The below short story appeared originally in American Crime Magazine.
Olongapo
By Paul Davis
The United States
Navy back in my day advertised that one could “Join the Navy and see the
world.” But for young sailors like me serving on a 7th Fleet
aircraft carrier in the early 1970s, we thought the recruiting pitch should
have been, “Join the Navy and see Olongapo.”
During the Vietnam
War, the U.S. Navy assigned three aircraft carriers and their battle groups to
the 7th Fleet’s Task Force 77. The carriers operated on “Yankee
Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam.
The USS Kitty Hawk, an 80,000-ton warship that
measured 1,047 feet long, with a beam of 129 feet, and a 250-foot flight deck
with 80 aircraft, was one of the three carriers
that operated on Yankee Station in 1970 and 1971.
Two of the three
carriers were on Yankee Station continuously, launching aircraft that performed
combat sorties against the Communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong around the
clock, as the third carrier rotated visits to port of calls to Sasebo, Japan or
Hong Kong for much needed R&R. The carriers also rotated in and out of
Subic Bay in the Philippines for “upkeep” and to let the sailors go crazy in
Olongapo.
I had been duly
warned by older sailors that Olongapo was a dangerous and treacherous town. My
older friends who had visited Olongapo on
the previous combat cruise had warned me that it was so very easy to be
robbed, cheated and even murdered in Olongapo.
I recall a
particularly shocking illustration of just how rough and heartless Olongapo
could be on one of my visits to Subic Bay. A shore patrol jeep pulled up to the
carrier’s enlisted brow as I was departing the Kitty Hawk, and out stepped a
young sailor who appeared to be naked under a gray blanket that was wrapped
around his waist.
He looked as if
he were in shock as hundreds of American sailors and Filipino yard workers and
vendors laughed wildly at him as he walked up the brow. To make matters even
worse, a cruel sailor grabbed the tip of the blanket and yanked it off of him
and tossed it into the water. The humiliated young sailor, now naked, covered
his crotch with his hands and ran up the brow. He was then escorted away from
the laughing crowd.
I learned later
from the ship’s “scuttlebutt,” which is what sailors call gossip, that the
sailor had passed out drunk in a hotel room and a Filipina prostitute robbed
him of everything from his glasses and watch to his underwear and socks. The
hotel clerks pulled the crying sailor out of his room and threw him into the
street naked. The Navy’s Shore Patrol showed up, placed a blanket around him
and brought him back to the aircraft carrier.
To add insult to
the proverbial injury, the sailor was reprimanded for losing his Navy ID card
and he went to Captain’s Mass, a sort of naval hearing. The captain busted him
down a rank, but his real punishment was that he was ridiculed by nearly
everyone on the carrier for the rest of his time on the ship.
I felt sorry for
the sailor, although I was only 18 years old at the time, and this sailor might
have been a year or two older than me. But I was a street guy from South Philly.
Being robbed of all of my possessions, including my clothes, would never happen
to me.
I spent the
first day we were back in port with Hunt on Grande Island, the U.S. Navy’s
recreational island in Subic Bay. We went scuba diving in the beautiful, clear
water off the island. Afterwards, I played first base in a softball game, and I
eat a hot dog and a hamburger and drank several bottles of San Miguel beer. Then
Hunt and I napped in chairs on the beach, enjoying the strong Southeast Asian
sun and the cool ocean breezes.
After
our nap, Hunt and I, along with about two dozen other tired, hot and somewhat
drunk sailors and Marines, boarded the amphibious landing craft that would take
us back to the base. The boat, which resembled the landing craft that landed
allied troops at Normandy in WWII, was crowded. I heeded my older friends'
warning and stepped back against the bulkhead.
Just as Hunt had warned, and true to the crazy tradition, as soon
as the boat cast off its lines, the passengers in the hold of the boat began
punching each other indiscriminately. The coxswain who drove the boat was
elevated at his station above the fray and he ignored the ruckus below. Hunt
pulled me against the bulkhead and we pushed away sailors who got too close and
tried to punch us.
The short voyage to the base seemed to take forever as Hunt and I
defended ourselves. When we finally landed, Hunt and I stepped over the sailors
who lay on the deck stunned or unconscious and stepped ashore. Unscathed, we returned to the Kitty Hawk.
Back in the berthing compartment, I took a shower and laid down
in my rack with my happy thoughts about going back into Olongapo that evening
and seeing Zeny again.
Everything I
heard about Olongapo turned out to be true. I could see why young American
sailors loved the city. American sailors far outnumbered the bar girls, so when
the sailors entered the many bars on Magsaysay Drive, there were plentiful
attractive hostesses who lay in wait for American sailors looking for a good
time and had money to spend.
During the early
evenings some anxious sailors opted to pay a fee to the bar’s mama-san
so they could take the girls out of the bar for a spell and go to a hotel room
for “short-time,” as the brief sexual encounter was called in Olongapo. The
Americans sailors called the act a “Quickie.”
