Chasing the Son

by Bob Mayer

  The Military Institute of South Carolina, M.I.S.C. (or Miss C, as it is known more intimately among cadets and graduates), saw glory in battle during the Civil War, although it also saw defeat in war for the state and the cause it served. Such a mindset could be the basis of a character disorder if evidenced by an individual. But when instilled in the fabric of a place like the Institute, it became myth and lore and spirit. The very fiber of the place. While Civil War re-enactors gather every so often to pitch their tents and pretend to be in the days of yore, the stone ramparts of the Institute were rooted in the past and were the days of yore.

  State, City and Institute are intricately linked. While West Point, founded by Thomas Jefferson, boasted the United States Army, the Great Chain across the Hudson, the Revolution, Sylvanus Thayer, (Benedict Arnold) and other long ago historical footnotes at its birth, the Institute was part of Charleston, part of its heritage, part of its embroilment in politics and commerce and indeed, secession. And while the Military Academy ticks off as graduates: Presidents (2), five star Generals (3), astronauts (18), Medal of Honor winners (74) and others who served the country, the Institute was more subtle, its graduates spread into the very fabric of Charleston and its economic, political and cultural life.

  And if you asked, and even if you didn’t, an Institute man would tell you Charleston is more important than the country; and that they would be willing to lay down their lives for Family, Institute, City and then State, with Country coming fifth. Which might partly explain why those first cannon were fired from the Battery at the hulking presence of Fort Sumter, a man-made island, not even native to the place, built with New England stone piled onto a sand bar out in the harbor, which meant even its foundations were an anathema to the South. And, as any Institute man will tell you, again whether you want him to or not, there were Institute cadets and graduates manning those cannon in 1861.

  That’s not to say the Institute didn’t send graduates to bleed and die for their country, whether it be the Stars and Bars, and afterward, the Stars and Stripes. Many a monument on the campus gave testament to that, along with the Wall of Honor, listing the graduates who gave the ultimate from the Civil War to the ongoing War on Terror.

  There are a lot of names on that wall, each representing a man, an Institute man, in his prime, snuffed out.

  Strangely, not the only strange, the Institute is a state college, partly funded by the great state of South Carolina. And while it called itself a military school, it was actually more a facade of a military school since only those cadets who signed ROTC contracts were obligated to serve in the military upon graduation, unlike West Point or Annapolis or the Air Force Academy whose cadets forked over five years of their lives upon graduation. Then again, they didn’t fork over any tuition, while the Institute could cost a pretty penny to attend, despite the State funding.

  The Institute, founded in 1845, served a very different purpose than churning out second lieutenants. The need for a military school in South Carolina had grown out of the same institution which later caused those cadets and graduates to fire that cannon in 1861: slavery. Pre-Civil War, South Carolina’s white inhabitants were outnumbered by slaves almost two to one. And South Carolina, despite its relative small size, had more slaves than any other state except Georgia and Virginia. The Stono Rebellion in 1739 cost 21 whites and 44 blacks their lives. It resulted in legislation such as a requirement for white males to carry their guns to church on Sunday as it was the most opportune time for a slave revolt to occur. Closer to home, in Charleston, a freed black named Denmark Vessey plotted a revolt in 1822 that was pre-empted and Vessey and 34 other black men were hung.

  Those kinds of numbers and events kept city fathers up late at night in Charleston. The threat of insurrection was ever-present.

  There were some who helped found the Institute in 1845 who even remembered what had happened in Haiti beginning in 1791 and culminating on 1 January 1804: the only successful slave rebellion resulting in the formation of a state in a modern era. More importantly, they remembered that after Haiti was formed, the white minority was massacred.

  Thus the leadership saw a pressing need for a well-armed militia, as laid out in the Second Amendment, which needed well-trained leaders. And thus the Institute.

  And so the Institute is an integral part of South Carolina history and especially that of Charleston’s. There is no city that can compare to that which lies between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Forrest Gump would have been told to move along, politely, but fiercely, if he’d tried sitting on a bench in Charleston telling his tale of chocolates in a box. His kind did not belong to Charleston, but rather to the lesser city to the south, Savannah, which was founded by boatloads of criminals, a fact of which any Charlestonian would be glad to remind you.

  From the mansions south of Broad, to the Market, all built on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water, Charleston is a wonder to walk by day and full of brooding shadows by night. It’s a city that fairly screams ‘here there be secrets’ and it is to Institute Men that such secrets are given along with the keys to those closets in which they lurked. And Institute Men often went far beyond the bounds of the city and state, serving in Washington as representatives of their fine State, where secession was born.

  Thus, to be an Institute graduate is to be given a cracking of the door into a special world. But even that wouldn’t be enough for every cadet. Because there were Institute men and then there were the Institute Men of blood, of family, which even the fierceness of four years in the crucible of the Quadrangle at the heart of the Institute, could not grant. At best, one could be on the edge of the true power and benefit from it, but there is no substitute for being born to the right parents and having the proper blood coursing in one’s veins. Old Charleston families held onto their lineage with a fierceness and pride that would make those descended from the Mayflower weep with envy, if they ever wept given their New England stoicism; those Northerners are as hard as the stones from their part of the country that blighted Charleston Harbor and formed the foundation of Fort Sumter.

