Jpatrickm

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday and a super new year.

On another note… I stumbled across a folder that I used to keep all my personal writings in. The folder is old and dog-eared and has the words “Writer’s Block” written across the front, although I’m not sure why. Anyway, inside I found a bunch of old notes, stories and poems that I’d written and stuffed away. One of them was a short story I wrote the year after graduating from college sometime around Christmas 1993. The story takes place at christmas 10 years in the future, which incidentally would have been in 2002, so it was interesting to read and look back on where I thought I’d be today. At that time I was in the closet, living in North Carolina working for a computer consulting company and was preparing to enter active duty in the Army. I’m not sure what the story says about me to other people who read it, but to me it brings back very clearly the struggle I was having at that time with my sexuality and the straight life I was hiding behind. It also reminds me of how desparately I wanted to find someone I could relate to and that I had already resigned myself to someday getting married and living the “normal” life. It also occurred to me that it’s very similar to the new movie “Brokeback Mountain”. Go see it if you have the opportunity.

Anyway, I decided to post the entire story here. Click through below to continue reading. I hope you enjoy it.

Merry Christmas!

Letting Go

The voices and laughter faded behind him as he closed the door to his study. Faint music accompanied by the muffled but distinct sounds of people partying, occasionally broke the silence of the dimly lit room. He walked over to the mahogany shelving built into the wall where the stereo was and hit a switch. The few sounds that could still be heard from the party in the other room were now completely covered by the soft music that suddenly clicked on over the speakers tucked neatly somewhere in the room. He walked over to the big riveted leather chair behind the dark broad desk and sank into the cushion, reclining back; the chair slowly swiveling around under the weight of his seating. He let out a sigh and stared up at the top of the windows decorated by little white corded lights. The white electric candles on each window sill emitted just enough light to shadow the features of the room. He smiled inside; he had always loved the window lights even as a child. The lighting always triggered a homely sense of belonging in him; of familiar things he’d long since lost. The soft instrumental sounds of “What Child is This?” by some orchestra he only knew as being conducted by Andre’ Previn, filled the room. As he relaxed, the thoughts of the party faded to a million worlds away, although he hadn’t really been much involved with the party tonight anyway. It was always an emotional time of year, but having lost so much this year, he felt himself nearly at his strengths end. He found himself staring off into the pictures lining the walls. Pictures of his great years at Norwich; or at least now after ten years he had deemed them great. As had been the case for weeks now, he found his eyes locked on to one particular picture, his mind drifting off to the time and place the picture had been taken. It was a gathering of “the boys’ as young cadets. One of a seemingly endless number of get-togethers that the passing years had now merged into one memory. Parties where the conversation was always the same as was the beer. You could pick one of them and it would match a hundred others. He tried to separate them all in his mind, grasping at any thought that may reverse the pain and somehow convince himself that he had not indeed taken it all so much for granted.

He breathed in deep as he felt his stomach begin to tighten. It had been almost two months now since he had found out; since Jon had been reported KIA, killed in action. He remembered the last letter he received about a week prior, postmarked APO Korea somewhere. He never kept track of where Jon was one week to the next, it was enough that he was in Korea, half a world away, serving his Army time as a Captain. It was not just a job but a calling everyone who went to Norwich, or any other military school for that matter, had at one time or another. A calling to serve they felt destined to fulfill that was rooted somewhere deep in their childhood. They held themselves to some long since lost and undefined code of a warrior, some perceived higher standard above the rest of American’s college students. The self-proclaimed guardians of radical peace movements and delinquent youths. But warriors die, along with hopes and dreams and he was having a hard time believing in this warrior code, which now suddenly seemed to make little sense anymore.

Suddenly the door to the study opened, the light from the other room flooding in, in an arc that scanned the room as the door hinged open. A woman, half in and half out of the room peered in and spoke. “Honey, are you in here? ….. are you alright?”

