Journel Entry #2; The Fool ad The Folie pt.1

This week marked seven years since Tiara M. Gray passed, and I find myself needing to expunge everything I feel—or perhaps not even that. Maybe what I really want is to tell the full story. Everything that happened between us: the abuse, the love, the extraordinary highs, and the crushing lows. It’s been seven years—this life since first coming to has been twenty-five long years of swimming, as hard and as fast as I could, trying to keep myself afloat. But one day, I grew tired. Pain of getting older hahaha, I stopped feeling the need to swim, floated in the water and let the sun soak into my skin, sat with the pain, and it’s as if, for the first time, I’ve begun to heal…again. Since calming down, I’ve never been able to have a real relationship. Not that I don’t want one, but when people get too close, the fear surges, the terror rises, the night sweats are unbearable. One night, a woman—way out of my league—came up to me at the bar. She was kind, just spoke to me, and by the end of the night, I was shaking, throwing up in the bathroom. I saw her accidentally through the bathroom window walk home alone and upset from how I rejected her… if you ever see this, I’m sorry. This isn’t me. I’ve always been like that old Jewish story about the prince and the chicken (a story for another time). But life sends you for a ride and you don't come back the same person. An artist friend of mine, Anna, recently said, "Your heart has known the greatest heights and the deepest trenches." But something inside me broke recently. You lose out on great love too many times, with no one to blame, and you start to understand that you need something more. You need the things that make the lilacs bloom. And in this modern age, I need healing.

I've spent my whole life trying to distinguish between lovers and friends, and still, I can’t quite figure it out--but love knows no bounds. Platonic love or Romatic, love is all I got. My gut knows—it can call it like a seasoned poker player, all my family plays poker, and we learn how to win—but I used to listen to that gut. Lately, I don’t much anymore, and I keep veering off course. I've gotten better but something shifts when trauma hits you that deeply. When someone that close to you commits violence like that, your perception of everything cracks permanently, like a piece of glass taken from the fridge and thrown into hot water, shattering into a million little glittering stars. I don’t know if I’ll ever thoroughly heal, but I think I’ll learn to cope with it better. It’s getting better. I don’t panic at the thought of being close to someone anymore—hell, I’ve kissed a few people—but it’s still hard to navigate. Missing a rudder, as they say. I have to tell everyone who I suspect might love me; that I only see them as platonic friends or I’ll disappear, rarely ever feel real love, more just remiders of my great love lost.–and I don’t want to lose people. I value friendships a little too much, and even had a boss once tell me ot everyone want to be your friend or needs to be but soon I’ll find what I need from within. And learn to let someone in, though having deep friendships equally mess with my head, so I don’t know, take it day by day. Anyway, where do I even start with this story? And this is just a tiny slice of this life: So here we go.

Once upon a time, in South Carolina, I found myself in a place called the Department of Transient Personnel. 2015—a holding ground for Navy personnel transitioning to civilian life, their next duty station, or like me, the bad kids. I was prior attending the Naval Nuclear Power Training School, known as the "hardest military school"—at least mentally, but who knows I can't trust a thing anyone there ever said. I was kicked out and sent over to DTP two weeks from graduation and a $10K bonus. I was facing roughly six felony charges and a court-martial. A restraining order had just been placed against me.

I was doing okay in school, all things considered. I had a 3.6 out of 4, which was something to be proud of given that the course load was roughly 45 credits per semester for two semesters. The instructors would say it was ten times tougher than any college they’d attended. To pass, for someone like me—the dum dums—you had to show up at 5:30 AM, and I’d stay there until midnight, six days a week. Saturday was my only day off. They broke a lot of people. I don’t know how many I heard about who’d commit suicide or end up in the psych ward. The school had a 50% drop rate, and that wasn’t because people got kicked out—it was because they couldn’t handle the insanity. The instructors were harsh, the chiefs had no sympathy, the course load too much and there was this culture of hate, a culture of death. Somehow, I was making my way through it. I’m not smart—not by any stretch. Maybe I’m clever, but not smart, back then I was someone who made too many rash decisions to be considered smart. If I had to name my one skill in life, the one thing I could do like a fish can swim, it would be endurance with all my sinew. A middle distance runner at heart.

