by J. T. Patten
“Deal!” Lars shouted back. “One more thing, after we talk and get a couple things done tomorrow, don’t make plans tomorrow night.”
Havens leaned over the banister, “What’s tomorrow night?”
“You go upstairs; take all the time you need. I’ll go down and get the beer. Then when you tell me everything first, I’ll share my surprise.”
Part II
I am the nightmare, right where the soldier
Overstands warfare, caught in the crosshair
The moment when focus becomes more
Than what’s noticed by the starving locusts
The burning of the pride, turning of the tide
Searching through the fight
Snuck in with the shadow that broke the castle
Escaped the cell, let hell out of the capsule
—X-Ecutioners,
from “(Even) More Human than Human”
Chapter 24
Sean Havens had witnessed a great deal of violence aftermath in his career. He had been responsible for creating such blood-spattered scenes in rooms throughout the world—but none so personal as this. Never children.
Seeing the room where Christina and Maggie were shot was unbearable. It looked to Sean as if a fifty pound bag of blood exploded, touching red to all corners of the white room and soaking the thick pile carpet. Sean replayed the scene in his mind of what must have happened. He sobbed at a blood smear on the carpet, imagining Christina crawling across the room to be beside her daughter cowering against the wall. A dark red mass remained surrounded by lighter red misting where Maggie took the head shot and the round exited. Havens walked over to the bullet-pocked walls and put a finger through one of the holes. He rested his head on the wall willing it all to go away, then recognizing the futility of this, moved to his daughter’s bed for comfort. Bedtime stories and tickle fights. He willed the happy memories to cloud his visions of horror.
After an hour in Maggie’s room, Sean retreated downstairs to evade the ghosts echoing his failure as a protector and provider. He took a deep breath upon sitting down at the table then cracked a can of Guinness and slowly poured it into the glass.
“You’re three behind,” said Lars, reaching for another can. “I decided to get a head start while you were upstairs. It’s horrible up there.”
Havens deflected the last statement. “Don’t you want to put those in the fridge?”
“I put a bunch in the fridge. These are the ones we are working on now. I don’t expect mine to get warm. I am in the fourteen beer stages of grieving.”
Havens raised his glass to Lars. “To Christina, the best wife a man could ever wish for.”
“And sister. I love you, sis.”
The two brothers in marriage clinked glasses and drank to their loved one.
Havens looked around to a cupboard reserved just for him. He opened the door to retrieve a bottle of Dalwhinnie Highland single malt scotch.
“Going for the good stuff are we?”
“This was recently given to me by a British SAS soldier I did some work with. I could use a little bit of extra power.”
“SAS, huh? Best fill me up.” Lars put his glass down. “In my business, the bad guys get killed in their homes when they have product in there. In your business, it appears that you are the product. And you live here with my sister and niece. Now let’s have it; spill your beans.”
Havens wasn’t sure what he was going to share. He thought a little fabrication here and there would be necessary. Lars really didn’t need to know about Havens’ life, training, capabilities, and expertise. He would give him just enough.
“So you know how you said if we told you we would have to kill you?”
“Yes,” replied Lars, not sure if this spilling of the beans was such a good idea now.
Similarly, Havens wasn’t sure that that was the best opening for discrete disclosure.
“In the units I have served with, we would have responded, ‘No, we wouldn’t kill you, we would kill your family and make life so unbearable you would wish you were dead.’ In my case, I may help them set things up so we know what family or person to kill, but we’d have someone else do it.”
“Kind of like what just happened to you.”
Havens paused. A look of bewilderment frosted his face. For the first time since getting the news of his family’s tragedy, he took a look at his life. Maybe Lars was right about the past coming to haunt him. He needed Lars’ help after all. Lars had great instincts and could see both big and little picture.
Havens decided then and there to share it all.
