The Tarnished Shooter

by Charles James

  The weapon would work like a pair of "nun-chuks”, an effective device for a close-quarters combat situation.

  I would have to keep my creation a secret and keep it hidden. If I got caught with it, I could be charged with possessing contraband. Hell, it might even have been a felony to have something like that in jail. I didn’t know, but I didn’t care either. It was a chance I was willing to take because one time when I’d been in jail doing thirty days for possession of a stolen pistol, I was bullied by a couple of outlaw bikers. The bikers on many occasions walked into my cell as I lie on my bunk and threw water on me—a trick used to push my buttons to see if they could get me to fight. I learned through the jailhouse grapevine the two big old bikers had planned to gang up on me and stomp me into unconsciousness if I had taken the bait. It was lucky for me, or maybe the bikers themselves, that they were bailed out a couple days later. I didn’t know what I would have done if they continued to bully me.

  I could make just about any kind of weapon. But to me, the most powerful weapon a guy can have in any confrontation situation is his mind and the knowledge of human psychology. Sure, there are unpredictable circumstances, but people are all generally wired the same way with basic needs, wants, and fears.

  To help pass the time I started to read. An older, more educated, fellow inmate had some books about psychology and the surviving Jews during the Holocaust. One book, titled “Logotherapy” was very interesting to me. It was written by a German Psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl. The book explained man’s “need for something to look forward to”, and then he could survive even the most brutal conditions. Every time I turned around, I was threatened with being locked up. My new plan was to know the legal system and learn some keys to attaining more personal power instead of resorting to violence.

  I started to get a real passion for reading and studying psychology. I read a couple other books the educated inmate had about hypnosis and meditation. To me, they were interesting subjects. I was hooked on learning more about my fellow man and myself. I read that if I practiced meditation, the anger would dissolve and I would feel more connected to every living thing. Through self-hypnosis I could, in a sense, reprogram my thoughts. They were some ideas I kicked around in my mind, but I didn’t know enough then to actually put them to use. I started some philosophical thinking by asking myself questions. Was my anger learned behavior from the Marines and childhood, or was it inherited from the gene pool of my ancestors? Those lost unhappy souls of the past who passed their rage onto me in an insane quest for societal vengeance. The thoughts I had about destruction always emerged when I was drunk. It only took a couple of sips of beer before it felt like a switch had been flipped. I became a different person. This other person in me wanted revenge; he wanted control and power. I had developed a monstrous appetite for something to fill an empty hole in my soul.

  There were a few drug addicts in jail. I got to know all of them. They were alright; except for their need to use drugs. The Valium I was prescribed for the anxiety created by the ringing in my ear, made good trading stock. I figured I would pretend to take most of the drugs then save up a handful and use them like money. The rules of survival change in jail. I was willing to do what I had to do to come out alive. Some of those drug users were big guys. They were into armed robbery to get the drugs they needed; they had the balls to take risks. Jailhouse stories revealed that one of those guys in jail robbed a drug store that had been all over the news a few years prior. That dude had known a few guys I also knew. I needed some allies so the best thing to do was turn him and his buddies on to some of my drugs. As long as I was turning those big dudes on with some drugs, nobody was going to gang up and start any shit with me.

  Some of the inmates in the bullpen saw me fashioning the magazines and sheets together but had no idea what it was going to be. They became intrigued and I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. When I was finished putting it together I demonstrated the effectiveness by striking the concrete floor. A jailor happened to be watching me through a small window. As soon as I made the first strike he walked in. He looked at me in disbelief, then ordered me to drop the weapon and demanded I go peacefully to an isolation cell.

  I spent the last thirty-five days of my ninety day sentence in isolation. For those thirty-five days I consumed valium three times a day, and just zoned out into a kind of lazy, hazy, dream like funk—almost a comatose state of mind. I lived like a caged zombie dog. All doped up. Food or the sound of rattling keys was the only thing I had to look forward to. It was like living in a nightmare hoping to wake up any minute. Meal times were the only way I could tell what time of day it was.

  Every night I had to listen to the drunks banging on the steel walls and talking stupid. Sometimes there would be someone in the cell right across the hall talking stupid. I knew even just a few days of having all my rights to freedom stripped away and then being forced to live in a small cage was going to have life-long effects on my psyche. I started to wonder who the hell gave anyone the right to be able to do that. It ate away at my insides until I just wanted to tear someone apart.

  The only thing I was allowed to read in the isolation cell was the King James Bible. I read a little bit from the book when I could stay awake, just to maintain my sanity. The book was enough to spark an interest in the word of God so I continued to read and learn more about the Bible. For a while I found some of the stories fascinating, but then it all seemed to just repeat itself. People like to think when a person locked up finds God; it is all just a con game. Knowing from experience, I can assure you when you are all alone in a jail cell and you have only your thoughts to keep you company, the word of God is as comforting as a warm blanket on a cold night. You can wrap his word of salvation around you and find things looking a little better.

