The Gallery

by John Horne Burns

  — Have I got many of those? he asked.

  — Millions. They’re multiplying all the time. And brother, they’ll eat you up alive!

  — Tell me what I must do, he implored, running his tongue along his lips.

  — Every last one of them, the sergeant said, has got to be killed. That was just one dear little specimen I took off you.

  — Well, thankya anyhow . . .

  — Oh don’t thank me, the sergeant said coquettishly. You didn’t get it from me, you know.

  He’d just got outside the lab when an electric bell went off. All through that dense field of roaming men a mobilization became apparent, as in a factory after lunch hour. Soon there wasn’t anybody left in the tent area. He decided that he too must be concerned in this; so he followed the last straggler round a corner.

  On a long lading platform hundreds of men in green fatigues were arranging themselves into two files, one much longer than the other. At the end of the platform, by the screen door to what seemed a dispensary a tech sergeant stood with rosters in his hands, adjusted his glasses, and read aloud in a shout:

  — Hardfield! Jones! Miozza! McCauliffe! Mahomet Ben Ali! Get the hell up here for ya shots! Don’tcha wanna be cured?

  The two lines quickly evened out till the longer reached back to the end of the platform. He wasn’t quite sure what the lines were for, and which was which. So he stepped cautiously up to a fellow with glasses:

  — Maybe ya can tell me what cooks here . . .

  — Je ne comprends pas. . . . Pardon. . . .

  He tried again and this time got an answer from a pimply fat boy:

  — This here’s the clap line. We get stuck first. Those with syph come after us.

  He thanked the joe and walked quickly away, placing himself at the tail end of the shorter line. The tech sergeant appeared again at the door of the dispensary with his rosters and hollered through the entire area:

  — Shots! Shots! For Chrissakes come an get em! Ya’d be late to ya own funerals! An I ain’t goin through the whole area to rout you lazy bastards outa ya tents!

  Tentatively he touched the shoulder of the man in front of him, handsome and blond and shy:

  — Say, bud, am I in the right line?

  — Depends on what ya got, the blond boy replied, appraising him languidly.

  — Same thing you got, I guess.

  — Well, the blond boy said, this ya first shot? Ya get only fiftynine more after this one. One every three hours. I don’t envy ya much. Ya got a week an a day ta go. . . . Christ, ya’ll never sweat out anything like ya will these shots. . . . Three hours . . . three hours . . . forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. . . . They even wake ya up in the middle of the night. . . . An if ya miss one, they make ya start all over again. . . . I’m gettin out tamorrah. Hope a hope a hope.

  — Where do ya take these shots?

  — In both shoulders an in both cheeks a ya butt. Ya get ta feelin like a sampler. Ya get so ya can’t sleep on any part a ya. An still them damn shots go on. Like a pile driver. . . . But ya lucky. They just started this new treatment last week . . .

  — New treatment?

  — Ya. Pencil somethin. Before that they gave ya shots for six months. Useta make fellers puke all over the place. Now they give ya sixty shotsa this new pencil stuff, an it usually cures ya. The clap boys get only four. They get out in a day.

  — I’ll never come back here again, he said piously.

  — That’s what they all say, the blond boy said. But they get repeaters here just like in reformatories. Buddy a mine’s been in here four times. He gets all cleaned up, then he goes out and picks hisself up another dose. . . .

  The first and longer line began to press forward with rapidity. He thought to himself it was just like all the other lines he’d sweated out in the army — for movies, for PX, for passes. Soon the second line, his, began to urge up on the screen door. Inside the dispensary there was a wild cry.

  — Either he’s fainted or it’s his last shot, the blond boy explained.

  Finally it came his turn at the end of the file to enter the dispensary. Inside the screen door the line had forked into two prongs and was being funneled past two. GI’s, each with a hypodermic in his hand. Along the walls of the room were electric iceboxes. And on the tables glittering with hypodermics and blunted needles were many little glass ampoules of an amber fluid. Into these the GI’s plunged their hypodermics, filled them like fountain pens, and squinted at escaping bubbles of the yellow liquid. Ahead of him were men with either arm bared or with their buttocks offered like steak to the needle.

