This Is Why I Hate You Too

18. Patterns, Patterns, Patterns

"My name is Ana Cassava," Ana began her statement. "I'm twenty-eight, I was born on November 1st, 1990, and I was a staff sergeant during Arthur Lindfelt's service in the air force."

"So, in his journal, Mr. Lindfelt says that you were promoted to staff sergeant thanks to 'book smarts'," Matt prefaced. "Can you confirm that?"

"Well, I was well-versed in the rules and regulations of the air force, but I did excel in physical training. Because of that, I was instantly promoted to senior airman and then to staff sergeant only a few days later. No, my family doesn't have any connections with the air force; I was just that damn good."

"In the same entry, Mr. Lindfelt speaks about an incident where he called you out for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or the UCMJ, only for you to bring him to one of the master sergeants to prove him completely wrong. Can you tell us about that incident?"

"Oh, that one. . . so I was ordered to train Arthur and his group one day, and as I was yelling at them the way a sergeant would do, being like, "You're just a bunch of pansies! You should be ashamed of yourself!", in the midst of it all, Arthur said to me, "Sergeant Cassava! You just violated the UCMJ!". He said I was violating the UCMJ by using emasculating language at other airmen. I couldn't believe it. The moment I realized he said that to me, I asked everyone if I did violate the code, and then I took him to Master Sergeant Errol Tomlin because there was no way I violated that code. And I was right—sergeants are not allowed to use emasculating language towards airmen unless in a training environment! In other words, I wasn't violating shit! He was just whining over nothing!"

"And what happened afterwards?"

"He came into my room. We got in a fight, and the moment I let my guard down, he knocked me out, took me outside my dorm and burned me with a curling iron."

Ana raised her hands. Scars covered the back of both her palms—her left hand had a tattoo of a rosary inked over the scar and her forearm. She even showed a scar at the back of her neck. "Look at this. Do you see this shit? Do you see this shit?" she growled, pointing to the scar. "This is what he did to me. I had to watch this man frolic around the base for weeks as if he was innocent, so I took matters into my own hands and beat the living shit out of him. I told everyone in there what he did, and yet. . . I got kicked out. Not him. Never him. So when I found out that his ass stayed in South Korea even after what he did to Ricardo. . . I just wasn't surprised. Even the seniors were scared of him, somehow. I'm surprised Darren and Brian intimidated him."

The door burst open. Everyone turned around to see who came in; a man in a bomber jacket came in. A black beard covered his scarred face as he took off his hat to reveal his umber brown hair.

"Freddie!" Ana got up to greet him. "This is Freddie Taylor; he was Arthur's roommate back in Texas."

"Hey," Freddie said, blankly. The femmes greeted him back in silence. "I'm here for the. . . interrogation thing?"

"You came right on time," Matt said, shaking his hand. "Have a seat, please. Thank you for your time, Miss Cassava."

"You're welcome."

*********************

"My name is Frederick Taylor. I was born on the 30th of March, 1995, and I was roommates with Arthur Lindfelt," Freddie began his statement. "I was his roommate back at Lackland, I was his roommate at Tinker, and then I moved to a completely different dorm when we were in Osan after he broke Senior Airman Martinez' ankle."

"Do you remember the first day you moved in with him?" Matt inquired.

"Kind of, I mean, we. . talked to each other for a bit, and. . he just. . . never said much to me after that. It was. . . weird being roommates with that guy, you know? Whenever I'd be in my room, listening to my country music, he'd just give me this. . . deep, piercing death stare, and then he would listen to his music and stare at me while he did it. Didn't help that his headphones couldn't block out the noise. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and see him just. . . jerk off in his bed."