by J. E. Park
The girls fell silent and looked over at our leading petty officer. He nodded at Anna. “Yeah, I’m not feeling very good. Tala, can I use your bathroom?”
The faces of both Tala and Mahal contorted in terror as they ran screaming from our apartment. “Noooooo! No! No! No! NOOOOOOOOO!”
Elena ran too, locking herself into her room while Anna did the same. Tony tried to enter after his girlfriend, but she wedged herself between the bed and the door to keep him out. “Anna! Please! Let me in!”
“Let you in?” Anna yelled back. “What you t’ink you gonna do in here! Shit in you bed?!? No! I no lettin’ you in!”
She had a point. Since I had the sink and Dixie had the bathroom, there was only one option left. Ripping off his shorts, Bard dove into the kiddie pool in the middle of our living room and, while purging his bowels, earned his Tequila Viking tattoo.
Despite everything going on, I started to laugh. It was all I could do. I could not see him at all, but I heard Dixie begin cracking up as well. His laughter echoed off the sides of the toilet bowl, making everything even funnier. After a little while, probably because Dixie and I could not stop, Tony busted up too. Before we knew it, the three of us were roaring between dry heaves and explosive bowel movements. “IT NO PUNNY!” Elena screamed from behind the door, making us laugh even more.
“Hey sweetie,” I called over to her. “Can you please bring us some toilet paper?”
“And something to read!” Dixie yelled. “I’m going to be here a while!”
We were stuck like that for hours. We thought we were done a couple of times, but any attempt to move was met with near disaster. At dawn, we were just well enough to clean up as best we could to get back to the ship. The apartment was such a mess that we seriously discussed abandoning it.
*****
“How was your night?” I asked Master Chief Darrow after quarters.
He looked pale and exhausted. “Pretty rough,” he said. “You guys get sick?”
Bard could barely stand; he was so wiped out. “Oh my god, did we ever. You should see our apartment.”
“You should see my fuckin’ bed,” Darrow countered.
“Oh no, don’t tell me you shit the bed,” Dixie said.
“Shit the bed? Fuck, guys! I shit all over Lorna!”
I busted out laughing, pissing Darrow off since he was trying to keep his voice down. “It’s not funny, Doyle! I was lying on my side, naked, my ass facing her way, and there was no fucking warning! I thought I was dealing with a runaway fart, but I lost complete control. Shit went flying everywhere!”
By now, Dixie and Bard were dying too, so even Master Chief Darrow caught himself giggling under his breath. “Okay. Maybe it’s a little bit funny. For Christ’s sake, though! I met my son for the very first time yesterday, and the kid couldn’t even look me in the eye this morning after seeing what I did! You think he was afraid of me when we first met? You should see him now!”
*****
If the trip to Lorna’s village was the best day of our time in the Philippines, the day after was among the worst. Dixie, Bard, and I spent the morning on the ship trying to recuperate, which turned out to be a good move. After we ate lunch, we were struck with a second wave. Fortunately, our ship’s heads were far better equipped to deal with it.
Once we were sure everything had passed, the three of us made our way back to the apartment to try to tidy up what we could. When we got there, though, we saw that Tala had nearly finished cleaning it all by herself. Elena and Anna packed up and left. The USS Belleau Wood only had a little over a week left in port anyway, and the two girls figured that now was a good time to cut their losses and split. Both Tony and Dixie seemed almost relieved. It saved them the trouble of telling them goodbye later.
Tala was determined not to let me off the hook so easily. We were all amazed by how much she had accomplished. The only big job left for us was to get rid of the rancid kiddie pool with the defiled remains of our gecko stew still sloshing around inside of it. We drained it as best we could with a bucket. Ultimately, though, we still had to carry it outside like three pallbearers mourning the demise of a favored beverage. We threw it over the courtyard’s back wall into the jungle, doing our best to place it where the monkeys congregated. It was a final “fuck you” from our friend Claude Metaire.
