By Donald R. Vogel 

We were entering Subic Bay Naval Base, Philippines, our first port in more than 90 days. Lifers called the extended sea time “gonzo” station” because it entailed steaming aimlessly in the Indian Ocean while the crew bounced off bulkheads and manned watches of six hours on and six off. This created a timeless void in which we seldom saw daylight. “Gonzo’s” ranged from Operations Specialists like myself who tracked the paths of clouds on the radar, to guys like Steiner, an engineer who attempted suicide and was medevac’d to the nearest shore hospital after only a month out. To me, “gonzo” simply meant things and people changed when separated from the world.

Chaplain Moran was no different from anyone else. Something happened to him after the Steiner incident; his message didn’t change, but he did. According to some of the guys in the shipboard fellowship, Moran might have been in some kind of official trouble, because the Captain considered the mental well-being of the crew to be a chaplain’s primary responsibility. Extracting a sailor affected a skipper’s standing among his fellow zeroes. The perceived lack control over his men—even just one out of the 320 aboard—let alone the cost and delay of a medical evacuation, didn’t help a captain’s aspirations to become an admiral.

The other issue was politics. In the limited media we received, there was talk that the U.S. would be leaving Subic Bay after nearly 50 years. Stew Pearson, the gunner’s mate and de facto leader of bible studies in Moran’s absence, said the Chaplain’s duty now was to “save face instead of souls,” which made him and the rest of the believers feel betrayed. The rumor was confirmed when one of our Plan of the Days mentioned Moran was going to be part of an official visit by the Captain and other senior officers to an orphanage of Amer-Asian children in Olongapo City. Stew said the idea behind sending Moran along was to change local officials’ perceptions of Subic Bay as a “source of American seed and sin.”

On one of the last Sundays before making port, Moran gave a protracted sermon on faith and works. When he was done, he said he had one more important message to share. Then he turned off the lights and switched on a slide projector. A screen behind him showed a full-color image taken from a National Geographic; it depicted a tribesman from the main Philippine island of Luzon nailed to a cross as part of an Easter celebration.  Back in my church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, this would have served as a visual appeal for money toward the good work of missionaries trying to save the Filipinos from their pagan ways. Instead, we got Moran asking us, “What do you think is depicted here, the influence of our religion or the impact of our patronage?”

He said this in an authoritative rather than emotional tone, unusual for him, and his quick glance to the back confirmed why. From where I sat, I could see the Captain sitting in a corner of the mess deck; he must have joined us when we were praying. Sunday sermon was the only time he didn’t get the usual “attention on deck” that was his due. Normally, whether standing watch or cleaning toilets, you snapped to when that man approached.

I wondered if he was there to hear the message he wanted, or out of actual concern for the crew. There were a lot more men than the usual twenty or so regulars attending the service that day. Some were Steiner’s buddies; others were just stressed sailors looking for a break from the relentless lassitude of our days. I was one of the latter.

     Moran continued. “I’m not here to offer comforting words for the loss of a crew member,” he said, and I found myself thinking he didn’t know when to stop challenging people, and when that would wear thin.

     He then paused for effect. I looked around and saw many baffled faces among the gray bulkheads, the spotless steel of the galley, and the wires and pipes in the overhead. The screech of the ship’s engines was loudest here because the number-one boiler room was just below; no matter how high the AC, some of the 120-degree heat always permeated the deck. The noise was similar to that of a muffled jet engine revving up and down; it forced Moran to practically yell his sermon, making him appear almost rabid.

      “Even if it’s your first time, I’m sure you know by now what awaits in the Philippines—how the women will be paddling right up to the ships in their bonka boats and baskets to catch money.”  Moran looked around. “I wonder if the stories your shipmates tell include the fact that some of those boats will include children, many of them crippled.”

The man didn’t need muscle on his gangly frame when he glared. The mess decks were his, but the message wasn’t. He could have been my father, except he didn’t abandon his family.

 “Those children have been broken by their own parents to incur more sympathy and money when they beg. They’re cast aside when they get old. Many don’t make it out of their teens.” Another pause, along with exhalation through flared nostrils.  I’d seen that look before—not from him but from others in the fellowship. One day in Bible study, Moran asked each of us what we thought of the Bible. He picked me first, and I made the mistake of saying it was truly one of the great books of mankind, full of history, poetry, sin, and story. Others in the group said, indignantly, that the Bible was the Word of God, not some ordinary book. In his response, Moran walked a fine line among our beliefs, choosing expediency to preserve the few threads of unity keeping our group together. I figured that’s what he was doing now.

His tone softened slightly. “I’m not here to judge you or condemn you. I asked the question I did because I doubt most of you here will be around that first Sunday in port.”

     Moran moved to the middle of the image being projected on the screen, causing the crucified Filipino’s face to ripple on his khakis. “Some of you might think I only want to convert you, he said. “Not now, no. What I want is for you to think about your own sons and daughters when you gaze upon those of the Filipinos. That’s it, let’s pray.”

