— I wonder how much the government is forking out for my sixty shots? someone asked.
— When ya see it in a refrigerator, another said, the stuff looks just like sherry wine on ice. They hafta keep it cool. . . .
He had to go for his second Dark Field. Again he met the sergeant with the rubber gloves who scraped some fluid off him and put the film on the slide under the microscope. The sergeant indicated he should look again through the lens. He saw his salmon-colored blood; but try as he might, he didn’t see a solitary tadpole wriggling. One floated by in the field, but it looked curled up and lifeless.
— Your spirochetes are pretty well done for, the sergeant said dryly.
— Ya mean I’m cured? he asked, raising his eyes, dazzled.
— You’ll take your full sixty shots, just like everyone else.
But he walked on air back to the shedlike ward and told everyone within range that the tadpoles in his blood were kaput. The Negro in the next cot just lay and looked at the ceiling, for the doctor had told him to expect a circumcision tomorrow. The Negro had been saying all day in his dreamy voice that no army doctor was going to circumcise him. Hadn’t he still his razor with him?
The last shot of the night vigil was given just as the dawn came up over Mussolini’s fairgrounds at Bagnoli. Nobody slept much between the three o’clock shot and the six o’clock. The sun would leak up with a lemon and creeping pace. He’d totter out into the yellow and gray light, his eyes foggy, pulling his fatigues about him. The lines would form and the needles would start pricking. This was the time when the night shift of butchers went off duty to be replaced by the day shift. Their tempers were frayed and they did their jabbing with a vindictive spite, hating all who were so stupid as to catch diseases which would keep them out of their beds all night long on a hypodermic line. The six o’clock shots were characterized by blunt needles which tore his flesh jaggedly. Then there was the pulsing orgasm of the penicillin pumping into him like a piston.
Then he’d limp back to his ward, flexing his stinging arm. By his cot on the mosquito netting bar with his towel and soap hung his mess kit. He’d gather up this metal gear and head for the chow line. It was now fully light.
He’d made a friend in the ward, a shy guy who said he was a staff sergeant in ordnance. They waited together in the chow line. His new buddy talked about this nurse, and how he never suspected she would have passed It on to him. They dipped their mess kits in the GI can of boiling water.
— I wonder if they sterilize these things with each new batch of patients?
— Nah, what with the scaldin water an that pencil stuff, ya can’t catch a damn thing here. They even have Ginso barbers to shave ya if ya want it.
He got three meals a day of hot C-ration ladled into his mess kit. Back of the steam tables stood Neapolitans who leered knowingly at them as they dished out the steaming powdered eggs, the scalding coffee, and the chunks of bread. They jested with the patients:
— Whassamatta, Joe? Signorina malata?
— Ah, fungoo and ya signorinas, the patients answered, helping themselves to marmalade and sugar.
He and his buddy sat down at the long planked tables, which filled up in order as the joes came off the chow line. Occasionally he saw a guy dressed in OD’s instead of fatigues. That was a sign his shots were finished and he was going into the world outside the barbed wire. Opposite them was a little redheaded man morosely eating his powdered eggs and bacon. He had a burst of friendship for this sad little man. After all they were all members of the freemasonry of penicillin.
— Doin all right? he nodded at the little redhead.
The little man didn’t answer but moved himself and his mess kit to the other end of the table.
— They say that’s a first looie, his buddy whispered to him.
— Oh they get it too, huh? he said, poking some bread into his face.
Nobody talked much in the mess hall, except to agree that penicillin was a wonderful thing. Dried you up in no time. Or they compared their symptoms or told one another how many more shots they had to go. A few bragged that they were repeaters in this dump. Some came back constantly in order to keep out of combat, where they’d only get killed. But most held up their hands over their coffee:
— No sir! I ain’t never comin back to this concentration camp!
— Wait till ya get outside the barbed wire, the minority said. An ya meet another signorina an she shakes it at ya. That’s all it takes. . . . You’ll be back.
