The Glorious Amputee

Eric M. Crowl

The muscles surrounding the stump of Nick’s amputated right arm began to spasm and twitch, and his left eye flared. He began to absently play with the scars at the end of the stump that were hidden by the empty sleeve of his shirt. A voice in the back of his mind warned him to ease up, that his wife hadn’t just implied that he was a cripple, that he shouldn’t make a scene. He took a deep breath to collect himself. He slid his left hand along his right shoulder and stump and quietly said, “I’ll drive.”
“Nick, honestly, I don’t mind doing all the driving.”
“I want to drive.”
Kelly sighed. “Please, the parking lot is crowded. Just let me drive.”
“No.”
“Nick, there’s no reason to be stub—”
“I am not being stubborn.” After another deep breath he said, “I’m driving.”
Kelly anxiously looked around the parking lot. People were gathering and looking on with curiosity. “Okay,” she relented. “But be careful. Okay?”
Nick didn’t answer.
Kelly turned her back to Nick and carefully lifted their son, Billy, out of his seat in the shopping cart. Nick turned his back to the the minivan once the door was open and fell backwards into the seat. Once Kelly had Billy in his car seat she quickly slid into the passenger seat, slamming her door shut behind her.
Nick pulled the car door shut behind himself and reacehd across his body to place the key in the ignition. He could feel Kelly’s eyes lingering upon him, the pity inside of them, and he became even more frustrated, nearly breaking the key as he forced it in.
Nick finally got the car started and Kelly reached over and shifted the car into gear, then released the emergency brake for him.
“Don’t do that.”
_____
Kelly looked at the tax return forms spread out in front of her. She dropped her head into her hands and fought back tears of frustration. Randall Johnson had dropped a shoe-box of receipts on her desk and the paperwork necessary for her to start filing his tax return, then left. Kelly looked at her photos on her desk. H & R Block had a minimalist policy towards personal effects, but the few that she kept despite this policy were her wedding photo, one of her and Nick with the new born Billy–who was pudgy, bright red, and still crying–and one of the three when Billy was three years old. The last one was taken two months before Nick had finally shipped out. Nick looked so tall and strong, a grin parted his face as he smiled triumphantly into the camera.
When Nick returned from Iraq he was stumbling down the ramp, his bags positioned all on one side of his body so that he could keep them there with one arm and his body bent over sideways to support the asymmetrical weight. Kelly knew that she should have been glad he was walking at all, awkwardly or not—he was the only passenger on that airplane who could—but all she saw when she looked at him was what her husband had once been. And she hated herself for it.
“So, how’s the glorious war hero?”
Kelly looked over her shoulder at her supervisor.
“He’s been better.”
_____
“Bye, babe,” he had said, kissing her on the cheek. Nick kneeled down so he could look his son in the eye. “Gonna miss you, little man, take care of mommy,” He told his three year old son. Billy lifted his right hand to his head, attempting a salute. Nick smiled it and returned the salute, then stood up. “Well, I better get going or the plane will leave without me.”
Before he could reach down to pick up his duffel bag, Kelly grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and kissed him. She pressed her forehead against his and said, “Be careful over there. You have to promise me you won’t die.”
“I don’t plan on doing anything of the sort,” Nick said while flashing her that cocky little grin of his that she loved so much.
“Promise,” Kelly insisted.
“Babe, I promise that I won’t die.”
_____
“That’s good to hear,” her boss said. He looked at the shoe box of receipts on her desk and licked his teeth. “Kelly, I don’t want to seem insensitive, I understand that you’re having a tough time at home, believe me: I understand. But your falling behind. I don’t know how to say this nicely, so I’ll be blunt. You’ve got to catch back up on your work or I’m going to have to let you go. April 15th is coming up very quickly.”
_____
Billy sat by himself in the sand box, and played with the buttons on his overalls, all while deciding if his hole should be to China or Australia. His daddy seemed to like Australians a lot more. He looked over at the other children who were being watched by the grown-ups as they played on the jungle gym.
Jessie, the pretty grown-up with blue hair, walked over and asked him what he was doing.
“Digging a hole to Australia,” Billy answered.
“Australia, huh? How come Australia and not China?”
“Daddy tells me that China is trying to establish the next evil communist superpower.”
Jessie stared at Billy in amazement for a moment then said, “Yeah. Plus, Australia has kangaroos. Like on Winnie the Pooh?”
“Oh, yeah. That too.” Billy laughed. “Kangaroos are funny.”
