A Fiction for Goodbye

“Summer was over, and so were we”

- anonymous permanent marker graffiti on the backside of a stop sign somewhere in Tacoma.

That night; there wasn’t really anything resembling a thought process and a plan – there was just three kids (all nineteen), a few cigars and a couple loud cars. The night before the change; all three internally asking the eternal question – what will happen? They smoked their cigars in a Tacoma parking lot overlooking the docks, the age old riddle echoing like a mournful bell through their little heads. What will happen? The question that is youth in a nutshell.

Austin was leaving tomorrow, heading off to basic. Early tomorrow, this was going to be their last night with him for a long time. In a week Kyle was heading back for his second year at a “Christian” party college down south. Eric was going to be staying in Washington – he had a decent job, wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. Three kids, nineteen; and somehow all currently quite irritated with each other on a night that should have been a cheerful night.

First off they had no business being in Tacoma. They were in Tacoma because Austin had made a new friend one week before that he wanted to say bye to and so decided to convince the other two to meet him in Tacoma. Austin’s Tacoma buddy bailed. That was the first reason everyone was annoyed.

The second reason everyone was at each other’s throats that night – even while trying to maintain good terms, and good manners, and fake pleasantness, and enjoy parking lot cigars – was because Kyle had decided that he wanted to make known his discomfort with Austin joining the service at all. It had been building for a while; Kyle felt the war was a waste of money, Kyle’s older brother had already lost a friend overseas, Kyle felt the world needed more diplomats, not warriors.

For Austin’s part he was planning on being a chaplain’s assistant; he was planning on going the four years and then getting out and going to college on the government’s dime. Austin didn’t want to hurt anyone; hence why he figured on being an assistant to a chaplain; but Kyle was even more annoyed with that part. He made arguments that Austin was like a Crusader; encouraging others to go off and destroy a stranger’s homeland because God told them so.

Eric was just annoyed that the two of them were arguing. He fundamentally agreed with Kyle’s points; but he was also just concerned about the idea of their best friend being anywhere near combat. Plus there was the fact that Eric knew that a quarter of Austin’s reason for signing on to serve wasn’t just the college at the end – it was also a large identifying marker for Austin’s ego, since they were kids Austin had always been obsessed with the idea of being as “manly” as possible; whatever that means. From age of seven to age of nineteen that desire with the amazing idea of “peak masculinity” had driven Austin. Understand the boys and then everything else about the following scene might make sense.

All three leaning against the cars, Austin and Eric against Austin’s; Kyle against Kyle’s. Kyle is not fond of his cigar, so he really just holds it in his hand. Austin doesn’t like his cigar, but he still keeps it in his mouth and tries to talk around it; Eric just smokes his too fast and doesn’t care. Austin’s making a point about how he probably won’t ever be overseas; Kyle is getting frustrated, he argues Austin will still be using Theology to hype up others and send them to war, he doesn’t really care if Austin is himself personally present for the war or not. “Deus vult.” Kyle mutters.

Austin has a cigar sticking out the right side of his face, his floral button down is half unbuttoned at ten pm at night. Why? It helps with his overall image. Austin happily goads Kyle. “But God’shh not shending them to war, democrashy is.” His words slurred by the cigar impacting his speech, his prop and attire make a beautiful mimicry of whatever the “ideal male” of his mind is. Like a newsboy in an old black and white photo, the outfit seems too big for the kid wearing it.

Kyle just replies with some more Latin – something about Latin, make a point in Latin and people tend to respect the point more (a stretch of logic, but hey, we all stretch logic sometimes) – “Vox populi, vox Dei; Deus Vult.”. Kyle says with way too much false gravitas. “The voice of the people is the voice of God, is it not? The people will democracy. The voice of the people wills war. Therefore God wills war. Different century, same war.” He gives Austin a glare, and then looks down at his cigar, it’s out already, he hasn’t been smoking it.

Austin laughs because he finds Kyle’s Latin funny, he also finds it really funny that Kyle thinks he can somehow change Austin’s mind the literal night before he leaves; he can’t be bothered to really even take his old friend seriously. That’s Austin’s flaw, one of his flaws at least; one of his many, many flaws. Another big flaw of his is his inability to leave something alone when it’s bothering someone else. Hence why instead of just letting Kyle fume he has to provoke him, he can’t help it.

Eric sighs, his cigar is out, he’s lighting a cigarette, he can already see where this is going.

Austin pulls the cigar out of his mouth, the end has been chewed to shreds, he uses it as a prop, accentuating his points with over exaggerated hand motions. “Ummmm, hate to break it to you, but church and state are separate. The whole purpose of democracy is that it frees peoples from the divinely ordained rule of the monarchy and dictatorships. Besides, only a pope can order a crusade and the head of America isn’t the pope. We couldn’t crusade even if we wanted to”

“If you wanted to!? Why would you want to?”

