My late mother used to always say that things happened for a reason. Good or bad, every event in a person’s life serves a purpose. In this story, my lead character has a mysterious illness that leads him out the way of one disaster and right into the clutches of another.
“The Rash”
A Michael Jackson Short Horror Story By:
MJsLoveSlave
Four sailors sat together around and old and battered folding table, gearing up to while away the time with a rousing game of poker.
But this wasn’t a leisurely game at a friend’s house, no.
These four men had only come to know of each other’s existence when each of them had been admitted to the infirmary aboard their great ship for an assortment of reasons.
The first, Rodney Calhoun, from Atlanta, Georgia was admitted with a rotten case of dysentery and had been in agony for two weeks. The second and third, David Bourdain of Lafayette, Louisiana and Sherman Greenberg of Queens, New York, had arrived in the ward two days apart had spent their two weeks fighting chills and fevers with a case of the flu.
The last of this foursome, Michael Jackson, came from a small town called Gary, Indiana and had been in the infirmary the longest, just shy of a month, with an odd rash and also his fair share of fevers and chills.
All the men were dressed in their pajamas and if they hadn't been sick the gathering would have resembled a male version of a slumber party.
This was the first day the four men had been able to be out of their beds and able to actually see each other face to face. Before them, they had merely spoken to each other through the privacy sheets surrounding their little cots in the room. There was one other man in that room, laying away from the men, in a cot to himself. That man was my grandfather, Jim Bailey, who still lives in Dallas Texas to this day, and if it hadn’t been for him dropping a knife in the galley of the kitchen and slicing off his big toe, I would never have heard this remarkable story. Unable to get up, my grandfather and just laid there and looked on.
“Here we go boys…” Rodney, in a thick and lazy drawl was chuckling, his grey eyes dancing with mischief as he was shuffling a deck of cards.
“Twenty-five cents a game, deuces are wild, like my girl Connie I got waiting back at home for me.” He snickered and the other men laughed.
“There’s he goes again!” Sherman put dropped a quarter on the table with the others. “Talking about the infamous Connie again. You’d swear he was stepping out with Bette Davis or something!”
“Lord, not Bette Davis, that old pop-eyed thing!” David, chuckled his voice laden with a Cajun accent. “Shoot, I can’t wait for our Christmas leave in a couple of weeks. My Shelia is going to be making all my favorite foods--”
“And making your toes curl up, huh!” Rodney cackled and was dealing cards.
“Hey, Michael!’ Sherman asked as the men went around raising the bets and trying to maintain straight faces. “I’ve never heard you mention if you’ve got a girl waiting at home for you--do you? I know I‘ve got my Minerva just counting the days until I get back.”
Michael, who my grandfather had described as the quiet one in group, leaned back in his chair, his large dark eyes never leaving his cards, and nodded solemnly.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense man, what’s her name, what’s she like?” The other men was goading after him.
Eyes still on his cards, Michael replied softly, as if he were letting them in on a grand secret,
“Nurse Campbell.”
The men screeched loudly and were patting after him approvingly.
“You hooked you Nurse Campbell?” Sherman was exclaiming, blue eyes glowing at the idea of the woman. “That great big beautiful shapely woman is your girl? You do go on man!”
“No wonder she’s in here checking on you every night, Michael. And she works on the mainland too, right?” Rodney questioned and was tossing out a card. “Takes a boat out every night to see this guy!”
“You know I’m jealous!” David was snickering.
“Yes…” Michael nodded then added as he put his cards down. “Royal Flush.”
“Damn, hell! Shoot! I don’t believe it! He’s too damn lucky!” The men were lamenting as Michael took his winnings--a dollar in change-- off the table and more bets were put in and a fresh round hand of cards went around.
“Mike, I’ve been meaning to ask you something since I met you man…” David began as everyone was looking at and arranging their cards.
“Yeah?” Michael questioned and turned down an offer of cigarettes from Rodney. The rest of the men each took one and lit them up. Rodney also tossed one to my grandfather.
Grandpa said he’d never seen Michael smoke the whole time on the ship. It just didn’t seem natural to him to see a man who didn’t smoke.
“What exactly was it that sent you here to the sick bay? You know me and Sherman were in here for the damned flu--I still don’t’ know how we get the flu with such warm weather in these parts-- and Rodney came in with the flying shits--” He was interrupted by Rodney putting in defensively,
“Like I wanted the flying shits, you stupid fool! I got fed some bad pork and it got my bowels in an uproar.”
“Makes you wish you were Jewish like me, right?” Sherman winked at Rodney and was smacked playfully.
“No one exactly knows what causes my rash and the fever and stuff I had when I first got sent here.” Michael spoke calmly and tossed out a card.
“But I don’t mind it.”
Cigarettes hung from mouths all around in disbelief.
