It Was The Ptsd She Said Part One

It was the PTSD she said, Part one

Copyright Catcher78 All Rights Reserved.

Author's note: Story regards a young couple unable to deal with his life at the end of the Vietnam war. I emulate stream of conscious writers like Ken Kesey, Faulkner, Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Please don't give me a ration of shit if I fall short the mark. This guy commented on one of my stories and in eight years he had 32,000 comments, that's 333 comments a month, 33 per day. Another guy claimed to be a disabled veteran, like the first guy has never written a single word. Comment away, I do appreciate constructive words.

She stole my heart and saved me from sorrow. Our first year of marriage was away from our home in Seattle.

I was stationed in the San Joaquín Valley in California at a Naval Air Station. I was more accurately in an Attack Squadron, part of a Carrier Air Group, which was on shore rotation as the squadrons restocked both pilots and the enlisted specialists.

The plane captains, who were not pilots, but the guys that horsed the planes around on the flight deck of the carrier with tractors and climbed down the intake of the jet to make sure there was no potential Foreign Object Damage or FOD.

We lived away from base in a little duplex in Hanford, California. The place was a combination of Armenians, Chinese, Mexicans and white trash left over from the real life Grapes of Wrath during the 1930s. The food was incredibly cheap. In addition there were roadside fruit stands, ancient supermarkets and Mexican restaurants that two could eat for five bucks.

Hanna was stunningly beautiful. Long brown hair, dark eyes, perfect complexion. Her ass was perfectly round and it would shake when I was getting after it. We played Yahtzee tournaments, drank beer and fucked like bunnies.

I would be hammering her from behind and she'd reach through and push her finger up my ass and sweet fucking Jesus I would cum as would she. She'd bite me on the nipple while jerking me off. She was supposedly a virgin, but I had my doubts, and just took her for the blessing she was.

I did not know what it was called but she'd lick my asshole and jerk me then swallow my cum. In that first year away from home we must have fucked close to five hundred times.

We had about a month before we were coming home to Seattle (I was being discharged from active duty to the ready reserves) and I came home early and parked out front of the duplex. The front door was unlocked and slightly open and I came in quietly. I stood still and could hear fuck noises.

I stood watching her get hammered from behind. No sexy talk, just grunting and heavy breathing of long term lovers. I was wearing steel toed rubber soled half boots that they gave to guys who worked around electrical stuff. I wound up and tried to kick a fifty yard field goal landing square in his nuts which drove his cock deep into my wife's womb causing her to explode in orgasm which was not my intent.

He was my direct supervisor's long haired civilian friend. I grabbed his hair and pulled him to the floor and put my right foot to work again. I stomped his bare foot and he shrieked again, then did a side kick against his left ankle and broke it. I was six foot one and weighed two hundred ten pounds and could run.

All State baseball player, with a scholarship to Washington which blew up when my parents and my older brother died in random events. There was a homeless phase for a while too, but that's another story.

I stomped on his bare foot just below the broken ankle. I took him by the hair and hand and drug him out to his car. I went to the landline and called my supervisor John Berg, Aviation Electronics Technician second class (AT2), the fuck's friend.

"Hey John, this is Teddy Bennedict, do you have a second."

"Yeah, what's up Teddy?"

"I need a favor, okay?"

"Tell me, " he said.

"Could you come to my place and get your long haired fuck friend, you know from the picnic. Both of his nuts are ruptured, both feet are broken, one ankle too and he can't drive. If you don't John, when you least expect it, you're next. Are we clear? 428 Porter Street."

My neighbor in the duplex was waiting for me on our shared porch. He was a nice guy, a blacksmith in the 1970s, him and his girlfriend had a baby girl. He said, "For the last six weeks at least, that's all we seen, might have been longer."

"Thank you," I said.

I'd been on the Oriskany for a month, during carrier qualifications (cair-quals) up until a month ago. She must have got lonely.

She was standing there in a ratty robe, hugging herself. I walked up to her and ripped open the robe and stuck two fingers into her wide open sloppy cunt and literally pulled out his cum and flung it on her feet and floor and did it again.

She was terrified. Pack up now, all your clothes and shoes. I'm going to the bank and get $500 for you and then I'm taking you to the Fresno Airport and you can fly home."