  As I sat in jail, I couldn’t help but think of my brother Jack and feel bad for him. I can only imagine the fear he must have felt that early morning. He couldn’t even feel safe anymore in his own home. I was his brother; I took an oath to free the oppressed, to serve and defend this country of all enemies, foreign, and domestic. I wished I could have honored that oath or apologized, but I didn’t know what to say or how to even begin to explain my actions of that early morning. I was a different person to say the least. I started to react to even the smallest encounters with the law or anyone else that I felt threatened my freedom to be me. Maybe I was headed over the edge of rationality. I was consumed with ideas of never again being controlled by anyone.

  I wanted to be heard and taken seriously my whole life, so that early morning I finally grabbed a gun for the power and control only a gun can provide. My old man had made guns take a priority in my life and so did the Marine Corps. So why did it seem so unusual when I decided to grab a gun when I felt threatened?

  I got to thinking the police have the control and power over everyone inside and outside. If the average man tries to show a little bit of assertiveness, or resistance, he must be prepared to be knocked on his ass with electronic stun guns or maybe a bullet from a nine millimeter pistol. The average citizen doesn't stand a chance; he will be forced to the ground, handcuffed, and then grilled about his activities. On the other hand, how many times have you heard of a congressman or senator made to get on the ground and act like a little puppy dog at the barrel end of a cop's gun?

  All this reasoning made me question authority even more. Some people spend their entire lives without ever questioning the powers that be. I, on the other hand, questioned everyone who thought they had control or power over me.

  I wished I had taken studying more seriously when I was younger and in school, but like most know-it-all teens, I never saw what was coming down the pike. I realized I was heading into an abyss of never-ending harassment and disappointment. I also realized I had to re-educate myself in the ways that others used domination and control. The power and resources of the government was no match for anyone like me who thought he had his rights guaranteed by some old piece of paper drafted
hundreds of years before his birth. Those old constitution hackers who’d crafted what was to be our way of life had no idea how things were going to be in a new aged society.

  I never liked to talk about the things that bothered me because I didn’t even know myself, or how to describe the rage that was living inside me. I knew it was there, but I thought, so what—most people are generally pissed off about something. At times I felt like a natural born killer, just waiting for the opportunity to unleash a furry of hurt on anyone that crossed my path. Most of the time those evil thoughts kept rolling around in my mind—they just wouldn’t stop. Like a song on the radio that would not let go. I don’t know if it was the Marine Corps that caused me to think like that or my upbringing. Most likely it was a combination of the two.

  If I was at a bar and some emotional thoughts started to surface after just a few swallows of beer—I would stare at myself in the reflection of mirrors that made up the back of the bar. One night I was in a zone of despair. I was so angry I threw an empty beer bottle at my reflection, breaking a half dozen bottles of booze. I don’t know if I threw the bottle at myself, or if I was just trying to get some attention. Most of the time, I felt like a ghost. When you’re troubled it’s easy to think and do things that are self-defeating.

  It was a good thing the bartender knew me, or that night I would have gotten my ass kicked or thrown in jail for sure. He was a friend from junior high school and also a former Marine. I think he understood my state of mind.

  I knew quite a few guys from the old neighborhood who’d joined the Marines. It seemed like every one of them had some issues because of the Marine Corps too. Lenny married the frizzy haired girl he had met walking down the street and stayed in for over thirteen years. It was a shock to me when I found out he had sexually assaulted his own daughter. Seems he had some undetected issues. What would cause him to assault his own daughter? Naturally he was booted out. Once he was a highly trained Marine with a sleeve full of stripes. Now he is a registered sex offender. Another guy I’d gone to school with came out of the Marines just as angry as me. He started carrying guns and getting into fights just for the fun of it. He knew he had to change his ways too. He took up the call to preach the word of God. And of course there’s Clem, he was mixed-up before he even enlisted. He never talked about the experiences he had in boot camp or the regular Marine Corps. I think he figured I knew what it was all about so he didn’t have to try and explain anything to me. We both knew it was tough and we both made it—nothing more needed to be said except that it changed us.

  PART 5

  A Civilian Again

  Chapter 21

  When I finished serving the ninety days in jail for reckless use of a weapon, I was escorted back to the North Carolina Marine base. I was detained in the brig for about two weeks. My commanding officer signed for my release and my old Mexican buddy and company driver picked me up from the brig again. This time he and everyone else in my unit knew I was in a world of shit. They started talking about Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the big notorious military prison. I was facing some serious time if I was court martialed. The Marine Corps had spent enough time and money on me. After my little stunt with the gun, there was nothing they were going to do for me anymore. They decided to give me my walking papers. First I had to talk to a base lawyer and he recommended an administrative discharge, which was based on my service record.

  I was given every shit detail imaginable. The same old crap just a different day. There were three or four other Marines in the same situation so we hung together. We stayed clear of the squared away mother fuckers—hiding and sliding until we could finally walk away from what was one of the biggest mistakes we had made in our young lives. I was coerced into a fist fight with a fellow shit-bird who was my friend at one time. It seems he didn’t care for my radical attitudes anymore and had turned into a squared away kiss-ass. The fight was instigated by a sergeant squad leader who out ranked the both of us. The squad leader egged me on with questions about whether I was a man or a mouse. I was still a Marine and Marines fight. I was backed up against the wall in a two man room in the barracks with the squad leader standing guard at the door. I had to fight my former friend or get the shit kicked out of me by two others that had joined the party and were present outside the door. There was only one thing I could do and that was put up my dukes and go at it like one of “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children”. The fight was over in less than a minute. He got a fat lip and I had swollen knuckles. Yea,—Semper-Fi motherfuckers!

