Chickenhawk: Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

I flew to New York on Monday the fifteenth. I cabbed to the hotel where NBC puts up its talk-show guests. I had phone messages—a reporter from a paper in Texas, another from my childhood home area newspaper, the Palm Beach Post-Times, and several others. I did phone interviews for a couple of hours. Then I walked down the street to a restaurant to meet Gerry Howard and some other Viking Penguin people. I met my publicist, my copy editor, and the assistant publisher over a meal. I don’t recall what I ate. I don’t recall what I said.

After dinner, Gerry took me to a nice bar and wanted to know if I needed more money. I said an extra couple thousand’d be nice. He said, “How about another seventy-five hundred?”

At six-thirty Tuesday morning a young woman, a publicist, picked me up at the hotel and took me to the NBC studios.

I sat in a barber chair while a guy put makeup on my face.

I sat in the Green Room holding a cup of coffee, watching the monitor. The producer told me Bryant Gumbel had read most of my book. Over film clips of helicopters flying in Vietnam, a voice said, “Coming up, Robert Mason, author of the new best-selling book, Chickenhawk.”

“Where’d they get the best-selling bit?” I said.

The publicist shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”

I was so excited that I was beginning to lose track of reality. I followed a guy into the studio in an apprehensive trance. I sat in a chair behind a desk. The guy next to me leaned over and said he was Bryant Gumbel. “I know this is strange to you, Robert, but just try to act naturally.”

I nodded. Three huge television cameras stared at me. I saw a commercial playing on one monitor, Gumbel and me on another, and a close-up of my face on another. My eyes looked puffy, but my new blazer and tie looked okay. I saw a script roll through the prompters on the cameras, Gumbel’s lines. I realized then that millions of people, no exaggeration, were going to be watching. I had no lines.

Somebody said, “Five seconds, Bryant.” The camera light blinked red. Gumbel asked a question. I answered. We did this for five minutes. I don’t know what I said. I do remember the last question, though.

“Robert,” said Gumbel, “I understand something special is happening to you in a few days.”

I nodded. “Yes, Bryant. Friday I’m going to prison.”

CHAPTER 24

The prison had sent us a letter telling us what we were allowed to bring. I decided to take everything they allowed, whether I had it or not. I bought a bamboo flute and a tennis racket simply because I was allowed to have them.

People Magazine, interested in the writer-going-to-prison slant, sent writer David Chandler and photographer Lynn Pelham to interview me the day before I was due to report to Eglin. Pelham had me pack up a bag and walk out the door so they could show Patience and Jack waving good-bye: Dad marches off to jail. They promised they’d see me at Eglin to complete the story: Dad arrives at jail.

Patience and I drove over and picked up John and Alice and then drove a short distance to say good-bye to my parents. Dad had retired a few months before, had bought a little seven-acre farm near us, and puttered around growing vegetables and raising chickens, pigs, and cows.

My father was stoic, my mother was in tears. I told them I’d be back soon.

We drove two hundred miles to Fort Walton Beach and found a seaside motel. This was my treat. Gerry Howard had come through with more money against future royalties. They’d sold out the first printing of Chickenhawk (five thousand copies); we’d already made back my advance.

I wanted to spend my last night savoring freedom, eating a nice meal, making love. I couldn’t taste what I ate. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything. The fact that I was going to voluntarily walk into a prison the next day produced emotions too powerful to ignore. I felt like I had just before the assaults in Vietnam. I felt myself falling into a dark abyss.

The next day at noon, we drove to the main entrance of Eglin, the largest Air Force base in the world. The guard at the gate asked us what we wanted. I told him we were checking into prison.

The guard looked at me and smiled. “You the helicopter pilot? The guy who wrote the book?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” the guard said. He stood back and saluted. I returned the salute and drove on.

In one small corner of this huge military installation is a small group of buildings called the Eglin Federal Prison Camp. The camp was indistinguishable from the other buildings on the base. There were no fences, no walls, no guard towers. Just a cluster of buildings with a sign out front. We walked into the administration building. A guy dressed in blue asked us what we wanted.

“We’re checking in,” I said.

“Everybody’s at lunch,” the man said. “Take a seat.”

We sat.

After lunch, a man came down the hallway. “Robert Mason and John Tillerman?”

“Yessir.”