Sleeping Dogs

by Tony Vanderwarker

  McFarlane raises his chin and snorts. “Excuse me, Mr. Collyer, but all this is pure conjecture and, I believe, a good deal of fabrication on your part.”

  “Is it, Martin? Or is that what the Pentagon would like you to believe?”

  “But these weapons are fifty years old. How could they possibly pose a threat?”

  “Fifty years old, yes, but packed with radioactive plutonium, tritium, uranium, beryllium and four hundred pounds of TNT—are they harmless? Something we shouldn’t worry about? That is a bet, Martin, that this country cannot afford to take.”

  McFarlane puffs himself up into a haughty posture and snorts, “In this post-9/11 world, where we are threatened from every side we have to believe in our government—not in half-baked conspiracy theories.”

  A chorus of hisses and boos rises from his classmates.

  “Martin,” Howie continues, “if you want to talk about conspiracies, I can give you evidence that there is a secret operation at the Pentagon to suppress information about these unrecovered nukes.”

  “That’s just pure rubbish, Mr. Collyer,” McFarlane retorts as jeering and catcalls echo around the room.

  “You’re certainly welcome to your point of view, Martin. But it’s obvious a number of your classmates do not share it.”

  Drummond stands up to intervene. “I think we’ve had a fair and full discussion and I don’t see the point in debating this further. Please sit down, Mr. McFarlane. Thank you, Howard, that was a provocative and fascinating lecture that I’m sure will have all of us thinking for some time about the threats you have outlined for us.”

  Howie gets a hearty round of appreciative applause from the students, except for McFarlane, who grumpily collapses into his seat. The rest of the students flock around Howie as he starts to pack up, eagerly taking his handouts and complimenting him on his lecture.

  Howie smiles and shakes hands, basking in the flattery.

  “Thank you, Mr. Collyer,” one student who Howie noticed was sound asleep when he began his lecture gushes, “I’m going to write my congressman and tell him we have to do something about these nukes.”

  “Great job, Mr. Collyer, thank you for coming.”

  “I’m glad you’re blowing the whistle on the Pentagon, they deserve it.”

  Howie nods and smiles for fifteen minutes, keeping up a running banter with the fired-up students.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.”

  “Glad you enjoyed it.”

  Though he revels in the attention, Howie knows that like the Rotarians and the garden club ladies, once the students return to their routines his cause will take a backseat in their minds. In a few days, the energized and engaged students will be busy stuffing their mouths with mom’s turkey. Maybe they will bring up Howie’s talk at the dinner table, maybe not. But Howie is accustomed to being dismissed and ignored, as he likes to joke, “I’m much too bullheaded to take it personally.”

  “Thanks, Boot,” Drummond says as he helps Howie load his gear into the backseat of his car. “I think you woke a few of my students up.”

  “I hope so. Maybe someday one of them will be inclined to do something about it. Take care, Henry. Thanks for having me.”

  “I’ll send you those FSU tickets. Should be a good game.”

  “You bet. Look forward to seeing you there.”

  Drummond and Collyer shake hands and BS a bit before Collyer says goodbye, heading around to the driver’s side while the professor waves at his old friend and turns back down the path toward the Corner.

  Just as Howie leans down to climb in, he hears someone calling his name. Looking back over the top of his car toward the Rotunda, he sees Bridget running down the hill toward him, waving frantically.

  “Mr. Collyer, Mr. Collyer!”

  Howie smiles. He finds himself wondering whether she is going to ask for an internship. Maybe she wants to volunteer to work with him? He can imagine introducing Bridget to his wife. The eye roll his wife Sylvie would give him would be world-class. Maybe she wants to have lunch with him and discuss the issue? Howie’s imagination is running away with him.

  “Mr. Collyer,” Bridget pants, half out of breath, her face flushed and her chest heaving. Howie can’t wait to hear what she has in mind. She pauses a moment to catch her breath.

