Song of Suzies

by Dave Balcom

  “There are twenty-four of you in this camp this week. You will sleep well and eat well while you’re here. You’ll learn a bit about yourself and we’ll learn a good deal about you.

  “At the close of day on Saturday, you’ll be transported back to whence you came. If you’ve not been invited to participate in future camps by then, you never will be so invited. If you’re invited and you decline, you’ll never be invited again. Questions?”

  I couldn’t think of any.

  “Exactly. When you learn more, you’ll question more. Now, let’s take a walk. As you’re going to learn, this camp is all about walking. You’re going to walk a hundred miles this week.

  “Oh, by the by, do you have any martial arts?”

  “You mean like Judo or Karate?”

  “Either? Both?”

  “Neither.”

  “Boxing?”

  “When I was a kid my dad taught me the rudiments; then I grew like a weed and most kids don’t pick on guys my size so I’ve never used it much.”

  “You’ll be fine here. We’re going to introduce you to t’ai chi chuan.”

  “What?”

  “T’ai chi. It’s an ancient form of karate. You learn to control your breathing, pulse rate... it’s as much a religion as it is a martial art, but anyone trained in the art can be a real handful in any dustup.”

  And Saturday morning my training in the art of t’ai chi started before the sun had cleared the horizon. He started us with basic forms, and we moved from one to another at a painfully slow pace.

  “Think about what you’re doing. Concentrate on getting into the perfect position no matter how slowly you have to go. Your goal is to reach the form, feeling the leverage of your joints at every second.”

  After ten minutes, he said, “Now we walk,” and an hour later, “now we focus on our forms.” And so it went. At eight, we broke for breakfast. By eight-forty-five, we were walking again.

  We broke for lunch at noon. “We’ll resume at two,” Smitty said as he stalked off to his quarters in a separate building from ours.

  “Stanton, what branch are you from?” A tall, beefy African-American asked as we stood in line for lunch.

  “Navy,” I said. “You?”

  “Army Rangers.”

  “This must seem like nothing to you after Ranger training.”

  “I don’t think much of this so far. I heard martial arts, and I was thinking it would be cool, but this dancing? I’m not into it.”

  Smitty seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he was standing between us, looking up at the Ranger. “Dancing? Jefferson, you think we’re dancing?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jefferson said in reflex to being challenged.

  “Don’t you dare call me ‘sir’; I work for a living and my parents were married at my conception.”

  “Sorry, Smitty,” the big man said as he laughed at the diminutive instructor.

  “You laugh at me, and I’ll be certain that you’re sorry.” And he stomped off.

  “What are we to do until two?” I asked one of the other campers.

  “I don’t know about the Navy, but in the Marines we sleep whenever we can,” another camper intoned.

  Smitty disrupted the siesta with an air horn, and all of us double-timed it to the tiny “parade ground” we’d used in the morning.

  “Fall in,” Smitty yelled. Then in a quieter, conversational tone, he said, “I’m certain that some of you are wondering just what all this t’ai chi chuan is about. I have heard that some of the tough guys here resent all this ‘dancing’ we’re learning. I’ve heard those complaints before, but think of this as the fundamentals of a life-long pursuit of peace, tranquility, and preparation in the face of a world full of danger and stress.

  “If you master t’ai chi, you’ll never fall into the grips of fear, no matter how scared you might be. If you master t’ai chi, you’ll find you can’t miss with a weapon even as you finish a two-mile run for your life.

  “It’s a long road to mastering t’ai chi, gentlemen. You won’t know mastery by the time you leave this camp, but you’ll have the building blocks that will allow you to learn on your own. If you pursue it, you can have it all.

  “Jefferson, front and center, please.”

  As the Ranger hurried to the instructor, Smitty looked at the rest of us. “I am about to show you what you’re looking for in t’ai chi. Jefferson here isn’t too keen on this dancing stuff, right Jefferson?”

  “That’s what I said,” he answered looking down at his feet.

  “For demonstration purposes only, I’d like you to take a poke at me, Jefferson.”

  “Ah, Smitty, I don’t...I mean... well, don’t...”

  “What? You don’t want to hurt me?”

  “I’m not sayin’ you can’t defend yourself, but I’m a lot bigger and younger and ....”

  “Ignorant, don’t forget ignorant,” he said and waited while we all chuckled. “Believe me Jefferson,” he continued, “if you hurt me, hell, if you lay a hand on me, it’ll be my fault. Nobody will hold it against you.

  “We’ll just box, okay?” And with that, he put his hands in a classic boxing pose. Jefferson shrugged as if to say, “If you say so” and put his hands up in similar fashion. The Ranger was at least a foot and a half taller than Smitty.

  As they measured each other, circling as boxers normally do, Smitty flicked out a left hand that caught Jefferson on the elbow. Jefferson reacted with a jab of his own, aimed at Smitty’s forehead.

  The instructor moved with cat-like reflexes, catching Jefferson’s wrist in both of his hands, and as Jefferson reacted to hit Smitty with his right, the instructor spun without breaking his grip on the wrist and fell back in the same motion.