  The military does different things for different people. Some need structure, some need money, and some want to travel. I didn’t have a definite purpose for joining the Marines other than to escape from a probation officer with a reckless delusion of believing I actually had the where-with-all to spend three years of my young life taking orders from uneducated idiots who out ranked me. If I couldn’t take my old man micro-managing me, I don’t know what made me think I would tolerate anyone else barking out orders at me. Anyway my days in the Marine Corps were coming to an end.

  Three months and five fist fights later—sporting two black eyes—I got out of the Marine Corps. I signed papers to get the administrative discharge in lieu of facing a court martial, sort of like a plea bargain in a civilian court of law. Everyone said it would be automatically upgraded to honorable after six months. More fucking bullshit spewed out the mouths of idiots that didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. I wanted to be loyal to the Marine Corps, but I fucked up for reasons I didn’t understand and I had to face the music. The Marines never once had anyone sit down with me and ask me what the hell was going on, or what I thought my problem was. The only thing that was important to them was that I be a tough guy and just suck it up. When I fucked up and the shit hit the fan I sucked it up best I could.

  The Marines had no use for a pistol packing devil dog who had held a gun on his own brother during a drunken rage. But the Marines had something to do with transforming me into that walking, talking, short-fused, kick ass first and take names later devil dog and they really didn’t know or give a shit about my past, or how I was raised. Yea, I needed to be trained so I could go out and kill the enemy in the name of protecting freedom on foreign or domestic soil. Unfortunately sometimes I carried their indoctrination a bit too far.

  Once again those with the authority had shown me I was nothing but a tiny speck compared to the life crushing power of the governmental machine. It seemed like every minute I spent in the Marine Corps—I spent it eating shit.

  With my discharge papers in hand I was driven off the base. Once again I felt true humiliation. I didn’t have five cents in my pocket and had to make the eight mile walk into town and try to contact someone to wire me a bus ticket to get home. I was paranoid the cops would arrest me for vagrancy or something just as ridiculous, so I was in hurry to get the fuck out of the area. I was owed thirteen hundred dollars in back pay, but was told good luck trying to get that. The wheels were already turning and I had a plan of action in mind for getting the money owed to me once I got back home. I didn’t know how I could feel a sense of compassion for anyone. I felt like the whole world hated me and maybe sometimes at that time in my life I hated myself, even though I didn’t understand why.

  I guess I would never be anyone’s hero and there wouldn’t be any gold stars after my name for any of the good I did. But once I got knee deep in shit, the demerits kept stacking up like yesterday’s news.

  Three hours later I was on a bus out of Jacksonville, North Carolina and headed home. I couldn’t figure out why I was in such a hurry to get back home to life on the block. I knew everything was different. My head was spinning with what ifs and what now, but also a sense of relief.

  When I returned home I wasn’t welcomed back with open arms. Everyone knew what I had done and most didn’t want anything to do with me. The police also learned I was back in town and they picked up where they had left off. They watched me like a hawk. I immediately penned a l
etter to The Honorable Senator William Proxmire explaining my situation and the thirteen hundred dollars the Marines owed me for back pay. Four weeks later I had a check in my hand for the full amount. I also applied for a discharge upgrade. My two-plus years of good-time service deserved something. My uncle Seth managed to get his discharge upgraded to honorable because he was a Vietnam Veteran and he urged me to do the same. The war was a stain on the American home front and the vets of that era were getting heard and things started to change. In days to come President Elect Jimmy Carter would pardon draft dodgers. Military patriots didn’t like that, but the image of the war had to change. I along with many others who’d served at that time, but didn’t go into the combat zone felt cheated because of the lack of appreciation for having served during those chaotic days of social unrest.

  Things were pretty much the same back home. Dusty had taken over ownership of the trucking business but no longer operated it. It wasn’t long before he lost the delivery contract for an alleged theft of merchandise. He sold four of the trucks, keeping the newest cab-over model.

  Not long after the trucking company went defunct he met a young aluminum siding contractor just starting out. Aluminum siding was becoming more and more popular with home owners because people were looking for more free time, instead of scraping and repainting their houses. Siding was also sold as an energy saving addition to old and new houses. At the time gas prices were raising because of an oil embargo, the country was gearing up for an energy saving plan of action. Keeping houses more energy efficient was one of the ways to save money and natural resources.

  Dusty, the natural salesman that he was, managed to talk his way into an aluminum siding partnership with the young contractor. He hired Clem, Little T, and me to work for him installing siding. Dusty was so polite and smooth with potential customers; it didn’t take long before he had a list of contracts and jobs that would take his three-man crew a year or more to finish.