The Med

by David Poyer

  “Dismissed,” Chapman stated. “Obvious insanity. Any more charges, prosecutor?”

  “A whole bagful, not worth wasting the time of the honorable judge,” said the prosecutor, slamming shut the log.

  “We agree … we will now proceed to the tests. Blindfold the accused.”

  Two more raw eggs seeped down from under the blindfold. Rogelio started to giggle. “Is the accused laughing at this court?” Chapman screamed.

  “No, sir. It’s hiccups,” said Morton.

  “More truth serum for this lying shyster!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And another twenty dollars fine. Bring out the first test.”

  The board was eight feet long, with mouse traps nailed to it. The chiefs set it a foot off the deck, on firebrick, and hoisted Rogelio to one end. “The accused will note that he is standing on The Plank,” the prosecutor intoned. “The way is narrow and adorned with bear traps. If you slide your foot forward you’ll feel one. Just to show you they’re armed.…” The prosecutor tripped the first trap with a stick, and the naked man jerked his bare foot backward, almost falling off the plank.

  “Proceed,” said Chapman.

  Rogelio edged forward blindly, balancing himself against the roll of the ship, and lifted his foot for the first step. He came up on the second trap, missed it, and the prosecutor tripped it closed with a snap. He took another step, another, learning to slide his toes forward until he felt the edge of the mouse trap, then lifting his foot over in a bold step. He came to the end, teetered, then jumped down. The chiefs were dead silent.

  “The accused has passed the first test. Prosecutor, bring on the Bed of Glass.”

  An aluminum tray was duly produced, and shaken back and forth as audible witness that it was full of jagged shards. “Every piece of glassware broken on the mess decks this year is in that tray. The accused will mount the chair.”

  “I am now placing the Bed of Glass beneath you,” the prosecutor explained. Rogelio nodded the blindfold. “You will now call on one of those whose ranks you aspire to join, to properly place the tray.”

  “Chief … Wronowicz?” said the radarman.

  Wronowicz hustled forward, grinning. He rattled the tray loudly in front of the chair, made as if he was setting it down, and silently switched it with the other tray the prosecutor as silently handed over. “Ready,” he said to Rogelio. “Safe as houses when you’re with Wronowicz. Jump right down, straight in front of the chair.”

  “I … do I got to?”

  “Nope,” said Chapman promptly. “This is the one test that’s voluntary. In case the worst happens, we have the Doc standing by. ’Course, if you elect not to take it, you call the whole thing off…”

  “Okay,” said Rogelio. They could see him bite his lip. “Here goes.” He stepped off the chair, and a gruesome crunch filled the room. Rogelio tore his blindfold off and stared down at his feet. He lifted one. It was covered with broken potato chips.

  “For this next, and last trial, the blindfold will be removed. Attach the Device.”

  The Device was a length of ninethread line, tossed over a sturdy pipe in the overhead. One end led through the lifting pad of a generator casing, and Chief Sullivan grunted as he hoisted it above his head. Rogelio paled as Chief Blood, looking his most sadistic, tied a slip knot and made the other end fast around his balls.

  “Hey!”

  “Is the accused ready?”

  “No! Hey, wait—”

  “Corpsman, stand by—let ’er go!”

  Sullivan dropped the casing and jumped back. It plummeted downward, the line twanged taut, and the pipe came out of the overhead, trailing string and masking tape, and followed the casing to the deck with a terrific crash. The room broke into cheers, and Chapman got up to clap a relieved-looking radarman on the back. “Fine performance,” he said, smiling. “Prosecutor, bring out Chief Rogelio’s anchors.”

  Rogelio’s smile vanished as he saw the plate. It was filled with dogshit, a coiled heap of it six inches high. “You’ll have to eat a lot of this when you wear khakis,” Chapman said. “Might as well get used to it now. Go on, your anchors are in there. No, don’t use your hands.”

  When he held his smeared face up at last, the gold anchors gleaming in his teeth, the other chiefs broke from their seats to surround him, clapping him on the back and wiping chocolate icing from his face with a towel. They brought out his uniform and he dropped his diapers for skivvies and then khakis, and the XO and the senior chief pinned on the gleaming new insignia of an E-7. Chapman stepped back, letting the audience applaud, then held up an imperious hand. The room quieted.

