Tested by Cooper C. G

Author:Cooper, C. G.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C. G. Cooper
Published: 2017-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

I couldn't speak, even after they had thrown me in the back of the police cruiser and we were well on our way toward the police station.

Murder? My compulsions from a few minutes before weren’t even a memory. Nathaniel was dead. That sweet little boy—curious and fun-loving. For some reason, the only words of his that keep coming back to me were, "French toast. French toast." Nathaniel would never eat that again.

Then came the image of Nathaniel lying on the hospital floor. He'd been covered in so much blood that I remember thinking that he'd been dunked in a barrel of it. It didn't make any sense, but then none of this did.

I wanted to struggle, to kick and scream and pull at my restraints. I should’ve demanded an explanation, but all I felt was a deep, resounding sorrow. The feeling enveloped me so completely at that moment, staring out of the police car window with vacant eyes, I resolved at the earliest opportunity to take my own life.

After all, what was it all for? I'd tried to do the right thing. I tried to stand up for those who couldn't stand up for themselves. Look where it had gotten me. No—where it had gotten Nathaniel! He was dead—murdered. Gone.

The tears came before I knew they were falling. Losing a friend or family member was one thing, but the loss of any child was heart-wrenching. I felt like I was trying to breathe underwater. Instead of breaths, I gulped gallons of water. I didn't want to live. I wanted death to take me. Death, that sneaky bastard. I’d outwitted him too many times. No more. I’m here if you want me.

For some reason, my memory flickered back to my first days in the Marine Corps. I was a newly-minted lance corporal. Our platoon commander, a fresh-faced butter bar straight out of Quantico had been tasked with giving us a brief before we went on liberty. It was in the days before 9/11. No one had a combat action ribbon, except for the old-timers who'd been around for Desert Storm. There were also the lucky few who'd returned from some back-water conflict that nobody could talk about. Death was as foreign to us as a green alien from Mars. I'm not sure why I remembered that brief. In it, the lieutenant warned us about the dangers of depression, alcohol, and suicide. Most of my fellow Marines weren't even listening.

"There's a reason the success rate of Marine suicide is higher than all other branches,” the lieutenant had said. "It's because when a Marine puts his mind to something, he does it. He doesn't pop a bottle of pills; he grabs a weapon, and he takes care of the problem with deadly force.”

Much to the lieutenant's dismay he got a couple of "Ooh-rahs" and "Semper Fi’s” from his Marines. Those were the days when suicide was still a relatively rare phenomenon in the Marine Corps. Knowing someone who’d committed such an act was rarer still.

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