Kill Crazy

by Len Levinson

“His name's Frankie La Barbara, and he's dangerous! You saw what he was gonna do! I demand a twenty-four-hour guard!”

  The nurse had seen the patient with a knife in his hand and knew Butsko hadn't had a morphine nightmare. “I'll call the Marines right now,” she said. “Don't you worry. Sergeant Butsko. I won't let anybody harm you.”

  The nurse returned to her desk and picked up her phone. Butsko reflected on how much safer it was on the front line, where he could move about freely and carried a submachine gun for protection. Here on the hospital ship he couldn't even lift a finger, and they were going to cut off his leg.

  “Nurse,” he said, “would you do me a favor?”

  “What is it, Sergeant?”

  “Would you send a message to the mainland for me?”

  “That's against regulations, Sergeant.”

  “Come here a minute, will you, Nurse?”

  She walked toward him warily; she was the same one who'd been on duty last night, the one with the pointy nose and sad eyes. “Yes?”

  “What's your name, Nurse?”

  “Morrison.”

  Butsko looked up into her eyes. “Nurse Morrison, I'm in trouble. People are trying to kill me—you saw it yourself— and the pill-rollers—I mean, the doctors—are gonna cut my leg off, and I just know they've got me mixed up with somebody else. I know my leg ain't that bad. I also know everybody around here thinks I'm a psycho case. I'll bet even you think I'm a psycho case. Do you think I'm a psycho case, Nurse Morrison?”

  “Yes,” she replied, crossing her arms underneath her breasts, “because you are a psycho case. That's why you're in the psycho ward.”

  Butsko tried to win her over with his soulful stare. “Nurse Morrison, I ain't no psycho case. I don't expect you to believe me, but I'm telling you anyways because it's the truth. I'm just an old soldier boy and I'm in a whole world of trouble. All I want you to do is call my commanding officer back on the mainland and tell him that I'm in trouble and I need to see him. Now, that ain't no big thing for you to do. Nurse Morrison. It ain't like I was asking you to gimme a blowjob, or sit on my face, or something nasty like that. Just make one little call to my commanding officer, okay?”

  A commotion broke out at the other end of the ward, as Marines carrying billy clubs poured into the psycho ward.

  “What's the problem?” asked one of them, a sergeant.

  “Over here,” said the nurse.

  The sergeant and his Marines stormed toward her, ready to go to war with the psycho cases in the psycho ward. They looked around but couldn't see anything wrong.

  “You the one who called?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yes,” replied the nurse. “Somebody tried to kill this soldier with a knife.”

  The sergeant glanced around. “Did you see who tried to kill him?”

  “Yes, and Sergeant Butsko knows his name.”

  The Marine sergeant looked down at Butsko. “What's his name?”

  “Frankie La Barbara, and he's a crazy, dangerous son of a bitch!”

  “Where'd he go?”

  “He ran out that door over there.”

  The Marine sergeant told one of his men to call the OD and report what had happened.

  Another Marine read the tag at the end of Butsko's bunk. “Hey, Sarge,” he said, “this is the guy who tried to kill them two doctors today.”

  The Marine sergeant looked down at Butsko. “You're a real loonie, too, ain'tcha?”

  Butsko glowered at him. “If I wasn't tied up right now, I'd show you who's a loonie, you goddamn fucking seagoing bellhop!”

  The nurse couldn't help smiling. “Now, now, Sergeant Butsko,” she said. “That's no way to make friends.”

  Butsko turned to her. “Please call my commanding officer.

  I'll do anything if you just call my commanding officer.”

  “Will you stop insulting people?”

  “Yes, Nurse Morrison.”

  “Will you behave yourself?”

  “Yes, Nurse Morrison.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise with all my heart and soul, Nurse Morrison.”

  “Do your promises mean anything?”

  “Nurse Morrison, when old Sergeant Butsko promises something, you can build a house on it.”

