Eklund, Aaron G.

[aaron eklund]

Hidden beaches and mighty redwood forests so far flung from any major cities that few attempt to escape. The towns are connected by long stretches of Highway 101 and its unending meanders, plagued by persistent construction and road signs warning of natural hazards and crossing animals. Coastal weather is rainy and overcast all year long whereas the inland becomes brutally hot and parched. If you want liberal yuppies and flashy attractions, head to college town Arcata or historic Eureka. Elsewhere the mainstays are bars, bowling alleys, failed strip malls, casinos, and hunting lodges. You figure out early how little there is to do—while the adults drink and enjoy famous Emerald Triangle weed (or more infamous meth), unsupervised kids take to 4-wheelers, dirt bikes, guns, and farming equipment. Fun for all ages includes shooting, fishing, drag racing, river swimming and vigilante justice. Your parents met in 1993 at the College of the Redwoods and soon after married—while pregnant with you—in 1994. Luther Eklund was one of three boys from Ferndale, with a family history in law enforcement (and law breaking, depending on who you asked). Anna Johansson, of Scotia, was one of two girls from a family in lumber. You grew up in a small house in Fortuna inherited from a great-aunt you never met, kept in the family for too many generations. While your father climbs the ranks at Fortuna PD, he starts looking the other way as your county is ravaged by crime, accepting bribes from local illegal weed growers. Like his forefathers he develops a bit of a drinking problem and wandering eye, inflated by his perceived power over the small town. Blissfully unaware, your mother worked part-time making art and wares that she sold at artisan fairs and tourist stops. As an only child, you spend much of your time outside playing and collecting critters. You love your mother dearly but desperately want your father’s attention (“What do you want now?”). Around this time, when dad finds his wife teaching his son to paint and craft, he destroys all your work together and hits her for the first time (“I’m not raising no queer!”). His anger is punctuated with unsightly bruises, eventually forcing her to quit working and isolating her from any community she had. When elementary school becomes the new backdrop you’re thrilled to be in a place with other kids for hours each day, away from the tumultuous storm brewing at home, a place of paper-thin walls and eggshell floors. Timeouts turn into phone calls and letters home, comments on report cards, assignments slashed with red ink. You struggled in school, always a beat behind the others (“See how you screwed him up?”); a teacher recommends sports, a neighbor casually suggests Ritalin. In third grade, at eight years old, you get into your first fight at school: a boy pushed you, teasing you about the state of your shoes, and you reacted the way you saw at home. Luther is the one to retrieve you from the office, in uniform, tossing you into the back of his patrol car and smacking you once the school shrank in the rearview mirror (“I’ll give you something to cry about”). In fact, fighting and getting into trouble—while inconvenient for dad, concerning to mom—is the only way to get any interaction with the man. He works long shifts, sleeps during the day, prefers seeing his friends on his off days. He won’t bother taking you fishing again after you accidentally dropped your rod overboard that one time (“Good-for-nothing idiot”), he doesn’t bring you to the range anymore after mom complained about the stench of gunpowder on her child. He used to take you for ride-alongs and let you sit in the driver’s seat while he stopped inside the lodge for a drink. Now he goes to the lodge without you anyway, and you can smell him as soon as he’s home. The golden range is between beer #4 and beer #7—any fewer and he’s annoyed you’ve interrupted him, any more and he’s angry that you exist. When you need to seek his permission or ask for money, that’s the time to do so. Very seldom are you rewarded with a laugh or nod thrown your way, instead bracing for his muttering and navy glares over the top of the newspaper (“Do you want a problem, boy?”). You learn it’s easier to run and hide, you know all the nooks and crannies in the house for when he gets off work and the walls start shaking. At nine years old he properly beats you for the first time when you try to intervene (“Shut your fucking mouth”), mom begging with a fat bloody lip for him to stop. The lesson sets in early: it’s you and her against him, but you can take it so long as she is spared. In 2004, halfway through the school year, you’re in a moving truck. It’s a long drive across more of the state than you’ve ever seen before, starstruck by big cities (“Godforsaken shitholes”) you’d only ever heard of, the highest buildings, the most different sort of people. Years later you figure out that his little scheme in Humboldt wasn’t working out anymore, that he had to uproot everything because his secret was about to be exposed. Suddenly you’re enrolled at a