M*A*S*H: Losing Streak
Title: Losing Streak
Author: skew_whiff
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Pairing/characters: George Weston; a little speculative Hawkeye/Trapper
Rating: PG for medical goriness
Disclaimer: Not my property, not for profit.
Prompt: M*A*S*H (TV'verse), Private George Weston, the idea of going back to his unit, knowing that they know, is terrifying. The idea of not going back is worse. (The gay soldier from the season 2 episode 'George'.)
Summary: George feels like he's stuck in a game he can't win.
Author's Notes: This'll teach me to set my posting date right in the middle of essay hand-in time. Thank the mods for Amnesty Wednesdays.
My name is George Weston, and I am a homosexual. I'm also an American, a soldier, a three-time recipient of the Purple Heart. Back home I worked in a company mailroom and played baseball at the weekends. I've got a little brother and sister and a dog called Lucky. I like detective novels and Laurel and Hardy movies and coffee served strong with cream on top. All of those things are part of me and I don't see any one of them as being more important than the other, but when people find out the first fact, they don't give a damn about the rest.
It's the dead of night and I'm lying in a hospital bed. My leg and side throb in time with my heartbeat. The guy in the bed beside me keeps sobbing in his sleep and lashing out with the arm he doesn't have any more. Every so often I hear the sound of water from the leaking roof dripping into a bucket on the far side of the room.
I'm loaded with painkillers but I still can't sleep, and it's not because the hospital is scary. What scares me, and I'd never believe I'd say this, is that I might never see the front again.
One week ago -
I grew up in the Midwest. Believe me, Tokyo is beyond overwhelming for a country boy. I'd never grow tired of walking down the Ginza and looking at the lights; it's Technicolour-garish, so bright it makes your eyes hurt, and everywhere is bursting with life. I can't imagine anything less like the muddy hills of the Korean combat zone.
Me and the other guys have been living it up a storm tonight. We've staggered from bar to bar knocking back drinks we don't know the names of and trying to chat up girls with the bare handful of Japanese phrases that we know. Most of the guys resort to obscene charades; I prefer to hang back and laugh at their antics.
Corporal Hohner's got a girl on each arm, twirling them round and round, and Frankie Liebowitz has his nose buried in the cleavage of a big buxom lady near twice his size. Abe Wilkins has the barstool next to me, whistling through crooked teeth at every girl-shaped thing passing his way.
"C'mon, Weston, get up and dance!" Hohner calls as he waltzes past. "There's girls going spare out here!"
"Yeah, George," Abe nudges me, "You never dance."
"Two left feet," I shrug. "Anyhow, I was always brought up to respect women, and I don't know if I can do that in a language I don't speak."
Abe snorts.
"The language of love is universal, buddy," he says, and whistles loud enough to make my fillings rattle. The girl he's directed the whistle at gives him a contemptuous look and passes right by.
"Looks like you've been struck dumb," I say, and take a sip from my beer. Abe just shakes his head. Hohner's come back our way again - well, it's not that big a bar - and comes to a halt in front of us.
"Seriously, you two, quit sitting there being party poopers," he says. "And that's an order."
"Go on, Abe, you don't have to keep me company. I'm not feeling it tonight," I say, giving him a bit of a push.
"You never are," Abe says, hopping down off his stool. "Anybody'd think you didn't even like women."
"I like women, I just don't like dancing," I reply, but the tone of it comes out a little more defensive than I'd meant.
"You don't get women unless you dance," Hohner says, laughing. "You sure you ain't some kinda queer, Weston?"
I let out a nervous laugh.
"Well, this one time in college I sucked a guy's dick so he'd write an essay for me..."
And everything just stops. The band play on, the people behind us dance, but Hohner and Abe and some of the other guys too, they're all frozen in place, staring. It was a joke, not a good joke but a goddamn joke nevertheless (for one thing, in reality there'd been no essay involved) - and hell, this isn't fair. The guys joke about queer stuff all the damn time. The drill sergeant called us faggots every other sentence, and the rest of 'em are always cracking wise about cocksucking and assfucking when there's no women around.
But apparently that kind of joke doesn't take when it comes from skinny blond George Weston who never dances with girls. Apparently I just crossed a line I couldn't see.
"Seriously?" Abe says, one eyebrow raised.
"No!" I snap. "Jesus, if you're that keen, I'll dance..."
"Nuh-uh," Hohner says, shoving me back. "I don't want you dancing around anywhere near me."
"What, you think the moment your back's turned I'll have your ass?" I shout, getting off my barstool and squaring up to him. I'm about to say more, but Hohner socks me in the jaw, sending me staggering backwards. The guys grab me and haul me out of the bar, and for the next few minutes they proceed to kick the shit out of me. With every blow there's questions, about whether I've been looking at them, if I fantasise about them. Every time they knock me down I stand up, spitting and scowling and shouting that I wouldn't fuck any of them, and that just makes them angrier.
I try my best, but there's so many of them I don't have a hope of winning. Eventually, I can't get up any more, and that seems to have them satisfied. They head back into the bar while I try to scramble vertical and stop my nose from bleeding. I tell myself it's not personal - they're wound up from nights on the front, they're drunk and tired and stupid - but it doesn't make the cuts and bruises hurt any less.
I always wanted to be a soldier. I loved all those old stories about the men who made our nation: General Meade at Gettysburg and Paul Revere's ride. Even Custer's Last Stand didn't put me off.
When the Second World War broke out I skipped class and went to the recruitment office, but my attempts at walking tall and lowering my voice didn't convince anyone. Nine years later there was a new war and I was old enough to fight in it, determined to make up for what I'd missed.
I was wounded five minutes into the first battle I ever saw. It wasn't much, just a bullet that grazed my shin, but it was enough to earn me a Purple Heart. I won my second, would you believe, for being hit in the face by a chunk of tree exploded by artillery fire. The impact didn't hurt half as much as having all the splinters picked out again did.
