Battle Dress (2 page)

—U.S. ARMY MARCHING CADENCE

T
HE MORNING I LEFT for West Point, nobody showed up at my house to say good-bye. I thought that at least someone from the track team—maybe even my coach—might drop by to wish me luck. But nobody did.

So I went to sit on the curb at the bottom of our driveway and waited to leave. I watched my sister and brother get into our blue Volvo station wagon as my dad tossed the last bag into the back and slammed the trunk. He went over to the driver’s side and popped the hood. He checked the oil for the second time. Finally, he scowled at the front door and blasted the horn three long times.

My mother stuck her frizzy, uncombed head outside and shrieked, “Do you want to eat today, Ted? I’m throwing some food together. Just sit there and wait.”

“I’ve
been
waiting,” he yelled back. “Now it’s time to leave. Didn’t we agree we’d leave at seven? Well, now it’s almost eight!”

“I’ll leave when I’m good and ready. So just shut up! You—” Then her eyes locked on me. “Andi’s not even in the car! So what’s the big deal? Isn’t
she
why we’re going in the first place?” Her head disappeared as the door slammed.

My dad glared at me and barked, “You heard your mother. Get in the car!”

I sighed, then got up off the curb and headed for the backseat.
One thousand miles. Can’t wait for this trip to be over.

“Move over!” my sister yelled at my brother as I climbed in. “What’s your problem, Randy? You always sit in the middle.”

My brother sulked and slid over. Ten years ago, strapped into his car seat, he’d spat into my hair and smeared partially eaten graham crackers on anything within his reach. Now, at least, his annoying car behavior was limited to blowing out his eardrums with heavy metal on his iPod. “Just keep your pile of books on your side—” He smirked. “Mandie.”

She shoved him away. “Fine. If you keep your reeking breath on your side. Do you ever brush your teeth? And don’t call me Mandie. I told you, from now on it’s Amanda. That’s what’s on my birth certificate. Don’t you think it’s tacky that all our names rhyme?”

“No, I think it’s cool,
Mandie
.”

My mother yanked open the door to the passenger’s side. “You left the window open in our bedroom,” she said to my dad as they both got into the car. “The one over your precious computer. Ever hear of rain?” She crammed a grocery bag on the seat between them and dropped her purse to the floor. Then she turned around and frowned at my brother. “You have that thing on already?”

He shrugged. “Blocks out your voice.” He turned up the volume and closed his eyes.

My mother snorted, my dad started the car, and my sister opened her book.

West Point, here we come!

Before we even made it out of the driveway, my mother started complaining to my dad that the radio was too loud, and why did he always have to listen to the sports station? My dad said that she could pick the station when she started doing the driving.

As we whizzed down I-90 past the Sears Tower, my mother turned off the air-conditioning, opened her window, and commanded, “Open your windows, kids. Let’s get a nice breeze going.” Immediately, hot, sticky air wafted in.

My dad punched the air back on and said in his I’m-trying-to-remain-in-control voice, “Roll up your windows, kids. We need to cool this car off.”

My mother shut it off. My dad turned it on. My mother shut it off. He master-locked the windows.

Meanwhile, Mandie, Randy, and I were sweating, our legs sticking to the leather seats.

Finally, Mandie slammed down her paperback and yelled, “Would you stop acting like a couple of babies? Just leave the air on. Stop being so cheap, Mom.”

“I’m not being cheap.” She stuck her hand out the window. “It’s nice outside, and I just want to enjoy it a little. Is that so bad?”

“You call ninety-three degrees with ninety-five percent humidity ‘nice’?” Randy asked.

I guess he can’t block out her voice after all.

“Just leave it on,” Mandie said. “Andi will be gone in a few days. Can’t you attempt to limit the amount of misery she is forced to endure?”

I smiled. For as long as I could remember, Mandie had always stuck up for me, like a big sister should. Except she wasn’t my big sister. She was two years younger than I. Maybe she felt guilty because I caught so much grief and she rarely did.

“Well,” my mother snapped, “you can at least turn it down, Ted. It doesn’t have to be on so
hard
.” For some reason, my mother always listened to Mandie.

