2200 25 JUL 91. Beanpole finally cooled off a little with his green eyes. A kid from our squadron, Country Time, cut his finger on a can of tomato paste while preparing pizza last night. He got twelve stitches. I was there as it happened. He looked like he was fooling around, dancing across the galley, whooping and holding his finger. But a glob of paste on his middle finger was a much brighter red than the paste on the dough on the table. Then I saw spatters on his face, and realized he had a deep gash. He laughed today, telling us how silly we looked as we caught on. Our faces contorted from boredom to casual disbelief, to amusement, to sudden horror.

Just two nights ago, another dude, from HS-14 (a helicopter squadron), cut off the tip of his finger with a bread slicer and had to be medi-vac’d to Balboa Naval Hospital, in San Diego. They barred airedales from handling sharp instruments in the galleys. The MS’s, if not thrilled, seemed relieved to know Country Time cut his finger on the can, not the opener. It meant they wouldn’t get their asses chewed. I wondered which pizza got blood in the paste, as I had a well-done pepperoni.

1315 27 JUL 90. We pulled in four hours pierside to fix the radar, and steamed out to sea. Phone lines went up in the hangar bay until ten hundred, but I got no chance to call Delilah. Now my check register is either up or down by $325, and I won’t know until we pull in again. I’ll just pretend I’m broke for the next two weeks. It’s easy on a carrier. Free food, free house, free transportation.

We have Air Show rehearsal this afternoon. They secured the forward mess decks while handling ordnance. It’s an odd thrill, wiping a table, with one leg leaning on a thousand pound bomb. It’s not armed -- you can see an empty thread-hole for the detonator...?

We got another mandate this week. Anyone in paygrade E4 and up testing positive for marijuana use will be separated from the Navy. That means, on duty or off. This ain’t Amsterdam. It used to apply to only E5 and up. I’m E4, vulnerable to separation, for going home to fire up a fatty. Last week, I might have pled insanity and been retained. I mention this only because the coop cleaner and his pal were in the lounge this afternoon, discussing the pros and cons of naval service in the nineties. The pot option came up, as an early way out. It simply depends on what kind of job you want after this, whether you foresee ever working for the tyrannical, puritanical US government again. I’d have a hard time getting a government job at my age anyway -- I’m too old to be a cop. Maybe a mail carrier.

I don’t know about this drug testing. Take a kid from small-town USA, stand him inside a boot camp urinal with a gruffy, old, baldhead staring at his dick, then order him to pee. You’ve got an exhibitionist in the making! Wouldn’t that be a kick: in 15 years, statistics show drug awareness programs significantly contributed to psych. discharges for voyeurism and exhibitionism.

“Well, ya know, Chaplain? I never thought I was odd until I joined the Navy. They had these er, eh, pecker checkers -- every time ya had a urine test? I couldn’t pee. So I just stood there, grasping my penis. Then, when I went to my rack? Well sir, it got to be a turn on. I LIKE HAVING THEM LOOK AT ME.”

2300 27 JUL 90. Unless they change it in the Eight O’clock Report (a nightly report by top brass), GQ goes down at zero eight tomorrow, until ten hundred. It sucks because tomorrow’s my turn to sleep in until 0900.

They called M-O-B (man overboard) as we steamed back out this morning. I hadn’t noticed what an ass pain it’d been on the aft mess decks. We’d already secured from chow forward, but they felt displeased with the time it took to account for every swinging dick (and couple of women). So they held another M-O-B at 1900 -- right in the middle of me managing the chow lines up forward.

This was the first time I had to deal with clearing a hundred trays off abandoned tables so a new -- long -- line of customers could get accommodated afterward. One lazy blue shirt sat perched on a trash can, reasoning most diners would return for the trays still abandoned on tables and get in the short seconds line (2nd helpings).

“So, genius, what should I do with all the people standing around with full hot trays, looking for seats?”

I tried to watch one of my favorite actors, Al Pacino in “Sea Of Love” on the lounge TV at 2100. With the volume so low and the coop shuddering from cat shots, instead of plugging my ears, I walked to the Radioman lounge a room and two knee-knockers aft.

I sat unobtrusively on the couch in the back. It gets touchy, hanging out in another department’s lounge, especially if you’re an airedale and they’re ship’s company and if seating gets scarce. One time I saw a fellow Wolfie jerk a chair from under Country Time in 81-Man. No warning. Just BAM on the floor. I wrote the son-of-a-bitch up.

Suddenly this dude I’ll call Broomer -- what is it with sailors and broomsticks -- appeared in a chair, to my right, a little in front of me. He seemed enthralled in the movie, until this big black dude playing Spades tossed a Pepsi across the lounge. As it hit the deck the dude mumbled. I understood his street accent. Broomer didn’t.

“What’s his problem?”

“He said you didn’t get to play sports much as a child.”

Broomer looked at me and smiled, tapping the can top as I leaned back. “Let me know when you’re gonna open it.”

“Someone told me if you do this it won’t spray.” As he drank it the Afro-American, horny person of color tossed him a Snickers. This was not the first similarity I’d witnessed between the Navy and L.A. County Jail. The sexy young white boy bit the Snickers bar. “I don’t know what his problem is.”

“I think he likes you.”

“Oh no.” He went forward over the one knee-knocker, to a sleeping area. I couldn’t see him so I focused back to Al, on TV. In a minute, Broomer sat down again and started in on that broom. He put both feet on the brush, straddling the base of it where the straws are wired together. He stretched out his right hand, up to the tip. He reached it just as his last bite began melting over his tongue, and he let the wrapper flit to the deck. He worked a hand down the shaft, until he had it in both hands, then started tweaking it, with his fingers. His eyes glazed, like looking through the movie. Finally, he leaned his cheek onto the broom handle and turned, so his lips grazed the stick, and I swore to myself, if I were that broom I’d have ejaculated. The movie ended and he let go.

“You did real good on that broom.” I patted him on the ballcap and he jerked back. Pin fasteners inside the cap jammed his forehead.

