before closing my eyes I was startled by the eyes that stared behind my reflection in the rearview mirror scrolled across the top of the windshield like a “Breaking News Alert.”
“What the hell am I doing with my life? God, what are you doing with me?”
I went into the United States Air Force born a Christian, but that first night living in my car I was baptized and confirmed a sinner.
My first night’s communion served over shot of holy vodka and bread that I took from the base chow hall. I wanted to save the bread as token of my last meal, but I was too hungry and buzzed to not eat. I knew that the bread would settle my first night jitters. A rustling came from the backseat. I looked behind in the back, but I didn’t find anything.
An auto-tuned voice came from the back seat. Computer Love by Zapp and Rogers came on.
“Ah shoot, that’s my jam,” I said aloud, picturing myself running onto the empty dance floor for a solo pop and lock routine.
Another noise came from behind. I looked into the backseat, but only an empty 40 bottle resting with a few empty water bottles.
“Damn this OE must gettin’ at me.”
I returned to watching the reality show developing in my car’s windshield. A white woman and man in their mid-20s were flirting and exchanging bad first date jokes.
Then I heard, “You know you’re better than this.”
“Huh? Who is that? Stop fucking around and get out of my car.”
I didn’t know if it was the OE talking or someone was in my car. I paused the bad first date reality and looked back and again nothing was there. Then I looked forward to press play and then I saw his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I see you,” he said.
“Oh shnap!”
A fractured frame of a man’s face reflected in my rearview mirror.
“Yeah, but I can’t see you and when I do I am going to take this bottle upside yo’ head.”
“Don’t look back here. If, you do I’ll have to leave.”
I looked closer in the rearview mirror to see a familiar face. Then I moved even closer to the reflection and I saw the wires and tubes from his body like the day I made the decision to take him off of life support.
“Dad, is that you?”
“What do you think? Does it look like me?”
“Yes,” I nervously replied.
“Well…,” he grumbled.
I paused for a few moments.
“I’m sorry for hanging up on you our last conversation and not saying, “Good bye.”
“ Whoa, boy let’s not go there. The past is the past. Let’s deal with now. Tell me why you are here, in this car,” he said looking around the car in disgust, “Dang boy, what’s that smell. It stinks.”
Embarrassed I replied,” Sorry, Circle K hand soap isn’t the best to wash up with. And if I knew you were coming, I would have cleaned up a little bit more.”
“Stop saying, you’re sorry. When’d you start drinking? Don’t answer that I know when you started drinking. You know what it did to me. I didn’t raise you to be like this. Anyways, back to why you ‘re here,Why are you here?”
“I’ve been asking myself that for minute. Lost myself once you left. Joined the military to find myself. Lost myself again after everyone seemed to die all at once. Did you know Uncle Stanely got murdered? I heard some kids that it would be funny to kill the old homeless man in the alley. After all that death I just don’t see life the same anymore.”
“Because I’m dead and gone? Do I look dead or gone?”
I hesitated in answering because my father always could tell when I was lying.
“The truth? Yes. Yes you do look dead and you have been gone for a long time. Why’d you leave us with nothing?”
With a stern look he interrupted, “What did I say? How many times did I tell ya’ll I wasn’t going to be around forever?”
“Too many times. Shit. I mean, sometimes I thought you’d rather be dead than alive with us. You said it so much I figured God finally answered your prayer. Not that I blame you. This world is all fucked up and all you did was work.”
He raised his eyebrows to suggest I should edit my language.
“Sor…, I mean I apologize. But, why do we have to fuckin… I mean why do we have to live like this in order to survive? We too damn busy trying to survive we can’t build shit for our children to have. Nothing is ever easy.”
“What’s your excuse for dying? Locking yourself up in this car like a coffin? Livin’ in in this coffin is no way to live. Shoot, dead in a coffin is hard enough. I had to leave. God called me on home. Plus, my body couldn’t hang no longer. Looked too much like strange fruit. And both Black and White folks were pickin’at me. But, look at you. You’re still here after all that has happened.”
Laughter interrupted from the couple proceeded on their date interrupted us.
“Look at them, all smilin’ and laughin’ at life. While we fight to simply survive. It’s a war out here, dad. It’s kill or be killed. And I don’t know how much longer I can handle being beat up, shot, and reborn. The vultures make their rounds, circling the ghetto in my head. And sometimes I feel like just being eaten.”
My father sat in disbelief. It was hard to see him deflated, but I couldn’t lie to him or myself any longer.