![Malum (Ma"lum), n.; [L.] - An evil.](http://malum.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/logothin.png)
Official TTFF Excerpt
Chapter One
Tom and I are on the beach, celebrating. In two days we head back to the grind, back to the submarine and all that goes with it. We’ll be subjected to the drudgery of standing watch, running casualty drills, cleaning. I’ll be chasing hydraulic leaks and clogged plumbing. Tom will be chasing electrons or something.
Our boat has just started a six month deployment, but we were left behind for a few weeks. Tom had to finish a limp-wristed electronics course. I had to rest my broken brain, the sad result of a fight outside a bar, too late to be out with work the next day. Something to do with a collision between the pavement and my skull. All I remember is puking in the ambulance, then waking the next day with a diaper on my head.
I’ve been in the hospital for about three weeks, supposedly to be observed. I’ll be released in the morning.
I think the staff’s concern is waning, though. They haven’t been concerned enough to verify my continued existence since the third day. So I’m not concerned enough to stay in my room.
Tom picks me up just about every evening and we make the rounds in Waikiki. I’m convinced that the alcohol’s helping my body dissolve the blood clot that’s formed between my brain and skull. I don’t think it’s helping stave off the eminent brain damage I’ve noticed lately. I’m keeping an eye on that.
But none of that matters now. We’re on the beach, it’s three in the morning, and all of the beachside hotel bars have shut down. It’s just Tom and me in two stolen lounge chairs, choking through a bottle of store-brand tequila he found under the seat in his truck. Sometimes the homeless wander past. A few groups of drunks stumble past, trying to keep the night rolling after the town’s shut down. We ignore them.
“This is just too good to ruin by going back to that damn boat,” Tom declares.
“Maybe. I don’t know how much longer I can run around with you unsupervised.”
“You’ll be okay.” Tom takes another pull from the plastic-bottle tequila. “God, this stuff is awful.” He tries passing the bottle to me.
“No, I’m getting a little sick.”
“Yeah, that’s new. You’ve been puking a lot since you got your ass kicked. You should watch that.”
“Yeah, probably.”
He’s right. I have been throwing up lately…a lot. I can’t hold down food. Booze isn’t much better. Not that they care at the military hospital. Of course, I have been sneaking out a lot. They may have forgotten that I’m a patient. Overall, it’s been a real test of character keeping up with Tom as well as I have.
“You want me to take you back to the hospital?”
“No thanks. I’ll get a cab. I don’t want to spend another morning prying your bumper out of your front tire while you dance around a cop with some bullshit sob story.”
“I do alright.”
“Usually, but I’m checking out of the hospital in a few hours. I need to be there for that.”
“Okay. I’m gonna go sleep in the back of my truck for a couple hours. Call me when you’re ready to be picked up at the hospital. I should be back in the barracks by then.”
I stagger up, stretch, and yawn. It will take about an hour to make it back to my hospital room. “I’m gonna take the bottle with me.”
Tom looks up at me. That last drink must have been a keeper, because his eyes are glassy, lids drooping to slits. “Okay,” he says.
* * * *
Back at the hospital, I stumble from the cab and ditch what’s left of the tequila in a trashcan out front. Eventually making it to my room, I settle to the floor, curl up and hide from my sickness. I sit there, not thinking, with my head resting on my knees and spinning. When the light through my eyelids brightens from gray, I lurch up and shamble into the bathroom to change the bandage on my head. The tear in my skin, left by my impact with the sidewalk, is still oozing. It’s easy to see because they shaved around it. It’s leaking white fluid now instead of clear. I think it’s infected. At least it’s not bleeding anymore.
I cut another square out of the t-shirt I’ve sacrificed for bandage-making and attach it to my head with a length of duct-tape from the role Tom brought me two weeks ago. Looking in the mirror, I’m a mess. My hair’s dirty, my face is a mismatch of sporadic beard. I have an oozing bald spot covered with a t-shirt scrap and tape. I’ve been wearing the same jeans for over two weeks and a shirt almost as long. I could grow plants on my teeth. Goddamn, I wish Tom had brought my bathroom kit like I’d asked. Oh well. I could have picked it up myself, I guess.
I’m only stating this to help you understand the funk I’m in. I have no intention of recovery. It’s blissful.
* * * *
Three years ago I couldn’t have imagined the person I am now. I used to at least pretend to care about my circumstances. I think I did, anyway. I used to concern myself with what other people thought, and kept myself up to standards.
I’m not very concerned now, though. Maybe I’m in a transitional period, so my current situation doesn’t define me. Of course, this is probably a cop-out, because all you are is what you are. What you were or what you’ll be is irrelevant. It’s as simple as me succumbing to my innate derelict potential since joining the Navy. The more I decline, the more I invent to justify myself, which is kind of funny.
