This is a true story about a man named Robert. It is also a story about men named John, Jim, Peter and Frank. It is about women named Mary, Sara, Jane and Martha. This story is about people with every name you can think of and many you cannot. The names do not matter. The details do.
I have never met Robert. For many years, his face has been a ghostly image in an old photograph he sent me. I heard and still hear his voice only through the emails we exchanged. He is a grown man who has tasted the prejudice of a Southern upbringing and the scorn of a citizenry that did not recognize the sacrifices he made to keep them safe. He is or was a husband, father, soldier and law enforcement officer. He has been a union president and a janitor. He is one man. He is many men.
Unlike so many Vietnam veterans, Robert is not homeless. There is a roof over his head, but that roof is weighted with transgressions, real and imagined. Guilt presses heavily on him, draining his spirit and leaving him alone and lonely. He dwells in the cold, dark places in his mind, too frightened to seek the warmth of human companionship.
Robert gave his heart to a woman, his soul to his child, dedication to his country and loyalty to his employers. He has known some joy but the memory is lost to depression. He suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress, which is no longer considered a disorder by the military. PTS has been reclassified as a normal reaction to the horrific events in a soldier’s life. In the years since his return from the war, Robert has suffered many such normal reactions, including placing the cold, steel barrel of a gun in his mouth.
When we were in constant communication, I immediately knew when the darkness settled upon him. His emails became manic, his fingers racing across the keyboard, hitting only enough correct letters for me to understand what he was trying to say. Sometimes, he was high. Mostly, he was low. Suddenly, his emails would stop. Robert would be gone for days, weeks… months – now years. I wonder where he is… what has happened to him? I think of the gun. I try not to think of the gun.
In the past as in the present, Robert retreats from the world. Like a bear, he hibernates. Unlike a bear, he does not sleep. He percolates. Thoughts bubble up and further blacken the dark places in which he dwells. Years ago, when he returned to me I would learn that during his longest absences, he was hospitalized. “Lock down,” he called it. As much as he resented the incarceration, medication and rest helped. He would once again be the Robert I had come to cherish as a friend and mentor.
Robert never considered himself smart. I knew… know better. He is something much more important. He is wise. Even when he rambled, his words were filled with insights about himself, society, government and life. He was my teacher. From him, I leaned and grew in the hope that someday I would be just as wise.
Robert was and still is my inspiration and my shame for I know we should be doing more… could be doing more… but we do not.
***
The year of Robert’s birth was 1948; the place -- Caruthersville, Missouri. The month was August and the heat was unbearable. It was a time when white folks liked to pretend that racism was on the decline, but the forced lifting at the corners of their mouths and the unsmiling expression in their eyes were a constant reminder that change comes slowly.
Robert was conceived in violence by a 16-year-old girl. He knew his mother’s scent and touch only in those few minutes it took to move from the womb to the world. He bears his father’s name… nothing more. While still an infant, Robert was given away to an older black couple who wanted a child but who, because of their race, were legally forbidden to adopt.
Young Robert’s foster parents worked as sharecroppers. They picked cotton with Robert laboring beside them. He was two years old when first brought into the fields. The memory of those days fill him with both pain and pleasure. Dragging a 25-pound flour sack behind him, the toddler walked up and down the rows, plucking the cotton from its sticky berth and dropping it into the bag. The sack had to be filled before he was allowed to nap under the bellies of the two donkeys that pulled the supply wagon.
Buck and Sally – even now, late into his 70s, he remembers their names – and despite being considered dumb animals, they never urinated or stepped on the child who found comfort in the fortress of legs and hooves. With them he was safe, which was more than he could say for most of the humans in his life.
During those formative years, Robert found happiness chasing chickens with the plantation owner’s daughter. Toppy’s mother, Ms. Sue, was not like other white women. She was aware of color but was blind to its hues. She saw a child in need of love and direction and gave it freely. Robert remembers her with great fondness and credits her with teaching him tolerance and respect.
One day, Ms. Sue caught the boy child innocently kissing little Toppy. She smiled and said it was “… all right for now but not when you are older. Other folks might want to hang you for kissing a white girl.” Robert was too young to understand what Ms. Sue’s words meant, but with the passage of time, their meaning became clear.
When his foster father died, Robert’s guardian mother decided to move to Benton Harbor, Michigan. Five-year-old Robert thought of the move as an adventure. The lights of the big city excited him and deluded him into thinking that the brutality and pain of the past were over. He was too young to realize strife would be packed into his suitcase along with his hand-me-down clothes. The scenery might have changed, but the fields and the orchards he was forced to work in were as familiar as the blisters and calluses on his tiny hands.
Resentful that she was alone and responsible for raising a child on meager wages, Robert’s mother took her frustrations out on him. The beatings were many and without reason other than that she had no one else to blame for the misery in her life. He survived in spite of her rage and once the years of his youth were passed, he moved away.
Nineteen sixty-seven was a turning point for him. Just three days after his 18th birthday, he received both a high school diploma and a welcome letter from Uncle Sam. The draft was in effect and no one said “No” to the man in the flag patterned suit. Robert looked forward to serving his country. After only 10 days of basic training, he re-enlisted. He finally belonged to someone – something – and he felt proud.