“Oh -- sorry. You don’t have your crow in your hat right.” I studied that pewter chevron centered above the bill of his ballcap. “It happened to me ‘til somebody showed me how to fix it. Get rid of these fasteners. Lemme see your keys there. Ya take and bend these stems back, so the crow stays on. And ya don’t need the brass things. They’re fod hazards anyway.”

“You’re a fucking genius.”

“Let me know if you need another stick to handle.”

1100 28 JUL 90. GQ went down at 0800 and secured at ten. I got to help with a Red Devil Blower, like you see in all the fire stories. I lugged a thick ventilation hose up through a hatch to the hangar bay, and actually worked up a sweat. One end had a bad bend and wouldn’t connect. I finally had to discard that section for another. In a real fire it would have cost ten minutes, maybe a life. I notified the R-Division DCPO (damage control petty officer). He already knew about it, and didn’t care, because he’d have an OBA (oxygen breathing apparatus) for himself. Hopefully, if this cruise requires real courage, they’ll be real heroes.

I had to take a dude, “Boxer,” down to the SMAA after GQ. They announced: RELAX BATTLE DRESS. RE-STOW ALL GEAR. I told my blue shirts to grab swabs since some fire party hose teams had charged the hoses, and soaked the mess decks in saltwater.

“Could I go re-stow my gear first so it don’t get stolen?”

“Every time ya go ya don’t come back for a half hour.”

“So in other words, no.”

“That’s right. Grab a swab.”

“Man I ain’t doing nuthing you say.”

“Look, this is a fucking mess here and we’ve gotta clean it up. Now I want you and three other guys to grab some fucking swabs and rinse buckets and get at it.”

“Get your hands outa my face.”

“Did I touch you?”

“Why you yelling and putting your hands in my face?”

“Just get the fucking swab.”

“Okay, man. You an me are gonna have our own smoker. You just signed up.”

“All right, that’s it. Man! I HATE to do this! Let’s go see the chief.”

Boxer followed me aft through the ship ‘til we reached S-5 Division Office on the main mess deck. He had disobeyed a lawful order and communicated a threat. More important, he’d been a shitheel from day one. He’d talked back, disrupted, embarrassed me, and given everybody the impression I was a milktoast manager. It would only get worse unless I cracked down.

“He communicated a threat?” The chief didn’t even look up. “Take him to the master-at-arms.”

They let him stew at Parade Rest on a big horizontal blue hatch in the middle of a cargo passageway -- on display -- and took me aside. In a small office, I chatted with a cop.

“Ya know we’ve had a lot of this kind of problem today, because we’ve been at sea for a while and we had that teaser yesterday -- pulling in, but not getting liberty.”

“I see what you mean.”

“I tell ya what, you can fill out this blue card. It goes on file. It’s more than a warning. If anything else happens, we’ll still have this complaint and we can file it then. If you want, we can go ahead with your complaint right now.”

“I’ll back off. Just gimme the card.”

“I’ll let him chill for a while out there, then give him a stern warning.”

I got mail this afternoon. Not the heated love letter younger dudes or married guys receive. Me, I got license plates and a notice to pay the bank on my cash reserve, which I sent yesterday.

I pulled off a good coup in Pers. I sold my refrigerator out from under them assholes. Hah! I’d bought it off my last PN1 when he transferred. Now these suckers (my chain of command) conned me into carrying it up the brow -- about 100 steps up a ladder -- and across both hangar bays, then up five more decks to the flightdeck, then back down into a passageway via a catwalk and down the very narrow ladder to the Admin-Pers shop. YN1 Woody helped. He’s a nonprejudiced black dude, who should’ve made Chief long ago but never will. Those chiefs got me to chip in two bucks to join their soda mess, which they’d keep cool in my refrigerator, and pay for my own sodas. I’d bought one soda before they ran out and never restocked. All they did was use my fucking refrigerator while I went T-A-D on their orders. So I sold the bitch for $80 bucks, had my buyers pick it up themselves, and I felt great.

2245 29 JUL 90. I got the day off, but had to keep it secret because such is unthinkable onboard a Naval vessel. It would upset too many jealous, childish military personnel. It wasn’t like I could hop in a car and go. I slept until noon, six hours over normal. I had to sleep with an earplug in whichever ear I didn’t bury in my pillow, to block the lounge noises and the flightdeck maintenance. I went up to the flightdeck, and discovered the Coronado Bay Bridge! I tried to see Louie on the sea wall, and the Coaster Saloon -- what a thrill, what a tease. I could almost taste Tequila and Kalúa.

The cat crew had the deck plates up, greasing cables on cat one. At the starboard bow (right front corner) they had a big radio tuned to KGB -- ironic call letters for our Navy town’s most loved radio station. Yachts sailed by and women flashed flesh. A jet skier skied our wake close enough to turn my stomach at thoughts of him churning through our screws. I worked out at the Ranger gym for an hour: legs, butt, gut, and back. Then I rode the exercise bicycle a boring five miles. YN3 Jax from Admin caught up with me at lunch.

“Man, they want my head on a silver platter at the office.”

“What for?”

“For getting rid of that refrigerator for ya.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“They ain’t got no real complaint, ‘cause it’s yours.”

“Fuck ‘em. They’re just taking advantage of me. I’m sick of it, man.”

“It weren’t doing you no good, you’re T-A-D.”

“Besides, I can use the money to party next week.”

We had an Ice Cream Social from 2000 to 2200, and TV Ranger Bingo. Just before the social they called another M-O-B drill , MAN OVERBOARD FOR MANEUVERING PURPOSES ONLY which required no muster. Still, plenty of zombies awoke to march down passageways with nobody kind enough to tell them they didn’t need to move. I did.

We had pizza forward. I hooked up Sweet Pea and a few guys who work with him. At the social, I took my head of the line privilege as a Red Shirt, and got two cups of ice cream. I took one for Sweet Pea, one for me and went up to Conflag One where he stood watch. I sat up there and stared at his face for two hours.

