A Cup of Normal (12 page)

I wrote this while thinking about the human capacity to go forward and do good even when faced with great adversity.

LAST TOUR OF DUTY

Here’s another Lucky
!” the private yelled as he pushed the stretcher out of the medical transport truck.

Corey knew the Lucky could wait, but he gave the boy a quick glance anyway. The soldier had an abdomen full of shrapnel, yet he was calm, like all Luckys were. After a year of receiving Luckys, Corey knew this one would make it too.

“Put him over there by the other two,” Corey said. “And get the rest of these boys into O.R.”

The private nodded. Corey supposed he should have demanded a crisp “yes, sir!” but the men needed all the energy they had just to get the dozen wounded soldiers across the dirt to the makeshift operating room.

At least it wasn’t raining. Of course, when it wasn’t raining in Nam, the air hatched wings.

Corey strode into the scrub tent. The other doctors were already washing: Jim, the new guy, who still walked in a daze even though he’d been here three months; and soft-spoken Lonnie.

“Three Luckys.” Corey elbowed on the faucet and held his hands under the running water.

“How about the rest?” Lonnie asked.

“Nine. Let’s get to them as quickly as we can. Save the Luckys for last.” They were old words, as worn out as their scrubs, but just as necessary.

“Let’s get on it, gentlemen.”

They got on it. Cockroaches scurried from sheets as bodies were placed onto tables. Corey cut, cleaned, extracted, sewed. One boy after another: missing limbs, shrapnel, and burns that were still smoking. Of the four boys that came across his table, maybe two would make it. No matter how fast Corey worked, no matter how brilliantly he patched and sutured, their odds for survival were never any better. Death ran too close a race.

The last boy he didn’t bother to stitch. The medic had done a poor job stabilizing him. The wrap was too loose, and the soldier, Steve, by his grimy dogtags, had bled out his chance of survival on the ride over.

Corey shook his head and the nurse tugged the sheet over the soldier’s still face before the orderlies were back with a new body.

This one was a Lucky. Corey took a moment to look at his dogtags.

“Okay, Thomas, you’re going to be just fine.” Corey pushed his hands into new gloves, asked for the scissors, and cut the bandaging away from Thomas’ stomach.

The medic who placed these wraps knew his shit. The bandages were tight, clean, even. Even an intern could tell the medic, Billy Templin — the wounded called him Lucky — had a knack for doctoring.

Ten out of ten wounded men Billy bandaged on the front lines survived. It was a weird probability that Corey had refused to believe for the first six months, but now, eighteen months into his service here, any boy Lucky touched still didn’t die.

Corey tended two Luckys and Lonnie took the other one. The new guy, Jim, left without saying a word as soon as he was done with his last patient. Corey figured he’d go off to drink, or try to sleep out the heat. One of these days, Jim was going to wake up and realize this wasn’t a bad dream. Corey wasn’t looking forward to that day.

“Any more?” Corey asked the private who stood near the door.

The private shook his head. “That’s all, Sir.” What he didn’t have to say, was: for now.

Corey took a deep breath, aware again of the sharp smell of sweat and rot of insides being exposed to the outside.

He shucked off his gloves and ran his hand over his face. Maybe half would survive his table. Three of three Luckys would walk. He’d do anything to increase those odds, and send more of the boys home breathing, instead of in boxes.

“How’d we do, Corey?” Lonnie asked as Corey stepped out into the fading sunlight.

The early evening air was hot and wet. Corey locked his jaw and strained the air through his teeth to get it down. Eighteen months had all but erased his memory of Colorado’s clean, cold wind.

“The Luckys will make it,” Corey said, “I think three or four others have a chance.”

Lonnie nodded and pulled a rolled cigarette and lighter from his pocket.

“Too bad they all can’t be Luckys,” Corey said quietly. He heard the approach of incoming choppers over the forested ridge.

Lonnie rubbed his thumb across his lighter. “Too bad Billy can’t be here.”

The ache lifted from Corey’s shoulders. A breath of Colorado air, cool as a drink of water, suddenly brushed across the sweat on his face. Such a simple answer: bring Billy here. The five-oh-four received wounded from several units. If Billy were here, he could help more boys, save more boys.

The chopper came closer. Lonnie finally got his joint lit, and sucked a deep, satisfied lungful.

