Роберт Мейсон - Chickenhawk - Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

In May, when I had about a week left before my release to a halfway house in Ocala, I was reading in my cube when two Cubans started a loud argument in the hall right next to me. In the intervening eight months since the big Cuban roundup, their population had returned to its previous level. It was noisy again. I’d had one blessing in the meantime: the prison had removed all the phones from the dorms and installed a calling center in a small shed attached to the administration building. It was not as convenient, but it was quieter.

I tried to ignore the chatter. Then I heard some guys in the section yell “Shutthefuckup!” but the Cubans ignored them. I was looking at my book, but I wasn’t reading. Anger welled within me. I had endured, for almost two years, what I considered bedlam, and now these two guys were pushing me over the edge. I concentrated on the book. They yammered away, louder. Finally I threw down my book, stomped out of my cube, and approached the two Cubans.

I recognized one of them. He’d been here as long as me. “Hey. How about a break? There’s got to be a couple of miles of hallways in this camp. Why here? Better yet, why not outside?”

They stared at me like I’d accused them of being too friendly with their mothers, faced each other, and started talking again. I don’t know what they were talking about. They spoke Spanish.

“Hey,” I said. “Didn’t you understand me?”

The guy I recognized said, “We understand you. We can talk anywhere we want. This is a public hallway.”

Something snapped inside me—the insanity fuse, I suppose. I walked up to them and pushed my face into theirs like I’d learned to do in the Army. “You want to talk?” I yelled. “Then let’s fucking talk!”

They backed up a little. I’d surprised them. I’d surprised myself. “Hey. What’s wrong with you, man? You crazy?”

“Crazy? Me? No, you assholes, I want to talk, too. I can talk any fucking place I want to. Why not here? This is a public hallway!”

“You’re asking for big trouble, man,” said one of the Cubans.

“Trouble?” My voice was getting louder as I spoke. “For talking in a fucking public hallway?” I yelled. “C’mon, let’s talk. I like to talk.”

“I’m gonna take you to Tallahassee with me if you don’t leave us alone!” yelled one.

“Fine!” I yelled. “I’d love to go to Tallahassee! Talk, goddamn it! Let’s talk!”

If I had a fight, we’d all go to a real prison, maybe Tallahassee, and I’d stay there for my full term, possibly longer. I knew that, but it didn’t seem to mean anything to me. What I wanted was to be left alone. I wanted some peace in the bedlam, and these guys were in the way.

The guy I knew stepped away from my intruding face and yelled, “Okay, motherfucker. You asked for it. You and me. You and me are going on a trip, motherfucker!”

“Fine,” I yelled, closing on him. “Let’s go!” This was all the more absurd when you consider that I’d never had a fight with anyone since the third grade, unless you consider pummeling your buddies in basic training fighting. “C’mon,” I yelled.

I thought my ferocity was finally getting through to them because I saw their eyes widen as I snarled like a lunatic. They moved farther away, edging toward the door. Hey, I was tougher than I thought. “Whatsa matter, assholes? Don’t want to talk anymore?” I yelled.

The Cuban stuttered with rage, glaring at me, and also glancing over my shoulder. “Lucky for you, motherfucker,” the Cuban said. “I’m going on furlough tomorrow. But when I come back—you and me. You and me, motherfucker. We’re going to Tallahassee,” he screamed. And then, miraculously, they turned and left, pausing only once to shake their fists. I heard cheering in the section. I turned around and saw twenty smiling heads bobbing over the cube walls. I turned farther around and saw that Sammy McGuire was standing behind me. Sammy McGuire the famous Cuban killer from Dorm Three. He’d come up to help me. It was him they’d been staring at. It was Sammy they were afraid of. “Hey, Sammy,” I said, “thanks a lot. I didn’t know you were there.”

“That’s okay, Bob. Those boys just don’t have the simplest fucking manners, you know? I don’t know how they get that way.” He smiled and said “You did all right, Bob” and walked back to his cube.

Early Friday morning, May 17, 1985. I’d been awake since two a.m. In the dim light of the exit sign, I double-checked my cube. Everything was gone except a few books. My sheets and blankets were all packed into one pillowcase, my prison clothes and work boots were stuffed in another. I wore the last set of blues I’d wear in prison. I’d change into my street clothes on the way out.

I’d just shipped all my personal stuff home, including my untouched robot manuscript. When I took the boxes to the administration building for inspection prior to shipment, the hack there said good-bye and asked what I was going to do when I got out. “I’m going to get a faster boat,” I said, and laughed with him.

I took the books and put them on Walton’s desk. He’d be here for a few more months. I sat down on my bunk. Four-thirty: that’s what time they were coming for me. My watch said four. I walked over to the water fountain and drank. I went to the glass doors and leaned against the frame. The mess hall was lit up, the inmate kitchen crew was making breakfast. I went back to my cube and lay down on my stripped mattress.

I waited.

Maybe they forgot. I stood up and checked the section. No hack in sight. I lay down. Maybe they did forget. They forgot lots of things.

I waited. I remembered my ice-cream party. I had it the previous Sunday. It was a sign of my status in the prisoner hierarchy that I could have an ice-cream party on a Sunday. The commissary was closed during the weekends, so you had to have a party during the week or you couldn’t get the ice cream. I used my connections in the kitchen and stored about forty pints of Haagen-Dazs in the kitchen freezer. Further proof of my power was that the ice cream was still there when I went to pick it up. It was a good party, I thought.

I got the ice cream on Friday. Elliott Ness was working the register when I went behind the line and started loading up a shopping bag with pints of Haagen-Dazs from the ice-cream freezer. He said, “Getting ready to leave, Bob?”

“Yeah, Mr. Holbrook. I’m going to zero my account.”

He nodded and pulled my account sheet. “You have twenty-four dollars left, enough for ten pints and some change.”

“Keep the change.”

“Can’t. We’ll send you a check.”

I nodded and continued packing the ice cream into the bag. Leone, who was working the line with Frank, came over and asked if I needed any help. I said no, put the twentieth pint in the bag, set it aside, and popped open another bag. “How much you taking, Bob?” Leone asked.

“I have enough money for ten,” I said. Leone blinked and stared at the bag I had just filled. He glanced over his shoulder at Elliott Ness and grinned. I filled up the second bag and picked them both up, freezing against my body. I walked toward Elliott Ness, toward the door. “You got your ten?” he asked.

“Yessir,” I said. At least ten. I didn’t know why I was doing this. I was risking a lot, stealing in a prison camp in full view of a guard—after never having stolen anything for nearly two years—a few days before my release. It just happened. Maybe I’m incorrigible. Elliott Ness, who knew me as the squarest and most trustworthy of the commissary crew, didn’t even look up. He put my account sheet in the machine and charged my account. I walked outside, grinning. As my last official act in Eglin, I had committed larceny in front of the FBI.