by J. E. Park
“Why would I? I’m sure there’ll still be plenty left to drink when I get out there tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but you don’t want all the hot girls to be taken before you’re free!”
I sighed. “I’m pretty sure we went over this. I don’t pay for sex, Master Chief. I never have, never will.”
“We all pay for sex, Doyle. It’s just a matter of what kind of currency we use.” Darrow grinned and leaned over against the rail. Taking in the lush tropical scenery around us, he said, “You know, this is the place sailors are told about from the time they get to boot camp. The debauchery, the drinkin’, the fuckin’, the fightin’, this is where sea stories...no, sea epics...are made. There’s no place like it on earth, and we’re here to shut it down. You telling me that you finally get here, to this sacred land, at a point in history where it is about to all come to an end, and you’re going to sit on the sidelines?”
“I’m not sitting on the sidelines of anything,” I responded. “I’ll be in the thick of it. Trust me. I’ve got a lot to drink off of my mind. I’m just not going to take advantage of some poor little peasant girl selling her body to keep her belly full.”
“So, you’d rather see her starve?”
I gave Darrow the type of look that I usually reserved for Lieutenant Krause. “You trying to tell me I’ve got some sort of moral obligation to sleep with hookers in Olongapo?”
My master chief shook his head, grinning. “No, I’m telling you that what these girls are doing is not really a ‘black and white’ kind of thing. They need a way to provide for themselves and their families. They’re offering a service…”
“A disgusting service…”
Darrow scowled at me. “Hey. You think you’re better than these girls?”
“I didn’t say that…”
“I don’t care what you said. I care what you meant. If you had a hungry kid at home, would you be willing to rent yourself out to perverts so that your child can eat and go to school?”
“No. Of course not.”
My master chief looked cross. “Well, the women working the bars in Olongapo love their children enough to make those kinds of sacrifices. They don’t enjoy the work, Murphy. They do appreciate being taken care of, though. If you commit to one of them, can get them out of that life for even just a few weeks, you’re doing a good thing.”
“Jesus, Master Chief. It sounds like you’re trying to push me to sleep with whores out there.”
“I ain’t forcing you to do shit,” Darrow growled. After softening his tone, he said, “Look, son, you’ve been through a lot lately. That shit that went down in Mexico. The scholarship, Krause, and losing Macklemore. Then there was Hannah leaving you, and this horrible shit with Miller. Man, I just want to see you take it easy for a little while and get your head straight, you know? A woman can do wonders to help with stuff like that.”
“Yeah, well, you know, I’ve always been kind of an over-achiever when it comes to girls, Master Chief. I’m sure I can meet someone here who’s not a hooker.”
Darrow shook his head. “Don’t do that, Doyle.”
“Do what?”
“Get into some sort of emotional entanglement here. These girls around this area, well, landing an American man is like winning the lottery. Life is uncertain in this part of the world. There’s this crushing poverty, violence, and powerlessness that’s always hanging over their heads. There’s very little security. These girls fall in love with the concept of getting away from here and going someplace where it’s not so easy to lose everything you have in the blink of an eye. A place where you have something left after you’ve bought food and shelter. A place where people with even a little bit of power can’t do with you whatever they want with impunity.”
Darrow waved his hand toward the shore. “The civilians, the girls not working in the bars, well, they’re different. They're not equipped to handle the heartbreak that comes with getting your hopes up that you’re going to get a whole new life, only to end up left on the pier.
“The bar girls, though, they know the deal. They’ve been through it a few times and know what to expect. If you’re pursuing a woman in Subic Bay, soften the blow of leaving by making your relationship a business transaction.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Master Chief. I’m not wired that way.” Trying to change the subject, I asked, “How about you? What’re your plans for tonight?”
Darrow sighed. “Well, I’m not getting mixed up with any bar girls either. I’m on my third marriage and can’t afford another divorce this close to retirement. I’m looking up a friend of mine in the Philippine National Police and going apartment hunting. I need to lay low. When I shipped out of here the last time, I kind of left a lot of things unresolved with a girl I was seeing. I really don’t want to run into her here. Her and some other people.”
