Page 17 of Scout Takes the Lead
“How is Scout when you get upset?” D’eriq asked as sat back.
“He’s good. He helped me with your homework assignment.” I told him about going to Java Boys and making contact with Akimbo, and how gradually we’d begun having real conversations. “And I even made two new friends.”
“Really? That’s great.” He looked down at my file. “Tell me about these new friends.”
I told him about Kenny and Cheyenne, and we laughed about the wild dog’s antics. “And then there’s Grace,” I said.
“Nice name.”
“She’s a dog trainer, and she’s been helping me with Scout. We take a class with her on Saturday mornings.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s all? What does she look like?”
“Very pretty, athletic, tanned. Blonde hair usually in a ponytail.” I paused. “She sweet, and patient,” I said. “We’ve gone out for coffee. But I’ve got a long way to go before I start to date anyone.”
“She may have a different opinion of that,” D’eriq said. “I think you should leave yourself open to whatever happens. If she’s a dog person she won’t mind if Scout comes along, and you’ve already seen how much he can calm you down.”
I shifted in my chair. “I don’t know. There’s definitely a vibe between us, but I’m afraid to get too close to anyone.”
“Have you told her about your PTSD?” D’eriq asked.
“Just in general terms. What am I going to say? I’m damaged goods, stay away from me?”
“Just because you’re damaged doesn’t mean you can’t be repaired,” D’eriq said. “That’s why you’re coming to see me, right? Because you want to get better. You have to find a way to communicate that information to this young woman, ask her to be patient with you.”
“I suppose.”
“Let’s do some role play. I’m Grace, and I ask what happened to you in Afghanistan. What’s the source of your PTSD?”
“You know that already, D’eriq.”
He shook his head. “I’m not D’eriq, I’m Grace. Talk to me.” I reached down to stroke Scout’s head. The fur over his skull was so soft it was like velvet.
“It’s hard to pinpoint one event,” I said finally. “It’s more the cumulative effect of what I saw.”
“Yes?”
“I mean, the biggest thing, the one that haunts me, is when our Humvee was attacked by a rocket and a friend of mine was killed,” I said.
I decided that if I was talking to Grace, I wasn’t going to go into gory details. “My job was to build things to protect other soldiers, so we’d often get out ahead of the troops to survey the landscape and look for problems.”
I closed my eyes and let myself return to the desert. It was so hot we were always sweating and then getting dehydrated. A cold bottle of water was a treat, whether I drank it or dumped it on my head.
“I remember we were traveling on this road, and it curved, and a mountain, really more like a big hill, rose up to our right. There was an old house up there, and we realized that the Ali Babas could use it to ambush troops on the road. We jumped out of our transport in full battle rattle and began to head up the hill.”
“What’s battle rattle?” he asked, though I knew he was aware of the term. Grace probably wasn’t.
“Flak vest, Kevlar helmet, gas mask, ammunition, weapons, and a soft vest that covers the torso, shoulders and back. It has ceramic plates that fit in pockets in the front and back of the vest. These plates protect the heart and lungs. If you see a TV news report, you see guys wearing battle rattle.”
“Wow. That all must be heavy.”
“It’s about fifty pounds,” I said. “We began to head up the hill, rifles drawn. We didn’t know if anybody was living up there, or if it was deserted.”
“I can see that would be scary,” D’eriq said.
“It was. My blood was racing but I stayed in formation. We got up there, and discovered that the house was empty. The whole back wall had been blown out, probably by the Ali Babas. There were still pieces of furniture inside, a couple of kids’ toys. I wondered what had happened to the people who lived there.”
“What did you do then?”
