Combat Zone Page 4

  “You watch your mouth!” Colonel Ladd yells. Seal fathers and sons know something’s up. Pretty soon, there’s a bunch of them standing between Colonel Ladd and me. The veins on both of our necks are taut like blue cables and neither of us blinks. To be continued.

  14

  “Justin, I need to get home,” Allison says. We’ve left the Homecoming dance, which Jimmy attended with Erin, not Anton. We’re just driving around, top down and music up. Mychal told me about a party, but I don’t need to be around other guys, I need to be one.

  “Why?”

  “Because my dad said he wanted me home by midnight,” she says. Colonel Ladd said the same to me in one of those “man to man” moments at the door, except he’s not a real man.

  “Your dad’s a civilian, right? So his words can’t carry that much weight,” I say and turn the music louder. Before, I would’ve said, “He’s not a Seal like my father.”

  She turns the music down, moves closer, trying to make nice like she did at the dance. “I saw you talking to Jimmy. What was that about?”

  Like Fight Club, what happens at Seal sons’ fight night stays there. Nobody talks.

  “Nothing,” I tell her. “I apologized for going off on him and talking smack. He didn’t like it, but he accepted it because it’s not like he has any choice in the matter.”

  “You shouldn’t spread rumors,” Allison says. I laugh at some girl saying that.

  “You’re right,” I concede. “Especially a terrible one about somebody being gay.”

  “It’s fine if Jimmy or Anton are gay,” Allison says. “And it shouldn’t be terrible to even say something like that about someone, but that’s the world we live in.”

  “Maybe the world you live in.” I press a little harder on the gas. “In my world, that’s not a real man. In my world, in the world of the Seals, that’s not what being a man is about.”

  She lets go my arm and inches away from me. “They got rid of that stupid policy for the military, and gay people can marry in Hawaii. It’s not about being a man; it’s about personal freedom.”

  “I hope you don’t actually believe anything you’re saying,” I counter. I push the gas harder now. My midnight moonlight drive turned dark in a hurry.

  “Justin, I thought you were smart, but you’re saying a bunch of stupid stuff, so just take me home.” She’s on the other side of the car. She rolls up the window and rests her head against it.

  “Maybe you’re a lesbo freak and that’s why you’re saying this?” I slow the car.

  “And the words you use. They are so offensive,” Allison says. “I thought you were like this smart athlete, really cool. I always had a crush on you, but you’re not cool or smart at all.”

  “Want to prove it?” I turn into an empty parking lot.

  “Prove what?”

  “That you’re not gay.”

  She pulls out her phone. “I’m calling my father.”

  “No, Allison, you’re not.” I snatch the phone from her hand. She reaches for it but I’ve got it in my grip. She starts to shout at me but shuts up when I put the phone in my pants.

  “That’s not funny, Justin!”

  “Prove me wrong.” I turn the phone off. “You want your phone, reach for it.”

  And we sit in that parking lot for an hour, not moving. The only sound is my phone ringing.

  Another stalemate, except there’s no way of settling it that ends well for me. I know I’m embarrassing myself. I can’t keep going like this, but I don’t know how to stop.

  Finally she breaks the silence. “Justin, this was a mistake for both of us. Just take me home.”

  Having no exit strategy, this seems like a way out. When I pull in the driveway of her house, all the lights are on. Mine’s not the only Shelby Mustang in the driveway: there’s a blue one with a recently replaced windshield. Allison’s parents and Colonel Ladd emerge from the front door. Allison starts from the car, but I pull her back and make sure that Colonel Ladd observes me planting a quick but full kiss on Allison’s lips seconds before she slaps my face.

  15

  “Justin, what is your deal?” Eric asks. We’re outside his house at two in the morning. I peeled out from Allison’s before Colonel Ladd could get close to me. I couldn’t think of where to go except Eric’s.

  “Up for some Call of Duty?” I ask.

  “Go home,” Eric says through a yawn. He doesn’t ask about Homecoming, mainly because he thinks all that stuff is a joke, which is what I like about him. As a Seal son, I’m expected to follow the rules and fit in, but Eric just doesn’t care. He’s the courageous one.

