The Forgiven

by Mike Shepherd

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  He smiled while dangling a baggie in my face that contained what looked like pieces moldy dried apples, but that was not what they were.

  “Psilocybin – magic mushrooms,” he said.

  “So that’s what they look like; not too appetizing.”

  “You don’t eat them for the taste,” Balmer replied, somewhat annoyed.

  “Where do they come from?” I asked.

  “My closet. I grow them in pressurized jars of fermenting brown rice. In the wild they grow on cow shit. Try one. Don’t worry, it’s not like dropping acid, if you’ve ever done that. They’re organic, not chemical. The trip is much more mellow, I think: not as noisy, and it lets you down easier when it’s over. You don’t crash as hard. Go ahead, Mick, nothing bad is going to happen. Just kick back and enjoy the ride.”

  I took one and chewed it and swallowed. It was bitter going down.

  Balmer ate one too, then he went to the kitchen and brought back two more beers to wash the mushrooms down with.

  At first it was like getting off on grass. I felt light-headed and light-assed, with a quivery sensation in my stomach. I felt a little hot, then chilled, and the hair on the back of my neck bristled, and my scalp began to crawl. The saliva in my mouth thickened, and it was hard to swallow. I took a swig of the cold beer. Soon my entire body seemed to be levitating off the couch.

  The music we were listening to – Pink Floyd’s Time, driven by the ticktocking of a clock, sounded louder and clearer than I’d ever heard it before, as if the clock was in my head. And the lyrics, ...every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time, plans that either came to naught or half a page of scribbled lines, made me think about the book I had planned to write about Vietnam, and how I kept putting it off, and I vowed to start on it soon – maybe tomorrow or the next day.

  It appeared that Balmer was getting off now too, judging from the grin on his face and the sparkle in his eyes.

  I began to see strange things. The wood grain in the arms of the chair Balmer sat in seemed to be moving like liquid beneath his hands, and the vine design in the rug looked alive and appeared to be growing all around his sandaled feet. The stucco walls seemed to be breathing and pulsating with the music.

  Everything was connected by molecules and I saw that there was more to life than we seee in our normal state of consciousness. There was something below the surface – the underlying current of existence, that hallucinogens allow us to experience.

  I shared my experiences with Blamer and he shared his in return, which were eerily similar. Were our minds connected too, by an underlying current of intense awareness, as in extra sensory perception, or was it just the result of the commonality of our experience of tripping on magic mushrooms together?

  Whatever it was, it elevated my thoughts and ability to articulate them to new levels, and I realized that the time to live our lives was in the here and now, before it slips away, ... and then one day you find that ten years have got behind you, the lyrics of Pink Floyd’s song continued to say.

  “Far out! Now I get it! ‘I exclaimed, “This is it!”

  It was time for me to go home, but I was too stoned to drive, so I decided to walk to my house, about two miles away. On the way it began to storm so I sought shelter beneath the overhang of an archway at the door of a church.

  Tired from being up all night, I laid back and just as my shoulder blade came down on an iron doorstop protruding like a spike out of the concrete, a bolt of lightening struck the steeple, and an image of Christ flashed before me. In my stoned state of mind I saw it as a cosmic message, with magic mushrooms as the medium, to turn to Jesus as the cop in Eureka Springs had suggested, so I went inside the church and prayed to Jesus that someday I’d reconcile with my parents by forgiving them for their trespasses against me, for forgiveness is one of the basic tenets of Christianity.

  It would be difficult to contact my mother because I didn’t know where she was, but I knew where to find my father – at a tavern on the other side of town where he was known to hang out. He was a small man who resembled Richard Nixon, except that he wore glasses. He didn’t look like a combat veteran, but I suspected he was. Being a snoopy little kid I had discovered campaign ribbons with battle stars in a drawer at Grandma’s house. I asked her what they were for.

  “The Battle of Saipan in World War II. But don’t ask your father about them, he doesn’t like to talk about it. I will tell you this, though: his ship, a destroyer called the USS Phelps, won a presidential citation for the action they saw there.”

