Troubled Water

by Gregory A. Freeman

  It wasn’t just the fights at the EM club and the Sampaguita Club that had so many of the black sailors seething. Word was going around of how a white sailor from the Kitty Hawk had hired a group of locals from Subic to beat up a black sailor. According to the tale, the two men had a fight while the ship was still at sea. Then the white sailor supposedly hired the Filipinos—all karate experts—to exact retribution while the black man was in the Jungle. A group of black sailors from the Kitty Hawk stumbled on the scene as it was about to begin and were able to run off the Filipinos. The veracity of the story didn’t matter; true or not, it was fueling the fire.

  Perry Pettus was going about his duties that day, not especially concerned about any of the fights or the rumors that were flying throughout the ship. As always, he was minding his own business and not getting involved in any of the crap that can get a sailor in trouble. He felt solidarity with his black brothers certainly, but he didn’t hate whitey and he wasn’t looking for trouble. He also wasn’t well connected to the most extreme black sailors on board, so he didn’t know of any plans they might have for the Kitty Hawk. But soon he would be reminded that some whites on the Kitty Hawk saw only his race, and along with it their worst prejudices.

  The carrier was conducting some flight ops while making its way to Yankee Station, mostly touch-and-go landings to help pilots hone the skills required for returning to a huge ship that suddenly looks quite small when you have to land on it. Though the work was relatively light for the flight deck crew, the constant heat made any activity demanding. Around lunchtime, Pettus took a break from his job of driving tractors around the flight deck, moving planes from here to there, and went to the mess deck to eat with his friends John and Lawrence, both black. As they were in line, Pettus noticed that, as usual, the mess deck was where all the hotheads seemed to let fly with their tempers. He saw one black sailor, whom he knew to be particularly militant in his black pride, grow agitated at the white sailors ahead of him in line. Apparently they were moving too slowly, and the sailor also didn’t like some comments the whites were making about the slop on their trays, taking it as an insult to the black mess cook who had served them. They exchanged words, and Pettus noticed that the black sailor was stewing about it while he ate lunch, soon stomping up and flinging his tray through the window at the dishwashers. That set off a scuffle that got everyone’s attention, but it wasn’t so bad that Pettus and his buddies interrupted their lunch. They watched and, when the skirmish was over, they finished their meal and headed back to the flight deck.

  To get back to their assignments, they went through the hangar bay, a cavernous area directly below the flight deck where airplanes are stored and maintained, making their way from the forward area to the aft, where they could take a hatch up to the flight deck. The men were chatting, joking around with each other, and had almost reached the end of the hangar bay when three white Marines stepped out and told them to halt. Pettus and his buddies stopped and asked what was wrong.

  “Y’all can’t walk in groups of more than two at a time,” one Marine told them.

  “What? Who is ‘y’all’?” Pettus asked.

  “You black people. Can’t have three blacks together,” the Marine explained.

  Pettus and his friends looked at each other like they thought the Marine was crazy. They had never heard of any such rule, and it sounded to them like some bullshit the Marines just made up to hassle them.

  “What are you talking about?” Pettus asked. “We’re just going back to the flight deck. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Well, y’all ain’t going together. No more than two at a time,” the Marine repeated.

  Pettus and his friends laughed a little, rolling their eyes at these Marines trying to give them a hard time. The Marine’s “y’all” really rubbed them the wrong way, making them feel like they were being hassled by some hick sheriff. Pettus and the other two men needed to get back to the flight deck right away or they’d be counted late coming back from lunch. They didn’t have time for this crap.

  “Man, you crazy,” Pettus said to the Marine, shaking his head with disgust. “We have to get back to the flight deck. We got a recovery coming in.”

  Pettus turned to walk away and proceed out of the hangar bay, and his friends moved to follow him. In a heartbeat, the Marine who had been doing all the talking grabbed Pettus and pushed him up against a nearby airplane, roughly shoving his wooden baton under Pettus’s chin and nearly choking him. With his hands on either end of the baton and using it shove the sailor up off his feet, the Marine got in Pettus’s face.

