FIGHTING THROUGH FEBRUARY

It was Illinois.

More specifically Greensburgh, Illinois.

It was February.

February 25th.

February was always dark and gloomy in Greensburgh.  Dark and gloomy and cold.  The days were short but the nights went on forever.

The nights were cold and lonely.

Cold and lonely and quiet.

Well, quiet except for her neighbors.  Julie’s neighbors always fought.  The more they fought the more Julie thought of him.  The more she thought of him, the longer, and lonelier, and colder the nights became.

Things were tough in February.  Things were always tough in Greensburgh, but the people were tough too and always got by.  Julie wasn’t tough enough to handle this.  Especially now.    Especially today.

She struggled to get by.  She couldn't eat when he first left; so much so that she ended up in the ER with dehydration.  Then she tried to self-medicate and was nearly pulled into alcoholism.  And that was before she realized he was gone forever.  She worried all the time when she thought he was coming back.  Now what her life be like?

Now she sat by the phone, waiting for the phone call she didn’t want.  Now she cried.  A lot.

First she worried just about him.  Now she worried about her self.  The bills piled up.  One of the locals, “the desperate ones” as the talking heads started calling them, broke into her house.  The desperate ones no doubt heard the news that he was gone and targeted their house specifically.  What if she had been there?

“He” was Don.  She talked about him all the time when they first started dating, and even more after they were married, and now she could barely say his name.  She couldn’t say his name and wasn’t sure she remembered his face.

Don had joined the Marines with the intent of playing in the Marine band.  He didn’t make the band and became a grunt.

When he deployed he told her he was going to be “in an extremely sensitive area” and that he would not be able to contact her again until his tour was over in 9 months.  That was on February 25, one year ago.  She told him not to join, but his job had been downsized and his local jazz group didn’t make enough to pay their expenses, never mind making a living.  They were good, but this was Greensburgh.

A recruiter had been in Maddie Gallagher’s Pub one night and heard the band play.  He told Don to come and audition for the Marine band an that he was sure to make it and would then be a musician with good pay and benefits.  That’s all Don ever wanted.  But only Marines were allowed to try out.  Don had to join in order to get an audition.

Don went for his audition and they asked him to sight read “Stars and Stripes Forever”.  Don had prepared “Take Five”, and didn’t read music.

So he was sent to Paris Island for boot camp, then to Arizona for desert training, then to Afghanistan.  His last phone call had been 18 weeks after he went to boot camp, on February 25.

That means he should have arrived back in the states December 1 and been home by Christmas after debriefing.

He never called.  He never showed up.  He was gone.  He was likely a prisoner that the government didn’t want to acknowledge because it would give up his unit’s position.  He was more likely dead.

Julie was sick about him being captive or dead, but more sick about not knowing which it was.

At first she’d called the Marines.  Then she tried to get the press involved.  Then she went to her Senator.  No one knew anything.  Or no one was talking.

She nervously smiled through Christmas hanging on to the hope like a blanket; the hope that he’d just been delayed.  She fought through January knowing the truth.  It was February 25th and she couldn’t fight any more.  The creeping normalcy of him being gone stalked her like a lioness preparing to attack her prey.  Soon this would be normal.

Life, as Julie knew it, was over.  She had only now to wait for the day when she could join him in death.

She drove home, dreading her nightly routine of wandering through the house overwhelmed by memories, taking care of only what was necessary for survival, and wanting to cry but not being able to any more.

She pulled in the driveway and drug herself up the stairs.  She opened the door to the house, and Don was sitting on the couch with the same goofy grin he had on his face before he kissed her for the first time.  She watched in amazement as he stood up gingerly and limped toward her.

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John Mellencamp was once asked "What ever happened to Jack and Diane?"  He looked at the person stupidly and said, "It was a song."  This story is not true--it is merely a long winded caption for the photo of my friend Julia.  It was a "forced writing" in that I gave myself only one hour and did not know where it was going before the clock started.  I just opened the picture up, looked at it, and started writing.  I tried to make this one as broken as I could for the effect of being lost and in despair.