You wake up with your wool blanket wrapped around your legs and eyes all foggy and as you untwist the blanket scratching at your calves you realize that you forgot to take out your contacts when you pulled off your clothes and stuffed them into your stand-up locker and rolled into the rack and shut off the bed light and then lay there staring at the ceiling and just hating everything, and then you turned on the light and rolled over and pulled a book out from under your pillow wedged there with your alarm clock and the Saint Christopher’s medal your grandma gave you when you headed off to the Navy.
You left the house at the end of the drive with the cornfields all around it whispering in the summer wind in the morning after your mom made a huge breakfast with eggs and sausage, and she burnt the cinnamon rolls and then you put down your fork and wiped your mouth and got up and grabbed your gym bag with your shaving gear and a change of underwear, standing at the edge of the table with the egg yolks drying, and then Grandma came downstairs and she was crying without making a sound and she pushed this medal on a silver chain into your hands, and then went into the front room and sat down on the sofa with her head in her hands because she thought that she’d never see you again and she was right.
At the intake center, your Dad parked the car and walked with you along the city streets with his jacket over his shoulder, and you walked side by side without saying a word down the cracked sidewalk and into the federal building, and up in the elevator to the ninth floor where you got out and went up to the sailor at the desk and told him who you were, and he checked you off and your Dad said well this is it sport and you said yea and he said be careful and make something out of this and you said yea Dad and then you shook hands and kind of hugged, and then he walked to the elevator and turned around and the doors closed in front of him and you turned back to the sailor and said where do I go?
And now the medal’s chain is all twisted up and it lies loose under your rack and you pick it up and tell your grandma that you are sorry.
But you are on duty today and your alarm clock starts beeping, and its six-thirty and muster is at seven so you shower and shave and dress putting on the bell bottoms and the socks and the boots and the shirt and the cap, and then you take off the shirt and reach into the coffin locker and pull out one of the flying squad turtlenecks and pull it on and then go to the mess decks to eat walking one two three four and duck and up down the passageway and over the kneeknockers in the kneeknocker rhythm – one, two, three, four big steps and duck and up and over and one, two, three, four big steps and duck and up and over and through the hatch.
You go to the wrong side of the galley and look in the door and see your friend Pinchon the cook opening up a case of eggs and you say hey Pinch One how much longer we going to have eggs and Pinchon looks up at you and says real eggs or the powder shit and you say real eggs Pinch One and he says that you and me are going to have real eggs for six months, but the jarheads are already on powder eggs and he says you want an omelet and you say sure.
Pinchon is thin and tall and he wears the heavy black plastic boot camp glasses and his hair is thick and never looks cut to regs and he says I got some cheese and some ham cubes let’s you and me eat some real breakfast[101] and you go in and jump up on the counter while he breaks six eggs on the griddle and chops the yokes open with his spatula and spreads the eggs out in a thin puddle where they start to cook real fast.
Pinchon says nothing to you for a few seconds and then without looking at you he says so what do you hear about this float and you say usual shit, Rota for two days and turnover, then an op off Spain, then Toulon for a week or 10 days, and a op off Sardinia and then off to Haifa midway. I don’t know any more than that and thank fucking God we aren’t in the Gulf sweating our asses off and waiting to get a Silkworm up our ass and he says I believe that you are right on that.
He touches the eggs with his spatula and then says still and all, if there’s a war and you say there is a war and he says I mean a real war on the ground and you say we didn’t put 500 thousand troops in the desert and there’s no goddamn ground war and he says okay, so there’s going to be a war and I heard that like five or ten thousand casualties, maybe more Skipper was talking about Saddam having some gun that can shoot 200 miles or something[102].
You run your hand through your hair and say well I don’t want to fucking die, you say I’ll spend my little war here in the Med…not my goddamn fault I’m here on the nice boat with showers and A/C… choose your rate, choose your fate…mate and Pinchon says don’t you feel like you should be there, though? I mean, at least on a boat, but there and you say nope…I figure that just getting on this boat last week and heading off in the general direction of the shooting was enough[103]…could be us, isn’t…not my fucking problem.
Pinchon thinks for a while as the eggs turn white and says should’ve turned on the grill earlier its still not really hot…hey, we got steaks tonight, you get down here at 1530 and we can have a cookout and he flips up the edges of the eggs and cuts them in two and sprinkles real cheese and ham cubes on the center of each half and when the cheese melts flips them over and then reaches behind him to a rack of plates and grabs two in one hand like playing cards and then slides the omelets off the griddle and on to the plates.