She said, "He forced me!"

"There's some cum in your hair and you've been being forced for six weeks."

She looked down in shame.

"Hurry up."

She turned and ran through the house. I heard noise from in front of the house and it was Berg and his fuck friend. He was helping the fuck into the front seat of his car.

He saw me and walked towards me and said, "That was not necessary at all Teddy. I'll try to talk him into not pressing charges."

"John, his jizz is on the living room floor and some blood too. They'll be able to make a match. Try to play lawyer John and I'll fuck you over."

"Teddy, she's a cunt. She did what cunts do. I have three ex-wives and they all do that."

We didn't talk much on the way to the airport.

She apologized by saying, "I'm sorry."

I said, "Nope, you're sorry you got caught, is all."

"Six weeks, he moved in when I was at sea (that was a guess) and you got a foot of dick all day long."

"I surely do love you with all my heart, but I could never trust you ever again. Today is July 19th, 1975, our anniversary, in case you forgot."

I had three weeks until discharge. I intended to return to the University of

Washington, where I'd grown up, except there was absolutely no reason to return. I loved it but it had not loved me back for a while. I had an asshole older brother who thought his role in life was to kick the shit out of me when I was little.

I quickly applied to California State Long Beach and as a legal resident of California, I was accepted. As a California resident in 1975 the tuition was free. On August twenty second I packed up my 1972 Chevy Nova with everything I owned which was mostly uniforms and some jeans and boots and tennis shoes. I applied for unemployment and got six months, just like that. Money was money.

I was there a week, living in a dorm and I heard the sound of baseball. I kept walking until I got to this really cool stadium from the twenties or thirties and they were taking bp (batting practice).

I walked toward home plate and they had a turtle so no fowl balls would get out. A turtle covered home plate with a mesh screen.

I was wearing a UW Huskies baseball team tee shirt and my name was on the back. One of the coaches looked at me and said, "You played there?"

I said, "I did, but I'm here now."

He said, "What happened?"

"Parents and brother died, my lottery number was three."

He said, "What year of eligibility are you? How old are you?"

"Freshman and twenty one."

"What position?"

"I'm a catcher," I puffed up at that, I was proud," probably some third in a pinch, I can pick it at first too."

By now bp had come to a halt. Players had crept forward and the Head Coach had been listening and he said, "No family?"

"Grandmother in Phoenix. I've not seen her since I was six."

"Do you have any of your stuff?"

I shook my head, but then said, "If you have a new mitt and some balls, I could get it mostly ready by noon or so tomorrow. But I got no cleats and I'd get them ready too."

He got this little smile on his face and said, "Okay, I'll bite, how would you do that."

"For the mitt I'd need an A-2000 Wilson with a single hinge and four baseballs. I'd soak the mitt in cold water for two hours with the baseball in the pocket with a belt or shoelaces tied around it tight. Every thirty minutes, tighten 'em up. Then at ten or so I'd lay them over the register and turn up the heat."

"If you have Rawlings kangaroo shoes size eleven, I wear twelve and a half normal shoes, but you take the laces out and soak them too for a couple of hours, so they get real soft you take em out and lace them up as tight as possible and they mold around your feet, stretching you no. Then you carefully take your feet out and dry them on register too."

"Who taught you that? My uncle Les. He caught in the bigs for thirteen years. Browns, Orioles, Red Sox and White Sox. Managed the White Sox in 66 for half a year."

"Les Moss?"

I nodded.

"Do you mind if I call him?"

I shook my head no.

"Do you have his number?"

I pulled out my wallet and fished through it and found the number in Longwood, Florida. He turned to one of the coaches and said to him, "Get him the shoes and the mitt. Baseballs too."

Looking at me he said, "Breakfast in the auxiliary gym, after you lift which is at six am. Okay?"

I nodded.

The coach I was following asked, "How's your arm?"

"When I am in shape and throwing I've got a good arm."

"What size bats do you use?"

"K-135, thirty four inch, I sand the handle big knob, so I can yank and a thirty two inch no knob Jackie Robinson."

"Why two?"

"I study pitchers for give ups, moving their hands, or just pitch sequence then I'll hunt breaking pitches and sit on them. If the guy throws hard, the thick handle helps me to be short to the ball, got to be down on time for sure, but I can hit balls out just fine with that bat."