  “I’m glad I caught you.”

  Howie smiles thinking of the hours they could spend together in his office over the garage. Obviously computer savvy, Bridget could help him update his website, chase down the hundreds of leads sitting in his To Do box. The possibilities were endless—and heady.

  She rummages around in the pocket of her skirt. Pulling out a short computer cable, she dangles it out to Howie. “You forgot this, Mr. Collyer,” she says.

  “Oh, yeah, thanks,” Collyer says, staring at the foot-long length of cable, hoping he’s hiding his disappointment.

  “Good talk you gave, sorry about that guy McFarlane. He’s always like that.”

  “No problem. Appreciate your help, Bridget.”

  “Keep it up—your lectures I mean. I think you’re really onto something with this lost bombs thing. I think you should stay with it until somebody listens—at least that’s my opinion,” Bridget says, flashing a self-conscious smile and shrugging her shoulders. She turns and gives him a girlish back and forth wave as she bounces up the path toward the Lawn. “Bye, Mr. Collyer, thanks for visiting us.”

  Howie allows himself one last look before he gets into his car and heads home.

  4

  Veterans Administration Hospital, Pittsburgh, Wednesday

  “So how we doing today, Major?” she asks, bending over the shriveled form.

  For three and a half months, though assigned to another ward, Sharon Thorsen often took a shortcut through 3. He first caught her eye by raising his hand each morning as she walked down the row of beds, giving her a feeble wave and a faint smile. Soon she found herself making it a part of her routine, first waving back, then occasionally pausing to chat with the former Air Force major, and not long afterward visiting with him on a daily basis.

  Looking into his eyes it was obvious not many lights were on, yet since her initial visit her nurse’s instinct told her someone was home. Brought in off the street a couple years ago, he used to rant and rave about all kinds of stuff before they crammed him full of meds. Senile dementia was the diagnosis and everyone dismissed him as a crazy old loon. Now tucked away in a chemical Never Never Land, he came across to Sharon not as demented but as disoriented, frail, lonely and craving company.

  Her curiosity about his past had taken her down to the records room in the sub-basement. Sharon always thought the lack of files on him was odd, but she chalked it up to sloppy record keeping, not the first time the massive VA bureaucracy had misplaced something. All that remains in his folder is his last name, not even his first name, plus barebones information—the date he was admitted, rank and serial number, date of birth and a series of yearly diagnoses confirming his dementia and prescriptions for sedatives to control his anxiety.

  Random comments he’d made convinced her he shouldn’t be written off as a vegetable. Plus, the more time she spent with him, she realized how much he reminded her of her father. His eyes particularly, the same steely gray cast her dad’s had. As well as a mannerism, a rolling wave of his hand as if he was physically trying to continue a thought. Just like her dad.

  It had been almost seven years since the phone call in the middle of the night and it had occurred to her that spending time with the major was like being with her father. Pop psychology probably, but after chatting him up she always came out of the ward with a big smile on her face.

  So when Sharon had the time, she would make a point of sitting down next to him and chitchatting about the local high school football team, her bowling score or the weather forecast for western Pennsylvania, all the while peppering him with questions, hoping another phrase or word would pop out of his mouth.

  She’d ask
ed him if he’d ever played any sports and when he said, “Football,” she practically fell off the bed. He said the word cautiously, almost a question. But who cared? At least one light was on.

  “In college or in high school?” she quizzed him. She was a football brat, her dad had been a coach so she understood the ins and outs of every position, even the fight songs of every major team by heart. As her dad had told her countless times, “If you aren’t going to play football, you’re going to know every darn thing about it.”

  “I bet you were a scatback, Major Risstup, one of those speedy little guys who runs circles around everyone. Or a wideout, I can see you running patterns, turning, your eyes guiding the ball into your hands, then tucking it under your arm, turning on the afterburners and going all the way.”

