Lyft driver last night decided to tell me his life story. The guy was more than a bit unhinged, so I just let him talk.
Lyft driver last night decided to tell me his life story. The guy was more than a bit unhinged, so I just let him talk.
Lyft driver last night decided to tell me his life story. The guy was more than a bit unhinged, so I just let him talk.
Veteran, tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Starts talking about his domestic violence towards his ex-wife and children, laughing about how he had only jokingly threatened to break his children's legs, and when he stabbed his wife in the arm with a wire, it wasn't really a stabbing.
"I told the judge, if I had wanted to stab her, she'd be dead."
Complains in great detail about all the money she took from him, his prison time for the assault, and describes with glee hiding his assets in his vintage car. "New chrome, new hood, new tires - bitch wasn't gonna see that money!"
Continues on about how his new girl came from Iraq and knows what a war zone is like. Brags that he'll send her back if she doesn't marry him. Turns out he's never seen her in person, but has sent her over $7k through some online hookup site that charges per message. Goes off on how he helped her move from Canada to Chicago (we're in California), and complains about how each time he sends her money to come out west, she never shows up.
"I've bought the tux, the wedding dress - it's all ready to go - it's that or Iraq."
Note that all of this was punctuated with constant bouts of chuckling and provided completely unprompted - I said maybe three words the entire trip.
Why do I relate this story? First, it was watching bad karma in action, both the fuck around and find out phases wrapped up in a tidy taxi ride.
But I found myself wondering what he was like as a child... he was clearly struggling in the smarts department, but he had a natural friendliness that belied the horrible shit coming out of his mouth. It got me thinking to what this guy might have been like had the army not put a gun in his hand and sent him overseas to kill. He was in his forties, but his mind was that of a violent teenager - almost as if it had been frozen at the point in time when he was deployed.
I speak about this because I've seen the same pattern in other vets I've known, including some I went to high school with (1st Gulf War vets). Something gets permanently broken in them, keeping them in a state of constant angry adolescence that takes childish glee in abuse, cruelty and savagery as a way to normalize their experience.
And then they come home, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake as they try to integrate to a peacetime existence, unable to grow up, Peter Pan with a gun in hand.
I wish someone had made this clear to my friends who joined up. There's more than one of them who's too dangerous to be a friend to now.
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Lyft driver as unreliable narrator.
This is a good and thoughtful and thought-provoking short piece. I really think it belongs in the pages of the New Yorker or The Atlantic.
@Adirondack - wow - that's high praise - thank you!
When we entered the second Gulf War, an article mentioned seeing the soldiers on a plane reading the latest Harry Potter book, how jarring she found that -- that yes, they were reading a children's book because they were 12 when the first book in the series came out.
And now they were soldiers heading off to war.
But still children, really. It was the most heartbreaking memorable telling detail.
Your piece is full of telling details like that.
@adirondack - Thank you - that's exactly how I feel when I see these guys.
I used to do homeless outreach, and the vet population within is enormous - you see how the military has absolutely wrecked their lives. One guy I helped out was trying to hitchhike his way north through Oregon with his very pregnant girlfriend to try and make it up to the VA hospital to try and fight a coverage denial.
He was about 24, and in a wheelchair. Serious respiratory issues, and this was in the middle of COVID.
Turns out that the Trump administration had closed up most of the VA hospitals and service centers up and down the west coast, and this left a lot of vets traveling hundreds of miles just to try and get services, especially in the more remote areas near the OR/CA border.
Btw - I dig the Bonnie Rait clip - I saw her live at a small venue in the Napa Valley about 20 years ago, really sweet woman in person.
@Arotrios They're always trying to close VA hospitals, even as their burden grows. It's just so wrong.
My grandfather was chief of medicine at that Waco VA in the 70's and 80's, took me on a tour.
There were still WWII vets, who'd been there since the end of the war, living in oxygen tents, some quadriplegics.
I saw them. It changed me.
We didn't go in the psychiatric buildings.
They tried to close it down in 2003 right at the start of Desert Storm. Just cruel.
@adirondack Agreed, and thanks for the article. My son is nearing draft age, and your story made me think that it might be time to take him on a tour similar to the one your grandfather gave you.