My fate was sealed!
If my father said I had to go into the army, then… the army it was. Who was I to oppose him? Seeing that I had no objections, my father softened a bit and pulled out the ultimate argument: a five-star bottle of cognac.
“You’ll see,” he said with melancholy, “the army will make a man out of you. I did three years in the army and look at me, I’m a man!“
I started to become interested in the army. I listened eagerly to my father’s advice.
“After the army,” he continued, “I met your mother and we settled down. You’ll see what it’s like. I bet you’ll get married right after you return from the army!”
Ah, girls! Marriage! It didn’t sound too bad for a greenhorn like me. The cognac glasses and the prospect of marriage started to appeal to me. I couldn’t wait to become a MAN and finally leave my father’s house, to stand on my own two feet.
“Well, if that’s the case, I want to go to the army as soon as possible!” I told my father.
“Very good!” he replied, delighted. “Tomorrow morning, you go to the recruitment office and tell them you volunteer for military service.”
“And if they refuse?”
“They won’t refuse,” he reassured me, pouring me another glass. “I spoke to them. You’re already on their records.”
My visit to the recruitment office involved a lot of paperwork, many questions, and a dubious medical examination where about five doctors, both women and men, took turns staring at us, the recruits, lined up stark naked.
So, I was to serve my country. But where, how?
“Here, right in the city, in the infantry, for twelve months!” a friendly sergeant informed me, handing me the papers.
In the first month, I quickly learned that the country didn’t need my blood, nor a leg or an arm. No, not at all. The country wanted me to march all day on a concrete parade ground, with a straight back and legs stiff as a goose’s.
The country wanted Tiberiu to make his bed perfectly every morning, even a hundred times if necessary, until the corporal was satisfied.
The country also wanted me to wash my underwear every evening, polish my boots, and read daily a small red book titled “Internal Regulations.”
And one more thing: the country wanted me to shout all day. In the army, people don’t talk normally to each other, like in civilian life. No.
If you’re in uniform and don’t shout, it means you’re not a real man and the country doesn’t love you.
On my very first day there, a recruit came to me and said we had to swap beds. Apparently, he didn’t like sleeping by the door.
I sent him packing. He insisted. He was stubborn. Just like that, a beautiful brawl began, with cheers and encouragement for both sides. The whole shebang.
Metal beds flew like straw from one side of the dormitory to the other, suitcases became projectiles, I lost a sleeve, but he lost two tufts of hair.
“Attention!” yelled the guy with two stripes on his sleeve, who had appeared out of nowhere.
“He started it!” my “comrade” reported calmly, wiping his nose with a handkerchief.
I burst out laughing on the spot. Listen to him, the idiot!
“Attention, you fools! Are you deaf?!” the guy with stripes started roaring. “Attention, both of you! Who the hell am I talking to here?”
We straightened our backs and stared at the ceiling.
The guy with the stripes bulged his eyes and measured us both with his gaze. He looked like a donkey undecided whether to attack the pile of clover or the pile of alfalfa. His gaze wandered from one to the other, then finally settled on me. He had chosen me!
“Soldier, you’re going to have a very tough life with me!” he puffed out his chest. “I promise you’ll have a dog’s life!”
“What breed of dog?” I asked curiously.
A vein on the guy’s forehead suddenly swelled up.
“You will always address me as ‘Mr. Corporal’!” he shouted.
“Why am I going to have a dog’s life, Mr. Corporal?”
“Just because!” he replied with satisfaction. “Because that’s what I want. Because you have an unpleasant face, that’s why! A face that asks for punches! You’re in trouble with me, soldier!”
My sins! The man wasn’t a prophet, but he was right! In less than a month, I managed to attract the nastiest chores and the most night duties.
Night after night, my corporal put me on the sentry list. A sentry is a guy who, instead of sleeping, stands guard at night in the hallway and watches over everyone else’s boots.
