My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'

The story below is Butterfly, which is Chapter One of Olongapo, a crime novel I hope to soon publish. 

Butterfly originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

Butterfly 

By Paul Davis 

I lived in what we considered a tough neighborhood in South Philadelphia when I was a teenager in the 1960s. I ran with a tough crowd on the mean streets of South Philly, but I would later discover that Olongapo in the early 1970s was a truly tough town. 

I recall an old Navy chief telling me and other young sailors on the USS Kitty Hawk about the notorious port city as the aircraft carrier sailed towards the Philippines in November of 1970. The chief, who had been around the world while serving many years in the U.S. Navy, told us that Olongapo was the wildest place he had ever seen.

 “Once you walk across the bridge over Shit River into Olongapo, you’ll be corrupted quickly by sexy bar girls, cheap booze, available drugs, and all sorts of crime,” the old chief said with a mischievous grin.

During the Vietnam War, Olongapo, the city located next to the massive U.S. Navy Base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, was like Dodge City, Las Vegas, and Sodom and Gomorrah all rolled into one. The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet ships that operated off the coast of Vietnam during the war were frequent visitors to Subic Bay, as the naval base provided repairs and replenishment to the warships.

As the pent-up American sailors left the ships and swarmed into Olongapo, the city’s shadier elements were waiting. Sailors walked out of the naval base’s gate and crossed over the small bridge above the Olongapo River, called “Shit River” by the Americans due to its muddy brown color and pungent smell. Despite the filth and pollution, several small children on boats were willing to slip into the river and dive for the coins the sailors tossed from the bridge into the water. 

On the other side of the bridge was Olongapo’s main street, Magsaysay Drive. Known as the “Strip,” there was a seemingly endless line of bars, restaurants and hotels all lit up in colorful neon lights. The street was noisy and crowded with passing American sailors and Marines, street vendors, drug dealers, pickpockets, thieves, con artists, armed robbers and innocent-looking young shoeshine boys who were known to hold a razor against a sailor’s heel until he handed over his wallet.

Also on the crowded street were scores of young, attractive Filipinas enticing sailors to come into their bar with blown kisses, swaying hips, pushed out breasts, and shaking derrieres. Occasionally a girl would use strong-arm tactics, such as grabbing a young sailor by the arm and yanking him into the bar and announcing loudly that she had a “Cherry Boy” virgin. 

Crossing Magsaysay Drive was often a case of bravery or foolhardiness, as one could be hit by one of the ubiquitous “jeepneys,” Olongapo’s colorfully decorated minibuses that were converted from American jeeps abandoned after World War II.

The American dollar was like gold in the early 1970s, and one could spend a wild night in Olongapo drinking, eating, dancing, and staying in a hotel room with a local beauty for only about $20.

I was 18 years old when I first visited Olongapo in 1970. I was a cocky, street-smart South Philly kid, as well as a lean and muscular amateur middleweight boxer, so I was not intimidated by the barrage of sights, sounds and smells of this strange town like so many other young sailors who first experience it. I was also not fazed when a bar girl grabbed my arm outside of a bar and yanked me towards the bar’s entrance.

“You so young and handsome,” the pretty Filipina said as she tugged my arm.  “You Cherry Boy?” I pulled my arm loose from her grip and replied, “Not hardly.”

Thankfully, I had good friends on the aircraft carrier who had visited Olongapo during the Kitty Hawk’s previous combat cruise, and they warned me about the dangers and pitfalls, as well as the delights, of the notorious city. As an aspiring crime writer, Olongapo sounded like just the place for me.

All American servicemen were duly warned of the dangers when visiting Olongapo’s bars and other establishments. One rule pounded into the sailors by the older sailors was not to “Butterfly” in individual bars. To butterfly was to associate with two bar girls, called “Hostesses,” in any one bar. The bar girls were protective of their claimed sailors and the money they earned from the sailors buying them whisky (actually Coke) and champagne (actually 7-Up). The price of a drink for the girls was only about a buck, so the sailors didn’t mind paying this apparent scam. But the bar girls resented another bar girl poaching on their moneymakers.

When a sailor would butterfly, whether on his own initiative or by the encouragement of another bar girl, the aggrieved bar girl would often fly into a rage and attack the other bar girl, and sometimes the offending sailor. 

Even before I set foot in Olongapo, I heard the much-repeated cautionary tale about an American sailor who committed the offense and paid a dear price. The bar girl he had been seeing was so mad when he flirted with another bar girl that she attacked the girl on the dance floor. To the consternation of the bar’s manager and the utter delight of the American sailors, the two girls pulled hair, and kicked and punched each other. 

 The Filipino manager and his waiters pulled the two girls apart. The offended girl then went to her purse and pulled out her Batangas knife, a weapon more commonly known as a “Butterfly” knife. The knife had two handles with the sharp blade concealed in the groves of the handles. When flashed, flipped and fanned by someone who knew what they are doing, the butterfly knife was a most scary and deadly thing. 

 This bar girl knew how to use the butterfly knife and she charged the butterflying sailor and slit his throat as he sat in a chair. He died on the way to the base hospital.

 

On my first visit to Olongapo in early December of 1970, I went into one of the bars with some shipmates and met a pretty girl who sat with me as I bought her drinks. I had fun drinking and dancing with her, and we ended up in a hotel room for the night. I returned to the ship the following morning and we soon shoved off for our first “Yankee Station” line period in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam.   

We spent Christmas on Yankee Station, but we pulled back into Subic Bay on December 31st, New Year's Eve. Not everyone was glad to see us. The American sailors stationed on the base and on smaller ships hated when an aircraft carrier pulled into port. With the carrier’s 4, 700 men going ashore with money in their pockets and eager for action, the city’s inhabitants went all out to receive them. 

