A Marine Called Jason
(Revised)
by: Peter

(© 2007-2015 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 54
The Road Back 

I had been examined by Dr. Barnes, I was rested up from physical therapy and was waiting for Dr. Bernake, the shrink.  I had only been introduced to him; this would be our first real session.

“Well, I see you are getting your strength back,” he said as he came into the room and saw me sitting up in the bed. I was sitting up but I didn’t accomplish that on my own; Mitch helped me get into a sitting position.

“Yes,” I said. “Joe and Mitch are a gruesome pair.  Joe stands over me and makes me eat everything on the tray, then Mitch makes me work it off.  But I didn’t do this by myself,” I said, indicating my sitting up.  “Mitch set me up.”

“They want you to fight back,” Dr. Bernake said.

Just then Joe came into the room with a wheelchair.

“We’ll go out on the veranda to talk,” Dr. Bernake said.

“I can walk,” I told Joe.

“We had to set you up in your bed,” he reminded me.

“Let me try,” I said.

“Be my guest.”  He pushed the wheelchair out of the way and stood close with a very muscular arm out to steady me.

I felt my stomach muscles tighten but I could barely lean up from the head of the bed. “Okay,” I said, nodding in defeat.

Joe stood against the side of the bed, his arms out. He pulled me bodily off the bed and stood me on my feet.  “Just stand for a moment,” he said. I did, but only for a minute, then I tried to walk. Rather, I tried to move my legs.  I was successful, somewhat, except that my legs wouldn’t support my weight.

“Good try, but no cigar,” Joe said.

“Use the chair, it’ll be more comfortable sitting than the chairs on the veranda,” Dr. Bernake said.

“I guess we didn’t have our understanding of how things work,” Joe said as he helped me into the wheel chair.  He was right, I couldn’t have walked out of the room. He practically lifted me into the chair. “I tell you what to do and when to do it, and you do it, that’s how it works around here.”

“Do you outrank me?” I asked, trying to sit straight; I had to fight from slumping forward.

“Yes,” he said. 

"I don't believe you."

"Corporal, I outrank all of my patients, even the admirals and the four-stars." Joe pushed me out to the veranda, into the soft morning sun.  “There you go, buddy,” he said, squeezing my shoulders with his big hands.

Dr. Bernake took one of the wooden lawn chairs close beside me.

I didn’t know how to talk to a psychiatrist; I had the sneaking suspicion that he could see into my head and know what I would say anyway.

“Where would you like to start?” he asked as he laid his legal pad across his lap.

“I have no idea.  Aren’t you supposed to be asking me the questions?” I said.

“I just did,” he said.

“You’ll have to be more specific, Doc. I’m not completely attuned to my thought processes yet.”

“Now, now, don’t try to diagnose yourself; that’s my job,” he said.  “Tell me, what were your first thoughts when you woke up? What was the first thing you remember that came to mind?”

I hesitated, because I couldn’t bring back what I wanted to remember. It was hidden back in a dark corner somewhere that I couldn't reach. But I knew somehow that it was something that if it did come back, I wouldn’t let it go again and I wouldn’t share it with anyone. I would leave it in that corner where only I could find it.

“That’s easy.  Nothing,” I said.

“You might not be able to go back in time, but there were thoughts when you were coming awake. You were speaking,” Dr. Bernake said.

I thought for a moment.  “Okay, I don’t know how far back this goes, but the first thing I remember was the light coming slowly, almost as if it was coming through my eyelids, before I opened my eyes,” I told him.  “It was weird because I don’t remember being in the darkness till I started to wake up, and then it was like I was coming through the darkness, from somewhere else.”

“You were somewhere else,” he said. “Do you remember where you were?”

I thought again for a moment.  “No. But it must not have been a bad place, because I remember wanted to go back.”

“You were accustomed to being there. You probably felt safe there,” he said.

“I remember the feeling I had coming out of a place that I couldn’t remember. I heard voices from that place, or thought I did, voices calling out to me, and I thought I was answering them back. Then I heard somebody say, “get the nurse,” or something like that.  I guess they had seen me move or try to open my eyes. Then somebody said, “He’s awake!” and I didn’t know what there was to be so excited about me being awake. Then I thought I was in a hospital, and I didn’t know why.  I didn’t know what’d happened to put me here.  And somebody was smacking my face and I wanted to slug him, but I couldn’t make my arms work.   Next thought I had, I was hungry, and they brought me something that didn’t even resemble food. Oh, then I wondered why I needed a shrink,” I added.  "None of that probably made sense."

