And he didn’t stop there. He read extensively and learned how compounds like PETN or RDX were made. Then he came up with ideas to improve them and to synthesize them more easily. In the space of a few months, he had progressed from doing reactions he read about to inventing his own.
I was proud of his technical brilliance. In addition, I knew his ideas could be very valuable. He might well have patentable inventions, at age seventeen! At the same time I worried about the legal ramifications. He said he didn’t keep explosive material around, but I suspected the sophisticated stuff he was learning to make was seriously illegal. Keeping black powder and flash powder was not much different from having a bag of firecrackers. But having PETN or C4 in the fridge was more like having a stick or two of dynamite, and the Feds had outlawed home stocks of dynamite a long time ago.
Something had to be done. Cubby was supposedly attending classes at Holyoke Community College, but as far as I could tell he wasn’t making it to class on time, and he wasn’t doing his work. He avoided showing me his grades, so I suspected he was failing. The Educated Cubby Who Does Better Than Dad plan was going seriously awry.
I tried to tell myself that I’d been the same when I was Cubby’s age. I lived with a bunch of guys in a band, and I often played music till one in the morning, ate breakfast in the middle of the night, and slept until noon. The difference was, no one was going to put me in jail for music and electronics. At least, that’s what I told my kid. He, of course, turned that right around.
“You told me you got arrested for drugs when you were with a band,” he said. He was right. They weren’t my drugs, and I did get acquitted, but I spent Easter 1976 in jail in Montserrat.
“You told me the ATF was looking at your special effects, too.” That too was correct. The ATF never raided any of the bands I was with, but they certainly looked askance at some of our more spectacular effects. My first effects were unique, and they must have escaped notice. The longer we did it, though, the closer people looked. By the time I quit the business, the ATF had come to see a rocket-launching guitar as about the same as a rocket-launching tank destroyer. That’s why you don’t see effects like the ones we did in the seventies on stages much anymore.
Whenever I thought about that, I got even more worried about Cubby. As sound as my son’s arguments about science and research and mixing the chemicals before the experiment were, I feared the government would see things differently. The risks were just too great.
A few days after Christmas, I finally had had enough. I told Cubby that everything had to go, that he could not keep his lab in my house. “Cubby, you need to be doing your experiments in a university lab, with a professor and grad students to help you. I’m terribly afraid you are going to get hurt. I am scared you are going to get raided. I can’t handle those worries anymore. I’ll get you a storage unit, and you can keep your lab stuff in there until you have a place of your own. I am really scared you are ruining your life, and I can’t let you drag me down too.”
Then I called his mom and told her what I had said. “Whatever you do,” I cautioned her, “do not let him set his lab up in your house. He is headed for disaster. I just know it.” She listened to what I said, and I thought she took it to heart. But ever since he’d moved in with us, she’d lived alone, and she was lonely. And, just as I feared, she told him he could bring his glassware to her house. Once he got it there, she didn’t stop him from setting it up in her basement.
I called her again and urged her not to let him experiment in her basement, but I didn’t get anywhere. She was always stubborn, and my suggestions were just more unwanted advice from an ex-spouse. If anything, my words probably made her more determined to stay her course with Cubby.
I didn’t talk to either of them for a little while. In some way, I was relieved. I know Martha was relieved. But I was also deeply saddened. The house was calm and quiet, but I’d lost my Cubby. He was gone a month, through the coldest part of winter.
February 15, 2008, dawned like any other day for me. It was a raw winter morning in New England, with gray skies and temperatures just above freezing. Fridays are always busy for me, as we bill out the week’s work on the projects in our shop.
At two o’clock I got the call.
“Dad, there are three ATF agents here at school,” Cubby said. “They want to search my mom’s house.” He spoke slowly and cautiously, as if people were listening. He sounded scared but firm.
It was the call I had feared every day since I’d tossed his lab out of my house. Even if you expect such a thing, there is nothing you can really do to prepare. They have your kid.
