by T. L. Gould
“Yeah, well, the Navy’s the best job I’ve ever had, and she wanted a whole hell of a lot more than I could give her.”
“How was the timber job?” he asked.
“Mostly hot,” I said, pleased that he had asked me anything. “The worst part was the spiders. Missouri tarantulas are big as hubcaps.”
Earl forced out a short laugh. It felt as though, for this moment, there were no assumptions, no physical differences, no comparisons, no competition. It was comfortable and natural, like talking with a stranger who suddenly becomes a good friend. We were just two kids talking about nothing.
“You ain’t seen a spider ’til you seen the ones in ’Nam!” Bobby Mac jumped in. “Seen one eat a gook’s head once! Dragged the gook’s helmet with it into a hole. We fed that spider gook parts once a week just so he’d leave us alone!” he howled.
“Dyou believe that and I will keese your ass!” Ski said.
“Now, ain’t that some shit!” Bobby Mac said. “The one thing we all got in common is his ass!”
“Speak for yourself,” Earl shot. “I ain’t got nothing in common with the non-combat motherfucker. He’s just a chicken-shit Navy coward, that’s what he is.”
I was shocked back into the reality of Earl’s hate for me.
“Okay, Earl. Ain’t no way I can change a goddamn thing!” I shot back a little louder than I expected. “You want to hate me for having my arms and legs, go ahead.”
“I hate you for a lot of fucking reasons, Shoff,” Earl said in a cold, purposeful tone. “Your girlfriend was right. You ain’t got what it takes to be in the Corps. I wouldn’t want you near me in a Marine’s uniform.”
“Fuck you, Earl,” I said, without meaning it.
“Fuck you, Shoff. I know your kind. You’d probably turn your back and run as soon as it got a little tough.” A hard blast of air burst from the corner of his mouth.
“Okay, Earl. Fuck you, too!” This time I meant it, and it felt good. “And don’t come to me when you need someone to help you stand on your own two feet!”
“Why, you son of a bitch, I ought to come over there and choke the living shit out of you!” he yelled.
“Well, come on over if you think you’re man enough!” I shouted back, the anger taking over any good sense.
Earl jumped to his chair and headed toward me at breakneck speed. He was pissed at the world, and I had ignited the fury burning in his blood. His eyes were fixed on me like guided missiles. The air was blowing from the corner of his mouth with short, hard blasts like an overloaded steam cooker. I reached for the shit pot on the nightstand, and as I swung wildly in his direction, it slipped and went clanging to the floor.
Ski raised his head to say something, but nothing came out.
Earl Ray whirled into the space between Ski and me and lunged forward, grabbing my left arm with his vise-like grip. He tried to pull me from the bed, but I had managed to grab the trapeze and hold on for dear life.
The traction pin through my left knee twisted from the strain and tore the flesh. The weights and pulleys clambered like old pots and pans. My catheter tube tightened from the strain and snapped out onto the sheet. It felt like someone had tried to pull my bladder out through my dick.
With all the strength I could muster, I threw my head and shoulders back onto the bed, my face contorted from the pain. Earl’s grip was now around my neck, squeezing it like a coiled snake.
I managed to get any words out that I could.
“I ain’t going to fight you, Earl!” I said, muffled and choked, my head hanging over the side of the bed, almost in his lap.
“C’mon Shoff!” he said. “Show me what you got!”
“I’m not going to hit you, Earl!” I garbled as spit flew with every word.
“You can’t take a man with only one arm? What kind of pussy are you?”
“I’m not going to fight you!” The veins in my face were popping out like worms, and snot was bubbling from my nostrils.
“You’re a chicken shit!” he said. “You can’t hit a guy with no legs? C’mon, non-combat motherfucker! Here’s your chance!”
The stump of his left arm was instinctively throwing an invisible fist through the air at my face. Ski was trying to reach Earl, but couldn’t lift his heavy legs. Bobby Mac was laughing at Earl’s empty punches.
“I ain’t going to hit you, Earl!” I garbled, dry heaving.
