“First of all, if this were a possibility, the odds would be overwhelming that we’d see multiple other symptoms that, as I mentioned earlier, just aren’t there. And secondly,” with this lead in, he leaned toward her and said in a conspiring tone, “it just came out a few years ago that Sybil was made up.”
Her jaw dropped, and for just a moment, all of her problems faded. She was aghast that such a fascinating piece of American “history” could be folklore. He used a stronger word.
“Fraud. It was made up, but believed by all. Other than Sybil, there were few credible, slam dunk cases. Sorry, Sergeant Carter, you just don’t make the cut for that diagnosis,” he told her wistfully. He leaned back again, indicating the ball was in her court.
“Well, that’s just freakish. The Sybil, part, I mean. But I’m very relieved to know I can’t be accused of that kind of craziness, anyway. So, you’ve told me what it isn’t; I don’t know what it is….but I just know it isn’t anything in your books…So where does that leave me?” Her question was vulnerable, but direct.
Equally as direct, he told her flatly, “Johnnie, your career is over.”
A compassionate look crossed his face as he saw her shoulders drop and her face sag in defeat. But he gave it to her the way he knew she wanted it – straight up.
“Even if I give you a clean bill of health, which frankly, I can’t, based on the evidence of your black outs; you would ultimately be discharged for disciplinary reasons anyway if these episodes continue. You or I can’t guarantee they won’t continue. And honestly, I think the odds are pretty good something has started that won’t end soon. But that takes us back in the direction you don’t want to travel.” He quieted for a moment to allow his words to sink in. When she sat up and squared her shoulders, he continued.
“You don’t want the disciplinary route to discharge instead of this. Besides the fact it’s unjustified, it will be a bigger black mark on your service record than a discharge for mental disorder. Believe me. And one will have associated benefits the other will not. You have thirteen years of honorable service and I won’t be part of soiling that.”
He stopped again to give her an opportunity to speak. Her face was a mosaic of emotion; anger, pain, sadness and not a little desperation. She shook her head slightly, closing her eyes while lightly placing her hand on her throat. She couldn’t speak.
He picked up her previously ignored case file and said, “Psychosis, NOS. It’s an unclear, but present form of psychosis ‘not otherwise specified.’ It’s the best I can do and, under the circumstances, it’s totally appropriate. It will protect you from disciplinary action if we can get you discharged quickly enough.”
“Quickly enough for what?” She finally spoke, hoarsely.
“To get you out of that uniform before something else happens that we still can’t explain.”
He looked at her and the unfortunate believability of his words hung in the air between them.
It was noon on Monday, Johnnie’s last day on active duty and Jason Barker was home for lunch. He heard a knock at the door and closed the fridge to see who was bothering him during his short break.
When he saw Johnnie on the other side of his barracks room door, his face fluctuated in a rapid succession of expressions. He’d tried unsuccessfully to speak with her alone since the car accident which now seemed like ancient history, although it had happened only weeks before. He had thought she was already gone for good and was elated to see her.
“Are you going to let me in, you doofus?” she demanded, bringing back, if only briefly, the nature of their past relationship.
He flushed, smiling nervously, and stepped away from the entry. She walked in, but blocked him from closing the door all the way. Still not understanding the rules of her bizarre episodes, she wanted to at least minimize the “alone” factor with anyone, but especially this young man who had likely had as much as he could handle with the first installment of this whole mess.
He looked at her quizzically when she stood between him and the door.
“Chalk it up to crazy-woman symptom #211…. paranoia. Don’t worry,” she said reaching up to rub his fuzzy orange hair, “It has far less to do with you than me.”
Placing her hand on the door and raising her eyebrows, she added, “Unless, of course, you need a triple by-pass or on-the-spot brain surgery for which I’m apparently qualified?”
He initially blanched at her sudden comments regarding the taboo event, then shook his head with a grin. Dropping her hand from the door, but leaving it ajar, she pushed him gently toward the small interior of the room.
