Bottom Feeder (42 page)

“
No,” he replies. “It
says, ‘We need to talk. Soon. Cordell.’”

Shit.

I slump in the seat and bang my head
against the steering wheel. Anger cuts through the pit of my
stomach. I want nothing more than to protect her. More than myself.
More than my country. More than anything and anyone else in the
world.

Being in love sucks.

Because I do.

Love her, that is.

God, I love her.

EPILOGUE

Maddy

Fort Jackson

Columbia, South
Carolina

Reception.

Three days of endless
paperwork, issuing and receiving uniforms, vaccinations, memorizing
acronyms and the
SmartBook
, memorizing more acronyms,
and filling out more paperwork. The
SmartBook
has become a vital part of
me, an extra limb I did not know I needed.

For seventy-two hours we ate like
royalty on three full meals each day. As new recruits we did not
participate in Physical Training (PT). Oddly enough, any kind of PT
was forbidden. Drill Sergeants (DS) did not yell.

They were almost, dare I
say,
nice
.

If Jackson and Dom had not warned me,
I would wonder why everyone doesn’t join the army. It just seemed
so easy.

But this was only Reception. Basic
Combat Training (BCT) had not officially begun and the nice drill
sergeants and hefty meals were only subterfuge.

Red Phase

We are loaded on a windowless bus to
ride ten minutes down the street. Ten minutes takes an hour. We sit
on the windowless bus for another hour.

This is the type of
waiting that teaches patience,
Jackson’s
voice echoes in my head.

No one dares to speak. I
hear broken sobs somewhere behind me. The poor girl is breaking
down from the
anticipation
.

Me? I breathe and wait.

Drill sergeants charge the bus,
screaming like archangels sent to smite every last one of us for
breathing their precious air. More people begin to cry. Through
their tears, the weeping recruits cannot see to walk straight,
causing a series of stumblers to perform an impressive domino
effect of more stumbling and more yelling. During the chaos, a girl
falls on me and surreptitiously wipes her tear-streaked face and
snotty nose on my t-shirt. I’m too shocked to be grossed out by
this.

We stand in a line, arm’s
length apart. The drill sergeants scream orders over the top of one
another, confusing everyone. More crying, some giggling. I don’t
know which is worse.
Everything
is yelled at.

My face is expressionless as I zone in
a little on each demand and realize the drill sergeants are saying
the same thing: line up in alphabetical order. In thirty seconds.
Not an issue for a five people, right? Right. To a group of more
than fifty strangers, however, this poses a problem.

We fail, of course.

Jackson warned me about asinine tasks
like this that are meant to be impossible to complete. Still,
within the first five minutes, I am made to feel like a
failure.

Once we’re told how much of a “fucking
soup sandwich” this group is, they teach us how to march, how to
stand in the position of attention, how to stand in formation, and
do not speak unless spoken to while standing in formation. The guys
are marched to the barber shop for fresh, military-issued haircuts,
while the girls are marched to a bay where we will spend the next
ten weeks of our lives. The large, open room is also where we are
assigned our beds and battle buddies.

The point of having a battle buddy is
to learn to look out for your fellow soldier. Mine is Anna
Martinez, the snot wiper who hyperventilated on the march over
here. This does not faze me. She and I are in this together. I may
not cry, but if she cries, I am part of those tears. I am
responsible for how Anna acts, looks and performs. And she is
responsible for me.

I am no longer “I” and “me”. I am “we”
and “us”.

I will have to make sure I keep extra
tissue tucked in my uniform somewhere.

We learn how to make our bunk with
crisp hospital corners. Jackson taught me basics like this, but not
wanting to miss anything vital, I listen and watch with
intent.

“
The drill sergeants are
there to break you down,” Jackson said in one of his attempts to
prepare me, “so you can be built up with a stronger foundation. You
know better than anyone, Maddy, that sometimes you have to fall
completely apart—crumble into a million tiny bits—in order to be
put back together as something stronger; reinforced piece by tiny
piece. The tasks they give you are meant to teach discipline and
order, not because they really like those tight hospital
corners.”

I am the first one finished making my
bed. I didn’t plan on being the first at anything here. Who wants
that kind of attention? But here I am, standing at the foot of my
bunk awaiting inspection.

“
Finished so soon, Sweet
Pea?” the Drill Sergeant yells. The name on her uniform reads
Downing.

“
Yes, Drill Sergeant,” I
yell. My new military pitch sounds funny with the cuts on my
lip.

It’s been two weeks since Larry’s
attack. After Jackson and Dom left for North Carolina, I gathered
mama’s boxes, my backpack with clothes and identification, and left
the City. I paid cash for a cab to the lawyer’s home in New Jersey.
She placed the boxes behind a hidden wall in her wine
cellar.

I purchased a sleeping bag and
pillow—again, with cash—when I left her house. I took a separate
cab into New Jersey and spent the next two weeks nursing my wounds
and bruises in a self-storage unit in Westwood. Breakfast, lunch
and dinner consisted of protein bars and fruit. I slept during the
day and bathed in a laundromat bathroom at night.

Sergeant Davis was the only person I
saw and talked to during this time. He never believed my sales
pitch about being mugged. Eventually he accepted it.

“
Let’s have a looksee,” DS
Downing says with saccharine sweetness.

She inspects the bed. I expect her to
flip the mattress. She flips the mattress.

“
Out
standing
job, Sweet Pea,” she says,
standing beside me. “Now do it again.”

“
Yes, Drill Sergeant,” I
yell and quickly move to remake the bed. She stands over me, very
much in my personal space.