Earl’s grip loosened and his wheelchair suddenly flew backward. Doc Miller had come running from the other end of the ward, grabbed Earl’s chair by the hand grips and jettisoned the two-wheeler, and Earl Ray passed the end of Ski’s bed.
“You stay right here, Earl!” Doc commanded. “Jesus Christ! What’s the matter with you two? Let’s see what the hell we’ve got here,” he said, swabbing the blood flowing from the tear just below my knee. “Shit! It’s going to need a couple of stitches. How’s the leg feel inside, Shoff?”
“It’s okay, Doc,” I said.
Doc hurried over to the supply cabinet and returned to my bleeding leg.
“Sorry, Doc, I fell out of bed trying to get the shit pot off the floor,” I said.
“What?” he said with a puzzled look.
“Well, you know, I dropped it on the floor, and I was just trying to get it when I fell over the edge of the bed. You were really busy and I…”
“Next time, let me get the shit pot off the floor for you,” Earl Ray shot in as he wheeled away.
Doc turned to Ski as if trying to clear his thoughts. Ski gave him a toothless smile.
“You better get me a piss pot, Doc. I’m going to need it.”
“What do you mean?” Doc asked.
I reached under the sheet and held up the dangling catheter end. It was gurgling piss and blood onto the sheets.
“Shit,” Doc said.
“Now, ain’t that some shit!” Bobby Mac laughed. “I thought I left all the bullshit back in ’Nam!”
“Just let eet go, man,” Ski said.
“I’ve let a whole lot worse shit go than this little spat,” Bobby Mac replied. “Seen a gook get himself blown to shit. We threw him into a wired hole just to count the pieces left over!” he laughed. “Arms and legs and shit flying everywhere. This here is just two guys getting to know each other.”
My neck was beet red with a large bruise on the right side. Doc brought over a cold wash rag. The cold and wet felt good, almost as good as the morphine.
I wanted Earl Ray Higgins to feel good about what he had done. I wanted Earl Ray to know the deep satisfaction within me that a Marine had nearly squeezed my head into unconsciousness.
I rubbed the side of my neck with pride, as if it were a combat wound. I didn’t want the redness or the bruising to go away. I wanted to keep it forever—wear it like a Purple Heart.
Earl was watching from the incline of his bed. A broad smile came over his face, and he blew a puff of air up from the corner of his mouth.
“Damn, Shoff, that felt good.”
“Glad I could help.”
“It ain’t over, you know,” he said as he turned on his side, facing away.
The Visitor
JENNIFER ANN COOLEY was coming to visit. She was runner-up homecoming queen, honor society student, and senior yearbook photographer at Glenview High in Parsons, Florida. She and Earl Ray Higgins had been voted the “couple most likely to marry.” They had been inseparable their senior year, but they knew their plans for marriage would have to wait until Earl Ray was out of the Marine Corps.
Earl Ray came from a family of two generations of Marines, and he couldn’t wait to take his place in the family legacy. The day he first donned his Marine Corps dress blues was the proudest day of his life, and Jennifer radiated with affection and admiration.
They had it all planned out; Jennifer would study photography at the local community college and work part-time modeling for a studio in Miami. After Earl Ray finished boot camp, she would join him at his duty station somewhere in Germany, Japan,
or maybe even California.
Earl and Jennifer talked three or four times a week on the portable telephone that was rolled about the ward on a wheeled stand. Phone jacks had been installed along the wall, and a long phone cord strung its way across and over mine and Ski’s beds for Earl’s calls. He would encircle his bed with the privacy curtain normally used for bedpan seclusion or private talks with Dr. Donnolly. We would give Earl every effort at privacy and respect, but often, their voices carried over the curtain.
“I don’t care, Earl. I love you.”
“You love another Earl, Jen. Someone else. I’m not the person you knew before. I’m not the same.”
“You’re you, Earl. Nothing can change who you are. You can’t tell me I don’t love you. How can you say that?”
“You’ve talked with my mother, right, Jen? You know how bad it is?”
“You haven’t changed, Earl. Your mother told me so.”
“You think the two of you have it worked out? You think you’re ready?”
“How many times do we have to go over this, Earl? You told me last week it would be okay for me to come see you. Earl, I miss you. I can’t be without you. Don’t you understand? Earl, help me, please!”