One example of what the school was like: One night, sometime around 2 AM, another kid hung himself in his dorm room. Sirens and flashing blue lights woke up everyone in the 90s brick building. We all went outside to stand there, watching. Later, this kid—who would eventually become a friend, he dropped out too and did a mild stint in the ward—came out of his room, screaming at the cops, "Shut up! He’s already dead, so who gives a F***--I’ve got a test in the morning." He stormed back into his room and slammed the door. I went inside afterwards and went to bed, thinking about the blue lights flashing across the building, about the kid’s parents, whose world would forever remain cracked, and about the kid who screamed—where even death didn’t seem to matter. What was this place? Why was this happening? We weren’t at war. We weren’t even training to be SEALs. Most of us were just nerds who loved physics and mechanics. But somehow, in that place, we all came out for the worse.

I won’t get into too much of the details of my case or how I proved my innocence—that's another story, full of misunderstandings. But in a strange lucky twist of fate, I was sent to the Department of Transient Personnel where I met her. It was a place for me to sit and wait while NCIS and the command pieced things together, pushing a package for a court-martial with a recommendation of guilty. In the military, you don’t need proof to be guilty; 51% is all it takes. If they believe there’s a 51% chance you committed the crime, you’re guilty. We used to joke that it was "guilty until proven innocent."

I’ll never forget when the lawyer and JAG officer sat me down to deliver the news, they seemed to have better things to do than deal with a "dirtbag" like me. As they explained what was happening, I took it surprisingly well. I signed the paperwork without protest, and right before I was driven over to DTP, I asked, "This is all fine and well, but how am I supposed to follow the restraining order if I don’t even know what he looks like?" Their shocked silence filled the room for a moment before the JAG replied, "Well, this makes things difficult for you."

No matter how hellish the landscape I found myself in, I still believed, deep down, that things would get better—that somehow, everything would work itself out. There was a quiet, unshakable hope I carried with me, my father’s greatest gift. It’s this eternal sunshine that lives in my heart, no matter how cold the day gets.

So they took my things, escorted me with two guards to a van, and drove me to DTP for processing. It was early in the morning, maybe 8 AM, and the place was dead quiet. I sat alone in the lounge area, waiting. Staring at the faux wood panels that covered the room, the carpet that had that distinct 80s feel and smell. Then, the guys in charge arrived, dragging a kid in, who was battered and bruised, his wrists raw and bloodied. He sat next to me in handcuffs, and I asked him what happened. "I wish I knew," he said with a shark smile. I later learned he’d had enough, downed a half pint of whiskey the night before, stormed a building, and started slapping around one of the junior security guards. A chief came to see what the noise was about, and the kid spat in his face. A fight broke out, and it took six or eight security guards to subdue him. It took nearly two days for him to sober up. He’d done it all on purpose—he just wanted out. His name was Seahabor, and he used to say, "I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of here." I think about The Steppes of Tartar quite often when Seahabor comes to mind. 

The chief checked me into the department and showed me to a room. I put my bags down, and he told me, "Muster is at 10, outside in the courtyard" and then left me alone. It was the first time being alone in a couple days. I sat in the room, staring at the small window above eye level, about three feet square. I sat in the chair, looked at the pale blue sky, then at the desk, and cried.

At DTP, liberty was strictly regulated, but not impossible. For the first two months, I wasn’t allowed to leave the building—“flight risk,” they called it but they did this to everyone just not as long as it was for me. Every two months, the entire duty station would change, new faces, new people. Nobody was meant to stay longer than two months, though some would be gone in just a week, some a few days. I made friends, but always knowing they'd be gone soon, off to some other better place, or maybe the brig. And everyone knew me as the guy with the attempted murder and rape charges, so people weren't exactly eager to get close with me. Nothing meaningful ever happened. Ten months later, I met Tiara.