Over their coffee he and his buddy lit cigarettes and looked at each other. All the meals were the same here. Three a day. Then you waited for your next shot. They went outside into the sunlight and dunked their mess gear into the GI cans of scalding soapy and clear water. The tent flaps were up all over the area now; the new sunlight made weird curlicues of the monuments, mosaics, and shafts of Mussolini’s fair grounds at Bagnoli.
After breakfast he made up his cot, rolled up his mosquito netting, and waited for his turn for the broom to come by him. Bed-making was easy, for he had two GI blankets, nothing more; sometimes it got chilly in the early mornings at Bagnoli in August, 1944. Then he’d sweep the kittens of dust from under his cot into the aisle and would pass the broom to the Negro on his right. He knew now who were the officers in the ward, in spite of the incognito of their green fatigues, because when the morning sweeping was in progress they leaned against the wall and tried to look nonchalant.
— Hey, sirrrr, the pfc wardboy called to one, there’s no rank in a syph ward.
After the policing he’d lie on his cot and wait for the doctor to come. Each morning they showed themselves to this medical officer, who discharged those who were going out that day. For others he prescribed circumcisions or made little notes in their Syphilis Registers. Each had his own little scrapbook in which the progress of his disease was recorded. This doctor felt their glands or said:
— Rash fading nicely, isn’t she?
He was a fat little captain with a face like a doughnut. His eyes had frozen into a perpetual revulsion from looking at men’s genitals and thinking in terms of spirochetes and gonococci. He was forever tearing off his rubber gloves, washing his hands, and peeling on the gloves again. Each morning he made a set speech to those who were going out upon completion of their sixtieth shot:
— Ninety percent of you men will be permanently cured . . . if you don’t get another case. . . . And if you do have a relapse, there’s always that nice long-term treatment with mapharsen and arsenic. . . . In three months come back for your spinal.
It was always the mention of the spinal tap that sent a shiver and a whispering through the rest of the ward, who always listened to the doctor’s baccalaureate sermons even when they weren’t included in them. The Negroes, at that word spinal, would roll their eyes and gibber at one another:
— No, boy, ah ain’t takin no spahnal . . . no suh . . . if dey ties me to dis cot, ah still won’t take no spahnal. Dat needle sometimes slips and dere you is, paaaaahlahzed for de rest o yo natcherl life. No spahnal fo me. . . .
Hearing this as he lay on his cot waiting for the captain to call out his name for the morning checkup, he’d imagine the needle at the base of his spine, the slip as the target was missed, and all his nerves jolting into paralysis.
Or sometimes to relieve the tedium of his morning examinations, the probing of groins and armpits, the questioning about the state of the chancre, the medical captain would bring specialists into the ward with him, colonels who peered at the patients as though they were guinea pigs.
— Look, colonel, sir, he had a rare kind of rash. I had him photographed. With a mask, of course. . . .
— This man insists he never had a primary lesion. . . .
There was everyone on that ward: Negroes, Ayrabs, Italians fighting for the Allies, one Hawaiian Japanese. They waited three hours, took their shot, then waited again. They all wore the green fatigues with VD painted on the back. They all lived eight days inside the b
arbed wire. They all sat on the long planks in the mess.
After the medical inspection he was free till 0900 hours, the time of the next injection. He’d take his towel, razor, and toothbrush and go out into the sunlit courtyard where the patients walked. He crossed the area of the tents of the common ordinary twenty-four-hour patients who were here for only four shots. He passed also the barbed wire within the barbed wire where prisoners with VD were treated under the eyes of their individual MP’s. These real prisoners slept on the ground under the pup tents, issuing forth every three hours with their armed guard to get nipped by the penicillin needle. Then he’d arrive at the latrines, these too in sheds. Then began his one joy of the day. He’d brush his teeth and shave. Then he’d strip away the hateful green fatigues with the advertising on the back and step under the shower. He’d smear his long dark body with soap and let the tepid water gush over his flesh. At such moments he still thought of Marisa’s arms that had given him this death. He’d lift his hoarse voice and sing an Italian song she’d taught him. For between the soapsuds and the penicillin something was being washed away from and out of him.
