'What just happened,' he wondered? 'He didn't know. He had no idea. With her so full of life before, all that it took to turn her off was for him to say those three words that meant so much to him and obviously so little to her,' he thought.
"I love you," he said again.
Having never said that to anyone before, with him expecting a different reaction, he said that again to her now.
She acted as if he had said I hate you, instead of I love you. She acted as if he wanted to break up with her, not that they were ever together. She acted as if she wasn't interested in taking whatever the fuck they had to the next level, which he, clearly, wanted to do.
With this all new to him, what did they have anyway? Obviously, from her emotionless reaction, they didn't have anything. Obviously, even though he thought they were, they weren't a couple. They were still strangers.
When it comes to women, he wondered if Simone, Lucy, and/or Carmen were available to give him some much needed advice if not some comfort. He wondered what they'd say and how they'd react if he told one of them that he loved her. No doubt, being that they were prostitutes and with their Johns telling them that all the time, they'd probably laugh in his face.
'You don't love me, Christopher. You love fucking me,' he imagined Simone, Lucy, or Carmen saying.
A homeless woman and a Navy SEAL having only met several hours ago, he was as much of a stranger to her as she was an enigma to him. Apparently, according to her immediate negative reaction and foul response, in the way that she recoiled from him and rejected him, they didn't have anything in common to maintain a boyfriend/girlfriend, sexual relationship, never mind love. Obvious to him now, he was wrong to tell her that he loved her. Definitely, it was too soon to say such a thing.
# # #
What is love anyway? It's just a feeling. He had feelings for her but, with her not returning the sentiment, clearly, she didn't have feelings for him. When too many men never wanting to commit to a relationship, when too many men just wanted to play the field, he was ready to ride off in the sunset with her. Only, and unfortunately, there was a hitch and a fly in the ointment. Clearly, she didn't love him.
'Houston there's a problem. May Day! May Day! May Day! Negative to love. It's a no go,' he imagined saying on his headset. Abort! Abort! Abort! Abort the mission and scrub the relationship. We're done,' he thought.
She sat there with the look of a woman who had been badly beaten before being brutalized emotionally, physically, and sexually. She acted as if she was a human turtle hiding in her self-protective shell. Not willing to show her emotions for fear, no doubt, that she'd be hurt again, she had the look of a woman who had disappeared inside of herself and withdrawn from life.
Obviously, an understatement, she wasn't ready for love or for any kind of a relationship for that matter. Not the best looking man, yet, especially after having his face reconditioned with the stress of combat and with one too many blows to the head, maybe she was ready for love but not with him. Yet, well above average in the looks department, he was still plenty good looking enough. Maybe, she was hoping for someone better, and someone with less psychological issues. It was a little scary when he continued referring to himself in the third person.
After his ears stopped ringing, and after the last cloud of black, putrid smoke cleared, always there was smoke after the fire and before the fire. Seemingly with her as shellshocked as he was, she had the look that he had after he survived another bloody battle. Always as if a crescendo to their mission, the air was filled with the stench of fuel, oil, and burning rubber.
He wonder how many deadly, cancerous carcinogens he inhaled. He wondered how many years being a SEAL fighting in three wars with nine deployments took off of his life. She had that same dazed and empty look that he had when looking around to survey the damage and to take inventory of the dead and the wounded. Only, her combat mission was living, and his combat mission was dying, kill or be killed.
# # #
"Don't move! Show me your hands! Show me your hands! Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! Don't move," he said so very many times that it came out of his mouth automatically!
He was surprised that when he walked in a deli and they asked him what he'd have that he didn't respond in the way that he was trained to respond.
'Don't move! Show me your hands! Show me your hands! Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! Don't move,' he imagined saying to a clerk at the delicatessen.
He couldn't count how many times he said those words in English, in Arabic, in Farsi, in Dari, in Pashto, and in Tajik. Those words echoed through his brain in several languages. Yet, too many only understood a bullet to the head. They hated Americans. They hated America. They hated him. He never met so many people who were willing to die rather than to surrender to an American serviceman.
Yet, every year we support Pakistan with billions of dollars, money wasted over there that could be used to house the homeless, feed the hungry, college educate our children for free, and provide free medical care over here. For Pakistanis to hide terrorists while burning our flag, those two facts don't bode well when Congress approved more financial aid going to Pakistan. If he were President and Commander in Chief of the military, he'd launch a bevy of smart bombs earmarked for Pakistan and Afghanistan.
'Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! He'd blow them all to Hell.'
In an instant, the war would be over. Our puppet president in Afghanistan, in bed with the CIA from day one, held no loyalty to the United States. Even after our money made him a very wealthy man.
If he had the chance to take out the president of Afghanistan he would have. But he was protected, not so much by the Afghan military but by United States private contractors, and mercenaries, men who were once just like him. They wanted him in power. They wanted the war to continued. They wanted the money derived from lucrative, government contracts.
Only, if he had assassinated their president, Secretary Clinton, the President, and the top generals and admirals from the pentagon would have been all over his ass. No doubt, they would have blamed him for destabilizing the area. They would have blamed him for making things much worse when there was no way things could get any better over there, which is why the Russians left years ago to end their war with Afghanistan. Yet, we're still there.
'Why,' he thought? 'Why are we still there,' he wondered? 'Money. It's all about money. Follow the money. Money, money, money. War is not about freedom or democracy as it is about money.'
Instead of staying a SEAL for thirty-years, he could have worked for one of those private contractors. He could have been a mercenary. He could have worked for the CIA or any secret agency that did dirty deeds behind the scenes. He would have come home with a fortune in unclaimed and untaxed cash.