After reading A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I understood it all well enough. The building we lived in was condemned. Roaches scurried everywhere, I am completely okay with eating raw chicken at this point, my room leaked horribly, and I caught pneumonia more than once. I complained to my boss, “There’s mold in here, and it won’t stop. I keep bleaching it, but it keeps leaking—the pipes are shot, the bricks are falling apart. Every time it rains, my room floods.” My boss, Lewis, would just say it was my fault, that I hadn’t cleaned my room well enough or didn’t try hard enough. In those days, I lost a lot of weight—down to about 140 pounds, which is skinny for a 6-foot-tall man who usually weighed around 190, ran a 5:10 minute mile and benched 250. I wasn’t doing well.

I made a few friends by the 5th cycle of new people—Kenny Piersol, one of them, was also doing a long stint due to medical complications. We worked the same shift at port operations. But mostly, I gave up. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I was just looking for something—anything—to numb the pain of being stuck in a place for a crime I didn’t commit. It was insufferable, so I became insufferable. I got mean. The common phrase in the Navy was, "Happiness can’t be created or destroyed, so you have to take it." And that’s what I did. To anyone who even looked at me wrong, I would snap. I didn’t have time for anyone. I drank every day, not just at night, but during lunch, at work, whenever I could slip away. And Kenny understood it.

A routine settled in. Muster at 7 AM, cleaning details at 7:30,  muster at 8 again, work details, then some menial tasks like shoveling dirt or cleaning boats, or sent as free labor for whoever asked for it in the area. Muster before lunch, after lunch, the headcount again at the end of the day–Finishing work around 3 or 4, dinner, muster again, then liberty until midnight. The days blended together. Then there were duty shifts every three days, where you had to work a night shift and liberty was cancelled–no reason except to keep anyone from having more than 36 hours off. I stopped remembering people’s names—just "bud," "pal," "bubala." It didn’t matter. In no time, they’d be gone, and I’d be left to do it all over again. The only thing that mattered was getting paid—$800 every two weeks wasn’t terrible for a 20-year-old with no expenses. But I spent most of it on liquor. I’d convinced myself that it didn’t matter—jail was waiting for me. Guys who’d done time in the brig said it was better there than at DTP–no one supervised our supervisors and the stanford prison experiment felt more than real. That’s how it was, and I started to look forward to a guilty verdict because then I would know there was an end to it all.

Months rolled by and for Christmas and New Year’s, I worked instead of taking leave; a light schedule so I could have my birthday off in late January. I came back in February after a few week birthday bender that ruined every friendship I had back in Arizona. It was still cold in South Carolina, the kind of cold that used to make places feel freezing. We had to line up, sometimes six or seven times a day, for headcounts, and they always got it wrong and we'd have to do it again.

But that day back from birthday leave, as I stood in line, I saw her—a new girl. She had short wavy black hair, a bob cut that looked like it belonged in the 1920s. Her skin was a beautiful brown, the kind that soaked up the sun and turned a rich, dark shade. There was something about her crooked smile and a little snaggletooth that felt like a mix of terror and comfort. In that moment, I thought, I’m going to fuck that girl. I’m not proud of my intentions. I wasn’t looking for anything meaningful, just fun, any chance I could find it. She was just my type. and a moment later forgot about her.

During that time, I found myself rebelling against every request made of me. They made us wear these badges—an outward sign that we had been kicked out, branded as the ones no one was supposed to speak to. The instructors at NNPTC made it clear we were the “bad kids,” the “losers,” the “degenerates.” Purple badges. They didn’t talk to us, they just ignored us like we didn’t exist.

So, I began throwing my badge in the trash, telling my boss that I’d lost it. Every time, his face would twist in frustration—his brow furrowed, his bald head reddening. He looked akin to Elmer fudd–and on a few occasions threatened to shoot me. He’d bark at me to go get a new one at the admin building across town, threatening that if I lost it again, I’d get extra duties. I’d nod, tell him “okay,” then spend the day downtown bee bopping around—taking the time to disappear from it all.

At the last moment before admin closed, I’d scramble to get a new badge. It happened almost every week, a cycle I couldn’t seem to break. The old man would threaten to write me up, but for some reason, he never followed through. Maybe, deep down, he knew I wasn’t a lost cause—not really—and perhaps, despite his harshness, he felt a pang of sympathy for me and my case.

