Surrender Read online

  I check my rearview mirror and see Nick put his arm around Elijah and touch their foreheads together. This kind of PDA from Nick had never been seen from anyone in his inner circle, and we are still (happily) surprised by it. I’m glad that they have such an affectionate relationship, though it does put my rather austere relationships in sharp relief.

  We hit the road at 5:00 a.m. and make our way up I-35, hitting the Czech Stop in West, Texas, about an hour later. We roll out to the truck with boxes of the best kolaches and Dr. Pepper cakes in Texas. After another hour of mainlining sugar, it’s clear that Roly is going to fidget himself to death, so we start playing road games. Twenty questions and the license plate game keep us going for a while, but soon enough, Nick and Elijah, who I suspect were up late, are asleep against each other in the back seat, and it’s just Roly and me chatting about the ideas he has for the gym and the pizza shop, not to mention the support he’s giving to our friend who owns a tattoo shop on SoCo and the foster puppy who is currently making mincemeat of his furniture. When he mentions taking an extension class on Saturday mornings, I have to say something.

  “When do you have time to sleep? Seriously, do you ever rest?”

  An expression I can’t name crosses his face, and just as quickly he smiles that brilliant Roly smile. “No rest for the wicked, my friend.”

  I nudge his arm, my eyes scanning the road. “You are the least wicked person I know, Roly Martinez.”

  He nudges me back hard enough that I jerk the wheel a little and drift onto the rumble strip on the shoulder of the road. “Dude! What the hell?” I ask, joking. Nick and Elijah stir from the jostling, resetting their lean against one another, and soft snores once again fill the back of the cab.

  Changing the subject entirely, he says, “I overhead Jean-Pierre tell Benning the other day that you’re an artist. How come I’ve never seen your art?”

  I side-eye him, then refocus on the road. “Didn’t figure you for the art type, Roly-man.”

  “Well, first of all, fuck you for assuming, and second of all, fuck you for thinking I wouldn’t want to support your art. We’re family, man. Of course I want to know what you’re doing.”

  I glance at Roly, who has shifted his body and is looking out the passenger window. “Hey, man. I just… I never think it’s quite good enough to, you know, bother people with.”

  Roly turns to face me again, and his face is a combination of emotions. Sadness, affection, confusion. “Jake, come on. The way Evie talks about it, your pieces are personal and moving and technically very good. You know that Jean-Pierre would—”

  “I’m going to stop you right there. I will never try to use his or anyone’s connections to go somewhere with my art. He’s my friend, and I wouldn’t jeopardize that for anything.”

  Roly smirks, his lighter attitude returning. “Friend. Right.”

  Ah, jeez. “I can’t go there right now, Roly.”

  “No worries, we can change the subject.” After listening to the sounds of the road he says, offhandedly, “So, tell me about your service.”

  “Washed out after the Naval Academy.”

  “Ha. That’s not what I heard.”

  Nice try. “Can’t be responsible for what you hear, Roly. I’m just telling you the facts as they are.” At least as they are according to my heavily redacted records.

  “Truth be told, it’s not so much what I heard, but what I saw. Unless I was mistaken, that’s a bone frog hidden in that tattoo on your ribs.”

  The tattoo covers up the burn marks that I’d rather forget, and I had not asked for the bone frog, styled like a tiny etching in the trunk of the tree that runs from my hip to my shoulder blade. It was an addition so subtle that I didn’t notice for several months, and I didn’t feel that I deserved the sacred symbol, but the artist is a friend. He was one of the country’s most prolific Navy SEALs, and after his retirement, he switched to tattooing broad, grumpy bikers, not unlike himself. While he was on active duty, his actions on my intelligence saved lives. The bone frog memorializes the SEALs we couldn’t save.

  “I can’t help what you imagine, Roly.”

  He looks at me with more sternness than I’m used to seeing on his usually happy face. “That’s okay. I’m guessing that you wouldn’t be able to tell me what you did anyway.”