He laughed. “Maybe you don’t need a shrink.  That’s what we’re here to find out.  But I am on the military payroll, so you might as well take advantage of it. I must say, that was a pretty good opening statement in answer to my first question.” He looked down at his pad.  “Who is Jase, or Jason?” he asked, looking back up at me.

I stared at him.

“You don’t remember anyone named Jase or Jason?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure. Maybe I did.  I had a strange feeling, that something was trying to come back to me but I  didn’t want to tell him; it was part of that something that I wasn’t going to share.  I just shook my head.

“Very well,” Dr. Bernake said, nodding, as he made some notes. Then he asked, “Now, when you learned you’d been in a coma……”

“I was stunned to learn that I’d been in a coma for twenty-six months,” I said.  Then I asked him, “Have my parents, or any of my family been to visit?”

“Your brother is here now,” he said, rather matter-of-factly.

“Why do I get the idea that you weren’t going to tell me that if I hadn’t asked?” I said.

“I was going to tell you when you asked.  I wanted to see if you remembered,” he said. “I’ll get him. But I wanted to ask you one more thing first. You were calling out to your son.”

“I already told them I don’t have a son. I’m not married. I don’t know what that was all about,” I said. And I didn’t, except for the gnawing at my brain of a vague sighting of a handsome boy walking away with a muscular, older man, and they were both naked. But the boy couldn’t have been my son.

The way Dr. Bernake had looked away from me when I asked about my family made me wonder if something was wrong. When he was finished writing he excused himself to get my brother.

I was oddly a little short of breath, waiting for my brother.  When he came out onto the veranda I think I gasped.  One of us did; maybe it was him. He was all smiles.  Huge smiles. All I could muster was a grin, I think because I was afraid to believe it was him.

“Jeezuss Christ, Brad,” he murmured as he came up to my chair and bent down to hug me. He also kissed me on the forehead. He rose back up with tears in his eyes.  “Damn, Brother, you don’t know how good it is to see you back.”

“It would be even better if I knew where the hell I’ve been,” I said jokingly. It was a half-assed stab at a joke and it made him laugh.  “Did you bring Mom and Dad?”

Brian looked beyond me, in much the same manner as Dr. Bernake had looked away. But when he drew his gaze back, it met mine and he could see I was waiting for an answer.

“Should we have a doctor here?” Brian asked Dr. Bernake.

“I’ve rung for the nurse,” he said.

“What’s up? Why do we need a doctor?” I asked with a frown.

He took a deep breath as he pulled up a chair. He wrapped his hand around my forearm. “Brad, Mom and Dad were killed in an automobile accident, shortly after you sustained your injuries.”

Now it was my turn to look past him, as if I could make him not be there and if he wasn’t there, then what he said wouldn’t be true. It was like I was trying to withdraw back into the safety of the coma, and that scared me even though part of me wanted to go back. I felt numb at the news of my parents’ deaths.  By numb, no feeling one way or the other, almost as if it didn’t matter.  It did, though, and I wondered why I felt that way. I suddenly realized that I didn’t feel anything physically either. I couldn’t cry and I was terrified when I tried to move my arm that Brian’s hand was laying on, and then I couldn’t move my legs, and I couldn’t tell if anything moved.  Just then Nurse Joe came in.

“I can’t move my arms or legs again,” I said. “It feels like I’m moving them, but I can’t see them move.”

“He’s just learned about his parents deaths,” Dr. Bernake said.

“It’s not an unusual reaction,” Joe said in a calm voice as he rubbed my arm with his gentle touch, and reached for the call button with his other hand.  “We’ll go back to your room,” he said.

Another nurse came into the room and Joe ordered up something that I couldn’t understand, but I had a pretty good idea when the second nurse returned, armed with a needle.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A light sedative.” 

“You’re not going to put me back in that goddamned coma!” I said, but I couldn’t move my arm away.

“No, no.  Just enough to bring you down a little. We don’t want you to go into shock,” Joe said.

“I’m not in shock,” I said. 

