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Just Smile
By Nelson Lowhim
Copyright 2011 Nelson Lowhim
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead or otherwise, is purely coincidental.
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I woke up, my head spinning, my insides sprayed with a stream of doubt. I looked around the barren room and tried to grasp something tangible. The rays of sun that peered in calmed me down. The room itself was a heartless and austere, typical of a cheap European hotel room. The aroma of the previous guests' musk and old sheets made me feel like part of a timeless tradition of wayward travelers passing through. My backpack lay on the barren floor, its innards strewn across the room. For a moment I tried to believe that the room was the only thing that existed in my universe and I was thankful for that respite. Then cogitation ground my thoughts and hopes to pulp.
A dream. And a hangover, whose destabilizing effects provided the best excuse for a moment of lucidity. In the dream I hung out with a group of people from my life: from high school, college, and other places where I had felt it necessary to know people to avoid the gnawing of loneliness. Some were friends, some were people I barely remembered; others were ones I had tried to forget for slights only a teenager could imagine. Most milled in and out of the dream not talking to me, not acknowledging my presence. These friends and acquaintances with names but no faces, or faces but no names, stared right through me without any specific or malicious intent.
We were nowhere floating in a mist, then we were on a hill in a city, the ocean lay before us. The sky was swirling and streaking northern lights-esque in shades of purple and black, so close you could touch it. San Diego someone said. I had never been. Then it was a sunny day—the sun warm enough to touch—for which standing around and talking was created. The group moved away from me, it seemed as though my presence was bothering them. I mulled over following them, wondering why there was an air of rejection in their actions. But I didn't feel like being an obedient dog, wagging tail and tongue hanging out. I saw an Iraqi approach and begin to attack a girl in the group; a girl I had had a crush on during high school. Everyone's reaction was muted, as if nothing was happening. I lunged at him with a knife, thrown to me by a nameless character, and started to stab him, his throat his chest. He stood there staring at me with doe-like eyes. He took in my actions like a child at a fair for the first time. His body rocked back, absorbing my thrusts. I woke up a little after this happened, feeling pure revulsion at myself, the world.
The night prior my friend, Jim, and I met a group of American college kids in Nice, France. He was happy, enjoying himself, as was I. All appeared to be well.
“Is he crazy?” one of the girls asked me in a hushed voice. Jim was ahead of us joking with the college boy. The other two girls heard the question and pulled in close to hear the answer.
“Jim?” The man I had been with in Iraq was under fire and I realized then how close he and I were. “Of course not, he just has a lot of energy,“ my anger rose. I was furious that a bunch of college kids were looking at my battle buddy as if they were better than him. Kids who had no idea about what we'd been through. Kids who were getting drunk when 'crazy' people like Jim were putting their life on the line. All they could possibly be basing their conclusion was Jim's pro-Iraq war stance and eyes. I wasn't a child; I knew that there would be some differences between civilians and us. Yet I hadn't seen a single action from Jim during the night that could be construed as crazy. No, Jim had been acting like a gentleman and that wasn't good enough for these brats.
“I don't get why he's like that. Is he going to hurt us?” the girl asked.
“Naw. Don't worry,” I was building up a high degree of disgust for these kids. “You'll be fine. You just have to understand that he has come back from a war zone. It puts you on edge, you know.” Not that they would ever care to know.
“Still,” she replied, hesitating. I could see that she didn't care for the excuse. Such things could never matter to her.
“You'll be fine, trust me."
“Well if you say so,” she grabbed my arm and held on to me. “I believe you,” she made eye contact as she spoke, tilted her head ever so slightly and smiled. A universal signal from the fairer sex had been transmitted. I couldn't have cared less; I wanted no part of these people who weren't willing to give Jim a chance. The city had plenty of other fish.
“Yeah,” I trailed off thinking about the consequences of telling them off. I knew we couldn't ditch them because Jim wanted to hang out with them. They were the first set of Americans we had met on our European trip and to Jim, more so than I, it was important to gain their approval. He had never been out of the States for long, so their American accents were a godsend to him. And each time he smiled at, or helped them, I could see them flinch.
A week ago, at Jim's behest and my consternation, we stopped to help an old lady in her car broken-down car. This woman didn't speak a lick of English but when we drove her to her family she found translators and thanked us profusely. Jim acted like he always did: with the intensity of a man happy to have life. This small, old lady loved it and showered Jim with her affection.