Close to 1500 hours he was lying on his cot reading a comic book. His thighs were crossed and his boots were up on the rack for his mosquito netting. He was sleepy, but it was almost time for the next needle. In the cots near him were people different from those who’d been here when he came a week ago. In this ward life went on by relays, constant as to the disease, but different in respect to personalities. He laid down his comic book, aware that someone was coming toward him. It was the gentian-eyed sergeant of the rosters. He sighed. The sergeant was carrying a parcel wrapped in wax paper.
— You again?
— You weren’t very glad to see me, the sergeant said, sitting on the edge of the cot and undoing a package.
— A roast-beef sandwich. . . . Are ya gonna eat it right here in front of me?
— It’s for you. We get good chow in the detachment mess. You must be tired of that C-ration they give you three times a day. I got the mess sergeant to make this up for me special. I didn’t tell him I was giving it to a friend.
— Well, thanks. . . .
He sank his teeth into the hot red flesh. The soft bread rose round his gums in a contrast of textures and tastes.
— Ya shouldn’t bother with me, he said. I’m just another syphilitic.
— You’re not, the sergeant said.
He edged over on his cot to make room for the sergeant. He buried his face in the roast-beef sandwich to finish it, but he knew that those strange blue eyes were on his face. It made him squeamish to be watched while he was eating.
— Ya got some ax to grind with me, he said again, putting the crusts into the wax paper.
— Why? the sergeant asked brightly. You don’t know me . . . yet.
— Well, it don’t add up somehow, he said, shaking his head and placing his boots again on the rack for mosquito netting. Ya must meet thousands of VD’s comin through here for their shots. I’m just another one with the dirty bug . . .
— I’ve watched half the Fifth Army taking shots, the sergeant said. But when I saw you, I knew you were different.
— I snafu’d just like the rest of them, he said warily.
Besides reminding him of Marisa, something in this sergeant’s blue eyes touched him, the way a lame bird would.
— You should come out to dinner with me once in a while, the sergeant said. I know a black market restaurant on Via Chiaia. Do you like pasta asciutta?
The word thrilled him with a pang of remembrance. He seemed to be with Marisa in a cramped kitchen in Sezione San Ferdinando, she with an apron on standing over the stove. In those days he’d come up behind her and slip his hands over her loins. And she’d turn her face to be kissed. . . .
— Ya don’t wanta be bothered with me, he said, wrenching himself from this memory. I’m no good. Can’t even take care of myself. Accordin to the posters the army puts out, I can never get married now nor have kids. I’m just a old piecea meat gatherin flies in the streets.
— You’ll get cured, the sergeant said. Just don’t think you are till you know you are, that’s all. . . . But you are different. . . . I need a friend, you see. Being a dancer has given me an unreal view of life. I’m so fed up with the arty boys. I want to know just one real person. You’re good and you’re decent. . . . I’m so bored with sitting around in cliques and drinking and talking poetry and scandal. . . . Do you like to swim? We could go to Torregaveta and Mondragone for sun baths . . .
— I don’t get much time off, he said.
— I need a friend who’s real, the sergeant continued softly. Someone who lives quietly and thoroughly without pointing out that he’s doing it. I’m fed up with the idea of sex without love and ideas without deeds. . . . You shouldn’t run with these Neapolitan girls . . . the ones, on Via Roma, I mean. They don’t offer you anything without a price. There are nice Italian girls, but you won’t stand a chance of meeting any . . .
— When a guy needs a woman, he said, he needs a woman . . .
