post-traumatic stress disorder

He gotsta get a grip on hisself, and a man gotsta do that alone.

The world seemed right before the war, right in a way he couldn’t perceive then or articulate now. Expectations done broke, he thought. Goose went to war, he pulled the appropriate trigger at appropriate times, he followed orders mostly, he came back alive, he got money, he gave it to a woman to spend. He did his part. He completed the minimum requisited of a man.

Goose kissed him goodbye, and he kissed Ellen goodbye too but in a different way, then he went on back to bush in the wilds up behind Smashwood. He ain’t wanna whisk off, but he ain’t wanna stay even harder. It was better this way, for him to be gone. He gotsta get a grip on hisself, and a man gotsta do that alone.
The world seemed right before the war, right in a way he couldn’t perceive then or articulate now. Expectations done broke, he thought. Goose went to war, he pulled the appropriate trigger at appropriate times, he followed orders mostly, he came back alive, he got money, he gave it to a woman to spend. He did his part. He completed the minimum requisited of a man. But it felt like he done jack up every single thing in the world. He was a retard in boot camp, he dropped his rifle, he got scared as a bunny, he was captured, needed rescue, he lost, he failed, he fell, he wailed. He could get done up by the Vietnameys prolly crawly-trawling the countryside anytime. He done develop a sixth sense about ’em, and it been twinging like a siren. Ain’t quit off since Muck Dan Foo. He don’t wanna go look in the woods lest he either get took captive again or see that he imagined phantoms.

From The White Trash Veteran

what was the point of being a man if you can’t keep your little lady from hooking it?

And he felt bad that he felt good about leaving. He gotsta skedaddle while the heat was on. And he gotsta go less he lose control of his fists again. That boy ain’t a wall, and the lady ain’t a soldier.

Ellen was Goose’s wife. They ain’t never done live in matrimony, as they jumped the broom only days before Goose shipped out to the steamy greens. Ellen done come up in the family fashion, so they got married with a hurry and a hoop-dee-hoo. Now Goose returned to the joyness of meeting his newborned son Moses and to the sadness of Ellen admitting she been turning tricks to pay the bills. Army don’t pay diddly.
Goose did more shouting than he cared to admit, and he blistered and kicked up purple, raring and pitching, then he punched a hole in the wall and regretted letting his son see that and afrearing from it, and nothing Goose could do would make him stop crying. He said no wife of his gonna go and sell her God-given ladyness to any pecker-toter with dollars and a stiffy, cuz what was the point of being a man if you can’t keep your little lady from hooking it? But he done got drafted to the other side of the ever-blesséd world, so what was he sposedta do about it? Can’t do squat! Goose screamed like a river at a dam, til Ellen begged him to stop or the neighbors gonna call the sheriff, and Goose wanna ram his noggin into the wall until something somewhere broke.
The whatnots rising in him, Goose only regained hisself when he saw Vietnameys watching him like sentries from the woods behind the trailer. That turned out to be an illusion, but it got Goose calm as a clam, sending Ellen and Moses inside. Then he felt hisself a fool when he reckoned t’was just some shadowy tree swaying in the breeze, and he pretended ain’t nothing happen. He don’t want Ellen to think he couldn’t cope or Moses to think his pops was fearful.
So he steeled up for the woman and the boy. They got needs, and a rock don’t. He ain’t think twice about giving Ellen the cash-money from the robbery. “Don’t spend it all at oncet,” he said.
And he felt bad that he felt good about leaving. He gotsta skedaddle while the heat was on. And he gotsta go less he lose control of his fists again. That boy ain’t a wall, and the lady ain’t a soldier.
She nodded, and she whispered, “Thank you…”. She kissed Goose upon the cheek. That felt good. Damn good. Something about tenderness from a lady reassures a man he is alright and cures a touchous soul. Her lips wouldn’t tremble so soft-like if he was a monster. Ellen wouldn’t kiss a john the way she kissed Goose. He ain’t tell her not to whore it out no more cuz it was implied from the hole in the wall and cuz he ain’t want her to lie and say she would quit off when she really wouldn’t.

From The White Trash Veteran

The White Trash Veteran

When Goose returns from Vietnam, he thought he’d be coming home again. But nothing could be further from the truth! He’s gotta travel for work and to escape the police, and that’s gonna send him an odyssey of alpha male man-on-man action, Buddhist enlightenment and raunchy, filthy situations!

Goose is in for a bevy of rednecks, machos, hicks, hillbillies, soldiers and more, as he overcomes his hangups from war and finds a way home to his family.

It’s free! Read it now as an ebook or read the whole story on this site!