Chapter Text
People always say that if you know you’re crazy then you can’t be crazy but that’s not true. People that have no idea what they’re talking about say stuff like that. The whole truth is that at first you don’t know you’re crazy, in any way shape or form, up to and until the dazzling moment that there are cuffs around your wrists and there’s a lock that turns with the resonance of a cathedral bell. Then, even though technically still in every way batty, you know it, know it because everything else changes but that stays the same. People that say things like that are trying to make themselves feel better, to ease their own consciences by saying that such poor souls are oblivious, unaware, no idea what’s happening to them. As one of those poor souls, I’d like my soul back.
I know I’m not in Korea.
Damn it, I know that.
I know what’s going on.
I know where I am.
I know I’m safe.
Technically.
There aren't any bombs, or shelling, not anymore, it was thousands and thousands of miles away, oceans apart, another time zone, another time. Years? No, not years, it couldn’t be. Feels like it.
I finally got to go stateside and instead of going back to Crabapple Cove with a feather in my hat, really a guy doesn’t ask much, I ended up here. Again. I got home and thought everything was alright, jesus, it was finally over, but everything fell apart. My seams came loose. And now I’m not sure of anything anymore. He lost himself in Korea, I heard them say. I don’t know if they’re right. I don’t know. The thought that I had made me sick. Like there was some fleshy rotting look alike of me still in Korea, left there like forgotten luggage. And whoever or whatever came home is a cuckoo’s egg that walks and talks but can’t tell the time or write a letter or tie their own shoelaces. Makes me feel like I died over there. Then why come home?
I slid my hands through my hair, my eyes tired from not sleeping. Too many nightmares. Nightmares that make me wake up screaming, nightmares where I always end up on a crowded bus in the middle of the night or standing on point at the edge of minefield or elbow deep in some kid’s chest as his intestines wrap around my neck. They tried giving me drugs at first because I wouldn’t stop pacing the halls and then because I think they were tired of hearing me talk. And there’s no refusing them. They pour cement into your limbs and attach your head by a string like a balloon. No wonder I don’t know how long it’s been. They’ve only recently seemed overly impressed that the drugs don’t help and what follows is a communal hand raising in a collective who-knows gesture.
I know I’m not in Korea.
But it feels like I could be.
When it’s dark and I wake up terrified.
I know what’s going on.
I’m locked up in a hospital.
And sometimes I forget that and I’m not sure.
I know I’m safe. But I can’t imagine ever feeling safe again.
My body no longer has the hardware for that. It wouldn’t know how. They tell me I’m safe. But they aren’t in my body. They don’t know what it feels like when a bomb hits so close that your teeth shake. They don’t know that there were more corpses under my care than survivors. You don’t get medals for that. Unless it’s the enemy’s corpses, in which case, the more corpses the nobler.
I know Dad’s coming to visit today. He comes every week.
I usually like to see Dad. I spent years wishing I could see him at the drop of a hat or a helmet, but I don’t like seeing him here. Increasingly so. Not because it’s no good to see him, just not good to see him while my wings have been clipped and I’ve been biting at the bars with my beak. It upsets him. I know that. I don’t like upsetting him.
I’m in my room, waiting for visiting hours to begin, for when the outside, however briefly, is allowed in. Seafoam green painted bare walls, no pictures, no wallpaper, no curtains, no springs in the bed, no metal, no strings or anything lethal. They stopped letting visitors bring me anything. In the way I know and don’t know I know that I’d seen blood gallop down my arms and now there are bandages on my arms and nothing in my room, not even a lamp. I guess that’s how I ended up here. I only remember the pain. And how it hadn’t ended.
“Hawkeye, your father’s here,” a voice from my doorway said. I turned from where I’m sitting on my bed and stood up. Lisa, the nurse, one of many. Heavy set, strong, I know because she lifted me up off the bathroom floor one time from where I was curled up in the corner, afraid to come out. Good core strength. Amazonian build aside, she has a kind face and a quiet voice. Prerequisites for this job. That and a love for bad food and the same Gene Kelly movie every Friday night.
“Here I am not packed and my ride is already here to go home?” I tried, “Give me two minutes and I’ll be outta your hair for good.”
“I hadn’t heard you were discharging,” she responded, acting like maybe it could be true, sure, the way wishes are that fall into wells.
“Right,” I nodded, thankful I suppose for the courtesy cluelessness, “I suppose I’ll visit with Dad then.”