Chapter 25
Sean Havens’ father had been an Army drafted Vietnam veteran whose war souvenirs of empty ammunition magazines and clips, canteens, hats, and canvas pouches managed to fall into Sean’s toy box. The military items provided Sean hours of fun when he was old enough to play soldier or cops and robbers. He was a decorated war hero by his eighth birthday. The number of imaginary confirmed kills Sean had achieved by that age rivaled entire infantry platoons’ kill stats.
By the age of ten, Sean’s fascination with Vietnam led him to write almost all creative school papers on U.S. Army Special Forces, the Ho Chi Minh Trail’s strategic importance, and the history of Unconventional Warfare. Coming from a conservative Republican family with a long history of military service, Sean was simply a young patriot in the making.
The neighborhood that was Sean’s battlefield proved to be complete with allies. To the south of the Havens home was a street filled with actual WWII Jewish concentration camp survivors and a mix of refugees from Poland.
Mrs. Lewicz in particular was especially kind to Sean. The number tattoos on her arm intrigued him. She tried to cover them up most of the time, but one Halloween Sean saw them through her sleeve as she reached to put candy in his plastic pumpkin. Seeing his discovery, she pulled her sleeve up to show Sean. Her husband, who wore his as a badge of honor, invited Sean back to talk about it sometime.
Sean spent hours with the Lewiczes in the summer as Mr. and Mrs. Lewicz encouraged him to go after the neighborhood’s imaginary Nazis instead of the imaginary Viet Cong, who they described as simply protecting their homeland and being used by other bad people. Sean liberated the Lewiczes on a number of occasions. Mr. Lewicz took a break from mowing the lawn to hide while Sean swept the countryside and gave an all clear. He saved Sean on more than one occasion by pointing out a sniper in a crow’s nest and a Nazi bastard still hiding in the brush.
The Feldbaums, just behind the Havenses’ house, had also escaped Nazi Europe. At least the sisters had. They too took an interest in Sean’s inquisitive nature and on occasion invited him and his family to their Passover and Rosh Hashanah celebrations. They preferred not to join in the war games and demanded that Sean check his weapon at the front entryway.
Sean blew the traditional shofar horn and tried his hand at reciting the Jewish prayers and blessings that he had heard at both the Feldbaums’ and Lewiczes’. Sean’s father, a staunch Baptist, chided his son about having a Bar Mitzvah before his confession of faith in the church. Sean would laugh and continue reciting the Jewish prayers he had learned. That Christmas Sean received another bible from his father. It didn’t have the effect that Sean’s father had hoped for. Young Sean had shaken the box. It had to be the Crossman CO2 BB pistol he had asked for. But it wasn’t. Sean didn’t want to be armed by “the sword,” he wanted the hardware.
Just north of the Havens were a number of other Jewish families but next door was a Korean family, the Kims. Their children were much older, but from time to time Mrs. Kim would babysit Sean and his sister. They would eat lunch at the Kims’ on those occasions. Mrs. Kim would make Sean’s sister a grilled cheese sandwich while Sean would eat whatever Korean food Mrs. Kim was making for dinner. She even gave Sean a bottle of Korean garlic hot sauce that he would put on his eggs at home. This too received an eye roll from his father who would receive a good morning from his son in Korean. Sean could no
w construct greetings and short phrases in three languages.
Another half block over were his parent’s friends, the Singhs. The Indian family had a daughter in Sean’s class. The two got along well and in time the Singhs were also on the circuit of Sean’s cultural interests.
Sean would often trade sandwiches at lunch with their daughter, Prithi Singh. Prithi was embarrassed to eat the cucumber chutney sandwiches in front of her predominately white peers, who found the food to be just as different as she, and Sean was sick of PB&J and the requisite mushy bruised apples that everyone at his table ate. Prithi’s mother became suspicious when her daughter started asking for two sandwiches a day, but realized that Sean was growing and obliged.
The Kims moved suddenly. Evidently, Mr. Kim didn’t just have a laundry business. According to Sean’s dad, the police had said that Mr. Kim would lend money to people and hurt them if they didn’t pay when he wanted it back. Sean thought that was pretty cool and made perfect sense. Sean was angry that the people who Mr. Kim had helped ratted him out to the police. It wasn’t the reaction Mr. Havens was hoping for.
