John focuses on the tape deck. He's got the screws off and he's lifting away the bottom...
But he's still talking. It just--happens. Not like it did with anyone else he's told, those rare and precious few, but...
It doesn't hurt or feel bad, but it's...like he can't stop himself.
"I came home in 1974--they called it a nervous breakdown. It was an honorable discharge. I served Special Forces, the Green Berets--know what they call us? Navy, they call 'em squids, Marines are jarheads, Air Force are flyboys...Special Forces are snake eaters. That's who we are, that's how we're trained...do whatever it takes. Survive at any cost. Don't stop 'till you win...well, my unit, there were eight of us. Only two made it back to the States, least that's what we thought. Everyone else died over there...I watched one of my closest friends blown to fucking pieces. Held him as he died--as many parts as I could get my hands on while he screamed about how he wanted to go home..."
John swallows thickly, setting aside the base of the cassette player.
He keeps talking.
"I couldn't function. Couldn't hold down a job, couldn't...be with people. Around them, talk to them--hell, the last time I slept with anyone was during my deployment, a whore one of my buddies bought for me. That was the last time anyone touched me without wanting to kill me. Eventually, I got--I was so fucking lonely that I finally busted out my address book. My best friend, Delmar--the other guy who made it? Wrote down his address for me. Told me to come find him, so...I did. Hitchhiked my way to Washington...that's when I found out he'd died the summer before I got there. Cancer, from Agent Orange. He was my last hope, all I had left...I gave his widow the last picture I had of all of us, tossed the address book in the fire, and I took off."
He blinks, realizing that...yeah. He did--he didn't even remember that before...
"I hiked my way into this little mountain town, Hope. I was kinda reeling, I guess, but I was just hungry. Figured I could find a place to eat, grab some food, head out again like I always do, y'know? I barely crossed the town boundary when this sheriff's car pulls up and the asshole inside starts talkin' to me...Teasle was his name. I was, uh--I had on my jacket. Military issue, the flag patch on it? He says to me, 'You know, wearing that flag on that jacket, looking the way you do, you're asking for trouble around here, friend.' Then he offers me a ride...right outta town. Asks me where I'm headed, and it wasn't the kind of offer I could say no to without causing trouble. Tried asking him where I could eat, he says a place thirty miles out--made it real clear I wasn't welcome, and dropped me off outside of town again. Didn't want a drifter like me around--a drifter with a military jacket and duffel. A fella that just wanted something to eat."
John's nearly got the case in pieces by this point--only one side of the plastic breaking as he removes the innards with the cassette deck and the tape inside.
"I just started walking back into town and he saw me--that's where it started. Fucker arrests me for vagrancy, runs me in, tries to book me. I could've stopped him. Didn't--I was hungry, I was reeling, I was a mess on a good day and I just wanted to get it over with. Pay my fine, move on, but they were all fucking savages. This one guy with a down home drawl, real friendly sounding, starts poking me with his billy club swearing he's gonna make me talk. And I'm...I spent time in a POW camp, y'know? Six months, gave myself dysentery to escape. And yeah: I was tortured. They cut me up, I still got the scars...I had to strip in front of these men. I obeyed, put my hands up, I did everything they asked and they still hit me with that fucking club for no reason. Turned a firehose on me...then they tried to shave me dry with a straight razor and my scars were burning, my ears were ringing, all I could hear was the Vietcong and the knife scoring my chest while I was...while they had me tied up, strung up, choking like that billy club at my neck and trussed up like the guys holding my arms..."
John's hands are shaking as he keeps unscrewing the pieces of the tape deck.
"I ran. I got away and ran, that's it--hit a couple people but I didn't hurt anyone. They didn't just track me, hunt me down, they sicced dogs on me--they were tellin' people I was violent and on the loose, that I did it all on purpose. They...they brought in a chopper and that deputy with the drawl, he was trying to kill me and--and he fell out of the fucking chopper. Man died, and they blamed me for it...they even found my commanding officer, had him try to bring me in but it was too late. I was fighting for my life--I was at war with them, and I was Special Forces. I am Special Forces, a snake eater...win at any cost."
"So...when they blew up the cave I was camping in, tried to kill me in a cave in? I crawled through rats 'n tunnels. I found my way out. I survived...and I blew up half the fucking town. And I still didn't hurt anyone. Gas station, hunting store...only man I wanted was that fucking sheriff who thought he could draw first blood 'n not suffer the consequences. I was looking for him at the end, in the sheriff's station..."
John blinks, realizing there's tears coursing down his face.
He still can't stop talking.
"My commander, Colonel Trautman--he tried to talk me out of there. I just--I fell apart. I told him everything. How I was the last one standing, how people fucking hated me just 'cause I got drafted into a war I didn't know I couldn't win--wasn't allowed to win. How no one understood the shit I saw, how I had no one, how I hadn't...nobody even wanted to touch me unless they wanted to kill me, and those fucking deputies beating me and hassling me and yankin' me around, it's the most human contact I had in ten fucking years--"
John flinches hard as a shot rings out--only it's not a shot.
It's the guts of the cassette deck, the lid snapping open and exposing the intact tape inside.
