by McKay, KC
The
Goodwill
Gesture
by
KC McKay
Written by KC McKay
ISBN:
All rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of a brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, events, and places in this novel are used fictitiously or are products of the author's imagination.
Copyright © 2016
All rights reserved.
Paperback Version
ISBN:1523703059
ISBN-13: 978-1523703050
If it wasn't for…
Thanks to my professional editor, EJ Clarke.
And I'd like to thank Rod and Steve for helping me keep the male psyche as it should be in matters of the heart and mind.
And to Lee for his input and assistance in military matters.
***
This is not meant to be an accurate description of Navy life. Although many things are fact-based, I have invoked my artistic license to create an entertaining story. Some situations have been manipulated for entertainment value.
So laugh, cry, smile, or whatever you want to do—
just enjoy it for what it is.
A fun story!
Dedicated to all the brave
Servicemen and Women
Who protect us night and day
Chapter 1
The Little Red Caboose on the outskirts of Honolulu was always a good place to meet women with a high sex drive. The bouncer stood at the entrance, checked my ID, then let me in.
A model train circled around the room about eight feet above the crowded floor. All the cargo cars carried bottles of the different brands of beer served in the bar. Other train memorabilia lay scattered around with flashing railroad lights and that damn train chugging out choo-choos on its way around the track combined with loud, shrill whistles.
Two dark-haired women sat at a table in the middle of the room. I guessed them to be in their early-twenties, like me. The balmy, slightly humid Pacific evening had lured one of them into wearing a plain teal tank top and she hadn't bothered with a bra. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, keeping it out of the way of her large breasts. The other girl was kind of Eskimo-looking, perhaps escaping the Alaskan winter to spend January in the Hawaiian heat. She was cute in her own way.
I wore my white pants, a yellow t-shirt, and a white linen jacket like that Miami Vice guy, Don Johnson. The girl in the store said it suited my 'petitely muscular frame.'
I straightened my jacket and walked up to their table. "Hi, can I buy you ladies a drink?"
The girls looked at each other. "A drink, huh? I can see you're one of the original ones, aren't you?" The big breasted one commented. She took a sip of her something and cola drink.
"No, that was your cue. I say, 'would you like a drink?' and you say, 'Well, helloooo, sailor.'" I smiled.
The girl in the tank top rolled her eyes. The Eskimo nudged her friend and whispered something. Whatever she said, it was enough to turn the cards in my favor.
"Oh, go on then," Busty said, batting her eyelashes. "Get us a couple of rum and cokes, Popeye."
The girls giggled.
I went to the bar and got the drinks, although I didn't really appreciate the Popeye crack.
When I returned, I sat down with the drinks and the braless one caught me admiring her thinly veiled breasts. She smiled and pulled her shirt tighter, making her nipples stand out more. That simple act alone was well worth the cost of a drink.
I introduced myself as John and they mumbled back their names, which didn't really matter. I had already named them Betty Big Tits and Esther Eskimo. Having had my heart broken in the past, anonymity was a good way of protecting myself from further pain. They didn't need to know my name was really Zac Chambers.
It didn't take a lot of persuading, but I talked the girls into doing shots of Jack Daniel's. I took turns dancing with Betty and Esther and kept the Jack and beers flowing down their lovely gullets. Esther got better looking with each shot and Betty's nipples got harder the more I stared at them.
After hours of drinking, they looked primed and ready for more than just dancing.
Then things went blurry and a little fuzzy. I think we had a good time, but I wasn't entirely sure.
***
I was back onboard my ship, the USS Expectation, first thing Monday morning with just a few more days before I'd be transferred to my new ship. I was excited about that.
I loved being a sailor. Having just completed serving four years in the Navy, I signed up for another four. I was due for a ten thousand dollar reenlistment bonus and another cruise to the Far East. Where else could you get a job where they paid you to sail the world and have sex with women in foreign ports. It was almost like being a gigolo.
The man who persuaded me to re-enlist, Senior Chief White, summoned me to his office. He sat behind his desk sipping coffee when I entered. He pointed to a metal-framed chair across from him. "Sit down, Chambers." His gravelly voice echoed off the steel walls.
I sat, wondering what I was doing there.
"I'm afraid there's been a mistake, Chambers. I read the figure wrong regarding your reenlistment bonus. You're not getting ten thousand dollars… it's only one thousand."
"What? You can't be serious. That would barely keep me drunk and in Waikiki whores for a week. You said ten grand, Senior Chief."
"That was a mistake, son, but what you signed was correct." He slid a piece of paper across the desk. At the bottom was my signature. Right above it was the figure, $1000.00.
"There's no comma there, Senior Chief. I took your word for it. You said ten grand and it looked like ten grand."
"Sorry, Chambers, but you signed it."
Staring at him with a mild form of hatred, I realized that wouldn't change anything. I couldn't go through the next four years of my life filled with anger and bitterness. I took a deep breath. Okay, it would have been nice, but I didn't have any real plans for the money anyway. A damn good drinking fund, but it wasn't like I was going to buy a car or anything. I didn't want to harbor resentment, so I shrugged it off. "Oh well, at least I'm going on WestPac. A grand will go a long way in the Philippines." I was proud of my self-comforting logic.
