Malaria in Manhattan

Malaria in Manhattan?

You gotta be fucking kidding me!! The next thing I know, you'll be telling me that I can get a dose of gonorrhea jackin' off.

Every Friday, while at Fort Devens, I would take the NY Central to New York for a weekend of doing things with my girlfriend Bonnie (Bronx Jews didn't know from fiancées). And in those days having a girlfriend didn't mean that you were banging her.

Theatre, college basketball double headers at the Garden, capped off by hockey Sunday night at the Garden as well. It was remarkable to me, in those days ,that the Garden had hard floor for basketball on Saturday and ice for hockey matches on Sunday. Kind of magic.

The Wannabe Princess was living with my sister, her husband and their kid Jesse. The budding Princess (I brought her to full bloom.) was working at Alexander's on the corner of Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse. Since sex was out I stayed with my folks.

One weekend we moved things around and went to the theatre on a Sunday night to see Finian's Rainbow which I didn't particularly like. (It became a classic. So much for my taste.)

WWII Ruptured Duck Pin

My girlfriend, Bonnie, was really smart and beautiful (a man thinks with his eyes, a woman with her ears). Life was wonderful. Hair was not growing on the palm of my right hand and I was not going blind. And I was on the verge of swapping my Sergeant stripes for a Ruptured Duck lapel pin.

After the show we went for a late supper at Rumplemyers,(later Mickey Mantle's) which marked the last time that I had a glass of milk. A few minutes after a fateful glass of milk I went to the head. I was nauseous (knew that I wasn't pregnant) yet I started puking my guts out.

After I finished the vomiting exercise at Rumplemyer's, the Princess got us a cab and we went to my folk's place on 72nd Street where I collapsed in bed.

I had chills, shaking like a leaf in the wind, while simultaneously perspiring like a stuck hog bleeds. My Mom, who was scared to death, piled blankets on me. My Pop watched with morbid fascination.

We had an old fashioned family doctor, Dr. Harry Epstein, and my Mom called him. He showed up at around 2:00 in the morning. He gave me something and I quit shaking.

Can you even imagine having a family physician today much less having one who will come to see you at 2:00 AM? 911 is almost the only hope or for me or an ER room at a veterans health care facility, if you have someone to take you there.

The next morning Dr. Epstein came by to check on me, proclaiming that malaria had paid me a visit. Having been shot in Okinawa, getting pleurisy in Korea and malaria in Manhattan I felt snake bit because now I was AWOL with something too bizarre for anybody, including me, to believe.

Dr. Epstein gave me a note to give the CO at Fort Devens, attesting to my having a dose of malaria without, to my memory, getting a fucking bug bite. The hospital crew at Fort Devens ran some tests on me and confirmed Dr. Epstein's diagnosis. Perhaps the bug bit me on a one-day stopover in Palau on the way to Okinawa. Never have had a return episode.

Yeah, 'Malaria In Manhattan'. Great title for a pop tune.

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