"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, 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.