The Fall

     I gleefully plotted the fall of Knuckles. Well that is a bit of an overstatement. While it was true that the back of my mind knew that I had to give a good account of myself to him in order to continue my climb up the ladder of dominance in the unit I never actively plotted any of what actually occurred. My self destructive nature simply played into his desire for acceptance by someone he perceived as a leader. The synergy this generated would damn near kill us.

     I arrived at his apartment and we started the evening with a few beers while he showed me his place and told me a bit about himself (it was not a date I swear). I immediately noticed that he was a man who had completely defined himself by his association with the U.S. military. His apartment was sparsely decorated with some rappelling rope, the front seat from a HMMWV (Humvee for the civvies), along with several weapons. He had been a former ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) cadet and was a want-to-be worshipper at the Airborne altar. He and I actually were getting along great and I started to realize that I had likely misjudged his intentions. He definitely was a man in need of a friend and I think now that at least half of his motive for inviting me over that night were driven by that need.  Having said all that I need to explain that the element of competition was still right out there in plain sight. This was just a continuation of the verbal sparring and mild physical intimidation battles that had been ongoing in our unit getting prepped for it’s first field problem in years. We were scheduled to roll out the following Monday.

     A few hours after I had arrived we had drank all of the Guiness I had brought with me and he opened his liquor cabinet where I saw a bottle of Bacardi 151. “That’s what we are drinking!” I exclaimed. I knew my tolerance would outlast his even with him having about a 60 pound weight advantage. My 4 year Ironman tour in Korea with a bar-owning friend had long ago ensured that my tolerance was twice that of most mortal men.

     (At this point in the story I am mostly reconstructing events from stories told to me as my memories of them are shaky at best. Take with a grain of salt and your mileage may vary.)

     Amongst the blur of images I retain from the rest of the evening are : Knuckles projectile vomiting all over the kitchen after our very first shot of the 151 (which caused him to end up shirtless), Knuckles immediately doing another shot to prove that he could, me in an East German Officers hat eating salt, us shooting a light post from the balcony using his pellet gun, and us admiring the new 9mm pistol had had purchased.

     Apparently, (this is how all drunks eventually end up prefacing their stories), we had taken to arm wrestling for a bit which led to outright wrestling on the balcony at some point. This would not be unusual except for the fact that Knuckles apartment complex had been built by the lowest bidder. His wrought iron balcony rail was simply slid into the facing concrete and never secured by bolts. As our combined 500 pounds slammed into the rail it gave all the resistance of a wet paper towel before slipping right out of the holes drilled into the concrete. Down we go for around 16 feet or so landing with our lower bodies on the concrete patio landing below us and without upper bodies impacting on the railing itself which had beaten us to the ground. *DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!!*

     I hit the ground first landing pancake-flat on my back which when coupled with my drunken slackness saved my life and mobility. Knuckles fell face first into the railing and his right leg impacted my right arm so hard that it ruptured the skin and muscles of my right biceps. I still have a 3 inch scar there to prove it. I was rendered unconscious immediately but Knuckles never went out (which speaks to his incredible condition at the time). He picked himself up and checked to see if I was ok. He seemed to think that I was no so he ran to the neighboring apartment door and started banging on it demanding that they call an ambulance. Now you have to imagine what the neighbor though when they saw a half naked 270 lbs gorilla looking mother-fucker beating on their door at 2 am with blood spraying from a completely wrecked nose. Frankly I am amazed he wasn’t shot.

     Giving up on the neighbors Samaritanism Knuckles apparently ran up to his apartment and called SSG C. According to SSG C the conversation went something like this :

SSG C “yawn…. Hello?”

K in a earnest and serious tone “Sergeant C this is SGT Knuckles, I need you to come over right away.”

“Why? Whats the matter?”

“We were drinking and fell.”

“Who?”

“Me and Greywar.”

“Are you ok?”

“I am fine. I think Greywar is dead.”

“Hang up now and call the ambulance! Right now!”

“Wait I can hear Greywar I think….”

Me  “Grooaaannn…!”

SSG C “Hang up now and call the fucking ambulance!”

K (not quite getting the meaning of this)  “Understood, this call never happened Sergeant!”

“Not like that you dumbass! Just get him some help I will be there as soon as possible”

“Roger that sergeant”

     It is unknown whether he ever called 911, but someone did as I have a very vague recollection of looking up at some cops standing over me discussing how fucked they were sure I was. The next thing I know I open my eyes to see SSG C and 1SG Gregarious’s faces hovering over me as a white hospital ceiling is passing overhead. I knew that something had gone horribly awry. I also knew that SGT Knuckles was a rising start who hoped to make the Army his career and that I was not. With that in mind the first thing I said was, “I made him drink it. He didn’t want to. I take full blame for this.” This made 1SG Gregarious shake his head at SSG C, chuckle a bit, and say, “Fuck, he’s ok.” It is my firm belief that my readiness to take to blame for this incident was what saved both me and Knuckles from receiving some non-judicial punishment for this later. 1SG Gregarious and SSG C both seemed to take my willingness to take responsibility for the incident as a some sort of sign of character. "Fools!" I thought. "Don’t they know I was brought up Catholic? Guilt is a fucking reflex for us! Sheesh!"

Continued in the next installment…. “Military health care” or “Marx didn’t know shit about medicine!”