Veronica

    While in my early 20s I went on a work-related trip to MacDill AFB; it was the early 80s. I was a new fighter pilot then, a 2nd Lt, and flying the F-4 Phantom. On my fifth day of this deployment, I flew three sorties (flights) in a row against the famous USAF Aggressors. At that time, they were the best air to air fighter pilots in the United States Air Force. It was the first time I had fought those guys (no women fighter pilots then) and it was exhausting. I had been huffing and puffing against the constant G forces on all three sorties while looking back, over my shoulder as the Aggressor’s took turns pretending to shoot me down; I was supposed to be shooting them, since this was a training deployment, but I was not doing very well. I was feeling pretty grim about my prospects to be a respected fighter pilot.

     So, after my flight debrief, I sought the refuge and solace of a seat at the bar in the Officer's Club, by myself, with my favorite libation to keep me company; I was in no mood to socialize. I just wanted to lick my wounded ego, feel sorry for myself, and go over the lessons that the Aggressor pilots debriefed me on while their words of wisdom were still fresh in my mind.

      As I was lost in deep, dog fighting thought, a fellow squadron mate, very senior in rank, a forty something full Colonel, saddled up next to me and wanted to chat. I really wasn’t in the mood for company, but for some reason he was and since he was senior, and a really nice guy whom I respected, I gave him an ear. You know how it is, sometimes you can tell when a fellow human wants to talk, for whatever reason they do and because I’m an empath, I’ll always listen, even if I’m not in the mood. 

      So, settling in for the evening, I bought this Vietnam Vet the first round of drinks as he began to tell me of his flights that day, given his experience he fared much better than me. 

      But flying was not what this very eloquent and quiet spoken gentlemen wanted to talk about. I guess when you reach his age and have spent 20 years in the cockpit, your mind desires to reach beyond the doldrums of your daily life and recompense certain ghosts of your past. 

       This gentleman had a wonderfully colorful history, as I would find out that evening. A tapestry of adventures far richer than the dictates of this contest's word count will allow me to convey.   

       “Tom,” let's call him Tom, wanted to diverge from talking about flying fighter aircraft, very early in his one-sided rambling musings, to discuss women; well let's narrow it down to wanting to discuss one woman. Why he changed the topic I don’t know. It could be because I gave an extended glance to a very provocatively dressed and attractive young lady walking in front of us that caused him to look at this lady too. Did her look rekindle some long-buried passions he once held for someone? 

       It must have, because shortly after this vision of beauty ghosted from our sight, this very suave fighter pilot, husband, and father, regaled me, in detail, of such a heartfelt and passionate love affair, the written word's limitations fall short in rendering an adequate picture to the listener's mind.

       As he began his story, I touched my glass to my lips, took a sip of my medication, and prepared myself for a ride. 

       It was the 70s and relatively shortly after South Vietnam had been invaded by the North. Tom returned from Thailand, got a flying slot in the Air Force Reserve, the same unit in which we were both employed part-time, and then was hired by the airlines shortly after that for full-time employment (many airline pilots flew part-time in either the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve while also flying with their airline). 

       As he became ensconced in his new, American lifestyle he also became familiar with his fellow squadron mates in the reserve unit and then, extending beyond the boys (no women fighter pilots then), he became acquainted with a very lovely young lady in the unit. She was enlisted and worked as a secretary in the command post. 

       Their love affair blossomed rapidly, unexpectedly, became all consuming, and extremely romantic, physical, when they both were at the unit together. They each had their own civilian jobs, Tom’s aforementioned airline position, and his mistress’s as an administrator with a local business.

      Tom never hid the fact that he was married, but he did say, in order to keep the lady engaged with him, that he intended to divorce his wife one day. The problem is he loved his wife as much as he loved his mistress. They each occupied a different corner of his heart and to part with either one of them, he said, was too painful to think about. The problem was the mistress knew of the wife, while the wife was ignorant of the mistress; due to his lying, indiscretion, and deceit his life was soon to take on a nightmarish twist.

