The Cadet

by Doug Beason

  He turned back to the heavy-set girl. “So why did you bring your friends?”

  “They were dying to meet some cadets.” Wendy pointed to Fred and his dance partner. “Look, Janet’s having a great time. This may not seem a big deal to you, but it is to us. It’s not every day you meet someone so well-rounded. Janet even drove herself, probably hoping to neck later.”

  Rod lifted an eyebrow. “What about our contest? I thought it was infantile.”

  “It shows you’re a bunch of bright guys cooped up without any girls. You’re creative, athletic, good-natured, smart, and most importantly, up-and-coming.”

  A brunette with her hair up in a beehive walked up to the table. She glanced at Rod and held her hands shyly in front of her. “Wendy, hi! We’re in history class together.”

  “Of course.” Wendy stepped back, her large dress flowing as she introduced her friend. “Rod, this is Carol Gutheinz. Would you excuse me for a moment?”

  Rod bit his lip, watching Wendy walk away. She really was amazing. And it wasn’t just her captivating eyes. What impressed Rod the most was her character. He doubted any of his classmates realized it, but she was probably the most thoughtful person here.

  “Rod?”

  “Uh?” Rod blinked. Carol had her head tilted slightly to the side, studying him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” They were alone at the food table; the dance floor was packed and it looked as though Wendy wasn’t coming back. He extended his arm. “Would you care to dance?”

  “I’d love to!”

  Within minutes Rod was captivated by Carol’s lithe figure and he forgot about their mutual friend who had introduced them.

  O O O

  Later that night, Rod opened the door to his room just as Fred was walking out. Rod stepped back, avoiding a collision. “Hey, you’re in a hurry.”

  “Taps are in an hour,” Fred grinned, straightening his tie. His hair was wet from being freshly slicked down. “See ya. I’m off to Second Squadron. Gotta pay off Gould for the cattle call pool, then meet Janet Ledbetter in the library. What a dish!”

  Rod snorted. “Have fun.”

  “That’s a rog.”

  Marking the card on the door to AUTHORIZED, Fred signified on his honor that he would be in a place authorized by the regulations. He slipped down the hallway.

  “Good evening, sir!” A doolie on his way to the bathroom slammed up against the wall. A line of his classmates followed, joining in the yelled greeting.

  Fred stuck out his fingers in a V as he sprinted down the hall. “Two, smackos. Out of my way. I’m a man on a mission.”

  O O O

  Twenty minutes before taps, Rod shrugged on his bathrobe. He pulled back the thick gray curtains and looked out over the cadet area. A few cadets scurried around the quadrangle, on their way to their rooms before lights out. Low, roiling clouds were visible ten miles to the west, reflecting the lights of Denver. It looked as though they were about to get hit with some snow later tonight, just in time for tomorrow’s mandatory church.

  Rod shut the curtains as someone knocked at the door. He turned, not knowing if it was a doolie or an officer.

  It was neither. It was Gould, a classmate from Second Squadron whom he recognized but didn’t know personally.

  “Where’s Delante?” Gould said briskly.

  “He was going to see you and drop off your money.”

  Gould reached in his pocket and withdrew a wad of bills. “He did. I wasn’t in and he left it with a note.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Seems some of our classmates backed out of the deal.”

  “How so?”

  “He was advertising a pool of two forty, but he left me two hundred. His note said 8 of our classmates felt remorseful and changed their mind. And I’m mad. When you place a bet, you place a bet. They gypped me out of forty bucks.”

  “So what do you want?” Rod said.

  “I want the names of our classmates who didn’t pay. It’s just not right, backing out of a deal. That’s not what the Academy’s all about.”

  Rod nodded, thinking about Manuel’s change of heart, and that betting is not what the Academy is all about either; especially when it’s taking advantage of women like Wendy. Although he disagreed with his roommate’s business, he didn’t want to get involved with any disputes.

