“To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”
— Viktor Frankl
Slim’s Famous Burger: Lettuce, coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, a burger patty, American cheese, avocado, a second patty, a fried egg, ketchup, and hot sauce—Texas Pete to be precise.
1. A Soldier & His Stalker
As I watched him lying in his own pool of blood, all I could think of was that half-eaten burger: lettuce, coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, a burger patty, American cheese, avocado, a second patty, a fried egg, ketchup and hot sauce—Texas Pete to be precise.
I’m going to tell you about a man named Slim. Who he is isn’t important. It’s who he was that matters now. He came from a time before your eye-pads and blue-tooths and tweeting pages—not too long ago but long enough to make a difference—from a time where if you wanted to get to know someone it wasn’t through yellow smiles and little red hearts, but through honest conversation. The only kindle was to light a fire, the nicest cell phone was called a razor, and even though Facebook did exist, most people still made their friends at the bar. During that first decade of this here century, relationships took time and strayed from brevity. You went to bars for civilization, maybe some music and a bit of whiskey; sure, you could go for other reasons, too, but only the loneliest of folk went to be seen.
Slim wasn’t one to shy away from attention, but he was self-conscious on account of his scar. He’d taken a bullet through the jugular during Operation Iraqi Freedom and lost faith in “the cause” during his second tour. He’d grown up as an afterthought of what some might call a deadbeat mother, and spent his formative years at Stoke Ridge Military Academy, where the pedophiliacally-inclined Sgt. Chandler Dykes obsessed over Slim’s naked torso and the other cadets’ sturdy frames. But all in good time, little pretty, as a wicked witch once said, all in good time.
Suffice to say Slim didn’t enjoy his time at Stoke Ridge, not the least ’cause Sgt. Dykes was particularly fond of the kid, what with his sharp tongue and a proclivity for aggression. See, Dykes had a tendency toward self-pity, abusing Slim, and drinking Johnny Walker, and though he never showered with his cadets, I’d venture to say he thought about it a few times. Dykes was fond of convincing the young boys to do shirtless push-ups in his office, too. He didn’t abuse ’em in a sexual way, at least I don’t think, but it was certainly a sign of the times that most scars had to be seen to be believed.
But if I’m going to tell you about Slim’s scars, I’ve got to take Dykes’ scars into account, too, which were deep and invisible, more engrained somehow. He used Slim and the other cadets—“Dykes’ Tykes” he called ’em, that well- toned troupe of at-risk youth—to help quell his demons, watching them pump out more shirtless push-ups than any cared to count. Under the insectan buzz of fluorescent light, Slim often fell asleep on the stale carpet of Dykes’ office, too exhausted after the workout to move. And while the sergeant coveted all of his tykes, he was particularly fond of the skinny kid with a single name. Maybe it’s ’cause Slim enjoyed doing push-ups, or perhaps ’cause Slim had a kind of fight about him. Whatever the reason, Dykes became obsessed, and it wasn’t until the Welcome Back Heroes! event when Slim was nineteen, in that barren town of Stoke Ridge, North Carolina—the town’s main attraction being a brick building with a white steeple—that this story either commenced or drew to a close, depending on your preference for happy endings.
The Welcome Back Heroes! event was a sign of things to come, for it was the day Slim reached the top of Sgt. Dykes’ B.A.M. LIST. The Belligerents According to Me list, filled with the names of Dykes’ mother, father, and other supposed enemies from his fallow past, was first displayed in his Stoke Ridge office—which, according to Slim, smelled like an unkempt microwave—and was later hung in the sergeant’s home off Exit 263, in a one-story cabin with a rickety screen door, built on a once-fertile piece of land that’s now hardened earth and brown grass.
“Welcome back, son,” Dykes greeted the prodigal kid. Just a few days prior to the Welcome Back Heroes! event Slim had been in Iraq on his first tour. The white bandage fresh around his neck had to be changed every evening. Slim stood with his hands behind his back to accept an award for Outstanding Service to the Stoke Ridge Community and Nation as a Whole. They stood on an elevated stage in the middle of the basketball court, the room packed with folks who hadn’t yet heard of Slim, a true American hero’s welcome.