Knowing he had a hard time getting up in the morning, Cubby had arranged his school schedule so that his first class was at 1 P.M. Even then, he usually arrived a few minutes late. According to my son, the professor didn’t care. Most days, he slid in and sat down quietly. As soon as he opened the door, he knew this day was different. His professor looked right at him, stopped what he was doing, and headed for his desk. Uh-oh. Cubby remembered that today was exam day, and he wondered if that was a bigger deal than he’d imagined. He was, after all, new to college.
“There are some people waiting to talk to you, Jack. Come with me.”
As they walked back toward the door, Cubby considered what kind of trouble he might be in and why. Classes were going okay, as far as he knew. He didn’t drink or do drugs, and he was never involved in altercations. Yet his professor’s demeanor was unmistakably serious.
Maybe it was a joke, Cubby thought hopefully as they stepped into the hall. Then he saw them: two serious-looking men in suits and a college policeman in uniform. Lawmen, waiting for him.
They introduced themselves.
“Hello, Jack, I’m Chief Gould from the college police department.”
“Jack, I’m Special Agent Peter Murray from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.” He stepped forward and shook Cubby’s hand. Agent Murray was polished, tall, and trim in a dark sport coat. He radiated the look of frugal refinement that some federal agents are known to cultivate.
The third man held out his card. “Gerald Perwak, from the Massachusetts State Police Arson and Explosives Unit.” Where Agent Murray sounded friendly, Perwak’s tone was all business. He was a stocky, dark-haired fellow of indeterminate middle age—the picture of a solid plainclothes trooper. You could see him on the street and know him immediately for a cop, even at fifty feet.
By handing Cubby their business cards, as opposed to flashing badges or handcuffs, Murray and Perwak set the tone of the exchange. It was a smart move on their part. Cubby slipped the cards into his pocket. He regretted not having a card of his own.
Agent Murray gestured toward an empty classroom as Cubby’s professor backed away, a little fearfully. “Can we talk?” His tone was friendly, and you could hear the question mark at the end of the words, but it wasn’t really a question, as Cubby well knew.
“I guess you know why we’re here,” the agent said. Between the YouTube videos, his online postings, and his test blasts in the Amherst woods, Cubby knew there were a number of possibilities, but he was smart enough not to give anything away.
“No, I don’t know. Why are you here?” I had taught him not to volunteer anything to police officers, but always to be polite.
Cubby paid very close attention, and he was nothing if not careful. He was well aware that even innocent-sounding questions could lead to criminal charges, and that they were not simply curious. Yet he also knew that a legitimate scientific interest in physics and chemistry was not against the law. He was very firm in his conviction that he had done nothing criminal. Therefore, he thought fast and spoke slowly. Just as I’d raised him to do.
After a few more conversational circles, the federal agent finally gave up. “You know what kinds of cases the state fire marshal and the Bureau of ATF investigate, don’t you?”
“Yes. Are you here to talk about the videos I posted on YouTube?”
“W
e are,” Murray answered. “We’d like to talk about the explosions you filmed. Tell us what you’ve been doing out there in the woods.” His voice was friendly, but firm.
I’d warned Cubby this day might come, and now it had arrived. As much as Cubby had argued with me, he had known too, and he was ready to tell his story. But first he needed to know where he stood. He knew they had not read him his rights, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. He wasn’t even sure if he had to talk to them, or what might happen if he didn’t.
“Am I under arrest?” That was the obvious question, and Agent Murray assured him he was not. “Jack, you are free to go anytime. But if you walk out, we will just get a warrant and search without your consent. So what’s it going to be?” He stayed seated.
“We have teams waiting to search both your parents’ houses. You can talk to us now, or we’ll search the houses and talk at the police station afterward.” Were they for real? There was no way for Cubby to know. Everyone knew the ATF from their debacle at Waco. For all he knew, there were fifty agents and a tank waiting to pounce on our family. We might not even have a house when they were done. It was a scary prospect, not knowing who the good guys were, or indeed if there were any good guys at all.
