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I guess I just haven’t settled into that mode again yet. Hell, I haven’t even had the time yet to have a date, much less hookup with a string of one-night stands like the guys are always boasting about at PT every morning.
(A string of one-night stands that—for the record—are usually heavily exaggerated.)
I’m having a hard time getting back into that mentality.
After I finally make it through the logjam of traffic, I pull up to my one-bedroom apartment in a historic building near Chippewa Square. It looks like a building that you’d see in movies—so different from the 1970s monolithic structure I lived in when I was in DC. I appreciate the character of it—except when the toilet makes a deadly rattle every time I flush or when the floors squeak mercilessly each time my neighbor upstairs so much as tiptoes.
All that character comes at a price, I suppose.
I like where I live, right in the middle of the action of Savannah, plenty of places to eat and listen to music. But if I didn’t need to stay this close to base, I might have put up with the commute and just lived full-time on Tybee.
It takes me a while to unload my gear from my car—which this weekend includes my bike and surfboard—and carry it all up two flights of stairs to my apartment since there’s no outdoor storage.
After I settle in, I sit down at my laptop and peruse a few websites like Craigslist again, looking for a cheap room to rent on Tybee, and as before, I turn up nothing.
I had hoped that going to local spots like that diner would help. I know how small towns work, having grown up in one. People talk in those kinds of places. They hear things. I could totally picture someone sitting at that counter and mentioning an empty room in their house that they’d like to turn into a little extra cash in their pocket. Maybe a couple of empty nesters whose kids just left. Or an older retiree who might appreciate having a person in the house each weekend who wouldn’t mind mowing their grass or helping with those chores they can’t get done from time to time.
I’d totally be down with that.
Hell, when it comes down to it, I’d be content sleeping in a closet. I don’t need much. I’m a Ranger. I sleep anywhere.
I just wanted to give myself this experience—this indulgence—for just one summer. I wanted to go to sleep at night hearing the sound of the surf beckoning me, and roll out of bed each morning and hit the waves. I wanted to smell that saltwater with every breath and envision a time in my life one day when I’ll get to live where I want, rather than where the Army sends me.
There are already rumblings of a possible deployment this fall.
But this summer? It’s all mine.
I shut my computer and stand to stretch.
As much as I tried to stay in shape while I was stationed in DC, there is nothing that makes you work out harder than the rivalry of a bunch of Rangers who all don’t want to be the weakest link.
With that in mind, I glance at the time and then put on my PTs to take a run.
Savannah’s thick humidity strikes me as I step outside my door. Each historic square that I run by boasts picturesque trees draped with Spanish moss, and the air is scented with wisteria, even weeks after it bloomed earlier this month. The sound of the water fountains manages to eke past the music I’ve got pounding in my ears on my AirPods.
Savannah’s one of those unique cities where you feel like you’re living on a movie set. I feel that way even though I’ve never readMidnight in the Garden of Good and Evillike everyone else has here. Hell, I never even saw the movie. But I can understand why this town inspired a story.
If I were a writer, I’d totally set a plotline here.
And in my plotline, my phone would ring right now, and someone would tell me that they’ve got a room for me to rent for the summer.
But this is reality. Not fiction.
