A Change of Needs (16 page)

Earl on the other hand, was intrigued by it. He had wanted to start with the Marines, “
The Few, The Proud, The Marines,
” like a romantic siren’s song to him. His father had served in the Corps before becoming a State Trooper, and it almost seemed his calling. Their buddy plan had dissolved and Earl headed off to Parris Island S.C. for training. He would travel around the world, Okinawa, return to Parris Island for Drill Instructor School and serve a tour of duty in that regard before the first Gulf War broke out, afterwards stationed at Lejeune for a time, going wherever they sent him, until returning to the “sandbox” post 9/11. They would lose touch for long periods of time, but every once in a while he would hear from the man. Earl had told Jake on one occasion about a routine he had developed along the way. Every time he went into a bar, wherever it was, first thing he would do was order a shot of tequila, salt, and the lime, take a pinch of salt and throw it over his left shoulder for good luck, and then unnoticed pour some in his hand, and put it in his pocket. It sounded like some superstitious Sailor/Marine thing to Jake at the time you know, but Earl explained that he did so because he often found himself in those establishments that got rowdy, the salt served as a potential diversion it seems, in those fracases that would break out in the abundance of restlessness that accompanied shore leave when abroad, before a deployment, or upon a return, and that DI in him was always in control.

Jake called him on the bullshit, they had grown up in a time when professional wrestling was big, and he remembered Mr. Fuji, the consummate villain who had made a trademark of throwing salt in his opponents’ eyes. More importantly he knew Earl didn’t need the help. He had readily disabled scores of larger men, but he could sympathize that at their age he wasn’t interested in fairness, he was interested in prevailing. He had taught young men and women how to kill, and defend themselves from those who wanted to kill them. For him fairness had been reduced to a very brief statement that he was about to do you harm. He was no longer interested in proving himself to the younger men, only settling the matter. He seemed to have grown weary of fighting unnecessary battles and as a sort of flashback to their adolescence, he gave Jake an involuntary reminder, presented the salt with a magician’s flick of the wrist, slapped him twice before Jake could figure out what was happening, point well taken …and it was a routine Jake incorporated into his preparation before going out, largely as a tribute to his friend who had survived Fallujah, but not the motorcycle crash that killed him after his 20 years of service. He had been a pallbearer at Jake’s father’s funeral. At his family’s request, Jake had served as a pallbearer at his. He must’ve been a helluva guy, because one helluva guy thought him so.

Now there’s been some discussion about a man’s physicality, of intimidation, of the way men interact and perceive one another, and the way women respond to it. Admittedly it seems a bit antiquated and barbaric, we are in the 21
^st
century after all, well beyond the gladiator and warrior-prince periods, but make no mistake, we are at best civilized beasts, but beasts nonetheless. We pay to watch men beat the hell out of each other, our favorite sports are the violent ones, one man imposing his will on the other, taking something of his in the process. And the female of the species for the most part, despite strong protest to the contrary, has not outgrown that instinctive draw towards the male who can provide and protect either, only that as we have “evolved,” that definition has broadened beyond the physical threats to include any man who can offer financial and emotional stability, and thus shelter from harm.

While we seem to deny and renounce its existence, we simultaneously celebrate it as a culture. And Jake hypothesized that it boiled down to four basic categories, and men routinely fall into one or more, the
strong
, the
quick
, the
smart
and the
prey
, if you have some doubt to its existence, an examination of inner-city gangs or our prison system affords an unadulterated glimpse at its ugliness, an unintentional social experiment, like ants in a classroom glass ant-farm, beneath the surface, it is on display. We may attribute it to their particular circumstances, but the circumstances only exaggerate the underlying inclinations as opposed to creating them.