“Other people?” I asked. “Like who?”
Darrow shrugged. “I’m Olongapo Earp, remember? I spent the better part of eight years here as a police officer. I’m not a cop this time, though, so I won’t be walking the streets with a .45 on my hip. If word gets out to certain people that I’m around and without backup, they may want to settle some old scores.”
“That why you’re looking up an old cop buddy? For backup?”
My master chief shook his head. “Not really. Sergeant Tejada is just a good friend. He’s not my bodyguard. Actually, Doyle, when it comes to backup, you’re the guy I’d trust the most.”
“Me?” I asked, both surprised and flattered. I counted Darrow among the toughest men I had ever met. It was an honor that he considered me to be in the same league as he was.
“Yeah, you. You know how to handle yourself in a fight. You’ve got street smarts, and you proved in Mexico that there’s nothing you won’t do to protect a friend. Doyle, it’s not like I’m expecting a specific threat out here in Olongapo, but I’m going to be keeping my head down anyway. I’m getting an apartment out in town and hunkering down. If you ain’t going to be out whoring with the rest of the fellas, feel free to hang there with me. I enjoy your company, and to be honest, I’ll be more at ease knowing you’re watching my back.”
*****
After the ship was tied to the pier, the captain required us all to assemble on the flight deck before he would turn us loose in town. Once there, the officers pulled the division in and informally briefed us on what we were, and were not, allowed to do in the Philippines. I say ‘informal’ because the Navy was not going to come right out and instruct the crew on the correct ways to deal with Filipina prostitutes. They did not want us to get into trouble or hurt out in town either, though. So, there were no hand-outs, there were no pamphlets, and there was no structured training. It was just the men we reported to letting us know what was what.
Krause started with the basic stuff. “This can be a dangerous place, men. Safety is paramount. There will be no multiday liberty passes without special permission. We will muster right here, on the flight deck, every morning at 07:30. Got it?”
“Yeeeeeeesssss, sir,” we all groaned.
“Gentlemen, the Philippines is currently fighting three civil actions. Over the past few years, rogue elements of the Philippine army have attempted to overthrow the government of Corazon Aquino multiple times. They all failed. Now they’re holed up in the mountains all over the island of Luzon doing all kinds of mischief. If they weren’t bad enough, we’ve got communist guerillas around here too. They’re called the New People’s Army, or NPA for short. Olongapo’s relatively safe, but things can get hairy beyond it. For that reason, the captain has put a twenty-five-mile quarantine around the city. If you get caught more than twenty-five miles from this base without permission, your liberty will be canceled. Any questions?”
Tony Bard raised his hand. “You said the Philippine government was fighting three civil actions. You listed off the NPA and the failed mutineers. What was the third?”
“The Moros down south,” Master Chief Darrow answered. “Tha
t’s a holy war involving the Muslims. That’s a long way away from here, though.”
“There is a curfew in Olongapo, men.” Again, the lieutenant’s statement met a chorus of groans, so he spoke up to be heard above them. “You can stay out in town overnight, but you need to be off of the street by zero-one hundred. If you get caught out after curfew, your liberty will be automatically revoked for the rest of our time in port. Master Chief, do you have anything else to tell the men?”
“Oh, do I,” Master Chief Darrow answered, rubbing his hands together deviously. “Men, there are plenty of drugs to be found around here in Olongapo. They’ve got some good stuff here, too. None of it, however, is worth the consequences of doing it. There is no cocaine to speak of in the Philippines, but they will gladly sell you heroin and tell you it’s coke. If you do it, you'll die. It’s that simple. It’s very pure. You may also come across something called shabu around here. This is methamphetamine. It’s highly addictive and also very powerful. A lot of the girls working the bars here are on this shit. I can hardly blame them. I’d be on something too if I had to sleep with your ugly asses. Especially yours, Palazzo!”