These will be good he says let’s eat and he jumps up on the counter next to you and you both feel around for a fork and then Pinchon jumps down and finds two in a silverware rack and hands you one and jumps back on the counter just as his first class comes through the galley and looks annoyed and Pinchon tells you that you better go eat on the mess decks so you jump down and grab your plate and fork and go out the door and say thanks man.
You stop to get some bug juice and then grab a seat at one of the long tables and pull a newspaper over and read it while you eat the hot steamy omelet full of air and scrape the plate to catch the cheese and ham cubes that run out of the cut end and then the Mustache Guy and the Dork and Mike come out of the other end of the galley from the chow line with trays and they sit down beside you.
And the Mustache Guy reaches over and taps you on the shoulder and says thanks bro for last night and you say for what and he says for leaving like 90 pesos with the house when you went home…fucking Rita hooked us up solid she said you looked like you were going to puke and went home but that you left all this money for us so me and Wilkies here we tag-teamed that little one and then Mike came in and he had a go too and all had about five more beers each before your cash ran out and we had to get the hell out of there because it was 1145 and we had to grab a cab and came over the quarterdeck at quarter after but our bud Devons had the deck and he let us go so thanks bro.
Then Wilkerson the Dork says thanks bro and he smiles and you look at him, and then the Mustache Guy, and then Mike, and then back at Wilkerson, and then you throw your whole fucking tray right at his face and before you can come over the table to stomp your boot in his face, Mike is up and he grabs you and the Mustache Guy has Wilkerson who is saying what the fuck was that and a MA[104] is getting up from his table and coming over and the Mustache Guy is telling Wilkerson to cool the fuck out and Mike has you almost in the passageway and then the Mustache Guy is telling the master at arms that it was just a little foodfight that got out of control and the MA shrugs and goes back to his breakfast and Wilkerson is looking at you and saying that you are a crazy motherfucker and that this is not the end of this and you hate him so goddamn much.
And then you and Mike are in the passageway and he grabs your arm and he is saying what the fuck is your problem and you say you fucked her too and Mike says yea what the fuck is your problem and you pull out of his hands and start to walk away and then turn and look at him for a long time and he makes this face at you like you’re crazy and then stares at you and you turn and walk away down the passageway and up the ladder to muster in.
Where you stand in four lines while some booter ensign tries to take muster while the guys in th
e back are grab-assing and the senior chief is standing there getting more and more pissed off and then he finally grabs the clipboard from the ensign and hands it to you and tells you to take muster for God’s sake and you stand up there until the grab-assing stops, and then call the names one by one and then hand the clipboard to the ensign and the senior chiefs says to him look a fucking third class deck ape can do it why can’t you.
And then you carry on, with four guys in dress blues heading over to the quarterdeck to take over the watch and the rest of the duty section shagging their asses to their spaces where they can lay back in the swivel chairs and lie about last night.
The duty day drags on with you in the deck office all alone and the rest of your department out needle-gunning off old paint with the first class and you mess around on the computer playing Tetris, and then lean back in a chair to sleep off the rest of your hangover and before you know it Mike is in the office shaking you and you wake up and say what the fuck Mike and he says you really went psycho on the mess decks this morning what was your problem and you want to tell him how you gave the money to the girl so she would stop being a whore, but you realize before you get it out that Mike doesn’t give a fuck but then Mike says that it was a real sad scene there after you left and how he feels like shit about screwing that girl and how Penn (that was the Mustache Guy’s name) and Wilkerson are real fucking pigs.
And then Mike says that its 1530 and you remember that you have petty officer of the watch at 1600 and that you got to go get dressed and you say that you will go by his office and get him for dinner after your watch and tell him to tell Pinch One to save some steaks for us, and then you go down to the berthing and get your perfect white t-shirt out and your dress blues on with the heavy wool shirt and the pants with the flap and thirteen buttons and the white hat, the whole crackerjack outfit, and you run a brush over your shoes and straighten the scarf in the mirror and then head on up to the quarterdeck where you take the pistol and the white canvas web belt from the guy you are relieving, checking the chamber to make sure there isn’t a round in there, and then sliding the magazine up into the pistol grip and strapping on the belt and feeling the gun heavy on your hip, black oily gun.
And all through the watch, through sending out messengers and making 1MC announcements and taking the reports of the deck watches, and ringing the bell as the Skipper comes aboard slightly hammered you can tell from some party with the ambassador or someone, and the guys on liberty going ashore and the tours coming back from the wineries, and every so often you walk out on the sponson aware of the weight of the pistol and the magazines dragging at your hip, and look out over the harbor in the evening light and up into the town and the hills above it and trying to feel like you are in a foreign country and only feeling like you want to get the hell out of there.