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Going Color Blind
Going Color Blind
Going Color Blind
Ebook277 pages4 hours

Going Color Blind

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When Sara Babineaux, a young army corporal, opens her eyes, she’s an amputee. As she tries to cope with her devastating loss, Sara must find some way to overcome the prejudice, hatred, and poverty that has defined her life.

This is a story of struggle and personal growth that a young woman endures as she attempts to redefine herself. Along the way, Sara becomes a person she least expects which both shocks and outrages her family and community.

This novel is a testament to the enduring human spirit which embodies the courage for change, the ability for understanding and the capacity for love.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherScott Savoy
Release dateJun 24, 2013
ISBN9781301862795
Going Color Blind
Author

Scott Savoy

Scott Savoy is an award winning writer whose numerous articles, short stories and plays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in Louisiana and Arkansas. From their log cottage in one of the pine forests of southern Louisiana, he and his wife spend as much time as possible writing, reading, and taking long walks to soak in the rich Cajun French culture.

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    Book preview

    Going Color Blind - Scott Savoy

    Chapter One

    Sweat soaks my helmet straps and runs down the sides of my face, dripping onto my combat fatigues and trying to breathe feels like sucking in fumes from a furnace. The air is stale and heavy with body odor and nervous sweat. As I bounce around inside the hot camel-colored HUMVEE along with everyone else, Sergeant Griggs, a tanned muscular man who walks with a natural swagger, is telling a joke. His stories are good. His sense of timing -- perfect. And as we listen to his sand caked south Alabama drawl and are all preparing to laugh, knowing his joke will be funny as hell, his raspy words are sliced off mid-sentence. Only seconds before, he’d swallowed hard clearing the grit and sand from his throat.

    As he spoke, I’d wondered if he’d still be working on that shrimp boat with his ol’ man instead of pulling patrol in the desert if BP hadn’t pumped all that crude into the Gulf.

    Griggs reaches the punch-line and after a well-timed pause and another swallow, he grins and starts to deliver it. Fuck no, the nigger said, she’s my bitc ....

    The explosion’s deafening blast flips the HUMVEE, and as we are flung around, and rolling over, I hear muffled screams. My heart is racing, and I’m thrust into blackness.

    Darkness swirls as something hits my face: an arm, someone’s knee or boot or the butt of a gun. Everything pitches and swirls around me in chaos.

    A beeping sound works its way into my thoughts, jumbled and sluggish. The beeping continues, pressing in on my consciousness, stirring and prodding. It sounds distant at first then it grows louder and clear, matching my breathing and heartbeat. I also hear other faint noises like the sounds of footsteps and metal scraping metal, and sometimes I see lighter shades of darkness before my world again fills with solid black.

    The room was dark when I first lifted my right eyelid, but trying to hold it open long enough to focus was impossible. It clamped down tight and I felt like I was floating. Later I tried again, but my eyelid was still too heavy to hold open for long. God, I was tired --exhausted. So tired. Something was clipped to my nose, a tube, I remember thinking. It was in my nose and down my throat. A plastic bag of fluids then swirled into view. The weight of my eyelid pulled back down again sealing the darkness in, and I drifted. I then felt something above me, floating over my hospital bed, weightless and cold.

    What the hell you think you’re doing Babineaux, Sergeant Griggs screams. He’s in my face, and his breath stinks with the smell of coffee and cigarettes.

    I have to swallow down a gag and am too hot and dehydrated to reply.

    This ain’t Holly Beach, girl. You can’t bury ya toes in the sand or feel the cool breeze on your face here. This is Kan...da...har.

    Another metallic screech echoed through the room sounding like the squeaky door-hinge of our HUMVEE that took oil like a weary camel took water. I opened both eyes and tried to focus. Something fuzzy and white was in front of me. It as a white board, and its black markings seemed to float around. My body felt hot. So damned hot.

    Looking down, I then saw the gruesome thing. It was my right arm, and everything below where my elbow was supposed to be, was missing. Gone. And the light brown skin of my arm ended with a disgusting white cloth wrapping.

    Out of the HUMVEE! the Sergeant screams shoving me toward a hole ripped in the side of the armored vehicle. Take cover out there!

    I can’t move.