In a case of reverse butterflying, two sailors stationed on the base at Subic Bay resented the Kitty Hawk’s sailors taking over the city on that first night in port. One base sailor was truly angry, as his regular girl at the bar ignored him and cuddled up to a young Kitty Hawk sailor. The base sailor got drunk along with his pal and when the girl went to the restroom, the two base sailors pounced on the Kitty Hawk sailor. They beat him to the floor and one of the two assailants broke a bottle of beer over his head. 

The Kitty Hawk sailor was beaten unconscious before other sailors and the Filipino waiters could break it up. The Philippine police and the U.S. Navy Shore Patrol rushed into the bar and took hold of the two base sailors. The Kitty Hawk sailor was gravely injured, and he was taken by two Shore Patrol petty officers to the base hospital. The two base sailors were released by the Philippine police into the custody of two other Shore Patrol petty officers and a junior officer. The Shore Patrol petty officers handcuffed the pair and escorted them to the base, where they were charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder by civilian Naval Investigative Service (NIS) special agents.

 

The story of the assault on the Kitty Hawk sailor spread quickly all over Olongapo. I heard the story from another sailor as I sat in the Starlight bar with two of my shipmates from the Kitty Hawk’s Communications Radio (CR) Division. Dino Ingemi was a solid six-footer with thinning dark hair. He was an outgoing and funny guy from the Bronx, and everyone in the division liked him. Mike Hunt was also a popular guy. He was a brawny, laid-back Californian whose light brown hair, ski nose and easygoing manner belied his background as an outlaw biker prior to enlisting in the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army. Both Ingemi and Hunt were Olongapo veterans, having visited the wild city the year before during Kitty Hawk’s previous combat cruise. 

 As I was half-Italian on my mother’s side and I grew up in a predominantly Italian American South Philadelphia neighborhood, I called Dino Ingemi my paisan. 

"Just another fun night in Olongapo, Paul," my paison said. "That kind of shit won't happen here at the Starlight."

The Filipino band at the Starlight had everyone jumping and dancing to their renditions of popular American songs of the time. The Filipino musicians were incredible mimics, sounding like Sly and the Family Stone with one song, the Four Tops with another, and then went on to sound eerily like the Beatles in yet another number. 

We were all dressed in “civies,” as sailors called civilian clothes, and I was wearing a short-sleeved tan and black Italian knit shirt and black slacks. I was something of a clotheshorse, and I differed from most of the other sailors, who were usually clad simply in tie-dyed t-shirts and jeans. Thankfully, the then-chief of naval operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the enlisted man’s hero, allowed sailors to go ashore in civies rather than in uniform.

We sat at a table drinking bottles of San Miguel, the local beer, when I was approached by Linda Divita, a slim, pretty girl who swayed around me to the music and then pulled me up from my chair to dance with her.  Linda had long dark hair and long lovely legs beneath her short black dress. The low cut of her dress afforded one the view of her mostly exposed small breasts.

 Dino Ingemi approved.  

“She’s got a great ass and cute little tits,” Ingemi said to me when we finally sat back down. I nodded in agreement as Ingemi was smacked on the arm by Marlena Abadiano, the pretty girl he had been seeing since he first visited Olongapo the year before. 

Dino Ingemi was very social and made friends easily. He had become close with the Starlight manager, Samuel Rosalita, during the previous cruise. Rosalita joined us at our table and laughed and drank with us. He gave me his business card and another card that read “Welcome to the Starlight: Charming A-Go-Go dancers, Beautiful Ladies and Outstanding Combos.”

I mentioned to Ingemi that Rosalita looked like the entertainer Sammy Davis Jr, and Ingemi began to call him “Sammy,” much to the manager’s delight. Rosalita chuckled and shook his head at everything Ingemi said.  

 

I had a fun night drinking and dancing with Linda that New Year's Eve at the Starlight, and when the bar closed, I took her to a nearby hotel. I was drunk and worried that the girl would steal my money when I fell asleep, so when she was in the bathroom, I looked for a place to hide my slim black leather wallet that held my Navy ID and my cash. I looked up at the light fixture mounted on the ceiling six feet above me. Thinking I was clever, I tossed my wallet up onto the glass fixture underneath the light bulb.

Linda came out of the bathroom and threw her arms around me and laughed crazily. She was loopy drunk, but she was wild, sexy and fun in bed with me right up until the moment she passed out in my arms. In the morning, I could not wake her. I knew she was alive, as she moaned and muttered, but she would not move from her face down position on the bed. I found a handful of “Red Devils,” a barbiturate, on the bedside table next to her purse. I didn’t know how many of the pills she took, but I was concerned.

I dressed her and left the room. Rosalita’s business card did not have a telephone number on it, so I went to the front desk and I slipped five dollars to one of the clerks and asked him to go and get the Starlight manager.  

I went back to the room and saw that Linda was still out. About a half hour later, there was a knock on the door. Rosalita came in, accompanied by one of his waiters and an older woman who was the Mama-San for the bar. Rosalita thanked me for contacting him and then looked at Linda on the bed. He cursed her in Tagalog. The two men lifted Linda and took her out of the room. After they left, I looked up at the ceiling light and tried to retrieve my wallet, but it was beyond my reach. I went down to the front desk and asked the clerks for a ladder. They looked puzzled. I returned to my room with two Filipinos and a ladder in tow. They stood in the doorway in amazement as I climbed the ladder and retrieved my wallet.

I gave each of the hotel clerks a five-dollar bill for their trouble as I was leaving the hotel room. The two Filipinos took the money as they laughed uncontrollably.