“They certainly are,” Jessie looked up and around. “I gotta go now for a little bit Billy, I’ll come help you with that hole later.” She then quickly walked over to the other grown-ups and started talking, all of them looking over at Billy every now and then. He was oblivious, though, focusing entirely upon his hole.
A few minutes later Nick showed up to pick up his son. He walked up to the edge of sand box and stopped short just before his shoe touched the sand.
_____
“You know what I really can’t stand about this shit hole, Nick?”
“Just eat your damned eggs and shut up for once, Private.”
“The sand,” Private Andrews said. “It gets into everything. Your boots, your hair, your clothes, your crotch. I swear to God, I shitted sand last night.”
“Andrews!” Nick slammed the table with his fist. “Just shut the fuck up for once,” Nick said as he tried to finish his eggs.
Andrews leaned over until his face was just a few inches from Nick’s ear. “Come on, you can even taste it in your eggs. You can, can’t you? Doesn’t that just drive you crazy?”
Nick swallowed his crunchy eggs.
____
Nick pulled his foot back from the sand box and set it back down on the solid grass. “Come here, little man,” Nick called.
Billy jumped up and rushed over, hugging his father’s leg.
“Hi, daddy!”
“Hey there, little man. Ready to get outta here?”
“Uh-huh.”
Nick stooped down to pick up his son, but when he felt the eyes of the women who ran the pre-school on him. He stood back up and offered his hand to Billy. “Let’s go, buddy.”
Outside of the preschool Nick dropped his fake smile he’d worn inside the pre-school and scowled at the world. He couldn’t stand the women who ran the place. Most people at least tried to be polite and look away from his right shoulder if they were near him. Those women openly stared at him, and he could just hear them whispering amongst each other under their breaths about him. Discussing whether he was a fit father, no doubt. Nick flung the back seat of the mini-van open violently so that it made a loud noise, resembling a car crash–or an explosion–and Nick flinched at the noise, his instincts telling him to hit the dirt. Nick offered Billy his hand and lifting Billy up by one arm managed to get him into the mini-van, then the car seat. After that Billy helped his father fasten the buckles on his car seat, thinking it was a game.
_____
The blinds were scattered, nearly broken, and allowing the midday sun to filter into the bedroom. On the ground in front of the window the pillows from Nick’s bed were lying about randomly, having been thrown there by Nick in his sleep. He thrashed about fitfully in his sleep.
The humvee in front of Nick simply stopped.
“What’s going on? Why have we stopped?” Lieutenant Dillon asked over the radio.
“There’s a kid, sir. He’s just standing in the middle of the road.”
“Go around him, for Christ’s sake,” the Lieutenant said.
“He keeps moving.”
“Something’s not right,” Andrews muttered nervously from the driver’s seat.
Nick pulled his head and M-16 back through the window of the humvee. “Kid probably just needs help or something.”
Andrews released his foot off the break gently and creeped forward to close the open distance between they’re humvee and the one thirty feet in front of them
Next thing Nick saw the front end of their humvee disappeared in an explosion. The front windshield shattered and flew into the cabin. The safety goggles Nick had been wearing to keep the sand out of his eyes protected him from the shards. There was a moment of silence. Then a secondary explosion and Nick screamed in pain as something burning ripped its way through his bicep. The distinct clatter of AK-47s filled the air.
“Out of the car!” Nguyen yelled.
Private Nguyen jumped out of the back-seat and Nick soon heard Nguyen’s M-16 joining the cacophony of gun fire. Andrews was staring straight ahead, shaking. Blood was pouring from his face. “Andrews!” Nick reached over and grabbed Andrews by the shoulder of his equipment vest and then fell from the humvee dragging Andrews out on top of him. Nick screamed, as a new wave of pain wracked his body from landing on his right arm.
Nick, followed by Andrews, crawled to the nearest bit of cover. There were people running around everywhere. He suddenly heard the clanging of a .50 caliber opening up. It had to have been one of the most reassuring sounds he ever heard. As the .50 rattled on the sounds of Kalashnikov fire trickled off.
Nick looked himself over. He went into shock when he noticed for the first time that his arm was hanging, limp, and almost completely severed. “Oh God… Oh God…”
“Incoming!” someone screamed as an explosion and a new wave of gunfire filled the air. The .50 cal fell silent.
The doorbell rang.
Nick’s whole head rattled, and his helmet rung like a bell. Did I get hit? He clutched at his arm, afraid of it falling completely off.
The doorbell rang again.
