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Darkness

By Tony Cokely

It was dark. Billy was in the jungle. He heard the noise again. Where was it coming from? What could be making the noise? His left cheek was warm and sweaty. He was afraid. He strained to hear through the darkness. He wished he could just get a fix on that sound. He squinted at the shadows. Why was it so dark? He couldn't even see his hands before his face. Maybe he had just heard routine noises and spooked himself into imagining something out there. He had been here too long. How many days until he could go home? The military called going home "rotation." That is a funny word for it. In other wars, you fought until you won or lost. In this ugly mother, you fought until you died or rotated.

How many days until I can leave, he wondered. It almost seems like I did leave and then came back, he thought. Wait a minute! Wait a minute! He had been home. The war had been over. How did he get back here? Had he dreamed of going home? Shhh……………. He heard a squeak, then a farump. His eyes flew open.

He was lying with his head on her leg. Six inches from his face was the source of the noise. It was the dream again—the dream with him back in the jungle. Will the dreams ever stop, he thought. And who was this naked lady?

She raised her head and said, "Sorry! It happens when I drink beer." She was in her early thirties. She must have been a knockout in her school days. Her face was a little puffy around her eyes, with wrinkles at the corners. Her eyes were a pale green with little flecks of gold. Her hair was a sandy color, speckled lightly with grey. She had small freckles on her shoulders. Her nipples were the size of half dollars with erect tips like the erasers on wooden pencils.

"Well, do I pass?" she asked. "You were inspecting me. It is as if you are seeing me for the first time", she added.

Billy said nothing. He wasn't sure for the moment that she was talking to him. Was this the dream, or was he awake and back in the world? He raised himself on one elbow and immediately dropped back on the bed.

He looked around the room. "Could I please have some aspirin and a glass of water?" he asked.

She moved so quickly he was almost rocked off her bed; His head felt like it was swimming in Jell-O being worked over by a jackhammer. He groaned as the bed stopped moving. Then she bounced back beside him with the water and the pills. He closed his eyes and reached for her hands. After a while, he dozed off.

When he woke, he felt better. He rose and examined her apartment. It was tidy, small, and organized in a functional manner. "Hello", he cried. No answer. Had she gone somewhere? Billy didn't know, but he knew he would be embarrassed to admit that he didn't remember her name.

He began to look through her things. The letter he found was addressed to "Ms. Suzanne Marie Cate." Great, he thought. Was it Sue, Susan, or Suzanne? Or maybe it was Marie? He opened the letter to read the salutation.

"You're a nosy little fuck aren't you?" she said. "I think it's time for you to get your things and get out of my house." She was looking at him like he was a bag lady. He set her mail down and began, "I just….."

"Get out before I throw you out," she said.

The cold air braced him as he descended the stairs outside her apartment. "Don't think we had anything; you were too drunk to do anything but sleep," she shouted down after him and slammed the door.

At least he could still piss a woman off, he thought. Billy wondered when things had really started going wrong for him. It was easy to blame the war and the nightmares, but maybe there was more to it than that.

Bill's only real friend before the war had been another Susie. He started walking home. As he walked, he hummed, "One, Two, Three, Four, we don't want your fucking war."

He was thinking back to high school and that other Susie. She had left him, and then he was drafted. Before that, he thought, "Susie and Bill," as if they were one person. But she was her own person, and now she had three kids, a house in the country, and a rich husband. Billy had never been drunk or had a nightmare when he was with Susie before the war.

The last time he was with her, it wasn't cheating. Susie was engaged, and Billy was just back in the world. They both needed that one last time. It didn't help when he woke that night fighting and screaming through the first of his many war dreams.

He was sober two weeks ago when he had seen Susie at the market. Sober for eighteen months. He still had the chip in his pocket. She had a full cart and was crossing to her car. He helped her with the groceries. She didn't say much. She just watched him with a sad and worried look. As she pulled away, she stopped, rolled down the window, and motioned him over to the car. He leaned down towards her and she stuffed three twenties into his shirt pocket. "Buy something nice, Billy," she said and drove off towards her castle in the country.

It would be easy to put the blame there for his binge. She had insulted him, and he had gone and gotten drunk. But it was on him. Billy had learned that at group. Each of us is responsible for our actions—no passing the buck. She didn't hold the bottle to his lips. She didn't force him to take that first drink.

Billy was ashamed of himself. He had sailed through his mom's death and funeral. And when his dad died six months later, it was almost a relief. Mom had cancer and suffered through two years of poking and probing. Dad had at least passed quickly. Dad had a heart attack while mowing the lawn and drove himself to the hospital, where he died three hours later.

Billy now lived in a studio unit in the apartments he had inherited. Dad had considered the apartments as his pension. Now, they were Billy's.

Billy didn't need the three twenties and he didn't need to be reminded that he only didn't need the money because of his dad. All he really needed was for the drinking and the nightmares of the war to stop.

He felt in his pocket for a quarter to call his sponsor. He thought this was a good time to start over again. Maybe he would just have one drink first.

Tony Cokely was drafted into the Marine Corps and served from 1969 to 1971. He retired after 29 years as a government employee, proud union member, and officer. He lives in the California foothills.