The Intruders

2

After a miserable night in a motel near O‘hare, Jake got a seat the next day on the first flight to Seattle. Unfortunately, the next Harbor Airlines flight to Oak Harbor was full, so he had two hours to kill at Sea-Tac. He headed for the bar and sat nursing a beer.

The war was over, yet it wasn’t. That was the crazy thing.

He had tried to keep his cool in Chicago and had done a fair job until the professor goaded him beyond endurance. Now he sat going over the mess again, for the fifteenth time, wondering what Callie was thinking, wondering what she felt.

The ring was burning a hole in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it from time to time, trying to shield it in his hand so that casual observers wouldn’t think him weird.

Maybe he ought to throw the damned thing away. It didn’t look like he was ever going to get to give it to Callie, not in this lifetime, anyway, and he certainly wasn’t going to hang on to it for future presentation to whomever. He was going to have to do something with it.

He had been stupid to buy the ring in the first place. He should have waited until she said Yes, then taken her to a jewelry store and let her pick out the ring. Normal guys got the woman first, the ring second. A fellow could avoid a lot of pitfalls if he did it the tried-and-true traditional way.

Water under the bridge.

But, God! he felt miserable. So empty, as if he had absolutely nothing to live for.

He was glumly staring into his beer mug when he heard a man’s voice ask, “Did you get that in Vietnam?”

Jake looked. Two stools down sat a young man, no more than twenty-two or — three. His left hand was a hook sticking out of his sleeve. His interrogator was older, pushing thirty, bigger, and stood waiting for the bartender to draw him a beer.

“Yeah,” the kid said. “Near Chu Lai.”

“Serves you right,” the older man said as he tossed his money on the bar and picked up his beer. He turned away.

Jake Grafton was off his stool and moving without conscious thought. He laid a heavy hand on the man’s shoulder and spun him around. Beer slopped from the man’s mug.

“You sonuvabitch!” the man roared. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You owe this guy an apology.”

“My ass!” Then the look on Grafton’s face sank in. “Now hold on, you bastard! I’ve got a black belt in—”

That was all he managed to get out, because Jake seized a beer bottle sitting on the bar and smashed it against the man’s head with a sweeping backhand. The big man went to the floor, stunned.

Grafton grabbed wet, bloody hair with his right hand and lifted. He grabbed a handful of balls with his left and brought the man to his feet, then started him sideways. With a heave he threw him through the plate-glass window onto the concourse.

As the glass tinkled down Jake walked out the door of the bar and approached the man. He lay stunned, surrounded by glass fragments. The glass grated under Jake’s shoes.

Jake squatted.

The man was semiconscious, bleeding from numerous small cuts. His eyes swam, then focused on Grafton.

“You got off lucky this time. I personally know a dozen men who would have killed you for that crack you made in there. There’s probably thousands of them.”

Slivers of glass stuck out of the man’s face in several places.

“If I were you I’d give up karate. You aren’t anywhere near tough enough. Maybe you oughta try ballet.”

He stood and walked back into the bar, ignoring the gaping onlookers. The ex-soldier was still sitting on the stool.

“How much for the beers?” Jake asked the bartender.

“Yours?”

“Mine and this gentleman’s. I’m buying his too.”

“Four bucks.”

Jake tossed a five-spot on the bar. Through the now-empty frame of the window he saw a policeman bending over the man lying on the concourse.

Jake held out his hand to the former soldier, who shook it.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah I did,” Jake said. “I owed it to myself.”

The bartender held out his hand. “I was in the Army for a couple years. I’d like to shake your hand too.”

Jake shook it.

“Well,” he said to the one-handed veteran, who was looking at his hook, “don’t let the assholes grind you down.”

“He isn’t the only one,” the man murmured, nodding toward the concourse.

“I know. We got a fucking Eden here, don’t we?”

He left the bar and introduced himself to the first cop he saw.

It was about four o’clock on Monday afternoon when a police officer opened the cell door.

“You’re leaving, Grafton. Come on.”

The officer walked behind Jake, who was decked out in a blue jumpsuit and shuffled along in rubber shower sandals that were several sizes too big. He had been in the can all weekend. He had used his one telephone call when he was arrested on Saturday to call the squadron duty officer at NAS Whidbey.

“You’re where?” that worthy had demanded, apparently unable to believe his own ears.

“The King County Jail,” Jake repeated.

