4 July, 2021

Approximate time: 21:50

The fourth of July is my least favorite holiday. I went out to smoke. I knew the danger, so it’s my fault.

See, I don’t just have PTSD. I call it more than that. I call it Fucked-up. It includes severe depression, hellish nightmares, sleep disorder, mood swings, aggression, daredevil syndrome, addiction, self hatred…and more.

The stress part is hard to describe. But maybe you can see it in this, my latest Fourth of July misadventure.

I lit the smoke with Zippo bearing the U.S. Army logo. So far so good.

Due south, two klicks. I registered fireworks. Didn’t sound like fireworks. Sounded like the blind-fire of both machine gun nests and small arms auto fire. Like when we were running through the jungle to an exfil point far enough away that I just knew it: they would catch us. I was too green. In wartime I couldn’t even have been called a cherry.

But I smoked and that’s all good, right? Except my heartrate and respiration were elevating. By the time I noticed that, it was over, but I remembered it.

Closer. East, half a klick. Mortars. Or field artillery. Once you hear the first, they all blend. Doesn’t matter what it is. I do remember jumping, then holding my hands over my ears. I dropped my cane that way. But it wasn’t my cane. It wasn’t sliding down the concrete steps either. I heard it in the dirt. Dirt very far away. Far south. In the kind of place you usually fear animals at night, not people, even though you should. Like that, only no tourist would want to go there, especially not back then.

I looked down. That’s no cane.

It was a rifle and I had to get it! Fuck, you never drop your weapon, you die like that! I don’t know what happened. I guess the touch of it broke up whatever shit you call that. I wasn’t gone, couldn’t have been, not more than a few seconds. I held the cane, didn’t use it. The rest of the way to the door was a scramble like I didn’t know I had the power to do. At the door, halfway inside I realized I still had a lit Marlboro in my lips, clenched as tight as my gut. I threw it away and hurried to take a Klonopin. It took thirty minutes to resume regular breathing.

What the hell is that called? I’ve gone back many times to my childhood, to a certain horrible thing, because a memory was triggered, but that always happened inside my head. This was the first time I ever took a trip and found my eyes looking at a dirt track, a game trail instead of where I really was standing and seeing an object as anything but what it was. A rifle. Not Army. Not U.S.. And definitely not a cane.

As I was willing myself down the steps, the close proximity firefight kept going and combined with that which was further out, I had an awesome time. I commenced a bitter monologue with myself:

Happy Fourth of July, asshole. Why the fuck didn’t you take your meds on time? You know what this shit does to you. This time you deserved it. Didja like it, asshole? One day. Fifteen minutes of putting suppressive fire on a heavy MG nest so the Hispanic guy could get past the pissant base. How many mags, 4? That ain’t shit, asshole. You got to run away. Imagine guys that didn’t. You still smell the powder, don’t you? After all this time? You were fucked in the head before, so, what? Didja think this would be fun? Shitbird. Go fuck yourself, asshole. Just another American asshole. You signed the paper before you left. Three days. To do something there is no record of. You got volunteered because even with a family they knew you were expendable because your wife nags the liaison sergeant and is fucking your recruiter, you dumb shit. Besides. Nobody gets out of shit without damage, even the ones who hide it are hurtin’ and it takes a special kind of courage that you ain’t got, living with shit in your mind, shit like walking out every day and not knowing when your turn is coming. Every day your odds get worse. You don’t know what that’s like, asshole. Be glad you don’t. You got too much in your head already. Always have, boy. Ever since–

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I told myself to shut up? That’s pathetic. Scary and sad at one and the same time.

***

The Fourth of July is my most feared holiday. Every year it gets worse. Time doesn’t heal wounds. It merely facilitates the consumption of brain cells.

Next comes New Year’s Eve. Maybe that night I’ll just wear a nicotine patch.

If I’m still here…

And when he gets to Heaven,

to Saint Peter he will tell,

“One more asshole reporting, Sir;

I’ve done my time in Hell.”