James Tobin, Author

“One Final Stitch”

THE TURBAN atop Noor Singh’s head did not conceal any dark thought against the West, though it represented the spirit of the East, of a little town in Northwest India where Punjab was spoken reverently and sacred daggers worn at men’s hips, and of a poor village where once a young boy had heard a story about America, and the West. This young one being religious by nature, there was no distinction in the interplay between dream and reality. When he became a man, he chased that dream.

            Dr. Noor Singh, a former US Navy medical corps lieutenant commander, was Sikh in his faith and valued a fighting spirit. Having emigrated to California from India in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack, at the age of twenty-four he enrolled in the P. Ulysses Parker School of Medicine, earned his Doctor of Osteopathy degree, and then took the oath of service; a lieutenant’s silver double-bar was pinned to the right lapel of his khaki blouse, the golden oak leaf and centered acorn to his left. God bless America, he thought; God bless America, God bless America . . . This émigré from a land of suffering had of his life fashioned something to honor his God, his people, parents, and future children.

            He was proud to serve aboard his first ship as a medical officer, and he served aboard the USS Enterprise.

“YOU GODDAMN rag-head son-of-a-bitch.”

            With these words, Seaman Douglas revealed Lieutenant Commander Singh’s skull, knocking his turban to the deck. It had been as violating as rape. Who would have thought that such hate could live in a man—not least a man sworn to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The bullet which Seaman Douglas fired struck obliquely, and it had merely blasted away part of the flesh of Noor Singh’s left earlobe. Dr. Singh had quickly regained his bearings, and he had kicked the wind out of the scurvy seadog, and Seaman Douglas had lain on the deck, writhing, until the others on watch arrived in some sort of moral quorum to assess the situation.

            Bleeding profusely, with bloody fingers Noor Singh retrieved his bright orange turban from the cold gray steel of the deck of the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carrier upon which he had been serving for thirty-seven days.

            Rag-head! He thought about the word as the independent duty corpsman stitched up what remained of his flesh. He had heard the word bandied about when the enlisted men thought themselves outside of the audience of their superiors. Such a hateful word! Where, then, lay honor in this cadre of murderous seadogs? And dogs they were. “Am I a rag-head to you, Senior Chief?” said Dr. Singh to the corpsman. “Am I anything less than your superior? Am I not a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy?”

            “Sir, you’re a damned fine physician, and I am proud to work at your side,” said the Senior Chief, “but that turban you wear, it sets some of the crew on edge. They don’t know what to make of you, sir. Ah, almost done, sir. One final stitch . . .”

NOOR SINGH served only four years. The hate crime had made the Navy Times (obviously), and the press of the press, the prying of the institution, it all worked to sap Dr. Singh’s passion for the armed forces.

            When he returned to Dozen Ferns, California, he very neatly and quickly established his family medical practice, and he made more money than ever he could have dreamed of.

            His wife was not Sikh, nor Indian; rather, a Canadian from New Brunswick, French and Irish, but mostly French. She had been with him ever since he had reached the United States. Their daughter was born on the day before Noor raised his right hand; yes, he had had the privilege of holding Madeline in his hands. Alice loved her husband, yes, and she loved him well.

            Madeline grew to be an intelligent and dedicated student. While she did not share her father’s faith, per se, she did, however, profess faith in the God of Spinoza: a pantheistic deity, immanent in Nature; “Close enough,” said her father: it all smacked thoroughly of India, of the Oriental winds which sometimes waft across the Pacific and land in ashrams and meditation cults which interesting, although deranged, men and women establish in the foothills of mountains and in valleys verdant and low.

            Captain of the debate team; a fine soccer player; tutor to the unwise, example for the lazy: very near to a career in medicine herself, Madeline Singh strived to honor both her father and her mother.

            And, at the age of eighteen, she made up her mind to go to medical school. “I’ll be a psychiatrist, you know. I’d like to understand what makes people, you know, ‘tick.’”

            “It is a beautiful vision,” said Noor Singh. Raising his glass of whiskey, he said, “You have my blessing, my daughter.” He smiled warmly. Continuing, with no mere affected fatherly pride: “As we said in the service, Madeline, ‘Fair winds and following seas . . .’”

