The Million-Dollar Wound (2 page)

Lucky indeed for America that in this theater and at that juncture she depended not on boys drafted or cajoled into fighting but on “tough guys” who had volunteered to fight and who asked for nothing better than to come to grips with the sneaking enemy who had aroused all their primitive instincts.

—Samuel Eliot Morison

History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II

Say a prayer for my pal Who died in Guadalcanal.

—Commonest of inscriptions among the hundreds of crosses in a cemetery on that island

If you don’t do like I say, you’ll get shot in the head.

—Frank Nitti

There’s no business like show business.

—Irving Berlin

My name was gone.

When I woke, I didn’t know where the hell I was. A small room with the pale green plaster walls and antiseptic smell of a hospital, yes, but
what
hospital?
Where?

And then the damnedest thing happened: I couldn’t remember my name. Couldn’t remember for the life of me. It was gone.

There was nobody to ask about it. I was alone in the little room. Just me and three other beds, empty, neatly made, military fashion, a small bedside stand next to each. No pictures on any of the stands, though. No mirrors on the wall. How in hell did they expect a guy to know who he was without a mirror on the wall?

I sat up in bed, the horsehair mattress beneath me making an ungodly racket, working against itself like a bag of steel wool. My mouth had a bitter, medicinal taste. Maybe that was it; maybe I was so pumped full of medicine I was woozy. My name would come to me. It would come.

I stood up, on wobbly legs. I hadn’t forgotten how to walk, exactly, but I wasn’t ready for the Olympics.

Funny. I knew what the Olympics was. I knew all sorts of things, come to think of it. That the mattress was horsehair, pillow too. I knew what color green was. I knew that this brown, wool, scratchy blanket was government issue. But who was I? Where did I come from?
Who the fuck was I?

I sat back down on the edge of the bed; my legs couldn’t take standing up for long, and neither could the rest of me. Where did my memory begin? Think back. Think back.

I could remember another hospital. Yesterday, was it? Or longer ago? I could remember waking up in a hospital bed, next to a window, and looking out and seeing, goddamnit, seeing palm trees and
screaming,
screaming…

But I didn’t know why palm trees would make me scream. I did know what palm trees were. That was a start. I didn’t think seeing one today would make me scream. Shit, I needed some joe. That taste in my mouth.

Then I remembered looking at myself in the mirror! Yes, at the other hospital, looking at myself in the mirror, and seeing a man with a yellow face.

Fucking Jap!
somebody said, and broke the mirror.

Still sitting on the edge of my rack, I lifted a hand to my forehead; felt a bandage there. The hand, I noticed, was yellow.

It was me. I broke the mirror. I was the one who yelled at the Jap. And I was the Jap.

“You’re no fuckin’ Jap,” somebody said.

Me, again.

You’re not a Jap. You think, you talk, in English. Japs don’t think and talk in English. They don’t know Joe DiMaggio from Joe Louis. And you do.

You know English, you know about Japs, you know about DiMaggio and Louis, but you don’t know your own name, do you, schmuck?

Schmuck? Isn’t that Jewish?

I’m a Jew. A Jew or something.

“Fuck it,” I said, and got up again. Time to walk. Time to find another window and see if there are any palm trees and see if they make me scream.

I was in a nightshirt, so I dug in the drawers of the bedside stand and found some clothes. Skivvies and socks and a cream-color flannel shirt and tan cotton pants. I put them on; I remembered how to do
that,
anyway. And I about tripped over a pair of shoes by the bed; stopped and put them on. Civilian-type shoes, not the boondockers I was used to.

The adjoining room was a dormitory or a ward or something; twenty beds, neatly made, empty. Was I the only guy here?

I walked through the ward into a hallway, and at my right was a glassed-in area, behind which pretty girls in blue uniforms with white aprons were scurrying around. Nurses. None of them seemed to notice me. But I noticed them. They were so young. Late teens, early twenties. I hadn’t seen a pretty girl in so very long. I didn’t know why. But I knew I hadn’t. For some reason it made me want to cry.

Held it back, though. Instinct said tears would keep me in here, longer, and already I wanted out. I didn’t know where else I’d go, because I didn’t know where the hell I belonged, but it wasn’t here.

I went over to the glass and knocked; a nurse looked up at me, startled. She had light blue eyes, and blond curly shoulder-length hair showering from under her white cap. Petite, fine features. The faintest trail of freckles across a cute, nearly pug nose.

