by John L. Hart
For all Gregg knew, Kate was stashed away in a luxury villa in Monaco waiting for JD to finish his latest mission, and she was simply the cheese to trap JD’s two favorite mental health rodents into a scheme that had everything to do with a heroin ring and this crazy fragging shit, and nothing to do with her.
“Well, we’ll no doubt have a few questions to ask once all this sets in.” Gregg gave a fake smile. “But if that’s all for now, might Doctor Moskowitz and I be excused to await further orders? If history is an indicator, you won’t have any trouble locating us when you’re ready.”
JD nodded. “I need the two of you to meet me back here at 0700 tomorrow. Izzy, I already have this cleared with Colonel Kohn, so clocking in at the unit today is optional if you want to start packing. Gregg? A couple of sets of your old fatigues are in Izzy’s quarters so you can dress the part and not look like CID to the troops and make them paranoid. Till then, if you go to the mission remember that Shirley still thinks Kate is on holiday with me, and that’s the way we need to keep it. Make up whatever excuse you want for being back here, but Shirley needs to stay in the dark.”
Gregg knew that was probably true. He also knew that while Kate hadn’t written him much, Shirley had. Shirley, who was way too sexy to be a missionary and way too young to be a widow. He should just play it safe and not see her until this was over.
Yeah, sure. Like that was really going to happen.
Izzy saluted Claymore. Gregg didn’t bother. JD apparently needed them too much for whatever reason, that may or may not involve Kate, for the general to make good on his threats just yet.
The reception area was vacant. Gregg and Izzy distanced themselves as quickly as possible without breaking into a dead run against the pelting rain which felt infinitely better than sharing breathing space with the men they had left behind.
At least they had their ponchos to protect them against the elements outside. They had absolutely nothing to protect them from the powers within.
5
Although given a pass for the day, Gregg and Izzy headed for the closest thing either of them ever had to a home in Nha Trang: a metal Quonset hut known as the 99KO—the army’s psychiatric unit placed in a combat zone and part of the 8th Field Hospital.
The 99KO, as they both knew too well, was no stranger to mortars and rockets from the VC since Camp McDermott, a giant supply base, wasn’t far away and they were right next door to the airfield. What would greet them upon entering the unit was anyone’s guess, but some things remained predictable: there would be fourteen beds lined up and down the main room, filled with psychiatric casualties, many in restraints, and the medical professionals who cared for them—psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses, and assorted techs and specialists, all doing very dangerous work.
There was no locked ward and the patients had been trained to kill people.
“One of our guys was nearly taken out last week,” Izzy told Gregg as they neared the unit.
“Anybody I know?”
“New guy. A psych tech. He got lucky and only lost an eye.”
Gregg nodded. “Yeah, really great kind of lucky.”
Izzy shivered, and it wasn’t from the cool rain. He and Gregg had seen more than one colleague sent home in a body bag, compliments of the very soldiers they were here to serve.
At the sound of a scream tearing past the Quonset’s metal and splitting the drizzling air, Izzy paused. “Sure you want to go in there?”
Gregg opened the door. “After you.”
Inside the unit was bedlam, even to Izzy’s trained eye and inured sensibilities from working in what was basically an insane asylum. For the vast majority of the population, merely entering a psychiatric ward would be at best unnerving and, for many, terrifying. Humans tended to reject what they feared, and fearing what was different or strange was a normal response. But those fascinated by the study of the mind, who gravitated to mental health work with a sense of intrigue, couldn’t resist peeking into Pandora’s dark box, where inner demons and psychoses resided.
Even now he saw Gregg, pulled like the tides by the moon, moving steadily toward the small group of staff that surrounded a small, thin GI in dirty, torn, jungle fatigues. The soldier was frothing blood at the mouth and snarling, barking, and screaming. His eyes bugged out, almost spinning around in his head, and his facial muscles crawled with agitation. He was dripping with sweat or fever. His shredded shirt revealed a bleeding chest, where he continued to tear at his own flesh with his nails. His screams and agitation had set off the rest of the patients, many of them joining in with their own bellows and howls.
