Soldier Like Me

[Reminder: Some of my posts, including this one, are memoirs of my abusive childhood. In this post I'm relating events that happened in the spring of 1956, when I was 6 "going on 7". The links to the right can be used to follow backward through the memoirs, or to restrict viewing to other kinds of posts.]

When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying in a bed with a tubes stuck in me. I thought I was under attack again. I screamed and lurched up and yanked the IV out. A nurse ran over and held me down, while another one gave me a shot. Probably a sedative.

The next time I woke up a doctor was looming over me telling me everything was going to be alright and asking me to please leave the IV and catheter in place, as I'd need them for a while.

He told me I was in the Fort Devens Infirmary. He asked me how I got there. I thought that was a stupid question. "I don't know, maybe the MPs carried me."

He said, "No, I mean, what happened that got you beat up? Who did this to you?"

I described Scarface to him. I told him how sorry I was that I hit him but he made me mad when he hit me with the rock. The doctor asked me where I hit him and I told him I got him in the nose.

At that he smiled and congratulated me! He told me Scarface was in fact in a bed at the opposite end of the same children's ward recovering from his broken nose. "We've been hoping for something like this. We believed he has sent dozens of patients to us, but we never had proof it was him, because the victims were all afraid to tell us who did it."

I got the damage assessment. A broken rib, a punctured stomach (hence the vomiting of blood), a sprained right wrist, which I got when I punched Scarface, and my skull had been fractured, again. I had been lying unconscious in the hospital bed for 3 days.

The doctor couldn't believe it at first when I told him where the fight had taken place. It was too far from the gate where I had collapsed. I had to explain to him how I had to make that march to seal the truce which my winning earned me. It took a while for the doctor to grasp what I was telling him.

When it finally sank in, he was simultaneously in awe and horrified. "If the MPs had found you a minute later you probably would have died from blood loss. You should have come straight here." He pointed out that the infirmary was on the way. I kept saying the peace was more important, and he said, "Well see."

But when my parents came to see me a little later the doctor was beaming about it. He told them that I may have single-handedly brought an end to the turf battles in the area. He made it sound like I had freed Paris.

My Father was happier with me than he had been in years. He told me I'd make a good soldier. I said maybe that would be what I would do when I grew up. He said, "Sure, you can be a soldier just like me."

When I heard the words, "just like me" I had a flash-back to my first birthday, and my Father coming home from Korea to throw me head-first to the sidewalk and drive over me. I burst into tears, shouting, "No, no, no,..." over and over again.

My Father said to my Mother, "What did I say wrong now?"

She said, "You should know -- look what kind of soldier you've been. Don't you remember? He does. He doesn't want to be that kind of soldier."

My Father ordered her to shut up. They began sniping at each other. The nurses had them leave so I could rest.