Pakistanis moved in to the Kim house. Mr. Fatani, the man of the house, was a short ugly man who was always cross with his wife and her sister. In the warm months when windows were open the Havens could hear a lot of yelling coming from the Fatani home. They had two very young girls who would sometimes come over and play on the Havenses’ swing set. One day Sean asked why their dad was always so mad. They said he was just like that all the time and shared with Sean that both of their mommies slept in the same bed with their dad. When Sean asked his dad about it, he smiled and said it was “cultural.”
With other moves came other neighbors. All had something that Sean could learn from. When a boy named Kent moved in, it changed his life.
Kent DuBoise and his family moved to the area in the summertime. They went to the same church as the Havenses, which made it the duty of Sean’s father to push his own son on them as a potential playmate. It was perfect. They were Christian and they spoke English. Enough of this foreign influence on the boy, thought Sean’s dad. The family would serve as a good foundational role model for Sean in the eclectic neighborhood.
Sean wasn’t too pleased with the prospects and shuffled his shoes over to Kent’s house one day on orders from his father. Sean heard mouthed explosions and the rapid fire gun rapports sounding off through the backyard. Kent was holding a black plastic M-16. When Sean asked what Kent was doing, he replied, “Killing VC.”
The two boys killed most of Chicagoland’s VC in the backyards and alleys that summer. Kent was a bit off personality-wise at times and didn’t get along with many of the other kids with the exception of Sean. When school started Sean found himself having to protect Kent from the other kids. It cost Sean friends, but every time he got in a fight and his parents were called, Sean’s dad stood by his son. He was proud that Sean was standing up for something and someone.
Sean was appreciative of his father’s pride and understanding but it still didn’t help the situation. He remembered coming to his dad, who was reading a paper, and presented the dilemma.
Sean’s dad never lowered the paper, and just said, “If you can walk away from it walk away. The words will make you stronger as a man if you can take it. If they are picking on you physically, you hit them hard and hit them often.”
“What if they hit back?”
“Then, Sean, you hit them harder, and you hit them faster, and you don’t stop until a teacher pulls you off. Go for the biggest one. Don’t hit the chin. Hit the nose, hit the lip. If a teacher pulls you off try to get in a last kick to the kid’s privates. Overall, make whoever is hurting you bleed and make them regret it. You are still young, Sean. Big kids will still cry at this age when you make them bleed. Heck, if you make them bleed enough at my age, they back down.”
“What if they make me bleed?”
“Then you didn’t hit them hard enough and you probably deserved it. But never ever let them see you cry.”
“Will you be mad? The principal may get mad if you aren’t mad at me.”
“Good. I’ll make him bleed.”
Sean smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
His dad kept the paper raised. “Why don’t you go see what Kent is doing?”
Fights ensued for a few months. Sean’s dad was right. The fights came, the blood flowed, and in short time few would pick on Sean Havens. The students still didn’t like Kent, but they allowed him to hang out. It was better than a bloodied nose.
Backyard wars continued after school, on weekends, and throughout the summers for Kent and Sean. Innocent neighborhood games like kick the can and ghost in the graveyard became opportunities for Sean and Kent to demonstrate their unconventional skills to the local indigenous forces.
By age thirteen they had hidden homemade sniper ghillie suits in the bushes that they would don to free jailed neighbors, then run back to their safe haven in the camouflaged attire. Stealth, freedom of movement, decisive action, and Hi-C was their formula for success.
Parents started to caution young kids against playing the neighborhood games after a kick the can incident when Kent and Sean covered their movement by lighting a homemade smoke bomb made of cooked potassium nitrate and sugar made in the Havenses’ kitchen. The smoke bomb had been cooked in an old pot that Sean’s mom had given them. They made three pounds that was laced with a waterproof waxed rocket fuse from the hobby shop. The smoke had filled an entire cul-de-sac and fire engines were called. When the smoke cleared, the kid who was “it” had been renditioned by Sean and Kent and tied up by the can. A fire truck had braked just in time.