She slid a window to one side and looked at me prettily from behind the counter. “Ah—you’re the new patient,” she said. Pleasantly.

“Am I?”

She checked her watch, glanced at a chart on a clipboard on the counter. “And I think it’s about time for your Atabrine tablets.”

“What is it, malaria?”

“Why, yes. You’ve had quite a flare-up, as a matter of fact. You were just sent over from M and S after several days there.”

“M and S?”

“Medical and Surgical building.”

She got me the pills—small, bright yellow pills—and a little paper cup of water; I took the water and the pills. The aftertaste was bitter.

“Tell me something,” I said.

She smiled and I loved her for it; tiny white teeth like a child. “Certainly.”

“Do they have palm trees outside the window, over at M and S?”

“Hardly. You’re at St. E’s.”

“St. E’s?”

“St. Elizabeth’s. Near Washington, D.C.”

“I’m in the States, then!”

“Yes you are. Welcome home, soldier.”

“Never call a Marine ‘soldier,’ sweetheart. We take that as an insult.”

“Oh, so you’re a Marine.”

I swallowed. “I guess I am.”

She smiled again. “Don’t worry,” she said. “After a few days, you’ll get your bearings.”

“Can I ask you to look something up for me?”

“Sure. What?”

“My name.”

Her eyes filled with pity, and I hated her for it, and myself, but the feeling passed, where she was concerned; she checked on the clipboard chart and said, “Your name is Heller. Nathan Heller.”

It didn’t mean a thing to me. Not a thing. Not the faintest fucking bell rang. Shit.

“Are you sure?” I said.

“Unless there’s been a foul-up.”

“If this is a military hospital, there could sure as hell be a snafu. Double-check, will you? If I heard my own name, I’m sure I’d recognize it.”

Pity in the eyes; more pity in the eyes. “I’m sure you would. But we’re not strictly military here, and…listen, Mr., uh, sir, why don’t you step into the dayroom and relax.” She gestured graciously to a wide, open doorway just down and across from us. “If I can straighten out this snafu, I’ll let you know.”

I nodded and walked toward the dayroom; she called out after me.

“Uh, sir!”

I turned and felt my face try to smile. “I’m no officer.”

“I know,” she said, smiling. “You’re a PFC. But that gives you plenty of rank to pull around here, believe me. You guys are tops with us, never forget that.”

Pity or not, it was kind of nice to hear.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Those palm trees you mentioned?”

“Yeah?”

“You were in Hawaii three days ago. At Pearl Harbor, in the Naval hospital there. That’s where you saw the palm trees.”

“Thanks.”

Only I had a crawling feeling Hawaii wasn’t the only place I’d seen palm trees.

The dayroom stretched out like the deck of an aircraft carrier, eighty feet long by forty feet wide, easy. The same institutional pale green walls dominated, with an expanse of speckled marble floor where massive furniture squatted—heavy wooden tables, chairs, a piano, the smallest stick of this furniture would take two guys to toss around, and maybe not then. That was when I figured it.

I was in the nuthouse.

Hell, where did I
expect
to be? I didn’t know my own fucking name, right? Of course, I knew who was singing “White Christmas,” as the radio was piped in over an intercom system: Bing Crosby. I was no idiot. I knew the name of the song and the name of the singer; now, for the sixty-five-dollar question: who the hell was I?

If I had any doubt about
where
I was, the human flotsam sprawled across the heavy chairs cinched it. Hollow cheeks and hollow eyes. Guys sitting there shaking like hootchie-coo dancers. Guys sitting there staring with ball bearings for eyes. A few very ambitious guys playing pinochle or checkers. One guy sat in the corner quietly bawling. Made me glad I held my own tears back. I had enough problems just being minus the small detail of an identity.

Most of the guys were smoking. I craved a smoke. Something in the back of what was left of my mind told me I didn’t smoke; yet I wanted a smoke; I sat next to a guy who wasn’t shaking or staring; he
was
smoking, however, and he seemed normal enough, a tanned, brown-haired, round-faced man with distinct features. He was sitting along the wall over at right next to a window; this window, like all the other windows, looked out at a nearby faded red-brick building, through bars.

I was in the nuthouse, all right.

“Spare a cig?” I asked.

“Sure.” He shook out a Lucky for me. “Name’s Dixon. What’s yours?”

“I dunno.”

He lit me up off his. “No kidding? Amnesia, huh?”

“If that’s what they call it.”