  “Hey, man,” I say, nudging him again, trying to lighten the mood. I decide on a non-confirmation confirmation. “I was in the closet until I chose to come out in my early thirties, Roly. That should tell you how good I am at keeping secrets.”

  “Yeah, but it’s best not to keep them running around in your head all by yourself.”

  He’s not wrong.

  We finally roll up to the gym, a space far larger than our reclaimed warehouse. Once we get the intros out of the way, the location starts with an overview for everyone, along with a Q and A panel with the client-amputee who started everything. After that kickass demonstration, we all split out into our different specialties. Nick goes with the physical therapists, Roly and Elijah go to the strength training session, and I see what they have for yoga.

  About an hour into it, I get a text from DB and go to meet him outside.

  “Jake! Twice in two weeks—this is a record.” he says, pounding me on the back. “And hey, thanks for mirroring our site on the dark web. We’ve already snared a couple of bad actors.”

  “No problem. You got my payment?”

  He smiles and says, “Check your coat.”

  I reach into my inside pocket and find a flash drive along with a roll of hundreds, my going rate for hacking into the uglier parts of the internet.

  Nick and Roly don’t know this, but I’d been part of the task force assigned to find out how our troops kept walking into ambushes, including theirs. We’d lost a lot of soldiers because of leaks coming from the Russians, and I’m proud that my work played a small part in finding the people responsible for giving away our positions. Even if it was a small fish who took me out, the data led us to the big fish, who is no longer alive to leak anything. I wasn’t assigned to their incident directly, so I asked DB to call in a favor. The drive contains records that detail the incursion that led to Nick losing his leg and Roly losing three days of his life.

  Yes, I could have hacked the Pentagon for the information.

  No, I don’t want to go to jail for the rest of my life.

  DB promises to send me additional work in the next week or so, and we part on bro hugs.

  I pull out the ruggedized tablet that DB’s team sent over, making sure the Wi-Fi and cellular services are turned off before I insert the USB. Scrolling through the screens, I now know what happened during those three days that Roly was in enemy hands, and it is both better and somehow worse than his family imagines. Those events involve the son of an ambassador and have been classified top secret, and I’m impressed that he’s kept the truth from everyone, including Nick.

  I also now know, but cannot share, that an affiliated team in a different branch of the military found and dealt with the persons responsible for giving away the position of Nick and Roly’s SEAL team. It’s not much, but it’s something.

  I return before any of the guys realize I’ve left and catch Roly on the floor working with a middle-aged smoke show who also happens to be a double-arm amputee. “So… does your boy jack your cock for you, or what?”

  My jaw drops as the guy lets out a cackle, leaning forward to wipe the fat tears from his face on his knee.

  “Roly!”

  He looks at me, attempting an innocent look. “What?”

  “You don’t… you can’t ask questions like that! You’ll get us kicked out!”

  “Benning asked me to find out!”

  “Benning has the one arm. If he wants to satisfy his curiosity, there are about a million ways to find out that don’t include harassing this gym’s clients.”

  The guy on the floor gestures with his foot. “Nah, dude. It’s cool.” Turning to Roly, he answers the impertinent ques
tion. “Sure, my boy likes to take care of his Daddy, but mostly…” His words drift off as he leans back and draws his feet inward, bringing the sides of his feet all the way up to his package. “Not exactly a problem for me. Of course, if you want to join us, I could always use an extra hand.”

  I have to admit that, while I’ve never been into the kinds of things he’s talking about, I’m a little jealous of their shared kink.

  Roly high-fives the guy’s foot, laughing. “Nah, man. My nickname is Bear Killer for a reason. But thanks. Anytime you’re in Austin, come by Wrecked.”

  They say their goodbyes, and Roly walks up to me with a big grin on his face. “Damn, Jake. Didn’t know you were such a prude.”

  Yeah, no. “I can’t believe you asked him that.”

  “Dude, you weren’t here earlier. He and his boy are twenty-four seven in the lifestyle, and… damn, they’re intense. Their masturbatory habits are the least kinky subject we’ve covered in the last hour.”

