Douglas Bunger's Blaze Of Glory

Chapter 3



 
 
 
    Brad decided not to supply dinner for 'his' homeless people that night, because he wasn't completely certain the breakfast and lunch had been successful. The people were willing to accept his offer of food as long as there were no strings attached, but he wasn't convinced that they would answer his questions honestly because of it. He had already spend over fifty dollars that day, and figured that the street people would survive the night without his help.
    After eating, Brad tried to relax with a book, but he was continually haunted by the words of Sgt. Gatewood. In a way, Gatewood had opened a Pandora's Box in Brad's head that forced him to think only of the Sergeant's story. Not that he believed there were goblins, aliens, or omniscient birds living at some Air Force Base-- it was obvious the man was disturbed. What bothered Brad, was the half dozen questions that his apparent state brought to mind.
    The first question Brad wrestled with was the issue of whether or not Gatewood was actually in the Air Force at all. The coat could have been donation, or come from an Army surplus store; but if he had, it wouldn't have looked new. If he had bought it new, it wouldn't have come with Air Force insignia unless he had asked for it. But where would Gatewood get the money for a new military issue coat if he were really homeless and crazy?
    That brought Brad to question number two. Was Gatewood actually crazy? If Gatewood wasn't crazy, then why would he have put sergeant stripes on the sleeves of his new jacket. If he wasn't crazy, then who was he that he would go to such trouble to act that way? And if he was crazy, then why wasn't he in an institution rather than walking the streets of Los Angeles?
    The thought that Gatewood should be in an institution forced Brad to consider the first question again. If Gatewood was in the Air Force, then he was qualified for veteran's benefits. At the least it meant that he could go to a veteran's hospital for help.
    Furthermore, if Gatewood was in the Air Force, then he wasn't always crazy. Even if he had been unbalanced, or simply strange, he would not have lasted long enough to get five stripes. Brad figured that if Gatewood had really been good at his job he would have earned one stripe every eighteen months. That amounted to seven and a half years. If Gatewood had been crazy when he joined, he would have had plenty of time to show it in seven and a half years.
    That meant one of two things: Gatewood left the Air Force, couldn't cope with the real world, and went crazy; or that he lost his mind while he was in still in the service. Brad quickly decided that it couldn't have been the first option. From Brad's point of view, most civilian's had trouble coping with the military, not the other way around. It just seemed inconceivable that Gatewood could have gone crazy after leaving the military.
    If Brad accepted that Gatewood had been in the Air Force, that he was crazy, and that he went mad while in the service, then it was easy to understand the unusual situation. First, Gatewood was promoted and gained his fifth stripe. Second, he bought a new jacket with his newly acquired rank. Next, he moved to his new assignment, and went insane. Then, lastly, the Air Force discharged Gatewood and left him to rot in the gutters of Los Angeles.
    Once Brad had thought the problem through, he felt a sense of satisfaction and turned his attention back to his reading. He hadn't read more than a few pages, when another disturbing thought entered his mind. Gatewood went insane after he'd been in the Air Force for several years and risen through the ranks. What happened? Why would he have flipped out? What caused him to think that people were after him and that there were invisible goblins that only he could see?
    Brad had already ruled out the possibility that Gatewood had never been all together, therefore, something happened. But what? His stories couldn't be true, so he didn't see something that drove him crazy. There could only be one answer: the Air Force drove him insane.
    This new idea hit Brad like a locomotive. He thought for a moment and remembered the stories about the military giving LSD to soldiers without their knowledge to test their reactions. There were thousands of veterans who had been used in live nuclear weapons tests and developed cancer. Maybe it was just good old fashioned brainwashing or a psychological experiment that went wrong. Whatever the reason for Sgt. Gatewood's mental illness, the Air Force was responsible.
    The sense of satisfaction slowly changed to excitement, and a warm glow filled Brad's chest. He'd finally hit the jackpot. Wheeler had given him his big break. If he could find out what Gatewood had done in the service-- what his last assignment had been-- he would know what drove the man crazy. He could use Gatewood's homelessness to gain his reader's sympathy, then show them that the military was responsible.
    At this point the hardest part was finished: he had found his story's angle. Now it was a simple matter of collecting a few facts about Gatewood's career, the project he was working on, and writing the story. With the advice Mr. Wheeler had given him, he was sure to have a Pulitzer Prize winner.
    He decided that tomorrow he would start calling the Air Force, and actually hoped they'd give him the run-around. The more red tape and bureaucracy they threw at him, the better it would look in the story. If they wouldn't tell him what the project was, he'd claim it was a cover-up. He began to realize that it wasn't important what the project was or even if there was a secret project. Like Mr. Wheeler said, if you can't find a big story, make a big story from what you've got.


Go to
Story
Index
Email
Douglas
Bunger
Go to
Home
Page
Go to
Next
Chapter