As fast as our feet could take us into the dark of night, we were gone. The only thing on my mind was to hell with the consequences.
1
Micah
The wheels touched down on the tarmac, causing the plane to jolt around and for us passengers to shift a bit in our seats. The woman next to me squealed so loud it echoed in my ears. It wasn’t that bad of a landing. I’d had worse, lots worse.
This was just a small glitch. A bump in the road.
If this scared her, being on an Osprey and landing on a dirt field with no wheels to the ground and no runway, teetering from side to side, would give her a heart attack. Her fears, her reaction, though, were nothing compared to the pounding inside my chest. It had absolutely nothing to do with this plane or the rough landing.
It was all about the place.
Sumner, Georgia.
Home. Or at least it was at one time.
Once upon a time, that word felt like a curse. Sumner was everywhere I didn’t want to be, plain and simple. Only that was then.
Now, it all seemed like a distant memory. Another life. Another person living it. Another world.
It had been four and a half years since I’d stepped foot on Sumner soil. Even on leave, I chose other places to go, much to my mother’s dismay. My father and mother would come and meet me at times, but it would only be for a couple days.
It was best that way.
Short term, seeing my folks kept the topics from getting heavy with the shit going on at home. I was certain they wished I had come home before now. Truthfully, I left behind a shit show of my own making. The fact of the matter was they weren’t the only ones who wished I had returned earlier. I had quite a bit to answer for, and to more people than my parents.
With things being complicated out in the field and me needing to keep my mind on the next mission, the heavy needed to stay in the recesses so the present could overrule. Shit at home meant nothing when bullets were flying and your fellow Marines needed you to have their back. They came first. Everything else had to take a back seat. Compartmentalize and press on, that was something I had mastered since being away.
Thankfully my parents were far more understanding than I ever expected them to be. Unconditional love was a myth to me before, but now, I truly felt it.
Everything was different for me now. Not that anyone here knew shit about the man I had become, and I preferred it this way.
Things were complicated enough for me where home was concerned.
My father was a member of the Ravage Motorcycle Club. He had eaten and breathed the way of the brotherhood since before I was born. Something I couldn’t understand as a boy.
The club had consumed my life since being brought into this world, sucking everything up with it. My father was always out with his brothers and would leave my mother home alone while he did whatever it was he did. There wasn’t a single day, moment even that the club wasn’t thrown in my face, or at least that was how I viewed it back then. The more the club came first, the more the jealous rage built inside of me.
Every party we attended was at the clubhouse or another club member’s home. We had no one outside of the club. Even the kids at school stayed away from me, saying their parents feared my father. The curious kid I was felt trapped, smothered in a way.
Every memory was encompassed by the club, and in the end my feelings for it turned bitter and resentful. Why couldn’t I have normal? Or, at least, what my child mind envisioned to be normal.
With all of that and my adolescent attitude, my mouth spewed things that could never be taken back.
Vile things.
Hateful things.
Against the club.
Against my father.
Against everything.
I was so over all of it then, and I’d let it be known to anyone who’d listen. I was the rebellious punk-ass kid who no one could stand.
Time heals all wounds, the saying went… Only in time, the conversation in my head didn’t improve. The older I grew, the more stubborn I became. There was no changing my mind; there was no opening dialogue to allow me to see how things really were. From a boy into a young man, the indignation and irritation inside of me only continued to grow.
When I left for college, the only person to miss me was my mother. Returning, I was sure my parents were hopeful I had changed my mindset about their lifestyle. Then there was the reality of when I came back. While I wasn’t sure how it would all pan out, the path I was on didn’t make the situation much better. My mouth once again got the better of me. Lacking the maturity to understand that some things were best left alone, I stirred up more shit than I ever imagined.
Consequences.
They never crossed my mind.
The pain I would cause others didn’t matter.
The position I put both of my parents in, being torn between their son and their family, wasn’t something that even registered in the recesses of my mind.
I came home with an arrogance.
Entitlement.
That was the best way to describe my attitude after college.
These people owed me. In my mind, I should have returned, and they would fall in line with me.
Except, Ravage didn’t work like that.
Too stuck in my own thoughts and expectations, I couldn’t see what had been right in front of my face. That in no way was how anything occurred. The longer I was home, the worse I continued to make my situation.
The damage was done.
And for the first time, I recognized the problem was me. Except, I didn’t leave it at that. Like the punk-ass they all thought me to be, I had one final nail to put in my coffin. Dropping the bomb I held in my hands, I recklessly tossed the Ravage world on its very axis before taking off. I didn’t face it like a man, though. No, I let it be known I had sat on information for months, and when I finally made the choice to reveal my secrets, I did so by mail.
I had made up my mind that Sumner was not the place for me. In the days and weeks before I left, I learned a lot about myself. Losing Emery and what I thought were my given rights as the son of a Ravage member, I realized just how immature I had been. I wasn’t the man for her, my parents, or the club I so desperately hated and respected equally. The conflict inside of me was too much to bear. I knew what I had to do, and that could only be done away from home.
When I left Sumner behind me last time, I did it with the sole intention of getting my head screwed on straight. That was what no one knew. Finally, I could clearly see the damage I had caused at every turn. I recognized the pain I inflicted. More than anything, I simply knew the man I was then wasn’t the man to stand up and fix what I had destroyed.
Those words I tossed out, that attitude I carried around, and all the problems I caused, well, I’d have to answer for. The time to pay the piper, so to speak, was long overdue. Knowing retribution would come the moment those hateful words spilled from my lips didn’t stop me then. Now I knew I’d done wrong, and I was more than ready to get everything out. To be released from these chains that held me down for so long, and I would do so by any means necessary. It was time to release myself.
I was a boy lost in a world of chaos. Now, I was a man who understood my naivety, immaturity, and downright defiance were wrong and out of place. It was a very powerful realization.
The announcement bell pinged as we gathered our things, getting ready to exit the plane. All I hoped was there wouldn’t be too big of a delay. I missed my parents. We may not have seen eye to eye, but they were my family, and it was time for me to rebuild the bridge that had once burned to the ground. Time to let the past lie and move on.