How Can You Mend This Purple Heart

by T. L. Gould

  “Thank you, Al, we’ve been expecting you,” she replied.

  Two corpsmen wheeled the new patient into the second slot to the left of Miss Berry and her cluttered desk. She went over to the new arrival and placed her hand on his arm just above the IV puncture; a catheter tube curled down the side of the bed.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Not bad, ma’am,” he said.

  He was in a full body cast, chin to toes. Both legs were completely covered in plaster with a bar across the middle just above his knees. The plaster cast shell covered his entire torso and chest. The only parts sticking out were his two full arms and his head. He looked like a giant white turtle stuck on its back.

  “Hey Big Al,” Earl Ray motioned. “What’s the new guy got?”

  “Two broken femurs and busted pelvis, motorcycle. He was home on leave from AIT before going to ’Nam.”

  “A non-combat moderfucker,” Ski laughed, looking at Earl.

  “Yeah, but he’s a Marine,” Earl said, looking at me.

  “What difference does it make?” Big Al said. “Makes no difference, man. We’re all here for the same reason. We got fucked up, and we gotta get on with shit, that’s all.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Roger George,” Big Al said. “Just made Lance before he went home.”

  “What the fuck kind of name is Roger George?” Earl chided.

  “What the fuck kind of name is Earl Ray?” Big Al shrugged.

  “Fuck you,” Earl shrugged back.

  “Like I said, what difference does it make?” Big Al smiled, popping his wheelchair straight up.

  “How’s everything out on the rehabs?” Earl Ray asked.

  “Same old shit, Earl. Be glad when you get back out there. I need somebody to beat at Spades.”

  “You couldn’t beat me in a chair race,” Earl chided. “I haven’t heard when they’re moving me back out, but when they do, I’ll race you down the ramps.”

  “You got a deal,” Big Al smiled, spinning in circles like a Tilt-a-Whirl.

  “And I don’t need a head start, either,” Earl smiled, showing the bulging muscles in his right arm.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Big Al grinned as he let the chair down easy and disappeared off the ward.

  Roger George was a welcome sight for me. Maybe he was a Marine, but at least now I wasn’t the only non-combat person on the ward. A motorcycle accident, to boot. Thank God he wasn’t run over by a tank during advanced infantry training, I thought.

  His bed was across the center aisle and slightly off to my right. I couldn’t wait until his last pain shot wore off so I could get acquainted. Safety in numbers, I had always heard.

  Miss Berry went over to Roger George’s bed with Doc Miller; they both had a puzzled look.

  “When’s the last time you had a bowel movement, Roger?” Miss Berry asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve had one since the motorcycle flipped.”

  “Oh, boy!” Miss Berry said. “That’s not good.”

  “Six days and you haven’t gone yet!” Doc exclaimed.

  “Guess I just haven’t had to,” he said with his turtle head bobbing upward.

  “Stand back. Stand the fuck back!” Bobby Mac hooted. “The new guy’s going to get it!”

  Miss Berry took hold of Roger’s arm. “You poor soul,” she said, and winked at him as she picked up the clipboard at the foot of his bed.

  “Three tablespoons of castor oil. You want it in grape juice or plain?” she smiled.

  “Grape juice, I guess,” he said, swallowing hard.

  She took it over to him herself, and I wasn’t sure if she was enjoying this or if she wanted to make sure he drank the entire concoction.

  I had my introduction to the stuff about a week before. It was like drinking motor oil. The castor oil had separated from the grape juice and was floating on top. The instant it hit my tongue, my brain put the rejection fluids on autopilot, and I nearly choked on the flood of saliva. It tasted and felt like a raw slimy fish was caught in my throat.

  Roger drank it down in a couple of gulps and chased it with the grape juice, almost puking the stuff back up. He squirmed in the turtle-shell cast and tried to spit some of it out, but Miss Berry tapped under his chin and forced the rest down.

  Ski and Bobby Mac were making howling noises as Doc came over and gave Roger a hypodermic, right on schedule. Later that night, Roger would be awakened by a watery spray of diarrhea filling his bed sheets. The third shift corpsmen wouldn’t be happy.