Izzy spied Colonel Kohn, the unit’s CO, hunched over one of their newer corpsmen unconscious on the floor, bleeding from his nose and mouth.
“Izzy,” Kohn shouted over the mass hysteria, “thank God you’re here. Quick, grab the benzo while—”
Another psych corpsman, built like a linebacker, went flying through the air from a strike to his chest by the small, mouth-frothing GI. It was so spectacular and unbelievable that Izzy could only stare in stunned silence. The whole room seemed caught in some kind of momentary paralysis, unable to act.
Except for Gregg. He opened both hands and walked straight for the rabid soldier while he spoke in that slow, soothing voice that could lull a monster to sleep.
“Take it easy, just take it easy there, okay? Hey, I know you. You’re Pete. You remember me, don’t you? I’m Doc Kelly. We hung out together awhile back, over at Camp McDermott. Pete, listen, no one here is going to hurt you . . . ”
“Careful, Gregg,” Izzy warned while edging closer to Sally, the head nurse, who was slowly backing away in the direction of the meds. As she went for a benzo syringe, Izzy instructed, “Double it.”
While Izzy subtly maneuvered his way closer to the syringe Sally was frantically preparing, Gregg kept moving closer to the reason for it.
“Gregg, don’t go there. We’ve got this,” said Kohn to Gregg, his own tone more father to son than commander to troop.
Gregg ignored him and reached for the patient they had to get into restraints.
He leaped directly at Gregg and grabbed him in a big bear hug and started laughing hysterically, spraying Gregg’s face with bloody spittle while another corpsman moved in to grab him from behind.
In a heartbeat the soldier whirled around and sank his teeth into the backup’s forearm like a dog tearing into a piece of steak. Gregg pounced, wrapping his arms around the attack machine and falling backwards so they all crashed to the floor with the corpsman on top, blood spurting from his gaping wound while Izzy came in with the double dose of benzo. He went for the crazed man’s thrashing leg and made a direct stab into the muscle, plunging the knock-out juice into his system.
Even with enough benzo to drop an elephant the bizarre snarling and barking and snapping teeth continued for another full thirty seconds before the powerful drug kicked in and finally slowed him and then stopped everything as cold and hard as a dropped rock.
“Okay, good work!” Kohn clapped his hands twice. “Now everybody up and let’s get him off Gregg.”
They peeled off like a football pile up. When they got to Gregg at the bottom, his face was covered with saliva and blood, his nice civilian clothes ripped.
“Welcome back, Gregg.” Colonel Kohn clapped Gregg on the shoulder and then looked him over, shook his head, and kept shaking it. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, son.”
Kohn left it at that. He didn’t ask Gregg what he was doing here. No doubt he knew enough to say no more and let his head shaking do all the talking. He went right to the bleeding corpsman, saying, “That was a brave thing to do. Now let’s get you over to the ER.”
Once they had their newest patient in restraints and all the other patients settled down, some with extra meds and others with just a snack and something to read, Izzy and
Gregg took a break at the nursing station. While Kohn inspected the damage to Gregg’s face, the best medicine of all appeared. Izzy watched as the sweet tempered KO, the unit’s beloved mascot dog, nudged Gregg’s hand.
“KO!” he exclaimed, getting on his knees to embrace her. “How’s my girl? Did you miss me? Are you still taking care of everybody else around here?”
Kohn chuckled. “She’s still the best therapist we have, Gregg. But you’re an awful patient. How does the nose feel? You took it with you before I could finish checking it out.”
“I can breathe okay and it hurts more than it does to sit, but I don’t think it’s broken.” He tongued a chipped front tooth. “What the hell happened, anyway?” He kept nuzzling KO.
“A few minutes before you came in the guy was delivered on a stretcher off an evac and we started to take off the restraints to get him to bed. That’s when he exploded. Just went off like a time bomb. You pretty much saw what happened next.”
