I remained silent while he ran a hand over his crew cut.
“Well?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” I lied.
Cutter’s eyes glowed for a second, then returned to beady. “You’re sorry what?”
It took me a moment. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Very well, but don’t let it happen again. We run a tight ship around here.”
Funny, tight is what I wanted to get and it was only 0907.
#
This initial encounter set the tone for my relationship with PIO Officer William N. Cutter, who made Gustav Hermann seem like a jolly good fellow. Not only was my boss unyielding in his opinions, he lacked anything resembling a sense of humor, so no corny janitor references from him. Worse still, Cutter was a conscientious censor, especially of unpleasant news, which I learned the hard way after assuming editorship of the ship’s magazine, The Anchor, in July (thus becoming a macher after all).
The clash occurred in September after the ship returned from a weeklong training mission. Maneuvers at sea had been uneventful, but while steaming home the Breeze ran aground on a shoal in San Francisco Bay. A half-dozen tugboats set the vessel free, but not even a flotilla could save it from the humiliation that followed. The Chronicle, Examiner and Oakland Tribune all carried front-page stories describing the Lilliputians’ rescue of Gulliver, supplementing their accounts with photographs to ensure that readers got the full macabre picture. NBC-, CBS- and ABC-TV, of course, ran film at eleven.
I wrote a story about the incident for The Anchor, trying with some success to avoid the puns, mostly loopy, that peppered the average media report. I submitted a draft to Cutter and stood by while he read it. After finishing the piece he tossed it back to me with—if I interpreted correctly—disdain.
“We can’t run this.” For some reason he seemed pleased.
By now I knew arguing with him was futile but couldn’t resist. “Why not, sir?”
“Because,” he elaborated.
“Because why?”
Ralph Satterly, who’d joined the staff last month as my associate editor, came to attention behind his desk.
“Because it’s not the kind of article we run in our publication,” Cutter explained.
“The Chron and Examiner carried the story on page one,” I noted.
“That’s their prerogative.”
“Why isn’t it ours?”
“Because we have the crew’s morale to think of.”
“But everyone already knows what happened. They were there.”
“All the more reason not to publish the story. It’d be redundant.”
I was tempted to twist his nose but instead continued to waste my time.
“Sir, this is a huge deal. The captain could lose command of the ship.”
“That’s too bad, but—”
“We’re the Breeze’s sole publication … in a way, we’re its historian. We should at least go on record, sir.”
“No we shouldn’t. End of story.”
He returned to his primary function, shuffling papers.
“Shit.”
I said this almost, but not quite, under my breath.
Cutter looked up. “What’d you say?”
I knew he’d heard me so, to avoid redundancy, I said nothing.
He shook his finger at me. “Sailor, you’ve just lost a week’s liberty.”
I stared at him, trying to think of a rejoinder I could be proud of. But nothing came to mind, so I returned to my desk choking on bile and yearning for revenge.
Judging by his expression, Satterly was also unhappy, mainly because—just a guess—the battle was over.
#
I spent weeks—but especially my week off (so to speak)—mulling various reprisals and dismissing each until one morning after reveille the perfect retribution came to me. I was sitting on the edge of my bottom bunk, longing for more sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Of course.
Cutter slept in the office at night, driven there by a roommate whose snoring, he claimed, made slumber impossible. He’d comshawed a stowable cot and, knowing I arrived early every morning to read, he gave me the job of waking him up. Why the schmuck didn’t just use an alarm clock, like any normal person would, I couldn’t say. But I was happy now to serve as a surrogate.
On the day I’d chosen for payback I got to the office at 0800 as usual and gazed at Cutter, asleep in his skivvies with the bedsheets thrown off. He looked so calm and peaceful that instead of disturbing him I sat at my desk and resumed reading the novel I’d begun the day before, Uris’s Battle Cry.