  The effect was to turn Jefferson into a spin, his back to Smitty who then kicked the bigger man’s knee and the two of them toppled into the dust.

  As Jefferson turned to throw a punch from his back, Smitty turned under the big man’s wrist, maintaining his grip, and flipped the Ranger onto his stomach with his arm locked behind him.

  The bigger man couldn’t see that Smitty was then poised to bring his right elbow down on the back of his neck. “And that concludes the demonstration,” Smitty said without any trace of exertion in his voice.

  Jefferson turned over and sat in the dust, looking up at the instructor. “I gotta learn that.”

  “You will. But first you’ll learn the fundamentals that will allow you to focus and find your center, control your pulse and breathing, and allow yourself to react with as much speed as God gave you in defense or attack.”

  He put his hand down to the Ranger, who grabbed it and hoisted himself to standing position. Then he said, “Now we walk.”

  I came to love the structure of that camp. I found myself growing confident at finding the next position as we practiced our forms.

  “Questions?” Smitty asked as we finished our morning session the last day of the camp.

  I raised my hand. “Stanton, you finally know enough to ask a question?”

  “I’m wondering how you take the step from the slow-motion forms to the speed you demonstrated earlier this week.”

  “Good question. The reality is that you cannot practice defensive or offensive maneuvers at full speed. You must understand the forms so well that when offensive or defensive moves are called for, your body and mind will respond as one... the speed you possess will be there as needed.”

  “Other questions?” No one raised a hand. “Then I suggest showers. We’ll have barbecue and beer at sixteen hundred, then I have a movie you can watch after dark.”

  “What’s the title of the movie?” One of the campers asked from the back row.

  “The Graduate,” Smitty said. “I don’t know what it’s about, but I thought it appropriate for tonight.”

  The next morning, I was walking a trail that lead to one of the myriad waterways that range throughout the swamp, and Smitty caught up to me just outside the campground. “So,
Stanton, would you be interested in attending other, more concentrated training camps?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I would.”

  “Excellent. When your leave is up, you’ll be reporting to Flight Operations at Navy Jacksonville, not Newfoundland. There you’ll be trained in your ATC duties. When you’ve completed your tower training and taken your FAA demonstration test, you’ll hear from Chief Sawyer, and he’ll tell you about your next training stop.

  “You have to understand, Stanton, that this is all sensitive stuff. We don’t exist in the world of Congress. There will come a time when our outfit will be known around the world and young men will join the service just to be one of us, but right now, we’re top secret. This isn’t something you want to brag about at home; are we clear?”

  “Aye, aye.”

  “Good lad. Have a safe trip, and leave all the gear that we gave you here in camp. It’ll be waiting for you the next time you need it. Oh, and be sure to walk and practice your forms every day. Don’t waste this head start.”

  And that started my career as a covert warrior. I went on three missions in the final three years of my enlistment. I attained a certain mastery of the t’ai chi. I could at will control my pulse and my breathing, and I became very centered –almost to the point of a peaceful calm – when I found myself confronting danger.

  And, as promised, I became a deadly shot with almost any weapon. But even with all those gifts, I found I lacked something vital to such a career. I did not like the action. I wasn’t afraid to die, and I had proven myself capable of killing, but I didn’t sleep well for months afterwards.

  On my last mission, to the Middle East, I was fortunate to get out with my skin. I suffered serious damage to my body and my psyche. I had been attached to a Seabees unit when I shipped out of Quonset Point, so when I came home, my rehab took place there, and that’s when I met Sandy.

  She was doing a summer internship with the personnel office as part of her psychology minor. We met over a re-enlistment questionnaire, and I told her I wasn’t going to stay in the Navy. She reported that to her superiors, and Chief Sawyer was on the next plane.

  “What do you mean you’re not re-enlisting?”

  “Just that. I’m out.”

  “Look, Jim, I know it was rough over there, and I know you got knocked around a bit, but you did great work. Mission accomplished and you left no trace of our involvement. You just need a rest.”

  “Nope, sorry, but I’m out. I’m not cut out for this kind of work. It bothers me too much. I know I have the physical talents, but mentally and emotionally, I’m not suited to this stuff.”

  He stopped in mid-stride, stuck his hand out to me, “Good luck. There’ll be a letter of commendation in your file, restricted access and eyes only, of course. But you’ll have my personal gratitude for a job done well. Smitty owes me a bottle of Crown. He was sure you wouldn’t quit. I told him you didn’t make snap judgments, so if you thought it out and said you were done, I knew that was the final word.

  “Some day you’re going to read about a new unit. You won’t be mentioned, but you were part of the prototype, and you worked.”

  “Chief, just one question, or two, maybe.”

  “Shoot.”

  “That first camp? How many got invited?”

  “Twelve. Ten accepted.”

  “And all told, how many of us were there?”

  “There are thirty men; six teams of five with an officer and NCO in each unit.”

  “I never knowingly went on a mission with a team.”

  He nodded, “And neither did they, but you were with a team each and every time. But that, too, is classified.”

  The last two months of my enlistment found me dating Sandy nearly every night. And when it was time for me to go to Michigan and to college, I asked her to go with me.

