Baptism by Fire

We never did have any sort of in-depth discussion. After our little tryst had reached its inevitable conclusion the post-coital conversation consisted of a generic "How've you been?" and "What've you been up to?" And with that we laid the past to rest. Or, in my case, violently bludgeoned my misgivings into submission and left them cowering in that same neglected corner that had previously stored my feelings for the man. After all, why dredge up painful memories when it was easier to pretend like nothing had ever happened? Especially for sex like that. Damn, I'd forgotten how incredible it was. Exceptional. Phenomenal. Earth-shattering, even. No wonder I'd put up with his shit for two whole years. Perhaps the flood of endorphins had something to do with my poor decision making, both at Androscoggin and the 4077. Yeah, that sounded like a feasible excuse. I decided to take that and run with it.

"So this is your new home?" I eyed the disheveled khaki tent that he'd led me to with distaste. Drew had a bottom bunk in a frightfully small, claustrophobia-inducing eight-bed tent that he'd be sharing with seven other corpsmen. It looked quite a bit like the nurses' tents if they were double the width, except with a lot less frou-frou and a lot more squalor, and made the Swamp, with its numerous shelves, seating areas, and all-around comparatively adequate living space, look positively decadent. A dilapidated oval table filled the center of the room, and personal storage was apparently limited to wardrobes in each corner and the narrow space below the bottom bunks. Fatigues and the occasional civilian clothing articles hung from the ends of the cots, while presumably-dirty boxers and socks littered the floor. A sparse collection of personal effects were displayed on small shelves hanging from the walls above each bunk, and pinups of scantily-dressed women were posted everywhere. I supposed that the lack of snap inspections and drills and such at the 4077 enabled the draftees to eschew military-like discipline in a way that wouldn't have been tolerated at other posts. It probably drove all of the regular Army non-coms nuts.

"Our dorm room was bigger than this," I exaggerated slightly. "How can you live in such a crowded little cage? There's not even a hamster wheel to run on."

Drew let out a humorless chuckle. "When I find out you'll be the first to know." With one foot he nudged his footlocker further under his bed with an ease that told me that it was probably empty. One glance at his bunk – a blank canvas devoid of decoration or, really, any sign of habitation outside of the suitcase and pack that appeared to have been dumped unceremoniously on top of the mattress – told me that he hadn't yet bothered to unpack his belongings.

I remembered what he was probably feeling right then. If you didn't unpack your things you could cling just a little bit longer to the illusion that your posting in this cesspool was a terrible mistake – or, better yet, a horrible, surrealistic dream – and at any moment you would wake up, or, at the very least, be able to take your unpacked bags and flee to the safety and comfort of home. As soon as you saw your familiar belongings set in place in your new bunk all of that hope and wishful thinking died an ugly death, never to be heard from again.

I eyed his stuffed bag speculatively. "Tell me you brought some booze."

Drew laughed contemptuously. "Did you really think I'd come to the edge of civilization without my scotch?"

"'The edge of civilization'?" I echoed incredulously. "Does this look like a Travelodge to you?"

The familiar sound of someone blowing into the microphone of the P.A. system interrupted our conversation. "Attention all personnel: night patrol casualties incoming via ambulance. All shifts report to the lower compound and operating room. Tonight's showing of Miracle on 34th Street will be postponed. Hopefully until Christmas."

"I've got to go scrub up," I said to Drew with that sudden sense of urgency that the announcement of inbound casualties always provoked. "We've got wounded. Did anyone tell you what to do?"

"The kid who showed me to this tent told me to report to a Corporal Klinger for orientation in the morning. I'm an X-ray tech."

Ah, so that's how he'd entered as a corporal. That, or they took his two years of college into account. The Army had some sort of system, but sometimes it was beyond me. For example, how were so many incompetent pricks made officers? A certain major sprang to mind.

"I think your orientation just got moved up by twelve hours," I informed him wryly. "I'll help you find him, but we've got to be quick. I wouldn't want you to miss your baptism by fire."

"Wonderful." I knew he was being sarcastic, but you couldn't tell it by his tone.

We intercepted Klinger hustling from the O.C. toward Pre-Op. The sequins on his gown sparkled in the moonlight and his tiara flashed brightly every time he moved his head, making him easy to spot.

