Retards in the Night

I was awoken at two in the morning. A figure walked into my room. I was groggy, didn't know what was going on. A voice kept asking me if I was all right, if I was fine, if I was going to make it through. I could really only grasp the thought as I looked at my clock that someone is playing some kind of rude prank on me. I'm thinking, as my body turns to wakefulness, that I must be late for work if someone is bursting through me door. I recognize the person. Then it hits me: he isn't in my platoon. In fact, he got kicked out of my company before we had even deployed overseas. Wasn't a friend. Not even someone I'd ever associate with.

"I'm fine," I finally said. "The fuck do you want?"

"Oh, I was at the bar, man. They were saying how you got all fucked up."

I could only wonder why this man even cared. He'd threatened me enough times with violence that the whole "coming to see me in the middle of the night to make sure I'm all right" doesn't quite sit well. I humor him a moment.

"No, I'm fine."

"You sure, man? 'Cause they were saying."

"Look, I'm fine. I have to get up in less than four hours. If you want to find someone who's fucked up, go find Hallat."

I say this knowing that Hallat had freaked out, started trashing a guys room a couple nights ago. Had spent twenty-four hours in cells before being transfered over to the Psyche-Eval people.

"You sure?"

"Yes. Get out."

He left, closing the door. I lay there, listening. I heard him walk into the room next to mind and repeat. He was just wasted off his ass. A Tuesday night, he's so drunk he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. I don't even have my name on my door anymore because I'm about to release. He probably came to the room from memory. After all, my roommate, who had since moved out, had once hung out with this nutcase a few times. I fell back to sleep thinking I'd only hear my alarm in a few hours. Nope. I get woken up again to banging on my door, this time twenty minutes before my alarm even goes off. This time it's one of my buddies in my platoon. He's dressed and ready to go down to the lines. I look at him, squinting as I rub the sleepsand out of my eyes.

"Why aren't you ready?" he asks me.

I look at him restraining the urge to smack him in the face.

"We gotta be down at the lines in like thirty minutes."

Oh, right. He hadn't been told. I sigh, look him in the eye: "Timings got pushed back. We don't have to be there for another seventy, eight minutes or so."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Then he walks away out to his car to turn it off. To late to attempt getting those last few minutes. Might as well do the three morning S's: shit, shower and shave. In that order, too. I can't wait till Friday when this stops. Was kinda funny, though, in a weird way, I guess.