ALTHOUGH HER family was well off, and while her father had offered to lower some of the burden of student loans, Madeline Singh, having heard of the benefits attached to military service, and having always admired her father’s days in the service, and generally thinking herself of mind and body (if not soul) adequate, to say the very least, for the rigors of trials such as basic training and others, Madeline Singh one sunny afternoon darkened the doorway of the Dozen Ferns US Navy recruiting office.

            “Do I need to call you two ‘sir’?” said Madeline to the recruiters, hands on hips. Her eyes darted from one to the other; these men, sitting leaning back in their chairs, and not unimpressive in the service uniforms, nevertheless struck her as the fools in the room.

            “Nah,” said one, with such casual, unexpected brevity that it nearly took the breath away (though it perhaps did puff a bit of wind into Madeline’s sails), “I’m Billy, and my partner-in-crime, here, is Joe.”

            “Excellent,” said Madeline Singh.

“ENLISTED LIFE, not least in the Navy,” said Noor to his daughter, “is not suitable for a young woman. Why not complete college, first, and then work to earn a commission as an officer, Madeline?”

            Madeline smiled, replying, “That’d be betting too much on me actually enjoying being a Sailor, dad. Heck, four years—earn some college funds, see a bit of the world. It’s a much wiser course of action. I’ll keep my wits about me, though, that I can assure you, dad. Jamie’s brother is in the Marines, and he tells me about some of the underlying risks—”

            “Madeline!” called Alice Singh from the kitchen. “There’s a man asking for you! He says he’s Billy.”

            “The recruiter,” said Noor, “you are on a first-name basis with him?”

            “They’re pretty chill.”

            Noor’s sigh was so explosive that it deadened the room. “That is how they snare the foolish, Madeline, my daughter. You are no man’s fool. And you are very intelligent, perhaps too intelligent to heed a father’s words, but nevertheless not so idealistic as to fall for the false illusion this ‘Billy’ character is weaving before your eyes. Fine. Take your ASVAB, Madeline. You will do well. Fight for the most prestigious rating that you can—and, my dear, if they offer you anything less, you may say that you are an officer’s daughter.”

            “Which is your way of saying, ‘Fuck off,’ right?”

            Noor smiled.

THE DRESS white uniform, which Noor Singh wore in another time, was arranged on a headless mannequin, and it commanded a central space in the family’s large living room.

            “Come here, Madeline,” said Noor. “I am going to teach you about uniform regulations. Trust me, my daughter—this will count.” He smiled. Madeline stepped forward, saying, “Will they give this uniform to me in basic, dad?” With the blade of her palm, she stroked the fine white fabric. “It’s magnificent. I always thought I’d cut a ‘dashing figure,’ wearing something like this. I can’t wait.”

            “No,” said her father sharply. “This is an officer’s uniform—CPOs wear this uniform, as well. You have elected to enlist—and your four years will not make you a CPO.”

            “What’s the difference? What the heck is a CPO?”

            “You don’t know the difference between enlistment and being commissioned? They have not yet told you what a CPO is? Are those recruiters’ heads full of dung? What are they teaching you, my daughter?” He sighed and began to describe his small set of multicolored ribbons; “This is the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal . . .”

THE DOZEN Ferns recruiting offices occupied the upper story of a long building; from left to right, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. No one was quite sure where the US Air Force and US Coast Guard recruiting offices, in Dozen Ferns, were located.

            Petty Officers Juarez, Joe B. and Wade, Billy M. were gossiping when Madeline and her father entered the office. “Hey,” said Petty Officer Wade, “is that your dad, the commander?”

            “Lieutenant commander, thank you,” said Dr. Singh.

            “Ah, right.”

            “May I be seated?”

            “Sure, go ahead,” said Petty Officer Juarez.

            Over the church roof of his fingers, Dr. Singh eyed the two recruiters darkly. Already, their ease and carelessness struck him awry, for it was patently offensive. Having already fostered a negative opinion of the two enlisted men—these two goons—Dr. Singh said, “How do you run your delayed-entry program in this office, gentlemen? My daughter—she hardly knows the difference between officer and enlisted!” He sighed, continuing: “I do not wish to offend your efforts, gentlemen, but this is nearly ridiculous. At this rate, she will not be ready for Recruit Training Command.”

