Do this in remembrance of me

The years were light and heavy. They flew by like vapor and hung around like a winding chain, binding him to a life that had come upon him without his noticing. He could see them, clear as glass, count and measure them neatly as his own teeth, but together, they had created something monstrous and alien, a world he didn’t recognize, a future-present that held no room for who he had been so sure he would become.

He had spent so much time after the event, walking with his eyes fixed just ahead of his next step, waiting for everything to calm down, for the world to return to what it had been, that by the time he had a moment to stop and think about it, to look at something beyond the dim square at his feet, ten years or so later, he saw that though for him, the world had finally stalled from its dive bomb pace, there was nothing left of his life before in the clearing, like smoke and fire fading away to reveal only a gaping hole.

And there was an irony in it. A joke that choked him in the waking restlessness of night, pushed on his chest with the crush of nostalgia in the lonely evenings, when news reports and old movies echoed on the dusty peripheral walls.

He and the rest of them had mocked that former world, its peace, its security, its laziness and consumerism. It’s hollow suburbia and white picket fence bullshit painted over corruption and resentment and hidden injustices. The old fucks who just wanted to nap, count the zeros in their 401Ks, tell kids to turn the music down and by God maintain the status quo. His generation, whatever the fuck that was anyway, had wanted above all else to shake things up, to kill the silence, to shine lights on the sleepy shaded dreamland that they found themselves in, to throw back the curtain and reveal the rot underneath.

But when they finally got what they asked for, when the world did break open and expose itself, it was immediately obvious that not only was the rot thus revealed far worse than they were prepared for, far darker and widespread than they could’ve imagined, but many of the old fucks they had mocked for their complacency were more prepared for the world that followed than the kids who had cheered it on. And how many of those kids, now decades older and still stunned from the blow, spent their days begging to go back, to replace the curtain, to dream again?

He had often been told, in those dreamy days before, that what was needed was a good enemy, a good kick in the ass to get everyone moving toward some never specified but always esteemed common goal. And these philosophers often followed this with a lament, that with the kids the way they are today, they couldn’t fight a war, that the resulting force would be made of whiners and smart asses, who would never make it out of the boot camps.

If only. Maybe it would have been better, for everyone, if the kids had just thrown up their hands and said, sorry, can’t do it, rather listen to pirated music and play Quake, while the older generations shook their fists.

But the kids did go to war. They fought and killed and died and came home. Just like it ever was.

In late 2010, on an overcast wintery day of the kind that always reminded him of those miserable days in 2001 when his life came unraveled, Philip got a little red alert on Facebook.

A message from Alex. Facebook said they had been friends for five years. Their last conversation from around 2005 floated at his face like a bad blood test. They had talked about F.E.A.R. and Jade Empire and RE4 and Philip’s upcoming graduation and Alex’s time in Japan and very little else of substance besides how unimaginably hot Iraq was, and then he had vanished again.

“Hey man how you been?”

Philip stared at the words as the tears bloomed and wanted to throw the God damn phone in the nearest cement mixer. Sitting in his car on a job site. A voice ringing in his ears from a time he had thought dead and buried. Like his feet were back on the fork in the road. If he could only just shift his weight and fix it.

“Good man just working. Trying not to fall asleep on these blueprints. How’s shit in ancient Egypt?”

And so on. Until the bombshell. Alex was getting out. Coming home to DFW. In the last ten years, he had gone on three deployments, fucked up his back, moved around the world from Japan to Germany to the middle east again and even some time in Colorado, (though back then Philip had been unable to make it up to see him due to finals). His dad had died and his mom had moved in with some old high school boyfriend who Alex apparently disliked. He would be back in Texas next month and running through some job interviews. He had learned 3 programming languages in the past year that Philip had never heard of and was looking to buy a house, if Philip would help him check out the foundations with his “OSHA wizardry”. Philip returned the joke by promising to get him the best house ever built inside of a strip mall and Alex made him promise to make sure said strip mall had a Whataburger and that there was no Subway or Burger King in a twenty mile radius.

“I don’t want to see those fucking things for the rest of my life.”

They set a date to meet up and that was that. For the next month they exchanged sporadic messages, mostly jokes and micro anecdotes, and compiled a list of restaurants and bars for Alex to “run into the fucking ground” when he moved back. It was like a wound in time had been sealed. Like he had never left. Like Alex from ten years ago was teleported to 2010.

And like a God damn idiot, Phillip let himself construct another future in his mind, like a dumb animal making another run at an electric fence.

Like a man who could never let go of the burning brand of hope.

It was a Saturday. A week after Alex had moved in. Philip had wanted to help him move, take off work, but Alex had dissuaded him.

