by T. L. Gould
The Hole in the Fence
THE PHILADELPHIA NAVAL Hospital main gate was guarded twenty-four hours a day by Marine military police and Navy shore patrol, and access was strictly controlled. Military staff and civilian employees required both vehicle and personal identification that was presented at the gate. Visitors were required to sign in and obtain temporary passes.
The Shore Patrol and MPs gave their combat-wounded comrades unrestricted “don’t stop, don’t look” passage in and out. Once the guards recognized one of the passengers as a patient, a sharp salute, most often accompanied with a smile, waved the car and all occupants through.
To get to the front gate from Q Ward was a real hike. By wheelchair, it could take almost fifteen minutes. On crutches with new legs, it could take more than half an hour, and it would leave a guy nearly exhausted. No one wanted to show up at a bar or a girlfriend’s place already tired and with a shirt soaked with sweat.
The entire perimeter of the hospital, like all military facilities, was completely surrounded by cyclone fencing with barbed wire spiraled along its top like a blade-ridden slinky. Only one entrance allowed for patients, civilians, or privately owned vehicles entering or leaving the grounds.
The only way to avoid the strenuous and exhausting maze of getting to the front gate, and the razor wire on top of the fence, was to go through it. Moose commandeered a pair of wire cutters, and under the cover of darkness one night, three of us slipped out the side doors of Q Ward and headed across the grassy area. We squeezed behind one of the large oak trees growing against the fence and cut a hole about four feet high and two feet wide. Leaving the fence links intact at the left side of the hole, we could use it like a door, securing it back in place with a couple of pieces of wire.
We were almost certain, even with the cover of the oak tree and the stopgap wire hinges, that the hole in the fence had been discovered. We saw a couple of MPs walking the perimeter one day, and one of them had motioned in the direction of the tree and the hole. They both smiled and just walked on.
The hole in the fence became more than a shortcut. For those of us who couldn’t get home, or didn’t want to, it was an escape hatch and a launch point for the temporary freedom waiting in the nearby streets of South Philly.
“C’mon Big Al, let’s go out and get a few beers,” I said.
Big Al cringed in his rocking horse and looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
“Yeah, me and you—and this anchor on my ass,” he said.
“You don’t need that rocking horse, you got me,” I smiled.
“What do you mean?” he asked as he shifted with his crutches, rocking slightly backward.
“Just what I said.”
Big Al smiled like a kid on a new bicycle as I stood upright, his arms around my neck, his half body dangling just above my waist, and we headed toward the hole in the fence.
I sat on the ground, Big Al slid from my shoulders, and he squirmed through the hole. Once on the other side, and with the wire door secured, I got down on my knees and Big Al grabbed the back of my shirt, pulled himself up around my neck, and we were off.
We went north and turned left at the first street corner. Two short blocks later, we were standing in front of the Rainbow Bar and Grille, just across the street from the back end of the hospital grounds.
“Hell of a name for a bar, ain’t it?” I said.
“Doesn’t matter to me if they name it Hell,” Big Al laughed. “Just get me inside!”
We went as far as the third booth and Big Al slid from my shoulders onto the soft, green, plastic-covered seat. I limped to the bar and ordered us each a pitcher of beer.
The smoky-brown walls were layered with neon beer signs; a large faded mirror hung on the wall over the two middle booths. A small stage with a brass pole in the center was tucked in the back corner. Red, yellow, blue, and green spotlights flashed onto the thick gold shag carpet on the dance platform. A jukebox set silent next to the empty stage.
“Let me get those for you,” a guy on a bar stool motioned.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Big Al smiled.
The girl on the stool at the far end of the bar took a sip from her drink, got up, and put a quarter in the jukebox.
“Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I Got Love in My Tummy” filled the speakers mounted on either side of the flashing lights. The girl stepped onto the stage, removed a loose miniskirt and shawl, and began dancing in her platform shoes, hot pants, and tube top.
The song faded out, and we applauded along with the five or six other patrons. The woman came over to our table and edged in next to Big Al.