The third one, this one, I won for mortar fragments in my thigh and flank. They had to send me to a MASH to have the metal picked out and the wounds sewn up, but compared to most of the men here, I'm barely scratched. It makes me feel a little guilty; I get three medals for three mild runs of bad luck, and that guy next to me with no arm only gets the one.
On the other hand, he gets to go home a hero, whereas if I go home it won't be for an injury but for that slip of the tongue in Tokyo. Call me self-pitying, but right now I can't tell who's lost the most.
Two and a half days ago -
I'm drifting in and out of consciousness, strapped to a litter in a bus going flat-out down twisting dirt tracks. The company medic gave me morphine when he found me, and it sits like a dead weight on my chest. My body is heavy and numb and I feel strangely peaceful, like my mind's a few steps removed from what I'm actually seeing.
The bus smells of vomit and burning tin, and the suspension squeals when we go round corners. I'm turned on my side, staring straight across at the man on the other side of the aisle. He spits up blood every time we hit a pothole. In the moonlight, the little bubbles of it on his lips look kinda pretty.
I don't know how long the journey goes on for, but eventually we stop and the doors of the bus are flung open, letting in a gust of cold air. I hear two men arguing; one of them refuses to unload a Korean and the other is shouting at him to shut up and get on with it. There's the loud thump of boots on the bus's metal floor. A tall thin man hunches over the guy opposite me. His shoulders rise, tense, then sharply drop.
"This one's already gone," he says quietly, and pulls the sheet to cover the corpse's face. He turns to me. I squint, trying to make out his face, but it's too dark for me to see.
"Mortar hit to thigh and flank," he says, pulling roughly at my shredded clothing. "He can wait. Klinger, Igor, lay him outside pre-op with the others, and give him a pint of whole blood to keep him ticking over." His cold fingers dive under my shirt and pull out my tags. "A positive, if you've got it."
I try to speak to him, but can only groan.
"It's okay. You're safe now," the doctor replies, smoothing a hand over my forehead. That wasn't what I was groaning about, I want to say. I demand to be operated on right this minute. But as my stretcher is carried away, I overhear snatches of other conversations. Words like 'sucking chest wound' and 'massive intestinal haemorrhage' are enough to change my mind; I figure if I can be left alone, it means I'm not likely to die.
As they take me from the back of the bus, another ambulance screeches to a halt nearby, and I can hear the sound of approaching choppers. There's already a row of cases like me waiting for their turn outside the building labelled 'pre-op'. There's a long night ahead, and it's a mercy that I black out a few moments after being laid down.
I pass the time here by watching the doctors and nurses as they go about their work. I like to think I've figured most of them out by now.
The easiest were Lieutenant Colonel Blake and Captain McIntyre. They're both simple, ordinary men who'd rather be in the bar room or on the golf course than stuck in the middle of a war.
In contrast, Major Houlihan looks like she belongs here. I knew without having to be told that she's in the army as a career. She's always bossing people around and shouting out orders, but she does her job well, and she's always kind towards the patients. I think I'd like her a lot better if she didn't spend so much time with Major Burns. Burns is a rat, pure and simple.
The rest of them are mostly decent folks. The chaplain sometimes seems like he's got his head in the clouds, and there's an orderly trying to get a psycho discharge by dressing up in women's clothing, and I've got this terrible feeling that the little company clerk who's always following Blake around is actually running this place, but I get a sense from almost everybody that they're ordinary people doing the best they can in a sticky situation.
And then there's the one person who I just can't pin down. Captain Pierce is fascinating. He's wild and erratic and terrifyingly smart, and his moods turn on a dime. He moves with this weird goofy grace, like a marionette, and he's got a clever line for every situation.
There's this funny air of ambiguity about him I'm not sure anybody else even notices. I don't know how he does it, but he comes across to me as both a womanising playboy and flamboyantly, ludicrously camp. He hits on the nurses almost constantly, and I'm pretty sure he's successful with them too, but he's also always breaking into show tunes and striking poses and making eyes at Captain McIntyre. I don't know quite what to make of it - here I am, hiding all my life, and he's so blatantly obvious and nobody bats an eyelid.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. He's a handsome guy, after all. But whatever he's into really, I know he's not the same as other men.
After my first day here, I reckoned he'd be an ally. I went to him and told him what I was, and he didn't panic or look disgusted, he just nodded and accepted it. But maybe that wasn't a sign he was on my side, since this morning I found out Burns had taken me off his day sheet and wanted nothing more to do with me. He couldn't even go near me without shooting me sidelong looks and shuddering.
I don't mind being free of Ferret Face (I've heard the other doctors call him that, and I think it suits him), but there's only one person he could've found out from. So I just don't know who I can trust or what I'm supposed to do with myself, asides from sit here and get better so they can throw me out of the army. At least out at the front I could tell who my enemies were by the clothes they wore, and fight them for my survival rather than wishing and hoping for them to leave me alone.
Three years ago -
"You're working in a mailroom? What kind of a job is that?" Dad says.
"One that pays," I reply, turning my head away.
"That's not a man's job," he says. "You should be doing something that'll get your hands dirty." Mom looks over from her ironing, expression wry.
"You should be pleased we have somebody bringing money into the house," she says. "And pleased he's somewhere safe. What did that factory ever do for you asides from ruin your health?"
"I had the pride of knowing I was making something with my own hands. Honest labour, none of this pushing paper around," Dad says, and is interrupted before he can go on by another coughing fit. The fumes at the pesticide plant did his lungs no favours, and the doctor says smoking only aggravates it, but Dad doesn't like to listen or learn.
When he regains his breath, he looks up and fixes me in the eye.
"I worry about you, George. You're workshy. Sissy."
"Earl, don't talk that way," Mom says. Dad ignores me.
"You ain't a fag, are you?"
"What?"
"Well, are you?"
"No! And for heaven's sake, Dad, throwing that about just because I got a white-collar job..."
I know I'm lying. It's not as if I haven't tried, but girls just don't have the effect on me that some guys do. I've never looked at a woman and felt my skin tingle and my heart race. Everybody says it's a sin or a sickness to be the way I am, but I don't know who I'm hurting by it.
