Monkeyshines
chapter nine

Amazingly, my head cleared on the draft question. I went home and said good-bye to Mom. It was time to see how much warrior was left in me. I took the train to Philadelphia and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Why Philadelphia? It was the home of the Marine Corps, the Marine quota for Chicago was full that month, and I didn't want to delay. I knew a Marine captain in Philadelphia, and I stayed at his house the night before I enlisted. I worried, of course, that this would be a tough experience. I knew I wasn't in athletic shape, and I mistakenly assumed the other recruits would be. But I did well on the entry test and was put in charge of 32 guys for the train ride to the boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Later, I learned that almost anyone could have passed that entry test. The Marines had previously been an all-volunteer force, but had begun drafting people that year. They threw a wide loop.
Late in the evening, we left the train, and boarded a bus. In the middle of the night, all us tired, hungry, confused strangers reached the camp gate. I stepped tentatively to the front of the bus and asked the driver what I should do with all the records I was supposed to deliver. The driver, suppressing a bemused air, I felt, said, "Don't worry, it'll all be taken care of."
A guy in a Smokey the Bear hat, with a face chiseled from marble, stormed the bus. "Sit down, you, and shut up."
I sat down and shut up.
"YOU," he pointed at a guy,"GET THAT HAT OFF YOUR HEAD," Smokey was shouting now,"AND YOU, PUT OUT THAT CIGARETTE, AND YOU, WAKE UP BEFORE YOU GET ME PISSED OFF TO START WITH."
Everyone became wide awake.
"WHEN I SAY,'MOVE,' I WANT YOU TO GET OFF THIS BUS AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND FORM UP WITH YOUR FEET ON THE YELLOW MARKS, NOW, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE..." Now he was screaming. Everyone scrambled out of the bus and arranged themselves with their feet on the little yellow footprints painted on the pavement. When we were all arranged, Smokey screamed, "WHEN I SAY,' MOVE,' YOU WILL MOVE INTO THAT BUILDING AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND LINE UP AT THE TABLES INSIDE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE..."
We all got into that building as fast as we could. Lined up at the tables inside, everyone was looking around in a panic. Had they perhaps made a grave mistake. It was like that point on the roller coaster, just before the first plunge. You don't want to go, but it's too late to change your mind.
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, YOU NO GOOD, MISERABLE, FUCKIN' PUKES. SHUT THOSE COCKSUCKERS AND PAY ATTENTION TO ME. YOU WILL TAKE EVERYTHING OUT OF YOUR POCKETS AND BAGS AND PUT IT ON THE TABLE IN FRONT OF YOU. NOW, NOW, NOW. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, STUPID? GET YOUR EYES IN FRONT OF YOU WHERE THEY BELONG. PICK THAT UP, SHITHEAD."
We dumped our gear on the tables. It was picked through by the sergeant, and most of it was thrown away. We ran to get uniforms, and get our heads shaved. We were taught the basic attention position and filled out forms. We ran through a supply building where we got buckets and gear, then we stood outside in the dark at attention while the drill instructor shouted at us. Around sunrise, we had the fastest breakfast in history. We ran a half mile from there to a barracks where we were assigned bunks. Our activities were punctuated by calisthenics, done in incredibly high numbers of repetitions, like a hundred and fifty push-ups at a whack. Not good push-ups, but a lot. We ran to chow again. Then back to the barracks for more exercises. Finally, it was ten o'clock at night. We'd been going flat out for twenty hours. Killer. Our platoon was 100 crazy guys. Adrenal glands were blowing out. We hadn't been allowed to use a toilet since the train ride the day before. A few guys had fallen out. Several had piss stains on their pants. I'd felt the string in my back snap while I was doing the manual of arms with my foot locker, but adrenalin was carrying me along.
As we were standing at attention in the barracks, the D.I. shouted, "WHEN I SAY 'MOVE', THE FIRST SECTION, STARBOARD SIDE WILL MAKE A HEAD CALL. THERE WILL BE NO TALKING. YOU WILL SHAVE, SHIT AND SHOWER IN FIVE MINUTES. IS THAT CLEAR?"
Everyone yelled, "That's clear, Sir."
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU SHITHEADS."
