The Billys': Life with Kevin Goddard on KMCAS, Kaneohe, HI.
About ten years ago, I was feeling guilty for not keeping in touch with friends I'd made in the Marines. I made attempts to contact five of the closest.
James Svaton, I knew lived in Wisconsin, and I was sure it was a little town that started with an 'A', like Appleton, or Antigone. Being from the same small town as Jack Bradley, the corpsman that helped raise the flag on Two Jima, makes me wonder if Jack inspired my young friend, but James never mentioned it. I eventually found him through a relative who gave me a number for him in North Carolina. Then there was James Longoria. I got hold of his widow. Man did that suck. James and I got short together, and I was supposed to stop in Dallas to see him on my way home. The six-hour non-stop from Denver was all I could handle, so I decided to hook up with him at a later date. If I had stopped on that weekend as I had initially planned, I'd have died with him, or prevented it from happening altogether. I never could relocate Ron Valesano again after San Francisco. I probably deserved that after only spending two hours with him. Harry Sprague, Glenn Sambor's old roomie told me that Glenn died of cancer. I almost quit there. Out of the first four, one couldn't be found, and two others were dead. I didn't want to take a chance on what I'd hear about the next one.
Kevin Goddard was the one I found on the Internet. Actually, I typed in his name, and got two listings for Tennessee, and called them both. The first one I talked to wasn't the right age, and didn't sound right. The second one I called fit the profile exactly, sounded exactly like him, but denied knowing me. The kicker was when he said, "I don't know anybody in the Marine Corps." He hung up when I replied, "I didn't say anything about being in the Corps."
For some reason, the Corps must have left a bad taste in his mouth, and he didn't want to have contact with anything or anybody that reminded him of it. After recalling these stories, that thinking might be justified.
Kevin Goddard was born in the wrong time and the wrong place. The problem was he couldn't decide what time and place was right for him, and of course, he couldn't do anything to change it. He spent most of his life searching for who he was supposed to be. I haven't seen or heard from him in years, and the one time I'm sure I did, he denied it.
I previously stated that Kevin was from Tennessee, but he wouldn't admit it. He wanted to be from Los Angeles, so that's probably where he is today. He wanted to be a soap opera star, but I don't think he is. I don't watch them enough to know, but I think I'd know if he was.
I became Kevin's roommate because Ron Valesano and I were suspected of driving a previous roommate, Denny, to the airport so he could go AWOL. They suspected us because Denny left a note leaving his speakers to Ron and his moped registration was conveniently signed over to me. We each had about 40 new CDs as well that Denny had acquired by writing a bad check. They felt that a temporary solution was to separate Ron and me.
They called Kevin and I 'the Billys' because Kevin Goddard spiked his bleached-white hair like Billy Idol, and my last name was and still is Ossian, so they called me Billy Ocean, another popular vocal artist in the 80's.
One Christmas season, most of the squadron was taking leave. The commander gave us 'leftovers' a 96- hour pass. Mostly, it was because there wasn't anything to do, no birds were flying, but he called it a Christmas present. Most of us didn't know any better, and those who did were keeping their mouths shut.
Several of us decided that meant party time, so we rented a hotel in Waikiki, and were assigned to a room on the 8th floor facing the pool. We dragged two kegs up to the room, and set in for the long haul with a couple VCRs and about a pallet of pornos.
Kevin got this wild ass idea about running off the balcony, and of course, he always had a sack of tools with him. Snap-on was the only way to go according to Kevin. He and another Marine started removing the steel railing from the concrete slab that jutted out from the sliding door, connecting our room to the night sky of Waikiki.
Nobody was in the pool. In fact, the gate was locked. I didn't know that until I asked why Kevin had thrown a set of bolt cutters into the pool first. He seemed too prepared to have never done this before. The intention of removing the railing was to remove any and all obstacles for the first idiot Marine who thought he had a chance of reaching the pool with a running start.
Of course, Kevin volunteered to go first. Imagine a tunnel, much like football players run through before reaching the screaming throng of fans at a big game, and you can imagine two lines of screaming jarheads hollering at you as you charge the runway into nothingness.
