Southern Comfort and the Beast
For the most part, as long as we were a party of six, life was fine. When Mike and I were a twosome, there were issues. As long as he had an audience, he was polite, well mannered, and the life of the party. When it was just him and me, he could be critical, sarcastic, and downright mean. And that mostly happened when he was drinking. It's one thing to drink socially and party with friends, but drinking alone and drinking just to drink was another story.
I had started the relationship with Mike a little cautiously. He was funny and entertaining; he was polite and friendly to my mom. And it was because of that behavior that I started to care about him. He told me stories about how, as the baby of the family, he was mistreated and neglected, but at times he acted like a spoiled brat, and I really think that he was. It took all of his older brothers and sisters to take care of him because his mom and dad were divorced and supported the family alone. But what I determined was that when his parents were divorcing, his dad wanted Mike to go with him, and he couldn't because he was underage. His father was an alcoholic and unfit and unable to take care of anyone. He seemed to have some resentment for his mom because of that. But his brothers and sisters were very good to him. There was a big age gap between his oldest brother and Mike, about18 years, so his two older brothers were more like his father. Mike spent a lot of his off-duty time at my house. Every night, he would bring a new fifth of Calvert's or Southern Comfort thru the door and start drinking immediately. My mom would look at me with a raised eyebrow, but she was the one who had given him an open door invitation, not me. She felt sorry for him; I didn't. I would ask him to cut back on his drinking, and he would for a couple of days, and then he would go back to his old habits. I didn't drink with him; he drank alone.
Mike had been engaged to a girl from his hometown in Ohio while he was in Vietnam. She had sent him a dear john letter breaking off their engagement because she had met another guy. She lived in Oxon Hill with a guy in Glassmanor. It was way too close to me. She wasn't interested in him, but he still had feelings for her, I could tell. He still carried a picture of her in his wallet, and it hacked me off. He wouldn't get rid of it. He had never asked me about any of my past boyfriends, except Neal "Armstrong," who was never a boyfriend. But he displayed a lot of jealousy of him. When we are young, we believe that displaying signs of jealousy is an indication that a guy cares about you; as we get older, we know that it is not. In fact, it is or should be a warning sign. Jealousy is not a cute or loving emotion; it can be a deadly one. Looking back, that girl had hurt him when he was in a very vulnerable situation, and I believe it caused him not to trust women anymore. She had caused a lot of damage.
As summer progressed, we all were spending more alone time with our guys and not going out together as much. I wanted to get away from my family, and I let that overshadow the fact that Mike was really a bad guy to be with. If any of the other guys at the barracks talked to me, he would become outraged, not at them, at me. I wanted to break up with him, and I told my mom that I was going to, but I was really kind of afraid to do it but afraid not to. She begged me not to do it, that I would be messing my life up, that he was a good man, and he loved me. With my knowledge of analyzing my mom's actions after the fact, I should have run, I should have left town and never returned. Now I can see how screwed up her judgment of men was. David, a gentle, gorgeous giant that never hurt me or never would, was not the right guy for me. But Mike, the drunk, jealous, threatening guy, was wonderful. How screwed up is that? I don't know what she said to him; I guess she told him I would break up with him, and she must have given him a game plan to follow.
He stopped drinking for a while, and he became charming and so sweet. I was just too dumb to see through it. It appeared he had changed his ways, and in late July, he asked me if I would marry him. Dummy me said yes, it was a way out for me. I thought. Oh, my mom and my family were delighted; she took it upon herself to tell everyone. The only skeptical person was my uncle; he never liked Mike from day one. And he had told me not to get involved with him. His wife, my mom, and her sister were making great plans, rushing into it. The only thing we had talked about was setting a November date, and it would be a military wedding with the guys in uniform, and we would walk under crossed swords after the ceremony. I admit it sounds pretty romantic.
Parade season was still underway. On a Friday afternoon, while Shelley and I were getting ready, someone knocked on the door. I went to the door; I was surprised to see David's brother Jimmy standing there. He asked me to go outside with him; he said a couple of other guys were with him and wanted to see me. I walked over to their car, and they got out, but nobody was smiling. They said hi, but everyone was looking at the ground. They kind of spread out around me, and then Jimmy said, "David has been shot, he's in critical condition, they don't think he's going to make it." I had to make him repeat it again before I totally lost my mind. I guess that's why the guys were standing around me; they were going to catch me if I fell. I didn't, but I was sobbing, my ears were ringing, I couldn't hear anything else they said. I couldn't think I couldn't talk. It was too much for me; it was an overload of my circuits, I had never felt that way before, and it still makes me cry to just think about it. I have had three earthshaking events in my whole life, two of them I was somewhat prepared for when they happened; I was not prepared for this. The pain in my heart and my head were crushing; I felt as if someone had pulled my soul out of my body. It was horrific. Anything else that they told me was blocked out. I don't remember going back to my place, I don't remember them leaving, I don't know if I told Shelley or if they did. I just wanted to die,
What was I going to do? I had no way of telling Mike in advance that I wouldn't be there, and I dare not show up. He didn't even know who David was. I just remember sitting on my bed and crying. I was already dressed. I went to the parade and cried all the way through it, tears rolling down my face. When it was over, and we met the guys, Shelley told them what happened. Jim and MD were sympathetic; Mike just said, "Who the hell is he?" I never answered; I guess someone else did. The only thing I remember is that I cried all night, and everybody was griping at me. I cried for days, making myself sick, and I certainly wasn't getting any condolences from my mom. It was about a week before I heard anything back. They called and talked to my mom. David lived through it. He actually died on the operating table, and they brought him back. He had lost a lung and had part of a machine gun shell in his arm and chest that they couldn't remove. He would have a slow rehabilitation and would not be able to use his right arm. He was still in danger. I was never the same after that. All I knew was that he was in Okinawa and would be there a long time.