To this day, I don’t know whether Agent Murray was bluffing or not.
Cubby asked if he could call his parents or talk to a lawyer. The answer was the same. He could do that, but as soon as he called someone else, they would launch the raids and all bets were off. That wasn’t how it happened on the TV shows. There, when you said “I want a lawyer,” you got a lawyer, not a bigger raid.
Cubby decided he was most afraid of parental fury over having our homes torn up. The threat of looting and pillaging lawmen sounded a lot worse than just talking to the cops right there. Whatever their suspicions might be, he believed in his innocence, and he decided to talk for a while.
When I heard the story a few hours later, I was very upset. None of the lawmen had read him his rights. They had not told him what he might be charged with as a result of their talks. They had threatened him when he asked about calling his mother or me. The whole interview was carefully orchestrated to get all the information they could out of him while revealing nothing of the risk he took by talking.
They knew Cubby lived at home and they knew he was seventeen. His age made him an adult in the eyes of Massachusetts courts, but a child in the federal court system. So what did they do with that knowledge? They hid; they snuck around behind my back. Even worse, they took advantage of his teenage immaturity. Instead of calling me and saying, “Mr. Robison, we’d like to talk to your son,” they went to his school when they knew his mom and I were at work. Once there, they isolated and intimidated him into talking, hoping he would reveal something that might send him to prison without the benefit of either parental or legal advice.
Why did they do that? It seemed obvious to me: It was easier. They suspected I’d ask hard questions before agreeing to anything. Any dad would. Once parents and lawyers got involved, casual conversation and innocent-sounding fishing came to an end. That would sharply reduce their odds of a score; no lawyer worth his salt would let my son hang himself with his own words. If they had any evidence with which to arrest him, they would have done so right then.
I raised that question as soon as we hired a lawyer. To my surprise, he said what they had done was not considered improper. “The police only have to read you your rights when you’re in custody and being questioned,” he explained. Technically, Cubby hadn’t been in custody, so that let them off the hook.
The cops gave him a chance, after a little intimidation, to see if he’d hang himself. Fortunately, that’s not what happened. Cubby was smart. They said his Internet activity was the reason they were there, but he knew there was nothing to find outside of what he’d posted himself. He’d never been in trouble with the law. There were no trips to Iraq or Yemen in the past six months. None of us owned a missile launcher, or even a heavy machine gun. He’d seen those ads for paramilitary training in Soldier of Fortune, but he never signed up. Those were good things, he reassured himself. But it also made him something of an enigma to the investigators. Like most teenagers, he had yet to leave his mark on the world.
Agent Murray did most of the talking at first. He said they’d driven past his mom’s house and mine, but that didn’t worry Cubby. He knew there wasn’t anything to see outside either place. My house was set back in the woods, and his mom’s was in a development. Both were quiet suburban homes. There were no razor-wire fences, and no guard dogs in sight. We didn’t even have security cameras.
Murray and Perwak took turns asking him about the explosions, and Cubby kept talking. He didn’t say much about the most recent explosions, though. He wanted to tell them about science and the wonders of the natural world. Later, the investigators told me he spoke with surprising eloquence about chemistry, his passion for the past five years. They heard about the Estes model rockets he built with his mom. Estes engines use solid propellant, and he explained what that meant and how it worked. He told them about the school rocket club that he’d founded when he was thirteen years old. He sketched out some chemical reactions and explained the scientific shorthand that described what had happened.
“What kind of reactions did you do? What did you make?” The agents asked questions, but mostly Cubby just rambled on his own. They tried to bait him with talk of terrorist attacks, but Cubby wasn’t biting. The investigators began to understand that Cubby did not have a revolutionary agenda at all, just scientific curiosity.