Everyone yelled a little louder that it was clear.
"I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU."
"THAT'S CLEAR, SIR!" we all shouted our very best.
"MOVE," the D.I. shouted.
The first section of the starboard side tumbled into the lavatory area. Talking was discernible immediately. The D.I. ran screaming into the head. "I SAID NO TALKING, YOU STUPID SHITHEADS! GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"
Guys came scrambling out of the can in various stages of undress in a sort of wild horror that they'd come so close only to be denied.
"WHEN I SAY 'MOVE' THE SECOND SECTION, STARBOARD SIDE WILL MAKE A HEAD CALL. THERE WILL BE NO TALKING. MOVE."
The second section, starboard side did exactly as the first had done, and suffered the same fate. So it was with the first section, port side. I was in the second section, port side. I was glad. I knew that, after seeing three sections of recruits blow it, we would know what to do. I was wrong. As the second section, port side ran into the can, the guy next to me looked at me, and without even bothering to whisper, said, "Oh, man, can you believe this shit?" Others were talking too. I couldn't believe it. The D.I. came in screaming, "GET OUT, GET OUT, YOU STUPID SHITHEADS."
Everyone in the platoon went to bed as dirty as they'd ever been in their lives, and with aching bladders. Except for the few who pissed in their beds and were ordered to sleep that way.
At 3 am, the D.I. tossed a metal garbage can down the center aisle of the barracks. He turned on the lights, and started screaming, "GET UP, GET UP, GET UP. GET YOUR RACKS MADE AND HAVE YOUR UNIFORMS ON AND BE STANDING AT ATTENTION IN FRONT OF YOUR BUNKS IN FIVE MINUTES. HURRY UP, HURRY UP, GET UP, GET UP."
The guy in the bunk below me got up, ran outside, and puked. I made up his bunk. The day followed the pattern of the day before. Exercises, instruction and marching. I liked the marching best. The senior D.I. was an enormous, Black guy who called the cadence like he was singing. Marching was easy. I could let my mind go to sleep while I marched. I marched so well, I was put in the front rank/file? But I got self-conscious and would start weaving. The D.I. would shout at me to fix my eyes on a distant point and march straight for it. I would forget this and start weaving again. The D.I. would look at me curiously and finally put me back in the ranks.
In the August heat, the parade ground was all ashimmer, like Luxor. When it got too hot to exercise, a black flag was raised over the island as a signal. Then the D.I. would take us inside the barracks, so we could exercise where officers wouldn't see us.
The third day was spent taking mental and physical tests. I had worn a few square inches off the front of my right foot from marching in those new boots. The corpsman looked at the wound.
"It doesn't really bother me very much," I said.
The D.I. heard this and shouted, "YOU DON'T RUN NUTHIN' HERE, PUKE, GET TO SICKBAY."
"Aye, Aye, Sir," I said, as I left for sickbay.
A corpsman there bandaged my foot. Afterwards, the doctor asked me if anything else was bothering me. I told him my back was killing me. I told him it was like an electric shock ran through my back when I moved it certain ways. The doctor dismissed the possibility that there was anything seriously wrong with my back. He said, " Put it out of your mind, private."
"Yes, Sir," I said, " Thank you, Sir."
During the evening of the fourth day, as we were finishing up a last set of bend-and-thrust exercises, my back froze. A bend-and-thrust required me to bend over, put my hands on the deck in front of me, kick my legs straight out, do a push-up, bring my legs back in and stand up. I was nearly all right, except for the bending over part. To bend over, I had to move my back through an arc in the middle of which was the electric pain zone. I knew the day was almost over. I tried to get through the remaining exercises, then I'd have a shot at another day. I let myself fall instead of bending, because it hurt less if my back muscles were not tensed. I'd catch myself as I hit the floor, and continue the exercise. But this took a lot of extra juice. I was having trouble keeping up with the other recruits. The D.I. noticed this.
I was on pretty good terms with the D.I., considering it was his job to extend everyone's physical and mental limits, which he did by pushing them past their limits. He broke everyone in turn. But I sensed I was being considered for platoon leader. The D.I. had pounded me in the chest a few times, and punched me in the stomach a few times, but everyone got that. (I'd been pounded with equal severity in Latin Class back in Mt. Carmel.)
