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

“Got it!” Porter yelled. He swaggered into view, holding the stick. He’d been hiding up against the wall in the hallway, out of sight. “I told you, I pick what you see around here.” Porter nodded sternly and broke the paper stick over his knee and stomped the soap bar to crumbs. He turned around and switched the channel back to channel four. I never figured out why Porter cared what channel we watched or why he preferred channel four. Life is filled with mysteries like Porter.

I followed Porter along the bars as he walked down the hallway to the door. “Porter,” I said. “I’d like to make that call now.”

“You got to ask the man,” Porter said.

“The man?”

“Yeah, you got to ask them,” he said, waving at the hallway in general.

“You mean I have to yell at some people I can’t see when I can just ask you?”

“Yeah. That’s the rules.”

I stood there, hanging on to the bars, watching Porter walk through the door. This guy was serious. I yelled, “Hey! Hey, somebody. Mason wants to make a phone call!”

No answer. They never answered until you yelled for a long while. If they answered right away, then everybody’d be asking them for God knows what. I yelled two more times, louder each time.

“You just made a phone call.”

“I didn’t get who I wanted to get,” I shouted.

“That’s not my fault,” said the voice.

“Look,” I said. “Nobody in my family even knows I’m in jail. When I called before, it was my son. I want to talk to my wife.”

“What?”

I could see this nitwit, sitting in some room somewhere with a microphone in front of him, bored out of his skull, snickering at what was probably the most interesting thing that would happen to him tonight, maybe this whole week.

“Look,” I shouted, “I’m allowed to make a phone call, and I want to make it now. It’s my right.”

No answer. I was about ready to yell again when the voice said, “Okay. Wait.” I guess he got tired of the game.

I went back to the table and sat next to John. “This is fucked, John. When do we see a damn lawyer?”

“The team’s on it, Bob,” John said. “I’m sure of it. They won’t let us down.”

Right. The team. How could I have forgotten? I turned to Loopy. “Loopy. Give me a cigarette.”

Loopy shook his head. “You guys got no money,” Loopy said. “And I’ve got almost no cigarettes left.”

I stared at Loopy. “We’re going to get money, Loopy. Tonight. Didn’t you see our boat on TV? Two million dollars’ worth of pot? We’re big-time smugglers. We’re fucking rich, Loopy. Give me a fucking cigarette.”

Loopy did his side-to-side, twisting, nodding thing with his head that made you wonder if he had normal connections between his shoulders and his skull and said “I guess” and handed me his pack.

I lit up a cigarette and watched the stick-maker rolling up more newspaper. His buddy was carving another bar of soap with a plastic knife.

We heard the door open and I got up figuring it was Porter coming to take me to the phone, but it was Porter bringing in a new prisoner. Porter opened the door and this scrawny short blond guy with thick glasses stepped in and stared at us. Everybody was quiet because they all recognized him. This was the Piggly Wiggly murderer, for chrissakes. The guy shifted his eyes back and forth, magnified behind thick optics, giving him a nervous, owly look. He frowned and marched directly to a table at the back of the dayroom. Everybody at the table got up and left. The Piggly Wiggly murderer sat down with his back to the wall and stared at us. Everybody in the room stared back. Even the guy making the channel-changing stick stopped working to stare at this guy. Here he was, a guy who just a few hours ago blew away his boss and his friend to get their paychecks. The big question on most people’s minds was, how did he plan to cash the checks? This guy was so stupid it took your breath away.

I was staring at the Piggly Wiggly murderer when I heard Porter call me. I could make that phone call now.

“Patience?” I said.

“Are you okay?”

I was blinking fast, trying to hold on. “Patience. I want you to know that if you decide to divorce me, I really do understand. I mean, they said I might get twenty-five years.”

“Then I’ll wait twenty-five years,” Patience said. Her voice had the fire in it I’d come to respect when we ran our business together in Brooklyn. She’d been kind of shy when we first got to Brooklyn, but by the time we left she could take care of herself and keep fifty employees jumping, too. New York will do that to a person. “I’ll get you out,” she said. “I’ll find out who to call.” I nodded and croaked out “I love you” and said good-bye.

I walked along with Porter, feeling broken, back to the federal wing. I’d had it. Too much bad stuff for too long. How would we ever get through this? When Porter led me through the door, he noticed tears in my eyes. “My, my,” Porter said. “Your woman musta been real mad, eh?”

I didn’t answer. I walked into my cell and lay down on my shelf and pulled the ragged blanket up around my head. It is one thing to jeopardize yourself by taking risks, another to hurt other people in the process. I’d gone too far. I’d hurt Patience and Jack, my family, my friends. This pain was more than I’d felt in my life. Under the shroud of my blanket, I cried.

Two hours later, about seven that night, Porter told us our attorney had come.

John and I followed Porter along the hallway. Walking past an intersecting hallway, we saw Ireland, doubled up in pain, lying on the bare concrete floor. “Wait a minute, Porter,” John said.

“C’mon,” Porter said. “Keep moving.”

“That’s Ireland, our codefendant, Porter. He’s supposed to be in the infirmary, not lying on your stinking floor,” John said.

“The infirmary’s too crowded right now,” Porter said. “They’ll take care of him.”

John looked grief-stricken. As captain, his mission had failed, and now the enemy was mistreating one of his men. It was a heavy blow. Porter opened a door and told us to go inside.

The small room was filled with a table and four chairs. It was, however, a clean oasis in a filthy prison. There was a carpet on the floor and the walls were painted white. A man got up from the table, smiled at us, and said, “Dan Bowling. I’m your attorney.”

Bowling looked the part. He wore a tweed jacket over a sweater, a silk tie, tan wool slacks, and brown loafers. He told us he had graduated from Harvard Law School five years before, and his specialty had become drug cases. “I guess it’s because I’m the young attorney in the Charleston gang. Anyway, I get most of the referrals when we have a bust around here.”

Bowling told us our friends, meaning the team, had hired him, through another attorney, that afternoon, and he knew most of the details of the case by talking to the DEA. “You guys were caught with your pants down, that’s a fact,” Bowling said, laughing. “But you were caught by Customs agents, and that may be illegal search and seizure.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because only the Coast Guard can stop people in U.S. waters without just cause. They can stop you to inspect your boat for safety items and stuff. If the Customs people had seen you coming in from beyond the three-mile limit, then they could have stopped you. But they didn’t spot you until you were in the channel.”

“You think that can get us off?” John said.

“Naw. It just means we have a point to argue. We’ll make a motion that the marijuana, the evidence, was illegally obtained. If that works, they could still try you for the crime of smuggling and possession, but they wouldn’t be able to use the pot as evidence.” Bowling laughed. He clearly enjoyed his work. “Makes it tough for the prosecutors. Of course, the judge’ll never rule in our favor, but the threat might help. Might be able to negotiate something with it.”