Dengue Fever

"What the hell is dengue fever?"

The clinic doctor looked up from his deskbound Merck manual, Dreaded Diseases of the Jungle. "It's a disease you get from eating fly shit or drinking bad water. Congratulations, you are the first reported case in South East Asia."

"I guess I'll drink nothing but beer and eliminate one source of this heinous disease.'

Doc says, "Are you allergic to antibiotics?"

"Hell no, I'd be dead if I was, load me up good because I've build up a terrific immunity to cures."

I was on a path of self-destruction that started when I stepped off the C-130B after a five-day flight from MacDill AFB in Tampa Florida to our secret destination at Royal Thai Air Force base in Ubon, Thailand. We were warmonger mechanics, supporting the aircraft that bombed the be-Jesus out of Viet Nam.

My buddy Emile Dubose spotted me on the flight ramp. The new arrivals were lined up for base in processing. In the military you do everything by rank. I was last in line.

Emile said, "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Can't, I need to process in. Is there a crapper around here? I've been five days vibration packing a hell of a load."

"Follow me, there's an officer's two-holer just off the ramp."

I never did process in. We headed to town looking for action. I was moving fast and hard minus five days of boxed meals gone bad.

Emile was from Rhode Island. He had this lamentation about some concoction called a coffee cabinet. It's a fountain sundae made with coffee ice cream and then blasted with some soda water. It's only served in Rhode Island.

Emile had been in Thailand three months. He spoke fluent Thai, which meant he could order beer and hookers, and knew the correct price.

We headed to Indian Joe's. Emile introduced me to the embedded Thai hookers as a, "cherry boy."

I didn't like the cherry boy designation, (mostly because it was true) but Emile kept saying it would lower the price. "The girls all want to be your first." I started lowering my coupling resistance with Kratintong beer. It has a picture of a bull water buffalo on it. When my cheeks went numb I switched to White Cock Whiskey, it has a picture of a white rooster on the bottle. The stopper is a stick drizzled with red wax, not a preferred blend. I should have stayed with the bull.

I woke up in total pitch-blackness. I felt around and determined that I was on a bamboo cot, ass naked with a massive headache. The white cock's beak was thumping inside my head. I was ready to call out something on the order of, "Someone turn on the lights."

My brainpan issued a warning. I saw a red glow positioned directly in front of me; it appeared to be hanging in the air. I thought that my chosen hooker was grabbing a smoke after a hell of a workout. I slowly moved my hand over it and felt nothing. No hooker head. I slowly moved my hand under it and felt nothing. No hooker torso. I decided to glow watch.

The red coal never varied in the glow factor. It remained a constant glow. I determined after a long study that it was moving very slowly. I've never been afraid of anything, man or beast. I've never been dog bit or child bit. I didn't like this floating glow at all. I moved my back up against the wall, watched and waited out the darkness.

As the darkness started to fade from black to semi murky I discovered that my unknown enemy was a mosquito coil, sitting on a small table. It was slowly burning itself into a glowing circular death.

My knowledge smile faded as a cloaked figure with no face entered, scythe blade first through the closed door. No legs slow. The door remained closed. His scythe was long and crooked. The blade was well honed, probably on bone mass. I moved further up the wall to a semi-sitting position. Adrenaline provided an additional burst of vision light. He had bone hands, extra long, evading the folds of the cloak. Under the cloak hood was dark emptiness.

One hand was moving towards me. It stopped and hovered just out of my reach, maybe. I decided to reach out and touch his bone index finger, to see if it was real. I slowly moved my hand out to touch the grim reaper, living skin over bone-to-bone.

As I closed the death gap, I stopped. Nothing sparked across. A coldness flowed. (I actually touched the grim reaper appendage with the nail of my index finger; this nail died, fell off and re-grew with an upside down imbedded "Y" scar pattern. To this day the nail will not grow to the end of my finger.) The door began to open. The grim reaper had cast his warning. The new sinner in town had touched death.

My baht paid hooker entered the room.

I said, "What the hell is that?"

"A mosquito ring to keep you safe."

She was short and ugly with bad skin. Her skin was not falling off and she had no open sores, so I celebrated life, by acquiring additional bamboo burns on my knees.

Years later I found out that dengue fever is caused by the bite of the female mosquito. The doctor we had didn't know squat. That's why it took him three days to figure out I had dengue fever.

After that incident I never would use a mosquito coil, too scary. I wish I would have known the cause of my disease sooner. I could have continued to eat fly shit and drink bad water.

I pick at the fingernail and keep it "V" shaped, otherwise it grows a tail and looks Like a peace symbol.