Didn’t you know? Boots need to be guarded! In the army, boots are stolen like crazy. I steal yours, you steal mine, everyone steals boots from everyone else. In the end, in the morning, at the report, everyone has their own pair of boots, so it’s a zero-sum game. No one wins, no one loses.
If sometimes I fell asleep (and it happened), a sneaky officer would come with a metal bucket and fill all the boots lined up in the hallway with water.
Of course, the next day everyone hated me.
I admit, the army changed me, but not too much. I learned to keep my fists ‘at home’, but I still had the bad habit of telling people to their faces what I thought.
The 2nd Company, with all three of its platoons, hated me to death. Sixty souls hated me. My corporal made sure of that.
If I didn’t arrive on time for the evening roll call, the whole company had to do push-ups.
If I didn’t align properly in formation, the whole company did push-ups.
If I dropped my weapon (from sleepiness), the whole company did push-ups.
It was a nightmare.
And the 2nd Company decided it was enough. The bullying, the settling of scores, and the mental torment began.
For example, one day I returned from training and couldn’t find my bed. Someone had moved it to the bathroom – Ha, ha… how funny! – next to the sinks.
Another day, I found my suitcase with the lock broken and all the cigarettes mysteriously gone. Then came the day when I couldn’t find my suitcase at all.
“In the army, nothing gets stolen, soldier!” the lieutenant yelled from behind his desk. “March out! Go outside!”
I left, but “outside” the situation was getting worse. At meals, I watched mournfully as flies drowned in my soup. In the morning, I woke up with my face smeared with boot polish. In the morning, my boots had jam inside. Or marmalade. Or shit (it was cheaper). And so on.
I was constantly a bundle of nerves. And I made more mistakes. And I paid more often.
I ended up in the unit’s detention about once a week. I knew by heart every cell, every inscription on the wall, every pornographic drawing on the wooden bunk where I slept. In detention, you sleep on a plank bed. It has hinges. In the morning, the plank bed is lifted against the wall and locked there with a padlock.
Yes, I visited the barracks’ detention very often.
“Your jacket isn’t buttoned up according to regulations? March to detention, soldier! Five days!”
“White laundry goes on the left, colored on the right, soldier. March to detention! Three days!”
“Fell asleep on guard duty again? March to detention, soldier! Seven days!”
“Why aren’t you running, soldier? I ordered Quick March! Down! Up! Down! Up! March to detention!”
Then things escalated. It all started with an apparently trivial event. It was an evening like any other. We had returned from the shower room.
In the army, you don’t shower whenever you feel like it. Everything is done by order and on a clear schedule. Corporals stand in the hallway, stiff as boards, shouting commands:
“1st Company, to the showers! 2nd Company, prepare for showers!”
Sixty naked men run in columns to the shower room. Fifteen minutes later, the shouting resumes:
“1st Company, to the rooms! 2nd Company, to the showers! 3rd Company, prepare for showers!”
The sound of flip-flops on the corridors goes rap, rap, rap.
This time, sixty wet-bottomed men run to the rooms, and another sixty dry-bottomed men run in the opposite direction, to the shower room. It’s their turn. Fifteen minutes.
And so on, until all the dirt is washed off everyone.
The shower room is overcrowded, and the showers are few. You’re left with soap on you.
Someone turns the tap, everyone yells. Someone else turns it, everyone yells. You feel like losing your mind. You feel like giving up the shower. But try giving up the shower. I dare you!
“Why didn’t you wash, soldier? March to detention, unwashed! Three days!”
As I was telling you, that evening we had just returned from the shower room.
There were sixteen souls in the room. I had gone to bed because I was dead tired, but all those maniacs were spraying deodorant “to stay clean.”
Puff under the right armpit.
Puff under the left armpit.
Puff in the underwear, so the little guy smells nice too.
“Are you guys insane?” I said desperately. “15 people times 3 puffs each means 45 puffs. We’re suffocating! We’re going to die here tonight!”