  Of course, the issue of race is also something that has not been untangled from the legacy of the Institute. While putting down a slave insurrection is no longer in the un-written mission statement for the Institute, the mindset cannot be weeded out of both the institution and the city.

  And those issues were something Harry Brannigan and a classmate were going to be shown this particular evening. That no matter what they were willing to endure, they were outsiders and always would be.

  It wasn’t just the name: Brannigan, which reeked of Ireland and pubs and potatoes. Even his first name did him no favors: Harry. He’d already endured more Potter jokes than anyone should. It was mainly that he was from far away, from Oklahoma, taking a spot that should have gone to a native son if not of Charleston, then of South Carolina. While this wasn’t directly his fault, it was his price to pay. What he could not know, what most would not know until it was too late, was that no matter how much sweat and blood he paid to the Corps, admittance would never be granted to the South of Broad club.

  That club of high birth, privilege and money, was where the real business of the Low Country took place and where the true power resided. One challenged it at his peril.

  At the moment, Harry was focused on simple survival. It is an axiom of military training to ‘break down’ a boy and make him into a man. It never seems to occur to those inflicting this training that perhaps they might break some blossoming good men in the process, turning them into something entirely else.

  Only three weeks into his time at the Institute, Harry had already gone on a Magical Mystery Tour. To the sound of the Beatle’s album, a rat was sent from upperclass room to upperclass room inside their company. Each upperclass room kept the rat for the official ten minutes of hazing, and then, in order to comply with regulations, dismissed the rat with specific instructions on where to go next: another upperclass room. For another ten. And another. And
so on. It was efficient in that each upperclass room only had to spend ten minutes hazing, while the rat spent every minute until Taps under the crucible.

  It hadn’t been that bad and Harry had sensed he was being tested. Could he take it? Would he lash out?

  Harry had taken it, kept his mouth shut except for a direct response and learned the cardinal rule of surviving as a rat: be a ghost. Don’t make waves, don’t stand out, don’t draw attention.

  That seemed contrary to the concept of ‘man-building’ in Harry’s opinion, but he knew his opinion meant squat compared to that of the Institute and the upperclass.

  But Harry now had a problem. Just after an evening meeting of the football team, upon which he was trying to gain a spot on the roster as a safety, he’d pinged back to his room, pinging being a nice way of saying marching at 120 steps per minute, eyes forward, neck braced back, squaring every corner, walking at the far wall of every corridor, taking only the single, furthest stairwell reserved for rats, up to his fifth floor room.

  He’d made it inside just as Taps began to play, taking a moment to inhale deeply in the relative (no locks on door, subject to upperclass intrusion at any time) safety of his room, when he noticed his roommate was missing.

  This was troublesome for two reasons. His roommate was technically on bed rest as mandated by the infirmary. So Cadet (rat) Wing should have been in bed. And even if not on bed rest, Wing was required by regulation to be in the room at Taps.

  And, more to the point of the moment, Wing was Chinese-African American.

  It might be the second decade of the 21st century to the rest of the world, but at the Institute, it might as well be Jim Crow combined with the fervor of ‘America for the Americans’, yada yada. In a way, things would have been easier for Wing if he’d been 100% black. The cadets would have known where he fit (on the bottom) and treated him accordingly, but the Asian was a wrinkle which they couldn’t iron out by turning to tradition. So they used the hazing hammer to slam at it, trying to see what the result would be.

  Wing was on bed rest after being run ragged the past week (including Magical Mystery tours for three consecutive nights). Not the most impressive physical specimen to start with, he’d finally collapsed in the dining hall at breakfast. The norm was to suck it up. Get up, get to class, make it through the day. Instead, Wing had opted to go to the infirmary. If he’d been able, Harry would have talked him out of it, but he never had a chance, only finding out in between his second and third classes when it was too late. Going to the infirmary was a big step in the wrong direction among the Corps of Cadets; a sign of weakness. Worse, cadets were wondering if Wing had ‘ratted out’; told the officials what the cause of his physical condition was and named names. Not that anything would come of it, hazing being as much a part of rat life as breathing, but it showed a lack of fortitude and willingness to be part of the system. If he ratted out as a rat (redundant yes, but reality) then how could one trust him later in life?

  Harry checked his roommate’s closet, trying to see what uniform was gone to get an idea where he might have gone. He didn’t miss it at first, but then he realized what was absent: Wing’s grey raincoat. And his M-14 rifle and parade bayonet.

  It wasn’t raining outside; indeed it was a muggy, 95 degree Low Country August night. And there wasn’t a parade scheduled after Taps.

  Harry faced that decision point every man faces in his life: do nothing, cover your ass, go to bed.

  Or he could go searching for his roommate.

  The correct Institute answer was obvious—hit the rack and ignore the issue.

  At West Point plebes quickly adopted an unofficial motto: cooperate and graduate. At the Institute, it wasn’t the same. Sort of an every man for himself, rats on a sinking ship philosophy. Those who climbed to the top made it; those who were on the lower decks went under. It is a fact that when drowned sailors or fishermen are recovered from their wrecks, boot marks are often found on the shoulders and tops of heads of the dead bodies caught below decks.