Dad nods. "No need to get on your high horse, I was just askin'. I'm not saying I'm not glad you're working, but you gotta stop daydreaming one day and get your act in order."
By which he means work in a factory, get a wife, be like everybody else. Sometimes I think of people as little trains put down on a track, happy to chug along from one station to the next. I suppose that must mean I've gone off the rails.
I always wanted to make Dad proud. He's never been a very happy sort of guy, and he never had very many good words for me. I was always the lazy one, the weakling who'd never amount to anything. The only time he ever seemed pleased was when I did well at baseball, though even then, he always got a lot more excited about my brother's football games.
When I'd told my family I'd enlisted, lord, you should've seen his face light up. He started bragging non-stop about how proud he was of having a soldier in the family, hanging up banners in the window and talking about how many Commies I was gonna kill. When I stood on the platform, about to leave, he clapped a hand on my shoulder and said,
"I'm proud of you, son."
Those actual words. I can see it as clear as if I were there. I can also see how he'd look if I came home and said I'd been thrown out of the army for being a queer. I don't think he'd ever want to speak to me again.
I'm sick of lying here worrying. I start to move; a nurse catches sight of me and I whisper to her that I want to go out and catch some air. She nods and says,
"Five minutes."
It's eerily quiet outside of post-op. The only living thing to be seen is the guard on duty pacing back and forth; judging by the fact the guard appears to be wearing a dress and bonnet, it must be Corporal Klinger's turn tonight. I head round the opposite way, evading his notice, not sure where I'm going. Really, I just want to be out of the hospital a while.
I wouldn't mind being away from Korea a while too, but not just yet. Pierce seemed baffled when I said I wanted to return to my company; he didn't understand just how badly I want to prove I'm as capable as any of them. I've dreamed of being a soldier so long it'd be the worst of endings to come out with a dishonourable discharge.
Anyway, what would I have to go home to? A job that bores me, a family that don't care, a life of pretending to be something I'm not. Right now, it doesn't feel like I have a future at all.
As I move past the tents, I can hear voices drifting through the canvas. I hear Major Burns' high-pitched giggle and a low moan which sounds horribly like it might be Major Houlihan; I shiver, and move on fast. I can hear Blake's hacksaw snoring and Father Mulcahy saying his prayers. And as I pass the Swamp, as the letters on the door call it, I can hear Captain Pierce's unmistakable voice.
"I've got a plan! I must have a plan! I always have a plan!"
"Yeah, but you still haven't said what it is yet." That's Captain McIntyre's lazy drawl. I stop and listen closer.
"Okay, right. What's Frank's weak spot?" Pierce asks.
"Hot Lips?" McIntyre replies.
They both erupt into fits of laughter. I don't know who Hot Lips is, but I think I could hazard a guess.
"Nah, it's got to be - I've got it!" Through the fabric I can see the vague outline of Pierce leaping to his feet. "We know Frank's a lousy surgeon, right?"
"I'd call him a butcher, but I'd never buy meat from a butcher as clumsy as Frank," McIntyre says.
"Right! Anyone with any sense can see he's not fit for the job. Yet, somehow, he qualified. What's the odds on him having cheated, d'you reckon?" Pierce says. He's moving quickly, pacing around the tent. If he had any more pent-up energy in him he'd be giving off sparks.
McIntyre chuckles.
"Are you suggesting we try and blackmail him?"
"He's setting out to tar a man's name. It's only fair we do the same right back," Pierce says. "I've got it all worked out. We'll fake him out - you'll tell him you agree with him about George and he'll be so thrilled to have somebody thinking he's right for once that he'll go along with whatever you say."
"Why's it got to be me?" McIntyre says.
Pierce laughs. "I'm everything Frank hates, but you - he wants to be your friend."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. It's a classic case of the school snitch wanting to suck up to the captain of the football team," Pierce says lightly. "Either that, or he just wants your cute butt."
"Well, it is a very cute butt," McIntyre shrugs.
What kind of a place is this? I make one cocksucking joke and my entire company hates me, but here there's guardsmen in frocks and doctors flirting with one another and nobody cares. I'd ask to be transferred, but I don't think carting about stretchers is any kind of life for me.
"Anyway, so how's blackmail come into it?" McIntyre goes on.
"I was just getting to that," Pierce says. "You agree with him, get him all loosened up and comfy, and that's when I say - hey, Trap, isn't there anything in the past you're ashamed of?"
"And then I get huffy about you bringing up the issue of my finals, right? Like I bought the answers?"
"You read my mind. If you admit it, maybe Frank will too."
"And if he does, there's our bargaining chip. If he squeals on George, we get him thrown out of the profession."
"Didn't I tell you I had a plan?"
"You're a ruthless-minded conniving bastard, Hawkeye."
"Oh, you."
Pierce waves away McIntyre with a camp flip of the wrist, and then they both raise their glasses and sip, looking right at one another. I envy them so much right now. I might be queer, but I've never been as close to another man as they appear to be to one another. I don't know if they're sleeping together, and I don't particularly care. It's just plain to me that those two men love each other. I wish I could have companionship like that, and that I wouldn't be judged if I did.
"...what if Frank didn't buy his answers?" McIntyre asks.
"He did. I've read his diaries," Pierce replies, to gales of laughter from McIntyre.
"But wait, then, shouldn't we get him struck off anyway? For ethical reasons and stuff?" McIntyre says, thoughtful.
"Since when have we ever been ethical?" Pierce shrugs. "Nah. We need surgeons here, even ones like Frank. If we got him thrown out we might get someone even worse in return."
I decide that now is the time to move away; I'm starting to feel a bit like a peeping Tom. But I'm also reassured. I don't know how Major Burns found out, but I know Pierce and McIntyre have my back. While I'm here, I'm safe. Shame I can't say the same for the rest of the world.
One day later -
I sit in awkward silence as Pierce looks me over, filling the dead air with his stream-of-consciousness nonsense, until he stops and straightens and gives me a full-on high-beam smile.