  “You’ll have to come back tomorrow,” Rod said. “Fred’s meeting a girl and I really doubt he’ll be back until right before taps.”

  Gould scowled. “Then tell him I came by. I want those names.”

  “Right.” Rod shook his head as his classmate stomped out. He certainly didn’t want to get involved in any feuds.

  Rod reached under his bed, dragged out a bag, and unzipped his bagpipes. It took a few minutes to assemble them, but soon the room was filled with a low, resonant hum.

  The pipes allowed him to express his emotions. The dropping pressure from the approaching storm brought on a mood more set for a wind-swept moor than for the epicenter of the nation’s newest training ground for leaders.

  For the next quarter hour the dorm echoed with the eerie sounds of his bagpipe, starting with “Scottish Cathedral,” then the mournful wail of “Amazing Grace.” One after another, he played a series of woeful Scottish hymns. From the corner of his eye he saw doolies hanging just outside the door listening to the music.

  He finished the last song, squeezed the air from the instrument, and bagged his pipes; he got down on his knees to push them underneath his bed. He stopped. A piece of white paper stuck out from under the corner of Fred’s mattress. It was just the thing that would make Captain Justice crazy. Upperclassmen or not, they couldn’t afford to wave a red flag in front of a raging bull. Better to take care of the potential problem now.

  Rod scooted over to remove the paper from his roommate’s bed and instead pulled out a fat white envelope. The envelope spilled open and a handful of five dollar bills dropped to the floor. Three of them were outlined in red and another was folded in a complex origami of a horse’s head.

  He gathered up the money. He counted sixty-five dollars.

  He stopped.

  Cadets didn’t carry much cash around. The Academy paid for everything—meals, books, uniforms. Actually, the cadets themselves paid for it, out of a fund the cadets called their “magic money” account, as their salary was mysteriously debited to pay for myriad items such as meals, books, and uniforms. They had everything they needed. The small amount of cash they did have was spent at the C-Store, or cadet store, on candy and personal items, and that required only a few dollars at the most.

  Gould claimed he’d been stiffed forty dollars.

  That’s odd.

  Rod thought hard. Forty dollars.

  And Rod was there when Sly had been shorted twenty-five dollars.

  That’s sixty-five dollars total.

  Rod stared at the money in his hand. It was a coincidence.

  It had to be.

  But still …

  He stuffed the money back in the envelope and placed it under the mattress.

  Rod padded down the hall and used the latrine, still wondering what had happened, and why Fred would have hidden sixty-five dollars under his mattress.

  Taps blew ten minutes later, a lone bugle call echoing through the deserted halls.

  Rod still sat on his bed, mystified.

  Fred had not yet returned to the room.

  O O O

  Rod woke up five minutes before reveille. It took him a minute to realize that it was Sunday morning.

  The wind beat against the window as snow swirled against the pane. At least they wouldn’t have to march to church this morning, which was about the only consolation of this time of year.

  Fred snored in the bunk next to him. Rod caught a glimpse of him rolling over—Fred was still dressed in his gray pants and white shirt from last night.

  And then it hit Rod that he hadn’t woken when F
red had returned to the room. Fred must have stumbled in way after taps. He was lucky they hadn’t conducted an all-rights inspection, otherwise Fred would be marching tours for the next few months.

  Now that he was awake, Rod reached over to shut off his alarm before it went off. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He stared at Fred, snoring. The events of last night swirled through his head—Gould visiting, he himself finding the hidden money.

  He had a sour feeling in his gut, but he didn’t want to face what caused it.

  He made his way to the latrine before the crowd showed up.

  Doolies scurried past him, moving up against the wall and quietly mouthing “By your leave, sir!” quite aware that their lives were in danger if they prematurely woke any upperclassmen. Some deposited copies of the Denver Post outside of upperclassmen’s doors; others picked up trashcans left outside the doors and emptied them in a central depository at the end of the hall; still others prepared to call minutes in front of the CCQ desk. The functions that kept the squadron flowing smoothly were accomplished by the doolies in the most unobtrusive way possible.

