The Thursday Night Club (13 page)

David inhaled deeply. “But I was trained for everything that happened over there.”

Captain Eli reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. He handed the card to David. “His name’s Brad Perry. I’ve been seeing him for years.” Captain Eli shrugged. “What can it hurt?” he asked.

David looked at the card. Without thinking, he pulled out his wallet and slid it in.
For years?
he thought.
What can it help?

A few golden nuggets of wisdom later, David headed back for the Mustang—feeling as lost as ever.

Surrendering to grief and despair, it was as if Denis Wood was forfeiting the rest of his God-given days on earth. Lindsey wished she could help him, but she’d tried everything she could think of. His scars were deep and the wounds beneath them dark and festering.

Weeks had already turned into months and he was still at the VA Hospital, still cut off from her and the rest of the world.

The bloody nose and black eye were long gone when Lindsey finally went to see him. “Are you ever going to get out of here, or are you planning to stay forever?” she asked him.

He could barely look at her. “Seems it might be best for everyone if I stay locked up.”

“I disagree,” she said, and her hard tone forced him to look up.

“I…I…” He couldn’t articulate his feelings into words.

She took a seat at the edge of his bed and peered into his eyes. “Dad, I understand. It’s okay.”

“How is it okay, Lindsey?” he asked, almost at a scream. “What kind of father hits his daughter…the person he loves most in this world?” He shook his sorrowful head. “You’ve been there for me every step of the way and it hasn’t been a fun trip…for either of us.” He pointed to her eye. “And how do I repay you? I…”

“You didn’t mean it,” she interrupted.

“What difference does that make?”

“All the difference in the world, Dad. You have PTSD and I understand that. If you had diabetes, would I get angry at you when your sugar got low?”

“So it’s okay for me to slap you around when I don’t have my wits about me?”

“Not at all!” she answered defiantly. She looked at him and softened her tone. “We obviously need to come up with a better strategy, but you need to let go of your guilt for this. You need to forgive yourself.” She grabbed his hands and kissed his forehead. “Because I’ve already forgiven you.”

He opened his mouth to reply but couldn’t. Instead, he started to cry. At first, it was a few tears that he tried to conceal. And then he began to sob, harder than Lindsey had ever seen him. The pain was so intense, it was just oozing out of him.

She held onto his hands and cried hard right along with him. “We’ll be okay, Dad,” she whimpered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

In truth, she knew that their relationship had been reduced to small talk, Boston Red Sox statistics and an occasional visit to a safely selected memory.
But it’s something
, she thought.
And he needs to know that he’s not alone
.

David had been home for six weeks when he pulled into the market, preparing to locate everything on his mother’s grocery list. As he approached the store, he spotted a young teenage boy walking out; he was holding a brown bag. An older man approached the boy and reached out his hand. David gasped and his dizzy mind immediately raced back to Afghanistan and the horrific beating of the young Afghani boy:

There was movement three hundred yards out on the street below.
Unusual,
David thought. It was a teenage boy, maybe fourteen, carrying a burlap bag and hurrying home before dark.
Never seen him before,
David thought.

In a flash, a man—a Taliban fighter—jumped out of the shadows and grabbed the boy’s arm, pulling him to the street and spilling the contents of his sack. As the teenager yelled for help, another Taliban soldier emerged from the darkness. The boy screamed louder, but not a single soul came to his aid…

It only took a few seconds, but the whole scene played out in sequence in his mind—both men yelling and slapping the boy as he screamed for help; the slaps turning to a vicious beating until finally the boy was dead. He could almost hear Command say “Negative” again after he asked if he could intervene. He felt the anguish in his soul threatening to overwhelm him, but it was quickly replaced by a burning rage.

His eyes filled with tears, David returned to the present and started for the man in a mad rush. He was three steps from the shocked stranger when reality clicked in.
It’s the boy’s father
, he realized.
He’s…he’s okay
.

David’s body convulsed. He’d forgotten he was home, and the reality of it slapped him hard in the face.

The man pulled the teenage boy close to him; both of them were frightened by David’s sudden charge toward them.

“Sorry,” David said, though it sounded more like “Sigh.” Trying unsuccessfully to smile at them, he turned on his heels and hurried back to the Mustang.

For the next hour, David sat alone in his car, trying to calm the physical effects of his anxiety. Once he’d reined that in, he spent another two hours beating back the depression that always followed in anxiety’s wake.

His wasn’t sure whether the abyss existed within his heart or mind, but he knew that he was now filled with a great void—nothingness. There was no light there, only darkness. There was no hope, only despair. In time, he’d learned to embrace the silence, as the screams and whimpers of faceless victims became echoes that returned again and again, pushing the line of madness. Yet, the solitude was relentless, enveloping, merciless.
It would have been better had I never existed
, he thought, fearing another moment more than cashing in and leaving it all behind.
No love
, he thought,
no peace
. His memories were slanted in such thick negativity that his entire past would have been better off erased.
And no one knows I’m dying inside
, he thought, inviting another wave of panic attacks to crash onto the shore of his weary mind.

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to calm the short labored gasps.
Just ride the wave
, he told himself.
Just ride the wave
.

But in another room in his mind, he knew that even if he rode that wave—and didn’t crack his skull on all the rocks beneath him—he’d have to take the ride again and again. It didn’t take long before the jagged rocks seemed like the more merciful option.