She was pretty. Late twenties, blonde hair, nice breasts, great legs, and a sweet, sultry scent floated from her ivory skin.
She touched Big Al’s hand and flicked at his plastic hospital ID band with a long pink fingernail. She glanced down at the worn band on my left wrist.
“Nice to have you guys here,” she said.
Big Al squirmed a little, not taking his eyes off of her.
“Al,” he said with a firm handshake. “Everyone calls me Big Al.”
“Eva,” she said. “Not many guys from over there come in here.”
“This is Shoff,” he said, pointing at me.
“Nice to know you,” she replied, not letting go of Big Al’s hand. “Did you two walk all the way here? I mean…did you come all the way from the front?” Her eyes had fallen to Big Al’s torso and she blushed. “That’s a long way to…”
“It’s okay,” Big Al said. “We took a shortcut. Actually, we made us a shortcut,” he beamed.
“It’s really not that far,” I said. “We’re glad we found this place.”
“You two enjoy yourselves,” she said, getting up. “Come in anytime, my bar is open to you whenever you want.” She went back to her perch at the end of the bar and rejoined her waiting glass.
Big Al waved Eva over to our booth and gave her a dollar for the jukebox. She swayed for the next fifteen minutes as if it were our private dance. We finished a third pitcher of beer from an anonymous donor and decided it was time to start back.
“Thanks, Eva, and thanks to everyone for the beer!” Big Al shouted from his crouched position in the booth. “Hey, Shoff, I have to piss,” he whispered, looking at me as if he’d never taken a piss before.
“Well, let’s go take a look at the head and see what we can do,” I said.
I sat on the edge of the booth and everyone glanced sideways as Big Al locked his arms around my neck and shoulders. We staggered along the bar and disappeared into the one-stall, one-urinal men’s room. It was cramped and musty and reeked of bleach and old piss.
“Smells a little like home, doesn’t it?” Big Al laughed.
“Yeah, I’m getting homesick by the minute,” I laughed back.
Big Al slid off my back and grabbed the toilet lid with both hands. I unpinned the top of his diaper trousers, hung them on the door hook, and pulled off his underwear.
Al pissed a pitcher of beer and we got his clothes back on. He sat on the edge of the toilet while I took a piss in the urinal. I got on my knees on the sticky floor, Big Al climbed on, I washed my hands, and we reappeared through the dark blue door.
As we strolled past the bar, we shook a couple of hands and headed out the front door of the Rainbow Bar and Grille.
“Let me give you guys a lift,” someone said from a bar stool.
“No thanks,” Big Al said. “I’ve got mine.”
The alcohol sloshed in our brains as the dull neon rainbow of the bar light flashed overhead and onto the street, as if to point the direction home.
I stepped off the curb, lost my balance, and stumbled across to the sidewalk on the other side. I tripped over the curb, and Big Al and I were tossed against the cyclone fence. We lay in a heap, laughing.
A police cruiser had just turned the corner and pulled quickly up to the curb. Two cops got out and were standing over us, one with his nightstick out.
“What the hell?” the taller one said.
They knew in a second who we were, or at least what we were.
“You guys okay?” the shorter one asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “How ’bout you, Big Al?”
“I’m doing great!” he laughed.
“Big Al, huh?” the tall one said with a smile. “You guys been in the Rainbow?”
“Yep. Been there three pitchers’ worth,” I said.
“That’s three pitchers each,” Big Al bragged.
“You guys old enough to drink?” the taller cop asked.
“Jesus, man, you ain’t going to bust us for having a beer?” Big Al slurred.
“Are you shittin’ me?” I blurted.
“Hold on, now,” he laughed. “Just kidding.”
The cop noticed Eva watching through the glass door of the Rainbow and gave her a smile. She smiled back with relief and disappeared into the darkness of the bar.
“Let’s see,” the shorter one said as he slid Big Al’s wristband around and lowered his flashlight. “You wearing one of these too?” he asked, searching my arm with the beam.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How did you guys get over here, anyway?” the tall one asked.