2200 30 JUL 90. We’ve anchored off and on, had GQ, shot a flare with a missile from an F-14 today. We’re close enough to get shore TV. “Alien Nation” and “Star Trek” were the favorites. I got off at 1730 and went to the fantail to watch the missile shoot as they practiced for a Dependent’s Day Cruise. I stared at our wake churning under four giant screws 30 feet below, and watched F-14s fly the ball 20 feet above. One slight mistake or malfunction and I’d chew the cockpit, or an intake would chew me, until we went up in flames. The fantail’s closed during flight ops, but sometimes guys have a look anyway. I’m one of those guys.

At GQ we sat on the mess decks bored silly, as hose teams worked all around us. Broomstick asked me to play Spades. Just as I said no, a DCET guy entered. This guy was 50% body fat.

“No one is playing cards in here, are they?”

“No sir.”

“Because I take GQ very seriously.”

Satisfied, he left.

“He should take the Navy body fat standards seriously.”

“I know. He’s larger than life.”

I feel suddenly a vibrant, deafening, rumble. We’re dropping anchor. I hope we don’t do it all night. Besides cat shots jolting our coop, since we are directly over the forecastle, the anchor rattles us crazy. Each link is as long as my arm, and it makes a helluva clunk slipping through the hole in the bow. When the sea tugs against the ship, and links start sliding, they clop like a stethoscope up a zipper.

This lean pup Jeffrey works in the Bake Shop. He swears he won’t be able to walk Sunday, after spending a night with his girl. She promised a big surprise and said in her letter she’s going to get “exactly what I want.”

Two guys in the berthing have been lisping and swishing lately. One isn’t in VF-1, the other has never acted that way before. I thought I was “so special” when they announced me with fanfare, thought they were singling me out in ridicule. I dressed my reaction in laughter, then sat down and watched them do it to everyone who entered -- even to the television. “Isn’t that special.” They said it over and over, giddy, as if they were on acid, until men had enough.

“I’m beginning to wonder about you two guys, if you really mean it when you act that way, like if that’s your real nature and you’ve been hiding out or somethin’. And I might ought ta have to BEAT YOUR ASS.”

“Yeah come here, bitch. Gimme a blow job. Get up on this.”

“I think you boys need to see the doctor.”

“Somebody take ‘em down to the Chaplain.”

“I heard he’s gay, too.”

“Ya’ll talking like that’s about enough to make me sick.”

We’ve only been at sea for a month. Another guy actually did come out to me tonight. I never wonder about the sexuality of a person I don’t want. So I felt surprised, curious, why he confided in me. I played it off like what the hell. He has discharge papers in his rack, and the minute we get back he’ll start tending bar in Hillcrest, San Diego’s renowned gay community.

I’d never heard of them. I guess I’m deep in the closet. I’m even from San Francisco. Anyway, this soon to be former Ordie got tired of being called “home” (short for homo, not homeboy) by the guys in his Aviation Ordnance shop, tired of being asked if he knew who peeped another Ordy in a toilet stall. Chiefs concocted a story that he’s getting out for a legitimate reason, like, didn’t get orders he’d requested. They’re concerned he could get thrown overboard for being a fag, if anybody finds out the truth.

Sweet Pea goes home on leave Saturday. I want to take him to the San Diego airport, maybe get a farewell hug (although I must be dreaming). It’s up in the air whether I work Saturday, since Ranger will secure the forward mess for Dependent’s Day Cruise. I’d arrange my life around meeting Sweet Pea’s needs, if possible. I don’t have a girlfriend. It’s at least heartwarming to have some friend in my life who I’m desperate to please, or to help rescue, or to serve. He was gonna take a cab.

2230 31 JUL 90. Day One, A-T-A. Formally known as the Airwing Tactical Assessment. Two M-O-Bs and two GQs. This time instead of playing cards I entertained my fellas on the mess decks with a wadded napkin. I stuck it under one of three bowls and slid them around, using sleight of hand. I fooled Broomstick twice.

This afternoon’s M-O-B was a good one. We have a couple of boatswain’s mates T-A-D as blue shirts. They gave me a tip, that their division was standing by in the forecastle with poor Oscar, the dummy, to throw him overboard at the Captain’s signal. The time arrived, and passed.

“How good is your gouge?”

“My what?”

“Your info.” Never try airedale slang on a black shoe.

“I’ll call them again.” He came back with the same gouge. “Any time within the next five or ten minutes.”

I wanted to get as many shipmates as possible involved in clearing, rather than abandoning trays at M-O-B. Because when the drill gets called away they all jump and leave their trays as they run to muster at their shops.

“M-O-B in five minutes.” I repeated it quietly, walking by all the tables. Most guys responded, hurried up and got their trays to the scullery -- exactly as I wanted. At 1531 the blue shirt grinned.

“They’re exactly a minute late.”

“BMC ALFONZO, EXECUTE.”

Ranger XO’s voice was unmistakable on the 1MC. Still, nobody knew what the hell he meant. Except the boatswain’s mates and me. He meant, dump the dummy. Guys on the deck who hadn’t heard my warning looked up quizzically, then continued eating. At 1540 nothing happened yet. I was about to feel embarrassed for warning so many people earlier and sending them on to their shops in the middle of a meal.

MAN OVERBOARD! MAN OVERBOARD! STARBOARD SIDE! MAKE READY THE DUTY LIFEBOAT! MAN UP ALL RESCUE and ASSISTANCE STATIONS! ALL HANDS STAND CLEAR OF ALL DECKS, LADDERS and PASSAGEWAYS! SUBMIT REPORTS TO THE OFFICER OF THE DECK IN SIX MINUTES!

I hurried aft to muster with Supply department on the main galley deck, and found Gouge Master enroute. “What took ‘em so long?”

Oscar got tossed on XO’s order, and drifted belly up nine minutes before anybody called M-O-B. Nine minutes later he got picked up by the helo. The exercise took 18 minutes -- three longer than life expectancy.