Barracks conditions had improved dramatically since Johnnie was a young airman; now troops enjoyed more of a single studio apartment arrangement than the traditional sparse, shared rooms. The furnishings were modest, but certainly adequate, and the two settled near each other on plain armchairs as Jason found the television remote control to lower the volume on the blaring ESPN updates.
With a look of mixed pity and hesitation, he said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you so bad. And I want you to know that I think it is total bullshit they are throwing you out… I know nothing is wrong with….”
She stopped him with a firm flash of her hand. He was shocked by the bold red letters printed on her palm: STOP. The message certainly served its purpose as he pressed his lips together and looked at her, confused.
Smiling smugly, she looked at her palm, admiring her work.
“I had a feeling you were going to go there…and as much as I appreciate your sentiment, that train has left the station. And you or me, no one can stop it.”
As he started to interrupt, she whipped up her hand with a clownish cock of the head, “Nope. And that train I was talking about…is NOT the pity train, so I need you to just, well…” glancing at her hand again, “well, just stop.”
He leaned back and acquiesced, for the most part, with a quick, “OK, but it’s not fair.”
“Jason, I didn’t need this stuff to happen to teach me that life isn’t fair. But anyway, I came here because I wanted to say goodbye and to apologize for ignoring you. I guess I was dealing with about all I could handle and, on some level, thought if I just ignored it all, it would go away. But you didn’t deserve that. And I’m really sorry.” She stopped for just a second to look at the young, hurting face.
“And I believe I owe you an audience. I can’t change anything now, so I guess it won’t hurt to talk about it if that’s what you still want.” He returned her gaze for just a second and surprised her by standing.
“Hold on a minute,” he said as he went into the small bedroom adjacent to the living area. She heard his wall locker jangle open, thinking that some things hadn’t changed that much…G.I.’s would probably never rate actual closets. Bulky lockable units must not have contemporary versions, she thought with a smirk.
He returned with an old backpack. Oh brother, she thought, but bit her lip. Please, no “goodbye” gifts. But he looked so emotional; she felt he had earned this moment and held her silence.
“I wanted to see you way before now; this might have helped you. But we all agreed not to talk about what really happened that day and I held my end of the bargain. But, Johnnie, this could have proved what happened and that you’re not crazy!” With that he pulled a jagged stick and a discolored rock out of the bag, holding them in her face with a look of vindication.
Leaning away slightly, she was initially very confused. Johnnie searched for words, not wanting to diminish his dignity. The items were not completely unfamiliar, and something about them told her they were significant.
“These are what you pulled out of the farmer, Johnnie…they were stuck in him in the first photos and then they were on the ground next to him where he woke up!”
The connections fired in her brain, sparking recognition from the photographic images and Jason’s original account, weeks ago. She recoiled and leaned away, averting her eyes. This was not only unexpected, but realization that
the discoloration could be old blood made this very morbid in her judgment, even after all she’d experienced.
“Jason, yuck! Please put them away.”
After catching a glance of the hurt look on his face, she caught herself. Composure, Johnnie, please, she told herself sternly.
“OK, just please put that stuff down.” Taking a deep breath, she waited till he placed the gruesome artifacts on the coffee table.
“Lookit. I really appreciate you trying to have my back.” Reaching to squeeze his arm and looking into his eyes, she reinforced, “I do. More than you could know.”
He seemed to accept her words, and looked slightly less agonized, but still pitiful, nonetheless.
“Jason, you can’t help, and as much as I appreciate you keeping…these…things…they wouldn’t have made the difference.” She made a quick decision then, and continued, watching him closely to gauge his response. He did matter to her and that had to take priority.
“What you don’t know is that there were other factors that day, and….well, other incidents since then. What happened with the farmer was never considered in the formula for me to be discharged. It was based purely on my repeated - absences and the fact that I couldn’t remember what happened during those times.”