  “Only you would find the kinkiest motherfucker here.” Laughing at this kind, funny man, I realize that I’m glad that I got to spend extra time with him. Based on the pictures on the drive DB gave me, I can guess why he likes bears, and I hope that he finds someone who’ll make him as happy as he makes everyone around him.

  It’s near the end of our time here, so Roly and I go to find Elijah and Nick, who are with a group of amputees practicing their new moves. One of the reasons Nick wanted to come up was to test out his new robotic prosthetic that Scout purchased for him, and the difference in his range of motion is striking in comparison to that of the other participants. Nick gets this determined expression on his face, and I suspect he’s going to have a conversation with his cousin about leveling the playing field for amputees without the same means.

  It amazes me that two years ago I never would have had these friendships with men who accept themselves, who are proud of their accomplishments, and in doing so are able to help others. Hell, two years ago, I didn’t even think I’d ever be able to maintain my fragile sobriety.

  “Whatcha thinking about, Jake?” Roly asks, hooking his arm through mine.

  I smile down at my friend. “A horse named Ingrid Bergman.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake

  Two Years Ago – Sierra Azul Treatment Facility

  Ingrid Bergman nickers at me, her long, fluffy eyelashes perfectly framing her world-class side eye.

  “Jake, she’s not going to let you lead her around the pen if you keep lying to her.”

  I have yet to figure out how I’m lying to a horse named after one of my favorite actresses, but the equine therapist is pretty clear that I’m doing it wrong. I’m not sure that this is what my family had in mind during the intervention, and I think about the way my father’s hand shook while he read his own handwritten words from a folded-up piece of paper.

  I’ve been home barely six months, and in that time I’ve lost my career, then one job after another. Evie had dragged me to a psychiatrist, and we’d gone round and round on medication that had alternately done nothing and made me consider stealing the gun my father has locked up in his office. Finally, I’d gotten a DWI. My attorney was able to get the charges dropped, but that was the last straw for my family.

  So yeah, I’m in the middle of Arizona at a fancy retreat for fall-down drunks, trying to get this goddamn horse to follow me in a circle around the pen. Which she isn’t going to do because I’m lying to her.

  “Jake, what is the story you’re telling yourself right now?”

  I’m too broken for these fancy people, and I don’t have a chance in hell of recovery.

  As soon as the thought is clear in my head, Ingrid Bergman shuffles forward a few feet, more or less dragging me around the pen. As a horse, I assume she’s neutral about my message; she just wants me to stop lying to myself.

  “What was your thought when she started walking you around the pen?” asks the equine therapist, whose name I can’t ever remember. She’s an older woman in her sixties, her skin a deep tan, her hair a shock of white and silver flowing past her shoulders. She’s wearing a large turquoise necklace, along with a white button-down, jeans, and cool broken-in boots, unlike my boots, which are still shiny and new.

  “I was thinking that I had to take a piss and that I was thirsty.”

  Ingrid Bergman gives me a baleful look and stops midstride.

  “Sucks for you that Ingrid here is a truth-teller,” the therapist says with a smirk on her face.

  “Okay, fine, but you asked for it. My thought was that I’ve wasted my father’s money and that I’m too broken for a fancy place like this. I mean, even the anti-anxiety drugs are telling me to walk into traffic.”

  Ingrid, sassy mare that she is, starts walking, and the therapist smiles and joins us in our very own Elizabeth-Bennett-takes-a-turn-around-the-horse-barn moment. “Jake, that might be the first honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t seem like that’s a positive thing, right? I mean, isn’t therapy wasted if I don’t believe in it? Like, maybe that’s why my meds don't work. Maybe Klonopin only works on true believers.”

  The therapist tilts her head left and right, responding, “Well, the therapy would work better if you believed in it, but Klonopin doesn’t give a shit either way. Neither do any of the other meds we’ve tried with you. Some people just don’t respond well to anti-anxiety meds, but we’ve got lots of tools that’ll help even if you can’t start in a positive space. ”

  That almost gives me a little hope, if I’m honest.

