Lafcadio - Part 3

Part 3: Something Silly, Something Gone

(Continued from Part 2: A Light in the Attic.)

I feel a tear forming. Even after all these years, the memory still hurts. I pull out the faded bandana I keep in my back pocket to use as a handkerchief. Making a show of blowing my nose, I surreptitiously wipe my eyes at the same time. It wouldn't do to cry in the waiting room at Penn Station.

A glance at my watch tells me it's almost 6:30, and the concourse is starting to come to life. I leave my seat and pace around a bit, reading the Arrivals board and checking out the offerings at the newsstand.

Then I head back to the waiting area and sit on the other side of the room. I allow my thoughts to take me back to Afghanistan again.

~

I should tell you a bit about our group. 

Ed Patterson, the oldest, was a master sergeant with 15 years in. The guy was a natural-born leader, so naturally he led us. He was a sat-com specialist back then. I think he'd intended to be career, but he ended getting his 20, and getting out. When he left the Corps, he went to work for one of the big telecommunications companies.

Carlos Morales, a sergeant, was an interpreter. His native language is English, but the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants grew up speaking Spanish too. It turned out he had a gift for languages, and the Corps put him through a Pashto course at the language school in California. Not much call for that in back here in the world, I guess, so Carlos is in real estate now.

Paulie Newton, also a sergeant, was in explosive ordnance disposal. When he got out, he ended up working at the New York Public Library running their computer system. He says he'd had enough of noisy work environments, and besides, his hearing was pretty much jacked.

The kid, Jimmy Flanagan, a corporal, was a mechanic.  Who knows what he would have been when he grew up. A teacher, maybe. Or an actor.

And then there's me. I'm Matt Cameron. I was an MP. There was no way I was going to stay in, either in the military or in police work. So I wrote.

~

After Jimmy died, something was gone out of it for the four of us left. With all his silliness, he was the light that kept us keeping on. Ed, Paulie, Carlos, and I continued to sit under the outcropping overlooking the poppy fields, but there was no more yukking. There were no more stories and silly poems. There was only silence.  That, and the note that Jimmy Flanagan left behind for us, tucked securely under the innersole of my left boot. 

The next day, we went through Jimmy’s stuff, getting it ready to send back to his mom. We’d met Kathleen Flanagan while we were home, and we all loved her. She was a warm and funny woman with the map of Ireland drawn in freckles on her face. It was easy to see where Jimmy had gotten his personality. She welcomed us into her home as if we were family. And, lord, how she loved her boy. She was a single mom. Jimmy's dad had died in a car crash when Jimmy was only ten, and Jimmy was all she had. We knew she was going to be destroyed when she got the news.

“Hey, look at this,” Paulie, said as we were putting Jimmy’s books into the box. “This is the book about that lion.”

“Read it,” I said, and he did. Blinking away the tears that threatened to spill from our eyes, we listened to Paulie read the story of the lion Grrmmff who came to be known as Lafcadio the Great.

When he got to the end, Paulie turned the final page and a small pink envelop fell out. I bent down and picked it up. Turning it over, I was surprised to see our names on the front.

I held it up, eyebrows raised. “Well, open it, fer crissake, Cameron!” Carlos said.

I lifted the flap and pulled out a piece of folded note paper. It was also pink, decorated with delicate little silver cruets of flowers and teacups with tiny spoons. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might be giving off a sweet gardenia scent.

“And? What’s it say?” Ed demanded.

It wasn’t long. I quickly skimmed, horrified. This was our wet-behind-the-ears buddy Jimmy? No fucking way.

Taking a shaky breath, I read:

“Yeah, yeah, I know, guys” it began. “But it’s all I had. It’s my mom’s paper. She packed a bunch of it with my stuff so I’d be sure to write to her. I’m not writing you a love note or anything. Ha-ha. But in case anything happens to me, there’s something you gotta know.”

The note went on to tell us why he was worried that something might happen to him. Sure, we were all afraid we might get wounded or even killed in Afghanistan. But it turned out that Jimmy’s fears were far more alarming. Seems our Jimmy was secretly liaised to a quasi-military black ops organization called Alcázar Sentinel Security.

“These are bad people,” Jimmy had written. “They’re supposed to be helping protect the NATO forces in Afghanistan, but I found out they’re really in it for the opium. I’m not sure, but I think they know I know. And I’m pretty sure they’ve killed others to protect their interests. There’s a shitload of money at stake.

“There’s no one over here I can tell. If anything happens to me, you guys gotta do something when you get home. And if you can, take care of my mom.”

I folded the pink paper again, thinking how the frivolous silver cruets and tiny spoons on the cover were so incongruous with the dark message inside.

We read Jimmy's words again many times, but by tacit agreement, we didn't discuss it right away. We were still too raw. But we knew we would. We had to; it wasn't something we could ignore. We had to do something.

