Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [104]
Too often I embarrassed myself. Sitting at the bar in the Sunset House one night, lost in an alcohol reverie, I was startled by a sudden shout. Before I could stop myself I leaped off the stool and snapped to attention, shaking. Everyone stared. Mortified at my instinctive reaction, I covered my face. What I’d imagine to be a prison guard ordering me to snap to was only another customer boisterously punctuating a wild story.
Sometimes it only took a car-exhaust backfire to remind me of being caught in bombing raids like on Funafuti, where the explosions were so close that it’s lucky my eardrums didn’t burst. Or in Omori, where I had watched four hundred planes drop sixteen tons of bombs apiece on Tokyo.
“Have another drink,” the bartender urged. “On the house.”
“Yeah…yeah, thanks,” I mumbled. It took three to finally calm me.
At home I stayed up later and later, dreading sleep, yet drinking more and more while still believing I could numb myself enough to pass out and stay out. Even when I did, the dreams still came and their grip on me tightened.
I also liked to fight at the drop of a hat and got into scrapes at the slightest provocation. Some guy would say, “Yeah, you prisoners of war. That was a good way to get out of the war, sitting back and getting free meals.” I’d pummel jerks like him to the floor. I was on edge all the time.
The remedy? Drink to dull those impulses.
I should have reread my Coming Home pamphlet, which described my symptoms exactly. Memories of war kept running around my head. I couldn’t concentrate. I tossed all night. And yet I had so much nervous energy I couldn’t slow down. The section on fear was especially relevant—in my case fear of what to do with my life, of personal failure, of not being able to run again, of the media sobering up long enough to realize that despite my running trophies, war medals, and headlines, I was just a guy who’d done nothing more heroic than live.
IN FEBRUARY 1946 Madison Square Garden invited me to be the starter for the renamed Zamperini Mile. Actually, they insisted; seven of the world’s greatest runners would compete. Unfortunately, I was afraid I wouldn’t get to New York on time because the planes leaving the Burbank airport were full. (LAX then wasn’t even an international airport.) TWA had a waiting list, but the chances I’d make the cut didn’t look good. I needed some leverage, so I called Paul Zimmerman, the Los Angeles Times sports editor, to ask him to phone the TWA public relations man and give him a breakdown on my sports and war experience and say I had to get to New York, and could they do me a favor.
Zimmerman was on vacation.
When you’re desperate you get crazy. I found a phone booth near the TWA desk. I called the airline, told them I was Paul Zimmerman, and asked for the PR department. When the publicist, whose office was right across from where I stood, picked up, I said, “Lou Zamperini, you’ve heard of him, right? Forty-seven days on a raft, Olympian, all that.”
The PR guy said, “Oh, yeah, yeah.”
I said, “Well, he’s flying to New York, going back to start the Zamperini Mile, and I wanted to talk to him before he left. When he comes in, have him call me.”
Meanwhile, I could see the PR guy writing down every word I said. Ten minutes later I walked to the counter, told the gal my name. “Oh, just a minute!” she said, and called the PR guy, who came out and told me that Zimmerman had called and left a message.
“Okay, I’ll call him,” I said quickly, “but it’s essential that I be in New York by tomorrow night, for the Zamperini Mile.”
The counter agent shook her head. “Sorry, the flight’s full.”
“Hold on just a minute,” the PR guy said, and hurried down a hallway. Three minutes later he came back and said, “Mr. Hughes wants to see you.”
He meant Howard Hughes. I admired the guy for his flying ability but didn’t know much about him then except that he owned TWA. His office was quite plain, and he was very nice.