“I don’t have shit anyway, and my mom hired movers for some reason so let them handle all that shit. Plus my Mom’s fucking guy is gonna be there and if I kill his old ass I don’t want you getting locked up as an accessory.”

Alex’s apartments were brick boxes overlooking an arm of Bear creek and some power lines. It seemed surreal that someone who had fought evil across the planet and haunted Philip’s dreams now lived in a banal segment of the sprawl, like an Angel taking up in a Motel 6.

“Nice view,” Philip said when they met in the parking lot, mostly out of having nothing else to say.

“Oh yeah man. Euphrates eat your heart out.” He waved at the “creek”.

“You know, that river’s original native name meant ‘place where the empty tall boys go’.”

And that had done it. From then on it was like he had never left. They stood around talking in the parking lot for an hour before Alex remembered he lived indoors. His face, which had at first taken Philip by surprise, like seeing your childhood home remodeled, eventually revealed its familiar features, its distinctive expressions, which though now worn and a bit softened, had lost none of their flash.

Inside, Philip was reminded of the unusual organization of Alex’s old dorm. The kitchen was set up for anything, appliances at the ready. The couches and reading chair and TV station in the living room looked like they were standing at attention. Even the beers in the fridge, all 19 of them, were arranged in their place alongside eggs and salad greens and an unexpectedly Asian assortment of condiments, herbs, and vegetables. It felt like he had lived there for three years instead of three days. There were even pictures on the fridge of him and his sister.

Which was all the more shocking because Alex showed no sign that his ADD had calmed down in the slightest. It was another twenty minutes at least standing in the living room, the front door still open, talking, with Alex holding his keys. Then he had gone for the fridge and Philip closed and locked the front door without a word, smothering a smile.

They drank and talked for an hour in the kitchen then another two sitting in the living room, trying to bring the heaving sacks of their ten years apart together, like kids arranging Halloween candy on the floor for trade.

Alex pointed a beer at him.

“So I was driving yesterday and I couldn’t help but notice all the potholes man. What the fuck you been doing at work?”

“Fuck you. I do slabs for call centers thank you very much.”

“What happened to the Electrical Engineer shit? Thought you were going to help make the world look like Blade Runner.”

Philip stopped himself from telling Alex that what happened was he left, and that designing the computer hardware for the wonderous world of the future lost its appeal when said future world looked to be more about surveillance states and blowing up kids in the desert than Alex and him making fortunes selling supercomputers in Neo Tokyo.

“Turns out electrical engineers don’t go outside much. I craved the natural beauty of the construction site.”

“No man really. You seemed so excited about that shit.”

Alex had sounded disappointed, which stung, as if Philip had let him down, but looking back, it seemed more like guilt. As if he had detected the answer before he even asked. Rather than tell the truth, that the reason he had seemed so excited about that shit had nothing to do with the subject matter, Philip had given an answer he was almost ready to start believing himself, about the internet bubble bursting and wanting to be part of the de-urbanization that seemed to be right around the corner, moving people out of attackable cities into sprawling suburbs, and also, again, the thing about being outside.

“What about you. You do the special forces thing?”

“Uh, no, technically—”

Alex had explained the differences between SOF and SF, tabs and scrolls, hinted at injuries and problems with authority, his vague outline delivered like a guy who had taken a plea deal on drug charges listing the exact substances and quantities he had confessed to. Until he got to the topic of leadership, at which point a very animated Alex ranted about issues that didn’t sound all too different from some of the shit Philip had navigated working with corporations and state bodies.

Philip took his turn bitching about his own work, but before he could try and get anything more out of Alex, things like, are you happy you joined up, was it worth it, do you still have some grandiose plan for your life like the Alex I used to know, or did you drop all that optimism somewhere halfway across the planet, Alex had a revelation.

“Fuck I forgot to eat, ha ha.”

And Philip had another.

“I’m drunk as shit.”

So somehow, Alex convinced Philip that he wasn’t drunk at all and in fact “good to drive”, and they took his car, a beat up Altima with a recently cleaned interior, down the access road to some steakhouse called Aspen Creek, sleeping under the ten way mixmaster.

The brick walls, dark wood everything, arched doorways and dim lighting prompted Alex to tell the host he felt like he was inside a pizza oven. They got a booth and more beer. Alex cracked jokes about the mile-high meatloaf and Philip asked how the fuck he got any sleep this close to the airport.

“Planes aren’t nearly as loud as the fuckers on the highway. And I can sleep through anything now.”

It took a moment for Philip, drunk and empty stomached as he was, to realize what he was talking about. Oh right. It had been ten years.

Alex had a Glock in his waistband and two magazines on the other side, all in their own plastic shell housing. Philip had tried not to stare too hard as he grabbed it off the end table at the apartment.