     As the heads went down, I looked back and saw the captain give the chaplain a slight nod, then get up and leave.

     That sermon was on my mind when we entered the channel for Subic Bay. Picture the Heisman trophy—that statue of the football player cradling the ball, looking to stiff-arm any would-be defenders: that was me, working the status board in the black light of the Combat Information Center, as some of my division mates huddled over the navigation table. 

Bob Hanson, first class petty officer and the lead enlisted man in the division, was sharing his stories of Olongapo City just outside the base. I wondered if I’d been deliberately assigned this post on the other side of a wall of Plexiglas, with grease pencil in hand to plot meaningless fixes from the lookouts.

     Once upon a time I was a fresh-faced farm boy who enlisted for adventure—because it was for God and country, and to escape the hypocrisies of a fundamentalist upbringing. I knew my roots but wanted my guzzle at the spigot of life, too. Now, four years later and near the end of my first enlistment—and contemplating a second—I knew Bob was very good at getting the young and gullible to buy into his world. I had started to. His method was to garner respect or gain obedience. It began with mentoring on what it meant to be an Operations Specialist on this type of ship, the Leahy, CG-16.

Bob took me (and any other newbies aboard) and personally taught each of us how to use radars and communications equipment and how to cut navigation fixes. This came with the price of being immersed in the seafaring way of life, which wasn’t anything deliberate on Bob’s part. It just happened. You formed camaraderie by doing the job and being a sailor together with other sailors.  As a result, I was in limbo between two lifestyles, squid and believer. I, the believer on the other side of the status board, made the squids more comfortable around the navigation table. The roles would have been reversed back home.

     “Yeah, it’s nearing the end of an era boys,” Bob said when he finished one of his stories. About the Philippines, those tales—many of which were funny and made the long watches bearable—included things like how, back in the day, they set up drunken newbies with she-males. Most often though time around the table was filled with bragging about how a few dollars got you fed, laid, and sheltered in the home of a beautiful Filipina.  I did get hard sometimes thinking about that.

     Listening to Bob was Gonzalez, until recently an Operations Specialist Second Class, along with two OS3’s, Jackson and Irving, huddled over the navigation table like they were planning a crime. I wondered if Gonzalez had finally gotten over bragging about how he stole a wave runner to catch the ship when it set sail without him from Australia. He was busted down a rank at Captain’s Mast and restricted to the ship for the three months in the Indian Ocean. It should have been a court martial offense. The fact that he escaped that probably had something to do with there being a critical shortage of OS’s, and Gonzalez had just reenlisted.

We were all happy to be finishing up that last watch steeped in the black lighting, which in the civilian world brought an eerie glow to the posters on a teenagers walls. In CIC it highlighted the teeth, eyes, and dandruff of the guys listening to Bob in a yellowish glow.

 “They’re talking about closing Subic Bay, even though Corazon Aquino is fighting to keep it open. According to her, we contribute to the economic development of the city.”  Bob shook his head. “Fucking economic development—right.” The economy wasn’t good most anywhere, back home especially. The lack of civilian jobs was one of the reasons I myself was thinking about reenlisting.

     We were far enough in the harbor that we had to shut down the radar and rely on visual sightings from topside watches. Part of it was because the topography created too much static to track anything, and the other part was what I was hearing in my headphones from the watches.

     “You guys gotta see this shit. There’s hundreds of boats. Women in nightgowns with baskets, kids rowing.  We’re going right down the middle of them.”

     Bob was looking my way through the status board, almost as if he could hear the same thing. He saw my face and turned his gaze back to his cronies.

     “Too bad we’re stuck here on station, cause it’s like take-out right now,” he said.

     I watched and could only think, here we go again. You didn’t disturb Bob’s stories, advice, whatever he was doling out. He was the Navy; all navies. Sea stories were the connection to the world outside of “gonzo” station.

     “A twenty with your name and ship written on it to one of those girls is all you need for a weekend of paradise,” Bob said. “The girls that don’t take off with the money use it to bribe base security, then wait for you on the pier. Another twenty and you’re good to go. I remember one time…”

     Security alert sounded, which meant every division had to provide someone for the detail. I was qualified to carry a .45 for the topside patrol, along with some of the other Operation Specialists. Bob looked my way. I didn’t mind; I hadn’t seen daylight in weeks. Removing my headphones, I rounded the stat board. Bob grabbed my arm.

     “Are you the assigned personnel for this watch, Fitzpatrick?”

     I allowed Bob to release my arm instead of pulling it away, which seemed to change his demeanor.

     “You know what awaits you up there, don’t you?”

     “Horny lookouts” I said.

     The group laughed, as did Bob.

     “You know we’re missing you at the division parties.”

     “I know. Thanks.”

     In my early days, when I first got to the ship out of boot camp, I had told Bob too much about myself, trying to find a foothold in this foreign culture. He knew about my father’s departure because his own father, from what he’d told me, had done the same. His mother was different, though mine dug deeper into the faith and rituals that defined our lives, whereas Bob’s went in another direction, doing what she had to do raise him and his brothers and sisters. He claimed to still be sending money back home, even though he had a wife and two kids back in Pearl Harbor.