            “Well, sir,” said Wade, “she’s just so darn intelligent that we just kind of—I don’t know—left her to her own devices. Now, the knuckleheads we deal with, they’re the ones who need more intensive attention, you know?”

            “Madeline, what percentile did you score in on your ASVAB?” asked the father of his daughter.

            “Ninety-ninth percentile,” said Juarez. “Like we said—wicked smart.”

            “Madeline, do you intend to be a nuclear power technician?”

            “No,” said Petty Officer Wade, “she wants to be a corpsman.”

            “What! Madeline!”

            “It’s what I want, dad.”

            “Be quiet.” Dr. Singh pointed at Petty Officer Juarez. “You, Juarez—you had better make damned sure she at least becomes a nuclear power technician!”

            “She’s eighteen, sir,” said Petty Officer Wade. He smiled slyly. “She can make up her own damned mind.”

DINNER, THAT night, was tense. So it goes with control, as it were.

            Alice Singh, having learned of the underlying risks associated with being a hospital corpsman, not least one attached to a US Marine Corps unit, had broken down in tears, and she very nearly desired to tear out her hair, crying out that her God would rue the day when Madeline Elizabeth Singh was blown up in Afghanistan, or some other “backward country.”      

            “There is little risk of that, my dear,” said Noor Singh to his wife, “but it is an affront to our family name for our brilliant daughter, who scored so high on her tests, to be relegated to the Hospital Corps.”

            “It’s all one, Noor. It’s all one,” said his wife, who then turned her gaze to her daughter, gesturing wildly with a butter knife. “You will not go!” said she, mascara bleeding down her cheeks.

            “You may have given me life, mom, dad,” said Madeline, “but I make my own dreams, got it? This path will see me awarded my Doctor of Medicine degree, just you wait and see. I’ve got it all worked out, up here.” She tapped her skull. “We all know I’m brilliant, yes; but brains only go so far. Sometimes, dad, just sometimes, it takes a wild child with a dream to make waves in this world.” And then she neatly returned to her plate.

            “This,” said her father, “this is really what you want.” He laid his hands palm down on the tabletop. He sucked in a slow breath, let it come out even more slowly through his nostrils. “You are eighteen, as that recruiter said; you have agency, now, my daughter. If this is truly your desire—but ah, never lose sight of the end goal. I will say something that I once heard a junior Sailor say: ‘I will make the US Navy my bitch.’ Suckle all that you can from the steel teat of the US Navy, Madeline; never lose sight of your goal; make the damned institution your slave, for God knows, yes, that it will offer the first offense.”

            “What do you mean, dad?”

            “Government service is crushing.” He frowned. “You are aware that I served only four years. I could not handle the stress of being a military physician, Madeline.”

            “Oh. Well, perhaps it’ll be different for me, dad.”

            “As I said, make it your bitch.”

            “Tell her, Noor!” Alice hissed, standing suddenly, and so suddenly that she nearly shifted the placement of the dinner table. “Tell her what happened to you!”

            Madeline looked at her father, who was frowning in a deeply pained way. “Your last name is Singh,” said he to his daughter, “and your skin is very brown, despite your mother’s fair complexion. And we are at war with melanin, with the dogs of sun-drenched lands.” He turned to look into his daughter’s eyes. “They will call you . . . they will call you a ‘rag-head,’ Madeline.”

            “What?” Her jaw became slightly loose. “What the hell does that mean, dad? What are you talking about?”

            “A hate crime—I suffered a hate crime, in the Navy.” He pointed to his scarred ear. “An attempt was made on my life; all because I wear the turban of my faith, the mark of my fathers—the reality of my lineage which I preserve against the forgetfulness of the times and seasons.”

            “I don’t understand, dad. Why would—”

            “Because I am not like them!” shouted Noor Singh. He tossed his plate like a disk at the wall, where it shattered into as many pieces as there were pieces of him; pieces stitched together, somehow making a whole, and yet, nothing more than a loose gathering. “Because I am a dark-skinned man!” he continued; “Because of this damned thing!” He tore off his turban and let his long, black hair fall around his shoulders. “Do you still not see? Open your eyes, Madeline!”

