“Ricky Brewer and his wife were arrested last night for possessing a large amount of heroin and cocaine with intent to sell. They are in scalding hot water right up to their white trash asses!”
Chief Mason had us lined up in front of the boathouse and was reading from some sort of Navy press release. Although I don't think the "white trash" and "asses" comment was actually in the written statement. The crew was standing at attention in the warm Hawaiian sun. The Chief looked like re-fried shit. Badly hung-over and acting like he had just gotten his own ass chewed by the command, which I'm positive that he had. It was time to be very careful. He could be very dangerous in this situations. Like stepping on the tail of a Gila monster.
“He’s really got his balls and his wife’s tits in a wringer this time. They could maybe get twenty years or longer in the slammer for this high horseshit.”
I felt like I could drop right there in the parking lot. Holy Christ! Could I be the reason Brewer and his lovely bride had been busted? Chances were starting to look good that I at least had a minor hand in it. About a week after our weekend orgy, Reggie had mailed me a note.
Fucking mailed! Not even a goddamn phone call. I got a fucking Dear John letter out of the blue and she wasn't but five miles away from me.
...Joe and I have decided to give our marriage another shot. I will always remember you and our times together fondly. Please don't try to contact me. It would be too hard for both of us.
With much love, R
I tried to call her at work a couple of times but she hung up when she heard my voice. The urge to blow my brains out or hang myself had been almost too much to resist. I drowned my sorrows in two bottles of some cheap champagne, and a Quaalude. In a rage, I threw a punch at a giant Samoan bouncer in a downtown shithole bar and was rewarded with a return punch that blackened my eye and knocked me on my ass. Upon my return to the base I downed a bottle of MD 20-20 and I tossed all the outdoor furniture off the deck on the roof of the Pearl Harbor barracks. I woke up the next morning under one of the ship piers where I had passed out in a pool of (my own) vomit and feces. I was torn in half. Figuratively that is - although I really did feel like shit. I now knew that something with Reggie was dirty - why had she been so interested in Brewer all of a sudden? Was she more than just a enlisted secretary and stenographer for the Naval Investigative Service? But I wouldn’t let myself believe that. I couldn’t let her go. There was certainly hard evidence of that.
When I got back to the barracks after waking up under the pier, I discovered a fresh tattoo on my chest. Directly over my heart was another bright red heart that was torn in two. “Reggie” was inscribed between the two torn pieces. It was hard to believe that I had actually been in a tattoo parlor and couldn't remember a second of it.
“Hey! Fuckstick! Are you listening to me?” The Chief was glaring at me with murder in his eyes.
“Yes, Chief.”
“Good! Because you need to be listening because every motherfucker here is going to be effected by what I’m about to say.” This wasn’t going to be good.
“I had my dick handed to me this morning by THE Admiral himself. The goddamn fucking Admiral! He’s not very fucking happy about what in the hell has been going on with his crew down here in the last month or so. First there was Janine...”
Janine, one of the two females at the boathouse, had caught a case of the clap from some sailor who worked on one of the tugboats over in Pearl. Before it was diagnosed, she passed this little treat on to the Captain from the USS Badger (in quite a coincidence, it would be determined at Brewer’s court martial that he had gotten three pounds of China White heroin from the cook off the Badger. It was brought on board on a West-Pac cruise somewhere in Asia and had been smuggled back to the states on the ship and then stored it in the ship’s galley cold storage) who promptly passed it on to his wife. Then, not a day later, she screwed a pilot from Hickam Air Force base that she met while whoring around for drinks at the officer’s club with the exact same results. Pending her Captain’s Mast hearing, Janine had been pulled from the boathouse and re-assigned to the Pearl Harbor chow hall, I have no idea why there of all places, which promptly had a 40% drop in sailors dining there.
...and we all know what happened to Rose.”
After Janine’s stunt, Rose stepped up to the plate to add some more drama. Flash back in time to what I mentioned earlier, Rose had been holding out cash from her pimp, Harold, who had finally decided to beat the ever loving shit out of her for this transgression. Well, this was the month, of all the months he had to pick this one, that it happened. After her ass-kicking, Rose, who looked like she had gone a rough three rounds with Smokin’ Joe Frazier, was immediately shipped back to the mainland for her own safety on the first jet burning towards California. In a related and somewhat suspicious event , I had read in the paper just two days ago that Rose’s "business manager" also known as her pimp, Harold “Sweet Cool” Jones, had been shot dead on a Honolulu street corner.
Caught one right between the eyes as if the shot had come from a sniper on the roof of one of the downtown buildings. A strange way for a pimp to buy it, for sure. There were no witnesses and there were no hot leads in the investigation. As if anyone cared.
...the Admiral is sick of this bullshit and he’s made his mind up. He’s going to change out the crew. Everybody here will receive transfer orders in the next six to eight weeks.” He turned and kicked Brownie, the boathouse dog, in the ass as she strolled by. The mangy beast ran off shrieking.
Malcolm, further strengthening the rumors of bestiality, broke ranks and chased after her
“I tell you what. I have never been so motherfucking humiliated in my entire life. I’ve been in this man’s Navy over twenty fucking years,” he screamed, his face as red as the proverbial fire engine, “I’m a salty motherfucker. I’m so goddamn salty that I’ve got salt on my nuts! I've got two goddamn purple hearts and a silver star and I have to put up with this shit? My fucking dead grandmother's ass I will! Not get the fuck out of my face and get back to work you lazy assholes!”