Johnny Got His Gun

by Dalton Trumbo

  Catherine’s brown eyes were staring out now from her refuge by her father’s legs staring out soberly yet glowing with little lights of excitement. A film had come over his father’s eyes as if he had withdrawn a little and was imagining the scene in his own grown-up way. His mother’s face was animated her voice triumphant as she came to the thrilling part where Santa Claus slid down the chimney and nodded and set to work with his fat little belly shaking with laughter. And then where he put a finger to the side of his nose gave a nod and up the chimney arose. Then up to the roof where one almost could hear the scraping of the reindeer’s little feet eager to be off to the next house.

  He sprang to his sleigh to his team gave a whistle and away they all flew like down from a thistle. But I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight merry Christmas to all and to all a good night…

  They always sat quietly for a moment as his mother’s voice died away. Nobody said a word because there was still something more to come. His mother laid aside the book of poems and reached for another book. She had a marker in the bible and she opened it now to the place that was marked and began to read again. She read the story of the little Christ-child of the baby Jesus and how he was born in a manger and how the star shone over Bethlehem and how the wise men traveled to him and how all the angels of heaven came near to the earth that night to sing of peace and the Christ-child and good will toward men.

  He could hear her voice reading it off softly and reverently with the words coming like music from her lips. It was a funny thing he’d never read the bible story of Christmas himself. He had only heard it as his mother read it to him. He couldn’t remember the words but he could still see the pictures that used to come into his mind as his mother read. He knew the story by heart.

  All the people were going to Bethlehem because it was tax time and they had to appear at the court house and register and pay up. They had been pouring in all day long and now it was night and the town was filled. Among those coming in was a man by the name of Joseph who was a carpenter in the town of Nazareth.

  Joseph had to do a lot of chores before he could start out and Mary his wife was pregnant and couldn’t help him so they were late. It was already dark by the time they came to the outskirts of Bethlehem. Joseph was leading their donkey and Mary poor wide-eyed girl was riding it and hoping they’d get settled soon because she was already feeling her pains and knew they didn’t have much time. It was her first baby and she wasn’t quite sure what to do when the time came.

  As soon as they got into the town Joseph began making the rounds of cheap rooming houses. He wasn’t much of a success at making money and they only had enough to pay their taxes and one night’s rent. They went from rooming house to rooming house with Mary getting more frightened as her pains increased but the rooming houses were all filled because there were plenty of poor people even then and they had all beaten Joseph to the bargain places. Finally they counted their money and Joseph decided they would try the hotel. They could get a back bedroom and maybe he could do a little work around the place in the morning if their money didn’t quite stretch out.

  But the hotel was filled too.

  Then Joseph began to talk very seriously to the hotel manager. See here he said I’ve come a long way and I’ve got my wife with me and she’s going to have a baby. Look at her out there on the donkey you see she’s just a kid and she’s scared. She shouldn’t have come in the first place only I couldn’t leave her alone and I couldn’t get anybody to stay with her overnight because they’re all here paying their taxes. I’ve got to find a place for her to sleep and that’s all there is to it.

  The hotel manager looked out into the darkness and saw Mary’s white anxious face there. She’s a pretty kid he thought and scared too like her husband says. It’ll be an awful mess if she has a baby on the premises people who can’t afford them shouldn’t have babies anyway but what are you going to do about it? All right he said to Joseph I guess I can find a place for you. See that passageway over there? Well go right on through it and you’ll come to the barn. There’s a manger at the far end. I’ll have one of the boys throw down some hay and it’ll be comfortable. I don’t mind telling you I hope very much she doesn’t have her baby here tonight because it’ll upset my guests if she screams and they’re all very high-class people including three Roman congressmen. But go ahead.

  Joseph said thanks and started off toward Mary. Oh I almost forgot yelled the hotel keeper after him don’t light any fires out there in the barn because in my insurance it says they’re forbidden and I can’t afford to have my insurance cancelled. Joseph hollered that he would be careful and the hotel keeper went back into the warm and stood in front of the fire and thought it’s a shame people having kids all over the place it’s good and chilly tonight too I do hope she doesn’t make a fuss.

  Back in the manger Joseph lighted a lantern and fixed up a nice bed on the hay and Mary lay down on the bed and had her baby. It was a boy. They wrapped it up in a blanket they had brought especially for it and Mary who was a good strong girl held the baby real tight against her. I was almost sure it would be a boy she said to Joseph. What are we going to name it? Joseph asked her. I think I would like to name it Jesus she said. She looked quickly down at the baby and back to Joseph the fright all gone from her eyes and a smile on her lips.

  But Joseph staring down at the two of them didn’t smile. Mary noticed this and said Joseph what’s the matter you don’t look happy it’s a fine baby look at its chubby hands why don’t you smile? And Joseph said there’s a light around the head of our baby a shine that is soft like moonlight. Mary nodded as if she weren’t a bit surprised and said I think there must be a light like that around the heads of all newborn babies they’re so fresh from heaven. And Joseph said in a kind of sick voice as if he had suddenly lost something there’s a light around your head too Mary.