            “Dad,” said Madeline very timorously, “you’re scaring me . . .”

            “As I should!” Noor Singh flung his half glass of whiskey, too, against the wall. He lowered his head, seething when he said, “I once treated a girl, a young Sailor with light—such light—in her eyes. It was not the light of God. It was not the light of knowledge. It was fire. It was fire: a fire that burned and ate away her chest and which sold her to the Reaper!” He raised his head, his eyes; his eyes became fixed on those of his daughter. “She jumped to her death from the stern of the ship. Why, you ask? Because four evil men had raped her. Would you invite this fate?”

            “Jesus Christ, dad!” shouted Madeline. “You’re going fucking nuts, you know that? You’re a goddamn lousy drunk—some ‘officer’s daughter’ I am! I’d rather be a stripper in Reno that have you think of me as some fucking bait luring in a bunch of jerk-offs!”

            “Oh, God!” cried Alice Singh. She spoke, now, to the beloved Christ of her youth. “She dishonors her father! God have mercy!”

            “Shut up, mom!” Madeline turned on her heel and stomped to her bedroom, where she blasted music to drown out the sound of her mother’s weeping.

            “She is a fool, Alice.”

            “Shut up! Shut up! I can’t stand either of you!”

PETTY OFFICER Wade waited outside the nightclub, smoking a fragrant cigar. Madeline was the hottest action he’d seen in years. She was wearing a tight skirt, and her blouse more than accentuated the swell of her tits; he was drooling over her, like a jackal, a hyena. Soon, they’d be at his place.

            She stumbled awkwardly outside, of an uneven bearing in her stilettos. “Goddamn,” said she, wiping her nose dry, “who’d think coke could give you such a fucking headache?” She smiled into the Sailor’s eyes, said, “Thanks, though. I’ve had a great night, Billy.”

            Her mother had called her seventeen times. “Where are you?” and “Who are you with?” read the messages on her cell phone; and a particularly condemning voicemail sang, “I don’t know where you are or who you’re with, but please, please stay safe.” Who’d have thought such pathos could be so downright condemning? “A mother’s stupid love,” said Madeline as she scrolled down through the messages; What was that? What’d she said? “Don’t worry, Billy. It’s just my bitch mother.”

            Billy Wade took Madeline’s hand and gently positioned it over the crotch of his tight blue jeans. “Feel anything you like, baby?” said he, looking down into her eyes.

            “You are so getting fucked  . . .”

            “And so are you.”

“4 JUNE 2020,” read the piece of paper. It looked sensible enough—for a civilian, that is.

            The fucking watch bill, screamed Chief Orbsanger, was jacked up, yet again; being the starboard watch bill coordinator, the blame fell on SR Singh’s pretty little head. “You’re a real goddamn dumbass, you know that?” The CPO sat forward. “How many fucking times do I have to tell you? WE DON’T WRITE THE WHOLE FUCKING NAME OF THE GODDAMN MONTH ON THE WATCH BILL, SINGH! YOU THINK THE OFFICER OF THE DAY WANTS TO READ 17 DECEMBER 2020?”

            “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Chief.”

            “Yeah,” spat Chief Orbsanger, “you’re a really sorry piece of shit.” The woman slicked back her red hair. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you know that? You . . . ugh!”

            “Hey,” said Petty Officer McDaniel, “you’re being a bit rough, Chief.” Petty Officer McDaniel was the kindest of SR Singh’s three recruit division commanders (RDCs). “She’s got a big load on her plate.”

            “I bet she’s used to big loads, McDaniel.” The evil woman smiled, revealing two rows of yellow, cratered teeth. “Ain’t that right, Singh?”

            “I . . . I want to go home.”

            “Talk to the chaplain, Singh,” said Petty Officer McDaniel, walking away with SR Singh from the RDC office. “Lieutenant Allen, he’s a good man—he was enlisted, too, and he knows what boot camp is like.” The RDC then said, “And you can always talk to me, Singh, if you need to. I’m a corpsman, like you’ll be soon. And I am a psychiatric technician. I know what makes people ‘tick,’ as the saying goes.” He smiled, and SR Singh smiled, too.

