I open my eyes to stare back at the clock: 0514 hrs. Hu-hu-hu. Reset the pot last night to 0520. Not long now.
I assume the dangle position, sip water in lieu of the as-yet
unavailable coffee and light up. Holden
and I seem to have roused ourselves at the same time. He begins the new day with one of his
petulant whines.
“You do know,” he intones, “The Marlboro Man croaked from
lung cancer.” (Sucking hard on the first
drag), “Shut the fuck UP you little twerp!!”
I am beginning to examine the suspicion that he has been living in my
head since reading Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye back in college.
“Well, Mr. Smarty-pants; Mr. I-don’t-give-a-shit, when you
off yourself one morning from a cardiac ‘event’, I too will die. I won’t appreciate that one damn bit!” In a
huff, he does a snappy about-face and stomps back into his dorm room, slamming
the door of communication as he departs.
Through the door, I hear a muffled “I swear to GOD, I will!”
Asshole.
I am interrupted from my musings by the cacophony of the
Brigade. Must be Winston sashaying in
from his all-nighter.
Somebody has to be
the dumbass of the pack. Clancy is the
perennial volunteer. In the sing-song
flat tone of every parent on the planet, I reactively utter the wasted phrase
of correction: “Get (up, out, off, away, down) from there…and leave—the--cat ALONE!”
Science would hold that animals have no capacity for Boolean
logic. “Zee leettall brrrainz zells
ahrrr not in zee necezzary mezz to doo ziss tings”, sez Lorenz and his
vaunted ilk. Just goes to show that
lording it around in a white lab frock is no guarantee of a stickum gold star
on the forehead.
Don’t bother telling a pet owner that animals don’t
think. If you do, you will be rewarded
with an enigmatic twitch of raised eyebrows while all the while listening to
countless anecdotes and examples of why you’re full of shit.
Uprooted plants, gnawed shoes, overturned trashcans, a
thawing turkey on the kitchen floor from out of the sink---already half eaten,
all those muddy paw prints on the folded laundry: these scenes-of-the-crime
bespeak of forethought, not instinctual behavior. Or, borrowing Cagney’s
immortal line from Mr. Roberts, “Never mind what I told you! I’m
telling you!”
I love you Clancy, but you’re an asshole too,.
I have previously admitted to revisiting my words, like the pre-adolescent
boy who locks himself in the bathroom, to pore over Daddy’s Hustler Magazine.
If I didn’t know better, I would be thinking bi-polar spikes
hither and yon through many a monograph.
I don’t think it’s a permanent condition; least ways, I hope not.
This journey back 42 years has been a roller coaster ride
from the git-go. I sat in the front car
and left without closing the bar.
(I seem to be as addicted to vocalic alliteration as to the
consonantal construct. Go look them up
in yer own Funk and Wagnells! I don’t
have the time to deliver another dry grammar lesson. Eat shit, Mr. Perkins! I sin, I know I sin; and I will continue to
sin. Let history judge me!)
Maybe it’s just garden variety megalomania. I’m drunk on words, high on my story. Maybe that’s it.
So, back to the story…and on with the Shew:
When last we saw our hero, he was ensconced in Will Durant’s
little hut on the riverbank, safe in daily routine, and distant from the River
of Death flowing past his Service Craft village.
Most sundowns, he could be found reclined on the deck of a
bobbing pusher boat, in the company of Earl, Oertling and Delaney toking a
Bogard; and watching the show of F-4’s with their afterburners lit in fire and
thunder, climbing fast from Da Nang airbase on their way to the sortie.
Cool.
One could always knock off a stoner by the presence of
pinhead blisters all over their chests and legs. These tiny lesions were caused by the pop of
marijuana seeds from the joint to the naked skin. Hardly damning evidence of hanky-panky, we
stoically lived with the scourge as our rightful due.
The day cometh, and now it’s the day after Scott has
announced my appointment. I am to go, in one big hurray up to China Beach,
there to be anointed with fragrant oils, to don the mantle of royal ascent; and
to otherwise be briefed on my additional duties as Skimmer Coxswain to the
Chief of Staff.
Stopping off at Tien Sha barracks to shit, shower and shave
before putting on a clean uniform, I hasten to my destiny at NSA
Headquarters. The briefing is brief,
delivered flat-toned by a first class to whom I will report. I am not introduced to the Captain. I can live with that.
Skatin’ duty, with nothing extra in my pay packet; the
payoff being far larger than mere filthy lucre.
The four brand-new Boston Whalers moored at the causeway are my boats,
my responsibility. They are to be kept
inspection-level clean at all times, and (Oh! My heart leaps in my chest!), I
am to standby day and night, ready to take a boat out at a moment’s bidding.
I am now elevated…from Brahmin caste of untouchable…to Untouchable. No one in their right minds will dare fuck
with me now! Knowing full well that to
flaunt this new status will bring resentful clandestine retribution, I see in a
flash that I must continue in the vein of Sailor of the Month while humbly
stepping into the shadow of obscurity and assuming the guise of a lurking Iago.
Well, shit! I’m up for that! Once again, the Navy has chosen the right man
for the right job.
Well, probably Scott and the Chief submitted my name when
the call came down the lima-lima from HQ.
Without question. Certainly, no
nabob descended from his air-conditioned office and casually strolled the
sweating ranks of candidates, gently probing here and there with his swagger
stick.
In my role as Boathouse Yeoman, I had already taken careful
audit of the Division stores, equipment and facilities. It was during this task that I came upon an
unused storage room, attached to the back side of one of the Litterage
buildings. At the time, I thought
nothing of it; but as I drove back to the causeway from China Beach, I was already
devising my pitch to the Chief as to why humble servant Iago should be
permitted to live there.
A new era was upon me: I was going to have my own hooch.
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