  Miss Berry patted Roger on the arm and said not to worry about Ski and Bobby Mac; they had their turn already, or they were going to get a second dose.

  “Okay, you two, serenade me with my favorite song,” Miss Berry said as she stood between Ski and me.

  We had done this a few times before; once Doc had told us her favorite singer and favorite song, we surprised her with our own rendition.

  Ski and I started in unison.

  “Please release me, let me go, for I don’t love you anymore. To live our lives would be a sin, so release me, and let me love again.” It was the staple song of Engelbert Humperdinck, and Miss Berry joined in.

  The boos and hisses started before we could finish, and Miss Berry bounced away, clapping and smiling.

  Ski and I went into our duet again, only louder this time.

  “I’ll release you!” Earl Ray jabbed. “I’ll put you both out of your misery!”

  We ramped up the volume.

  Shit started flying at us from everywhere: empty milk cartons, rolls of toilet paper, boxes of Kleenex, a pair of socks. Doc Miller threw a plastic puke tray from behind the nurses’ station.

  Ski and I did a high-five in the air space between us; we could ramp it up again as soon as Miss Berry was back on the ward.

  The day shift tidied up as usual before leaving us to the partial crew at 1600. Doc Miller would often hang around and help out for another half-hour or so. He came out of the back room after changing into his dress whites, drying his hands with a towel, and hastened his step toward Ski.

  “Got another surprise for you, Ski, my man!” he said.

  “Dwhat eeze it now? You going to take me home weeth you?” Ski smirked.

  “No, it’s even better than that,” Doc replied.

  “Nothing could be better dthan getting out of here.”

  “That will come in due time. Right now, it’s due time for something else,” Doc said.

  “Dwhy don’t you guys just leef me alone?” Ski said, raising one eyebrow and squinting at Doc, who was headed toward the brown double doors.

  Doc Miller pulled opened the doors as Miss Berry and a hard-jawed Marine gunny sergeant, decked out in full Marine Corps dress blues, paraded in. The gunny had a small rectangular box in one hand.

  Miss Berry led the man over to Ski’s bedside and introduced him.

  “Nice to meet you, Marine,” he said with a slow, hard tone.

  “Am I een some kind of trouble?” Ski asked, his accent growing with his uneasiness.

  “Not at all, young man,” stoked the gunny. “I’m here to present this to you. The Order of the Purple Heart medal. It’s for the sacrifice you made for our nation. Please wear it proudly.” He shook Ski’s hand hard and gently placed the small box on Ski’s lap.

  Ski looked at the purple enamel heart with the brass cameo bust of George Washington emblazoned in its center.

  Before he could get out his thank you, the gunny had already turned away and headed toward the doors. Miss Berry took Ski’s hand.

  “It’s not every day that I get to be a part of this. Most of the time, it’s given before you guys arrive here. Ski, thank you, and please do wear it with pride. Every one of you, wear yours with all the pride in the world,” she said as she walked through the green and white tiled entryway, tears welling in her eyes.

  Earl Ray climbed down into his chair, removed a small
box from under the letters from Jennifer, and quietly made his way over to Ski.

  “You, me, and all the others in here with this, this is who we are.” Earl Ray’s voice had an eerie sarcasm to it that made Ski uneasy. “Take a good look at it, man.”

  Ski cupped the Purple Heart in his hand like a baby bird, staring at it for almost a full minute.

  “Sometimes, it feels broken,” Earl said, mostly to himself.

  “Dwhat do dyou mean?” Ski asked, looking at Earl with a puzzled grin.

  “Sometimes it feels like it’s broken. You know, like it’s all for nothing. Like you’ve been fucked.”

  “Dyou are djust feeling Jendeefer, man,” Ski said.

  “Shit, I’ve been feeling this way long before that,” Earl said.

  “Well, I think eet’s all about Jendeefer. Dyou should be proud of dyour Purple Heart.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they keep telling me,” Earl said.

  “Who’s dthey?” Ski asked.

  “Those dumb, fucking shrinks they make me go to, who else?”

  “They know what they are talking about. You should leesten to them,” Ski responded, his accent thickening with his growing uneasiness.

