How Can You Mend This Purple Heart (18 page)

We had a special Russian dinner of shrimp salad, steak, and garlic potatoes. It was the best meal I had eaten since going home for the two weeks' leave almost a year ago. After dinner, we sat in the modest living room, drank a little vodka, and I listened to Ski and his parents “talk” in Russian. It sounded more like a fight was about to break out. His mother would turn to me, smile, and say, “Eet's okay, hondey. Eet's okay! Dwe talk fambeely!”

Around eight o'clock, Ski and I changed into our uniforms, and I drove us in his dad's car to a bar several blocks away. The black and white peace signs and the psychedelic posters plastered over the front door and windows should have been a warning. But, what the hell, between the two of us, we had been in plenty of bars with real warning signs posted on the front door.

We must have looked like the Martians had landed. A black light over the inside doorway made my white uniform look like it was radioactive. The glow from my white jumper beamed like the headlight on a locomotive, lighting up every face within twenty feet.

The crowd was as psychedelic as the flashing lights and fluorescent-painted walls, tables, and chairs. Most of the guys had their long hair pulled back with headbands and the girls looked like cut-out dolls from
Hullabaloo
. Jimi Hendrix was blasting from the jukebox, and on the far back wall, a strobe light was pulsing, frantically trying to compete with the glow coming off my clothes.

Ski leaned his crutches against the bar, and we straddled the first two stools closest to the door.

“Can we get a couple of beers?” I asked.

“Need to see your ID,” the guy behind the bar said, leaning down until his shoulder-length hair touched the bar.

We held out our military ID cards and he pulled at his mustache and squished his eyes as if he had sucked on a persimmon.

“Can't serve you,” he puckered as he pointed over his shoulder to the twenty-one-minimum age sign. “You ain't old enough.”

“Ain't dthat some sheet,” Ski said. “They don't look any older than me,” he said, pointing into the crowd.

“Can't serve you,” he said again, leaning closer.

“Are you shittin' me?” I blurted out.

One of the long-hairs down the bar gave out a snort.

“You might try the VFW,” the persimmon guy puckered again. “It's just down…”

“I know where eet is,” Ski butted in. “Let's go, Shoff. Eet's beginning to smell in here anyway.”

We gave the three guys still staring at us a fuck-you look and headed for the VFW.

We were welcomed at the VFW is if we were blood relatives. The World War II and Korean War veterans sparred over who was buying the next drink. “Welcome home, young man,” they would all say to Ski. An older World War II veteran cautiously approached our table. He raised his hand and pointed to the Purple Heart ribbon on the chest of Ski's uniform. Tears blurred his vision as he leaned into Ski's face and gave him a hug. “Welcome home, young man.”

We stayed at the VFW until early morning, drinking everything that was put in front of us. We were never allowed to open our wallets; that would have been an insult. Ski was a hero to them, and I felt proud that he had asked me to his home and his hometown. I drank and listened, and admired my friend Ski from a short distance. I wanted so much to be like him.

We slept late on Sunday and finished up a huge breakfast around noon. We helped his mother clean up the dishes before we packed our duffle bags for the return drive to Philly.

Ski's mother put her arms around her son, sobbing and crying out in Russian. The sight of her only child supported on crutches, one leg burdened with a half cast, the other a dangling stump with the pant leg she had just pinned up around his knee, shook her hard. She stammered into the living room and threw herself down on the couch, the tears flowing.

Ski was so strong. He told his father in English that he would be home again soon and this time to stay. His father hugged him and turned to put his arms around me.

“Dtheese eeze my boy! He eeze ceetizen!”

Give Me a Hand

OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT FEW WEEKS
, Dr. Donnolly, Ms. Berry, and the prosthesis specialists had taken measurements for Ski, Moose, Bobby Mac, and Earl Ray's new limbs. One by one, they were measured, fitted, and set up with their temporary arms and legs. Sgt. Bobby Joyce got a shiny new glass eye and a really cool life-like rubber hand.

“Ain't this some shit!” he howled. “Hey Shoff, look at this, man.”

The artificial hand was made from a plaster cast of his thumb and stump. Bobby Mac's real thumb slipped into the hollow thumb of the soft rubber hand, fitting over his thumb and stump like a one-finger glove.