“Congratulations on your medal.” Dykes faked a smile and spoke into the mic. “Good to have you back, now state your name and rank, son.”
Dykes stuck out his hand. Slim didn’t reciprocate. “I ain’t your son, Chandler. Give me the mic.”
Chairs scuffed the gym floor and Dykes’ voice bounced off the bannerless rafters; the aluminum roofing rejected the echoes, sending them back down to the podium where Slim took control of the stage.
“What a pleasure it is, what a pleasure it is.” Slim shook the sergeant’s hand and gripped it tightly. “I hoped I’d never see you again, Chandler Dykes . . .”
Dykes was upset you see because Slim had called him by his first name twice. “Name and rank son—and you address me as sergeant.”
“I’m a war hero now,” Slim laughed. “More than you can say for yourself. Careful now Dykes. You don’t want that forehead vein popping out . . .”
Dykes laughed nervously, trying to distract the audience. He put his arm around Slim as if it were a friendly conversation, turning away from the mic to say something in private.
Whatever Dykes whispered, Slim fell silent as Dykes turned back to the audience with a yellow-toothed smile.
“Sorry about that folks. Technical issues. Now give it up for Slim—our hero of Iraq!”
The audience applauded but they did not roar. Dykes tried to corral Slim. Slim didn’t abide.
“Get your goddamn hands off of me,” Slim said into the mic.
Dykes’ face twitched. The audience squirmed. And perhaps knowing their history, or perhaps ‘cause he liked the spotlight, the academy’s director—a bear of a man by the name of General Haith, who’d die in a house fire a few years down the line—scrambled onto the stage, took Slim’s place on the podium, positioned his broad shoulders between Slim and Sgt. Dykes, and laughed loudly. The mic gave feedback. The video footage corroborates it. A child in the front row stuck his fingers in his ears; other spectators squinted at the stage as if staring at the sun, wincing from the feedback as they waited for what came next.
“Let’s give it up for Slim!” General Haith boomed. “Our hometown hero. Maybe the finest soldier we’ve ever had!”
The tension escaped the gymnasium amidst the clapping and the noise, after which General Haith proceeded to give a long-winded speech about what-it-means-to-be-a-member- of-the-Stoke-Ridge-community-and-how-it’s-men-like- these-that-define-our-nation-et-cetera-et-cetera. Now you might be wondering how Slim got himself onto that stage, and though the details are unimportant—at least for now— the whole hoo-ha surrounding his return was mostly ‘cause of his reputation as a formidable killing machine. See, when Slim started at Stoke Ridge he was a string bean cadet, a timid child without much physical promise: chicken legs and noodly arms and a vacuum-packed chest. Slim’s mother, Wilhelmina Jenkins—we’ll get to her—was a pothead who subsisted on reheated Hot Pockets, hardened Kraft mac n’ cheese, and frozen mozzarella sticks. As a child, Slim always looked a bit sickly, always scrounging for food in the cupboards lest he be forced to reheat something moldy in the microwave, but by the time the second Bush decided to play his daddy’s game, Slim had become the finest warrior Stoke Ridge had ever seen. Of course, Slim never knew his dad, but he must’ve benefited from some hunk’s formidable genes. Though his hairline was receding by the time he was eighteen, his six-foot-five frame, accompanied by four years of bursting biceps and peck muscles filled out by four hundred push-ups a day, made the man quite a sight to behold. His newfound body lead to his award for bravery in Iraq during the First Battle of Fallujah—a hell of a fight for those boys in the red, white, and blue—for killing an entire platoon of alleged al-Qaeda operatives and taking a bullet straight through the jugular. And while the doctors said it was a miracle he’d survived, Slim said the real miracle was that they’d gotten him out before he could reload. He was a hero of sorts, but these days heroes are often shamed and quickly forgotten.
“And this man right here,” General Haith said as he put his arm around Slim, “we’ll never forget what he’s done for us!”
“That’s right,” Slim continued. “Unlike some of us, I’m willing to fight! I don’t just sit in my office all day watching kids do pushu—”
Dykes grabbed the mic. “Thank you for that Slim. How about another round of applause?”
