Libra - Don Delillo [45]
“Don’t tell me. Tell them, shitbird.”
“Just get me a corpsman, Bushnell. Somebody has to treat me. I’m a wounded Marine.”
DIAGNOSIS: WOUND, MISSILE, UPPER LEFT ARM GUNSHOT, NO A OR N INVOLVEMENT #8255
1. Within command—work.
2. Patient dropped 45 caliber automatic, pistol discharged when it struck the floor, and missile struck patient in left arm causing the injury.
NARRATIVE SUMMARY:
This 18 year male accidentally shot himself in the left arm with a sidearm, reportedly of 22 caliber. Examination revealed the wound of entrance in the medial portion of the left upper arm, just above the elbow. There was no evidence of neurologic circulatory, or bony injury. The wound of entrance was allowed to heal and the missile was then excised through a separate incision two inches above the wound of entry. The missile appeared to be a 22 slug. The wound healed well, and the patient was discharged to duty.
SURG: 10-5-57: FOREIGN BODY, REMOVAL OF, FROM EXTREMITIES, LEFT UPPER ARM #926
Postcard #1. Aboard the USS Terrell County in the South China Sea. Ozzie sits on the afterdeck with Reitmeyer, counting the days of ghost maneuvers in the drenching heat, wondering if he’ll ever see land again.
“What do you say I teach you to play chess?”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s for your own stupid good, Reitmeyer. Plus we have to pass the time somehow.”
“Take a flying fuck at the moon.”
“The best players in the world are generally Russian.”
“Fuck them, in spades.”
Men sit dazed in the streaming light.
Postcard #2. Corregidor, among the war ruins. John Wayne comes to visit the homesick leathernecks of MACS-l, interrupting work on a movie being shot somewhere in the Pacific. Ozzie has mess duty, he has mess duty all the time now, but he sneaks a look at the famous man eating lunch with a group of officers—roast beef and gravy that he has helped prepare. He wants to get close to John Wayne, say something authentic. He watches John Wayne talk and laugh. It’s remarkable and startling to see the screen laugh repeated in life. It makes him feel good. The man is doubly real. He does not cheat or disappoint. When John Wayne laughs, Ozzie smiles, he lights up, he practically disappears in his own glow. Someone takes a photograph of John Wayne and the officers, and Ozzie wonders if he will show up in the background, in the passageway, grinning. It’s time to get back to the galley but he watches John Wayne a moment longer, thinking of the cattle drive, in Red River, the great expectant moment when it starts. Stillness, nervous steers, horsemen in dawn light, the rim of hills, the deep sure voice of aging John Wayne, the voice with so many shades of feeling and reassurance, John Wayne resolutely to his adopted son: “Take ’em to Missouri, Matt.” Then rearing mounts, trail hands yahooing, the music and rousing song, the honest stubbled faces (men he feels he knows), all the glory and dust of the great drive north.
He reads Walt Whitman in hospital ruins.
One thing about Konno. He never talked to Lee in a personal way. He seemed to be reciting, talking into a Dictaphone. There was no flexibility in his manner. He didn’t see the individual.
One other thing. He was in over his head, technically speaking. He didn’t know the terminology, all the phrases and labels in aviation electronics, high-altitude reconnaissance. An elevator operator. Ha ha.
Lee didn’t let on that he’d wounded himself with the derringer Konno had supplied. First because the strategy had failed to keep him in Japan. Then, too, he didn’t want Konno to know he’d been under his influence.
No talking.
You stand at attention until assigned.
You do not step on white paint at any time. Segments of the floor are painted white. Do not touch white. There are white lines running down passageways. Do not touch or cross these lines. Every urinal is situated behind a white line. You need permission