“Well, I can’t be. It’s no good that way. For her. Believe me.”
“Okay, let me get this right,” Jerry said. “You told her you’re through—you two cannot be together. Sounds like maybe she believes you. Did you expect her to be a little more gracious about it?”
Rick glared through narrowed eyes. “You’re a smart-ass, you know that?”
“Sorry, that’s not my intention at all. I’m really trying to understand what about this is off. What about this is costing you sleep?”
“She could say hello,” he barked.
“Is it possible she’s angry with your decision to break it off with her?”
“Well, no shit! She even told me to grow up, like I’m being a real baby about having my leg blown off!”
“Did she say that?” Jerry asked.
“No, but that’s what she meant!”
“Are you certain?”
“Of course I’m certain!”
“Did she tell you exactly why she thought you should grow up?” Jerry asked.
“Listen to me! She didn’t have to!”
“I see, I think. So, her apparent anger with you is costing you sleep?”
He hung his head. “It’s hard,” he said softly, temporarily defeated. “It’s like she doesn’t get that it hurts me, too. It’s hard to stay away from her, hard not to be with her. For a long time, like four years, Liz was my whole life. I mean, everything. I was totally faithful to her while I was away from her. And she was faithful to me. She was a virgin before we…you know? She liked to tell me all the time that even though it worked out to be so hard, with the baby and everything, she was still glad that I was the first and she wanted me to be the only one. For a long time I wanted that, too.” He lifted his head. “I miss her a lot, you know. I miss everything.”
“Everything?” Jerry probed.
“That whole life I used to have—everything. Jack and Preacher, good times, hunting and fishing, laughing at every stupid thing. It was great watching Jack get in trouble with his wife and she’d dress him down good. And he’d backpedal like mad.” Rick laughed in spite of himself. “We’d go fish and if I hooked something, he couldn’t stay out of it—he’d be all over me, telling me what to do, like I’ve never been fishing before. Once he got into it with Preach—he got right in Preacher’s business and told him not to get involved with this woman….” Rick laughed and shook his head. “Preacher took Jack out! I didn’t think anyone could get a punch off on Jack—Jack’s a fast guy, and powerful. Preacher knocked him flat. I saw Jack’s shiner—it was awesome. And Preacher married that woman—Paige.”
It was silent in the office for a while.
“I used to be part of everything that went on there. Now I’m not.”
Jerry asked, “Do you feel abandoned by your friends?”
He shook his head. “I cut ’em off. Really, I’m a goddamn curse.”
“Did someone tell you that?” Jerry asked.
He shook his head again. “They tell me that’s not true, but it kind of looks like it is, don’t you think?”
“How’s that?”
Rick sighed. “We’ve been over all this,” he said impatiently. “About a hundred times. Bad things happen to people I get close to. I laid it out for you.”
“I recall,” Jerry said. “Why don’t you tell me about your anger.”
Rick leaned back in his chair and huffed at Jerry like he was just plain ridiculous. “Gimme a fucking break here, Powell.”
“Oh—you don’t feel like talking about that?”
“I’m totally pissed off. Like this is news?”
“Believe me, I’m all too aware. I’m wondering, if you talked about it a little more, if it might become apparent that these decisions you’re making to cut the important people out of your life, are driven by that anger. Rather than by sound reason. I wonder if the anger over what your war experience and injury have cost you is clouding some of your judgment in these issues. Maybe you’re just so goddamn angry, you want to hurt yourself even more.”
“You think I shouldn’t be angry?” he asked, tears sparkling in his eyes. Tears that Jerry knew Rick would not let fall.
“Oh, heavens, Rick. Anyone would be angry. But it’s up to you whether you drive the anger or the anger drives you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means, you have a right to your anger. Every right. So what we should look at is—what is the object of your anger? Jack? Your old girlfriend?”
He shook his head. “I’m not mad at them, man. Well, if I’m mad it’s only because they want everything to be all right, and it’s not.”
“I see. How much of your anger do you direct at yourself?”
“Why would I do that?”
Jerry shrugged. “Why would you? Good question.”
“Well, I’m not mad at myself. I’m doing what has to be done, that’s all.”
“Ah. And that is?”
“Listen, asshole, I have to cut Liz loose, before she wastes her whole life on me. And she would, she’s that kind of girl. She hasn’t gotten much good from me so far.”
“Rick, do you have any respect for anyone?”
He stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“Do you respect Liz, for example?”
“Of course. If I didn’t respect her I wouldn’t—”
“If you did respect her, you’d probably assume she could make her own choices. I’ve suggested this before, I think.”
“Don’t you listen to anything?” Rick demanded.
“Raptly,” Jerry answered. “You are doing what you think has to be done.”
“Exactly!”