2330 1 AUG 90. We had another M-O-B and two GQ’s, graded this time. On the forward mess decks we have one giant watertight door that we have to slam. It scrapes between the deck and the underside of the ceiling-mounted vent pipe, where asbestos lagging steadily rips -- a source of cancer, to be sure. Someone had the job to screw down the adjacent head deck drains while setting zebra. Evidently those threads got stripped at some point in Ranger’s illustrious lifetime, and the drains popped open. With real flooding, water would back up on the mess decks. Oh well, it might be the least of our worries.

The scullery cooled off, from 98 degrees to a mere 94, since we stood a huge fan in the passageway. One of two vents operates at half-power and won’t get fixed until we return to San Diego. So I’ve been keeping the guys on a ten-minute rotation, alternating the scullery job with wiping down tables.

The Weapons guys made us secure the main deck right in the middle of dinner. All the diners had to get up and move so they could haul fifty missiles from the flightdeck to the magazines. They came down an elevator by the bug bar and traversed over the mess deck to another elevator. One guy told me, last Westpac, saltwater leaked in where they stored saltwater activated ordnance. Now they had live missiles on deck during the GQ and ran a charged saltwater hose across the room with a leaky coupler. The gunners ordered the hose team not to charge that hose during this drill, but the evolution was getting a grade. They couldn’t simulate charging a hose so they charged it. Saltwater sprayed ten feet high from the coupler causing a stream that headed straight at a cart of missiles. I grabbed a swab as someone else dove for a rinse bucket and shoved it down around the stream still shooting from the coupler. These were not saltwater activated missiles, but they might have been. “GO TO YOUR STATIONS, ALL THE UNDERWAY REPLENISHMENT DETAIL. MAN STARBOARD REFUELING STATIONS.” Another UNREP tonight. A tender coming alongside with fresh goods. Bos’n mates are already tired, from drills. Now they’ll work hard at dark, with knives and heavy lines, over the edge.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SECURITY BRIEF ON KRAN: “Do not play James Bond to the Russians who are visiting San Diego. If you obtain any methods of re-contact, identify a Soviet intelligence specialist, or get too personal questions, even attempts at sexual contact or home visits, let the NIS know.”

I got tomorrow off. I’ve been skating all month. No drills tomorrow. Maybe I’ll hide in bed from all the uptight, anxious young sailors chafing with match-stick tempers.

At least puppy Jeff in the bake shop won’t suffer alone. We both have to come back and work, after Ranger pulls in. Our whole squadron gets off but we’re T-A-D to the ship and they will fuck us before they commit incest. That’s the main reason they have T-A-D support from the air wing. When he comes back in Saturday, weak and worn out in the loins, I’ll be there grinning.

AFTERNOON 2 AUG 90. On the mess decks on my day off, I’m using my Red Shirt for the benefit of early chow, eating with my boys. Today the pork-n-beans taste funny. How can you screw up beans when they come in a can? They burned ‘em.

Broomstick sets me a Pepsi on the table, unexpected but not surprising. I slug the last of my coffee and convert to the Pepsi generation. “Just think. Pretty soon I’ll be handing you a beer.”

Now Pup walks by enroute to the bake shop. “They want my liberty card.” He’s a non-po. Petty officers don’t carry liberty cards. If you’re E3 or below (non-po), you can’t get off the brow without your liberty card. Jeff’s been itching to fuck this entire chapter. “Wanna see Rambo go crazy on the mess decks? I’m gonna steal a Marine’s M-16 and go shoot that MS who wanted my liberty card. They won’t be able to count the holes. They’ll have to count the clips.”

A guy from Whidby Island, WA, raves how much nicer Ranger is than Enterprise, which he says is 24 years old. Ranger is 33, same as me. I wonder if my plumbing is so bad. He talks to me for ten minutes and I get no solid example of what he is comparing. All I think of is puddles around the crapper stalls, brown and gray.

A first-class Red Shirt stops by. The dude always gives me sweet tarts. He’s way too fat, sent T-A-D here by his squadron, about to be kicked out for failing body fat standards because he’s not a maintenance chief or fire marshal. At least he goes home this Friday. “The dragon’s down,” he says. The dragon is a nickname for the dish washer. “Some rubber gasket ripped out and another one just like it popped out. I guess it has something to do with a shock absorber between where trays go through, and the motor.”

“So what are they doing?”

“I guess they’re trying to fix it.”

A guy in blue coveralls -- from Damage Control -- moseys up. “We had to discharge a hose up there, so there’s water all over the deck. I’d get it cleaned up but I’ve got to go to a DC meeting.”

“That’s okay, we’ll take care of it.” The fat PO1 goes off to find a skinny blue shirt.

Weapons guys haul Phoenix and Sidewinder missiles across the mess decks and nobody secures the chow line. But it is slow, probably no need. Pup Jeff skates off to the game room, dropping quarters into video racers, then goes to have a smoke on the fantail.

“THE FANTAIL IS CLOSED. HOLD ALL TRASH AND GARBAGE ON STATION. THAT IS, THE FANTAIL IS CLOSED.” I don’t know the difference between garbage and trash.

Ranger tilts. We turn into the wind to get 25 knots across the flightdeck -- enough to get a young boy slightly airborne as he opens his coat and leans forward at the bow, like a new airedale on fod walkdown. Broomstick comes back from wiping down tables at 1630. Chow secured at six. They’re still shuffling bombs for tomorrow’s Air Show. “Don’t forget to check the napkin holders.” He cocks his head as if to say, ‘fuck you, you’re on your day off.’ But later I see him stuffing napkins.