“I’ll be damned! What’d you do, kill somebody?”

“Naw. Threw a guy out of a bar.”

“That’s all?”

“He went out through a plate glass window.”

“Oh.”

“Better put it in the logbook and call the skipper at home.”

“Okay, Jake. Don’t bend over to pick up the soap.”

This afternoon he got into his civilian clothes in the same room in which he had undressed, the same room, incidentally, in which he had been fingerprinted and photographed. When he was dressed an officer passed him an envelope that contained the items from his pockets.

Jake examined the contents of the envelope. His airline tickets were still there, his wallet, change, and the ring. He pocketed the ring and counted the money in the wallet.

“Don’t see many white guys in here carrying diamond rings,” the cop said chattily.

Grafton wasn’t in the mood.

“Dopers seem to have pockets full of them,” the cop continued. “And burglars. You haven’t been crawling through any windows, have you?”

“Not lately.” Jake snapped his wallet shut and pocketed it.

“Bet it helps you get laid a lot.”

“Melts their panties. Poked your daughter last week.”

“Sign this receipt, butthole.”

Jake did so.

They led him out to a desk. His commanding officer, Commander Dick Donovan, was sitting in a straight-backed chair. He didn’t bother watching as Jake signed two more pieces of paper thrust at him by the desk sergeant. One was a promise to appear in three weeks for a preliminary hearing before a magistrate. Jake pocketed his copy.

“You’re free to go,” the sergeant said.

Donovan came out of his chair and headed for the door. Jake trailed along behind him.

In the parking lot Jake got into the passenger seat of Donovan’s car. Donovan still hadn’t said a word. He was a big man, easily six foot three, with wide shoulders and huge feet. He was the first bombardier-navigator (BN) to ever command the replacement squadron, VA-128.

“Thanks for bailing me out, Skipper.”

“I have a lot better things to do with my time than driving all the way to Seattle to bail an officer out of jail. An officer! A bar brawl! I almost didn’t come. I shouldn’t have. I wish I hadn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t shit me, Mister. You aren’t sorry! You weren’t even drunk when you threw that guy through that window. You’d had exactly half of one beer. I read the police report and the witnesses’ statements. You aren’t sorry and you’ve got no excuse.”

“I’m sorry you had to drive down here, sir. I’m not sorry for what I did to that guy. He had it coming.”

“Just who do you think you are, Grafton? Some comic book superhero? Who gave you the right to punish every jerk out there that deserves it? That’s what cops and courts are for.”

“Okay, I shouldn’t have done it.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“Thanks for bailing me out. You didn’t have to do it. I know that.”

“Not that you give a good goddamn.”

“It really doesn’t matter.”

“What should I do with you now?”

“Whatever you feel you gotta do, Skipper. Write a bad fittie, letter of reprimand, court-martial, whatever. It’s your call. If you want, I’ll give you a letter of resignation tomorrow.”

“Just like that,” Donovan muttered.

“Just like that.”

“Is that what you want? Out of the Navy?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“Sir!” Donovan snarled.

“Sir.”

Donovan fell silent. He got on I-5 and headed north. He didn’t take the exit for the Mukilteo ferry, but stayed on the freeway. He was in no mood for the ferry. He was going the long way around, across the bridge at Deception Pass to Whid-bey Island.

Jake merely sat and watched the traffic. None of it mattered anymore. The guys who died in Vietnam, the ones who were maimed…all that carnage and suffering…just so assholes could insult them in airports? So college professors could sneer? So the lieutenants who survived could fret about their fitness reports while they climbed the career ladder rung by slippery rung?

June…in the year of our Lord 1973.

In Virginia his dad would be working from dawn to dark. His father knew the price that had to be paid, so he paid it, and he reaped the reward. The calves were born and thrived, the cattle gained weight, the crops grew and matured and were harvested.

Perhaps he should go back to Virginia, get some sort of job. He was tired of the uniform, tired of the paperwork, even…even tired of the flying. It was all so absolutely meaningless.

Donovan was guiding the car through Mount Vernon when he spoke again. “It took eighty-seven stitches to sew that guy up.”

Jake wasn’t paying attention. He made a polite noise.

“His balls were swollen up the size of oranges.” The skipper sighed. “Eighty-seven stitches is a lot, but there shouldn’t be any permanent injuries. Just some scars. So I talked to the prosecutor. There won’t be a trial.”

