Don't want no brass band playin'!

You have come home to the parties, and the reverence for what you have done, and where you have been. What does a man do, after he has been sent away; then, he has to kill his way back home. You wanted to just get through this alive. I am so glad you made it back! Welcome back; I really mean that!
Oh, by the way, while you were gone the unions died, and they won’t be marching back! Good luck on that job, and I hope whoever interviews you, isn’t a ‘pinko’ war protester. Otherwise, you’ll not get that broom-pushin’ job.
We decided to let your brain do the talking. You know, he’s so freaking mechanical and unconcerned. Your mind and heart would just drive us all fucking crazy! We all gotta stay in one piece, you know? We don’t want to lose it now!

“Hey, buddy, you’ve come ‘home’! I’m proud to be the first one to greet you. Ah, you might wanna go easy, you know, on the people you meet. The tremble might get you. And, for God’s sake, don’t break down!”

Do you look at ‘home’ the same way you did, when you were young and didn’t care about the world? How does that feel when you get home and realize you were wrong about everything. When you look into the eyes of the people you love, do you feel the same. They are distant aren’t they? They don’t seem to be the same people.

“You have detached from the brothers and sisters you saw die; those brothers and sisters were the family you left behind. You hugged them, at the airport, as they all left for their homes, where they would feel the same as you do!”

But, what is this feeling of emptiness you feel? You look at your sister, across the room. She catches you staring, and smiles at you. You smile back, but you think: “That’s my sister across the room, and I don’t even know her.”.

“That feeling is guilt! You were in the desert War two weeks ago; you killed a man, maybe two, one month ago; when you went in, two years ago, you didn’t want to be anywhere but home. And, now you look around, and you aren’t sure.”

Now, what is this sudden urge to leave? You don’t like it here; you love it? But you just want to leave; you want to go some where; somewhere where they don’t know that you have killed! That’s it, isn’t it? Guilt, because you’ve killed; and guilt because the people you love know you have killed. They’re standing around, talking about taxes, and ordinances, and life at home. In the back of their minds, they know you have killed someone!

“Wait a minute! What the fuck is that you’re thinking? Goddamn it, put the son of a bitch down; shove back, man; this is your life! You don’t have to follow strict orders; you don’t have to watch your back, or the back of your brother, or sister. You’re free man! You are the “Lonesome Fugitive” brother! Go ahead, feel it!”

Now, you really want to run. Get away from these people, who expect things from you. They want you to validate their lives, and feelings about the war. You know damn well, they don’t like it1 Then they expect you to say something soft, and fluffy, about what you did. It’s all about ‘country’, ‘the flag’, and that brave bull shit, they are heaving all over you. You weren’t brave; you were a soldier; you weren’t a soldier; you were a pimp to the ‘jive’!
You look around. There are lots of young girls here. They don’t know you; but their eyes want to. What is it they want in a soldier? They just might like to be seen with a soldier. They might think, in this small window of time, they could get some of that stardom, that will cling to you for months. Then again, maybe they want some of that ‘action’ you have crawling all over you. You have been there. There, where the- soon to die-die. You’ve been there. Where the children, constantly, cry. You, my brother, have been there! And, that’s what those young girls want. They want to rub that ‘action’ all over themselves, so they can go into view all lustrous, beautiful, and dangerous! They have rubbed ‘action’, with the killer!

“You are just about the craziest bastard I’ve ever known! Come on, man, get your shit together!”

Not all the girls feel that way, do they? There’s one that you really do love. But, you can’t possibly love anyone yet, not really! She is trading stand-offish talk with another person she doesn’t even know. Every so often, she looks over, to make sure you are still there. You’ve known her for years, but you don’t know her now! She has felt this distance. She knows how you feel right now, because she has been rubbing with you. Only she has heard the doubt that you scream. Only this one person knows how empty you feel. She comes over to you.

“Let’s get out of here,” she softly screams. She is so damn psychic. You gain your first real sense of “home’! She, and only she, can understand what you’ve done. She feels with you. She cried when you cried. You have told her how it was. Suddenly you realize, you aren’t a soldier any less; but, you aren’t a soldier anymore. The disconnect with your brothers and sisters, is emotional, and pain full!

“That’s right! You aren’t a soldier any more!”

Holy shit, you feel good! She takes you by the hand, and gets you away from that stale air of redemption, of repudiation, and the phoney shakes-of-hands. She pulls you away from hunger of politics. They all wanted something you didn’t feel like giving. You walk; you just walk with her, smelling the free air. She points to places; American places. Homes, and houses, yards, and fences. Flowers look different, don’t they? They look–kind of, like...

“Come on, man, you’re fucking home! She has the right idea now! She’s helping you come home!”

Why did you stop, and kiss Andrea? You kiss her as if you’re really want to be with her. She’s happy now. You have wanted to come ’home’, ever since you came home!
Your home now. You talk to your friends about the hell you went through. You tell them what they want to hear. Do you imagine them over there? My God, what would have happened to them if they lived in Fallugah? Would you have killed your friends? What was the difference? They were humans! They could have been your friends if you too, lived in Fallugah! What is the difference? They were humans!