     As I started for the hatch to make my way to the forward gunner’s locker, Bob stopped me again. The others kept quiet.

     “Wait a second.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and extracted a $20 bill. “Hand me that grease pencil, Gonzalez.”

Bob took the pencil and wrote my name and the ship number on the bill. Everyone was quiet as he reached into his front pocket and withdrew some quarters which he wrapped in the twenty.  He grabbed the masking tape used to fix the maps on the navigation table and secured the bill around the coins. He sounded earnest when he stuffed the little bundle into my shirt pocket.

     “Here. You can be the first in the division to do the right thing.”

     I felt the weight of the money in my pocket.

     “See you on the other side,” Bob said as I walked away.

     My boondockers clanged on the aluminum stairwells when I couldn’t slide along the handrails. I had to duck often in the narrow passageways filled with perennial buzzing, humming, or vibrating under the artificial light—all pervaded by the sting to the nostrils of JP5 fuel, its purple pipes just about everywhere in the overhead.

I was the last to get to the locker and retrieve a .45 and holster from the duty gunner’s mate, Stew Pearson. He was a Bible belt guy who seemed to fondle the guns in his charge a bit too much. He’d huddle in the serviceman centers in each port, singing hymns and fellowshipping with the indigent Christians—locals who lived away from the red light districts just outside the gates of most overseas naval bases. 

     Stew was standing behind the door of the locker. The upper half of it was open; the lower half provided a flat surface on which was a clean and lubed weapon.

     “Hey stranger. Where’ve you been these past few weeks?” Stew said, picking up the weapon and looking up the barrel to make sure the chamber was clear.

     “Sleep and watch,” I said

     Pearson handed me the weapon, and I too looked up the barrel.

     “Sticking to the scriptures, I hope.”

      “You bet.” I put the .45 down and took the belt and holster from him.

     “You going to join us for fellowship in port this time?”

     One of the last bible studies I attended during “gonzo” was one of the first Chaplain Moran didn’t lead after Steiner was taken ashore. Stew, considered the deacon of the group, held a lesson on Revelation. It seemed to me that the true believers spent too much time in the apocalyptic books. He’d looked at me a little too intently when discussing the Church of Laodicea quoting “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” 

I loaded a clip, holstered my weapon, and said, “I really need to get topside.”

     “We have a bunch of stuff planned at the serviceman’s center,” he called out after me, “While Chaplain Moran is busy with his official duties.”

     I was reminded of how long it had been since last seeing daylight when I emerged into the world from the portside hatch. It wasn’t so much a glare as it was a blur of daylight filtered through thick air that hit the same time as the fetid stench of the harbor.

I slammed the hatch shut and took a moment to orient myself, wiping my eyes and nose. After I did, the mist-covered Philippine mountains flaring with heat lightning cut into focus. It reminded me of the backdrop that framed Charlton Heston’s descent from Ararat in the Ten Commandments. 

     Then came the voices from the waterline: “Hey, sexy sailor boy. You like what you see?” or “Mister, mister, money here.”

     About twenty feet below me, and in a line from fore to aft, was a flotilla of bonka boats— flat, canoe-shaped vessels with pontoons to one side. Each was manned by an assortment of children, woman in worn nightgowns, and a smattering of young girls dressed too provocatively. Some of the crew, who should have either been standing security watch or below decks because of the alert, were calling back or tossing folded bills to some of the girls.  One of them tossed loose change just to get the boys to dive for it in the fecal waters. Bob had said he knew of some guys who threw washers.

     What appalled me, watching this scene, was not the enormity—Christ himself said “the poor you always have with you”—but the perverse choreography of it. Here were some of the most powerful warships in the world, some holding nukes we were neither to confirm nor deny, corralled to a crawl by members of the oldest professions on the most primitive of vessels. I looked to the hills and shook my head at what should have been an awe inducing landscape. These people didn’t have to nail themselves to crosses, I thought.

     I proceeded to clear the portside deck, chasing shipmates (who cursed me under their breaths with what included at least one “Jesus freak”) back through the hatches from which they’d surfaced. After that, I conducted a brief inspection which showed everything stowed and secured. We were warned that nimble Filipino boys coveted the brass fixtures of the topside fire stations. Bob said soapy decks worked better against a population that had grown inured to our mere show of force.

     When I made my way forward, I could see a bonka boat trying to nudge its way into the line. In it was a lone woman with a crude crutch at her feet who did not have the assistance of a partner, as did the women in the other vessels. They had boys who kept pushing the lone woman back. As they closed on my position, I could see she was not a kid, and not matronly either. The best way to describe her was aged youth. She struggled to stay upright as the boys pushed and rocked her bonka boat. At one point she fell, causing the boys to laugh and point until she used her crutch to stand in a single maneuver.

