Cradle (8 page)

Eight years later, sitting in his office at the US Naval Air Station in Key West,
Commander Winters would remember that prayer and cringe inside. Even then, in 1986,
just after he finished the prayer, he had felt weird and disoriented, almost as if
he had somehow committed a blasphemy and displeased the Lord. A brief hour of sleep
that followed was torturous, full of dreams of hideous gargoyles and vampires. He
watched the planes leave the carrier the next morning at dawn in a dreamlike trance.
His mouth had a bitter metal taste when he mechanically shook Gibson’s hand and wished
him luck.

For all those years Winters had wished that he could have rescinded that prayer. He
was convinced that God had permitted that particular missile carried by Gibson to
take the life of Gaddafi’s infant daughter just to teach Winters a personal lesson.
On that day
, he thought as he sat in his office on a Thursday in March 1994,
I committed sacrilege and violated your trust. I overstepped my bounds and lost my
privileged position in your sanctuary. I have asked for forgiveness many times since
then but it has not been forthcoming. How much longer must I wait?

Vernon Allen Winters was born on June 25, 1950, the day that the North Koreans invaded
South Korea. He was reminded of the significance of his birthdate throughout his life
by his father, Martin Winters, a man who was a hardworking, deeply religious corn
farmer in Indiana at the time Vernon was born. When Vernon was three years old and
his sister Linda was six, the family moved off the farm and into the town of Columbus,
a white, middle-class town of thirty thousand or so in south central Indiana. Vernon’s
mother had felt isolated out on the farm, particularly during the winter, and wanted
more company. The Winters’ farm provided a nice cash profit. Mr. Winters, by now almost
forty, put most of the nest egg aside as security for a rainy day and became a banker.

Martin Winters was proud to be an American. Whenever Mr. Winters would tell Vernon
about the day of his birth, the story would inevitably centre around the news of the
start of the Korean War and how it was explained to the nation by President Harry
Truman. ‘I thought that day,’ Mr. Winters would say, ‘that it was surely no coincidence.
The good Lord brought you to us that special day because of his purpose for you. And
I bet he meant for you to be a protector of this wonderful country we have created….’
Later, banker Winters would always see to it that the Army-Navy football game was
one of the key events of the year and he would tell his friends, particularly when
it became obvious that young Vernon was a good student, that ‘the boy is still trying
to choose which of the academies to attend’. Vernon was never asked.

The Winters family lived a simple midwestern life. Mr. Winters was moderately successful,
eventually becoming the senior vice-president of the largest bank in Columbus. The
family’s chief social activity was church. They were Presbyterians and spent almost
all day Sunday at the church. Mrs. Winters ran the Sunday school. Mr. Winters was
a deacon and voluntarily managed the church finances. Vernon and Linda helped supervise
the smaller children at Sunday school and were responsible for the special Bible displays
on the notice-boards in the kindergarten and primary school rooms.

During the week Mrs. Winters sewed and watched soap operas and sometimes played bridge
with friends. She never worked outside the home. Her husband and her children were
her job. She was an attentive, patient parent who deeply cared for her children and
tirelessly chauffeured them to their many activities throughout their years of adolescence.

Vernon played all sports in high school, football and basketball because it was expected
of him, baseball because he loved it. He was above average at all sports, not outstanding
at anything. ‘Activities are important, particularly sports,’ banker Winters often
told him approvingly. ‘The academies look at much more than your grades.’ The only
significant decision that Vernon had to make in the first eighteen years of his life
was which of the service academies he preferred. (Mr. Winters, being cautious, was
prepared politically to secure a nomination for Vernon to any of the academies. He
strongly urged Vernon to think about applying to all three just in case.) In his junior
year at Columbus High School, Vernon took the Scholastic Aptitude Test and made such
a high score that it was obvious he would be able to pick his own favourite. He chose
Annapolis and was not questioned about the reasons. If he had been, he would have
answered that he just liked the idea of himself in a Navy uniform.