We all laughed. Even Palazzo. “If you catch your girl doing dope, walk away, gentlemen. If you are with a woman who gets busted with it, they’ll consider you in possession of it too. You will not survive very long in a Philippine prison, boys.”
I had a hard time taking my master chief seriously when it came to the topic of drugs. Especially after he spiked my drink with LSD in Las Vegas. That was probably why he was looking right at me while lecturing us on the subject.
“Now, to the subject of bar girls,” Darrow went on. “The main drag outside of the base is Magsaysay Drive. There is bar after bar there filled with more types of women than you could imagine. If you can think it up, you can find it there, boys. Now, there are also men out there that can make themselves up pretty damned good as women. They’re called ‘Benny Boys’ here. Gentlemen, there is only one sure way to tell these guys apart from actual women before it’s too late. Does anyone care to enlighten us?”
The crew grinned and turned to Palazzo, the division’s resident pervert. He sparked off a riot during our last trip to Tijuana by punching out a transvestite that he had been making out with inside of a whorehouse. “Look for the Adam’s apple,” John answered, setting off a roar of laughter from the rest of the men.
“That’s right, guys. Look for the Adam’s apple. Now, I would recommend staying close to base if you’re out carousing so that you can get back before curfew. If Magsaysay gets too rowdy or crowded, though, Barrio Barretto is within the 25-mile perimeter. It has everything Magsaysay has, but with a beach too. That’s a good time. Now, you may have heard about how Angeles City’s nightlife is so much better than Olongapo’s, and you’d have heard right. It’s much better. It’s also off-limits. So is Manila. And Pagsanjan…”
“A word about Pagsanjan,” Krause interrupted. “You guys are going to do what you guys are going to do. Whatever. Go to town, get your girls, soil your bodies and damn your immortal souls with sins of the flesh. I don’t care. Stay out of Pagsanjan. I mean it. That place is a hotbed of child prostitution. If I catch any one of you there, I promise you that I will have you imprisoned. I am not joking around about this, men. I spent three years stationed at Cubi Point. During that time, I put more men behind bars for using underaged prostitutes in Pagsanjan than the Armed Forces Police Department did. I will ruin you if I see you there! Is that clear?”
As the lieutenant warned us away from Pagsanjan, I caught a glimpse of Master Chief Darrow watching Krause as he spoke. He was studying the man as if something had piqued his interest. My master chief had the same look on his face as the two NCIS agents had on theirs when they were interrogating me after my fight with Randy Green. It was a cop look, the look of a predator who had caught the scent of some very tasty prey.
Sensing that I was looking at him, Darrow turned his head to me and grinned. He was on the hunt, and though I knew he would not tell me what it was quite yet, he wanted me to know something was up.
*****
CHAPTER 10
I was the Petty Officer of the Watch when the captain finally unleashed the Belleau Wood’s crew upon the streets of Olongapo. There were six hundred men in the hangar bay when I declared liberty call, and they were already streaming down the gangplank before I could finish the announcement. Unlike our base in San Diego, where you could walk from Pier 2 to the first bar outside of the main entrance in ten minutes, Subic Bay was immense. It seemed like a fifteen-minute bus ride just to reach the station’s perimeter.
By the time I was relieved from watch, the Wood was deserted and silent, quieter by seventeen-hundred than it usually was in the dead of night. I remember wondering what it must have sounded like in town right about then. After changing into dungarees and grabbing a quick dinner, I made my way to the EMO to scavenge for office supplies.
When I opened the door and turned on the overhead lamps, I was startled by the agitated shouting of Lieutenant Krause. He was yelling at me to turn off the light as he tried to find his sunglasses. “You have a migraine or something, sir?” I asked.
“No, but I will if I don’t give my eyes time to adjust!” Krause barked at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I need some pens and grease pencils for the PMS board,” I answered, stepping over to get a better look at my division officer. I figured something was going on and wanted to see what it was. “What are you doing here, sir? This is the Navy’s last hurrah in Subic Bay. Aren’t you going to get out into town and take it all in before it's gone?”