  I knew a little about the war from watching Walter Cronkite’s 20th Century on television. I was enthralled by what I saw – men in combat -- and I tried to imagine what that would be like. It wasn’t a game that my buddies and I played in the yard. It was all about life and death. I could see it in their eyes as they approached Normandy in landing crafts on D-Day. Unspeakable fear, overcome by unimaginable courage as they went, undaunted, into action to save the world from tyranny.

  That was in Europe. Dad was in the Pacific. That was all I knew, except for what Grandma had told me. He didn’t tell me anything himself, and I didn’t ask.

  Eventually I participated in a war of my own – in Vietnam, where I experienced first hand what it was like to be in combat, in a hell hole called Khe Sanh. When I returned home, thankfully in one piece, I was determined to find out what role my Dad played in World War II.

  I was convinced that he suffered from PTSD, because he had nightmares and he drank heavily, as did I, but World War II vets hadn’t been officially diagnosed with PTSD. After the war they simply went about their business, working and raising families (resulting in the “baby boom”), while suffering in silence.

  I thought that if Dad could talk about his wartime experience it would relieve the pressure he must have felt all of these years, keeping it bottled up inside, so I met him at his favorite haunt for a beer or two, hoping that might loosen him up enough for us to communicate for the first time in a long time.

  At first we didn’t talk about war. We talked mostly about sports and politics. He voted straight ticket Republican. Disillusioned with politics because of the Vietnam War, I didn’t vote at all, which angered Dad. He said a lot of people had died for the right to vote.

  “Remember, son, you fought for the right of the Vietnamese people to vote, too.”

  His argument made me rethink my lack of participation in the democratic process. We continued to drink, and Dad began to open up about what he went through in the war.

  “After surviving kamikaze attacks in open waters, we steamed into a bay at Saipan to attack enemy artillery. The bay was lined with high cliffs. The Japs rolled a big cannon out of a cave and blasted our bridge, killing the captain and fourteen others. As we began to list starboard away from the island, our gunners scored a direct hit into the cave as the Japs rolled the gun back, thinking that the hit they scored would be enough to sink us; it almost did. Our return fire touched off their ammo and blew the big gun out of the cave and into the bay, along with a huge chunk of the cliff.

  “Meanwhile we looked up at Marpi Point and saw hordes of natives leaping from a cliff onto the jagged rocks into the sea hundreds of feet below. They had been pushed to the brink when US Marines and Army forced the Japanese army up the slopes on the outside of the island. I guess they were afraid they’d be killed by the retreating Japs so they chose suicide instead. Some of those who survived the jump swam through the bloody water to our ship, but we couldn’t take any of them -- we probably would’ve sunk, the way we were listing. We just stood there and watched them drown, son. There was nothing we could do.”

  Dad dashed some salt into his beer, which he had mixed with tomato juice, his drink of choice. He drank it down and began to weep, draining himself of years of pent-up emotion.

  Watching him suffer while recallin
g his wartime experiences hurt me too. I had my own war memories to deal with -- something I had begun to do by attending the veterans’ group sessions. They were open to veterans of all wars, so I invited him to attend with me. He was reluctant at first, because he was from a generation that saw seeking therapy as a sign of weakness. He changed his mind when I told him that the sessions really helped me to readjust.

  To enhance our healing process, I arranged for us to go on an honor flight to Washington D.C. to visit the World War II and Vietnam War memorials. Some Korean War vets who wanted to see their memorial were also on the flight.