Jake grunted. He was half listening to Donovan now, but the commander’s words were just that, words.

“The prosecutor walked out from the Chosin Reservoir with the Fifth Marines,” Donovan continued. “He read the police report and the statements by the bartender and that crippled soldier. The police file and complaint are going to be lost.”

“Humpf,” Jake said.

“So you owe me five hundred bucks. Two hundred which I posted as bail and three hundred to replace that window you broke. You can write me a personal check.”

“Thanks, Skipper.”

“Of course, that jerk could try to cash in on his eighty-seven stitches if he can find a lawyer stupid enough to bring a civil suit. A jury might make you pay the hospital and doctor bill, but I doubt if they would give the guy a dime more than that. Never can tell about juries, though.”

“Eighty-seven,” Jake murmured.

“So you can pack your bags,” Donovan continued. “I’m sending you to the Marines. Process servers can’t get you if you’re in the middle of the Pacific.”

With a growing sense of horror Jake realized the import of Commander Donovan’s words. “The Marines?”

“Yeah. Marine A-6 outfit is going to sea on Columbia. They don’t have any pilots with carrier experience. BUPERS”—the Bureau of Naval Personnel—“is looking for some Navy volunteers to go to sea with them. Consider yourself volunteered.”

“Jesus H. Christ, Skipper!” he spluttered. “I just completed two ‘Nam cruises five months ago.” He fell silent, tongue-tied as the full implications of this disaster pressed in upon him.

Shore duty was the payback, the flying vacation from two combat cruises, the night cat shots, the night traps, getting shot at, shot up and shot down. Those nigh rides down the catapults…sweet Jesus how he had hated those. And the night approaches, in terrible weather, sometimes in a shot-up airplane, with never enough gas — it made him want to puke just thinking about that shit. And here was Tiny Dick Donovan proposing to send him right back to do eight or nine more months of it!

Aww, fuck! It just wasn’t fair!

“The gooks damn near killed me over North Vietnam a dozen times! It’s a miracle I’m still alive. And now you feed me a shit sandwich.”

That just popped out. Dick Donovan didn’t seem to hear. It dawned on Jake that the commander probably couldn’t be swayed with sour grapes.

In desperation, Jake attacked in the only direction remaining. “The jarheads maintain their planes with ball peen hammers and pipe wrenches,” he roared, his voice beyond its owner’s control. “Their planes are flying deathtraps.”

When Donovan didn’t reply to this indisputable truth, Jake lost the bubble completely. “You can’t do this to me! I—”

“Wanna bet?”

There were three staff instructors seated at stools at the bar nursing beers when Jake walked into the O Club. The afternoon sun streamed through the tall windows. If you squinted against the glare you could see the long lazy reach of Puget Sound, placid in the calm evening, more like a pond than an arm of the sea. If you looked closely though, you could see the rise and fall of gentle swells.

Jake broke the news that he was on his way to the Marine squadron going aboard Columbia. He could see by the looks on their faces that they already knew. Bad news rides a fast horse.

Heads bobbed solemnly.

“Well, shore duty gets old quick.”

“Yeah. Whidbey ain’t bad, but it ain’t Po City.”

Their well-meaning remarks gave Jake no comfort, although he tried to maintain a straight face. Not being a liberty hound, the whores and whiskey of Olongapo City in the Philippines had never been much of an attraction for him. He felt close to tears. This was what he wanted more of — the flying without combat, an eight-thousand-foot runway waiting for his return, relaxed evenings on dry land with mountains on the horizon, the cool breeze coming in off the sound, delicious weekends to loaf through.

The injustice of Donovan’s decision was like a knife in his gut. It was his turn, yet he was leaving all the good stuff and going back to sea!

“Lucky you aren’t married,” one of the barflies said. “A little cruise in the middle of a shore tour would drive a lot of wives straight to the divorce court.”

That remark got them talking. They knew four men who were in the process of getting divorces. The long separations the Navy required of families were hell on marriages. While his companions gossiped Jake’s thoughts turned morosely to Callie. She was a good woman, and he loved her. He could see her face, feel her touch, hear her voice even now.

But her father! That jerk! A flash of heat went through him, then flickered out as he surveyed the cold ashes of his life.

“Things happen to Marines,” Tricky Nixon was saying when Jake once again began paying attention to the conversation.