  “Et tu, Brute?” I toss Shakespeare his way as if to prove Allison wrong; I’m AP smart.

  “My mom doesn’t want you here.” Eric walks away from the front door toward the curb. I follow. He sits on the curb and motions for me to join him. “I’m worried about you, bro.”

  I sit down but quickly fall back on the grass, looking up the stars. “I’m fine.”

  “No, Just Man, you’re not,” Eric says, almost in a harsh teacher tone. “I heard about the thing with Jimmy at your stupid Seal fights. And all the trash you’ve been talking about him.”

  I can’t think of anything to say to defend myself, so I count stars.

  “It’s one thing to kid around with me and Mychal but saying stuff like that about Jimmy and Anton to everyone? And the violence? What’s up with that, Justin?”

  “Anton came on to me,” I say and then tell Eric how Anton came on to me after the party. Even telling it again gets me pretty worked up, especially since I need to share a locker room with Anton.

  When I’m done, Eric says nothing for a long time. “So?”

  “So? What kind of answer is that, Eric?”

  “It sounds to me like he was trying to come out to you. Even if he was hitting on you, you couldn’t just tell him you’re not interested? You wouldn’t beat up a girl for coming on to you.”

  I think about Allison. What I made her think I was going to do was even worse than hitting her. “No.”

  “So, maybe Anton came on to you, big deal. It doesn’t mean anything. Let it go.”

  I sit up straight, like at attention. “I don’t want people thinking I’m gay like him.”

  “Are you?” Eric asks. Odd how this isn’t how Mychal reacted at all; he’s still upset.

  “No.”

  “Then it’s over, but that still doesn’t explain why you’re acting so weird, does it?”

  “No.”

  “Or why you want to stay here rather than at home. Just Man, what’s up with your dad?”

  Since Colonel Ladd hates Eric and the feeling is pretty much mutual, maybe it’s safe. “Okay, I’m going to tell you something but if you tell another soul, I will choke you out.”

  “In your dreams,” Eric says.

  “My dad is—” I start, but I can’t say the words. If I’m not in the house, if I don’t speak to him, then I don’t have to acknowledge it. Deny. Deny. Deny. “I think my dad is gay.”

  Eric laughs, not the reaction I want. I may choke him out anyway. “That’s crazy.”

  “I know.” He asks how I know, so I tell him what Calvin told me, but as we talk, I start putting pieces together: the stormy marriage to mom, no other girlfriends since their divorce, and this super close friendship with Colonel Parker. “So that’s it. What do you think, Eric?”

  Eric hems and haws, stops and starts like an old car engine. “What do you think?”

  I spit it out: “I’m angry. But mostly confused. It changes everything.”

  “I don’t see why, other than you’ll have a lot more man smell in your house.”

  “Because I always wanted to be like him. You know that,” I say, my voice cracking like a twelve-year-old. “It’s like I had this vision of how my life would be, and it’s all changed.”

  Eric stands up. I join him. “Just Man, have you talked with him about any of this?”

  “No.”


  “I’ve been so jealous of the two of you since my dad split. You know what to do. Man up.”

  16

  “Justin, is that you?” I hear a voice yell from the basement. It’s three in the morning and he’s downstairs. There’s a clang of metal against metal.

  For a second, I want to run, but I’ve got nowhere to go, no place I want to be. No future.

  “I’ll be up in a second,” he calls. “We need to talk.”

  I look at the kitchen table. I remember another table, another talk—“Your mother and I have arrived at the conclusion . . .” Even something emotional, he rattled off in military speak. While we’d all shared a house between his deployments, we’d never been a real family. I’d always thought it was because he was married to the military, but I guess that was only half of it.

  “No, I’ll come down there.” I shout that unfamiliar word “no” in his direction.

  “Bring me a Gatorade from the fridge.” I grab his drink and snag a Red Bull for myself. It’s the middle of the night. I’m still running on fumes and fear. I need fuel.

