Promises to Keep

by Sex, Nikki

  LaGuardia, blond-haired with round, steel rimmed glasses, was only a few steps away, looking into the bleeding ears of a man perched on the hood of one of the HUMVEEs. Jack knew right away what that was about—explosions tended to rupture eardrums.

  "Dwight, what's this about stopping the fluids on Wynn, back there?"

  Their newly arrived doctor, full of himself and his obvious superiority, turned and looked at Jack without attempting to hide his disgust. Apparently, rank didn't matter when you graduated from Hopkins and your boss was an ex-surfer from UCLA.

  "Because it's a waste, Jack. You know that."

  "Bullshit."

  "Screw that." Dwight raised his voice indignantly. "Any first year med student knows it's a waste of resources. The guy's dead already. With burns like that, he isn't going to make it onto the chopper, much less all of the way to Bagdad or Balad or wherever they're flying to today."

  "What the fuck is your problem? The kid can hear you," Jack whispered angrily under his breath.

  What an asshole, he thought, shaking his head. Rich and entitled with delusions of grandeur. Jack figured the new doctor came from a long history of family money. No doubt, his father planned on a Senatorial candidature for his son’s future.

  Jack didn’t mind that. Asshole or not, those who serve always learn something. Even this jerk may make it to “human” someday.

  Dwight’s sneering reply was contemptuous and condescending, "It doesn't matter. He's gone already, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. We save the stuff for the guys we can help, not waste it on somebody who's as good as dead. Besides, it's your damned fault he's fucked up anyway."

  Jack hid the automatic flinch that comes with a right guess. He knew that Dwight’s accusation was dead-on, but he refused to take the bait. "My fault?"

  "Yes, your fault. He went out with the guys yesterday, but it wasn't his turn. It was Valdez's turn at bat, and you sent Wynn instead. Why? This is Valdez's second deployment. He's been around the block, he was the best guy for that patrol and you know it. The souk was way too hot for a kid like Wynn."

  Jack’s jaw clenched. "He needed to go."

  The souk market was a hotbed of insurgent activity. Every patrol through there got hit—sometimes with an IED, sometimes with an ambush, mostly with both. Dwight was right. Valdez had been the better choice. He'd been a combat corpsman his entire career. Fallujah, Bagdad—he'd been in any number of shitholes around Iraq.

  Calm under fire and one hell of a medic, Valdez was the perfect choice to send with the Marines during a sweep for illegal weapons and explosives. He could bust down doors with the best of them but he'd been short, with only weeks left on his enlistment. You don't send a guy that short out into the shit—especially when there's a slacker, who needed to pull his own weight hanging around.

  "Why?" Dwight probed, stabbing an accusing finger toward him. "Why send Wynn? Just because you were pissed at him? He didn't meet your perfect standards? He was a stupid kid. He couldn't handle it. Not yet."

  Dwight’s words burned—like salt in an open wound.

  "He needed to go,” Jack said, forcing himself to remain composed. “I’ve done the same thing with others before him. They don’t smarten up if you baby them."

  Yes, he had been pissed at Wynn, because he was an irresponsible shirker. Wynn was never around for the hard work and always showed up for the easy stuff.

  That day, Wynn had come back from patrol with the Marines, an easy milk run through an area run by a friendly sheik. All they did was pass out candy and soccer balls to the kids but, even then, Wynn hadn't bothered to clean and maintain his gear properly.

  A medical bag without the right stuff in it, was just as deadly as a terrorist's bullet. Jack had chewed his ass thoroughly, turned him right around and put him on the patrol through the souk. Now he was as good as dead.

  "Wynn's not a child,” Jack snapped. “He's a Navy Corpsman and dammit, he needed to learn to act like one."

  "Well, he isn't going to be anything, now." Dwight poked Jack with his forefinger. "He's going to die and you killed him."

  Jack was more of a lover than a fighter, but even he could be pushed too far. Searing heat and perceived failures with every soldier who died, already had him right on the edge.

  Dwight’s douche bag comment shoved him right over.