  We celebrated the tremendous victory our Armed Forces had won in the European and Pacific theaters -- Dad nodded in affirmation and smiled in proud response to what his Navy had accomplished in defeating Japan 30 years before in 1945. My visit to the Vietnam War Memorial was a little more solemn, if not sobering. I had come within minutes of my name being on that wall because I had just missed a plane that was shot down flying into A Shau Valley. There were no survivors. I stood before it with bowed head, and tears filled my eyes. The gleaming, polished black granite wall bearing 58,300 names of those who were killed in the war looked more like a tombstone, reflecting what some considered to be a defeat. Remembering what Dad said about fighting for the democracy of the Vietnamese, I came to see it in a different light. Standing before it became a healing experience for me, just as it had been, I was sure, for my father when he saw the World War II memorial. We flew home together feeling at peace. We’d bonded over our common PTSD afflictions – but I continued to grapple with two symptoms of the disorder – anger and alcoholism.

  CHAPTER 11

  It’s been said that nothing good happens past midnight if you’re out on the town, and I found that to be true one night, when I went to a 3 o’clock bar after closing at DiLello’s. It was a place called the Warehouse, and it catered mostly to those who had been drinking at the 1 o’clock bars until last call, so they were usually well on their way to getting drunk. It also catered to those who tended bar at the 1 o’clock establishments, like me.

  Arriving relatively sober, I drank quickly to catch up with the crowd, which only meant that I got drunk faster. Unfortunately, I was drinking on an empty stomach, which intensified the effect of the alcohol on me. I tended to become combative under those circumstances, so I kept to myself as much as possible to avoid any conflicts.

  While drinking alone at the bar I got into a conversation with one of the bartenders who attended the same PTSD group sessions I did. We were talking about the difficulties some vets faced in readjusting to civilian life after the war, when an intoxicated woman who sat nearby with a man, interrupted us by saying loudly: “Oh you poor Vietnam vets are nothing but a bunch of sniveling cry babies, always complaining about the way you’ve been treated since you got home. Boohoohoo, always feeling sorry for yourselves. Hell, ya lost the fucking war, didn’t ya?”

  That was all I could take. I splashed my beer in her face and a brawl broke out as the man she was with and I got into a fist fight, which spilled over into the crowd as those who’d overheard what she had said took sides.

  The police were called. Because someone pointed out that I started the mele’e by dousing the woman with beer, police handcuffed me, took me to jail, and screened me for possible possession of drugs and a weapon. They charged me with simple battery, took mug shots and fingerprints and placed me in a holding cell with two other men. The cell contained a stainless steel toilet and sink and four bare iron bunks. I lay down on one of them to try to sleep it off, but the bunk was cold and hard, and I was kept awake by the other two mens’ slurping and moaning and groaning. I guessed they were having some kind of sex, but I didn’t dare look. I covered my ears with my arms until they were finished, then I finally fell asleep until the jailer brought us breakfast – powdered scrambled eggs, soggy toast, a carton of milk, and coffee. The other two gobbled theirs down like starving dogs. I only picked at mine, but drank the milk and coffee.

  About an hour later the jailer unlocked the cell and escorted me to the booking desk.

  “You’ve been bonded out,” he said

  “By whom?”

  “Your bartender buddy at the Warehouse. He’s waiting for you outside.”

  Before leaving I was given a court date to appear before a judge one month later.

  What troubled me most about the whole ordeal was getting mug shots and fingerprints because now I was officially identified as a criminal -- just because I did something I thought was justified. The judge didn’t agree – he slapped me with six months’ probation and 120 hours of community service which I volunteered to fulfill by preparing and serving food at the St. John’s Breadline. What goes around comes around. I had eaten there when I was hungry and living on the streets after I returned from Austin broke in more ways than one. I hadn’t been able to work because of a broken ankle.

  Volunteering at the breadline exposed me to a variety of interesting street people. One was a seedy fellow named Jim who occasionally came into DiLello’s to buy a pint of cheap liquor with money he had bummed. As an aspiring writer of character sketches, I wrote a poem-like piece about him after I saw him walking backwards across a busy street in my neighborhood, flailing his ragged coat at passing cars. I likened him to an existential matador, tempting fate. When he reached the other side of the street unscathed, he grinned and doffed his crumpled cap and bowed while kissing his fingertips and sweeping his arm skyward in mockery of the heavy traffic he had deftly maneuvered through in his successful quest of escaping certain death. Then he spun around like a soldier doing an about face and marched off triumphantly to a dilapidated shack in a nearby railroad yard.