       The guys at the squadron knew of his extramarital relationship, he never really hid it, particularly since whenever the unit had a deployment Tom always volunteered to go on it as did “Veronica,” his lover.

       As months turned accumulated to define a year, Veronica demanded that Tom get divorced and marry her, as he would promise while they were caressing each other in bed. Whenever Veronica pressed him to commit ever deeper into her world, Tom reverted to his usual discourse that his wife wasn’t well and that divorcing her now would kill her. They would have to wait until she healed…whatever her medical condition was, his wife’s, Tom never elaborated in his story to me. How he got away with that vagueness when they touched on the subject of divorce I’ll never know, or maybe Tom just didn't want to divulge to me the deeper discussions between he and Veronica on that topic.

       As another round of drinks were bought, and Tom took a bathroom break, I noticed the sun was low on the horizon and ladies began to fill the club. Since I was married at that time, and since Tom was talking about his infidelity, I firmly resigned my observation of the ladies to just that, looking. I was still waiting for the hammer to fall in his story, since you knew it was going to. My only question was how this would all end. I swear, to this day, I never thought of the twist that would occur to bring horror to Tom’s life.

       With a refilled gin and tonic in my hand and a scotch in Tom’s he continued his elucidation… 

      So, after a year and a half of leading Veronica on, she decided to move things along to better suit her desires.

     Tom came back from an airline trip one afternoon to find most of his clothes on the front yard. He was embarrassed, at first blush, because he knew the neighbors were probably laughing, figuring the couple had a fight and that was Tom’s wife’s way of coping. But, on a deeper level he knew why the clothes were in the yard, he just didn’t know to what degree his wife knew of his extracurricular activities with his mistress. 

      Walking into the house his wife greeted him with total indifference so he pressed her for the reason as to why his clothes were on the front yard.

      “Well, I had a very nice lunch with a young lady today. She was very sweet, cute, and well built. She informed me that you and she were in love and wanted to get married, but you had to divorce me first. She said that you kept telling her I was ill and that getting a divorce would kill me. She showed me a few pictures of you and her on some of your military trips. You two look so sweet together I might add. So, since I am not ill and you leaving will not kill me, you can leave. Take your shit and go.”

      Tom scrambled to do damage control. Besides being an excellent fighter pilot, he had the gift of gab. I mean really convincing, he could charm the pants off the most volatile of "Karens." 

      After extended talks, with drinks, both on the couch or on their deck in the backyard, Tom was able to convince his wife that Veronica was certifiably nuts. His wife admitted that none of the pictures that Veronica showed her were of just Tom and Veronica, but there were others in the unit in the pictures too. Tom said that proved there was no relationship, that she had a school girl crush on him (She was in her early twenties) and that though he did talk to her and they had dinners together, it was always with a group of people, not just them. His final argument to bolster his position was to call anyone in the squadron and that they would vouch for what he was saying. 

      At the end of the evening Tom’s wife apologized and never realized how obsessed the young lady was with him. She asked Tom to keep his distance from her, since she was afraid Veronica might do something drastic. Drastic is an understatement.

      About two weeks after Tom’s wife’s luncheon with Veronica, Tom was spending the weekend with Veronica. She had asked him to help her move some items from her mother’s house to her new apartment and also asked him to put some items in a U Store-It self-storage unit. Tom told his wife he had an airline trip and that was his excuse to get away for the weekend. 

     Tom was adamant to Veronica that having lunch with his wife was definitely not cool, that she was sick and that lunch almost killed her. Obviously, he said, Veronica said, that his wife didn’t appear to be sick and in fact seemed very healthy. She said she wasn’t buying the sick excuse anymore and he needed to divorce his wife ASAP since she wanted to get married and now added that she wanted kids.

      He was horrified and now realized he was in way too deep. He had no idea how to extricate himself from what he considered was now an untenable situation.

      On Monday Tom left Veronica’s apartment to really go fly an airline trip and he pleaded with her to never meet his wife again; he promised Veronica he would marry her but to let him figure out the details. 

     On Friday Tom arrived home from his airline trip and again all of his stuff was on the front yard. 