"Looks like you're good to go," he says. "You'll be back out on the front by tomorrow... you poor bastard."
I chuckle.
"Yeah, can we have a word about that? Somewhere private?" I say.
"An examination room's pretty private," Pierce says.
"The nurses keep coming in for supplies, Colonel Blake stuck his head in a few minutes ago asking if you'd seen his waders, and I can hear people talking on the other side of the wall," I say. "I wouldn't call it very private."
Pierce nods.
"Okay, okay," he says, "Follow me."
We hike up to a hill just behind the compound. I have to hang on to his shoulder for some of the steeper bits, but I can take most of it by myself. When we get to the top, we sit down on the grass and look down over the camp.
"So, what did you wanna talk about?" Pierce asks.
"I'll give you three guesses, doc, and the first two don't count," I reply.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. We've got it sorted," Pierce says.
My expression doesn't change.
"How'd Major Burns find out?" I ask.
"You're not the only person here from your unit, y'know. One of them must've squealed," Pierce said. "I don't know. For a stupid man, Frank's very devious."
I nod. "Well, if you're right, I've still got a lot to worry about. Whoever told Burns'll just tell my CO when he gets back."
"Ah-ah, don't jump to conclusions," Pierce says, waggling a finger. "A certain somebody might have just had a stern word with those patients about matters of privacy and mutual respect."
"Jeez, are you sure you can't come back with me and tell the same to all of the rest of them?" I ask, looking back at him again. "I could do with a few more guys like you around."
Pierce laughs wildly. "Oh, trust me, you don't. One of me is more than enough for this universe."
"And you're modest, too," I laugh back. "I'm just saying, it's rare to meet someone who doesn't make a big deal about it. I shouldn't have to prove to anyone I'm a good soldier or a good person, but here I am. Even the ones who don't know for sure suspect me, and I keep having to fight for every ounce of respect I get."
Pierce nods, his hand landing heavily on my shoulder. "There's no justice in the world."
There's a wistful look in his eye, and I follow his line of sight down into camp, where Captain McIntyre is playing football with some of the other men. He's in his undershirt and shorts, and the sun makes his hair and skin look golden. I glance back at Pierce.
"Doc, can I - no. Forget it."
"What?" Pierce says.
"No, really. It's nothing." What Pierce thinks of McIntyre isn't any of my business.
Pierce nods, accepting it, and begins to speak again.
"People will try and beat out of you every single thing that makes you unique. If you dare to be bold, to be bright, to do something other than what everyone else does, people get angry, because they prefer to stick with what they know. And that goes double for the army, where they prefer people to act as parts of a machine rather than as individuals, so as to be more efficient at killing," Pierce says, his eyes still distant, and then he turns and fixes his blinding gaze on me. "You've got to treasure what makes you stand out from the crowd. Don't let anybody tell you that you're sick or you're wrong for the way you are. The only things in this world that are wrong are those that harm people, and -" He sweeps his arm around us, laughing. "-apparently even that gets waived for special occasions. Be proud of who you are."
I shake my head. "There's nothing to be proud of. Even if I get out of the war with an honourable discharge, I've got to spend the rest of my life hiding away. It doesn't matter how I play the game - there's no way for me to win."
Pierce frowns in thought. "If I were you, I'd get off the boat at San Francisco and never leave."
"It's an option," I shrug.
"There's always options," Pierce says. "I don't believe the world'll always be this way. People used to think it was okay to keep slaves and deny women the vote. They came out with all kinds of horsecrap about God and destiny, but other people stood up and fought back, and things changed. That's what things do, they change, no matter how much some people want everything to stay the same. And one day, George, I promise you, there'll be white kids and coloured kids sitting side by side in Mississippi schoolrooms, and women in the Senate and the Supreme Court and the White House too, and men and men and women and women'll get married to each other on courthouse steps." He grins and flops back into the grass, arms behind his head. "I'm just hoping I live to see it."
"That's a very nice speech, doc," I say, "But I'll believe it when I see it."
"I'll make a bet with you. Fifty bucks says you'll marry a man one day," Pierce says.
"Fifty bucks?" I say.
"I'm taking inflation into account," Pierce says. "I'm not that optimistic."
I laugh, and there's a companionable, cheerful moment of silence, only broken when I see choppers on the horizon.
"Captain Pierce," I say, nudging at him - he seems to have dozed off on the grass.
"Wha?" he sits up, and scowls. "No rest for the wicked. C'mon, George."
We scramble back down the hill together. I can't say I feel totally secure, but I feel a lot more optimistic that I can take whatever life has in store. I don't need medals on my chest or a spotless military record to know I can fight and win against whatever stands in my way. It's just a shame that I have to fight at all.
Fifty-three years later -
William's grinning fit to burst when he comes up the stairs with our breakfast. I'm used to a cheery smile from him to start the day, but this morning he looks downright ecstatic.
"What're you so pleased about?" I ask, as he carefully puts the tray on my lap and settles down under the sheets beside me.
"I'll tell you later," he says, leaning over to grab his cup of coffee. I've been with this man for the best part of forty-five years, through thick and thin, and I still feel a little amazed when I wake up to find him beside me. I don't know how I struck it so lucky.
"Oh, come on," I say, rolling my eyes. "Don't make me tickle it out of you."
"No!" he says. "I've got too many appointments to make first. Jewellers, tailors, florist..."
I frown, and try to arrange his words into a coherent image. And it all resolves. They've been debating legalising gay marriage in Massachusetts for some while now. I always figured a liberal state like this one'd be the first to go for it. But I'm an old man. I'd never expected any changes to come in time for William and me.
William's still grinning, and I can feel my chest tightening with emotion.
"Wait, are you -"
And then, goddammit, the phone rings. I sigh, and turn to pick it up off the nightstand.
"Hello, George Weston speaking," I answer.
"George!" comes a voice. It's male, creaky with age, and it sounds familiar but I just can't put my finger on it.
"Who is this?" I ask.
"Hawkeye Pierce. You owe me fifty bucks!"