  Fred rolled over and rubbed at his eyes when Rod returned to the room. “Hey,” Fred said, pushing up from the bed. His clothes were rumpled. He had a large bruise under his right eye and his lip was swollen.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Rod said in a monotone, putting up his bath gear. “You look terrible.”

  “But I feel great.” Fred stretched. “What a night!”

  “What kept you out?”

  Fred grinned slyly. “Did you see that CWC girl your friend introduced me to?”

  “Yeah,” Rod said, buckling his pants. He dug a pair of socks out of his top drawer, and taking care to line up the remaining socks, he sat on his chair. “Janet?”

  “Janet Ledbetter. Man, that girl is something else. You wouldn’t believe how fast she could get in the back seat. That Chevy of hers brings back memories of when I used to go trolling down south Nevada Avenue.”

  Rod stopped. “Her Chevy? I thought you were meeting her in the library. And what happened to your face?”

  Fred suddenly turned and started straightening his bed.

  Rod waited a minute. When Fred didn’t speak, he said, “Well?”

  With an edge to his voice, Fred said, “We found a quiet place. In the library. Before the action started she was telling me about her car. Her Chevy. That’s what I meant.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I ran into a bookcase!”

  Rod kept quiet as he pulled on his shoes. The sound of the minute caller came from outside their door. “You’d better hurry,” Rod said. “Chapel formation in ten minutes.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll see ya there.” Fred didn’t turn around.

  Shrugging on his parka, Rod headed out the door. He glanced back at their door and saw that both of their cards still read AUTHORIZED, just as it had last night after Fred had left.

  He slowly made his way down the hall, deep in thought and not stopping to correct any of the doolies. The hallway bustled with cadets in their black parkas, but Rod’s mind was far away.

  Normally, heading out for Sunday service, Rod felt relaxed. But this morning, he just couldn’t shake the thought of the money he’d stumbled across.

  Or what Fred had said about Janet’s car.

  And that Fred’s card had been marked AUTHORIZED at taps.

  Usually he’d take an off-hand comment from Fred, especially one concerning women, with a grain of salt. But this morning, with Fred getting back to the room after taps, and with Fred being flustered about Janet’s Chevy instead of the library where he said he was, things didn’t add up. Fred’s story just didn’t make sense.

  Rod knew that some of the guys met their girlfriends various places on campus; he wasn’t that naïve. It was against the regs, and if they were ever discovered, they’d be marching tours for the next few months. It was bad enough that Fred would break the regs, but it irked Rod that his roommate flaunted his disobedience.

  Nonetheless, the library was one of the many authorized places cadets could go, and when the AUTHORIZED card outside the dorm room was flagged, cadets attested on their honor they were in an authorized area—and the worst that would happen to them would be that they would get caught and march tours for disobeying a regulation.

  But if Fred had gone to an unauthorized place, such as parking with Janet in her car when he had indicated that he was “authorized” by virtue of his card—then he had lied.

  Or had he?

  Was it just a misunderstanding? Was it an off-hand comment by Fred that Rod had taken too seriously?

  Add to that, things didn’t seem right whenever Fred was around money.

  The biggest was that both Gould and Sly had been shortchanged. Fred’s excuse that their classmates had backed out of a bet seemed to hold water, but two times in a row? Especially when Rod had found that money underneath Fred’s mattress. They were living under the honor code for goodness sake, so why would a cadet even consider hiding money when everyone implicitly trusted everyone else?

  That forced Rod to think back to other seemingly random events, such as earlier in the year, when his coin drawer had been knocked over. He hadn’t counted the change that day, but would he have remembered how much he should have had anyway?

  And there was something else, something at the end of summer training. Rod had been short twenty dollars that day they had gone into San Francisco, and he’d automatically thought he’d forgotten how much he’d spent the night before.