1930 2 AUG 90. Sweet Pea looked me up at dinner, in his green fatigues (“greens”), blue hangar deck jersey, and float coat. I was already eating -- just a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. As usual he had only ten minutes to eat before mustering with his division in the hangar bay. It could’ve been a last meal together for a while, since everything goes crazy when the ship pulls in. It’s like a high school graduation, when everybody goes separate ways. When he got in line I started to get a tray for him, but the line was short, so I came back to my table and waited. It seemed like forever before he came over, with two hot dogs, fries and apple juice. Soon as he sat, a voice called from a table by the Weapons’ shack.

“Ah shit. I’ve got to go see what my supervisor wants.” The Yellow Shirt -- a hangar deck director -- wanted to sit with the kid, to joke and tease, like everybody else under the spell of Sweet Pea. “Let me just go see what he wants and I’ll be right back.” He took his tray, so that was it. I finished my sandwich slowly, stalling, then finally gulped down the half glass of milk and walked to the scullery without looking back. I dumped the tray and headed for the ladder.

“Hey, would ya help me with this table?” It was a blue shirt who always flipped my hat and tried to order Broomstick around.

“It’s my day off.”

“Then get outa here.”

I didn’t get to make arrangements with Sweet Pea to see him Friday night. He’s getting off the ship at two. I get off at 2030. Since I have to be back at 0600 Saturday I don’t plan to go back to Mission Beach. I’ll sleep on the damn boat. I might go to Mexican Village restaurant as a treat, if I can find somebody to go with me.

My boss, PNC (we call him that since he got selected, but he’s still a PN1) in Pers, at the squadron, smugly announced to me, I’ve got offload Tuesday. I knew that would happen, soon as I sold the fridge. “Thanks for the favor,” I said. He cracked a glib smile and had to turn his head. If some other flip had been there I know he’d have broken into a private conversation in front of me, in Tagolog. Speaking a foreign language in a work environment is technically illegal, or against policy. This is the subject of numerous complaints. The rule gets ignored whenever two Filipinos eat chow, or a Filipino gets pissed at an American, or if Filipinos don’t want Americans to know what’s going on. Foreigners take supervisory positions in military Personnel Departments handling sensitive items such as performance evaluation reports, and ongoing performance test verification, as well as annual advancement qualification. They have also taken over Disbursing Departments, handling pay records that fluctuate like the stock market. The American born sailor faces danger of becoming terminally disenfranchised by this subtle coup.

The 39-Man coop cleaner is a PO2 in the First Lieutenant division -- which means the janitor department in the Navy. He announced that the berthing is to be vacated by ten hundred except for persons staying onboard overnight.

I could pack now, work all day tomorrow, pick up my bags from the Ready Room or Pers or wherever else they let us stow our bags all day, then take my stuff home tomorrow night instead of going to dinner. It would be nice to come home Saturday night and already have my stuff put away. But then I’d have to either sleep in a Ready Room chair Friday night, or fight early morning traffic to the Ranger Saturday to muster on time. And with two thousand civilian guests coming on the Dependent’s Day Cruise, I could have trouble getting over the brow. All VF-1 coops are turning over to Ship’s Company tomorrow at noon, so everyone has to be out then. However, T-A-D personnel such as myself, remaining onboard to assist the D-Day cruise, may berth here tonight, moving from the other berthings by 1300.

Screw it. I’m going to pack tonight, haul my sea bag and garment bag to my shop at the other end of the boat before I go to work tomorrow morning, retrieve it at 2030 tomorrow night when I get off, haul it home, and fight the traffic Saturday morning. Which means, I’m packing now.

2230 3 AUG 90. Back on the beach! My roommate, That Guy, out for the evening, had his Mustang parked safely in the carport -- so I had to park my brand new 1990 GEO Metro on the street. Fortunately, I found a spot in front, on Mission Boulevard. My Toyota -- just before it got stolen -- had the front bumper ripped out at nearly the same spot, where the cops shot to death some bat wielding attorney smashing his girlfriend’s car windows. Found mail on my bed, two notices re: that Toyota. First, a tow company announced its imminent sale, 3 August. Which is today -- tonight now. Second, notice from the Orange County Sheriff, advising me that it was found on a road in San Juan Capistrano and towed at 1500 21 July. While I served my country, ordered to sea by the US Navy, my car got recovered by cops and sold by a tow yard. What a racket.

I walked over to the sea wall, looking for Louie. Rounding Roberto’s I saw the roller coaster operating (finally), and two cops hassling a civilian on the sidewalk. I knew I was home. Red was out of jail, had my radio in good hands. Nobody had seen Louie all day.

My teen-age buddy Louis, half Indian, half Mexican, came by the wall and hung out with some girls from the burbs, then came to my place “to borrow my boogie board.” He showed me, the one he’d been using scraped his nipples. It wasn’t long before we snuggled on the couch, and I gave him a reach around.

Only a few weeks before the six-month deployment we call Westpac. Plus, we could get sent to the Persian Gulf on emergency recall, since we’re the “ready carrier.” I have to be up at 0430 to get a clean shave, out the door, down I-5, and on the boat by 0600.

SOMETIME SUNDAY AFTERNOON. Can’t figure what happened to my watch. But I have a boogie box, beach towel, beach chair, beach bag and no less than the beach. They can turn Iraq to glass with someone else’s carrier. I’m catching rays.

Roadrunner came over from the Ranger. Right now he’s out boogie boarding with Louis. Roadrunner looks nearly as young as Sweet Pea, but he’s got straw blond hair and a set of thick red lips tattooed on a butt cheek.

I can see inimitable Jay Cee and undauntable Dave, the Mission Beach boardwalk ambassadors. Dave shakes hands with a tourist, about to hit him up for a smoke or some beer money. He’s got a stance of a man who’s already been executed, faced God, and been sent back to haunt. He must’ve been a gunslinger in his past life. His eyes disarm you and ya don’t know, ‘til he speaks, he’s drunk off his ass.

South of the checkered flag, Roadrunner and Louis go back to the water. Roadie brought his own board. Louis rides mine. Radio died. Out of sunblock. I enjoy laughing shrieks of children, gulls, and passing jets (commercial, that is). I play in the sun as it burns through sparse haze. My $90 Ray Bans cut most of the glare. Sun’s still high enough to see G-strings as more than silhouettes -- ah, much more.

