The Road Ahead

by Adrian Bonenberger

  Captain Swallow had explained during a brief earlier that morning that the Morgan House was a charity service which provided housing, during their long periods of recovery and rehabilitation, to soldiers who’d been injured in combat. It was for this reason that the houses were located on the Brooke Army Medical Center Campus, a stone’s throw from the Center for the Intrepid—the gargantuan physical rehabilitation facility complete with wave pool and other state-of-the-art equipment designed to help get the amputees back on their feet, so to speak.

  Our cadre of roughly fourteen Army and Air Force medics and Navy corpsmen arrived around six P.M. and filed into the large house. Since there weren’t enough housing units to assign one to each veteran, the families of three or four Wounded Warriors would all be quartered in one large house. The houses were spacious and brand-new, with top-of-the-line appliances and IKEA-looking furniture. All came with several flat-screen TVs in the living and family rooms, and in the bedrooms as well.

  From what I could tell, there were three families staying at the house to which we were assigned, but one of the three would not be there for the dinner. Perhaps they’d been tipped off to the intrusion and opted for a night out instead.

  Of the two remaining families, the matriarchs took care not to bump into one another in the common areas like the kitchen or the laundry room, which created difficulties, as these both were centrally located in the home. Watching the two of them buzz around the place, each one conspicuously avoiding eye contact with the other, I got the sense there had previously been some dispute over the occupation and use of shared resources.

  Wounded Warrior Number One was a good ole boy. He and his family hailed from Appalachia or the Ozarks or the Delta or some other swath of land that had been desecrated by the Union during the war. He might have even had kinfolk in the fight; I know a lot of the Southerners did. His lover (I’m not certain the two were officially married) was an obese, homely woman with stringy orange hair that frayed out of a ponytail and stood upright in the front as though she’d been electrocuted. From what I gathered, she was called Eloise, and she ran a tight ship. But she was exhausted, that much was obvious. Between managing the two small children who tore about the house like wild boars, seeing her husband through the difficult transition of relearning to walk, of relearning everything, and maintaining acceptable boundaries with the other families at the Morgan House, she was all but run-down, and it showed on her greasy, shiny, pale-white face.

  Wounded Warrior Number Two and his family were Mexican. I’m not sure if the wife could speak English or not, but she and the two small children—a boy and a girl—did their best not to make a fuss, though it was clear they felt displaced by the large presence of the first family.

  I caught a glimpse of the Mexican gentleman out of my periphery as he and his clan were washing up in preparation for the dinner. As injuries go, I’d seen worse, but not much worse. This fellow, with two lower extremity amputations—one above the knee, one below, and third-degree burns down the left side of his face that caused it to droop like a smeared oil painting—had undoubtedly earned his seat at the table.

  We fourteen or so medics and corpsman from DMRTI, under the direction of Captain Swallow, were divided into two groups, one for each family. The captain thought it best we bring pizza rather than prepare the meal ourselves, and for this we were grateful.

  I was assigned to Wounded Warrior Number One and company, and hence began clearing the table of the clutter in order to make room for the pizza party.

  “Don’t touch that!” Eloise shouted.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I was just trying to make room for . . .”

  “It’s fine.” She corrected herself and appeared apologetic in her body language. “Just let me take care of this stuff.”

  She grabbed the stack of paper forms out of my hands and stowed them away in a drawer near the kitchen.

  “We have plates,” she said, pointing to the dishwasher. “Can you help me set the table . . .”

  Just as the words were leaving her lips, one of her litter, the elder, came careening into the drop door of the dishwasher.

  “No, Mommy! No!” He pleaded with her not to open the door.

  I gathered that he had some fixation with the appliance that was integral to the game he’d been playing with his younger brother, because, out of nowhere, came the smaller one, screaming and kicking and begging her to keep the dishwasher door shut.

  “Andrew! Jeremy! Quit it!”

  She had the younger pinned down with her foot and the elder restrained in her arms.

  “Ma’am, I can help with the dishes . . .”

  “Yes!” she cried out, exasperated, and in her eyes I saw the full weight of her shame; her frustration and her exhaustion.

  And I knew in that moment that what she truly wanted, what she needed, was precisely what we also needed; what we had been denied on account of this absurd exhibition inspired and brought to fruition by our great leader, Captain Swallow.

  “Let’s just get this over with!” she shouted.

  “Right away, ma’am.”

  I began to retrieve the dishes from the dishwasher, aided in the effort by my coworkers. We carried out this labor of love in silence.

  “No, wait!” Eloise shouted again, still not quite in control of her offspring. “You have to put down the place mats first! They’re in that drawer there!”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll take care of it.”

  I observed the other half of the “volunteers” also disrupting the normal flow of household routine on the opposite side of the kitchen, where the dining table of Wounded Warrior Number Two was likewise being set.

  The guidance of those responsible for the house’s layout was logical enough to provide each family with its own dining room table, if not its own dining room. The kitchen was an open plan design with a large island in the middle. The respective dining areas radiated outward, forming a semicircle, with the kitchen as their nucleus. The separation allowed for what might have passed for normalcy amongst the families, and I surmised that they very much valued the privacy it afforded them.