*****
As bad as our morning was, Master Chief Darrow’s was far worse. Dixie, Bard, and I were on the ship when the second wave of bagoong belly struck us down. The master chief was at a local fish market, wearing a pair of white shorts, when it hit him.
He was in the middle of a crowded street, shoulder to shoulder with a mob of humanity when the sensation crept up on him. It happened so fast that all he could do was look at Lorna and say, “God help us,” before undoing his belt and dropping trou straight to his knees.
At first, the crowd looked at him in surprise and disapproval, trying to figure out what he was doing. When he fired off a warning shot though, people began pushing to get out of the way. It was as if they just heard the second horn heralding the arrival of the apocalypse. After Darrow’s bowels cleared themselves the first time, they broke into a full stampede.
Knowing that the cops would be getting there soon, Darrow tried to run away with them. He could not gain much speed with his shorts around his knees, though. He knew that he could not pull his pants back up before running, either. With white shorts on, everyone would be able to tell exactly who had desecrated the fish market.
Lorna knew this and swooped in to help. Yelling at her son to stay close, she ran to one of the ice tables and grabbed a bucket of water from off the ground. She then bolted back to the master chief and started splashing it on his bare behind to clean him up. As Lorna did this, Darrow skipped over to one of the vendor tables, where he saw rows of tuna wrapped in old newspaper. Tearing off a large piece of yesterday’s headlines from one of the fish, my master chief was able to finish the job. He then got his pants back up, scooped up his son, and ran for home.
It was a story that earned an honorable mention on Olongapo’s nightly news broadcast. The reporters stated that the authorities were close to identifying a suspect, but they never did. That was once again thanks to the interference run by Sergeant Rico Tejada of the Philippine National Police. Master Chief Darrow did not get so much as an indecent exposure ticket.
Now, it was obvious that men like Darrow were not in the habit of seeking validation from their subordinates, but, regardless, we were all in awe that the man unleashed a bowel movement sensational enough to be mentioned on TV. We doubted that our master chief wanted to join our little club, but we made a point of letting him know that he had done more than enough to earn the coveted Tequila Viking tattoo.
I also cannot express how honored we were when he told us that he intended to get it inked on his back the next time we pulled into Hong Kong.
*****
CHAPTER 24
B ill Kramer, the former nemesis of Warren Macklemore, was a drooling idiot. After his part in getting Macklemore thrown out of the Navy, Kramer ended up something of a pariah. Despite being married, Bill spent his time in the Philippines accompanying one of his few friends, Mike Deaver, through every whorehouse in Olongapo while still claiming to be faithful to his wife. This became a source of great hilarity when he picked up a scorching case of gonorrhea.
The general rule in the US Navy was that whatever happened in the Philippines stayed in the Philippines. As despised as Kramer was, nobody considered telling his wife what he had been up to. Well, nobody considered it besides Kramer, anyway. Painfully aware of how disliked he was, Bill was sure that someone would rat him out. To get ahead of the problem, he thought it would be a good idea to call his wife and confess. It wasn't.
Donna was furious. She called her husband a long list of names to make sure that he knew exactly how big a scumbag he was. At some point in that conversation, Kramer thought he would look better if he told his wife that he was not the on
ly errant husband in Olongapo. He dropped the names of several married men in the department that he saw cavorting with Filipina prostitutes, too. He also dropped the names of a couple that didn't, among them my guy, Rick Hammond, and Stu Pulaski, who worked for Bard in Comm Repair.
The men were livid with Kramer, to say the least. Even Deaver, Bill’s stalwart drinking buddy, abandoned him. He did not want to be anywhere near the guy when the men decided to take their pound of flesh.
Accused of whoring around on liberty, Hammond stopped going out into town and offered to take my last duty day in the Philippines for me. I wanted to accept his offer, but I discovered that tension with Kramer had reached a boiling point. I got word that several men were planning to escort the son-of-a-bitch to the Nixie Room for a “bo’sun locker counseling session.” In other words, they were going to kick the living shit out of him.