“ER just called.” Sally, reporting with the latest, pulled up a chair and joined them. “The total damage came to fifty stitches, two concussions and a fractured nose, but other than that, both our guys are going to be okay.”
Kohn sighed wearily. “Gregg, what you did probably saved us from no telling what, but you need to be more careful.”
“I knew the guy.” Gregg reluctantly let go of KO to rejoin them at the table and press a cold Pepsi to his swollen lips before wincing. “He was at the clinic a couple of times before I left and he should have been evaced out of here then. I guess a friendly face kept him from at least biting mine off but, I’ve gotta say, I have never seen anyone quite like that. You?”
“Not me,” said Kohn. “And here I thought I’d seen it all.”
“Same here,” agreed Sally.
“I think it could be Bell Syndrome.” Izzy reached back into the catalog of his nearly eidetic memory that filed information with the precision of a military drill team. At least it had until the army yanked him out of Columbia University Hospital and planted him here. Sometimes it seemed the memory pictures were blurry now. Was it from stress, overload, self-medicating, sleep deprivation? All of the above.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Sally.
“It’s rare, an extreme form of agitation,” Izzy explained. “Life threatening. Bodies literally burn themselves up with their own internal agitation. That’s why we saw a soldier who couldn’t have been more than 125 pounds soaking wet throw someone twice his size around. It’s like he has superhuman strength on top of being impervious to pain, so he’s not very responsive to drugs to slow him down. Let’s be sure to stay on top of those ice baths, so he doesn’t burn himself up before a specialist can see him.” Izzy nodded at Colonel Kohn. “Thanks for calling the chief down in Saigon to send up a neuro-specialist to take a look.”
“Hopefully he can help him.” Then Kohn did some more head shaking at Gregg. “And God help you for coming back here. I don’t know the details. Honestly, I’m glad I don’t. But you and this other crazy guy—” He wagged a finger at Izzy. “Watch each other’s backs. And that’s an order.”
6
Izzy commandeered a jeep from the motor pool and got behind the wheel.
“When did you start driving?” Driving was a new skill Izzy had picked up since Gregg last saw him, cabs and subways and shoes having been the native New Yorker’s primary means of transport prior to being drafted.
“Right after you left, since it was either that or constantly be looking for someone else to drive me around. You’re not nervous, are you?”
“What, that you might kill us before JD has a chance? Nah.” Gregg tongued his chipped front tooth. It didn’t hurt but the damn thing was already driving him nuts. So was the little hitch of nervous energy that had him shaking his leg like a maraca, and it didn’t have anything to do with how well Izzy may or may not drive. “How has Shirley been?” he ventured.
“As well as can be expected. I think running the mission helps her focus on doing something meaningful instead of dwelling on the past.”
They exchanged a knowing look. Shirley had seen the unthinkable, her husband murdered by a patient they had opened their doors to—the mission turned no one away, including the VC on the QT. Gregg had spent several evenings walking and talking with her afterwards, and that’s when they began forging a closer relationship. They had become real friends. She was Kate’s friend, too.
“Do we tell her anything about Kate?”
Izzy pushed up his black horn rims with a finger and then took a sharp left onto Highway 1, away from the hospital and airfield. He opened his mouth to respond just as a tremendous explosion concussed behind them, close enough to shake the road they were on.
“They’re after the airfield again,” Izzy yelled over yet another blast and sped up. “I’m going to keep going, get us as much distance as I can. Hang on!” Another rocket exploded, and then another and yet another BOOM, so close they could feel the heat blast even as the jeep accelerated down the highway.
As quickly as the mortar fire had started, it stopped. Izzy glanced over at Gregg and kept speeding ahead. “Maybe I’ll be a cabbie instead of a psychiatrist when I get back to New York. Fastest ride in town.”
Gregg’s short reprieve in the states had softened him up enough to mess with his tolerance for the kind of life/death moments they had just escaped. He forced a laugh through jangled nerves.
