Commitment

Jordie sat at the kitchen table, gazing blankly at the television screen in front of him. Behind the television, the sun’s rays glimmered through the floor-to-ceiling window, lighting up the white linoleum floor. He watched as his seven-year-old twin neighbors, Chris and Ava ran through the sprinkler in his yard. He looked nostalgically at the siblings. Had it really been seven years since Chris and Ava were born?

He reminisced about the first time he ever met the two of them. He was thirteen years old, and his family had been invited over for dinner by the twins’ parents, Zachary and Alex. He was reluctant to go, but his father didn’t give him an option. Jordie never felt very comfortable around children, and he remembered declining the offer to hold the two newborns on this night. That was when his mom was still alive. He could barely wrap his head around the fact that Chris and Ava had met his mother. They certainly didn’t remember anything about her, but sometimes he felt that he didn’t either.

She was so warm. Which is why it always amazed him that she married his dad. They were polar opposites. He thought back to the summer days of his youth, when he would play badminton with her in the backyard for hours on end. They would laugh together, never tiring of each other’s company. The sight of her vibrant smile was still picture perfect in his mind. One of the few things about her that was.

But when it was dinnertime and the three of them gathered around the table, she changed. She was a different person around Jordie’s father. She tried to equal his cold presence, almost as if the two were competing over who could seem more disappointed with their situation in life. While the afternoons were filled with laughter and pleasure, dinner brought tension, and oftentimes silence, until Jordie’s dad would break it by telling his son to get to work on the dishes.

His favorite times were when his dad was away. Especially as a young kid, coming home from school was fun when only his mother was around. He would race down the street, fresh off the bus, his blue and black, oversized backpack hanging on for dear life on his scrawny shoulders. He would sprint through the front door, always forgetting to take off his light-up, red and white Nike sneakers, and into the kitchen. There, his mom would have a piece of construction paper folded nicely on the wooden table. She would pull back one of the black chairs and he would hop up onto it with a smile sprawled across his face. He would grab the construction paper, the words “Mama’s Kitchen,” at the top in beautiful handwriting. When he opened it, the top of the page would read, “TODAY’S SNACKS,” in big bubble letters, followed by three choices. Some days he would have the option of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, nachos, or grilled cheese. Other days, it was between a ham sandwich, tomato soup, and mac and cheese. It seemed like his mom never ran out of ideas. Once he made his choice, she would write it down on a piece of paper, and holler the order behind her, as if there was a chef waiting for direction. She would then turn, and fix up whatever snack he wanted, all while cheerily asking how his day was.

She got sick when Jordie was eleven. At first, she didn’t let it affect her. Both physically and emotionally she stayed the same woman he knew and loved. However, the doctors weren’t so optimistic about her recovery. They caught the cancer late, and it had spread like wildfire through her body. They started putting her through intense chemo, and her hair started falling out. She was ashamed. Jordie didn’t know why. She hardly ever went out in public anymore, and wore a hat whenever she did. Her will to fight dwindled quickly.

With his dad gone a lot, Jordie stayed at family friends’ houses, or with his grandparents while his mother was in the hospital. He didn’t think about death at first. But her condition deteriorated. She became completely drained, sleeping nearly twenty hours everyday. He visited her, but mostly just watched movies while she slept. Even when she was awake she wasn’t the mom he remembered. She was removed from reality, and could barely keep a conversation with Jordie without nodding off. He was in denial. He wished he had been more aware.

He still remembers the day so vividly; more vividly then he remembers her. He was a freshman in high school, and it was December: basketball season. He was at practice with his junior varsity teammates when the head coach of the varsity team came in and called him to the side. He was so excited at first. But as he approached his coach, and saw the look on his face, his stomach dropped. The walk to his office felt like it took hours. Uncomfortable silence only occasionally broken by talk of basketball.

Jordie knew. It took every bit of focus to keep his feet moving one after the other. At least the coach did him the favor of telling him in private and not in front of the team. Jordie never talked about it, and only a handful of his friends knew about his mom.

The next thing he remembers was the car ride. He was sobbing uncontrollably in the front seat of his coach’s car. When they got to the hospital, he needed help just to walk to her room. The nurses were catering to him like he was a patient. Some of them hugged him as he walked through the first floor of the hospital.

Jordie was jerked out of his thoughts by the squeak of the staircase. He directed his attention back to the television screen as his father entered the kitchen.

“What are you going to do today J?”

“Not sure. I got a little homework I have to finish and I might go to dinner with my friends,” he replied.

“When are you going to go downtown to sign up?”

“Not sure yet. I’ve been trying to find time to get down there for a couple weeks now. Just been busy with schoolwork and the grocery store.”

“If I were you, I’d do it soon. School’s almost over, I can’t just have you around here all summer again.”

“Yeah I hear you pops. Maybe when summer starts,” Jordie said carefully.

“Summer?” His father laughed, as if Jordie was just making a joke. “That’s over a month away.”

“Well yeah I know but I just don’t know when else I’d be able to do it.”

“How about you and me go down there this weekend?” His father had posed a question, but Jordie knew that there was only one answer.

“Oh…” Jordie didn’t know what to say. He pretended like he was focused on the television to make the pause seem less awkward, then continued. “I think Kory might actually be coming into town this weekend.”

His father breathed deeply, letting out a long exhale as he walked over to the fridge. Jordie thought about getting up and walking away, but decided against it.

“Look, J, you’ve been putting this off for a while now. Trust me, a couple years from now you’ll thank me for really pushing you on this. Kory comes down more than once a month and anyways, you can just see him after we’re done.”

