When the court reconvened, the judge asked us each to come forward with our character witnesses.
John’s father humbled himself before the judge and told him his son was a veteran of Vietnam, and he was sure this was an isolated mistake. Couldn’t he give him a break?
My mother-in-law and my father did the same thing. And then Patience stood before Blatt and said, her voice trembling, “Your Honor. My husband didn’t want to do this. He thought he had to do it to provide for his family. I know him to be an honorable man who has made this one mistake.” Her voice cracked. I looked over. Tears ran down her cheeks as she said, “He’s sorry, Your Honor.”
Blatt wanted to know what I had to say. My head buzzed. I had a lot to say. I wanted to go through this whole thing more carefully. I wanted people to know my motives, my troubled thoughts, I wanted people that were deciding my fate to know me. I stared at Sol Blatt, Jr. His face showed he was unhappy, too. I saw also that he was braced to deliver justice, even if it was painful to him, too. I said, simply, hopelessly, “I’m sorry I made the trip, Your Honor.”
When we finished, my father and my mother-in-law excused themselves because they both had to catch flights back home. We went back to our seats.
Blatt then made a short speech about how he hated to see the effects of the drug culture on people like us. He said that he, too, was a combat veteran, World War II, and he felt a strong empathy toward John and me. He added that, from the facts of the case, it was obvious that we were rank amateurs.
I felt my pulse racing in my temples. I was afraid I’d pass out, I was so excited. This was one of those long preambles that leads to the big word: But. Finally Blatt said that despite all this, we had indeed done the deed. And he was not going to let people smuggle drugs into South Carolina and get away with it.
He read the sentences. John Tillerman, the captain of the boat—seven years in a minimum-security federal prison. Robert Ireland, the only defendant convicted of smuggling—six years at a minimum-security federal prison. Robert Mason, agreed to be a minor figure in the crime, Blatt’s most lenient sentence—five years in the minimum-security prison closest to my home.
Five years.
I knew of murderers who’d gotten less. I knew of rapists who’d gotten less. In Miami and New York, they give people suspended sentences for similar crimes. First offense? Five years?
Bowling immediately stood up and said we were going to appeal the case on the grounds that the government illegally stopped and searched us. Blatt said fine, good luck. Bowling asked that we be allowed to remain free on our bonds. Blatt agreed. Bowling asked if Patience and I could travel to Maine to vacation and work.
“What kind of work?” Blatt asked.
“Your Honor, Mr. Mason has sold a book he’s writing about his experiences in Vietnam.”
“Really? I’d like to read that.” Blatt looked at me. “When does it come out?” The man had just sentenced me to prison and now we were making small talk?
“Ah, I don’t know, Your Honor. I haven’t finished it.”
“Fine. I’m sure I’ll hear about it. Yes, you have my permission to go to Maine. Good luck, Mr. Mason.”
In the hallway outside the courtroom, we asked Bowling what these sentences meant. How long would we actually stay in jail?
“Normally,” Bowling said, “you can figure serving about a third of the sentence. Two, two and a half years, I’d guess.”
“What about the appeal? How long will that take?”
“Months. Maybe a year.”
“What do we do while we’re waiting?”
“Anything you want—as long as you don’t violate your bail.”
Bowling said he had something for me at his office. Patience and I stopped there on the way out of town. He led me into his office and pulled my camera out of his desk drawer. “Just showed up,” he said. “Imagine that.” I thanked him. Some cops might be crooks, too, but at least they respected a man’s talismans. Besides, it was an old camera. My notebook, however, was gone for good.
By three in the afternoon, Patience and I were on the highway headed for New York City.
I was giddy with happiness, chattering away like a hyperactive kid while Patience drove. Jack had stayed home, busy with his job and his girlfriend, Wallie. I guess I was in shock. We stopped at a motel after dark. I called my mother and told her the verdict. She became hysterical, shrieking things about Patience being the cause of it all. She was in the midst of saying a lot of nasty things I knew she really didn’t mean when I hung up. I was a mother’s innocent son. I told Patience: “It’s great practice in realizing that words are only sound waves.”
The next morning I was no longer chattering and happy; I was quiet and morose. We picked up a Charleston paper and saw a small writeup about our conviction. We wondered if the Florida papers would mention it.
We spent one more night on the road so we’d get to the city in the morning. I’d called Knox and told him we were coming.
We drove through Brooklyn, took a ride around the old mirror factory. It was just a warehouse again. Mirage was closed.
Knox’s office was in Greenwich Village. We got to his place around ten. His wife, Kitty Sprague, let us in. Knox beamed and said, “Author, author.” I smiled, but after the reality of the sentencing, being an author just paled to insignificance. “Thanks, Knox. By the way, I just got sentenced to five years in prison. You think you could lend me three hundred bucks?”
“You’re broke?” Knox asked.
“Yep. Twenty-five hundred doesn’t last as long as it used to.”
“Where you going from here?”
“Thought I’d go meet my editor at Viking and then Patience and I are going to Maine.”
“You going to work up there or are you going to fuck off?”
“No time to fuck off. I can work there as well as anywhere.”
Patience parked near a fire hydrant on a side street in the middle of New York City and waited for me. I walked into a huge building on Madison Avenue and took the elevator up to the Viking Penguin floors. While I waited in the reception area, I felt a lot like a poor relation visiting a rich uncle. After a minute, Gerald Howard came out. He was a young guy, younger than he’d sounded on the phone. He still didn’t know about my arrest and he looked to me then like someone who’d turn pale if he knew he was talking to a convicted felon. We went to his office.
We chatted. Gerald sat in front of a window overlooking the city.
I could see a comer of Central Park in the distance. The differences between our worlds were profound, but we had an overlapping interest—Chickenhawk. By some strange process that I still don’t understand, my manuscript came to be read by someone who liked it and could do something about publishing it. Gerald Howard was the right man at the right time. He was a young editor in the Penguin paperback division, and he wanted to be a hardback editor for Viking. This was to be Howard’s first hardback book. He had just gotten the second part of my book a couple of days before and had already read it. I was relieved to hear him say it stood up to the first part, was even, in fact, better.
While Howard talked, I was distracted and made poor conversation. The fact that I’d just been sentenced to prison wouldn’t leave me. I kept thinking about Patience waiting downstairs, and felt conscious of the time. I told Gerry, as he insisted I call him, that I was happy he liked my book, but that Patience was the real writer in the family. She’d be famous someday. I looked at my watch and said I really ought to be going and how soon did he think Viking would be sending me a check.