  Downstairs, he’s on a bench doing curls with his right arm. “Thanks, Justin.”

  I hand him the drink. My hand shakes. I can tell he notices, but he says nothing. I set my drink on the floor next to me under the bars, and start doing pull-ups. He curls, I pull up. And we start to talk about nothing at all. Not about Jimmy. Or Allison. Or Colonel Parker.

  It goes on that way for ten minutes. It’s like football: you don’t go full contact right away. You get in shape, run light practices and plays, and when you’re ready, you start to hit. When he switches to curls with this left arm, I take to the bench to lift some serious weight.

  With each lift, each groan, each bead of sweat, I feel like I’m getting closer to asking, to him answering, and to me knowing. He starts it. “Justin, just tell me something, anything.”

  Up goes the weight, down comes the truth. “Something Calvin said to me.”

  “Sure.”

  “He said the reason his dad is staying at Pearl is because he met someone.”

  Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Clang. Clang. Clang.

  “Calvin said that someone was you.”

  I stop lifting, he stops curling, but he says nothing. My eyes stare at the ceiling.

  “Dad, is that true?” I ask. The words heavier than all these weights combined.

  I hear footsteps. Seconds later I see a shadow standing over me. “Yes.”

  And I wait for an apology for years of lying, but that one word is all he says, like I should accept it. Like it was an order.

  “That’s it?” I sit up, wipe the sweat away, and stare up at him. “That’s all you—”

  “This changes nothing between us.”

  I fall back on the bench like he’d punched me between my eyes. “It changes everything.”

  “Justin, I don’t see why.” His tone is measured, unemotional, detached. Military discipline.

  “Because all I’ve ever wanted is to be like you.”

  He steps closer. I feel a hand reaching out for me. “It changes nothing between us.”

  I sit back and try to raise my head to look at him, but the weight’s too heavy. “I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to be a disgusting freak.”

  The only thing louder than the silence minutes earlier is the sound of bone on bone as the back of his hand smacks me across the face for the first time I can remember. Before he can say another word or strike another blow, I sprint from the basement up the stairs. I grab the first set of keys I see and race toward the garage. The Harley’s engine roars like thunder and I race away from my life, leaving a trail of blood, sweat, and tears in my wake.

  17

  “Where r u?” Eric texts. I rode up Tantalus, trying to get the courage to go over an edge, but like Colonel Ladd, I wasn’t man enough to do the right thing. I got to school, slipped into the baseball field, and spent the morning sleeping in the dugout until Eric’s call woke me up.

  “School,” I text back. “Call me.”

  Seconds later, Eric’s on the phone. I recount the events in the basement. He doesn’t say much. There’s a lots of background noise, so I assume he’s walking to school. “You okay?”

  “He hit me hard,” I say, “but I’ve taken harder shots from real men.”

  “Just Man, why are you talking that way?” Eric says. “My dad left us with nothing. He beat my mom and me. The only good thing he ever did was leaving. My dad wasn’t a man. Your dad was always there for you, even when he was away. That’s what a man does. What a man is. It doesn’t matter if he’s gay.”

  I hang up on Eric. After I take a whizz in the grass, I dial Mychal. “You with Eric?”

  “No, your friend is whack,” Mychal says. “I heard Anton’s coming back to school today and I want to prank him, but Eric’s not down with it. Sometimes I wonder about him.”

  “Eric’s cool,” I remind Mychal. “He’s just a mama’s boy, too sensitive, you know.”

  “I don’t know why you stay friends with that fruit,” Mychal counters. “Maybe we should prank him instead. All the hot girls think he’s all that, so let’s take him down a notch.”

  “I don’t know. For a civilian, Eric’s okay.”

  Mychal starts in on me, daring, goading. “You gonna man up or what, Justin?”

  ***

  Eric’s cold like Alaska to me in McFadden’s class. I’m not sure if it’s because I hung up on him or that I won’t listen to him telling me I should be cool that my dad’s gay. Mychal busts him a few times, but I don’t join in the laughter at Eric’s expense. It all seems wrong.