     “Oh my god, what fresh hell is this he thought,” as went into the house.

     If Tom’s wife was indifferent the first time, this time she was downright hostile. 

     “So, I had lunch again with that little bitch of yours. She said she spent last weekend with you at her new apartment. She said we needed to get a divorce so you and she could get married and start having kids. So, take your shit and get the fuck out of here. And don’t try and charm me, it’s not gonna work, I don’t trust you. I hate you.”

     “Ya know,” Tom continued, as he nipped on his scotch, “For like the first time in my life I was out of ideas and words. I truly thought that was the end of my marriage. I never wanted a divorce, but I didn't want to give up Veronica. I loved the girl, and I loved my wife. I cared for them both, but I did feel my wife wasn't deserving of my deceit. I was staring at my life and knew I was going to lose my home, my wife and my kids and I was scared. I mean more scared than on any mission while flying in Vietnam. I begged my wife to let me stay the night on the couch and that I would leave the next morning. That was the only thing she acquiesced on, she agreed to let me spend the night on the couch. I tried to talk to her that evening, a couple of times when she was near me and I kept telling her that the girl was lying and was crazy and everyone knew it.”

      Taking an extended gaze out the window of the O’ club, just as the last vestiges of the sun dropped below the horizon, and then taking a long slug from his scotch, Tom further revealed, in his next narrative, just how evil some people can be. However, what your thoughts on evil are, how it manifests itself and what actions can be considered evil I guess is subjective when based upon a person’s beliefs and morals.

     At six am Saturday morning the paperboy delivered the newspaper, its bang against the front door announcing its rather rude arrival. With nothing to do, Tom, who’d barely slept that night, retrieved the newspaper, grabbed a cup of coffee and then sat on the back deck to peruse at the news. 

     After reading the front and a middle page of the paper Tom ran up to where his wife was sleeping, threw the paper on the bed and told his wife she owed him an apology. Still half asleep, his wife, in no mood for his charm told him to leave her alone. He demanded she read the lower headline on the front of the paper. Reaching on the night stand she grabbed her reading glasses, put them on and then read the smaller headline on the front page. Then she quickly leafed through the paper and found where the rest of the story was printed. She read the article twice; all the while Tom just stood leaning against the door frame of the opened bedroom door, arms crossed.

     Dropping the paper from covering her whole face and with a look of total shock, she slowly lowered the paper to the bed’s cover’s and then threw it to the floor. She then got out of the bed and hugged Tom and apologized.

     “You were right Tom and I am sorry I doubted you. That lady is beyond nuts, she is certifiably crazy. I am in total shock. Bring your stuff back in the house. Please forgive me, I love you.”

      What was written on that headline was the story of a military employee, female, Veronica, who had killed her mother a couple of weeks earlier, chopped her up in multiple pieces, packaged each body part in cedar filled boxes, and then placed them in a self-storage facility….they were the very same boxes that Tom had helped Veronica move into the storage unit a week ago. 

     With that ending, Tom got up from the bar, stretched and said he was off to his hotel room.

     My jaw was still dropped as he left the O'club.

     But, as I would find out in five months time, there was more to the story...

     It turns out that one of the other men in our unit was secretly in love with Veronica. He too was an airline pilot. Whether he and Veronica were having a relationship at the same time as Tom and she, Tom doesn’t know since he never saw, or spoke to Veronica after the weekend when he helped her move. But, after Veronica was sentenced and went to prison, at least twice a month this other guy, call him Joe, would visit her in prison. Joe was married and had grown kids. What his reason for seeing her was and what they talked about, Tom didn't know, nor will he ever.

    Because, to put a period on this, whole draconian affair….five months after Tom told me of his near death experience with Veronica I was leaving the unit to go fly with another. On my very last flight before transferring, Joe was leading a four ship of fighters on a training low level and bombing mission; I was number four in that flight. As we approached the target Joe impacted the ground at 550 knots, totally obliterating himself, the jet and leaving his wife, three kids, and one hell of a mystery amongst all of those that knew of Joe, Tom, Veronica and their mysterious tryst.