It was almost a year to the day since I beat Randy Green into epilepsy in that very space. I was not about to let good men, especially ET3 Pulaski, make that same mistake. When they opened the door to the Nixie to see if their stolen key worked, they found me inside waiting for them.
“You all know that this is a secured space, right?” I asked the surprised men. I then pointed to the small torpedo-shaped devices secured against the aft wall. “See those fish over there? The electromagnetic frequencies they transmit are classified. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ll be in if you got caught stealing the key to this room?”
The men all looked at each other in shock, but no one offered to guess. I had to answer my own question for them. “You’d be in a lot of trouble, but, not nearly as much as you’ll get into for beating Kramer’s ass.”
“Look, Doyle!” Airman Clepper shouted at me, “That man ruined my fucking marriage!”
“No, Joe,” I countered. “You ruined your own marriage. All Kramer did was out you for it. Look, I’m not condoning what the dickhead did. It was a punk move. I’m not going to let you all make a bad situation irretrievably worse, though. Trust me, guys. Think about what I went through with Randy Green. That man nearly died and I almost spent the best years of my life in the stockade for it. The captain was very clear to me after that. If he hears of crew members taking matters into their own hands again, he’s going to make sure that they do hard time for it. There isn’t going to be any reduction in rate, sixty days restriction, and forfeiture of a half month’s pay times two. You’re going to prison.”
Cleveland was not persuaded. “That son-of-a-bitch is getting me divorced!”
“Then you’re getting divorced,” I told him. “Would you rather go through a divorce as a free man or as a federal prisoner?”
When nobody answered, I nodded my head in understanding. “I’m sorry this happened. I can assure you that nobody wants to see Bill Kramer get his ass beat more than me. I’m not willing to lose a single one of you to have it done, though.” Holding out my hand, I ordered Pulaski to turn over the keys.
After the men had left, I locked up the Nixie Winch Room and then returned the stolen key to the EMO office. I was a little disappointed to discover that Lieutenant Krause was not there. As much as I hated that man, I had doubts about whether he was responsible for the attempted hit on Darrow. I thought some resentful shabu dealer or a gangster with a grudge was a far more likely suspect. I wanted a little more interaction with the lieutenant to get a better read on the guy but would not be getting it that day.
I let myself out of the EMO through the porthole and climbed the ladder to the SPN-35 platform. I intended to string my hammock up to do some serious thinking. However, when I got to the door, I discovered it was already open and full of cigarette smoke. Master Chief Darrow was sitting on the deck with his back up against the aft wall. He looked like hell.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I walked inside. I was going to light a cigarette myself, but the air in the dome was already so thick that I did not need to. Reaching behind the radar, I turned on the air conditioning to filter out some of the smoke.
“Not really,” Darrow told me while shaking his head. “I have a big decision to make and I’m really struggling with it. I’m wondering if you’re struggling with the same one. Do you know what you’re going to do about Tala and the kid?”
I let out a long sigh. “That’s what I was coming here to think about.”
“She’s good for you, Doyle,” my master chief told me.
I nodded. “Do you know that I’ve not had a single episode since we’ve been together? No flashbacks, no nightmares, nothing? Not even after watching that prick get shot at the Dirty Crow. Everything I’ve ever been through, my family, the girl in El Salvador, Hulagu, even Randy Green, it’s like it’s all gone. I think it’s because I know that no matter what I do, Tala and Mari will be there for me if I want them to be. As fucked up as I am, I’m the best option they got.”
“Are you going to be there for them?”
I dropped my head into my hands. “Fuck! I don’t know, Master Chief! I just don’t know! I want to, but for Christ’s sake! She was a whore. I can take the girl out of the bar, but can I get the bar out of the girl? I keep going back to those goofy-looking fuckers I always saw walking 32nd Street with gorgeous Filipina girls on their arms. I was always thinking, ‘Ha! That loser had to marry himself a hooker!’ Am I big enough to have people look at me and Tala that way and not care? I’m not sure I am.”