“Fuck off, man,” replied an irritated giant. “Are you teaching us multiplication tables?”
“Look,” said another comrade jokingly, “I’ll give myself another puff on the ass. Now it’s 46!“
“47!” shouted another, pressing the deodorant button for a long time.
And those idiots started spraying like crazy.
I threw the blanket off me and got out of bed determined.
“Don’t open the window, soldier!” yelled the corporal. “Do you want us to catch a cold? It’s cold outside!”
“Alright,” I replied, “then I won’t open it!” I then lifted the chair next to the table above my head.
The order was not to open the window and I followed it to the letter. But breaking a window doesn’t mean opening it.
The window shattered with a crash! and gave up the ghost. The glass shards fell like rain to the ground floor, and the chair flew outside, barely missing hitting a chubby major on the head as he was making his evening rounds.
“Whose motherfucking…?! he screamed and said something else, but I couldn’t hear it well because he stormed up the stairs and started jumping two steps at a time.
The door slammed against the wall. The corporal stammered, pale-faced:
“Atteeention!”
“Who… who…?” the major stammered, pulling his cap over his eyes.
Fifteen hands pointed accusatorily. Was it like this during the Inquisition too? Yes, I think that was the feeling.
“Yeah, it was me,” I confirmed with a calm soul.
The chubby major glared at me, trying to kill me with his pupils, then swallowed hard and hissed:
“You again? Always you? I knew it was you! Have you gone mad, soldier? Get dressed! March to the arrest!”
“How many days?” I asked calmly.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow!” he groaned. He took off his cap and wiped his bald head of sweat, then his face suddenly lit up and he added, “And you’ll pay for the broken window too! I’ll dock it from your pay!”
I left the room sullenly without saying goodbye. The atmosphere behind me was not very cheerful. Behind me, I heard the major’s voice:
“What stinks so bad here? Perfume? What is this? A brothel? Are you pouring perfume on your heads with a bucket?”
I reached the washroom and rinsed my face with cold water.
“Give me a cigarette, comrade!” I asked a soldier who had just come out of the toilet.
“I don’t have one, fuck off!” he puffed. “Go buy your own!”
Then he left and I was alone. I sighed deeply and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw there. Was that me?
What the hell!
Is this what the country wanted from me? Is this how I served my country? Did I have to live through all that misery again and again for twelve months?
Actually eleven, since one had passed.
“I won’t go back to the arrest, not even dead!” I said tiredly to the one in the mirror.
What good would it have done to go? I already knew every grain of plaster on the ceiling of the arrest room.
I looked in the mirror again. I had changed. Was that my face? I looked like a desperate man. Where was Tiberiu? That Tiberiu I knew… A man, not a rag!
I suddenly thought that enough was enough. They could all go to hell, but I didn’t want to stay there for another second and I no longer had any desire to serve my country.
“I hate you!” I screamed at the mirror. “This isn’t me! Fuck you! Give me Tiberiu back!”
That mirror was mocking me. I raised my fist towards it and at that moment the light went out in my head.
I screamed furiously, tore the sink off the wall in one move, and smashed the mirror. Then I broke the one next to it and the next and… so on, about twenty mirrors.
The only thought left in my mind was that I had to break. Anything. The sound of shattered glass soothed me. I wanted more.
I tore all the sinks off the wall and smashed them on the floor. Then came all the windows and a good part of the tiles.
When I finished, everywhere around me, above me, under me, under my bare feet were just shards glittering beautifully in the light of the neon lights. Ah, the neon lights, damn them! I had forgotten about them.
“Great!” I yelled with my hands towards the ceiling. “Shards! Shards of all colors!”
The door timidly opened and in its doorway appeared the major. He had a rather wrinkled face. Behind him were companies 1, 2, and 3, all together. The whole hallway was a swarm of soldiers in pajamas.