     All the women reached for their baskets as they came abreast of me, their entreaties rising to shrill. This one woman held up her basket and said nothing.  As I began walking toward the fantail, following her position, I extracted Bob’s little bundle from my shirt pocket. I knew the feeling of being squeezed out by the very people you thought who were your own kind.  The difference between the woman and myself in that moment was that her handicap was visible.

Watching the bonka boat riders grow more animated and jump up and down, I reached into my pants pocket for some change and tossed it into the water. The myriad tiny splashes got the response I wanted: the boys dropped their baskets and dove. Then I tossed the bundle to the woman, who nearly fell sideways as she leaned to catch it.  She stuffed it down her front and sat to paddle away from the boys, who were now splashing their way toward her.  With another ship behind us, however, they reversed direction and swam back to their boats for the next round of business.

The glance she gave me over her shoulder was my mess deck sermon. I knew there was a strong possibility she would be waiting for me on the pier. Well, I thought Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, and Christ still hung out with her. I could justify that much.

 I finished securing my watch and worked my way to the gunner’s locker as the ship moved into the restricted channel and to its berth. When the announcement came to stand down, I returned to see Stew at the locker. He was still polishing weapons, lovingly. He looked up and smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I said and unholstered my weapon for the routine of securing and stowing it.

“It’ll be good to set foot on dry land, won’t it?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, handing him the .45.

He took it, inspected the barrel, stowed it and looked at me. “You really need to join us in this port since the Chaplain’s so wrapped up in his photo op.”

“What are you guys doing aside from hanging out in the serviceman center?”

“There’s enough to do with services and bible study. We’ll win over some Catholic hearts.”

Another thing that put me at odds with the fellowship was my disagreement with their views of Catholicism as a kind of cult. Those discussions usually occurred when Moran wasn’t around.

“Don’t go there,” I said.

“What? You were there for Moran’s last sermon and saw what these people do without guidance. Take the risen Christ off the Cross and there’s no incentive to nail yourself. Simple.”

I wanted to say that the image projected on the screen was a show of faith one wouldn’t see among the ship’s fellowship, let alone back home, but I focused on the Chaplain instead.

“I suppose you think Moran was wrong showing that picture.”

“No. It served his purpose, whatever that was. It just didn’t serve us. You’re more than welcome to join us. Look for a jitney that says ‘Jesus Saves’ on the side. It’ll bring us to the center.”

He didn’t call me “brother” as I’d heard him do with others in the fellowship. That probably had something with my not huddling with them. In Japan I drank and played football with guys in the division, but still attended mess deck service at sea. In Hong Kong I spent time shopping and touring, and in Singapore I made the mistake of worshipping one Sunday morning hung over. I thought I’d left the dry fundamentalism at home and struck a balance between belief and reality; I didn’t understand why religion couldn’t be basically a simple perpetuation of tradition.  The line got drawn for me in Australia, the last port before gonzo. Moran had planned a sea-side service the Sunday before getting underway. I thought it a nice idea and was taken by the beauty of the setting sun and the power of his sermon. What happened next wasn’t good, though. I’m not sure if the chaplain felt inspired, or others in the fellowship had requested it, but he invited congregants to be baptized in the ocean. There were some guys who were new believers, so I could see the purpose; but then everyone started going up to re-dedicate themselves through immersion. I was the only one who stayed where I was.

I looked at Stew now and asked, “What do you think about what the Chaplain said regarding faith and patronage?”

“They don’t go together, and when they close the base, we won’t have any more time to save any of these people. The best you or any of us can do at this point is to look for that jitney.  I hope you’ll be there.”

I went back up to CIC and found most of the guys cleaning the status boards, stowing headphones, and shutting down radars. Bob was still holding court over the navigation table with Gonzalez. I made my way to secure my status board when Bob stopped me.

“Let someone else get that, Jim.” I knew what was coming when he called me by my first name: the re-enlistment talk. Being rotund and bald, he could have been the anti-Buddha, the way he stood there and smiled. “Yo, Smith, if you get Fitzpatrick’s station, you can go below and get ready for liberty before everyone else.”

Gonzalez had re-upped earlier in the cruise, and Bob made sure the entire division was there to watch a ceremony…that included the Captain administering the oath. One of Bob’s collateral tasks as lead petty officer was to ensure that as many short timers as possible raised their hands for another hitch. Due to the critical shortage of operation specialists, the Navy was offering a $20,000 re-enlistment bonus. After he swore him in, Bob ostentatiously gave Gonzalez a wad of cash.

Bob patted me on the shoulder now, then leaned into the navigation table with Gonzalez. He looked up a moment and I leaned in too.

“So, do you still have my twenty bucks?”

I shook my head.

“Good. Then you don’t owe it to me.”

Gonzalez chimed in. “He doesn’t, but I do.”

