“Fine. The brig would be fine. I’m a howlin’ wolf. Put me in a cage or let me go.”

Eagle drummed his fingers on his desk, changing pace. “Tell me something. What does this old saying mean to you? ‘People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’?” Fingers drumming. “Well?”

“I don’t know—”

“ ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss.’ What does that mean?”

“Don’t know.”

Eagle began to write furiously.

“Why would anyone live in a glass house? It would be hot,” I said. “And everyone could see you.”

“I hear you like to read Kafka. That’s heavy stuff for a young guy. You’re pretty bright. Have you ever read any books on abnormal psychology?”

“Hey, man, just let me out of this motherfucker. I’m going down in this place. Put me in a normal ward and let me see a real doctor.”

“I’ll give it some thought. In the meantime, I’d like you to check this out,” Eagle said, clapping me on the shoulder. He handed me a copy of Love Against Hate, by Karl Menninger.

STARLOG, JANUFEB, 2010: “Gate is straight/Deep and wide/Break on through to the other side.…”

There was an old piano in the dayroom. When a Marine freaked out and broke the record player, Chandler started playing the piano day and night—driving me crazy. “Canadian Sunset” over and over and over again! One night I rubbed cigarette ashes all over myself for camouflage, crawled into the dayroom recon style, and snapped off the little felt hammers inside the piano. Shoulda seen the look on Chandler’s face when he sat down to play. This was not insane behavior. I knew I was not really insane. I was just a garden-variety epileptic temporarily off my game. Thrown a little by the war. I laughed and said to Chandler, “Hey man, what’s the sound of one hand clapping?”

After I put the piano out of commission, I noticed Chandler was losing weight. They had him on some new medication. He quit camping around and took a troubled leap into the darkness of his own soul. He grew quiet and started sitting in the corner with catatonic Joe. A black Marine, a rotund and powerful murderer from South Carolina named Bobby Dean Steele, was admitted to the ward for observation, and he began to dominate. Despite the charges pending against him, he was buoyant and cheerful. He walked over to Joe’s corner a lot and would say, “Joe-be-doe, what’s happening? What’s the matter, man? You saw some bad shit in the Nam, didn’t you? Well, that’s okay. We’re going to fix you up—not those doctors, but us, the jarheads. We’ll help you. I know you can hear me. Go easy, man.”