Breaking his stare from the picture, he looked up at the doorway, seeing her but not really. He glanced at her young face, softly lit by the white window lights and thought to himself how lucky and fortunate he was to have married such a beautiful woman. Not really hearing her question, he mumbled off, “Yes, I’m…”.

She stared for a moment at the desk and the dark figure sitting behind it in the shadows, fighting to find the right next word and finally realizing there wasn’t one. The light from behind her contrasted against the darkness of the room and hid the expression on her face. An expression of helpless compassion that she tried to mask, hoping that if her words could provide no strength then maybe a reassuring look could. But she too was growing weak from trying to be strong and the hurt from watching her husband, the man she loved, slowly shut out the world around him, was becoming harder each day. She hoped her patience and love would prevail in the end. She learned as early on as their first few dates that his love of the brotherhood of his school and his friends was an equal contender to the love of their marriage. She also learned early on as well, not to fight against it. She was still unsure, after five years of marriage, who would win. She knew though that she would wait, for she believed that this same strength of brotherhood, which caused the immense pain in him, would also be the strength with which it would heal. Yes, she reaffirmed to herself before closing the door, she loved him and she would wait.

In the dark once again, even before his eyes could readjust to the dim lighting, his mind was once again off in thought. He remembered the funeral. It was strange to him how the rain, fog, cold air, military gun salute and echo taps all seemed so perversely perfect; just how Jon would have wanted it. It was right out of every movie they’d ever seen or imagined, except that this time there was no duty, honor, country to leave you with that warm sense of mission accomplished, there was only the finality of death. He remembered seeing the people and old friends from Norwich; some just passing acquaintances he’d known only through Jon. He recalled that chilling sensation upon hearing echo taps, that same feeling he used to get on those cold fall nights at Norwich when some cadet would die over the summer. Afterwards they would all talk about how it seemed so mystical. How the valley and the hills overlooking the school and parade ground almost seemed to know, almost seemed to cry at the loss of one of its own. There would be no conversations this time. It all seemed so final, so unnecessary. The thing that angered him most was that after all, this was the damned way Jon would have written it himself. Well he fulfilled his destiny. He did his duty to God and country and now he was god damned dead, leaving the rest of them to live out the stark realities of a difficult and lonely world; an adult world. A poem he’d once read to Jon flashed through his mind, “To an Athlete Dying Young”. It read, “Smart lad to slip betimes away, from fields where glory does not stay.” It was the only line he could recall. It was one of his favorite since high school. For a moment he wondered why.

Something flickered in the corner of his eye and he glanced out the window. It was beginning to snow; the white flakes intensifying all the lights on the quiet street. It looked so peaceful. He swiveled to look around the room. The walls were covered with pictures, banners, certificates and awards all glamorizing his achievements so far in life. So much to smile upon he thought, and yet it all seemed so in vain without the simple things, which he now knew he had taken for granted assuming they would always be there his whole life. He thought of everything he had in life and tried for a moment to figure out how it had all happened this way. He looked once more out the window. The snow was falling much heavier now and had already blanketed everything with a thin layer; the road was no longer distinguishable from the sidewalks and yards. He thought how much it reminded him of the parade ground and surrounding mountains at Norwich. “Damn it…” he whispered to himself, asking how in the hell he had gotten so messed up by that damn school; a question he and his friends had frequently asked themselves since leaving there. He closed his eyes but couldn’t escape the image of them all together. He felt his stomach tighten again and his face flush with heat. His eyes began to burn and he squinted harder as tears pressed out from behind them. Leaning forward he put his face into his hands, elbows braced on his knees. He could no longer hold it in. He had always prided himself on holding emotions in; on maintaining his composure in a situation, but he could do it no longer. He was tired of holding on. His arms and shoulders began to shake uncontrollably as he began to cry harder. He had fought his whole life to try and learn how to let go, each time wondering whether it would get easier. He knew now it never would.