  “Okay, Sergeant, I'll see what I can do.” She looked at the Marine sergeant. “I want a twenty-four-hour guard on this man, because that Frankie La Barbara definitely tried to kill him.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Effective immediately.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Carry on.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She turned to Butsko. “I'll try to reach your commanding officer as soon as I go off duty. What's his name?”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Bob Hutchins, Twenty-third Infantry, Eighty-first Division.”

  She wrote the information on her note pad, then glanced at her watch. “You're about due for your medication.”

  “I don't want no fucking medication!”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “I don't want no medication! I don't wanna be all doped up, because when a man is all doped up, bad things can happen to him!”

  “You've got to have your medication!”

  “Oh, no I don't!”

  She groaned. “I thought you said you were going to behave yourself.”

  “I don't want no medication!”

  “Then I'm not calling your commanding officer.”

  Butsko gulped. “Now wait a minute...”

  “A deal is a deal,” she said.

  “But who's gonna look out for me when the medication knocks me out.”

  She indicated the Marines with a wave of her hand. “They'll look out for you, and so will I.”

  “I don't trust any of you,” Butsko admitted.

  “Then why should I trust you?” she asked. “If you want me to trust you, then you'll have to trust me.”

  “I don't trust anybody. I don't even trust my mother.”

  “You don't even trust your mother?”

  “No.”

  “What did she do that you don't trust your own mother?”

  “She never did nothing, but I don't trust her anyway. I don't trust anybody. It's a mistake to trust people. They always let you down.”

  “I won't let you down,” she said.

  “Yeah, sure,” he replied. “That's what people always say just before they sell you out.”

  “I won't do that,” she said.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  The Marine sergeant looked at Nurse Morrison. “This guy's really a bad egg, ma'am. I think we oughtta put him in the brig.”

  “He's just come from the front, Sergeant. He's been wounded and he's been under a lot of strain. We'll leave him right where he is, understand?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She turned to Butsko. “Have we got a deal or don't we have a deal?”

  “What can I say?” Butsko replied. “Yeah, I guess we got a deal.”

  She leaned over him and said quietly, “If you don't keep your side of it, I'll pour a bottle of castor oil down your throat.”

  “I just told you we got a deal, lady, and when Butsko says you got a deal, you got a deal.”

  Frankie La Barbara crouched in a broom closet and looked into a small tin mirror while shining a flashlight on his face. He was scared shitless because he was sure Butsko told the Marines who he was, and he knew the Marines were searching for him all over the ship.

  Frankie cursed himself for not killing Butsko while he had the chance. He figured if anybody deserved to die, it was that goddamned Butsko, so why had Frankie made a speech instead of killing him? He didn't know. It was very perplexing. But he did know that he had to do something to change his appearance.

  With his knife he cut a length of hair from his head. Then he took the wad of chewing gum from his mouth and pressed it against his upper lip. He fastened the hair to the chewing gum and looked at himself in the mirror.
Grinning, he thought the disguise quite effective. He resembled the old Mustache Petes he used to see around Little Italy when he was a kid.

  The door to the broom closet opened. A sailor stood there in denim pants and white T-shirt.

  “What do you think you're doing?” the sailor asked, a bewildered expression on his face.

  “Who, me?” Frankie asked.

  “No, the other guy.”

  “What other guy?”

  “There ain't no other guy; I'm talking to you. What you got underneath your nose?”

  “My nose?”

  “You paste some hair underneath your nose? I bet you're one of them nuts from the psycho ward. You just be calm. I'll get somebody to take care of you. Guard!”

  Frankie lunged toward the sailor like a lineman for the New York Giants and hit the sailor at knee level, bowling him over. The sailor landed on his back and Frankie jumped over him, running down the corridor.

  "Guard!” screamed the sailor. "Guard!”

  The door opened in front of Frankie, and a Marine with a billy club appeared. Frankie lowered his head, intending to strike the Marine in the chest and go right over him, but the Marine sidestepped and held out his foot. Frankie tripped over the foot and tumbled asshole over teakettle down the corridor. The Marine followed Frankie and cracked him over the head with his billy club. Frankie collapsed on the floor, the phony mustache crooked underneath his nose, and the Marine reached for his handcuffs.