new school and on your first day you meet the twins. When alphabetized by last name you fall in line with one another, a double vision of rich, dark complexion (“They all look the same to me”) and names that you have to practice in your head. You’ve only ever been around people who look like you, and suddenly, here, not so many do. You would be surprised how different families could be, how wrong yours was all along. It's an adjustment for everyone, dad joining the LAPD and mom trying to keep it all together. It gets better in the way that it becomes manageable, you learn how to brace yourself. You have memorized the sound of your father’s car, the jangle of his keys, the rhythm of his gait. Like an expert you can predict his mood based on his body language, the pitch of his voice, the set of his jaw (“When I get in there...”). You count the beers every time you open the fridge and draw lines where the level sloshes in the vodka bottles. Mom drinks, too, but she puts on her CDs and slips under the bed covers until dark (“What do you do around here?!”). You practice every exit in the house, memorize every turn to school, and eventually you know the way to the Deol house a few blocks away. After a few months, your bike is always tossed haphazard across the grass of their front yard, and for a little while you get to be free inside there with a family you wish was yours. Although it gets worse at home, you still have to keep it secret (“I will kill your mother!”). And when you don’t go to school because you can't lift your arms above your head to get dressed, the absence excuses become more creative over the phone: “He was concussed during football practice” (you’ve never played), “He tripped down the stairs” (you live in a single-story house), “He was roughhousing with his brother” (you’re an only child). But he’s a cop who knows to hit where no one sees, your mom is battered into the same silence, and as a maladjusted child you’re an unreliable narrator. The Deols would believe you, you know this, but the only reason you ever bother going back home is to make sure mom survived the night while you were gone. Whenever she threatens to leave, Luther laughs in the same face that he slaps (“With what money, bitch?”). Neither of you ever have a body free of bruises or marks, and you certainly never let the pain show (“Shine my shoes with those tears, boy”), so instead you take to the shadows beneath your bed or in the back of your closet, letting yourself scream and cry into a pillow until you lose consciousness. You’re fourteen when mom goes missing. Later on you understand why she left, but that first week of not knowing was hell, suspecting your own father of foul play. There’s no evidence of it, her clothes and music having disappeared, but he tears up the house in a rage that she hasn’t been around to make him dinner. One day in the school drop-off line a strange woman approaches you, looks around in fear of Luther. She tells you that your mother is alright, she was helped somewhere safe and she loved you very much; she would come back for you. But now you’re left alone with Luther whose cop friends launch in search of her, sending out bulletins, garnering the sympathy of neighbors like he wasn’t her personal terrorist in the first place. When you’re sure that your father didn’t murder her, you can’t be angry at her—you realize it wouldn’t have happened for the both of you, and you don’t know how she would have fared alone with him. She would reach out, finally, when you were eighteen; she kept tabs on you over the years, half expecting the same terrible thing would happen to you that you thought had happened to her. But you won’t see her for four years and the hell storm that Luther rains down in her absence makes you nearly forget about her anyway. Until the Deols, you’ve never been able to relax around anyone. Samira and Ish keep you afloat in school; you were nicknamed their guard dog because of how you trailed behind them, waiting for any hint of trouble to jump to their defense. Ish was your very best friend from the beginning, encouraging you out of your shell since the fifth grade, sharing his favorite action figures and introducing you to anime cartoons. You learn how to play-fight and pretend you have superhuman powers; you wish you could wield them at home to vanquish your enemy father. As a twin he came as a pair, naturally, with his sister Samira. She invited out the softness that Luther had all but crushed, sharing her coloring sets and a cascade of dolls and plushy animals. You’d never been allowed to own a pet before so she gifted you a stuffed bunny and insisted you name it—it became your most prized possession in the world. So when people teased you about having rabbit teeth, you thought proudly of your favorite Flopsy and resisted the urge to lash out. Her parents figured out the abuse eventually—they saw the way you flinched if someone snuck up on you, how you moved silently around the house afraid to close or lock doors. They counted the times you skipped out on swimming because you wouldn’t take off your shirt, noticed how