I’m dressed and re-bandaged after a rinse in the shower. You’d think they’d at least give a man some soap here. I pack the few clothes I have with me into my sea bag and head to the front desk to check out. I’m assuming there is such a place and that’s where you check out. I find a desk near the hospital entrance, anyway, and it’s there that I submit my regards. There’s a nice looking girl sitting there in green fatigues. She seems reasonable, so this should go pretty smoothly. Our eyes meet.
“Yes?” Her smile fades to a grimace, mixed with a bit of disgust.
“I’m Cranston Staigne, checking out this morning.”
“This isn’t a hotel. Where are your discharge papers?”
“I don’t think I have any of those.”
“Do you know your room number? I don’t suppose you know your doctor’s name?”
She cuts to the quick, this one. “That’s true. I don’t know my doctor’s name.”
“Just a minute, I’ll try to find out for you,” she says. “On what floor were you treated?”
“I was on the fifth floor. I think treated might be too strong a word, though.”
“Yes, well, we’ll see.” Using her desk-phone she inquires with my name and listens for a bit. Her eyes shift to my patched skull.
“I haven’t asked him yet, but it looks like some kind of head trauma,” she tells the phone.
“I was kicked in the face.”
She covers the bottom of the phone with the palm of her hand. “Somebody kicked you in the face and did that?”
“No, somebody kicked me in the face, leaving this little bruise on my cheek.” I poke my cheek with my finger. “The ground did this to my head when it came up to meet me. Two separate, but not unrelated, events.”
I guess this bores her, because she’s started talking to the phone again. “He has head trauma, and I think his brain’s leaking out. Something’s leaking out. He stinks.”
She pauses for a moment, listening. “Okay, I’ll find out.” To me she asks, “Why do you think you’re being discharged today?”
“During my second day here, someone came into my room, and that’s what he said.”
“Did you get a name?”
“No. He brought me lunch. I asked him how long I was going to be here. He looked at my chart and told me three weeks for observation. Then he took my chart, put it into a bin on the side of his food cart, and left. I haven’t seen him since. I haven’t seen anyone since. Nobody’s even brought me more food.”
“What have you been eating?”
“Food from the vending machines on my floor.”
Front Desk Girl relays this information, sits staring for a while, sighs, then says to the phone, “I’ll ask.”
She frowns at me. “Have you been leaving the hospital without authorization?”
“No.”
“Well, they’re no vending machines on the fifth floor. This has been confirmed. Are you sure that you’ve been eating?”
“No, not really. This has been a strange three weeks.”
“Why would this meal-person take your chart?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t like me. I threw up on him.”
“Oh, you didn’t mention that.”
“Well, that’s what I did. Maybe he thought if my chart disappeared, he wouldn’t need to bring me any more food.”
“It obviously worked.” She listens to the phone for a while, thanks it, and hangs up.
“They found your nurse. You weren’t in your room during her biweekly checking-on-patients rounds. It would have been your third evening here. Your chart wasn’t there either, so she assumed you were dead.”
That’s pretty stunning news, right there. “Did you tell my family that I’m dead?”
“Oh, no. The Navy hospital would have to that. This is an Army hospital.”
“There are no Navy hospitals on Oahu.”
She sighs. I’ve touched a nerve.
“I know. That’s been a problem for some time. The paperwork would have eventually gotten through. Now that you’re not dead, though, we don’t have to start it.”
“What if I had died? How long would it take anyone to know?” I have to admit that I’m getting a little irritated. My skull’s leaking more than usual.
“Like I said, the right people would have eventually been informed.” She shrugs. “You’re Navy and that’s what we like to call “low priority”.”
Goddamn I hate air quotes.
“Definitely lower priority than me goofing off and doing nothing.”
She seems very amused by her remark. She even takes her gaze off of my skull long enough to stifle a little laugh.
Once composed, she continues. “I have to ask you some questions to make sure you’re medically cleared for discharge.”
Now I sigh. Her concern is touching. “Why, are you a doctor?”
“No, I’m an administrator, which means I’m more than capable of doing many, many things. Administrators are the life-blood of the military, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Are you now, or have you been, dead?”
“No.”
“Phew, thanks,” she says, relieved. “If you had gone the other way with that answer, I’d have been busy until lunch getting it straightened out.”
“Well, we wouldn’t have wanted that to happen.”
“No, we would not have!” Her work done, she gives me a big smile. “Thank you for staying with us.”
Now seems like a good time to walk out the front door to the payphone, call Tom, and get the hell out of here.