When the D.I. came over to me this evening and ordered me to speed up, I said, "Aye, aye, Sir." But my mind seemed to curl up inside itself. I stood there, rigid. I told my back to bend. It didn't.
"BEND AND THRUST, MISTER; THAT'S AN ORDER."
"AYE, AYE, SIR," I shouted.
Nothing. I could see in the D.I.'s eyes that he really wanted me to succeed in doing the exercise. He was not looking for an opportunity to ride me. He put one hand on my upper back, one on my stomach, and started to bend me. As I went over, a shock of pain hit me, and I hit the deck. The D.I. sent for a corpsman. The other recruits watched me writhe and twitch on the floor. The D.I. lit into them about malingering, and shouted them back to attention. He knew I was hurting, though.
The corpsman arrived, ran something over my foot, and asked me if it was sharp or smooth. I wasn't sure. It seemed like both, then neither. I was already wondering, myself, if I was faking. I became suspicious when the D.I. asked me for my lock combination and I came up with the right number. I don't know. It was pretty intense. I was taken out on a stretcher and deposited in a room in the infirmary.
The doctor came in and said, "You can get up now. You got what you wanted, you're out of the barracks."
I didn't respond.
"Well, you'll have to get up sooner or later and go back. Whenever you get tired of this game, come into the next room and see me."
Then he left me alone.
I was thinking furiously. Trying to figure it out. Round and round my thoughts ran. The central problem kept returning. If my back was really hurt, I was in trouble, because these guys were committed to discounting recruit complaints, an understandable procedure when so many people were being put under so much stress. If my back was not really hurt, I was in trouble, because I was only imagining a pain that was so severe, it had knocked me down. My bottom line plan was to hang on as long as I could. If all else failed, I could go over the hill, jump in the ocean, and swim up the coast to New York.
After an hour of lying flat, I was able to get up. I presented myself to the doctor. He was not friendly, but asked about my childhood, and if I'd ever played sexually with other little boys. I'd rather hoped he would ask if I'd had back problems before. Then I could have told him how I would lie on the floor for hours after tending bar. Bending to wash glasses seemed to make my back tighten. Instead I found myself admitting that, indeed, I had played sexually with other little boys on a few occasions. And little girls, too, I wanted to say, but he didn't ask about that. (I knew that my childhood sexual experiments were things to be quiet about, but mostly, to my little kid's mind they’d seemed like I was being included in something private and special. It was a kind of acceptance. I learned later, in psychology class, that most kids experience troubling sexual misadventures in the course of growing up. It was a rite of passage. Over-estimating its significance might harm a kid more than the misadventure itself.)
The doctor suggested I was trying to get a discharge by claiming bogus back pains and homosexuality. I hadn't thought about a discharge prior to the doctor mentioning it. Now, I decided I'd accept a discharge on any ground the doctor saw fit to provide. I'd already decided that my warrior self was very small. My thoughts returned occasionally to one instruction period in the barracks when Sgt. Wilson described kicking a nine year old girl in the head, killing her. Split her skull wide open. Her brains had splashed out. This girl was a Viet Cong. She had a hidden grenade, or might have had a hidden grenade. She could have killed a lot of our guys. I had to prepare myself to kick the brains out of nine year old kids without hesitation if I was to play warrior nowadays. And help win our fifty year old feud with the communists. "And maintain control of the subway system," I thought to myself. I'd been in near-fatal fights growing up in Chicago, but I didn't think I'd be able to kill a little kid.
So, after the doctor told me what he wanted me to think he thought I was trying to do, he sent me back to the barracks. I stopped along the way to sit under an big old oak tree. The Moon was up and nearly full. The base looked serene and beautiful in the moon light.
The next day I transferred to the ‘Nut Platoon.’ Officially, it was called the Observation Platoon. A Navy corpsman managed us, and the D.I.s were forbidden to instruct us. Two basic types inhabited the Nut Platoon. There were fellows seeking a discharge for real or imagined ailments, fellows I talked to. And there were very disturbed guys who seemed to trust no one, guys I couldn't talk to. We used the designations "Real Crazies" and "Not-So-Crazies." We also had a sick D.I. in with us. He'd returned recently from Viet Nam with half his face blown off. He flipped out and was strapped to a bunk where he writhed and screamed. Mega-doses of Thorazine slowed him down, but his eyes never slowed down. The Real Crazies tortured him.