Although he requested deployment to Viet Nam, his status as an only son prevented the military from shipping him to Southeast Asia. After basic training, Germany with its bitter winters so unlike the blistering heat of the South became home. During the 11 months he was stationed in Bavaria, he continued to request assignment to Vietnam. Either his persistence paid off or his commanding officer got tired of seeing his face at his door; eventually his transfer was granted.
Before being shipped out to fight the unwinnable war, he was given a 30 day leave – a chance to say his goodbyes should the inevitable happen. It did not. Fate had other plans for Robert.
With his training complete, Robert boarded a plane destined for Da Nang by way of Cam Rahn Bay. That first night in South Vietnam more than 100 rockets fell in and around the base. Germany, he realized, might not have been such a bad place after all. After in-country processing, he was hustled onto a truck and moved far north to within five miles of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Places with nearly unpronounceable names – Dong Ha and Quang Tri – became as familiar to him as the cotton fields of his childhood.
For more than 14 months, Robert witnessed and took part in actions no human being should have to experience. He became hard. He lost faith. Hundreds of times a day, he recited a familiar prayer from his childhood but with understandable changes: “Yeah, though I’ve walked through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am the badest mother fucker in the Valley. I’ve spent my time in hell.” On March 23, 1970, Robert came home. He was different and so was the country of his birth.
First stop, Yokota, Japan, then on to Oakland, California. Robert arrived in the company of two Marines. As the three soldiers made their way through the airport, the crowds parted much like the Red Sea. Unlike the Israelites in the bible, the people who watched Robert pass by did not see a leader of men. They saw a killer. There were no cheers of welcome -- only the silence of condemnation. Robert endured the punishment of rejection for 362 days. Then, he re-enlisted. In the Army, there was acceptance. In the Army, there was companionship. In the Army, there was the possibility of death, but death in battle was better than death by undeserved condemnation.
Robert became a paratrooper and, eventually, a Drill Sergeant. He trained other men to fight, knowing that some would live and some would die. He took the deaths of those who perished personally, believing he had not trained them well enough. Guilt laid heavily on his mind – the beginning of a lifelong affliction. Two years passed before Robert came home again.
This homecoming was different – not welcoming but at least with prospects. While still at the airport, he was approached by a man who asked if he would consider being a police officer. Army training made Robert a good candidate and, if accepted, the police force would guarantee a steady income. Once more, he was in the position of taking care of people. For 16 years, the law was his life. Then, fate stepped in again.
The end came not in a hail of bullets but in the silence of the coroner’s office. Robert had spent the previous two years as an undercover cop with the narcotics bureau, buying drugs and arresting dealers who preyed on the students at the West Michigan University campus. The job was dangerous and led to death threats which forced the department to reassign him for his own protection.
Two coeds died following his departure. The first student was shot in the head while sitting in a parked car on campus; the second was raped and strangled. The rape victim was 18 years old. Her name was Patricia. Robert found her body and the image imprinted itself on his mind and soul, never to be forgotten. He remained at her side, literally and figuratively, throughout the preliminary investigation. He stood beside the autopsy table as her body was dissected, her organs removed, placed in a steel sack bag and sown inside the cavity of her chest. He knew what she had eaten and the terror she had felt. He notified her parents and stood quietly as they cried in torment. Patricia! She is with him even today.
Growing up, Robert believed that the black men and women in his community considered him ugly. Before long, the only friends he had were white – like Ms. Sue and Toppy -- and the uniqueness of those relationships set the tone for the rest of his life. His first marriage was to a woman of Irish descent, who bore him a beautiful daughter. Robert was thrilled but when the baby was five months old, he and his wife separated. The symptoms of PTSD – the mental anguish – were becoming too much a part of his life. Missing his daughter terribly, he begged his estranged wife for another chance and they reunited.
Two months after his return, Robert learned his wife was pregnant again, but the child belonged to another man. This time his leaving was permanent. The divorce broke his heart but what it did to his daughter is the cross he still bears. His ex-wife moved far from Robert’s reach and into the clutches of one abusive boyfriend after another. They did not limit their attacks to Robert’s former spouse but assaulted the little girl as well. As her mother did not protect her, she grew more petulant and argumentative. For 10 years, Robert knew nothing about his daughter’s life and then, suddenly, she was his to raise.
No longer willing or able to care for their combative daughter, Robert’s ex begged him to take her. He joyously agreed, and the child was immediately put on a plane. Seven months of bliss followed. Father and daughter enjoyed a normal life until the courts forced Robert to return his little girl to her mother’s custody.
The abuse began again, and again the little girl came to live with her father. Good times followed until the courts stepped in and forced the child to return to her mother. Years passed. The abuse continued. The money he sent for support could not protect his child, and the guilt pressed heavily on his heart. All-consuming guilt became as much a part of Robert’s life as the air he breathed.
The next time he saw his daughter, she was graduating from college. It was a proud moment, a sad moment, a shame-filled moment, and the moment Robert lost what was left of himself. Today, he is alone and lonely, living the life of a recluse with only a cat for company. I hear from him once a year if I am lucky. His message is always the same. “No toe tag… yet.”
ONE MAN and MANY MEN became the basis for my play, SHELL OF A MAN. The play has been performed at the Dallas Convention Center, the Vanilla Box Theatre and the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film and Theatre.
Donna Carbone is the Executive Director/Playwright in Residence at the Palm Beach Institute for the Entertainment Arts, where education through entertainment is the mission statement.
Please visit: pbinstituteforentertainmentarts.com