I'm no Bob Beamon, and I knew that the deep end closest to us, was at least ten, if not fifteen feet away from the base of the building. But I was drunk, and two others had safely (I think) leaped first. I hadn't actually seen them land in the water, but the lines were continuing to cheer, so who was I to question their apparent success.
Just before I hit top speed, I realized that some stupid fuck was going to try to trip me, or at least make me think he was going to, and I feared that I wouldn't make the landing zone if he was successful. I also knew there wasn't time to stop. I leaped over the offending appendage, and dove head first straight out into the sky, my body parallel with the earth.
I'm no Greg Louganis, so I knew this wouldn't be pretty, but at least I didn't hit my head on the board. As my body started arching toward the water, I realized I didn't want to land as it appeared I would. I attempted to tuck and roll a little, not wanting to land head first, and I managed to hit the water feet first, sort of. I hadn't quite come around enough and was leaning back enough so I couldn't yet see the water. It took me by surprise when I went in. It was unintentional, but I felt as if I'd just performed the best jack-knife cannonball explosion ever. I was told later that the splash almost made it back to where the building dispensed me, but I didn't see it for myself because I was dragging my ass off the bottom of the pool.
That turned out to be my only trip, because by the time I reached the surface, security already had Kevin and one other Marine in sight with handcuffs in mind. The other part I didn't see was the security that came into the hotel room within seconds after my exit from the balcony. I was the last jumper. We made the local papers, and all I could think of was getting a copy to mail to my parents. As if my poor mother didn't have enough to worry about.
There is a contest familiar to most branches of the military called 'hogging'. All Marines know all the rules and regulations well, but for the civilians reading this book, I'll explain what it's all about. 'Hoggin' is actually a sub-game that belongs to a larger game with no title. The set of contests involves seeing who can get laid with proof of it in context of whatever sub- game you are involved in.
'Hoggin' is of course, a contest to see who can lay the biggest hog. In other words, the largest woman, measured not in pounds, but panty size, that you must have in your possession upon completion of the task. It's this way because we couldn't hardly line them up and weigh them at the completion of the contest. Believe it or not, it doesn't count if the panties aren't in a state of having been recently worn, and/or soiled. So…Kevin and I, and several other Marines who were deftly expert at this contest decided to embark on yet another round.
To set this picture up right, downtown Honolulu and Waikiki are the perfect areas to play any and all sub-games involved with getting laid. I say this because the two towns run together seamlessly, and if you didn't know where you were, you wouldn't know where you were (No, I didn't steal that from Yogi Berra, it just came out that way).
The place was crowded with tourist women, mid 30's to mid 40's, all in some different state of relationship (or not) with someone 3,000 plus miles away. Out of sight, out of mind. If you were white, and not a local moke, you were a perfect 'tour guide' with benefits to come later. It was so simple. You and your partner would simply find a spot in a bar where you could easily be seen, and before you knew it, the waitress was delivering drinks that some member of the previously mentioned group of females had purchased for your consumption.
They mistakenly thought that they had to liquor us up first before we'd be willing to bed them, but we were training to be patient. We also discovered that the more we consumed (to a point, of course), the better and longer we could perform (sometimes that's good, sometimes bad).
On a 'hogging' night, believe it or not, you wanted to start early. If you got there too late, you had to fight over them. Go ugly early, or in this case, go hog early. Kevin and I paired ourselves up, and went to a place that we hadn't been to very much. We knew it was good for what we had in mind.
The Blue Kangaroo wasn't uptown, but it wasn't run down. It wasn't high society, so we knew we wouldn't have to subject ourselves to wading through the rich bitches. We simply wanted to find some easy prey. The hard part when you're 'hogging' is to wait until you think you've got the biggest one you can get without passing up a 'potential'. Imagine getting drinks sent to you from a skinny girl and blowing her off. Of course you could take her and lose by default (it's been done), but then what would be the fun in that? On this particular night, Kevin and I had to be very patient.