I could tell right away that this bad day was only going to get worse when we stopped to fill up at a Texaco station outside of Hammond, Indiana.

“I think it’s crazy that we have to stop so soon,” my mother whined. “Why didn’t you fill up before we left? You know gas costs more on the expressway.”

“Because,” my dad said, watching the numbers roll on the pump, “if we would’ve stopped in town, we never would’ve gotten out of there! You would’ve said, ‘I need to run into Jewel real quick to get something.’ Then it would’ve been Walmart, then ...”

“Oh, just shut up, you dumb—”

“Watch your mouth!” my dad spat.

She finished her sentence anyway.

Shortly after we crossed the Indiana-Ohio border, my mother pointed to a rest stop. “Pull over here, Ted. I have to pee.”

“You just went,” my dad said as he sped past the stop. “And do you have to be so crass? Say ‘urinate.’”

“I told you to pull over! I really have to go!”

“No! We’re making terrible time. In a couple of hours we’ll need to fill up with gas. We’ll stop then.”

“A couple of hours?” she howled. “Who do you think you are,
God
? You can’t dictate when I can and cannot pee.” She emphasized the word “pee.”

“Oh, yes I can! I’m driving.
I
decide when we stop.”

“Then
I’ll
drive!” she screamed, grabbing the steering wheel. The car swerved into the left lane, nearly hitting a red pickup truck. Car horns blared all around us. I grabbed the door handle to brace myself.

My brother’s eyes snapped open and he yanked his headphones off his ears. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” my dad yelled. He tried to pry my mother’s fingers off the steering wheel. “Do you want to get us all killed?”

“No! I want to drive. I’m sick of you making all the decisions.”

“Let go!” He swerved back into the right lane.

Great. Now we’ll end up in a ditch.

“Stop at the next exit!”

Why does this stuff always happen in our family?
I glanced at my sister. She was just sitting there, reading her book. “Come on, Dad,” I said, leaning forward. “Just stop at the next exit. Okay?”

He scowled at me over his shoulder. “Over my dead body!” Then he shoved my mother with his right hand, and she lost her grip on the steering wheel.

My mother screamed in his face. “You animal! You hit me! Did you see that, kids? He hit me!”

“I did not hit you,” my dad said, emphasizing every word. “I—”

“Let me out!” she screeched. “Let me out right now! I’m not going to sit in this car with you a second longer!” She flung her door open, and it waved to the Ohio pastures flying by at sixty-five miles per hour.

“For crying out loud!” my dad yelled. As he leaned across her to pull the door shut, my mother snatched off his glasses and threw them out the door.

“Ha!” she snorted triumphantly. “What are you going to do now, Mr. Big Shot?”

Without his glasses, my dad can’t see past the tip of his nose. So he really had no choice but to pull off the road. I heard gravel ricocheting off the car as we slowly bumped to a stop. My dad stared at my mother, stunned. She refused to look back. Instead, she wiped her tears and snot from her face with the back of her hand and began rummaging through the food bag to find a napkin.

“You should be put away,” he finally said. “You know, in the nineteen years we’ve been married, I’ve seen you do a lot of crazy things. But this ...” He shook his head and stared out the window.

He
had
seen a lot of crazy things. We all had. Like her running around the house at one in the morning in her nightgown, wielding a kitchen knife and screaming profanities. Our neighbors called the police that time. Like trying to burn him out of their bedroom when he locked himself inside so he could get away from her. The firemen came that time. Or like hitting him on the head with a fire poker because he’d rather watch Monday Night Football than the miniseries of the week with her. I drove him to the emergency room that time. But she’d never tried to kill us all before.

My dad took his keys from the ignition and fumbled around until he found my mother’s purse. He dug out her keys and shook them in her face. “I’m not going to take any chances with you,” he said. Then he got out and started walking back along the highway to look for his glasses.

“Hey, wait, Dad! I’ll help you!” my sister yelled after him. Then she smirked at my mother. “Great move, Mom. I want to be just like you when
I
grow up.”

