The End of the Boathouse Pirates

Stick is nibbling her Kibble snack here by my side on the living room couch.

I have taken a geographic cure from the office to my new workspace in the living room—the coffee table for the machinery; the big leather sofa for my tushy. Now I have light! More cubits of air to pollute!  The Dorks in happy communion with Daddy!

The office is a comfortable niche.  It is also a cave. 

As I write, the stories and memories coming to the fore, the fear and desolation are leaving me.  I am finally emerging from the forty-two year isolation of my Allegorical Cave.

Time to leave both caves behind, the physical and the spiritual.  The sticking points of past experience each come to attention before my mind’s eye.  They solemnly salute and request to take their leave from their duty station.  I forgive each and every one of them, grant them leave and blessings.  They go below and change to their civvies, happy to be free--as I am to see them go.

I remind them, in passing, that should I wish to re-visit them, I need only click on my monographs to see them afresh.  They are no longer beneath my consciousness: grease stains, cum spots and blood marks on the Blanc Plumage of my soul.  We are free at last. Free to amble forward into an uncertain future, secure in the certainty of this moment.  This newly awakened present of infinite possibilities.

Oye!!  Wake up, you somnolent bored readers out there! The morning gush of exuberant crap is over!  I still gotta lotta Crapoola to unload on y’all; so listen up, forcrissakes!  I’m kicking Ed and Holden outta the rack, to turn to and go back to work here!

The days in-country dragged by, with no change of weather; and no relief from deadly ennui.  The sight of Freedom Hill was yet too far in the distance.  To even think of my Freedom Flight only increased the burden of waiting for it.

One by one, my buddies donned their Donald Duck whites and climbed aboard the bus that was their first leg back to the world; and away from all…this.  Delancey went donkey’s years ago; next was Oertling, then Earl the Pearl.  Franklin got moved to another division and Lebreaux—Scott had him reassigned to Dong Ha--for his stubborn refusal to shut up about the war and other ‘hippie things’.

If nothing else, lifers were a vindictive lot.

For those of you with a recollection of Apocalypse Now, the scene at the Do Long Bridge could have been filmed at Dong Ha.  Every fricking night there were rocket attacks and ground assaults.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Dong Ha was the war that nobody wanted; certainly not gentle pacifist Lebreaux and most assuredly not the blonde headed yeoman from San Antonio, Texas.  I kept my head down and my mouth shut…I would have prayed if I could have figured out how.

With Lebreaux’s reassignment, the Boathouse Pirates were no more. I was as lonely as that first miserable sweat-drenched moment, standing outside the Tien Sha Barracks about a million years ago.

Increasingly, I had nothing to do.  The radio net would go silent for days on end.  The skimmer taxi service ground to a halt.  Calls from China Beach stopped because HQ was preoccupied with matters far more pressing than arranging a pleasant means of transport for chaplains, ship’s pilots and the like.

Errands for supplies to China Beach petered out, as the reduced manpower was making fewer and fewer demands.

With all my friends gone home, I began taking the cattle car at workday’s end back down to Tien Sha; eating hot chow for a change; and sleeping in my own bunk.  The hooch had lost its charming appeal, now that the Season of Drunk and Disorderly was no more.

I think what I missed most were those interludes when, in an advanced state of tipsy silliness, I would do homage to Lenny Bruce and slip into an outrageous character from a closetful of creative mayhem.

The outstanding favorite of the gathering was Art Malone, BM-1, 29 years in the fuckin’ Navy!!  The guys would lure him out of me by calling to him, “Art? You in there tonight, you old fart?”

Art came out with a signature violent finger jabbing at his (my) left sleeve, “See them hash marks, Mother Fuckers?! 29 years in the Fuckin’ Navy!”  

The hilarity would escalate as the guys would ask various questions of Art.  One night, while everyone else was catching their breath, Ray quietly said,  “Art………are you a head?” “Ahead o’ WHO?” Art roared back in his whiskey-rough Boston brogue.  Everyone, including me fell on the floor in convulsions.  Sometimes, the characters surprised even their source.

