Page 2 of Give Me Redemption

My brother left me, and now I’ve left him.

I’ve read how these boys will eventually have my back no matter what, and this is where I want to be.

“You will have two minutes to get off my bus,” he says. “Go.”

Other people no older than me stand up as the driver swings the doors open. With my papers in my left hand and my bag over my right shoulder, I follow them out.

“Let’s go. Let’s go,” I hear as I step off. The night welcomes me, and I think how sometimes it covers more territory.

In me, in the world.

It’s a dark place we live in, and sometimes it’s hard to see the light if it’s not in front of your face.

Some people are born with a natural ability to see the good in things. I am not one of those people.

On the outside, I am all smiles, but on the inside, I have demons, clawing at tissue and breaking blood vessels to expose the truth.

I’m good at sorrow behind closed doors, and I’m the life of the fucking party. At eighteen, I feel like I’ve already lived a lifetime.

A small handful of men stand outside in an Army uniform, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t uneasy. One by one we exit the bus with our bags.

“Line up, motherfuckers,” one man yells. He’s shorter than the rest, but not by much. “I want four lines right now!”

We assemble into four lines quickly. “Hold your bags out in front of you and make it so you’re not touching the person in front of you,” another man calls out. He’s bigger, bulkier. “Raise your hands now!”

We do so and I’m regretting even bringing a damn bag.

He walks up to a kid in line dressed like them.

“Where’d you get those boots, boy? Did you get those from Academy? Those aren’t Army-issued, motherfucker!” He gets right in the boy’s face, but the guy doesn’t flitch.

“Look at this skinny shit.” The shorter man walks up to me, his mouth so close to my ear, I can feel his spit spray when he talks. My blood simmers lightly beneath the surface. “You think you can be in the Army looking like that?” he screams at me. “You can’t save anyone, skinny fuck.”

Another man walks over to me. “Why are you smiling?” And I quickly realize there’s not regular speaking here, it’s all yelling. There are two men yelling at me now, and a third comes over.

“You got a reason to be happy right now?” he asks.

“No, Drill Sergeant,” I say.

“Stop smiling,” he says.

I do so and look ahead, my jaw clenching.

This isn’t going to be an easy ride.

Not one bit.

They walk away and pick on someone else, as the big bulky man says, “We will make it so you don’t have to think. We will tell you the whens, the hows, the whys. You won’t have to do a thing but follow our orders. If you do not follow our orders, then you will have to do push-ups.

“Place your bags on the ground in front of you and your paperwork on top of it.”

My arms scream as I put my bags down, my veins bulging from my forearms. “Males turn to your left. Females to your right.”

We do so. I look at the women in front of me. Their faces are emotionless. One girl’s hair is long and a drill sergeant yells at her to put it in a tight bun.

“You all failed the first task. I asked you to get off the bus in two minutes and you did not. Everyone get in a push-up position.

Shit.

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