  In a passionate explosion, Jack sprung forward, throwing Dwight back against the HUMVEE with one sharp shove.

  The sudden look of abject terror on Dwight’s face soothed a primal part of him. Combat fit, six-foot one and primed to detonate, Jack figured he was intimidating as Hell.

  The otoscope, an instrument designed for visual inspection of the eardrum, went flying over the hood. The Marine under examination gave Jack a surprised, horrified look and then quickly slipped away.

  "Don't be such an unfeeling prick,” Jack growled, barely able to hold on to his temper. “He's right here."

  Dwight straightened up and straightened the collar of his fatigue jacket. His eyes narrowed, his body tensed.

  For a second, Jack thought he'd try to take a swing at him. For a second, Jack hoped he would, because that meant a one-way trip to the stockade and out of Jack's life for the snotty little Lieutenant.

  The idea of retaliating and beating the shit out of the obnoxious little turd made Jack automatically flex his hands, balling them into fists. Would he end up in the stockade too, if he had to explain why he’d put his junior officer in the hospital?

  Jack wondered if it would be worth it.

  Chapter 4.

  Like an animal instinctively guarding himself against a dangerous threat, LaGuardia took in his senior officer’s size and seemed to think better of it.

  "Don't be a sentimental fool, Jack—I mean, Sir," the Lieutenant said in a tone laden with sarcasm. "We have finite supplies, and regulations state that we must not waste them on expectant casualties."

  Jack was fully aware of what Dwight meant. "Expectant" meant some wounded were expected to die. The military, in a cold calculation of numbers and statistics, determined those individuals should only get what they needed to be comfortable as they passed away. One bag of saline and one shot of morphine fit that bill.

  It sucked and Jack hated the idea, yet it was the right thing to do sometimes. Still, only a cold-hearted bastard couldn't see how wrong it felt.

  "I know, I know. Still, you don't have to be a prick about it, OK? Have some respect. He can hear you."

  "No he can't. He's burned to shit. He doesn't know what's going on."

  "Bullshit."

  Jack moved to shove him again. Much to Jack's satisfaction, the asshole jumped back as if jolted by a cattle prod. Jack satisfied himself by pointing a finger at him.

  "I just talked to him for ten minutes,” Jack snarled in a low, angry voice. “He can hear every piece of crap that comes out of your mouth. If you're going to be a jerk, be a jerk, but keep your stupid cake-hole shut. Got it?"

  "That an order?"

  "Yes, that's an order."

  "Then, yes sir. Am I excused? I've got more people to see."

  "Get the fuck away from me."

  Dwight gave him an insolent look and stomped off.

  Hot, angry, irritable and ashamed of his colleague, Jack strode back to Wynn. The corpsman had hung a fresh IV bag of saline, as ordered. Jack fished out another dose of morphine from his pocket and shot it into the drip.

  He crouched down next to him. "How you doing, buddy?"

  "I heard what you guys said." Each word Wynn said was low and slow. "I can't see shit, but I can hear just fine. I was listening to you talking about me."

  Fuck. "I'm sorry. That guy's an idiot. Screw him."

  "I'm not going to make it, am I?"

  "Don't worry. We’ll get you out of here."

  "You're lying. I can tell." Wynn's voice became more slurry from the morphine. He sounded distant, as if he were speaking in a dream.

  Jack groaned inwardly. He didn’t wan
t to have this conversation. Not here, not now.

  Not ever.

  "You'll be chasing your kid around your yard in no time. Good as new."

  "I haven’t been here long, but I’ve watched you work,” Wynn said. “You’re one of the good ones, sir. The best. I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but I’m OK with it. Really. Everyone dies sometime."

  "Dude, I —”

  "No… just remember your promise. Make sure my girl gets that ring.”

  Wynn gave a weird grimace that looked to be an attempt at a smile. A half-hearted laugh came out of his mouth. It sounded like some strange combination, a cross between humor and hysteria.

  “It’s my dying wish, ya know? Tell her… tell her that my last thoughts were of her. I wasn’t good enough for Laura—didn’t deserve her. I hope she finds someone better. Someone for her and the baby."

