Said "asshole" that was duct taped down in his wheelchair was former Boatswain's Mate First Class Richard "Ricky" Brewer AKA "RB". The last time I had seen or heard him until about two weeks ago had been back in late seventies when we were stationed together (both his legs worked then) at the CINCPACFLT boathouse over in Pearl Harbor.
Ricky had been your typical Navy "lifer." He was an a alcoholic of Kennedy-like proportions. Would ingest any type of drug - illegal or legal - as long as he could catch a decent buzz from it. And was married to a scrawny, white trash, Tennessee, trailer-trash whore named Blanche who would fuck sailors for cigarette money while Brewer was standing duty at the boathouse. The couple, who of course had also spawned three children, were constantly broke because they spent their meager military income literally like drunken sailors on cigarettes, booze, drugs, and Elvis memorabilia {both were huge Elvis freaks and both feebly fashioned their appearances in a vain attempt to look like The Pedophile King and his young high school bride} so they were in hock to dozens of people, some who if weren’t paid on time liked to break knees and ankles in lieu of payment.
In an asinine move to get their asses out of deep debt, Ricky and Blanche began to deal heroin, cocaine, weed, and speed out their house which was located in Navy housing in Ewa Beach. Of course, some snitch eventually dropped a dime and a full scale SWAT team, doors being broken down, automatic weapons drawn, “get your fucking asses down on the motherfucking floor with your hands on your goddamn head, asshole!” raid had been professionally executed at the Brewer homestead.
The last moment I saw Brewer until the week of Hurricane Rita was at his general court martial as he was being led out of the courtroom in shackles after being found guilty on a astounding variety of charges, the worst being the possession of narcotics with intent to sell. The dumb shit’s hair was still dyed jet black and slicked back Elvis style and his sideburns which were still borderline too long for Naval regulations. Facing charges that would send him to Leavenworth prison for a long goddamn time - and did - the ignorant peckerwood hadn’t even bothered getting a regulation military haircut.
I personally didn’t give a shit and actually was quite overjoyed to see him go. And that’s because even though Brewer got his ass in a twist over dealing dope and was going off to get his skinny white ass turned-out at the slammer for the next twenty or so years, he had even bigger skeletons hanging in his closet to worry about. Shit that I’m sure he was as relieved as I was that didn’t somehow pop up in his trial.