Nick jerked awake from his nightmare. Disoriented and confused—convinced that he was back in the desert. He grabbed at his right arm. He felt like vomiting as he touched his stump. Nick stumbled out of his bed wearing just a tank top and his boxers.
The doorbell rang again.
Nick threw the door open and was momentarily blinded by the sunlight. With sleep deprived and blurry eyes he made out the figure of a Marine standing at attention in dress whites. The Marine quickly snapped his hand up in a salute. Nick half-heartedly raised his left hand to his forehead and let it drop back to his side.
“How are you, sir?” the Marine asked.
Nick rubbed his eyes to wake up. “Rickshaw?!” he exclaimed when his vision came into focus.
The Marine grimaced. Richard Nguyen had detested the nickname Corporal Matheson had given him. “Hello, sir. How are you?”
“Good, good, come in,” Nick said letting Nguyen inside. “Help yourself to a beer, I’m going to go get dressed.”
After nearly ten minutes, Nick came back from his bedroom looking just as haphazard and disheveled, except now in a t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants. He turned on the TV and and continued into the kitchen while shouting at Rickshaw. “How’s the squad?”
“Good, we haven’t had any major casualties since your injury, sir. Everyone’s been returned to active duty.”
“Glad to hear that, Private.”
“Actually it’s Lance Corporal now, sir,” Nguyen said with a happy smile. “I was promoted shortly after you were discharged.”
Nick’s eye began to twitch. “Is that so?” Nick rubbed his shoulder and was quiet for a moment while he looked through the fridge for a beer. “Well, good for you, Rickshaw. Hey, you didn’t want a beer?”
“Can’t sir. Only twenty.”
Nick’s twitch worsened. He hadn’t made Lance Corporal until he was twenty-one. “It’s okay, I’m retired now, it’s not like I’m going to snitch on you.”
“I still have to drive home, sir. You know how Sergeant Billers would respond if I got a DUI.”
“Do you mind if—“ Nick said while holding up the bottle.
“No, no, go ahead, sir.”
“Rickshaw, I’m retired. Just Nick is fine.”
“Yessir.”
“Rickshaw!”
“Sorry, Nick. Do you need any help with that?” Richard Nguyen asked looking over his shoulder at Nick struggling in the kitchen.
Nick ignored the offer to help and struggled with the cap. He pinned the bottle between his body and the counter. He twisted the cap as best he could. After some struggling he managed to twist off the cap and he began chugging the beer. He tossed the bottle into the sink and grabbed two more, gripping the necks between his fingers, and kicked the fridge door shut. “I wish my wife would stop buying fucking bottles. So what brings you here?” Nick asked as he sat back down on the couch next to Rickshaw. He changed the TV to a documentary on World War II and the Battle of Okinawa.
“Recon.”
Nick perked an eyebrow.
“We’re curious how you’re doing, sir.”
“Oh, well, as I said, I’ve been doing good.”
“Uh-huh? How are Billy and Kelly?”
Nick struggled to open his second beer, placing the bottle between his thighs and twisting the cap until it popped off, and slowly downed the entire beer before answering. “We’re all fine. We’re all fucking fine. Life’s a goddamned cakewalk.” Nick fell silent again and stared ahead at the TV.
“Are you sure sir?”
“Trying to prove you guys still care?” Nick asked while focusing on the TV and struggling with the final beer he had brought with him. “Or is this about your own consciences, trying to make up for me being the unlucky poor bastard who had an IED blow up in his face? Replaced but not forgotten?”
“Sir?”
“Fuck off, Lance Corporal Rickshaw,” Nick said as he finally gave up on his third beer, the muscles in his right shoulder would not stop seizing and they made it impossible to get a good grip. Nguyen reached over and undid the cap with ease.
Nick inhaled deeply and sighed. “Tell them I’m fine. We’re all fine. Life’s just peachy.”
Nguyen sat back and watched Nick stare into his beer bottle. The fire had passed from Nick and he was now slumped back in his chair, slowly swirling the bottle. Nguyen stood up and saluted the hunched and demoralized Corporal Nicholas Matheson, Ret.
“It was good to see you again, sir.”
Nick took a big gulp from his bottle and continued to stare at it. Silence permeated the room except for the low din of the TV. Nguyen held his salute, staring straight ahead. Nick finally looked up at Nguyen and said: “Civilians don’t salute.” Nguyen didn’t budge. “What the hell, Rickshaw? What the fuck do you want? I told you to get out.”
“I haven’t been dismissed yet, sir.”
“You aren’t going to leave unless I say you’re dismissed?”
“Sir, no, sir!” Nguyen barked.