“You’re thinking too much, damn it! Stick to the script! You come ‘home’, you celebrate, you find a job, and you live an ordinary life, in a very ordinary way. That’s the way it is now! You don’t have to walk with killer eyes watching you any anymore! There’s no longer that dread of being on ‘the list’! You made it back, man! Your damn friends weren’t in Fallugah! You didn’t kill them! This is the real world you’re in now! Find so damn peace of mind, or we’ll all go down!”

Has this stained your life? What if the faces of the children come to you, in the night? God, now they will come! You’ve let that out! Where do you go to get away from that? Where do you go to get your humanity back? How about your humanity? Is it still there? Do you feel a brethren to people; you know, do you feel like a member of the human race? You don’t really think of them, now, as “towel-heads”? You walk with your girlfriend, with all of this crap in your head. She talks, you talk, but nothing is said. What about the ‘shit’, man? What about the goddamn shit?

“What about it! It’s over; you made it! Let’s move on. Christ, you’re gonna kill us!”

You come to the park; man, this has got to bring a guy ‘home’! You and her sit on a wall trimming a circular drive. You both look at the River. You start to talk.

“You know, when I was coming ‘home’, I never felt ‘home’,” you say to her. “Then, the plane tipped , and I saw the River. I cried to see it winding its way down the edges of the Land. “There it is!” I yelled out loud. The other passengers smiled because they knew; they knew how I felt. Especially one guy who connected with me. I know he used to be a soldier. Anyway, that’s when I knew I was going to set my foot down, on paradise.”

You walk to another place in the park. You look at the cannons on display, at the looking place–- the River place. At this place, you can see the expanse of the River. It is all you can see. It slugs across your eyes, and goes on forever. It was here when you left–it was here while you were gone–it is here now. You feel a peace in you. The Nature of the world is coming into you. The gouged Trees, with bark ruts you can stick your hand into. Think of the torment they have seen. A hundred years of storms have ripped at them; twisted them into permanent gnarl. Yet they stand here all beautiful, to you, today. You’ve never looked at a Tree this way, have you? It spreads its limbs out like a stripper, with an conceited secret. Nothing is more naked; nothing is more true. Birds fly in the Summer sky. They tip their wings, in play. They fly up against the wind; then they careen down, like a child on a humped slide. God, the freedom!
You walk on through the gardens of flowers, the kids at play, the tennis courts, where people who haven’t known ‘the shit’ play their game of fortune. They have the time to be here. They never lost that ‘time’. They’ve never heard–War! They’ve never ‘seen–War! They can’t know how awful it really is! There isn’t a word to describe it!

“Come on, look at this beauty! This is it! You are really here. You’re not ‘there’ anymore!”

“Do you feel at home yet?” she stands there, pulling your eyes into her. You stop and tell her.

“No,” you begin, “I can’t seem to feel comfortable with my self, any more. I feel guilty,” you begin to cry. “I’m guilty, I’m guilty, I’m guilty!” you scream, driving your fist into your knee.

She hugs you softly. You let it all go. The streams on your face, washing your sorrow from you, make you too weak to stand. You sit at the fountain wall, and let it all go! The rush is a flood of emotion. The more you cry, the more she does; your ‘action’ drains away the constant sorrow you have felt, since you’ve been home. It washes you away the sins of War! She has brought you to your demon, and he has walked away from you. You put your elbows on your knees, and your face in your hands. You feel her hand on your back. She feels your true sorrow. She knows, exactly, how you feel. She is part of your madness. She is the one person, in the whole world, that you really wanted to see. She is here now, bringing you through your tormented soul.

“Your Mother did that too, you know? When your Father returned from war, all full of anger, resentment, and killing’s insanity, your Mother did the same thing for him. You can actually, talk to them about this. Don’t you realize you have family, friends, people you can talk to about this rage of demons that curse you?”

You both get up. As you walk, you feel truth in her hand, that holds yours. What is that?

“My heart is yours,” she says. “I bleed for the hazard you have seen. I can never know how you feel–no one can, except your brothers and sisters, who were there with you. You have sacrificed a great deal, for the politics of others. Time, the healer, will eventually cover your sorrow, and put your mind at rest.”

“Isn’t she great! Peace will come, my brother, for the sacrifice of time you have made for them. If you believe–then we believe, because we believe in you. It doesn’t matter what my brain spills into your heart. You have given so much more than we have.”
“People died; we know that will never change in War. It wasn’t your job to kill; you were there to serve. You were forced to kill, so you wouldn’t be killed. That’s the game you played. There will always be people, itching to kill someone. It doesn’t matter to them who they kill. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are! They kill for Allah; they kill for God, and country! There is this Land, and that Land; there is this idea, and that idea; and, for some reason, it is important to War over that! Feel the truth in her hand?”

What is that?

“You feel real. You’re okay, now. Hey, look at it! Look all around you, man! Welcome back, buddy; by God, you’ve come home!”

Joe Coleman zapata'shorse.com