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The day after our dance with the American kids, I dropped Jim off at the train station. I wasn't exactly misty-eyed. That uncontrollable anger that had taken aim at the kids now latched on to Jim for reasons beyond my comprehension. We had almost come to blows moments before. There wasn't any reason, just anger. Rage. Destroy. Somehow we didn't fight. Maybe it started because we didn't get laid.
I drove around Nice wondering why this irrational anger would not fade away now that Jim and the kids were gone. I tried to wash it away with my will. As if to answer, as if to tell me it would never fade away, my anger rose at the traffic. Thoughts of shooting European cars out of my way flashed across my brain. I pulled over. This was getting out of hand.
That night I slept in a nameless hotel near the Promenade des Anglais. I went to my room to find a French maid still cleaning it. I smiled and chatted her up. Before she left I got her number. Then I went downstairs to ask questions of the clerk at the lobby. I bumped into some beet-red German tourists. An accident from a small room with too many people. The anger inside me exploded and I wondered if there would be a physical reaction. I left before my impulses got the better of me, my questions unanswered. In my room I felt the bones in my hand and once more tried to believe that the room was my only world.
For the first time in more than a year I would be sleeping alone. No more Jim, no more Army mates sniffling, rustling, coughing, telling jokes; jokes that had stewed in a testosterone-charged environment; an environment that was the consequence of every man's idea of a man. What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Christ, do I wanna hear this? What. Do. You. The offender repeated with a raised voice, making certain I knew he was never going to give up. I faced the inevitable: I give up. What is it? Nothing, you dun told her twice. The room erupts into cacophonous laughter with facetious high fives handed out.
No, not this night, this night the solitude was unbearable; and I had been thinking I couldn't wait until I was alone. I opened the window to allow the street noise into the room, allow something besides the din of my thoughts. In rushed the cool night's Mediterranean breeze and the intermittent buzz as cars passed by. The taste of salt and cement ran over my tongue. Life was still carrying on in the city. I looked out the window and watched a few stray souls walking past the Promenade des Anglais and onto the pebble beach. Palm trees slowly swayed with the breeze. The sea was black, ready to swallow all hope. Yet it still gave me the feeling that all seas give: one of endless possibilities, of a world that beckons beyond the sight and lies only in the mind. I lay back down on my bed, closed my eyes and drifted to sleep.
*
When I stopped stabbing, the silence was unbearable; everyone was staring at me in horror.
“What the fuck are you doing?” the girl, who I thought I saved, asked. “Are you fucking mad?”
Everyone was shaking their heads. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” they all asked in unison.
“I... I... I thought he was going to kill her."
“Kill who?” They asked again. “The only murderer here is you, that guy you stabbed is a close friend of ours.”
I looked over at who I thought was the Iraqi, indeed he appeared to be harmless, he was still standing and staring at me with those soft eyes, wheezing through the holes in his chest and throat.
“Uhhh, I'm sorry about that man,” I offered my hand, the knife no longer there. “I really am.”
“It's okay,” he said as he shook my hand, all the while shaking his head. The air rushing through his chest and throat seemed to bother only me. Something else didn't feel right but I couldn't pick out exactly what it was. This unknown factor started to bother me more than anything else. Was it because the Iraqi looked happier than I was?
“You, of all people, should know,” the group said, again in unison.
They were right, I should have known. I had felt that he exhibited signs of being a terrorist, signs only someone like myself who had been through war would know, not these civilians. And I was wrong.
I backed away, with everyone still shaking their heads. The clouds had turned purple and black, with a hint of red. I could see in their eyes that their initial rejection of me had been confirmed. At first they rejected me for a reason as simple as I behaved differently and made them feel awkward. Now, I confirmed their base human instinct with an action that could never be forgiven.
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Bonus Material:
Night After
I stared at the man who walked back and forth in front of me, his bathrobe tied with a perfect square knot. As if he had spent more than a cursory second tying it to make sure I would never see him naked again. He didn't care to respond to my "good morning" comment or even attempt to maintain eye contact. I was leaning back on a sofa, sprawled out so that no body else could fit on it.
When he entered the room, I noticed through the corner of my vision that he flinched after he saw me. It was, after all, his place.