But most sailors
partied with the girls until the end of the evening when the bar closed, and the
girls were free to leave the bar without paying the mama-san.
The girls accompanied
the dipsy sailors to near-by hotels. In the morning, the happy sailors left the
girls money on the bedside table. Unlike prostitutes, Olongapo bar girls did not
set a fee for sex prior to going to the hotel, but the American sailors usually
left the girls a generous amount of Philippine Pesos and American dollars
before they left the hotel.
I recall a
Filipino priest telling me that the bar girls did not consider themselves to be
prostitutes. They earned their money from a percentage of the money sailors
spent buying them drinks, and they had sex with the sailors as they considered
them to be their boyfriends. The goal of many of them was to marry an American
sailor and move to the United States for a better life, and many of them did.
I departed the
carrier that evening and headed into Olongapo with Mike Hunt and Dino Ingemi. Also going into Olongapo with us was a 2nd Class
Radioman named Owen Trent, a tall, lean and quiet Texan. I called him the
“Tall-T,” which he found amusing. Trent, like Hunt and Ingemi, had all been to
Olongapo on the Kitty Hawk’s previous combat cruise.
As
we were walking down Magsaysay Drive, a street vendor near us called out, “Hey,
Joe. You want sunglasses? Cheap!”
As we walked past him, I told my friends that
I met a sailor who told me he really hated it when Filipinos called him “Joe.”
“I explained to him that Filipinos have called all Americans Joe
since World War Two,” I told my walking companions. “He said he knew that, but
he still hated it when they called him Joe. I asked him why and he said, “Because
my name is Joe.”” Ingemi and Trent laughed. Hunt groaned.
I and my friends
visited the Starlight and Zeny rushed up to me. She kissed and hugged
me, and she pulled me to a table. Hunt, Trent and Ingemi had corralled their girls
and we all sat at the table and ordered San Miguel beer. The band was
outstanding, and we all danced and drank and had a good time.
Jeffrey
Greenberg, a thin 3rd Class Radioman from Connecticut with a brown moustache
and small, round glasses, came into the bar and joined us. I liked Greenberg,
as he, like me, loved books. Greenberg was a college graduate with a degree in
in English Literature, and we often discussed literature on our down-time aboard
the carrier. He shared my great fondness for Mark Twain, and I introduced him
to Raymond Chandler, one of my favorite writers. Greenberg became a devotee of
Raymond Chandler’s fictional private eye Philip Marlowe after he borrowed, read
and enjoyed the four Chandler paperback crime novels I had with me on the
carrier.
Ronald
Redmond waddled over to our table in Greenberg’s wake and joined us. Redmond
was a 3rd Class Radioman who claimed proudly that he was a “lifer.” Redmond
found Navy life far preferable to the poor and rugged rural life in Oklahoma that
he endured prior to joining the Navy. Short and wide, loud and profane, most of
the other sailors tried to avoid him. No one had invited him to join us at our
table.
“These little brown fuck machines are
something else, but I like me a “heifer,” a big ole gal,” Redmond told us. “Not
these skinny little “Flips.”
“There are some water
buffaloes outside of town in the rice paddies, if you’re interested,” I replied
drolly. The other sailors at the table laughed.
“Shit, Davis, I might just
head out there.”
“Redmond, you’re an animal,”
I said. “They ought to lock you up in a cage, hose you down once a day, and
feed you raw meat.”
“Hell, Davis, throw in some
pussy and it don’t sound bad.”
“I rest my case.”
I turned away
from Redmond and ignored him and concentrated on my beautiful companion Zeny, whom
I called “Zany Zeny.” I don’t think she ever got the joke.
As our party was
just getting started, I saw Lorino walk in the bar with his distinctive South Philly
swagger. He pushed off two girls gently but firmly who tried to pull him to a
table. He saw me and I waved him over. Lorino knew the other sailors from the Communications
Radio Division from his frequent visits to me while at sea, so he sat down at
our table without introductions.
We were all having
a grand time when a short and stocky seaman named John Bland from our division
staggered in. His face was bruised and bloody and his shirt was torn. Bland
came over to our table and the girls got up and left to go to the rest
room.
“What the fuck
happened to you?” Ingemi asked.
Bland explained
that he had gone into an alley next to the Ritz bar with a street prostitute
who promised him fellatio. Two Filipino men followed them into the alley, and
they beat Bland and stole his money and watch.
“I think it’s
time for a little payback,” Hunt said.
“I’m in,” Lorino
said quickly.
Hunt told Bland to stay with Trent, Greenberg and
Redmond at the Starlight and said the rest of us will go to the alley
next to the Ritz Cracker and confront the girl and her two
friends.
“She’s wearing a bright, red dress,” Bland
said. “You can’t miss her.”
