Chickenhawk: Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

“Hello, sir. May I enter?”

I wanted to tell Johnson to stop calling me sir, but you could tell that was how he wanted it, how he saw the world, I think. He sat across from me on my folding chair. I sat up against the headboard of the lower bunk.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” Johnson said.

“Really? You just got here. I heard you got five years. Judge give you a break?”

“My employers are getting me out.”

“Your employers?”

“Yes,” Johnson said with finality. I was not to ask for details. Either he was a total looney, or he was telling the truth.

Johnson said nothing for a long moment. Then: “I have bad dreams, sir.”

I nodded. “I understand. So do I.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. Civilians can’t understand. I’ve always had them, but they’re getting worse. I have them while I’m awake. I see people. People I’ve killed.”

This guy was messed up. I was the only one he could talk to? “Do you have a wife, Johnson? A girlfriend? Someone close?”

“No, sir. No family. I had a wife. I woke up strangling her, sir. I am afraid to fall asleep with a woman, so I don’t make friends with them.”

I swallowed. I thought I had it bad? “What did you do there, Johnson? What’d they make you do?”

“I am an assassin, sir. I worked alone, mostly. My specialty was taking out individual targets. They’d want a particular man, in a Viet Cong-controlled village, usually a village elder or leader, killed. Just the one man, usually. The idea was not just to kill the man, but to scare the rest of the villagers.”

‘’You could sneak into a Viet Cong village, kill a guy, and get back out?”

“Yes. I never bathed. I smelled like the jungle. I’d get into the man’s village, past their trip wires and punjis. I’d get into his house. I can see him sleeping on his mats. His wife is only a few feet away. I hold him down, sink my knife under his sternum, into his heart, hold him until he stops jerking, and leave. The dogs don’t bark. I am the jungle. When they find him the next day, it scares them because it shows that no one is safe at night. I once stayed to watch, it was so close to dawn. The whole village wailed and cried. I was in a tree, watching them like you do ants. Women, kids, screaming in terror. I didn’t feel a thing.”

I nodded. Johnson was staring at me. “You’re traumatized, Johnson. It’s part of the trauma, not feeling.”

“Yessir, so I’ve been told. But I think I’m just evil, sir. I liked to kill. I preferred killing alone, though. Sometimes, in teams, the leader would have us surround the village. Then they’d set it on fire. We’d just snipe the people as they ran away from the fire. Wasn’t much to it.”

“Except for the people being killed.”

“Except for the people being killed,” Johnson said, nodding. “I know something’s wrong. I should feel something. I remember they, the officers, started thinking I was taking my work too seriously, I was collecting ears. They made me stand down. Three days. Ordered me to rest, R&R in the camp, have some beers. I hated it. I don’t drink. I sat around camp the first day, not knowing what to do with myself. I cleaned my rifle, sharpened my knives. I went into the jungle that night. I came back the next morning with ears. Took them to the CO and tossed them on his desk. I said, ‘Three less for you to kill, sir.’ The CO, all of them, figured I was crazy, but I was also good at my job. They never made me stand down again.”

“You did this for three years straight? No leaves?”

“I never left. Only when I was transferred. My new employers wanted me to work elsewhere.”

“Where?”

Johnson shook his head. “Lots of places. You don’t want to know, sir.”

I nodded. I think I already knew too much. “You say these … these employers … they’re going to get you out of here?”

“Yessir. In two days. A job has come up.”

I swallowed. “How do you feel about that?”

“I hope he kills me, sir, but I’m afraid he can’t,” Johnson said. His eyes pierced mine. If ever a face looked truthful, Johnson’s did.

Two days later, Johnson, having served three months of a five-year sentence, was gone. I sincerely hope he got his wish.

CHAPTER 29

In June they assigned me my first permanent cube. It turned out to be one next to the main aisle, closest to the back door to the mess hall, and ten feet from the phone booth.

I accused Waterhead of picking it especially to torment me. I’d complained that the noise was giving me headaches. I just thought it was noisy before. Now it was cacophony. I applied for a transfer which was never granted. I traded some new socks for a set of earplugs from a tree-trimmer inmate. That didn’t work. I could hear myself swallow, the ringing in my ears, and the soft rumble of the noise I was trying to avoid. There is nothing louder than sound avoided.

Jeff, John Tillerman, and I were walking our laps one afternoon. Jeff said he’d been on a work detail at the Air Force warehouse where he worked with six other inmates. They had spent the day unloading all the brand-new cans of paint stored inside, throwing them into Dempster Dumpsters.