One Day in The Life

It is 0449 hrs. By the big bright numbers on the bedside clock.  Oh Baby!

For those of you, who feign ignorance of that significant number; just go ask a recovering drunk.  A typical response will give you the impression that you just walked in to an auto showroom wearing an Armani suit and asked to see the top of the line with all the bells and whistles.

However, lying here before the graying of dawn, I can attach no such enthusiasm to the beloved code for Acceptance.

I can’t move.  I am pinned under the sheets, weighed down by a hundred and fifty pounds of sleeping dogs.  WTF?  Oh…yeah.  At the 2 AM pee and smoke, I let Sticky out and carelessly left the patio door open.  My legs dangling and the fag on fire, first one, and then another of the excludees arrived, clambering to be lifted up to the Shangri-La of night-night.  Only Momma demurred.  Doesn’t like a crowd.

Emulating the Stateroom Scene in Night at the Opera, acting the role of Groucho, I generously invited them up.  Last to climb aboard was Clancy who could reach Nirvana under his own power.  Ahh!  One big happy family!  What the hell, I thought; it’s only for a couple of hours, for crissake.

0545 hrs.

I manage to scoot and struggle out of bed and turn to carefully lift Scooter and Goofy down to the carpet.  Last year, I lost a Daschund who, jumping down from the couch, dislocated his back—a common occurrence with older Daschsies.  His rear legs paralyzed, there was no recourse but to drive to the all-night animal clinic and have him put down.  His name was Poober, the name engraved on a small stone urn, resting on my mantelpiece.

So it isn’t just………Yeeewwwhhh!  WTF?? Second cup tastes too weird for even my jaded sensibilities!  I return the cup to the kitchen and re-fill it after a thorough rinse.  In the light, I examine the thermos I cleverly brought to the office, thinking to avoid the obligatory refill trip to the pot.  The cap has a substance clinging to the threads that looks for all the world like snot.

Sherlock goes deductive: what was that unidentified pool of white goo that I just sponged off the counter near the coffee set-up?  Oh Baby!  It was (is) dishwasher gel.  The cap took a shot during the wash cycle and snot ended up in my reserve cup.  Breathing a sigh of relief that I didn’t imbibe Ortho Max Defense, my deductive powers having solved the mystery and my paranoia assuaged, I scuttle back to the keyboard with the consolation that I have only swallowed a taste of industrial strength cleaner…and not the bad stuff.

You must be thinking, dear reader, that the foregoing is a lot of twaddle from a deranged mind.  Yes, it is.  But I cannot express my excitement at sitting in the quiet of dawn, feverishly pecking away at my mu-mu-mu-mu-Monologue.

Nothing in all those 35 years of adjusting hurricane claims, hail claims, ice storm claims, flood claims and auto fatality claims can match the thrill of my daily rape and plunder of the English language.  Nothing.

Oh Baby!

Shouts Fred to Ethyl, out in the kitchen: the Shew’s comin’ back on!  Git yer big fat butt back in here—in one great hur-ray!

0545 hrs.

Another day in-country.  I sat up from my double bed and gathered my thoughts for the next right thing.  The rats woke me several times during the night.  They entered through the louvered wall above my rack and fell with a thump onto the bed, before jumping down to the deck (we call the floor a deck in the Navy, land-bound or no).

Iago plots. I must acquire some rattraps somehow.  The rabbit-sized wharf-vermin are causing me too much loss of beauty rest. They aren’t foraging my C-rats stash; so, where the hell do they go?  What are they eating to grow so large?

Pity there aren’t any cats in Viet Nam.

Don’t ask.

Removing yesterday’s uniform and donning a fresh one, I made a mental note that today was laundry day.  Mamasan would soon be by to pick up the dirties and drop off the cleans.  I hadn’t seen the inside of a Laundromat since Day One.  I checked my reserve of Salems.  Good.  Enough to pay her; but I would need to make a Salem run down to Tien Sha very soon.  Scoring Day was coming up fast.

Details, details, details.  I reminded myself that I was the right man for the job.  My daybreak breakfast was the minutiae of details that flooded my mind in ship-shape-sharp precision. Padlocking the hooch, I went off to the Boathouse, snapping a sharp right face as I passed my skimmers.  I could see from the split-second inspection that no asshole had tampered with them during the night watch.  Good.

Last week, Sierra Charlie Two (more on this addle-brained second in command later) took a buddy and two fetching gook ladies out for a beach party...in one of MY boats.  He asked me which skimmer was fastest.  I told him, and then lowered my voice, so as not to embarrass him in front of his companions. In my most soothing Iago tone, I reminded him of the Chief of Staff’s edict about anyone using these boats without his express permission.  Ignoring me, he hauled ass away from the causeway for his frivolities and…well…you know.

Summoned to HQ the very next day, to answer inquiries of this reported knavery, I told no lies.  Shit, I didn’t rat the prick out; someone else had that privilege.  When later, after the Captain had excised a sizable piece of his ass, SC-2 called me up to the hole-in-the-wall to grill me about the leak to China Beach.

