In this dream, I was in a Humvee heading on a mission to the inner limits of Ramadi. With me, however, were not my brothers from the military, but my brothers in the Black Reapers. Driving the vehicle was Axle—whom, not coincidentally, had been in the military in real life—and to his right in the passenger’s seat was Butch. Around me were the rest of the officers—Lane, Father Marcellus, Red Raven, and even Cole. There was also Red Raven’s son, whom we referred to as Pink Raven, and a couple of other members.
“We’ve arrived,” Axle said when we pulled up to the compound.
Unlike in real life, though, in this dream, the compound seemed to have no ceiling, no point at which its height ended. It just extended to the stars, as much a part of the night sky as the Moon. The sight of a “real” Tower of Babel intimidated me, but as a man on a mission, I didn’t have time to let fear prevent me from doing my duty.
We streamed out of the Humvee, moved silently through the night, and took up our positions outside the front door. For some reason, though, whenever I tried to move to the point position, my legs just wobbled. I could not move, no matter how much I wanted to; it was like my legs turned to jelly underneath me, and I was physically incapable of being useful. One step forward and my leg would buckle.
“We’ll take it from here, Michael,” Lane said.
That was another sign that this was a dream—Lane never called me Michael in Springsville. He and the rest of the club members called me Patriot, but to hear “Patriot” from a fellow soldier would have been like getting the nickname “Player” while on a sports team—it was not specific, it applied to everyone, and it would have been meaningless.
But just because I knew I was in the dream didn’t change what happened next.
All of the Black Reapers charged in. All, that was, except me, who had to crawl forward with my arms. But every time it seemed like I had made progress to the door, the door moved further away. It was impossible for me to actually get any closer than a few feet away.
And then, after about a dozen seconds of struggling to move mere feet, gunfire erupted.
One-sided gunfire from an ambush.
I heard the screams of the Black Reapers falling. I heard them cry out for help, help I was not able to give. I tried to reach for the door to prevent my comrades from dying without me, but as much as I tried to extend my hand, I could not. I was worse than a coward—I was a failure.
No matter how often I had this dream, no matter how lucid I became in these moments, the screams felt real. They felt real because they weren’t really the screams of the Black Reapers, not as time went by, and I understood what they really were.
They were the screams of the brothers that had fallen during that fateful night in Ramadi. They were the screams of the men that would not be alive when I woke up.
“Why?” I shouted, only able to rise to my legs when everyone was killed. “Why? Why?!?”
“You know why.”
The voice came from behind me. It chilled me to the core. I knew who spoke with that voice.
“I was the one that sold them out. I killed those men.”
I slowly began to turn, knowing what awaited me, even though I was terrified of it. I prayed that it wouldn’t be who I thought it was, but the voice was unmistakable. I’d heard the voice every day while on tour, and I continued to hear that voice to this day.
It was me.
I sold them out. I killed my men.
The clone, projection, mirror, whatever the hell it was, of me, raised a gun at me, pointed it at my head, and smiled.
And that’s when I woke up in a cold sweat. The Black Reapers were still alive. I was still alive.
But for those who had gone to war with me…
It was not even eight in the morning yet. The sun was out, but the sun was just a reminder that I had a limited amount of time before it became dark again, before I had to face the potential of confronting that nightmare again. And again. And again. And fucking again.
That, perhaps, was the cruelest part of this dream. Not that it happened, but that it happened repeatedly. I could know it was coming, I could know that I would experience what I’d felt all over again, I could know that I’d wake up in a cold sweat, and I would still wake up wanting to smash a bottle against the wall in frustration. Nothing that I had tried, from therapy to trying to forget it ever happened to everything in between, had worked. I was seemingly destined to be haunted by this dream, by this PTSD, forever.
Honestly, the only time that I ever truly felt relief, truly felt free, was when I was on my bike. There was something about the freedom of being on two wheels, of having no protection from the air around me, of knowing that my life was entirely in my hands and my hands alone that invigorated me and liberated me from suffering. It didn’t always work—some dreams were so vivid, and some stress was so intense, that not even the bike could save me—but it was the only thing that even had the potential to mitigate some of the moments.
I rolled over to the side of the bed. Kaitlyn hadn’t responded yet. I got up, did some stretches, and headed to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast. At this point, there was no nap, nothing I could do to feel better or pretend to feel better.
That was the other cruel part about this. I had thought that there would be steps that I could take to heal myself.
First, I thought joining a brotherhood that resembled the military in some fashion—the Black Reapers—would help.
When that didn’t work, I thought that getting into combat would pump de facto new blood into me, give me new experiences of triumph and success.