            “Thank you, Petty Officer.”

            “ALL RIGHT!” Petty Officer McDaniel walked into the open space of the compartment, clapping his hands. “IT’S TIME TO WRITE SOME LETTERS!”

“I’M BEGINNING to think this was a mistake,” read the line which SR Singh had torturously arrived at after ten blotchy, tear-stained revisions; it was only that there was so much emotion bottled up, so much she couldn’t just say, not in boot camp. “I’m beginning to think this was a mistake” was not a call for empathy, nor an admission of guilt: it was simply the fact of the matter.

            SR Brown, a New Yorker whom SR Singh did not particularly care for (she was crude and very clearly no officer’s daughter) once offered some support, however, for the young woman who slept beneath her. “Toots,” said she, head hanging down over the railing, big, bright white eyes glowing in the red lights, “you’ve gotta learn someday: we’re all fucking suffering, and yes, we all want to go home, wherever that is, but we all did raise our right hand, yeah?” She laughed. “It’ll be over soon, toots. We’ll be fucking US Navy Sailors.” SR Brown maneuvered down from her place; standing, now, beside the recumbent Madeline Singh, she said, “Come on—walk and talk? Talk to me, toots.”

            “Scott,” said SR Singh, “you know, our yeoman, I think he’s cute.”

            “Skinny, nervous cracker—what’s not to like?” They both laughed. “Don’t get any ideas, though, toots. He’s mine.”

            “McDaniel, he’s nice. Well, nice for a recruit division commander.”

            “Fuck, toots, Chief Orbsanger makes Hitler look decent. She’s a lousy Seabee; some crazy, psychopathic dyke . . .”

            They wandered over to the RDC office, and they looked in. The office, per US Navy boot camp standard, was replete with windows. “The ‘Shark Tank,’” said SR Brown. “I wanna be in there, one day, with a red aiguillette around my shoulder. I wanna scare the bejesus outta recruits.”

            “See that cookie?” SR Singh pointed to the chocolate chip cookie sitting squat on a stack of recruit files. “That’s what I fucking want, Brown—a fucking cookie, you know?”

            “Well, what’s stopping you?”

            “I’d get into more trouble. Orbsanger already wants my head on a pike.”

            “Do it. You know you want it.”

            “Yeah. Yeah. Fuck it, that cookie’s mine.”

            The two young women entered the RDC office. SR Brown very neatly rearranged some of the ribbons on Chief Orbsanger’s hanging khaki blouse. SR Singh lifted the cookie high like some sort of sacred wafer and bit into it, just as Petty Officer McDaniel entered the space, turned on the light, and voiced his surprise with a startled, “Oh!” And the two recruits both said, “Shit!” Singh’s face drained of color, Brown’s deathly white, the two young women—these two bold recruits—began to shake.

            “Mutiny,” said McDaniel, “is a high crime in my Navy.” He flashed a smile. “How’s that cookie, Singh?”

            It’d long since turned to ash in her mouth, be she managed to reply, “It’s fucking delicious.” She managed, too, to blush. “I . . . I’m sorry, Petty Officer.”

            “Go back to your rack, Brown.”

            “Aye, aye, Petty Officer!”

            “Let’s have a little chat,” said the RDC. “Tell me, what’s on your mind, Singh?” He rolled a chair to her side. “Sit, sit! Let’s not stand on ceremony; it’s 0147 and I’m technically not on duty.”

            “I . . . This is all a bit awkward, Petty Officer.” Nonetheless, she sat down, back straight, hands on knees.

            “You know,” said the RDC, “I served on the USS Enterprise with your father.”

            “You knew my dad?”

            “Damned fine officer.”

            “His life, his time; that’s what he wants for me.”

            “You’re special, you know. You’d make a fine officer, too.”

            “That’s the general idea, I guess.”

            “You don’t deserve Orbsanger’s bullshit. She just knows she’ll have to salute you, one day.”

            “Damn straight.”

            “Let me propose something to you. Let’s do this once a week. I’ll make sure there’s a cookie waiting for you in the shark tank, and you can just open up to me and tell me what’s on your mind. Sound good, Singh?”

            SR Singh said, “Why are you being so nice to me, Petty Officer?”