  “They don’t know a goddamn thing. Trying to tell me my two legs and arm are worth this little piece of purple and brass. It ain’t why I joined the Corps. I just wanted to be like my old man. Be a Marine, go to war, and come home and just fucking live out my life. Nobody said I’d come back like this. And they think this Purple Heart is supposed to make me feel better? They’re the ones that are out of their fucking minds.”

  “Dyou shouldn’t feel that way,” Ski offered, almost apologetically.

  Ski and Earl Ray had not heard the portable phone ringing about three beds down. “Hey, Earl!” Doc called out. “It’s for you.”

  “Who’s calling me?” Earl said with a look of slight anger.

  “Don’t know. She wouldn’t say,” Doc said with a grin, holding the phone up.

  Earl melted back into his wheelchair and tossed his Purple Heart onto his bed. He glanced quickly at Ski. Ski smiled that instant, toothless smile that made you feel good.

  “Brding the phone down here, Doc!” Ski yelled.

  Earl stiffened up and rolled cautiously around his bed, keeping an eye on Doc and the waiting call. Doc began pulling the privacy curtains around Earl’s bed.

  “Don’t need to do that, Doc,” he said. “This won’t take long.”

  “Hello?” he said with a forced harshness as he cradled the phone with his shoulder and his left arm stump. He reached up and took the Purple Heart off the blanket and gently placed it in the bottom drawer with Jennifer’s letters.

  “Oh, hi, Jen, I thought it might be you.” The air from the corner of his mouth snapped at the receiver. “…I’m doing okay…Not since you were here…No need to be sorry. You didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done…Sorry, Jen. I didn’t mean that…Yeah, I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinking, too,” his voice trembled. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said, still cradling the phone against his chin and left shoulder.

  A quick blast of air from the corner of his mouth pushed at the receiver, and it slipped off his shoulder, banging to the floor.

  “Son of a bitch!” he said as he tried to grab it with his left half-arm. Earl instinctively slid off his chair, picked up the receiver, and sat on the floor.

  “Sorry, Babe, I dropped the phone…Yeah, I guess I did call you Babe…” he said with another snap of air at the mouthpiece. “No, I don’t want you to come up, Jen…You know why…I need a lot of time. A lot of time, Jen…Yeah, I’m getting your letters…Sure, call me when you can…No, Jen, I can’t call you, not for a while…Okay, Jen…Bye.”

  “Dyou are a dlucky guy, Earl,” Ski said. “She eez a special woman, dyou know. Dyou should call her back.”

  “Yeah, some day. Some day when I’m feeling lucky.”

  A Festered Hair

  “I KNOW IT’S a couple of days from now, Ski, but we’ve got a Fourth of July surprise for you,” Dr. Donnolly grinned.

  Ski scrunched his forehead down and peered at him.

  “It’s good news, Ski. Your legs are doing well enough we’re going to remove the upper half of the casts. We’ll take this stabilizer bar out from between your legs, too. You’ll be able to bend your knees. We have to keep the rods in for now, though.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Ski grinned proudly. He gave a long exhale as his entire body relaxed into the mattress.

  “It’s even better,” Dr. Donnolly smiled. “We’re going to attach rubber heels to the bottom of both casts. Get you ready to stand up.”

  Ski sat up and put his hand out. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

  When they wheeled Ski back onto the ward, Miss Berry and Doc Miller were waiting to greet him. They helped the two corpsmen roll his bed back into the empty slot; Ski was riding high, grinning from ear to ear. He was sitting straight up, legs bent, his knobby knees pointing toward the ceiling; his powder-white skinny thighs, naked to the world, were proudly on display.

  “You’ll catch a cold like that,” Miss Berry winked, tugging at his pajama top to pull it down over his crotch a bit.

  “But eet feels good on my legs,” Ski grinned, pulling the garment just slightly back over the top of his thighs.

  “No modesty among this bunch,” she said.

  Miss Berry grabbed Doc Miller by the arm and walked him over to the nurses’ station.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s get this ward ready…and get this over with,” Miss Berry sighed.