“You don’t know that,” Joe said.  “Listen up, Marine, going into shock poses a greater risk of sending you back where you’ve been, so just relax and let us calm you down. I know you don’t feel like you’re uptight, but you are, and that’s understandable.”

I was helpless to resist, and part of me didn’t want to; part of me wanted to escape from this damned fucked up world. I started taking in slow, deep breaths, soon thankful for the calming results of the shot; thankful, even, that I might return to the solace from which I had emerged, and perhaps go back to my search for….I couldn’t remember what I would be searching for. It was more than just calming, and I was looking up into Joe’s big, dark, sexy eyes as I drifted away.

I slept, I didn’t know how long, but I was damned glad to come awake again.  When I woke up, Brian was still there. I tried moving my arms and legs.  Everything worked.

“What happened?” I asked Brian.

“Dr. Bernake said you had a psychological reaction to learning about Mom and Dad,” he said.”

“What about Mom and Dad?  I mean, what happened?” I asked, matter-of-factly.

He filled me in on the accident and answered all of my questions about it, then stood quietly beside my bed to give me time to absorb it all.  I didn’t really absorb it; I don’t think it really soaked in; his words just lay there on the surface of my brain.

“How’re the kids….my niece and nephew?” I asked, as if I was ignoring what he’d told me about our parents.

“Your niece is a beauty. Your nephew has turned into a stud. Just ask him,” he said, laughing.

“I can’t wait to see them.”

“We’ll get together,” Brian said. “Anything else?” he asked.

I paused, afraid to say it.  “Brian, I.…I’m sorry, but I can’t remember their names.”

“Hunter, and Melissa,” he said. “Nothing to be sorry about, they said you might have trouble remembering things for a while.”

“You have to understand, Brother, there’s this big void. I don’t know what to ask about. Fill me in,” I said.

He went on to tell me everything else he could think of that had occurred during my absence.  He paused now and then to ask me if I remembered this or that, to make sure I was keeping up with him. Talking about everything that had happened over the past twenty-six months made it somehow easier to accept the death of my parents. I found it hard to work up any emotions over something that’d happened over two years ago. It was all history, and I hadn’t been a part of it.  The hardest part was that I wasn’t there when they died….they had simply vanished from my life when I wasn’t looking, and now I was expected to deal with it so long after everyone else had put it behind them. Brian was still there when I went to sleep. I fought sleep but I felt okay with him there. He was gone when I woke up in the night, and it frightened me that he wasn’t there.

With some effort, I managed to get out of bed and sat in the chair. Frankly, I surprised myself. I remembered my parents were gone and started to cry. When it was all out I ventured into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face then returned to the chair and stared into space.  I surprised myself again that I could walk. It was like sitting in a dark movie theater after the movie is over, and suddenly, very gradually, images began to appear on the screen.  They were dim at first, like through a fog, but if I found that if concentrated, I could make them out.  I thought at first that it was my parents’ grave--my parents’ funeral--but I had not been to their funeral and I had never seen their graves. This was someone else. The casket was draped with a flag and my father had never been in the military. Suddenly the flag draped casket became very clear in my mind and I was jolted with emotion. I started to cry again, but I didn’t know why. Then I vaguely remembered a name; a name that Dr. Bernake had asked me about. Jason….yes, Jason. It was a familiar name. Then Seaborne came to mind. It didn’t register completely at first but I knew somehow that the name was the reason I was crying.  Jason Seaborne was the one who was dead in that flag-draped casket.  And I cried for him. I just didn’t know why.

The tears and the emotions served to wash away the mist and fog from my brain, my head began to clear and things became clearer.

“My Godd,” I whispered softly. “Now I remember….I buried him.” But did I? Were those real memories, or did they come from the dark past of my long sleep?  If the images were from my recent past, then it could possibly be not true.  Maybe I had dreamed the whole thing.  I ached with new hope that I might remember more, maybe even go back to that place but in my present state of mind.  I wiped my eyes, straining to remember more, till the nurse came in and interrupted me.

“What are you doing in the chair?” she asked.

“I’m afraid to go to sleep,” I said. 

“You’re not supposed to be up.  You’re not supposed to be able to get up.”

“I’m able. I walked to the bathroom.”

“You are way ahead of schedule, Marine,” she said.  “Why can’t you sleep?

“If I go to sleep I might go back there,” I said.