In the subplot of this “dawg eat dog” world, the man who has never suffered defeat has an aura about him, a reputation, a
myth
, and a distinction that in and of itself can assuage many confrontations, and becomes a second entity that any opponent seems to battle with as well. A presence that enters the imaginary ring ahead of the man, and often strikes the first unseen blow, but to the man himself it can also be a heavy burden that hangs around his neck like an obligation of expectations to be met, an Achilles heel, that in the event his persona is not enough to demand surrender or respect, can weaken him, as he also battles that unblemished record at the heart of it all as much as any opponent.

The first loss, and every such man will have one unless he refuses to participate or retires prematurely from the game, is debilitating. It fractures the almighty yet fragile ego, the psyche filled with confidence that had grown to be a source of strength now clouds with doubt, the psychological beating of greater consequence than the physical. But contradictory as it may seem, in a minority of men, such losses can ironically prove to be a powerful and liberating thing, because the fear of losing has now been displaced with the knowledge that they can and will get up. And that
education
, that resulting loss of fear or
fearlessness
can be a dangerous thing …especially when confined to a man of size and strength.

As is sometimes the case, boys who lose their fathers young grow up with an under-developed sense of what it takes to be a man, often overcompensating, and hardheaded and stubborn, Jake was not an easy study in that regard and it was a lesson he learned at a painful price. He had not learned the natural and ordinary boundaries of when to fight and when to walk away, had never learned to run from trouble and consequently often found himself mired in it. Young and full of
piss and vinegar,
he was brash and cock-strong and the combination resulted in a lot of unnecessary confrontations, and the few and subsequent losses he had suffered were severe and brutal, but they were also losses that had come out of situations where he was not only in some weakened state, but truly incapable of defending himself. And others who were looking to make a name for themselves, for a notch on their reputation, took advantage of the opportunities. He had the good fortune to learn from his mistakes, a smart man does, and as he matured he would most certainly make more mistakes, but lessen the opportunity to repeat the same ones.

He wasn’t a troublemaker or asshole, but just an extremely complex contradiction, veiled by his apparent simplicity. Make no mistake about it. He was a nice guy, loving father, wonderfully loyal and compassionate human, a lighthearted man, and extremely bright, he had been a number of men’s best friend along the way, and a few women’s. Unassuming and unpretentious, very likely to be laughing with his pals and picking fun at himself, but as he had learned at an early age, the most “dangerous” men in any room never have to tell anyone, they don’t have to behave the part, like the appearance of a stray and mangled dog wandering into a yard, others know that win or lose, he will put up a fight and its best to leave him alone. He made no assumptions as to whether or not he was such a man, to do so is to wear an invitation for trouble on your forehead, but suffice it to say he knew how to recognize them, and if there’s any truth to the saying that “it takes one to know one,” for reasons unspoken, he was always left alone.

Being an exception to rules, he would acknowledge them, and that during the course of his life he had been strong, been quick, been prey, and become smart, they are not fixed states, nor mutually exclusive, but often transient phases in which sometimes the “strong” the “quick” and the “smart” become the
prey
because of the threat they present. They exist in all aspects of society, from the boardroom to the bedroom, the playground to the battleground, while seldom rising to the surface or being fully activated, the instincts are undeniable, and pervasive. And emotions are almost always its trigger, the pin pulled from the grenade.

In that collection of phrases he kept, he had read the poem “
If
” by
Rudyard Kipling
as a young man, it seemed like a companionate pamphlet to the instructions his dad had left him with, and two of the lines stood out,
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you”
and
“yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise …you’ll be a man my son!”
It spoke to the experience that had been visited upon him, and he had thus learned it was in his best interest to remain unnoticed as much as possible.

But this business with her, the awareness of these other men and his increasing obsession of them together were quickly becoming his enemies. The knowledge of what she was doing was bad enough, his imagination of it
worse
, and his OCD became an emotional autism in a sense, like “Raen-man.” The emotion and the increased
static
it created were shaking that pin loose, and he was beginning to think taking a metaphorical piss in this girl’s yard wasn’t going to be enough to keep the other dogs out, he might have to take a shit …and bring a
pocketful of salt
just in case.