Vernon’s teenage years were remarkably linear, particularly considering that they
occurred at a time of great social turmoil in the United States. The Winters family
prayed together for hours after the Kennedy assassination, worried about local boys
in the Vietnam War, remarked with concern when three prominent high school seniors
refused to cut their hair and were expelled from school, and attended a couple of
church-sponsored meetings on the evils of marijuana. But all these anxieties were
outside the daily harmony of the Winters family. Music by the Beatles and the Rolling
Stones did penetrate the controlled Winters culture, of course, and even some of the
protest songs sung by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were played on Vernon’s stereo. But
neither Vernon nor his sister Linda paid much serious attention to the lyrics.

It was an easy existence. Vernon’s closest friends were all from families like his.
Mothers did not work, fathers were bankers or lawyers or businessmen, almost all were
Republicans (but a patriotic Democrat was accepted) and believed fervently in God,
country, and the entire litany that ends in apple pie. Vernon was a ‘good kid’, even
an ‘exceptional kid’, who first drew attention to himself by his performances in the
annual church pageants at Christmas and Easter. The pastor of their church was a great
believer that reenactment of the birth and crucifixion of Christ, performed by the
children of the town, was a powerful way to reconfirm the faith of the local citizenry.
And Reverend Pendleton was correct. The Columbus Presbyterian Church pageants were
among the highlights of the local year. When the church congregation and their friends
saw their own children acting in the roles of Joseph, Mary, and even Christ, they
became involved in the depicted events at an emotional level that was virtually impossible
to achieve in any other way.

Reverend Pendleton had two casts for each pageant, so that more children could participate,
but Vernon was always the star. When he was eleven years old Vernon first portrayed
Christ in the Easter Pageant and it was mentioned in the religious column of the Columbus
newspaper that his tortured dragging of the cross had ‘captured all of man’s suffering’.
He was Joseph at Christmas and Jesus at Easter for four years running, before he became
too old and therefore no longer eligible for the pageants. The last two years, when
Vernon was thirteen and fourteen, the role of the Virgin Mary in the ‘A’ cast was
played by the pastor’s daughter, Betty. Vernon and Betty were together quite often
while rehearsing and both families were delighted. All four parents made no secret
of the fact that they would generously approve if, ‘assuming God wills it’, the Vernon-Betty
friendship eventually matured into something more permanent.

Vernon loved the attention he received from the pageants. Although Betty was touched
deeply by the religious aspects of their performances (she remained truly devoted
to God, without wavering, through everything in her life), Vernon’s joy was standing
by his proud parents after each performance and soaking up the praise. In high school
he gravitated naturally toward the small drama activity and was the lead in the school
play every year. His mother supported this over his father’s mild objections (‘After
all, dear,’ she would say, ‘I don’t think anyone is really going to think Vernon’s
a sissy when he’s playing three sports’) and because she also vicariously enjoyed
the applause.

During the summer of 1968, just before he entered Annapolis, Vernon worked in his
uncle’s cornfields. Only a little more than a hundred miles away there were riots
at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, but in Columbus Vernon spent his summer evenings
with Betty, talking with chums and drinking root beer at the A&W Drive-in. Mr. and
Mrs. Winters played miniature golf or canasta with Vernon and Betty from time to time.
They were delighted and proud to have ‘good clean kids’ who were not hippies or drug
victims. All in all, Vernon’s last summer in Indiana was ordered, constrained, and
very pleasant.

As expected, he was a model student at Annapolis. He studied hard, obeyed all the
rules, learned what his professors taught him, and dreamed of being the commander
of an aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine. He was not outgoing, for the big city
boys seemed way too sophisticated for him and he did not always feel comfortable when
they talked about sex so casually. He was a virgin and he was not ashamed of it. He
just didn’t feel the need to broadcast it around the US Naval Academy. He had a couple
of dates a month, nothing special, just when the occasion called for it. After a blind
date early in his junior year with Joanna Carr, a cheerleader at the University of
Maryland, he took her out several more times. She was vivacious, lovely, fun, and
modern. She drew out the best in Vernon, made him laugh and even relax. She was his
date for the weekend of the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

(During his entire time at the Academy, Vernon went home every summer and every Christmas
to Indiana. He always saw Betty Pendleton when he was home. Betty graduated from high
school and entered a nearby state college to study education. Once or twice a year,
on special occasions such as the anniversary of their first kiss or New Year’s Eve,
Betty and he would celebrate, in a sense, by doing a little something intimate. Like
petting chastely or kissing lying down. Neither of them ever suggested any variation
in this well-established routine.)