  “No more than two at a time,” he growled. “I’m not telling you again.” Pettus was waiting for him to add “boy,” but the Marine didn’t go that far. He didn’t need to. Pettus could see that the other Marines had grabbed his friends and were holding them just as roughly, watching the lead dog for cues on what to do. His buddy John was a big guy who worked on the crash crew, ready to wade into the flaming wreckage of an airplane to rescue the pilots, but he wasn’t fighting back. Lawrence, short but stocky and known for having a mouth on him, also just stood there with his eyes wide, waiting to see what would happen. Pettus feared they were about to get a good white-onblack ass whooping right there, but instead the Marines handcuffed all three men and called for a master-at-arms to take them to the brig. Pettus and his friends were reeling, completely confused about why they had been assaulted and detained. They were just trying to get back to work, for God’s sake. What they didn’t know was that the Marine detachment on the Kitty Hawk was well aware of the growing racial tension on the ship and had been instructed to be on the lookout for trouble. Exactly when they were instructed to prohibit gatherings of more than two black sailors would later be disputed, but they did receive that order at some point in the day.

  Pettus, John, and Lawrence were quickly moving from bewilderment to anger as they were taken to the brig. They couldn’t understand what was happening to them, but they were damned sure it was happening because they were black. The men were still in handcuffs in the brig area, waiting to be locked up, when the phone rang. They could hear the voice of the young white lieutenant who was processing them snap to attention when he heard the other voice on the line. The captain’s order was loud enough that Pettus could hear it himself. “Get those men up here right now!”

  The lieutenant responded with a crisp “Yes, sir” and started moving the prisoners out. Pettus didn’t know what this meant. How the hell did I end up here? In handcuffs and being taken to the captain? As the lieutenant hustled them to the captain’s quarters near the bridge, they passed many sailors who stared at them with wide-eyed wonder and some who looked on in anger. Three black sailors being run through the ship in handcuffs by a white officer.

  Pettus had no idea what to expect when they reached the captain’s quarters, but as soon as the door opened, Townsend barked at the lieutenant.

  “Get those handcuffs off ! Take them off now!”

  Townsend had the men sit and explained that their detention was the result of a misunderstanding. He hadn’t given any order to prohibit gatherings of more than two black sailors, he told them, and the Marines apparently had gotten their wires crossed. Townsend knew that, most likely, the Marines were being vigilant about prohibiting sabotage in the hangar bay in light of the fights at Subic and the rumors floating around the ship. He didn’t tell the sailors that, but he did apologize for the mistake. The captain said that they were completely free to go and that there would be no disciplinary action against them. Pettus and the other two men said “Yes, sir” and left, relieved that the incident was over but still upset.

  As the day wore on, the more he thought about being roughed up by the Marines and humiliated in handcuffs, the more Pettus felt like the captain’s apology wasn’t enough.

  Other flare-ups happened, predictably, in the mess decks as the day wore on. With the day’s somewhat relaxed work schedule, the men had more chances to linger and chat—or to look fo
r trouble. When airman Terry Avinger, the troubled young black sailor who kept trying to find the right path for his life but who was known as one of the most hard-core black power proponents on the ship, made his way to the mess deck for dinner around 6:30 P.M., he brought along the usual chip on his shoulder. And, as usual, the white mess cook on the other side of the chow line was in a foul mood because he was back at his lousy job. Both had heard the black versus white trash talk that was going on that day. As Avinger went down the chow line with his tray, he decided he was feeling pretty hungry, so he asked for two sandwiches instead of one. The mess cook said no. Avinger knew the mess cook was just being a dick about it, so he reached over and tried to grab the second sandwich anyway. The mess cook told Avinger to keep his hands to himself, then the men began shouting insults and threats, Avinger insisting that he could have a second damn sandwich if he wanted one and that no white boy was going to push him around. The white mess cook was screaming just as loudly that he would say what happened on the damn chow line and Avinger wasn’t going to just grab whatever he wanted. The incident ended without violence when others intervened, but it left both men angry. It was a typical dispute in the mess deck, so petty that it could have even been comical except that it was an indicator of how short everyone’s fuse was. Avinger didn’t forget the incident, feeling disrespected by being denied a simple sandwich by a white man as others watched. And he wasn’t the only one noting every little indignity that day, piling them on to the heap of injustices that the black sailors had felt for a long time. Another spat broke out when a white mess cook accidentally stepped on a black sailor’s foot as he was stacking trays. What might have been excused with a simple “sorry” instead turned into a heated argument between the races. Again the incident came to an end without anyone throwing a punch, but just barely.