I grin. "I think this is one time I'm perfectly happy to have lost."
Author: skew_whiff
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Pairing/characters: George Weston; a little speculative Hawkeye/Trapper
Rating: PG for medical goriness
Disclaimer: Not my property, not for profit.
Prompt: M*A*S*H (TV'verse), Private George Weston, the idea of going back to his unit, knowing that they know, is terrifying. The idea of not going back is worse. (The gay soldier from the season 2 episode 'George'.)
Summary: George feels like he's stuck in a game he can't win.
Author's Notes: This'll teach me to set my posting date right in the middle of essay hand-in time. Thank the mods for Amnesty Wednesdays.
My name is George Weston, and I am a homosexual. I'm also an American, a soldier, a three-time recipient of the Purple Heart. Back home I worked in a company mailroom and played baseball at the weekends. I've got a little brother and sister and a dog called Lucky. I like detective novels and Laurel and Hardy movies and coffee served strong with cream on top. All of those things are part of me and I don't see any one of them as being more important than the other, but when people find out the first fact, they don't give a damn about the rest.
It's the dead of night and I'm lying in a hospital bed. My leg and side throb in time with my heartbeat. The guy in the bed beside me keeps sobbing in his sleep and lashing out with the arm he doesn't have any more. Every so often I hear the sound of water from the leaking roof dripping into a bucket on the far side of the room.
I'm loaded with painkillers but I still can't sleep, and it's not because the hospital is scary. What scares me, and I'd never believe I'd say this, is that I might never see the front again.
One week ago -
I grew up in the Midwest. Believe me, Tokyo is beyond overwhelming for a country boy. I'd never grow tired of walking down the Ginza and looking at the lights; it's Technicolour-garish, so bright it makes your eyes hurt, and everywhere is bursting with life. I can't imagine anything less like the muddy hills of the Korean combat zone.
Me and the other guys have been living it up a storm tonight. We've staggered from bar to bar knocking back drinks we don't know the names of and trying to chat up girls with the bare handful of Japanese phrases that we know. Most of the guys resort to obscene charades; I prefer to hang back and laugh at their antics.
Corporal Hohner's got a girl on each arm, twirling them round and round, and Frankie Liebowitz has his nose buried in the cleavage of a big buxom lady near twice his size. Abe Wilkins has the barstool next to me, whistling through crooked teeth at every girl-shaped thing passing his way.
"C'mon, Weston, get up and dance!" Hohner calls as he waltzes past. "There's girls going spare out here!"
"Yeah, George," Abe nudges me, "You never dance."
"Two left feet," I shrug. "Anyhow, I was always brought up to respect women, and I don't know if I can do that in a language I don't speak."
Abe snorts.
"The language of love is universal, buddy," he says, and whistles loud enough to make my fillings rattle. The girl he's directed the whistle at gives him a contemptuous look and passes right by.
"Looks like you've been struck dumb," I say, and take a sip from my beer. Abe just shakes his head. Hohner's come back our way again - well, it's not that big a bar - and comes to a halt in front of us.
"Seriously, you two, quit sitting there being party poopers," he says. "And that's an order."
"Go on, Abe, you don't have to keep me company. I'm not feeling it tonight," I say, giving him a bit of a push.
"You never are," Abe says, hopping down off his stool. "Anybody'd think you didn't even like women."
"I like women, I just don't like dancing," I reply, but the tone of it comes out a little more defensive than I'd meant.
"You don't get women unless you dance," Hohner says, laughing. "You sure you ain't some kinda queer, Weston?"
I let out a nervous laugh.
"Well, this one time in college I sucked a guy's dick so he'd write an essay for me..."
And everything just stops. The band play on, the people behind us dance, but Hohner and Abe and some of the other guys too, they're all frozen in place, staring. It was a joke, not a good joke but a goddamn joke nevertheless (for one thing, in reality there'd been no essay involved) - and hell, this isn't fair. The guys joke about queer stuff all the damn time. The drill sergeant called us faggots every other sentence, and the rest of 'em are always cracking wise about cocksucking and assfucking when there's no women around.
But apparently that kind of joke doesn't take when it comes from skinny blond George Weston who never dances with girls. Apparently I just crossed a line I couldn't see.
"Seriously?" Abe says, one eyebrow raised.
"No!" I snap. "Jesus, if you're that keen, I'll dance..."
"Nuh-uh," Hohner says, shoving me back. "I don't want you dancing around anywhere near me."
"What, you think the moment your back's turned I'll have your ass?" I shout, getting off my barstool and squaring up to him. I'm about to say more, but Hohner socks me in the jaw, sending me staggering backwards. The guys grab me and haul me out of the bar, and for the next few minutes they proceed to kick the shit out of me. With every blow there's questions, about whether I've been looking at them, if I fantasise about them. Every time they knock me down I stand up, spitting and scowling and shouting that I wouldn't fuck any of them, and that just makes them angrier.
I try my best, but there's so many of them I don't have a hope of winning. Eventually, I can't get up any more, and that seems to have them satisfied. They head back into the bar while I try to scramble vertical and stop my nose from bleeding. I tell myself it's not personal - they're wound up from nights on the front, they're drunk and tired and stupid - but it doesn't make the cuts and bruises hurt any less.
I always wanted to be a soldier. I loved all those old stories about the men who made our nation: General Meade at Gettysburg and Paul Revere's ride. Even Custer's Last Stand didn't put me off.
When the Second World War broke out I skipped class and went to the recruitment office, but my attempts at walking tall and lowering my voice didn't convince anyone. Nine years later there was a new war and I was old enough to fight in it, determined to make up for what I'd missed.
I was wounded five minutes into the first battle I ever saw. It wasn't much, just a bullet that grazed my shin, but it was enough to earn me a Purple Heart. I won my second, would you believe, for being hit in the face by a chunk of tree exploded by artillery fire. The impact didn't hurt half as much as having all the splinters picked out again did.