He stood straight, reached into his pocket and pulled out his wad and said “You know, I should have had more faith in him.” He ripped off a twenty and handed it to Bob, who stuffed it into his dungaree shirt. Both men smiled as Gonzalez made for the hatchway—not before looking back and saying, “They might be closing this bitch, but they’re definitely gonna know that I was here.”

After he left Bob said, “And so will he, when he wakes up with empty pockets the next day. So you been thinking about your future, Jim?”

I nodded.

“It’s pretty cool getting to less than 100 days and strutting around as the two-digit midget. I remember that first time. It was after Nam for me.”

I thought a moment. “Why’d you stay after that?”

“We weren’t in the shit. Fuck, we floated safely off the coast. Anyway, this isn’t about me—and I wouldn’t have asked questions if I got the kind of cash Gonzalez was just flashing, eh?” He looked at me for agreement.

I wanted to ask if I could get him to kiss my ass for the next 99 days before raising my hand, but thought better of it. Instead I replied “I’m not sure I want to be a sailor when I grow up.”

“You don’t have to—grow up, that is.” He paused, added “Let’s approach this from another angle: think how much good you could do with that kind of money. Unlike our friend there.”

He sort of had a point, and he beamed when I took a moment to respond.

“Ah, so that got you thinking. Good. Let’s leave it there for now. We’ve got some time. Why don’t you tell me about my twenty-dollar investment.”

“I threw it, but not with that in mind.”

“Yeah, sure. It’s not your big head thinking after ninety days straight in the Indian Ocean. We’ll see whether you’re on the penicillin or the confession line on the way home. I’d heard some of you guys were souring on Chaplain Moran.”

“What would you know about that?” I regretted the tone of that right after I said it, but Bob stood straight up and gazed down at me.

“Don’t get too smug with your beliefs just because you have the luxury of serving in peacetime. I watched many of my Nam buddies desperately seek the deity without success.”

There was a familiar thump and the ship’s whistle squealed over the intercom.

“Now that’s a sweet sound,” Bob said, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Can I go get ready for liberty now?”

“Sure, but take some advice for what it’s worth: Moran wears a cross on one collar and silver bars on the other. That’s gotta tell you something. And remember, there’s a division party at a place called Lollipops, just over Shit River and half way down Magsaysay on the right. Gonzalez is paying.”

He patted me on the shoulder again; I smiled and headed down to the Operations Division. The girl would be waiting for me on the pier, I imagined. I wondered if she’d go off with someone else if I waited before going ashore. At the very least, if I took my time, no one else would be around to see when she noticed me. I could then explain to her that I didn’t have the same intent as some of my shipmates.

I thought of Gonzalez. Twenty thousand was a lot of money, but I knew what the Navy knew when a guy re-enlisted: by the end of a second hitch, you’re almost a lifer, halfway to 20 years or more.  There was an additional incentive to re-up outside of the money: the recession back home was closing factories left and right in Scranton. Besides, what was I going to do after this—go back to Pennsylvania and teach Sunday school, marry a nice Christian girl like Mom, spawn more Laodiceans?

Then I thought of Bob and wondered if that’s who I was to become. The changes couldn’t be easy for a Cold War career guy. Hell, the closing of Subic Bay was only the capstone on my four years, which also included the Berlin Wall and Tiananmen Square. Who were our enemies now? Gonzo looked to be the state of the Navy for the foreseeable future.

The aisles of the one room fifty-bed apartment in the Operations Division were strewn with gear as excited sailors dug in their open racks for the essentials for four days of liberty. The space seemed more brightly lit but less familiar without the hum of the ship’s engines. The orange tile shone but the air remained musty.

Gonzalez was sitting at the table to my left at the bottom of the stairwell with Horner, Davis and Jones. All were attired in t-shirts, shorts, and sandals as they played a game of poker more animated than their sea-weary version.

“Even now?” I said when I passed them on the way to my locker.

“Some of us need to get our money back,” Gonzalez said, glancing at the other beaming faces.

 “You gonna join us this time around, Fitzy?” Davis said.

Gonzalez chimed in. “Drinks are on me when you do.”

I knew they’d forget all about me when liberty sounded, but I smiled anyway. I started dressing out of my dungarees and into civvies. My supplies included shorts, shirts, and my shaving kit. I took my time packing, remaining at my locker a bit after the whistle prompted a charge of clicking feet. The stomps and stumbles reverberated in the metallic hollows of the compartment. Following a few minutes later, my steps were even and soundless.

I proceeded through the narrow passageway up to the quarterdeck, where the gangway would be. The duty officer rang the bell over the intercom and announced “Leahy ashore,” which meant the Captain had disembarked and then rest of the crew could follow.

When I opened the hatch to the quarterdeck, the heat smacked me in the face.  I stepped to the left in order not to impede the rush. We were docked along a pier of warehouses overseen by mist-covered mountains and three-story cranes casting a shadow over what could be only described as a carnival. Just below me and several yards from the end of the gangway was a bustle of vehicles and some of the same types of vendors we’d seen in other Asian ports—selling clothes, bootleg tapes, and food. One cart looked to be a roving morgue, stocked with food below hanging goose heads and those of hogs aligned in front, all with slits for eyes to complete their death grimaces.

