How Can You Mend This Purple Heart (7 page)

He approached every patient and his recovery with the preciseness of an architect. From the first days of healing through the surgeries forming the stumps needed to last a lifetime, to the fitting of prosthesis, the physical therapy, the psychological planning, and eventually, to ambulatory self-care, Dr. Donnolly was careful not to leave any part of the recovery out of the equation.

Earl Ray had been offered a pain shot ahead of the dressing changes, but told Doc Miller he would wait until the torture was over. “I want to lay back and enjoy the drugs,” he smirked. It hadn't gone unnoticed by Dr. Donnolly.

“You're doing really well, Earl,” Dr. Donnolly assured him.

“Yeah? Compared to what?”

“Look Earl, I can't imagine how you feel. But I…”

“No, you can't!” Earl shot in. “Ain't nobody that can know how I feel! Jesus H. Christ!” He hammered a fist down into the mattress.

“Earl, that's not going to help you,” Dr. Donnolly said with a firm voice. “I need you to be positive about this. You need for yourself to be positive.”

“Give me some space here, will you guys?” Earl barked.

“Okay, Earl. We'll finish up here and I'll be back this afternoon,” Dr. Donnolly said. “We can talk then. Sound all right with you?”

“Yeah, but can we do it before the next torture session? Give me that needle, Doc. You guys are like gorillas.”

“See you this afternoon,” Dr. Donnolly said as he headed down the ward.

Doc Miller put the needle into Earl Ray's arm with a little more force than usual and Earl grinned.

“That all you got?” he chided.

“That's it, Earl. Can't wait for this to put you out,” he joked.

“Me neither,” Earl muttered. He pushed a quiet stare in Ski's direction and worked his blue-eyed glare over to me.

“Hey non-combat motherfucker, what do you do in the Navy, scrub floors?” he sneered.

I gave him half of a fuck-you look. Before I could say anything, he rolled to his side and pulled the pajama bottoms down just below the crack of his ass.

“Kiss my ass, non-combat motherfucker.”

“Kiss my ass, Earl. What do you want me to do, have 'em cut my legs off?”

“Fuck you,” he said, and pulled himself upright with the trapeze bar, his right arm bulging. I was sure he wanted to squeeze my head like a cantaloupe.

I tried to think what Earl might be thinking. He had lots of reasons to hate me. Most guys in the Navy and Marines didn't like each other to begin with; it was one of those stupid, macho, inter-military rivalries. Someone from either camp just had to prove he was a bigger badass than the other one.

I was a non-combat motherfucker, for sure, and for all he knew I was probably some spoiled rich kid who got in the Navy through family connections. I still had both legs and both arms, and someday I would walk out of here while he would roll out in a wheelchair. Even with plastic legs and an artificial arm, it was a wheelchair he would look to for mobility and freedom.

Yeah, he had a lot of reasons to hate me. It was okay. I didn't blame him. I would hate me, too, if I was Earl. No, maybe I wouldn't. A lot of guys on the ward were looking at a life with a wheelchair and they didn't hate me. It was Earl, and right now he was full of hate. And it was directed right at me.

“Can't wait to get my ass out of here,” he said to nobody. “Me and Jen, we'll pick up where we left off.”

Jen was Earl's fiancée. They had been sweethearts all through high school and Earl talked with her on the ward phone at least three times a week. Any time he mentioned her name, his eyes would light up, and gradually shift to worry. I had overheard him telling Ski about the week he and Jen had spent before he left for Vietnam, the night he climbed into her second-floor bedroom window and stayed until almost sunrise. It was the first time they had made love and it was still sweet in his mind. Their last Saturday together was spent driving to the Smoky Mountains, making love behind the cover of a secluded waterfall. They had shared Coney Dogs and root beer floats at the A&W the night before he left.

Earl and Jennifer were in love as deeply as any two people could ever be. Just holding hands sent fire and fear through their hearts. The thought of being apart created a panic that burned in the stomach. The day he left for Vietnam, Jen had stood in the doorway, sobbing from the other side of the screen door, as Earl Ray Higgins stepped off the back porch.

“Dyou are verdy lucky guy,” Ski said. “My girlfriend told me to djust be careful, and I never heard from her again.”

“What was her name?” Earl asked as he turned back over to face Ski.

“I don't dremember,” Ski shrugged. “My first time to get laid was in 'Nam.”

“I never touched the stuff,” Earl replied. “Jen's the only one for me.”

“That's why dyou are very lucky,” Ski said.

“Yeah,” Earl puffed. “We'll see how lucky I am.” He pulled himself up in a sitting position with the trapeze and began squeezing the hand ball with more force.

“Hey Shoff,” Earl Ray said without looking my way. “You got a girl? I've seen you look at that picture almost every night.”

I looked past Ski over to Earl, who was staring down at the stump of his left thigh.

“Not anymore,” I said, trying as hard as I could to hide the delight of him not calling me a non-combat motherfucker.

“Don't be so happy, Shoff. You'll always be a non-combat motherfucker to me. What'd she do, Shoff? Kick you out of the country club?”

“The only Country Club I know is a malt liquor. And I hate the stuff. Anyway, she sent me a “Dear John” while I was in boot camp. Said we didn't have a lot in common anymore. I found out later she left me for some chump she was screwing at college. Heard he was more her type. He was getting an education and had a Corvette.”

“Sounds like you're keeping tabs. Sounds like you don't like what you're hearing,” Earl prodded.

“I'm over it. She doesn't mean shit to me now,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, well, her picture sure means shit. You stare at the damn thing enough.”

“Just trying to figure out why I wasn't good enough.”

“How long did you go with her?”

“Just over a year. She was two years older than me and taught me what she knew. I thought we were wedding bell shit. Guess she had other plans.”

“That's life, man,” Earl shrugged. “Look at you now. A non-combat motherfucker laid up in here with me just twelve feet away. You join the Navy to see the world and look what you get. You're in a world of shit.”

I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, wondering what to say. I wanted him to know I really cared, I was proud of him, I was ashamed of me. I wanted him to know how it was that I was in the Navy, I wanted to make things right, I wanted him to just believe I was a lot like him.

“They don't have country clubs where I come from,” I finally spoke out.

“Jesus, you kept that in long enough,” Earl chuckled. “Where're you from, anyway?”

I took the opening and told him what I thought was important—or, at least, what I hoped would change how Earl felt about me. I started with the odd jobs—bus boy and dishwasher at the local restaurant, baling hay for the area farmers whose kids had already left for military duty, cutting timber in the Ozark Mountains and dragging the logs with a team of mules down through the rocks, yellow jackets, and rattlesnakes. I told him about loading up the old pick-up truck with firewood and hauling it into town to sell for grocery money for the family. I told him about my brothers who had enlisted ahead of me, the girlfriend who had talked me out of the Marines and turned me Navy, the same girl in the photograph. I told him about the fight I had with my old man. (I didn't tell him I had gotten a student deferment to study art, for God's sake.) I told him about my best friend who had joined the Marines and who was probably in boot camp or AIT at this very moment. I told him about the girls, the booze, and the car wreck, and I told him about William Otis Johnson. I didn't say anything about the way Earl had flipped him off.

“She fucked you twice,” Earl Ray said with a little laugh.

“Say what?” I asked.

“The girl in the photograph, she fucked you twice. She left you for some school boy on campus, and talked you out of being with your buddy in the Corps.”

“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.”