  “I have an idea,” erupted Captain Swallow. She seemed to have materialized in the space between the two dining tables, facing the kitchen.

  “Let’s bring these tables together so your families can eat side-by-side! It’s a celebration!”

  Eloise had finally managed to subdue the two boys when she raised her head in disbelief and remarked, “Do whatever you want, this is y’all’s idea!”

  Fed up, she threw her hands into the air in defeat and disappeared into the bedroom, presumably to roust Wounded Warrior Number One.

  Captain Swallow’s bright, oblivious smile did not fade. Moreover, she appeared pleased with herself for uniting the estranged housemates. The family of Wounded Warrior Number Two did not put up a fight.

  We corpsmen and medics, proud veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan turned wet nurses, fanned out across the large open area, grabbed hold of the two tables, and conjoined them into one long, unified Warrior Dinner Table.

  The family of Wounded Warrior Number Two, having nearly finished setting their own table, scrambled out of the way, their faces bewildered. I’m not sure if they’d understood the captain’s directive.

  The sons of Wounded Warrior Number One resumed their rowdiness as Eloise came wheeling out of the bedroom, baby-daddy in tow, toward the table.

  “Andrew and Jeremy, I ain’t gonna tell you again! Quit it!”

  The two boys relaxed their play, but did not halt altogether. I observed the light of the room reflected in the glossy eyes of Wounded Warrior Number One as he was rolled out to the table, a pleasant, timeless smile stretched across his face.

  He was lucky in that, above the neck, he’d been spared any cosmetic damage. But he was a triple amputee, both legs above the knee, left arm above the elbow. I was puzzled somewhat, that he should have all three prosthetics—marvelous gleaming metallic appendages, the best mo
ney could buy—locked in as he was in the wheelchair and had no real need of them presently, and I could not help but allow my eyes to drift downward and really take it all in.

  The legs protruded out from a pair of black Army PT shorts, and the arm from a grey Army t-shirt. He was half man, half Terminator. I figured he was just returned from some advanced physical therapy session at the CFI, and had not had time to break down his parts.

  “Hey Doc, how’s it goin’? You doin’ all right?” The man asked.

  I was not in uniform, as these were not scheduled working hours, but the large caduceus—the pair of serpents entangled on a pole, facing each other with wings jutting out from either side—emblazoned onto my left arm in dark blue ink betrayed my occupation as a technician of the military’s medical community.

  “Fine, sir. Thank you. How are you feeling today?”

  “I ain’t never been a sir, Doc. The name’s Clevon and I’m doin’ all right, you know what I’m sayin’?” He pulled a red prescription bottle from a pouch on the side of the chair and rattled it around in his hand.

  “You’re gonna ruin your appetite with those,” I joked.

  “Oh don’t worry about that. Eloise here, she can eat enough for both of us, ain’t that right honey?”

  “Don’t mind him.” She rolled her eyes, as though she’d heard the rib a million times already. “He gets this way when he’s whacked out on them pills.” She paused for a moment and laughed forcibly before adding, “Which is pretty much all the goddamned time!”

  She bookended the phrase with a subsequent burst of laughter. This second laugh was slightly more natural sounding than the first, though still quite contrived.

  Soon the families of both Wounded Warriors were gathered round the great compound table, and Captain Swallow smiled, having achieved her goal. There was mild chatter amongst the families, though no real substantive communication between the two tribes.

  It was of paramount importance that the charade appear successful—if for no one else than for the benefit of Captain Swallow—and for it to ride out peacefully as long as we were around to play babysitter. If they partitioned off the table and went about cutting each other’s heads off the minute we departed, well that would be a matter entirely outside of our ability to control.

  We got the pizza out of the duty vehicle, a tan rendered pickup, and doled it out evenly around the table. The Mexicans were bowing their heads in prayer, while the rednecks each lunged for a slice the moment one had dropped onto their plates.

  “Wait a minute!” Captain Swallow hollered. “I want to make a speech! Wait!”

  But there was no stopping them. The Mexicans had ended their prayers and begun their feast, and the rednecks were already clamoring for seconds, which we provided for them, then stood side-by-side at parade rest; a long row of roughs, fourteen abreast, that ran parallel to the length of the table.

  Captain Swallow flitted about, nodding her head approvingly every so often or attempting small talk with the children.

  The whole affair lasted a grand fifteen minutes, tops, then we were back to work, clearing the table, breaking it down into halves, and returning them to their original locations. I detected a glimmer of resignation in the captain’s affect. It’s possible she had believed the two families might have dined together henceforth. A failed experiment, perhaps.

  “Doc, can you gimme a hand over here?” I heard Clevon grunt.

  “What do you need, boss?”

  “Up in that cabinet, there.” He pointed to a small door above the sink.

  I opened it to reveal a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label.

  “Where’d you get this?” I asked as I pulled it from the shelf and contemplated handing it off to him, before deciding ultimately against it; not on account of a sudden spell of social responsibility, but because I realized that he would not be able to unscrew the cap without assistance.

