I got out of the hospital early in the morning with a week’s supply of 800mg ibuprofens and a light-duty profile. I was glad to still have my balls, but I didn’t know if I’d get to do the big field training exercise that was coming up that week. It was the last thing before graduation, and I didn’t think I could graduate if I didn’t go. I’d get kicked down to Delta Company and they were a month behind, so I’d be stuck at Fort Sam an extra month. I couldn’t let that happen. I was supposed to go home for three weeks after graduation. I’d do it. Balls be damned.
I didn’t make it through the first day of the field training exercise. It was one of those deals where they gave you a rubber M16 and you were supposed to go around saying BANG BANG BANG. I was with a squad riding up a ridge in a deuce and a half, and when we got to the top of the ridge we were all supposed to jump out of the back and get ready to say BANG BANG BANG. But when I jumped out something went wrong in my crotch and I crumpled to the ground. They took me from the field on a litter and brought me to the aid station. The medics had a look at my balls. My balls weren’t doing so good. I had bled into them and they had turned royal blue. The supervising medic of the aid station had all his medics come through to look at my balls. They discussed my balls in front of me. The company first sergeant came in, and he looked at my balls. He thought it was funny. I went to the hospital and a man stuck his finger up my ass. He didn’t tell me he was going to do it; he just let me have it. Then there was another man who came to talk with me, and he told me that the bleeding into my balls had inflamed my epididymis. At last I got some morphine. Then I felt better: the morphine was super nice. The bed was very comfortable. The hospital menu had a veggie burger and I ordered one and it was good and I was about ready to turn in for a night’s rest when a doctor showed up with a group of interns so they could all have a look at my balls and talk about them.
* * *
—
I WENT back to the field the next morning with a bottle of penicillin, a three-day supply of Percocet, and a bed rest profile. There was a company formation. The first sergeant and the captain were out in front, being dicks, and the first sergeant said, “Hey, where’s old Smurf Balls at? He back yet?”
I was obliged to raise my hand.
The first sergeant said to the captain, “That’s the one I was telling you about. His balls turned blue.”
The formation was dismissed and I was told to go see the first sergeant and the captain.
“Well, Smurf Balls,” said the first sergeant, “how did you like BAMC?”
“It was alright, First Sarr.”
“Good. Take good care of you, did they?”
“Yes, First Sarr.”
The captain said, “Did they put you on any kind of a profile?”
“Bed rest, First Sarr.”
I’d just fucked up. You didn’t call a captain a first sergeant, you called him a sir. But I was dehydrated and had a couple Percocets in me, so I’d accidentally demoted him.
He was displeased. “I’m the captain, son. You call me sir. You got that?”
“I’m the first sergeant, son. What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
“Do they have you on any pain medication?”
“Percocet, sir.”
“You’d better let me have that.”
So I was tired and dismayed. But then I got some good news too. The good news was that I was going to graduate on time even though I wasn’t taking part in the FTX. And then I’d go home. And I’d see Emily.
* * *
—
THE DAY the company did the mass-casualty exercise part of the scenery was a lot of old ripped-up fake-bloody Air Force uniforms for the fake casualties to make them look fake-bloodier. I was on a one-man laundry detail cleaning these uniforms. There wasn’t going to be any bed rest for me, never mind that I was practically fucking crippled. I was carrying an armload of these fake-bloody Air Force uniforms up to the shack with the washing machine in it when I ran into a make-believe perimeter patrol from the make-believe forward operating base.
Somebody said, “HALT!…HALT!…HAAALT!…YEAH, YOU.”
I knew him of course. I had punched him in the mouth before, at the Fake River Hyatt. We didn’t like each other, and he outranked me. He was an E-5, a sergeant; and I was an E-2, nothing. I was at a disadvantage. I said to him, “I’m not part of this shit. I’m on the laundry detail.”
“What laundry detail?”
“This laundry detail. What do you think I’m carrying these uniforms for?”
“Who authorized the detail?”
“You’re insane, and you have no idea.”
“What did you say?”
“Eat a fucking dick.”
He turned to the trainee beside him and handed her his rubber M16. “Hold my weapon, Warrior Medic.”
I said, “Shit.”
He picked me up off the ground and body-slammed me. Fake-bloody Air Force uniforms went all over the place. He pinned my arms behind my back, while he was digging his knee into my right kidney, putting as much of his body weight into it as he could manage. I’d landed with my face on a little anthill, and ants crawled out and all over my face and bit me. I suppose I deserved it.
“Are you done mouthing off?”
“Fuck. You. Bitch.”
He wouldn’t let me go. I could see some of his make-believe patrol out of the corner of my eye. Kovak was with them.
I said, “Kovak, what the fuck is the matter with you?”
He said, “Hey, stop. That’s the guy who hurt his balls.”
* * *
—
WE GRADUATED. They played the Toby Keith song. We were free to leave. My balls were getting back to normal, but the penicillin I’d been taking for my epididymitis had made me ultrasensitive to sunlight and I was badly sunburned. Plus, there were the ant bites. I ran into Private Harlow just as I was leaving for the airport, and she saw me and she laughed in my face.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Emily was driving.
She said, “What if I chopped off your feet?”
I said, “No.”
“What? You’d like it. You’re fucking lazy. You could just sit around and smoke dope all day. Think about it. Save you the trip.”
“I think you’d get in trouble if you cut off my feet, baby.”
“Not if you don’t press charges.”
“Destruction of government property.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m afraid so. It’d be out of my hands.”
“Hmm.”
“They think of everything.”
“I wish I could chop your feet off.”
“I know, baby.”
“It isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Emily’d be with me the whole time I was home, and she drove me around when I had to go places. Things were good. She was between jobs. She wasn’t a shot girl anymore. She had saved money up. She was caught up on her loans. She was caught up at school. She’d got all As. I was so proud of her. I was glad she wasn’t a shot girl anymore.
I had three weeks. The only catch was I had to spend two weeks doing some shit called Hometown Recruiting. I got to see Kelly and Space again. They didn’t remember me. That was fine. There was recruiting to be done at a fair in Mayfield. Sergeant Bellamy and I had brought the Army of One rock-climbing wall along with us. But the only people at the fair who wanted anything to do with it were the babies. I’d put the babies into harnesses and clip them to ropes attached to automatic belaying devices atop the Army of One rock-climbing wall. The belaying devices were good because the babies didn’t break their necks. But the problem was that the babies didn’t weigh enough and the devices pulled them up directly to the top of the wall. I’d clip a baby to a rope and up the wall the baby would go. I asked Bellamy what I ought to do. Bellamy was a recruiter who had come aboard at the Severance Armed Forces Career Center in the time since I’d gone through there that past January. He was a short paunchy man with dirty eyes, and he had a mouth full of gold like Space.
I said, “What am I supposed to do, Sarr? These kids can’t get on the thing right. They’re too light. They fly straight up and get stuck at the top.”
He said, “Just make it work, Pri.”