  — They give ya a choice on where ya want ya shot, the blond boy said. If ya take it in the arse, they’ll use a longer needle ta get through the fat. My advice is ta take ya shots round the clock. Then none of ya four parts gets too sore. Ya’ll be hurtin anyhow . . .

  — Come here, a voice called to him. I haven’t seen your face in line before, boy.

  He disengaged himself from the line and went over to where a sergeant with gentian-blue eyes sat at a field desk. This sergeant’s sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Rosters were spread out in front of him. He gave the sergeant his name, which was last on the list.

  — You’re too nice-looking a guy to get this crap, the sergeant said. Why don’t you stay away from women, like I do?

  — I’m takin my medicine without any sermons from you, he said doggedly, looking down at his boots.

  He wanted to be cured, not played with.

  — Sure, sure, kid. . . . Look, every time you come in here, be sure to stop by and see that I check your name. . . . Otherwise if you miss a shot . . .

  — Ya, I know all that, he said impatiently, rolling up the right sleeve of his green fatigues and preparing to advance into the line for the needle.

  Then the sergeant thrust out his fair delicate hand and flipped the miraculous medal that nestled with his dogtags among the hair on his chest.

  — This didn’t help you much, did it? the sergeant said. You’re a mockery of purity.

  — I promised my mother to always wear it, he said, again avoiding the cool blue eyes.

  — You’ve got nice brown skin too, the sergeant continued. Too bad to think of soiling it with crap like you’ve got. . . . Tell me, did you love that signorina?

  — Shut up an let me alone, he said and walked into the line.

  — You’ll see me sixty times, the sergeant called after him.

  He offered his brown right upper arm to a GI who stood waiting with a hypodermic. He felt the antiseptic go all over his flesh like slippery ice. And then a swift stab as the needle went in.

  — We ain’t interested in making these shots painless, the GI told him.

  He felt the needle’s charge going into him in a compressed enema of spite. Then he knew a stinging worse than he remembered from tetanus shots. The needle was pulled out and his arm wiped again. On his skin he saw many lemon drops shimmering, raised out against the brown.

  — What’s that stuff? he asked, lowering his sleeve.

  — Penicillin . . . and more precious than gold, boy.

  Being the last to get his shot, he was the last to leave the other door of the dispensary. Barring his way stood the gentian-eyed sergeant, hands folded on his chest. That open neck reminded him, with a jump of memory, of Marisa’s throat, glistening and tight in its cords after he’d kissed it.

  — Look, he said to the sergeant, I just wanna be alone. I just wanna take my shots an be left in peace, see?

  — I was wondering, the sergeant said, recrossing his arms, whether you got it from a one-night stand or from love. Because you seem so bitter. . . . Yes, you must have been in love with her. And now you look like a lamb that can’t understand why it’s being led to the slaughter. Why don’t you want to talk with me?

  — Ya got some ax ta grind with me, he said pushing through the screen door.

  The sergeant followed him:

  — You know that I’m in a position to do you d
irt. I might forget to check your name on the roster. Then you’d have to take all your shots over again . . .

  — I wouldn’t advise ya to mess with me, he answered.

  Outside the dispensary there was another corridor leading back to the tent area. It had lighted doors leading off it, with the names of medical officers and their rank printed in curly letters. Along the other wall were tin sinks in which GI’s were washing their parts. Under these sinks were tin cans stuffed with bloody gauze. The running water and the septic smell and the pungency of dried blood made him dizzy, so he went out into the open air. The tent area had filled up again with men walking or talking or reading. Now he knew the rhythm of the place. They’d walk or talk or read for the next three hours. Then the bell would ring again. Then . . . he felt already the stinging in his other shoulder. All his life telescoped down to three-hour periods and a hypodermic needle with yellow drops dribbling out of it. What was it called? Pencilin? Penisssilin? Pencillllin?

