THE JUKEBOX Part 2
“Simple Man” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
Marcus spent the week trying to reach Bobby Ames. Three calls, two voicemails, one Friday night trip to McGarvey’s, where Coltrane just shook his head.
“Bobby’s being a bastard this week. Try again next Friday. He’ll show…or he won’t.”
So, Marcus moved on to Slot 112, partly because “Simple Man” kept getting stuck in his head, and partly because the name in the notebook, Specialist David Nguyen, 2019, had a phone number next to it with a note: Ask for Sergeant Riley at the VA.
Turned out Sergeant Riley was now Nurse Riley, and she agreed to meet him at a Waffle House off Bragg Boulevard on her lunch break.
She looked exactly like someone who’d seen too much and decided to keep showing up anyway…late thirties, dark hair pulled back tight, scrubs under a rain jacket, and the kind of exhausted that doesn’t come from lack of sleep. It comes from carrying other people’s weight for so long that you forget what yours feels like.
“You’re Jake Chen’s brother.” She slid into the booth across from him without waiting for confirmation. “Coltrane called. Said you’re writing down the jukebox stories.”
“Trying to.”
“Why?”
Marcus had asked himself the same question about a hundred times. “Because my brother spent two years listening to those stories and never told anyone. I’m trying to figure out what he was looking for.”
Riley ordered coffee, black, and got straight to it. “David Nguyen was my medic in Afghanistan. Helmand Province, 2017 to 2018. Best combat medic I ever worked with, and I’ve worked with a lot.” She dumped three sugars into her coffee. “He was also the worst decision-maker outside the wire I’ve ever met.”
“How so?”
“David had this thing where he couldn’t stop trying to fix people. Didn’t matter if it was a sucking chest wound or somebody’s broken marriage or a stray dog with three legs. If it was hurt, David tried to save it.” She took a long drink. “It’s what made him great at his job. It’s also what got him killed.”
Marcus pulled out the notebook. “Coltrane said he died in 2019. Stateside.”
“Bar fight. Not McGarvey’s. Some shithole in Fayetteville. Two drunk assholes going at it over a girl or a pool game or whatever drunk assholes fight about. David tried to break it up. One of them pulled a knife.” Riley’s jaw tightened. “He bled out in the parking lot before the ambulance got there. The guys he was trying to save didn’t even stick around to give statements.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” She stared into her coffee like she was reading something written at the bottom. “The worst part is it wasn’t even a surprise. We all knew David was going to die trying to save someone who didn’t deserve it. We just thought it would happen downrange, not in a goddamn Fayetteville parking lot.”
Marcus wrote it down, the pen feeling heavier than it should. “Why ‘Simple Man’?”
Riley smiled for the first time, sad and real. “David’s uncle. Guy named Tommy Nguyen. He was a military musician during Vietnam, Army band, toured with the Bob Hope USO shows, the whole deal. Tommy played guitar, and apparently, he was pretty good. Used to play Skynyrd covers in the hooch because it annoyed the officers.”
“I like him already.”
“David worshipped him. Tommy taught him guitar when he was a kid, told him the same thing the song says…be a simple man, be something you love and understand. Tommy wanted David to be a musician. Join the Army band, stay safe, play music. But David watched his uncle die slowly from Agent Orange complications and decided he wanted to save lives instead.”
Marcus looked up from the notebook. “Did he play? In Afghanistan?”
“All the time. Had a beat-up acoustic in the aid station. Said it kept his hands steady for surgery.” Riley’s voice cracked just slightly. “He’d play after a bad day, after we lost someone. Always that song. ‘Simple Man.’ Said his uncle used to play it for him before bed when he was little.”
The Waffle House was too bright, too loud, full of people who had no idea they were sitting ten feet from a conversation about ghosts. Marcus watched Riley compose herself, the practiced way she pulled it back together.
“When David died, his team came to McGarvey’s. We all did. Coltrane asked what song. Tommy, David’s uncle, had been dead for eight years by then, but Tommy’s wife was still alive. She said ‘Simple Man’ without hesitation. Said it was the bridge between them. The uncle who played music and the nephew who saved lives.”
Marcus thought about Jake. About the times Jake came home on leave and sat in their parents’ living room like he was visiting a museum of his former life.
About how Marcus would play piano and Jake would just listen, not talking, not explaining, just there.
“You knew my brother,” Marcus said quietly.
Riley nodded. “He came in every Thursday like clockwork. Always sat at the bar, always asked Coltrane about the songs. He asked about David once. I was there. I told him the story.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Sometimes you can’t save yourself, so you try to save everyone else.’ Then he ordered another beer and didn’t say anything for the rest of the night.” Riley checked her watch. “Look, I’ve got to get back. But your brother understood something most people don’t. Every person on that jukebox was trying to be a simple man in a complicated war. Some of them made it. Some of them didn’t. None of them deserved to be forgotten.”
She stood to leave, then stopped. “And Marcus? Whatever you find out about Jake, whatever you learn from those stories, it won’t change what happened. But it might help you understand why.”
Marcus watched her walk out into the rain, back to the VA, back to saving people who may or may not deserve it.
He looked down at the notebook. Slot 112. David Nguyen. Simple Man.
His phone rang. Unknown number.
“This is Bobby Ames. Coltrane says you want to talk about Jackie Ramos. Friday night, eight o’clock, McGarvey’s. Jameson. Don’t be late.”
The line went dead.
Marcus closed the notebook and signaled for the check. Behind the counter, the Waffle House jukebox was playing something by “Generic Whoever from ‘Hits FM,’” bright, empty, and nothing like the songs that mattered.
He thought about his brother sitting at McGarvey’s, listening to Riley tell David’s story, understanding something Marcus was only beginning to see.
Some men die in war. Some men die trying to stop a bar fight. Some men die in their garage with a 9mm because the war followed them home.
All of them were trying to be simple men in a world that wouldn’t let them.
Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 in a multi-part series of Tegan Broadwater penned pieces. Please keep an eye on SOFREP for the remainder of the series. – GDM
If you liked this story (and I know you did), please check out T’s popular book, “Life in the Fishbowl.” In it, he documents his time as a deep undercover cop in Houston, where he took down 51 of the nation’s most notorious Crips.
He donates all profits to charities that mentor children of incarcerated parents.
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Tegan Broadwater is an entrepreneur, author, musician, former undercover officer, podcast host, and positive change-maker.
Learn more about his latest projects at TeganBroadwater.com
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