you couldn’t keep on weight or sleep long without nightmares. You were so expected, so welcomed in the house that there was always a dinner plate waiting for you, a gift given on your birthday, a set of eyes on your homework to guide you. You loved the rich spices of their cooking, the mesmerizing curl of half-Hindi sentences, the Friday night Bollywood movies sat together (to this day you still celebrate Diwali and make a mean chana masala). You were allowed to take up space and they insisted you stop using sir and ma‘am while under their roof. At the end of most nights you could be found curled up on the couch or the floor next to one of the twins’ beds, then eventually the guest room became yours. Mrs. Deol was easy to love, especially without a mother of your own now. She gave the best hugs—let you hold on as long as you wanted, never mentioned the shoulder made wet with your silent tears. It took longer for you to trust Dr. Deol, which he knew, always the first to celebrate your accomplishments and invite your curiosity. The day you hugged him for the first time is the day you first saw a grown man cry. The fights you got into were always about defense—sometimes for yourself, but more often jumping to the aid of others. There was no one to stick up for you at home so you showed up if someone else was being bullied, especially if a bad word was said against the twins. They don’t ask it of you but it feels a deeply personal duty to defend them, never repeating the stupid jokes or snide comments that ignited you, too reminiscent of Luther. Once someone puts their hands on you it’s permission to let loose, imagining your father instead, hitting to hurt. You get high off the adrenaline and more pain is nothing new, branding you with a violent reputation that permeates the school. You liked seeing people fear you, the only sense of power you’d ever been close to. In the process you become familiar with the school’s administration and the different iterations of detention, always seeming to tread the line of expulsion. You give the school counselor just enough to keep them off your back (now you’re a troubled young man), never implicating Luther because even worse than him is being sent away. Faced with the threat of the foster system or relatives up in Humboldt, you know you would just find a way—steal a car, hitchhike, whatever you had to—back to the Deols. Under the Deol roof you mostly manage to stay out of trouble, or at least never track the dirt inside. In fact, you try to avoid going home altogether, telling Luther you’re at extracurricular activities you don’t participate in or staying with friends who don’t exist. You keep the Deols a secret from him, too, because you already know the terrible things he would have to say about them, their differences. Mostly you’re afraid that he’ll ruin the only good thing you have going, not out of paternal jealousy but simple spite—he hated your joy, enjoyed depriving you. Eventually he figures it out, tracking you down when you don’t come home for days at a time and he needs something from you. The cops who would attend his memorial service were the same cops who showed up to the Deol house, carting you out to the back of a squad car—sometimes in cuffs if dad was feeling particularly cruel—with threats of more trouble, a spectacle for the whole neighborhood. At the Deols’ panic they would laugh and tell them to call the cops. All you can think about is the next time you’ll be with them, how to survive long enough to escape from hell. You spend your seventeenth birthday in a hospital bed. Dad picked a fight a few days beforehand, left your outline in the wall he threw you against. You don’t know if that was enough to do it but you don’t feel well for several days following, skipping summer school unable to leave your bed, hiding your wounds like a sick animal. Sami dares over to your house to check on you, concerned by your silence. She calls her parents about your symptoms and they pick you up immediately, whisking you to the emergency room where you learn your appendix had ruptured. The bruising doesn’t go unnoticed when you change into gowns and are prepped for surgery; while you’re under anesthesia CPS is notified and you wake up with fresh keyhole scars, obliterated by drugs, seeming to cheat death again. Sami’s face is the first you remember seeing, making sure you’re a cooperative patient and smuggling in comfort items to make your stay bearable. You spend three days in the hospital, and that’s when the strangers filter through to ask you questions. At first they assume you’re an adopted child of the Deols, which flatters and thrills you until you realize it’s them they suspect. Once they learn that your mother left and your father is a police officer, the surprise is gone from their features, some strange joke you weren’t privy to yet. When they interview Luther, you're glad you're already in the hospital. It’s a fight, and it takes some time, but the Deols are granted emergency guardianship over you. They knew everything about you, had pictures and documents and proof no one else did; they