Dan Wakefield - Home Free

“Who then?” Lou yelled.

“A chemist. Well anyway, chemistry student , I guess, since he hasn’t graduated yet. I met him at MIT when I took the aviation course.”

“So what can he do?” asked Lou.

“Make a serum. If they got a serum that can tell if you’re allergic to bee stings, he’s got one you can take beforehand to make sure the other one shows you’re allergic.”

“He’s got this stuff?” Gene asked.

“Well, I don’t know if he’s actually got this particular stuff. He might, though, cause he’s into the antiwar thing. But if he hasn’t got it he can make it.”

“Shit,” said Flash, “this kid can just make up a serum like we need?”

“This kid, as you call him, in his own kid laboratory, has produced among other things the finest acid on the East Coast. Some people say it’s better than Owsley’s stuff out West. Among other things. This’ll be a challenge to him, like a little puzzle. And if he can’t come up with the stuff, he’ll tell me.”

Lou looked to Barnes, maybe because he was oldest, or used to be a reporter or something.

He shrugged.

“It’s worth a try,” he said. “It might work.”

“OK,” said Lou. “Flash gets the letter, Thomas gets the serum.”

The letter came first. Flash produced it the following day.

A few days later Thomas came by. He didn’t have the serum. He had an idea, though.

“Even if we get the serum,” he said, “you ought to have a little extra insurance.”

“Life?” Gene asked. “In case the fuckin serum poisons my ass?”

Thomas thought just for good measure Gene ought to show he was crazy, maybe not completely crazy but a little off. He thought it would do the trick if the day of the physical they painted on Gene’s chest in big red letters, “What About the Bees?”

Gene and Lou looked at each other. They didn’t think so. Still, sometimes the crazy stuff helped. They’d think about it.

More important, when the hell was the serum coming through?

“Stay cool,” said Thomas, “he’s working on it.”

“He’d better hurry,” Gene said.

There were only three days to go.

Thomas brought it, the night before. The serum. It was in a little vial, precious looking, like it contained radium or something.

“Shit, man,” Gene said, “I gotta shoot it up?”

Thomas cackled.

“Nah,” he said. “Just swallow it.”

“When?”

“Just beforehand.”

“That’s what he said?”

“Who?”

“The chemistry guy. The guy that made it.”

“Sure. Just swallow it, he said. Beforehand.”

Lou sighed.

“OK, man,” Gene said.

“Are you going to paint it on your chest?”

“What?”

“You know, ‘What About the Bees?’”

They hadn’t for sure decided, but they didn’t think so. Thomas was disappointed.

In the end, they agreed on doing it straight. They figured the place would be full of kids with all kinds of shit painted all over them.

Gene wore a tie.

“Bee stings,” the sergeant said contemptuously when Gene showed the letter. “Where you’re goin, you won’t have to kill any bees.”

“No, sir,” Gene answered.

He called everyone sir.

The sergeant handed him back the letter and said, “OK, go down that hall, turn right, room thirty-two. Give this letter to one of the doctors.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hey, kid,” the sergeant called after him, “keep your prick in your pants so it don’t get stung.”

The whole thing obviously pissed off the sergeant something awful.

“Yes, sir,” Gene said, not changing his expression.

After the hall turned Gene ducked quickly into a men’s room, went into a stall, closed the door, and pulled from his left-hand pocket the little brown bag with the vial in it. His hands were shaking. He put the bag back in his pocket and started to unscrew the top of the vial. Shit. It was stuck. It was on too tight. He closed his eyes and twisted so hard he saw purple spots, and it suddenly came loose. Jesus. He put the cap in his pocket and swallowed the stuff, drank it down straight.

It tasted sort of like gin. Maybe it was. Maybe that’s all it was. Well, whatever, it was too late now. It was all he had.

The doctor had a mustache. Gene thought he looked like a Frenchman he’d seen in a movie. Gene felt like he was in a movie. The doctor read the letter, then went back to his bag and took something out. A needle but not like a regular hypodermic needle. Smaller.

He stuck it in the back of Gene’s right hand.

It left a tiny mark, just a dot, like a pinprick.

“The reaction should show in three to five minutes,” the doctor said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You may sit down.”

He motioned to a folding chair.

“Yes, sir.”

Gene sat down.

He stared at his arm. The little tiny prick-mark.

Shit. He’d forgot to bring a watch. He looked up at a clock on the wall. He couldn’t figure how many seconds must have passed before he looked. Fifteen, maybe, Twenty. He looked back down at his forearm. It was white. Well, nothing could happen for three minutes anyway.

What if it didn’t?

He stared at the arm, trying to think the reaction out, pulling with his mind, Come on you sombitch you serum goddam you work oh shit you motherfucker do your thing get red get well get weird get something anything.…

The arm was pure white, the dot from the needle perfectly calm.

He wanted to tear at it, rip at it, then he thought. He thought of something to try to do.

When it seemed four minutes had passed and his arm was still pristine, Gene said, “Excuse me, sir, may I go to the men’s room?”

“Hmm? Oh. Certainly.”

The doctor seemed distracted.

Gene went as quickly as he could move without breaking into a run of panic, and got himself into one of the stalls. There were several army guys pissing in the latrine. He took down his pants, sat on the toilet, and made grunting noises. At the same time he took the fingernail of his left index finger and he dug it into the flesh of the pinpoint on his right hand, he scratched it as hard and as deep as he could possibly do it, till he managed to raise a redness, a scratchy redness. He gave it one more last dig and then hurried back. He held the hand out to the doctor.

“Hmmm,” the doctor said glancing at it, “positive.”

Positive. Was that it? Was that the magic word, the combination of syllables that set him free?

The doctor was signing something.

Gene put his hand in his pocket, fearing the irritation he’d made on the flesh might disappear too fast or something.

The doctor signed a paper, told Gene to give it to the sergeant.

“Yes, sir,” Gene said.

Was this it, his ticket to freedom?

He knew it was when the sergeant got red in the face and said, “OK, move your ass out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” Gene said.

Air. He stopped and leaned against the building. Then he walked fast, went in the first bar he came to, and asked for a glass of beer. It was hard to get it up to his mouth, the way his hands were going.

He went home and grabbed a hold of Lou, hard, and told her he was free.

She screamed, jumped, threw things.

“It worked!” she yelled. “Goddam Thomas’s serum really worked!”

Then Gene started laughing, whooping, bending over, hooting, hysterical.

“What?” Lou asked. “What happened?”

“Nothing!”

After he got himself calm he told her exactly how it went. She was pale, trembly.

They vowed they would never tell the true story, especially to Thomas.

The only thing that mattered was Gene was free.