Just as Carlton Fredericks had predicted, new hospital guidelines were being implemented immediately to include younger patients in ongoing therapy groups. His group was composed entirely of Vietnam veterans. They had become a family of sorts, with their 60’s style of relating to each other. Some had been spit on by Flower Children, jeered at as “baby killers,” and treated as social lepers upon their return from a war nobody claimed. They had smoked their share of “grass,” drank more than their share of warm beer, and slept with Saigon women who didn’t know their names. They had marched soaked to the bone through clouds of mosquitoes, leeches, exotic bugs and beasts that bit. Mud and decay oozed everywhere, sucking at their boots, and smearing their bodies with a constant reminder that they were in a tropical Hell from which there was little escape. More than three decades now separated them from their time in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Yet, many remained haunted with the terrifying thoughts and emotions that were bred in the hills, jungles and rice paddies of Southeast Asia.
For McGinnis, the human fallout of war was not getting any easier to bear. Jungle or sand, the scars of battle remained the same. Years ago, when he began his clinical internship, injured troops were transferred from military hospitals throughout the U.S to Veterans Administration installations. At first he felt awkward treating them, never having served in the armed services himself. He’d never had to tramp through the steaming killing fields of Nam, constantly vigilant for booby traps or ambushes set by the North Vietnamese, but he had listened to the stories of those who had. Secretly, he would have liked to think that hearing their accounts of war was like being there, but that would have been a lie. Nevertheless, Vic had developed a certain knowledge of the language of battle. This ability to use combat vocabulary did include him in the discussion of war, but did not qualify him as member of the Band of Brothers. Although respectfully welcomed as a professional observer, he had not earned his battle stripes.
In the waning years of his practice of clinical psychology, Vic faced yet another challenge: Entering the newer world of the “sand soldiers,” American military who had fought in Iraq during Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom as well as soldiers who had fought in the mountains of Afghanistan. McGinnis watched the news, read journal articles and sat through war movies, but never experienced first-hand the physical and emotional carnage in the Middle East. How could he offer anything of value to the men and women who had?
Perhaps his time had come to hang it up as a clinical psychologist. He felt as out-of-date as his pressed navy-blue blazer, with its brass buttons emblazoned with fictional coats-of-arms. He didn’t know the world of these wounded young folks who would shortly be moving into his life. He didn’t know their music, what movies caught their fancy, their styles of dress, how they raised hell on Saturday night, or what terrified them beyond points that scotch, bourbon, beer and designer drugs could not salve. His father had a phrase that nailed how McGinnis was feeling: “Worthless as tits on a boar.”
Today he sat ready to work with his first new veteran, Corporal Frankie Grayson. McGinnis’ file noted that Grayson was a 23-year-old National Guardsman who was driving a military transport when injured by a roadside bomb. Having attended high school in Three Forks, Montana, upon graduation Frankie enlisted in the Montana Guard, got married and was deployed shortly to Iraq. For Frankie, the fighting began immediately: armored patrols through Baghdad, sweeping the neighborhoods for bombs and snipers . . . day after day with no let-up. Then the convoy was hit, with Grayson’s vehicle sustaining the primary damage. The corporal was air-evaced to Germany and then home, carrying medical diagnoses of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Grayson was treated at several Army hospitals, ultimately discharged for service-connected injuries and transferred to the Montana Veterans Administration Hospital.
Toward the back of Grayson’s file was a picture of the corporal, dressed in desert camouflage, flak jacket and helmet. McGinnis glanced at the picture, and then took a better look. Then it hit him. Not only would he be dealing with a soldier injured in Iraq, he would be dealing with a woman.
McGinnis had nothing against women; he had married one. However, he had never had a female combat veteran in his VA therapy groups. McGinnis thumbed once again through Corporal Grayson’s file, unconsciously hoping that he might find some answers about managing a veteran a third his age, wounded in a war he knew little about, assigned to an aging, all-male group . . . and a woman. He frowned as he measured his thoughts, thoughts that sounded way too inadequate and chauvinistic for his taste, but there they were. His job was getting a lot more complicated.
His daydreaming was interrupted by Geno Molinari who was humming a tune as he swaggered through the conference room door. “Hi, Doc. What’s happenin’?”
“Not much, Geno,” came McGinnis’ automatic reply. He thought about a more complete answer to Molinari’s greeting, but decided against it. He wasn’t ready to share his dilemma about their new group member until everyone arrived.