After two weeks, I was called into the doctor's office and offered the opportunity to sign a paper absolving the Marines of responsibility for any injury I might have incurred. In return, I'd get an honorable discharge. The doctor said the Marine Corps had decided I was too reflective to be a good marine. I signed the paper.
I was transferred to Casualty Company. Everyone in this company was separating from the Marines, including homosexuals, guys claiming to be homosexual, guys accused of being homosexual, lunatics, physically damaged guys, mentally damaged guys, and overly reflective types. One guy had broken his back in a fall from the rope climb on his last day of basic training. Technically, he’d graduated as a full-fledged marine private, dress uniform and everything. But everyone in Casualty Company was treated the same.
Usually that meant standing rigidly at attention. Occasionally, we polished brass or did work details, but mostly we stood at attention and got verbally shelled by mean sergeants. The guy next to me was a suspected homosexual.
The sergeant stared into his face from three inches away and shouted, "YOU LIKE TO SUCK COCKS, EH, SHITHEAD? DO YOU WANT TO SUCK MY COCK. YOU'RE GARBAGE, PUKE. YOU'RE TRASH. AND YOU'LL NEVER BE ANYTHING BUT A MISERABLE, PUKE, SHIT, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE."
To the broken back graduate, the sergeant said venomously, "YOU'RE GETTING OUT, EH?, YOU SICK BAY MARINE, YOU FAILED TO MAKE IT HERE, AND YOU'LL FAIL OUT THERE AT ANYTHING YOU EVER TRY TO DO. YOU MAKE ME SICK."
When I reported to Casualty Company, the duty sergeant looked up from his chair behind the duty desk, took my papers and looked at them. Then he looked at me.
In a conspiratorial voice, he said, "So, you're crazy, eh, private? You think you can convince them you're crazy? You think you can swing it, private? Do you think you can swing it?"
I was still capable of being insulted. I felt insulted.
I looked disdainfully into the sergeant's eyes and said, "It's swung, Sir,"
The sergeant looked at me fiercely. I knew I'd made an unnecessary enemy in allowing the sergeant to bait me.
After many hours of Casualty Company psychodrama, I told the doctor I might assault the sergeant. Not that I wanted to assault him, or even that I thought I could whip him. It was just so maddening to listen to constant invective, I felt an irrepressible urge to bash him.
The doctor gave me a small bottle of pills. "It's Librium," he said, "Take a couple when you're feeling tense."
Later, the sergeant found me wandering in the barracks instead of standing at attention with the other ‘casualties.’
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU MISERABLE PUKE?" he screamed.
Hands in pockets and slouching, I answered, "Well, I dunno. I was jus, ah, lookin’ out the, ah, window here..." My voice was soft, and I smiled weakly.
"DID THAT GODDAM DOCTOR GIVE YOU SOMETHING, SHITHEAD?"
"Wellll, yeah, heee gave me these, ah, these, ah, pills. He toll me to ah, to ah, take ‘em when I, ah, felt nervous."
It took a long time for me to say this; meanwhile I held up the vial of pills and tried to focus on them as I swayed to and fro. I thought I saw some of the other shit heads in Casualty Company smile, which would have been a first. I thought the sergeant was going to explode. He sizzled. But only for a moment. Being a good soldier, he put his attention back on track, and paid no more to me.
Twenty two days after enlisting, I hit the street, twenty pounds lighter and bald-headed. I couldn't clearly interpret the experience. Some friends saw it as my skillful management of a politically compromised military obligation. But I knew the events at Parris Island had exceeded my manipulative abilities.
"Who were the bad guys?" I wondered. That question always seemed to demand an answer. I couldn't be sure how I'd have felt if the D. I.'s and doctors had been kind and understanding as I washed out of training. Adversity does provoke a survival response. Could the motivation or insight of the marine authorities ever be known? Was it relevant? I remembered something I’d heard from a Semitite fellow in North Africa, who’d said, "Blows that don't break the back, strengthen it."