1
THE ACADEMY
POLO REO TATE
USAFA, 15 MAY, O-NEG
NO ONE CAN TAKE YOUR JOY
The words were under my thumb from the very beginning. From the time the bus picked us up, until the time its brakes squealed to a halt and exhaled their deep and final sigh, my thumb ran back and forth over each tiny raised letter on my junior dog tags, like a worry stone.
Po-lo Re-o Tate. Rub.
U-Saah-Fa, U-Saah-Fa, U-Saah-Fa. Rub.
No-one-can-take-your-joy. Rub.
After a two-year wait for a senatorial appointment, an application process, and a lifetime of preparation, I had earned the chance to pursue superior academia, to train militarily, and to play Division I volleyball. All while becoming the newest member of the team in charge of protecting our nation. I was living my childhood dream, sitting on a bus that was taking me in to start my first day of basic training at the United States Air Force Academy.
Holy shitballs.
The bus’s hydraulics expelled the rest of their air over each wheel, lowering its enormous frame one side at a time. As if kneeling down to pray in the loaded, quiet calm before a storm. Bloated, visceral silence. I sat perfectly still, except for my thumb, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing the dog tags.
I stopped rubbing, afraid the friction was contributing to sweltering heat inside the stuffy bus. I stole the moment to wrap my junior dog tags around and around my arm for good luck and tuck them under the thick leather cuff that hugged my wrist.
This was both one of the happiest days of my life, and one of the scariest. I had always preferred to live on the shiny side of life, and yet I knew that where there was shine, there could also be shadow. I had just turned eighteen. And I had already experienced the extremes of tragedy, loss, and love enough to know that none of us, no situation, was just one thing or another. As I sat on the bus to basic, I had a sneaking suspicion that for better or worse, USAFA was going to force me to see both sides of life’s coin. I held my breath.
The energy, like the trapped, stagnant air inside the bus, pulsed to the beat of my accelerating heart, throbbing it like a bladder.
USAFA.
USAFA.
USAFA.
Silence.
BOOM.
The bus doors blew open, startling even the driver, and a wiry young man bounded up the stairs, blowing a piercingly shrill whistle. WHEEE!
“GET OFF THIS MOTHER-CHUCKING BUS RIGHT NOOOW, BASICS!”
For such a small man, his lung capacity was awe-inspiring. Wait … mother-chucking?
“I SAID MOOOVE, PEOPLE!”
He was gesticulating wildly, as if bringing in a 747 jumbo jet, sans the supercool orange lightsabers. One windmilling arm took a break to point a finger at the Heisman Trophy’s bigger, badder younger brother, sitting next to me. I hoped to God that this mountain of a boy was a USAFA football recruit, because our Fighting Falcons could really use this Mack truck of muscle mass barreling down our opponents.
“LET’S GOOO, BOY.… GET THAT BIG ASS A-MOVIN’!”
Basic Cadet Trophy Boy grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me up like a tackling dummy. He dragged me past the roaring mouth and windmilling arm to the bus’s exit.
From my perch one step above his broad shoulders, I could see the utter chaos that met each of my classmates as their feet hit USAFA pavement for the first time. God, I wanted to grab the back of Basic Cadet Trophy Boy’s shirt and hang on for dear life. A second later, we were both yanked into the chaotic swell below. I sucked in my last breath of free air and stepped down onto the perilous pavement.
I almost overlooked the small cadet waiting for me off to one side, wearing a perfectly pressed blue uniform and a large hat that looked as if he’d just swiped it from his father’s closet. Before I could turn to look at him, he stuck his face so close to mine that I felt his nose dip into my ear. His nose just went inside my ear. Instinctively, I grabbed the side of my head and doubled over with ticklish laughter. I instantly regretted it as I straightened myself up. Too late.
“OOOHH, WE GOT A LAUGHER OVER HERE! SHE CAN’T MAINTAIN HER BEARING! YOU THINK THAT’S FUNNY, BASIC?!”
Umm, yasss? Not that I would say it out loud, but OMG, yes. It was hilarious. How was I supposed to maintain my bearing—whatever that was—when this little and loud Jersey-sounding stranger had just stuck his nose inside my ear?
“YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY, BASIC?! YOU THINK WE ARE HERE FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT?!”
Damn, he is ferocious. I bit my lip to keep from nervously laughing.
Two other uniforms answered Cadet Itty-Bitty’s mating call.
“AWWW, GIGGLE-PUSSS, EH?? YOU THINK THAT’S FUNNY??”
“WHAT. THE. MOTHER. CHUCK. ARE. YOU. FRIGGIN. LAUGHING AT, SHIT-CAN?!?”
Fear had shrunken my sphincter to the size of a shriveled currant. Perhaps it was my coping mechanism, or a fear response, that was allowing giggle bubbles to surface from deep inside of me. Either way, I had to answer.
“No, sir!”
I wondered if laughter was considered an honor code violation. I didn’t think so, technically, considering we had not yet taken any kind of oath—unless that was one of the 14,000 papers that I had signed that morning.
“OH, YOU DO NOT THINK IT IS FUNNY, BASIC?? BUT YOU WERE LAUGHING, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS?!”
My body froze like I was buffering, and the upperclassmen just stared at me for a beat, impatiently waiting to refresh my URL. I wasn’t sure of anything. They took my silence as a concession.
“THEN YOU DO THINK IT IS FUNNY?!”
Shit. I started to gesticulate.
“No, no, no, sir! I mean, it’s not funny, sir!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BASIC? GET YOUR ARMS DOWN! ARE YOU ALLOWED TO USE CONTRACTIONS?! GET BACK AT ATTENTION, YOU DUMB LOOSEY-GOOSEY!”
Wow. The insults so far had sounded like my grandparents trying to speak emoji … barely comprehensible, but definitely awkward and insulting. However, unlike my grandparents, the cadre—the cadet officers assigned to train us—had meant to insult, and they hurled their language with enough velocity that it stung.
Four more cadre members descended. Each one fired off a question that added to my own personal hell.
“Yes, sir!”
“No, sir!”
“No, sir!”
Okay, I’m starting to get the hang of this.
“Yes, sir!”
Silence.
I looked into the eyes of the uniformed cadet I’d just answered. She was pissed.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“YOU THINK I LOOK LIKE A BOY, BASIC? HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF I CALLED YOU A BOY, BASIC?!”
Hmm. How would I feel? Well, I’d feel like I was back in elementary school. Back when the elf shelf, pixie, or as my father liked to call it, “Don’t you wanna look like a girl, goddamnit” haircut was sweeping the nation and I was its poster child.
If there was anything I understood, it was how shitty it felt to be mistaken for something that I was not—and I had just done that very thing to one of the women in charge of my training, on my first day of college.
Copyright © 2018 by Polo Tate