The third one, this one, I won for mortar fragments in my thigh and flank. They had to send me to a MASH to have the metal picked out and the wounds sewn up, but compared to most of the men here, I'm barely scratched. It makes me feel a little guilty; I get three medals for three mild runs of bad luck, and that guy next to me with no arm only gets the one.
On the other hand, he gets to go home a hero, whereas if I go home it won't be for an injury but for that slip of the tongue in Tokyo. Call me self-pitying, but right now I can't tell who's lost the most.
Two and a half days ago -
I'm drifting in and out of consciousness, strapped to a litter in a bus going flat-out down twisting dirt tracks. The company medic gave me morphine when he found me, and it sits like a dead weight on my chest. My body is heavy and numb and I feel strangely peaceful, like my mind's a few steps removed from what I'm actually seeing.
The bus smells of vomit and burning tin, and the suspension squeals when we go round corners. I'm turned on my side, staring straight across at the man on the other side of the aisle. He spits up blood every time we hit a pothole. In the moonlight, the little bubbles of it on his lips look kinda pretty.
I don't know how long the journey goes on for, but eventually we stop and the doors of the bus are flung open, letting in a gust of cold air. I hear two men arguing; one of them refuses to unload a Korean and the other is shouting at him to shut up and get on with it. There's the loud thump of boots on the bus's metal floor. A tall thin man hunches over the guy opposite me. His shoulders rise, tense, then sharply drop.
"This one's already gone," he says quietly, and pulls the sheet to cover the corpse's face. He turns to me. I squint, trying to make out his face, but it's too dark for me to see.
"Mortar hit to thigh and flank," he says, pulling roughly at my shredded clothing. "He can wait. Klinger, Igor, lay him outside pre-op with the others, and give him a pint of whole blood to keep him ticking over." His cold fingers dive under my shirt and pull out my tags. "A positive, if you've got it."
I try to speak to him, but can only groan.
"It's okay. You're safe now," the doctor replies, smoothing a hand over my forehead. That wasn't what I was groaning about, I want to say. I demand to be operated on right this minute. But as my stretcher is carried away, I overhear snatches of other conversations. Words like 'sucking chest wound' and 'massive intestinal haemorrhage' are enough to change my mind; I figure if I can be left alone, it means I'm not likely to die.
As they take me from the back of the bus, another ambulance screeches to a halt nearby, and I can hear the sound of approaching choppers. There's already a row of cases like me waiting for their turn outside the building labelled 'pre-op'. There's a long night ahead, and it's a mercy that I black out a few moments after being laid down.
I pass the time here by watching the doctors and nurses as they go about their work. I like to think I've figured most of them out by now.
The easiest were Lieutenant Colonel Blake and Captain McIntyre. They're both simple, ordinary men who'd rather be in the bar room or on the golf course than stuck in the middle of a war.
In contrast, Major Houlihan looks like she belongs here. I knew without having to be told that she's in the army as a career. She's always bossing people around and shouting out orders, but she does her job well, and she's always kind towards the patients. I think I'd like her a lot better if she didn't spend so much time with Major Burns. Burns is a rat, pure and simple.
The rest of them are mostly decent folks. The chaplain sometimes seems like he's got his head in the clouds, and there's an orderly trying to get a psycho discharge by dressing up in women's clothing, and I've got this terrible feeling that the little company clerk who's always following Blake around is actually running this place, but I get a sense from almost everybody that they're ordinary people doing the best they can in a sticky situation.
And then there's the one person who I just can't pin down. Captain Pierce is fascinating. He's wild and erratic and terrifyingly smart, and his moods turn on a dime. He moves with this weird goofy grace, like a marionette, and he's got a clever line for every situation.
There's this funny air of ambiguity about him I'm not sure anybody else even notices. I don't know how he does it, but he comes across to me as both a womanising playboy and flamboyantly, ludicrously camp. He hits on the nurses almost constantly, and I'm pretty sure he's successful with them too, but he's also always breaking into show tunes and striking poses and making eyes at Captain McIntyre. I don't know quite what to make of it - here I am, hiding all my life, and he's so blatantly obvious and nobody bats an eyelid.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. He's a handsome guy, after all. But whatever he's into really, I know he's not the same as other men.
After my first day here, I reckoned he'd be an ally. I went to him and told him what I was, and he didn't panic or look disgusted, he just nodded and accepted it. But maybe that wasn't a sign he was on my side, since this morning I found out Burns had taken me off his day sheet and wanted nothing more to do with me. He couldn't even go near me without shooting me sidelong looks and shuddering.
I don't mind being free of Ferret Face (I've heard the other doctors call him that, and I think it suits him), but there's only one person he could've found out from. So I just don't know who I can trust or what I'm supposed to do with myself, asides from sit here and get better so they can throw me out of the army. At least out at the front I could tell who my enemies were by the clothes they wore, and fight them for my survival rather than wishing and hoping for them to leave me alone.
Three years ago -
"You're working in a mailroom? What kind of a job is that?" Dad says.
"One that pays," I reply, turning my head away.
"That's not a man's job," he says. "You should be doing something that'll get your hands dirty." Mom looks over from her ironing, expression wry.
"You should be pleased we have somebody bringing money into the house," she says. "And pleased he's somewhere safe. What did that factory ever do for you asides from ruin your health?"
"I had the pride of knowing I was making something with my own hands. Honest labour, none of this pushing paper around," Dad says, and is interrupted before he can go on by another coughing fit. The fumes at the pesticide plant did his lungs no favours, and the doctor says smoking only aggravates it, but Dad doesn't like to listen or learn.
When he regains his breath, he looks up and fixes me in the eye.
"I worry about you, George. You're workshy. Sissy."
"Earl, don't talk that way," Mom says. Dad ignores me.
"You ain't a fag, are you?"
"What?"
"Well, are you?"
"No! And for heaven's sake, Dad, throwing that about just because I got a white-collar job..."
I know I'm lying. It's not as if I haven't tried, but girls just don't have the effect on me that some guys do. I've never looked at a woman and felt my skin tingle and my heart race. Everybody says it's a sin or a sickness to be the way I am, but I don't know who I'm hurting by it.