The car quickly filled with heavy, sun-steamed air. I flung open my door, hoping to get some relief, but the breeze barely stirred the grass in the field beside us. Eight or nine cows ambled in the sun, snacking now and then on the grass and swatting flies with their tails. I got out of the car and stretched each leg, wishing I could go on a long run—pounding the pavement far away from our blue Volvo station wagon.

I heard my mother sniff. “Do you see how your daddy treats me? Taking my keys away like I’m a child or something.”

“Well ...” I picked at my thumbnail.
You act like one.

“You see how violent he is?” She rubbed her shoulder. “He thinks he can hit me whenever he wants.”

“He didn’t really hit you, Mom. He
pushed
you.”

“What’s the difference? It hurt.” She stared at me, looking for sympathy. When she didn’t find any, she started to cry again. “That man disgusts me. He’s nothing but a ...” She started stringing curse words together. “He thinks he’s so perfect. Well, he’s not. He’s a lousy hypocrite, that’s what he is.”

I had to agree with her on that point. My dad
wasn’t
perfect. He was as self-absorbed as my mother was vicious. His glasses were as thick as ice cubes, and without them he was legally blind. But that was no excuse for him to miss who I was as a person. At least my mother knew me well enough to know which of my buttons to push to get a reaction out of me. He had no clue. None.

Like the night I announced to my family at dinner that I was going to apply to West Point. My dad didn’t even bother to lift his eyes from his lumpy mashed potatoes. “No daughter of mine is going into the military” was his only reply. “Only sluts and whores go into the service.” His words stung worse than when my mother smacked me across the mouth, so I never brought up West Point again.

But my mother did. She was never one to pass up a bargain, and West Point was a big one. A $350,000 education for nothing. And the only payback—five years in the Army after graduation. Armed with that information, my mother easily convinced my dad that maybe West Point, in spite of all its sluts and whores, would make a wonderful place for his daughter to get an education, after all.

That is, if we ever got there.

I sighed. “That’s beside the point, Mom. You wouldn’t let go of the steering wheel! What else was he supposed to do?”

“Oh, what good are you? You never take my side.” She gave me an ugly look. “If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t even be here. I don’t even know why we’re wasting our time. You don’t belong at West Point. You’re not smart enough. Why do you think they waited until the middle of May to accept you?”

I closed my eyes, wishing I could close my ears instead.
Oh, Mom, don’t start. Please!
But I knew that once she got going, I couldn’t stop her. Nobody could.

“You know why. We
all
do. You don’t need a Ph.D. to figure that one out.” She sneered at me. “Someone else turned them down. You were their last choice.” She turned her back to me. “You’ll
never
make it there.” She blew her nose into the soggy blue napkin she had clutched in her hand. “We should’ve just dumped you on a plane. This driving is the pits.”

I could feel the rage and hurt frothing up inside me.
I didn’t ask you to take me. Do you think I’d
ask
for this?
I turned away from her, toward the pasture, where a calf nuzzled up to its mother and began to nurse. “So, I’m going to look at the cows, okay?”

“I don’t care what you do.”

About ten minutes later we were ready to go. Mandie and my dad rescued the glasses from a muddy ditch about a hundred yards behind our car. Then Mandie went back to Danielle Steel, Randy tuned in to Metallica, and we got back on the road.

I closed my eyes.
I can tolerate anything for a few days,
I kept telling myself.
Anything.

CHAPTER 2

MONDAY, JUNE 28 9:01 A.M.

The Corps, bareheaded, salute it
With eyes up, thanking our God—
That we of the Corps are treading
Where they of the Corps have trod—

—CHAPLAIN H. S. SHIPMAN, “THE CORPS”

M
Y WATCH SAID 9:01 as we climbed the bleachers of Michie Stadium. The morning was heating up; it was going to be a hot day. A tall cadet stood on a platform below, wearing a white hat, a white short-sleeved shirt, white gloves, gray pants, a red sash wrapped around his waist, a silver saber at his hip, and shiny black shoes.

He briefed the new cadet candidates and their families. I tried to listen to his motivating speech, but my mind was spinning.
I can’t believe I’m really here.