Robert Mason - Chickenhawk - Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

“Absolutely. All clear,” Dave had said.

I looked at the head cop, at the three other cops. Everybody was looking as mean and as grim as they could look, like cops are supposed to look when they’re trying to scare the shit out of you. They were all staring at me like I was on my way to death row. I felt like I was on my way to death row.

There was something more important than saving my ass. There was this thing: loyalty. I did the same thing in Vietnam. We were wrong to be there, but I fought the fight. It’s loyalty to the side you’re on. You pick sides, you play the game the best way you know how. When your team fumbles the ball, well, that’s the way it goes. Maybe you work it out after the game. You do nothing to help the other side. “You have my statement on your tape machine, sir.”

The cop shook his head. “Okay, Mason,” he said quietly. “You’ll never be able to say I didn’t give you a chance. You live with that?”

“I’ll have to.”

The cop stood up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

I stood up and walked out to the waiting room where John and Ireland and Chuck and Sam waited. They told me to sit in a chair across from John and Ireland. I sat. The cops went back into the office. I said, “Uh, Chuck.”

“Yeah, Robert?”

“Bob. Just call me Bob,” I said. “Look, Chuck. This fucking plastic piece of shit handcuff you snapped on me is killing my hands. I can’t feel a thing.”

Chuck look concerned, nodded, and came over. I stood up and he looked behind me. I felt him tug the cuffs. “Is a little tight.” He said to Sam, “You got another cuff, Sam?”

“That was it, Chuck,” Sam said, shrugging.

Chuck nodded and said to me, “That was it, Bob.”

“Can’t you just cut the fucking thing off? I mean, where am I going to go, Chuck? I don’t think I deserve to lose my hands over this, do you?”

Chuck shook his head, seemed to be thinking. “Just a minute.” He went into the office where the state cops were talking cop strategy, working the phones, radioing messages to search teams and stuff. A minute later he came out with a new plastic cuff. “They had a spare,” he said, smiling. He fished a pocketknife out of his pants. “Turn around, I’ll fix you up.”

Chuck cut off my cuffs and let me rub my hands together. They were blue, swollen, numb as dead flesh. After a while I could feel them tingle. I put my hands back behind me and Chuck put on the new cuffs and cinched them up loose enough so they didn’t cut my circulation, but tight enough so I couldn’t get them off. “Thanks, Chuck,” I said.

“No problem, Bob.”

I sat down and stared at the posters on the wall. There was going to be some kind of county fair in McClellanville in a couple of weeks. The Clyde Beatty Circus was coming. A big tiger jumped through a flaming hoop. On the other wall was an OSHA safety poster with diagrams showing you that you should not bend over to lift heavy objects; you should squat down, use your legs. Most industrial back injuries, the poster said, are caused by workers using improper lifting techniques. An electric clock over the secretary’s desk said it was five o’clock in the morning. Funny, I wasn’t the least bit tired. Guess it was the nap. I stared at the carpet. What a dingy color, brown with yellow speckles. Probably it was supposed to not show dirt. Nice. You could puke on this carpet and never know it.

“Okay, Chuck,” the state cop said to the Sam and Chuck from the doorway of the office. “You guys can go. The feds want us to take them to Charleston. Boss just said he wants you to know he thinks you and your boys did a great job, Chuck.”

Sam and Chuck smiled. “Hey, it was nothing. All in a day’s work,” Chuck said. “See you at the trial.” Chuck and Sam said good-bye to the cops and to us and left. Friendly guys. I could see the dim glow of dawn outside when they went through the door.

“Okay, let’s go,” the cop said. John and Ireland and I stood up.

One cop held each of us by the arm and they escorted us outside. They led Ireland and John to separate police cars. My cop, a quiet guy who’d been at my interrogation, took me to his car, an unmarked Ford LTD. He opened the passenger door, told me to get in. I sat down on the front seat with my arms wedged behind me. He closed the door and walked around the front of the car, watching me the whole time, like I might gnaw my way through the door with my teeth. He got in behind the wheel.

The cop was silent until we hit the main highway. “You seem like a well-educated guy,” the cop said. “I’d’ve thought you’d be smart enough to cooperate with us. They had to say they can’t guarantee you anything. But I know they’d go easy on you if you told me where you guys came from, who’s on the shore team. They’d be extra-special glad if you told them who you work for.”

“That’s why we’re in separate cars? Give us our last chance to confess?”

“Yeah. That and to prevent you from cooking up a story together.”

I nodded as we joined a stream of commuter traffic. “Yeah. I guess if you left us alone we’d be able to come up with some real clever story—explain away all that fucking pot, all right.”

The cop laughed.

It was almost six-thirty. The highway was packed with commuters on their way to work. The cars moved in slow clots along an artery to the city. I stared into the cars we passed, looking at the people. We stayed beside one guy so long, I got to know him. He looked drowsy, tired, pissed off. He sipped coffee from an insulated plastic mug with a picture of Yogi Bear on it.

I read this man’s mind. He was thinking: What am I doing wrong? I don’t think I can make it through another goddamn day. If shit-for- brains says one more thing about my expenses, I’ll tell him to stuff it. I will. He nods. His mind drifts home: What’s eating Margaret? I can’t figure it out. What does she do all day? The boys are turning into fucking monsters. She’s turning into a surly slob. She always used to keep the place clean, kept herself looking nice, smiled now and then. He shakes his head, sips from Yogi. Can’t figure it out. I do my part. I put up with shit-for-brains for what they pay sewer workers in New York. I mow the yard every Saturday. I take out the garbage Tuesdays and Thursdays. What more does she want? The commuter shakes his head and smiles a cynical smile. On tap for regional manager, my ass. Shit-for-brains keeps saying that so I won’t quit. Sure, you bet. The chances of me getting sales manager over his dimwit brother-in-law are the same as me sprouting another dick.

That’s what the commuter was thinking.

The cop said, “You know, I feel sorry for you, Mason.”

Funny. So did I.

We left the commuter behind. The early morning sun washed his grim face in gold. I nodded at him, telling him not to worry so much; things could be worse. Start your own business; tell Margaret you love her; take the monsters camping. But he didn’t notice me. His mind was working on so many problems he probably didn’t see the road.

I wanted very much to be that commuter.

PART THREE

THE PAYOFF

CHAPTER 20

“Bend over,” the marshal said.

The state cop who’d driven me in smiled awkwardly. The head cop behind the desk shot an embarrassed grin at the Treasury agent standing beside him. Somebody’s got to do it.

Humiliation is the tool of choice in basic training. Once, when I didn’t move fast enough in the run-fall-in-the-dirt-crawl-and-kill-the-enemy lessons, a sergeant made me grab my crotch.

“What do you feel there, Private?’’ the sergeant yelled.

“Balls, sir!’’

“I don’t believe it! You have balls, Private?”

“Yessir,” I yelled.