Page 1 of Scout Takes the Lead
1: Scout: Alex
Because I couldn’t sleep, I walked. Up and down the night streets of Hollywood, Florida. Past palm trees with hanging fronds, darkened houses, and old-fashioned glass-fronted streetlights that glowed blue with bulbs that were supposed to be calming.
I stopped at intersections even if there wasn’t any traffic, waiting for the green light, for a signal that things were going to be better. I was circling past the back side of the Publix at Young Circle when I heard a loud crash. Metallic. Like cymbals.
I hit the ground. My face pressed to the dirt. Grass blades poking up my nose. A twig jabbing my neck. My hands grabbing for my gun, a knife, any sort of weapon.
But I wasn’t in the desert. That wasn’t enemy fire. It had been the clatter of the cargo door on a truck, unloading stock.
That’s all. Just a stupid door on a stupid truck doing a stupid daily errand.
Then, in the matter of a second, I was awake, the nightmare still lingering in the back of my mind. I was covered in sweat from my shoulders to my balls. And still the sound continued. I was safe. The war was over. For me at least.
Rolling onto my knees, I waited. Panted. Got my wits about me.
I couldn’t go on like this.
“Alex Dow, you are going crazy,” I said to the empty street. I had renewed my prescription for tranquilizers the day before, even though they weren’t working. I got up and stretched, my arms and legs creaking like I was sixty instead of thirty. Too much time spent in hospital beds without enough exercise.
As dawn began to spread pink fingers of light against the sky, I hurried home. I made my bed, as I did every day. One of my platoon mates once questioned a commander why bed-making was so important in the military. “It’s not like the Ali Babas are going to strike harder because our bunks are a mess,” he said.
“I learned something from a very wise man once,” the commander said. “Life is very hard, and a sense of structure can make everything more manageable. If you start your day by making your bed, you’ve completed one task effectively, and that gives you the desire and motivation to continue as you started.”
Who was I to question a commander? I’d only ever been a grunt. So every morning I made my bed, though sometimes my hospital corners weren’t perfect.
I trudged to the bathroom where I stared at my grizzled face in the mirror. Every day I seemed older and yet less prepared for the world. I rinsed my straight razor, then began shaving the way my father had taught me, following the curves of my face. It was times like that when I could almost feel him over my shoulder, watching me, sometimes shaking his head.
I gargled with mouthwash and brushed my teeth, though I had no plans to get close enough for anyone to notice. My hair was short enough that it didn’t need a comb, so I walked back into my combination bed-living room. I raised the shades and let the sunshine in, but that only pointed out how pitiful the space was.
I sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of granola. My Army buddies called it sticks and roots, but I couldn’t imagine making myself a full breakfast. The effort of buying the ingredients, scrambling the eggs, and frying the bacon, was too much for me.
I took a pair of anxiety pills with a shot of orange juice. I had a whole bottle of them in the medicine cabinet. Could I just swallow them all, chase them with a bottle of whiskey, and go to sleep forever? No more nightmares, no more waking up in a cold sweat, no more flinching at every loud noise and unexpected contact.
It was the coward’s way out. But I had spent so long being brave that my reservoir was empty. I had no friends, no close family, no girlfriend. Who would care if I lived or died? D’eriq, my therapist at the VA, had suggested I get a dog. That maybe a dog could keep me grounded, calming me when I got anxious, requiring me to engage with the world.
I’d read a lot about wounded vets getting service dogs, but my problems were all in my head, and I didn’t want to take a dog from someone who might need one for mobility.
A brochure about service dogs sat on the coffee table. D’eriq had told me about this organization, and how they trained service dogs for vets. But they had a long wait list and required a four-week training commitment in Virginia. Could I wait that long? I doubted it.
Maybe I could train my own service dog, though.
The idea was enough to spur me to move over to my desk, where my laptop hummed in sleep mode. I pulled up a couple of websites and figured that if I got a puppy with the right characteristics, I could do the training myself. It wouldn’t be as good as what the organization provided, but maybe down the road, once I felt a little better, the dog and I could go in for some formal training.
In the meantime, at least I’d have a companion to keep me company—and keep me from taking all those pills. I showered and dressed, feeling more energized than I had in a while.
I used the app on my phone to map out a route to the Broward County Animal Shelter that avoided the interstate or any major roads likely to be too crowded, with too many aggressive drivers blowing their horns and darting around like pinballs on a track.
It took longer to get to the sprawling, low-slung building near the Fort Lauderdale airport than it might have if I’d been brave enough to take the short route, but I didn’t mind. Better to be safe than crazy was my motto.
I stepped out of the car and was assailed by noise. A cacophony of barking from the building, and the sound of a jet taking off at Fort Lauderdale airport, only a few blocks away.
I looked at the back seat of my car. There was no way I could keep it clean if I got a dog. The habits of cleanliness instilled by the Army were going to war with dog hair everywhere.
But I’d come this far. I opened the glass door and the smell of all those dogs and cats assailed me. I was about to turn around but the girl behind the counter said hello.
She was barely out of her teens, with long dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She pulled one of her earbuds out and asked me what kind of pet I was looking for.
“A dog,” I said.
