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"Oh, We had a couple like that. Yes, we did."
"Like who, Nan?"
"Well, there was this one lad, very handsome. He had beautiful brown eyes, you see. Like Bambi. He got sick a whole awful lot- that's how I met him. His name was Buster. I'll admit, I thought him rather endearing, but I never asked him for a film. I wanted to. Anyhow, Buster joined in the spring. I saw him once for a fractured wrist- silly boy had fallen off of one of the big vehicle-doodads. You know... one of them with the guns. Didn't see him again for another few months.
In the late fall, he caught the flu. He had asked for me specifically, since he knew me. He was dopey and sleeping most of that stay, and he said funny things in his sleep. He talked about Paris, and said that the Eiffel tower was nothing as special as a bumblebee. He sang one time. He sang... ooh, what's it called. April Showers, he sang, a lovely piece by one of them Jazz stars. Then he was better again and I didn't see him in the winter."
"Nan," said Betty.
"Yes?"
"You said he got sick a lot, Buster, I mean. A wrist and the flu isn't a lot."
"That's true, I was getting to my point." I cleared my throat. "The spring came as well, without any further visits from sweet little Buster."
"Little?"
"Oh, yes. He was much, much shorter than any of the other boys there. He was a couple of inches shorter than me, at the time. Very skinny boy, too."
"Well, how old was he? Was he as old as the boys in my class?"
"Oh, Heavens no," I laughed. "They'd no sooner let a 13 years old boy into the navy then they would've a tree. He was around eighteen or nineteen. I myself was nineteen when he enlisted. But back to the story, Betty, please do stop with your interruptive questions."
"Alright, Alright." She relented.
"After the flu that he'd had, in the fall, remember? I didn't see Buster again until the next summer. This would make a two-season rest. But then two or three of the other guys carried him in, all in a panic. Buster was out like a light, as if he'd been cold-clocked across the back of the head. You know, I think it was two guys. He was small, after all... Maybe there was a third holding his funny hat.
Anyhow, they were all in a tizzy, jumbling their words and stuttering. They nearly dropped the poor boy onto the floor... I calmed them all down, and had them set Buster down on a cot- to let him rest you see- and sat them down onto a few chairs. I asked for one to tell me what had happened, and one gained his senses aways quicker than the others. He spoke up and said that they had been running around doing their strength exercises, for maybe about an hour and a half at the point. If I remember clearly, he told me that they were doing some roadwork."
"Road work?"
"Running."
Betty 'ahhed' in understanding.
"Hmm... This is something akin to what he'd said. 'We's was out on the fields, doing our weekly roadwork, as always. Buster, here, didn't look so hot.' Then he thumbed at sweet Buster, who was still asleep. 'We turned a corner, then my boy hit the ground like a sack of dead beans.'
He just plum passed out, from what I figured. I sent the boys away and did my best to care for Buster.
He wasn't feverish or sweating. His hands were cold, however. I remember that he looked thinner than his usual 98 pounds.
When he woke up he moved very weakly, as if he weighed a ton, or as if his head and limbs were made of lead. He could hardly keep his eyes open, he was so tired. I'd asked him if he'd slept last night, and he'd said 'like a rock; I'd asked him if he had a concussion, he'd said 'no I don't think so'.
I felt his head for any bumps, and there were none. I felt his temperature and it was regular. I was so befuddled, I even looked at his teeth. I couldn't figure out what the darned Sam-hill was wrong with him!
I asked him how he had felt during the roadwork, and he asked me when he'd been doing road work. His eyebrows scrunched up into confusion and he looked at me with a worried face. I made him lie back down, swaying as he was, and had one of the help-girls fetch a glass of water.
She came thundering in, that Bethany-Anne was always so loud, and gave me the glass. I gave it to Buster, but his hands were shaking so badly, he dropped it to the floor and it shattered. He yelped, turned white as a fresh sheet, and seemed to give up entirely, all in the span of three seconds.
Bethany-Anne fetched a second glass and cleaned up the first. This time I held it for him, Buster shivering like winter as he drank. 'Nauseous,' he grumbled. He tried to bat my hand away, but missed, several times. It was like he'd gone blind, and couldn't see where my arm was!