            “Call me John.”

            “No. No, that’s weird. This isn’t right.” She made for the door, but the RDC rolled in his chair and made to block the way out of the office. Over her shoulder, snug in its blue jumper, she witnessed the grinning face of the RDC as he fumbled at his zipper.

“ONE TWO, ONE TWO, ONE TWO, THREE FO-OURRRR!!!”

            The cadence beat like a club. The miserable humidity off the lake had made the morning sky like a portrait of Hell.

            SR Singh hadn’t slept, hadn’t even eaten her breakfast; the sight haunted her, the sight of Petty Officer McDaniel fishing in his drawers for a slippery eel.

THE THUNDER kept Noor Singh awake. He counted it; one, two, three thunderous claps of God’s hands. He lay in his bed, beside his wife, wondering if there was a thunderstorm like the one disturbing his sleep brewing over Lake Michigan.

            He said a prayer for Madeline.

“ONE TWO, ONE TWO, ONE TWO, THREE FO-OURRRR!!!”

            “God,” said SR Singh, “make it stop . . .”

            “ONE TWO! ONE TWO! ONE TWO!”

            And then, “DIVISION, HALT!”

            SR Singh fell.

MADELINE SINGH was taken to the hospital. “Heat exhaustion” was the suspected culprit, the nurses and doctor having seen this waifish little broken thing wheeled into the ER on the stretcher; but it was an honorable female corpsman who first saw the minute markings running down SR Singh’s wrists.

            “I feel for you,” said the corpsman, administering an intravenous line.

            “I . . . I . . . I want . . . I want to go home.”

            “Lucky for you, sweetheart, I’d doubt you have any choice, not anymore.”

            “Who . . . who’d believe such a tale . . .?”

            “What’s that, sweetheart?”

            “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

THE CALL disturbed breakfast.

            “Hi,” said SR Singh.

            “Madeline,” said Noor Singh, “are you well?”

            “Not so hot, not gonna lie, dad. I, uh—the boot, I got it. I mean, I mean I’m being kicked out of boot camp.”

            “What? What happened, my daughter?”

            “Something called borderline perso—”

            “You do NOT have that disorder, Madeline.”

            “I know. I know it’s just convenient.” She paused. “I, uh . . . I did, uh . . . engage in a bit of cutting, though—that’s what sealed the deal for the Navy, made the Navy realize I wasn’t ever fit to wear the ‘Cloth of my Nation,’ as you like to call it. I’ll tell you the whole story in person, dad. You deserve to know.”

            “We love you, Madeline, your mother and I, and we look forward to seeing you soon.”

            “I’ve gotta go, dad. Chow’s just about ready. Anyway, much love—chat at you later, pops.”

            Noor hung up the phone. “She was worthy, Alice. She would have made a damned sharp Sailor . . .”

            “But isn’t it better that she come home?”

            “Perhaps.” He got up, left the table, and crossed over to the mannequin. “The Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal,” he said blearily. He looked over to Alice obliquely and muttered, “I deserved a Meritorious Service Medal. I deserved—” His eye fell on the National Defense Service ribbon, all red and yellow—“Such an ugly thing,” he said. “I always hated this ugly ribbon. They award it merely for joining the military during a time of declared war. Any bum servicemember can flaunt its hideous pageantry.”

            “What? What’s wrong, Noor?”

            “It’s frayed, too. It’s coming apart. Oh, well, so it goes.” He pulled on the loose thread until nearly all the ribbon’s metal undercarriage was exposed. “And now,” said Noor, “now, it is nothing.”

NOOR AND Alice Singh waited at the luggage turnstile.

            “She’s back, thank God,” said Alice when Madeline approached, looking confused, almost dazed, “and in one piece.”

            ‘The Navy will send its Sailors back, my dear, that you may count on—but never in one piece.” He raised his hand. “Madeline! Over here!”

            “Hey.”

            “Hello.”

            No further niceties needed an exchange: a daughter fell lovingly into her father’s arms. Soon, both Madeline and Alice Singh were weeping joyously; Noor, too, felt that unmistakably aquatic fecundity which drives water from the rock. “Let’s go the hell home,” said Madeline. “What do I want for dinner, mom? I want a culinary tour of the Punjab. I want a gin and tonic as in colonial days, to stave off the malaria. Quinine. I need fucking quinine.”