She turned to lead me to the day room, the starch in her white uniform giving her the best posture I’ve ever seen. Down a hall, to the right, the day room. Rows of tables, a lot like the mess tent except instead of canvas walls there are bars on the windows and incomplete puzzles and ashtrays all over. They usher the visitors here, assuring them they bought a round trip ticket out of here, and it looks nice enough. Big windows with lots of light and a view of the tree lined street. There’s a tall silver pot of coffee out and I can smell the instant coffee in my nose along with the disinfectant they spray before every zoo exhibit.
Dad is sitting at one of the tables and the others are filling fast with other people’s guests.
“Ben,” he greeted me, standing up to give me a small hug which I returned quickly, “How are you today, son?” he sat back down and I can’t help but be alarmed again at how the years had aged him. How long was I over there?
“Well, you know, I didn’t give them the money for this week, I’m thinking of somewhere uptown,” I shrugged, taking a seat across from him.
“Food any better?” not surprising he didn’t feel like joking around and wanted to start with the softball of bad food. He should know it’s better than it was over there. At least I know what this food is trying to be.
Feeling void of anything to add to the conversation, unless he really wanted to hear about the meatloaf, I sighed and responded, “It’s fine, Dad,” not looking at him. Dad has dark eyes, almost black, you only see the colour when the sun hits them just right and they are the colour of a cockroach shell. I have my mother’s eyes, “How are you?” It’d only been a week, not much could have changed, hopefully. Either way it is easier to talk about him.
“The honeysuckle is blooming,” he said in his quiet, even voice, just as I remembered from when I was a kid but now frayed along the edges by age.
“Really?” I can’t hide the disappointment in my voice. I try to.
“Yeah, I brought some actually,” he reached down and took something from the chair next to him, “They said it’d be alright,” he handed the flowers to me and I should have known, been able to smell them. They’re a pale yellow with rows of oval leaves; it’s just a few branches but I’m instantly mesmerised by them and bring them to my nose, pushing the pollen and the cool leaves against my face. I closed my eyes and imagined the open sky above me and the wind rustling through the leaves, carrying their scent as it went. I hoped there were bugs on them, even a spider, something, anything to remind me of the world outside. Feeling sheepish I set them on the table in front of me with a genuine smile on my face, “Thanks, Dad, they’re lovely,” I remembered the only flowers they had in Korea were those yellow flowers, more weeds than anything, blowing through the minefields, “I’ll have to put them in water.”
“And I got a call you’d like to hear about,” he said, making me look up.
“Oh?” I repositioned the flowers, so they wouldn’t bend. My sleeve lifted away from my wrist and I closed my eyes against the white bandages wrapped around the skin. I sniffed, swallowing back a bad taste in my mouth, “Who?”
“Walter O'Reilly,” he answered.
“Radar called after me?” I responded, feeling my heart skip a beat, remembering suddenly he was all the way in Iowa, back home, and I was here. I’ve never been to Iowa. The way he talked, it was like the land of Oz but by all accounts it was a lot of flat fields and long straight roads, “What did he want?”
“He wanted to say hello to you, son. Wanted to know how you were,”
“So he knows,” I mused, still thinking of Iowa and wondering if Radar looked different in Iowa; did his skin tan in the sun, did his shoulders relax finally, what did his hands do if they weren’t gripping a clipboard? My eyes wandered across the room where a man was curled up on the couch in front of a staticy television, crying into the cushions. A nurse was leaning against a wall, resting one foot against the plaster, chewing bubble gum.
“He found out, I don’t know how,” my dad wasn’t part of the gossip brigade.
“I learned a long time ago not to underestimate Radar O'Reilly,” I said, tapping my fingers against my knee and taking a breath, “He’s useful during attacks.”
My Dad paused for a second until my wandering eyes found their way back to him, “He wants to see you.”
I shook my head slowly, “No,” my teeth gritted together and I thought maybe it was just a gesture, like saying you’ll call someone but never doing it. He should stay in Iowa. He should stay home.
“Don’t you wanna see him?” my dad asked with his fingers laced together on the table top. His knuckles were knobby, slightly swollen, arthritis was bad today.
“I’ll see him some other time,” I said with every casual bone in my body.
“The kid came a long way” my Dad continued, “He’s here, in town.”
“He is?”
“Yeah,”
“He doesn’t wanna come in here,” I managed, instantly feeling guilty and sick.