“Fuck you,” I said to them, although I had to laugh along with them.

Back at the carrier, I took a shower, ate lunch in the galley and then I took a nap in my rack. When I awoke, I took another shower and changed into a black dress shirt and light gray slacks. I met up with Hunt and Ingemi and we all headed out to Olongapo and the Starlight. We took a table and Marlena came over with Hunt’s girl Carmelina and sat with us. I was thankful that I didn’t see Linda. Rosalita came over to the table with a waiter armed with a tray of San Miguel beers. 

Marlena whispered into Ingemi’s ear, and he nodded. Marlena got up and left the table. She returned to our table with a beautiful girl that she introduced to us as her sister, Zeny Abadiano.

Zeny had long, raven hair with bangs cut just above her dark, sultry eyes. She had a pretty face and an alluring figure. At 5’ 11,’ I towered over her five-foot stature when we danced. In addition to her being an exotic beauty, Zeny was sexy, smart and funny. I was drawn to her immediately.

And I forgot all about Linda. 

 

After the bar closed, Ingemi, Hunt and I took the girls to a nearby hotel. In my hotel room, I took Zeny in my arms, unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. I told her she was beautiful as I kissed her madly, and we fell across the bed. 

A couple of hours later, I heard a pounding on the door. I jumped up and retrieved my pocketknife from under the pillow. I heard Linda on the other side of the door. 

“Paul! Paul! Open up!” I heard her holler. “I want to talk to you!” 

Zeny pulled the sheet over her head and giggled. “Oh, you think this is funny?”  I told Linda to go away.

“Paul, open up. I want to talk to you!” Linda said in a screeching and blood-curdling voice. Of course, I didn’t open the door. I then heard what I presumed were hotel employees arguing with Linda in Tagalog, and thankfully the voices outside the door finally ceased. 

“So, you think a crazy, drugged girl coming to the room was funny,” I said to Zeny as I took her once again in my arms.  

 

I was awakened in the morning by a pounding on the door. Not again, I thought. But then I heard Ingemi’s voice. I hollered out to Ingemi that I would be ready in a half hour. I took a shower with Zeny and afterwards I sat in a chair, and she stood in front of me nude and dried my hair with a towel. She took my pocket comb and    combed my short, dark brown hair, carefully parting it on the left side. I pulled her wonderfully luscious body towards me and hugged her.

I met Ingemi and Hunt outside of the hotel and we grabbed a jeepney and headed back to the ship.

Later that evening, Ingemi and I returned to the Starlight.

Zeny and Marlena were waiting for us and the four of us took a table. Rosalita waved to us and motioned to a waiter, who quickly came over with San Miguel beers. While we were drinking at the table, Linda suddenly appeared by my side. Zeny grabbed my arm and snuggled up close to me. Linda was clearly angry and deranged. 

“You butterfly, you motherfucker!” 

“Get the fuck out of here,” I replied calmly, tilting my head slightly to the right while trying to sound like a South Philly half-a-hoodlum.

“I get you good, motherfucker,” Linda said with a snarl.  

Rosalita rushed over to the table and spoke harshly in Tagalog to Linda. She spat on the table and walked away. Rosalita apologized and left us. Zeny and Marlena were unfazed, and Ingemi was laughing uncontrollably. Linda sat at a nearby table with some poor sailor and began cursing me loudly in English and Tagalog.  

“She crazy,” Zeny said, kissing me to further anger Linda. 

Linda then began to fling lit cigarettes at us. Then she threw a beer bottle that hit our table. Ingemi, who was no longer laughing, got up and walked over to Rosalita. Rosalita listened briefly to Ingemi and then marched over to Linda, and he must have told her in no uncertain terms to cut it out. 

We resumed drinking, dancing, and having fun and I tried to ignore Linda. A while later I got up to go to the men’s room, which was on the other side of a wall that separated the bar from the rest rooms, the kitchen, and storerooms. When I came out of the men’s room, I encountered Linda in my path. 

“You butterfly me, you son a bitch,” Linda hissed. “I kill you.” 

From behind her back, Linda produced a Butterfly knife and began to twirl it in front of me. As she flashed and fanned the knife in a menacing fashion, I threw a short right punch that hit her square in the face. She went down, her nose and teeth bloody, and she lay motionless on the floor. 

Rosalita and two waiters rushed in, and my immediate thought was that I would have to fight them all. But Rosalita cursed Linda, who lay unconscious. The two waiters picked up Linda and took her away. 

Rosalita apologized profusely to me, and I walked back to the table and told everyone what happened. 

 

From then on, whenever the carrier visited Subic Bay, I went to the Starlight and stayed with Zeny. 

I never again saw Linda, and no one ever said what had become of her.

And I never asked.  

© 2022 Paul Davis 

 

Note: You can read other chapters via the below links: 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The Ground'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'

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

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan, Davis-San

Paul Davis On Crime: A Look Back At Life Aboard An Aircraft Carrier During The Vietnam War: 'The Compartment Cleaner'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Murder By Fire'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Admiral McCain'

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

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'A Night At The Americano'  

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Missing Muster'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Barracks Thief'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The City of Bizarre Happenings'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Refrigerator Thieves'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Go Forth, Goforth'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'John Bland's Scam' 

My Crime Fiction: 'John Bland's Scam'

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

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

John Bland’s Scam

 By Paul Davis   

 As I noted here earlier, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy on February 9, 1970, under a two-year enlistment plan called “Project 100,000,” and nicknamed derisively as “McNamara’s Misfits.

The plan was for high school dropouts, convicted offenders offered the military or prison, low IQ people, and other less than desirable military recruits to join the military. The project was the brainchild of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1966 and was designed to bolster the ranks during the Vietnam War.  