Short on Molinari’s heels came Buck Hanson, who was patiently walking with Lumpy Lundeen. Lundeen shuffled toward the nearest chair and nodded in Hanson’s direction. “Thanks for the escort service. My muscles still feel like lead.”
“No problem,” said Hanson, as he took his seat at the far end of the table.
Trailing Lundeen and Hanson down the hall, Sonya Layton and Brad Metzger arrived in the room with Loren Hoffmeister. Brad smiled at the group and gave a friendly wave. Sonya nodded and sat down next to Lundeen.
“Well, group,” McGinnis said, “We’ve got some business to tackle at the front end of our session, so we need to get started.”
“Rich isn’t here yet,” Geno said.
“I am now,” came a voice through the half-opened door. The group looked up to see a ruggedly handsome man dressed in khaki pants and a faded blue sport shirt. “You probably don’t recognize me in civvies, but, anyway, I’m back.”
Molinari jumped out of his chair and grabbed Reardon by the hand. “Hey, Rich, welcome! We missed you, buddy.” A chorus of “welcome back’s” followed from around the table.
“Care if I pull up a chair and join you guys? It’s been a long month.”
“Hey, amico, sit anywhere you like,” said Molinari.
“It’s good having you back, Richard,” added McGinnis.
“Have I been gone that long, Doc? ‘Richard’? What happened to ‘Rich’?”
McGinnis chuckled. “You got me there. ‘Rich’ it is. By the way, meet our two new staff members, Sonya Layton and Brad Metzger. They’re both interns from the University of Montana.”
“Grizzlies?” quipped Reardon, referring to the sports mascot of the Missoula campus, arch rivals of his alma mater, Montana State University. He coughed, clearing his throat and gasped in feigned alarm, “The thought takes my breath away.”
Brad Metzger grinned and fired back a response without missing a beat. “Someone has to know how to win football games in this state.”
“Ouch,” said Reardon, “I’m glad I smoked out the worthy opposition before we got into heavier discussion.”
Sonya interrupted. “Not to be concerned, Mr. Reardon. Brad just played too many games without a helmet. He’s actually harmless.”
“Double ouch” said Brad. “It’s still good to meet you, Rich. Be assured that Sonya will do her best to keep me in line . . . and will be calling you ‘Rich’ instead of ‘Mr. Reardon’ before long.”
“Okay, group.” interrupted McGinnis. “I think we’ve got our introductions worked out well enough for now. Let’s get down to some new business. We’ll be adding a new member shortly.”
“Whoa,” said Geno. “Don’t we have any say so? It’s our group.”
“No ‘say so’,” said McGinnis. “We’ve been asked . . . forcefully . . . to add an Iraq combat veteran.”
“A kid?” snorted Molinari. “We don’t need some junior high punk with sand in his ears.”
“Bite your tongue, Molinari,” broke in Hoffmeister. “Kids bleed just like you and me. Give Dr. McGinnis a chance to tell us about the new man.”
McGinnis paused for a moment. “Not a man. Our new member is a woman who was wounded by a roadside bomb while she was driving an armored mine sweeper.”
Silence. Hanson broke it. “What’s a mine sweeper?”
Molinari chuckled. “What a relief. I thought you were going to ask what’s a woman.”
“Clever comment, Mr. Molinari,” Hoffmeister said. “I must also add that Dr. McGinnis may have labeled the military vehicle incorrectly. I suspect it was a ‘humvee’.”
Geno said, “Professor, humvees don’t sweep mines. You’ve been reading the wrong books, or reading the right ones upside down.”
Hoffmeister bristled slightly. “As far as knowledge about the Iraq War, I’d be surprised if you knew an IED from an IUD.”
Sonya cut in. “It sounds like some of us aren’t really tuned into the names, ranks, and serial numbers of war in the Middle East, including the gender of the warriors.”
“Let’s get back to the new woman in our group,” Geno said. “How can we spill our guts with a ‘skirt’ around?”
“So I’m chopped liver?” asked Sonya.
“Oh, you’re a doctor,” Geno grumbled, “And you don’t — ”
“Count?” asked Sonya.
“That’s not what I meant. Hey, you’re a great looking young gal for a shrink. I mean . . . well, you’ve got a great shape . . . ah, I don’t mean you’re just a babe with great boo . . . I mean, I don’t mean to be insulting ya but —”
Hoffmeister intervened. “Geno, quit while you have only one foot buried in your mouth.”
