On Monday morning, I woke up to Shipman's voice. The thrill of my spiritual awakening disappeared with the night.
"Sprungli, you look dead," Shipman said. "You need to go to Sick-Call." He stood on the bunk to peer at my face. "My God, you look thin."
"Really?" I said, feeling slightly better. I'd been called many things, but not this.
Unable to dismount from the top bunk under my own strength, Shipman assisted me to the floor and handed me my gear, one item at a time. We were late to formation, bringing Pint into a morning blaze. He jumped around and tossed wicked one-liners at me because I was leaning on Shipman. When Pint finally stopped barking, he shined his flashlight in my face, and with one glance said, "Take that bag of bones to Sick-Call. What's his deal now?"
Shipman said, "I think he had a seizure yesterday in the church."
"A seizure? Now he's into seizures. What's next, Sprungli? Mad Cow disease?" Pint shook his head.
Private Major nodded at me and smiled, beaming pride at what he heard, assuming I'd faked the religious experience to get out of the Army. On the other side, Pint accused me of faking it to escape exercise.
Funny thing was, now I didn't want to escape exercise. I didn't want to go to Sick-Call. I wanted to soldier like Pfeffer and believe in the Army, and now, to be thin for once in my life. Yet without the power to stand, I had to go to Sick-Call.
Shipman said, "I'll take Sprungli to Sick-Call, Drill Sergeant."
"On second thought," Pint said, taking inventory of those going to Sick-Call, "I'll take him myself."
What was this? Even with the shard of pain bouncing in my abdomen like a yo-yo, I still managed to catch a secret glance directed from Pint to West. She stood in line to go to Sick-Call. If I was not mistaken, Pint also suffered love for West. At that moment, I realized that it was not a coincidence that Private West had been managing the phones every time I was disciplined in the Drill Sergeants' office. Her assignment to the phones happened for a reason. Flirting between a noncommissioned officer and a subordinate - this was fraternization. If my suspicion was true at all, then Pint, the reciter and repeater of rules, owned all of those accusations he placed on me.
The Sick-Call line moved out to the sing-song cadence of a happy Pint.
"Quit holding your junk, Sprungli," he said. "Whatever fungus you picked up, playing with it ain't gonna put it in remission."
He marched alongside the Sick-Call squad, standing right in the middle, next to Private West, and she didn't bother to call out the song, while the rest of us were scolded for not singing from the belly.
At the clinic, Pint ushered me to the front of the line to see the doctor first.
"Take off your pants," the doctor said in a Russian accent.
"What?" I replied.
"It's a pretty simple thing, Sprungli." Pint stood in the room with his arms folded and acted rudely on behalf of the doctor. "You undo the belt, then the buttons, then put your thumbs down your pants and PUSH!"
"Please, Drill Sergeant," the doctor said, "take it easy. This is not the barracks."
The doctor circled his finger in the air. "Please drop your briefs too, Mr. Sprungli. I didn't ask you to take off your pants just to see what color underwear you are wearing. It's necessary, I assure you."
I did as requested.
"It's a bite of some kind."
"A bite?" said Pint.
"Yes. A spider possibly."
"A spider bit the Private," Pint said, laughing.
"Hold the jokes please, Drill Sergeant."
"I'll step out," Pint said. "I don't need to see this."
"Actually, you shouldn't be in here at all," said the doctor.
"I'm here to make sure this Private graduates."
"You have no business here in the examination room, and you should remember that for next time."
"Yes, sir," said Pint, exiting the room.
With that, the doctor did a thirty-point inspection of my parts, observing me so long that I thought he might pull out an easel and paint a nude portrait of me. I found it disturbing, the length of time he inspected.
"Ok, please put your pants back on."
"Should I leave some money on the table, Doctor?"
"Money?"
I said, "I just thought usually people had to pay for that sort of thing. Gee whiz, Doc."
He washed his hands and ignored my comment. He turned to me and said, "That looks very much like a spider bite on your penis." The way he said penis made it unfunny - not even a smirk on a face. The word never sounded so plain before. "Any idea how it got there?" he asked.
"No. No idea."
"Well, it should have been treated earlier. Unfortunately, you've suffered through the worst of it already. I can give you a prescription, but what's done is done, the toxins are nearly out of your body at this point. Surely you must have noticed the bite earlier?"
