Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Hit The Head'

The story below is another chapter in my novel Olongapo, which I hope to soon publish.

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

Hit the Head

By Paul Davis

“I gotta hit the head,” is U.S. Navy speak for a sailor needing to use a urinal or toilet.

Bathrooms on Navy ships and shore stations are called the "head.” As I heard it, the name derives from the old sailing ships, where the toilet was located in the bow, or the head of the ship. The Navy is big on traditions and nicknames.

On the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk during our 1970-1971 combat cruise, the Communication Radio Division’s head was equipped with four urinals, a half dozen sinks, a half dozen toilet stalls and a half dozen shower stalls.

Cleaning the head was the responsibility of the compartment cleaner, a position I held for a month when I was first assigned to the division.

I told the other sailors at the time that I was the “head man." That always got a laugh.

While on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, the radio division was on what was called “port and starboard” watches, with eight hours on watch and eight hours off. When half of the division was on watch and the other half were in their racks sleeping, the head was usually empty.

One evening during our second line period on Yankee Station, I couldn’t sleep, so I was in the head brushing my teeth. Ronald Redman, a big and heavy sailor, wide as a refrigerator, waddled into the head.

The Oklahoma sailor was so crude and ill mannered that another sailor from Oklahoma had to tell everyone that they were not all like Redman back home.

Redman had a mouthful of chewing tobacco in his jaw when he entered the head, and he spit a glob into the sink next to me. He then began to walk away.

“Yo! Clean the sink out, you fucking slob,” I said to him.

“Fuck you, Davis,” Redman said.

At that moment James Griffin, a chubby and congenial 2^nd class radioman, walked into the head. He saw me hit Redman square in the face with a swift short right. The punch caused Redman to step back, but he just stood there and didn’t say anything.

“That’s enough, Davis,” Griffen said, stepping in between us.

“I don’t want to fight you, Davis,” Redman said. “Because you is smaller than me.”

“Oh, yeah,” I replied. I hit Redman in the face with another good short right.

Redman fell against a sink and his left eye swelled and closed.

Griffen grabbed my arms and warned me that he would put me on report if I hit Redman again.

“I ain’t gonna fight you, Davis, cause I don’t fight guys smaller than me,” Redman said as he held his left eye and waddled out of the head. I heard him mutter, "I can't fight no smaller man. That would not be right."

To my surprise, it appeared that Redman had one redeeming quality.

Most of the sailors entered the head wearing flip flop shower shoes, a white towel with snaps held around our waists, and another white towel around our necks.

Jason Bullard was different.

The tall and obese 3^rd class radioman came into the head wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe. After showering, he emerged from the shower stall with a towel wrapped around his head like a girl and the full robe on his body.

Despite Bullard’s effeminate ways, he was not ridiculed or picked on. He was a popular guy in the division. We presumed he was a homosexual, but he didn’t proposition anyone as far as we knew. Bullard was intelligent, cheerful and funny. He often made self-deprecating comments about his swishy ways. We all laughed when he swayed into the head like a movie queen, and he would laugh back, usually making some clever quip.

Bullard’s best friend on the Kitty Hawk was Jeffrey Greenberg, a 3^rd class radioman who shared Bullard’s love of books. I became friendly with Greenberg when he saw me reading Mark Twain’s short stories. He struck up a conversation with me about Ole Sam Clemens, a writer we both loved.

I later became friendly with Bullard. We would often sit around and discuss the war, history and literature. “I’m surprised that a high school dropout and street urchin is so well read,” he said.

I laughed. I told him that I wanted to be a writer, and he encouraged me to get my GED high school equivalency via a correspondence course and then take college correspondence courses. I took his advice.

It was on another line period off North Vietnam when a serious assault was committed in our head.

I didn’t like Louis Durand. The tall, lean 27-year-old 3^rd class radioman with curly reddish hair was from New Orleans. He was proud of his college degree from some university, and he often spoke of it and how he was better educated than our officers.