The women were there, too—dressed in party dresses or tight miniskirts. They had to wait their turns pulling up from the left as groups of shipmates made their selections, haggled for services, and drove away with their trophies in the jitneys. To my right was a row of limousines, the lead sporting two blue flags on either side of the front, each emblazoned with two white stars. That was the Subic Bay Admiral’s car. No doubt that was where the captain would ride. Groups of men in khakis, the other officers, were joking among themselves. I caught a quick glimpse of Chaplain Moran laughing as he ducked into one of the limos.

Some ways down the pier I saw the white “Jesus Saves” painted on the side of the jitney for the serviceman center. Next to it was Stew in his familiar slouch. Only five other guys were boarding. He stood waiting, looking at the crowd that was now heading into Olongapo City or moving on to the ship docking aft of us. I was about to wave to him when one last jitney pulled up directly below where I was standing. The woman who’d caught Bob’s twenty dollars was in the front seat; she smiled at me. Behind her sat a boy, perhaps five years old, with eyes that, in comparison with her angled teardrops, were more football-shaped.

The woman hobbled from her seat and gimped down the steps, leading with her crutch, which she leaned on when she reached the pavement. Unlike any of the other women on the pier, she wore jeans and a t-shirt, although tight. The driver reached down to her a basket of food stuffs that looked to be from the goose head vendor. She hooked it on her arm, motioned with one finger up to the boy, raised the basket toward me, and smiled. Then she mouthed, “You come.”

As I made my way down the gangway, my only thought was how she probably wouldn’t have looked so good to me had I seen her before gonzo. She made a move toward, me but I held up my hand and walked over to her. I reached out my hand and she responded with hers, warm, moist.

Bob had told us not to use our real names with the girls. “I’m Jim,” I said.

“Dalisay,” she said. “You’re my handsome gun man.”

 “You didn’t have to come. That money was a gift,” I said.

“So is this,” she responded, holding up the basket. She turned and pointed to the boy. “That’s Matty. Say hi, Matty.”

The boy just waved and continued peering at us.

Her face grew serious when she looked back to me. “If you want to be with me, I have to leave him someplace.”

Dalisay’s body was actually quite nice, even with her handicap, and she’d made it this far, supporting a kid. I found it all enticing, but not exciting. Here she was drowning me in hospitality rather than feral solicitation. If I was special in anyway, it was that she saw something in me that wasn’t typical of the rest of the sailors now invading her homeland.  That could have been something as simple as looking like a pushover.

“Where would you leave him?”

“Someplace not far. Safe,” she said.

I nodded. “I want you to show me around before we do anything else.”

She smiled. “Everything is negotiable.”

I followed her onto the jitney and we left. Dalisay sat next to Matty in his seat, and I took the one across the aisle from her. She spoke to him in Tagalog. He listened, looked at me, and nodded to her. Even with his lack of emotion, I felt something in the pit of my gut. More troubling was the fact that the feeling didn’t last, though I wanted it to.  Moran had spoken about the danger of quelling the Spirit within. If you sinned enough, whether in thought or deed, God left you to your own devices.

Industry gave way to greenery as we rode through Subic Bay, senior officers’ residential area. We passed neat lawns with canopies of palm trees and variegated tropical gardens. Dalisay asked if I was married, where I was from, what life was like back home; I told her no, Pennsylvania, and cold. Neither of us raised the topic of family. I looked at Matty and wondered what she would do when the base closed, but thought better of inquiring.

Just outside the base we crossed a bridge spanning a small muddy drainage ditch lined both sides with garbage. We stopped at a signal that allowed cars and trucks to turn left and right on their way into the base. From Dalisay’s side of the jitney I heard now familiar mews and enticements directed at us.  A line of four bonka boats, manned like the ones we passed coming into port, held young girls in gowns, holding up wicker baskets. My host ignored this and pointed up the bank. Up on the left about a quarter mile was a building at which was parked the officers’ vehicles from the pier.

“That’s where we’ll drop off Matty. It’s run by the base.”

“That’s an orphanage,” I said

“I know. It’s also a daycare, and free.”

“Maybe, but those cars mean official business.”

“I know that, too. More is going on for the kids there today than ever before. They’ll even keep him overnight.” She turned to look at me. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Matty turned and looked up at me.

I didn’t look directly at him and said, “Yes.”

At this, the boy smiled and said, “I’m going camping again?” in English. She responded by tousling his hair. “Yes. With all of your friends.” She leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.

We crossed the bridge and made a right onto Magsaysay Drive, the subject of so many Hanson adventures. We inched through chaos. The air was like a humid vacuum, making all movement appear languid. Motorcycles with side cars wove through the aimless crowd as vendors accosted from all angles selling wicker furniture, bootleg music, and counterfeit designer clothes.  Some shoppers walked with leashed monkeys while the Americans covered their faces to the stench of canine-shaped meat hanging in various tortured poses.  Under store awnings, girls glared. Each bar had a banner welcoming a different ship in the fleet along with the greeting “Welcome Home From Gonzo.” 

