Chickenhawk: Back in the World

“You don’t have to call him sir, either, Johnson,” Tony said, making a face at me, signifying the guy was a little off.

The man ignored Tony, something Tony was not at all used to.

“When were you there?” Johnson said to me.

“1965. First Cav.”

“You flew helicopters,” Johnson announced.

“Yes. What did you do?”

“I killed Vietnamese, sir.”

“What unit?”

“I was a Seal, sir.”

“Too bad,” I said. “I heard that was a tough job.”

“I liked to kill Vietnamese, sir.”

John plunked down the bundle of clothes. The man picked it up, about-faced, and walked out the door.

“That guy isn’t back yet,” Tony Abruzzo said.

Later, Mr. Baker told me about Johnson. It seems the staff all knew about him.

“The guy was a Seal,” Baker said.

I nodded.

“Well, he lived in Key West, heard about a pot bust, heard that the boat, still loaded, was at the Navy base there. This guy gets dressed in black—black face paint and stuff—sneaks into the base at night. He attacks, subdues, gags, and ties up the two sentries guarding the boat loaded with the evidence and then he steals the fucking boat! All by himself!” Baker started laughing. “I mean, this is one tough fucker.”

“How’d they get him?”

“Well, it was by accident,” Baker said. “The relief guards showed up early, and in a few minutes they were chasing this Seal guy down with patrol boats, searchlights, loudspeakers telling him to stop, all that. He wouldn’t. They had to shoot the boat to splinters, blow up the engine, to get him.” Baker shook his head in admiration. “Not many people like him in the real world.”

As February drew near, I began to look forward to my first furlough, one day in the local area. John and I had both applied, our wives had requested the furlough, all things that had to be done were done. We waited.

John got his approval and came to my new cube in Dorm Five to tell me. I checked the bulletin board. Nothing. I went to the counselor’s office and waited in the hallway. After an hour wait, I asked Waterhead what had happened. “They wouldn’t approve it. You’re considered a high-profile prisoner, Bob. They’re afraid the press might make a big deal about the furlough program if they let you go,” Waterhead said, not able to look me in the eye.

I met John in the mess hall and told him. He looked very upset. He was caught in the middle of one of the few good things that could happen to you at Eglin, a furlough, and a bad thing: his codefendant and friend was denied the same furlough. We ate in silence.

I walked longer than usual that evening and went to bed early. The next day, at lunchtime, I went into Waterhead’s office and told him, “This is about the most chickenshit operation I’ve ever seen. You idiots furloughed the captain of the fucking boat I was on as a crew member, a man who’s got a third longer sentence than mine, and refused to furlough me because I wrote a book. You are all assholes.” Waterhead said nothing. I slammed his door as I left.

I still didn’t feel any better, though.

Patience and I visited in the visiting room while John and Alice stayed at the beach.

The next possible furlough was in August.

I felt nails going into my skull, over my left eye, and went to the infirmary. They gave me Cafergot, a drug that constricts blood vessels. The pain vanished. The side effect of the drug is nausea, which, in comparison, is a delight.

I saw Johnson, the Seal, buffing the floor while I was at the infirmary. I asked him how he was doing. He said fine, they had him on Thorazine. “That makes me feel calm, sir.” I nodded. When I left, I saw Johnson still buffing the hall, face placid. He’d already polished the whole length of the hallway to a gleaming mirror finish; he had now started over.

I went to work.

Officially I was the inmate in charge of the clothing room, but Foster seemed to be getting the perks. For one thing, he got Post Raisin Bran at breakfast when no one else could. I tried being right behind Foster in the breakfast line, but there was never any Raisin Bran when I got to the bin. I asked Foster about it.

“I make a deal here, a deal there,” he said.

I didn’t know what he was talking about. I spent nearly every minute at work working. I didn’t have time to make deals. And what kind of deals could I make anyway?

“Rags are good,” Foster said.

“Rags?”

“Yeah,” Foster said, nodding toward an inmate kitchen worker. “See that rag hanging out of his pocket?”

I looked. Sure, all the guys who worked in the mess hall had rags to wipe the tables and stuff. “Yeah. What about them?”

“Where do you suppose those rags come from?”

Foster, a wealthy businessman on the outside, was a rag broker in Eglin?

“I wouldn’t be telling you about this, Mason, except I’m leaving in a month. I might as well let you in on some of my contacts.”

After we ate, Foster took me back behind the serving counter, into the mess hall kitchen, and introduced me to the hack who ran the place, Evans. Evans nodded when Foster told him I was taking his place. “He can get the rags?” Evans asked.

“Yeah, I’m setting him up today.”