— That’s the great old myth of the American male, the sergeant said wearily, picking up the wax paper from the cot. And you see what you’ve got out of it. . . . Look at yourself in the mirror sometimes. That fine coffee-colored skin you’ve got and your black eyebrows and your straight nose. You’re a very good-looking man . . . too swell to end up with syphilis from some bitch who didn’t give a shit for you. . . . When I first saw you, it was like looking at a statue covered with mud . . .
— I was crazy about Marisa, he said, surprised that he wasn’t sore at this sergeant.
— I suppose you thought you were, the sergeant said. That’s all part of the mystery and the pain of life to me . . .
— Say, he said, sitting up suddenly, don’t you like women?
— When I don’t see through them, the sergeant said, rising from the cot. Will you come to dinner with me next week? Then we can go to the ballet at the San Carlo. The Italians can’t dance, but they call it ballet anyhow. . . . Will you come?
— I don’t stand to lose nothin, he replied, trying not to sound calculating. I won’t be lookin at no women for some time now . . .
— You’re crazy if you do, the sergeant said hotly. And do you think it would be fair to take any chances? Right now you’re not infectious, but you can never be sure until you’ve had your spinal. It can come back on you at any time. Would you want to pass it on to somebody else?
— I been thinkin of that, he said. I ain’t so low that I’d do to another girl what Marisa done for me.
— She’s doing it for others right now.
— No, he said, closing his eyes. I don’t believe that.
— Did you give her name on the questionnaire?
— Get out.
The sergeant with his bright hair and blue eyes and delicate figure stood irresolutely at the foot of the cot. He seemed to want to stay and to go. He looked almost as if Marisa had dressed herself in GI suntans and a blond tight wig.
— Willya do somethin for me? he asked, already knowing the answer. He didn’t believe in putting friends to the test, but he had an overpowering compulsion to do this. Bring me some of that penicillin?
— What for? the sergeant asked in a quick whisper. Do you want to sell it? Do you know what an ampoule of penicillin is worth on the black market? What do you want it for?
— I ain’t gonna sell it, he answered stiffly. I just want it for myself . . . like people keep their appendixes and tonsils in a jar.
The sergeant shot a swift look along the ward, where as usual the patients were snoring on their cots or playing cards. He darted off. Shortly he was back carrying something in the same wax paper.
— You realize, the sergeant said, passing the wax paper into his hand, that if anybody finds out about this, they’ll throw the book and the DTC at me . . .
— I ain’t never done no one dirt in all my life, he replied, returning the sergeant’s stare.
The ampoule with its amber fluid was still icy and misted from the refrigerator. He thrust it into the chamois bag containing his toilet articles.
— What a world, the sergeant said. The mold of yeast turns out to be more precious than gold. . . . I’ve got to go, boy. It’s almost time for the bell. . . . Meet you day after tomorrow at 1900 hours in the portico of the San Carlo.
— Okay, he answered.
A little later the electric bell began to split the air. He went out to stand in the second line. He had two more shots to go. Fiftynine, sixty.
Next morning when the 0600 bell pealed for shots and the shadowy men in the first orange of dawn groped from under their mosquito netting into their fatigues, he remembered and smiled to himself and turned over on his other shoulder. His butt and arms still felt like hamburg, but it didn’t matter any more now.
— Hey, Joe, the guy from the next bed was prodding him, get out of that fartsack and take your needle.
— Ah, go way, he murmured, I had my sixtieth.
He fell back into a delicious sleep during which he sensed an electric excitement in his belly. He awoke again when the others came trooping back from breakfast with their dripping mess kits.
— Powdered eggs? he asked dreamily.
After a while without hurrying he got out from under his blankets, made his cot, and swept beneath it. He had a sense of victory over all the others, bending over their housekeeping with the painted letters VD on their backs rippling as the muscles in their shoulders moved. He felt particularly affectionate toward a tiny Negro two cots over who’d just come in.
— Boy, ah’s scared. Does them needles hurt much?
— Ya’ll faint sixty times, he answered, sweeping under the tiny Negro’s cot.
— O Lawd, the Negro said, fainting on his blankets.
The Gallery Page 39