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Chapter Seven (Requiem Eternum)
Sub Chapter The Death of a Golden Soul (Miranda)
I was on a MEU ( Marine Expeditionary Unit). There are pre-positioned forces set all over the globe so that should the President ever say, “I need 20,000 Marines here tomorrow,” it can actually happen. It has many times. The MEU is that force. The three main Marine Corps bases maintain one each. Camp Lejeune’s was the 22nd, 24th, and the 26th. I was on two-four at the time. Every time we stepped out of the barracks we were to let the Staff Duty Officer know where we were going along with contact information. Should the need arise and he can’t get ahold of you, you were in some seriously deep shit. An order from the President directly is kind of to be followed. We take our duty seriously round these parts.
I was at the very house which the cops had broken up the party Brenda and I went to that night. It was the usual weekend thing. Go to Steve and Secret’s house. It was routine for about a dozen of us. Steve and Secret were actually two of the first people I’d met in Jacksonville. They were both black and both gay. Though they weren’t a couple. Mutual self interest I suppose kept them together. They liked to party, they liked to dance, and short of putting holes in their walls you could do pretty much whatever you wanted there.
It was dusk and the orange sun was trying to poke through the blinds. I was tired already, but resting my body for the evening’s events. It was November so it was relatively cold. Not Boston cold, but still I was acclimatized and so 50 degrees is cold. The phone rang, and I grabbed it.
“Lance Corporal Lynch please, this is Staff Duty Staff Sergeant Wilcox Twenty second Marine Expeditionary Unit.”
“Speaking Staff Sergeant.”
“Lynch you have a Red Cross message. (He paused) You’ve got two options Marine. Come get it or I can read it to you.”
“I’m on my way Staff Sergeant.”
“Very well.”
The phone died in my hand. I knew what the call was about. My brother had been ill with AIDS. As of late he hadn’t been doing well. I’d called him about a month before and spoke with him.
“Philip?”
“A-a-alex?” His voice was so weak that I could barely make out that he was saying anything atall.
“Hey brother how are ya feelin’?”
“Oh Alexxx, I’m goood mannn. How’s school going? You know you gotta do good so you can get into college.”
I didn’t know quite what to think right there. I believe that’s one of the very few times I didn’t know what to do or say.
“Ah uhm, good man I’m doing real good.”
“Well it was good talking to you, here Joel wants to say hi, I love you.”
“I love you too brother.”
Philip was gay as well. We’re not exactly sure how he got the disease as he was also an IV drug user in the 80’s. So basically, if you did that at that point in time, you have aids. Joel was his boyfriend. Now. I look at them and their relationship, and I look at couples nowdays. Straight ones. I laugh when I hear that gay marriage would destroy the fabric and sanctity of the institution. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. In their relationship I saw more love, sacrifice, and selflessness than I ever have in anyone else’s. Married or not.
I was 16 when I found out he had AIDS. My older brother (being the asshole that he was) let slip something that I’d actually passed off as him being an asshole. Philip didn’t.
All of my siblings are relatively the same size (six feet 180 lbs) except for Philip. He was five six with heels on, and maybe a hundred twenty. We all had straight short hair, his was long and curly. He came bounding to me (he didn’t walk he bounded) and declared,
“Alex we must get to the store for a bottle of wine!”
“Now?”
“Yes dammit! Now!”
“Philip it’s like fuckin’ nine thirty at night on a Sunday.. Shit’s not…”
“This is a metropolis, something is open. Think man.”
“Uhm…Stop n Shop?”
“Perfect let’s go.”
And with that we were off to see that the liquor store had closed, and the closer stop n shop had also. We had to walk the train tracks three miles to the 24 hour one. We got a gallon of Chardonnay, and made our way back. We got to the house, and were alone. I think he’d told the family he was going to tell me that night. He had no fear of reprisal for getting his 16 year old brother drunk as fuck.
“Sit” He motioned to the booth my father had clipped from a restaurant. I did.
He got the glasses, not wine glasses but regular ones, cracked the bottle poured me a full one and took a swig from the bottle and filled his.
“Alex. I have something to tell you and it’s bad.”
My heart went from my chest to my throat to my balls.
“Ok, what’s so bad man? Why you so sad?” I’d felt the fear and sadness coming from him, and he was usually a battery of positivity.
“Alex… I have AIDS.” I didn’t know what to say. Or think. Tears well immediately. I’d only known this guy for a while now. Since he was gay, and my family was Roman Catholic he didn’t come around much. My father was ashamed that he’d fathered a queer. Despite the fact that he was one of the best humans I’ve met thus far, his choice of sexual partner was sufficient enough to destroy the ties that bind father to son… so be it. You learn best from the bad examples because you learn how not to do it. So, thanks Dad.
Between sobs and gasps for air we’d managed to get information passed between us. How why where when. No answers. There never are answers to the real questions though are there?
So. In one fell swoop this brother was going to die soon. And I’d only JUST met him for real. Before, in my childhood, Joel had the title “friend” and Philip always had his leather jacket and the scent of Halston X-14. I’d met Joel once or twice before, but the adults were always drunk and fuzzy faced, so I never bothered with them much.
The summer between my Senior year in high school and going to Parris Island I spent with him. We went to the gym during the day, and snuck out to the cemetery across the street to get high at night. We drank sometimes, but mainly we talked and laughed. He told me shit about my family. Things they would never tell me. We talked about everything from pussy to Satanism to how and when he realized he was gay. I’ll share two stories then call it quits. Writing about him hurts sometimes, even still.
On the Mass Pike drivers do NOT slow down, look, use blinkers, nothing. It’s a driving cataclysm of Mad Max proportions. That is, except when there is traffic. When there is, it’s backed the fuck up hard core. Philip was driving a rental car, and I was riding shotgun. We were stuck in traffic dead in the middle of a hot Summer day. So stuck in fact that he slammed the car in park.
“FUCK!” He said as he slammed the shift into park, his hair flying about. He looked toward me then perked his body up.
“I’ll be right back.”
With that he was out of the car and running top speed across the highway. The guy behind us went out of his fucking mind, screaming at my brother and beating his steering wheel. By now I was starting to get a little scared and worried. Then I saw his hair bounding with his every step. He had something cupped in his hands and a huge grin on his face.
“Ohh suck my dick asshole!!!” Was his retort to the guy behind us.
“Where the fuck are you going to go?”, is what he followed up with.
“Phil, what the fuck dude! I thought the guy behind us was gonna start shootin’ “
“Oh fuck him… look Alex.” He unfolded his cupped hands and produced a purple flower roots and all.”
At the time I just thought he was a clown asshole for scaring the hell out of his little brother. Now I understand what he did, and why he did it. The flower was growing in a crack on an incredibly busy highway in a major metropolis, and was still alive. To my knowledge it’s still growing in my father’s front yard.
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Requiem Eternum: Chapter Fifteen: Mission Statement