After that, Mike started dragging his feet about getting married. No big deal except that my dress was on layaway and my bridesmaids' dresses were on layaway. I went on living life but not with the same zest. In August, Mike was shining his shoes for the parade that night, I was in my room doing nothing. There was a knock on the door, a loud knock. I started out to answer the door, but Mike was almost there, so I turned back around and went back to my room. All I heard was, "Who the hell are you?', in two different voices, and David came bursting through my bedroom door. Another mini heart attack occurred. "Who the hell was that?" he wanted to know. I told him it was Mike, duh. "Well, who the hell is Mike?" I told him he was my boyfriend. He was looking at me, like, "well, of all the nerve!" I didn't know what to do; my 17-year-old brain couldn't handle the situation. I didn't know what to say, I was afraid there would be a fight. I wanted to throw myself on him and tell him how glad I was to see him, even though he looked awful. All I could manage was to ask him if he was okay. Mike came down the hall snooping, and David slammed the bedroom door in his face. "I came back for you, and now you have this guy here. Just give me my ring back." He took the ring, grabbed me, and kissed me, and walked out of my life. And now Mike was raising hell.
Mike went crazy. Screaming and yelling, pushing me around. He wanted to know how David knew where my bedroom was. I told him because he had been in it. He grabbed me and threw me across the room. When I got up, he knocked me down on the bed, and then he started trying to rip my clothes off. I fought him with everything I had in me, then he started choking me, the room started getting dark, I managed to knee him in the groin, and he got off of me. I have never told anyone how abusive he was, how many times he hit me and hurt me, and choked me. I was stupid. I should have called David; he would have come back and brought somebody to take care of Mike. But I didn't. I was not a very assertive person then. That could have changed my whole life.
Things were never quite the same with us again. We were not getting married in November. It was on hold. In September, around my birthday, some of the Navy Yard groups were going on a two-week performance tour in Dallas, a few other cities, and the Bahamas. Mike was going. Good. I hung around with Jim and Shelley, figuring that would be safe. There was a guy who was a friend from the barracks that had just bought a GTO. He wanted to take Shelley, Jim, and I out riding around in it. It was all innocent. So we rode around all over DC and Maryland, and Virginia. We were out all day. We came back, and he dropped Jim and Shelley off to get Jim's car, and then we all went back to Southview, and he took me home. As I was getting out of the car, he told me to wait a minute. He told me that I needed to break up with Mike. He said he was, well, a jerk. He told me that Mike had been telling some of the guys how he knocked me around and hurt me. I knew he was telling the truth because I hadn't told anyone about it. He said he couldn't understand why a nice girl like me was with somebody like that, that I could have any guy I wanted. He told me if I wasn't careful that Mike would kill me; he was a violent person. Well. I didn't know what to say. I thanked him for being kind and telling me that. Then I got out of the car. The last thing he said was if I ever needed him, I could call him.
When Mike got back from his trip, he gave me a pearl necklace. We left the house to go somewhere. He started asking me if I had been with Steve, the guy with the GTO. I told him that Jim Shelley and I had ridden around with him and that it was no big deal. He pulled over to the side of the road and slammed the car in park and grabbed me, and started choking me. It was worse than the last time, he was pressing on my windpipe, and it hurt like hell. I was fighting him, hitting him, pulling at his hands, I was trying to breathe, and I just started making a horrible gurgling sound, my ears were ringing, and my head was pounding. He was going to kill me. My shoes had flown off from me thrashing around, and in that last second of gasping and darkness, I found something on the seat. I didn't know what it was, I grabbed it and hit him somewhere, I don't know where and he let go of me. I opened the car door and rolled out on the street. I got up and started walking back to my house. I was almost home. He pulled up and told me to get in the car. I told him to park my car and bring me my keys and leave. My neighbor was a Prince George's cop, and he was out on his balcony. I told him to do it, or I was going to scream for help. He parked the car and took off walking. I went into the house and looked in the mirror; I had to find a way to hide the handprints on my throat.
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