While there were some grumblings in the audience about what Slim was talking about, the crowd cheered nonetheless ‘cause that’s what crowds do. Slim took back the podium. “I learned to fight once people started shooting at me. But as far as Stoke Ridge goes? Well, let’s just say I didn’t learn much at all . . . The thing is, it’s not hard to develop fatherless kids into killers, and now we’re the ones killing fathers across the world. Of course, a lot of these officers,” Slim looked directly at Dykes, “don’t have to do any killing at all, right? They only know about sending us boys out there while they sit behind simulators with whiskey and more viscous forms of lubrication. Some of ‘em, like Dykes here, have never been to Iraq.”
The audience fell silent, you could hear flies buzzing around the gym. Some kind of critter scampered across the aluminum roof. Slim sneered at Dykes, handed General Haith the mic, and stepped down from the stage. The general quelled the situation by bringing up freedom and the good fight and after a final round of hesitant applause, brown-fatigued cadets escorted the spectators onto the dessicated lawn, where sweet tea and lemonade were served in red plastic cups.
As for what happened next, there are only two people who know the story, and neither Slim nor Sgt. Dykes ever told me exactly. Whatever it was, it was violent and quick. Slim almost died. Here are the facts:
After hearing a commotion in Dykes’ office, a group of cadets found Slim writhing on the floor, clutching his jugular, gurgling in agony. A crimson fountain spurted from the wound. The sergeant had tried to pop Slim’s Adam’s apple like bubble wrap, whispering the same phrase to himself over and over again: “Never listening. Never playing. Never so much as a goddamned hug. Never listening. Never playing. Never so much as a goddamned hug.”
As soon as the cadets piled on top of Dykes, he began to thrash and kick around, breaking noses and shattering adolescent bones. Slim would’ve died if it hadn’t been for General Haith, who came in just in time to apply pressure to the wound. By the time Slim arrived at the hospital he’d lost over three pints of blood. He remained in a coma for three weeks and spent another month on morphine. General Haith, it must be said, was there every day to check on the young war hero and even though Slim was unconscious, the general stayed by his side just the same.
As for Dykes, after being treated for three cracked ribs and a pierced eardrum, he was released. Slim wouldn’t file any charges ‘cause this is the military we’re talking about, but he did acquire a five-year restraining order, more than enough time, he thought, to get Dykes out of his life.
In later years, Slim told me putting Dykes in prison wasn’t an option. There were no witnesses, technically, and Slim’s neck was already wounded, and the military is one of the best in the business when it comes to protecting its own during a scandal. Still, Dykes didn’t get off easy. When he returned home, Stoke Ridge’s former prom kings and defensive linemen were all waiting for him on his front lawn. After years of enduring Dykes’ nasal voice, puppy dog eyes, and proclivity for whiskey and young cadets, the attack was the final straw for the Stoke Ridge community. Upon seeing the angry mob, Dykes snuck in the back door and spent the evening in a locked bathroom, drinking whiskey in the bathtub, and crying himself to sleep. The next morning, Dykes woke up to General Haith’s voice on a loudspeaker: he had exactly one hour to get out of town. With his bags packed and nowhere to go, Dykes drove away in his rusty brown pickup, leaving only the second home he’d ever known.
On his way out of Stoke Ridge he passed three burning effigies and a mob of angry townspeople. They threw cups of sweet iced tea on his windshield and tossed old basketballs under his car. One man used a baseball bat to smash a side- mirror and another shot out his break lights with an assault rifle. As Dykes watched the Stoke Ridge church steeple fade in the rearview mirror, his car thumping forward, the back tire slowly losing air, he felt like vomiting and crying at the same time, which is exactly what he did at Exit 263.
For a time, Dykes lived as a vagrant, finding refuge in homeless shelters and the occasional motel, seeking company in old TV re-runs and cheap liquor.
Each Sunday @ 10 pm CET until the holidays, I’ll be doing a live reading of Slim and The Beast. Catch up on last week’s live reading below. Yes, I’m in a bathrobe.
Sunday Story Time: Slim and The Beast
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