Dad nods. "No need to get on your high horse, I was just askin'. I'm not saying I'm not glad you're working, but you gotta stop daydreaming one day and get your act in order."
By which he means work in a factory, get a wife, be like everybody else. Sometimes I think of people as little trains put down on a track, happy to chug along from one station to the next. I suppose that must mean I've gone off the rails.
I always wanted to make Dad proud. He's never been a very happy sort of guy, and he never had very many good words for me. I was always the lazy one, the weakling who'd never amount to anything. The only time he ever seemed pleased was when I did well at baseball, though even then, he always got a lot more excited about my brother's football games.
When I'd told my family I'd enlisted, lord, you should've seen his face light up. He started bragging non-stop about how proud he was of having a soldier in the family, hanging up banners in the window and talking about how many Commies I was gonna kill. When I stood on the platform, about to leave, he clapped a hand on my shoulder and said,
"I'm proud of you, son."
Those actual words. I can see it as clear as if I were there. I can also see how he'd look if I came home and said I'd been thrown out of the army for being a queer. I don't think he'd ever want to speak to me again.
I'm sick of lying here worrying. I start to move; a nurse catches sight of me and I whisper to her that I want to go out and catch some air. She nods and says,
"Five minutes."
It's eerily quiet outside of post-op. The only living thing to be seen is the guard on duty pacing back and forth; judging by the fact the guard appears to be wearing a dress and bonnet, it must be Corporal Klinger's turn tonight. I head round the opposite way, evading his notice, not sure where I'm going. Really, I just want to be out of the hospital a while.
I wouldn't mind being away from Korea a while too, but not just yet. Pierce seemed baffled when I said I wanted to return to my company; he didn't understand just how badly I want to prove I'm as capable as any of them. I've dreamed of being a soldier so long it'd be the worst of endings to come out with a dishonourable discharge.
Anyway, what would I have to go home to? A job that bores me, a family that don't care, a life of pretending to be something I'm not. Right now, it doesn't feel like I have a future at all.
As I move past the tents, I can hear voices drifting through the canvas. I hear Major Burns' high-pitched giggle and a low moan which sounds horribly like it might be Major Houlihan; I shiver, and move on fast. I can hear Blake's hacksaw snoring and Father Mulcahy saying his prayers. And as I pass the Swamp, as the letters on the door call it, I can hear Captain Pierce's unmistakable voice.
"I've got a plan! I must have a plan! I always have a plan!"
"Yeah, but you still haven't said what it is yet." That's Captain McIntyre's lazy drawl. I stop and listen closer.
"Okay, right. What's Frank's weak spot?" Pierce asks.
"Hot Lips?" McIntyre replies.
They both erupt into fits of laughter. I don't know who Hot Lips is, but I think I could hazard a guess.
"Nah, it's got to be - I've got it!" Through the fabric I can see the vague outline of Pierce leaping to his feet. "We know Frank's a lousy surgeon, right?"
"I'd call him a butcher, but I'd never buy meat from a butcher as clumsy as Frank," McIntyre says.
"Right! Anyone with any sense can see he's not fit for the job. Yet, somehow, he qualified. What's the odds on him having cheated, d'you reckon?" Pierce says. He's moving quickly, pacing around the tent. If he had any more pent-up energy in him he'd be giving off sparks.
McIntyre chuckles.
"Are you suggesting we try and blackmail him?"
"He's setting out to tar a man's name. It's only fair we do the same right back," Pierce says. "I've got it all worked out. We'll fake him out - you'll tell him you agree with him about George and he'll be so thrilled to have somebody thinking he's right for once that he'll go along with whatever you say."
"Why's it got to be me?" McIntyre says.
Pierce laughs. "I'm everything Frank hates, but you - he wants to be your friend."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. It's a classic case of the school snitch wanting to suck up to the captain of the football team," Pierce says lightly. "Either that, or he just wants your cute butt."
"Well, it is a very cute butt," McIntyre shrugs.
What kind of a place is this? I make one cocksucking joke and my entire company hates me, but here there's guardsmen in frocks and doctors flirting with one another and nobody cares. I'd ask to be transferred, but I don't think carting about stretchers is any kind of life for me.
"Anyway, so how's blackmail come into it?" McIntyre goes on.
"I was just getting to that," Pierce says. "You agree with him, get him all loosened up and comfy, and that's when I say - hey, Trap, isn't there anything in the past you're ashamed of?"
"And then I get huffy about you bringing up the issue of my finals, right? Like I bought the answers?"
"You read my mind. If you admit it, maybe Frank will too."
"And if he does, there's our bargaining chip. If he squeals on George, we get him thrown out of the profession."
"Didn't I tell you I had a plan?"
"You're a ruthless-minded conniving bastard, Hawkeye."
"Oh, you."
Pierce waves away McIntyre with a camp flip of the wrist, and then they both raise their glasses and sip, looking right at one another. I envy them so much right now. I might be queer, but I've never been as close to another man as they appear to be to one another. I don't know if they're sleeping together, and I don't particularly care. It's just plain to me that those two men love each other. I wish I could have companionship like that, and that I wouldn't be judged if I did.
"...what if Frank didn't buy his answers?" McIntyre asks.
"He did. I've read his diaries," Pierce replies, to gales of laughter from McIntyre.
"But wait, then, shouldn't we get him struck off anyway? For ethical reasons and stuff?" McIntyre says, thoughtful.
"Since when have we ever been ethical?" Pierce shrugs. "Nah. We need surgeons here, even ones like Frank. If we got him thrown out we might get someone even worse in return."
I decide that now is the time to move away; I'm starting to feel a bit like a peeping Tom. But I'm also reassured. I don't know how Major Burns found out, but I know Pierce and McIntyre have my back. While I'm here, I'm safe. Shame I can't say the same for the rest of the world.
One day later -
I sit in awkward silence as Pierce looks me over, filling the dead air with his stream-of-consciousness nonsense, until he stops and straightens and gives me a full-on high-beam smile.
