by Chris McClelland
The first time I met Galen Brookline was at his intake appointment with me for occupational therapy almost two decades ago. He came in with his older sister, Laura, a portly steel-haired woman, and already Galen had been morphing from stoic combat soldier to giggly, bouncy fan of the Big Mouse, as we call him here in Florida. I could gather from his DD-214 report and medical records, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Bronze Star, the Air Medals, the Purple Hearts, that he had seen some serious action. Nowadays, in this digital age, I always keep the computer screen on his records in front of me when he comes in with his sister, mostly to remind me of the depth of what had occurred out there beyond the perimeter.
From what I could gather, even at the early stages home in Orlando he had no substantial social life outside the VA Day Treatment Center. In what conversations we had about women, it seemed he felt nothing for the few women he dated, or himself. If someone were to coldly take from him what he routinely had taken from others on his missions, he would not mind being subtracted from the whole equation. Only the Big Mouse saved him from complete oblivion, and gave meaning to his increasingly infantile life.
After discharge, he had stepped out of the Delta airliner at Orlando International into the swelter and humid funk that constituted the ambient air in central Florida. It was damp and cottonish, like in Southeast Asia. He had bought a cool, air-conditioned condo in Kissimmee with his sister near a newly drained swamp and began coming in to the local VA Day Treatment Center that I run, a kind of occupational therapy program for all the broken soldiers trying, and mostly failing, to heal.
Gradually, Galen presented himself more and more as a rather confused, overgrown child-like man, with his voice goofy and high-pitched and almost silly, like that of the cartoon mouse he so admired. Constantly smiling and laughing. As he talked excitedly, his heavily scarred left leg bounced near uncontrollably during the sessions. In all my years as Galen’s occupational therapist, I have noticed he comes in regularly, almost daily, and never talks about his service or his experiences overseas like the other vets manage to do after being given some time and understanding. As the weeks became months, then years, more and more, he retreated into an innocent and naïve worldview centered on imaginary mice and ducks, children’s stories with lessons children could understand and appreciate and thanks to his older sister he was always treated by friends and neighbors as Prince Galen. No one brought up the dark times in the war, and he was always ready with a light-hearted pun, or a goofy joke to buoy the mood.
At first the other vets didn’t know what to make of Prince Galen and his child-like fascination with his kingdom. Soon enough word spread about him, a legendary high-kill warrior until one day the kill-zone life became too heavy for him to bear and he ended up in total emotional collapse. He was now considered 100 percent disabled, service-connected, total and permanent, mental exhaustion, the paperwork said. It was a very kindly worded report in his file. He was an honorable discharge. He was, after all the inhumane things that were asked of him, a very flawed, broken human being.
So now, with his sister, he comes into my office on the fourth floor every Friday, and I usually block out a good two hours or so for him. It’s the least I can do. He usually goes straight from the session to the Kingdom with Laura. She too, carries the weight of that long-ago war. She had confided in me she had protested Galen’s brothers-in-arms when they came back from battle, mostly strung out on horse and coke. She lost a boyfriend over there, not to combat but to overdose. She has long since regretted the actions of the young idealistic, but sorely misled, college student she was.
In our sessions, I let Galen talk about whatever he likes. One special day he brought me an embroidered black cap with mouse ears from his kingdom. He was nearly in tears. He obviously had come to some profound insight. His sister patted his back.
Galen looked up at me with sad green-brown eyes. “For all your help, Doc,” he muttered. I considered this a breakthrough for him, or at least, a good sign. But after he gave me this gift, he stopped coming in to his appointments. Had something broken the outer rim of his fragile mental perimeter? After a few weeks came the day that I most feared with regards to Galen. Laura came in alone, in tears, a wreck.
I stood up from the desk and extended my arms for an embrace. But she turned away and muttered something about how Galen didn’t deserve to die as he did, not by his own hand, that he was a true American hero. The pain. Oh the pain. How, Doctor, could you even begin to understand my brother? What he gave up for our country? In the end, peace of mind is all we have. Once that’s gone, it was only a matter of time before Galen did this.
From my apartment Downtown, I looked out over Lake Ivanhoe that night, remembering Galen’s sister’s words. She wanted him to have a modest funeral at the VA cemetery in St. Pete. Closed casket of course. Invitations to all his buddies at the VA. She had handed me an obituary she had typed up for me to pass along to the Orlando Sentinel as a personal favor to her. She said she was too broken up to do it herself. Tomorrow morning, I am giving up my position at the VA. Right after the funeral, I am moving somewhere that’s not so close to Tragic Kingdoms.
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Chris McClelland is a service-connected disabled veteran of the US Air Force. He has spent years as an adjunct professor at various colleges around central Florida. In 1999, he attended the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. His writing has appeared in Narrative, Harper’s, Puerto Del Sol, and Mid-American Review among others. His novel, In Love and War, has been published to many positive reviews. His most recent nonfiction has appeared as a series in SwimSwam Magazine; his most recent fiction won the Bronze Award, National VA Contest for Short Fiction. His most recent poetry will appear soon in Irreantum Magazine.
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