He bragged that he had connections in the city, and he was in line to be a big shot when he received his draft notice. Not wanting to die in a Vietnamese rice paddy, he joined the Navy. But he often complained that the Navy was holding him back from his destiny.

Durand was also quite vocal in his detainment of those with only high school diplomas, and he was even more disdainful of high school dropouts. And he was especially disdainful of 18-year-old high school dropouts, like me, who appeared to be somewhat literate and intelligent.

In the middle of a group discussion on our down time, Durand would quiz me about some fine point of the subject. I passed his quizzes, which made him scowl and others laugh. But he was positively gleeful when I happened to mispronounce the word rapprochement.

Bullard, also a college graduate, came to my defense, stating, “Davis is an autodidact. That’s why he sometimes mispronounces words. But I suspect that he is better read than you, dear Louis.”

That pissed off Durand. And he had no snappy comeback.

I didn’t know what an autodidact was. I had to look it up. Bullard was right. I was never a good student, having cut most classes in high school, but I was an avid reader. So I may have known what a word meant, but in some cases. I did not know how to properly pronounce the word due to my not ever having heard the word spoken in a classroom.

After Durand mocked me for mispronouncing the word, I made a joke about it. But in my head, I made a note to punch out Durand if I ever encountered him in Olongapo. Luckily for Durand, he frequented a different bar in Olongapo than I did, so I never saw him ashore.

I later learned that Durand also displayed his haughtily ways in Olongapo. He mocked an airman from one of the airwings attached to the Kitty Hawk. The airman, John Makris, the son of a Greek restaurant owner in New York City, was offended but said nothing to Durand.

“The Greeks have gone from being great philosophers to being short order cooks,” Durant said disdainfully. The bar girls laughed at Durand’s put down of Makris, even though they didn’t know what he was talking about. But hey, they thought, he’s buying the drinks.

Makris held his tongue and temper and allowed Durand to make disparaging remarks, but he drew the line when Durant coveted Lolita, Makris’ pretty bargirl.

After pulling into Subic Bay after a long line period, Markis went before a captain’s mass and was restricted to the ship as punishment for shoving another airman during an argument at sea. Not being allowed to visit Olongapo during our week-long port of call was a very cruel punishment for a young man.

To make matters even worse, Makris was told by another airman that Durand had paid the bar’s Mama-San, so he was able to take Lolita to a hotel for what was called “Short-time” sex. Durand later that evening left with Lolita when the bar closed.

Makris was furious. He had fallen for Lolita, and he thought she was in love with him. He took a combination lock and stuffed it into a white sock. The “lock in a sock” was a common weapon aboard ship and Makris planned to get revenge on Durand.

Makris lay in the passageway outside of the Message Processing Cener. He waited more than an hour and then saw Durand step out into the passageway and enter the radiomen’s compartment. Makris followed Durand into the head. Durand stood before a urinal when Makris came up behind him and hit Durand in the back of his head with the lock in a sock.

Durand screamed in pain and fell to the deck. Makris stood over Durand and struck him twice more. Three radiomen, alerted by Durant’s screams, entered the head and grabbed Makris.

Durand was taken to the ship’s sick bay and then flown off the carrier and admitted into the Subic Bay hospital. Makris was also flown off the carrier and landed in Subic Bay. He was met on the airfield by NIS special agents who arrested Makris for attempted murder.

I felt bad for both Durand and Makris, although I didn’t like Durand and I didn’t know Makris.

Bullard told us that he read a message that stated that Durand had been operated on and was in stable condition. The message also said that Durand was scheduled to be medically discharged from the Navy.

“Durand said he couldn’t wait to get out of the Navy,” Bullard said. “He said that with his fine education, he had a bright future in New Orleans. It is a shame that he had to be beaned on the head, in the head, to get a jump on his brilliant career.”

“Well,” I said. “That’s one way to get ahead in life.”