Steven's War

By Donovan Russo

How much can one person suffer before the only path they see to fix their entire world is to destroy it?

Steven Cahill was raised in Salem City, an awful place where misery was the norm. So much so that his father killed himself. Steven was left to fight an uphill battle of self-acceptance against his own homosexuality in an e

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781636760988

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Steven’s War

Steven’s War

Donovan Russo

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2020 Donovan Russo

All rights reserved.

Steven’s War

ISBN

978-1-63676-542-6 Paperback

978-1-63676-097-1 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63676-098-8 Ebook

To my parents, Joseph and Robin Russo. Thank you for your support, encouragement, and for all of your love. May this book serve as a token of my love, as you both will always be the most special people in my life.

Love always, Donovan

Table of Contents

A Note from Donovan

Pre-order Acknowledgments

Part One

Chapter 1. The Coffin

Chapter 2. John Withers

Chapter 3. Crummy Meatloaf

Chapter 4. Do You Love Me?

Chapter 5. Sex and War

Chapter 6. Anthony

Chapter 7. The Coward

Chapter 8. His Return

Chapter 9. Big Balls in the Wild

Chapter 10. Righteous Sinner

Part Two

Chapter 11. Six Months Later

Chapter 12. The Wicked and the Evil

Chapter 13. Veal Chops

Chapter 14. Ghosts

Chapter 15. New Gal on the Block

Chapter 16. Frank’s Long Night

Chapter 17. Broken Spirits and a Raw Rack of Ribs

Chapter 18. Beautiful Monster

Chapter 19. The Bastard

Chapter 20. Church

Part Three

Chapter 21. May Darkness Kill Me

Chapter 22. Nah, screw it. May darkness kill Frank Paine

Chapter 23. The Monster Comes Alive

Chapter 24. The Day Prior

Chapter 25. Booze, Drugs, & Revenge

Chapter 26. Joe’s Gym

Chapter 27. One Last Smoke

Chapter 28. Heroes, the very people who would beat us with knives and chains

Chapter 29. What’s fair is fair... But I’m the one holding the gun

Chapter 30. The Outlier

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

—Harvey Milk (1930-1978)

A Note from Donovan

I do not want to babble on and give you a million reasons why I decided to write this book. Truth is, I grew up loving superheroes and wanted to give back to the incredible community of fans. Someday, I hope to look back on this book, knowing that it helped launched my career as a professional creative, working with the extraordinary minds behind some of my favorite films. If that is not the case, well, at least my team at New Degree Press and I created a narrative that brings more diversity and inclusivity to a genre that continues to push us all to be better humans.

Regardless of what the future holds, I’d like to take this moment to thank Professor Eric Koester for inviting me into his Creators program and for providing me with a platform to share Steven Cahill’s story. I’d also like to thank my editors, Michael Bailey and Alan Zatkow, for their encouragement and insightful feedback. Quite frankly, this book fails to reach its potential without these guys. Next, I’d like to thank my team over at New Degree Press, especially the Head of Publishing, Brian Bies, for believing in me and in this book. Truly, being on this journey with the New Degree Press family has been a blast and a complete honor.

Next, I’d like to single out a few of my career mentors. First, Ryan Ruggiero, words could never convey how much you mean to me. To think that we met via an accidental email exchange is absolutely mind-blowing to me. But every day I count my blessings over how lucky I am to know you. Without a doubt, I owe all my professional accomplishments to you, as none of them happen without you being the first one to take a chance on me. Please know that I will never forget what you have done for me, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Second, Eric Rosenbaum, thank you for pushing me to be a better writer and for always encouraging me to embrace my individuality. Without a doubt, some of the fondest memories of my young career involve the cherished time we spent together. And last but not least, I need to thank Hans-Dieter Kopal, who continuously reminds me of what is possible if I never give up. Hans, thank you for your time, guidance and most importantly, for being my friend. You are an inspiration, a beam of light, and have given hope to a kid from a small town in Jersey, who truly thinks the world of you.

