Heavy Metal in Trenton (Part 5)

(This is the final section of a five part series that was posted on Monday through Friday this week. Feel free to leave comments!) 

The Conclusion.
In the afternoon we woke up still feeling high. We relived the parts of the previous night we could remember well. I was getting ready to start graduate school at Hopkins in a few days and I finally felt like a normal person, with real hopes and dreams. I felt that the Corps was finally just becoming a distant memory of a far-away life. And when I sold my book, I could buy a van, find a band, and go on tour myself. Maybe I’d learn how to drum metal so Tom would want to come too.

My phone rang. It was Tompkins, a Marine buddy from my unit who I had not seen in two years. “Yo, D-bo,” he said (D-bo was my nickname while I served – short for DiBattista).

I didn’t say anything because usually he rambled a lot and spoke too quickly. “What’s up?” I asked after a long pause.

“Cahir is dead,” he replied, the words as thick and shocking as the strike of a gong.

Sergeant Bill Cahir, the 40 year-old former newspaper reporter and former congressional candidate, my brother Marine and mentor, was dead. He would never see his wife again. He would never meet his yet-to-be born twins.

My body turned warm with the news and the room spun.

“Fuck,” I replied into the receiver as tears streaked my cheeks.

I didn’t want to be around anyone, so I packed my bag again and left as quickly as I could. “Sorry,” I said to Tom, and he nodded knowingly.

He had left a CD in my car. A group called The Haunted remained in the player. For the chorus of one of the tracks the singer screamed, So when I die / lead my remains into the fire / so that my soul flies and I reach the end of the line. It was a raucous rage that soothed my soul and kept me sane as I raced home, ignoring almost every traffic law. I played that track over and over again for those two hours. To the beat, I smacked my palms against the steering wheel and cried. My tears made the road ahead fuzzy but I didn’t slow down.

After one of the best nights of my life the next song had come on. It was a track I didn’t like. But I keep listening to metal because I don’t know how to live a placid life. And I don’t think that’s what my dead friends would want. They would want me to pulse with the rock and roll inside me, always raging against the dying light.

~ Semper Fi ~

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