He was obviously perplexed, and more than a little bit let down that he didn’t hold the keys to saving her career.
“And they aren’t throwing me out, Jason, I am being discharged because I have a pattern of behavior that, well, indicates a mental health condition.” His eyes widened and he exclaimed,
“That’s bullshit and you know …”
Her hand whipped up and he stopped for just a second, obeying the command thrust in his face, then defiantly leaned to look past the hand,
“…and you know it.” He pointed a knowing finger at her.
“Well, in fairness, my actions have met the criteria, and I quote,” she continued, in a pompous official voice without taking a breath, “Psychiatrically speaking, while a single episode could warrant separation, continued psychotic symptoms which are persistent and recurrent, unresponsive to treatment and severe enough to interfere with satisfactory duty performance must be classified with a decision that will protect both the best interests of the individual and the needs of the Air Force.”
Almost out of air now, she inhaled and smiled. Reclaiming her own face and voice and said to him gently,
“Opinion aside, my friend…for now anyway, it fits the bill.” In attempt to lighten the mood, she adopted a regretful, but blustery tone.
“Besides, the alternative would be all kinds of getting my ass kicked, like Article 15’s and such, for repeated A.W.O.L.s, and that would have really sucked!”
He was deflated. He looked at her with such regret and hopelessness, she could hardly stand it. So she didn’t.
“Airman Barker, wipe that freakin’ look off your face now. Really, I can’t tolerate pity and all things considered, I don’t need or deserve it. Really, please just stop that.” There was no energy left in the air, and little to say. He finally cracked the silence.
“You are the best N.C.O. I ever worked with…and a good person.” It was said with conviction, and he obviously took great effort to honor her request.
“I know I don’t have to like what’s happening to you and my opinion doesn’t matter, but I just wanted you to know that. That I respect you and will miss you.” There wasn’t much left to be said.
Back at the door, they embraced in the manner of siblings as she was leaving.
“Just so you know, I’m keeping that stuff just in case it ever counts,” He jerked his thumb to the room behind him, toward the items on the coffee table. She wrinkled her nose,
“Whatever floats your boat, but it does seem kind of Jeffrey Dahmer-ish to me. I don’t want to know what else you have in that locker…” She winked at him, arched one eyebrow, asking, “So, who’s the crazy one?”
________________________________________________________________________
It was high noon and she was already exhausted. Johnnie’s next two stops were to say goodbye to Captain Stass, then to go the personnel office for her final out-processing from the armed forces.
She sat in her truck outside Jason’s barracks and stared at her phone. This was a call she dreaded, but figuring the day couldn’t get any more difficult, she opened the contacts folder on the device. She moved her finger down and across the screen through the options, stopping when she found the name.
“This will be delightful,” she muttered, pushing the call button on the screen over the contact identified as, “Mom.”
The voice on the other end was one roughly altered through years of well-smoked vocal cords. In fact, Johnnie envisioned her mother, in that instant: old hard-wired phone in one hand and Camel Filter in the other.
“Hi, Mom.” She started with trepidation. She imagined this was a feeling similar to that of a doomed sailor when taking the first step onto the plank.
“Johnnie! My baby girl, as I live and breathe, you ARE alive! I had to wonder…thought maybe you were off to war again…” She could almost smell the “Ode d’ Cigarette Smoke and Guilt;” her mom’s favorite fragrance.
“No, Mom I’m on this side of the water. How are you?”
As soon as the words left her mouth she realized she may have just lost total control of the conversation. The innocent, though rhetorical, question typically had the effect of a levy release resulting in surging explanations of ailments, totally trivial drama and complaints about her mother’s distant life. Today, however, she was rewarded with a short answer, and a question.
“I’m doing alright under the circumstances….” Her mother paused as Johnnie rolled her eyes. She could only imagine what the current ‘circumstances’ were.