“Hey, all I’m trying to say is that I ain’t got nothin’ against women, but I don’t want to ‘open up’ around them. The present female doctor excluded, of course.”
“May we stray back to the point?” Loren Hoffmeister asked. “We have a new veteran who will be joining our group. A young woman who was wounded in combat. Are we going to react like chauvinistic old fogies who wouldn’t know a humvee if it rolled over our foot? Or are we capable of better behavior?”
Sonya could contain her frustration no longer. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but we need to talk about the facts of life.”
“I’ll vote for that,” said Hanson.
“Me too,” said Rich. “Let her continue.”
“Thank you.” Sonya shuffled through some notes. “As a personal project of mine, I’m been reviewing some of the VA policies toward women. It seems that 230,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past nine years. The number of women veterans living today is over a million. And guess what? The VA didn’t start providing medical and mental health services to women until 1988.”
“Are you certain?” asked Hoffmeister. “I seem to remember seeing women in this VA hospital before then.”
McGinnis added, “That’s true, Sonya. I recall seeing several women patients on the ward in the middle 1960s, although I never treated any myself.”
Lundeen chuckled to himself. You should have been here when Busty Birdie, the female Johnny Appleseed, roamed the halls.
Sonya reddened, but stood her ground. “My information indicates 1988, but I’ll double check that article. However, my findings also indicate that, at the present time, only 37% of the VA’s 144 medical centers have a gynecologist on staff. Not a single facility in the 144 has fully complied with regulations governing women’s privacy.”
Molinari began fidgeting in his seat. “You’re throwing out a lot of numbers for such a pretty lady.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment and ignore the implication that attractive women can’t think.”
Molinari did a double take. “Whoa, ma’am. I’m not saying that at all. But while we’re at it, are you a women’s libber?”
“Interesting that you would ask that question using such loaded words, Mr. Molinari. But then, the average male patient in the VA is 61-years-old whereas two-thirds of the women vets using VA services are under 30. That’s one huge gap. Most of the time, we’re in different worlds. But to answer your question, I’m studying to be a doctor to help people . . . both sexes . . . all ages . . . different colors . . . whatever religion . . . regardless of politics.” Sonya leveled her eyes at Geno, locking him into her radar. “I’m not sure if that makes me a ‘libber’ or not. Just between you and me, I don’t think male patients are treated very well either, but I think that the women are treated even worse. I’d like to do something about both.”
Geno gulped. Reardon clapped his hands together in respectful applause. “Well said, Doctor, well said.”
“She ain’t a doctor yet,” Molinari muttered.
Rich reached over and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “She is in my book.”
“That’s my Sonya,” grinned Brad. “Always beating around the bush.”
“Then are we going to welcome Frankie Grayson on board?” asked McGinnis.
Silence again. Buck was the first to speak. “She’s okay by me.”
“She has my support,” joined Hoffmeister.
“Mine too,” said Reardon.
Geno looked at the floor, scanning it like he was searching for a trapdoor from which he could escape the looks of his group members. “Oh, what the hell. I’m in too.”
“Mr. Lundeen?” Vic McGinnis asked. Lumpy looked up but remained silent. The muscles in his jaw pulled tight as his body began to stiffen.
Picking up on Lundeen’s increasing uneasiness, Sonya asked, “Do you have anything you want to say, Leonard?”
Sinking back into his chair, he muttered, “I do, but not right now.”
After waiting for several moments for any other responses from the group, McGinnis pushed his chair back from the table. “So we’re in agreement. Corporal Grayson is in the secretary’s office. Sonya, would you please go get her and bring her back to the group?”
“It would be my pleasure.” Following her going out the door, Molinari grumbled at the group. “Man, I think we’re getting over our heads. This gal is going to be like talking to a daughter. I’m not sure I’m up for that.”
“Me neither,” said Lundeen. He wrung his hands while he stared at the men around the table. “Daughters can bring a lot of pain.”
Hoffmeister shook his head in sympathy. “The world is full of pain.”
“No shit,” spit Molinari. “And that world of pain is full of women.”
“Of that you can be sure,” said Reardon. “Of that you can be sure.”
“We’ve been worried about you,” said Buck. “With all the trouble with your missus and stuff. How’s it going?”
Reardon stared at the floor, coughed several times while his face slid into sadness. No clever answer popped from his mouth. Instead, his attention drifted elsewhere, to days he’d rather forget.
