Cursed

≛Chapter Two≛

Zachery

I feel like the second I was out of diapers my dad had me working with him on the farm. Even when I wasn't helping out in the fields with the livestock, I would spend all my free time outside exploring. In the summer the fields of clover were so strong that you could smell honey from inside the house. I was barely inside and the freckles coating my tan skin showed it.

When I got old enough my parents switched out my bicycle for a dirtbike. Finding rocky paths through the woods became my version of a playground. As soon as the sun came up I would run out the door with all my gear, only returning home when it was too dark to keep riding safely.

Every summer I said goodbye to my school friends as they went on family vacations to the beach, while I worked on the farm with my dad. Even when school started up again in the fall I couldn't escape my dad's commands. He wasn't just my dad to me because he was also the coach to the whole high school football team. One night during the end of the season, someone told us that our game was being scouted by a representative of the college football committee. My dad was coming down extra tough on the team that day, but it was nothing compared with the verbal assault I got at home when we lost the game.

I remember him shouting at me about each play that I fucked up. My anger surged through every cell in my body as each word he said cut into me. I felt like he held a knife to my throat and I was just begging for him to finish the job, but instead he kept on yelling. My mom watched wearily from the sidelines, knowing that the beer my father was clutching meant that her intervening to help me would only make things worse. Finally I screamed the one thing I never wanted to be true.

"I'll never be good enough for you will I?"

That momentarily caused him to shut up. He looked at me silently, then nodded in agreement. He waved me off and continued to the fridge to grab a Budweiser. It was a truth I never wanted to accept, that my own father would never recognize the good in me. I balled my fists up and ran up the stairs to my bedroom so my mom wouldn't hear me punching my mattress. Each punch forced tears out of my eyes.

A year later and it was my senior year of high school. I had learned to avoid my dad at all possible costs. My buddy Steven and I were checking out booths at the career fair in our school's auditorium. He pointed to a stall covered in shades of green and brown camouflage print.

"Zach check out that army guy."

I looked over at a table where an army recruiter was sitting stiffly in the plastic folding chairs from our school. The sign at his table read U.S. Army: What's Your Warrior? The idea of getting out of the only town I've ever experienced was compelling, but getting away from my dad was reason enough for me to step up and sign my name on the recruiters' list.

"Dude what are you doing? Your mom is going to flip out!"

Steven tried to stop me, but I was determined. He watched in disbelief as I signed the next six years of my life away. When you have nothing to lose then the idea of selling your soul to the government doesn't seem so bad.