Satterly showed up at 0900 and I shushed him before he could utter a greeting, then requested in a whisper that he not bother Sleeping Beauty. He started to giggle so I clamped a hand over his mouth, removing it only when he began turning blue. Taking the hint, Satterly busied himself reading proofs and peeking at Cutter every ten seconds. Meanwhile I worked on a routine press release.
Visitors started arriving at about 0930, almost all of them peddling a story or photograph or both. They glanced at Cutter, either in disgust or amusement, but out of deference said nothing.
I’d about finished the release when an exceptionally loud yawn drew my attention. I looked over at Cutter, who was sitting up and scratching his armpits. He glanced at the wall clock, which read 1025, then turned to me, eyes bulging, cheeks twitching. “Why didn’t you wake me, goddamnit?”
“I thought you needed the sleep, sir.”
I also thought Satterly would sprain something trying not to laugh.
“You’ll regret this, you little shit.”
Cutter often got hot under his starched collar, but this was the angriest I’d ever seen him. He was even more irate now than the time I threw up in his wastebasket while in the throes of a hangover.
He waited until the office was empty, then got up, folded the cot and stored it in the closet. He dressed quickly and exited.
That week Cutter returned the cot and resumed sleeping in his quarters. As a result, he often looked haggard and out of sorts, which was fine with me. He seldom spoke to me, which was also okay—an unexpected bonus, actually, for neglecting my duty. I also enjoyed knowing the putz was unlikely to put me on report for insubordination, since that would require revealing the circumstances under which I’d been insubordinate, including his flouting of ship’s regulations by sleeping in the office. Cutter had gotten away with the crime because most of our visitors were enlisted men reluctant to snitch on an officer. So putting me on report would negate this advantage.
As a result, the cliché about revenge proved true.
Indeed, it was sweeter than sweet.
Chapter 40
1962
Time aboard ship passed slowly. How slowly? Like frozen molasses. Like a one-legged turtle. Like snowbound traffic. Like … well, you get the idea.
The reason for the slow passage of time aboard ship was simple. Life there sucked. And I don’t mean because of that asshole Cutter. I mean because it was boring. As in boring. And lest you think I alone felt this way, I assure you I had lots of company. In fact, boredom ranked second only to officers on almost everyone’s Shittiest Things About the Navy list.
The tedium came as a surprise to me, since Wonderman hadn’t mentioned it in his litany of things I’d hate about the Navy. Maybe he thought I’d reject the notion that it was boring. If so, he might have been right at the time but not now. Now I knew the truth. Navy life, at least aboard ship, sucked (or have I already said that?). Day in and day out, on land and at sea, we woke up, went to work, returned to our bunks. Woke up, went to work, returned to our bunks. Woke up, went to work, returned to our bunks. Woke up … but you get that idea too.
I tried escaping the tedium by getting drunk, but that avenue was severely limited. On shore, Bay Area bars studiously checked IDs. And at sea, Navy regulations forbade booze aboard ship. So my drinking was confined to overseas ports, which we visited only occasional
ly, and to the enlisted men’s club, which served military personnel of all ages but whose atmosphere reminded me too much of the Navy.
Already I looked forward to getting discharged, and to one other date on the calendar.
#
May 21, 1962.
Today I am a man.
I’d been waiting forever to say that and now I could, because on this date I became a man by law, rather than Jewish tradition.
And because I could now drink legally my avenues of escape widened. So I thanked whatever gods may be that the Breeze was in port on the day I turned twenty-one. I spent most of it waiting until 1700 rolled around, tapping my toes, twiddling my thumbs, pacing the office and occasionally working. At the magical hour I changed into my dress uniform and flew out the hatch, down the gangplank and onto the bus headed for San Francisco. I hadn’t even combed my hair or taken a leak, since I had no time for such piddling matters.
I’d decided to celebrate at the Busy Beaver, a strip joint on California Street that my more experienced shipmates assured me made up for its lack of subtlety by employing nubile young performers, which contrasted sharply with its competitors, who tended to hire women well past their prime.
