The Tarnished Shooter

by Charles James

  The boxer got wind of what happened to his stinkweed and came looking for us. He had a reputation about town that wasn’t easy to take for granted. Some say he was a psychopath who’d attacked his trainer with a claw hammer. We didn’t want to mess with him. One day he came to the lake house and talked to Jack. Jack denied knowing anything about the situation. The boxer asked Jack if he knew where Clem or I could be found. Jack just “played” the guy saying he knew nothing. The boxer was half crazy from being punched in the head so many times and he was bound and determined to find us. Then one day we got lucky and learned he had landed in jail on a charge of armed robbery. He was convicted of the robbery and sent to prison for ten years—that got us off the hook. There was talk that that character and my cousin shot and killed some unlucky sap down in Iowa where they got the bogus weed. My cousin and the boxer were sort of like Clem and I, they were tight enough with each other to be capable of doing just about anything—playing off one another. They might have even tried to pop a cap in our asses just to prove they were not to be messed with.

  The cops got wind of what Clem and I were up to, so they got a search warrant to search the lake house. We had the phony pot all bagged in one pound bags, ready to sell and was stashed in an old steamer trunk in a closet. During the search the cops found the weed, but couldn’t arrest me because the stuff was in a common closet that could have been used by anyone. There must have been about ten bags, but they couldn’t prosecute anyone because there was actually no THC in the weed. During the search they also found a stolen 38-caliber police special. Somehow I was charged with possession of that stolen gun. I went to court, pled no contest, and received a thirty day jail sentence. I hadn’t been AWOL long enough for a warrant to be issued for my arrest—so that was a good thing. The gun was one that Clem had stolen earlier from a sport shop.

  It was too bizarre—we went from one stupid thing to the next, never skipping a beat. The more devious shit we pulled, the more my mother laughed and the more she instigated us to do. She was always insinuating we break into businesses just to keep the tension of excitement going and she was always ready to bail us out of jail should we get caught. Sometimes it made me feel kind of stupid for living that way—I call it living like an asshole. First I had to live with the insanity of an abusive father and now the insanity of a criminal lifestyle.

  On the other hand I liked the radical and rebel thinking mindset. I didn't think the laws made any sense and most people were just too damned hypocritical. At any given moment, a cop could arrest me and lock me up and then decide whether to make the charge a felony or a misdemeanor. They held the power to either help or destroy one’s life. My experience with cops had always been negative to say the least. Then, once inside the slammer, I had to deal with the social bullshit created by the inmate population. No matter where I was, someone was always going to try to control me.

  I was dead sick of being controlled and being told what was right, what was wrong, how to act, and what to think. My whirlwind of crime ended three months later when I turned myself in. It was winter and there was snow everywhere and I was drunk and depressed and I’d just left a bar that was five miles out in the country. I started walking home in the freezing cold and thought it would be convenient to just lie down in a snow bank pass out and freeze to death. No more Marine Corps, no more jail, no more trying to figure out where I belonged. Not more than ten minutes after I was in the snow bank a county cop spotted me and stopped to see if there was a problem. I knew he would radio my name in to see if there were any wants or warrants so I told the cop I was AWOL. He asked me some questions then arrested me and hauled me off to jail.

  After three days in the county jail a couple of Marine MPs transported me to a federal jail in Milwaukee. I spent three or four days in that jail then two different military MPs transported me to a Naval Brig near Chicago. I was locked up there for a few more days then flown back to the base on a military transport along with about forty other AWOL Marines to face the charges against me.

  Back at the base I was taken to the brig and held there until my unit commanding officer felt like having me brought back to the barracks. The brig was a humiliating experience and is no place for those with a weak mind. Arrested with a harmonica in my pocket, it followed me all the way to the brig. At the brig in North Carolina one of the guards or chasers as they were called, ordered me to play the Marine Corps Hymn on the harmonica. If I refused to entertain him and the entire staff of correctional custody guards, they threatened to throw me in solitary confinement with nothing but bread and water to eat for three days, then charge me with disobeying orders. Again, I was powerless and forced to follow the direction of idiots or suffer unrelenting abuse. They were like the cat, and I was their defenseless little mouse, or so they thought. I refused to play their game even though I knew I could play the Marine Corps Hymn with such accuracy to have impressed them all. They were not happy and I was thrown into D-SEG which is a row of segregation cells where trouble makers, non-conformists, and other dangerous detainees were held. It was my Uncle Seth who taught me how to play the harmonica. He was a master non-conformist and a master at playing the blues.

  I only spent two days in D-SEG, eating nothing but bread and water, until they assigned me into the general population. In general population, we were required to do physical fitness training every day in our civilian clothes. I remember running three miles in the sand, wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots. The brig was mostly full of returned AWOL Marines trying to get out with an administrative discharge. It was a mistake made by many.

  When the commanding officer finally decided to have me released from the brig, a company driver came to pick my ass up. It was my old Mexican roommate and buddy. He looked at me as I came walking out and just shook his head. “Barker, you’re such a shit bird.” he said. Yea, it was all quite embarrassing, but there was nothing I could do about it anymore. My younger years forged a sense of fighting my own private war. I did what ever felt the best at any given moment. I only had myself to answer to and would continue to fight rules and regulations no matter what the consequences.