  Out in the hills beyond Bethlehem a sheep herder was trying to get a little rest. The sheep were all lying down and there had been such a hub-bub in Bethlehem from so many people coming from all directions that he was sure the wolves were scared back into the hills so there wasn’t any risk in him getting forty winks. He lay there sleeping when suddenly he woke up with a light shining in his face. He opened his eyes and started to look around. For a minute he couldn’t see a thing because he was blinded by starlight. When he finally got himself organized he saw a star hanging low in the sky over Bethlehem a star so near you could almost reach out and touch it and so bright it lighted the whole town. The walls and house-tops of Bethlehem stood out sharp and clear and white and on the hillside around him he could see his sheep like little lumps of silver against the earth.

  Then he heard sounds on the road and looked off to the left. Coming around the foot of the hill where the road turned into Bethlehem were three camels with three riders. The sheep herder could tell by their clothes that they were out-of-staters of some kind. He could see the silver decorations of their saddles reflecting back the light of the star over Bethlehem. He watched them for a minute thinking that they looked pretty well off to be having to pay taxes and then he heard the music. The air was filled with angels singing in the starlight. This night they sang in the town of Bethlehem there is born a little baby who shall be the saviour of the world. He is the prince of peace and the son of god and his name is Jesus. Peace on earth and good will toward men. Rejoice everyone and sing with the angels for this night a saviour is born. Peace peace peace on earth and good will toward men.

  The sheep herder who was not used to angels singing in the sky above the place he worked and so knew it must be some kind of a miracle got down on his knees and lowered his head in prayer. He didn’t look up for a long while even though he was afraid that all the noise might startle his sheep and cause him to spend half the night rounding them up again.

  Away off in Rome a man in a palace stirred in his sleep. He almost awakened and then drowsed off again wondering in his dreams why he was nervous. In the manger in Bethlehem
Mary listened to the angels and didn’t seem to feel as happy as when she first saw her child. She stared right through the wise men who had come with presents. She hugged her baby closer. Her eyes were filled with pain and fear for the little baby.

  xviii

  When he finally forced his mind away from thoughts of christmas of merry christmas he began to tap once more. Only this time he tapped firmly with vigor full of hope and confidence for he saw that this new nurse this lovely new nurse was thinking as hard as he was and of the same thing. He knew as plainly as if she had told him that she was determined to batter down the silence which stood between him as a dead man and him as a live man. Since she had already thought of a way to speak to him he knew that she would pay attention when he tried to speak to her. The others had been too busy or too tired or else not bright enough to see what he was doing. They had taken his tapping as a nervous habit as a disease as the whim of a child as a symptom of insanity as anything but what it really was as anything but a cry from the darkness a voice from the dead a wail in the silence for friendship and someone to talk to. But the new nurse would understand and help him.

  He tapped very carefully very slowly to show her that he had a method in what he was doing. Just as she had repeated the design of the letter M on his chest over and over again so he now tapped his distress signal back to her. But slowly…so slowly. Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot. S O S. H e 1 p. Over and over again he repeated it. Once in a while he would stop at the completion of the signal. That was his question mark just as her pauses had been question marks. He would stop and try to make all that was visible of him—his hair and half his forehead above the mask—take on an air of expectancy. Then when he received no sign from her he would do it again. And all the while he tapped he was conscious of her near him watching and thinking.

  After a long period of waiting and watching and thinking she began to do things. She did them very deliberately so deliberately that even her movements seemed thoughtful. First she slipped the urinal in under the covers touching it against his body so that he could recognize it. He shook his head. She took the urinal away and slipped the bed pan against him. He shook his head. She took the bed pan away. There was no hesitation between her movements now. It seemed that she had each move figured out before she finished the last one. She was working skillfully and intelligently to eliminate all possible causes for his tapping one by one with no pauses in between. He knew that during the time she had stood beside him watching and thinking she had made up her mind to a plan and now was putting it into effect with as little nonsense as possible.

  She took the blanket off him leaving him with only a sheet for covering. He shook his head. She put the blanket back and threw another one over it to give him more covers than before. He shook his head. He had stopped tapping now waiting alertly until she was through with her plan. She took the covers off him entirely and adjusted the position of the breathing tube in his throat. He shook his head. She patted the bandage over the hole in his side. He shook his head. He shook his head and marveled that he had the sense left to do it because he was so charged with excitement that he could scarcely think. She lifted the nightshirt that covered him and began gently to rub his body. He shook his head. She threw the covers over him again and moved toward the head of the bed. She rubbed his forehead soothingly. He shook his head. She smoothed his hair back and scratched his scalp and massaged it with her knuckles. He shook his head. She loosened the cord that held the mask over his face. He shook his head. She lifted the mask up and fanned it gently to let the air in and be sure it wasn’t sticking. He shook his head. She replaced the bandage and stopped everything. He could feel her standing beside the head of the bed looking down at him attentively as alert and eager as he was himself. She had done everything she could think of and now she was standing there quietly as if to say it’s your turn now please try hard to tell me and I will try hard to understand.

