SteveShear.net



Early the next morning, well before the sun came up, a deep
chill thickened the air, a warning to early risers to stay under
the covers. Daisy Wheeler paid no heed. She already showered
and dressed, and tapped on her brother’s bedroom door with a
lightness of hand that seemed to apologize for her unsolicited
action, but at the same time allowed her the privilege of entering
uninvited and waking him with a gentle morning kiss. This
wouldn’t be an easy task. Ever since coming home, Adrian had
been sleeping in, waking up exhausted from bad nights, and
sometimes not arriving to the breakfast table until lunchtime,
infuriating Pa every time.
“Up, up, my handsome big brother,” Daisy whispered across
a large pink ear poking out from the frayed edge of a thick wool
blanket.
Pa cranked up the air conditioner every night, keeping the
house colder than the rest of the family could tolerate without
heavy-duty blankets, especially on chilly mornings. It had something
to do with the accident and poor circulation but he always
seemed hot. During the day, it was Esme who insisted on opening
doors and windows, especially the kitchen door, to allow in
fresh air.
                                            ~
It wasn’t more than forty-five minutes later that Adrian
Wheeler found himself crossing town in the passenger seat of
Daisy’s 1967 maroon Mustang. Throughout the entire drive, he
sat upright against the seat, rigid and silent, refusing to look at
his baby sister, refusing to acknowledge his immediate destination.
He had months of that shit—nothing but a waste of time,
he grumbled as he reached down with his left hand to unbuckle
his seatbelt. His fingers jerked with pain, fingers that weren’t
there—and then nothing. Phantom pain, they said. That hadn’t
happened since Germany. Back then, the shrinks pounded away
at his sanity. It was normal to feel pain, nothing to worry about,
it was normal to feel an arm that wasn’t there; it was normal to
be depressed and angry. Normal, normal, normal, shrink after
shrink insisted. Goddamn them all, nothing would ever be normal
again.
The click of the front passenger door and Daisy’s voice roused
him from his memories. She took him by the hand, the real one,
and led him out of the car, as if he were her son, as if she were
Ma coming back from the dead to make him well.
The siblings walked up a winding path from the parking lot
onto brick steps leading to a pair of sliding glass doors. At the
entryway, the doors automatically opened and then closed like a
booby trap springing into action. That was Adrian’s first thought
as he limped into the local VA hospital where the rancid odors
of death and decay splashed across his psyche, leaving in their
wake a flood of ghoulish nightmares. He began to tremble, but
managed to contain the anxiety that rose from his groin. He was
able to hide it from the world outside. Marines are trained to do
that, to hide their anxieties, particularly from other marines, and
Adrian was a master, especially when it came to Pa. He didn’t used
to be, at least not when Ma was around, but Pa taught him well.
There were people everywhere, many just standing around,
several looking up at signs, wondering where to go, others sitting
and waiting for their names to be called, some patiently,
some biting their nails and fidgeting in molded plastic chairs, as
if they had already been tried and convicted of something bad,
and were waiting for sentencing. Still others huddled in groups
around a reception desk or roamed the halls. Even the hallway
floors were littered with people waiting to be seen. Not enough
doctors, not enough nurses, not enough chairs to handle the
mistake called Iraq.
“Goddammit, Daisy, what are we doing in this fucking
place?” Adrian finally spoke up, knowing full well the answer
to that question.
“We are here in hopes of finding someone who can screw
your head back on. And quit with the foul language; you didn’t
used to talk that way.” Daisy froze for a moment trying to decide
which way to go.
“Now, where in the heck… Excuse me, sir.” Daisy stopped
a young man in green surgical garb. “I’m looking for Dr. Rabinowitz,
the psychologist, or psychiatrist, or whatever he is.” But
the man could only point her to the information desk hidden
behind a mass of humanity.
She worked her way to where she could see the INFORMATION
sign, and finally, after chewing her nails to the quick, was
greeted by Gertrude, who had on a pink uniform and a large
round badge that announced her name and status as a staff volunteer.
After listening to Daisy say they had an appointment
with Dr. Rabinowitz, Gertrude thumbed through the pages of
her directory.
It was a few minutes before nine. Daisy tapped her right heel
loud enough for Adrian to hear. She checked her watch again.
Gertrude finally instructed her to follow the yellow stripe to the
elevators and proceed to the second floor where she was to follow
the green stripe to Psychology, and check in there. All the time,
Daisy kept a tight leash on her brother who clearly wanted to bolt.
As soon as Adrian heard the word “psychology,” he turned
on his sister. Even though he knew from the start where he was
going and what Daisy was up to, it didn’t become real until then.
“Are you nuts, Daisy? I’m not going to see any damn shrink. I’ve
had enough of them to last a lifetime.”
“After all the trouble I went to—and that doesn’t include taking
off work today—you are going to see this Dr. Rabinowitz.
Besides, if somebody in that house of ours doesn’t get his head
on straight, I’m going to have to move out, and I certainly can’t
afford to do that.”
“All right,” Adrian snapped back. “All right. All right.”
Adrian admitted he was never able to standup to his father,
or John Mike for that matter, and his little sister always reminded
him of their mother who he missed desperately, even then,
ten years later. It wasn’t that he couldn’t stand up to Daisy. He
didn’t want to. He refused to disappoint his mother. Unfortunately,
Daisy used that to her advantage.
So he waited. He had secrets to tell, but he never would, not
to a stranger, even if the guy was a shrink, not to anyone. Adrian
was in pain, mostly at night, in his sleep, but nothing compared
to the pain that rained down upon him almost daily in Baghdad,
a place he never wanted to be, a place he never should have been.
