to be his guardian and promptly hired a Medicaid attorney who devised complicated strategies to preserve some assets and convert others to defray the cost of his hospitalization and nursing care. When Beth sold the house, she had put away half in a trust fund, which would co-pay with Medicaid for continued care, the excess of which would be available to him were he to wake up.
“Vince says he’s going to help find a place for you. And when you’re ready to leave, I’ll come back and help you settle in. So don’t worry about that. You’re going to have plenty of support.”
Jack nodded. But she had her own life, and once she left he didn’t expect to see her again.
Beth checked her watch. “I’ve got to go.” The nurses had given them only a few minutes, and his next PT session would begin shortly.
“You can come and visit us. Really. We’ve got plenty of room. I wish you would when … you know … you’re able to. It’s only five hours by plane … really.” She made a helpless gesture with her hands to apologize for crying. “I’m sorry.”
Jack nodded and felt his throat thicken. “Have a nice life,” he whispered.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” she snapped. “This
“‘Course not.” In the familiar cast of her eyes, Jack could see that Beth had decided that seeing him again would only make matters worse. And she was right.
She got up and put her arms gently around him. As best he could, he raised his arms around her shoulders, and he closed his eyes for an infinite moment. The aroma of White Linen filled his head as a hundred images flickered in his mind.
“Get well soon,” she said, and broke their hold. “Vince will be by tomorrow.”
She started to leave, then stopped. “By the way, does the name Mookie mean anything to you?”
“Who?”
“Mookie?”
“They got you doing memory tests on me, too?” He’d had three already, a fourth later today or tomorrow.
“It’s not important.” She started toward the door again. “Oh, I almost forgot : You’re famous.” And she pulled out of her bag a newspaper clipping and laid it on his chest. She hesitated again.
“Go! You’re going to miss your plane.”
She nodded and left.
And Jack watched her pass through the door and listened to her heels against the tile receding down the hall, and for a long moment he stared at the space that she had occupied—a void, a negative space sucking at his soul —thinking from his perch of grief that his old life was over.
The article was from yesterday’s
JELLYFISH COMA VICTIM RECOVERS AFTER SIX MONTHSA 33-year-old Carleton man who had spent nearly two hundred days in a “persistent vegetative state” recently regained consciousness at the Greendale Rehabilitation Center in Cabot, Mass.The case has been described as “absolutely extraordinary.” A former English teacher from Carleton Preparatory Academy, Jack Koryan slipped into a coma after nearly drowning six months ago in Buck’s Cove on Homer’s Island off the Massachusetts coast, where he was stung by rare and toxic jellyfish. According to experts, the tropical creatures were apparently attracted to the unusually warm coastal waters at that time … . Miraculously, Koryan survived the attack and has spent most of the last year in the Greendale nursing home, unresponsive to all contact in spite of the constant stimulation efforts from the nursing staff.Specialists comment that most patients spend only two to four weeks in a true coma. Contrary to expectations, Koryan is not cognitively impaired. In fact, his mental abilities are “extraordinary,” according to his doctors … .
46
ALL HE GAVE THEM WAS HIS NAME, rank, and serial number. That’s all he was supposed to give them. Name, rank, and serial number … Louis Martinetti. Corporal. US41349538.
And in the snap of a salute, Louis was back in the Red Tent—as the older POWs called it because that was your color when they got through with you. Red. As in bloody-pulp red.
The Red Tent. And Louis was going through it all over again.
He didn’t know why or how, because that was not where he wanted to be, but on the mission that Captain Mike Vigna had promised him. The special. Operation Buster. Instead he ended up again in the Red Tent. And by now he had lost count—not that it mattered—because it was like a closed loop—a Mobius strip of horror.
Louis was scared—so scared his bowels let loose. So scared that he wished they’d just shoot him in the brain and get it over with. He knew shit, but that wouldn’t stop them from what passed for sports with these godless Commie savages.
He remembered from the last time—from all the last times: no needles, no pliers, no electric prods that had been rumored. And not just him.
It was a large tent, and bound by arms and legs to a wooden armchair in the middle of the dirt floor was Fuzzy Swenson, stripped to his waist. His face was a mess of bruises, and thick strings of blood dripped to his lap from his mouth and nose. His hand kept twitching against the ropes as if trying to wipe himself. When he recognized Louis, Fuzzy moaned and vaguely nodded. He tried to say something, but one of the soldiers shouted him down.
There were five of them—two uniformed NK regulars, an older officer, and Colonel Chop Chop, who stood in the corner shadows and watched as the soldiers placed Louis in a chair facing Fuzzy. With the colonel in civilian clothes, with a shaved head and tinted glasses, was Gregor Lysenko, whom Intelligence had identified as his Russian advisor and had nicknamed Black-hawk. Chop Chop and Blackhawk. Like the comic book. What a fucking joke.
The soldiers bound Louis’s arms to a second wooden chair. They also put his helmet between his legs, binding them at the knee so he couldn’t release it. He told himself it was to catch his puke when they got down to business.
While they set him up, Blackhawk said something to Chop Chop in what sounded like Russian. The colonel nodded and in a smooth, even voice he spoke a command in Korean to one of his soldiers, not taking his eyes off Louis. An older soldier translated in broken English.
They wanted information about troop deployment. Louis said he didn’t know anything about troop deployment.
He and other men of his platoon had been captured four days earlier when they got separated from King Company by a firefight with NKPA units in central Korea. All Louis knew was that they were part of a combat team assigned to defend a sector north of Wonju. But he had no idea where his company had advanced or what the deployment plans were. He also had no idea what other combat, artillery, or tank units were to be attached. That was not the kind of information that Command shared with grunts.
The colonel listened without response to the translation of Louis’s words. Then he said something soft and terse, and the baby-faced soldier backhanded Louis hard enough to cause his nose to leak blood and snot into the helmet. Was that what it was for? Couldn’t be. This was a torture tent.
The interrogation resumed, questions pelting him like stones: What heavy equipment did they have with them? What other battalion units were they joining up with? How many men? When was the next airdrop of the 187th?
“I swear,” Louis mumbled, “I don’t know nothing.” It was all he could say. It was the truth. He knew nothing. Nor did Fuzzy or the other guys in the platoon. Their mission was to proceed toward a ridge to the east of Wonju. They were not regrouping or reconnoitering with another company. They were just advancing and trying to save
