How Can You Mend This Purple Heart (4 page)

He was raised in a tough neighborhood in a small, blue-collar town in central New Jersey. The fourth-generation steel mill families of Warwick didn't care for the newcomers from “over there.” They especially didn't like the ones from Eastern Europe and Russia, and worse yet, those Jews.

Ski had endured monthly and sometimes weekly black eyes and bloody noses from a group of kids down the street. His mother, and moreso, his father, couldn't understand how small children could harbor such hatred. No one in their native Russia would ever treat a child the way their son was being treated—and this was America, for God's sake.

His parents wanted to isolate him, protect him. “We just want to be goot citizens and raise a goot son. We don't never want to hurt nobody. Just leef us alone.”

His mother would clean his bloody lips and face, but it wasn't necessary to wipe the tears. There never were any. The beatings only made Ski more determined to prove he wasn't ashamed of his heritage or his native country.

Ski made good on a promise to himself that he wasn't going to disappoint his momma and poppa. Even if he wasn't an American citizen like the other boys, he had a right to defend himself and his parents' honor. The next time, he was going to make it all stop.

Ski was on his way to a high school football game and the four boys were waiting for the lanky kid with the funny accent.

They made the mistake of circling around him and splitting up, two in front and two from behind. Ski was ready. He went straight for the big bastard that had hit him—hurt him—so many times before. The one with the filthy mouth who had called him Commie and “dirty fucking Jew.”

It was three solid punches to the big kid's jaw followed with a two-fisted chokehold. The big kid was so stunned he couldn't fight back. Ski pummeled him until two of the others ran off and the third one begged Ski to stop.

It was the last time he had to look over his shoulder, and the last time he could remember anyone calling him a Jew in that tone of voice.

He knew at that moment he wanted to join the Marines. He wanted his parents to be proud of him. He wanted to show everyone he was proud of his parents for bringing him to America.

Doctor Donnolly was at the foot of Ski's bed sifting through the first few pages of the young boy's chart. “Ski, I need to take a look inside your legs,” he said. He didn't really need to open the heavy, metal-hinged clipboard, thick with paperwork, to know what to look for.

“If it gets to be too much, we'll stop,” Dr. Donnolly said, gently pressing on the casts. “Just let me know.”

“Eet's okay,” Ski slurred.

Dr. Donnolly removed the strips of tape from several square windows that checkered Ski's plaster legs. The cut-out windows lifted out of the casts like lids on jack-o'-lanterns, giving access to the deep wounds. The largest window was about four inches square.

Ski's shin bones had been shattered into small pieces. The hot shrapnel had penetrated deep into his legs and left burning, fiery-red open holes.

The wounds needed cleaning at least three times a day, which meant exposing the raw, mangled mess lying beneath the white plaster trap doors. Every procedure started with a soothing hypodermic needle to the arm about twenty minutes ahead of the dressing change.

Ski had arrived late yesterday afternoon on a military emergency flight from the West Coast. The casts prepared days earlier in a Philippine hospital had shifted, and the rods, anchored deep into what was left of his shin bones, had already caused more damage.

“We reattached the steel rods to your shin bones,” Dr. Donnolly said. “Your tibia and fibula, your shin bones…the shrapnel shattered both of them, leaving gaps in the bones between your ankles and knees,” he explained with a soft voice. “The rods are attached to the bone ends and these steel bars will help us pull them together. We think there's enough bone mass left to get you on your feet again. It's going to take a while.”

Lt. Commander Dorothy Berry, the head nurse on dayshift, and corpsman Doc Miller stood listening and watching intently. The three-a-day wound cleanings and bandage replacements would be their responsibility.

“As your shin bones grow, we can compress the rods from out here,” Dr. Donnolly said, pointing to the erector sets protruding from Ski's legs. “It's called assisted fusion.”

The way Ski responded, it was more like a truck mechanic ratcheting down a hot spark plug inside his legs.

Miss Berry and Doc Miller removed the remaining trap doors and gradually pulled at the folds of iodine-soaked gauze bundled inside the ragged cavities. Extreme caution had to be taken to avoid bumping the fragmented ends of his shin bones and the exposed metal rods inside Ski's legs. Each dressing change meant more iodine, more probing with cotton swabs, more gauze, more stuffing, and more pain.

