The Hard Truth About Sunshine(6)

After building a fire, I set up the propane cooktop so I can fix an easy meal of hot dogs with roasted potatoes and onions while I sip on a beer. Goth Chick slunk off into the woods, presumably to smoke a joint, while the others hang out by the campfire. Connor has a smile on his face a mile wide, barely able to contain his joy over sleeping in the great outdoors, eating food cooked over an open campfire on a propane stove, and hanging out with rejects friends around a toasty fire as the sky turns a brilliant shade of orange-pink when the sun starts to dip below the western horizon.

We eat in silence, mainly because we're starving-particularly Goth Chick when she comes back. She eats half a bag of potato chips that I'm sure are a product of the munchies, and then Jillian insists on washing the dishes in a portable tub I had brought along that stores the eating utensils and doubles as a wash bin.

The sky is dark as ink now and because of cloud cover, the stars can't be seen. It's getting late, but no one seems interested in crawling into their sleeping bags and going to sleep. Connor is enjoying campfire talk too much, and Jillian and he just prattle on, mainly about literature as they both share a love of Herman Melville. I smoke a cigarette and listen to them talk. Goth Chick also listens, but not as intently. She's laying on her back on top of our site's picnic table, staring at the night sky. When I think I can't handle another minute of the discussion of Moby Dick, and I realize Jillian looks even more beautiful in the firelight, I grab my duffle and head to the low-slung cinderblock building that houses men and women's showers and bathrooms, one on each side.

After taking a piss and brushing my teeth, I grab a quick shower. It's precarious given the lack of handicap stability railing. I take my prosthesis and liner off, lay them against the wall as far from the spray as I can so they won't get wet, and manage to get cleaned up with one hand balancing on the wall and the other working soap all over me.

By the time I get back to the campsite, the fire has dropped low and I can hear Connor talking in a somber voice. I get ready to chastise them for not adding wood when he leans over in his chair, grabs a few logs from the small cord I'd purchased at the main office when we checked in, and places it in the center where it causes the fire to flare upward.

I throw my duffle in the back of the Suburban, grab another beer from the small cooler there, and head back to my folding canvas chair that sits to the right of Connor and across the fire from Jillian.

When I take my seat, I hear Connor say with a humorless laugh, " … and so we started going to church on Sundays. My parents would sit there …  eyes all scrunched so tight …  hands clasped, and just praying their asses off for a miracle."

He gives a slight cough. In a roughened voice, he murmurs, "Praying that I won't die."

I want to roll my eyes and tell the kid that praying never works. I want him to pass along to his parents that they're on a fool's errand and their time is better served spending what precious Sunday mornings they have left by doing something fun and meaningful with their son. I want to take him by the shoulders, look him directly in the eyes, and tell him I know from personal experience that there is no God. That there's nothing up above us but clouds, and sky, and atmosphere. That past that, there's only empty space-not an omniscient deity that loves all of us poor, worthless humans down here on earth.

We are all alone and that's the truth. I know this because I can't begin to remember all the times I called out to God to ease my suffering, but the pain only got worse. Or I beseeched him to just let me die, and yet my body just wouldn't quit working. Months and months of agony. Torturous pain while they tried to heal my shattered leg. Brutal, vicious, unrelenting misery while infection raged through my leg and puss seeped out of the open wounds, and they would cut chunks of skin and flesh away, hoping to stay ahead of the rot, but they never could. Pain so terrible it made me crazy. I would rant and sometimes piss myself until, finally, I was begging the doctors to cut my leg off.         

     



 

Yeah …  that request was honored.

God may not have listened to me, but the doctors did.

"Many people turn to prayer when they are at their lowest. Some people find great solace in it," Jillian tells Connor, validating his parents' futile efforts. Goth Chick ignores us and stares at the sky. Dead Kid Connor bobs his head in understanding.

I, however, snort with derision. It's loud and obnoxious and there's no doubt by anyone in our pathetic group that I find the concept ludicrous.

"Tell your parents there is no God," I tell Connor as I look him directly in the eye. "He can't save you."