“You carry?” Alex asked.

“A lil’ .380. It’s in my glovebox though.”

“Keep that shit on you. They love breaking into cars for that shit.”

But as they sat sipping Guinness in the booth, the 380 was still back in his car. He had carried it a few years ago on a job where one of the delivery guys got held up at the only gas station in sight, then forgotten about it, but Alex seemed like he was always on alert.

They had a seat facing the front door in nearly the back corner and Alex glanced at every person that walked in, but in a way that looked like he was completely relaxed at like a family get together and just seeing if his favorite uncle had made it there yet. But Philip could tell.

Philip got the country fried steak. They destroyed a plate of fried pickles. They talked about something Philip couldn’t remember and probably never would. The only thing he remembered from that hour was a warm feeling, in hindsight probably let loose by the alcohol and satiated hunger, that the world was finally returning to its rightful place. Knocked off kilter a bit, there for a while, but now things could get going again. It had only been a decade of wobbliness, turbulence, but soon it would be forgotten, and they wouldn’t even have to speak of it.

He laughed big at all of Alex’s jokes and beamed at the waitress. In the drunken drive back to the apartment, under the amber discs of highway lights and long smooth humming stillness of the onramps, it seemed the streets had been cleared just for them, and the twinkling lights of planes and distant skyscrapers were winking at them, hinting at but refusing to divulge the world to come.

Back at the apartment, Alex pulled out a 360 and they popped in COD Black Ops. His games were kept in a CD case, just like old times. They started up the Zombies mode and Alex talked him through the Ascension map.

“So this is basically what the war was like right?” Philip said, as Alex knocked back a horde of zombies with some kind of shockwave gun. A brief second of panic, in which he saw Alex telling him to shut the fuck up or get out or something, before the laugh.

“Bro, you’re not bull shitting. Some of those guys basically were zombies. Hopped up on epinephrine and meth and shit.”

“Damn hope your PTSD doesn’t act up and you try and turn me into one of these crawlers.”

“Holy shit, don’t get me started. Jessica set me up with some therapist and the bitch tried to talk me into saying I had it like ten times.”

“Do you?” Philip forgot to put the joke in his voice.

“Uh, no.” Alex scoffed. “I haven’t been in fucking combat in like four years anyway. Basically, it sucked, I lived, would not recommend and not in a hurry to do it again. And I don’t miss the thrill or any of that shit.”

“Alex, I want you to be honest with me.”

“What the fuck—”

“Did you bang that therapist?”

Alex cackled. Philip smiled, and hurt, regretting all the years he had been too afraid to say anything about the army camoed fucking elephant in the room. Now, face to face and with the alcohol maybe, finding that the questions flowed freely as did the answers, he regretted the years of restraint.

“No, unfortunately,” Alex said. “But I did tell her about this dream I had and she gave me some serious fuck me eyes.”

“Did you tell her you dreamed you had a small dick and found yourself filled with deep empathy for the lesser folk?”

“Damn I shoulda thought of that!”

A pause while Alex sprinted to revive Philip for the tenth time.

“So what was the dream about?”

“Uh, so one time I was up on this mountain. It was the middle of the night and I had some NODS. Night vision goggles. We weren’t really doing shit, but I had some. And the stars are fucking crazy with NOD’s on. If you ever get the chance. But anyway, I guess I was pretty fucking sleep deprived because I got the idea, or I guess it was just the feeling, I don’t know how much I actually believed it, but I got the feeling, with the wide flat fucking everything and ringed by the horizon and shit,” he swirled one hand around his head to signify. “That I was on top of the world, literally, and that the planet was like a spaceship that I was riding through space, and if I could just figure out the controls—”

Alex had started smiling and his words were melting into laughter and Philip lost it.

“You could fly us into the Sun!”

“Probably dude. I was freezing my nuts off up there.”

“So your therapist pinged you as a psychopath.”

“No, I told her I dreamed of the mountain again later, with like the same spaceship, uh, sensation, and I was trying to fly it back home, here but the controls were fucked dude. It was like trying to move that shitty little plane in GTA, and I was over the Atlantic and it started going down and I just crashed it right into the ocean.”

“So you crashed the earth into itself.”

“No dumb ass. I was flying the mountain in my dream, get your shit together.”

“And what did she say?”

“She gave me some shit about dream interpretation being pseudo science and I told her she was just making excuses for being bad at her job and she got all pissed.”

They laughed some more.

“So did you really dream that?

“Yes I did. But what I didn’t tell her was that right after I crashed the mountain, it turned into like this big resort island and I started chasing sluts all over the place until I got interrupted because my fucking chao was drowning out in the water.”