“Are you doing okay, Ski?” Miss Berry asked placing her hand on his arm.

“Yes ma'am, eet's okay.”

Lt. Commander Dorothy Berry was in charge of the nursing and corpsman staff for the entire second floor. For whatever reason, 2B was her favorite station. She spent most of her free time with us, and she and Doc went beyond the head nurse and lead corpsman relationship. It wasn't physical. Shit, Miss Berry could have been Doc's mother. It was two of the best at what they were trained to do and lived for, and each had the greatest respect for the other. And Doc Miller fully understood and strictly followed the military code of conduct that separated the enlisted ranks from commissioned officers.

Lt. Commander Berry left her officer status at the brown double doors and never once pulled rank. Her love for nursing and caring for the wounded was more important than being a Navy officer. She and Doc Miller could talk, joke, laugh and work side-by-side and no other match-up could even come close to their skills and the way they carried out their responsibilities. Every guy on the ward knew how lucky he was to have them looking after him.

Miss Berry was about five feet six inches tall with a firm, full figure. Her jet-black hair bounced from the ever-present quickness in her step. Her large brown eyes dominated her lightly freckled face, and her constant smile gave her a youthful look, despite her seventeen years in the Navy, including eighteen months on board a combat hospital ship in Vietnam. We wondered among ourselves if she had ever been married. She had told us no man would ever want to chase her Navy career around the world, so we just assumed she wasn't married now.

“Let me know if this gets to be too much, Ski,” Miss Berry said. “We've got all day.”

“Eet's okay, ma'am,” Ski said, his eyelids drooping.

The morphine merely delayed the brain's response to the deep probing inside Ski's legs. The slow removal of the gauze dressings from the cavities was like chafing the raw, bleeding muscle with sandpaper. The long cotton swabs, disappearing into the casts and probing at the wounds, seared every nerve ending in the blood-red holes.

Ski snapped upward from the excruciating pain, arching his back as high as his plaster-laden legs would let him. He squeezed his eyes so tight his forehead pressed down against the bridge of his nose.

I never once heard his pain. No screaming, no yelling, no words. Just the hurried, bellowing gasps of air, choreographed to the vulgar arching of his back. He kept the pain inside.

The trapeze bar hanging above Ski on the crossbar was swinging and clanging like a dinner bell in a tornado. Doc Miller reached up and grabbed it with both hands. The clanging stopped, but he couldn't keep the metal bed from shaking and rattling like an old steam radiator.

“Take my hand, Ski!” I yelled. He flung his right hand over to me, clenching my outstretched hand so tight it shut off the flow of blood all the way to my shoulder.

“Hold on, Ski. We're almost finished. Just two more,” Miss Berry said. “Can we get him something, Robert?” she asked Dr. Donnolly.

“Bring me a half dose of morphine,” Dr. Donnolly ordered as he wedged his arms under Ski's back to cradle him as he flailed back into the mattress.

Ski never let the voice of pain come out. His breathing was like a bellows, but never did you hear an outward cry.

Doc Miller scurried over with the hypodermic and Miss Berry held Ski's head in her hands. Doc Miller grabbed a pillow and placed it under the small of Ski's back to ease the pain and keep the muscles from cramping into piercing knives. Dr. Donnolly injected the half dose of morphine for everybody's sake.

With the drugs numbing Ski's body, Doc Miller finished the dressing change, lowered the trap doors back into place, and strapped them down with fresh tape. He checked the IV drip rate and joined Dr. Donnolly and Miss Berry with the next patient.

Ski lay quiet in his healing bed, motionless except for the lifting of his chest as he breathed the pain in and out. With the trap doors secured, Ski could lay back and enjoy what was left of the morphine flowing through his weakened body, and wait for the next needle. He had developed an enviously high threshold to the drug. As it reached its plateau within his system, he lay awake, enjoying its warmth and easiness.

The morphine Doc Miller had injected into my right arm was oozing through my body and taking total control over my senses. The burning of the morphine, as it flowed from the syringe into the body, was a joyous nuisance that signaled another euphoric time warp.