I’d no sooner pulled up a stool in the half-empty club than the balding, doleful-looking bartender shuffled over and requested my ID. Smugly, I handed him my driver’s license.
He examined it and grunted. “What’ll yuh have?”
“Bud.”
He left and returned with a surprise, a shot of whiskey in addition to the beer.
“Seeing as you’re officially a man today,” he said, “I thought maybe you’d like something stronger to keep the Bud company. On the house.”
I thanked him profusely, maybe even overdid it, then downed the shot and ordered another as a gift to myself.
And so commenced a night of swilling boilermakers and admiring the strippers’ consummate artistry. Sometime during this spree one of them, a peroxide blonde wearing a filmy negligee over a spangled bikini, took the stool next to me after her set.
“How ’bout you buy me a bottle,” she said for openers.
“Of?”
“Champagne, what else?”
What else indeed.
What was I thinking?
Blondie had a pretty, doll-like face and an extravagant bosom, yet I hesitated. According to my sources, strippers drank tea posing as champagne, and despite their come-ons never slept with customers.
“C’mon, darlin’,” Blondie cooed. “You never know what’ll happen if you treat me nice.” She swiveled to face me and casually spread her legs, presumably to clarify what would happen if I treated her nice.
This raised two things—the obvious, and a series of questions. What if my informants were wrong? What if strippers did put out occasionally? Or what if they generally didn’t but this one was an exception. What if by declining her invitation I’d deny myself the greatest birthday gift of all?
I bought her a bottle of champagne.
After its delivery, along with two glasses, I poured and we both sipped. I winced and ordered another boilermaker.
“Why don’t we grab a table,” I suggested after the real drinks arrived.
“Sure, why not.”
We grabbed our beverages and then a table. Once seated, I drank while Blondie ignored her tea and told me her life story, apparently assuming I wanted to hear it. Naturally the tale ended with a good-for-nothing husband forcing her to strip for a living by leaving her barefoot, pregnant and penniless.
Upon finishing she urged me to buy her more so-called champagne
“You’ve hardly touched that.” I pointed at the nearly full bottle.
“So?”
No use trying to refute an airtight argument, so I proposed an alternative. “How ’bout a cocktail?”
“Uh-uh. Bottle of champagne.”
Ever creative, I said, “How ’bout a champagne cocktail?”
“Uh-uh. Bottle.”
I remained undaunted. “C’mon, let me buy you a champagne cocktail.”
“I wan’ a bottle.”
After a heated exchange that went something like …
“Cocktail.”
“Bottle.”
“Cocktail.”
“Bottle.”
“Cocktail.”
“Bottle.”
… Blondie slapped my face. Hard.
“I don’t go out with cheapskates, you creep.” With that she sprang from her chair and departed.
I returned to the bar, ordered one for the road and called it a night.
Now you’d think I’d fall into a funk after being slapped instead of screwed, but I took the abuse like a man, maybe because today I was one.
Or maybe because I was drunk.
#
In mid-June we deployed to San Diego, home of that dubious training center, and we did it for no other reason than to show off.
On our second day in port we held an open house, during which Satterly and I distributed brochures that unashamedly tooted the ship’s horn. The tooting continued on our third day of deployment when the Breeze raised anchor with a dozen veteran reporters aboard.
On our first day at sea Cutter gave them the grand tour, with Satterly and I following in his wake should he need our help, which he usually did. I’ll give the jerkoff this, though. He was good at reciting endless statistics, and a couple about the ship—that it was three football fields long and employed 3,600 men—impressed even our jaded journalists. The vessel’s city-like accouterments—cafeteria, barbershop, infirmary, clothing store, drugstore, gym—also seemed to wow them.