  Harry didn’t owe Wing any particular loyalty. He barely knew the guy. Harry was a rat in a sea of snakes called upperclassmen who relished nothing better to do than feast on a rat out of his quarters after Taps. There was an adult somewhere on campus, a tactical officer, but the unwritten rule was the Tac stayed out of the barracks, never passing through the sally ports into the inner sanctum, especially at night, allowing hundreds of young men free rein inside a class system that not only allowed, but fostered abuse.

  Harry stripped off his ‘As For Class Grey’ and put on his athletic shorts and shirt, the name Brannigan emblazoned on the left chest, right above the Institute crest with its motto: Duty, Loyalty, State. Harry tied his running shoes. Took a deep breath. Then slipped out of his room.

  He heard a clicking noise echoing down the empty corridor, the steel taps on the heels of the shoes worn by the Charge of Quarters, CQ, making his rounds, turning off the hall lights. Harry cut into the rat staircase and descended. Down six stories, below ground level, to the Sinks, as the basement level of the barracks was called. There were indeed sinks there, along with communal showers, lockers, weight rooms, and storage areas for the upperclassmen to put their civilian clothes for their weekend jaunts into Charleston and beyond.

  Why he went down, Harry couldn’t explain, but it was instinctual. Even with only three weeks under his belt at the Institute, Harry was getting a feel for the place. While the Institute proudly displayed cadets on parade on the large field in front of the barracks every Saturday morning, it had a dark, morbid side to it, hidden deep inside the battlements, so Harry went deep.

  Reaching the level of the Sinks, Harry paused. There was a smell to this level, one no cadet would ever forget: musty locker room with a tinge of fear and desperation. Harry cocked his head and listened.

  There was the muted echo of several voices raised, threatening, humiliating, taunting. A familiar sound to every rat. But there was an edge to this cacophony, a threat. A darkness that caused Harry to reconsider his plan. There was something else and it took Harry a few moments to recognize it: drunkenness.

  He was at a second decision point, where the stakes were higher. Harry sensed if he went down the corridor into the Sinks, he was never coming back the same. Not to the life he’d had planned out in conjunction with his benefactor, Doc Cleary. It didn’t occur to him that the stakes might be even higher than that.

  But then he thought of what Doc would say, what Doc would do, and to hell with the plan, he pushed open the stairwell door and headed down the corridor toward the hazing.

  And for the first time he heard his roommate scream.

  Chapter One

  The Present—Wednesday Evening

  “You broke my heart, Horace,” Erin Brannigan said. “You broke it when I was seventeen, and then you broke it again when you came back. You put your life on the line, searching for a boy that didn’t exist. I couldn’t believe it. But I saw it. It was like you were going out of your way to slap me in the face with your every action.”

  A cool breeze swept over the pool near them, blown in off the Caribbean Sea onto this isolated side of the island. Chase’s friends waited offshore for him to finish what they all believed was one last mission to close this clusterfuck out.

  Chase did what would have been unthinkable just five minutes earlier, turning to Sarah Briggs for amplification. “All this over a teenage fling?”

  Sarah sighed, and Chase could clearly see it in her eyes now, something he’d seen in a handful of men in combat. She was one of those who had no real fear outside of them. A psychopath, through and through. One to whom everyone was like the large chess pieces outside Erin’s office back on Hilton Head. Pieces to be moved and played. She was topless, reclined in her chaise, sporting only a bikini bottom, but there was no allure to her nudity and she wasn’t pretending any more. She’d fooled Chase, fooled him bad, drawn him into a battle with the Russian Mafia and she’d gotten away clean, with all the mo
ney. She’d faked her death somehow and disappeared.

  Until now.

  But Erin Brannigan was a wild card; Chase had been stunned when she walked out of the mansion and joined them.

  “Horace,” Sarah said, with a hint of exasperation, “Erin is upset because you walked away when she got pregnant.”

  Chase blinked in stunned disbelief and Sarah leaned forward, her first surprise of the unexpected meeting. “You never knew?”

  Chase could only shake his head.

  Sarah glanced over at Erin, who was perfectly still. She wore a simple sundress and was the last person Chase had expected to run into when he’d infiltrated this island to deliver the economic coup de grace to Sarah for her deceptions and lies.

  “Don’t act like you didn’t know,” Erin said, her voice cold.

  “Of course he didn’t,” Sarah said, nodding in understanding. “He nearly got killed trying to find my kid, who didn’t even exist. You don’t think he’d have given a shit about his own?”

  “I called you,” Erin said to Chase. “I wrote you.”

  Chase’s mind was racing, thoughts tumbling over one another in a confusing cascade: what had happened to the child? Did she have an abortion? Adopt it out? Raise it? “I didn’t know. I was in Beast Barracks at West Point. We couldn’t get calls. Or even letters, for those two months. Nothing.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Sarah said to Erin. Backing from a psycho wasn’t exactly what Chase was looking for at the moment, but he was too rattled to care.

  “Shut up!” Erin finally cracked, screaming at Sarah. “How the hell can you know?”