CHAPTER 52

Sixteen months in the jungle had taught me to feel what I couldn’t see. I turned around to look toward the village. At that moment I realized I should have searched for any other VC. The sudden impact felt like a baseball bat slamming into my chest, knocking me backward. There was no pain, just a sense of falling, of being sucked down a pitch-black, silent hole. Eventually, I emerged into a soft, calming white light. I could see my body lying face-up in the water at the bottom of the dike and the hole ripped into my chest, but felt nothing. This was a peaceful and warm place, and I no longer cared about that body. Dying wasn’t so bad. I wondered if Fancy would miss me.

It felt like time was passing, but it didn’t seem important. When the abrupt noise of guns and shouting erupted, it destroyed the white light, and I was pulled back through the tunnel. “Here he is! Junebug, Junebug, can you hear me?” Strong hands dragged me out of the water. “He’s got a sucking chest. I think he’s dead.” I became aware of the hot burning in my chest, but couldn’t move my hand to touch it. I screamed at them to leave me alone, but realized they couldn’t hear me. I wanted to go back to the other place.

“I got a pulse. Hold that compression tight and let me get this jelly gauze on. It’ll seal the hole.” Seconds later I felt a rushing sensation, and a great gush of air sucked in and stayed. “Get him on the stretcher and haul ass. Call for a dust-off and tell ’em to hurry.”

I heard myself moan. “Hold on, Junebug, we got you. Can you hit him with the morphine, Doc?” I felt the jab of the strettes in my leg. “Hang in there.” I could barely make out Mo’s face. I wanted to raise my arm, but didn’t have the strength. The pain eased and I floated toward the light again.

The next time I woke up, I could hear but not see. Maybe I had died after all. I started to panic, thinking I was in a death box. Then the downdraft from rotating blades blew the towel off my face, and I was being shoved into the belly of a chopper. “They’re going to get you fixed up, Junebug. Time for you to go home.” Mo gripped my palm and grinned at me. “I’ll be doing that praying for you, count on that. You’re a good man, brother. Tell that gal of yours hello for me.” I tried to smile. When the chopper lifted off, my head flopped to one side. I wasn’t on the ride alone. There was a body bag beside me.

* * *

I saw hands with gloves and faces with masks, and I slept without dreaming for what seemed like a very long time. When my eyes opened, the stark brightness hurt and I had to blink several times to be able to focus. White walls, white ceilings, white lights, white sheets, not at all like the peaceful place from before. Only the floor was different, a blue linoleum. I turned my head to the right, and in the bed next to me was a guy with his head totally wrapped in white gauze except for his nose, one ear, and a small opening for his mouth. He lifted his hand to touch his face, and I could see the skin had been burned off in some places below the wrist. I checked my own head, but all the handiwork was on the left side of my chest and extended below my rib cage.

I tried to turn to my right side to get a better view, but pain shot through me so bad it took my breath. I looked up and could see medicine lines running from my left arm to bags over my head, the same way they’d done on Grandma. The tube poking from my chest ran toward the floor.

I did my best to lie absolutely still and put my mind somewhere else. I closed my eyes and pictured Fancy in her pigtails when she was little, and us talking under the tobacco barn shelter, and kissing that first time. I thought about collecting bottles and eating blackberries. Lying there that night listening to the moans of pain and the screams of nightmares playing out in the minds of those around me caused my own dream horrors, like the sound of Lightning’s body hitting the bottom of the well. And Huy tied to that stake.

A nurse made rounds the next morning and brought me pills and water. “Ma’am, where am I and how long have I been here?”

She was an older, strong-faced, motherly type, and I could tell she didn’t take any crap. But there was kindness in her hazel green eyes. “You’re in the Naval Support Activity Station Hospital in DaNang. Today makes a week.”

I swallowed the pills and water. “Any idea how long I’ll be laid up?”

“As long as it takes to make sure you don’t have any infection. That’s what this tube”—she touched the one in my chest—“is for, to drain your damaged side.” She leaned over and brushed hair off my forehead. “Your war is over, sonny boy, so don’t get any ideas that you’re going back to the field. You’re lucky you aren’t in the morgue, so don’t give me any trouble, you got it?” She gave me a smile and a pat on my good shoulder.