  Every morning she’d return to the subject, poking and prodding his memory, coming at him from every possible angle. She brought a football in, borrowed a helmet from her dad’s former equipment room, but it wasn’t until the day she thought to ask him about his school mascot that Sharon rang the bell for a second time.

  “So was it an eagle, bulldog, gamecock? How about Spartans, wolverines, maybe tigers?” Sharon asked him. It was a Tuesday, almost three weeks ago. She remembered it well. Without hesitation, the major looked her straight in the eye and answered clearly and distinctly, “Bears.”

  “Way to go, Major, way to go,” she said, leaning down to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Golden Bears—like at Cal? Or did you play for the real Bears—the pros, the Chicago Bears?”

  No answer. His face was a blank slate.

  “C’mon, Major Risstup!”

  Still nothing.

  Then she had a crazy idea. She knew she had the worst voice, even her mother begged her to mouth hymns in church. Leaning down so her lips were five inches from his ear, she hummed “Big C,” the California fight song, watching carefully for a reaction. She couldn’t believe it when he shook his head, slowly but distinctly, he was telling her no.

  Next she tried the tune the Chicago Bears had made famous. Again he moved his head back and forth. She was about to give up when she had one more thought.

  The Bruins, the UCLA Bruins. She searched her memory for the words. They came to her after a couple seconds, “Sons of Westwood.” She knew there was no point in trying to stay on key, she always sounded like an out-of-tune kazoo, but she made up for it with gusto, Da, da, da, dum, dah—da, da, da, dee da!

  Risstup nodded, the tiniest smile sneaking across his face. Was he a Bruin? Had he grown up in California? Now she had a whole new angle to work. The old man in Ward 3 had made her day.

  Ever since that moment, Sharon’s convinced that Risstup is intent on telling her something crucial. His eyebrows slant down and his forehead bunches up as if he’s struggling to find the words. Often he wedges an arm under his body and raises himself up, lifting a finger as if to get her attention. But that’s as far as it goes.

  Two days ago, she talked the supervising nurse in the ward into backing down Risstup’s dose, making the case it wasn’t good for his heart. Not tipping her hand, she was hoping that bringing him out of his drugged state might help him reveal what was on his mind.

  Since spending Thanksgiving at a girlfriend’s house has become an annual ritual, Sharon made a special point of stopping in the day before to visit. She stands by the major’s bed, a wide smile spread across her face, trying to get him enthused about the upcoming holiday. “So, Major Risstup, I bet you can’t wait to have some of that delicious turkey they’re cooking up downstairs. Can’t you just smell it? Stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly—it’ll be a feast, won’t it?” she says, taking his bony hand in hers.

  Sharon pauses, looking down at him for a response. When she sees a slight grin, she says, “Oh, I know you are just licking your chops, Major. But you’re going to have to wait one more day for Thanksgiving.”

  She neatens up the collar of his gown so he looks more comfortable, “Me, I’m going over to one of my girlfriend’s houses for dinner. We’re a bunch of old maids but we mix up a batch of mimosas, fire up a big bird, and have a good old time. We even get a little rowdy, sometimes put on some records.” She leans down and confides to him, “And promise you won’t tell? Sometimes we dance. It’s silly, I know, but we do have a good time.”

  She looks into his eyes as she always does, hoping that she’ll detect a glimmer of response. From the increasing softness in his expression and the slight widening of his mouth, she keeps up a steady patter sensing she might be getting through. “My girlfriend lives in the country. It’s real quiet out there except for the dang roosters. The stupid things wake you up at an ungodly hour. You ought to hear them. They make a horrible racket.”

  She stops suddenly. He has that same look on his face.

  Though she’s noted in her last two visits that he seems to be slightly more lucid, his eyes clearer and his vision more focused, Sharon Thorsen is not prepared for what happens next.

  Risstup suddenly fumbles for her hand, his fingers searching around in the bedclothes. Finding it, he grips tightly and turns his head to look up at her, a look close to panic in his eyes. She watches in amazement as the eighty-some-year-old man’s lips part and he says, slowly and haltingly, his head straining up off the pillow, “You have to help me . . .”