NOOR SAT beside his daughter at the piano, watching Madeline’s fingers work along the black-white spine of keys; “You have not lost it,” said he.

            “They say music majors get into medical school easily.”

            “Can you play ‘Anchors Aweigh’?”

            “God, that awful dirge?”

            “Play it, play it if you can, my daughter.”
            “No way.” She got off the bench and walked over to the mannequin. She said, “One of my RDCs said he worked with you on the Big E.”

            “Oh?” Noor’s interest was piqued. “And what was his name?”

            “McDaniel. He was an old first-class; probably close to retirement.”

            “McDaniel was a third-class when I knew him. I remember him well. He was what we called a ‘malingerer.’” Noor Singh laughed. “And tell me, my daughter, what impression did he make on you?”
            “He tried to rape me.” She stroked the array of ribbons with a disaffected brush of her palm’s blade. “He had more ribbons than you, dad.”

            “What? Rape?” He slid off the piano bench and rushed to Madeline’s side. “But we must tell them, my daughter. He must be punished. Oh, God! How could such a thing happen to my daughter?”

            She tenderly lifted her sleeves, showed her father the faint scars on her wrists. “I cut myself to get out, dad. That’s why they slapped the BPD diagnosis—yes, fuck, I know I don’t have borderline . . .” Madeline shut her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk to you like that.”

            “It is anything but uncalled for, now, my daughter.”

            “I don’t want to be involved in a court-martial.”

            “I respect that, Madeline.”

            “Dad,” said Madeline, “do you think McDaniel maybe, I don’t know, participated in that gang rape you told me about? You know, the one where the victim jumped overboard?”

            “It seems, now, frighteningly plausible.”

            “What happened to that ribbon? Did it fall off?

            “I . . . I pulled it apart.”

            “Wait here.” She traipsed away to her bedroom. Noor Singh heard her backpack being unzipped. When she returned, Madeline showed her father her one ribbon; “Didn’t pass the marksmanship test, but I do have the National Defense Service ribbon. And now, now I can just fit it on the mannequin. Stitched together nice, eh? Your unform is complete.”

            “Madeline! Noor! Dinner is ready.”

            “Time for chow,” said Noor.

            “Indeed.”

            “How was the food at basic?”

            “Surprisingly good, actually,” said Madeline Singh.

Madeline Singh, MD, graduated from Harvard Medical School on 4 May 2027, at the age of twenty-five. She completed her residency at UCLA, and she now operates a small children’s psychiatry office in Dozen Ferns.

“Baptism for the Dead: A Trip”

You lose hindsight with LSD. The memory of the experience is colored not by muscle aches and a metallic taste on the tongue; rather, that impossible starlight shines in reverse, and, well, all pretense toward sober living aside, you find recourse to those little paper squares.

            Afraid of losing life when witnessing the decomposition of my older cousin Joseph, I thought to honor his psychedelic ghost by taking seven tablets of high-powered blotter acid (what I call “Mormon”). He’d spent many years under lock and key for the shenanigans he effected in the San Fernando valley, in the late 1970s, while under the influence of mescaline. They say it sapped his mind. I prefer—in my dour beatnik way—to think it a bold “Go fuck yourself, planet earth.”

            Maybe, I thought, if I were to look at his face alive with sinuous patterns, something of life would be restored.

            I very meekly shuffled forward along the pews, clenching-unclenching my jaw. Joseph lay in the casket, a frail image of the man who’d always made me think of a chain-smoking Hell’s Angels Santa Claus—whenever, that is, his sister conveyed him to Christmas Day feasting in Ventura, where my grandparents, Joseph’s aunt and uncle, lived.

            When my altered eyes fell upon that withered nose, slack jaw, eyelids in repose, a sudden jerking sensation—God pulling soul from sacrum; this, it took me aback. Death is no respecter of persons; in that it’s something divine; and it carried one hell of a goddamn message.

            “I will never take Mormon again,” rang through my mind, all the way home. “Never . . . never again, I say, never again . . .”

            The dead—the dead had baptized me.