I was scheduled to leave the Navy on February 9, 1972, but sailors stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk were separated early in December of 1971 before Christmas. This had less to do with a Holiday spirit than the idea that the Navy wanted the “short timer” sailors off the ship and out of the Navy before the aircraft carrier sailed back to Southeast Asia for the new WESTPAC (Western Pacific) Vietnam combat cruise.

There were six of us in the Communications Radio Division who fell into this category. I was one and John Bland was another. 

On the Friday before our separation date on the following Monday morning, Chief Helm told us that we had weekend liberty, but we had to be back on the ship by 0700 on Monday morning so we could be given our final papers and pay. 

I made plans to visit Los Angeles with Mike Hunt, who was from the City of Angels. Hunt, a 3^rd Class Radioman who signed up for the standard 4-year enlistment, was pissed off as he had joined the Navy before me and now, he saw me leaving before he did. He said he was not pissed at me, but he was not looking forward to a third WESTPAC cruise, with long periods at sea on “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam.

I took a shower in the division's compartment and as I was getting dressed in my civies, John Bland, a stocky seaman two years older than I with light brown hair, a flat face and shifty brown eyes, whom I disliked, approached me. He asked if he could borrow $20 from me.

No, I snapped, before he could launch into his spiel. I disliked Bland. He was a scheming, conniving low rent con artist. Despite my blunt negative answer, Bland went into his act. He said that he had sent all of his last pay to his family due to an emergency, and now he had no money for the weekend.

I was not moved, as I had heard this bullshit before. Bland was always trying to scam people over small things. One division wit stated that Bland mourned four grandmothers in the course of a year.      

“We get our final pay together on Monday morning and I’ll pay you back then,” Bland said.

Perhaps because I was so happy to going home to South Philadelphia, or perhaps there was no way he could duck me, as we were all due to collect our final pay in cash before we left the ship, I pulled out my thin black leather wallet that held my Navy ID card and my cash and I handed him a $20 bill.

Hunt and I had a great weekend in LA, and we returned to the USS Kitty Hawk at 0600 on Monday morning. I showered and changed into my Navy Blue dress uniform and shook hands and said goodbye to Hunt, Dino Ingemi and the other good friends I made during my time on the carrier.

The sailors being separated from the Navy that day met in the division’s supply office where Chief Helm gave us our separation orders and final pay. Bland was not there.

I was not the only one asking about him. Chief Helm explained that Bland had seen the division’s commander and pleaded to be allowed to go home early. He told the commander that his girlfriend had written him a “Dear John” letter, stating that the wedding was off and she was going away with another man.

Chief Helm told us the commander agreed to let him go early, because he believed the sob story and, frankly, the chief said with a smile, because the commander did not like Bland and wanted to be rid of him.

The five of us being separated that day were angry. I discovered that Bland had approached all of us and told the same sob story and each of us had loaned him $20.

“I’m sure that son-of-bitch left on Friday thinking he got over on the Navy and over on all of us,” a sailor named Duggin said.

“Well, he has to live with his miserable own self for the rest of his life,” another sailor named Bucknell said. “I would not trade places with him. It was worth 20 bucks not to see his ugly face and miserable attitude on this very joyful day.”

“I hope his plane crashed on the way home,” Duggin said.

"That’s not right,” I replied. “We should not wish for a plane to crash that would have also killed innocent passengers. But I can wish that Bland had been sucked down into the airliner’s toilet and dropped out of the plane from 35,000 feet.” 

That got a big laugh.     

 

Like Salvatore Lorino, a South Philly corner boy I knew slightly from our neighborhood before we entered the Navy at the same time, Bland was linked coincidently to me for my entire two-year enlistment.

Lorino, Bland and a dozen other young men raised their hand along with me and swore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and the United States at 401 North Broad Street, the old induction center in Philadelphia.

We were then taken by bus to the North Philadelphia train station, and we boarded a train bound for Chicago. I didn’t know Bland, who was from Darby, Pennsylvania, so I didn’t talk to him on the train. I sat with Lorino, who was five years older than I, and we spoke of friends we knew in common.

We boarded a Navy bus at the Chicago train station, and we were taken to the U.S. Navy Recruit Training Center at Great Lakes, Illinois, more commonly known as “Boot Camp.” I recall that it was a very cold day.

After a week at a temporary barracks, the company was split up in two and Lorino went to one company and I and Bland went to another.

In that first week, when we were yelled at, cursed and insulted by a half-crazed drill instructor and forced to do physical things we would have thought impossible only a week before. I grew very quickly to dislike Bland. I was not alone in that assessment. Lorino hated him.

“He thinks he’s slick,” Lorino said to me.

Lorino, who was six feet tall, lean with black hair, rugged features and a long face with a perpetual lopsided grin that served to either charm or menace, was a genuine hoodlum who was in fact quite slick.

Lorino was not angered by Bland’s hustling. Lorino was offended that Bland was such a rank criminal amateur. It offended his sense of professionalism.  

Lorino heard Bland tell people that he was from Philadelphia. Lorino did not like the idea that he was in any way associated with such a whiny loser, so he confronted Bland in front of other recruits and upbraided him for falsely claiming to be from Philadelphia.

"I’m from the Philadelphia area,” Bland said in his defense.

“Then say you are from the Philadelphia area,” Lorino replied. “Asshole,” Lorino added for good measure.

We all laughed.  

I didn’t have much to do with Bland during Boot Camp, although I often heard other recruits complain about his borrowing money and not paying anyone back, or his minor swindles, but after graduation, I discovered that he, like me and Lorino, received orders to report to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which was then undergoing an overhaul in Bremerton, Washington.