    Griggs shouts and pushes me toward the hole. Goddamn it girl, you’ll be the death of me!

    Smiling at him as if he’d finished his joke, I stagger toward the hole in the side of the HUMVEE. The mixture of smells of burning tread, gasoline and something sickeningly sweet fill my nose as I stumble out into the sunlight and the sand. Turning back, I see the HUMVEE ripped open and gutted.

    There, still standing inside its ripped shell is Sergeant Griggs with blood running down his face. Lifting his bloody arm, he points at me and his hand is gone, the stump at his wrist spurting a stream of dark red.

    Waves of nausea roll over me, but I know I have to try to get them out of the burning HUMVEE. Before it is too late, I have to get back in there and help them get out.

    Jerking, my eyes opened, I felt the sheets damp with sweat. The room was still dark as constant beeps echoed from the machine near my head. The tube down my throat was gone, but I still felt the one clipped to my nose.

    Even in the dark, I could see the wall, the floor and my bed. The thin white sterile sheets then revealed the truth. It was as horrible and real as the twisted hunks of steel I’d seen along the roads of Kandahar. It was a stump and was all that was left of my right forearm and hand, and unlike the shifting dunes in my desert dreams with shapes melting before the hot breath of the Arabian wind, this form was solid. This was permanent. This thing, this stump, this gross mutilation, was all that was left of my right arm.

    ~~~~

    Chapter Two

    Oh God no! My mouth was barely open, but my throat was as dry as the desert. My tongue was parched and my upper palate gritty and rough. This is a dream, only a dream, I told myself staring at the white bandages around my stump. Wake up! ... Wake up! You’ve got to wake up. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the stump. Noooo! I moaned in a cry that sounded only half human. But it was more than a moan. It was some deep and sorrowful wail. The Afghan woman I’d tried to help one afternoon had made that sound: hopeless, primitive and unforgettable. She’d stepped on an I.E.D that had discharged ripping off her legs just below the knee.

    I’d tried to keep her alive by tying cloth tourniquets around what was left of them. I’d sat holding her hand, waiting for the army paramedics to arrive, but death came first.

    The woman’s body trembled and her back arched, like the sound of a distant sandstorm, she then exhaled her last breath as if blowing her spirit free.

    The Afghan woman in the desert was dead, and I lay there in bed unable to tear my eyes off the stump still wrapped in white gauze and the empty space just below it on the sheets. The space beyond the stump was cold and white and stared back at me like death.

    A nigger, in dark blue scrubs with graying hair and smiling eyes, heard my cry and came in from the hallway. She saw me staring down at the place where my arm should of been. It’ll be okay, she said in a voice that was soft but firm. To her, my recovery probably seemed beyond question, not a matter of if but when.

    But for me, well, I might as well of been dead. I squirmed, still unable to take my eyes off the mutilated arm that I refused to call my own.

    You’re a lucky girl, the nigger nurse said. Her voice stayed steady as she checked the IV bag and looked down at me. I know you may not feel like it now but you are.

    Though I’d heard what the nigger woman said, I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t, there was no way. Oh God no, no, no, no, no, I said. My temples were pounding and my ears were ringing. My hand hurts like hell, I said. I can still feel my fingers. I can wiggle them. They hurt like hell. How can they hurt so much if they’re --?

    It’s phantom pain, she said. It’ll stop after a while.

    No, I thought. No, it can’t be. It just can’t be.

    I then spotted Sergeant Griggs standing across the room. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen him before, but he was standing right there near the far wall dressed in combat fatigues and his right sleeve was dripping with blood. Did good, girl, he whispered. Real good.

    The nigger looked at me then at the wall I was staring at, and I could tell from the suspicious look in her beady eyes, she hadn’t seen him.

    I blinked and Griggs was gone.

    She patted my leg. You’re lucky to be alive.

    Lucky, I replied. My lips trembled and tears trailed down my cheeks. I then looked at her standing there staring down at me and acting all superior. Hell, what would you know ‘bout it you black bitch. The words seethed from my lips so effortlessly spewing the hatred that ran through my veins like an electric current. You got both your goddamned arms. Closing my eyes, I balled my one remaining fist and pounded the bed. I should of died, I said through clinched teeth. I couldn’t go on living with just half a body, I thought, as the feeling of needles continued to jab into my arm that was no longer there. Give me something for the pain goddamn it.