He just looked at me and said, "Huh."

I was out of the door with shoes and mitt, balls and a forty-niner equipment bag.

What a rush. I had to get busy. I was sure I could hit still, but had to stay simple.

Everything was in the water by six thirty. I had a little fridge and two hot plates.

I made two peanut butter and jelly sandwich on pumpernickel rye bread. I put shaved lettuce and Spanish peanuts to the mix. Glass of milk too. I had no phone line in the room and I wanted to call somebody, but there was nobody to call. I rejoiced with my sandwiches and milk.

By ten thirty the shoes and the mitt were over the register. And I was on the little half balcony that got to by crawling out the window with some pillows. I brought my alarm clock too.

I woke up to alarm clock at four thirty. I got back into the room. It was like a sauna, but I put on the steel percolator with some Folgers. I got the percolator at a St. Vincent de Paul's secondhand place three blocks away from the dormitory for a dollar. It had dents on it but the top fit tight and I got an extra glass nob that sat atop the lid for nothing.

Long story short I made the team as the third catcher behind a senior and a really good sophomore, left handed hitter gap power and could run a little. I think both of them had a shot at least to either get drafted or signed into somebody's system.

The off season was all about lifting, hitting in cages and catching pitcher's bullpens. I loved being on the team, being a part of it. The Navy time was toxic. I still had to go to monthly weekend drills as part of the reserves and in some ways hated that more.

I talked to my grandmother, just in time for her to tell me she was moving back to Seattle. I asked, "Why are you moving back?"

She said, "Your brother is struggling and his wife needs some help. How is "the bitch"?"

I called her the bitch in my head, because I didn't want to even utter her name in my mind, but I said, "Umm I should have told you, we're divorced. She had an affair and I caught her in bed with the guy, beat him near to death. She's in Seattle you could look her up. This is a pay phone, I have no phone in my dormitory. My tuition is free by the way and I'm having the time of my life. Here's my address, please write me with your new phone number."

I pursued a degree in economics and got both a bachelor's degree and a master's in the dismal science.

I had the time of my life playing ball there for coach Gonsalves. He and his wife treated all of us like their sons. Cookies (oatmeal raisin for me once she found out I liked them), thanksgiving dinner with their family, Christmas dinner too. In my sophomore year at Christmas time, I went outside and sat down at a picnic table because I felt amidst all the family and joy around me and I broke down and was crying. Mrs. Gonsalves was beside me and said, "Teddy, honey what's wrong?"

She hugged me because I couldn't talk because something just broke inside me. So I told her from the deaths and the bitch cheating on me and it was too much and I collapsed.

Coach called someone and I was transported to a Catholic Hospital called Dignity Health center. School didn't start until January fifteenth and I was in counseling for three weeks or so. The psychiatrist told me that I had an exaggerated fight or flight syndrome. The other name for it was the berserker complex.

That spring I played the most of all four seasons there, the hotshot junior got hurt and I got hot. I hit fifteen home runs and twenty doubles and my batting average was.290 and slugging percentage was.652 which was a school record for a few months. The team was not special at all.

My last year I hardly played at all, I was in great shape, but I was twenty four and that is way into old man status in college sports. We were playing a winner in into the NCAA tournament. I was sitting in the bullpen waiting to get somebody warm to relief and in the second inning our starting catcher got nailed in his balls. He was wearing a cup, but he was in a bad way. The phone rang in the bullpen and the bullpen coach picked it up and said, "Benedict, grab your stuff, you're in."

I picked my bag up, I had my shin guards on already and ran hard to the dugout. I put on the chest protector and the mask and went out and started throwing with our short stop. I said I was ready and I put on my cap on backwards and my mask and ran out to the mound to talk to our big left hander and got the signals in order for fastball, changeup and a big overhand curve. All of our other catchers wore helmets, but I was old school at that point.

Coach Gonsalves didn't look or say anything to me. Our guy pitched a nine inning complete game and we won two to nothing. Oh, I hit two home runs, too.

