NOTE: This is book two in my Sergeant Mike's Miracle Tour series. The first, My Country Tis of Thee, is also posted in the Novels and Novellas section. While I suppose technically, you can read this story as a standalone, I believe it will be more poignant for those who have read My Country.
And one more thing...a beta reader once said that reading this story made her feel as if she had PTSD right alongside Mike. That is perhaps the highest compliment I have ever received as a writer. It is also a trigger warning. Please be aware this story contains strong adult content (not of the usual kind found on Lit).
Oh, and this is NOT an erotic story. Just so you know that one and are not disappointed.
***CHAPTER ONE***
It was after one in the morning when former Master Sergeant Michael Thomas O'Malley, United States Marine Corps, pulled his new Harley Davidson Road King into the dusty driveway. He was a man on a mission. Over fifteen hundred miles in two days, with only a brief stop to pitch a tent when he was too tired to continue.
Sergeant Mike seemed to be what the civilians called him. After over twenty years as a Marine that new nickname still rankled at moments, but what did they know of proper ways to address a non-commissioned officer.
Lowering the kickstand on his motorcycle that he had named Esther, he took off his red, white, and blue helmet. This far out of the city, the night sky was alight with stars and an almost full moon. They cast an eerie glow on the large, two-story white wood frame farmhouse in front of him. Mike smiled as he remembered the first time that he saw this place.
He had barely been eighteen when he met Billy Hall in basic training at Parris Island. The red-headed farm boy from Oklahoma and the smart-mouthed orphan from Boston had been an unlikely pair. But over those thirteen weeks of hell that was basic training, the two of them had become best of friends. The fresh-faced kid was a far cry from the tough types that had usually been Mike's friends, but Billy's natural smile and down-home friendliness had knocked the chip off Mike's shoulder.
Of course, when graduation day came, Billy's parents had traveled from Oklahoma to South Carolina. The large, gruff man with the ruddy complexion and grey hair and the small red-headed woman had beamed proudly at their son, alongside his baby sister as well as an aunt and uncle from Georgia that Billy had stayed with after graduation. The uncle had been a Marine and encouraged the young man to enlist during that summer visit.
What surprised Mike though was that on Family Day, they had all insisted he joined them in the tour of the Parris Island Museum. It touched something deep inside him that he had thought buried since that night when he was seven and had lost the only person that had ever or would ever love him.
After the ceremony, he had hung back, uncomfortable with the hundreds of family and friends that celebrated this accomplishment with their sons and daughters, boyfriends, wives, and brothers. For Mike there was no one, there had not been since that night and he no longer cared. People and emotions were just messy complications that he did not need.
Billy dragged his parents, Mister Clyde and Missus Lula, over where he stood alone and apart from the others. Mike smiled and made polite conversation. His friend was heading home for the ten-day leave before they were both off to infantry training at Camp Geiger. When they discovered that Mike had nowhere to go, Missus Lula insisted that he come with them. It had been the beginning.
Nearly a quarter of a century and this place looked almost the same as it had that day. Except that now the windows were boarded up and this once lively family farm was as barren as Mike's soul.
He shook his head and fought back the lump that rose in his throat at the memories of that day and the ones that followed. Staying in the spare room just down the hall from his friend, rising at dawn not to the shouts of their drill instructor but the sweet call of Missus Lulu, "Breakfast is ready, boys."
Mike sighed as he dismounted the motorcycle and began to climb the few steps to the wrap-around porch. The old swing still hung from the roof that covered the porch. It creaked solemnly as it rocked gently in the breeze. Its song another eerie reminder of those few brief blessed days when Mike had glimpsed what others took for granted...family.
He dug deep into the pockets of his dusty jeans to retrieve the key they had given him back then. He could still see Missus Lulu's tears as she hugged both of them at the bus station. Mister Clyde had gripped his hand firmly as he passed the keyring to him. "Consider this place your home now, son," the man said before gripping him about the shoulders in a bear hug that made Mike as uncomfortable as it had comforted.