"I have a delivery for you," I told the swarthy corporal. "Show Dr—Andr—Corporal Kenna the ropes, would you?"

"Oh, sure. No problem." Klinger gave Drew an appraising glance, but redirected his attention to me when I leaned toward him.

"Let's mess with him a little bit," I told him, sotto voce.

"Huh?" he asked quietly, puzzled.

"Don't tell him the dresses are a dodge," I whispered.

A smile appeared on Klinger's face and spread into an impish grin. "Yes, sir!" he replied at a more normal volume, practically clicking his heels with a mischievous sort of enthusiasm. (And I do mean heels.) "Whatever you say, sir." He turned to Drew, who was eyeing him with both confusion and apprehension. "Come on, this way."

"Break a leg," I told Drew darkly with a flash of teeth before rushing toward the newly-arrived ambulances.

·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·

Assigning myself to triage turned out to be a stroke of luck, since the scrub room was deserted by the time I made my way in to change. As I stripped down to my boxers I noticed dark spots on my Army-issued drawers – residual dampness from saliva and semen – and the occasional white smear around the crotch. I'd been sloppy, and that was dangerous. It would be impossible for any observer to mistake those spots for anything but what they were, and it would have been a stretch for anyone who was paying attention to assume that I'd had time to find a nurse to be intimate with in between public sightings of me with Drew. Looking furtively around, I hastily jerked on the white scrub pants and thanked my lucky stars that everyone else had already finished scrubbing up. Once fully clothed, all evidence of my sins covered in clean white cotton, I washed up in the empty scrub room and made my way into the O.R.

I was on my second patient when Drew entered the operating theater for the first time, bearing a moaning infantryman from X-ray to Frank's table. After the patient was settled, Drew took a moment to look around the room and immediately appeared to regret that mistake. I watched the blood drain from his face as he stood rigidly, staring at the mess of intestines I was currently elbow-deep in. Following a moment of frozen terror he bolted from the room in the direction of the admitting ward and the outside world, one hand clamped over his mouth.

Klinger, who had been carrying the opposite end of the litter and was waiting to escort his trainee back to X-ray, watched him go before locking eyes with me and shrugging, a resigned look on his face. "Maybe I'll keep him in X-ray for the rest of the night."

I felt a pang of pity for Drew. "Probably a good idea," I agreed with a wince. "Let him at least have his first meal here before he runs out of things to throw up."

·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·

"You look rough," Drew said with some measure of sympathy when he caught up with me the next morning, finally exiting the hospital building after a long night of surgery.

I chose not to point out how rough he'd looked the last time I'd seen him, white face tinged with green as he fled the O.R. "Boy, you sure know how to butter a guy up," I joked instead.

"I learned from the best," he retorted.

I smirked. "Why, thank you. I try."

"You?" he shot back, as if he hadn't just been implying that I had, indeed, taught him his finest moves. "I think you've been sniffing that nitrous too long," he told me with a sly smile. "Maybe you should get that head of yours examined before it gets too big."

"You just haven't heard all the rave reviews I've gotten over here," I teased. "Check the bulletin board sometime."

That killed the banter. Drew's expression darkened and he changed the subject abruptly. "You hungry?" he asked blandly.

"I could eat." I pushed Drew's change in attitude aside, knowing full well what it stemmed from, and allowed myself to wonder with something akin to dread what awaited us in the mess tent. "Then again, I could do my stomach a favor and skip breakfast. And lunch. And dinner."

"Food's that bad?" Drew ventured.

I made a face – one that didn't exactly suggest a high approval rating for the mess tent's offerings. "They mainly serve World War Two surplus, with the occasional, relatively-fresh roadkill thrown in for variety's sake."

He scoffed. "It's a good thing you never tried to make a living as a salesman."

I gestured toward the large tent. "Well if you're not looking for honesty, next time specify beforehand."

Obviously still uncomfortable in his new home-away-from-home, Drew hesitated. "You coming?"

I shrugged good-naturedly. "Sure, why not? If nothing else, I can serve as moral support."

"Do you still sniff your food?" he asked warily, eyes narrowed. That had always bothered him for some unfathomable reason.

"I like to give my taste buds advance warning before subjecting them to such atrocities."