After the game, the Long Beach Times asked Coach Gonsalves why he'd gone to Benedict an afterthought all year. Coach had this to say, "I screwed up, he's far away the heartbeat of the team. If any of our players had a problem with anything, they all go to him. Did you know he was a walk on here? Hit fifteen homers as a sophomore. Did you know he's a distinguished Veteran? Did you know he was a nuclear weapon's loader? Served on the USS Oriskany. His daddy, grandfather and brothers, like him ran to the sound of gunfire for their country? College baseball requires that you go with big time prospects that are on major league team's radar, okay? Did you know that his Uncle Les is the manager of the Detroit Tigers? "

"It's not that Teddy is not a good player, he's just twenty four and that's not how baseball works. I stay employed by paying attention to how I get prospects to come here, I have seven kids. Teddy Benedict is just not a hero today, he has been one before and will be the rest of his life."

I was asked to the podium and the same reporter asked me about my game today.

I said, "I owe my life to Coach Gonsalves and Mrs. Gonsalves. I would not be alive today if they had not taken me in and fed my belly, heart and my soul. My game today kind of pales in that context really. I'm glad to have picked up the guys today.

Coach said some nice things about me. But for me I love the program obviously and I'm going to be able to get a graduate degree in economics."

"Honestly I walked up to watch batting practice my freshman year and he started talking to me and from that I was on the team and I had somewhere to go on thanksgiving and Christmas. I did not before that."

Five years from now if I dropped on their doorstep as a hobo, again, they would take me in again and feed me and clothe me and fix my heart again."

The reporter followed up and asked, "You were homeless?"

I nodded and said nothing.

"Was that here?"

I said, "No I was sixteen. I grew up in Seattle, lost my parents and a brother in random deaths. Things got away from me there for a while, couldn't take care of myself. Slept in parks, took showers where the scuba divers would wash the saltwater off their wet suits. I stole food from grocery stores. Kind of dropped out. Ended up in the Navy. Got my three squares and clothes and had a job, it all worked out."

"Do you have a girlfriend," that was from a young woman on the school paper.

"Had one, but lost her to somebody else. Been a while."

That was the last time I played. I enjoyed school for two more years getting the master's degree. I did date from time to time. Got close to one person. Her family was very rich and lived in Southern California.

I had this piece of pottery that sat on a table in the living room of my small apartment as I approached the end of my program. Her name was Beverley. We had spent a really nice evening out, dinner and a club for some jazz and we returned to my place and she was the first person since my breakup that I slept with. She was tender and aggressive and she was shocked by my strength as I picked her up and manhandled her to the point she begged me to stop, "No more, please."

There was one more for me and she fell asleep. I woke up to the smell of coffee, I still had the percolator. She came in carrying two mugs. She was wearing one of my Dirt Bags jerseys. She set the mugs down and picked up my piece of pottery and my wedding ring was in there and she pulled it out and held it up high, with her eyebrows raised in question.

In a dead voice I caught my wife fucking a guy in my bed. She'd been fucking him for two months when I was at sea. She put it back and handed me my mug and we drank and talked about graduation stuff.

She took the mugs into the kitchen and returned and we made love as if we were the last people in the world alive. She took a shower with me and kissed me goodbye and said, "I'll be back for your graduation ceremony in three weeks."

I never saw her again. One of my program friends came up to me. She was marred to a beautiful artist. She said, "Did you know Beverley was married last weekend? We went and it was so lovely, just a cute couple. He's old Southern California money, of course."

I stumbled to a chair and sat down and shook my head.

She said, "What's wrong with you? Oh my God you were her lover?"

"I had no idea. What a fucking sap I am. Somebody did that to me, he and my wife knew, unlike me."

I went into a nearby restroom and hurled."

As my favorite writer Kurt Vonnegut often wrote, "And so it goes."

I was actually going through a series of interviews and found a place in Boston, State Street advisors and went to work with them starting as an analyst. I worked for them for fifteen years. Lots of travel, worked my way into being a money manager of sorts and got out in the years following nine eleven. Didn't like the climate, everybody was doing the jingoistic thing with Irag, when it was fucking Saudi Arabia.

Everything felt like a runaway train. One afternoon I was in London and everything felt wrong it was 2005. I sent an email to all my betters resigning claiming family problems, sold everything I had in the way of investments and wired it to Zurich Cantonal Bank, where I had a small account that was no longer small now. I deleted my State Street email from my account. Turned the laptop off.