Page 21 of Forever Flustered

Eli swallowed nervously as his brother was brought into the room full of officers to evaluate his request for removal from the Air Force. His brother. Of all the people in the universe to destroy a career – even at their request – it didn’t sit well with him in the slightest. Bode’s eyes slid toward him, and Eli stared straight ahead, ignoring him.

No, this was going to have to look good. When Eli filed his report, Bradford was enraged that this hadn’t been attended to already ‘in a manner befitting one of his officers’. Apparently, several of the other higher-ranking officers in attendance had been of the same mindset. Sending Bode away for a week had been considered a ‘vacation’ instead of a punishment… and while you couldn’t ‘punish’ someone twice for the same concern - that is where things got a little muddy. Listening quietly as they asked Bode questions… and then it was Bode’s turn to speak – and that is where Elijah knew the chessboard would get flipped.

“Lieutenant Hall, is it true that…”

“That your mother won’t stop harassing me?” Bode chimed in, interrupting him – which was obvious insubordination and conduct unbecoming of an officer, clearly shown in one of these hearings. “Can you please tell her to stop contacting me? I’m a married man. I don’t know what she keeps referring to when she calls, begging me to do something called a ‘Steamy…”

“ENOUGH!” the officer roared, interrupting his brother’s insulting tirade he was just now unleashing – and what in the world was Bode about to refer to? Did he even want to know? – probably not, Elijah thought as he quickly leaned back in alarm at how fast this was spiraling out of control… but his brother – his brother with a runaway mouth and little self-preservation – leaned forward, aggressively.

Hold my beer, said the youngest of the Hall family delinquents…

“She’s a sick and twisted little woman,” Bode continued, clinching his leave of absence by grabbing at his uniform trousers suggestively, causing even Eli to close his eyes as his brother’s mouth kept going and going like the bunny beating a drum in those battery commercials. “She keeps leaving her panties and…”

“Oh my gosh,” Eli groaned under his breath, sitting back and waiting for the nuclear blast to just burn him to a crispy-critter right there in the aluminum chair he was sitting in. He was deadly certain that someone’s fists and limbs were going to begin flying at any moment… but instead, silence fell as a gavel slammed down.

“You are hereby relieved of duty – and will be immediately discharged. You, sir, are a disgrace to the uniform that you wear and…”

“Not the first time I’ve been called a disgrace,” Bode said openly, looking more than satisfied because this was exactly what his brother wanted. He didn’t care about honors, disgrace, his pension, or anything else – and while that was foolish and not something he could even fathom, Bode looked happy. His brother was truly happy at this turn of events – and laughed joyfully. “Man, if I had found Flora years ago, I’d have told all of you old geezers to go stick it where the sun doesn’t…”

“Get him out of here!” they interrupted, and several security guards poured into the room – but that didn’t stop his brother.

“Hey fellas – remember me?” Bode cackled in delight. “Take it easy on the cuffs this time. Gustavson’s mama puts those handcuffs on much too tight, and I’ve told her that I bruise easily…”

Oh my gosh… shut up! Eli thought and then realized that no one else was saying a word – they were staring at him, and he knew it was his turn. They were about to rain down fire upon him for being so lax on his brother and failing to perform his duties. Oh noooo, not me…

“Lieutenant Colonel Hall, is there anything we need to add to your brother’s report before closing it out?”

“No, sir.”

“Let us address your lack of control within your own squadron then – shall we?” Gustavson began and pulled out another manila folder from Bode’s, staring him down. “Take a seat before the counsel so we may begin – if you please?”

And if I don’t ‘please’? he thought silently while already rising to his feet - and his knees nearly gave out underneath him as he sat down in the chair where his brother had been only moments ago.

Crap…

Less than twenty minutes later, Eli sat down slowly behind his desk after being reamed verbally up one side and down the other. He was called ‘sad’, ‘lackluster’, and ‘a piss-poor excuse for an officer’ with a complete and ‘utterly deplorable focus on the job, allowing insubordination – and failing to address it properly’. Today did not go as planned – at all. Bode was probably so excited to be going home, because he got what he wanted – out of the Air Force.

Eli did not. He now had a formal reprimand in his folder, was on disciplinary notice allowing for no other incidents of insubordination from his squadron, and was assigned to take leadership classes online to ‘shape him into officer material’ – and that was like pouring salt in an already open wound. Their words, spoken tersely, were the same ones screamed at him as a boy, then a teenager, and it was hard to hear them once again as a grown man.

He was rattled, shaken… and afraid.

Threatening his post, his command, his placement in the Air Force wasn’t something he was prepared for – and never dreamed it would be something mentioned today. His entire folder was dredged up like rotting debris chummed up from the bottom of a stagnant pool. Every mistake, every mark on his record, every flag on his file was questioned and analyzed to see if it was related to a possible ‘dereliction of duty’… and yet – somehow, he was still here, still employed with the Air Force.

Drawing in a breath, he tried not to notice that his hands were shaking or that his palms were clammy. His stomach was rumbling, and his legs felt like rubber bands. Everything, every nightmare he could have possibly imagined in his well-organized mind, was scattered into a thousand pieces. His focus wasn’t ‘honed’ from being scolded – it freaked him out. Threatening him with his job, his livelihood, his post? That didn’t make things better – it created a nightmare within him that was ten times worse.

Grabbing his trash can as the urge to vomit washed over him, Eli hung his head within the wastebasket, praying that the nausea from his anxiety faded sooner rather than later. Men were tough; his father used to yell at him before striking him.

Men don’t cry…

They’re not big babies like you…

They aren’t soft little sissies like both of my little losers are…

You should be ashamed of yourself…

His father’s words rolled through his head, but it was now mixed with those of the senior officers that had just ‘counseled’ him on his actions and ‘poor judgment’.

“Eli?”