  “Chief Rogelio, during the course of this day you have suffered indignities and experienced humiliation. This you accomplished with rare good grace, and I now believe it fitting to explain why we did this.

  “There was no intent, and no desire, to demean or insult you.

  “It was done to show you that your entire life changed today. More will be expected of you; more will be demanded. You have not merely been promoted a pay grade. You have joined an exclusive fraternity.

  “Its privileges, and its responsibilities, do not appear in print. They exist because Navy chiefs for two hundred years before you have accepted responsibility beyond the call of their assignments.

  “You were humiliated to prove that humiliation cannot mar you. Bear humiliations and accolades alike with the same dignity and good grace you bore them with today.

  “We take a deep and sincere pleasure in clasping your hand, and accepting you as one of us.”

  With that, the ceremony ended. Wronowicz shook the new chief’s hand as the gathering broke up, then strolled thoughtfully back into the scullery for a glass of ice water.

  He found himself, more and more these days, musing over things after any kind of ceremony—and the Navy had quite a few, from the oath when you first enlisted to the Service for Burial at Sea. When he was younger, he thought they were a load of baloney; now that his hair was thinning, he realized that a lot of things that he had thought were baloney weren’t.

  It was like that with the initiation, he thought. Chapman had summed it up pretty well, but there were some things you could say better without words. As a chief you had to walk in the dark sometimes and trust your luck. You had to rely on your fellow chiefs. You had to lay it all on the line sometimes, with the officers or with your men, risk losing your rank or else deny what that rank was all about. And yeah, you did have to eat crap sometimes, and it wasn’t always chocolate. It was all part of being a chief. Like the oath said, the chiefs were the Navy, after all.

  Yeah, it was all real symbolic. He brought the glass out into the lounge with him, wishing it was bourbon, and settled in with Blood and Sullivan and Chapman for a quick game before bed. Blood dealt, his satyr’s beard close over the table as cards fluttered through the tilting air of the lounge.

  “Rough tonight,” said Sullivan mildly. “Unc, what we got coming?”

  “My kind of weather,” grinned Blood. “Whitecaps in your coffee cups. Got a semitropical heading up from Africa; it’ll pass us close aboard. Five-card stud, deuces. What do you say … how’d you like the initiation?”

  “Real good. You ran it real well, Pop.”

  Old Chief Chapman made a face. “Not like what we had in the old days. Quonset Point, once, we had a winter initiation. Got a tumbler of booze in each of them, stripped ’em, marched ’em out onto this fresh-water lake and went ice fishin’.”

  “Christ,” said Sullivan.

  “Wasn’t too bad, we only lost one guy’s pecker.”

  “You jerks going to ante up, or what?” said Blood.

  “Did somebody just turn on a forced draft blower?”

  “Up yours.”

  “Ten.”

  “Yup.”

  “Gimme three.”

  “Two cards.”

  “Real el crappo hand.”

  “So anyway,” said Wronowicz, chilling his tongue on a deep d
raught of water, “d’ja hear the one about the Jewish princess, got herself a gold diaphragm?”

  “Why’s that?”

  “So’s her men would all come into money.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Raise you ten.”

  “Shit!”

  “Pass.”

  “Yeah,” said Blood, squinting at his hand, then reaching into his pocket for a cigar. “You guys want one?… Sully?”

  “Sure.”

  “That reminds me of the one about this guy goes into a bar. He’s dressed in a tux, got this flashy blonde on his arm. He makes like he’s this big shot, tells the bartender, ‘Bring me a bottle of good wine. Got any Chateau Lepew, 1937?’ ‘Wait a minute—I think we might,’ says the bar-hop. He goes down into the cellar and comes up a couple minutes later with this old, dusty bottle with spiderwebs all over it. Pass.”

  “Pass.”

  “Raise you a quarter.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Blood lit the cigar. “So the guy smells the cork, and makes a big production out of tasting it. Then he says, ‘There’s something wrong here. This isn’t a ’37. I think it’s a ’38.’ So the bartender wipes the dust off with his elbow, and sure enough, there on the label it says 1938. ‘Gee,’ he says, ‘sorry. I’ll go get you the ’37.’ And he goes back down in the cellar.”