“That’s what they call it. You had the malaria, didn’t you, Pops?”

Pops? Did I look that old? Of course Dixon here was probably only twenty or twenty-one, but somebody who hadn’t been in the service might peg him for thirty.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I still got it.”

“I hear it’s the ever-lovin’ pits. Fever, shakes. What the hell, you got any other injuries?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about that noggin of yours?”

He meant my bandaged head.

“I did that to myself. In some hospital in Hawaii.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.”

“Know the feelin’,” he said. Yawned. “That’s most likely why you’re on MR Four.”

“What’s that?”

“Men’s Receiving, fourth floor. Anybody remotely suicidal gets stuck here.”

“I’m not suicidal,” I said, sucking on my cigarette.

“Don’t sweat it, then. There’s six floors in this joint. Worse off you are, higher your floor. As you get better, you get promoted downwards a floor or two. Hit MR One and you’re as good as home, wherever that is for ya.”

“Wherever that is,” I agreed.

“Oh. Sorry. I forgot.”

“Me too.”

He grinned, laughed. “You’re Asiatic, all right.”

I understood the term; didn’t know why I did, but I understood it. It described any man who’d served long enough in the Far East to turn bughouse. Subtly bughouse, as in talking to yourself and seeing the world sideways.

“You’re a Marine, too,” I said.

“Yeah. That much about yourself you remember, huh, mac? Not surprising. No Marine alive’d forget he’s a Marine. Dead ones wouldn’t, neither. You can forget your name, that ain’t no big deal. You can’t never forget you’re a Marine.”

“Even if you want to,” I said.

“Right! Here comes one of those fuckin’ gobs.”

A medical corpsman in his work blues strolled over; he seemed cheerful. Who wouldn’t be, pulling duty on a land-locked, home-front ship like St. E’s?

“Private Heller,” he said, standing before me, swaying a bit. Something about bell-bottoms makes a Marine want to kill. If there was a reason for that, I’d forgotten it.

“That’s the name they’re giving me,” I said. “But there’s been a fuck-up. I’m no Nathan Who’s-It.”

“Whoever you are, the doctor would like to see you.”

“I’d like to see him, too.”

“Report to the nurse’s station in five minutes.”

“Aye-aye.”

He flapped off.

“Don’t he know there’s a war on?” Dixon growled.

“I don’t wish combat on any man,” I said.

“Yeah. Hell. Me, neither.”

“Is there a head in this joint?”

“Sure.” He dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his toe. “Follow me.”

He rose—he was shorter than I’d thought, but had the solid build that comes from boot camp and a tour or two of duty—and led me out into the hall, into the head, where finally I saw a mirror. I looked in it.

The face, with its white-bandaged forehead, was yellow-tinged, but it was American. I was not a Jap. That was something, anyway. But I could see why Dixon called me Pops. My hair was reddish brown on top, but had gone largely white on the sides. My skin was leathery, wrinkles spreading like cracks through dried earth.

“Do I look Jewish to you?” I asked Dixon.

Dixon was standing at the sink next to me, staring at himself intently in the mirror; he tore himself away to take a look at my reflection and said, “Irish. You’re a Mick if ever I saw one.”

“Micks don’t use words like ‘schmuck,’ do they?”

“If they’re from the big city they do. New York, say.”

“That where you’re from?”

“No. Detroit. But I had a layover there once. I put the lay in the word, lemme tell ya. Now, there. Look. Will ya look at that. That proves it. Once and for all.”

He was covering one side of his face with his hand. Looking at himself with one eye.

“Proves what?” I asked.

“That I’m nuts,” he said, out of the side of his mouth that showed. “Now, look.”

He covered the other side of his face. Looked at himself with the other eye.

“They’re completely different, see.”

“What is?”

“The two sides of my face, you dumb sonofabitch! They should be the same, but they ain’t. My goddamn face, it’s split it in two. This fuckin’ war. Oh, I got a screw loose, all right.”

He turned away from the mirror and put a hand on my shoulder and grinned; there was a space between his two front teeth, I noticed. “We’re in the right place, you and me,” he said.

“I guess we are,” I said.

“Semper fi,” he shrugged, and strutted out.

I took a crap. That’s something I hadn’t forgotten how to do. I sat there crapping and finishing my smoke and thinking about how I wanted to get out of this place. How I wanted to go home.

Wherever the hell home was.

I flushed the shitter, went over to the sink, and threw some water on my face. Then I went out to meet the doctor.