He slid the key into the lock and turned it slowly. It stuck just a bit, a sign of disuse. How long had it been since anyone opened this door? Since they had placed Mister Clyde in the nursing home two years ago? He knew that Billy's little sister was busy with her own family in Chicago and he tried very hard not to judge the woman that had been only a little girl of eight or nine that first time he had visited.
It had been Labor Day weekend then too. He wondered if Honour, Oklahoma still had its annual county fair next weekend. Would there be fireworks? Then again, Mike had had enough of loud explosions and the smell of fresh gunpowder to last him a lifetime. Maybe the outsider would give it all a pass even if they did.
Mike did not bother trying to turn on the light. He knew that it wouldn't work, so he turned on the app on his phone that would suffice as a flashlight as he made his way past furniture covered in old white sheets and dust.
Some people might think they resembled ghosts, but Mike lived with so many of those that he knew it was never as simple as white apparitions. No, ghosts were much more real than that. Dreams and memories that haunted not just your sleep but your waking moments as well.
It might have been a couple of years since that fateful leave when Mike and Billy's sister Becca closed up this place. They had come with one sole purpose: to put Mister Clyde into the assisted care facility, the new fancy term for a nursing home. Still, Mike had no trouble making his way through the dark house to the back porch off the kitchen.
How many nights had he and his men done patrols in utter darkness? Even without night goggles, his old eyes had acclimated themselves to the shadows. Though these at least were less likely to conceal enemies who could kill you with a single bullet, fired from a rooftop.
He sighed as he listened to the creak of metal on metal as he pulled open the rusty door to the circuit breaker box. He knew he was tired when his ghosts got the better of him like this; he thought as he flipped the switch.
He should probably head out to the back yard and prime the old pump that supplied the house with its water. But he was not up to it just then, besides there would probably be enough water left in the rusty pipes for a quick bath this night. He would handle the rest tomorrow after he checked in on Mister Clyde at the nursing home. But for right now, the order of business was a bath, even if it was cold and the water a bit brown. Then it was off to bed.
He was past lying to himself. He knew that as much as his body needed sleep, it was likely to come at a high price. The past week or so had been a rollercoaster ride, unlike any other. He had not fully comprehended just how much this retirement shit would eat at him. But the Corps was not just the only career he had ever known, but as this place and his time in East LA showed...it was family. The only family he had known since he was seven years old.
"Go to bed, old man," he spoke into the darkness as he made his way back through the living room and up the stairs. He was so tired he did not even bother to turn on the lights. He made his way down the hall to the guest room that had been his from that first visit.
He stopped and paused for a moment at the closed door next to it. He knew what it held. Everything would be just as Billy had left it that last Christmas they had spent here together. The old Polaroid picture of the two of them with Billy's girl. What was her name again? And his other best friend from high school?
It would still be stuck in the corner of the antique dresser, held in place almost magically across the decades between the cloudy mirror and the intricately carved wood. Suspended in time, just as his friend would forever be in his death.
Mike wondered whatever had become of them: Billy's friend and his girl. Missus Lulu said they had gotten married. That was the first time he heard that very un-Christian bitterness in the woman he had thought so gentle. She was upset at how quickly after Billy's funeral the couple had eloped. "It just was not right, not decent," she had said on the phone when Mike spoke to them after returning from that first deployment with Desert Storm.
Too often, he still thought about holding his friend as blood leaked from the corner of his mouth as Billy struggled to breathe. The tiny wound just beneath the name tag on his camouflage uniform did not look all that bad to Mike at first. There was only a small circle of blood around the entry wound.
That naïve nineteen-year-old with more courage than good sense simply could not understand why his best friend could not breathe. It was not until their Corporal had torn Billy's lifeless body from Mike's arms that he had seen the gaping bloody hole that had once been his friend's shoulder.
Mike owed the man his life as he shook him from his dazed shock and reminded him of his duty. He still was not sure whether he owed Corporal Beaufort 'Chad' Wilson a debt of gratitude or a good beating for that one. Mike added another name to his mental list of old friends to check in on. It had been over fifteen years since he had heard from the man, just before he left the Corps. Mike still had his grandparents' number in his address book though.