* * *
This morning he had planned to leave for his VA group therapy session. One month ago he had been discharged from the Montana Veterans Administration Hospital and was returning today for a follow-up visit. That was before he had opened his mail. Mixed in the ads and bills were his divorce papers. Reardon had read the words but stumbled over their meaning as he sat at breakfast in his cramped apartment. His wife, Doris, had sent plenty of warning signs, all of which he had preferred to ignore, and a half a year of marriage counseling hadn’t helped. He didn’t figure group therapy today would have helped much either. Normally he’d have called in sick or given some excuse, but this had been no normal day. McGinnis and the boys would have to meet without him. He had hopes that his marriage counselor would have performed some magic over the months. It didn’t happen. The letter from Doris’ lawyer today had made that clear.
* * *
Rich wondered more than once about this guy—a cocky hunk of blubber who seemed more interested in checking his watch than dealing with their issues. He then turned to a more pressing topic.
“What am I doing wrong?”
“What do you think?” droned the counselor.
“I think I would like some answers.”
“Marriage relationships are complicated.”
No kidding, thought Reardon, and you’re not making ours any simpler.
Doris rolled her eyes, and then shook her head in frustration. “If you don’t know now, you’ll never know. I’ve told you. We’ve told you. You just don’t get it.”
Frowning, Rich mumbled, “Try one more time . . . please.”
“Richard, we’ve been over this too many times. We’ve talked to the VA doctors, our priest, months of marriage counseling. I’m burned out. I’m tired of trying. Putting up with your moods. You don’t know how to feel anything but anger. I’m no longer willing to be your whipping post. Since Vietnam, we’ve not been a couple. Instead, our marriage has turned into a loveless prison with you growling, sulking and withdrawing and my becoming your emotional cheerleader. It’s a thankless job, Rich. I’m done. You can’t relate to people or to their feelings. Certainly mine. Most of all, you’re killing me. I have no choice but to leave.”
Killing you? Reardon bowed his head and stared at his hands. She didn’t make any sense. Obviously she was upset . . . again. Once again she failed to understand how hard he had worked to support her and the kids. He loved them. More than life itself. And now she’s accusing him of killing her. Good God! He looked up at the counselor.
“You’ve got to help me out. What does she mean?”
The therapist picked at his tie again, and without looking at Richard, muttered, “What do you think she means?”
Rich looked at Doris, who was shaking her head again, this time in total disgust.
The therapist grinned again at them both—a canned, “have-a-nice-day” grin. “Our time is up, anyway.”
“It certainly is,” said Doris. She reached for her purse tucked beside her foot, got up from her chair, and walked to the door. “There will be no more marriage counseling sessions for me. My lawyer or I will be in touch.” Then she left.
Richard looked helplessly at the counselor, who was starting to rise from his chair. “What am I going to do?”
“Unfortunately, I only deal with couples and do not work with individuals. If emotional issues persist for you, perhaps you can bring them up with your VA therapy group.” Turning toward the coat rack by the door, the counselor reached for his argyle sweater and then turned to Reardon. Holding out his hand, he shook Richard’s with a wet noodle grip. He opened the door and ushered the shaken patient through it with a parting cliché, “I wish you the best.”
* * *
Up the side of the windowsill crept a fly, staggering from the evening cold that was seeping into the apartment. Only in Montana would an insect be shivering in July. Its wings squeezed against its back, trying to trap some warmth inside itself as it crawled toward the ceiling. The fly seemed to ignore anything but its own struggle to survive the cold and dark. A winter fly in July; a bug drunk from the chilling downpour—staggering, grasping, zigzagging through the damp and dreary. Trying to survive.
Rich toyed with smashing it against the pane, and then reconsidered. Leave it alone. It has its own troubles.
Looking out a window into the shapeless night, Reardon thought about what his life had become—sleeping in a bedroom whose walls made the color gray seem sparkling; showering in a tub stained with yellow caulking and benign neglect; preparing meals from a refrigerator still smelling from the overripe groceries of previous renters. He shrugged and walked into the living room. Living room. What a name for a dead space that reeked of plastic promises of “living”—a cracked vinyl chair wilting away in faded blue-green which was the rage in the 50s; a scratched Formica table rimmed with nicked chrome edging; a chalk sketch on black velvet of a bullfighter dodging a charging toro; an artificial plant stuffed in a Styrofoam planter. Tasteless “stuff” spread out in a sterile campground for a middle-aged man separated from all he knew and loved.