  It was the Friday of the Fourth of July weekend, and the big brass was coming up. Doc Miller was extra nervous, and the part of Miss Berry that wore an officer’s uniform was being forced to the surface. She was openly uncomfortable as she moved down the freshly polished center aisle with a rigid focus that we had never seen in her before.

  All the bed sheets were changed, the beds wiped down, clean pajamas for everyone, and all the nightstands rid of everything not government-issued. It was an informal inspection, but everyone knew the brass was expecting to be received as if royalty was passing through.

  “Hey, Doc,” Earl Ray called out.

  “Yeah, what is it, Earl?”

  “We know the brass is coming up, but who is it?”

  “These are the big guys. The admiral and his staff from Norfolk headquarters.”

  “I’ve never seen an admeeral,” Ski said. “I don’t think they are allowed in ’Nam!”

  “Non-combat motherfuckers, all of ’em,” Earl Ray said.

  “Just like me,” I said with a little sarcasm.

  “No, not quite like you,” Earl said. “At least you went through boot camp. These guys wouldn’t know a boot if it kicked ’em in the ass.”

  “Ain’t that some shit,” Bobby Mac hooted. “We must be real important if an admiral is coming.”

  “Yeah,” Earl Ray said. “We’re supposed to think they give a shit.”

  Every bed in which the guy was able to sit up was cranked to a forty-five-degree angle. The shades were raised to exactly the middle of the windows, and the beds were aligned as perfectly as possible up and down and across the ward.

  The nurses’ station was cleared of all paperwork, and Miss Berry fidgeted in the chair, just wanting to get this over with. She had been through brass visits before, but this one was her first as the nurse-in-charge of an entire floor.

  She patted the desk like a drum roll and started toward us. “I want you guys to be on your best behavior today,” she said, smiling. “These guys should only be here for a few minutes, and everything will be back to normal.”

  She gave us a smile from the open doorway. “Wish me luck. I’ll be back up here with them in ten minutes.”

  Six of them strutted through the doors with the admiral in front. He had more gold braids and decorations than a Macy’s window Christmas tree. He took about ten paces onto the ward and stood rigid, looking down to his r
ight at Earl Ray. Earl was sitting up at a neat forty-five-degree angle, staring down at his half-left leg.

  The admiral turned and faced Earl. “Where’s your salute, young man?”

  We weren’t sure if we had heard him right.

  “I said, where’s your salute, young man?” he said again, moving closer to the foot of Earl’s bed.

  Earl Ray Higgins sat up straight, placed the fingers of his right hand above his brow, elbow straight out from his shoulder with his left arm stump jetting out from under his pajama sleeve. He snapped down a hard, sharp salute, never looking up from his stare.

  It came out of me like a snake striking at prey.

  “Are you shittin’ me?” I blurted.

  Earl Ray, Ski, and Bobby Mac—all three let out a “Holy shit!” At least that’s what I heard. I was certain the rest of the ward hunkered down. The full reality of what I had just done hit me. My gut went into spontaneous combustion, and my balls shriveled like raisins.

  The admiral stepped past Ski and stood cadaver-like at the foot of my bed, staring at me from under the gold, scrambled-egg bill of his cap. He turned to Miss Berry; her face had melted like wax.

  “What is that you have to say?” he barked at me.

  “With all due respect, sir, I think you’re the one who should be saluting him,” I blurted out.

  My balls were now the size of grape seeds.

  “I want this man up for Captain’s Mast as soon he’s able,” he commanded at a volume meant to make certain the whole ward would hear it.

  He raised his head slightly, burning an arrogant stare at me as if I was a bedpan, and turned away.

  Ski, Earl Ray, and Bobby Mac had smiles like Cheshire cats. Roger George’s eyes were the size of cotton balls.

  Miss Berry floated passed the end of my bed, just shaking her head.

  The admiral and his posse completed their tour, and I suppose they got a medal for it. As they passed my bed on their way out, a Lt. Commander, the lowest-ranking one of the group, lifted my clipboard and read my name out loud. I returned his smirk with a fuck-you look. He tossed the clipboard onto my bed and shuffled off the ward with Miss Berry, the admiral, and the rest of his entourage.

  Before the doors had fully closed, Ward 2B erupted in ovation.