“We walked!” Big Al said proudly.
“Why don’t you guys get in the squad car? We’ll get you back before you hurt yourselves,” he chuckled.
The cruiser stopped at the front gate, and the MP stooped down and peered into the open driver’s-side window. “What’s up, officer?”
“We got two of your buddies here. Just giving them a lift,” the driver cop said. “How do we get to Q Ward?”
They dropped us off at the side of Q, and the cops saluted as they pulled away. Big Al and I, his arms clinging to my neck, stumbled up the two concrete steps onto the patio and through the double doors back into our home.
The next morning, we took our regular dose of pain pills and gathered in the circle of wheelchairs with our buddies.
“Where did you guys go last night?” Moose asked.
“We found a place just around the corner,” Big Al said. “The Rainbow Bar and Grille. Nice lady over there…real nice.”
“That’s a hell of a name for a bar,” Earl Ray grumbled.
“Like I told Shoff, they could call it Hell for all I care. It’s real close, they got cold beer, and Eva is my kind of woman.”
“Any woman is your kind of woman,” Bobby Mac crowed.
“Not the kind of woman you’re thinking of,” Big Al said. “She gives a shit.”
“Ain’t no woman gives a shit,” Earl Ray said.
“Why don’t you find out for yourself?” Big Al smiled.
“Yeah, right. Like I’m going to walk in there and some broad you met at a bar is going to give a shit about me.”
“Well, you ain’t exactly going to walk in there,” Big Al grinned. “And she ain’t some broad. If you got out once in a while, you’d see they ain’t all broads.” Big Al churned his wheelchair side to side.
“Why did she take a liking to your ass? It ain’t like you got one,” Earl Ray grinned.
“She’s just that way. Ain’t that right, Shoff?”
“First woman I’ve ever known that gives a shit. She’s real, Earl. She owns the place. Came right over to us and sat down by Big Al.”
“She’s a good dancer, too,” Big Al shot in.
“Her name is Eva and she dances, too?” Roger smirked.
“That’s right, smartass. And she bought us each a pitcher of beer.”
“So where is this Rainbow?” Earl Ray asked.
“About three blocks down from the hole. Shoff and I made it in less than ten minutes. It took us longer to get back—and that was in a cop car.”
“Dyou guys were brought back in a cop car?” Ski stammered.
“Right up to the side doors there,” Big Al said with his big grin.
“Ain’t that some shit. Our boys here got a ride home with the by-God fucking law! Sounds just like my old man.” Bobby Mac barked.
Big Al and I took turns telling parts of the story from last night, and Earl Ray listened with a bit of curiosity and a load of skepticism.
“Okay. We’re all going over to the Rainbow Bar and Grille this Friday,” Moose commanded. “That a deal?”
“Why wait for Friday?” Big Al exclaimed. “What the hell do we care what day we go? I say we go tonight.”
It didn’t take much to get Bobby Mac, Roger, and Ski to agree. We finally convinced Earl Ray to go, but with one condition: if he didn’t like it, we would all leave.
Pappy came by around three o’clock for his Sunday beer run to New Jersey.
“Hell yes, I’ll take you over there. What time you coming back?”
“We’re not sure,” Moose said.
“I could stop by on my way back from Jersey.”
“We may need to have you hang out for a few minutes. That okay with you?”
“I go where you go,” Pappy said.
Ski put on his right half leg; Moose put on his left half leg and decided against the arm. Earl Ray felt more comfortable with a pair of crutches, his right half leg, the full left leg, and decided against the pincer arm. He left it hanging over the foot of his bunk. Bobby Mac couldn’t wait to show off his rubber hand.
Moose, Earl Ray, and Ski climbed into Pappy’s four-door Buick with Moose hanging out the back window, his three-quarter left arm holding tight to the door, the shamrock tattoo furled across his bulging bicep.
“If we beat you there, you’re buying all night!” he bellowed.
“We’ll have one gone before you get through the gates!” Bobby Mac bragged.