Recruits who enlisted for a full four years received orders to an “A” occupational training school. McNamara Misfits like Lorino, Bland and me were sent straight to the fleet.

The three of us were taken by bus to the Chicago airport where we all caught a flight to Philadelphia. Lorino and I shared a cab home. Bland later told me he hitchhiked and caught a ride home.

After a week’s leave, the three of us flew from Philadelphia to Seattle, Washington. There we were scheduled to board another plane to Bremerton, Washington. I thought we were to board another large aircraft, but we were directed to a field where there sat a small, four-seated propeller plane.

“I used to own a plane like that when I was a kid,” I told Lorino. “I operated it from remote control.”  

The small plane took off with me in the front seat next to the pilot and Lorino and Bland in the back. The plane seemed to hit every air pocket and would drop down violently while our stomachs appeared to remain at the higher attitude. It was rough flight.

About halfway to Bremerton, Bland threw up into an airsickness bag. The smell in the small plane was overwhelming and nearly made me sick. Lorino threatened to throw Bland out of the plane.

Thankfully, we landed soon afterwards in what looked like a pumpkin patch. From there, we took a cab to the Bremerton naval base next to the Puget Sound.  

My father, a WWII Navy veteran, took me to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for the commissioning ceremony of the USS Kitty Hawk when I was 11 years old.

With fond memories of the new carrier that I saw at the commissioning in my head, I was somewhat disappointed as I looked up at the ship and walked along the port side of the ship tied to the pier.

The aircraft carrier looked like it was hit with a bomb. The carrier, sans aircraft or an air wing group at this point, was in major disarray. The Kitty Hawk was undergoing a major overhaul in Bremerton, Washington and it appeared that the ship was being taken apart and put back together.

Bland, Lorino and I walked up the enlisted brow and reported aboard at the ship’s Quarterdeck. As we waited for an escort to take us to the ship’s personnel office, Bland quipped, “Hey, look at us! We’re the three Musketeers.”

Lorino walked away in disgust.

Our escort, a young seaman, showed up at the quarterdeck and walked us through the maze of hallways (called passageways in the Navy) and upstairs (called ladders in the Navy) to the personnel office.

A 2^nd Class petty officer looked at our orders and said that he too was from Philadelphia. He looked at his co-worker and said, “No Philly “home boy” is going to be "mess cooking" while I’m in charge.”

He explained that all seamen and seamen apprentices spent their first 90 days on the carrier working as mess cooks before they were assigned to a permanent division. Mess cooking was a dirty job with long hours, cleaning up after the ship’s cooks after every meal.

Instead, we were assigned to the Special Services Office, where they needed manpower to run TV/Radio cable through the ship. We were the first warship to have cable TV and radio.

It was not a bad job, and we only worked eight hours a day while mess cooks worked about 16 hours a day.

As the overhaul was coming to an end, we were told that the Kitty Hawk would be sailing from Bremerton to San Deigo, where the carrier would go to sea five days a week with the aircraft doing flight operations, and the crew performing fire, damage control and other drills in preparation of our upcoming Vietnam combat cruise.

I was looking forward to sailing to San Deigo. One day during our afternoon chow hour, I walked off the carrier and took a walk around the navy base.

About an hour later, I walked back to the pier. To my shock, the Kitty Hawk was no longer at the pier.

Shit, I thought. I wondered if the Carrier had set sail for San Deigo and no one had told me.  

I sat down on a shipping crate, looked at the vacant pier and pondered my fate. I heard much talk about the carrier sailing to San Deigo once the overhaul was completed, but I didn’t recall anyone saying that this day was the day.

I thought of what the penalty was for missing ship’s movement, which I knew was a serious offense. I was worried. I was a seaman apprentice, “lower than whale shit,” as the saying goes. Could I be busted in rank? Tossed in the brig? Kicked out the Navy?

But mostly I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to be ridiculed and thought of as a stupid “Boot.”

I was only 17, but I thought of myself as a street-smart South Philly kid, and although I had only been in the Navy a few months, I thought I knew a lot about the Navy. I learned a good bit about the Navy from my Navy veteran father, my many conversations with former and active-duty sailors, and from my voracious reading about the Navy.

Yet here I was sitting on the dock of the bay like the Otis Reading song, wondering where my ship had gone. At that time John Bland showed up.

“Where’s the ship?”

“I don’t know. I wonder if it took off for San Deigo.”

“And left us here? Fuck, we’re fucked!”

Bland began to pace and whimper and cry softly.  

I was about to turn myself in to the first Navy chief I saw, when I saw the Kitty Hawk coming back.

 I was elated.     

The tugboats helped the carrier return to the pier and backed the aircraft carrier in, stern first. Apparently, the carrier had pulled out to go to wider water so the ship could maneuver and then return to the pier and be tied up on the starboard side.   

As my terror subsided, a joke ran though my head - the ship's captain realized I was not aboard, and he turned the carrier around to come back and get his missing seaman apprentice. I also then thought of the expression, “missing the boat.”

For a brief awful time, I thought I did in fact miss the boat.

For the next year and a half, I had a great adventure. In between long periods on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam, we made port of calls to Honolulu, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Sasebo, Japan and Subic Bay/Olongapo in the Philippines.

In December of 1971, I said goodbye to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and flew home.

And I never saw John Bland again.

Note: You can read the first chapter of Olongapo, called Butterfly, via the link below, and at the end of Butterfly are links to other posted chapters from the as yet unpublished crime novel:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'

My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

The story below is a chapter from my crime novel Olongapo, which I hope to soon publish. 

An earlier version of the story appeared in the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine. 