Picking up the edge of the sheet, I
make a diagonal fold and lay it on the mattress. I tuck the hanging
part of the sheet beneath and drop the fold, pulling it out
smoothly and tucking that part under the mattress. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat. I turn the top of the sheet over the top of the blanket,
where my head will rest, and place the pillow under the blanket. I
finish by pulling the sheet tight.

I rush past the Drill Sergeant, making
sure not to touch her, and stand at the foot of my bunk. This time,
I don’t hear the mattress flip. I release a breath when she walks
past me to inspect the rest of the beds, flipping mattress after
mattress.

An immeasurable amount of
time later, she stands before me. And stares. I look straight
ahead. She stares. I do not flinch.
Never
let them see you
flinch.

“
What happened to your
face, Cupcake?”

Before you wonder, no, the
nicknames do not offend me. They say this to everybody, including
the guys. The only time I almost giggled today is when a drill
sergeant called a guy, who was over a foot taller than him,
Sugar Britches.

I resist the urge to touch the ugly
yellow-brown bruises on my face. My lip isn’t healing quickly
enough for me to be comfortable talking, but I yell, “Fell on a
fist, Drill Sergeant.”

“
Looks like you fell on it
a few times, Cupcake.” I can feel the warmth of her breath on my
cheeks. It chills me to the bone. Or maybe it’s the recollection of
how many times Larry’s fist connected to my face.

“
Yes, Drill
Sergeant.”

“
You fall on a lot of
fists, Cupcake?”

Guess this nickname is going to stick.
Better than Sugar Britches, I guess.

I almost say no. Jackson advised me to
never say no to a DS unless it is for moral or safety reasons.
“Only one pair of fists, Drill Sergeant.”

“
You gonna be my problem,
Cupcake?”

“
No, Drill Sergeant!”
Crap.

“
You calling me a liar,
Cupcake?” She yells next to my ear. “Aren’t you my problem right
now?”

“
Yes, Drill
Sergeant!”

She moves on to a round of speeches
about how “This ain’t your mama’s house” and “Jesus can save your
soul, but not your ass from Victory Tower” and “Your recruiter
probably lied . . .”

The next morning we put on our PT
uniform—gray shirt with ARMY written in black across the front and
black shorts with a reflective ARMY etched on the bottom left the
thigh—and head outside for, well, PT.

The shorts reveal more bruises from my
scuffle with Larry, but I have no way to hide them.

“
Another pair of fists,
Cupcake?” DS Downing yells like she is pissed off that I am taking
up too much of her time. She is so close I can tell her breakfast
consisted of orange juice and a jelly doughnut. Raspberry with
powdered sugar.

“
A pair of boots, Drill
Sergeant.”

No one else sees her brow furrow. Good
thing she only has to yell at me and not ask questions. She moves
on.

I do my best from the first full day
forward to fly under everyone’s radar and under DS Downing’s
scrutiny.

I perform well in all the physical
aspects. The classes are moderately interesting. I am too antsy to
sit still in a classroom for an extended amount of time and
actually pay attention. This is the reason I had to study for hours
outside of school to keep my grades up.

For the first week, I fidget
relentlessly. DS Downing makes me stand, which causes me to fidget
more. I do more pushups and flutter kicks than I thought were
physically possible.

On the eighth day, I finally get it. I
learn to control my body.

At night I listen to my battle buddy
cry herself to sleep. She misses her boyfriend and her family. I
try comforting her, but I’m not good at that sort of thing. Call me
selfish, but I’ve got my own demons to deal with.

I write letters to the youth center
kids, along with Dom, Dixon, Violet and Jackson. I tell Dixon every
detail of what happens because he says he wants to know. I tell
Violet about everything that does not involve the Army. Since the
Army now consumes my life, I ask her a lot of questions about the
shop, about Chris’s, Jeremiah’s and Lamont’s condition. I also tell
her about Dom.

I write Jackson about my daily life
and how excited I am about entering the next phase of
BCT.

Call me
crazy
, I write,
but I kind of like this Army thing so far.

I tell Dom how much I love
him. How much I miss talking to him. How much I can’t wait to read
a really corny letter from him. My letters give me a sense of
individuality. I am not
we
or
us
, I am me.

And I am learning that is
okay.

Letters from Jackson and Dom arrive
the same day. Jackson’s is filled with advice on the upcoming
weeks. It’s like he is stage right, whispering lines in my ear so I
do not blunder my performance.

Dom’s pages are filled with a little
bit of advice, a little bit of his daily life, and a lot of how
much he loves and misses me.

I place the letters in a neat stack
inside a plastic container at the bottom of my wall locker. I
cherish them like rare artifacts.

My first phone call is to Dom. My
heart races with anticipation of hearing his voice.

“
Hey, Maddy,” Jackson
answers. “Beraz is on a jump today. He gave me his phone in case
you called.”

“
Oh.” I try not to pout
about being unable to talk to Dom for at least another week. “How
are you?”

“
Good. How are things
there?”

“
I’m not sure if I should
change my name from Maddy to Cupcake
,
but other than that, things are
good.”

He chuckles. “Cupcake, huh? It’s
better than some of my nicknames.”

“
Oh yeah? Like
what?”

“
One minute!” DS Sanchez
yells.

I sigh. “One minute.”

“
Yeah, I heard. I’ll go.
Any messages for Beraz?”

I laugh. “I’ll spare you the corny
lines.”

“
I miss you,” he says and
quickly adds, “Er, that was Beraz’s message. He says he misses
you.”