I wrote this this past Christmas season for a creative writing FB group. I thought I would add it to the blog as it features Bandaid, a character from The End oF Shift Report.
Bandaid's Christmas Gift
It was Christmas
day, and Bandaid was sitting in the hootch he shared with Wyatt. The hootch
wasn’t much, just a hole in the ground about ten feet by ten feet, with walls
of sandbags. Wooden cargo pallets made a floor. Canvas stretched over all, and some
mosquito netting covered the space between the sandbags and the canvas roof.
Bandaid was the
medic on a search and rescue chopper, Wyatt was a chopper crew chief, he was on
R and R to Australia, so Bandaid had the hootch to himself. He was picking at a
Christmas dinner in his mess kit from the mess hall. On holidays, especially
Christmas, they really tried hard with the food, but sweltering in 100 degree
heat and nearly that in humidity just kind of put you off turkey and all the
heavy trimmings. Frozen turkey, freeze dried reconstituted potato flakes,
canned cranberry sauce and canned gravy. The stuffing was fresh, that is, made
from leftover stale bread, but with fresh carrots, celery, onions etc. It was definitely
the high point of the meal.
On his hammock
which was strung across one of the corners of the hootch was an opened
cardboard box containing a cookie tin full of homemade chocolate chip cookies,
which were more like chocolate chip crumbs after the rigors of being mailed
over 9,000 miles. The box was addressed to “US Soldier” and was from a 4th
grade class in Lexington Kentucky. Every hootch on this corner of the base got
one of these packages, and they were accepted with a range of reactions that
seemed to track the recipients time “in country”. That is to say, with humble
gratitude by the green troops and a certain fatalistic crustiness by the “Short
timers”, who were counting down the days until they got their ticket on the
“freedom bird”.
Bandaid felt
restless. He got up from the hootch and walked on down to the flight line,
Christmas music playing from the PA system.
The sentries at the gate to the flight line passed him through with a
desultory wave which disturbed the curl of smoke from their cigarettes. Bandaid
passed down the line of hueys, each in a revetment of sandbags until he came to
his. “Nurse Betty” was painted on the nose in white against the ubiquitous “olive drab” green of the
army. The outlines of a pin up girl in abbreviated nurses uniform was there
too, but had never been painted in.
Bandaid opened the
sliding side door to the cabin, which was padded with quilted canvas cloth on
the walls and ceiling. Three stretchers were in their brackets on the rear
bulkhead of the cabin. Bandaid noticed a package elegantly wrapped in tinfoil
on the middle stretcher. It had a bow made from the black and gold ribbon from
a bottle of Crown Royal. He looked closer at the package. He could see that the
foil wrapping was from cigarette packs. There was a tag on the package that said
simply “Bandaid”, no indication of who had placed it there.
Bandaid took the
package to the door of the chopper, and sat down on the floor with his feet
resting on the skid below. He turned the package over in his hand and was
struck by the care and workmanship that had been visited on the humble
materials used in its construction. Who did he know that was capable of such
handiwork?
He carefully began
unwrapping the small gift, careful not to tear the foil or mess up the
carefully crafted bow. Logically there would be no reason to be so careful of
materials that were in truth recycled trash, but he was loath to damage such
meticulously crafted wrappings. There was a cardboard box inside, one that also
looked to be repurposed. Inside was a wrist watch. Shiny and very new looking,
it was a Benrus with a steel mesh wristband. It had a large dial and a sweep
second hand that would be so good for taking pulses, timing breathing. There
was a note too. “Bandaid - The nurses told me that was your name, I just wanted
to thank you for getting me out. By the time you open this, I will be on my way
back to the States. Hang in there, your time will come.” No signature.
Bandaid sat in the
doorway of the chopper until darkness began to fall.