The trip to the orphanage took forever. It was the only brick façade among aluminum roofed shacks with a schoolyard-size playground already bustling with children. The driver opened the door. I got up and held out my hand for Dalisay, which she pushed aside; she stood with her crutch, proffering her hand to Matty. 

“You need to come with us,” she said. “We must be accompanied by a serviceman to use the facility.”

I stayed back a little and watched her. Relying on that crutch prevented her having any kind of saunter. Chaplain Moran had said many of the Filipinos crippled as children were orphaned after the innocence of youth left their faces and they couldn’t garner sympathy for begging. Dalisay seemed a rebuttal to Moran’s image of self-crucifixion, as an act of choice rather than as the tribulation she’d undoubtedly endured because of others’ indifference.

No entourage of officers awaited us in the entrance of the orphanage. While the paperwork was being done, I kept looking around. An aide finally took the boy out to the playground.  Dalisay and I turned to go, and she hooked her arm in mine. She whispered, “Now, to business.”

     We hadn’t gotten to the door when I heard the voice I was hoping to avoid.

     “Jim, is that you?” Moran called.

     Dalisay asked who it was. I murmured for her to keep moving, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

     “What brings you here?”

     I turned. “Hi Chaplain.”

     “Hi. Who’s your friend?”

     “Dalisay, Father,” she said removing her arm from mine and holding out her hand.

     He took it. “That’s a lovely name. It means ‘pure,’ yes?”

     She smiled and hooked my arm again. “You know your Tagalog, Father.”

     “Please, call me Steve.” He looked at me and then said, “I was going to head over to the serviceman center. Do you want to join me?”

     “What about your business here?” I asked.

     “I requested to be relieved.”

     My eyes widened.  Zeroes were relieved of duty at a superior’s discretion; they didn’t volunteer themselves. Moran could lose his commission. He responded to the face I made and said, “Don’t worry, I’m doing the right thing. Faith, remember?” He looked at Dalisay and said, “Would you like to join us?”

     She paused, I knew, for my response.

     “We can drop you off,” I said.

     “Oh? No, no, that’s okay. It’s about a mile up Magsaysay. I can pick up a few things for my wife on the way.”

     That moment, I felt like only friend the guy had in the world, treating him as if we’d never met before. “How about I join you for services, tomorrow?”

     Dalisay added, “How about we join you? Matty and I would be happy to go.”

     Moran paused a moment and then smiled. “I’d like that, Dalisay. Hymns start at 9 a.m. Sermon is 9:30. See you then.”

     I reached out my hand and he took it with a smile. “Like that name, Dalisay. It might be a good topic for something when we raise anchor.”

     I smiled too and said, “Yes, just what sailors need to hear.”

     Moran patted my shoulder and made for the door with a bit more of a hunch in his shoulders than I’d noticed before.

     On our way out Dalisay said, “Sundays are my days off, so church is extra.”

     “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll take you to a party with a few friends of mine and we’ll call it even. I know a guy who’ll be spending good money on pretty faces.”

     “What’ll you do?”

     “Listen to stories.”

     Dalisay was my guardian angel as our jitney made its way through the dirty back streets of Olongapo City where sailors weren’t supposed to go. Bob said guys who didn’t travel in a group or with a girl got their throats cut even in broad daylight. Everyone knew sailors were paid in cash at sea and that most took it ashore with them. One also stayed with one girl, otherwise she or one of her brothers would gut you with a butterfly knife, regardless of location.

     Gone was the cheesy glitz of Magsaysay Drive. These streets were the stark reality of the Third World: pit rutted dirt roads lined by makeshift shanties throw together over drift wood and corrugated aluminum. Although places of similar despair in the States had nothing on this squalor, there was certain universality to it if you ever noticed those photos while trolling for topless natives in National Geographic as a kid.  It lent credence to the saying that the place didn’t change, only the name. Fortunate or unfortunate, that said nothing about the faces.

     At times I hung on for dear life as our driver darted around children, monkeys, garbage and puddled ruts. I made the mistake of asking Dalisay if she lived around there and she gave me a look that was at once shameful as it was chastising.

     “No,” she said. “Someplace better.”

     I remembered Bob telling us that if we paid more than fifty bucks for a girl for a weekend, we were getting ripped off; however that never came with instructions on the appropriate time to negotiate. In most foreign ports, you made sure a cab driver put the meter on and that you had some idea of your destination, otherwise you were fucked. It was a bit ironic that ‘fucked’ was my status and my destination, besotted as I was by a girl with a gimp, a kid, and a fruit basket.

     I leaned into Dalisay. “You never said how much for all this.”

     She looked at me, smiled and drew a sexy pose. “What do you think?”