  I had to face the commanding officer as he read the charges. He ordered there was enough evidence to warrant a special court martial. I was totally ashamed, but there was nothing I could do about what I had done in the past and it didn’t matter to me anymore one way or the other. I was placed on restriction which meant I couldn't leave the barracks except for chow or to go to sickbay. I was given every shit detail, like cleaning the head, picking up trash, and keeping the floors polished. The mind games and hazing had begun. The Marines had to let it be known to me that they were in control. Three or four of the squared away suckers, along with a couple of shit birds, came around to my room every day and started calling me names and then threatening to kick my ass. It seemed like everywhere I went someone wanted to kick my ass—like they had something to prove or something to teach me. I didn’t have anything to prove. I already knew I had what it took to put a serious whipping on bullies.

  It was going to take about thirty days until the court martial. Meanwhile I continued to get harassed, assaulted, and challenged to fights by former shit birds that thought they were more patriotic than me. The hazing was set up by the squared away mother fuckers to teach me a lesson. At those low points of my military service I wished I never even joined the corps.

  ****

  At my court martial, I was found guilty of unauthorized absence and was sentenced to three months confinement at hard labor, forfeiture of two thirds of my pay and allowances for three months, and reduced to the rank of private.

  I was also ordered into what was called a restoration program in the brig. This program was like going through boot camp again with rigorous physical fitness training, required running of up to five miles a day, and GED education. The program was for Marines who were going back to duty instead of being discharged. They said I needed to be reeducated, re-indoctrinated to the way of the corps. Uncle Sam w
as giving me a second chance, but I didn’t know if I even wanted a second chance, a second brainwashing. Because once you fuck up, things are never the same, especially in the military. The way I had been treated by my fellow Marines didn’t add any value to my present situation. The whole lot of them could have gone straight to hell for all I cared.

  The restoration program lasted for about six weeks. When that program was finished, I was sent to an old red line brig. Red lines were painted on the floor as a means of controlling the detainees. We had heard unbelievable things about those places, but never believed the stories. Now I knew it was a fact. A detainee, as we were called, would have to stand at the position of attention for hours at a time while standing on the red line. If one stepped off the line he would be severely beaten. It was a spooky and depressing looking old brick building surrounded by chain link fences with razor blade wire strung along the top in close hoops. It looked like the kind of a place you entered but never came out. I was classified as a medium security prisoner.

  Detainees had to wear a security classification badge with our name and picture. We were not allowed to blouse our trousers or salute. Some basic military rights were stripped. It always amazed me how seriously people took such small rewards. It reminded me of when I was a small boy and being told I wouldn’t get any desert if I didn’t eat up all my peas. The lock up was a huge dorm like squad bay with locking iron doors. It housed about fifty or sixty other prisoners. I got along with the fuck-ups doing time in the brig better than I got along with the squared away Marines and shit-birds in my unit. During nonworking hours we were allowed to play cards and listen to music. Some of the detainees were getting kicked out, but had to serve sentences so they were headed to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a federal military prison.

  At the old brig, I was assigned to go out into the forest with four or five other detainees to chop trees down all day with only an axe. We were accompanied by a chaser, a correctional guard armed with a billyclub, whose job was to watch us and make sure we didn’t escape. Out in the woods, nobody fucked with us because we were detainees. We chopped wood until we were tired; then started a fire to stay warm while we sat and ate the baloney sandwiches that had been sent along for our lunch. During my stay at the medium security level, I started drawing cartoons depicting low ranking personnel getting pushed around by the higher ranking officers and enlisted NCOs. One of the duty correctional officers discovered my drawings and confiscated them, and then he threatened to have me brought up on charges for having made them. After about four weeks of chopping down trees, I was reclassified as a minimum security detainee and moved to a different lock up area in the same brig. I was ordered not to draw any more derogatory cartoons.

  The new lock up had a color TV. There were only nine or ten detainees in the minimum security section. As minimum security prisoners, we had jobs outside the brig with no chasers, because we were also considered base parolees.

  My new job as a base parolee was working at the base laundry. It was an easy job which I did for about two weeks, and then I was released back to my unit. I had heard through the grapevine that prisoners who were locked up for more than thirty days were supposed to be transferred to another unit to prevent mistreatment because of being in confinement. That information could have been all bullshit because everyone was so full of crap nobody ever knew what to believe. We were in the “crotch” or “the suck” or whatever you want to call it—we were shit eating Marines; we had to like whatever came down the pike.

  The thing that pissed me off was I never got transferred to another unit, so life was worse than before I went to the brig. Now, I was labeled a “brig rat”, the term used for someone who spent a little time locked up. It was no fun at all. Again, I was given every shit detail, being ordered to clean toilets and mop floors. I was constantly being harassed by the squared away Marines and the shit birds as well. I had no rank and was just an easy target; since I had already fucked up, nobody wanted to hang with me. I was an outcast except for a few others in the same predicament. My wall locker was broken into and my uniforms, duce gear, expensive quadraphonic stereo, a diamond Marine Corps ring, and a cowhide coat were all stolen. I hadn't been paid in months and it seemed like it would take months to get my pay straightened out. When payday came I had to beg, or borrow enough money from others just to buy cigarettes and toothpaste.