  Jack didn’t have a clue what to say.

  The heat was oppressive. The smell of burnt flesh and death surrounded him. This goofy, kind-hearted and sometimes over-enthusiastic puppy of a kid was dying… and the poor bastard was OK with that.

  Jack cleared his throat. His heart ached as he felt this loss, knowing there was nothing he could do. Usually, Jack could keep himself detached from this shit. He had barriers erected to help him keep his heart separated from the emotional aspect of his job.

  Those walls must’ve been compromised because right now, Jack felt like crying.

  “I’ll stay with you, if you like,” he managed to choke out. “I don’t think it'll be long.”

  “See? What’d I tell ya? A good guy.”

  “You were pretty good, yourself.”

  Wynn gave him a strangled laugh. “No I wasn’t. But I might've been, if… if…” He stopped talking for a moment; perhaps he was having an inner vision of one of the many possible “what ifs” that were no longer a possibility for him.

  When he spoke again, he whispered. “You have work to do, sir. You’d better get going. Take care of someone else. Take care of yourself. I’ll be OK. I don’t mind dying alone. I’ll be thinking of Laura.”

  That last sentence seemed to take a huge effort. Wynn collapsed, relaxing back into something less substantial. The morphine was disconnecting him from his body. The newbie corpsman was halfway gone already.

  Forget the appalling circumstances. Bob Wynn, it turned out, was a fucking saint. Here he was on the threshold of death, making a choice to die with dignity and grace, while thinking of others.

  Would I be so selfless?

  Jack stood up, shifting his feet, now desperately holding back his sudden, ridiculous and overwhelming impulse to cry. He patted Wynn’s shoulder, wondering if the dying man could feel his last human touch.

  “It’s been real nice knowing you, Bob.”

  “You too.”

  “I’ll check these other guys out and I’ll be back, alright?”

  “Sure.”

  Jack hesitated, and then left the corpsman alone on his lonely canvas stretcher.

  “Over here, sir.”

  Jack ran over and took in the sight. A soldier with a head injury, who seemed OK upon arrival, gasped for air. After a brief assessment, it looked like a spontaneous pneumothorax. The lung required aspiration of air and placement of a chest tube.

  Jack went to work, focusing on saving the man.

  “Better, soldier?” he asked, when the lung re-inflated and the man could breathe normally again.

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks, sir.”

  “That’s your ticket home, right there.”

  The exhausted Marine smiled.

  Once Jack was certain that the man was breathing easily, he busied himself with a few of the less seriously wounded men—a bandage here, a stitch there—all the while hoping and praying that the chopper would finally get there to evac some of these guys.

  Finally, he heard the staccato beat of helicopter rotors getting louder and louder.

  "Birds on the way, buddy,” he called out to the man with the chest wound. “We'll get you home. You ready to go?"

  “Looking forward to it.”

  Jack took a moment and looked up into the bright midday sun. Sweat dripped down his back as he watched the helicopter dip lower and lower. Soon they'd land, grab the worst cases and load them. Those injured would be in the hospital at Bagdad in minutes.

  One of the female Marines—they always took at least one woman to search the female natives—had a sprained ankle and minor smoke inhalation. Jenny, a cream-skinned woman under all that protective soldiering gear, couldn’t wait for the next bird out of here.

  Jack bantered with her while strapping her leg. He couldn’t help but notice the woman’s flesh was all soft silk, nothing like the skin of the men he was used to treating.

  It took force of will to pull his thoughts back to practical matters at hand and ignore the fact he was touching a young and attractive woman.

  As a senior officer, the enforced celibacy of his situation was trying, to say the least.

  When he finished, he remembered Bob Wynn and sprinted over, hoping to find that he was still alive.

  "Bob? I’m back, Bob,” Jack shouted over the whoomp, whoomp, whoomp sound of the helicopter.

  No answer.

  He knelt down and quickly felt for a pulse at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Bob Wynn was dead.

  "Damn it."

  Jack sat back, his energy sucked right out of him. What a waste. The young corpsman was dead and Jack felt responsible. That was just one more thing added to the pile of guilt within his overactive conscience.

  Every day that he was here, every man or woman he wasn’t able to save added more to that heap. At this moment, Jack felt utterly crushed by its weight.

  He’d hoped that he could at least to be there for Wynn's last moments, so the poor kid didn’t have to die alone. Apparently, Jack had screwed that up, too.

  Shameful secrets and unwillingly given, yet heartfelt promises. They seemed to go together.

  Jack clutched the ring in his pocket and remembered his vow to a dying man, for whom he'd suddenly had the utmost respect.

  OK, buddy, I owe you. Don’t worry. I'll get it to her.

  Chapter 5.

  Jack rubbed his temples. His head hurt.

  What a terrible day.

  Too many dead. He slumped in his canvas-folding chair, wiped some of the grime off of his face and tried to think.

  The noise, the chaos and pain reminded him of an earlier terrible day, the day that changed his life.

  An idiot with a hot rod had been speeding around his neighborhood. Furious, Jack's father had called the cops. They said that they'd take care of it, but that was just a bunch of bullshit.

  They didn’t come.

  An hour later, that same dumbass sixteen-year-old kid and his souped-up 1968 Mustang crashed through the living room window, smashed through their brand new Sony TV, right in the middle of The Young and The Restless, and plowed into his mom.

  His Mom knew that her soap drama was silly—she'd agreed many times that the show was simply ridiculous. Yet, there she was, every day like clockwork, glued to the living room couch and following the daily events in the lives of fake people, while real life passed around her.

  At that instant, had there been a commercial break, had the phone rung, had the mailman been at the door or had any number of stupid little things happened just at that very moment to get her off that damned couch, she'd still be alive.

  After the accident, the police came.

  The firemen and ambulances came, too.

  It was all too late.

  Jack had seen his first dead bodies that day: a stupid teenage boy with a new driver’s license, and his mother. The boy had died instantly.

  With a basic first aid class in school, Jack thought he knew what to do for his mom. He'd tried to stop the bleeding as best he could, but it didn’t help. He felt her pulse get fainter and fainter, and finally stop.

  She mumbled something to hi
m as she died, with her head cradled in his lap. Jack couldn't hear her, he was crying too hard.

  The paramedics said there'd been nothing that Jack, or anyone, could've done. There'd been too much damage—stuff about arteries and fractures and lacerations.

  Fifteen. He'd been fifteen and as silly and unconcerned about the future as any other fifteen year old. He was a good student and kept out of serious trouble, but he'd never given much thought about what he was going to do with himself.

  Not anymore. Not after that.

  Jack had been certain that he could've saved her. After all, she was alive when he'd run into the living room. She was alive when he took her into his arms.

  The young Jack, the naive Jack, was determined that if he just knew what to do, she would still be alive. Right then, he decided that he was never going to let his ignorance cost another family someone they loved—ever. At that moment, he decided that medicine, emergency medicine, was his calling.

  Since then, he’d seen many dead bodies and he’d saved countless people, too. While the adrenaline rush of an emergency could be a thrill, it was rescuing and preserving life, pulling people away from the threshold of certain death that really did it for him.

  It justified his existence to himself. It justified all of the long hours he'd spent studying and working. It somehow absolved him of the sin of being an ignorant fifteen-year-old boy, who hadn't a clue how to save one of the people most dear to him.

  All in all, if he’d been keeping records, Jack figured that he was well ahead, and the Grim Reaper was behind by a decent margin.

  When he'd signed up for the Navy to pay for medical school, he'd never imagined that he'd be sitting in the sand, hunched over a desk made of two MRE crates stacked on top of each other, trying to write one of the worst letters imaginable.

  As head surgeon for the third Marine Battalion, he'd seen a lot of good men die, but this one was one of his medical staff. This was personal.

  Moreover, it was my fault.

  Jack leaned over the crate and looked at the blank sheet of paper in the mercifully setting afternoon sun. The canvas flaps of the aid station tent shifted in the gentle breeze with a barely perceptible hiss.