I ain’t been with a woman since Amy dropped me like an egg and I splattered into the Navy. That Guy came in this morning with claw marks at 0800 and left before noon to his part time gig as a runway model. He’s in the fast lane. Doesn’t want to get tested for AIDS. If he’s got it he don’t want to know. His cavalier attitude puts him in a hot circle of sex fiends. They eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow they’ll die. Me I’m over thirty. I almost married a couple a times. Lucinda, from Wellfleet on Cape Cod, thirteen long years ago. She made love to me once. I loved her for two more years, second of which she lived with a dude I never met.

Then came Amy, billionairess to that worldwide Temporary service, card carrying member of the Malcolm Forbes yacht club, standing front row seats to Billy Graham. Grew up in Piedmont, California, over the Frisco Bay, across the street from the Witter family, as in Dean Witter. I lived with her two years. I spent Christmas at Denney’s alone, first year. Her stuck up schoolmate joined them instead. Second year Denney’s was closed.

Then I broke up with her and joined this fucking military bullshit. This got me out of town, what I wanted. I couldn’t stand passing our milkshake cafe down on Main street. Only female I been with since was some whore in a Thai massage parlor, SabaiLand in Pattaya Beach. Met her on the bleachers behind a glass window. Number 120, I’ll never forget. Low cut evening gown, large round pin with the number. Clipped my nails badly, bathed with me, put me on a warm soapy air mattress and sponged me with her cunt. It was a cheap thrill to deny my come. She whispered “bac lat” after that, Asian for “fag.” I told her I was saving it for my tour guide, a sexy young man outside waiting. Truth is I was far more afraid I’d catch AIDS from her than from him.

Seaward side of the sea wall’s lined with brown bags which hide cases, 12-packs and 6-packs. Underage drinkers smuggle canned contents into plastic cups and sip beer like soda from straws, while dealers wander up and back from trios to points of contact, peddling twenty dollar dime bags of grass and sheets of acid, portions of blotter paper folks chew to get illucid perceptions about roller coaster Earth. Here comes Roadrunner to sip plastic.

2300 5 AUG 90. They have not yet sold my car. I called a tow yard in San Juan Capistrano. For $224 I could come and get it. Roadrunner stayed overnight, even after I slowly tickled his toes and massaged his foot and gently grabbed his leg last evening. He slept on the couch, safe, like I slept in the spare bedroom at Travis Clark’s house, across from Universal Studios.

I was told Travis was James Brown’s personal manager for ten years. I met Travis through the female casting director I met through an unemployed actress standing in line at the Santa Monica Blvd. Employment Development Department. Travis picked me up right after I got kidnapped by Motley Crüe (a hard rock band from the 1980’s) who pulled a big knife on me and took me for an 80-mile ride the night they and I met Michael Jackson outside Ben Frank’s all night diner on Sunset. It was 26 October ‘81 -- one week before the Crüe’s debut world tour “Shout At The Devil” (check out the album jacket). I’d never heard of them, but they came on the radio in the car just as they pulled their cassette out of the tape deck. “Wow man, that’s us right now! I wish I could call my dad and tell him,” one said. It started out as a ride I needed, to pick up my broken down car. Vince Neil, the lead singer, pulled over on the freeway and got the knife out of his trunk, then held it on me at Lake Elsinore while his pals took the cash I needed to get my car from the gas station, which had a lein against it. Needless to say, like the gas station owner did, “when it rains it pours.” According to Mick Mars, the group founder, Vince talked them into kidnapping me during I was buying them gas, Pepsis and a carton of Marlboros with my unemployment check. A few years later I made a stink about it, getting interviewed by Star magazine. They ran a story on Nikki Six marrying Heather Locklear instead of the kidnapping story. But hey, the guy who photographed me had photographed Don Johnson a week before. The cop who took the report left the Lake Elsinore PD, as his former co-worker told me, to become a security guard for guess who: Motley Crüe. They finally got rid of Vince, but not before he crashed that silly gold Duster or whatever, car with its blacked out windows and no inside door frames, killing another band’s drummer. I had planned to prosecute them for kidnapping, which I still could since there is no Statute of Limitations on kidnapping. But I got caught up with a murder charge four months later.

Anyway, after they left me stranded at the lake, I hitchhiked back to Hollywood and Travis picked me up at the Argyle Avenue payphone. He fed me, gave me clean underwear, and offered me the same bed. “I promise I won’t rape you,” Travis said. “But I can fold out a guest bed if you prefer.” I let him fold out a guest bed. Sometimes they don’t force you into anything. So nothing happens. Nothing at all. They don’t hear your demo tape or read your movie screenplay. And you don’t fuck your way to the top. Travis created the hit TV series about Vietnam called “Tour Of Duty” filmed in Hawaii, a series DP’d (Director of Photography) by Steven L. Posey. I met Steve on the HBO set of “Maximum Security” in ‘84, starring up and coming until killed in a car crash Trinidad Silva (“Colors” with Sean Penn and Robert Duvall). Trini became my friend through Israel -- the illegal alien who married the woman I lived with in Hollywood before I killed the cholo. I was in the key scene of that miniseries, at the LAPD training academy as a background “extra” -- in a close up -- as Trini says, “I gotta make my break right now.” Thus, my big break in show biz was lending atmosphere to the climactic scene of a miniseries called “Maximum Security” while I awaited trial on first-degree murder which, if I’d been found guilty, would’ve put me in maximum security at least 25 years. The director (the late Gilbert Moses) got so nervous with me on the set I had to leave. I was really up for murder, out on bail. They were making fiction.