"There's been a change of plans, Chambers. You're not going on WestPac." He ran his finger and thumb down the sides of his moustache.
"What do you mean, Senior Chief? We had a deal. You said ten grand and a trip around the Orient for four years of my life. I've already signed on the dotted line. There's no going back." He must have meant I wouldn't be reporting to the particular ship I signed up for, but surely I'd still be going on a deployment of the Western Pacific. "You've already screwed me out of nine grand, but don't mess with my WestPac."
"You're going to Scotland. You'll li—"
"Scotland! Whaddaya mean, Scotland?" I didn't even ask, just pulled out a cigarette and lit up. "What am I supposed to do in Scotland, fuck sheep?"
"No, that's Wales." He remained straight faced. "They need a second class petty officer there within the next week, and you're it." He pulled a Swisher Sweet cigar out of the packet on his desk and lit it.
I shook my head. "No, we had a deal, Senior Chief. You set it up so I could go have sex with Filipino women. I can't go to Scotland. Those guys wear skirts."
Senior Chief chomped on the white plastic tip of his cigar. "It's called a kilt, and tough shit. That's Navy li
fe, Chambers. It's all mind over matter. They don't mind, and you don't matter."
I folded my arms. "I'm not doing it."
He leaned back in his chair. "I think you'll find that you will."
I stood up and shook my finger at him. "You tricked-fucked me, Senior Chief," I yelled. "This isn't what you promised me. I quit!"
Senior Chief shot out of his chair and banged his fist on the desk, his thick eyebrows knitted together. "Right. You had your little tantrum, Chambers, and I think you best remember who you're talking to." He grabbed his collar insignia of an anchor with a single star at the top. "I'm a goddamn Senior Chief, and you're going to Scotland with a thousand dollars in your pocket. And if you don't like the sound of bagpipes up your ass, yeah, you can quit, but quitters in this outfit spend a few years in the brig and then get a Big Chicken Dinner. Your choice." His lip quivered like a snarling Rottweiler.
My anger boiled over and for a brief moment and I failed to remember his seniority outranked my own status and desires. Not wise.
Senior Chief was pretty high up the food chain rank-wise and the dinner he spoke of was actually code for a BCD: Bad Conduct Discharge. I dropped my gaze to the floor. "Sorry, Senior Chief. I'm just really disappointed. I was looking forward to going on WestPac."
"I know you were, son, and I'm sorry." There was a trace of sympathy in his voice, but also the harshness of non-compromise. "Scotland's not bad. The ship's a submarine tender and doesn't go to sea much. The subs come alongside and you'll be there to fix 'em."
"But I want to go to sea." I took a drag of my cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. "Holy shit. Wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me the ship is classed as non-combatant?"
"Yep."
"So there're women onboard, right?"
"Yep." He smacked his lips to enunciate the 'P'.
"Oh, c'mon," I groaned. "Chicks on a ship?" I preferred the 'Wham, bam, thank you ma'am' and then getting the hell out of port. I certainly didn't want to sail the world with them in tow, nagging the crap out of me.
Senior Chief aimed his finger at me. "I'm telling you now, Chambers, leave the women on the ship alone. It always leads to trouble. Find yourself a nice Scottish lass and forget about women on the ship."
I took a deep breath and looked at the floor. "I think I'd be better off with the sheep."
Chapter 2
The Scottish official who sat behind the immigration desk at the Glasgow airport pretended to speak some form of English, but I'd be damned if I could understand him. He mumbled like an incoherent drunk. I tried to read his lips, but his bushy beard and moustache made that impossible.
I handed him my passport and offered a friendly smile.
"What is yer bizness in de United Kingdom?"
I gave a blank stare.
He repeated more mumbo jumbo.
"Excuse me?" I leaned in closer hoping it would help my concentration.
The mumbling man stopped, took a deep breath, and spoke slowly. "What—are—youse—doing—here?" He talked to me like I was some kind of foreigner.
"Oh." I stood back, opened my arms and looked down at my dress blue uniform. "Nay-Vee," I enunciated. Dumb-shit.
I barely understood him as he continued to grill me about my business in Scotland; as if a young man in a Navy uniform wasn't enough. I nodded when I thought it was appropriate, but for all I knew I was confessing to being a drug mule or an IRA operative.
I managed to catch every fourth or fifth word and guessed at the questions.
"I'm reporting to the USS Anticipation in Sacred Loch, near Dunoon. You know, the American ship."
He gave me a black look and did some more muttering. He stamped my passport and grumbled that I had been admitted.
I went to the luggage carousel and hoisted my seabag on my back, then staggered through the airport until I found the duty driver. He was a sailor from the ship who would take me to the Anticipation.
We stood at the terminal exit for a moment staring into the parking lot. Rain drops zipped down from the black sky with claps of thunder welcoming me to my new Scottish home. The driver and I dashed through the torrential rain and hopped into a van prominently identified as property of the U.S. Navy.