Wide-eyed and shaking my head side to side in bewilderment; I professed my innocence of the entire affair.  (Yes sir, I did see you take the skimmer out.  No sir, I didn’t speak to anyone about it…No sir, I did NOT!)

Sensing a lie he could not uncover by interrogation or torture, he dismissed me with a glare and a harrumph loud enough to carry to the far corners of the office.  Heads of the monastic scribes remained bowed to paper-task-at-hand; and knowing smirks were held judiciously in check, hands shading faces. (Look to thine own den of thieves, knave!)

I would bet, that behind his partition, Rambo was possessed of one long shit-eating grin himself.

I happily recalled the incident with lightweight profundity as I skipped the light fantastic--down the causeway to work.

0600 hrs.

Relieving the night crew with no fanfare whatever, I run a radio check on the net.  Jurgensen comes back in his New York nasal affirmation.  He works at Tug Control.

Short, blond and chunky fat, he is one of those guys who think their tour is The Great Adventure.  He is ecstatic to be here, part of the ‘action’.  An E-3 of no more significance than the rest of us bottom feeders, he thinks of himself as a god of sorts, perched up there high on the peak; in HIS control tower.  This delusion is fractured whenever any real decision has to be made and he informs us he will have to ‘consult with his Whiskey Oscar’ (watch officer).

Leaving the radio to Oertling or Franklin, I prepare to brew the coffee.  First, I filled the 50-cup urn with potable water.  Returning it to its prominent place, I dumped an ungodly measure of grounds in the basket. I top that heap off with an egg shell.

I never could see how this required additive was supposed to reduce the bitterness of the mega-strong brew.  (Excuse me for a moment while I dash to the pot for a rilly rilly rilly good cup of my own joe—to wash out the memory of that Boathouse sludge)

0700 hrs.

Muster.  A recital of the day’s work parties; an occasional Papal Bull from China Beach.  An occasional stand-in from one of the junior officers.  SC-1 and SC-2 never EVER come to muster.  That is a good thing.

0710 hrs.

Tend to the Skimmers.

I lay my prize jungle boots in the boat and push my feet into the rubber wellingtons.  The boots are third generation hand-me-downs.

The G.I. boot has a thin metal plate in the center of the sole.  This is to prevent puncture by stepping on a punji stick stuck in the weeds.  The stick has been smeared with feces (Not much! The gooks need all the fertilizer they can get for the rice paddies!) to inflict serious infectious wounds.

New issue boots are stiff and uncomfortable.

The beauty of an old pair was that the plate had been worried thin and flexible. The metal plates on this pair had fatigued to the point of cracking in half at the ball of my foot.  I could hear my boots clicking each time I took a step.

The canvas tops were likewise broken in.  When I took these dilapidated things off for the last time, I looked at the tops of my toes, feet and ankles.  The calluses were so thick; I could stub a butt out on them.  I took those boots back to the world with me; and never wore them again.

0800 hrs.

Sweep and mop the Boathouse.  Read, doze, listen in to the chatter on the net. Dispatch the duty pusher boats when Jurgensen makes his royal decree. Cards, read, doze, cards.  Yak-yak-yak in between.

1000 hrs.

Run a chaplain out to the Big Mo.

Straining my neck back to take in the last of the Iowa class battleships, nearly four city blocks long; its 16 inch gun batteries bristling fore and aft. After gawking in awe like some sea scout on a field trip, I firewall the skimmer and return to the causeway.  (See the grand old BB-63 in the movie Battleship; or Under Siege).

1200 hrs.

Chow wagon up on the road.  Secure lunch for the Chief.  Scott can get his own.  Sit down and eat mine over a book.

1300 hrs.

See 0800 hrs.

1700 hrs.

Quittin’ time!

1720 hrs.

First wave of marijuana high arrives right on schedule.  First jolt from the beer on its way.

1830 hrs.

Munchies satisfied.  Clear away the cans and shit from the C-rats and wait for the party de jur to get started.

1845 to 2200 hrs.

The guys start filtering in from Tien Sha.  As the stoop becomes congested and the mosquitos claim the night, we move en masse inside the hooch.

Drink and smoke; smoke and drink.  Eat more C-rats. Lotta yak-yak-yak.  Drug induced hilarity.  Drunken loss of inhibitions and motor skills.

Saturday nights watch the highlight of our week--Star Trek and Wild Wild West--back-to-back on the 9 inch black and white TV sitting atop the reefer. Saturday night TV is serious business, ‘Warp six!  Shit! Warp SIX! They’ve never gone up to SIX!!’

All other times of the week, day or night, Armed Forces Viet Nam Network runs gook variety shows or some other crappy shit intended to convey the culture of our Guest Country to us troops.

2206 hrs.

Bid my guests bye-bye with a cheerful, ‘You guys get the fuck OUT!  I’m tired!’

2207 hrs.

Fall straight back on my bed after yelling at Ray to turn off the fucking light and shut the fucking door on his way out.  Fully clothed, boots removed.

2210 hrs.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

0545 hrs.

Oh Baby!!!  Greet the day!