Well, one of the saving factors of moving back to the barracks was being in daily contact with Ray and Don; joined at this time by Frosty.  Frosty was, at the end, the best friend I had in Viet Nam; the very best. He saved my life—at a moment when my life needed saving.  That story for another day…

Ray approached me on a mutual day off (I now took my tenth day off with regularity) and invited me to join them for a visit to some civilian guys on their own boat anchored in the harbor.

Never one to slough an opportunity for a bit of foolishment, I grabbed my cover and we were off.  We went straight to Security Division where Ray and Don blithely took a skimmer and headed out.  By this stage of the war, requisition chits were exposed as the laughable jokes they had always been.  Nobody asked, nobody challenged, nobody cared and nobody made themselves a tattle-tale.

Besides, who was there to say my buds weren’t actually on duty?  Noooobody.

As we approached the boat, my jaw dropped.  It was a two-masted schooner, about 50 feet long.  Climbing aboard to the cheerful welcome of the occupants, we looked around and died a little with envy.

It was solid teakwood and brass fittings; with a spacious cabin adequate to accommodate all seven of us.

(I have attached the above photo of a craft very similar to the one described herein)

They offered us bourbon which we eagerly took off their hands.  We brought out our dope, which, for safety’s sake, they were reluctant to keep on board.

Ray and Don made their initial acquaintance in the course of a protocol stand and board search, a common security occurrence.  Others might come aboard with less than the cavalier attitude of stoners.

We sat and drank and smoked.  The three men were Americans who simply described themselves as ‘contractors’ they were wearing the camos of the Tiger Division; the absolute coolest garb in-country.  I had never seen them on anyone but the Korean Marines.

To complement their classy clothes, the walls were adorned with their classy weapons, slung on hooks between cabinets and ports.  No standard military issue, there were a variety of sub-machine guns: Schweitzer Machine Pistols, Mauser MP-57’s—I wondered where they could have acquired them; but I didn’t ask.  Some questions would naturally violate the universal code of talking of jobs handled in-country.  The taboo was not limited to us military scuts, naturally. 

I had seen similar ‘civilians’ sauntering through the China Beach area, with the metal stocks folded or collapsed and their sub-machine guns slung crossways and nestled in the small of their backs. 

How cool was that?

Struck like a country boy at the county seat on a Saturday, my wonderment never got around to the question of why the fuck they would be over here...of their own accord?  The easy answer was the money.  People were making fortunes in brief spurts of time and getting out with it.  Better than an undetected bank job, the money and all.

The other reality was that they were living The Great Adventure; not the same as that ‘Adventure’ imagined by assholes like Jurgensen and Hanover.  No, these guys were doing the real deal. The real McCoy of an experience for a lifetime.

We inquired politely of our guests what was up?  They had apparently just concluded their ‘contract’ and were weighing anchor in the next few days.  Where to, we politely asked? They had no idea--or weren’t in the mood for disclosure to four unknown sailors.

I chose to believe that they really had not made up their minds on their next port of call (Que romantico! Port of Call! Aye que sabor!) They had a few choices that encompassed half the planet; from Bombay to Vladivostok.  They had the boat, the stash and the freedom of choice.

We took our leave and wished them well.  I left with a sad pang of heart.  I wished I was going with them, like Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate , salt spray in the face standing the helm, riding before the wind.

But I was honor bound to duty. 

On the night of the day I received my orders for Viet Nam, I sat in a Navy Laundromat and seriously contemplated getting on a Greyhound bus to Vancouver.  The burned bridge aspect frightened me; but in the end, it came down to honor.  I could not disgrace myself thus; nor could I bring that disgrace down upon my family, my friends, my country.

I have reflected on these two roads-not-taken and have decided that I’m just a goddamned coward when it comes to a Great Adventure.  What amazing travels I have experienced in my life, I owe to my ex-wives and Frosty McCleod.  Without their urging and persistence, I would have clung to whatever cave I happened to find myself in at the time.

At least I have my fond memories of the places we went. 

I think mebeee it’s close to talking about Hong Kong.  That may have to be a two-reeler!