The brain-numbing narcotic massaged my body with its warm glow as I surrendered to its addictive sleep. Hours passed. Or was it minutes? Time on Ward 2B felt thick and heavy and numbing. It was periods of unconsciousness lasting minutes, or hours, or maybe even days. You could never tell. Wake up in slow motion staring at the ceiling and feeling like your body and mind were somewhere else. Fall back into unconsciousness again for another minute or hour. Wake again, this time a little more aware, but still feeling the glow and sluggishness of the sweet narcotics.

Three hours after the first dressing change, Doc returned with a fresh syringe to wake Ski for his pre-treatment needle and its magical fluid.

Doc was Randy Miller, corpsman third class, head Navy medic on day shift and Miss Berry's right-hand man. He was assigned to our section of the ward with fifteen patients under his direct care. We relied on him for everything.

Doc would change our sheets when we shit them; hold a straw to a mouth for a cold sip of ice water to slurry the morphine scum; comb someone's hair; brush someone's teeth; shave a face; bring a bedpan; and help us wipe. We were like newborn babies.

Doc was the best corpsman on the floor and he treated each of us with the same intensity, caring, and understanding. It was never spoken, but we knew he wouldn't stay here. Like me, he had a growing sense of obligation to the guys around us.

Doc pushed the needle into Ski's arm and injected the liquid with the ease and quickness of a stinging insect, and hustled away.

I glanced over at Ski. He was breathing easy and groping for a cigarette. I lit one of my Salems, enjoying the coolness on my throat.

“You can't smoke right after a needle. They're afraid we might hurt ourselves,” I chuckled.

He laughed as best he could. “What the hell dwe suppose to do?”

“Ask for another needle. They give those out like candy. Can't smoke but you can sure as hell take morphine.”

I reached over and pulled out a pack of Winstons from Ski's nightstand and lit one, putting out my half-smoked Salem in the ashtray. I took a good long draw off the Winston before I passed it over to him.

“Take a quick drag before Doc comes out of the back room.”

Ski had taken a bigger drag from the cigarette than his lungs and body could take. His last smoke was over a month ago and the dizziness spinning in his head caused him to drop the fiery stick on the bed sheet.

“Sawnoffabeedtch!” he coughed.

Luckily it rolled off the edge of his bed and onto the floor between us. I couldn't reach it and it lay there like a lit firecracker ready to ignite trouble. Doc Miller came out of the back room through the gleaming green and white tile passageway, his arms full of clanging bedpans.

“Hey, Doc, need your help over here!” I said with a bit of urgency.

His renewed sense of concern for Ski yanked him our way, but when he realized it wasn't serious, he slowed his pace.

“I dropped my cigarette.”

“You guys are helpless,” he said as he bent over and picked up the burning evidence.

“You don't smoke Winstons,” Doc said, placing the cigarette between the fingers of my left hand and giving Ski a quick glance. He went back to delivering the bedpans.

I inhaled deeply off the cigarette and reached over to hand it back to Ski. His eyes were glazed over, half open, but not looking at anything. He was buzzed from the morphine and exhausted from the dressing change and back spasms. In just half an hour, Doc Miller would be back to open up the trap doors.

I put out the cigarette and succumbed to the warm, easy flow of the morphine, enjoying its supremacy over the pain and guilt. The morphine took charge of all senses and lulled the brain into a sluggish numbness. I gave into its purpose, and all I wanted to do was simply lie still, thoughtless in the time box between drowsiness and deep sleep.

The body washed itself of the morphine every three hours and another dose washed you back into the motionless depths of a healing sleep.

Daylight passed into darkness and nighttime crept over Ward 2B like a dark peace.

It was time to close your eyes and think about the girl in the photograph.

A Squealing Pig

DR. DONNOLLY WAS
standing behind the two gray desks of the nurses' station just across the ward and a little to our right. He was looking over a chart as he slipped off a pair of bloody latex gloves and dropped them into the medical waste bag.

“Randy, can you get me a sterile gown pack?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” Doc Miller said. “Would you like me to get the drill ready, too, sir?”