'My head hurts,' he told me. 'I don't understand. My face is tingling. It's numb... My cheeks, lips... I'm hungry.' He rambled on and on, as if I wasn't even there. The boy was shaking like a leaf, and he seemed very tired- an odd combination- so I laid him down and told him to fall asleep. He did, quite quickly.
Bethany-Anne had brought in lunch on her wheeled-cabinet invention, to which I woke up Buster. He didn't speak at first, so I felt his temperature again. He was colder than before, and was perspiring. I gathered a lunch from that sweet girl, Bethany-Anne, and set it on the table beside Buster. He looked up at me, dazed.
'It's spinning,' he said, quite suddenly. I asked him, 'What's spinning Buster?' To that, he replied, 'The room.' I asked him if he felt dizzy and he said yes. I had him close his eyes until he felt better. After a while, he told me that he felt just fine.
I asked him if he felt hungry, and he said yes. I pulled him into a sit, getting no help from the sleepy boy. I set the plate of lunch on the bed between his legs and handed him a spoon. His hand quaked as he held it.
'Go on, Buster, eat something,' I'd said.
He dropped his arm to the bed, turning to me. 'I can't,' he'd said. And of course, I asked him why not, to which he responded, 'It's too heavy, and it’s too far away... keeps moving.'
I had a vague idea of what he meant, so I took the fork from him and set the dish back onto the table.
I spoon-fed him his lunch and the next few meals after that. Buster was in the infirmary for three or four days after the first, and then he went back out into training.
Three weeks later, he was back. Two boys carried him in, again, unconscious. They laid him on the bed, where he spent a week recovering from whatever odd illness he had.
He left 4 days later, healthy and well-rested. Three weeks later... he was back again. this cycle continued for such a long time, I began to wonder if he was dying.
He came in unconscious, ten pounds too light, and woke up with a headache and chills. Oh, that Buster- he'd be shivering like winter without a coat. He was terribly weak and shaky; the poor boy shook like a leaf. Always very hungry but oh, so nauseous. Dizzy, and confused. He often told me -in his ever-soft voice- that his mouth and cheeks felt fuzzy, or numb. He would cry, sometimes. This was from frustration- usually when he couldn't grab things, or when he couldn't understand, or when he shook too hard. His coordination was terrible. He wouldn't have been able to hit the side of a barn with a rock.
And the nightmares, oh! He thrashed in his sleep, horribly.
He was in and out of the ward for about a year 'n a half with this same strange illness. The Navy would have let him go, but he kept getting better.
I wrote many doctors about Buster, asking for a diagnosis or a cure.
Then a letter finally came, in August. Doctor Gustavus-VonSaiorgno diagnosed Charlie with hypoglycemia. The cure was to eat more food, simply put.
I asked Buster how much he'd been eating, and of course, he lied and said every meal every day, not a scrap left over.
Then I threatened to call his mother. He confessed quicker'n a jackrabbit." I laughed. "He'd been giving his food to a man with a different illness. This one was called diabetes- if the man didn't eat extra, he would get sick.
Stupid Buster, being heroic. What a sweet boy. We got the chef to make extra food, and Buster's hypoglycemia problem was gone."
"Wow."
"Yup. The End."
"Mary? Are you telling the grandkids our sailor story again?" An elderly man with warm brown eyes was standing in the doorway, wearing what I'd always called a funny hat.
"Of course," I replied.
"So how did you fall in love then? If Grandpa didn't have to go to the infirmary anymore?" Betty asked.
"Well, sweet little Buster always had some ailment or another to come in for. This boy never ran out of 'em."
I thumbed at Buster with a laugh. "He'd come in, whining about a toothache, or a fever, or maybe he had a bruise. There were many tummy aches. Enough tummy aches for him to grow on me." I smiled. "Night, Bets."
"Night, Grandma."
I tucked her in under the covers and kissed her forehead.
I soon found myself asleep next to my sweet boy, Buster, my hand wrapped up in his.