    The nigger frowned at me when I’d called her a ‘black bitch’, but her look of disappointment and maybe even sadness faded into a mask of serious professionalism. I’ll try to get the doctor to call you in something, she said.

    Looking at the nigger’s skin, the color of creamed coffee, I knew she had some white in her. If she’d grown up in Louisiana, she’d probably gotten it from both sides, from the blacks and from the whites, and I figured by now she knew how to deal with it. Her life should of taught her that there were limitations. Her color should of at least shown her that. Behind her back, her nigger friends probably called her cracker, her skin too light for them and the whites, they would of called her nigger ‘cause it was too dark.

    I always speak my mind, I thought to myself, admiring my own toughness for calling her a black bitch to her face. And I hated niggers for real. I chose to say what I felt. Let others hide behind their fake politeness, hating but without the guts to admit it. This was who I was. My beliefs were direct and full of conviction. I took pride in the fact that this dumb black assed bitch knew exactly where she stood in my eyes.

    The nigger walked up to the white board and rubbed out her name with the bottom of her clinched fist then picked up a marker and wrote in the time. Evening shift nurse will be here soon, she said.

    I continued to look at the white board even after the nigger had reached the door.

    Your father came by to see you earlier today, she said. And your mother’s been here a lot too.

    Looking down at the ugly stump of an arm resting next to me, I knew it wasn’t really mine. It didn’t belong to me. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was sure it was some kind of mistake. I was supposed to be waking up back with my platoon on patrol in the desert.

    Is this Lake Charles? I asked.

    Yes, it is.

    How long have I been here?

    First they brought you from Bethesda to Alexandria. And last week, they moved you here. And other than your arm and a few scars, you’ll soon be good as new. She then attempted a twisted smile that looked fake, and I had the feeling she’d seen others with missing arms and had helped nurse other shattered bodies.

    Good as new? I asked. That’s easy for you to say you cotton picker. I sensed my jab had found its mark, and I hoped it hurt her as much as I wanted it to, as much as I needed it to. But it still wasn’t good enough. I wanted her to feel my pain. I wanted her to feel that pain then tell me she was lucky to be alive and would soon be good as new. Just get me something for the goddamned pain, I demanded.

    ~~~~

    Chapter Three

    They finally prescribed me some hydrocodone which knocked me out. When I woke up, the sun was shining into the room, and the same black nurse was checking my vitals.

    The sting of amputation was now only a mild tingle.

    As the nurse looked at me, her face seemed more rested than the day before. With the right prosthetic and a long shelved shirt, no one will even notice, she said even though I hadn’t asked her a damned thing.

    My mouth was dry and my eyes were caked with sleep. Fuck! What would you know about what anyone else will notice? I didn’t look into the nurse’s face as I spoke. I couldn’t, though I wanted to. I could only stare at the IV line taped to my left wrist and looking at it, I got angry. Why had this happened to me? What had I done to deserve it?

    Obviously, the black bitch was trying to get me to talk. She must have thought I was some bimbo piece of white trash. And if she could get me to say something, if she could get me talking about what I felt inside, she could help me let go of my anger. But I wasn’t falling for her load of crap. Hell no. I wasn’t having none of it. There was no fucking way I was going to let her suck me in. I was mad, and it was so damned unfair. There was no way in hell I was going to give up my anger. The nurse knew, or at least should of, that it was too soon for me to feel anything but hatred. Like before, I wanted her to feel it, to feel my rage, and I had to lash out at someone. Hell, it didn’t matter who. I had to let her know how much I hated her black hands and her black face. If she’d only been white, it may have been bearable. Why couldn’t they have given me a white nurse?

    As the black bitch stared at me, I thought about the guys in my platoon who were closer to me than my own brother. I thought of Miami’s big toothy grin and how his brown eyes sparkled when he talked about marlin fishing off Key West. And there was Sam, from Jackson, and of course, there was Griggs. I wanted to tell them all, I’d lost my arm. What a strange thing to have to say. Anyone else get hit? I asked, remembering as I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes that they were all with me in the HUMVEE.