  And four of the bills under George’s mattress had been Sly’s and George Sanders—the red markings and folds from origami were as damning as a confession.

  Maybe he should just drop it. After all, no one had been hurt by what had happened. And no one else would probably find out. What did it matter, anyway?

  Except for what Lieutenant Ranch had said, that day when Manuel Rojo had announced that Cadet X had resigned for an honor violation, about a cancer permeating the cadet wing if the toleration clause was ever violated.

  He passed the CQ desk and someone grabbed him by the arm. It was Sly, serving CCQ for the day; he held the black telephone to his chest so the person on the other end couldn’t hear him. He was out of breath. “Hey, Rod, where’s Fred?”

  “He said he was going to chapel. Why?”

  Sly’s face was pale, his eyes wide. “It’s Mr. Ledbetter. He’s ranting that Fred was driving his daughter’s car last night, got in an accident. Janet’s okay, but he’s threatening to call the air police if Fred doesn’t pay for the damage. Do you know what’s going on?”

  Despite wearing the heavy black parka, Rod felt chilled. That explained why Fred’s face was so bruised. He must have been in a car accident.

  And it was suddenly very clear.

  Rod’s chest felt like he had an incredible case of heartburn. “Tell him … Fred will call later.” Dazed, he walked back to his room and looked inside. Fred was gone, presumably to mandatory chapel.

  His card was still marked AUTHORIZED.

  Since Janet and Fred were relatively uninjured, simply being in an accident shouldn’t be a big deal. And if Fred went to school anywhere else but the Academy, it wouldn’t be; Fred’s father could afford to cover the damage to Janet Ledbetter’s car.

  But it wasn’t the accident that mattered to Rod. It was much more than that.

  For the past 18 months it had been pounded in their heads that you don’t screw over your classmate. You always went back to help him, you never left him hanging. Like that time Rod helped Fred when he had fainted on the parade field. There were no exceptions. None.

  But there was also an overarching standard they had sworn to uphold: that they would not lie, cheat, nor steal, and as hard as it was, that they would refuse to tolerate any cadet that did, classmate or not.

  He realized that when people uncovered a secret—a betrayal, a fallen expectation, or the discovery of infidelity—things could n
ever be the same. And he knew it was that realization that caused the sour sensation in his stomach.

  Discovery was only one facet of reality. Like the unbreakable Second Law of Thermodynamics, nothing could ever return to its original, more-ordered state.

  They had trained hard the last eighteen months. They had grown close as a class.

  They had to use their intellect in this gray and ever-shifting world of national priorities and treaty alliances. One of their military science instructors had told them that it was like taking a frothy, white-water trip in crisis management. It was never a simple “good guy, bad guy” world, such as his own father saw things, black or white.

  But despite the world’s complexity, there were some things that were black or white. Simplistic, simple minded. Like being a little bit pregnant—you can’t. Either you’re pregnant or you’re not. There’s no in between.

  And he realized so it was with honor.

  Either you’re honorable or you’re not.

  Either you’ve lied about where you’d been the night before or you haven’t.

  Either you’ve stolen your classmate’s money or you haven’t.

  And as for him and his fellow cadets, either you tolerated it or you didn’t.

  Rod drew in a breath. He knew what happened. He knew.

  He didn’t know all the details, but he just knew that Fred had broken the honor code. He’d lied and he’d stolen.

  Rod’s stomach churned, feeling as if he’d swallowed a vial of acid. What was he going to do? What should he do? One thing he knew was that he should stand up for what was right and never back down.

  On impulse Rod marked his card to UNAUTHORIZED. He slipped down the hall, wanting to get away from everything and just try to figure things out. He didn’t want any cadets bothering him. He had to think.

  He walked quietly down the stairwell, and as he stepped out into the blustery, blowing snow, the wind and slippery ice were the last things on his mind.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty

  “All Shook Up”

  February, 1957

  United States Air Force Academy

  Lowry Field, CO