  The sailor walked up to the Marine. “You got him?”

  “Yeah,” replied the Marine, snapping the cuffs on Frankie's wrists, “and the silly son of a bitch is going straight to the brig.”

  Lieutenant Pete Pollard from Bitter Creek, Wyoming, was Officer of the Day for the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment, and he approached the snoring Colonel Hutchins with trepidation. Colonel Hutchins had a rotten temper and everybody knew it. A canteen lay on the floor beside Colonel Hutchins's cot, and Lieutenant Pollard knew what was in the canteen, because he could smell its contents in the air around the cot.

  Here goes, Lieutenant Pollard thought, reaching for Colonel Hutchins's shoulder to shake him awake.

  Colonel Hutchins lay on his back and lowered the sheet a few inches, revealing a Colt .45 aimed directly at Lieutenant Pollard's face. “Who's there?” Colonel Hutchins asked, the alcoholic fumes nearly overcoming Lieutenant Pollard.

  “The OD, sir. You got a telephone call from a nurse on that hospital ship out in the harbor, and she says it's an emergency.”

  “A nurse?”

  “Yes, sir. She said she's calling at the request of Master Sergeant John Butsko.”

  “Well, I'll be a son of a bitch,” Colonel Hutchins said, sitting up in bed. “You tell her I'll be right with her, hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Pollard walked through the opening in the tent flaps to the other section of the big walled tent, and Colonel Hutchins swung his legs around to the floor. He stood and staggered to the desk, wearing only his green Army skivvies. He had knobby, skinny legs laced with varicose veins. His arms, neck, and face were deeply tanned, but everything else was as pale as snow. He sat at his desk and put on his steel helmet, because you never knew when an artillery shell was going to fall, and then he picked up the telephone.

  “Colonel Hutchins speaking,” he growled.

  “This is Lieutenant Morrison on the Red Rover, the hospital ship in the bay.”

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “Master Sergeant John Butsko asked me to call you. You know who he is?”

  “Of course I know who he is!”

  “Well, he told me to tell you that he's in trouble and he needs to see you.”

  Colonel Hutchins chortled as he reached for his pack of cigarettes. “I'm not surprised to find out that he's in trouble. Butsko has been in trouble ever since I first met him. Who'd he hit this time?”

  ‘Two doctors and two orderlies, plus a bunch of Marines.”

  “Shit's whiskers,” Colonel Hutchins said. ‘The man simply cannot stop punching people.”

  “That's not the worst part,” Nurse Morrison told him.

  “No?”

  “No. The worst part is that he's supposed to have his leg amputated first thing in the morning, and on top of that, somebody tried to cut his throat tonight.”

  “He's having his leg amputated?” Colonel Hutchins asked. “I didn't think he was hurt that badly.”

  “Neither does he. That's why he got into the ruckus with the doctors.”

  “And somebody tried to kill him, you say?”

  “Yes, sir, but Butsko's under guard right now. Nobody'll be able to harm him.”

  “Except them doctors.”

  “They think they've got to amputate his leg before serious problems develop.”

  “What can be more serious than losing your leg?”

  “Losing your life.”

  “Lissen,” Colonel Hutchins said, “are you a friend of Butsko's?”

  “I wouldn't exactly say that.”

  “He getting into your pants or something like that?”

  "Sir!”

  “Lemme tell you something, kid. Butsko's a real goddamned war hero. He's one of the best soldiers I ever saw in my life, and I've seen a lot of soldiers. I want you to do me and Butsko a big favor: Stall that operation as long as you can tomorrow morning.”

  “But I—”

  “What's the problem, lady?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I knew you'd do it, and don't think Butsko and me don't appreciate it. I'll be out there as soon as I can, understand?”

  “But I—”

  “But what, goddammit! I ain't got all night to talk to you, girl! gotta get out to that ship! Are you gonna help or ain't you gonna help!”

  There was silence for a few seconds; then she said: “I'll help.”

  “That's better. Now, there's only one more thing. What ward is Butsko in?”

  “The psycho ward.”