“Jen, you’re the only thing keeping me sane. I love you, too, Jen. Maybe I’m still not ready. Did you ever think of that?”
“We have to do this together, Earl. I need to be with you. I need you to believe in me.”
The snap from a blast of air from Earl Ray’s lips came over the curtains.
There was a long silence.
“Okay, Jen. Come up as soon as you can…I’m ready.”
It would be a Saturday, when the fewest number of people would be scuffling about the ward, and things were somewhat undisturbed. New incoming were rarely brought in on the weekends, and the little old ladies with their carts came only once a day, if at all.
The uneasiness had swelled like a blister on the ward the night before Jennifer Cooley was coming up. Jennifer had called Earl a little after 2000 hours to let him know she had made it to Philadelphia and to her motel. Her mother had made the flight but wasn’t coming to the hospital in the morning. She would come over in the afternoon, after Earl and Jen had had their time together. Jennifer and her mother were going to have breakfast, and Jennifer would be at the hospital around ten. She had her own room.
Earl Ray rolled and tossed around in his bed.
“Anydthing you want to talk about?” Ski said, breaking the silence.
“No. Just want to lay here.”
“Just get a needle, man.”
“Not a bad idea.”
The entire ward slept a little uneasy, and Saturday morning came quickly. Earl Ray Higgins was sitting up in his bed. The short-sleeved pajama top exposed the stump of his left arm, his left half leg was straight outward, and his three-quarter right leg was bent at the knee with the wrapped stump angled slightly toward the center of the bed. His wheelchair was parked flush against the beige cabinet, ready for his first walk with Jennifer in almost a year.
Earl had spent nearly two hours getting ready. First, civilian clothes; no, that wasn’t right. Then, his uniform, but it made him feel self-conscious. After a quick shower, a close shave, English Leather, a set of clean sheets, and a clean blanket, Earl decided the pinstripe pajamas were more fitting. He could change into his uniform later, maybe in Jen’s room at the motel.
Jennifer phoned around nine o’clock, excited and nervous, telling Earl about her dream last night. She was on her way.
Earl Ray had taken Jennifer’s high school senior year picture out sometime in the early morning and placed the 8 x 10 color photo on top of his cabinet. It was the first time any one of us had seen it. She was beautiful.
It was 9:30, and every face capable was turned toward the brown double doors.
“Turn your radio on, dammit!” Earl demanded. “The quiet is killing all of us.”
I reached over to the nightstand, and the radio crackled over the silence.
“Not too loud.” Earl was fidgeting, wrestling with the trapeze bar gripped in his right hand. A short blast of air pushed up from his mouth.
9:45 and we couldn’t take it. A lot of guys had refused the after-breakfast morphine or Demerol, wanting to savor this moment for all it was going to be. Everyone could see himself in Earl Ray this morning. Their hearts pounding, their guts turned inside out. Their minds racing through the memories of the days before leaving home, fast forwarding to the ground exploding beneath them, and now to the reunion with the most beautiful person in their world. The right-side door of the brown double doors began opening slowly, and before the gap was a foot wide, Jennifer Ann Cooley squeezed through.
She looked just like one of those dancers on Hullabaloo: long, straight, silky blonde hair, green and yellow miniskirt, white go-go boots, and a smile made for photographs.
The door closed slowly behind her as she stepped firmly inside. Her face grimaced slightly as she skirmished with the strong antiseptic smell of the ward.
As she inched her way forward, Jennifer Ann Cooley glanced to her left, to her right, and left again, wanting for the familiar embrace of her only lover. She slowed her steps as she made her way past the motionless faces.
Her studied gaze fixed on the steel-blue eyes of the boy in the fifth bed on the right. She stepped closer to his side.
Earl Ray blew air upward from his cursed lips, his face reddened. He tightened his grip on the trapeze, and his right arm began trembling. Jennifer stood silent, her bare legs leaning against the edge of Earl’s bed; their eyes locked.
“Earl.” Her soft, pink lips barely formed the word. Tears trickled down to the corners of her smile. “Oh, Earl.”