He snorted, but later admitted as we went through the breakfast line, "You weren't lying. I can't tell what half this stuff is, and the things I can identify I kinda wish I couldn't."

I was unable to contain a smug smile as I led him to the deserted end of a table, but graciously pushed every nearby condiment over toward his plate when he took his seat as recompense. After a cautious taste test he slathered the contents of his entire tray with ketchup, then generously piled on the salt and pepper. The face he made after his next bite told me that his efforts had just barely made the breakfast palatable.

"You're pretty much limited to this or some local food at Rosie's, the joint across the street," I explained. "We don't get many kamikaze delivery boys dying to bring us edible meals out this way."

Drew bobbed his eyebrows in concession. "Duly noted." Despite the quality of the food in front of him (or lack thereof), he laid into the contents of his tray with purpose. His last meal had probably been in Kimpo the afternoon before, and he'd tossed that in the bushes later that night.

Between bites he started humming under his breath – some tune that sounded like it could accompany a nursery rhyme. At my raised eyebrows he grinned mischievously, and, yep, I knew that look. He'd just come up with some stupid quasi-song to express his opinion on the quality of the food on his plate. Without any prompting from me (probably since he knew he wasn't going to get it), he launched into an annoying little ditty.

How am I expected to eat that?
Think these Army cooks just fried up a rat.
Yesterday's roadkill, you said?
I'm not convinced that's how long it's been dead.
Pretty sure C-rations are fresher than this.
Who knew in Korea it'd be real food I'd miss?
I'd kill for—

"Alright, Shakespeare," I said, cutting him off with a roll of my eyes. "I get it. The food sucks. You don't have to go writing an epic for the mess tent."

He grinned at me, unabashed, but thankfully didn't pick up his impromptu song. It was one of Drew's many eccentricities. For someone who enjoyed science as much as he did, Drew was an incredibly talented musician. He'd explained in the past how music was essentially just mathematics. However, being talented with musical theory and proficient with a number of instruments didn't translate into being a great songwriter. Even when he wasn't trying to be obnoxious his lyrics were fairly hit-or-miss. Still, he'd written a number of songs for me in the years we were together, and I still treasured a special few – not that I'd admit that to him.

"So how was your first shift?" I asked him by way of distraction as I dissected a piece of toast to get at the least charred parts.

"Well," he told me between bites, "besides completely failing to get a reading on whatever the hell Klinger actually is" – he sent me a pointed look that told me he suspected I had a hand in keeping him in the dark – "the X-rays were easy enough. A blind monkey with the intelligence God gave a mentally challenged rock could operate that machine… but I can't say it was easy handling the wounded." With a shaky breath he added, "I mean, I had to touch someone who actually had a bone sticking out of his shoulder. And with the angle it was at I'm not entirely sure it was his bone." He shuddered and put down his fork. "And all that blood… Jesus. I don't know how you do it."

A detached part of me was reminded of how Drew, a staunch atheist, had ironically referenced God and Jesus in everyday conversation throughout our two years of cohabitation, usually irreverently and most commonly as a curse. As he was raised Methodist, I guess it made sense in a sideways sort of way that he would retain some habits from his pre-high-school years. Apparently the two decades since then hadn't broken him of the custom, and for some strange reason that amused me. It seemed that I was quickly rediscovering some of Andrew's numerous quirks that I'd once found somehow endearing, blasphemy included.

"It gets easier," I assured him, wrestling my focus back to the point of conversation and chastising myself for letting myself get too fond of the man already. Just sex, I reminded myself. "After a while you'll have seen so many mutilated bodies that it won't even faze you."

He flapped a hand at me, palm up. "Didn't one of your psychology classes teach you how to be reassuring?" he asked caustically. Before I could reply the hand fell to the table, extended slightly toward me, almost as if beseeching. "How am I supposed to handle it in the meantime?" he continued in a rare display of vulnerability.

I put a comforting hand on the back of his neck and squeezed lightly. "You take it one day at a time. And if one day seems like too much, try one hour. Or five minutes. Whatever it takes." When he still looked doubtful, I added: "Alcohol helps."

"Now that," he said, picking up his coffee mug and tapping it against mine as if toasting the idea, "that I can buy."