  “You look like a movie star with that cigar, Unc,” said Sullivan.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, like Lassie taking a shit,” said Chapman. He giggled. “Sorry, Sully, I heard it a long time ago.”

  “Back on the Maine, I’ll bet,” said Blood.

  “Like you’re always saying to me, tell the goddamn joke,” said Wronowicz.

  “Bartender comes up with another bottle, the guy tries it, says ‘No, that’s a ’36.’ He cleans off the label, sure enough it says 1936. He shakes his head, goes down again, comes back up. This time he checks the label first, and the guy in the tux tastes it, nods, says ‘Yeah, that’s it. 1937.’

  “Meanwhile, there’s this old warrant sitting at the bar, drunk as shit, watching it all and muttering to himself. After a while he calls the bartender over and says ‘Gimme a wineglass.’ The bartender gives it to him, and he turns around there at the bar and pisses it full. Then he calls over to the civilian, ‘Hey! Taste this stuff,’ and slides it down the bar to him.

  “The guy takes one sip and sprays it all over the bar. ‘That’s urine!’ he says.

  “‘Sure,’ says the warrant, ‘it’s piss. But tell me: How old am I?’”

  The four chiefs laughed. Chapman took the pot and scooped it in, putting it in his empty cup to keep it from sliding over the table as the destroyer rolled. “Your deal,” said Sullivan to Wronowicz.

  “Boston. Seven cards, three up, nothing wild. Unc, that must be the same warrant that went into a bar one day with three of his pals.”

  “Sounds like him so far, yeah.”

  “They sit in the back for a while, then the warrant comes up to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender is this big ugly guy—”

  “Sounds like you, Kelly.”

  “Shut up. With a busted nose. Mean-looking. The warrant watches him polishing the bar, and finally he says, ‘Say. You a betting man, Shorty?’

  “‘Sometimes,’ says the barkeep.

  “‘I’ll bet you a buck I can bite my eye,’ says the warrant.

  “‘Bite your eye? You’re on,’ says the barkeep. So the warrant reaches up, takes out his glass eye, and bites it and puts it back. The big guy shakes his head, pays him a dollar. The warrant sits for a while, drinking, then says, ‘Say. Want to make another bet?’

  “‘What is it this time?’ says the bartender. Now he’s suspicious, see.”

  “Good cards at last,” said Sullivan, his face lighting up. “Raise four bits.”

  “In.”

  “Forget it.”

  “See you and another two bits, too.”

  “Heavy betting,” said Chapman.

  “‘Bet you five bucks I can bite my other eye,’ says the warrant.”

  “His other eye?” said Sullivan.

  “Yeah. So the bartender says, ‘Now, wait a minute. You didn’t come in here with no dog. Sure, it’s a stupid bet, but I’ll take it.’ He puts down a five, and then the warrant takes out his false teeth, bites his other eye, and puts them back in.”

  “Ha. Good one,” said Blood, and it was unclear whether he meant his hand or the story.

  “The big guy’s kind of mad, but he goes back to polishing the bar. The warrant sits for a while, then he says, ‘Tell you what—I hate to see a man lose twice. One more bet. Bet you I can piss a beer bottle full while it’s sliding down the counter, without spilling a drop.’

  “‘There’s no way you can do that,’ says the barkeep.

  “‘Ten bucks says I can.’

  “‘I can’t pass this one up,’ says the barkeep. So he takes an empty bottle, the warrant unzips his fly and hauls his dick out, and the barkeep skates it down the bar. The warrant runs along the bar, pissing like a horse, and it goes all over the bar. He doesn’t get drop one in the bottle. ‘You stupid shit,’ says the big guy, laughing his ass off. ‘Pay up.’ So the warrant pays up, and starts to leave. ‘Wait a minute,’ says the barkeep. ‘You knew you couldn’t do that. Didn’t you?’

  “‘Yeah, I guess so,’ says the warrant.

  “‘So you just dropped ten bucks. How come?’

  “‘Well,’ says the warrant, ‘you’re right. But, see, I bet my pals there in back a hundred bucks that I could piss all over your bar and make you laugh about it.’”