  After I shared the piece with a literary fellow at DiLello’s he told me that Jim had lived across the street from him years before.

  “He was a fantastic young artist, but he refused to go to school, so his mother kicked him out of the house. She gave me some of his crayon drawings. Want ’em? My wife’s been threatening to throw them away, she doesn’t appreciate good art.”

  I arranged to get them, and I was stunned by how fantastic they were – masterpieces, I thought. A few were whimsical; one was of a topless, big-breasted Mexican woman in a sombrero dancing with maracas in hand. The one I liked most was a colorful abstract of the bloodied green face of a man suspended in space among asterisk-like symbols representing stars. A winding red road lined with street lamps led from the man’s face through a hole in a wavy green ribbon wrapped around the cone-shaped head of a lady whose light blue face was made up like a hooker’s. I framed it and hung on a wall in my apartment. It reminded me of a Salvador Dali in its abstract fluidity and dream-like surrealism. It was art conceived by a child prodigy who had gone insane.

  The following winter was brutal, with deep snow and temperatures below zero. Despite the weather, I went to the Y one night for a swim to stave off cabin fever. Jim sat in the lobby. It was too cold for him to be in his shack, but he’d have to leave the Y when they closed, so, on the way to the pool, I told him where I lived, and that he was welcome to sit in a chair on the landing of the stairs of my apartment, a few blocks away above the health food store.

  After my swim, when I went home and opened the door downstairs, I could smell the pungent roll-your-owns he smoked. He had accepted my invitation. I invited him inside and provided him a pillow and rolled out a sleeping bag for him in front of the fireplace, and lit a small fire.

  Before he lay down he sat in a chair. Normally stoic, he muttered something when he spotted his drawing on the wall. He stared at it for a long time.

  “Look familiar, Jim?”

  He nodded and smiled.

  “Haven’t seen that for awhile,” he sighed softly, perhaps pleased that his masterpiece had somehow survived, as he had done living in the streets all these years.

  He took off his worn boots, placed his hat on the coffee table and
crawled into the sleeping bag. Before long he was snoring. I went into my bedroom and slept well, satisfied that I had given this poor man shelter for the night.

  When I awoke in the morning the sleeping bag was rolled back up and Jim was gone, except for the lingering smell of tobacco and body odor. I expected him to make a habit of coming to my apartment, but for the rest of winter he never came back.

  In early spring we heard at DiLello’s that Jim had been killed by a train.

  CHAPTER 12

  Over time I became concerned about my drinking. Being a bartender kept me in the drinking culture. Tending bar kept me in the drinking culture. I started drinking around midnight every night (an hour before closing) to prime myself for the 3 o’clock bars, and then I’d wake up the next afternoon and have some of “the hair of the dog that bit me.”

  In an attempt to get sober, I quit tending bar and went on unemployment which gave me time to concentrate on writing a book. I believed that I had a book in me about my experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam, especially because I was nearly killed when I missed that plane that was shot down in 1968, nearly eight years ago. I believed I had been spared for a reason, like writing a book, but I couldn’t write it unless I cut back on the binge drinking.

  Waking up sober in the morning was like the innocent childhood days living with my grandparents, when life was clean and clear, free of the fog of alcoholism. I was able to get a good start on the book.

  To celebrate finishing the first chapter, I impulsively popped open a bottle of champagne – old habits die hard – and I started on another binge before I sobered up enough to write the second chapter. And that’s the way it went for a while; write, celebrate, sober up and write some more, then celebrate again. The highs and low were like an endless roller coaster ride of highs and lows. If I was to finish the book I needed to end this erratic behavior; I concluded that I needed some outside intervention, so I went to an AA meeting. It was what they called a 12 Step meeting. At this particular meeting, they focused on the 11th step: