I mentioned my long-held theorem that you cannot make fun of New Jersey if you’ve never lived there.

“Oh,” K said, “I’ve lived there.” (We were on the phone. I’d just figured out how to use the Bluetooth thing in the new car.)

“You have to live there a little while to understand the aesthetic,” I said.

“I was there ten months,” he said. “Granted, I was only six at the time. Hackensack. But I remember it really well.”

“Do you,” I said. “Really? Six?”

“It’s pretty goddamn vivid,” he said. “My dad shot an intruder in our house. Twice, in the face. Bam-bam. Killed him instantly.”

“Oh,” I said. A lot of K stories leave you not quite knowing what to say.

“They arrested my dad,” he said. “Because of a lot of things, some of which I only found out a lot later. But partly because most scared homeowners don’t shoot people like that. A neat double-tap, precision-aimed? The cops figured he hadda be Somebody. And then, we were straight from Georgia, and the intruder was black. A Southern guy shoots a black dude? Like that?”

“Hm,” I said, still trying to figure out what one says.

“What it really came down to, though, I only found out way later, was that the guy downstairs was a soldier for the Gotti family, and they figured my dad was probably involved too. They had to let him go, as of course there wasn’t any proof of anything. But I only found out really recently… he was.”

K laughs. “So yeah, I remember Jersey really well.”

So in case I haven't mentioned, I work retail. (Yep, still at Delaware Camera.) This means that Christmas is, for me, a stressful, overworked time of unmitigated hell. On Christmas Day I staggered over to (e:zobar)'s mom's house with a bag of hastily-wrapped gifts and sat in total exhaustion staring blankly on the couch. I didn't even get around to opening my presents (I had two) until 9pm.
My family celebrated Christmas without me, on Thanksgiving, in Georgia, where my sister and her children live. I Skyped with them, briefly. That was toward the beginning of my Unmitigated Hell season, and I knew from the moment my sister announced it that I would be unable to attend. So I didn't stress, but I did cry a little, alone in bed late at night, knowing that my entire family was together without me. (And we had just lost my uncle to unexpected, fast-progressing cancer, so it was kind of hard to be on my own then while they were all having so much togetherness etc.)

But this weekend my parents are visiting me, and I'm going to have a proper-ish Christmas of my own, with my mother's special cooking and so on. I've saved all the presents my sisters sent me to open when my parents are here, and I sent all my presents out to my sisters late and am going to try to Skype with them that day. We're going to celebrate on Sunday, after the upcoming roller derby bout.
Oh yeah, there's one of those coming up. I'm playing. It'll be fun. Come see. Front row is sold out but the rest of the place isn't.

So yeah. I'm excited about Christmas. I haven't seen my folks since October.

“I heard he hit you first,” I say into the phone.

K’s voice is indistinct, but his diction is clear; it’s the phone reception, and the fact that he’s probably holding it between his face and shoulder as he’s cooking. “Damn right,” he says. “Well, to be fair, he hit her first, and that’s what started it.”

“Wait, whoa, he hit the girl? I’m amazed you let him live.” I’d had a few scanty details secondhand via text and his slurred voice in the background the night before, but nothing detailed.

“There were probably four people in the place,” he says. “Me, the barmaid, the guy, and one other customer. Damn it this spatula isn’t big enough.” He trails off into muttering, then comes back clearer as he evidently shifts the phone closer to his mouth. “I was just there to… I wasn’t really there to get drunk, I just wanted to get out… get out of the house, really. I just needed a little space. So I had just got my drink. And the bartender was arguing with this guy, her ex-boyfriend. She was telling him he had to get out. So he backhands her, right across the face. Hang on.” He fades out, and something scuffles, and thumps.

“There.” He’s much clearer now.

“He really hit her,” I say.

“Yeah.” His voice rises, in remembered incredulity. “So I stood up and went over and said You’re gonna have to leave now, and he got up in my face and said It’s none of yours, and I said, again, clearer, You’re going to have to leave. So he says, You wanna fight about it? And calm as anything, I looked him up and down and said, Actually? Yeah.”

“Oh, perfect,” I say.

“So he hauls off and hits me. It was kind of a nothin’ hit, a drunk swing, though actually my jaw hurt pretty bad after. And I woke up this morning with a bloody nose but I think that was just the dry air, I don’t think he got me that good. So everything went into slow motion, like it does— he hits me, and then I see him looking at my right hand, ready for me to swing back. So I hit him with my left. Left to the face, then a right to the body. And he just dropped into a little heap. I kicked him, pretty hard, in the gut, cuz you know, I had kind of a lot of anger to work through. It’s been a while. Then I scooped him up and put him out the door.”

“Nice,” I say, and he laughs.

“I know I didn’t break his jaw because he mumbled something about calling the police. I said Sure, go ahead. He hit me first, and there were witnesses that saw it, so I wasn’t worried. I shut the door, came back inside, went back to my chair, sat down, took a breath, and time went back from slow motion to normal. And the bartender comes over, and says, calm and quiet, just like that, Thanks. Want a drink?”

“And you did,” I say.

“Fuck yes,” he said. “I’d already started in on a triple of Jameson— one of those rocks glasses, about three quarters full— and a tall Guinness, and she brought me another of each, and then I had another Jameson after that, and then we went down the street and I had another triple Jameson and a tall Guinness. And I felt better.”

“You sounded pretty damn cheerful on the phone last night,” I point out.

“Oh hell yes,” he says. “There’s nothing as satisfying as a good bar fight, you know?”

“I’m kind of surprised you’re this OK this morning,” I say. “Last night you took S’s phone and were telling me something involved about finishing your drink because of St. Patrick and your ancestors, but you pronounced it ansheshtors.”

“I don’t remember that,” he said. “But I’m guessing the giant glass of water I had, and then the tactical decision to go make myself throw up, between the last Jameson and the last Guinness, are probably why I woke up bright-eyed and ready to go, if a little bloody, at 7 am. I’ve been cookin’ ever since. Hey I gotta go, I’ll call you once the food’s been served.”

He calls just as I’m getting ready for practice. He is in a terrible mood, just devastated by a recent fight with a friend, and I’m doing my best to be distracting. So I’m complaining about my knees.

“I bruised the hell out of the good one,” I moan, “and the scar tissue in the tendon on the other one is just aching like crazy.”

“Mine’s bad too, lately,” he says. “Just the bad one, though.”

“You have a bad knee?” In my (derby-heavy) social group I’m used to always knowing who has chronic injuries where, out of courtesy and habit. So I’m shocked not to already know.

“The right one,” he says. “It dislocates. Ever since the thing with the helicopter. Did— Wait, have you not heard this story? With the dead Rangers?”

“What? No!” I would remember that, my dad was almost a Ranger.

He laughs. “I guess I gotta save at least one story for when we’re old and gray.”

I snort. I’d been less-than-gently needling him that his current woes were his mid-life crisis. “Shut up,” he says, but he’s laughing.

“When was this?” I ask, more politely.

“About 1995?” he says. I decide not to mention that I was in high school then. “It was one of those war games exercises. And the thing we had to do, for my team anyway, was that we had to jump out of a helicopter into this river. And the fucking pilot didn’t slow down like he was supposed to. My team chief was so mad it’s lucky he didn’t shoot the guy. I wasn’t the only one who got hurt.”

“What, just jump out? No parachute?”

“Pah, of course,” he says. “We just jumped out with about 100 pounds of gear on. He was supposed to slow down, see? I hit that water so hard— and now I know, it is possible to scream underwater. I would’ve drowned if my friend hadn’t hauled me up— big Samoan guy, he saved me a couple times.”

I remember Big Samoan Guy from the story about the scars on K’s shoulder, the scars his tattoos cover, the one he won’t let me tell yet. Saved his life then too. “Yeah,” I say, wishing I remembered the man’s name but not wanting to interrupt.

“It was kinda fucked-up,” he says. “The corpsman we had, he wasn’t very good. Guys would come to me instead. So they hauled me out and half-carried me back to the beachhead, and this useless fucker has no idea what to do with a dislocated knee. He won’t give me anything but ibuprofen. And I’m lying in this, basically a foxhole, and you know how I am, I’m pretty fuckin’ grouchy. And they say they can’t medevac me to a real doctor for another two days. And I’m just watching this thing swell up and it hurts bad and I’m so mad at the stupid chopper pilot.”