Alex imitated some strange baby crying sound.

“Chao?”

“Yeah, remember the little guys from that Sonic game we used to give Chris shit about playing?”

“His hedgehog butt babies?!” Philip howled.

“Yeah. I didn’t tell you, but I played the fuck out of that game later.”

“Alex, how many turnip headed bastards did you have down at the Sonic CPS?”

“Too many and they were all fast as fuck.”

They laughed again, then after a moment, realization made it through the drunkenness like a torpedo.

Chris had died in a car crash four years ago. Philip had gone to the funeral, but Alex had been halfway across the world. Philip felt a sudden loss, a squeezing pain that he either hadn't felt or hadn't let himself process since it happened. He and Chris had realized, shortly after Alex’s departure, that their main thing in common had been Alex, and had drifted apart. But now, Philip remembered the way Chris could get to Alex in ways he couldn’t, how Chris had been able to match Alex’s wild imagination and feed into his nearly evil sense of mischief, how Chris had always seemed to know what part of the topic at hand would piss Alex off the most.

So sitting there, just the two of them, though he did miss and grieve Chris, he mainly grieved the lost part of Alex that he would, in a way, never see again, the part that only ever came out when Chris got him going.

“That mother fucker.” Alex scrolled the cursor through the options menu with agitated flicks of the joystick. “He used to give me so much shit about joining, oh you’re gonna get blown up, you’re throwing it all away, then he dies in fucking traffic.”

Philip couldn’t think of anything to say. Alex took it for something else.

“Fuck, I’m sorry man.”

“Fuck sorry, you don’t have to apologize to me. It’s me!”

“I know I just. God damn. Wish I would have called him more. If I had—”

“What like you should’ve been there? What are you gonna do stop a car crash with your hands?”

“No man he was always spacing out. I used to have to—”

“Alex, Jesus Christ, it was a fucking drunk driver.”

There had been a silence in which Alex seemed thrown off, for once, until,

“Did the guy live?” he said darkly.

“No. Both went instantly from what I gathered.”

It was Alex’s turn to get quiet. Philip had nothing else to say, so, he gave the only details he had.

“He was out in the middle of the fucking night cause his wife was throwing up or some shit.”

“I’m gonna kill that bitch,” Alex said, like an action movie villain. They both cracked up. It was exactly the kind of fucked up joke Chris would have liked, and for Philip, who found himself frustratingly unable to cry at Chris’s funeral, it was like a final ceremony.

He waited for Alex to lift his beer again, then asked, in a nasally voice they used to use to mock some of the other comp-sci majors,

“So did you like kill any guys over there?”

Alex spat his beer on his knees. Then he thought about it.

“Yep. Fuck yeah I did. I mean I didn’t even notice it, or really like think about it, until way fucking later.”

His smile wavered. Philip felt sick.

“Sorry man, I—”

“Now who’s fucking apologizing?” shouted, smiling. Philip mocked his remorse with a sigh.

“I was actually told very explicitly that’s the one question I should not ask.”

Alex cackled.

More silence. They tried to pick up the game again. Philip broke in drunkenly.

“Well, at least you got some of them. I knew when you went over they were in trouble.

In a stolen glance, Philip had confirmed the following quiet was due to Alex sinking into a reflection that, for a moment, looked miserable, until his smile cracked out again, like a soldier emerging from smoke, and he talked like he was continuing a conversation that he had been ten sentences deep into in his head.

“I’ll tell you one thing though. Some of those dudes should not have been over there. Period. Like some of them, oh my God dude, you would have gone off on them, no shit. Sometimes I would literally see you standing there, the look on your face.”

A warm real smile. A smile of longing and joy, remembrance and a love of the present. When he thought of Alex later, that was one of the smiles he thought of the most, selfishly.

The conversation had holes, missing pieces that had slipped into drunken blackness, worn spots where his re-remembering may have torn the fabric in places, but it was his. It was ‘real’, and though he had sometimes considered it, he had decided he would rip his Spirit to pieces before he let some “extractor” fill in the gaps like punched in drywall.

And some of the words he did recall, he wouldn’t enliven here, in this reflecting pool, because he had never gotten over the feeling that Alex had given them without thinking, accidentally, and of course he had never had the opportunity to ask him.

The next morning, when they said their goodbyes at some café parking lot, Philip had felt that they had been moving in the same direction since the day they met, and that although they had somehow been blown off course, or the world had shuddered in its arc, now that their paths were converging again, all the time spent apart had been nothing more than two people briefly stepping around something while out on a walk.

But he was wrong. It was that night that had been the anomaly, like a brief celestial alignment, and nothing on earth could bring them together again.