Finally, Mom, Dad, Noah, and Sebastian, I know these last few months has been tough with me, as I have constantly been pulled in a billion directions. But please know that you are all my rock and that I really just wanted this book to make you proud. To my extended family, thank you all for your support and please know that I love you all more than you could ever imagine. And to all my friends, especially Clayton, Kyle, Andrew, and David, thank you for embracing my insanity and for always being so accommodating. I know my schedule these last few months has been insane. Just know that I love you guys and that a lot of the comedy in this book stems from all of your wonderful personalities. Especially the sick and twisted parts. Cheers to more firepits and basement hangouts… I need new material for my next book!

Pre-order Acknowledgments

To those who took the time to pre-order my book and to donate to my campaign, thank you so much! Literally, this book does not get made without any of you. Please know that my publishing team and I sincerely appreciate your support and that without a doubt, you all make up the soul of Steven’s War.

Ryan Ruggiero

Sebastian Russo

Joseph & Robin Russo (In honor of James X. Woods and Ann B. Russo)

Noah Russo

Kenneth Kiesnoski

The Paine family

Denise Breckinridge (In honor of Dominic Pop Vigilante)

Michael Grillo

Chet Russo

Drew Blind

Peter & Susan Postorino

Simone Lamont

Lawrence T. Mintz

Michael & Michelle Spano

Mika Sunga

John Scangarello

Sienna Woods

Bob Woods

Tina Scangarello

Casper Sesto

Lillian Flade

Kamlesh Patel

Cait Hales

John Drengler

Zena Aldabagh

Jinnae Casamento

James & Raquel Woods

Eric Koester

Thomas & Fran Russo

Carmen Vazquez

Mark Harty

John & Patricia Colkos

Jerrold Fruchtman

Kyle O’Neill

Raymond Ferraro

Steve Willans (In honor Steve Bunk Willans)

Vic Svorinich

Dianne Zoppa

Matthew Schulte

Jimmy Gleichmann

Dante Stefanelli

Daniel Diner

Larry & Maria Beilis

Patrick & Amy Russo

Fox Beyer

Shawn Robbins

Kristen Duperre

Michael & Patricia Russo

Evan & Lia Griffiths

Anonymous

Gigi Russo

Daniel Blessing

Ryan Lesica

Kyle Dangler

Michael Knauss

Russell Macchione, III

Javier Reyes

I would also like to use this book to symbolize the honor of my dear late grandmother, Ann Russo; cousin, Victor Zoppa; aunt, Margaret Harty; and family friend, Dr. Joaquin Jack Garcia.

Part One

Chapter-One

The Coffin

The war had started long ago during a time without control, say or meaning. For some, it was as simple as avenging what those monsters did on 9/11. That was the purpose in Bagram, Afghanistan. That was the war—even eight years after it happened. Fight for those lost. Fight for those traumatized by the never-ending nightmare. The horror and the agony. The rage and the screams. Blood everywhere. Fear unavoidable.

But for others, it was not always as simple. Of course, Steven cared. That’s why he fought, because he damn well cared. But to say the war began when the towers came tumbling down would be a lie. His war started the day he was born, nineteen years ago. Or at least, that’s what people would say about the kind of condition he had: it was a war of faith and temptation, only one bastard could win. Nobody knew, obviously. In theory, he didn’t really even know for a while. Yet growing up in Salem City, it was impossible to not hear the myths.

I heard the government gives people needles to make ’em gay. This buck-toothed kid named Sammy Tejada told Steven during recess back when they were in the fifth grade, crouched under this cracked-purple slide, reading dirty magazines while smoking cigarettes. Yeah man, it’s to limit moms from having babies. He laughed. Portion control!

Dude, Mr. Simone told us in class today that being gay is a definitive ticket into Satan’s house of fire, said this kid with breath reeking of sour shit named Reuben Fletcher in the seventh grade during lunch, chewing on a three-day-old tuna wrap with a side of frozen French fries. Yeah, he also said he’d gladly pick the company of a serial killer any day over a man who has sex with other men.