“What's the point?” I said to him once, my voice grating with resignation. “I’m going to prison.”

He’d sigh, telling me to “keep trying.” But I didn’t know what that meant anymore but I kept swimming.

Anyway that day, back from leave, I stood at the back of line without my badge. Tiara checked in for muster and approached me, assuming I had simply forgotten it–that it was an oversight—nothing more. But something in the way she looked at me made my gut move. There was a softness in her eyes, a curiosity, that made me wonder if she liked me—or at least, wanted to know me. She gently, with a touch of teasing, mentioned that I had forgotten to wear my badge. and without skipping a beat I looked at her dark brown eyes and I told her to go f*** herself. “don't ever talk to me, I don't think you know who I am.” I said a few more things to hammer home the point because who needs another prison guard? It was an act of cruelty, one I can never undo, and I regret it every single day. Later, she would tell me that in that moment, she saw me for what I was—a crazy and unhinged person—and made it her mission to steer clear of me. She wanted nothing to do with me, and I can’t blame her.

Some nights, I really wish we had kept that distance, that we never got tangled up in eachother messes. It might have been easier for both of us or maybe she would still be around to tell people a story of a nutcase she met way back in the day.

The second time we met, I went out during cleaning hours to smoke in the designated area. It was a ten-minute walk through the forest to an old wooden picnic bench, covered by a rusted metal sheet. When I arrived, she was already there, talking to a blondie—not a girl blondie, but a guy with pale hair who looked like he’d been dragged through something heavy. He seemed sad, and I assumed they were having some sort of breakup, but I didn’t care. I just wanted my cigarette, and some space from work.

They spoke, their voices indecipherable, but I know that song from a mile away; their world was unraveling. I finished my cigarette just as their conversation ended, and Tiara and I began to head back to work. As we walked, he asked her what she was doing later that night. I turned, looked him dead in the eyes, without thinking and in smile, said, “We’re going to go fuck like champions. Sorry bud.”

Her face went long, horrified. Later, she told me that at that moment, she knew I was a complete lunatic—and would do whatever to stay as far away from me as possible. She told him later that night, “I don’t know who this guy is. I’ve never been around him. He’s insane.” And she was right. I’ve always had a bit of madness in me—a justified kind of madness, maybe, but still insanity all the same.

The third time we met, something began to change. I had been paying off the guy who handled the job assignments, trying to get the cushiest jobs—anything that would give me a moment of respite. Port operations at the pier were as good as it gets, and a four packs of smokes made sure she was assigned to work with me. When the crew was assigned their duties, she was put with my group. She had a car—something none of us had—and she was twenty. The rest of the crew drank too much, too often, so it worked out. At least, that was more my intentions, and I love a touch of irony.

The next morning, we started working together. I picked oysters off the pier and offered her some. She looked disgusted, telling me she was a vegetarian. I pressed her, and one day, explained how me and my father used to pick oysters off rocks together in Mexico–Sharing food is one of the only ways for me to connect with him–and how even if you don’t like it, you have to try it. She didn’t like it, but it was a small victory in maybe opening my world up to someone.

We painted the port ops pier together. She learned a bit of my story—how I ended up there—how I refuse to have sex with anyone I work with and I learned about her. She told me she had struggled with depression for years, and though she never had an official diagnosis, she suspected it was borderline personality disorder. She went to the medical office on base for help, but it felt like the only way forward was to stay in the navy—just not in the most stressful school they had to offer. And she couldn’t afford college, and this was a way it could be paid for.

Slowly, we began to take smoke breaks together. One evening, as we sat on a bench at the end of a shift overlooking the waterfront, the dark green river banks and the silvery river winding around the pier, I asked her, “Do you want to go fly some kites tonight?”

She told me later that, at that moment, she wanted to say no. But there was something about the way I asked—something about how, despite all the cruelty and insanity I’d shown, I had the nerve to ask her to do something so innocent, so childlike, she couldn’t refuse. So, she said yes.

And just like that, we began to know each other. 

This is enough for me today and I’ll pick up this tale next week in part 2

Sincerely,

The one and only

Dylan James Seeman