Rich thought about taking a walk, and then rejected the idea. Walking took energy, and he had none to spare. God, when was the last time I slept? Years, his body muttered back. Shuffling to the bedroom, he flopped down on his unmade bed, kicked off his shoes, and pulled the wrinkled sheets over his head. Sleep. Please, God, give me sleep. Reardon twisted the blankets with leg-locks, as he wrestled with being too hot and too cold. His mind turned seconds into hours, until it seemed he had been in bed forever. The wind-up clock on his bed stand said 10:45, as it ticked dully toward Neverland.
His racing thoughts begin to spin out somewhere between Purgatory and Hell, sticking in a mud hole of depression.You blew it. You can’t even figure out what you did, but you screwed up. Big time. And there is nothing you can figure out to do about it!
Rich felt himself transforming into a quivering mass of protoplasm—defenseless, helpless and terrified. Wall-to-wall panic gripped his throat. Emotional devils raced through him, searing with fiery despair any shred of hope that he tried to salvage. His heart pounded at his chest for a way out of his shaking body. His brain screamed while bulging blood vessels turned into pressure hoses. Something had to give. Grinding his teeth and fighting the oncoming flood of tears, Rich turned on God.
I’m done. No more. Give me your best shot. Kill me with a heart attack or blow out my goddamn brains with a stroke. I’m through. No more fear. Pull the plug and let me be. End this shit!
Rich waited for death. Pain-free death. Freedom from ass-busting terror. Freedom from self-loathing and gut-wrenching thoughts. Sweet nothingness. Bring it on. Bring it on! He slumped back in the bed, letting his body go limp, preparing to die. He could care less. Bring it on.
Then came the tears. A trickle at the edge of his eyes, then a torrent erupting inside every atom in his body. Piercing moans sprang from his guts, like dying wild things sprung from traps. His moans melted into sobs. Hysterical, uncontrolled sobbing. He was certain now that he was dying. Thank God. Soon it would be over. Letting the tears gush where they may, Richard watched as his chest heaved in and out like a billows fanning the flames of Hell. Muscles in his arms and legs seized up and drew him in like a bow, stretching and pulling until nothing seemed left to stretch or pull. Perhaps death was almost here.
Then it happened. God knows how or why. Relief. Not the relief of death. He wasn’t dead. His wet face and spastic sobs proved that life still lingered inside him. His heart continued to beat. In fact, it seemed to be slowing down and becoming calmer. The pounding pressure in his forehead also seemed to be fading, with no symptoms of an imminent brain explosion. Instead, peace began to spread over him, like a tranquilizing blanket from the gods. Beautiful, wonderful peace. His entire body collapsed into his bed with a heaviness that squeezed out the last remaining tension. Maybe God does listen were his last thoughts before sleep and exhaustion buried his misery, at least for a while.
* * *
Buck Hanson repeated himself, and the other group members listened. “We’ve been worried about you, you goofy bastard. How’s it going with you and the missus?”
“She filed for divorce.”
“Any hope?” asked Buck.
“About the same as a snowball’s chance in Hell.”
“Perhaps marriage counseling would be of benefit,” said Hoffmeister.
“Been there, done that. Strike three. I’m out.”
Molinari leaned his elbows on the table and stretched toward Rich. “Was the counselor worth a shit?”
Reardon shook his head. “Negative. He couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map. His best move was collecting his fee at the end of each session.”
Geno grunted. “Sounds like a real ‘prickerino’.”
“Is that an Italian word?” asked Hoffmeister.
“One of the best,” said Molinari.
Reardon tried to laugh as his voice broke. “What the hell. It really wasn’t the counselor’s fault that things blew up. Doris was already dug in and filled up to her eyeballs with me. The whole counseling thing was dead on arrival.”
“How are you doing right now, Rich?” asked McGinnis.
Reardon shrugged. “Trying to stay healthy and shake this damn cough. Nothing seems to work, so I’ve got an appointment with the sawbones here next week. I’m expecting a speech about giving up my two-pack-a-day habit. As far as the divorce, my world is painted in crap. To be honest, I’m scared shitless but still alive.”
Lumpy stared up at the ceiling. “At least being scared shitless saves on toilet paper.”
Hoffmeister gave a stern look at Lundeen. “Do crude comments stop when the ladies come back?”
“Most everything stops when the ladies come back.”