Chapter One (Continued...)

The candy-striper was there when I came out from the anesthesia. I hadn’t expected her to be anywhere near me after my outburst with the chaplain. My vision was still blurred and a patch of thick gauze covered my left eye but she looked like a bronze angel, “They call me Max, what’s your name?”

“Glenda.”

“I expected something more exotic, like Leilani.” I wasn’t in pain… I wasn’t in anything… I was there and that was all there was to it. She was there too and that counted for something.

“It’s just plain Glenda. How are you feeling?”

“Huh, a little fuzzy…”

“You’re in a better mood than when I last saw you.” She said flatly.

“Thanks to the morphine,” Oh shit, I thought, more mawkish concern. Then, after a pause of more than a few uncomfortable minutes, I spoke through a thick anesthetized tongue, “My mood is cheerful enough… what do you mean?”

“You tore into the chaplain…. He was just trying to be helpful.”

“How is it helpful to tell me I might die?”

“Don’t you think about what will happen to your soul, Max?”

“You tell me what a soul is, Glenda, and I might get concerned about it.”

She turned to walk away and, over her shoulder added, “We’ll talk about it when your mind is clearer and you are in a better mood.”

“My mind is clearer than it will ever be. How am I in a bad mood?”

“It could be better.” She smiled and walked out of sight from my one good eye.

Ward Ten was the orthopedic ward where all the broken bones, shrapnel wounds and amputees went. There were Marines, Army, Navy and an assortment of military dependents and veterans in the ward. The section where I was there was a kid in the bed across from mine, a dependent of a Navy NCO barely sixteen, who suffered some form of deterioration of his bones. Billy’s head was held with pins through a halo attached to titanium rods that continued down to reinforce his spine. The Kid (that’s the name we gave him, Billy the Kid) was dying and he knew it. He’d suffered a series of heart failures and each time they wheeled him to the E.R. seemed like it would be his last.  I was intrigued with him because the Kid was always so damned cheerful. Even though he was sixteen Billy looked more like twelve. Still, he joked and goofed off with the best of us and he was considered one of the men in the ward.

…all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny

Wherever they drive my boat.

To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness

But life without meaning is the torture

Of restlessness and vague desire ---

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

From: Spoon River Anthology

By

Edgar Lee Masters

One night a program came on the TV that the Kid insisted we watch. There were eight beds in our section and the viewing fare was picked by consensus: mostly cop-buddy shows like Hawaii Five-O or Combat reruns. But this particular night everyone ceded and allowed the kid to watch his show; The Spoon River Anthology, from an adaptation of the book of poetry written by Edgar Lee Masters. I wasn’t sure why but I looked forward to the show myself. The theme was somewhat dour as far as I was concerned and I wondered whether it might be too much for the kid. The subject of the anthology was the lives of those buried in the Spoon River graveyard speaking from their graves. After it was over was over Billy asked me; “Do you believe in life after death, Max?”

I adamantly did not believe in any such nonsense but I understood that the Kid was asking because he was preparing to die. Of course, I lied; “Yeh, I guess so. What do you think?”

“I don’t know but I’m gonna find out real soon.” He shrugged.

 “You mean heaven and hell?” our section was quiet… everyone in earshot was listening. “Whatever; just doesn’t make much sense does it?”

“No, but I’m gonna miss my folks and friends if I’m there and know it.”

“Good point,” I was hesitant but, what the hell, the kid would know soon enough, “it does seem a bit morbid when ya think of it.”

“Anything’s better than this.” He gestured at his halo, monitor and oxygen tanks. I didn’t know what to say and the other GI’s in the room had nothing to say either. Finally, the kid spoke. “Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t so bad that I don’t want to live.”

I was thinking, Shit, he hasn’t even had a chance to get laid yet. Next thing I knew I was making things up. I heard myself saying, “Hey, maybe all this will work out for you.” I knew I was lying and I knew the Kid knew it too.

“Yeh, maybe it will work out.”

That would be our last conversation. The alarms on the monitors went off around two a.m. That had happened several times before but, as the Docs and nurses wheeled him out to the E.R.; the finality of it sank in.

The next day at lunch Glenda wheeled in the meal cart and passed out the trays to our glum lot. Usually the battle hardened Grunts and Screaming Eagles would cheer up when a skirt like Glenda walked in the door but there was none of the usual banter.

As she set up my tray she asked about the kid. Of course, she already knew but it was more to break the silence, “Were you awake when it happened?”

“Yeh, we all were. There was a lot of the usual noise.”

“You okay?”

I had been biting my lip and I’d hoped she hadn’t seen it. “Yeh, I’m fine.” A lump the size of a golf ball was lodged in my throat. I didn’t know why but her concern stirred up something deep within me. I wanted to cry but I could not: not here in front of these other men but perhaps… just perhaps, if I were alone with Glenda… far away from the ward… perhaps I could cough up that golf ball and let the dam break. I turned my head into my pillow so she wouldn’t see the tears. Hell, I didn’t even know the Kid. He was just another bed on the ward. A nuisance… with his monitors and alarms! Damn it all to hell. The nation was at war and so was I. I was at war with myself and I was at war with God. What kind of God would make this mess?

“Glenda,” I called out as she was almost to the door, “You still concerned about my soul?”

“Well… er… yes?”

“Don’t be. I don’t have one.”

“I think you do… and a good one at that.” Thankfully she left. I watched her bronze-toned calves under the candy-striped skirt push her stainless-steel cart of trays down to the other end of the ward.

Ah, I thought, I wonder if my back will be able to manage the ole In and Out with a girl like that when I’m out of here.

My mind must have been easy to read because the Jarhead in the bed next to me fended off his grief also by saying, “Yeh, I think I’d like a taste of that too.”