  “Some fucking Soldiers’ Angel, a pen pal, sent it to me.” He sneered. “There’s tons of crap lying around this fucking place! It’s a goddamned gold mine!”

  I unscrewed the cap and went milling through the other cabinets for a glass.

  “Hope you don’t expect me to drink alone?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  I filled the two glasses halfway and very carefully placed one of them into Clevon’s good hand, which trembled slightly after taking possession of the drink, creating small ripples on the golden brown surface of the scotch.

  “To them that didn’t make it back!” he yelled, and we touched glasses lightly and each threw back a glassful.

  “Whoooooo!” he shouted. “That’ll make you feel like a man, boy!”

  I grinned, trying to suppress the acid reflux that had backed up into my esophagus.

  “Say, Doc. You’ve been out, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where at?”

  “Laghman Province, Afghanistan.”

  “Oh yeah?” he barked, part condescending, part curious. “What was that like? Afghanistan?”

  “It was hot,” I answered, and he laughed and rolled his head back a moment.

  Eloise breezed by us, casting a disapproving glance, rolling her eyes and rotating her head back and forth as she gathered up the children to make ready for bed.

  When she’d wandered out of earshot, Clevon uttered softly, “Say, Doc. Ain’t my wife a pig? I mean, look at the size of that woman, gosh!”

  “I’ve had bigger,” I replied.

  “Bullshit, you have!” He burst out laughing wildly, nearly falling over in his chair. “I’ll tell you what, Doc, you a funny motherfucker, you know that?”

  “I’ve been called that before,” I answered as I grabbed the glass out of his hand. “Time for round two.”

  As I was pouring the second drink, I noticed his good hand had found its way down to his groin, and he seemed to be groping at the area, at a shape he no longer recognized. I held the drink in front of his chest and waited as his good hand made its way back up to claim it.

  “Them motherfuckin’ hajis did a number on me, boy.”

  He allowed his head to roll forward a minute.

  “You know, it’s really not a good idea to mix those pills with the scotch.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Yes, it’s a fact.”

  He observed me quizzically a moment, then continued.

  “You really feel that way, Doc?” He emptied the drink into his throat, slammed the glass on the table, and reached into the pocket on his chair, pulled the red prescription out and tossed it to me.

  I swiveled my head side to side to get a read on the room. The last thing I needed was to go down for some amateur bullshit like this; popping pills that were not prescribed to me. I noticed most of the DMRTI folks either playing tag or hide-and-seek with the children of Wounded Warrior Number Two, or helping Eloise return things to homeostasis. There was no sign of Captain Swallow.

  I peered at the literature on the bottle without opening my hands up to expose the prize.

  Wells, Clevon

  Oxycontin 80MG

  Take Two Pills Daily As Needed for Pain

  “Holy shit! They’ve got you on 80s? Jesus Christ!” I glanced back at him in disbelief.

  “Well it didn’t start out like that, but the way it is with them Oxies, you gotta keep upping the dose.”

  I understood the dilemma, better than most, perhaps. When I was sure the coast was clear, I opened the bottle and tapped a few of the white, disc-shaped pills into my hand, pocketing the extras and throwing back the one. I washed it down with the scotch and pulled up a chair to sit next to Clevon.

  “Hey Petrino,” I heard the captain call my name from far away, it sounded. “What do you think this is? We’re not here to socialize, let’s go!”

  I began to rise when I heard Clevon’s voice, shaped by a hostile, defensive tone, address the captain directly.

  “Now, wait a minute, ma’am. Y’all came into my house and interfe
red with my family’s dinner, and all for what?” He threw up his good hand in defiance. “So you could put this little fiasco together and feel good about y’all’s selves.”

  Eloise came back into the dining area and stood next to her partner, her arms folded.

  “You think it matters, y’all being here? Doing this shit?” Clevon continued. “You think it’s gonna change anything? Me and Doc are bullshittin’ and I’d appreciate it if you’d back off so we can bullshit some more.”

  Captain Swallow smarted from the lashing, but did not respond to Clevon. Instead, she redirected her resentment onto me.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Petrino.” And with that, she stepped off and exited the Morgan House.

  “Now where were we?” Clevon said to me.

  For the next several hours we told stories and laughed and drank whiskey and took more pills. It occurred to me that if I could trade places with Clevon, I would not. And as angry as I was at Captain Swallow, at DMRTI, at the military, at the hajis, at the war, at myself, in the end, I could get up and walk away. I was lucky.

  After a while I sat back down in the chair and began to float up into that dreamy space, where all that mattered, all that had come and gone could be relegated to a temporary holding place, locked up and forgotten for a while.

  When I came to, I found myself laid out on the couch with my shoes off and a blanket around me. The sky through the windows was colored an indistinguishable dark grey that did not indicate whether it was still nighttime or now early morning.

  I shook instinctively from the nausea and confusion and began the extraction process. While I was tying my shoelaces, Eloise appeared before me, smiling for the first time since I’d met her.

  “Thank you.” She teared up mildly as she spoke. “Thank you so much, Petrino.”

  It was apparent that she felt silly calling me by my last name, but she did not know what else to call, and she wouldn’t dare refer to me as “Doc.”