Mr. Simone was this old stringy-looking fellow who taught Algebra One. Why or how he got onto the topic of men sleeping with other men was a mystery to Steven; maybe it was to cover up his own sexuality, as he was caught years later by some students in the back of a busted-up minivan, buck naked with Mr. Shepard, who was the weekend custodian. But there was no doubt Simone would say something like that, as this was the same guy who tried to get himself elected for jury duty every week, hoping to punish someone with the electric chair. And who also would steal books from the school’s library, only to burn them in his firepit while getting shit-faced after a hard day’s work.

In other words, Mr. Simone belonged more in a deserted psyche ward with communist war criminals than in a seventh-grade classroom, educating the future leaders of America.

However, nothing was more horrifying than the eleventh grade: Felix Thompson got the shit kicked out of him after a group of varsity lacrosse players caught him kissing Dave Robertson behind the softball bleachers. They ended up smashing Felix’s pearly white smile, leaving him alone and cold in a puddle of his own blood. Dave got away, but he shot his head off with his father’s handgun two nights later. Rumor had it, Mr. Robertson was so embarrassed that he willingly gave his boy the gun to do the righteous deed. To be gay was to be an outcast in Salem City and to embrace being gay was a death sentence. That followed Steven Cahill throughout his already crappy childhood up and through his time in the military.

He served in the Twenty-fifth Marine Regiment, Fourth Marine Division. A place where men and women were not seen as humans, rather fearless soldiers who would die for their country without a heartbeat’s worth of hesitation. More importantly though, Marines weren’t gay, and if they were, there was something in place called the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell rule—which basically said a soldier could be gay as long as no one found out about it. If someone did find out, it’d be wise to pray that they were tolerant enough to keep themselves hushed; telling a superior would lead to a thorough investigation, a public termination, and then a great red mark of shame stamped on the forehead of a newly proclaimed American reject.

Then again, if God hates gays, is praying really worth it?

What are you thinking about? Anthony’s soft voice whispered.

Sometimes, Steven murmured, still fatigued from the foul acts they had just committed. I wake up in the middle of the night and think I’m in a coffin. He squeezed his fingers through the wooden boards above that held the top bunk from crushing him in his sleep. We can’t do this again.

You say that every time, Anthony said, his vibrant blue eyes still visible in the dark as he watched Steven, gently rubbing his chest.

We’re going to get caught. Steven turned to Anthony. Is that what you want? To return home with that kind of shame?

Got no one to return to. Anthony removed his hand from Steven’s chest and laid on his wide back.

Before Anthony enlisted, he was a coal miner in Birmingham, Alabama. Well, at least that was the road he was heading toward. His father, Eli Johnson, worked in the mines for twenty-five years, dying of a poor ticker during one of his morning strolls to the produce market. The doctors said it was all those years breathing in the fossil fuels, but Anthony’s mother, Matilda Sweeney Johnson, claimed it was the Lord’s way of punishing him for the affair he had that previous fall. Yet Anthony liked to think his mother still loved the bastard and that she found it intolerable to live without him, which is why she jumped off an eight-story building last June.

She left no note, Anthony told Steven during another one of their late-night rendezvous. Maybe she did it so I had nothing to hold me back.

He talked about Matilda’s death more often than he should have, and there were times where it would make Steven want to crawl out of his skin and into a Taliban fleet, surrendering his life so he no longer had to indulge in Anthony’s self-pity. After all, Steven had his own weird relationship with suicide.

What’s the point in complaining?

But their time together, touching each other, feeling alive in ways like never before, it got Steven through all those restless nights in Bagram. A place where they did not know if tomorrow would be their last.

I don’t mean to come across as a dick, Steven said as he massaged his face, hating that he had to be the one to end what they had. That he had to remind Anthony that this—whatever the hell it was—would get them thrown out of the military.