Bobby Mac and the Big Al-and-Shoff team went through the doors of the Rainbow Bar and Grille just as Pappy and his crew were turning the corner off South Broad. We hurried in and Big Al slid off my neck into the first booth, facing toward the back of the bar and Eva.
“Can we get four pitchers down here real quick?” he shouted.
“No time to even say hello? What’s the hurry?”
“We got three more coming in behind us. We beat ’em here, so they’re buying. Sorry, hello!” Big Al was smiling like an Olympic gold winner.
The other three clambered through the doorway as Eva delivered the pitchers full of beer and set them on the table. Roger squeezed in next to Big Al, Moose slid into the bench across from them, and a patron brought over a chair for Earl Ray. Bobby Mac and Ski perched at the end of the bar on the maroon plastic-covered stools.
“What took you so long?” Big Al said, grinning through the amber of the lifted pitcher.
“Yeah,” I said. “We got tired of waiting, but you still owe for the beers. Where’s Pappy?”
“He’s waiting in the car for a few minutes,” Moose said. “If we don’t like it here, he’ll take us back.”
“And why wouldn’t you like it here?” Eva said as she put her hand on Earl’s shoulder. Earl winced and craned his neck to look down at her hand. Eva didn’t move it. “Did these two tell you what a witch I am?” she asked, pointing to Big Al and me. “The name’s Eva. And you are?” she asked, taking Earl Ray’s hand from the table.
“Earl Ray,” he said, uneasy.
“Well, Earl Ray, you have a handsome face and wonderful blue eyes.”
“And your names?” she asked, turning to each guy as he pronounced his name as if it were roll call. Her soft brown eyes turned back to Earl Ray, and as she walked away, she blew a kiss to Big Al.
“I told you she gives a shit,” he said.
“We’ve been here two minutes,” Earl snapped.
“That’s all you need,” Big Al said.
“What do you think, Earl?” Moose asked. “You want to stay awhile?”
Earl Ray looked up and down the bar. It was early, and the only people here besides the guy who had brought the chair over were two older men, leaning forward from their bar stools, staring at half-empty bottles of beer.
&nb
sp; Earl shrugged his shoulders. “Got nothing else to do.”
Moose motioned to me to go out and let Pappy know we were staying and to have him come by on his way back from Jersey.
Pappy drove off and I returned to the booth, poured me a glass from a full pitcher, and joined Ski and Bobby Mac at the bar.
“Anybody need anything?” I asked without much meaning.
“Yeah,” Earl Ray said. “I want to see if that broad dances as good as Big Al says she does.”
“She ain’t a broad, Earl,” Big Al warned.
“Okay, okay,” Moose interrupted. “Shoff, go see if she can settle this, will you?”
“What’s up, Shoff?” Eva asked.
“Earl Ray swears you can’t dance.”
“Is that so? Seems Earl Ray needs a little personal attention. Does he have any particular song in mind? Or should I pick it?”
“I think he would be glad if you did the honors.”
Eva disappeared through a small doorway behind the bar.
“Must have scared the little lady,” Big Al chided.
“I knew she didn’t give a shit,” Earl Ray said.
I limped back down the length of the bar and took a stool next to Bobby Mac. He filled my glass from the pitcher the two guys at the bar had ordered for him and Ski.
“I think I could spend a lot of time here,” I said.
“You got that right,” Bobby Mac agreed. “Shit, it may be just a little too close. Look there, Shoff,” he said, pointing with his rubber hand.
Eva appeared out of the darkness of the dance platform, her bare shoulders pulsating a pale green and blue and yellow from the overhead spotlights. A low, tight lime green and blue bikini hugged her white hips; her breasts were barely covered by a solid lime green top with spaghetti straps.
“Hey, Bobby, could you keep an eye on my beer for me?” I asked. “I gotta see this.”
“Well, shit yeah. You couldn’t have asked anyone better,” he chuckled as he took his glass eyeball out and dropped it in my beer. It sank to the bottom, staring out at me.
“You are one crazy son of a bitch,” I said with affection.
“Beaucoup dinky dau!” he laughed.