35 Cents for Steve

            content warning for suicide

Cans clunked from break room machines 
as we gulped down caffeine and fantasy
with jests and the kind of cursing meant
only for soldiers of shared experience.
Spit polished boots, stiff uniforms,
rank centered on hats resting on tables,
we shared our dimes and quarters,
escaped from that civilian world 
of 50 cent soda, were rewarded
for protecting our country each time
we bought Coca-Cola for 35 cents.
We all had our reasons for losing
ourselves in Army pride and games,
but those kinds of stories were saved
for the twentieth hour of twenty-four
hour guard duty, when the crowd slept
and two soldiers had no more jokes.

The drill was no different when Steve
and I guarded the barracks, watching
our duties and time dwindle down.
All rifles mounted, all locks secured,
drunk soldiers evacuated to their rooms,
we stared into the pentadecagon dark,
listening to pings break the unsounded night.
Steve squared his hat, sipped his soda,
finally mustered his voice and his story:
He heard a tiny click, then that thunder;
he feared thunder when he was five.
His mother had pointed the same gun
at him just before she changed her mind.
They said he was covered in her blood,
but Steve could not remember the blood.
He could remember when he was seven
how the red flames burst from his father’s
little plane, how it exploded after take-off;
he remembered the firm hug his father
gave him before leaving on that plane.

Stillness merged the ending of those hours.
In the twenty-third hour we unlocked doors,
woke-up troops, gathered the quelling light.
In the twenty-fourth hour, as cans began
dropping, we awaited release and sleep.
For Steve that meant a cot in the barracks. 
For me it meant home, where my husband
sneaked in morning kisses, nested our baby
in my arms, then left to begin his own duty.
After he died, silence filled rooms I entered,
with everyone buffering themselves
from me, a twenty-five-year-old widow,
no longer a welcomed party guest.
Except for Steve, who brought me
35 cent sodas from the machine,
read silently at my dining room table,
and waited for me to choose to talk.

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