Dawn is one thing, daylight another: I had several drinks during the difference. Sleepy groans announced the new day in the wards. All ambulatory patients were being awakened to make their beds and sweep and buff under them. If any managed a hundred-and-one degrees or a traction cast, they could sleep ten minutes longer. I thought this no way to treat sick men, so transferred hates from Dottlinger to the hospital. I was mad. (I say mad, in the literal sense, neither to excuse nor to account for the following adventure.)
Lt. Hewitt came in. Poor Lt. Hewitt carrying her lack of flesh. She was always bright and cheery, her uniform so starched and white it glittered like an angel's wing, her smile all teeth and well-brushed gums, as if to say, "Look at me! I don't care that I'm ugly and skinny. Oh, see how well I'm holding up! See!"
"Good morning, Sgt. Krummel," she sang as only she could. "And how are we this fine morning?" She held the thermometer out like a stick of candy. As I tried to answer her, she stabbed me under the tongue, and crowed, "There we are!"
"Where?" I mumbled.
"Now who's autograph is that?" she asked as she saw my sign. "Now, that's not very nice, Sgt. Krummel," she said, stiffening her back and propping her fist on what passed for her hip. "Just what is it?"
I spit the thermometer at her and answered, "A valentine?"
She was not amused.
"A proposal?" I offered. Her fist skied off her hip. Probably not angry before, she certainly was now, thinking I was making fun of her. "Sure," I hurriedly said, trying to make it all into a joke, "The closer to the meat, the sweeter is the bone. Leap in here and we'll make the beast with two backs." I didn't think her father would mind. I laughed. I should not have.
"You son of a bitch! You smart-ass son of a bitch!" she screamed, then punched me right in the nose. With her fist like a large, bony knuckle. My nose started bleeding and that, for some sanitary reason, made her even angrier. She hit me again. On the nose. She must have smelled the liquor because she stepped back and accused me, "You've been drinking. You're drunk, aren't you? Aren't you?" Her voice screeched like chalk on a blackboard and made my teeth ache.
"A man's gotta have a little fun in this shithole." The blood had dripped through my moustache into my mouth, so I spit on the other side of the bed. Bones hit me again. In the eye.
"Hey, will you cut that crap out?" I asked.
She hit me on the nose again. I debated hitting her (one of my ancestors, so it was told, had once hit a woman, but she had had a knife after him), so I decided not to. I spit a mouthful of blood on her pure skirt. It splattered the white cloth like dark sin, and I could not have hit her hard enough to make her jump back the way she did. A dirty trick, I admit, but better than hitting her. Also easier.
"You've ruined my uniform!" she shrieked. "You'll be sorry! You'll pay for that! And this too!"
I reached under my pillow and had a drink on that.
"Don't you throw that bottle at me! Don't you dare."
God knows I wouldn't have. No telling what she would have done to me.
"Get out of here, you silly bitch. Get out and let me die in peace."
"Don't you threaten me!"
"Ah, shit… Hawww!" I shouted, then threw the bottle in the opposite corner. She screeched and ran away like a wounded goat.
It was so quiet after she left that I could hear an occasional early golfer driving off the fifteenth tee and snatches of conversation and laughter from the fairways. The morning seemed fresh and bright, the air clean, and I wished I were playing golf out there instead of hell in bed. Then I was sorry I had thrown the bottle away because I wanted another drink. The one I'd had was working like magic in my stomach; better than coffee or food, it had awakened me.
Then Sgt. Larkin, the male nurse, rushed in, pushing a rattling tray of hypos. He was a short, stocky, hairy man who tried to give the impression he had seen everything. But he had not seen me.
"Okay, son," he said, "Take it easy. Everything's going to be all right." He advanced, needle held like a knife in his hand, and reached for my unbroken arm. "This'll make everything all right."
"Then you take it. Keep off, man." I jerked my arm away.
"Okay, buddy, let's stop with the games." He had a low level of patience. He tried to make his voice cold and military; but I didn't give a shit for that now.
"Butt out, Larkin. Get that damned needle away."
He reached again, and I slapped the needle out of his hand. The swinging of my arm released something in my blood, something hot and clean. It hardened into a calm, mean thing, clear and clean now, and I liked it.
"Okay, bud, we're through with the games now," he said, preparing another dose. "I don't want to break your other arm, but you're gonna get this one way or the other."
"Don't talk so much, tough man. Get on with it." I felt a smile like a dare on my face. Larkin hesitated, then shook his head as if wondering what there was to be afraid of. I caught him with a stiff thumb in the windpipe as he leaned over the bed. Not too hard. Not too easy either.
He staggered backwards, his hands pleading at this throat, his eyes praying to me, then crashed into his tray. It danced drunkenly away on two legs, bounced off the wall, then swayed, throwing its glittering mad burden across the floor, then rolled slowly back towards Larkin. He gurgled and moaned, tossing.
"Don't fuck with the Phantom," I said, and he heard me before he passed out. The spasm in his larynx relaxed, and his breathing started again. But I didn't pay too much attention. Christ was a carpenter; he could afford to forgive his enemies; I'm a warrior, and can't.
It was quiet again, and I rested, testing the air with my bleeding nose. I pitied Bones for a moment, wondering how I might apologize. But kindness never really repays cruelty, I thought, Let her hate me. That might be the kindest thing of all. But then I laughed as I wondered what poor soul might rattle Bones together some day. "What a mess," I whispered. "What a silly mess." I was sure that somehow this was all Morning's fault. Maybe the bastard was going to haunt me. I might have offered his ghost a drink of blood or Scotch, whatever its preference, but the Air Policeman Bones had called came in.
He was so tall and strong, his face nearly all jaw under the shadow of his cap. His mouth was compressed into a thin, unbent line, and he stood as if he might challenge the gods of war themselves; but he was a soldier, not a warrior. All show and slow to boot.
"All right," he said, sharply. "What seems to be the trouble here." He had glanced at Larkin and the scattering of glass with a look which said "inoperative" and dismissed them from his mind. "You there! What's going on here?" He addressed an imaginary point where my head would have been if I could have stood.
"Me? Geez, I don't know. I just work here."
"You, fellow."
"Say, sonny, ya'll tilt that there sombrero back jest a scrunch so's Ah cain sees ya'll's eyeballs. Ain't likely Ah'd talk with a man, ifn Ah cain't sees his eyeballs."
He snapped to attention. "Cut the lip, huh."
"You taking me in, airman?"
"No," he answered in all seriousness. "Just going to hold your arm while they stick a needle in it. I've handled you nut-house cases before."
"Oh, really. Well, let me show you something before you start handling this nut-house case," I said, holding up my left hand. "See that hand, sonny. That's a real mean hand. Registered with the police in seven states as a dangerous weapon. See those calluses on the side there, and on the fingertips. That's a killer's hand, son. You'd best watch it."
"Ha, ha. You been seeing too many movies, fellow."
"Perhaps, perhaps so, young man. That may well be the case. But the visualization of a dream certainly does not alter the essence of its reality; it enhances the reality."