When she came that night, she talked while taking my temperature and checking my bandages. “The docs are saying about a week to let your strength build up. They need to make sure your upper body doesn’t blow up with air on one side since you only got one lung working.”

A couple of times my blood pressure dropped and they had to lift the seal on the hole in my chest to let some air out. It was actually two weeks before the doctors decided I was stable enough for the ride to Japan. When the airplane lifted off, I gave a salute to Mo, and Gunny Phillips, and Hotah, and a place I knew would never leave me.

* * *

The navy hospital in Yokosuka, Japan, was a much bigger and livelier place, as modern as the hospital back home where Grandma stayed. They asked me if I wanted to make a phone call. Who the hell was I going to call? We got a lot of TLC from the docs and nurses, and the little Japanese aides were cute.

In addition to the chest wound, the skin on my feet peeled off in layers and smelled awful from jungle rot. They treated me with medicines for that and the leech bites on my ankles. My main doc came to see me early one morning after I’d been there a month. He was a tall, fairly young navy officer. His name tag said Dr. Halperin. “I know you understand your lung is collapsed, and so far, we’ve been fortunate that there’s been no serious side effects from the bullet, like lead poisoning, or some other nasty infectious stuff that guys get in the jungle. With time, your lung might possibly reinflate, but probably not. Either way, any ideas you had about playing professional football, forget them.” He was a nice guy for a navy puke.

Some days I’d read newspapers that showed white kids protesting or running off to Canada so they wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam. I thought about Mo. What kind of appreciation would he get fighting for a country that would rather see him back picking cotton?

When I was strong enough, rehabilitation folks began to work with me to try and bring my body back into shape. I’d lost over twenty pounds and looked more like a scarecrow than a marine. First it was simple things like moving my arms in a circle, knee bends, and agility tests with my hands. Over the next several weeks, it progressed to more strenuous stuff like walking short distances. The place in my back where my bad lung was would burn like forty hells. Understanding what bad shape I was in humbled me. It took three months before I learned that making do with one lung required me to think differently, and practice patience.

Mental issues were another can of worms entirely. I would dream about trying to cover the bullet hole in my chest, but it kept growing bigger and bigger until it was huge, then Huy’s head would pop out from it. I saw Lightning and Twin, and the first Vietnamese man I’d killed while he looked me in the eyes. I would dream I was drowning in water, then realize it was an ocean of blood, so thick it choked me, so heavy it pulled me under. I swam for all I was worth, desperate for a log that would save me. Some nights I would take my pillow and blanket and lie underneath the bed, afraid to sleep.

In October mail caught up with me. There were three letters from Fancy and one from a life insurance company wanting me to continue my coverage when I was discharged. The last one from Fancy was dated in May.

Dear Junebug:

I am so worried. I’m praying to God this letter will find you and you will write back to let me know you are okay. I don’t know what I’ll do if some harm has happened, or worse. I wrote Momma to ask her to get in touch with that Lawyer Stern to see if he had heard anything, and she said she did and he hadn’t heard anything either. I look at the stars every night and send you all the love I’ve got.

I decided to stay in France when Mrs. Francetti moved on. This is a place where I’ve found comfort and peace. The people here only judge you by who you are. I’ve got a job that for once doesn’t include cleaning up for white folks, have made some good friends, and am learning so much I would never ever have had the chance to at home. Please let me hear from you because my mind will not rest until I do.

I love you as always,

Fancy

Immediately I sat down and wrote.

Dear Fancy:

I’m very sorry I haven’t written. I got hurt a little and have been in the hospital in Japan. Don’t go to worrying because I’ll be fine. They are treating me very good and I hope to be recovered by the first of the year. I’m so glad you sound happy and have found good friends and, most of all, a job you like that don’t involve saying “Yes’um” to nobody. You deserve what you’re getting, and knowing you are at peace makes me feel so much better. Tell Roy and Clemmy I hope to see them sometime next year when my enlistment is up. There have been many times when I was at my worst and could feel you around me. It never failed to keep me going. I’ll watch that last star in the handle of the Big Dipper every night it’s shining, and if you do the same, we’ll know we’re thinking of each other.

Love you back,

Junebug