“I don’t blame you,” I comment.

“But then they say oh, there’s an Army helicopter coming in. They’ll drop their guys and come by for you.”

“Oh,” I say, “there you go.”

“Yeah,” he says dryly. “So this Blackhawk helicopter comes in. I don’t know Blackhawks. It comes in over the beach, then suddenly the pitch of the engine changes. Like I said, I don’t know Blackhawks. But this thing suddenly went careening past the next line of trees, disappeared behind it, and then there was just this huge fireball.”

“Fuck!” It’s an awful image. “Did anyone get out?”

“Of course not,” he answers. “Killed the whole crew, plus the entire team of Army Rangers waiting to jump out.”

“Fuck,” I say again.

“Yeah,” he says. “So like, after that nobody cared about my knee. I couldn’t blame them. But I lay in that hole for three days with my knee dislocated.”

“Shitty,” I say.

“Shittier for those Rangers,” he says. We’re both silent, thinking on that. Finally he says, “It’s not a very good story. I think that’s why I never told it to you before.”

“Not a good story?!”

“No,” he says. “All I do is lie in a hole and feel sorry for myself.”

He pauses, looking down at a plate sitting atop my toaster oven. It has Christmas leftovers, cookies, on it. He pokes one. “What the heck?”

“Marshmallows,” I say cheerfully. “I made homemade marshmallows! They’re stale now but they were really good.”

“Brr,” he says, recoiling slightly. “Ugh.”

“What’s not to like about marshmallows?” I demand, astonished.

“Ugh,” he says. “I can’t handle marshmallows. I had a bad experience with a dose of acid on a marshmallow once.”

“Acid?” I’m utterly taken aback. “You did acid?”

He laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I used to. I probably shouldn’t tell this story but one of my favorite times was during a hurricane, onboard ship.”

I stare at him. “Isn’t that a terrible idea?”

“We ran to sea to ride out the storm,” he said. “Standard kind of procedure. It’s unpleasant, but you have a better chance out there than near the shore. So during a storm like that, almost no one is allowed to be up and about. The guy steering the ship is strapped into his chair, the guy watching the instruments is strapped in, and just about everyone else is belowdecks, literally strapped into their bunks.”

“What if you have to get up to pee?” I ask.

“You don’t,” he says. “You can’t get out, the bunks are four deep. There’s a big webbing thing that comes across to hold you in. Some guys would try to bring in a bottle or a can or something so if— not if, when— you had to pee it didn’t get everywhere— I usually did— but there wasn’t really much you could do. After a long storm the whole place just stank of piss and shit and sweat. It wasn’t fun.”

“And you decided to do acid to get through this,” I say, thinking perhaps I understand.

“Oh no,” he says. “Because my damage control team wasn’t in our bunks. We were supposed to go around and make sure the ship wasn’t sinking. We were emergency response.”

“… And you did this on acid,” I say.

“Only a half-dose,” he said. “And I should mention, there wouldn’t’ve been much we could really do, even if it were. We were wearing enormous Mae West life vests, huge oversize coveralls, old-school combat helmets, and we had all our limbs wrapped in towels under the coveralls. Because the ship is making forty-degree drops at random intervals; you just get beat to hell if you’re not strapped down. It sucks, and it’s boring, and dangerous, and hard. So we just all got high and ran around like idiots. Hell, there was no one to see us.”

“I suppose that’s opportune,” I say, still skeptical.

“The best part was when we all decided to go rolling,” he said. “There’s just this one huge space, a corridor, belowdecks, that goes almost the whole length of the ship. It ends at the mess hall on one end. It’s huge; we were a repair ship so we’d use it to put big ship engines we were working on, and stuff. But at that point it was empty. So we made ourselves into human cannonballs and just rolled down it while the ship tossed and heeled.”

I consider that a moment. “Is this the same team that had the kite incident?”

He laughs. “Yup.”