Cat Street

By Paul Davis

They say that anything stolen during the night in Hong Kong will be on sale on Cat Street the next morning. 

I heard that saying many years ago when I visited Hong Kong as a young sailor, and it recently came back to me while speaking to Salvatore Lorino at the Bomb-Bomb bar & grill in South Philly. 

After much discussion about Olongapo, Lorino and I spoke of our time in Hong Kong.

Lorino looked about the bar and then leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. Lorino asked me if I remembered Nichols and Johnson from the USS Kitty Hawk and I replied that I remembered Johnson very well. An amiable Northern Californian who grew up on a ranch, he was the only person I ever met, over the age of ten, who wanted to be a cowboy. He was murdered in a robbery in Hong Kong. Nichols, I recalled, was a sad sack who deserted the ship in Hong Kong with his new bar girl bride. 

Lorino did not contradict my recollection, but his grin widened above the rim of the glass as he drank his wine. 

“The statue of limitations is up, so I can finally talk about what went down,” Lorino told me. 

“Statute of limitations, not statue, like the Statue of Liberty,” I said, correcting him. 

Lorino shrugged. “What’s the difference?” 

“A second letter t.” 

Lorino ignored me and asked if I wanted to hear his story about a decades-old case of kidnapping, espionage and murder.

 

The USS Kitty Hawk sailed into Hong Kong Harbor in February of 1971. The aircraft carrier had just completed 70 days on "Yankee Station" in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea, performing combat operations off the coast of Vietnam. During that time the ship’s 80 aircraft dropped a record tonnage of ordnance on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong supply routes, which were collectively called the "Ho Chi Minh Trail." 

During that line period on Yankee Station a Communist Chinese minesweeper came dangerously close to the carrier. The Chinese warship was adorned with oversized white propaganda banners in Chinese, so most of the American sailors couldn’t read them, but our captain had an intelligence officer translate the banners.  

The captain announced over the ship’s public address system, known as the 1MC, that the banners read, “Down with U.S. Imperialism,” “Down with Nixon” and “Down with U.S. Navy war criminals.” 

The captain informed us that he had sent the Chinese a message in response to the banners. “Since you are so down with everything, up yours!” 

All of Kitty Hawk’s nearly 5,000 sailors laughed loudly. I’ve always wondered what the Communist Chinese sailors thought of that. 

The carrier's crew worked long, hard hours during flight operations and the radiomen stood eight hours on watch and eight hours off watch continuously. We lost track of all time until the upcoming visit to Hong Kong was announced.

When the carrier dropped anchor in Hong Kong Harbor, a loud cheer rose from the crew and carried across the water. Heads must have turned towards the roar for at least ten nautical miles. 

Sharing the harbor with the Kitty Hawk that day were freighters, ocean liners, British destroyers, Soviet cruisers, commercial speed hydrofoils, sampans and junks. The contrast between the splendid modern ships and the ancient and decrepit fishing boats was striking. 

Visible from the carrier’s flight deck was Victoria City, the capital and business center of the then-British Crown Colony. Dark clouds circled Hong Kong’s famous peak mountain. Looking down from the flight deck we saw the approaching Chinese motor launches, which were called Walla Wallas. The water taxis lined up along the starboard side of the ship and waited to take the eager American sailors ashore. 

Those of us who were fortunate enough to have liberty that first day in port were ordered to assemble in the berthing compartment prior to our departure. A third of the division would remain aboard the ship in the event of an emergency and the watch bill would change two days later. 

Chief Radioman Lionel Shaw stood across from our three-tier racks. As security officer for the division, he was tasked with presenting a briefing to the first batch of sailors preparing to leave the ship for the exotic streets of Hong Kong. 

The chief truly loved the Navy. He left a poor family and a bad neighborhood in Chicago when he enlisted in the Navy and there was no going back for him. When he entered the Navy, black sailors like him were restricted to orderly duties and he was enormously proud of the trust the Navy now bestowed upon him. He held, as did all of the men assembled before him, a top-secret security clearance. 

Shaw was only 5’6" but he appeared to be much larger due to his muscular torso, his ever-ready fighter’s stance and a great, booming voice. A model sailor, his khaki uniform and black boots were immaculate. 

Most of us were in civilian clothes, but he advised those of us who wearing uniforms to tear off the radioman patch adorned on the left arm of our uniforms. The distinctive patch showed lightning bolts, which was the occupational batch that identified us as radiomen who handled highly classified war information. Wearing the patch was bad OPSEC, or operations security. 

"Listen up," Shaw bellowed. "Hong Kong is the Goddamned spy capitol of the world, so don’t be yakkin’ about your job or what the ship does, or what we’re goin’ to be doin’ next month. 

"Remember that we’re only a few miles from Red China, the ally of our enemy, and ain’t nothing better them Communists motherfuckers would like, then to haul your drunken, silly asses over the border." 

He paused for breath, and perhaps for dramatic effect, and then added, "And if one of them Chinese bar hogs ask you what you do on the great, big ship, tell ‘em you’re a Goddamn cook!" 

The people of Hong Kong were given the impression that American sailors lived really well. On a ship with nearly 5,000 men, 2,000 of them were cooks.

 

Not known to Shaw or any of us at the time, another Navy radioman, Warrant Officer John Walker, was feeding the Soviets a steady diet of vital information on Navy communications. Communist Chinese intelligence was also in the market for a source of information. They wanted a U.S. Navy radioman to call their own. 

Radioman 3^rd Class John Nichols was one of the men assembled before Shaw. He had been in the Navy for more than three years and this was his second combat deployment aboard the carrier. Returning to the combat zone was common for carrier sailors during the 12 years of the Vietnam War. Many of them made two or three 11-month-long Western Pacific (WESTPAC) combat cruises during their four-year enlistments. 