Austin says his last answer with a smirk. “To retake the Holy Land.”

Kyle just glares, he is annoyed. Austin keeps smirking, it really is his nature to rile people up. Eric sighs, he's not enjoying any of this. Also Eric’s cigarette is done, he’s now in the process of pulling a water bottle filled with something alcoholic out of his backpack –

End scene.

Does that all make sense? No, well – it’s like this… Austin won’t actually say the reason he’s joined; none of them would get it. It’s not the college or the masculinity or the appeal of structured life; it’s this. Since the age of five, Austin hasn’t known what another path could even look like – he’s an American, and he’s an American with the military ideal written into his head; that’s all. It’s patriotic, it’s the “right thing.” It’s what he knows.

Kyle sees a bigger picture, it bothers him. He loves Austin as a brother, but also he hates the idea of anything religious being allowed within war. It is why he is so adamant on refusing to be accepting of Austin’s departure, even if it is set in stone and going to happen no matter what. It is what it is, he’s annoyed – he’s doubly annoyed because he realizes Austin might never be able to even comprehend his annoyances. His friend is his friend; he accepts his friend, he wants to hit his friend.

Eric doesn’t really care about either one’s point of view, he understands them both – he’s a self professed nihilist, can’t be bothered to care about right or wrong, he doesn’t pick sides – he’s just irritated that what might be his last night (for a long while) with either of them is going like this, and so he’s annoyed and frustrated with both equally.

2017, hell of a year. Three boys raised on Hollywood, the internet, and not nearly enough on reality. Guess the favorite movie for each – I’ll only give one away. Austin watched Saving Private Ryan countless times as a kid. Masculinity is doing the hard thing and being there to support others, soldiers are the best at doing that. That’s what he believes, that’s what he acts on.

All three of them have their foundations like that, all over the place, slightly skewed towards one side of Hollywood or the other; Kyle sees masculinity as his duty to stand up for the little guy, he frequents meetings and protests and volunteers, in ten years he plans on being a major organizer within his community. Eric is convinced that life is a joke with humanity being the punchline; as a man it’s his duty to go with the pacing of that joke and not get eaten alive.

Three boys that can’t see the future – that’s fine, the future is always vague. Three young men with conflicting morals – well, that’s natural in a world where right and wrong are just used as wish-washy descriptions for the same things. Three boys that all somehow think nineteen is the same as thirty-nine – and that is also fine, when they are thirty nine they will think they are nineteen. Within the child behold the adult, within the adult ignore the child; and within the adolescent on the cusp of being an adult?

Good luck.

They’re finishing up their night in the parking lot now; kind of just being quiet, Eric and Kyle have been hitting the bottle, Eric swigs far outpacing Kyle’s sips. – Eric doesn’t drive, Austin doesn’t drink, Kyle doesn’t like risking driving on anything more than a buzz. Austin wanders away a little bit, throwing his cigar over a fence. Eric just leaves his on the ground, Kyle is responsible and walks all the way to the trashcan on the other side of the parking lot in order to dispose of his cigar – still mostly unsmoked.

Austin whistles as he looks up at the stars. Do you want to guess what’s going through his head? I can’t – thoughts of home, nerves for tomorrow, memories with friends, uncertainties of life, the change. Only Austin knows what he’s actually feeling or thinking; his friends just see the same old easy smile. Eric notices the new look in Austin’s eye; and chooses to ignore it. Eric figures that Austin isn’t feeling any one thing in particular, he reasons that Austin is probably feeling a lot of overwhelming things at once; which means Austin will just smile and say all is OK if asked, which means there is no point in asking.

Kyle returns from his foray to the trashcan, he smiles awkwardly at Austin and a mutual feeling of understanding passes between them. Austin grins at Kyle. Kyle doesn’t really have it in him to still be upset; Austin leaving is bigger than just going to college; it’s weighing on Kyle. Fundamentally Austin is doing everything that Kyle hates, but Kyle doesn’t have it in him to hate his friend, just his friends actions.

“Well, be safe man,” Kyle gives Austin a hug, there’s a little more small talk and then Kyle gets into his car, he revs the engine a little too loud because he can, and he’s off into the night.

Eric sways unsteadily on his feet – it’s either vodka or gin in that water bottle – I can’t tell from here. Austin gives Eric a grin, “ready man?” Is all he asks,

“Sure, just, hold on a second.” Eric makes his own long foray to the trashcan, something motivates him to toss out the bottle – Austin’s leaving, suddenly Eric doesn’t want to allow himself to get more drunk than he already is; and he is already pretty drunk. The plastic bottle makes a soft thooomp noise as it hits the bottom of the can. Eric walks back, briefly pausing to look at something on the back of a stop sign. He smiles wryly to himself before walking the rest of the way back to Austin.

“What was that?” Austin asks as they get in the car.

“Nothing important,” Eric mumbles, “just a sign.”