His life had become that scratched DVD that catches and keeps replaying the same scene of the movie over and over,
Tony and Rae
, and for the life of him, he couldn’t fast forward beyond it or skip to the next scene. It had to be painful. All those aspects of his personality that had worked against him in the past had corrupted those that had, and it went from light to dark, from yang to yin.

They’d had their usual pep-rally regarding her upcoming “me” time, but when she cancelled at the last moment “
because one of the children was sick
,” …in a contrasting pattern of his own that was developing, he
had
to see for himself. The absence of cars in the driveway was sufficient enough for him to continue his “investigation.” Jake knew her schedule and routine, for a smart gal she was remarkably predictable, though it was more a product of the fact she had a small comfort-zone, and a big desire to control her situations that made her so, and not naiveté. He found her at a neighborhood bar they had occasionally rendezvoused.
Neighborhood
in the sense it was a neighborhood establishment …just not her neighborhood where she might run into her actual neighbors or fellow PTA members. Anxious, in a voyeur meets peeping Tom moment where he was about to step out of the anonymity and darkness of what had been her backyard and make himself an unscripted character in her play. He strolled in and found what he had feared …but suspected. She was there, and not alone. Squirreled away in the corner with the same fella he’d seen at her house, earring, tribal tattoo on his right bicep, and short black hair like one of those
Paul Mitchell
salon photos at the place Jake got his hair cut.

Up close he had an ethnic appearance about him, though watered down like second or third generation. He was a good-looking guy, they looked good together, and he understood the attraction …and hated it. There were only certain things he could compete with, and it riled him that she had chosen to break off their plans to spend them with this guy …
again
, believing he had successfully cut him from the herd with his stunt. In an attempt to avoid looking pathetic, he called Ivey to see if she was available and willing to play the role of a paramour. She had extended the offer in a sense with her text, and only lived ten minutes away and was happy to oblige for a little while before heading out to meet up with her friends.

He could feel the
static
blurring into a panic as he waited, like some commercial strength tool it was inappropriate for everyday “household” use but it had its utility in his life. Probably the remnant of some primitive or ancestral ingredient of being a man that made Ivan “
terrible
,” or …Alexander “
great
.” One man’s curse is another man’s blessing, for Jacob it was a bit of both, the most god-awful sensation and the first thing he would have changed about himself, and the last thing he would have wanted to …the chink that if ironed out would’ve weakened the armor of the man, but it was his and it was not an unfamiliar sensation so he calmed himself before he had the appearance of the bad-ass at the end of the bar about to have a panic-attack.

Rae hadn’t noticed him yet, and he hoped she wouldn’t until Ivey arrived. The young man made his way to the bar to order another round of drinks, as Jake literally bullied his way to the counter to take a spot next to him and ordered a beer. Uninvited, he leaned over and whispered to the guy “
If you nibble on that woman’s earlobe when she arches her back, then whisper ‘you fuck like a porn star,’ she’ll coo like a songbird for you.
” “
Who the fuck are you?
” Tony replied, now revealing a hint of an accent like some character on
Jersey Shore
. “
I’m the man she’ll call when you don’t get the job done,
” Jake responded with a deliberately sarcastic snarl and a wink, sensing the young man represented an exception to her “
intelligent conversation
” criteria, and that he might have to spell it out for him …or say it again slower.

The man squared his shoulders as if he might start something, …expecting the older man to flinch, then relaxed as Jake stood there smiling, his thumb hanging on his left pocket in case he needed to channel some Earl. At forty-five he had a good fight or two left in him, hopefully the situation wouldn’t merit the expenditure of that rain-check voucher on this occasion. “
Give it a try buddy, one soldier of love to another,
” Jake continued, subtly egging him on. The man looked at him like he was sick in the head, took their drinks back to the table, and sat surprisingly silent, occasionally glancing up at Jake as if pondering the advice and its origin. It was the worst advice he’d ever given another man, he almost felt guilty …
almost
.