Earl couldn’t speak. He couldn’t loosen his grip. His right hand was squeezed so tight it was almost welded to the trapeze bar. His arm and shoulder began shaking uncontrollably. His brain was telling his hand to let go, but his fist only squeezed tighter.
C’mon, let go. Let go of the bar! Put your arm around her. Let go!
The bed was quaking from the uncontrollable spasms.
And it erupted out of Earl like a shrill vomit.
“Let go of the fucking bar!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Jennifer’s pink smile collapsed, her eyes glassed over, and her cheeks drained to a pale gray. An unrecognizable sound escaped from somewhere within her. It was a primal squeal, muted and garbled, like the last breath of a dying bird. Her knees buckled as she reached out with both hands.
“I’m here, Earl.” The words barely made it out before she slumped down, fainted, and crashed her head against the bed frame.
Jennifer Ann Cooley lay half-conscious on the floor, her head bleeding. Earl lunged onto his stomach, leaning on the stump of his left arm, pushing as hard as he could, unable to reach her.
The entire ward recoiled, jerking toward the helpless couple, unable to get free from our orthopedic shackles.
The head corpsman on duty scrambled from the nurses’ station and was hunched over Jennifer with a wad of cotton, dabbing the cut high on her forehead.
“Get over here, and help me get her into this chair!” he yelled to the other corpsman who was still sitting behind the desk.
The two lifted her into Earl’s wheelchair; still barely conscious, her head slumped and rolled like a rag doll, her arms limp on her lap.
Earl crawled on his stomach to the bottom of the bed, reaching out to Jennifer just far enough to feel her hair slide through his fingers.
“We have to get her down to emergency, Earl,” the corpsman said. “She’s going to need a doctor to make sure she’s okay. This cut’s probably going to take a few stitches. I’ll let you know when she’s ready to come back up.”
The corpsman and Jennifer Ann Cooley disappeared through the brown double doors.
Ward 2B lay silent and scared. The other corpsman just stood in the center aisle like a small child in front of Santa Claus for the first time. The feelin
g of the ward lay cavernous around him. I reached over and turned the knob and shut off the radio.
An hour later, the double doors banged open. The corpsman pushed Earl Ray’s empty wheelchair onto the ward and locked it in place at the foot of Earl’s bed.
“She’s doing fine, Earl,” he said. “The doctor on duty wants her under observation for a couple of hours. I’ll go down and check on her when I get off my shift.”
The two hours passed and there was no word about Jennifer.
“I’ll go down and see what I can find out,” the corpsman said.
Twenty minutes later, he was back on the ward.
“The doctor in the ER says she’s doing fine. He sent her back to the motel to rest. You should hear from her tomorrow.”
Late Sunday evening, Jennifer Ann Cooley’s mother phoned Earl Ray from her home in Parsons, Florida. Mrs. Cooley thought it would be best for Jennifer to rest at home.
“Jennifer is doing fine, Earl, and there was no serious injury. No, she couldn’t come to the phone, she still isn’t feeling well. She will call you as soon as she feels better. She promised.”
H.M.F.I.C.
MONDAY EVENING CHOW was like eating quicksand. The ward had been quiet most of the day, as every one of us desperately avoided talking about the past two days.
“Fuck ’em! Fuck ’em all! I don’t give a shit about any of ’em!” They were the first words Earl had said since the phone call from Jennifer’s mother Sunday evening. “I didn’t need their help in ’Nam and I sure as hell don’t need it now. They can kiss my ass! All of you can kiss my ass!”
Ski was the first to say something. “Did Marines help dyou in ’Nam?”
“That’s a stupid fucking question. You got any more like that one?” Earl was sitting up with the head of his bed cranked at about 45 degrees.
“Well then, Madrines are going to help dyou now.” Ski was lying almost flat, looking at the ceiling.
“What the fuck you gonna do? Wipe my ass the rest of my life?” He rolled over, trying to get his ass facing Ski, pointing to it with the stump of his left arm.
“No. And don’t expect anyone to keese it either!” Before Earl could say anything, Ski headed him off. “Deed you get letters from Jendeefer in ’Nam?”