A “skin” portion went about a third of the way up his forearm and was secured with a zipper on the underside, pulling the hand tight around his arm. It was complete with fingernails, hair, and veins. Once he had the thing on and a shirtsleeve covering the arm and zipper portion, it was hard to tell it was fake.

“I can't fucking wait 'til Halloween!” he laughed. “Take my eyeball out, put this hand around my neck, and I'll win best costume, hands fucking down!” And look at this!” he laughed as he stuck his thumb out. “I can hitchhike anytime I want.”

“Let me see that thing,” I said.

“Here you go,” he said as he reached up and took his glass eyeball out and tossed it at me.

“Shit, man, you'll break this thing,” I said as the wet ball of glass almost slipped from my hands. “I meant I want to see that hand.”

“Why didn't you say so?” he laughed. “Here, I'll swap you.”

It was one of the neatest things any one of us had ever seen. The fingers were pliable enough to form into shapes and still rigid enough that Bobby Mac could hold small objects.

I curled the two inside and two outside fingers down toward the palm, leaving the middle finger sticking straight up.

“Hey, Bobby,” I said, raising his new hand up and giving him the finger. “You're the only guy I know that can say ‘go fuck yourself' and mean it!”

“Son of a bitch! If that ain't some shit!” he cried. “Look at this!” he said to everyone.

Doc Miller just shook his head. “Guess you won't need much training with that thing, will you, Bobby Mac?”

“Not as long as I've got Shoff around. Shit, I think we should get him one just to play with.”

“Let me see that thing,” Ski said.

“Oh, you want to hold my hand, huh, Ski? That's awfully sweet of you,” Bobby Mac howled.

“Keese my ass,” Ski said calmly. “Geeve it to me.”

Ski looked it over, zipped it, unzipped it, folded the fingers, and like everyone else, tried to put it on. It was like the glass slipper.

“Dyou better be careful where you put this thing. Somebody may not like it eef you don't keep your hands to yourself.” Ski smiled at his own wit.

“Shit, man, this works better than my left hand,” Bobby Mac laughed.

Bobby Mac's left hand had gradually gained muscle tone and strength with every passing week. The progress had been slowed by the surgery Dr. Donnolly had performed in an effort to save his left arm.

Bobby Mac's left forearm had been sewn to his stomach, just about three inches above the belly button. A large incision was made across the left side of his gut, and his forearm had been spliced into the skin. Over the course of a couple of months, new skin from his stomach had grown, forming a pouch that slung between Bobby Mac's stomach and his arm. It sagged between his arm and stomach like a bowl of thick pig fat. Once the pouch had grown about six inches wide, Dr. Donnolly used his magic to cut an incision along the base of the pouch near the stomach. The sheet of skin left hanging from the outside of his forearm was sewn to the other side, giving Bobby Mac a new patch of skin on his forearm.

Bobby Mac Joyce never joked about the pouch of skin stretching between his stomach and forearm. The threat and fear of an infection that could kill him within a week was enough to sober even Bobby's totally don't-give-a-shit demeanor.

The afternoon he returned from the surgery with the sagging pouch of skin covering his left forearm, Bobby Mac could laugh about it. “Hey Doc, you got any Alka-Seltzer back there? I'm hurting pretty bad.”

“Alka-Seltzer? What is it, Bobby?”

Holding up his left arm, he howled. “I've got one hell of a stomachache!”

Powder Your Face

WE WERE ALL MOVING ABOUT
the ward and the hospital with a combination of crutches and wheelchairs. We could opt to go down to the mess hall for meals or eat on the ward; most of the time, it was breakfast and lunch in the mess hall and evening chow on 2B.

Earl Ray continued to receive monthly letters from Jennifer. He would place the unopened letters in his nightstand, briefly enjoying the familiar fragrance as it escaped from the bottom drawer.

We had been weaned off the morphine, but Darvon and codeine were dispensed like M&M's. We were responsible for picking up our own prescriptions from the pharmacy. It was in the basement on the way to the rehab wards, and the corpsmen there had an open prescription for each of us. Sixty pills at a time, filled once a week or maybe even a little more often if we thought we needed it. Of course we needed it.

