“It’s from behind us!” Barney shouted.
Our side firing…
Hooray for our side.
“Nate, I’m going for help-the Japs won’t be able to see me in all this smoke. Okay, Nate?”
I nodded. Nodded off. Slipping into a fever dream where things I never wanted to remember would teach me to forget them.
“Nathan Heller,” I said.
The captain smiled. He was a Navy man, the only uniformed doctor of the four on the panel. He seemed to be in his early forties-a doctor on his either side outranked him in age-and he was the only one who wasn’t a little on the heavy side. One of the well-fed civilian doctors was Wilcox, my doc, sitting at the far end. But the captain was in charge. It took a Navy man to give you your walking papers, your Section 8.
“You know your name,” the captain said, pleasantly. “That’s a good start.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dr. Wilcox feels you’ve done very well here. It’s seldom a patient makes it down to the first floor so quickly.”
“Sir, if I might ask a question?”
“Yes, Private Heller.”
“It was my understanding that the program here is a three-month one, minimum. I’ve been here a little over two months. Now, I’m not complaining, mind you-I’m glad to be getting this consideration, but…”
The captain nodded, smiling again. “Your curiosity about this early Board of Review is a sign of your improved condition. I understand you were a detective before you enlisted.”
“Yes, sir. I’m president of a little agency. It’s waiting for me back in Chicago, when the Marines get through with me.”
“You understand, Private, that returning to combat, to any sort of active duty, is out of the question.”
It was the ultimate Hollywood wound, the jackpot million-dollar wound: if you cracked up in combat, there was no going back to it. Heller goes marching home.
“I’ve heard the scuttlebutt, yes sir.”
“You’ll be honorably discharged, when you’re released from St. E’s. You should feel no stigma about that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve served your country honorably. I understand you’ve been awarded a Silver Star.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve acquitted yourself admirably, to say the least. Bravery under fire is no small distinction. But you’re wondering why I haven’t answered your question, about this early hearing.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gestured toward the wall behind me, which was lined with chairs. “Pull up a chair,” he said. “Have a seat.”
I did.
“There is a precedent for your early release, should we decide to do so, in response to the special circumstances that have come up. For example, many Army hospitals run an eight-week mental rehab program. So, Private Heller, you mustn’t feel shortchanged by getting a ‘rush job’ at St. E’s.”
“Oh, I don’t feel shortchanged, sir…”
He stopped me with an upraised hand. “Please relax. Consider the smoking lamp lit.” He was getting out his own cigarettes, Chesterfields, and the other doctors joined in. He offered me one.
“No thank you, sir. I lost my taste for it.”
His own cigarette in hand, the captain looked at me suspiciously. “That’s unusual, under these conditions. There isn’t much to do at St. E’s but sit and smoke.”
“Oh, they found some floors for me to scrub, sir. That kept me busy.”
The doctors exchanged smiles, although one of them, a roundfaced man with thick glasses, asked, “Is it because you associate smoking with combat? Dr. Wilcox’s report indicates you didn’t begin smoking until you were on Guadalcanal.”
I looked to the captain, rather than the doctor who posed the question. “May I be frank, sir?”
He nodded.
“Suppose smoking does remind me of combat,” I said. “Suppose it does take me back to the Island.”
They looked at me with narrowed eyes.
“Then I’d be crazy to smoke, wouldn’t I? And put myself through all that.”
Only the captain smiled, but then he was a military man; he could understand.
“I don’t feel like a Marine, anymore,” I said. “I don’t feel like a civilian, either, but I’m willing to try to learn. I see no reason to dwell on what’s happened.”
The third doctor spoke for the first time. He had a small mouth, like a fish, and wire-rim glasses. He said, “You suffered amnesia, Mr. Heller. That, too, was an effort not to ‘dwell’ on your traumatic experiences.”
“I don’t want to forget what happened, or anyway I don’t want to ‘repress’ it, as Dr. Wilcox calls it. But I do want to get on with my life.”
Dr. Wilcox came to my defense, saying, “I think I’ve made it clear in my report that Private Heller quickly learned to regard his experience in its true perspective, as a thing of the past-something that no longer threatens his safety. I might add that it took only simple hypnosis, and no drug therapy or shock treatments, to achieve this effect.”
The captain waved a hand at Wilcox, as if to quiet him on subjects better spoken about when the patient wasn’t present.
But the doctor with the fish’s mouth and the wire glasses picked up on Wilcox’s little speech, taking offense, bristling openly, patient present or not: “I hope by that that you don’t mean to imply anything derogatory about the use of drugs or shock by others here at St. Elizabeth’s.”
“Not at all. Merely that some battle neuroses are relatively minor compared to chronic cases we might encounter from within the civilian population.”
“Gentlemen, please,” the captain said. He looked like he wished he had a gavel to pound. Instead he looked at me and said, “We are going to have to ask you some questions, at some length, before we can reach a decision.”
“Understood, sir. But before you begin, could you answer
“Private?”
“You said some special circumstances had come up, that made this early hearing necessary.”
The captain nodded. “A federal prosecutor in Chicago wants you to give testimony before a grand jury.”
“Oh.” I thought I knew what that was about.
But the captain didn’t realize that, and he shuffled through some papers, looking for the answer to a question I hadn’t asked. “It involves racketeers and the film industry, I believe. Yes, here it is. The defendants include Frank Nitti, Louis Campagna and others.”
“I see.”
“You seem strangely disinterested, Private. Do you remember the incident this involves?”
I couldn’t “repress” a smile. I said, “I don’t have amnesia anymore, sir. But you can get amnesia permanently testifying against Frank Nitti.”
For the first time the captain frowned; I’d overstepped my bounds-after all, I wasn’t discharged yet. I was still in the service.
“Does that mean you’re not interested in testifying?”
“Does it work that way? If I choose to testify, I’m sane and a civilian? And if I choose not to, I’m crazy and a Marine?”