No argument, he was qualified. He had the skills to kill, something that is still in high demand. They would have paid him buckets of money to work for them. Only, he saw how they worked and how they operated. Different from the SEALs, Rangers, Green Beret, and Delta Forces, he couldn't work with someone and for someone who wasn't watching his back and who was more concerned with their own.
Only, with all of war and foreign policy out of his control, all he could do was to retire from the Navy and go on with his civilian, private life. He couldn't do his job anymore. The patience he once had was gone with suicide bombers. Now he fired first and asked questions later. Shoot to kill or be blown to bits was always his standing orders.
# # #
'I love you.'
The words echoed in his head in the way of a bad dream. The words that lifted his spirit to say before made him sad now. She didn't have to say that she didn't love him. He knew that she didn't love him. He saw the shocked look in her eyes when he told her that he loved her.
A nanosecond glimpse in her soul, a trained assassin, he was skilled at detecting a liar. He could walk in a room cold and know which one to shoot first. Never was he wrong. Always he was right. Otherwise, he wouldn't be standing here as a retired SEAL. He would have been dead years ago.
With death always all around him, the stench of rotting corpses and the acrid smell of burning flesh is something he'll never forget. To this day, he can't enjoy a barbeque, raw meat burnt beyond recognition. How many of his buddies did he had to identify. If it wasn't for their dog tags, they'd be buried in unmarked graves with so many other military men and women who didn't have enough left of them to identify.
Burning alive again in his nightmares, he still relived the horror, heard their screams, and saw the faces of all those buddies he couldn't save. Taking his gun and shooting them instead of watching them die a horrible death, acts of war never reported on the nightly news, he's done that more than once. If the military allowed the press to report everything that they witnessed and that happened instead of classifying their dirty laundry as top secret, there'd be a Congressional investigation. Rotten from the head down, they're be some Major, Captain, and/or Sergeant offered up as sacrificial lambs.
How many generals returned home fatter and richer than when they arrived? There's a lot of retired generals who retired after going over to Iraq to pillage and Afghanistan to plunder. After a while, after seeing so many killed in combat, other than to fan the area with a blanket of machine gun fire, dead bodies no longer evoked a response in him. After a while, instead of killing the lowly enemy, men who were as brainwashed as he was, he wished he could kill the ones responsible for the deaths of so many of his buddies.
He suddenly felt like John Wick fighting the 'High Counsel.' Only, they'd court marshal and execute him if he started killing those powerful generals and dirty congressmen who knew the real story of why they were at war. Twisted enough by war and politics, it was time for him to retire and he did. No longer knowing who could trust to have his back, between the enemy, the mercenaries, the private contractors, and the CIA, he had a big target on his back.
# # #
His first time in combat, he was scared. Realizing fast that it was either him or them, fright turned to anger. Now unemotional, with bullets whizzing by his head, he used his calmness to his advantage when shooting off his 50-caliber machine gun. Still shooting until he was out of bullets or until everyone was quiet, he was a one man assault team. Because of his deadly accuracy, he had a lot of nicknames, Doctor Death, the Grim Reaper, the Sweeper, and recently, LMS, last man standing.
After a while, as if they had never lived, the dead didn't look real. Except for the blood and the bullet holes, most appeared to be sleeping. Tit for tat and an eye for an eye, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, and rat-a-tat-tat, he grew tired of exchanging bullets. He envied the sniper, one bullet, one kill. Only snipers, once there was an eyeball on their location, had a short lifespan.
He could clean and fire a jammed gun faster than most could load a chamber and pull a trigger. Yet, unless he re-upped or became a mercenary soldier and worked for a private security outfit, what good is that skill now that he's a civilian and a law abiding citizen? Hard for him to cope, always looking for love and hoping for love but with love so elusive, he never found it, until now. He loved Susan. He really loved her but it was apparent that she didn't love him.
Being that he didn't know what he was looking for and being that love was just a feeling, how would he even know if he stumbled over love? When he thought that he did finally find love with Susan, he thought love would set him free. Only, as if plucking a rose with one less pedal, she loves me, she loves me not, she doesn't love him.
As if he had been shot, the look she gave him hurt more than any bullet he had taken. Surely, he'd take a bullet over her look of rejection. Her look and then her reaction to his words stopped him cold.
Defenseless against her mere words, always in control, she made him feel vulnerably unworthy of her affection. Having already survived being shot numerous times, in the way they make a vest that's impervious to bullets, he wished someone would make a bulletproof vest to protect his heart from love. He had no idea what he would do now. Allow her to stay a few days and then let her go on her way.
It took a lot of whiskey for him to live with himself after losing all of his men in his last battle before retiring. The last man standing, even his buddies back at base looked at him as if he was bulletproof, invincible, and unable to die when he just wished he were dead. They feared him as much as they regarded him and respected him.
Even though his last mission didn't work out as planned, no doubt, sabotaged by the bad Intel from the CIA, everyone still wanted him to lead their squad. Even if it was the other guy and not him taking the bullet, they all knew they'd have a better chance of going home alive with Navy SEAL Christopher Ryan watching their backs. With them all knowing that he had their backs, he felt good about having the dedicated and loyal support of his men.
Never considering himself lucky yet, always, he was the one spared. Always, he was the one of the ones not returning home in a body bag. Why him? Why them and not him? Why was he spared? Was he spared for Susan to rudely dismiss him, not want him, and to look at him as if he were crazy to ever think that he'd have a chance of her loving him.
She was a homeless woman and, with no one in her life in the way that he had no one in his life, even she rejected him. Now that he thought that he finally had someone in his life, he didn't understand why his life continued to be so difficult. No longer at war, yet always it was a battle. When he's finally open and willing to love someone, why is it so hard for someone to love him, too? He's worked so hard. He deserved better. He deserved her love.