“Um…” Again Jordie knew there was no point in fighting his father. For years he had been hinting that he did not want to go into the military by suggesting he might become a teacher or a doctor. But his dad never gave it up.

“Great, we’ll head down there in the morning on Saturday and get everything figured out.” His father was now over by the sink, filling the large blue pot with water.

———————————————————————————————————————

“I don’t understand it Jordie,” Lucy said as she looked at him from across the table.

“I don’t expect you to. He’s a complicated guy. And he gets what he wants,” he said, refusing to meet her gaze.

“You’re 18 now. There’s nothing he can force you to do. What’s the worst thing that happens? He doesn’t talk to you for a few days?”

“No. He would kick me out. Then where do I go? He’s the only parent I have left. What he says goes in our house,” Jordie answered sharply.

“Please Jordie. We’ve all talked about it and we really think that you need to stand up for yourself on this one. We’re your friends. We’re just trying to look out for you.”

“I get it. Thanks. But you don’t know my dad, and neither do they.” Jordie pointed towards the group of friends that had gathered in the kitchen, listening to music, drunk from whatever shitty vodka they had convinced a homeless man to buy them that night. He rose from his chair. Lucy remained in her seat, he could feel her eyes pressed to him as he gathered his backpack and threw it around his shoulders.

“I gotta go. I’ll talk to you soon.” Jordie looked at her, and saw tears welling up in her vibrant blue eyes. She looked down as he walked past her and out into the night air.

———————————————————————————————————————

The next morning they made the trip. His dad couldn’t drive, his left eye was completely blind, and his right was finicky. That was the word he always used. Jordie didn’t want to drive either but he had no other option. His hands shook on the wheel as they glided down South Street, heading towards the center of town.

“You eat enough today?” his dad asked.

“I must not have,” Jordie replied, gripping his hands tighter over the steering wheel to keep them from shaking. He was nervous. He didn’t have the toughness to go through boot camp, let alone combat.

The two parked a couple hundred yards from the recruitment office. As his dad placed coins in the meter besides them, Jordie faced the other way. He inhaled as deeply as he could, trying to relax all of his muscles as he let out the humid late-May air. In front of him, the park was filled with people. Jordie saw Ava and Chris’s mother Alex walking with a friend, a paper bag tucked under her left arm. The small stage in the middle of the park was occupied with half a dozen or so dancers. All middle-aged white women, swaying their bodies to music he could barely make out from across the street. A couple feet to the right of the stage, a child climbed the massive oak tree that cast a welcomed shadow over the park. He carefully shimmied up the trunk, knocking down a steady stream of leaves that collected underneath as his mother looked on disapprovingly.

“Let’s go, Jordie. What are you looking at?”

“Just checking out the park,” he said, as he turned back towards his father and made his way over the curb and onto the sidewalk beside him.

“Listen Jordie, I know this guy that’ll be at the office today. Marco was in Kuwait around the same time that I was. I got to know him one day in the capital. He’s a tough dude but since he knows me I bet he’ll take it easy on you today.”

Jordie could hear the words his dad was saying but he wasn’t listening. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead, trying to put a look of determination on his face to appease his father. All he could respond with was, “OK.”

His father swung open the glass door and behind the desk sat a short, nerdy looking man with glasses. He stared blankly at his computer screen, not even bothering to look up when the bells on the door collided and jingled.

“Hey, Marco,” Jordie’s father said enthusiastically.

“Oh shit, what are you doing here Donnie?” he replied, remaining in his seat.

“Finally got Jordie down here to sign up.” Marco rose to his feet. Jordie had been wrong. He stood to reveal a massive upper-body. His head looked like a grape that had mistakenly rolled onto the shoulders of a behemoth. The tight, military fatigues he wore looked like they were about to burst, and his forearms revealed by his rolled up sleeves were covered in tattoos. He took Jordie’s hand firmly in his.

Jordie remembered what his dad told him. He looked him straight in the eyes, no smile on his face, and said, “Nice to meet you, Sir.”

“You too boy, now what branch you interested in?” Marco asked.

Jordie opened his mouth to reply but his dad cut in, “Rangers. All the way. Don’t you try to convince him to become a fucking leatherneck. Because it’s not happening.”

They both laughed. Jordie stood uncomfortably. He decided not to force a laugh and just smiled sheepishly instead.

“Alright, alright. I get it. Got to do the same shit your dad did huh kid?”

“Yes, Sir,” Jordie replied, unsure of what to say.

The three of them spent the next hour or so filling out paperwork. The whole time, Don and Marco caught up about life after the military. Marco asked Jordie some questions from time to time, but Jordie often caught himself not paying attention and stupidly asking the hulking veteran to repeat himself. Jordie gazed around the office, noticing the small American flag encircled by a flag for each branch of the military.

“Alright there Jordie, you’re all set,” Marco said, rising and offering a handshake.

“Great thank you,” Jordie replied, “…Sir.” He had almost forgotten.

“Not a problem man,” Marco replied, “You should be all set to head down to Fort Benning in no time.”

“Sounds good, Sir.” Jordie nodded and forced a smile as he and his dad pushed their way out the door. Soon, he’d be crawling around in the mud, not having slept for twenty-four hours down in Georgia. Jordie was somber as the two walked back towards the car. His dad on the other hand, was thrilled. He rambled on as they walked down the sidewalk. Jordie ignored his commentary as they passed “Paulie’s Pizzeria” and the smell of a fresh pie slithered out the front door. Jordie skimmed the area behind the counter to see if Lucy was working. He saw her blonde hair, wrapped in a ponytail, swing around towards the door. He averted his eyes across the street to avoid her gaze.