Chickenhawk: Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

By seven-thirty, I was home. I’d make Patience a cup of coffee, drink another cup myself, read the paper, and be at work by nine. I worked on my robot book in the attic of our cabin. Patience had bought a computer while I was in prison, so now I had a new way to write. I trashed the manuscript I’d carried with me for two years because, as Knox said, it wasn’t “up to the standards you set in Chickenhawk, Bob.” As a matter of fact, Knox not only hated what I’d written, he hated the idea. Knox doesn’t like science fiction, and he especially hates robot stories. That was okay. My goal was to write a robot story that Knox would like because I didn’t want the book to be considered strictly science fiction. I wanted the average reader to experience my robot as though it were real, now. Knox would be my litmus test.

I wrote from nine to twelve every day and then spent time working on the cabin. I’d left it unfinished and Patience was reluctant to have anything done until I got back.

At four-thirty in the afternoon, I left for Ocala, where, at five-thirty or so, I put my time card into the time clock and put the card back in the rack. Now I was free until ten, but I was in Ocala.

Ocala is a small place but it had a nice library. I spent most of my time in the library. If there was a movie playing I hadn’t seen, I went to see it. I saw every movie released from May to September 1985. I also tried to shop for new clothes. All my stuff was old before I went to prison. It was even worse now.

Shopping was really difficult. The big department stores were incredibly intimidating. I saw how much stuff people really needed when I ran the commissary. Nobody needs all this stuff, I thought. The stores were overstocked. They had way too many brands of duplicate products. It was a tragic waste.

I spent hours looking at shirts, checking prices, trying them on. The result of most of my shopping trips was that I agonized for hours and ended up buying nothing. I couldn’t decide; I’d freeze trying to decide to buy a shirt for twenty-five dollars or one for twenty. I worried myself sick that I’d run out of money. I’d been living on thirty-three dollars a month. Just one decent shirt cost more than that. I had lots of money in the bank, but I had no confidence I’d ever sell another book, and how long would I get royalties from Chickenhawk? It took me four months to buy four shirts and four pairs of pants. I spent two weeks stalking a mall before I got the courage to buy a pair of running shoes.

By ten I was checked in at the Salvation Army. The television in the front room was permanently tuned to the Christian Broadcasting Company. Jim and Tammy Bakker were the drill on Captain Gerber’s ship. Each night the people in the front room were different. The rule was that indigents could stay one night. They got dinner after a prayer meeting. They got breakfast before they had to leave the next day, no prayers required. These people, men mostly, sat staring at Jim and Tammy telling them how God would help them just like He’d helped Jim and Tammy. Homeless men stared at the effervescent, clown-faced Tammy Bakker with vacant eyes.

One morning, while I made my coffee, I watched a young mother with a baby and a two-year-old eating breakfast. I asked her where she was going. She said she’d go as far as she could walk. One of the benefits of capitalism is that it offers constant reminders of the consequences of failure, especially if you hang around places like the Salvation Army. I felt terrible. I wanted to do something for her, but deciding what to do about her and the others that drifted into this place every day was even tougher than picking out a shirt. I wasn’t able to help. I nodded, poured my coffee, and left. That, I figured, was where I was going to be if I didn’t get another book published.

The routine changed on Friday. Patience came with me to Ocala in the afternoon. I turned in my Xeroxed paycheck from Knox, punched in, and punched out for the weekend. Then we drove to Gainesville and went to the Wine and Cheese Gallery. There, in a small courtyard behind the restaurant, I saw old friends and met new people—none of them felons—musicians, attorneys, professors, computer programmers, and so on. The Friday meetings became a regular thing and I began drinking beer. The Wine and Cheese had a hundred different brands from all over the world, and I probably tried them all over a period of four months. I hadn’t had a drink or a joint or even a cigarette for nearly two years. I’d been detoxed. I wanted to get retoxed.

Saturdays I worked on the cabin. On Sundays I lay around and read until about eight-thirty. Then I’d attempt to choose some clothes to wear at the bunkhouse. I found the task frustrating and irksome. Why do I have to pick what I wear every day? Why doesn’t everybody just wear the same thing?