"Are you planning on leaving soon?" he asked, finally looking me in the eye; though he gave it up as soon as I smiled. I waited a few seconds to reply to see how he would react. I sensed that he was feeling rather let down. He rustled some envelopes on a glass table, as if he were busy doing something other than talking to me.
"Yeah, no reason to stay, is there? Can you give me a ride downtown, or call a taxi?" I said. I wasn't really asking anything more so than poking him to see what he would say, or perhaps stutter, or the grand prize of choking back his anger. He started it, really. I had merely wanted a quiet night in the town. Sip my tequila on the rock and try to forget the past few years by taking more years off. Then this asshole decided to mock me. How funny that our roles should—only half a day later—be switched. I’ll be honest; I never tried this before. Of course, I’d jacked off to a few pornos like it downrange. That was the only reason I decided to do it. In my mind it looked like fun. Besides, it beat streaming Internet porn in my shitty apartment.
"Taxi?"
"Yeah, taxi. You have to pay of course, after all this," I waved my hand to ceiling to point at the upstairs bedroom. "Wasn't my idea was it?”
"I… I suppose not," he said. He was back to being a beaten child, one that knew no matter how much resolve it had, it's father's fists and drunken rage would always win. Last night at the bar he had been full of himself. Like an officer I once knew.
A look around the house and I could see why he had felt like that. The house was large with marble floors and shiny Persian carpets covering much of it; it was in a good part of town and decorated rather expensively. The Italian leather sofa I lay upon was surrounded by artifacts from all around the world. He must have traveled a lot. He made money; whatever it was that he did, he was good at it and selling his talents.
"Well? You going to call the taxi?" I asked, though I fully understood that I could have been kicked out of his apartment.
This time he had enough resolve to stare at me for more than two seconds. That pitiful determination sent him back to the table and he started to look through the phone book for a number. The fact that none of his prior accomplishments meant anything to me must have been different. In normal circumstances the fact that I lived in a run-down never cleaned studio apartment, while he was the owner of—what I consider—a mansion would mean he was king. In my view he was a pog.
"Hey baby," she cooed as she came downstairs in nothing but a bath robe that hadn't been tied; that was in fact slightly open and showed those perky breasts. Though she cooed to him—after all he was the one with a legal arrangement with her—I felt her eyes glance over at me and I toyed with the thought of getting up and grabbing her once more. The man and his disgusting paunch and skinny arms was holding her just above the hips and trying to cover her with her robe.
"Hi honey," he replied, giving her a kiss. Her presence and actions gave him confidence. After all, I may have owned the night but he owned the day—his gold chain was proof of that. "You shouldn't walk around with your robe like that."
"Why?" she asked. "We're all friends here," and she glanced over at me, smiled. Yes, indeed she was friendly. She must have married him for money and knew exactly how to convince him to do her bidding while making him think it was his idea. But she also knew when she was crossing the line and she tied up her robe. "Who were you calling baby?" she said as she walked into the kitchen.
"A taxi," he replied and now he looked me in the eye, a stern look that said: "I win the war you young prick" and starting dialing numbers. "For our friend here," he emphasized "friend" and sneered at me.
"Don't be rude Frank, let him have a little something to eat. After all you invited him here."
He put down the phone and went over to the kitchen. After some murmurs she called out to me: "Hey Matt, Matt right?"
"Yeah," I said deepening my voice as best I could.
"Would you like eggs or something else?" she asked.
"Eggs are good Caroline," I said as I got up and walked to the kitchen to join them, but also to look her up and down and absorb as much as I could. The least I was going to get out of this was a stare at those amazing curves, burn her eyes into my imagination and use it for later.
"Oh you're sweet you remembered my name," she gave that glance once again as I walked into the kitchen. "Isn't that sweet Frank?"
"Yeah, positively," he huffed as he was standing over the stove heating up some oil in a pan while she starting to mix the eggs.
"Scrambled eggs okay with you?" she said smiling at me while looking at my below my belt then up at my eyes. Once she scrambled the eggs she walked by me and dragged her hand across my two legs. "Frank, I'll do the eggs, go set the table.”
As Frank walked to the other room with the dishes for the dining table, Caroline stepped up to me with a kiss and she slid a paper into my pocket and gave that smile. "Call me next weekend before you leave okay?"
"Of course," I replied, happy she remembered my upcoming deployment. Last night she seemed taken by it. It's good to be a warrior.