“But why are you calling me in the middle of a work day, what’s wrong?”
Johnnie had many reasons not to like her mother, but she did love her and was always impressed when the maternal instinct came through with exact accuracy. Indeed, the two of them didn’t talk often, and when they did, it was typically at Johnnie’s convenience, meaning occasional weekends or holidays.
Although she’d rehearsed this moment during many a sleepless night, it was all for naught. It was most like her to get right to the point, and at this junction in her day and life she just didn’t have the energy to try something new, even if it could curb her mother’s reaction.
“Mom, I’m being discharged from the Air Force. Today. I’m leaving the area right away. I just wanted to let you know and my phone number will be the same.”
Out and done, all bases covered. But once said, she knew the little package of information hadn’t been very well wrapped. In fact, it just seemed to invite an inevitable tirade of questions.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop, she rolled down her window, figuring this would take a while. Again, her mother surprised her. Johnnie would have thought they’d lost the connection if she hadn’t caught the barely audible exhale through her receiver, an air expulsion undoubtedly accompanied by a gray cloud onto her mom’s yellowed phone mouthpiece. Her mother, quiet?
“Mom? Did you hear me?” She asked nervously.
Her mother’s voice typically carried a world all its own, encompassed in the atmosphere of her very stereotypical New York accent. It was more than a voice, because it always brought with it of a storm of information, martyr-like exaltations, baiting remarks, and oddly loving-but not-without-conditions comments. That world was apparently suspended on this day. All the older woman said was, “I see.” Not curtly, but solemnly, and said as if it accompanied deep thought and concern, qualities Mary Carter rarely displayed.
“Johnnie, you need to come home. Right away.”
And that was it.
Based on her mother’s demeanor, Johnnie resisted the urge to ask her mother, “what home?” Until she’d joined the Air Force thirteen years prior, they’d never lived anywhere longer than a year at a time that she
was aware of. It was a constant source of irritation to Johnnie that since then, her mom had actually returned to her own birthplace, Brooklyn, and stayed in one residence -- one Johnnie nor her brother had ever lived in. It wasn’t “home” to Johnnie, never had been…but her gut told her this was not the time to point that out.
“OK, Mama. I will.”
___________________________________________________________________
As Byron Hoffstedder, AKA, the Angel Tracker, watched the flight attendant demonstrate use of the seatbelt, he wondered, as he always did, if there were really passengers who couldn’t figure that one out all by themselves. While his hand habitually reached down to check his own seatbelt, he further pondered if there was a soul lost to the inner workings of the restraint device, would they really be able to follow all the other instructions that were apparently vital to saving their lives in the event of an untimely landing or drop in cabin pressure? What with the whole oxygen mask (that they swear delivers air, although the oxygen bag is deflated) thing, the “find the closest exit which may behind you,” (as well as possibly being on the other side of dozens of panicked passengers), and, for heaven’s sake, don’t forget your seat cushion in the “unlikely event” of a water landing; well, there was an awful lot to comprehend.
He absently flipped and clicked the seatbelt thinking, nah, if you can’t work this baby, no need to trouble yourself with the rest of the checklist…
“Thank you for your attention. After we reach the appropriate altitude, the captain will turn off the seatbelt signs…”
Unable to concentrate any further on speeches he could personally give after flying so often the past few years, Byron closed his eyes so as not to encourage conversation with the character next to him who looked a lot more like a Muppet than a human being. He wasn’t sure he was interested enough to see if Fozzy’s voice matched his large-mouthed, generally fluffy look, so he turned off all body language that may indicate otherwise.
This was the last leg on a long day of flying, his trip culminating in Reno, Nevada. He’d rent a car there and make his way to meet with Lisa Douglas at a pre-arranged location so they could discuss her alleged “soldier angel,” although the soldier was actually in the Air Force. Lisa had insisted upon this important clarification.
The Unlikely Savior (The Unlikely Savior Trilogy) Page 9