  Sharon immediately ducks her head down close to his mouth and whispers into his ear, “I beg your pardon, major, help you with what?”

  “You have to help me . . .”

  “Yes, Major.”

  “Bomb . . .”

  “Come again?”

  “The bomb. Help me find it.”

  Sharon looks at him quizzically, “A bomb? What bomb, Major?” Her first reaction is to smile and shake her head, since what she’s hearing makes no sense. But Risstup seems so disconcerted she has to take him seriously.

  “I don’t understand. Where is this bomb?”

  “Lost, I lost it, lost it from my plane.”

  “When? How?”

  He shakes his head, frowns, grimaces, memory is on the blink. He looks pained, his features contorting as if he is desperately trying to dredge up the information but is getting only a busy signal. His hand slips out of hers and his head sinks back on the pillow.

  “That’s okay, Major,” she says, patting him on the arm. “Don’t you worry yourself about it, we’ll try again sometime. You just relax now.” Sharon stands beside his bed looking down at him. What is this lost bomb business? She’s wondering as she finds her eyes wandering over to the security camera overlooking the ward. It slowly pans across the room, its convex lens reflecting the ward in bug-eye miniature. As she stares at it, Sharon swears the camera stops. She can hear the electronic buzz of the lens zooming in on her. She has an urge to reach up and fix her hair.

  Am I losing it? She looks away from the camera. Then looks back. It has resumed its slow tracking back and forth across the rows of beds.

  I’ve got to get a grip. She promptly clears her mind of the thought that someone may be watching, deciding her imagination is playing tricks on her.

  After a couple minutes, the major’s eyelids slowly drift together and Thorsen backs away from his bed, saying softly, “I’ll come see you first thing Friday morning, Major Risstup. Now you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, you hear?” Resisting the impulse to look back over her shoulder at the camera, she quickly flings open the swinging doors into the hallway, glancing at her watch and deciding, I’m going to punch out an hour early, I have some work to do.

  First thing Sharon does when she gets home is to change out of her uniform, throw on jeans and a T-shirt and slip into comfy shoes. Postponing dinner, she pulls out her chair and sits down at her computer. Clicking on the space bar, she waits impatiently for the lame old thing to awaken.

  After she left Risstup in his ward, she stopped and wrote down the words he had whispered to her. You have to help me find the bomb. And, I lost it from my plane. While at work, she’d kept tur
ning to the page where she had jotted down what he had said, reading and rereading her notes, trying to understand what he was straining to tell her.

  Clicking through to the search engine, she types in the words lost bombs and taps the search button.

  When Google asks, Do you mean lost H-bombs? She clicks yes and watches wide-eyed as the information pours down the page. Halfway through the list is a website called https://sleepingdogs.us.

  In forty-five minutes, reading everything on the site and checking through its listed links, Sharon now knows more than she needs.

  Sorting through what she’s learned, she goes to the refrigerator and peers inside. What she sees tells her it’s sandwich night. Getting out the fixings, she tracks back over the new information. Eleven nuclear weapons lost during the ten years from ’58 to ’68. Dropped all over the country from British Columbia to North Carolina. Sharon rapidly does the arithmetic. Risstup would have been in his thirties during the time H-bomb armed B-52s were flying missions.

  Standing at the counter, she pauses with the knife plunged halfway into the mayonnaise.

  “Damn, it’s possible,” she says out loud. “He could have been a pilot on one of those things.”

  Then her good sense prevails. I’m getting buggy. It’s not possible, totally farfetched. The website and the other sites suggest a conspiracy on the part of the Pentagon to cover up the lost nukes. Then the image of the security camera focusing on her pops into her mind. Could someone have been watching me?

  She pulls herself together. I’m normally so sensible and practical, what the hell’s going on with me?