had made sure you were registered in school and went to the dentist and everything else parents were supposed to do. When you reconnect with mom later on, she’ll tell you that she did try to come back for you—several times, actually—but when she saw you thriving with the Deols she didn’t have the heart to disrupt your life again. You won’t have to see Luther for several months, not until he gets injured on the job (falling down, the stupid fuck) and nobody else wants to take care of him. You find that the opioids mellow him out, putting him down for the better part of the day so it’s less of an inconvenience to visit. He slurs his words, shrinks in his own skin, rarely leaves his armchair. You almost take pleasure in watching him wash pills down with vodka, hoping he won’t wake up in the morning. Sometimes before you leave, you hover a hand mirror under his nose—but you’re always disappointed when his breath still fogs the glass. You manipulate his memories, convince him that you’ve already graduated so he doesn’t show up to ruin commencement. You push him around, call him names, rattle the prescription bottles in front of him and ask him if he was ever sorry for what he did. It doesn’t matter now, it’s all too late, but it feels good to watch him suffer. You are his son, after all. The first time she patched you up, she pilfered supplies from under the bathroom sink while her mom was running errands. You left a spot of blood on the door where you knocked; without hesitation, she launched into action. You muffled your pain into a stuffed animal as she dabbed your torn-up knuckles with alcohol, worried you might need stitches when she saw the extent of the raw, curling skin. You would have let her take to you with a sewing kit if she dared. You hate that you must force her into secrecy but you begged her not to tell the Deols, afraid of what would happen if they found out why you were this way. No one else could soothe you how Samira did, silently thrilled when her touch lingered on you and made you feel better instead of worse. If you pulled away then she couldn’t help, she said; so you stopped retreating from her. She was never afraid of you—she healed you even when she was mad at you or had to scold you first, leaving early from study sessions or dates to tend to your wounds. She showed you how to color-correct the bruises around your eye, always thankful you never broke your nose too. She knew when to apply pressure, if heat or ice was better where. She calculated the dosages of pain relievers, reminded you when to change the gauze. By the end of freshman year she kept a kit under her bed and in her locker. The first time she got hurt, it was your fault. You wanted to check out graffiti in an old waterway, and that meant scaling a chain-link fence. Climbing over, she nicked her arm on a twisted piece of wire but didn’t notice because Ish ripped his pants on the way down, and you two nearly pissed yours laughing. When she saw the weeping wound—not even an inch long, straight and clean like a slice—you hopped back over the fence, only to vault over again with the intent on getting the same mark in the same place, proud of the blood. You never treated her like glass but it was different for you, you were reckless with your body and health—throwing yourself off heights, running through hazards, skating and biking and jumping places you shouldn’t. You thought stunts and tricks were cool, providing you with the high you missed when you weren’t fighting. It was no surprise to catch you with bandages or in slings or hobbling on a crutch; you’d had to get tetanus boosters twice, and even a rabies shot once. In some ways it helped mask what was going on at home, never quite knowing which mark came from where (or whom). But it became Sami’s first scar, and you think she wanted it to linger so she would have something that matched you. The first time you admitted it out loud was to her. Luther had turned your bedroom upside down looking for information about your mother. In the same breath he accused you of helping her get away, he roared laughing about how stupid you were to not leave with her. Without mom, as the walls closed in, you believe you might have died that night had you stayed and let it escalate with him. Instead, you took the first opportunity to book it to the Deol house, tapping on Sami’s window until the lamp flicked on and she hauled you in over the sill. You crumpled to the floor, out of breath, face inflamed and body on fire; your fastest sprint yet. Your T-shirt rode up and you let her slide it over your head until you heard her gasp at the belt lashes on your back and you forced yourself to look away because she would finally know—you lived with a monster, and that monster lived within you. Mom was gone and Luther was at his worst, you had nothing left to lose...so you were finally brave. You told her everything from the beginning. The first time you told her you loved her, she wasn’t even yours to hold. You were sixteen years old, dancing together at junior prom, swaying in the middle of the gym to a slow song you’ve never