Jenna Beatrice

Drunkenly leaning against the bar, Jimmy raised his empty glass for more and then turned to the lanky girl in the stretched jeans to his left. She was, like me, barely twenty-one and her red hair dangled like molten lava under her headband, curling around her neck in twists. She smiled at him and he leaned in and told her that he was a Marine. Just back from Iraq. This was an obvious lie, he had been back for nine months then, and his waist size attested to the time spent home. When he first came back, he was stunning. His blue uniform perfectly formed around his sculpted body. His eyes, the most clear and honest eyes I had ever seen, gleamed even greener under his cap. He came home that final time unexpectedly and in dress uniform.

Jimmy was telling the girl the story of when he had to shoot spiders the size of her head in the middle of the desert. It was one of my favorites. I shifted in my seat and glimpsed his enlarged stomach. His shirt was untucked, hiding his gut. His face, once slim and angular, was puffy. His beautiful eyes were hidden under dark circles and deep creases. He was talking animatedly now with his hands, and some gin and tonic spilled out of his glass. I looked up to make sure he didn't notice me mopping it up with a bar napkin. The girl giggled artificially and I checked my watch. It had been fifteen minutes, time should have been up soon, and I was right. They shook hands and she left, the lava bouncing away. “Slut, exclamation point,” he mumbled as he finally turned to me and winked casually from his right eye. I pretended to smirk. Jimmy had a habit of shouting exclamation points.

Jimmy came in around dinner time with a suitcase that rattled and a slur in his speech. He was staying with me that night for an early morning job interview the next day. He had been drinking on the train. We sat through Chinese food that I ordered, and Jimmy told me stories of when he was in Hong Kong.

“They sing karaoke all the time,” he said between bites, bits of food gathering in the corner of his mouth “it's like all they do it for fun. But it was the Japanese who invented it you know.”

“I do know,” I replied.

“Well, exclamation point.” He winked jovially. I nodded, watching as he emptied another container onto his plate. “I think that Hong Kong was my favorite. Wait, no. Yes. No. Well, I was really tall there but I liked Sydney.” He grinned. “Where's your favorite place?”

Watching him open another beer, I wondered if he had gone a day without getting drunk since he had been home. His older sister had named him Godfather to her baby boy the first few months he was home, and he was so drunk at the baptism that both the baby's and his head were dunked into the baptismal water. He joked later that he had more original sin that he needed to get rid of and we all silently agreed, hesitantly thinking of the four guns we all knew were stored beneath his bedsprings.

When we finally left the bar, he took out a cigarette on the street. He deeply inhaled and I saw that he was tired. I asked if he wanted to head back home. He stared at me for a long time, he had one hand in his pocket and the other mechanically lifted the cigarette to his chapped lips. He shook his head no and asked if we could walk for a bit. I suggested coffee. I didn't think he was ready to go back home and sleep, the lines under his eyes told me that he slept just as poorly as I do. I know that feeling of being afraid of the night, not of the darkness, but of the oncoming expectation of having to lay your head down, without distractions, and being engulfed by your own thoughts. I have been plagued my whole life by having nightmares of me killing small dogs, and these images haunt me daily as I walk down the street. The worst of these dreams is when I dreamt I killed my own dog, something that I had never dreamt before, by taking my shoe lace and choking it to death I buried her beneath the barbecue. My mother thinks I don't sleep because I am worrying about life; she doesn't know her daughter is a vicious dog slayer.

We got to a coffee shop and sat down. “I,” he started. He stopped and I looked at him. “I. You.” He lifted his arm and scratched his head violently. “His first words to me were, I'm a doctor, take off your pants.'” He looked at me expectantly. I glanced around us. There was no context for this information. I nodded solemnly, the only reaction I thought appropriate, as he held eye contact with me. He spoke rapidly, the words literally spit from his lips.

“I didn't know what to do so I just dropped them. I had my boxers on but he told me to drop them so I did that too. Then he asked me to walk towards him, I did, and he felt my balls. He was checking for lumps. Then I pulled up my pants and left. That was it.” He paused. I nodded. “His name was Leon and he had hair like your brother's. He smelt like him too, I liked him because of that. You understand, right? I mean you like people if they remind you of people you like. That makes sense, right?” He implored, rapidly speaking. I lowered my eyes and nodded. “He's a little older then we are. I hadn't really talked to anyone in a long time. I was with the Special Forces at the time. We had these beards that covered our whole face. My friend Andy looked so much like an Iraqi we almost shot him once for getting too close. He's from Arizona. We called him Double A.” He stopped and looked around.

“So when I got the position to head the Special Forces unit they had to tattoo me so that I wouldn't have to wear my dog tags anymore. So I went and got it done except they didn't use new ink for it. You have to use new ink. Did you know that? I didn't. Otherwise, you could get an infection. It was black ink, black hurts more because it goes in deeper. Well, the outlining does. But after they tattooed me I really started to get a rash. Like there was a red ring all around it.”

He lifted up his shirt, and, there on his right rib cage, clearly imprinted in the shape of a small rectangle read:

        JAMES E. STRANGE
        123-89-3349 USMC
        6'3 210 GREEN EYES
        ROMAN CATHOLIC

I reached out but stopped myself from touching it. It was clear he didn't want me to. But I stared at the “Roman Catholic”- the most sinister part of the tattoo. For burial purposes.

“Dog tags jingle when you need to be quiet,” he explained, as if anticipating my question. “So I went to the doctor. Leon. And he treated me for the infection. It really helped, I had to go see him every few weeks to make sure that I was ok. And I was. I mean ok. I was ok.”

I stared at him.