There was an unwritten but steadfast rule that there were only two ways to get off a carrier during the Vietnam War. One way was to be discharged from the Navy, and the other way was to die. Unlike other men who resented not being reassigned to shore duty or a non-combat ship after their initial combat cruise, Nichols was thrilled. It meant that he would be seeing Hong Kong again. 

Originally from a small town in Ohio, Nichols joined the Navy after graduating from high school. An only child, Nichol’s father had deserted the family when he was an infant. He was raised by an alcoholic and inattentive mother. 

He had been a below average student; a poor athlete and he had few friends. Looking forward to the great Navy adventures that lay ahead, he was soon disappointed to discover that he was as unsuccessful with girls in San Diego as he had been in Ohio. 

Nichols was of average height, but his poor posture made him appear to be much shorter. With stooped shoulders, a slight paunch, balding brown hair and nondescript facial features, Nichols was certainly not a matinee idol. No clotheshorse either; Nichol’s uniform and civilian attire were always unkempt and unflattering. While looks aren’t everything, Nichols also lacked what one would call a personality. 

Nichols’ disappointing young life changed one night in 1969 while he was on his initial cruise. On leave for two days in Hong Kong, he met a girl named Nancy Chen in the Wanchai District. The notorious red-light district was made world famous by Richard Mason's fictional character Suzy Wong. 

Like Suzy Wong, Nancy Chen was alluring in her black silk Cheongsam, a long slit rising invitingly up her left leg. Her long straight black hair, sleepy black eyes and doll-like figure were intoxicating to Nichols. She was the first, and only, woman that he had sex with. 

In her limited English, she told him that her family had escaped from China and came to Hong Kong when she was a young girl. As the family had no money, she was forced to work the bars. Touched by her story and madly in love for the first time, Nichols spent three months pay romancing her in two days of liberty. As he prepared to return to the ship, he grew bold and asked her to marry him. 

"You crazy!" was her curt response to his heart-felt proposal. Undeterred, he said he would come back for her when the ship again visited Hong Kong during the next WESTPAC cruise.

 

A little more than one year later, the Walla Wallas pitched and rolled across the choppy, blue-gray water as the boats carried the Kitty Hawk sailors ashore. Nichols’ wedding guests were aboard one of the boats. His wedding guests sat on his immediate right and left. Nichols had invited the entire radio division to his wedding, but only Seamen Dennis Johnson and Lorino accepted. 

Nichols was not popular with the crew. It was well known that his request to marry a foreign national was denied by the Navy. She still had family behind the "Bamboo Curtain" in Communist China and that presented a security risk. Nichols didn’t care what the Navy ordered; he was getting married. He talked of nothing else since the beginning of the cruise. His shipmates constantly ridiculed him, as sailors in close quarters aboard a ship can be crueler than school children. 

Johnson was Nichols only friend and that was due primarily to Johnson being everyone’s friend. A cheerful 22-year-old, Johnson was a real cowboy who amused everyone with his tales of growing up on the range in California. He enlisted in the Navy to avoid being drafted in the Army. 

Lorino, who often visited me in our berthing area, accepted Nichols' invitation as he had no other plans other than developing a local connection to buy some shabu. He figured that he might meet someone at the wedding who could steer him towards a shabu connection. 

I passed on the wedding invitation, as I didn’t much care for Nichols, and Mike Hunt invited me to join him at the Hong Kong Hilton, where he stayed on his previous visit to Hong Kong. Hunt and I went ashore and checked in at the Hong Kong Hilton. As we had just come off a long line period on Yankee Station, Hunt and I were flush with cash from our saved pay. 

I also had my considerable winnings from playing poker. As I had been playing poker since I was a kid in South Philly, I was a fair poker player. I played poker on the carrier against a good number of sailors new to the game of chance and skill, so I usually came away from the card games a winner. 

Once we settled in our luxurious room, I called room service and ordered caviar and a bottle of Dom Perigon champagne, the favorite drink of my teenage hero, Ian Fleming’s iconic fictional secret agent James Bond. After I hung up, Hunt picked up the phone and called a number he had from his last visit to Hong Kong. A half hour later, two young and pretty Chinese girls showed up at the door. 

“If I die tomorrow,” I announced to everyone in the hotel room as I held up my champagne glass. “I’ll at least have known what it’s like to be a millionaire.” 

The next morning, we visited a tailor Hunt knew and I had a black suit made, plus two shirts and two pairs of slacks. I could not believe how inexpensive the fine tailor-made clothes were. Mike also had a suit and a shirt made. After our fittings, the tailor said our clothes would be ready the following day. 

We returned to the hotel, took showers, dressed, and headed out to Aberdeen Harbor where we boarded the floating Tai Pak restaurant. The famous floating restaurant was featured in the 1950 films Love is a Many Splendored Thing and The World of Suzie Wong. 

We were served wonderful dishes of crabmeat with sweet-corn soup, fried prawns, crabmeat Fu-Young, sweet and sour pork, and fried garoupa. I also eat fried Sole, which was a favorite dish of James Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels. To my regret, the Sole was not bone-less. I had to use my knife and fork to separate the small bones from the fish, but it was delicious. 

After eating this splendid authentic Chinese meal at the Tai Pak, we headed to the Wanchai bars.  

 

Nichols’ wedding was set to take place above a store in Hong Kong’s commercial section. The happy couple would spend the night in a hotel. Nichols had been informed of these arrangements by his bride-to-be in a letter. 