“You gotta be pulling our legs man. We’ve seen that rash you got. It’s awful, looks like you got stung all over by a pack of angry hornets! Then they put that foul smelling sulphur salve on it!” Rodney folded his cards on the table and pointed out his eyes growing just as large as the others.
“It doesn’t bother me, really…” Michael insisted, seemingly undaunted by his illness, leaned back against his chair and unbuttoned his pajama top, letting it hang open. Even though they had all seen this skin ailment times before, being so close to it, the others couldn’t help by recoil in horror with bugged eyes and gasps.
All over his slim chest and abdomen--Grandpa said Michael Jackson was a very thin and fair skinned Black man--were dozens, if not hundreds of little red fluid filled blisters. The only place he didn’t see any blisters was on Michael’s right pectoral, where he had a small tattoo of a dancing seal.
“Man you look like a poster for “connect the dots”. How can you not mind having those things on you?” David blew a smoke ring in the air and flicked ashes on the floor. The other men tried to suppress their laughter.
Michael’s skin did look bad. My grandfather claimed the only thing that he saw worse was he had a case of the smallpox himself, a few years later.
Michael, ever somber looking him clearly in his hazel eyes and answered,
“I don’t mind because these very same blisters saved my life and the lives of my family when I was a kid.”
“Those nasty looking things saved your life?” Rodney scoffed, his skepticism as clear as the large nose on his face.
Michael gave him a stony gaze, and tilted his head a bit, looking down his slim nose at Rodney. “Yes they did.”
“Well, Michael…” David blew another ring. “We got all the time in the world before the superiors decide to up and release us from the ward, so why don’t you tell us your tale--oh, and Four Aces! Read’em and weep boys!”
Hands were thrown down, cursed declared, the dollar prize claimed, and another fresh hand went out as Michael started speaking.
Grandpa said his fragile, sweet and high voice a perfect contrast for the truly strange story that was about to befall his ears.
“Well, I come from a line of hardworking folks. My daddy, he’s worked in the steel mills in Indiana since he was about fourteen years old and before my mother married him, she took in people’s laundry to mend. They were good, honest and not afraid to put in the work for the things they wanted.” Michael began and put his hand down, excusing himself from the game.
“My folks married young, my mother was eighteen and my father was nineteen.” Michael was nodding and picking at the short black curls springing from his head.
“The one thing my daddy always said he’d regretted was not giving my mother a proper honeymoon when they had first gotten married and he made it his business to save a little out of each paycheck, saying that one day he was going to take her--and eventually me and my little sister Janet when we were born--to Europe to see all the places she’d only read about in books. It was all the man talked of, he seemed obsessed with it…”
Michael’s eyes took on a faraway look, as if he could still see his father counting up and keeping a tally of every single penny that passed through his hands.
“It took my father thirteen years, of scrimping and saving, from the time my parents were married in spring 1898 until the fall of 1911, when he finally had enough money to go to Europe. I was only ten at the time, and I had never left Indiana. I was besides myself. Janet was so excited, because she loved eating and all she wanted was to try different foods all over the place. And my mother…” A broad smile crept onto Michael’s face at the thought of his mother.
“She was strutting around, vain as a peacock in the new clothes daddy had gotten her for the trip and bragging to all her friends how she was going to take her babies and see the world with her wonderful husband.”
Michael paused and stretched his arms over his head.
His friends’ card game had come to a halt, all hands down and bets off, each man listing and watching Michael’s face as it took on a glow of remembrance. Grandpa even said he‘d sat up in his cot to enjoy the story.
“And we did have a wonderful time. We traveled for nearly six months, like we were rich folks. We went to France and Scotland and England. I saw places like the Eiffel Tower, and Windsor Castle.--things I had only seen in books. We stayed in fancy hotels with room service and elevators and running water. No one would have guessed my father was a mill worker and my mother a washer woman. That my sister and I didn’t attend the best private schools. It was something out of a dream. We ate in restaurants every night, and once in England, I saw a Russian duchess. Real royalty, eating only a few tables from me!” Michael ran a hand through his hair and propped his bare feet up on the table top with no objections.
“A duchess, damn!” David echoed, resting his chin on his palms. Rodney and Sherman sighed thoughtfully.
“But the piece de resistance was the way we would be coming back to America.”
“How man, how?” Sherman wondered eagerly, he, Rodney and David all looking on dreamily, imagining foreign lands that were far better and more lovely than the drab grey walls surrounding them.
“My daddy booked us on another ocean liner, one making its maiden voyage. It was brand new. And everyone said it was better than the ship we’d come over to Europe on. No one had even ridden in it yet, it had just been completed in Ireland and brought over to England to set sail. And it was all anyone in England could talk about. All the kids at our hotel were jealous of me and Janet for being able to sail on the ship.” Michael was now rocking back and forth in his chair.
