Author's Note: Here is the last chapter in this part of the series telling the Life of D as he tried to reconnect with a less savage world. His struggles mirror many of those troops that returned from the wars without much help in the civilian world, in fact for the longest time the facilities that they returned to were ill prepared for their struggles. While this is not true with every service member, the facts reflected in this story are common place.
Service members return without the ability to form or maintain meaningful relationships, and when someone takes a shot at trying to form those relationships they are unable to look past the years of damage. It is not the fault of the people that cannot understand the struggles, it is not an easy thing to let go of years of anger and pain in a few weeks, sometimes it can take up to three times the amount of time to properly heal.
I hope you enjoy the latest chapters, as you can see the path that this story will take will become a little more visceral, when I began this story it was reflecting a sense that the words written would and could be found in a journal. This is still a fact. Please rate and comment, after this entire series is published I expect that I will be taking another long trip before the weather turns, so there will be a long gap before I come back.
Sturgis bound.
Much love,
aka_Mike
...
The Divertissement of Damian
It was a long drive in complete silence, nothing but the miles of road and my thoughts to keep me company. I was trying to think of every possible scenario as I drove back to my hometown, trying desperately to reach anyone that could give me details about my brother's incarceration. I avoided calling my mother, I knew she would have the most details about the situation, but I was not in the mood to speak to her. I blamed her for how my life in Arizona would come to an end, I had found a wonderful woman in Christina, but just as I was beginning to think that I had found a great woman to share my life with, my mother found a way to ruin it. I know it sounds unfair, but when your entire life is shaped against your will by a person, its difficult to not blame them for how events take place.
Since my childhood, my life had been crafted to have a sharp mind, one that was oriented to take over the family business, I had learned to see human life with little regard. When I walked away from that life, I did so in order to make amends for a terrible tragedy and joined the military as a healer, only to be placed in positions where my earlier life became a huge advantage. I tried to live an honorable life, to start a family and so I married my high school sweetheart. However, as so many stories go, while I was away she felt lonely, she felt like she needed to be needed and so as so many other marriages went, mine ended. My loving wife became pregnant by someone else, just as I had decided to walk away from the death and destruction that the military had forced me to undertake.
At my most lost moments I found myself craving normality, craving the familiarity of the past life, so when my marriage fell apart I sought the battlefield. I found a new one as a member of a private security firm, a military contractor, and a mercenary. That life also found my great assets in war as a bonus, and I quickly climbed the ranks by carving a path of death and destruction wherever I went. With each passing battle I found a peace that was unsettling, I learned to appreciate that the value of my life would be measured with bullets and pints of blood. But even at those moments, regardless of the terrible things that I had done on behalf of my country or my employer, I found some sense of pride in my honor. When I learned that Barbara was a married woman that had used me to break her marriage vows, the only thing that kept me from reaching out and confronting her husband with that information was the identity of the man: Dr. Cargill who had done his very best to help me become a better person. In my mind, that old idiom of ignorance being bliss prevented me from destroying whatever vision he might have held of his own loving wife.
However, this was an unforgivable crime I had committed, and so I atoned in my own way by returning to the savage land and once again taking a rifle in hand to carve another path of violence. So when Rebecca and her wife Martha invited me to join their bed, I refused. I refused to break another marriage apart, much like my own had been. When I met Christina, it was an entirely different experience, but like my other relationships the hands of fate intervened and just when I thought I could finally hang the ammo belt in the closet, the dogs of war came calling. As I covered the miles to my hometown, I consciously tried to strip every single one of those memories, every experience that had brought me warmth and comfort, every fond thought. Some part of me knew that Christina would find someone worthy of her love, but I knew that it could never be me, I would just taint her, change her, damage her, and in the end we would go our separate ways with more bitterness at the world than we already had. I wish it was different, but facts are undisputable.
Finally, after the last of the failed calls I managed to swallow my pride and dialed that phone number that had taken me from my place in paradise and crashed me back to the harshness of reality. By the fourth ring the phone was picked up, and a male voice I recognized as my father's answered with much hesitation.
"Son," he said, "I take it your mother reached out."
"Wanna tell me what's going on? What am I walking into?" My voice was calm and businesslike, my father had never been anything more than honest and honorable with me, and I owed him the same respect.
"Your brother was arrested for weapons charges," he replied, "the family business has fallen on hard times so he took to dealing with weapons to bring in additional revenue. But I would have never thought that he would be stupid enough to carry the weapons in his own vehicle."
"How long ago?"
"He was arrested a few months ago," he replied, "they just sentenced him last week. The family name has lost some of its glamour since you left, not many people fear the name," he continued, "I didn't want you involved in this business after you walked away, but you know how your mother is."
"I remember," I said, "listen, I'm going to be getting there late, make sure that the back room is cleaned."
"All the things there are new," he replied, he understood that I did not want to accidently run into anything that Ann might have left behind, "I'll double check this afternoon, when are you getting here?"
"I should be at your place by midnight," I replied, "I'm driving from Arizona."
"Is that where you're at now? That's good to hear, son. I'll see you when you get here. Call my number and I'll let you in. And son, things are very different here, be careful." He hung up without further words; I looked out to the windshield as I drove through the gathering rain and wind.