  And so it went, on into the evening. As the sun began to set, darkness did not bring much relief from the unrelenting heat. It never did. The tons of metal that made up the Kitty Hawk had been sitting in the sun for the entire day, soaking up the heat, and with nightfall it retained much of what it had absorbed, making the ship a hot box full of hot tempers on this night. Pettus had completed his shift on the flight deck after being hassled by the Marines, and after dinner he went back to his berthing compartment still hot, sweaty, and supremely pissed off. He found several of his buddies, along with other black sailors he knew but didn’t necessarily consider friends, sitting around talking about Subic, the rumors flying around the ship, and the various minor incidents that had taken place that day. Pettus recognized Terry Avinger in the group, taking notice because he knew that some of the black sailors considered Avinger, a hothead, to be a leader. On any other day, Avinger and Pettus would have had little in common other than their black skin, but tonight Pettus was feeling just as oppressed as Avinger usually felt. For pretty much the first time, Pettus was “an angry black man.”

  Avinger, a charismatic type who was a natural leader, was holding forth on his experience that day, telling how the white mess cook had disrespected him and regretting that he didn’t just beat the racist cracker’s ass right there. This wasn’t the first time that Pettus had walked into a bull session where black sailors were trading stories about how the white man was mistreating them, but this was different. This wasn’t just the cathartic complaining that Cloud remembered from the barbershop of his boyhood. Pettus realized he shared a visceral anger with these men, the kind that can almost scare a man when he realizes how much is in the room with him. Avinger was urging the men to get mad, telling them the black sailors on the Kitty Hawk had had enough and it was time to stand up for themselves. Pettus found himself screaming “Yes!” right along with the others. And when there was a pause, Pettus jumped in to tell his story about being jacked up by the Marines and handcuffed. All of the black sailors within earshot were outraged but not surprised, and Pettus could see that he had raised the temperature a few more degrees. And he didn’t mind. Maybe these boys from the streets of Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York had the right idea all along. I’m not going to be treated like this, Pettus told himself. Maybe it’s time we stand up to this bullshit.

  Pettus was in the middle of it now, helping Avinger and some other vocal black sailors whip the crowd into a near frenzy.

  “We don’t have to take this anymore!” they shouted. “We have to stand up for ourselves!”

  “Black power!” others yelled. “Black power! It’s time the white man gets what he deserves!”

  Avinger repeatedly pointed to Pettus and cited his story, whipping the crowd up further, declaring that Pettus’s abuse had to be the final straw, the final indignity heaped on the black men of the Kitty Hawk. Pettus felt proud that his black brothers were standing up for him, that they also felt outraged by his treatment. Yes, my black brothers are here for me, he thought.

  Pettus imagined that his buddies John and Lawrence were somewhere on the ship also talking to their friends about their mistreatment that day. The incident of harassment was becoming a catalyst for the dangerous mood throughout the Kitty Hawk. The men in that berthing compartment were working themselves into a fury of righteous indignation, and then, without warning, the emotions reached a tipping point. The black sailors spilled out of the compartment and charged down the passageway, shouting encouragement to each other and insults about whites, and declaring that they wouldn’t stand for the abuse any longer. Pettus ran with the mob, fully a part of it and eager to exact some retribution. Most of the men had no particular purpose in mind, but some of the more militant group members recognized that this was more than just a random flare-up of some angry sailors. They knew it was the beginning of an uprising that they had planned for a long time.