It was a must to stop by the pharmacy every Friday afternoon to pick up a fresh bottle—it was closed on weekends.

No one paid much attention to the number of pills we were taking. Anything we could do for ourselves was a welcome relief for the corpsmen and nurses. It was just one more thing they didn't have to think about.

The pills became so much a part of our lives we couldn't see how we could function without them. I was taking up to fifteen pills some days. Weekends were made for heavier use. We all knew the painkillers were soothing over a lot more than nagging aches and occasional jolts to nerve endings. It was obvious to some of us that we were hooked, but it was one way to deal with the constant incoming of broken bodies. Besides, it wasn't ever enough to be dangerous, it was just enough to stay buzzed all day. Get up in the morning, climb into the wheelchair, grab two or three pills, and just swallow them dry on the way to the mess hall.

One morning, I had nearly burned my lungs out with the stuff. It was seven o'clock, and we had about an hour before we would head to the mess hall. I had dropped three or four Darvon on the way from my bed to the bathroom. Before I could get the shaving cream on my face, I began coughing and choking. A couple of the pink and gray capsules had split open in my throat. A big white cloud of medicinal powder blew from my mouth and nostrils like dragon smoke. I panicked and sucked some of the white powder back into my lungs.

“Shit, Shoff. You okay?” Ski cried out.

“Water! Water,” I coughed.

I gargled the pasty mucous in my throat, swallowed the cud of painkiller, and caught my breath just as Doc Miller came in.

“You guys all right in here?” he asked, sticking his head around the green and white tile corner.

“Yeah, dwe are okay,” Ski said.

Doc gave us a sideways look. “Once you're out on the rehab wards, you got only each other to watch out for,” he warned.

It didn't stop me. It didn't stop any of us. It scared us, but it didn't stop us. The pills were as much a part of the healing as physical therapy, and it would be months before anyone would live a whole day without the glow and fog of a narcotic. The rehab wards would only make it easier.

The Twitch Is Gone

DOC MILLER CAME THROUGH
the double doors and walked the length of the ward with a nervous smile and a slower step. It wasn't unusual for him to drop by on a Saturday, but it was unusual for him to walk past the first few beds and not stop for a quick hello.

“How's it going, Doc?” Moose asked. “Shouldn't you be getting ready for a big night out?”

“Hey, it's just another Saturday. Besides, I'm taking two weeks' leave starting tomorrow. Remember? Got an early flight.”

“No one deserves eet more than you,” Ski said.

“Maybe by the time you get back, we'll be off 2B,” Bobby Mac smiled.

“Oh, I'm pretty sure of that,” Doc said.

Doc Miller sat on the edge of Ski's bed and for the next hour talked a little about each guy's time on the ward.

“Ain't none of us could have made it without you,” Roger said.

“Thanks. I know I couldn't have made it through some of the days if it hadn't been for you guys, too. If I'm lucky, maybe I can look you guys up when I get back.”

“What do you mean, when you get back?” Earl Ray asked. “How much time off did they give you?”

Doc Miller stood up, shook everyone's hand, and walked down the center aisle of Ward 2B. He disappeared through the brown double doors for the last time. Corpsman Third Class Randy Miller was off to join a combat unit in Vietnam.

Earl Ray stared down the length of the ward as the double doors closed behind Doc Miller. A sterile blankness masked his steel-blue eyes as he took in the scene that had become so familiar.

Bodies were lying in their mess of war—bloody leg stumps suspended in midair, arms pulling half bodies onto bedpans, wheelchairs drifting nowhere, IV bags dripping like liquid hour glasses. Ghosts in white uniforms weaving through the maze of metal bed frames. The sounds of pain and fear muffled through the air. The smell of iodine, alcohol, urine, and shit blended together like toxic smog.

Earl Ray grinned at the hazy blob. “If they only knew what they were getting ready for,” he said to himself.

It was at that moment, just like a warm rush of morphine, Earl Ray Higgins went numb to it all. The worry, the fear, the confusion—it was all so suddenly and pleasingly gone. His face flushed with the overwhelming relief from the amazing escape.

Earl Ray smiled at Moose and Ski with elation and a gleam in his eyes of pronounced freedom.