"Looks like you're good to go," he says. "You'll be back out on the front by tomorrow... you poor bastard."
I chuckle.
"Yeah, can we have a word about that? Somewhere private?" I say.
"An examination room's pretty private," Pierce says.
"The nurses keep coming in for supplies, Colonel Blake stuck his head in a few minutes ago asking if you'd seen his waders, and I can hear people talking on the other side of the wall," I say. "I wouldn't call it very private."
Pierce nods.
"Okay, okay," he says, "Follow me."
We hike up to a hill just behind the compound. I have to hang on to his shoulder for some of the steeper bits, but I can take most of it by myself. When we get to the top, we sit down on the grass and look down over the camp.
"So, what did you wanna talk about?" Pierce asks.
"I'll give you three guesses, doc, and the first two don't count," I reply.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. We've got it sorted," Pierce says.
My expression doesn't change.
"How'd Major Burns find out?" I ask.
"You're not the only person here from your unit, y'know. One of them must've squealed," Pierce said. "I don't know. For a stupid man, Frank's very devious."
I nod. "Well, if you're right, I've still got a lot to worry about. Whoever told Burns'll just tell my CO when he gets back."
"Ah-ah, don't jump to conclusions," Pierce says, waggling a finger. "A certain somebody might have just had a stern word with those patients about matters of privacy and mutual respect."
"Jeez, are you sure you can't come back with me and tell the same to all of the rest of them?" I ask, looking back at him again. "I could do with a few more guys like you around."
Pierce laughs wildly. "Oh, trust me, you don't. One of me is more than enough for this universe."
"And you're modest, too," I laugh back. "I'm just saying, it's rare to meet someone who doesn't make a big deal about it. I shouldn't have to prove to anyone I'm a good soldier or a good person, but here I am. Even the ones who don't know for sure suspect me, and I keep having to fight for every ounce of respect I get."
Pierce nods, his hand landing heavily on my shoulder. "There's no justice in the world."
There's a wistful look in his eye, and I follow his line of sight down into camp, where Captain McIntyre is playing football with some of the other men. He's in his undershirt and shorts, and the sun makes his hair and skin look golden. I glance back at Pierce.
"Doc, can I - no. Forget it."
"What?" Pierce says.
"No, really. It's nothing." What Pierce thinks of McIntyre isn't any of my business.
Pierce nods, accepting it, and begins to speak again.
"People will try and beat out of you every single thing that makes you unique. If you dare to be bold, to be bright, to do something other than what everyone else does, people get angry, because they prefer to stick with what they know. And that goes double for the army, where they prefer people to act as parts of a machine rather than as individuals, so as to be more efficient at killing," Pierce says, his eyes still distant, and then he turns and fixes his blinding gaze on me. "You've got to treasure what makes you stand out from the crowd. Don't let anybody tell you that you're sick or you're wrong for the way you are. The only things in this world that are wrong are those that harm people, and -" He sweeps his arm around us, laughing. "-apparently even that gets waived for special occasions. Be proud of who you are."
I shake my head. "There's nothing to be proud of. Even if I get out of the war with an honourable discharge, I've got to spend the rest of my life hiding away. It doesn't matter how I play the game - there's no way for me to win."
Pierce frowns in thought. "If I were you, I'd get off the boat at San Francisco and never leave."
"It's an option," I shrug.
"There's always options," Pierce says. "I don't believe the world'll always be this way. People used to think it was okay to keep slaves and deny women the vote. They came out with all kinds of horsecrap about God and destiny, but other people stood up and fought back, and things changed. That's what things do, they change, no matter how much some people want everything to stay the same. And one day, George, I promise you, there'll be white kids and coloured kids sitting side by side in Mississippi schoolrooms, and women in the Senate and the Supreme Court and the White House too, and men and men and women and women'll get married to each other on courthouse steps." He grins and flops back into the grass, arms behind his head. "I'm just hoping I live to see it."
"That's a very nice speech, doc," I say, "But I'll believe it when I see it."
"I'll make a bet with you. Fifty bucks says you'll marry a man one day," Pierce says.
"Fifty bucks?" I say.
"I'm taking inflation into account," Pierce says. "I'm not that optimistic."
I laugh, and there's a companionable, cheerful moment of silence, only broken when I see choppers on the horizon.
"Captain Pierce," I say, nudging at him - he seems to have dozed off on the grass.
"Wha?" he sits up, and scowls. "No rest for the wicked. C'mon, George."
We scramble back down the hill together. I can't say I feel totally secure, but I feel a lot more optimistic that I can take whatever life has in store. I don't need medals on my chest or a spotless military record to know I can fight and win against whatever stands in my way. It's just a shame that I have to fight at all.
Fifty-three years later -
William's grinning fit to burst when he comes up the stairs with our breakfast. I'm used to a cheery smile from him to start the day, but this morning he looks downright ecstatic.
"What're you so pleased about?" I ask, as he carefully puts the tray on my lap and settles down under the sheets beside me.
"I'll tell you later," he says, leaning over to grab his cup of coffee. I've been with this man for the best part of forty-five years, through thick and thin, and I still feel a little amazed when I wake up to find him beside me. I don't know how I struck it so lucky.
"Oh, come on," I say, rolling my eyes. "Don't make me tickle it out of you."
"No!" he says. "I've got too many appointments to make first. Jewellers, tailors, florist..."
I frown, and try to arrange his words into a coherent image. And it all resolves. They've been debating legalising gay marriage in Massachusetts for some while now. I always figured a liberal state like this one'd be the first to go for it. But I'm an old man. I'd never expected any changes to come in time for William and me.
William's still grinning, and I can feel my chest tightening with emotion.
"Wait, are you -"
And then, goddammit, the phone rings. I sigh, and turn to pick it up off the nightstand.
"Hello, George Weston speaking," I answer.
"George!" comes a voice. It's male, creaky with age, and it sounds familiar but I just can't put my finger on it.
"Who is this?" I ask.
"Hawkeye Pierce. You owe me fifty bucks!"
I grin. "I think this is one time I'm perfectly happy to have lost."