“Maybe Lucky should come here,” Corey said, trying to keep the creep of excitement out of his voice. “We need a man like him.”

Lonnie raised one eyebrow, but didn’t exhale.

“We could send someone to bring him here,” Corey said. “Hell, I’ll go out there. Think of how many we could save.” Most? he thought to himself. All? Could it be that easy? Statistics would say it was impossible, but then, so was the very real fact that every Lucky lived.

“They won’t let him go.” Lonnie’s words came out like molasses, slow and smoky-sweet. “Always short on good men in the boonies.”

“We’re short on good men here!”

Lonnie blinked, the surprise and hurt plain on his face. He tipped his head and studied his bloody boots. “Damn, Corey.”

Corey opened his mouth, closed it and scrubbed his hand across his face. “I don’t mean it that way. We just . . . we can’t keep up with this.” He waved his hand toward the OR tent. “We’re losing, Lonnie. Can’t you see that? Fifty-fifty odds. That’s not good enough. Billy will make the difference. His boys don’t die.” Corey put his hand on Lonnie’s shoulder. “We need him to work with us. So all the boys can go home.”

Lonnie smiled real slow, like he had just tuned in a favorite song on the radio. “And then we go home, right?”

Corey nodded. “Sure. Maybe then we can all go home.”

Before dawn, Corey packed his bag and walked out to the jeep like this was something he did every day. He swung into the driver’s seat, and jumped when a low voice spoke.

“Be careful,” Lonnie said. “It’s pretty bad out there.”

Lonnie stood in nothing but his boots, his red hair gone wild from sleep, or maybe from the active lack of it. He held a sheaf of papers out to him.

Corey took them.

“Paperwork to transfer personnel. These should work so long as the C.O. doesn’t look too close.”

Corey smiled. “Thanks. And go back to bed. You’ve got my rounds in an hour.”

“What should I tell them when they notice you’re gone?”

“I’ll be back by then.”

Lonnie shook his head, but he smiled. “Give ’em hell.”

Corey turned the ignition and ground gears. He left Lonnie, the camp, the Luckys and the dead behind, and followed the dirt track out along the edge of the ridge, then down through the press of hills.

This was too easy: stealing the jeep, Lonnie’s papers, but he wasn’t about to wait for someone to notice him.

The engine roared in the pre-morning air. Headlights traced gullies and bushes in stark relief. Dawn spilled out and Corey gripped the wheel tighter, his hands sweating. Every bounce of the tires could trigger a buried claymore, every bend in the track reveal a sniper.

“Damn, damn, damn.” He kept his foot down and his eyes on the brush. The platoon should be close, should be here. He couldn’t have passed it, couldn’t have gotten turned around in the darkness.

Heat rose off the jungle floor in biting, clicking swarms. Corey wiped sweat and pebble-hard bugs off his neck. One more mile. If the platoon didn’t show, he would turn around. And try to explain this joyride to his C.O.

A dirty mess of tents emerged from the woodline to his left. Corey slowed the jeep and waved at the sentry who called out a challenge. He let the soldier search his jeep, and showed him the papers Lonnie had rigged. The private pointed at the C.O.’s tent. Corey took his time walking there, trying to keep his face poker straight. By the time he had ducked into the tent and sat in the extra chair, he had his best bedside manners in place.

“Morning, doctor,” Lieutenant Jonas said, his words slightly slurred. The tent smelled of stale whiskey and vomit. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Gunfire rattled, close enough to catch its own echo and Corey glanced out the netting before answering.

“I have orders to take one of your medics back to the five-oh-four.”

“Jesus,” the Lieutenant said. He took a swallow out of a nearly empty bottle. “Just one? Hell, they’ll line up for you, Doc. Take ’em all back. And while you’re at it, why don’t you take the rest of the platoon?” He laughed, but his bloodshot gaze was steady and hard.

Corey forced a smile and handed Jonas the papers.

Jonas took the papers, but didn’t look at them. “Which one of my boys do you want?”

“Billy Templin.”

“Lucky?” Jonas’ eyebrows shot up. He chuckled again, and coughed. “Looks like you’ve got a problem,” he said. “Lucky Templin’s dead.”

Death had won again, outpaced him by what? Moments? Corey felt the weight of eighteen months press his shoulders down into his spine.

“How did he die?” he asked.