  I was falling into a deep hole of despair and nobody gave a shit. Of course I didn't blame anyone. I brought it all on myself by listening to Clem, that crazy buddy of mine, and by agreeing to go home. Then I learned that all the time I spent AWOL, in addition to the time I spent in jail and in the brig, would have to be made up, which meant my discharge date would be moved ahead another seven months. By this time, I had served two years and four months, considered to be good time, of a three year enlistment. I was confined for three months in the brig and I was four months AWOL. I was told by some, it would be just about impossible to walk out with an honorable discharge, so I started weighing my options, trying to figure out how much more nonsense I wanted to put up with.

  Those kinds of decisions are what every low ranking military person faces when things don’t go according to plan. The military has a stricter set of standards and rules when it comes to behavior and accountability. In the military, there is a score sheet with proficiency and conduct marks. The scores must be within a certain set of numbers in order to get promoted or to be treated with even a minimum of respect. The pro and con marks are like a report card from school—those marks go into a military record. If you fuck up, they drag out that record and just look for the evidence needed to make a case for or against your young ass.

  The nightmares began shortly after being released from the brig. Every night I dreamed I was walking down the street wearing my winter dress greens uniform with my piss-cutter cover on my head. I was being stalked by a man with a forty-five caliber pistol—the stalker brought the pistol to my head from behind and pulled the trigger. I sensed my head explode as the forty-five caliber slug entered my brain from the left side of my head and I felt my whole body shake. Not believing I was dead, or hoping I wasn’t, I fell to the ground. Just before my head hit the concrete I’d awaken, drenched in sweat. Maybe this dream was telling me that my life as one of America’s finest was over. This became a recurring theme of nightmares that would last for years, haunting me, along with other nightmares of collapsing bridges and sweeping water currents.

  I was bummed out and didn't want anything more to do with the Marine Corps—I'd had enough of everything. I wrote letters to my state senator trying to find a way to get out of the Marine Corps without being crucified. When the commanding officer learned I wrote to a senator, I got charged with breaking the chain of command. I was threatened to be thrown in the brig again if I didn’t cease breaking the chain of command.

  A few weeks after I sent letters to the senator, I was told I had to re-qualify with my M-16 rifle. Re-qualifying meant I would be left alone for two weeks to snap in. Snapping in was like learning yoga, getting your body stretched and accustomed to getting into the four shooting positions: the prone, sitting, kneeling, and standing positions. We qualified by shooting at man-like silhouette targets from 200 meters, 300 meters, and 500 meters. Marines use the shoulder strap and peep sights on their weapons, along with one of the four positions to achieve maximum shooting accuracy and consistency.

  The Marine Corps took shooting very seriously. If a Marine qualified expert at the rifle range, he was treated with almost God-like status. There were three qualifications: marksman, sharpshooter, and expert. I was already a sharpshooter and I was anxious to qualify as an expert rifleman. Then maybe I could get some of those assholes off my back. When qualification day came—I managed to earn a sharpshooter’s badge again—missing expert by only two points.

  I was done at the rifle range and back at my unit when the hazing started again. I was in a position where I had to make a decision about what to do or what not to do. I couldn't
just check out a weapon from the armory and start killing the people that were fucking with me. Prison wasn’t part of my plan and I didn't want to be in boxing matches every other day either.

  My protective self-preservation mind told me to pack my shit and say “Fuck You” to everyone. I got on the first bus out of there and didn't care anymore about anything or anyone but myself. I was in a place I didn’t want to be in. I knew how to be a criminal and I knew how to be a prisoner so it wasn’t hard to play the game. Stumbling off the right path didn’t scare me anymore. Some people who have never been in such a position might think I should have done my duty even if it killed me. After all, there are those who have died on the battlefield to protect our freedom and how dare I turn my back on my fellow Marines. But human nature doesn't work like that, especially after being persecuted for so damned long. Maybe if one were in a battle situation where the adrenaline is running high with a fully loaded automatic weapon in hand, one can put on the John Wayne act and come out a hero. I was a young and compulsive person with, at the time, undiagnosed emotional problems. I was only protecting myself. I acted on a whim and thought my actions to be correct at the time.

  Once again, I would be a fugitive on the run with no place to go. I knew it was only a matter of time before I ended up behind bars again. But now I was experienced at the game and knew what was coming. Actually it was kind of exciting to be a fugitive. The desperado experience gave me a sort of adrenaline rush that felt invigorating. One of the reasons I joined the Marine Corps was to experience a combat situation where life or death hung in the balance. Kill the enemy or be killed. Thoughts like that shifted from one extreme to the next. One day I was looking for action and the next day I just wanted to play it safe. Kind of like the good guy bad guy scenario. A sense of contradiction I couldn’t explain. I had already proven I had the mettle to become a Marine. But I still couldn’t seem to find the place where I fit into the grand scheme of things.