Daniel Seifert
If I had a nickel for each time someone said, “Wow Reacher, it must be great to be so strong.” Nope. Do you have any idea the physical toll it takes to eat four thousand calories a day and maintain this mass? I looked at my expenses for last month and it just said “$450 — MEAT.” I don’t even want to tell you what my bowel movements look like. The only person on my speed dial is my proctologist.
But these gripes are nothing compared to my PTSD. If I had a nickel for every goon I’ve sent to the ICU… And for some reason, just punching them in the face is never enough. I have to get creative, like it’s not entertaining if it’s always the same fight. I carry a little chart of the human body, and I cross off each area where I’ve broken someone’s bone. You know the only spot I have left? The elbow. The next time I fight a guy, I have to punch him in the elbow. With my elbow.
“But Reacher, you’re so stern, so stoic,” people say. “Never speaking more than a sentence or two, all staccato-like, gosh you’re mysterious.”
Nope. No mystery to it. This speech pattern. This here? It’s brain damage. From the fighting.
What about the freedom, you ask. Reacher you’ve got no home, nothing weighing you down, oh the freedom Reacher. The truth is, I do have a home. Lovely mid-century brownstone with three bedrooms, a secondhand Prius in the garage and a cat named Fluffernut. I just can’t remember where it is. Because of the brain damage. Did I mention the brain damage?
The real reason I have to keep moving is because I’ve made some powerful enemies. Not the weird villains I seem to meet every other week. No, something much worse: The Small Town Association of America. Wherever I go, ladies named Hazel or Irene chase after me howling, “We’re not all drug lords and arms dealers. Also you owe us two million in property damage.” Dangerously under-nourished from the short run, I grab a dozen crullers from the nearest bakery, which is also a front for a meth super-lab, and head on to the next town.
People say Reacher, sweet Reacher, why don’t you just leave the country. Tan those freakishly large deltoids on an exotic beach somewhere, find a cheap foreign wholesale meat merchant for your caloric needs. You think I haven’t tried? Last time I went to an airport, I stepped into the bookstore and saw a sight that chilled me right to the bone: row upon row of books by some guy called Lee Child. They had to drag me out of the aisle. Apparently I was bellowing, “It’s the same book a dozen times over — wake up, people!” Then I punched the security guard in the earhole.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my troubles. For some reason I can’t let you leave without telling you one last thing. CATCH SERIES TWO OF REACHER STREAMING NOW oh god make it stop.
Daniel Seifert‘s writing is published or forthcoming in The New York Times, Consequence, The Sun, and the anthology Missed Connections: Microfiction From Asia. His work has twice been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and longlisted for the Letter Review Prize. He lives in Singapore, and is working on a novel. Wish him luck on Twitter @DanSeifwrites.
Featured photo: Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher from the Amazon Original series, by Surly (CC BY-NC 4.0)