    The black woman just looked at my vitals that registered on the machines next to my bed.

    From my patrol, I mean.

    Why don’t you rest, she said, turning to leave the room.

    I want’a know Aunt Jemima. Was I the only ‘lucky one’ hit?

    The woman stopped at the door then slowly turned to me. I heard you were the only survivor. Now rest.

    I felt like the HUMVEE had just rolled over me crushing my lungs and pushing the air from my chest. There was no way this could be true. How could it be? No, they couldn’t really be gone? That’s not true, I said, wanting the nurse to say it was a lie or to tell me what she heard could have been a mistake.

    But without saying another word, she left the room.

    Staring out the door into the hallway, I thought of what I really wanted, and it was something the black nurse couldn’t give me. It was more than another dose of hydrocodone, though that helped. No, what I really needed was something to help me forget about my shattered body and my fallen brothers. I needed something to wrench these thoughts from my mind. Exhausted, I cried until I fell asleep.

    When I woke up, Pop and Mom were sitting in chairs next to the bed. Seeing Mom sitting there staring silently at me made my lips tremble, and I burst into tears.

    Jumping up, Mom was at my side trying to hold me yet trying to avoid touching my mangled arm. Leaning over, she whispered into my ear and brushed my hair with the palm of her hand. You’re safe now, honey. You’ll be home soon.

    While wiping the tears from his eyes, Pop sat in a chair staring out the window at the sun hanging just above the hospital annex.

    I was crying and trying to catch my breath, feeling like a little girl, as my words came out in a series of half stutters. Mom … I’m … scared.

    Sniffling, Pop pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger then wiped his fingers on the knee of his blue-jeans. Girl, he said. His voice was trembling as he faced me with red wet eyes. We’re damn proud of you.

    That was the first and last time I’d ever hear him say that.

    Mom patted me on the shoulder. We went up to Leesville to pick up T-Bud, she said with a shaky smile that looked like it could crumble at any moment. We ended up having to wait around for him all day until they finished his paperwork or we’d of been here yesterday.

    I looked around the room for him.

    He’s at home sleeping now. But, he’ll come over later.

    Looking passed Mom and Pop and staring out at the Louisiana sunset, I knew as those summer days were ending, my life had forever changed.

    ~~~~

    Chapter Four

    The next week, I asked the army liaison officer, a young woman wearing a perfectly pressed uniform, from the Veterans Affairs Office for a medical discharge. A few days after they discharged me, the doctors said I could go home.

    An occupational therapist had fitted me for a fake arm she called a ‘prosthesis’. She showed me how to put it on with a harness that strapped around my chest and shoulders. The thing looked like it was made of hard rubber, but it wasn’t even close to the color of my other arm and was more pink than tanned. She said this one was just temporary and didn’t really serve any purpose except for looks. She called it cosmetic, but hell, I called it ugly. She said that in a couple of weeks, they’d schedule for me to come back to the hospital to be fitted for a permanent mechanical prosthetic. I didn’t tell her that she was dumber than dirt if she thought I was coming back to the hospital once I got out. Hell no, and they must have been morons to think I would.

    Pop drove Mom, me and T-Bud, my older brother just back from tour in Iraq, all back home. Everyone in the truck avoided looking at the fleshy pink colored fake hand sticking out of my sleeve. The cuff at my wrist was buttoned down tight like the occupational therapist had shown me.

    Pop, loud as usual, blabbered on the whole way home from the hospital and had managed to say almost nothing. He yapped to T-Bud about the men at the plant where he worked in Sulphur. He went on about politics and how we needed to get that T-neg out of the White House. One way or another, we’re gettin’ him out, he said like he had some personal covert plan to get rid of the nigger president. Hell, the only plan Pop had ever had, the only thing he was any good at, was plowing through a twelve-pack.

    Watching the backs of Pop and T-Bud’s heads sticking up from the front seat and despite Mom sitting just a few inches away, I felt alone and my thoughts were thousands of miles away. The air conditioner blew a blast of cool air up from the Ford’s dash, but all I felt was heat from the rocky plains just outside Shah Wali Kot. Out my window was pine tree country, but all I saw were palms with their fronds baking in the sun.

    Pop turned onto Topsy Road and twenty

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