morning after my Jessica Simpson Halloween triumph.
Trying to be subtle, I invited a few people over to my pod, including Scorpio and my buddy, at a time when I knew Libra would be working. I would arrange it so he and Scorpio had time to interact, and then I would choose a moment to slip away, basically “gifting” her to him. (Jesus, even typing that sentence feels gross.) My buddy was definitely into her, and I could tell that she at least wasn’t disgusted by him, but deep down I also knew that there was no way I was getting out of this cleanly. Libra or Scorpio were going to hate me; there was no way around it. To be honest, I was into Libra enough that I was fine with Scorpio hating me. I just had to figure out how to tell them both in a way that hurt them the least (and that made sure Libra didn’t kick me to the curb).
After much thought, I decided to go to Libra first and tell her about me and Scorpio. Surprisingly, she was pretty cool about it and appreciated my honesty. Then I told Scorpio about Libra, which went less well. Though I guess that depends on your perspective and experience. A few days later, as I was passing Scorpio’s room, I bumped into my buddy walking out. I could have been pissed, the way I was when I found out Awful Person was still fucking her ex-boyfriend, but instead I was psyched. The dribble handoff had worked. I went in for the single-arm bro shake-hug. And he ducked it. Scorpio had Vader’d him with her love force and turned him against me. Things were strained between him and me after that, because let’s be honest, how can you maintain the same depth of friendship with the guy who, in your mind, fucked and chucked the new girl you’re in love with? I understood, and I let it go.
Thankfully, this particular deployment was almost over, so I was able to give them their space and not have to worry about seeing them very often. If this had all gone down a couple months earlier, who knows where it could have ended. That combination of uncertainty and inevitability is exactly why my contracting agency frowned upon fraternizing with the ███████. Over a long enough time horizon, it’s going to end, and most likely it will end poorly.
* * *
—
With just a few days left before I rotated home, I remember sitting on my twin bed in my shitty little room in the middle of ████, having a couple drinks by myself, and scrolling through a digital swampland of complainers on Facebook. My flight is delayed! My latte is cold! WTF, I can’t get a latte on this flight?! As I perused this pathetic chorus of first-world whining, all I could think about was my brother Alan. Not all the things he’d been through to beat cancer and serve his country, but rather all the things he never said or did as he got down to business and got himself squared away. He never complained, he never made excuses, he never asked for pity or for a break. He just did his job. His calmness and deliberation and fortitude became subtle forms of inspiration for me from the day he got the news—of his diagnosis, of the planes hitting the building, of the long road ahead for him.
As I thought about my brother and Brehm and Barraza and other guys we’d lost during deployments, everything that got me to where I was in that moment, I just remember how pissed I was at all those Facebook people. To defuse some of my spite, I picked up my guitar and started strumming some chords, talking to them out loud through my computer screen, you fuckers and your champagne problems, everyone’s got ’em. Before I knew it, two hours had passed and I’d written and recorded a song that would become my first YouTube video: “Champagne Facebook Problems.” Little did I know it would change my life forever.
* Since this got redacted, I want to be clear that this was a human I fucked.
Chapter 16
Hey, Aren’t You That Dude?
I didn’t publish “Champagne Facebook Problems” right away. I sat on it for a few days as I considered what to do with it. I’d used GarageBand to record the audio tracks and the camera on my MacBook to record the video, so