Chickenhawk: Back in the World

I asked a guy on the other side of me, a sturdy, thick man, why they called them hacks.

“I’m not sure why,” said the man. “Somebody told me it comes from what they call cabs. And whenever you go anywhere in a real prison—not this fucking place—you go with a guard. You take a hack. Sound right?”

“Sounds fine.”

“What’s your name?”

“Bob Mason.”

“Mine’s Don Barnett. You happen to be the writer?”

“I think so. I mean, I’m a writer.”

Barnett smiled and called across the isle. “Hey, Lauder, this is the guy.”

“What guy?” said a suntanned man about my age. He looked over at me.

“The guy who wrote that book you’re reading,” Don said.

Lauder smiled. “No shit?”

I nodded.

“Great book,” Lauder said. “I didn’t know shit about Vietnam. You made me think I was there.”

“Thanks,” I said, unsure of myself. I was not used to meeting people who’d read my book. They had the advantage of knowing a whole lot more about me than I knew about them. I revealed a lot about myself in Chickenhawk, and I figured somebody was going to use my candor against me. I mean, I actually admitted that I’d masturbated in Vietnam. I kept expecting to hear somebody call me a jerkoff.

“They’re coming!” the lookout said. He stepped back to his bunk.

We assumed count position. The man on the top bunk sat with his legs draped over the foot of his bed. The man on the lower bunk stood in the aisle.

Two hacks walked in the door and barked, “Count.” One stayed near the door and the other walked up the aisle nodding at each inmate, counting. When he’d walked up and down each side, he gave the number to the other guard. The guard checked his count sheet and nodded. The two hacks walked out the door to the porch and were gone.

The inmates crowded around the door, chattering like kids, making jokes. I asked Barnett what going on.

“We’re first for chow this week. It rotates among the dorms.” He looked at the eager mob by the door. “They’re going to race to the chow line. Not much happens here. This is a big deal.”

The speaker blared: “The count is clear. The count is clear. Dorm Three may proceed to dinner.”

The doors burst open and I watched the men scramble out on the porch and onto the sidewalks. I’d read part of my Admissions and Orientation Guide already. You could not run anywhere in camp except the jogging trail. You had to stay on the sidewalks. The men walked in the hip-swiveling gait of professional speed walkers, arms swinging, racing to the mess hall. I vowed I would never rush to dinner. I’d prefer starving to letting these people see me that eager for their food.

John came into my section. “Wanna go check out the place before we eat?”

We walked along the sidewalks of the prison. The five dormitories were grouped irregularly in an immaculately groomed landscape. Dorm Three was the worst-looking building in the camp. The other four dorms were single-story concrete buildings that looked like college dorms. Everything was neat and tidy. The hedges were flat as tables. Sidewalks were edged. There were no weeds. The grass was cropped as smooth as a carpet. We came to a service road that led in from the base and formed the eastern boundary of the camp. The service road looped around the buildings in the camp and exited at the west side. We walked south along it. Inmate joggers and speed walkers passed us. Just past the last dormitory, Dorm Five, was a wooded area, and just beyond it was a finger of water from Choctawhatchee Bay that came into the camp. We veered off the service road, following a woodsy path down to the white sandy beach. The water was dark and uninviting. We walked along the beach until we saw a guy named Jeff who’d checked in when we did. He was standing on the beach, staring at the water.

“Nice beach,” I said.

“Yeah, better’n no beach. But I’m from the Virgins.”

John and I nodded. We, the three newbies, looked over at the long line of inmates in front of the mess hall which was right in front of Dorm Five.

“Just like the Army,” I said. “Find a line and stand in it.” Two guys walking the path together rushed past us.

“I hear there’s some asshole big-deal writer showing up today,” Jeff said.

I smiled. “He’s here,” I said.

“Really? Where?”

“There,” John said, pointing to me.

“Really?” Jeff said, grinning. “Sorry.”

“Hey,” I said. “You got the asshole part right. I didn’t get where I am today by being smart.” Jeff laughed. I noticed a Huey flying just over the trees behind him. I felt a pang of embarrassment, imagining the pilot seeing me.

We decided to go eat and continue our tour later.

The mess hall was designed to feed five hundred inmates, the maximum this camp was supposed to hold. The population when John and I arrived was about six hundred and fifty. The result at the mess hall was longer waits and earlier opening of the serving line. Some inmates ate dinner before the four o’clock count.