Tricky was a wiry, dark, compact man. Now his brows knitted. “Knew a Marine fighter pilot once. Flew an F-4. He diverted from the ship into Cecil Field one night. Black night. You guys know Cecil, big as half of Texas, with those parallel runways?”

His listeners nodded. Tricky took another swig of beer. After he swallowed and cleared his throat, he continued: “For reasons known only to God, he plunked his mighty Phantom down between those parallel runways. In the grass. Hit the radar shack head-on, smacked it into a million splinters.”

Tricky sighed, then continued: “The next day the squadron maintenance officer went into Cecil on the COD, looked the plane over pretty good, had it towed outta the dirt onto a taxi-way, then filled it with gas and flew it back to the ship. It was a little scratched up but nothing serious. Things happen to Marines.”

They talked about that — about the odds of putting a tactical jet with a landing weight of 45,000 pounds down on grass and not ripping one or more of the gear off the plane.

“I knew a Marine once,” Billy Doyle said when the conversation lagged, “who forgot to pull the power back when he landed. He was flying an F-4D.”

His listeners nodded.

“He went screeching down the runway with the tires smoking, went off the end and drove out across about a half mile of dirt. Went through the base perimeter fence and across a ditch that wiped off the landing gear. Skidded on across a road, and came to rest with the plane straddling a railroad track. He sat there awhile thinking it over, then finally shut ’er down and climbed out. He was standing there looking ’er over when a train came along and plowed into the wreck. Smashed it to bits.”

They sipped beer while they thought about forgetting to pull the throttle to idle on touchdown, about how it would feel sitting dazed in the cockpit of a crashed airplane with the engine still running as the realization sank in that you had really screwed the pooch this time. Really screwed the pooch.

“Things happen to Marines,” Billy Doyle added.

“Their bad days can be spectacular,” Bob Landow agreed in his bass growl. He was a bear of a man, with biceps that rippled the material of his shirt. “Marine F-8 pilot was trans-Pacing one time, flying the pond.”

He paused and lubricated his throat while his listeners thought about flying a single-seat fighter across the Pacific, about spending ten or twelve hours strapped to an ejection seat in the tiny cockpit.

Landow’s growl broke the silence. “The first time he hit the tanker for gas, the fuel cells overpressurized and ruptured. Fuel squirted out of every orifice. It squirted into the engine bay and in seconds the plane caught fire.

“At this point our Marine decides to eject. He pulls the face curtain. Nothing happens. But not yet to sweat, because he has the secondary handle between his legs. He gives that a hell of a jerk. Nothing. He just sits there in this unejectable seat in this burning aircraft with fuel running out of every pore over the vast Pacific.

“This is turning into a major-league bad day. He yanks on the handle a couple more times like King Kong with a hard on. Nothing happens. Gawdalmighty, he’s getting excited now. He tries jettisoning the canopy. Damn thing won’t go off. It’s stuck. This is getting seriouser and seriouser.

“The plane is burning like a blowtorch by this time and he’s getting really excited. He pounds and pounds at the canopy while the plane does smoky whifferdills. Finally the canopy departs. Our Marine is greatly relieved. He unstraps and prepares to climb out. This is an F-8, you understand, and if he makes it past that tail in one piece he will be the very first. But he’s going to give it a try. He starts to straighten up and the wind just grabs him and whoom — he’s out — free-falling toward the ocean deep and blue. Out, thank God, out!

“He falls for a while toward the Pacific thinking about Marine maintenance, then decides it’s time to see if the parachute works. It wasn’t that kind of a day. Damn thing streams.”

“No!” several of his listeners groaned in unison.

“I shit you not,” Bob Landow replied. He helped himself to more beer as his Marine fell from an indifferent sky toward an indifferent sea with an unopened parachute streaming behind him.

“What’s the rest of it?” Tricky demanded.

Landow frowned. There is a certain pace to a good sea story, and Tricky had a bad habit of rushing it. Not willing to be hurried, Landow took another sip of beer, then made a show of wiping his lips with a napkin. When he had the glass back on the bar and his weight lifter’s arms crossed just so, he said, “He had some Marine luck there at the end. Pulled strings like a puppeteer and got a few panels of the rag to blossom. Just enough. Just enough.”

He shook his head wearily and settled a baleful gaze on Jake Grafton. “Things happen to Marines. You be careful out there, Jake.”

“Yeah,” Jake told them as he glanced out the window at the reflection of small puffy clouds on the limpid blue water. “I will.”