Nick turned back to the TV and ignored the Marine standing at attention. Veterans were discussing the horrors they faced on Okinawa. They discussed how you could never know where the Japanese were gonna come from. It was hell, they said.
“Dismissed,” Nick eventually said.
Nguyen dropped his salute and left.
_____
That night Nick lay on his shirtless back in the unlit garage, empty beer bottles and cans were scattered around his body. He had one bottle he was holding up straight with his mouth and and he used his tongue to control the fall of beer down the back of his throat. His hand was rubbing his stump absently.
Six inches, he thought. Six god damned inches to the left and I could have died as a glorious war hero.
“Nick?” a sleepy voice asked as a sliver of light extended from the door. “Is that you, Nick?” There was a pause. “Come to bed. It’s three in the morning.”
Nick let go of the bottle with his mouth, letting the contents spill everywhere, and told his wife: “Go to bed, Kelly.”
There was a pause, then the light disappeared. Kelly shuffled back into the large empty master bedroom and slid beneath the comforter of her bed. Tears began to slide down her cheeks. She stifled a scream of frustration, making sure that it died in her throat. She let her hand move over the imprint that Nick had left in the mattress before he had originally shipped out. It was slowly losing it’s shape. It no longer resembled the husband that had left. Kelly buried her face in her pillow and screamed until she fell back asleep.
Nick was left alone lying on the cold concrete. His eyes slowly readjusted to the darkness and he could make out the shape of his Mustang at the other end of the garage. He hadn’t taken it out of the garage since he had gotten back. Every time he considered it his mind came back to the damn manual transmission. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, what kind of man bought a Mustang without a stick shift? No, he was forced to drive the mini-van; his wife was driving the Mustang now.
_____
Nick flipped through the checkbook, looking up from it to the bills on the table and back again. It was going to be very close this month, again, and their credit card debt just kept growing. Electricity. Phones. Gas. Internet. They had already gotten rid of cable.
“Damn it.”
“I have to do the bills,” Kelly said, walking into the kitchen and tossing her work clothes onto a nearby counter. She looked exhausted and was home two hours later than usual.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because last months checks were rejected by the bank. Your signature didn’t match up,” she said. “The bank had to call us to confirm that we had written them.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Nick said as he tossed the pen onto the table. He got up and walked over to Billy who was watching an old DVD of Sesame Street. Offering Billy his hand he told Kelly, “We’ll be out at the park.”
Kelly had a frown on her face as she looked over the checkbook. “Hm, oh, ok. Take care and have fun you two. If we move some from our savings and charge this to credit…”
It was brisk, and the early spring winds caused the sleeve on Nick’s sweatshirt to flap wildly in the wind. Still, it was refreshing, and Billy seemed comfortable in his Cookie Monster blue sweatpants and sweatshirt.
Billy preferred the park amongst the most recently developed housing. The sand box was bigger and the jungle gym was lower to the ground so he could wander it on his own with out his father’s aid. Nick lead his son to the playground then took a seat on a nearby bench. The woman who was originally sitting on that bench stood up after a few minutes and called her two children to her and left. Nick didn’t think anything of it at first. Then, as all of the other parents huddled together on the bench at the opposite end of the playground, Nick became annoyed and sucked on his teeth while playing with his shoulder.
Billy played on the slide for a good half hour, then he walked over and asked his father to push him on the swing. Nick looked at the parents across the sandbox; they all stared off into the distance or watched their children rather than meet his gaze.
Nick looked across the playground at the parents who pretended not to notice him and said, “Ok.”
Nick followed his son up to the edge of the sand box, then stopped. He closed his eyes and stepped out into the sand and he felt his foot sink into the sand. Nick paused, took a deep breath and held it as he placed his other foot in the sand box. Nick exhaled.
At the swing Nick crouched down behind Billy and wrapped his arm around Billy’s chest, grabbing underneath Billy’s armpits, Nick pinned his son against his body and stood up, taking a step forward he lowers Billy into the swing. Billy is patient.
Nick grabbed the back of the swing and took a couple of steps back, the sand pulling on his feet with each step.
“God damned sand,” he said under his breath, then let go of the swing
Billy swung back and hit Nick directly in the chest. The wind was knocked out of Nick for a second and he became panicked, but then Billy was coming back towards him again and Nick took a step backwards, catching Billy and pushing him back out again. Nick was conscious of his sleeve flapping in the wind, but at the same time he didn’t care, and, for a little while, he forgot about the sand. He moved, shuffled his feet through the sand to be able to support his son, pushing him ever higher on the swing.