By the way, before I forget: I ran into those muggers and Michael Jackson at Ben Frank’s right after Rod Stewart failed to pick me up at the Rainbow Bar and Grill. I was there because of Angel, the Argyle Avenue dumpster diver best friend of Jackson Browne’s sound manager’s ex-wife who’d been stashed away on that street, strung out on heroin. Last time I saw that chick she was banging on the manager’s door screaming, “I’ve been through a lotta shit in this apartment!” Her brother overdosed, and lay dead for six hours before she and her boyfriend noticed. Her boyfriend began funeral arrangements, then overdosed. Another friend took over arrangements for both until the LAPD SWAT team intercepted him by the Yucca Street 7/11 where he was about to commit a professional hit. I met him in the Hollywood Precinct Jail where he talked about it all night because he smuggled speed through a strip search. I was in a separate cell with a chronic masturbator on the top bunk, whom I watched via the shadow his dick made on the wall. Rather erotic.

Back to reality, Roadrunner drove the Metro and I got my old Toyota back. I just replaced the radiator hose and drove it home. I sold it to That Guy for $650, and took a measly $75 down. Wish me luck for the balance.

We offload in the morning. Wolfpack got Monday off, along with the weekend. Do I get Tuesday off in comp time? Nope. I get to participate in offload Tuesday. Wah. I feel my boss smiling.

Louie the vet is living downtown in a motel. Registered for a day, sleeping there all week, “able to pay whenever they discover the oversight.” That sounds like a disaster of wishful thinking if I ever heard one. Especially with his habit getting out of hand.

I went into my bathroom and found red dots splattered all over the wall. He confessed it was his blood. Now I know why he takes so long, when he uses my bathroom. He’s shooting up. Why didn’t it occur to me? I knew he was the busiest acid dealer on the beach, knew he had a shrapnel wound in his back causing pain. And I knew that, as a street bum, he could forget medicine. So naturally, he was self-medicating -- with heroin -- to kill twenty years of pain.

2355 8 AUG 90. Just back from Palm Liquor, on Mission Boulevard at Palm Avenue. Twice, in half an hour, Lou talked me into driving up and charging a bottle of Jack on my credit card. The first bottle slipped out of the bag as Louie pulled it out of his jacket getting out of the car. He’s out of control. He insisted on returning the shards, claiming they sold us a defective bag. They whined that the distributor wouldn’t refund them, so why should they refund us.

Today Scrapper, the airman striker (wanna be a PN) in our shop, announced he no longer wants to be a PN (Personnelman). He requested to go back to the Line Shack. PN1 approved without a blink -- then blamed me for influencing Scrapper with my bad attitude. Meanwhile, I requested a transfer to First Lieutenant. Of course my request was denied. “It would reduce manning by over 30 percent.” At least it brought attention to the fact that nobody wants to work for my boss.

YNCS, our LCPO, hauled PN1 and me into the skipper’s office for a knock-down-drag-out chat. The skipper was gone and a big Raggedy Andy sat there in his chair, with one hand on a coffee cup labeled STRESS. A perfect set for the drama about to unfold. Senior Chief said the CO had been losing it lately, and because of that, one of the maintenance chiefs had just quit. He’s gone back to a less responsible job. That said, Senior Chief invited me to gripe.

“This guy is responsible for the tone in our office, and he’s got me ready to get out.” My thousand yard stare scared Senior as I went off on PN1. At least, I didn’t get the help I pleaded for.

“I can see murder in your eyes,” Senior said. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your chair and strangle PN1. It scares me, and I don’t want to see it again.” He knew I had been charged with murder in Hollywood, in 1984. That’s supposedly why I’ll never get a security clearance, even though I got acquitted. Everybody in Admin and Pers finds out sooner or later. So I’ll never live it down.

“I’m not gonna kill my supervisor,” I said. “I just want him to quit speaking Tagolog when he’s talking business on the phone, because I don’t learn anything. And to quit smoking in the office, and quit bullying us around like Adolf Hitler. That’s all I ask.”

“Well,” PN1 countered. “I don’t want you to have any work in your pending basket at the end of the day. And do I talk to you in Tagolog?”

“What a stupid fucking question!” I looked at the senior chief and got no support. Right, the PN1 had rank over me, so whatever he said, no matter how inane, was good as gold, beyond reproach. This is the Navy. I’m not dealing with guys who have a full deck. They have bluff, and power, and government pay. It’s all they need.

I put on my diver trunks, walked to the beach, and practiced karate for the first time in fifteen years with exception of the couple of moves that saved my ass in Hollywood. I jogged to the jetty and back to the palm tree park, where I found Louie.

I don’t know why it occurs to me, but if I shoot myself with my .44, I’ll probably do it through the heart, and do it on the beach at night. I promised Louie I’d tell him. When he hears a shot he can direct cops to the shoreline, before some kid finds me and screams.

1730 9 AUG 90. I came around Jack-in-the-box and looked to see if That Guy’s Toyota was parked in my stall. It was. So I parked in front of the new inline skates shop on Mission Boulevard. I crossed the street with my cover off. I would rather burn my bald head than wear that fucking dog bowl the Navy calls a hat. Only the perkless enlisted must wear it, of course.

I changed into my knee-torn jeans, and put on black Spanish leather shoes Dad gave me last time home. Then I checked the mail. No new returned check notices. I turned on C-SPAN and caught a Q-and-A on Iraq with the State Department. The news is starting to get my attention. They had some local crap, a citizen committee to review a racial shooting. The blurb belched on to become a political media event, and my mind drifted back to USS Ranger.

I have to -- that is, I get to pick up Sweet Pea on the 19th. I miss the boy. I’d marry him, if I were a girl, or adopt him if I could. He’s had no dad since age six. His dad left his mom flat. No child support, nothing. I want to be Sweet Pea’s hero. So, I’ll leave him alone until the Iraqis hit Ranger with chemical weapons. Then run to the hangar to find him, and die in his arms. I like several men on Ranger, but there’s no one I’d want to be with more in those dying, agonizing moments of the end. Battle Groups are moving. Rumor is we’re moving Westpac up six weeks. We’re on 96-hour alert from now on. If they give the word, 96 hours later we’ll pull out.

