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

morphine or Demerol, wanting to savor this moment for all it was going to be. Everyone could see himself in Earl Ray this morning. Their hearts pounding, their guts turned inside out. Their minds racing through the memories of the days before leaving home, fast forwarding to the ground exploding beneath them, and now to the reunion with the most beautiful person in their world. The right-side door of the brown double doors began opening slowly, and before the gap was a foot wide, Jennifer Ann Cooley squeezed through.
    She looked just like one of those dancers on Hullabaloo : long, straight, silky blonde hair, green and yellow miniskirt, white go-go boots, and a smile made for photographs.
    The door closed slowly behind her as she stepped firmly inside. Her face grimaced slightly as she skirmished with the strong antiseptic smell of the ward.
    As she inched her way forward, Jennifer Ann Cooley glanced to her left, to her right, and left again, wanting for the familiar embrace of her only lover. She slowed her steps as she made her way past the motionless faces.
    Her studied gaze fixed on the steel-blue eyes of the boy in the fifth bed on the right. She stepped closer to his side.
    Earl Ray blew air upward from his cursed lips, his face reddened. He tightened his grip on the trapeze, and his right arm began trembling. Jennifer stood silent, her bare legs leaning against the edge of Earl’s bed; their eyes locked.
    â€œEarl.” Her soft, pink lips barely formed the word. Tears trickled down to the corners of her smile. “Oh, Earl.”
    Earl couldn’t speak. He couldn’t loosen his grip. His right hand was squeezed so tight it was almost welded to the trapeze bar. His arm and shoulder began shaking uncontrollably. His brain was telling his hand to let go, but his fist only squeezed tighter.
    C’mon, let go. Let go of the bar! Put your arm around her. Let go!
    The bed was quaking from the uncontrollable spasms.
    And it erupted out of Earl like a shrill vomit.
    â€œLet go of the fucking bar!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
    Jennifer’s pink smile collapsed, her eyes glassed over, and her cheeks drained to a pale gray. An unrecognizable sound escaped from somewhere within her. It was a primal squeal, muted and garbled, like the last breath of a dying bird. Her knees buckled as she reached out with both hands.
    â€œI’m here, Earl.” The words barely made it out before she slumped down, fainted, and crashed her head against the bed frame.
    Jennifer Ann Cooley lay half-conscious on the floor, her head bleeding. Earl lunged onto his stomach, leaning on the stump of his left arm, pushing as hard as he could, unable to reach her.
    The entire ward recoiled, jerking toward the helpless couple, unable to get free from our orthopedic shackles.
    The head corpsman on duty scrambled from the nurses’ station and was hunched over Jennifer with a wad of cotton, dabbing the cut high on her forehead.
    â€œGet over here, and help me get her into this chair!” he yelled to the other corpsman who was still sitting behind the desk.
    The two lifted her into Earl’s wheelchair; still barely conscious, her head slumped and rolled like a rag doll, her arms limp on her lap.
    Earl crawled on his stomach to the bottom of the bed, reaching out to Jennifer just far enough to feel her hair slide through his fingers.
    â€œWe have to get her down to emergency, Earl,” the corpsman said. “She’s going to need a doctor to make sure she’s okay. This cut’s probably going to take a few stitches. I’ll let you know when she’s ready to come back up.”
    The corpsman and Jennifer Ann Cooley disappeared through the brown double doors.
    Ward 2B lay silent and scared. The other corpsman just stood in the center aisle like a small child in front of Santa Claus for the first time. The feeling of the ward lay cavernous around him. I reached over and turned the knob and shut