     For a brief sorry moment I wanted to answer, “eighty percent of a complete set” but it passed quicker than a thought like that used to. I hoped that Chaplain Moran might have had a hand in that. Not getting aroused right away was another hopeful sign.

     Bob’s twenty had paid for the fruit—with much left over, I’m sure—and I had covered the jitney ride. Knowing from him that straight dollars, rather than the Filipino peso, bought much more on the Olongapo black market for the working girls, I knew I should give her more and lie to the guys in the division later on how little it all cost.

     “A hundred,” was my reply.

She blew me a kiss.

“You’re a special man,” she said.

I had expected a better response.

Lollipops was a house that looked like something a fraternity would call home. I expected a TV to come flying out a window as the jitney let us out in front. The steps were draped with drunks I didn’t recognize from the division or the ship. Being without women by that point, according to Hanson lore, they would most likely be the ones on their ships’ respective penicillin lines. The girls that were on the pier or that worked in the bars got their shots on base and were the first to be snatched up during liberty call. It was the clap for them, unless, they were fellow Christians.

Dalisay looked apprehensive. I took her by the arm to help her up the steps and past the bodies that stirred like zombies aroused from dormancy by the smell of fresh meat. One of them said, “Ah, she’s broken,” and went back to his drunken rumination.

Inside was a cacophony of dance music and cat calls surrounded by fluorescent graffiti. It was hard to tell who was who at the tables as most of the white, black or brown were adorned with Filipinas.  The girls not hunched over their respective meal tickets glared up and down at Dalisay as we shuffled through.  When her grip grew tighter on my arm, I knew our roles had reversed. She dragged her leg more than she had since we met.

Toward the back of the barroom was a large dilapidated pool table at which Gonzalez paced with a stick. To the left, and back, was Bob with his hands draped over his belly like a beardless Santa overseeing the debauchery of his elves on the day after Christmas. He beamed and roused from his reverie when he saw me.

“My God, it’s a miracle,” he shouted.

All activity ceased as did Dalisay in her tracks.

Gonzalez bounded over and molested my left hand from its side.

“Look what the cat dragged in.  And who is this mamacita?”

He reached out a hand and Dalisay unhooked my arm quicker than she should have.

“Call me Dally,” she said as Gonzalez took her hand and kissed it.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out that wad.

“Would Dally like to tally over a game of pool?”

Dalisay looked at his bulging hand, at me, and then back at him.

“Okay, but I have to warn you, I’m pretty good.”

Gonzalez smiled and said, “Care to wager?”

She looked at me and winked.

“Gonzalez, will you quit that shit and bring the prodigal to me,” Bob bellowed. He looked concerned.

Dalisay went to grab a pool cue and Gonzalez put his arm around me to guide me to the corner.

“Fitzy, my man. I didn’t know you were into that.”

I stopped .

“Into what?”

“Charity.”

“It’s not charity.”

Gonzalez got serious. “I’m not goofing on you. I think it’s kind of cool. The hot ones are all the same. Yours is probably an earnest fuck.”

Bob made his way toward us.

Gonzalez looked back at Dalisay.

“Let’s swap. You take mine over in the corner. All expenses paid. I’ll make up the difference on yours, if you want.”

He tried to stuff a hundred into my pocket.

Just as I knocked his hand away, Bob got there and embraced me. He glared at Gonzalez who bowed and went back to the pool table.

Bob escorted me to his table with his hand on my back. It pressed a bit when I glanced over my shoulder to the pool table.

“I need to see to my girl?”

“This ain’t the time to do something stupid,” Bob said. “Gonz isn’t worth half your pay and freedom for half a year. Besides, one doesn’t fly fish at a salmon run. Let’s sit.”

The waitress sauntered over with our beers when he beckoned. She looked me up and down and smiled. She turned and swayed her round, tight ass for my benefit. I felt a stirring that I didn’t with Dalisay.

“See what I mean, you stud. You don’t have to heal the lame to have fun.”

We sat and Bob lifted his beer. “Here’s to the future.”

I could see Gonzalez rip off more bills with Dalisay standing mesmerized. He let her break, which she did making a show of wavering on her good leg. She pretended to miss the cue ball, giggled, and pressed back into Gonzalez when he came behind her to help with the shot. Both were oblivious to a lone girl in the opposite corner cutting them with her eyes.

Insulted and jealous were what I felt and kicking Gonzo’s ass was the appropriate outlet, but who was I anymore? Just another Don Quixote dashed on the rocks of the world’s dispossessed. “You will always have them with you” was the only universal truth.  I was weary of trying to heal.

At the rate he was going, Gonzalez would blow his re-enlistment bonus by the end of the cruise. At least Dalisay and her son would derive some benefit from it. If I re-enlisted, I would have received my bonus about the time we got home. Shoving that in Gonzo’s face instead of my fist would be sufficient revenge.

Bob asked, “What’s it gonna be my friend, God or country?”

I klinked his beer and said “First tell me if fifty is the right ‘tip’ for the waitress.”

He laughed and said, “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”