  “The psycho ward!”

  “Well, what ward would you put him in?”

  Colonel Hutchins thought it over. “I guess I'd put him in the psycho ward too,” he had to admit.

  What am I getting myself into? Lieutenant Morrison asked herself as she hung up the telephone. She wrinkled her nose and frowned. She should be in bed, resting up for her next shift, and here she was, making calls to crazy colonels in the middle of the Bougainville jungle.

  She thought of Butsko lying in his straitjacket. The man was obviously a psycho case, otherwise he wouldn't have fought with two doctors and all those marines. Butsko's medical file was spread in front of her, and she held the X ray up to the light. His leg was held together by a few ligaments. The bone was shattered beyond all hope. Such a leg had to be amputated. You didn't have to be a doctor to know that. Butsko couldn't deal with losing his leg, evidently. That was a common reaction. Somebody should tell him they had wonderful mechanical devices that would permit him to walk almost as if he still had his leg. Maybe I'll tell him myself.

  She asked herself again why she was even bothering to get involved. The ship was full of wounded soldiers who needed her, so why was she devoting so much time to Master Sergeant John Butsko? It wasn't because he was wounded so severely, ; because many men had wounds that were much worse. And it certainly wasn't because he was handsome, because his face looked as if it had gone through a meat grinder about three times. In fact, his whole body was covered with wounds, many of them fresh, so why weren't they listed on his medical report?

  Wait a minute, she said to herself. Could they have switched Butsko's medical records with some other guy who also had a leg wound? She knew that clerical errors had occurred in the past, often with tragic results that no one talked about. It was I inevitable in a situation in which some people assigned to the ‘ ship were nearly illiterate and many of the rest were too smart .! for their own good. So many men passed through every day. It was much busier than any city hospital.


  There was only one way to be sure. They'd have to take fresh X rays of Butsko's leg, and she'd supervise to make sure nothing went wrong. She'd have to convince Dr. Harris to give her the authorization for the X rays, and that might not be easy, because he was an arrogant son of a bitch, like most doctors. First thing in the morning she'd go to his office and tell him what she thought, not that he'd give a damn. She'd have a fight on her hands, but she'd have to do it. It wouldn't be fair for a war hero like Butsko to lose his leg if he didn't have to.

  That's why I'm doing it, she said to herself. don't want the poor son of a bitch to be made a cripple by mistake, right?

  •••

  Frankie La Barbara opened his eyes and saw the gray walls of a cell in the brig. Oh, no, he said to himself. He touched the sore spot on his head, and there was a big knot where the Marine had hit him with the billy club. My knife! he thought in alarm. Reaching down toward his crotch, he felt it still taped to the inside of his thigh. The Marines hadn't found it. Frankie wondered if they'd searched him and missed it or never searched him at all. Regardless of what had happened, he still had his knife. That meant he could bust out of the brig and try to kill Butsko again.

  He knew he had to kill Butsko before Butsko killed him, and cursed himself for not killing Butsko when he'd had the chance. Me and my big fucking mouth, Frankie thought. Instead of cutting his fucking throat, I gave him a fucking lecture.

  Frankie knew he was in deep trouble. He'd have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder to see if Butsko was sneaking up on him—unless he killed Butsko first. He had to kill Butsko first. I'm gonna bust out of this brig right now and kill the son of a bitch.

  He sat up and his head spun. He saw the commode in the corner, the bars of the cell, and the corridor on the other side of the bars, lit by a naked electric bulb in a small wire basket. Frankie felt dizzy and weak. Maybe I'd better get some sleep first. Then I'll bust out of here and even things up with that fucking Butsko.

  Frankie closed his eyes and lay down on the cot. Five minutes later he was snoring.

  SIXTEEN . . .

  At dawn Lieutenant Morrison stood in front of Dr. Harris's office, waiting for him to come on duty. She kept glancing at her watch, because she was due to go on duty herself in a half hour. Orderlies, doctors, and nurses walked back and forth, and she felt self-conscious standing there, doing nothing, but she had to talk with Dr. Harris before he began operating that morning.