I put my back up against the dome and slid down to the deck to put myself at my master chief’s level. After lighting myself a smoke anyway, I asked, “Do you remember Space Kate from Ocean Beach? You met her the night I got engaged to Hannah.”
Darrow shook his head. “Not really.”
“Well, she was a good friend of ours. After Hannah dumped my ass, she told me that there was no way that we would have made it anyway. She said it was better things got broken off before we got married. She said she loved Hannah, but she’d led something of a sheltered life. Without having been through a lot of adversity, Kate said that Hannah'd never be able to relate to all the shit I’d gone through. She just wouldn’t be able to understand.”
I paused as I tried to remember the exact words that Kate had said to me. “She told me something like, ‘One day, you’re going to meet someone that can handle you. You'll meet a girl who’s been through a lot of shit herself. The two of you will make each other very happy.’ I’m sitting here wondering if Tala may be that girl.”
Darrow nodded. “She might be.”
“And she might be like any one of the chicks you come across at the Trophy Lounge on any given night. Maybe she's just manipulating me into taking her and her kid back to the States so that she can dump me and find someone better. I’ve barely known her a month, Master Chief. I haven’t had the time to figure out exactly what I’m dealing with here.”
Master Chief Darrow thought for several moments before asking me a question. “Would you like more time?”
“Here? In Olongapo? Sure,” I answered. “You can manage that?”
Darrow shrugged. “Eventually. Doyle, I’ve got a year until I retire. Twelve months. After that, I’m coming back.”
I winced. “Are you serious? What about your wife? What about Jung?”
Letting out yet another long sigh, Darrow said, “I’m going to ask for a divorce. Doyle, I’ve got a son here in the Philippines. A mixed-race son. Do you know what the phrase ‘pekeng tisoy’ means?”
“I know that ‘pekeng’ means ‘fake.’ I’ve never heard the word ‘tisoy’ before, though.”
“It means white boy. Pekeng tisoy means something like ‘fake American.’ It’s what Filipinos call the Amer-Asian kids around here, the children of prostitutes. It’s like calling a black man a nigger back home. That’s the kind of shit my boy’s going to be up against growing up here on his own.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Yeah, but if his old man’s around to protect him, get him educated, and set him up with a livelihood, well, he’ll be fine. Hell, the
mayor of Olongapo, Dick Gordon, is the son of a half-breed. He’s even a quarter Jewish in a very Catholic country. His old man, Jimmy Gordon, was the guy who got Olongapo returned to the Philippines. Before him, the city was run by the base commander, an American military officer. If I stay, my boy has a fighting chance at being somebody. If I leave, he’s going to end up an outcast, like the shabu junkie that tried to kill me at the Dirty Crow.”
I shook my head. “I don’t blame you, Master Chief, but it doesn’t seem very fair to Jung.”
“It’s not,” Darrow groaned. “She’s a grown, industrious woman, though. She can take care of herself. My son can’t.”
After taking a drag off of my cigarette, I asked, “You think Tala can take care of herself?”
My master chief did not even hesitate. “Not really. She’ll try. She’ll get out of Olongapo, try to find work. She’s a peasant girl, though. She doesn’t have any skills. Sooner or later, Mari will get hungry. The temptation for Tala to start selling herself again will prove too hard to resist. Tala’s done a remarkable job so far, Doyle, but these women eventually break. They start using dope to dull the pain, and then there’s no going back. Odds are that Mari will end up following her mother into the same line of work.”
“Fuck you, Master Chief.”
“What?” My insult caught Darrow off guard.
“How stupid do you think I am?” I asked. “You think I’m too dumb not to realize when I’m being played? You’re trying to guilt me into staying with Tala, aren’t you? Why? You’re playing some sort of angle here. What do you want?”
“What are you talking about?” Darrow tried to claim innocence, but he sounded disingenuous.
“What. Do. You. Want?”
My master chief sighed and gave in. He knew I wanted him to get to the point. “I want to help, Doyle. I want to help you. And me.”