Vernon and Joanna were joined for the weekend by another midshipman, the closest acquaintance
that Vernon had at Navy who was still not quite what one would call a friend, Duane
Eller, and his date from Columbia, an extremely loud and pushy girl named Edith. Vernon
had never spent much time around a New York City girl and he found Edith absolutely
obnoxious. Edith was violently anti-Nixon and anti-Vietnam and, despite the fact that
her date for the weekend was going to be a military officer, seemed anti-military
as well. The original plan for the weekend had been decidedly proper, even backward,
given that it was 1970 and casual intercourse was not unusual on college campuses.
Vernon and Duane were to share one motel room and the two girls another. Over pizza
the night before the game, Edith frequently insulted both Joanna and Vernon and Duane
did nothing to intercede. Seeing that Edith was annoying Joanna, Vernon suggested
to Joanna that it might be easier if the two of them shared a room instead of following
the original game plan. She readily agreed.

Vernon had made no sexual advances toward Joanna on the four or five dates they had
had together. He had been attentive, had kissed her good night a couple of times,
and had held her hand most of the evening on their last date. Everything had always
been extremely proper, but there had never actually been any opportunity for intimacy.
So Joanna really didn’t know what to expect. She liked this handsome midshipman and
had thought, a couple of times, about the possibility of the involvement developing
into something serious. But Vernon was not yet anyone extra-special for her.

Just after they made the room change (which a drunken Edith made more difficult by
embarrassing them and herself with lewd comments), Vernon very carefully apologized
to Joanna and told her that he would sleep in the car if she were offended. They had
a typical Holiday Inn room with two double beds. Joanna laughed. ‘I know you didn’t
plan this,’ she said. ‘If I need protection, I can order you to your bed.’ The first
night they enjoyed watching television and drinking more beer in the room. They both
felt a little awkward. At bedtime they shared a couple of almost passionate kisses,
laughed together, and then went to separate beds.

The next evening, after the post-game dance sponsored by the Naval Academy at a downtown
Philadelphia hotel, Joanna and Vernon returned to their room at the Holiday Inn just
before midnight. They had already changed into their jeans and Vernon was brushing
his teeth when there was a knock on their door. Joanna opened the door and Duane Eller
was standing there, a gigantic grin on his face and his hand clenched around some
small object. ‘This stuff is fuckin’ fantastic,’ he said, thrusting a joint into Joanna’s
hand. ‘You’ve just got to try it.’ Duane withdrew quickly with a wild smile.

Joanna was a bright young woman, but it did not occur to her that her date had never
even seen a joint, much less smoked one. She herself had smoked marijuana maybe a
dozen times over a four-year period, beginning in her junior year in high school.
She liked it, if the situation and the company were right; she avoided it when she
couldn’t have control of her environment. But she had enjoyed the weekend with Vernon
and she thought this might be a perfect way to loosen him up a little.

Under almost any circumstances Vernon would have said no to any offer of marijuana,
not just because he was against all drugs, but also because he would have been terrified
that somehow he would be discovered and eventually thrown out of Annapolis. But here
was his lovely date, a mainstream American cheerleader from Maryland, and she had
just lit a joint and offered it to him. Joanna quickly saw that he was a grass neophyte.
She showed him how to inhale and hold in the smoke, and eventually how to use a clip
(one of her hairpins) to finish it off. Vernon had expected to feel as if he were
drunk. He was astonished to find that he felt more alert. Much to his own surprise,
he began reciting ee cummings poems he had been studying in Lit. And then he and Joanna
began to laugh. They laughed at everything. At Edith, football, the Naval Academy,
their parents, even Vietnam. They laughed until they were almost crying.