“Penny! hey, Penny, what are you doing here?” It was Studs Levine.
Penny walked over to him and fell in alongside him. Just as she started to speak, a uniformed MP gently swatted the bottom of her tailored slacks with his billy. “Stay in line, fella,” he advised. “You’ll have plenty of time to talk to your buddy later.”
Penny shrugged it off and turned to Studs. “What are you doing here?” she threw the question right back at him.
“I’m down here to take my physical for the army,” he told her.
“So soon? I had no idea -”
“Well, I tried to tell you last night, but I never got the chance. You stormed out in such a hurry—”
“I’m sorry, Studs. It’s just that your mother—”
“Hey, buddy—” The man behind Penny tapped her on the shoulder, interrupting her.
“Yes?” Penny turned and found herself looking at a young fellow with a Beetle-style hairdo. His curly brown hair was longer than her own tresses. It took her a moment to absorb the fact that he was a man and not a woman.
“You think the shrink ’ll buy it?” he asked.
“What?” Penny said. “What did you say?”
“I said do you think the nut doctor will fall for the curly locks?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on. You don’t have to play innocent with me. You ain’t really queer. I can tell. Neither am I. But the question is will we be able to put it over?”
“What does he—?” Penny turned to Studs.
Once again she was interrupted by an MP. “Move along there,” he said. “Tighten up this line. Go on, now. Through that door.”
Penny followed Studs through the door and found herself in a narrow corridor lined with curtained cubicles on each side.
“In there.” The MP indicated that Studs should enter one of the cubicles. “And you take the next one,” he instructed Penny.
Groggy and bewildered, Penny did as she was told. She entered the cubicle and just stood there, not knowing what else to do. Ten or fifteen minutes passed by, and then a sergeant pushed the curtain aside and stood in the entrance to the cubicle. “Hey, buddy! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“N-nothing,” Penny Stammered. “I was j-just—”
“Never mind you were just! Hustle it up. We ain’t got all day. There are others waiting.”
“B-but what do you want me to d-do?”
“Oh, come on now! Save the act for the headshrinker! Just get out of those clothes, and fast!”
“What? What did you say?”
“Get undressed! That’s what! Now, I don’t want to have to tell you again. If you ain’t naked in three minutes, I’ll send a coupla MP’s in here to undress you.”
“But— But-—”
“Skip the buts! Strip! Now, that’s an order! Strip!”
Penny stripped.
CHAPTER NINE
WHAT ELSE could she do? The poor girl was so weary, so confused, so intimidated by military authority. In her Pavlovian state, she had no alternative but to do as she was told. So she stripped.
When she was naked, she saw that there was a good-sized towel hanging from a hook in the cubicle. Holding it timidly in front of her, she peeped out from behind the curtain. The young men were lined up in the aisle. The majority of them had knotted their towels around their waists. Penny tied hers somewhat higher, so that her bosom was covered, and joined the line. A few of the others cast curious looks at her, but they shrugged off the peculiarity of how she had chosen to position her towel as the line began to move.
Six at a time, they were ushered into a large, empty room with a chalk-line running down the center. They were lined up along the chalk-line so that their backs were so the examining doctor when he entered. “Drop your towels,” he ordered. Six towels crumpled to the floor. “Now touch your toes without bending your knees,” he ordered. The six strained to obey.
Kneeling, the doctor went down the line with a flat ruler. This he inserted under the feet of all. He paused at the third man in the line, unable to find space to fit the ruler under his instep. “You have flat feet,” he told him.
“I know,” the man replied happily.
“They will never take you in the army with flat feet.”
“I know.” The man grinned from ear to ear.
“How’d you get ’em, Mac?” the man beside him asked, muttering the question from the comer of his mouth.
“Simple. The last few weeks I been out stompin’ beatniks in them anti-war demonstrations. Enough stompin’ ’ll do it every time. An’ it’s patriotic, too.”
“Sure wish I’d thoughta that.”
The examining physician had now reached Penny. Like a true specialist, he kept his eyes directed downward. Feet were the only things which concerned him. Now, as he slipped the ruler under Penny’s instep, his eyebrows shot upwards. “Well, you’re certainly not flat-footed,” he observed. “I’ve never seen such a well-developed arch on a man.”
“It must come from wearing high heels,” Penny grunted.
“It must come from wearing high heels, sir!” the doctor chastised her. “I am a reserve officer in the armed forces of the United States of America, and you might as well get used right now to treating rank with the respect it commands!”
“I didn’t know you were rank. I’m sorry, sir,” Penny apologized.
“All right, then.” The doctor was mollified. “Now, about these high heels. How come, soldier? What are you, from Texas or something?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I suppose it’s really your business. But it’s making your toes curl, you know.” The doctor stood up and left the examining room.
As soon as he was gone, the six prospective inductees straightened up. But not for long. Another doctor replaced the first and barked out the inevitable order. “Bend over!” The six bent and struggled to touch their toes once again.
“Spread your cheeks!” the doctor commanded.
He fit a sort of elongated monocle into one eye, stooped over, and started down the line. The fourth man brought him up short. He peered. He stepped back. He removed the eyepiece. He polished it with his handkerchief. He bent over and peered once again. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed aloud. He bolted from the room.
A moment later he returned, another doctor hurrying along behind him. “It’s this man here,” the first doctor pointed. “It’s unbelievable.”
“You must be seeing things, Dudley,” the second doctor remarked. He stooped over, fitted in his eyepiece, and looked for himself. “My God! You’re right!”
“I told you.”
“I was sure you were having a delusion. As a matter of fact, maybe we’re both having a delusion. We’d better call Louis in on this.” The second doctor scurried out and returned with a third doctor. “Look for yourself,” he was saying as he led the third physician over to the man. “Then tell me what you see!”
The third doctor stooped, peered, blanched and straightened. “I’ll be damned!” he said.
“What did you see?” the first doctor asked him.
“Another eye!” the third doctor admitted. “Staring straight back at me!”
“That’s what I saw,” the first doctor said.
“Me too,” the second doctor concurred.
“I thought I was seeing things,” the first doctor said.
“Me too.”
“Well, you weren’t,” the third doctor reassured them. “It’s an eye, all right. A blue eye. And it stared straight hack at me without blinking!”
“Excuse me, sirs.” The man they were examining twisted his head over his shoulder. “I think I can explain—”
“Silence!” the first doctor thundered. “You are in the presence of officers, and we did not give you permission to speak!” He knelt for another look.