  He began to tap again.

  It seemed to him that he stopped breathing. It seemed that his heart stopped and the blood in his body turned solid. It seemed that the only living moving thing in the whole world was his head as it tapped tapped tapped against his pillow. He knew it was now or never. There was no good in fooling himself now. This minute this instant this very second everything was about to be decided. Never again would he have a nurse such as this one. She might turn and walk out of the room in five minutes and never return. When she walked away she would carry his life with her she would carry madness and loneliness and all his godforsaken silent screams and she would never know it she would never hear the screams. She would simply go and ever after he would be forgotten. She was loneliness and friendship she was life and death and she stood now waiting quietly for him to tell her what he wanted.

  While he tapped he was praying in his heart. He had never paid much attention to praying before but now he was doing it saying oh please god make her understand what I’m trying to tell her. I’ve been alone so long god I’ve been here for years and years suffocating smothering dead while alive like a man who has been buried in a casket deep in the ground and awakens and screams I’m alive I’m alive I’m alive let me out open the lid dig away the dirt please merciful christ help me only there’s no one to hear him and so he’s dead. I know you’re very busy god I know there are millions of people praying to you every minute every hour for something they need I know there are a lot of important people who are after you for big things that are all tied up with nations and continents and maybe even the whole world. I know all these things god and I don’t blame you if you get behind on your orders nobody’s perfect but what I want is such a little thing. If I were asking you for something big something like a million dollars or a private yacht or a skyscraper I could understand if I didn’t get it because there are only so many dollars and so many yachts and so many skyscrapers. But I only want you should take a tiny little idea that is in my mind and put it into her mind two maybe three feet away. That’s all I want god. The idea is so small so light that a humming bird could carry it a moth a mayfly the breath of air that comes from the mouth of a baby. It won’t take any time and it means I can’t tell you what to me. Honestly I wouldn’t ask you god only this is such a little thing. It’s such a little thing…

  He felt her finger against his forehead.

  He nodded.

  He felt her finger tap four times against his forehead.

  That is the letter H he thought only she doesn’t know it she’s got no idea she’s just tapping there to test if that’s what I want.

  He nodded.

  He nodded so hard his neck ached and his head seemed to whirl. He nodded so hard the whole bed shook.

  Oh thank you god he thought she got it you put the idea where I asked you should thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.

  He felt her hand pressed against his forehead reassuringly for just a, minute. Then he got the rapidly receding vibrations of her footsteps going away. He knew she was running from the room to tell them. The door slammed behind her. The sound quivered against his bedsprings like an electric shock. She was gone.

  He lay back surprised to find how exhausted he was. It was like he had worked three nights in a row at the bakery during the summer when he couldn’t get any sleep in the daytime. The breath was gone out of him and his head throbbed and every muscle in his body was sore. Yet inside he was all confetti and high-flying flags and double-time band music that marched up and up straight into the face of the sun. He had done it he had succeeded the thing was accomplished and even though he lay perfectly still perfectly exhausted it seemed he could see the whole world lying below him. There was no telling it there was no thinking it there was no imagining it he was so happy.

  It was as if all the people in the world the whole two billion of them had been against him pushing the lid of the coffin down on him tamping the dirt solid against the lid rearing great stones above the dirt to keep him in the earth Yet he had risen. He had lifted the lid he had thrown away
the dirt he had tossed the granite aside like a snowball and now he was above the surface he was standing in the air he was leaping with every step miles above the earth. He was like nobody else who had ever lived. He had done so much he was like god.

  The doctors who brought their friends in to see him would no longer say here is a man who has lived without arms legs ears eyes nose mouth isn’t it wonderful? They would say here is a man who can think here is a man who lay in his bed with only a cut of meat to hold him together and yet he thought of a way to talk. Listen to him speak. You see his mind is unaffected he speaks like you and me he is a person he has identity he is part of the world. And he is part of the world only because he all by himself with perhaps the aid of a prayer and a god figured out a way to speak. Look at him and then let us ask you if this isn’t even more wonderful than all the splendid operations we have performed upon his stump?

  He knew now that he had never been really happy in his whole life. There had been times when he had thought he was happy but none of them were like this. There was the time when all year long he had wanted an erector set and when at Christmas time he got it. That was probably as happy as he had ever been while he was a kid. There was the time when Kareen told him she loved him and that was as happy as he had ever been up to the time the shell exploded and blew him out of the world. But this happiness this new wild frantic happiness was greater than anything he could conceive. It was a thing so absolute so towering so out of this world that it hit him almost like delirium. His legs that were smashed and gone got up and danced. His arms that were rotted these five six seven years swung fantastically free at his sides to keep time with the dance. The eyes they had taken from him looked up from whatever garbage heap they had been consigned to and saw all the beauties of the world. The ears that were shattered and full of silence rang suddenly with music. The mouth that had been hacked away from his face and now was filled with dust returned to sing. Because he had done it. He had accomplished the impossible. He had spoken to them like god out of a cloud out of a thick cloud and now he was floating on top of the cloud and he was a man again.