Nichols, Johnson and Lorino piled into a taxi at the pier and were driven to Ladder Street. Ladder Street was not really a street in a traditional sense, but rather a series of wide steps spread out between rows and rows of shops. At the bottom of Ladder Street lay Morlo-Gai, or Cat Street. The area was locally known as the "Thieves Market." 

A "Cat," in Hong Kong parlance, was someone who bought stolen goods from thieves and then sold them at market.  

Cat Street was a bustling market where tourists and locals alike were herded through the ubiquitous shops and wooden street stands. Under colorful Chinese banners and signs, the merchants screamed out the praises of their wares and haggled over prices with their customers. Trinkets and inexpensive products, mostly manufactured in the People’s Republic of China, were laid across counters and tables. Pickpockets, beggars, prostitutes and lunatics fought openly over territory. 

Passing through the crowd, store touts and street urchins frequently accosted the three sailors, but they brushed them off in good humor. Nichols paid a small boy to take them to the address written in his letter. They were led up a set of back stairs and into a room where the Americans faced the waiting bride and her Chinese "family." 

Music from the American band Chicago blasted from an elaborate stereo system. A ten-foot wooden bar, amply stocked with bottles of liquor, stretched across the room. Three round tables were set up to create a small dance floor. On the tables were various dishes of Chinese food. Two young women huddled with Nancy Chen and giggled. Three Chinese men stood in the center in the room. 

The sailors stood in the doorway, momentarily overcome by the sights, sounds and smells of the scene. Nancy Chen walked towards Nichols and embraced him. He began to cry, and she laughed at him, making a comment in Chinese to her girlfriends that made them laugh. One of the men announced in English that he was Jimmy Lung and that he was the bride’s brother. He introduced the women as Lucy and Wendy. 

The two lean and gaunt men in white shirts and dark slacks were introduced as the Woo brothers, cousins to the bride. They were also serving as the bartender and waiter for the affair. Lung was as thin as a child’s crayoned stickman. His hair was a dark mop and sunglasses hung precariously on his skeletal face. He wore an open collared silk shirt under his expensive suit and his silver snakeskin cowboy boots drew Johnson’s envy. 

When Nichols stopped crying, they all took seats at the tables and began to eat and drink. The women danced seductively with Johnson and Lorino. During the festivity, Nichols put his arm around his future brother-in-law and asked him why he and Nancy had different last names. "Chinese custom," Lung replied bluntly. Nichols did not question the dubious explanation. 

The party ended abruptly when Lung leaped up and screamed "No one move!"

Swiftly extracting a foot-long knife from his left sleeve, Lung placed it roughly under Nichols’ chin. The waiter also drew a long knife and the bartender vaulted over the bar holding a long-barreled revolver. The three women huddled into a corner. 

"We are moving this party across the Sham Chum," Lung announced. The Americans sailors didn’t know that this was the name of the river that separated Hong Kong from Red China, but they got the idea when Lung added, "My friends on the other side want to talk to you about your little American Navy secrets." 

Johnson sat still and cursed to himself softly. Lorino casually crossed his legs and took a long draw from his cigarette, trying to look as cool as a South Philly gangster ought to under these extreme and unusual circumstances. Nichols was frozen and bug-eyed in Lung’s grip. 

To Lorino, who had personal experience in the field of armed robbery, Lung made two critical mistakes. The first mistake was that he took time to brag to his captive audience. Lung told them proudly that he was a member of a local Triad, one of the secret criminal societies in Hong Kong. He explained that in addition to routine criminal pursuits, he also gathered information that his girls extracted from American servicemen and passed it on to the Red Chinese. The pay for the information was generous, considering that he was dealing with communists. 

In Lorino’s mind, Lung's second mistake was that he took his eyes off Lorino for just a second when he turned his head towards a crash. Johnson caused the noise when he jumped up from his chair and tackled the Woo brothers. All three men slammed into the bar, causing it to split down the middle as if hit by a giant karate chop. 

At that moment, Lorino leaped up from his chair, hit Lung with a solid overhand right, and without losing momentum, bolted through the door. Lung collapsed from the blow and dropped to the floor with Nichols still in his grip. 

Like the thief that he was, Lorino jumped down the stairs, ran out into the street and quickly waded through the crowd for several blocks. He later stopped at a bar, had a drink, and bought shabu from a waiter. He hooked up with a bar girl and spent the night with her. He didn’t give the fate of Nichols and Johnson a moments’ thought. Lorino returned to the ship the following day and kept his mouth shut.

 

I recall that next day on the Kitty Hawk vividly. Nichols was reported to be UA, unauthorized absence, which surprised no one. The news that Johnson was murdered in a robbery was a surprise and the story quickly spread throughout the ship. There was much talk of "dungaree liberty," a time-honored naval tradition in which sailors donned working uniforms, armed themselves with knives, pipes and clubs and went ashore to wreak havoc on an offending liberty town. 

The captain wisely canceled all water taxis. A British police inspector came aboard and addressed the crew over the ship’s 1MC. 

"I wish to inform you that your Seaman Dennis Johnson was found murdered last night on Cat Street," the inspector said in an accent most of the sailors found familiar from old British movies. 

"A known criminal, one Jimmy Lung, was apprehended and I assure you he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." 

After hearing the British police officer, the crew’s anger was quelled. Johnson was given a memorial service and the carrier returned to Yankee Station and the war. 

After 30 days, Nichols was later declared to be AWOL, absent without leave, and he was officially proclaimed to be a deserter. The paperwork was processed, and Nichols was forgotten. 

I don’t recall the British police officer mentioning Nichols when he addressed the Kitty Hawk sailors, but after listening to Lorino's story, my guess was Nichols was abducted and taken to Red China, where the Chinese drained him of his classified information and then shot him. 

© 2024 By Paul Davis