  As luck or fate would have it, when Mychal and I meet up in the lunch line, Eric is chatting up Allison, who won’t talk to me. So now it’s like he’s joined the enemy team. It makes this easier. Mychal and I pick up the big bowl of fruit and sprint toward Eric. We hurl it in his direction, but we’re not quarterbacks so most of it misses him and lands on bystanders.

  Eric says nothing but Allison screeches at me. Some people laugh, more people scream. Only one person blows a whistle. Coach Young. “Stewart and Ladd, in my office, now!”

  He marches from the corner of the cafeteria toward the gym and his office. We follow as ordered. Mychal’s cracking up, but just before we exit the cafeteria, I turn back and look at Eric. He’s drenched in sticky fruit and juice, but he doesn’t stink. That’s me. That’s me.

  “Sit!” Coach Young says the second we’re in his office. We obey. “What was that about?” Mychal says nothing. I follow his lead but I feel sick. “Nobody leaves here until I get an answer.”

  And I’m locked in another silent stalemate until Coach’s phone rings. He takes the call. “They’re in my office right now.” Pause. “Don’t worry, they will be disciplined.” He hangs up.

  Mychal sticks his long legs out in front of him, smiles, and finally speaks. “How many steps?” Like most coaches, Coach Young uses running the bleachers as punishment.

  “It depends where you want to sit and watch your teammates. You’re both off the team.”

  “For what? It was just a prank,” Mychal says. “Fruit for a fruit. Pretty funny stuff.”

  Coach Young stands in front of us. “What is wrong with the two of you? You’re supposed to be men. Sons of Seals. But you’re little boys, afraid of anybody you think is different. You don’t treat people like that. I would’ve thought your fathers taught you better.”

  “Please, Coach,” Mychal whines, but I’m thinking of Dad’s words to me: “Man up.”

  “And Justin, you doing something like this, knowing your father, it’s shameful.”

  I don’t ask Coach what “knowing your father” means. He knows about Dad. He doesn’t care. Am I the only one who does?

  18

  “Justin, you can come in now,” Coach says. He’d sent Mychal and me to the in-school suspension room until our fathers arrived. Mychal’s dad got there first, so my wait is heavier. I got called when there’s
only a few minutes left in this day, my last on the Spartan football squad.

  I walk back into the office. There’s Coach, Colonel Ladd, and Colonel Parker.

  “What’s he doing here?” I point at Parker.

  Before Colonel Ladd answers, Coach Young walks out the door and closes it behind him. Colonel Ladd motions for me to sit down, but I don’t move a muscle.

  “This is my fault,” Colonel Ladd starts. Colonel Parker starts to say something, but Colonel Ladd talks right over him. “I should’ve made sure you understood the first time I tried to tell you.”

  Colonel Parker positions himself in front of the door. The office has no window so I’m as trapped as Jimmy was in our fights, and now I’m going to get the life choked out of me.

  “I don’t expect you to understand this, or even accept this, not today, maybe not tomorrow,” Colonel Ladd says. “Maybe you’ll never accept it, but the situation isn’t changing.”

  “Your father and I…” Colonel Parker starts.

  “I don’t want to hear a word from you!” I shout. “This is your fault.”

  “Larry, please let me handle this,” Colonel Ladd says softly, gently.

  “Justin, look, this is who I am,” he says. “It is how I’ve always been. I denied it for a long time because of how I was raised, because of the uniform, because I thought it was wrong.”

  “It is,” I mumble.

  “Being gay is no more being wrong than being left-handed, black, or having blue eyes,” he explains. “It’s how I was born, how I’ve always been. I just accept it now. I hope you will.”

  “I don’t know.” Another mumble, like my jaw, rather than Anton’s, is broken.

  “Justin, look, no matter what you think, I want you to know that I don’t want this to change a thing between us. We’ve been through too much, too many miles, too much time apart, to have it all fall apart now. Those tough times should make you strong. You can handle this.”

  “I don’t know,” I repeat. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “You don’t need to think,” he says. “This is family. You need to feel. How do you feel?”