  Their laughter was interrupted by the drone of a foghorn, muffled by the many decks between them and the mast, but still distinct. They saw Blood stiffen. “You got to go up?” said Sullivan.

  “Nah. Captain’s up there, and the navigator. It’s probably just a squall.” He relaxed, but still chewed at the cigar, which had gone out. “Your deal, Pop.”

  Chapman dealt. “Singapore,” he said.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “You’ll see … picked it up in Havana. You ever been to Havana? No, you boys are all too young.”

  “Jesus, yes,” said Wronowicz. “You pick up anything else in Havana?”

  “Oh yeah.” Chapman chuckled. “That was one wide-open port … you boys think the Med is wild, you ought to of seen the hair shows on Calle Punta.”

  “I was to a dog and pony once, in Tijuana,” contributed Sullivan, and they looked at him.

  “Kid stuff … they had this dame on Punta Street, used to pick up coins with her twat. Guys would throw them up on stage, she’d kind of squat down, wiggle around, and stand up with it there, no hands. Damnedest thing you ever saw. So one time,” Chapman giggled, “this motormac I was with, I was a third-class then, he got out a silver dollar, and we heated it up with our Zippos and tossed it up on stage. God-damn! You never heard such a ruckus.”

  “How the hell old are you, anyway, Pop?” Blood asked him.

  “I’m so old,” said Chapman, giggling over the cards, “I was tyin’ square knots before you got the pins out of your diapers. I’m so old that squeezin’ into a parking space satisfies me sexually. I’m so old I remember before they had crappers.”

  “Come off it,” said Wronowicz.

  “Serious … in the old Navy they didn’t have none of these porcelain thrones. You sat in a line over a trough, just a steady stream of seawater goin’ under you. It was the goddamn funniest thing…”

  “Funny?” said Sullivan, tossing one of his last coins into the pot.

  “Yeah, ever so often some smartass on the end would wad up some toilet paper, light it, and float it on down the line. Scorch everybody’s butt, they’d pop up and scream one after the other … jeep carrier once I was on, they had an avgas leak in the piping system, contaminated the firemains; guy threw his butt into the trough and it exploded, killed two weather-guessers and a reserve lieutenant commander.”

&nb
sp; The three younger chiefs looked at Chapman, undecided whether to laugh or believe him, and his wizened poker face—it seemed almost as old as the sea itself—gave them no clue at all. “Shit,” said Wronowicz at last. “Let’s play some cards, here. You and your goddamn sea stories. Next you’ll be telling us you were a plankowner on the Ark. Cut the friggin’ cards, it’s your deal, Sully.”

  “This better turn out. I’m ’bout broke.”

  “I got the next watch anyway,” said Blood, fanning out his cards. “This is the last hand for me. Yeah … yeah. Kelly, you ever get back to that babe in Naples?”

  “No,” said Wronowicz shortly. He wished Blood hadn’t mentioned her; he had hardly thought about her all day.

  “Some piece … I thought those goddamn bersagleers had us.”

  “Where’d you put the bed, Kelly?”

  “Lashed it down in one of the fan rooms.”

  “Gimme three.”

  “Two.”

  “Think I’ll stick with these, crummy as they are.”

  “Yeah, I had me a redhot shack-up a few years ago in Newport,” Blood mused. “Secretary at the ninety-day-wonder school there. Thirty-six-inch bust, chokies big as silver dollars … nipples as big as your thumb. Tell a dirty joke, get her excited, you could see them pop right up under her dress. She was right-handed. The right one always went first; then the left one, and you knew she was ready. Crummy face but great boobs, and I’m your basic tit man. She loved to take it aboard, too, but there was one problem.”

  “What was that?” said Chapman.

  “She smelled. It was like northern herring after a week in the sun. We used to go out bicycling, and it got so bad I had to stay upwind of her.”

  Sullivan looked uncomfortable. “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “What’s wrong, Sully?”

  “Nothing, nothing.”

  “Yeah, she liked it, all right. I bet she had more sailors aboard than the U.S.S. Independence. Most guys was only good for maybe three times for her, though. But she had the old wide-on for me and no lie. She even said she was in love with me.”

  The table was quiet for a moment as the chiefs concentrated on their cards. “Why didn’t you tell her?” grunted Wronowicz.