The Day I Thought I Was Going To Die

I would imagine there aren’t too many people who’ve had near-death experiences. I mean the real kind, the out-of-body, move-toward-the-light, talking-to-dead-relatives kind of near-death experiences.

Sure, we’ve all had the embarrassing oh-shit-I’m-gonna-die, holy-crap-she’s-gonna-kill-me kind of “near-death” experiences, but there’s one kind that’s in between the real near-death experiences and the socio-professional ones. They’re the staring-death-in-the-face moments, the kind where some action of yours will result in, or has resulted in a situation that could bring you real harm, or even death… and it’s usually brought on by your own stupidity.

It was early 1984. I was at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sometime in the middle of the second of three phases of my entry training, the Security Police Technical Training course. Only a few weeks out of basic training, the Air Force wasn’t quite ready to let us enjoy our free time as we saw fit; there were still restrictions on base- and town-liberty privileges. It was a weekend – a Sunday, I think – and though we were allowed to wear civilian clothes, we weren’t yet quite trusted with venturing off base, even though every last one of us had lived our entire lives until a few months earlier off base.

I was in our dormitory day-room, a simple, non-descript room in place for us to relax and unwind after classes and in our down-time.

I don’t remember if I had walked in on the argument, or if I was already in the day-room and the argument had walked in on me, but one of my classmates had gotten into a heated discussion with Airman Johnson over Airman Johnson’s behavior.

I know it sounds like I’m making the name up, but his name really was Johnson. He was a street-tough kid who grew up on the streets on the bad side of Miami. He and I came through basic training in the same class, his bunk across the aisle and a couple down from mine. He had a perpetual sneer on his face, at times threatening, at times mocking, but at all times present, which, when facing the Training Instructors, brought him a lot of grief. To say Johnson had issues with authority figures would be a drastic understatement. He was not used to having to take shit from anyone, and there were times when the Training Instructors had nothing but shit to give. It was a deep-seated, automatic reaction in him when someone got in his face, that it broke into an expression of contempt. It raised in me the question, “If you have that much trouble dealing with authority figures, why join the military?”

But he made it through basic training, and he wound up in my secondary training class, learning how to be an Air Force cop.

I’ve always been a fairly amiable person, despite my general shyness. Despite his tough attitude, Johnson had a likeable quality to him. In conversations I had learned about his rough life, his fights, his victories, a few of his defeats, his experiences on his high school wrestling team. He had an air of the braggart, but an underlying tongue-in-cheek, self-ridiculing personality as well. He was a living, breathing example of the disadvantaged inner-city young black male of the mid-1980s. And where some are little more than a lot of wind and posturing, all it took was shaking Johnson’s hand to know he could back up everything he said about who he was and what he had come from. Though kind of short and of a small build, he was intensely strong; his sinewy, muscular frame hadn’t come from working out at the gym, but from competition and, no doubt, his daily survival. To put it concisely, his was a formidable, intimidating presence. Of course, for me, a gangly, featherweight, white stringbean of a kid from the suburbs, just about everything was intimidating.

So I found myself in the dayroom, an observer of a heated discussion. At question was Johnson’s behavior. I seem to recall the discussion arising from Johnson’s complaint about how the Training Instructors were always on his case. His co-interlocutor had likely stated that Johnson’s attitude was what brought him his troubles, a comment that Johnson likely viewed as an insult or attack, and the heat had turned up.

I was a worrywart in my teens and twenties. I would lie awake nights worried about oversleeping the next morning, worried about whether I’d be closer to the beginning of the chow line or closer to the end; stupid shit like that. I worried that Johnson was getting worked up over this discussion and might do something he would regret. So I opened my mouth and became part of the discussion. My first mistake was to side with the guy who wasn’t Airman Johnson; that just confirmed Johnson’s belief that everyone had it in for him.

Throughout the discussion Johnson had that somewhat mocking, somewhat self-riduling, somewhat half-smile on his face, with moments of fire erupting in his eyes. Before I realized what had happened, Johnson had completely shifted his focus to me. The other guy had stepped back, no doubt ready to throw water on us if need be.

I was seated on the edge of the pool table. Airman Johnson was standing directly in front of me. I don’t remember what it was that I had said, but it reflected my constant state of worry, and my warnings to others that they might get in trouble for doing whatever it was they were doing, and that I wasn’t going to do what they were doing because I didn’t want to get into trouble, ad nauseam.

Johnson, tired of my preaching to him from my pulpit of trepidation, spoke in his mocking tone of voice, and said something to the effect of, “You should worry about your own self, but instead you be cryin’ like a little bitch all the time about what I do…” and he went off on a rant about how much people around him complained about how he acted, and told him how he should behave, how he should wear his uniform, how his actions made the rest of us look bad, and how tired he was of everybody getting in his business.

At this point I saw the tables turn. Suddenly Airman Johnson was doing exactly what he had accused me of doing. I seized the opportunity to put this feeling into words, to put Johnson in his place. I wanted to turn his own phrase, “cryin’ like a little bitch,” back on him, because, admittedly, it had hurt me when he said it. The words formed in my head: “Now who’s cryin’ like a little bitch?” I just waited for him to take a breath. And when he did, for the life of me, I experienced a major brain fart:

“Now who’s cryin’, bitch?”

In a flash Johnson’s self-mocking expression disappeared, replaced by rage. In a greased second his nose was a millimeter from mine, his eyes burning into mine, words pouring from his lips. I don’t remember what he said to me in those moments. The only two things I remember in that moment were the death glare in his eyes and the stream of thought running through my head: “’Now who’s cryin’, bitch?!’ Where the hell did THAT come from?! Now I’m going to die!”

I gather that the only thing that saved me from being cracked like an egg was what I can only guess was an instinctive reaction, which was not to react at all. I sat rigid, stone-faced, and I stared right back into his eyes, giving the best rendition of a street-tough glare I could give him.

Johnson finally ran out of words and we glared at each other menacingly for a few more seconds. I can only guess at why he didn’t snap me in half like a twig. I’m certain it wasn’t that he had never sized me up and was unsure whether or not he could take me. More likely, he weighed the consequences of putting me in the intensive care ward and determined he’d rather not spend the rest of his Air Force career in a military prison.

Johnson stepped back and said something dismissive, like I wasn’t worth his trouble, and he walked away. Only then did I realize that, until his departure, he and I had been alone in the day-room for several minutes. His original opponent had cleared out when I made the ill-fated retort, no doubt to call 9-1-1, or to go make splints or something.

Alone in the day-room, my stoic expression finally broke. There were no mirrors nearby, but I’m certain the new expression read incredulity, and I’d bet I was whiter by several shades than I had been when I sat down on the edge of the pool table!

“Now who’s cryin’, bitch?!” WHAT THE HELL?!

I walked to my room on rubbery legs and lay down on my bed, and I worried about dealing with Airman Johnson the next day and for the rest of the training cycle. I don’t remember if it was immediate, or if it took a few days, but Johnson and I made amends. I don’t recall who approached whom first to apologize, but I do recall that when I apologized for calling him a bitch, he responded with his usual expression of half self-ridicule, half contempt, so I don’t know if he truly accepted my apology or trusted that it was sincere.

I suppose it’s obvious that I think about him from time to time, and I wonder what ever became of him, of his career in the Air Force. I suspect that his attitude and his mouth got him into trouble before too long – it seemed inevitable that he would have been kicked out before the end of his first tour of duty. But who knows? Maybe he’s Colonel Johnson by now….