“Don’t worry!” I yelled grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll pay you back everything from my next pay! Ha, ha! What… what did you see so interesting here? Fuck you all! You’re first, major!” I muttered, approaching him.
“Help! the hoarse major yelled. “Help, the madman is going to kill me!”
In the army, orders are carried out, not discussed. The last image I saw was a heap of fists and feet coming towards me at the speed of light. And a constellation of stars of all colors, to be perfectly honest.
“He needs to be taken to the loony bin!” the major whined in the background of the stars. “To the loony bin!”
I felt a locomotive hit me in the back of the head and I fell asleep happy.
My sleep lasted about two days and two nights. I woke up strapped with belts to a stretcher. Someone there had prudently drugged me with sedatives and other crap.
The back of my head was throbbing. I still don’t know to this day whether it was a heel or a boot that hit me in the back of the head, but it was throbbing. My heart was beating in my head.
I was very calm. Dizzy. Floating. My mouth was as dry as tinder. A nurse with a big butt was pulling shards out of my feet with tweezers.
“You’re awake, sweetheart?”
“Where am I?” I whispered.
“At the Military Hospital,” she replied.
“Thank God! So I’m not at the loony bin,” I sighed in relief.
“No, darling,” she said smiling. “You’re at the Psychiatry ward! You’re in good hands.”
Seeing that I had woken from the dead and was in the mood to talk, she gave me a bit of water to drink, then disappeared. A minute later, she returned with the doctor.
The man had a friendly face. He introduced himself, looked at me amicably, and told me to behave and that everything would be fine. I believed him.
“How do you feel now?” he asked, smiling.
I smelled like a latrine. I had been strapped to that stretcher for two days. I had pissed myself, shit myself, and was very cold.
“I’ve never felt so good in my life!” I confessed.
“Bravo, boy!” he rejoiced. “That’s the spirit.”
My recovery took enough time for me to take stock. I had a ruptured left eardrum, a slightly crooked neck, a fractured rib, a displaced left kidney, and a few shards the nurse hadn’t managed to reach with the tweezers.
Bruises didn’t count. I have good flesh.
At discharge, that compassionate doctor handed me my papers and wished me a good life. On the papers, below my name, it was written in large letters:
“UNFIT FOR MILITARY SERVICE IN PEACE AND WAR”
“Does this mean I don’t have to serve my country anymore?” I asked, puzzled.
“Screw the country,” he said, looking left and right. “Don’t worry… there are others to serve it. Keep the papers safe. Don’t lose them.”
“But this doesn’t mean I’m crazy, right?” I asked, looking him straight in the eye.
“Only if you want to be,” he replied, walking me to the exit.
It was cold outside. It was raining. I asked a passerby for a cigarette and limped home. I walked carefully, pondering philosophical thoughts. I wondered what good the army had done me.
At that moment I couldn’t find an answer, but later, years later, I concluded that I came out of the army with three things:
One: I always get my hair cut as short as possible. This way I use less soap and don’t need a comb.
Two: Uniforms irritate me. I have an allergy to them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a military uniform or a police uniform or any other. Ever since then, if a guy in uniform tells me “Come,” I go, and if he tells me “Go,” I come.
And three: I have an aversion to being touched by men. If a jackass puts his hand on me, I go ballistic.
That’s about what the army gave me. It didn’t make me a man, as my father promised, but I admit, it changed me a bit.
When I returned home, my father was furious and shouting at my mother:
“I did three years in the army and this bastard didn’t last even three months. Look at him, woman, he’s your offspring! He looks just like you.”
“Actually,” I explained, taking a glass from the cupboard, “I only did one month of army service. I spent the other two months in the loony bin. Now I’m officially insane. The doctor told me so.”
My father looked at me with disgust.
“Bravo, son!” he snarled bitterly. “Well, what do you say now, woman? Do you see the scoundrel? Now we’ve got a madman in the family too. I knew it. I knew it! Damn you all, a family of idiots!”
Then he took his coat and left.
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