"No sir."
"I believe that it caused the episode the Drill Sergeant mentioned, at the church."
"Episode?"
"However," he said, ignoring me, "you will need to take it easy for now, as far as exercise goes."
The doctor wrote on his clipboard.
Finally, after a full minute, the doctor said. "Get dressed. We will have to perform more tests, but I'm afraid you will have to recover while continuing with your training. The bite should have been dealt with earlier. Had you come in earlier, you might have been assisted. Now the scar tissue and remaining infection, well, it will have to heal the old fashioned way. Good luck to you." He handed me a piece of paper. This new profile excused me from all exercise, from pushups to jumping jacks to finger exercises.
Outside, Drill Sergeant Pint stood in the waiting room, scolding a group of Privates for chatting, while Private West sat filing her nails and humming. Behind him, I did a soft-shoe shuffle to a seat in the waiting room. Keen-eyed Pint nabbed me before I could sit down. He listened to my explanation of the spider and he made gibes, without apologizing for doubting me earlier. Nor would he withdraw my counseling statement for the night he shined his flashlight on me in my locker.
One too many jokes, he made one too many cracks at me.
He said, "Don't tell me he gave you a new profile."
I nodded.
Later that day, we sat through a long series of briefings on emergency medical training. The sergeant in-charge came from the past, from the Vietnam era, glasses and all, but he had a story for everything, and in all of his stories, someone died because his battle buddy didn't do this or that: X lost his legs because his battle buddy didn't know how to dress a wound. Y died of hypothermia because no one recognized the symptoms. Z choked to death on a hunk of SPAM because no one knew how to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Apparently, he had tended to every soldier who had ever died in defense of America.
During one lengthy tirade, the sergeant discussed - "in short" - how we were supposed to triage injured people if we were the first responders to a Mass Casualty Incident. Private Waters sat next to me. Waters listened with a sarcastic smile on his face. On his lap lay a smuggled book that he brought back from Free-Day-Away.
The sergeant teaching the class read evacuation techniques from a canned Army presentation. Basics of Triage and Transport. "When prioritizing casualties, Privates, there are four basic categories. Their names are Urgent, Priority, Routine, and Convenience." He spoke in a clipped manner, losing the last letter of every spoken word. The sergeant, perhaps sensed Waters amusement. Without raising his voice, the sergeant asked Waters a question.
"Is this funny to you?"
"I just think some of the word choices are interesting," said Waters. "Convenience is hardly convenient for an injured person"
"We have an intellectual in our class today," the sergeant said, walking away from Waters. "Yes, words can get in the way. They sure can. Here's a question for you Private, a puzzle for you to ponder. You like
puzzles?"
"I do," said Waters.
"I thought so. Let's say you're in a building that's wired to explode. An old man and a child are with you. It's just the three of you. You have a chance to save yourself and only one of them." The sergeant turned around and stared at Waters. "Who would you save?"
"Well," Waters said, smiled, and leaned back in his chair. "It's an ethical question, one that can't be answered quickly. I mean, entire lives are spent studying this exact thing..."
"Bang!" screamed the sergeant, slamming his fist on the table, right in front of Waters. "Too many words. Instead of two alive, all three of you are dead." Then he composed himself. "You take the child, understand?"
Waters sat startled, no longer amused.
"Still thinking, aren't you?"
The platoon started to laugh at Waters.
"Ok, now listen up, and you others, quit smiling or I'll dust you," said the sergeant. "Moving on, let's look at the next slide. Oh here we go: How to approach a helicopter on sloping ground. This will save your life one day. You think I'm joking? No joke. You don't just run at a helicopter like they do in the movies. There's a process and if you don't follow it, you'll lose an arm or your head. Think it's a joke? Here's a joke. I was in Somalia when a Sergeant First Class went charging in as the chopper set down, and guess what? He ran downhill, put an arm up while slinging his rifle, and his hand went right into the chopper blade. Good-bye arm, hello hospital. Never was re-attached because the zone was hot so we had to get out. Some jackal probably fed her pups with that Sergeant's missing wing. All because he didn't listen in basic, because on the day he learned this crap he sat there with a smirk on his face and a book on his lap."
Chapter 20. Drill and Ceremony