“Good riddance,” the lieutenant growled. Now that he was wearing his shades, Krause flipped the switch on the fluorescent lamp over his desk to give us some light. It did not reveal anything out of the ordinary. The bible that he always kept close by was before him on the desk, lying unopened. I suspected that I interrupted him in prayer. “This is a wicked place, Petty Officer Murphy. It’s a wicked place besotted to the whims of wicked men, rotten to its core. Olongapo has been damning the souls of American sailors for a century now. I’m rejoicing that the Lord has finally seen fit to remove this stain of evil from the moral fiber of the United States Navy.”
“I don’t think God had much to do with us pulling out of the Philippines, sir. I think it was Corazon Aquino and President Bush.”
“Oh? You think so?” Krause asked. “You think President Aquino and President Bush smote Clark Air Base too, wiping it off of the map as God did to Sodom and Gomorrah?”
I sighed. Sixteen months before, Mount Pinatubo exploded. It was the second most powerful eruption of the twentieth century. Clark suffered extensive damage, but saying that it was wiped off of the map was an overstatement. In fact, my understanding was that it was accessible enough to be looted by the Philippine military before the Americans could return to it. That was one of the reasons the US gave it up. It was too expensive to repair the airfield and to replace all the stuff that had been stolen.
As for all the wickedness Krause was pontificating about, all Pinatubo did was move it. Some of Angeles City’s working girls went to the flesh markets of Manila. Others came to Olongapo. The truth was that the eruption drove down the price of tail everywhere on the island of Luzon not covered in seven feet of ash. “Well, sir,” I started to say, once again ignoring my better judgment. I knew little good ever came from voicing doubts about where the pious saw their miracles. “Considering all the damage that volcano did, I did not hear of anyone getting turned into pillars of salt.”
Krause glowered at me. “You think it's funny to mock God, son?”
I wasn’t mocking God, sir. I was mocking you. “I find little humorous about religion, sir.”
The lieutenant opened his mouth to say something but reconsidered. He looked tired, like he did not have the energy even to try to rage at me that evening. “Murphy, get what you came in here for and get out. Go catch up with the rest of the whore-mo
ngers out in town.”
“I’m not a whore-monger, sir. I don’t pay for sex.”
Krause cocked an eyebrow at my tone. “You sound offended.”
“Well, I am a little bit.”
“Wait a second…you’re offended when I imply that you’re going to go out into town and do what ninety-percent of the crew is doing out there? Yet, you’re not even the least bit ashamed of being a godless atheist?”
I shrugged. “Not ashamed at all. I’d be more ashamed believing an idiot like Father Bennigan somehow had all the answers to the cosmos when he couldn’t even navigate a clitoris.”
That slipped out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop it. I expected Krause to have a conniption, but all he could do was shake his head. “It’s your soul, Murphy.”
Considering that the end of our conversation, I stepped away to get my office supplies. I was interrupted by an urgent announcement over the 1MC before I could finish, though. “Security Alert! Security Alert! Away the Security Alert Team! Away the Back-up Alert Force! All hands not involved in Security Alert stand fast! Reason for Security Alert: small craft approaching the ship on the starboard side!” There was an urgency to the Petty Officer of the Watch's voice that made me feel like this was not a drill.
As a member of the Combat Systems department, I was a part of the Security Alert Team. I dropped everything and stormed out of the EMO office, running to the Master-at-Arms shack where the weapons were stored.
When I hit the main deck, I ran into DS3 Darren Stovic. An inveterate gambler, I guessed that he had his duty section poker game interrupted. “Is this a drill?” he asked.
“I have no idea.” I had to duck to avoid cracking my skull on the top of one of the watertight fittings. We had a security alert drill every day for the duty section. They were typically delivered in monotone, though. “Crider sounded a little excited, didn’t he?”