The inner waiting room was like all the others at the VA, molded
plastic seats, institutional gray in color, lined up one next to
the other in a series of rows. A dozen or so people, mostly young
men, more than likely Iraqi vets, sat as far from one another as
the empty seats allowed. Magazines and newspaper remnants
took up some of the vacant chairs. Cell phones rang constantly;
CNN could be heard in the background. Every so often, a nurse
marched through the waiting room announcing a name. Most
often someone responded. Daisy sat directly across from Adrian.
He picked up a magazine to read.
He looked up from the glossy pages and caught her staring
through the deep blue eyes she inherited from their father. How
different they looked. His eyes were dark green, like Ma’s, he had
Ma’s complexion, olive brown in the summer, and he was thin,
too thin, according to Esme. That was because most of the time
he no longer had an appetite. Daisy, on the other hand, was just
like Pa, not in temperament thank God, but she inherited his
red hair, light complexion and stocky frame, although she now
seemed thinner.
Daisy glanced down at the book she brought with her. Now
that he agreed to see Rabinowitz, her own bravado melted away.
She fiddled with her hair, cut short for the summer. Beads of sweat
formed on her brow and her stomach churned so loud Adrian
looked up. She didn’t like hospitals either. In the months since
his return from Iraq, he hadn’t taken the time to talk to her, to
ask about her. He was afraid she might reciprocate and he wasn’t
ready to talk about himself, about what happened. Was he ready
now? With a shrink? He doubted it. Besides, much of what tormented
him at night he didn’t remember during the day.
“About the Mustang, I think it’s out of alignment. You probably
should take it in,” Adrian said. He wanted to ask her how
she was doing—but couldn’t and just then his name was called.
                                            ~
Daisy watched him disappear through a pair of swinging
doors. A lump grew within her throat causing her to swallow
hard. Adrian wasn’t the only one in the family with problems.
She was on the assembly line placing chocolate-coated almonds
on macaroon centers that whizzed past her, and they did
so without stopping to say hello. She often joked to her friends
who continually asked how those good tasting chocolate macaroon
bars were made. She had just refilled the pockets of her
apron with the almonds and was concentrating on precisely positioning
three of them on each macaroon center when a tap on
the shoulder startled her. April, her replacement, came early so
Daisy would not have to rush to the large conference room behind
the front lobby where the blood bank was set up. At the
time, Daisy had completely forgotten her 2:30 appointment. She
stripped away her apron and handed it to April. As she raced
from the chocolate preparation and coating building through
the packaging facility, she pulled off her plastic gloves drenched
with chocolate and tossed them in a trash bin.
There was nothing benevolent about Daisy giving blood. The
truth was she wanted an excuse to escape the assembly line for
a couple of hours. That was the first summer she could actually
work and, while she liked earning her own spending money, it
was hard work.
When the letter finally came, two months later, she thanked
God she was home to intercept it. Although it was addressed to
her, that never stopped Pa from opening mail that came to his
house, regardless the intended recipient. At first, Daisy didn’t
connect that particular letter with her blood donation several
months earlier, even though American Red Cross was printed
boldly across the top left edge in bright red.
Dear Ms. Wheeler, As we informed you prior to your blood
donation on… Daisy read quickly across the page…laboratory
tests are performed on a sample of each donor’s blood. One of these
tests is associated with AIDS. That word, that acronym—her bowels
did somersaults, her hands shook. She stuttered even though
no words left her lips. She continued reading as she grabbed a
kitchen chair. The results of this screening test…indicate that it
is likely that you have the HTLV antibody in your blood… She
caught her breath. She stood and began pacing. She squeezed her
buttocks tight. She was going to crap in her pants right there in
the kitchen. She stopped pacing and held on to a chair. She was
afraid Pa might walk in on her, that he might find the letter. She
took a deep breath and read on. We do not know what the significance
of these tests will be for you but the following information
is important. A positive test for HTLV II antibody probably
indicates previous exposure to the AIDS virus. You are deferred
from donating blood… Daisy could read no more. She fell back
into the chair and bowed her head between her legs, hoping to
keep from vomiting.
Daisy recalled how she crumpled the letter and its envelope
and crammed it into her pocket when she heard someone calling
out her name. Adrian towered over her in the waiting room
and shook her shoulder.
She froze in the gray plastic chair, still lost in her own nightmare,
sure the voice she heard was Pa’s demanding to see the
crumpled letter.
“Daisy, for God’s sake, it’s me.”
She quickly opened her eyes to Adrian’s puzzled face staring
down at her. “Oh! I’m sorry. I was just…never mind. How did it
go?” She stood up jarring herself into the present and gathered
her things, her purse and book and the morning newspaper.
“It wasn’t as shitty as it could have been, I guess.”
“What did you talk about? No, don’t tell me. I shouldn’t have
asked that. But do you like him, Dr. What’s-His-Name—Rabinowitz?”
“Do I like him?” Adrian was silent for a moment while they
walked to the car. “They all seem okay at first, but always turn
out to be assholes after a session or two. I’m sure he won’t be any
different.”
That was the last thing of any significance that Daisy heard
until they arrived home. Her brother was preoccupied with his
own thoughts, the ones that entered his head without invitation
and swept him into despair, as if they were part of a time machine
capable of taking him back to the horrors of Iraq without
any regard for his sanity.

Chapter Two
© 2010 Steve Shear