I didn’t like
Bland. He was an ingratiating guy from Darby, Pennsylvania. He thought he was
clever, and he was always trying to scam people over small things, like a Coke
or a minor work detail. The dislike was reciprocal. Bland didn’t like me
because I would call him out on his shady, small-time schemes. I also told the
other sailors that his name was also a description of his personality.
I was certain
that Bland thought he had scammed the prostitute by convincing her to perform
the sex act in the alley for free. Incredible, but that was Bland. Yet, I
joined eagerly the avenging patrol, and we headed out.
It was decided
that Ingemi would talk to the girl on the corner after Hunt and Lorino slipped
into the narrow alley. Ingemi would then allow her to take him into the alley,
as she had done with Bland.
As I was the
youngest guy in the group, Hunt told me to stand at the foot of the alley and
keep a lookout for the Navy’s Shore Patrol and the Olongapo police.
Ingemi
approached the girl in the red dress on the corner. After a brief discussion,
they walked up the alley. Only a moment or so later, two Filipinos charged into
the alley. One was of average height and lean, and the other looked like a big
Japanese sumo wrestler.
As the two
bruisers jumped on Ingemi, Hunt and Lorino came out of the shadows and pounced
on the two Filipino robbers. I stood sideways at the foot of the alley, one eye
on the fight and the other eye on the street looking for Navy Shore Patrol or
local cops.
The girl in the red dress bolted from the
fracas and Ingemi kicked her in the behind with the side of his foot and she
fell forward and splayed out on the ground. She rose quickly and scampered past
me and into the street.
I saw the lean
Filipino break from the fight as Hunt, Lorino and Ingemi beat on the sumo. As the
lean one ran up the alley I stepped into the middle and dropped my right hand
at my side. The Filipino thief stopped and went into a martial arts stance. I
went into my boxing stance. He swung at my face, but I reared my head back and
to the right and slipped the blow. He then threw a kick at me, but I stepped back,
and he missed. I leaned in and hit him in the face with a good stiff left jab
and hard right combo.
He fell back
against the wall, but he bounced back quickly, and his right leg flew up and
his foot kicked me hard on my left side. I caught his pant leg in the air after
the kick. I pulled on his leg, and he lost balance and fell against the alley wall.
Holding on to his raised leg, I pinned him to the wall. I hit him in the face
with several good short rights, and he collapsed.
I looked past
the knocked cold Filipino and saw that Hunt, Lorino and Ingemi had finally laid
out the sumo in the alley. Hunt took off the three watches that the thief was
wearing and went through his pockets and took all of his cash.
Ingemi took two
watches off the thief I knocked out and took his money as well.
“Who says
Italians lose all the wars,” Lorino said to Ingemi with a broad, lopsided
grin.
We all went back
to the Starlight. My knuckles were scrapped and bloody and I lifted my
shirt and saw a deep purple bruise where the Filipino thief had kicked me. The
other sailors had similar minor injuries. The girls passed around bandages. My
side was sore, so I ordered a beer and a shot of vodka to help ease the pain.
Hunt laid the
watches on the table and Bland picked out his. He also said they stole $100
dollars from him, although I suspected the actual figure was more like $10.
Hunt gave him $100 from the money he had taken from the two thieves. He gave
the other watches and some cash to the girls.
He held up the
rest of the cash and proclaimed, “The rest of tonight is on the girl in the red
dress!”
After the Starlight
closed, our crowd broke up and we went our separate ways. Zeny and I headed
to a nearby hotel. We took a room and had a fine time together in bed until I
passed out from drinking far too much San Miguel beer and vodka.
I woke up the
following morning and discovered that Zeny was gone. Also gone was my watch, my
wallet, my shoes, and all of my clothes. The only thing left was my pocketknife,
which I had placed under my pillow the night before.
I was in shock.
I knew Zeny from my previous visits to Olongapo, and I trusted her. I panicked.
I thought of the poor slob sailor who had returned to the ship naked under a
blanket. This could not happen to me. I was too smart. Too streetwise. Too
cool.
But it was happening to me. I wrapped a
sheet around my middle and paced the floor, wondering what I was going to do. I
cursed. I punched a wall. I looked out the window, hoping to see one of my
friends.
It was perhaps
only a half-hour, but it seemed like an eternity, when there was a knock on the
door. I opened the door and there stood beautiful Zeny. She was holding my
brightly polished shoes in her right hand and holding a hanger with my cleaned
and pressed shirt and slacks in her left hand. My chain and dog tags hung
around her neck and my watch hung loosely on her wrist. My folded underwear and
socks were under her right arm.
She told me that she took my clothes to her home and cleaned and pressed them. She shined my shoes. She said she didn’t know that my slim black leather wallet, which held my Navy ID and cash, had been in my pants pocket. I kissed her full on the lips and hugged her.
As I walked down Magsaysay Drive back towards
the naval base, I saw other returning sailors staggering along, hung over and
disheveled.
I smiled, as I knew I looked sharp in my polished shoes and cleaned and pressed clothes.
© 2022 By Paul Davis