  “I’m not sure how I’d tell my mom that I’m shacking up with a veteran in Michigan.”

  “I was thinking maybe we’d get married,” I said as I pulled a small diamond out of my shirt pocket.

  “My mom was thinking a church wedding.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Oh, mister, you silver-tongued fool, you. The words any girl wants to hear. I want you; but the church first.”

  “Set the date, and I’ll be there.”

  She did and I was.

  I came back to the present, noticing how sweaty I had become in such a short period of exercise. I walked for fifteen minutes, practiced forms for five minutes, walked for fifteen, forms for five and so on until I’d used up an hour.

  I was embarrassed as I shucked myself out of my drenched clothes and showered. “To think how I’ve let myself go,” I thought out loud. “Never again.”

  15

  Two weeks later as the fall was turning to winter and staffers were starting to decorate their work spaces for the holidays, Randy buzzed me from his desk. “We got another one.”

  “You know the drill. I’ll call Max.”

  With Hennessey and his tech in the room, Randy brought the letter to my office. The technician did her work, and unfolded the letter.

  “To the Editor:

  Our story isn’t news any more? I thought maybe it got misplaced and you didn’t get it, but then I saw that you had moved your ladies out so I knew you’d read my letter. So, did you consult with one of those FBI profilers to guess how I’d react to being ignored?

  “You let the damn story die in your paper. Do you think Suzanne’s been forgotten by her family? I thought you ran a newspaper down there.

  “I don’t know what that profiler told you, but I promise you that you’ll report my next tip. You think you’ve got the only three-year-old piece of ass in the Finger Lakes? Stay tuned.”

  It was signed with a capital Y.

  “We’ll have to report this,” Randy said in a whisper. “We can’t have the whole area going around unsuspecting and have one of the babies taken, Jim,” he said looking from me to Hennessey and back again. “We can’t, can we?”

  I dialed Read’s office and Harriet answered. “Where is he?”

  “He’s here. He’s in a meeting with Cecily and the sales people.”

  “Tell him we need him in my office as soon as he’s free.”

  “He’s got a two o’clock right after this.”

  “Tell him he’ll want to be late for that one.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Hennessey was gazing out the window at the traffic on Front Street. “He’s been checking on your house and our people haven’t seen him?”

  “They’ve been following me, or so I’ve been told. I haven’t noticed them. But he was probably around my house when I wasn’t, therefore you didn’t have troops on the scene...”

  I could hear phones ringing in the newsroom, and even the traffic outside in the silence that had fallen over the four of us. We sat there keeping our own thoughts.

  Read came to the door and found it locked. I opened it and apologized. “It’s what happens when you normally never close the door.”

  He smiled, looked at the table, and said, “Where is it?”

  The technician walked to the credenza and he followed her. He had finished reading and stood there, his head down and I thought he might even be praying.

  “How we gonna run with this? We have to, don’t we?”

  I heard Randy breathe and realized he had been holding it in, waiting for Read’s reaction.

  “Doug, I think we deal with this in a news story, and follow it up with an editorial explaining to our readers the back story on why we held the second letter,” I said in a quiet voice.

  The technician spoke up, “Nobody asked me, but I disagree. I’ve read Agent Gregory’s profile on this character, and I don’t think you can explain what you call the ‘back story’ without taunting him into taking some other action.”

  Hennessey nodded. “She’s right. I see a straight forward story – two letters, no timeline, and no attempt to explain what this nu
tcase is thinking. Taunting him could be putting you and yours in danger, Jim.”

  Randy stood up. “I think we need to get Cindy in here...”

  Doug interrupted, “Let’s make a decision here before we bring Cindy in... She’s going to be looking for leadership, I don’t think listening to our debate provides much in that direction.”

  Randy sat down. I turned to Doug. “So decide. I think you’re right, and I can’t see myself keeping the back story away from the readers. I think I’m already in this guy’s cross hairs, and that’s better for me than thinking he might be looking at somebody else’s kid...”

  Doug nodded. “Of course you feel that way. So we’re going for a straight story on two letters, no, three letters, without focusing on the timeline. The story will play on Page One A, below the fold. No photos. Detective Hennessey has to get with Grace Czarnopias and her family to warn them this is coming.

  “We’ll hold off on the back story or any editorials until this creep is in custody or dead.” He stopped and thought for a minute, and then smiled. “As a young editor has told me more than once, we rarely get into trouble for what we don’t print.”

  I looked at him and realized for the first time I was looking up to him. The thought stunned me.

  I turned to Randy, “Get Cindy in here; Max, it’s your press conference. You’ll want to hold another one at the station later today or tomorrow morning, or the rest of my media friends will roast you.”

  Hennessey nodded. I followed Read back to his office. “I know you’re running late for your two o’clock...”

  He closed his door. “What is it?”

  “Just thanks for how you handled that in there. I think I’m too close to this to be trusted for news judgment...”

  “Of course you are, and everyone in there knew it, including you. You did what any responsible leader would have done in a similar situation – you surrounded yourself with the best people available and listened to them, and to me.”

  “I just wanted you to know how I felt.” With that I left him there, and I couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face. He was beaming, he really was.