forgotten. But she wasn’t your date—you chickened out of asking her until it was too late and someone else did, like they always did. You didn’t bother asking anyone else and tried keeping your eyes off her all night, but everyone knew you belonged to her, oblivious to any other girls’ attention. A year ago your voice dropped and you shot up an inch and a half over the summer, still growing into your gangly limbs, practically living with the Deols now. They were the only good thing you ever had; you were terrified at the possibility of losing them because you were in love with their daughter, your best friend's sister. So you bit your tongue as brave boys revealed their crushes to her, always wary of the day you worked up your nerve. You tasted blood in your mouth when you were left alone together, buzzing with teenage hormones, and all you could think about was her budding curves and her bedroom right next door. It all sort of tumbles out when she accepts this dance and she asks why you didn’t bring a date, confessing that it’s because you love her and there’s no one else for you but her. The first time you asked her, she said yes. Mere weeks from graduating (defying many odds), you couldn’t watch her go with someone else again. Over the last year since junior prom you two were still dancing around your feelings, trying to keep yourselves contained under the same roof. Everyone was applying for colleges, mapping out their futures. There was a clock running against you and your time here, you know as much because soon Sami and Ish will be off to college—and you, nowhere. So you asked her to senior ball the first opportunity you had, quietly sought her parents’ permission beforehand. They could see it happening between you two, prompting schooled talks about sex and relationships, establishing rules for you at home (take your dates outside, keep your bedroom doors open). No one was surprised when you two showed up together, looking more like your own wedding than a rinky-dink high school dance. Years ago she was your first kiss, a gentle curiosity; years later it was aligning into a love that split you in half, your life separated into pre- and post-Sami epochs. No one would ever get you—touch you, wait for you, calm you—the way she did, and even into adulthood you stopped trying; never gave anyone else the chance. The first time you wrote her a letter, you didn’t send it. Although you brought a notebook and stamps with you to basic training, you were so exhausted and in pain all the time you couldn’t think of anything nice to say, anything other than “what the hell have I done?”. Every Sunday you called the Deols from Oklahoma; Sami wouldn’t talk to you, not for a while because of how you left it. Ish would relay messages, answer your questions about how she was doing, distract you from your new life. It got a little better in Georgia, straight to AIT. You got into less trouble, avoided getting chaptered. You were learning, your fast reflexes and hypervigilance put to use—you were finally good at things. When you couldn’t get a hold of Sami you took to the pages instead, writing about your thoughts and days away, like you were still kids in her old bedroom confiding in your best friend. You kept pictures of her in your bunk, realizing she was the home you were always trying to return to. You would end up staying in Georgia, assigned your unit at Benning while she was a few states away in North Carolina. Your addresses were closer yet you were never further apart, so when you took leave to visit for the winter, seeing everybody for the first time in half a year, when Samira talked about her new boyfriend you couldn't give her the notebook filled with your words. But you never stopped writing to her. Like many others who enlist, you’re nineteen and out of options. All your life people said you were going to end up dead or in jail; worse, you could become a cop like dear old dad. After graduation while Samira was away you worked odd jobs to save money, still staying in the Deols’ spare room, waiting for her call every night. You tried taking some community college classes but dropped out (and didn't tell her) midway through, not your thing. You reconnected with mom but she lives in Nevada now and you don’t want to be far for when Samira comes back for the holidays, preferring your chosen family to a step-one. When you go to visit Samira and see how well she’s doing at Duke like you knew she would, you don’t expect the prodding questions of her new friends there, people who were curious about her boyfriend back in LA. What do you do, what’s your goal? Such innocuous questions are difficult notions for someone who often doubted the possibility of a next day, whose only hobbies and skills were borne of self-defense. Running track and shop class certainly weren’t going to get you anywhere, either. When you returned from your trip, Drunk Dad read it all over your face and laid in on you at your most vulnerable moment, when you needed a father. Maybe he was right: you are worthless. But it was his fault you were like this, the same white trash degenerate