“No, you won’t go back there. You’ll wake up when your body has enough rest,” she said.

“I didn’t before,” I said.

“But your head wounds are healed. You’re functioning normally. Better than normal, actually. Your physical therapist is amazed how strong you are after being inactive for so long. Says it’s going to make his job a lot easier. He’s going to be shocked to learn you got out of bed and walked on your own.”

“I was strong before,” I said.

“I’ll get you something to help you sleep,” she said.

“No.  When I’m tired enough, I’ll drop off, won’t I?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Okay, then,” I said.

“You should get back in the bed,” she said.

“I will,” I said.

“I can help you while I’m here.”

“No, I don’t need any help. I got out by myself, I can get back in by myself,” I said.  “One thing you can do, though.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“You can find me some shorts to wear. Size thirty, preferably briefs, or boxer briefs.  I’ll pay you for them. I’m sure I’ve got some back pay coming.”

“I’m afraid the hospital gown is the uniform of the day,” she said.

“Well, then, Ma’am, I’m gonna be out of uniform, because I’m not wearing this damned gown anymore,” I said. “So if you don’t want a naked Marine…..”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she cut in.  “But if your doctor says anything, or the head nurse, I had nothing to do with it.”

“One more thing….can you tell me….is the war over?”

She gave me an odd look.  “No, sorry to say, it’s still going strong.”

“I wonder… if… if there’s some way of tracking somebody down for me,” I said.

“Give us a name, we can try. I’ll send in one of the volunteers to talk to you,” she said.

“The name is Jason Seaborne,” I said. I still wasn't completely sure why the name was important to me but it was.  I knew he was someone from my past.

“Oh, we know where he is, he’s in Vietnam. At least he was last time we heard from him.”

“You’re in contact with him?” I asked, surprised.  So surprised that I couldn’t form any more words.  I just sat there looking at the nurse; or through her.  I felt numb.  She knew who he was when I mentioned his name; that somehow established his importance in my life.  My shoulders dropped and I started to sob. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked with great concern.

I shook my head, unable to speak. The nurse held my shoulders and rubbed them and let me cry.

What’s wrong?” she asked again.

“I don’t know,” I said through my sobs. When I managed to bring myself under control she got a cold washcloth for my face.

“Are you okay now? Can I get you something?” she asked.

“No, I’m okay.  Thanks.  I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize.  He is obviously a good friend,” she said.

“Yes, we…..I think…..I think we might have served in Vietnam together,” I said.

“That’s quite possible.  He is in contact with us,” she said. “He calls periodically, checking on you,”

“He….he does?”

“Yes.  But it will be difficult for us to track him down. You may have to wait till he calls again,” she said. “He will be happy to know you’re back with us.  He’s been very worried.”

So she left me alone. Very much alone, with my thoughts and my emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.  The reality of Jason Seaborne emerged from out of my past and surged front and center in my brain.  I knew who was in that flag draped casket now, and it was only from my past! It began to come back like an old movie that I was seeing through a veil. Jason wasn’t dead after all!  And he had been checking on me all this time. I dropped my head and started to sob again, but they were empty sobs. I was cried out. And I wasn’t even sure why I was crying, only that Jason Seaborne was someone very important in my life.

Jason was alive, but I still couldn't attach the importance to it, except that the whole thing was a nightmare, and I was out of that nightmare, now wandering in a fog. I fingered the ties on my gown and suddenly I didn’t want to be wearing it. I untied it and shrugged it off as I stood up. I left it in the chair and moved to the bed, naked.  I was surprised how well my legs worked. I wasn’t ready for three hundred pounds squats or the hundred-yard dash, but I would be. I crawled into bed and looked at my naked self. I felt my bicep, then my stomach and my thighs. I felt soft. Despite the good shape my therapist said I was in, my body needed a lot of work. I looked at my cock and realized that I hadn’t touched it since I woke up, except to take a piss.  It looked normal but I wondered if it still worked. The thought that it might not terrified me, but I was afraid to touch it to find out.  I looked away and stared up at the ceiling, waiting to see what would crop up in my mind.  I did the math in my head and it suddenly dawned on me that I was still in the Marines, and that gave me a surge of hope.  Once a Marine, always a Marine.

To be continued...  

Posted: 03/06/15 rp