“Maybe the army should draft more cabbies than they already have to lower the body count.”
The wailing of sirens sounded behind them, signaling the All Clear. Gregg hadn’t been gone long enough to think that meant it was actually safe. It was never safe in a war zone, not even in a city as cultured as Nha Trang. Izzy let up on the gas and nodded, as if by mutual agreement they would pretend nothing had happened. Just another day in the life.
“Now regarding Shirley,” Izzy said, picking up where they’d left off. “I think we say exactly what JD told us. The less Shirley knows the better. We don’t want to put her in a compromised position if anyone comes asking questions.”
“Agreed. I hate it when the bastard is right.” Gregg couldn’t shake off nearly getting blasted to bits as easily as Izzy. Of course, Izzy was more in practice, having gone nearly ten straight months without the advantage of an extended, stateside reprieve. If you could call it that.
As they moved ahead, Gregg worried about the 99KO, Colonel Kohn, all the patients in the unit. They didn’t have the benefit of escaping in a jeep from unlucky hits meant for the nearby airfield at Camp McDermott.
“I hope there weren’t any . . .” He did not say casualties, but he didn’t have to.
“Me, too,” his friend simply agreed and kept driving, silently reminding Gregg that while brothers of war were sworn to leave no man behind there were situations you simply could not fix. The best you could do was keep your own ass alive to help those who might need you down the road.
Peace Mission Hospital was a welcome sight when Izzy cruised under an archway and continued along the long, curving drive of what could pass for an old French country estate. The red-tiled roofs, light-blue shutters and white stucco exteriors of the separate hospital wards could have been anywhere in the south of France. The mission residence proper was just as Gregg remembered it. A large, sweeping veranda, protected by the second floor above, beckoned with intimate groupings of rattan seating, with plump muslin cushions, slow turning fans overhead, several French doors that led into guestrooms, and the welcoming centerpiece of an old, bright-red door with huge pots of ginger flowers in snowy whites and brilliant scarlet on either side. Fiery rivulets of bougainvillea climbed the walls, creating an effect like something out of a nineteenth-century watercolor painting.
As Gregg got out of the jeep, his high anxiety ticked up another notch. His heart was pounding as he took the steps. He should have brought Shirley flowers.
<
br /> Izzy knocked, the door swung open and there she was—the much-too-young widow. Her face lovely but gaunt. She had lost weight. Her eyes were haunted and her affect flattened with grief.
“Izzy, how nice—” Then she saw Gregg. At first she just looked at him with those deep, brown-gold eyes. Then her face suffused with warmth, glowing as if a candle had been lit in a dark window. Shirley immediately threw her arms open, exclaiming, “Gregg, what are you doing here? Never mind, I don’t care! I’m so glad to see you!”
He held her in a long, long hug that was like a deep, silent conversation between them.
Shirley was the first to break away. She tentatively touched his bruised cheekbone with gentle fingertips that stirred something in him that was hungry for more.
“What happened to you? Were you in the explosions, or . . . Actually, what are you doing here? I thought you just accepted a new position to teach at UCLA.”
“I’m not starting till next fall, so . . .” Gregg shrugged. He had tried to come up with a plausible excuse that Shirley could buy and, stretch of the imagination though it was, hopefully she would. “I thought I might do a little post-doctoral research and get a jump on the old ‘publish or perish’ routine. In a moment of absolute brilliance”—Gregg rolled his eyes, making her laugh; a lilting sound, and damn was it sweet to his ears—“I decided publishing a paper about self-care for exhausted doctors and therapists in punishing environments would get me off to a nice start with the psych department. And where better to authenticate and extend my findings than here? As an objective academic, you realize, not an exhausted doctor like Izzy who can obviously use a nice little getaway to help me with my, um, research. Hope you don’t mind I decided to drop in on you unannounced.”
“Are you kidding? I’m thrilled! How long are you here?”