A day ago I was in the tropics feeling hot in a t-shirt and shorts. A trip across two oceans and I sat in a beat up Dodge van, cold and shivering, wondering how I let the Navy get the better of me. The heater rattled and churned away, but failed to make a difference to the temperature inside the steamed up van.
Huge rain drops cascaded down the windows, obscuring the scenery as we drove along the motorway. Blurry figures of sheep dotted the hillside, but I was too busy wallowing in self-pity to take much notice of them. We drove onto a ferry along with civilian cars and made the twenty-minute journey across the Firth of Clyde.
The metal ramp clip-clopped as we rolled off the ferry and headed down a road that hugged the water's edge. Around another bend and a big, gray ship sat moored in the middle of Sacred Loch with submarines tied up alongside her. The loch itself was like a big lake, but open-ended on one side, getting fed directly from the Atlantic Ocean via the Firth, or River, Clyde.
The driver told me that the various floating buildings and the ship herself were collectively known as Site Bravo. The masses of gray steel sat anchored in the middle of the water, about half a mile from the shores on either side. I arrived at the tall fence with barbed wire strung along the top protecting a lone pier guarded by Scottish Ministry of Defence officers. I showed them my orders, but they weren't interested. They explained that I was about to leave Scotland and enter the United States. They were merely acting as custom officers for Scotland and my business was on United States 'soil'—the USS Anticipation.
I made the long walk down the pier to get to the security hut at the end. The rain was driven horizontally by the gale force winds. I walked like a staggering drunk, being blown from side-to-side as I battled the forces of Mother Nature with a fifty-pound seabag on my back. It felt as if a Scottish giant had lifted his kilt and pissed bullet-like pellets of water, stinging my cheeks with every razor-sharp droplet.
By the time I got to the end of pier, my pants were soaked. The cold, wet fabric of my bell-bottom trousers clung to my legs. Once inside the security hut, I went to the waiting area.
The wooden structure quickly filled up. Everyone arrived in civilian clothes, so I figured they must change into uniforms once aboard the ship, which made sense considering how wet I was. Murmurs of conversation buzzed around me as I watched boats carrying personnel shuttling from the pier to the ship. In the distance, the rolling Scottish hills and mountains were covered in dark green pine trees, providing the background for the ship.
A female came in and sat next to me, slipping back the hood of her jacket. She wore her rich, ebony hair in a short and appealing cut which was matted down from the rain, with a tight fringe around the edges of her face that hardly touched her ears. An impish delight was caught on her face as she shook her head, spraying me with droplets of water. One droplet rolled down her small nose and rested on the tip until she brushed it away.
I wiped my face with my hand where she wetted me.
She offered an apologetic smile.
"It's a bit wet, isn't it?" I said.
She didn't present any reason to be intimidated, but my heart raced for some reason.
Except for a small scar over the right edge of her lip, her face was flawless. I couldn't tell her age; she was twenty-something, but I found it difficult which end of that scale to put her at. Still, it didn't matter. She was a ship chick and I wasn't going to have sex with her. Even if she begged me.
She pulled off her gloves and I stared at her long, slender, hands. I could just imagine those sexy fingers wrapped around my hard—
"Freezing, isn't it?" she said. "It's been terrible this month, has it not?" She held her hands together, blowing into them between her thumbs.
I shrugged. "Don't know. I just got here." I shook
from a cold chill circulating in the air.
"Trust me. It's been awful lately, but you'll get used to it."
"I don't want to get used to it." I looked around the room at the dripping wet people. This was just the kind of shithole I wanted to avoid. "I shouldn't be here. I should be on the other side of the world basking in sunshine and Filipino— well, interacting with the civilian community in the Orient. But nooo. Some dumb-shit Senior Chief tricked me and sent me to this godforsaken place." I looked through a crack in the floorboard at the water underneath.
"Tsk, tsk. Perhaps you should see a counselor for your anger issues." She smiled, but I couldn't tell if it was to lighten my mood or if she thought I was some kind of nut. Her radiance negated any potential sarcasm, so I decided to forgive her.
"So where's this…" she cleared her throat, "…dumb-shit Senior Chief now?"
I swiped at my nose to conceal a falling drop of snot brought on by the cold. "In Hawaii."
"Hmm… And you say he's the dumb-shit." She smiled.
"Novak!" An angry-looking man stood halfway across the room, his beady eyes focused on her.
The dark-haired beauty looked at him.
His eyebrows furrowed into one bushy mess and curled up at the ends like little devil horns. "I need to see you," he barked. He pointed to the floor in front of him. "Now!"
She shot me a quick glance. "Whoops. Gotta go." She got up and walked over to him and they moved to a corner away from everyone else.
The man seemed to speak harshly, but I couldn't hear what he said. Novak didn't look to argue back, then eventually folded her arms in front of her. Perhaps she was his girlfriend and he thought I was hitting on her. That's all I needed was for some irate boyfriend to throw me overboard for slipping his girlfriend the Hot Karl.
A boat arrived and I joined the masses climbing aboard. I looked back at Angry Man still scolding the Imp. Good luck to them.