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 |