Even with the leaky boat and creepy squids, if I have to play war at least I’m proud to play with Wolfpack onboard Ranger, Top Gun of the Pacific Fleet. I had to buy another ribbon today. While we were out at sea, off Mexico all month, we got told Ranger and Carrier Air Wing Two got a Meritorious Unit Commendation for our last deployment, Westpac ‘89. It apparently had something to do with rescuing 29 Vietnamese refugees held hostage by ten soldiers on a barge adrift 80 miles off the coast, that my videotape showed the top brass and the rest of the world. It can take years to get awards for what you’ve done. Now I’ve got the MUC, and a Sea Service ribbon (for being at sea more than 90 days, no small achievement) from last Westpac, the Battle “E” ribbon (draped by two E’s, for ‘88 and ‘89) as a qualified member of the west coast Navy’s best fighter squadron. Everybody in the ‘pack is ready to kick butt. We’re fussing and fighting. WE WANT WAR! WE WANT WAR! It’s like a nasty chant, so thick you can smell it.

“Not me,” Doc Robson’s the one exception. “I want a nice, boring, relaxing deployment -- full of friendly ports of call, sunny beaches, and a good time.” Right now it could go either way. But we won’t have any of that Vietnam half-baked bullshit. I know that.

2200 9 AUG 90. Violence even at Mission Beach. I’d never seen him before, or given him my name. But he said weird words to a tough boy on a skateboard -- whose father happened to ride by making dope deals, and shit hit a fan.”Don’t talk to a kid that way!”

“I understand, sir.”

WHOP, SOCK! Two pops in the face. I knew this guy was weird. He said he could access my files through the FBI. His dad has access and leaves the special modem laying around at home. I wonder what he said, wonder if I might’ve wanted to say the same thing, wonder if the FBI agent’s son will come back as a flipped out rooftop sniper.

“I just hope he recognizes me in the crosshairs,” Champ said as he disappeared. Champ’s the man behind the man behind the acid on Mission Beach. “I’ve always been good to him.”

These are the 90s, and I lived in Hollywood. That’s enough to ruin anybody. I had neighbors who were males who had real tits -- transbreastuals. They had no cunts and they had real dicks. They just had real tits of a woman, as well. Donna, aka Don, used to take off his/her blouse and shake-a-shake ooh so proud. Too bad I threw that journal in the dumpster, back when I was young and hot and couldn’t find a publisher.

I got a few sympathy fuck s, like a hot skinny blond male go-go boy from a hotel fire escape overlooking Hollywood Boulevard, at Argyle. I wasn’t his type -- he did me a favor. And he really did, because he looked just like Billy would have. It fulfilled a fantasy of making love to Billy. The lucky hotel fire escape fuck . “You’re really not my type,” he said.

I want someone to worship me, to put a silver chain around my neck, to say, “I love you.” Not to break to say, “Just kidding.” Someone to live for. A boy, who needs, a hero. I think I was Shane in my past life. Yes. From the gunfighter book.

I grew up with Billy. Straw blond hair, bright eyes (although I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue), bright thin-lipped smile, bright brains, the kind of kid who ends up humping four girls a night by time he’s out of high school. An angel like that is bound to be sexy to me, too, don’t you think?

By the time I hit college and get in this English class, it was over with Billy. I’d been writing him for a couple of years anyway, stoking dead ashes. So there I am in New Testament Greek and my English professor’s kid’s outside, playing Frisbee on the Whitworth College campus. He looks a lot like Billy. I walk across the campus to my dorm after class in some deep emotional tailspin, write poetry and forget about my next class, which is fucking poetry class in fact. Rod Stewart was right -- the first cut is the deepest.

Outside my apartment shrieks and laughs and brake whir are a carnival, Thursday night. Let’s kill. Let’s love. Red talked me into buying a Grateful Dead butterfly button I pinned to my gaudy green and red and black Thai shirt. I watched him argue with cops, about ticketing a kid for doing an ollie off the planter by the lifeguard station. City Council orders cops to ticket kids $60 for filing down concrete, like hands that rub the brass off Abe Lincoln’s nose when families tour the capitol of Illinois.

Eight years from now, maybe today’s skating at Mission Beach will result in minor maintenance. Yet cops insist that fining kids pays upkeep of the concrete boxes, which at worst are rounded to sit on in comfort. THANKS to those kids on boards.

They skate for hours and hit no girl, rob no store. Suddenly, cops. Stop. Act natural. Mill about. Cops are gone. Skate again. Heroic, brave, continuing their daring art of systematically wearing down, rounding corners of palm tree planters so that I, local tenant, enjoy the smooth, boy-made, beautiful flying dream hammered real before mesmerized gazes. See cop slogans, “America’s Finest” and “To protect and serve.” See big lies in this case. I toast those daring young men in gratitude and donate my radio to Red, may he boogie on as I deploy to protect and serve you on high seas, keep you safe as I have sworn, from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

0400 11 AUG 90. “Let me in.” Carlos, the freaky looking long-haired white boy who parties with That Guy, beats at our door until I answer with my .44, and find That Guy letting him in. He is frazzled and drenched. “Please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just listen to me, will you just listen to me, all right?”

I stand in the hall with my dick hanging under my tee-shirt, gun in one hand, tugging down my shirt with the other.

Carlos uses our phone to call his brother to pick him up at Jack-in-the-Box across the street. I call 911 to report it, in case the muggers are still out there playing.

“Can I talk to him?”

“Sure. Hey Carlos, the dispatcher has some questions.”

“Hey, I know it’s a traumatic thing you just went through. But I’ve gotta work in two-and-a-half hours and I need to sleep.”

“Okay. I won’t shout. I’m sorry.” That Guy turns the TV down. I’d turned it on to create some kind of comfort zone for the poor dude. Add anti-white terrorism to anti-gay terrorism and Iraqi terrorism that could strike San Diego, and I feel compelled to carry my Bulldog at all times. I must be getting paranoid.

Glossary