Of course not, it’s just natural for you, Anthony shot back, perhaps knowing it was all in good sport. That this addiction they developed for each other was dangerous.

More like lethal.

They both laughed softly, but Steven’s face quickly hardened. He then put his fingers between the wooden springs again, staring up at his coffin. At his doom.

You ever think about the rules? He asked Anthony.

What rules?

You know what rules. Steven glanced over at him.

I try not to think about them, Anthony scratched his left eye, subconsciously running his thumb over the two-inch scar under his eyelid: the outcome of an eight-year-old Anthony colliding into his buddy’s mountain bike.

Everywhere I go... Steven stopped himself, biting on his lip. Why does it have to be this way?

All goes back to the church. Anthony grimaced. They say separation of church and state, but we both know that shit’s a lie.

We’re all going to hell anyway, Steven yawned.

Why you say that?

Look at where we are. What we do. You’re telling me a place like heaven could exist when seven-year-old boys are bombing themselves?

But if we’re all going to hell, that would mean you’re saying all people are bad.

Aren’t they? Steven peeked over at him again. "They call us heroes. The very people who would beat us with knives and chains just because we’re laying here like this. They call them heroes."

Does that mean we’re bad people, too? Anthony kept his eyes on the coffin above them.

Depends who you ask, Steven mumbled, overwhelmed with sadness and vulnerability.

They rested in silence for another ten minutes, breathing calm but not clear. The Bagram dust had seeped deep into their lungs. If they inhaled too much, it would feel as if someone lit a match deep into their stomachs, triggering cough attacks that would last the whole night, preventing them from sleep. From escaping reality, another world in the form of dreaming. Although Steven was often stuck in damn Bagram when he dreamed.

Nightmares.

I’m gonna go to bed, Anthony said, sitting up like a war vet who had taken too many blows to the back during his prime, turning to Steven. Everybody goes to hell?

We just discussed this, Steven said with a bitter tone, knowing he could be impatient.

My parents. Anthony put his head down. You think that’s... he was unable to finish.

Steven did not know what to say, and how could he? He was just a closeted, angry nineteen-year-old serving in a dreadful war zone, ready to be bombed to dust any moment now. Cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck, a dirty heart bursting out of his chest, and a sharp knife glazing down his throat as he awaited orders. It was all so new to him. But then again, in its own strange-tragic way, it was also like he never escaped.

I was being stupid, Steven gently touched Anthony’s arm. I’m sorry.

Are you afraid of dying out here? Anthony turned to him again.

Yes, and no.

The complexities of why Steven wasn’t afraid were too in-depth for a conversation taking place at 0200. So, he settled for a subtle nod, trying his best to act like every other Marine burdened with the responsibilities of working in this camp: being scared shitless but brave, a hopeless coward yet a fierce warrior. Slowly, Anthony crawled back into the bottom bunk, leaning his head onto Steven’s chest.

Just five more minutes, he said under his breath.

Steven placed a hand on Anthony’s forehead and they both looked up at the springboard.

I’m just minutes away from it all being over.

It was a game Steven liked to play with himself. His tired eyes symbolizing his death and sleep, well, sleep was how it ended. No more pain, anger, fear, none of it. No more emotion. Just the pure intimate sound of doom sinking in, having its rightful moment in a world filled with arrogant-paradoxical lies, murder in the first degree, and something Steven liked to call the Self-Proclaimed Righteous Sinner.

In silence, they drifted off as the night came to a close.

Chapter Two

John Withers

Among the scattered clouds was an azure blue sky. He was in a village. No. He was alone. Utterly alone in the scattered desert of Bagram.

Weak.

Soiled.

Corrupted.

Steven crawled, trying to find safety. But the sand’s grueling heat fried his knees while blistering his hands, forcing him to roll over on his back and quit, just like gutless wimps do. Except now his uniform was gone and his bare skinned back, buttocks, and hamstrings were numbed with no sense of