he was. The Army would make a man out of you. You needed something so you could be something for Samira, be worthy of her. The next day you were at the recruiting office, signing away your life. You don't want to be called a veteran or be thanked for your service. But your formative years were spent in the Army, your twenties scattered across bases and frontlines overseas. Signing up, you didn't know the military was going to shape you as their person so that you wouldn't have a sense of self when you got out. Post-AD you realize everything—your habits, your beliefs and values, your wants and needs—was made for you by the military. More insidious than that, you were molded for the military by your father. You weren't far off from a well-trained hunting dog: bred for this, trained your whole life, straining at the end of a leash just waiting for your handler to let go and give the command. Now that the Army doesn't have anything hanging over you anymore, you're separated from a culture ingrained for the better part of a decade. You must start over as a civilian, suddenly having to dress and feed and regulate yourself again. You no longer require your father's permission or have to report your every move to a commanding officer; you're so free that it feels like a trick, too good to be true. You'll miss the camaraderie of a service unit, the predictability of a regimented schedule, the unambiguous rules and expectations. There's something to be said of trauma-bonding in an early morning convoy, of playing every card and table game known to man, of wild weekends spent off base with your buddies. But you won't miss the 0400 drills, the mid-night emergency calls to action, living out of a duffel bag or sleeping in too many beds every year. You especially won't miss the memorials for KIAs, KITs, and suicides. But there's no off-switch to the Army, and you're still constantly on the lookout for danger. Now you're so objective-oriented it's difficult to casually visit the grocery store without a plan. You might be more patient but you're also more inclined to blow up in private when frustrated. You're not forced to exercise anymore but you feel guilty if you don't work out everyday. You've had to tone yourself down around civilians who found you abrupt in speech and demeanor, back to taking up less space again. You don't wear your résumé on your uniform anymore, having to start over in every room you're in. Of course you land at the Deol house until you're back on your feet. But it's different without Ish or Sami around, reminding you of your debts to this family, how everyone else always seemed to be moving ahead without you. After a few months you're living by yourself for the first time in a new apartment, where finally you were allowed to have and keep things. To decorate your room like it was permanent, to lock doors no one else had keys to, to make a mess without fear. After Luther died, mom convinced you to give counseling a shot. His death was the day you were reborn, the first time you'd ever been able to breathe, but she pointed out that you had only traded one abusive person for an entire organization of abuse. Now that both were gone from frame, you had to figure out how to act without needing a looming threat to motivate you. You still don't sleep well, you can't trust people, you won't let anyone in. She told you to find a new mission after she found you in your old house—clearing it out and selling it because you could never live there again, tempted to let it all burn with him—taking a baseball bat to your father's worldly possessions and every square inch of memory. You were still so full of consuming, unresolved rage that you thought you saw his reflection in her eyes, that brief flicker of fear, and you promised her you would try. So you worked. You dated. You picked up hobbies. You haven't been able to quit smoking since Afghanistan but you tried new things like meditating and learning the guitar, things that would've gotten your ass whooped a decade ago (you hear less of his voice now). Your MOS skills translate to a job maintaining a fleet of trucks and trailers for a freight company, not quite like the armored and utility vehicles you're used to but it's a paycheck and that's something. Now you read books you were supposed to have finished back in high school, you volunteer with underprivileged kids whose despair you recognize a little too well. Strangest of all, an ex-girlfriend got you into woodworking when she would pick up abandoned furniture or thrift odd trinkets, bringing them home like stray animals. You liked the idea of restoring something for a different use, too metaphorical if you thought about it; sanding out a piece's cracks or painting over its scars, converting it from one identity to another. Eventually you figured out how to construct pieces of your own using a neighbor's hobby garage, appreciating the way different woods felt against the buzz of a saw blade, trading in the smell of motor oil for wood polish. You've always had to keep your hands busy, steady as a surgeon's. szechuan . austin butler . resident