“He really wanted me to convince you,” he leaned over the table, trying to get my attention, “It’d do you good to see a friend. He is a friend right?”
“Yeah,” I answered honestly, “Yeah he is,”
“You need a friend right now.”
“To trade war stories?”
“If that would help,” Dad said with uncertainty, “I know he was a good kid. He told me his wife and him have forty acres in Iowa, cows, pigs, hens; none to eat though, apparently, he paused, eyes heavy as he said, “Please, son.”
“Fine,” I raised my hands in defeat, “Fine, I’ll see him.”
“Good,” he said, “Then I’ll pass on the word.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, wanting to change the subject but the only thing I could think to talk about was the pigeon roosting on my window ledge, “Forty acres, wow. His own piece of heaven.”
“You never were much for the outdoors.”
“Still not. Shame too. The Boy Scouts could have taken me far.”
“Well I tried.”
“Not your fault I didn’t like to play fetch or chase cars. I never liked to get dirty,” I looked to the side, finding amusement there which I was sure wouldn’t be shared, “Look at me now, my hands got so dirty I don’t think they’ll ever be clean.”
“You were always good with your hands, still could be.”
“Unless I retire to a farm. Not the euphemism I hope,” he meant returning to work as a doctor. I guess I’m terrible, but I hadn’t even thought about it. I don’t know what I’m going to do but the thought of standing over a body again made it the last thought, “We’ll see I guess.”
My dad pressed his lips together in something that could be a smile, if he was the kind to smile more. He cleared his throat, “Sorry to cut this one short, son, but I’ve got to go to the store before it gets dark,”
“Yeah, I know, it’s more dangerous at night,” I said and he nodded. He knows about the snipers.
“Good bye, Ben,” he said as I stood up. He gave me another one shouldered hug and on his jacket I could smell pipe smoke and woodchips. No doubt he’d been spending time on a woodworking project, sanding and sealing old cracked joints, polishing rusted brass till it gleamed. He’d always been like that, hunkered over a project in his free time, the hairs on his arms full of sawdust. He chose hobbies that let him be alone. He stepped back and patted my shoulder, “Radar should be by tomorrow.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He left but not before stopping at the nurses’ station to collect the things they didn’t let in. I stepped back around the corner, within earshot of the nurses’ station, and pressed myself to the wall out of sight, to see if I could hear.
“—doesn’t seem to be working,” my dad’s voice, “I know it takes time, but it’s been a long time already. Maybe I could just take him home.”
My breath caught in my throat at the thought, but one of the doctors must have stepped in because I heard him say, “Your son is still very sick, Mr. Pierce. His behaviour is erratic, unpredictable. Keeping him in a secure environment is for his own good,” I can’t hear what my dad says next, it’s too quiet, whatever it was the doctor responded, “Nightmares that cause a dissociative state, catatonia, a loss of orientation. From what he’s told me, I believe the degradation began far before he was returned home. Delusions, paranoia, impulsive behaviour, were all present prior to the war’s end. I can only suggest . . .”
I stopped listening. I walked back to my room and sat when my legs hit the edge of the bed. The honeysuckles were next to me on the bed, leaving yellow pollen on the white blanket. My eyes closed and I rubbed at both sides of my head. I thought for a moment I could smell the damp mildew ridden canvas and the acrid smell of soot, as much as I could feel the dirt under my boots. A cold breeze twisted impossibly through the underside of the tent and I reached for my wool blanket.
When my eyes opened they saw my hand, crushed into the honeysuckle, back here in the hospital. The feeling is like falling down fast, your stomach in your throat, a jolt that shakes all the way up your spine.
Going crazy is easy. Being crazy and knowing you are is a kind of hell. All the practice in suffering I’ve had didn’t prepare me for this. Not when it wasn’t supposed to be this way. That suffering was so I could go home. So I would survive. Now I’m just another war vet with their screws loose. Home wasn’t supposed to be this.
They wouldn’t let my dad take me home. They’d told him about everything. Everything. Years of reading between the lines had only amounted to pronounced crows feet from squinting too much, something I’m comfortable with up to and even after he’s dearly departed. The less he knows the better. I’m sick, so they tell me. Very sick, so they tell him.
I laid down on my bed and curled my legs up to my chest. I want to sleep but I don’t want to dream. Regardless of the fear, sleep came quickly and took me, just for the satisfaction.