“But then I kept going to see him you know, just to be friendly. Then he came to visit me whenever he knew I was stationed close by. And then he told me to drop my pants again like the first time I met him. He said it again, I'm a doctor, take off your pants.' And he's a doctor, so I did. And then one of my guys walked in and told my superior. And then I went home.” He finished and we sat in silence for a moment. “Your mouth is the same shape as your brother's. Penelope and Patrick. PP. P's with the same mouth.” He was very drunk and I was very uncomfortable. “Why don't you just go home and start now to try and sleep, we all know it takes you long enough. I'll find my way back.”

He then got up quickly and stumbled for the door. I feebly called, “Jimmy.” But instead of getting up, I sat for a while thoroughly confused. He had left out the entire story. It was only when I got up did I realize what he had been trying to do; he was leaving it to my imagination to fill in the details. And I did.

I ran out of the shop after him down the street, though I didn't know why I was so intent on sticking with a grown man who could find his own way. Something kept me rooted and I determined that it was my brother. Patrick would not have left him like this, Patrick had never left him. Patrick got engaged early this past autumn to a woman whose hips escape unnoticeably into her legs and whose bosom wrestles desperately with sweaters for freedom. At their engagement party, Jimmy got very drunk and toasted to the fact that he was going to live in Patrick's spare bedroom until his new wife physically removed him herself. Everyone laughed hard at the image of the small, hipless creature muscling the Herculean Jimmy, but it was Patrick who laughed the hardest because it was true. Jimmy was not leaving Patrick's side because of a small thing such as marriage, and I knew that Pat would never ask him to in all the pictures that night, Jimmy's arm can be found tightly clasped around Pat's shoulders.

After a few blocks, a number of men in their late twenties came stumbling by dressed impeccably in colorful drag. One of them had a purple shimmery wig and his shirt had a picture of the B-52s. Underneath, the picture read: Love Shack Baby. They were coming from the gay bar that was down the street, and I turned just as I heard them playfully call out to Jimmy as they walked by.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Purple Hair crooned. “Want me to show you what a real man looks like?” His companions chuckled gleefully. They must have had a fun night.

Jimmy stood there and for a moment I thought that he might let it pass, that he would keep walking. That hope quickly disappeared as I saw him grab Purple Hair's wig and fling it into the face of one of his friends. He then lifted up Purple Hair and, just as easily, chucked him into the side of a garbage can. The thump was loud, and I screamed as I ran towards him. He didn't resist my attempts to calm him, and I desperately apologized to the men fawning over their fallen diva. One of them, though, went for Jimmy and pushed him into the side of the building. Jimmy faltered drunkenly and looked like he was going to fall. He only wobbled, however, and oriented himself enough to grab the sole hero and push him into his friends who were wailing loud profanities at us. I tried to explain. He has post-stress disorder. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's drunk, it's late at night. He didn't realize who you were. He had a rough day. You shouldn't have provoked him.

“I'm a goddamn marine,” he barked.

With this, Jimmy left. That was all the explanation he thought necessary.

We walked the last block together and I did not realize that I had been crying until I found myself urgently pulling Jimmy to the side of a building. I shoved him franticly and he complied and I punched him hard until he got there. I seemed to think that I would stop once I got him to where I wanted, but I kept punching long, full swings directly into his fleshy stomach. I continued without opposition from him until I realized I was biting him. Surprisingly sober and very rationally, he leaned in to me closely and whispered, “Penny.” I choked back a long sob, which made an unpleasant gurgling in my throat.

“I hate you,” I forced out. “I hate you.”

He looked at me for a long time, his green eyes without their accompanying wink.

“I have always hated you. And the worst part is that you don't even pretend to like me but we always, always have to be together because of Patrick. And my brother only loves you because he forgot what it means to not love you, and you hate me because he loves me more than you.” I stopped. That was it, I thought. That was it. Jimmy realized it too and we stood in silence for a moment in this revelation, me grasping with both hands his left forearm. He then suddenly lifted up his right arm as if to hit me and I screamed. I did not actually believe that he was going to do it but I was so overwhelmed that I frantically started hitting him again in response to his gesture.

“Stop,” I yelled, “just stop. STOP. You're the most aggressive person I know and I can't take it. I can't take it.”

“I needed to tell someone and I thought I could tell you,” he started, lowering his arm and trying to caress mine.

“No,” I screamed, “just stop.” I did not realize how much his story had affected me.

He continued, “I'm never going to get to heaven and I don't think I even believe in it anymore. But if someone was to get there, it would be you and I thought.” He paused, continuing to stoke my arm. “I thought that out of everyone, you would understand.” He paused again. “I don't know why I thought that you would care.”

I looked up into his face and I saw that he was clearly hurting. He had gone through a lot, and I knew it, intimately, but I did not take that into account. “I hate you,” I worded again, “I hate you. He loves me more.”

At this, Jimmy took hold of my arm and squeezed it violently. I did not make a sound, and he squeezed harder until I winced. We kept eye contact and I shouted out once more, “He doesn't love you. He's getting married. He doesn't love you.” He stopped at this and pushed me roughly away from him. He took his sleeve and wiped the area where I had bitten him.

“I have to get to bed. I have an interview in the morning.”

He then went in, a little too heavily, to kiss my cheek. I hysterically thought that he was going to bite me in return but he just lingered by my ear and whispered, “Just don't tell your brother.” I could strongly smell the gin.

We went upstairs and he passed out on my couch and I got into my own bed but was too uncomfortable to lie down. I had a sudden urge to wake him. It took a long time but I did it, adamantly, shoving his large body from side to side. He looked at me hazily and slurred, “What's the matter?”

“I dream of killing dogs and that's why I don't sleep,” I told him.

“I fucked a man in Iraq because he told me to,” he replied.