“You’ve heard about the war, right?” Jonas drawled. “Tell you what. How about you scratch his name out of that order and write in some other bastard’s name?”

“When did he die?” Corey asked. “This morning? Last night?” Gunfire popped again, further away this time.

Jonas sniffed. “Seven months ago. About. During the rain. Jesus. You’re seven months late.”

“But —”

“Pulled his body in myself,” Jonas said. “What was left of it.”

Corey managed to nod. Jonas must be lying. Yesterday’s wounded had Billy’s signature wraps. They were surviving against the odds. Billy had to be alive.

“I’m sorry,” Corey said. He took the papers, stood and walked out of the tent, his mind spinning. He started the jeep and turned it back down the trail to the five-oh-four.

It didn’t add up. The wounded were still coming in, still bandaged the same way they had been for the last eight months. Maybe Billy had trained someone else, another medic. Maybe he had gone AWOL. But if he had skipped out, why would he still be bandaging the wounded?

Corey was too wrapped in thought to notice the small bulge in the road ahead of him.

Something exploded. The world broke apart. The jeep swerved, tipped. Corey felt his head strike something hard where there should have been air and a detached voice in his mind catalogued each impact: skull fracture, broken ribs, collarbone, arm, and then there was a sickening crunch against his chest and the detached voice shut up while Corey screamed.

Darkness came in fits. Corey clung to it, tried to suck it down, but reality would not go away, would not stop hurting.

He watched a bird wing a tight circle against a sky gone white-hot and heard the crackle and lick of fire feeding on the wrecked jeep. The wind stirred, hot and wet, and tugged the edges of his clothes. Even though it was a minor pain, he shuddered in agony.

There was no one out here to look for him, the detached voice in his head came back to say. Too many breaks, probably a chunk of metal in the stomach. Bleeding too bad. Nobody to look for him. Nobody to hear his moans, and maybe he should try to be quiet anyway.

Die, take a breath, die again.

Cool hands touched his face.

Not until the hands probed his arms, torso and legs, did Corey decide they were real. He looked up.

A man leaned over him, gaze intent on his chest, fingers gently pulling the clothing away from the wound there.

Corey moaned.

“You’ll be okay,” the man said, his voice as cool as autumn in the Colorado countryside. He bent a bit to put himself fully in Corey’s line of vision.

Corey blinked. Blinked again.

The man was horribly scarred, but his brown eyes were sparked with good humor, his crooked smile sincere.

Who?
he thought.

“I’m Billy Templin,” the man said.

Billy’s hands moved with short efficient motions: pulled out gauze pads and strips. His face seemed to fade until it was see-through, like a reflection on a dark window pane. Corey saw vegetation through his face; saw sky and a bird flying where Billy’s forehead should be.

His hands were too cold, but they felt real.

Corey moaned as Billy slowly pressed and wrapped his wounds.

Still never make it
, he thought.
Too much blood loss, too much shock.

“You’re a doctor, aren’t you?” Billy asked as he splinted Corey’s arm. “I always wanted to be a doctor. Didn’t have the money for college.” He shook his head. “But don’t you worry. I’ve seen a lot of wounds. You’re going to be okay. You haven’t lost too much blood, and that chest wound is gonna clean up just fine.”

Too much blood loss
, he thought, and Billy smiled.

“I’m telling you, doc, you haven’t lost that much blood.”

You can hear me?

“Sure. You can hear me too, right?”

I’m hallucinating.

“No.”

I’m already dead then.

Billy chuckled and it was the sound of the wind in the elephant grass. “Not if I can help it.”

But you’re d
— Corey stopped mid-thought.

Billy’s gaze became intense, his hands stilled. “I’m what, doc?”

Jonas’ words flashed through Corey’s mind: ‘Lucky Templin is dead. Pulled his body in myself, what was left of it.’

Billy seemed to hear that memory too. His face twisted with sorrow. He sat back on his heels. “Oh,” he said, “oh.”

Corey panicked.
Come back with me. You could be a doctor. You could save so many more at the five-oh-four. The wounded need you. I need you.

“You’ll be fine,” Billy said, distantly, “they’ll be fine.”

Not without your help
, Corey thought.

Billy smiled, and his gaze once again met Corey’s. “You’re the doctor. They need you.”

And you.

“I’m dead.”

I can see you. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Jonas is wrong.