“That’s where this doggone rash comes in.” He stated, all the happiness and warmth in his face vanishing, his skin becoming milky in complexion and he absently picked at a blister.
“The morning we were supposed to set sail, my little sister came running in and jumped on the bed, hollering it was time to get up and that we were going home.”
Michael paused and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.
“And I remember, I didn’t even answer her. I just rolled over and threw my guts up on the throw rug next to my bed. Janet, oh, my sister was only six at the time and it scared her so much, she just went running and screaming for our mother. Our parents came running and Janet was crying cause she didn’t know what was going on, really. I didn’t either. But I do know I was a natural mess. I was sweating bullets one minute and chilled to the bone the next, and kept puking and was covered in welts just like I have now. Sick as a damned dog. ”
My grandfather says that for the first time Michael asked for a cigarette, a gesture that caused everyone there to look on shocked, but in the next few moments, the last few moments of the tale, they would ALL need a cigarette, and maybe a good shot of whiskey if they could have gotten their hands on it.
David lit a match for Michael and he took a deep drag off the cigarette before continuing, seeming to settle his nerves a bit.
“My daddy sent for the doctor and he came and examined me from head to toe. A strange little man with a heavy voice. Hit my knees with the little hammer and drew blood, everything. Picked after me for nearly an hour. I’d have punched him if I hadn’t been so weak. The doctor was spellbound. He told my parents that he’d never seen anything like what I had but he didn’t think I was contagious, because no one else was sick. It was just me.”
Michael blew his own smoke ring into the air, flicking ashes wherever.
“So the doctor told my parents to keep me in bed the next few days and keep me on fluids and stuff, you know since I had a fever and kept throwing up.”
He leaned on the table and took another deep drag.
“I remember, I started crying because I knew we’d miss the chance to ride on that ship and I knew my parents and sister and had been looking forward to it the whole trip. I was so heartbroken and felt like I had ruined the entire trip, even though my folks said I couldn’t have known I was going to get sick.”
Cigarette used up, Michael mashed it out on the table top and left the butt sitting there.
“But how does that save your life?” Rodney inquired breaking the silence that had been permeating the sick bay.
“Well…” Michael started and was cracking his knuckles loudly. “You can believe this or not if you want to. But the ship that my family and I missed out on sailing on, was the RMS Titanic…”
Jaws sagged all around and eyes shone with amazement.
“And as you know, about four days after the Titanic set sail for America, it struck an iceberg and sank. Over fifteen hundred people perished in the disaster.”
Excited murmuring went up, each praying, Rodney and David making the sign of the cross and Sherman clutching the small Star of David hanging around his neck.
“If we’d been on that ship, it’s almost guaranteed we would have died.” Michael stated and it was clear that even after all the years that had passed, he still wasn’t able to full grasp the miracle. “If it hadn’t been for this crazy rash, I wouldn’t be here, right now talking to you guys.”
“Woo! That was one hell of a story!” Sherman was grinning and offering around more cigarettes.
“I got goose bumps!” David proclaimed and was showing off his arm, little bumps visible on it.
My grandfather had asked for one and just as Sherman was about to throw it, Michael took it from him and very kindly, walked over to my grandfather and handed it to him.
“So you survived one disaster, Michael…” Rodney was huffing smoke in the air as he was lighting the cigarette for my grandfather. “Aren’t you scared to die still? I mean, you know there’s been talk of us going to war with Japan.”
“Don’t start in on that mess again Rodney.” David was rolling his eyes and shuffling the cards. “Ain’t nobody gonna do nothing. Hell, we’ve been docked for nearly a week now. And I don’t know why they’d come all the way to Hawaii and bother us.”
“Yeah.” Grandpa said Michael didn’t immediately go back to the table and was hanging around his cot. “Pearl Harbor is one of the most laid back bases I’ve ever been on. The U.S.S. Arizona isn‘t going anywhere!” He boasted and drew cries of approval.
Michael was partially drowned out by the sound of a low flying plane going overhead.
“God damn! They need to stop those fools from practicing their flying maneuvers so early in the morning!” Sherman bellyached. “And what the hell is that whistling noise?”
A moment later, the entire ship exploded.
You see, my grandfather was on one of the ships blown up by Japanese kamikaze bombers in the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. It was an attack that left nearly five thousand men dead.
My grandfather and Michael Jackson were two of the very few that survived the direct hit the U.S.S. Arizona took.
As he and Michael were both in the corner of the sick bay, instead of near the center of it, as Rodney, David and Sherman were, instead of being blown to bits as the bomb exploded, they were instead blown back and out of a port hole into the bay. Though both were wounded, they did live to see another day.
And my grandfather forever said that he believed he’d been touched by some of the good luck that seemed to follow the man who only broke out in a peculiar rash when a life needed to be saved.
The End.
Whoa...Tiff... great story girl!! lol..i loved it, please keep writing for short stories..
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