  Pettus rumbled along with the group, making as much noise as they could, shouting epithets at any white sailor they encountered, pulling gear off the walls, and smashing whatever they could as they passed. The group roamed through the passageways and they soon began accosting white sailors, beating them until the men could scramble away to safety. Pettus was in the thick of it, cheering on his black brothers and even dealing a righteous blow here and there, though his punches never connected with anyone. Running with the mob was cathartic for Pettus. If some white guy ended up with a bloody nose, well, too freakin’ bad. It felt right.

  SOME OF THE MEN, particularly the most dominant and vocal among them, had grabbed makeshift weapons along the way—broom handles, wrenches, anything they could find. The mob was racing down a passageway, looking for trouble, when Pettus saw a young white mess cook turn and walk straight into their path. The short blond sailor stopped abruptly, startled by the sea of angry black faces closing in on him. Pettus’s heart sank. The sailor was so small in stature that he looked like a child playing dress-up. Any notion of retribution and vengeance evaporated as Pettus looked into the young man’s eyes and saw a deep fear, mixed with confusion and panic. He looked like a very young, very scared boy.

  Though the white sailor had frozen in his tracks, his instincts were kicking in and he turned to run just as someone from the crowd screamed “Get him!” The mob surged forward and engulfed him. The black sailors beat the white sailor viciously, but Pettus held back. Then he saw everyone in the crowd retreat a few steps, leaving just one black sailor standing over the mess cook, the blood soaking his denim work clothes and pooling on the floor as he feebly tried to ward off the next blows.

  The black sailor took a foam fog nozzle off the wall, where it was stored at a firefighting station. This heavy metal wand was used to apply firefighting foam, but it also made a deadly club with the big fist of metal at the applicator end. The black sailor raised the foam fog nozzle high and slammed it down onto the poor kid, over and over, bashing his head in as most of the crowd urged him on. When he was done, the black sailor dragged the white man to a nearby hatch and tossed him down a flight of steps.

  The mob cheered and screamed its approval, then moved on in search of more trouble. But it went wi
thout Pettus. He was sickened by the kid’s beating, disgusted by the vicious assault on someone who, as far as he knew, was totally innocent. He stood there in the passageway, still smelling the sweat of the crowd and the sickly sweet stench of blood. He was breathing heavily and thought he might throw up.

  This is too much. This is more than I bargained for, he thought. My God, I don’t want to be a part of this.

  AFTER CHECKING THAT OTHERS had come to the aid of the white sailor, Pettus made his way back to his berthing compartment, where the riot began. The mob continued its rampage, assaulting any white sailors unlucky enough to get in its way. By now the mob had quieted down, no longer shouting and instead becoming an eerie, imposing force moving through the ship, weapons in hand. The men had no destination, no real plan, but they wanted to break stuff and hurt some whites.

  All over the ship that evening, there were similar blowups. Without much warning, white sailors were attacked and crowds of black sailors rampaged. John Travers, like most of the white sailors, was in his own berthing area, oblivious to the trouble. Around ten o’clock that night, the berthing area was jammed with not just the sailors who bunked there but another handful who were hanging out while the ship was in transit and they had little work to do. Travers was preoccupied at the moment with combing his hair. He had longish hair, like many in the Navy those days, and he prided himself on keeping a sharp look. Because he had lost his own comb some time back, he was using an afro pick that he had found. After cutting off half the length of the teeth, Travers still struggled to make the comb work for his Caucasian hair. He recognized a black friend named Jerry from the same berthing area. As Jerry squeezed between him and the mirror, Travers thought his friend might find it amusing that he was using an afro pick, and not all that successfully. With a smile, Travers called out, “Hey, man, you guys got screwed-up combs.” Oddly, Jerry didn’t respond and just kept walking, turning the corner a few feet away. Travers thought his little joke deserved some kind of reaction, so he stepped in Jerry’s direction and called out louder.