Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [151]
It was during this time that I convinced my mother we should start a letter-writing campaign to Oregon Senator Wayne Morse. The senator was known for being tempermental, but he was also a conscientious man—he was one of the U.S. Congress’s few early voices to speak out against the war in Vietnam. Eventually, that opposition cost him his Senate seat, during a bitter campaign in which Oregonians decided that Bob Packwood was a better representative of their concerns and beliefs.
My mother and I wrote Morse letters and he wrote back, promising he would look into the matter. He contacted somebody who had influence in this area, and he asked: “Why is this man serving such a long sentence in a dangerous place for a nonviolent crime?”
On March 1, 1967—nineteen months after my brother had been drafted—a Leavenworth official met with Frank and told him they were going to cut his sentence and the army was going to discharge him for “good cause”—which was the same as saying they recognized he had been fucked over. They gave him a little bit of money and a ride to the town of Leavenworth, Kansas. From there, Frank caught a bus back to Portland.
A FEW DAYS LATER, I WAS SITTING IN THE KITCHEN READING, when
the front door opened and Frank walked in. Neither my mother nor I knew he had been released. It was a wonderful pleasure to see him, but I could tell that his time at Leavenworth had been hard on him. He seemed a much less happy person, and a more timid one.
I was home alone at the time, and I wanted to call my mother and tell her that Frank was back. Frank said: “No. I’ll go down later and visit her where she works. I’ll surprise her.”
Frank went upstairs to unpack. He came down a few minutes later and gently rested his hand on my shoulder. “Mikal, I have something I want to ask you.” There were tears in his eyes. “Have you or anybody else been in my bedroom or taken anything out of it?” I told him I’d gone in a few times to watch his TV or sleep in his bed, but that was about it. “Why?” I asked.
“There’s something missing,” he said. “I had $219 hidden in my bedroom. It was all the money I have in the world. I was counting on having it when I got out. Do you know anything about it?”
I shook my head. I had never known anything about Frank saving any money.
Frank bit his lip and thought for a second, and then he said one word: “Gaylen.” It was all he had to say.
He went back upstairs for a few minutes. When he came back down, he was wearing his coat and carrying his duffel bag. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want you to say a word about me being here to Mom, and don’t say anything about the missing money either. I think it’s best if I go away and never come back, and it’s also best if nobody knows where I am. That money was all I had in the world while I was in prison—it was all I could count on. To come home and find it gone … That means I don’t have a home here anymore. It means I don’t belong here.”
I tried arguing with him, reasoning with him, telling him that running away would do no good. Finally, I tried begging him, and I said that if he left and Mother never knew what happened to him, it would be horrible for her—it could even kill her.
Frank shook his head. “Nah. She doesn’t care about me. You’re the only one who’s cared about me. I want to thank you for writing those letters. I’m glad to see you’ve turned out to be okay. Take care of yourself.”
And then he walked out.
I was in a panic. I think it was one of the most painful moments I have ever known in my life. I felt terrible that Frank had gone through all that he had gone through with the army, just to come home to an even greater disappointment. And I felt horrible for my mother. I didn’t know how to face her without telling her. Soon, one way or another, she would know Frank had been released from prison, and she would wonder what had happened to him. I knew she would fear the worst.
I sat in the dark on that winter night, crying for hours. I knew then what hell was: Hell was my family. It was having to live with people who