But the thing that amazed them most was the flight deck, from which pilots took off and landed on a surface often compared to a postage stamp. Aircraft catapulted off the ship, circled round and touched down, then grabbed an outstretched cable with their tailhooks and came to a screeching halt. So deafening was their landing and braking that the flight crew, and those of us on deck watching, wore “earmuffs” to keep from going, well, deaf.
After a week at sea the ship returned to San Diego, and the duly impressed reporters disembarked.
Along with a thirsty crew.
#
Satterly and I visited about half the city’s watering holes and, once relieved of our senses, rode a taxi over the border into Tee-hwan-uh, where the driver overcharged us and the bars served us watered-down beer.
At our third stop, Tequila Pete’s, a pair of B-girls accompanied the brews and apparently stirred Satterly’s hormones.
“Think they’ll let us take ’em somewhere and, you know …” His voice throbbed with hope.
Still, I had to be honest. “I doubt it.”
Which didn’t mean I wasn’t interested. Neither of our girls qualified as Miss Mexico, but the more my vision blurred the more their looks improved, until they both qualified for the title.
“Why?” Satterly asked. “We’re not good enough for ’em?” A bit on the porky side, he patted his belly.
“I’m sure that’s not it. It’s just that they’re paid to do a job here.”
“And what job would that be, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I waved in the general direction of our beers. “They encourage customers to stay and drink this piss.”
“Then why’re they doing this?” Satterly pointed at the dark-skinned hand in his lap.
“It’s what they do to keep us here.” I stroked the equally dark-skinned arm encircling my waist.
“Well, it’s not working,” he said. “I wanna get fucked.”
“Me too.”
“T’rrific. Who’s gonna fuck us?”
“Beats me.”
“Let’s ask a cab driver. He’ll tell us who. It’s what he’s paid to do.”
I doubted that but agreed to Satterly’s plan. I settled the tab and we headed for the exit, a bit wobbly on our feet. On our way there I heard our two former companions jabbering in Spanish, my knowledge of which was on a par with Lenny
Klinger’s. If I had to guess, I’d say they were bemoaning our departure. By the time we got to the door I was curious, so I glanced back. Both gals were hip-to-hip with two other customers.
Obviously I’d guessed wrong.
#
We hailed a taxi and, once settled in, I sat back while Satterly leaned toward the driver. “If you could … that is … see, we wanna …”
“Get laid,” I clarified, hoping the driver was more familiar with English than I was with Spanish.
I had my doubts when only minutes later we landed outside an acre’s worth of tent in an open field. We paid the cabbie anyway, and after he’d sped off entered the tent with extreme caution. A sombrero-wearing caballero sitting behind a card table greeted us with a grin and rubbed a thumb and two fingers together.
Taking this as a good sign, I asked, “How much?”
He stared at us. We stared at him. Satterly and I stared at each other. In silent agreement we removed the wallets tucked into the waistbands of our pocketless uniforms and handed them to our new amigo, whose grin expanded as he extracted a fistful of pesos from each. He stuffed the bills in his sequined jacket and got up, indicating we should follow him. The three of us marched across a wide expanse of dirt floor to a row of cubicles shielded by tattered curtains. Our host motioned each of us toward one and disappeared.
I entered mine and closed the curtain. To the left of the entrance lay a large woman on a small cot. Both were naked and lumpy-looking. I hesitated, undressed, hesitated again and then mounted the fair señorita. But that’s as far as I got, because I failed to rise to the occasion. Instead of helping, as Lola May had done, this whore just lay there like—need I say it?—a lump.
But she did have the makings of a diplomat.
“You come?” she asked, knowing full well I hadn’t.
“Sí,” I lied, maybe for the first time in Spanish.
“Bueno, now you go.”
I dressed and gladly went.
Satterly and I were too numb on the cab ride back to the ship and too hung over the next day to compare notes, but eventually we each confessed our failure to perform that night.
I felt bad for both of us and, for whatever reason, the whores as well.
Nathan in Spite of Himself Page 20
