Chickenhawk: Back in the World

I’d quit writing after lunch and go for walks in the woods with Patience. It was no good. I’d walk a few hundred feet and get breathless. I felt like a deflated balloon. All my strength left me when I tried to relax. I stayed in the cabin and read. I was reading The World According to Garp, which I liked very much. In the evenings, Vickie and her husband, Peter, usually came down to the cabin and we sat around and talked. I played chess with Peter.

When everybody went home, when Patience and I went to bed, I’d sit bolt upright against the headboard, unable to sleep. My pulse raced. I had chest pains. My hearing would mysteriously fade in and out, like someone switching the balance on a stereo. I tried the meditation tricks the VA had taught me. I could relax every muscle in my body to absolute biofeedback perfection and still feel undefined panic take over.

For two months I wrote every morning, read every afternoon, and panicked when it was quiet and I was alone with myself. Even Alan Watts’s heartening words about life, the universe, and everything were of no comfort.

In October Patience started cleaning houses in Gainesville to make ends meet.

By Christmas 1981, I’d finished the manuscript and sent it to Viking. Gerry Howard called. He’d found out I was going to jail by reading the last page of the manuscript. He told me he was behind me all the way and so was Viking. He told me that the editing process would take a while—he expected the book would get to the stores sometime early in 1983, over a year after I’d finished it.

I got a letter from Jerry Towler. He sounded just like he had in Vietnam. I don’t know why that was so surprising except that sixteen years had passed since I’d last seen him. He said he and his wife, Martie, were taking their two sons to Disney World and why didn’t they stop by? I wondered how to break the news to my long-lost brother-in-arms that I was soon to be a convict.

A week later, Jerry called. They were in High Springs. Patience and I drove into town to show them the way to our cabin. When I saw him sitting in his car, I noticed he’d changed. He used to be a young, skinny guy; now he was older, thicker. He remarked that I’d changed, too. In just a few minutes, the changes became invisible and the guy I’d flown with was back, grinning the same impish grin. He introduced me to Martie and his two sons, Greg and Ryan, and we got back into our cars and drove out to the cabin.

I gave them a tour of our woods. I’d cut a mile and a half of trails through it and considered the whole woods a home. Certain clearings were like rooms to me. I showed them the local plants and bugs and especially the spiders. Huge orb weavers, called banana spiders by the locals, and Nephila clavipes in spider books, were special to me. I’d been studying them for years. Their silk is the strongest natural fiber in the world and is used to make string and fishnets in Central and South America. Martie was decidedly unimpressed, even when I showed her you could stick your finger right up to the face of one of these three-inch spiders. “See, it won’t bite. Not unless you grab it,” I said. Martie shuddered and wondered if we could go back to the cabin now.

We had lunch and talked for the few hours they could spare. I kept trying to think of some smooth way to break the news that I was soon going to jail, but I couldn’t. I decided to let Jerry read about it. I promised that I’d have Viking send him an advance copy. “Yeah. Then it’s too late for me to make it right,” Jerry said.

“I know. Too bad we didn’t find each other sooner.”

“I bet you didn’t even mention how many times I saved your life,” Jerry said.

“You saved my life?” I said. I turned to Martie. “Martie, you wouldn’t have this guy as a husband or those two handsome boys if it wasn’t for me being there to keep him from killing himself trying to fly that helicopter.”

“Now I know who to blame,” Martie said with a grin.

When they drove away, I felt guilty. Jerry and Martie were the epitome of the middle-class, hardworking, honest American family and I was a convicted drug smuggler.

Editing was completed by June 1982, and Viking published a bound galley they sent out to reviewers. I made a few changes in the galley, including the fact that Jerry had gotten shot down during the la Drang Valley campaign, spent the night on the ground with the grunts, was nearly overrun in an all-out Viet Cong attack. I’d forgotten that until Jerry talked about it on his visit.

I started working on my robot book again.

My lawyer called to say the district court of appeals had decided not to overrule Judge Blatt’s decision. The vote was three to two. The next step was to take it to the U.S. Supreme Court. “You won’t get a hearing there,” Bowling said.

“So what’s the point?” I said.

“The outside chance they’ll hear it,” Bowling said. “And you’re free until they decide.”