Free How Can You Mend This Purple Heart by T. L. Gould

and jettisoned the two-wheeler, and Earl Ray passed the end of Ski’s bed.
    â€œYou stay right here, Earl!” Doc commanded. “Jesus Christ! What’s the matter with you two? Let’s see what the hell we’ve got here,” he said, swabbing the blood flowing from the tear just below my knee. “Shit! It’s going to need a couple of stitches. How’s the leg feel inside, Shoff?”
    â€œIt’s okay, Doc,” I said.
    Doc hurried over to the supply cabinet and returned to my bleeding leg.
    â€œSorry, Doc, I fell out of bed trying to get the shit pot off the floor,” I said.
    â€œWhat?” he said with a puzzled look.
    â€œWell, you know, I dropped it on the floor, and I was just trying to get it when I fell over the edge of the bed. You were really busy and I…”
    â€œNext time, let me get the shit pot off the floor for you,” Earl Ray shot in as he wheeled away.
    Doc turned to Ski as if trying to clear his thoughts. Ski gave him a toothless smile.
    â€œYou better get me a piss pot, Doc. I’m going to need it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Doc asked.
    I reached under the sheet and held up the dangling catheter end. It was gurgling piss and blood onto the sheets.
    â€œShit,” Doc said.
    â€œNow, ain’t that some shit!” Bobby Mac laughed. “I thought I left all the bullshit back in ’Nam!”
    â€œJust let eet go, man,” Ski said.
    â€œI’ve let a whole lot worse shit go than this little spat,” Bobby Mac replied. “Seen a gook get himself blown to shit. We threw him into a wired hole just to count the pieces left over!” he laughed. “Arms and legs and shit flying everywhere. This here is just two guys getting to know each other.”
    My neck was beet red with a large bruise on the right side. Doc brought over a cold wash rag. The cold and wet felt good, almost as good as the morphine.
    I wanted Earl Ray Higgins to feel good about what he had done. I wanted Earl Ray to know the deep satisfaction within me that a Marine had nearly squeezed my head into unconsciousness.
    I rubbed the side of my neck with pride, as if it were a combat wound. I didn’t want the redness or the bruising to go away. I wanted to keep it forever—wear it like a Purple Heart.
    Earl was watching from the incline of his bed. A broad smile came over his face, and he blew a puff of air up from the corner of his mouth.
    â€œDamn, Shoff, that felt good.”
    â€œGlad I could help.”
    â€œIt ain’t over, you know,” he said as he turned on his side, facing away.

The Visitor
    JENNIFER ANN COOLEY was coming to visit. She was runner-up homecoming queen, honor society student, and senior yearbook photographer at Glenview High in Parsons, Florida. She and Earl Ray Higgins had been voted the “couple most likely to marry.” They had been inseparable their senior year, but they knew their plans for marriage would have to wait until Earl Ray was out of the Marine Corps.
    Earl Ray came from a family of two generations of Marines, and he couldn’t wait to take his place in the family legacy. The day he first donned his Marine Corps dress blues was the proudest day of his life, and Jennifer radiated with affection and admiration.
    They had it all planned out; Jennifer would study photography at the local community college and work part-time modeling for a studio in Miami. After Earl Ray finished boot camp, she would join him at his duty station somewhere in Germany, Japan, or maybe even California.
    Earl and Jennifer talked three or four times a week on the portable telephone that was rolled about the ward on a wheeled stand. Phone jacks had been installed along the wall, and a long phone cord strung its way across and over mine and Ski’s beds for Earl’s calls. He would encircle his bed with the privacy curtain normally used for bedpan seclusion or private talks with Dr. Donnolly. We