“One of the first things I learned to make was sucrose rocket engines,” Cubby told them. “I made my own—it’s easy. You just heat sugar till it melts and stir in potassium nitrate. It comes out looking like peanut butter. I used to roll tubes from kraft paper, fill them up, and I’d have an engine. They’re just like the engines Estes sells, but a lot cheaper. I could make them as big and powerful as I wanted. I did that when I was about thirteen.”
“How did you get the ingredients? Aren’t chemicals like that hard to come by?” they asked.
“Potassium nitrate is stump remover. They sell it in cans at Walmart. And sucrose is just pure cane sugar. I got that at the grocery store. I used my allowance.”
“Did your parents help?”
“No, I did it all myself. I studied the chemicals, figured out what I needed, and then researched where to get it. My parents took me to the store, but I picked out everything and used my own money.”
The idea that a seventh grader could make decent rocket fuel all by himself was sobering. But he had not stopped there.
“I was really interested in energetic materials. That’s the term scientists use for explosives. They are really just chemicals that release lots of energy fast when they react.” Rapid energy release is what sets explosives apart from other chemicals, which are comparatively tranquil in nature.
That was what they’d come to hear about. Both Murray and Perwak leaned forward.
Whenever you mix things together, the result is some kind of chemical reaction. Most of the time, the result is something tangible that we eat or work with or use in some part of our lives. At work we might combine chemicals to produce anything from Coca-Cola syrup to automobile rustproofing. Farmers mix nitrogen into the soil when they put down fertilizer.
In most cases, the chemicals just mix quietly. For example, when you pour chocolate into a bowl of white cake batter, the mix turns dark brown. That’s it. It doesn’t get hot, crackle, steam, or blow up. At least, it’s not supposed to. You put it in the oven—adding heat—and the liquid batter changes into its familiar form: chocolate cake.
Cubby wasn’t very interested in those kinds of reactions, because they were not very exciting. He told the agents how his success with rocket engines had led him to even more energetic materials. His time in Mexico had exposed him to fireworks, which professionals call low explosives. Low explosives burn fast enough to make a flash and a bang, but they do
not burn faster than the speed of sound. The technical term for fireworks exploding is deflagration.
Cubby found deflagration really interesting. Who wouldn’t? It was the bang that rocked you back on your heels, as opposed to the hiss of a rocket launching into the sky. He described to the agents his first experiments with flash powder, which entailed taking stump remover and mixing it with fine powdered magnesium.
“Where’d you get powdered magnesium?” they asked. “They don’t sell that at Ace Hardware.”
“EBay! You can go online anytime and buy a pound of magnesium bar for twenty bucks, maybe less. I used magnesium fire-starter sticks at first. I just clamped them in a vise and filed them into powder.”
When he told me about that later, I remembered Cubby patiently filing bars to dust as he made flash powder. I also remembered him testing the powder in Bic pen barrels. “Why Bic pens?” I asked him one day. “Why not straws?” He explained that straws fell apart and Bic pens did not. Furthermore, they held exactly 1.8 grams of powder, so he could compare different compounds knowing the charge size was always the same. The charge wasn’t big enough to do much harm if it went off when it shouldn’t. And finally, the tapered end where the point once protruded was exactly the right size for the fuse.
Cubby told the investigators he was just sixteen when he progressed to making sophisticated high explosives, which are totally different from flash powder. High explosives burn faster than the speed of sound. When they go off, it’s called detonation, and the blast is far more powerful than that of any low explosive. The shock wave of a focused detonation can cut steel like butter, or throw an artillery shell over the horizon.
The first of the high explosives he experimented with was nitroglycerin, or nitro. Most people have heard of nitroglycerin, which was invented in 1847. It was the first high explosive to be created, and it revolutionized the world. Most people think of explosives in the context of weapons, but nitro was the tool that allowed us to dig the great railway tunnels of the nineteenth century. It’s what brought the Union Pacific Railroad through the Rockies. Nitro dug the foundations for the new steel skyscrapers at the turn of the twentieth century. Before then, all builders had was black powder, a much less potent low explosive.
Raising Cubby Page 24