  In the shed the syphilitics had resumed their poses. They didn’t walk in the courtyard among the tents with the others, for theirs was the scabrous aristocracy of venereal disease. Between shots most lay on their canvas cots dozing. One boy with horn-rimmed spectacles was reading Plato. And his own Negro neighbor still rolled his eyes slowly at the ceiling.

  — Ah was a numbers man in Harlem, the Negro began.

  But in order not to encourage the Negro’s reminiscences, he threw himself on his own cot and closed his eyes.

  — It’s bad in the moanin, the Negro’s slow voice dribbled through, even past his shut lids. Ya know how a man wakes up. Well, now it’ll hurt. An at night the thoughts yo has! Ya feel lak cryin. Least of all ah does . . .

  He emitted a soft feigned snore and the Negro shut up. His brain kept turning over the sibilant secret name of his disease. It was a word that he’d always thought of in connection with others, like leper. He was trying to get used to the idea of having it himself. It was as strange now, in the peace of aftershock, as imagining yourself dead. He kept trying to figure out what there was in the name of this disease, its very sound, that was so frightening. It had a whistling slide when you pronounced it, like a toothless old woman dragging her skirts in a black corridor. Or it reminded him of girl’s names like Phyllis. Only with this girl he saw the skull showing.

  He thought also of his mother and his sisters in Pittsburgh; their bathroom with the embroidered cover on the toilet seat, the hems on their towels, the white soap in the rack by the wash-stand. He remembered how his mother got panicky when she found a speck of dust anywhere. Then he peeped through his eyelids at his own brown body, tense under its shameful green fatigues. And under his flesh he seemed to see microscopic rats running in his blood, squeaking and nibbling as they did their work of demolition. Till finally the house fell apart with a screaming clatter.

  He thought also of the army posters against VD. He imagined himself addressing a V-mail to Pittsburgh:

  Dear Mother,

  You’ll be surprised to know that I’m writing you from the syphilis ward of the Twenty-third General Hospital . . .

  — I’ve got a new secondary, a bright lecturing voice said from somewhere down the shed. Not very nice. Just a rash on the inside of my arms and legs. And a few little blisters containing a rather nasty kind of pus . . .

  — Me and my buddy sweated out the clap for five days, another voice said. Were our faces red when we found out what we really had! . . .

  — Why it takes twenty years to kill you, another voice said.

  Lastly he thought of Marisa. He remembered yet the brown still fragrance of her body, the round sucking bite of her lips against his shoulder. She’d told him to give himself to her, as she was giving to him, without reserve or fear. She’d said that gli americani made the act of love as sanitary as brushing their teeth or gargling with mouthwash.

  — Ma perchè mi tratti cosi? Hai forse paura ch’io sia malata? Godi, godi, e non torturarti con certi pensieri. . . .

  It had been the first time he’d fallen in love. He remembered how he’d wait for her evenings in the Galleria, longing and hot, yet in a peace that was tender, and how he’d been gentle with her. Each evening he’d brought her candy or cigarettes or a handkerchief such as she loved. And he remembered how, after they’d spent their love, they’d lie together talking and laughing. It had never been so with him before. With all the others, after his fever was cooled, he’d only wanted to pay them and kick them out the door. But with Marisa he’d known a sense of joy and well-being. Thus he’d given her his heart like a piece of fudge in his open palm. He couldn’t yet associate this disease with her name. Only over her face there now hung a veil that blotted her features.

  Yes, he was sick. It didn’t feel like much of anything now. But this sickness was like being told definitely just how long he had to live. There was something mocking and foul in his disease, because it was a legacy to him from the happiest moments in his life. He remembered the idiots he’d seen in county jails, leaning out from behind their bars, lolling their tongues and screaming. He remembered old men helping themselves along the sides of walls with their canes, so that every step took half an hour to accomplish. All this had nothing to do with Marisa. Yet it had. . . .

  Someone was tapping the sole of his boot. He opened his eyes. At the end of his cot stood a red-cheeked chaplain, arms loaded with tracts and colored leaflets. So he sat up respectfully.

  — Well, son, the chaplain said, I guess now we see what the wages of sin are, don’t we?