CW: graphic violence, death by explosives, vivid wartime imagery, outdated references to sex workers
But he's still talking. It just--happens. Not like it did with anyone else he's told, those rare and precious few, but...
It doesn't hurt or feel bad, but it's...like he can't stop himself.
"I came home in 1974--they called it a nervous breakdown. It was an honorable discharge. I served Special Forces, the Green Berets--know what they call us? Navy, they call 'em squids, Marines are jarheads, Air Force are flyboys...Special Forces are snake eaters. That's who we are, that's how we're trained...do whatever it takes. Survive at any cost. Don't stop 'till you win...well, my unit, there were eight of us. Only two made it back to the States, least that's what we thought. Everyone else died over there...I watched one of my closest friends blown to fucking pieces. Held him as he died--as many parts as I could get my hands on while he screamed about how he wanted to go home..."
John swallows thickly, setting aside the base of the cassette player.
He keeps talking.
"I couldn't function. Couldn't hold down a job, couldn't...be with people. Around them, talk to them--hell, the last time I slept with anyone was during my deployment, a whore one of my buddies bought for me. That was the last time anyone touched me without wanting to kill me. Eventually, I got--I was so fucking lonely that I finally busted out my address book. My best friend, Delmar--the other guy who made it? Wrote down his address for me. Told me to come find him, so...I did. Hitchhiked my way to Washington...that's when I found out he'd died the summer before I got there. Cancer, from Agent Orange. He was my last hope, all I had left...I gave his widow the last picture I had of all of us, tossed the address book in the fire, and I took off."
He blinks, realizing that...yeah. He did--he didn't even remember that before...
"I hiked my way into this little mountain town, Hope. I was kinda reeling, I guess, but I was just hungry. Figured I could find a place to eat, grab some food, head out again like I always do, y'know? I barely crossed the town boundary when this sheriff's car pulls up and the asshole inside starts talkin' to me...Teasle was his name. I was, uh--I had on my jacket. Military issue, the flag patch on it? He says to me, 'You know, wearing that flag on that jacket, looking the way you do, you're asking for trouble around here, friend.' Then he offers me a ride...right outta town. Asks me where I'm headed, and it wasn't the kind of offer I could say no to without causing trouble. Tried asking him where I could eat, he says a place thirty miles out--made it real clear I wasn't welcome, and dropped me off outside of town again. Didn't want a drifter like me around--a drifter with a military jacket and duffel. A fella that just wanted something to eat."
John's nearly got the case in pieces by this point--only one side of the plastic breaking as he removes the innards with the cassette deck and the tape inside.
"I just started walking back into town and he saw me--that's where it started. Fucker arrests me for vagrancy, runs me in, tries to book me. I could've stopped him. Didn't--I was hungry, I was reeling, I was a mess on a good day and I just wanted to get it over with. Pay my fine, move on, but they were all fucking savages. This one guy with a down home drawl, real friendly sounding, starts poking me with his billy club swearing he's gonna make me talk. And I'm...I spent time in a POW camp, y'know? Six months, gave myself dysentery to escape. And yeah: I was tortured. They cut me up, I still got the scars...I had to strip in front of these men. I obeyed, put my hands up, I did everything they asked and they still hit me with that fucking club for no reason. Turned a firehose on me...then they tried to shave me dry with a straight razor and my scars were burning, my ears were ringing, all I could hear was the Vietcong and the knife scoring my chest while I was...while they had me tied up, strung up, choking like that billy club at my neck and trussed up like the guys holding my arms..."
John's hands are shaking as he keeps unscrewing the pieces of the tape deck.
"I ran. I got away and ran, that's it--hit a couple people but I didn't hurt anyone. They didn't just track me, hunt me down, they sicced dogs on me--they were tellin' people I was violent and on the loose, that I did it all on purpose. They...they brought in a chopper and that deputy with the drawl, he was trying to kill me and--and he fell out of the fucking chopper. Man died, and they blamed me for it...they even found my commanding officer, had him try to bring me in but it was too late. I was fighting for my life--I was at war with them, and I was Special Forces. I am Special Forces, a snake eater...win at any cost."
"So...when they blew up the cave I was camping in, tried to kill me in a cave in? I crawled through rats 'n tunnels. I found my way out. I survived...and I blew up half the fucking town. And I still didn't hurt anyone. Gas station, hunting store...only man I wanted was that fucking sheriff who thought he could draw first blood 'n not suffer the consequences. I was looking for him at the end, in the sheriff's station..."
John blinks, realizing there's tears coursing down his face.
He still can't stop talking.
"My commander, Colonel Trautman--he tried to talk me out of there. I just--I fell apart. I told him everything. How I was the last one standing, how people fucking hated me just 'cause I got drafted into a war I didn't know I couldn't win--wasn't allowed to win. How no one understood the shit I saw, how I had no one, how I hadn't...nobody even wanted to touch me unless they wanted to kill me, and those fucking deputies beating me and hassling me and yankin' me around, it's the most human contact I had in ten fucking years--"
John flinches hard as a shot rings out--only it's not a shot.
It's the guts of the cassette deck, the lid snapping open and exposing the intact tape inside.