I keep my eyes pinned on him, refusing to give him an ounce of empathy because I don't have any.

I'm all dried up.

"Shut up," the soft voice of Jillian says, floating sweetly across the crackling fire. I don't want to look at her because I think I might go fucking ballistic if she shoots that poor, misunderstood Christopher truth Barlow shit at me.

But I'm almost knocked backward when she shows me a side to Jillian Martel I've never seen before. Rather than try to sling happy, optimistic shit my way, she lets me have it good.

"Who in the hell are you to judge Connor or his family?" she yells at me with narrowed eyes. I wonder how much of a chore on her paralyzed muscles it is for her to glower at me like that. "What gives you the right?"

I vaguely notice Goth Chick sit straight up from her supine position on the picnic table and look at Jillian with surprise.

I open my mouth to tell her all about freedom of speech, but she rolls right over me. "You might have had some serious injuries, and I'm sorry for it, but it doesn't give you the right to be an asshole to others. I bet if you spent as much time seeking positivity as you do reveling in negativity, you'd feel a hell of a lot better about yourself. But since you seem to like being a jackass, and it sort of suits this whole "bitter-wounded-warrior-who-feels-betrayed-by-everyone vibe" you've got going on, I'm guessing you don't have the backbone or the fortitude to be anything more than what you are right now. It's pathetic really."

"Damn," Goth Chick says under her breath with a taunting voice. "You just got your ass handed to you."

I can actually feel my ears turn hot as I flush with anger and embarrassment. The last person who talked to me like that ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw, and I ended up in a support group to avoid an assault conviction. Now, I clearly can't kiss knock the righteous condemnation off Jillian's face because I'd never hit a woman, but my tongue is way sharper than hers can ever hope to be in this lifetime. I intend to draw tears from those pretty, lazy eyes.

I open my mouth to give back as good as I just got-and then some-when Connor says, "I get where Christopher's coming from."

He shoots an apologetic look over to Jillian because he undermined her and says, "No offense, Jillian. But I mean …  I get it. Christopher lost a leg, probably came close to dying from it. You're losing your eyesight, and nothing can be done to stop it. I'm dying and can't be saved. If there is a God, why do these things happen to people? So I get his pessimism, and I respect it."

"Hey kid," I snarl at him, even though I feel myself deflating because he fucking hit the nail on the head. "I don't need you to defend me."

"I'm not defending you," he says earnestly with a sober look my way. "Jillian's right …  you're an asshole. I'm just saying I get why you said what you did."

"But you shouldn't be an asshole to us," Jillian says softly, and while I know I'm an asshole and it's never bothered me before to be such a creature, her gentle admonishment punches me deep in the gut. She's no longer glaring at me and her voice is dove-like. Almost as if she's imploring me to consider her words. "You should be nicer. We're here to help each other, and we have several days we must spend together. You should be nicer because you're stuck here with us, so make the best of it."

"But he doesn't want to be here," Goth Chick pipes up, and we turn to look at the woman who has hardly had anything to say. "Being forced to do something against your will tends to make you churlish."

"Bitch-like," I say in agreement, because she can be a total bitch most times.

"Right," she affirms before flipping me off with a sneer lest I forget we are not friends.

"No one is here against their will," Jillian says pragmatically, and all heads turn back her way. She looks around at each of us, making pointed eye contact although it's still the lethargic look that hampers her facial expressions by disease.         

     



 

"I beg to differ. I'm not here by choice," I tell her as I slouch back down in my seat.

"Technically, you are here by choice," Goth Chick says as she turns on the picnic table to prop her booted feet on the bench.

"Wrong," I say with a bored voice. "The court made me come."

"No," she argues emphatically, and I can't help the tiny, miniscule, barely perceptible tinge of respect I feel that she's standing up to me with reasoned argument versus an illogical rant because she's a bitch. "I'm sure there was a choice to be made. Group or jail. You could have chosen jail. In fact, it would have been a valid choice. But you chose to come to group, and you also chose to come on this trip."