Sean and Kent escaped to their forward operating base under a neighbor’s canoe. Their SERE training failed them as their adversary parents beckoned them home with the false flag of dinner. The boys were each confined to their bedrooms over the weekend. Escape was not an option. Kent broke before dinner was over. Sean’s mom, the unwitting accomplice who provided initial support and enablement to weapon’s manufacturing in her kitchen, broke the grasp of the boy’s hearts and minds campaign. They suffered the hard labor of making Christmas cookies with her—until she found a pan of dough shaped into AK’s, triangle straw Vietnamese hats, and Claymore mines. Mr. Havens destroyed them over a tall glass of whole milk.
Sean’s life changing moment came three years later on Kent’s sixteenth birthday. Sean, still his only friend, was invited over for a small party. Sean’s parents had been told that this could be an emotional day for Kent due to a family present that they had to give their son, and they were hoping he could have a friend over.
After hot dogs, cake, and the start of a Rambo movie, Kent’s mom and dad came downstairs to the basement with a box. The TV was turned off and the box was opened. Kent’s mom started to cry.
“Kent, I have some news that I have to share with you. It could be upsetting, but I hope that you will understand that nothing changes. Your father and I still love you and your father will always love you.”
“What is it? What is in the box?”
“Your biological father’s name was Robert Laughlin. He was an officer in the United States Army Special Forces. He was killed in Vietnam due to a series of what they called intelligence failures, but his actions led to him saving his entire team. He was a hero.”
Sean’s jaw dropped as Kent’s mom lifted the triangular folded flag from the box and set it on the long coffee table. She reached back into the box and pulled out a purple heart, a bronze star, a bronze statuette of a Green Beret soldier, and Robert Laughlin’s green beret, laying them on the table for Kent to take in.
Wow, Fifth group. Sean recognized the flash on the beret. Daaamn.
Kent looked up from the memorial display on the table. “I don’t understand, why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Kent, your father, well your father Jack, and I thought it would be best if you were old enough to understand a little better.”
“I can’t believe you
hid this from me and that you are not even my dad.”
“I SURE THE HELL AM YOUR DAD YOU UNGRATEFUL…YOUR DAD LEFT YOUR MOM TO RUN AROUND THE FUCKING JUNGLE AND GOT HIMSELF KILLED!”
“JACK! Language for God’s sake! We discussed this!”
Kent stormed off upstairs as he started to melt down. His mom trailing behind.
“Shit.” Jack kicked at the air.
Jack, a hippie in the ‘60s and ‘70s who still played his share of Moody Blues and the Grateful Dead, picked up the statuette and read the inscription.
“Nice job, LT Laughlin, KIA 20 March 1968 SVN 5th SFG B-52, whatever the hell that all means.”
Sean, still sitting in a chair ten feet away, was stunned.
Jack picked up the beret and put it on his head. With his beard and glasses, he looked more like a French artist. He pulled up his hands and fingers as if he were holding a machine gun that he fired in automatic mouth bursts at Sean.
“Take it off,” Sean said.
“What? Why you want it?”
Jack took off the hat and frisbee’d it over Sean’s head into the wall where it fell behind the TV. Sean looked at Jack in horror. Emotions were building. He felt like he could cry. Sean got up and walked to the TV where he wedged his body and stretched his arm as far as he could to grab the green beret.
“Leave it, Sean!”
Sean ignored Jack and continued to stretch. He retrieved it by willing his body to conform to the tight space, lengthening his digits by sheer heart. Sean tried to pull off the dust bunnies and lint that had adhered to the fabric behind the television stand. He couldn’t get it off. He rubbed and the dust and cobwebs only seemed to go into the green felt fabric more. Sean couldn’t hold back the tears, the frustration, and the hurt. He was panicking. The beret symbolized everything he wanted to be. To this point he had only dreamed of what it would be like to hold a real green beret.
