Page 46 of For the Love of the Broken Man

“Hey, dumbass, wake up. You’re like a popsicle. How much did you have to drink?” Dan felt very powerful arms haul him out of the shower. He looked up to see his friend, Phil, from the flower shop.

“Hey, Phil. Whatta ya doin’ here?” Dan felt a slap across his face, which fucking stung, and then he was wrapped in a towel.

Phil turned to Tim. “Go home and take care of Kayley and your sons. Javier and I can handle this. Javie can be a mean bastard when he has to, trust me. He brought me back from the edge Dan’s about to jump off.”

Danny had no idea why the man had slapped him, but he wasn’t going to hold a grudge. Obviously, Danny had said something to piss off his buddy, and he would apologize when—ifhe remembered what he’d said.

“I’m sorry, Jase, but this isn’t gonna work out between us. If the social worker finds out… well, you know from livin’ with Jon and Mickey, and you know from Matt and Tim. It’s best if we don’t see each other anymore. I got a call from the woman that she’s gonna come in the morning to speak to Kayley and me, so I had Adam go to the house and pack your stuff so you can stay at the Katydid tonight. If he missed anything, I’ll send it to ya at Mick and Jon’s. I’m sorry, but Kayley’s my responsibility. I gotta look out for her because I’m all she’s got.”

“Sure, Danny. I understand about it. Um, can we… I mean, can I call you? Can we keep emailing? I won’t bother you too much, but I love you, Danny.”

“You don’t know what love is, Jason. Son, you’re eighteen years old, and we’ve only known each other for about three months. Your life is just startin’, and I’ve got responsibilities you’re too young to comprehend. You should be in college, getting a fake ID to slip into bars and hangin’ out with friends. You don’t need to worry about how kindergarten is gonna be for some older guy’s kid.”

Danny sat bolt upright, feeling the sweat-soaked bed under him. He looked around, not recognizing his surroundings at all, but his body ached, and his bladder was full. He slowly stood on shaky legs to make his way to a bedroom door, looking down to see he was still in his shorts. He found the bathroom and drained his bladder, trying to understand what had happened to him.

He remembered getting home from work before the bus dropped off Kayley from school on Monday, and then everything seemed to be a little fuzzy. After he finished his bathroom business, including brushing his teeth with a toothbrush he found on the counter, he walked out to the hallway and followed it until he found a kitchen where his friends, Javier and Felipe, were sitting.

“Ah, he rises,” Javie stated with a smirk. He got up from the table and poured a cup of coffee for Danny, pulling out a chair for him to sit.

“What day is it?” Dan wasn’t sure about anything.

All he remembered were the horrible nightmares that plagued him. The churning of his gut and the time spent on the bathroom floor that had seemed to be endless. The tremors he couldn’t control. The words that haunted him…

“It’s Thursday,” Felipe announced.

“Shit, I missed Field Day.” The guilt of the disappointment Danny was certain Kayley had experienced when he hadn’t shown up as promised sunk into him. He should have never adopted her. She deserved much better than him.

“Field Day was covered, I promise you. There were treats, and Kayley won the hundred-yard-dash, along with the two-legged sack race. She partnered with a boy named Miles. She has two trophies to show you… once we getyoustraightened out.” Felipe sat down across from Danny in a vinyl and chrome, retro-style, kitchen chair.

“I’m never gonna be straight, Phil,” Danny teased, hoping to lighten the mood in hopes of getting home soon.

Javier laughed, which surprised him because Dan didn’t know the man was in the room. “That’s a good one, Dan. Deflection is a great tool for an alcoholic.”

Danny felt the jolt to his soul. “Deflection? Alcoholic? Y’all are looney. I need to get home, so…” he began his protest.

“Actually, Matt Collins said you can’t come back to work until you get sober and agree to go to AA. You’ve got a problem, Dan, and we care too much about you to let you mess up your life. You’re only thirty-one and you’ve got a beautiful daughter. You have a whole fucking lot to lose, mi amigo. Before you say no, let me tell you a story.” Felipe wasn’t joking around.

Danny knew protesting would be futile, so he decided to endure whatever the man had to say, agreeing to the sentence they’d predetermined he’d serve before he could leave. He’d gather Kayley and their things, and they’d move somewhere else. He could control his drinking. He’d forget Jason and move on with his life, but he’d humor them and let them vent their bullshit at him for now. He could play the game. He’d done it in the Army, after all.

“Sure.” Dan took a sip of some damn good coffee.

“I was assigned to a duty station outside Fallujah. I was out on patrol with my unit when we came up to a market. There were a lot of people there… it was a Saturday. We were laughing about how cool it was, watching the people carry on business, and we had a guy in our unit who understood the language, so he was translating the arguments we saw between the people selling the goods and the people buying them. It was entertaining to watch.

“A little boy of about seven stumbled upon us, and based on the way he was walking, I could tell he was blind. One of my buddies, Beau, picked him up before he fell. He said, ‘Hey, little man, where’s your momma?’ Next thing I knew I woke up in a hospital in Landstuhl.”

Dan felt the jolt of Felipe’s words to his soul. He’d seen and heard things of the sort, and they left an indelible mark.

Felipe continued. “I was missing a leg and had burns over forty percent of my body. My buddy, Beau, was pink mist, as was the little boy he’d picked up because some sick bastard had put a bomb on that child and proceeded to blow him up. The American soldiers thought they were helping a little boy who got separated from his mother at a busy market. Instead, they got fucked over. It still makes me sick to my stomach to think about it.

“While I was in the hospital, I made a plan to kill myself because here I was a big ol’ queer who was never gonna have a family. It was a travesty of justice that I was still alive, while Beauregard LaCroix had a pregnant girlfriend back home about to have his little boy. Fortunately for me, I was under so many doctors’ care. I couldn’t get a minute to myself to carry out my plans, so I waited. Once I was sent stateside, I did as they told me for as long as it took me to get out of rehab.”

“You didn’t really wanna—”

Felipe held up his hand and continued telling his story. “I got myself an apartment near Walter Reed, and I started making plans again. Then, after the government fitted me with a new titanium leg, it felt like I owed ‘em something. They’d given me a new leg, after all.

“I determined killing myself, outright, felt like I betrayed the good taxpayers of the United States who paid for my new leg, so I couched the idea of killing myself quickly. I decided to take the slow train out, so I sat and drank in my apartment as much as I could handle every day.”

Danny felt a pang of guilt because he’d done something similar, slowly drinking himself to death. And he had a daughter. What the fuck was wrong with him?

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