  She nudges my shoulder. “Besides, if you weren’t so fucked-up, starting from a positive space would be easy. Seems rather unreasonable to ask someone with anxiety and PTSD to come at this with a positive attitude.”

  Okay, I don’t hate this particular therapist. The others were a little too woo-woo for me, but this one I like.

  “Why do you suck less than the other ones?” I ask, taking Ingrid’s continued, if plodding, stride as confirmation that I’m telling the truth.

  “It doesn’t mean the other ones actually suck, Jake. Maybe you and I just understand each other.”

  I inhale deeply and ask the question that’s been weighing on my mind. “Okay, so then what should I do to keep my life from falling apart?”

  Ingrid continues walking but lets a huge deuce drop, which I assume is a warning.

  “Adopting a mindset of being in the present moment is helpful.”

  “Aww, there’s the woo I was waiting for.”

  She isn’t particularly bothered by my disappointment. “We all have belief systems that help us to get by, Jake. It’s helpful if you choose something that works in a positive direction, but you certainly don’t have to.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that I have to choose my illusions wisely.”

  She reaches out and scratches the lady Bergman behind her ear. “Yeah, that sounds about right. We each have our own articles of faith, regardless of evidence, because we’re going on gut instinct. We’re all, in some form or fashion, going by that unnamable tuning fork within us.”

  “So, what do you call your belief system?”

  “I practice Zen Buddhism, but that just happens to be the structure that works for me.”

  “And what if that structure doesn’t work for me?”

  She smiles, unconcerned. “That’s what’s beautiful about the belief systems on this planet—there are many to choose from. It’s often helpful to choose something from within your own culture because you’ll have the support system in place for it, but sometimes a structure that works for you can only be found out outside of your current understanding. I wonder, Jake, if you’ve ever looked into Buddhism? Ever been to a temple?”

  I run my hand over Ingrid’s flank and appreciate her solid strength. “Are therapists allowed to talk about their religious beliefs? I mean, is this some kind of conversion therapy?”

  “No, and I can talk about whatever the hell I
want to. It just so happens that there’s a Buddhist temple down the road, and their monthly newcomers’ night is this Tuesday. I think it’d be a good idea for you to check them out.”

  I shrug, disguising my interest. Ingrid’s side eye is epic.

  “By the way, my name is Una. You should make an attempt to remember that if we are going to be Buddha buddies.”

  That Tuesday, Una took me to the Buddhist temple, as promised. Pretty sure she regretted it almost immediately.

  “So the first Noble Truth is that everything is suffering? How am I supposed to like this?” I ask, pointing to the wooden carving on the wall in the foyer.

  She lowers her voice and points to the other sign on the wall. Zazen. Whatever that means. “There are at least three other truths, Jake. Maybe you should read the rest of them before making up your mind. Just a thought.”

  I read the next one down and roll my eyes nearly all the way around. “Ooooh, goody, the next one says that all of my suffering is a result of my selfishness. This keeps getting better and better.”

  An older woman with robes and a shaved head walks through the main area to the zazen room, puzzling at us silently before making her way in. I’ve decided that zazen should have an exclamation point. Try zazen! today.

  “Pretty sure it’s talking about attachment to things, beliefs, and self-concepts that are harmful. Also, if you’re the root cause, doesn’t it mean that you hold the solution?” she asks, straightening the gorgeous turquoise necklace she’s paired with a dark red shapeless-but-stylish dress.

  “God, I wish you were dumb.”

  “Sorry, buddy. But, maybe keep on reading…”

  I do as asked. “Maybe they should start with the last two. There’s a solution that’s good, and the solution is the path. So, to recap, life is pain, it’s all your fault, but don’t worry, there is a solution, and that solution is a path with eight more steps. Woah, how did they just up and double the steps like that? Where do I even start?”