  — What sin? he said, turning his eyes to the other row of cots.

  — My boy, my boy. We mustn’t be unregenerate in our hearts. Our disease is the punishment of God for fleshly sin.

  — I happened to be in love, he said, standing up from his cot, putting his hands into his pockets, and whistling a little.

  — Love! the chaplain said with shining eyes, lifting his plump pink hands. Love brings little children into the world. Not death. We should have saved ourselves for some fine clean American girl. These Italians are all sinful and diseased . . .

  — Then they should all get some of these here pencil shots, he said sullenly.

  — My boy, if there were no disease in the world, there would be no decency. The fear of God. Our illness is a sign of the disapproval of God for what we did . . .

  — I was unlucky, that’s all . . .

  — And the army doesn’t approve either, the chaplain said, searching for further backing. After we leave this hospital, we’ll lose our rating, if we have one.

  — I know that too.

  — Well, I’ll just leave some of these pamphlets, son. Let’s all think of our mothers . . .

  — I have.

  — I’d like to shake hands, son, the chaplain said, withdrawing. But God has made certain diseases highly infectious. . . .

  The chaplain went on to other cots. He lay down again and covered his face with his hands. He still saw Marisa’s face, but he heard too a crowing laughter. Even her voice now seemed clotted with slime.

  He soon got used to the simple reality of life in a syphilis ward. Three hours was the boundary of all his consciousness. He lived only for his next puncture. Every needle meant another x on the roster opposite his name, and three hours nearer to his release. Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. Night or day had no longer any distinct meaning, for he couldn’t count on uninterrupted sleep for more than three hours. Then the fleering jangle of the electric bell. At 0300 hours in the morning, having just got to sleep after his midnight injection, he’d hear that silvery rattlesnake in the court outside. All the tents would come to life, with men groping into their fatigues and tottering out sleepy and cursing to where the threads of light poked out from the dispensary. The sergeant in charge of shots yelling for order. The beams of flashlights thumbing through the dark. The uproar lasting about twenty minutes. The files forming and going through like an assembly belt. Then the voices of a sergeant speeding up slackers wh
o might be still in their cots. He didn’t understand how people could take their time about their shots. Here they had death in their blood, yet they were leisurely and dilatory about receiving from the needle’s point those yellow drops that meant life to them, life truer than the amber drops of gasoline or bubbles of molten gold.

  He got into the habit of waking by reflex a few seconds before the electric bell exploded. He’d lie under his mosquito netting with an arm under his head, thinking: Now what did I wake up for? Oh, number twenty-two. And as soon as he heard the tingling dissonance he’d be bounding off his cot, buttoning his fatigues and sliding his feet into his boots, which he never bothered to lace or buckle. And he’d go rushing down the line of cots with their shadowy dressing figures. He usually managed to get to the dispensary among the first. Not that it made any difference. The gonorrhea boys always went through first. They took their own sweet time in forming their line. The syph patients were more eager beavers and would stand with their file already in order, cheering and booing the stragglers. For nobody got pincushioned till both lines were formed.

  Needles around the zodiac of his brown body. At first he tried taking them in alternate arms. But soon the flesh of both shoulders was so raw that he couldn’t sleep on either side. By the twentieth shot he was ready and eager to have them jab him in the buttocks. This called for a longer and heavier needle which bit him like a hornet. After a while both of his tight brown cheeks were so sore that he couldn’t sleep on his back any more. He asked if he could be shot in the bulging calves of his legs, but they told him it would hurt worse than a cramp. So he finally evolved the least agonizing of many torments, which would carry him through half a day: a shot in the right shoulder, a shot in the left, a shot in his right buttock, a shot in his left. This meant that every twelve hours his compass was boxed. The stings felt worse all the time in his mincemeated flesh; he’d stand watching the penicillin ooze down his skin like the yoke of an egg. And always in the dispensary the ampoules of penicillin stood in a pretty druggist’s window display of bottlets, and the trash barrels outside the dispensary were overflowing with the dead ones, like small jars that had contained a lemon preserve put up every fall by his mother.