The question was, what?

 To be continued in Part 4: Barooom!


(Credit, and thanks, to author Shel Silverstein.) 

~

Posted for River of Mnemosyne Challenge No. 8, Muse 3: "Silver Cruets and Tiny Spoons"

Lafcadio - Part 2

Part 2: A Light in the Attic

(Continued from Part 1: The Call)

Properly chastised by the text displayed against a green background on my phone--"What part of 'go' don't you understand, Cameron? Go NOW!"-- I delay no longer. I'm outta here. At least I won't have to concoct some kind of bullshit story to explain my absence to the lady-of-the-moment. She took care of that quite effectively yesterday.

I hustle down the stairs from my fifth-floor walkup, shrugging my jacket on as I go, and sling the backpack over my shoulders. But when I step out onto the cold street, I realize it's still dark. Shit, I'd forgotten the call came in the middle of the fucking night. This presents a bit of a problem.

My destination, the library at 42nd and Fifth, is closed. I take a quick look at my watch. 4:45. What do I do with the next six or seven hours? The library opens at ten, I think, but I don't want to be the first one through the door. The idea is to remain as inconspicuous as possible, easier said than done at the crack of early on a wintery morning, even in New York.

Near Washington Square, a few blocks away, there's a 24-hour diner. I head that way. I've never been there at this ungodly hour, but figure there must be a night owl or two, and maybe some city workers getting breakfast before they hit the streets.  Hopefully I can pass a hour or so there.

No such luck. Through the steamy glass, I see a lone guy at the counter, a tired-looking beat cop hunched over a plate of eggs. So I get myself a coffee to go, grab a newspaper from the machine at the door, and head for Penn Station.

Reassured by the number of people waiting for an early morning commuter train, I slump down on one of the hard plastic seats in the cavernous concourse. I know I shouldn’t be worried. I mean, only yesterday, I was just a guy trying to make a living as a writer, failing rather spectacularly, I might add. But given what we are about to do, I can’t help myself. I feel like I am wearing a neon sign announcing my intentions.

I close my eyes, and against the backdrop of the headache-induced kaleidoscope of whirling colors and flashes projected inside my eyelids, I let my mind drift back to that day in the desert nearly ten years ago. The day Lafcadio was conceived.

~

Jimmy Flanagan was too young to drink. Well, legally, anyway. In fact, Jimbo was almost too young to vote.  He definitely was too young to die. But the bullet that took him out couldn’t give a shit.

We were in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, sitting under a rocky outcropping overlooking the poppy fields below.  It was just past dusk, and we were taking a break and yukking it up. It had been pretty quiet all day. Even the guys patrolling the fields didn’t seem to be on edge, a rare occurrence. Nothing got the Taliban forces riled up quite like a bunch of jarheads wandering around in their opium supply.

We had all been there before, and in fact, it was there that the five of us became good friends. When we finally went home after our tour, we thanked our lucky stars to be alive, and relaxed. We should have known better. A NATO mission was organized to train and advise local forces (ha, where had we heard that one before?), and our experience in-country sucked us right back into it. We hadn’t expected to find ourselves back in that god-forsaken land, but there we were. Not that we found ourselves doing much training.

Jimmy often entertained us with stories and silly poetry, his freckled Irish face alight with enthusiasm. He was a real fan of children’s books, that kid. You might think it sounds weird, a bunch of Marines listening raptly to kiddie stories, but it really helped break the tension out there in that harsh and dangerous desert. That particular night, he was in the middle of a story about a lion named Grmmff. It had actually been published in Playboy, he was quick to tell us, and it was his favorite. As he often did when he was really getting into it, Jimmy used a goofy voice, this one his interpretation of a marshmallow-loving lion. I'm paraphrasing here, but it went something like this.

“…goes to the barbershop, gets his paws shined, his claws manicured and a free haircut. He has dinner, and eats lots of marshmallow dishes, then finally eats his napkin for dessert. He wears a marshmallow suit, but it gets ironed and it melts all over him. He goes back to the hotel and stays up very late singing the "marshmallow song:

“Marshmallows Marshmallows
Marching Marshing Mellow
Malling Mallows Marshing Fellows
Marshy-Murshy-…”

The laughter was torn from our throats as Jimmy’s face exploded mid-song.

A lot of guys would tell you that seeing a buddy die in combat, or maybe anywhere else, made them find religion. Not us. That was the night we lost our souls.



To be continued in Part 3: Something Silly, Something Gone.

(Credit, and thanks, to author Shel Silverstein.) 

~

Posted for River of Mnemosyne Challenge No. 8, Muse 2: "A Little Death is Good for the Soul"

Lafcadio - Part 1

Part 1: The Call

The first call comes at 4:07am.  That’s the way of things, isn’t it? It couldn’t come at a civilized hour. No, of course not. And it couldn’t come when I was still expecting it. Nope.

