Going the Distance Read Online Free PDF

I found it just completely unappealing. And this came from a guy who grew up thinking military housing was okay. There were no people wandering around, making it look less like an airport and more like a bus stop. I could see by the expression on my dad’s face, the “whelm” he was feeling was less than he’d expected.
    “Maybe it’s an old airport,” he said as we watched ten bags come off the flight, six of them belonging to us.
    “Maybe we missed the Rapture while we were in the air,” I said quietly back.
    He let loose a sudden laugh before he realized, in the stark silence of the airport, that he sounded like he was shouting.
    We opted to take a taxi to the base instead of calling a military shuttle. We usually did this. It gave us a chance to put some eyes on the town we were never going to see once we were on base. Except things were different this time. I was going to be living there. Actually living there. Going to school, meeting people, making friends? I’d never looked at a city with those criteria in mind, so I sat up and looked out the window in eager anticipation.
    I had never been so let down in my life.
    The entire town seemed bisected by a main freeway that cut through what looked like a series of small stores on either side. This couldn’t be the main part of town. There is just no way this constituted the heart of a town. We passed five exits, and then the stores started to become sparser and sparser, until, by the seventh exit, there was nothing.
    That was it?
    I stared at my dad and tried not to look like I was freaking too much, but he just stared back at me for a few seconds and then shrugged, which was Dad for “Sorry.” I sank into the seat, suddenly missing Germany more than ever. There was a special exit for the naval base from the freeway, and as we made the slow turn, the area around the base was revealed, and that was the moment I knew.
    I was completely fucked.
    There was nothing even close to an actual place I’d want to live in lining the road that connected to the base entrance. It looked worse than you could imagine. There were parts that really looked like they were one strong wind from falling down. This was the part of town that parents would warn their kids about visiting, and the kids would actually listen. Now my dad wouldn’t meet my eyes, and it was confirmed.
    We were completely fucked.
    The base was nice. It was big, with not a lot of buildings around. My dad had explained to me that this was a training facility for pilots, and once upon a time it had been a military hospital. As I looked closer, I could see a lot of the buildings looked closed up, making me wonder exactly what was still working on the base.
    The next three days were incredibly boring.
    We got moved into base housing, and I was issued a new ID card that would let me on the base and able to shop at the Navy Exchange, or NEX for short. Most of our furniture had been stored when we went to Germany, so seeing our stuff was like buying it new all over again when we unpacked. I began emptying my stuff and ended up reading a ton of old comics I had stored away when my dad came in and bitched at me.
    “Seriously?” he said, standing in the doorway wiping the sweat off his forehead. I looked up, and he gestured for me to get off the bed. “It’s not ‘open a box and then read comics.’ It’s ‘unpack your damn room.’”
    “I’m resting,” I said, hiding my smile behind the comic.
    “You do know I will take you over a knee, taller or not,” he threatened.
    “Big talk,” I said, faking a yawn. “From a short man.”
    I looked over, and I saw the one eyebrow arch too late. I threw the comic at him as he lunged, both hands beginning to tickle me. Let me tell you, if you ever feel you can talk smack to your dad, make sure you are in no way ticklish. My dad had hands that should have been registered as deadly weapons so any and all kids would know how dangerous he was. You’d think being skinny