“Except, what if you’re just plain angry about the way things went in Iraq? What if the actions you’re taking are a greater punishment on you than anyone else?”
“What bullshit,” Rick said, wiping impatiently at his eyes.
“That life you miss, Rick? It’s right where you left it. But you’re too angry and afraid of disappointment to let yourself return to it.”
“That would be stupid,” Rick said. “I’m not stupid, and I’m not just afraid of a little disappointment.”
“I didn’t say little,” Jerry pointed out. “In your case, weighing in combat, disability, death, I’d say the disappointment is substantial. Life altering.”
Rick ground his teeth. Okay, so what if that was true—he was afraid that if he assumed he could slip back into his old life, he’d not only let everyone else down, but it would kill him to see any of them hurt any further? “You are the most annoying jerk I’ve ever known,” he said to Jerry.
“It’s a dirty job,” Jerry said with a shrug. “Since our time is nearly up, I’d like you to think about that for next time—that you’re angry and afraid, which is reasonable, and also potentially destructive. If we can explore where that anger is directed, for next time, maybe we can—”
“I know where the fucking anger is directed!” Rick nearly shouted. “At everything that happened for the last twenty years! My parents, my girl, my baby, my war!”
Jerry gave him a second. Then he said, “Yourself.”
“No!” Rick insisted. “No!”
Jerry did not look at his watch or break eye contact to look at the clock. Finally, in a low voice he asked, “Did you let them all down, Rick? By getting wounded and disabled?” Rick looked at four or five different points around the room, looking high, like the answer would be in the ceiling of Jerry’s little office. “If this hadn’t happened to you,” Jerry went on, “would you be able to pick up where you left off, carry on, with your best friends and your girl?”
“You are totally nuts,” Rick said, but the tears that always gathered in his eyes began to roll down his cheeks and he swiped at them.
“Does the anger drive you or do you drive the anger?” Jerry repeated. “Are you mad at yourself because you got hurt?”
“That’s just stupid,” Rick said, but he said it more softly. Then he put his face in his hands and his shoulders shook a little. It was a full minute before he lifted his head and turned glassy eyes at Jerry. “Face it. If it hadn’t happened, things would be all different. It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I might have never seen that it’s all on me, that I’m the one—” And then he put his face in his hands again.
Jerry let him simmer for a while, pretending not to cry when he was actually coming apart. He knew Rick wouldn’t reach for a tissue, that would be too telling. His shoulders trembled, but Jerry could hear the desperate mewling sounds of a man trying not to give in. When things calmed down just a little, he spoke. “Rick, there are some facts that have nothing to do with you that eventually you have to accept. One—a drunk driver caused your parents’ deaths. One hot little sperm and one determined little egg made your baby on the first strike. Most of the stillbirths recorded have no known cause—a very tragic statistic. And—someone threw the grenade that took you out. Everything could have been different, but there was nothing you could have done to make it so.”
“What are you saying?” he asked, lifting his head.
“You’re not going to get much satisfaction from blaming yourself. You’ll keep going in circles because you’re faultless. You’ve had some rough deals, but you’ve also had some extremely lucky events.”
“Yeah? Like?”
Jerry kept his gaze level. “Oh, let’s see. A grandmother, by your account a very good woman, who devoted her life to you. A couple of outstanding mentors who stepped in to father you, support you, teach you. A girlfriend… Not many men find a girl, at such an early age, with the kind of commitment you described to me. And then a few traumatic things happened that—”
“I didn’t think I’d let them down like this….”
“Say what, Rick?”
“I thought the Marines would work for me….”
“Maybe they don’t feel let down. Maybe you got things from the Marines that are valuable, just muddy right now because of the trauma.”
“You don’t get it,” Rick said, sounding weaker. “That stuff can’t happen. We’re trained, alert. It’s not just one pair of eyes, it’s a unit. That’s how we got to be the strongest force in the free world.”
“Unexpected things happen…”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Rick said. “It was hostile, and our job is to evade hostile attack. I finished every training gig first in my group. First…”
Jerry paused. “The stuff that happened wasn’t your fault. Some bad, unfortunate things do happen to people without their participation. Like a wheel falling off a car, even though all the lugs were tight. Like—”
“Jerry,” Rick said, glassy-eyed, stopping him. “All the wheels fell off this car.”
Jerry leaned forward. “Rick, focus for just a second. Listen to me. I’m a crisis counselor—do you know what that means?” Rick stared blankly at him, but he went on anyway, knowing he might have to repeat this more than once. “It means that when a crisis occurs in the life of a perfectly normal person, I have the training to take that person by the hand and lead them through the fire and out the other side, where once again they’ll feel like a perfectly normal person who has dealt with trauma. That’s what we’re doing here, Rick. You and me. We’re going to get through this.”