At the start of things, I was ready. I was so ready. I jumped every time the phone rang, heart pounding with this weird mix of terror and anticipation. But I decided somewhere along the way that my heart couldn’t take the extreme adrenalin rush every time a robo call came in.  As the years passed, my reactions slowed from almost shitting myself to damn near ho-hum. 

The incessant buzzing takes a while to get through to me.  I'd spent the better part of the previous night at MacKenzie’s Pub, drowning my sorrows after being dumped by the latest in a succession of women fed up with my apparent inability to commit. By last call, I was soused. Since MacKenzie’s is just down the street and Mac is my buddy, I was frequently over-served. If I was unable to navigate the half block to my place, Mac figured someone could prop me up on a keg dolly and wheel me home.

I'm deep into a dream about drinking tequila on a Cancun beach with a muy linda señorita, when suddenly the dream turns nasty. Finally realizing that I’m not being attacked by a swarm of angry Mexican bees, I drag myself into semi-consciousness. I manage to extricate myself from the serape, uh, blanket, knocking my cell phone to the floor in the process. When I bend to retrieve the phone, I notice that, with every buzz, the screen flashes green. What the fuck?

"Who the hell is this? It’s oh-dark-fucking-hundred!”

I hear a voice I don’t recognize.

 “GO!”

~

Shit.

The day has come. Bad timing on all counts. I’m walking a perilous tightrope between drunk and hungover. Shaking off the cobwebs filling my head, I try to formulate a plan. Early on, I’d had my actions after the call all mapped out. By this point, though, I’ve doubted the call would come at all. I've gotten complacent. Bad move, because here it is.

When I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit up, I fall off the tightrope and land with a thud on the side of hungover. My head is pounding as I make my way to the kitchen.

Coffee, I need coffee, strong and black. As I wait for the Keurig to do its thing, it’s normally subtle bubbling noise sounding like a percussion band, I remember that I’m not alone. I know my call is part of a larger broadcast to others like me, the intention being to set the operation dubbed "Lafcadio" into motion. Hopefully, they are in better shape than I am. My intention is to find a way to put one foot safely in front of the other. I throw a couple of aspirins in my mouth and gulp down half the coffee too quickly, burning my mouth. Then I head back to the bedroom to dress.

How does one dress for insurrection? I pull on my jeans and REM t-shirt, topped by my favorite and slightly worse-for-wear flannel shirt. Boots tied, I finish the coffee. I drop the cup in the sink and reach for the sponge.

Words from the past float through my head. “Remember to leave everything as you would normally.” No dishes washed, no bed-making. Not that I would anyway. That’s the point, right?

OK, ready to go. Well, ready, except for my go-bag. I haven’t looked at that bag in ages, but I know it’s waiting at the back of my closet.

I rummage past the clutter of years, and there’s the bag, stuffed in the corner behind a box of old kids’ books, right where I put it nine years ago. I grab the battered leather backpack and hook it over my shoulder. Snagging my jacket off the rack by the front door, I’m about to step out of my apartment when my cell buzzes again, with a text this time.

“What part of ‘go’ don’t you understand, Cameron? Go NOW!”

To be continued in Part 2: A Light in the Attic.


(Credit, and thanks, to author Shel Silverstein.) 

~

Posted for River of Mnemosyne Challenge No. 8, Muse 1: "Covering the Ground with Big Intentions"

Wreaking Havoc

like Trump, he surges,

 a wide wake of destruction

everywhere he goes

Written for Haiku Friday (a bit late), hosted by LouCeeL.

Hotter Than...

Fall, you'll have to wait

summer isn't letting go

ninety-five degrees

***

Written for Haiku Friday, hosted by LouCeeL

Crescendo

           The cold silence quivers, swollen with memories,
           Until, with a flash of cymbals and the thunder of drums,
           It shatters, spilling angry notes from the past to
           Rain over me. They cut like ice shards as they hit
           And flood my heart with pain.

***

Written for dVerse Poets Pub where the word of inspiration for a quadrille (a poem of 44 words) is spill.


.

Implication

From the moment he took his seat in the classroom, the geeky guy in the third row gazed at me with rapt attention.  Moon eyes. That's what my mother would have labeled the look he was giving me. To be honest, it made me a little nervous. In my years as a trainer, my poetic words about financial software had never inspired that kind of reaction from a seminar participant. Normally, the challenge was keeping them awake.  At the break, he made his way up to the front of the room. Taking my hand, he introduced himself, and my first thought was, "Oh-oh." Grinning mischievously, he said, “You remind me of my wife.  She’s a teacher too.” Relieved, I smiled in acknowledgment.  And then he went on. “It must be the implied whip.”

intoxicating.

 irresisible power,

a whip flick away

***

Submitted to dVerse Poet's Pub Haibun Monday.