They knew something was off with me—you don’t go to war and return unchanged. But unlike a number of vets, I was fairly good at hiding, controlling and commanding my damage. I enrolled at Wayne State University with the secret mission of getting a degree in sociology so that I could work with high-school-age Mexican-Americans and African-Americans, convincing both to stay the hell away from the meat grinder that was the military.

Back then, there was no Detroit Cristo Rey High School; if you had dreams of a college education, you were your dreams’ sole advocate. You prayed the rosary for a scholarship that was unlikely to come, begged and borrowed from already strapped family or swept floors at the college you wanted to go to and hand over your check to the tuition office, studied by flashlight and slept in your car if you couldn’t go home. If you were really lucky, you may have gone to school on an athletic scholarship, but even then you most likely wouldn’t make it through the devouring university athletics gauntlet with your body and mind intact and a degree in your hands.

My father was convinced, as men of his generation often were, that the lingering nightmares of war could be resolved through clarity of purpose and hard work.

“You get into the academy,” he once told me over breakfast, “you got a reason to get up in the morning. They would snatch you up in a heartbeat: decorated former marine, smart as hell, and you got me on the inside. Put you on the fast track. I know some of them boys over at the academy. Yessir. A man needs a reason to get up in the morning. I’ll check it out for you, son.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, unconvinced of my promise as a cop.

Of course, my mother could see the ghosts performing un baile macabro inside me.

As with many men who return from war, I’d lost my faith in God.

It’s a helluva thing to realize the fallacy of both God and country in one fell swoop.

I attended mass with my mom and dad only for the love of them.

God be damned.

Then my beloved mother intruded into my private hateful place by arranging a meeting between Father Grabowski and me.

Only for her did I keep the appointment.

He was old even back then, though his beard had not quite turned Santa Claus white yet.

“Let me guess,” Grabowski said, escorting me up to his office at St. Al’s. “You don’t want to be here, right?”

“You’re a good man, Father, and a family friend,” I said. “But no. I don’t want to be here.”

“I get it,” he said. “Just let me show you something. Then you can bug out if you want.” Once we reached his office, he said, “You want a beer?”