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The Admiral's Chaffuer
May. 15th, 2006 12:37 pm"Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform."
- William Penn
The School bell doesn't ring as much as it shrieks like some large tin animal that's just been stabbed in the belly. That's our signal for the last act! We burst out from behind the stage, all spazz vaudeville, channeling our inner 'Three Stooges", running, circling and whooping at one another while trying not to trip over each others cloaks and robes. Our frenzy slows down, we are each pulled back into the orbit of the circle around the gravity of the stage. We stand there quietly for the eternity of a breaths length, waiting on West to navigate us through the final ceremony of this theatrical ritual. West, 70's mustached and narrow eyed, reeks of that subdued intensity you only get off holy mystics or professional Californians. His silence is sucking in the audiences expectations and allowing it to flow through us like an electrical current through a human circuit. Finally he raises his hands into what is a cross between a Buddhist Mudra and a gesture commonly known as the 'Shocker' -(All fingers spread out except the wedding one signifying the occult meaning - 'Two in the Pink, One in the Stink').We mirror the gesture and the subsequent gestures that ride an invisible line vertically from sternum to crown, out and around and returning back to just above the navel. We raise our hoods simultaneously and we spread our arms out into an interlinking cross.
Now it's my turn.
Feel that?
The raw fear tapping into the nerves like a drill. A fist clenched in the gut. The flash of sirens flooding your car. A hanging judge clearing his throat at your trial. A loose noose around the neck. A bad report card silently read by your parents. A thousand glass spiders trying to crawl out of from under your skin. The slow motion moments before a car wreck. Me stepping out of the circle, stepping up onto the box that's doubled as altar and desk for the other acts, standing up there. Exposed. Vulnerable. Invisible no longer all eyes fall on me. The heat of the stage lights slowly roasting me under the thick brown robe i'm wearing. There's maybe 40, 50 people tops in the audience but right now it looks like an entire army has been marshalled out there in the dark, each face a thousand. I take a deep breath and reach inside me for the lines i've been constantly rehearsing, practicing, repeating and pulling back... nothing! I stand up there on the gallows frozen.
"At Ease!" Our Company Commander barks and we snap out of our rigid posture of 'Attention' into the slighty more comfortable Parade Rest' position. It's a Black Flag day, and here at the O.R.T.C. (Orlando Recruit Training Command), that means we're supposed to be exempt from exercising and marching outside until the temperature drops. But my divisions got an old school Squid, one who thinks that concepts like 'heat exhaustion' and 'dehydration' are the by products of a soft bellied generation of whiners who couldn't make the grade in the Navy of back in the day.
"Alright Ladies" He grumbles "Command has come down with the order to find a Re-cruit suit-able to be the Ad-mirals Chaffuer for the day. Preferably some-one who is not a complete and utter fuck up. Unfor-tunately we only have you Ladies to choose from... so who's it going to be?" He marches up and down the line and stops at me.
"You Mosca!" His breath slaps me in the face with hate and halitosis "You wanna be the Admirals Chaffuer...?" Before I can reply that I can't due to my not having a license our RCPO speaks up and volunteers.
He spins around and asks him if he can handle the driving the Admiral's limo? The R.C.P.O. (that's Recruit Chief Petty Officer to you civilians), a natural ass kisser and ergo destined to go far in the Service, asserts that he can drive the Limo whole heartedly with a sincerely and sickening sense of gratification in his voice.
"Good!" The C.C. sneers turning to his #2. "We have a volunteer!"
Our RCPO marches smugly out of the ranks, where he is directed to a large pile of dirt with a single shovel sticking out of it like Excalibur. Next to the pile is a beat up old wheel barrel.
"Now then this is the Ad-miral's Limo" The CC says nodding to the wheel barrel, "You will fill up the Admiral's Limo and 'drive' it to there" indicating a spot a few dozen yards away "Do you have any questions?". The RCPO was soul slapped and looking stupid. He mumbled a 'No sir' and proceeded to shoveling the dirt into the 'Limo' while we stood there and watched him fill it up, 'drive' it over and come back to repeat the process. When the pile had sucessfuly been transfered he was ordered to 'drive' it back, meaning he had to redig the pile and transfer it back to the original position while we all looked on suppressing our smiles.
"The lesson here ladies...?" Our CC snarled as the RCPO began humping the dirt back behind him "Nev-ah and I mean Nev-ah Vol-un-teer for any thing! Do I make myself clear?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" We chant.
16 years later and i'm about to prove that i've forgotten that lesson.
It's the end of our only writting meeting and we're wrapping up the night by deciding who will read what and when they'll read it. Up until that moment all I wanted to do was help script some stuff and bounce a few ideas for the show I had off the Theater Company i'm currently embedded with. I've pushed to get the show to end with a reading from Aleister Crowley's 'The Book of Lies', chapter 23, called 'Skiddo'. The piece keeps with our theme of Initiation and 23 I felt and it was also one of the first things I've ever read by the 'Beast'.
"Okay" The Magpie announces in a voice that is both shrill and matter of fact, he's decided that he's the director and that a process of creative democracy would be counter productive to his expectations of the direction of the show: "We got the final Initiate piece, then Mama Hen's reading from the 'Principia Discordia' and finally the Crowley... so who's going to read that one?"
No one says anything but rather everyone exchanges glances quietly amongst each other. That is until I open my big mouth!
"It's an easy piece to read and a fun one at that" I say with a shrug oblivious of what it is i'm actually doing, "Hell, even I could do it!"
The Magpie nods satisfied and caws out matter of factly:
"Fine... you're reading it then!"
I can here the laugh track and the Wak-wak-wak-waaaaaaa.... music playing. Somewhere, out there in the cosmic ocean, both my former CC and RCPO have gotten huge fucking hard ons as splashes of evil grins are thrown across their face. I had forgotten the Golden Rule of the military: Thou Shalt Not Volunteer!
- William Penn
The School bell doesn't ring as much as it shrieks like some large tin animal that's just been stabbed in the belly. That's our signal for the last act! We burst out from behind the stage, all spazz vaudeville, channeling our inner 'Three Stooges", running, circling and whooping at one another while trying not to trip over each others cloaks and robes. Our frenzy slows down, we are each pulled back into the orbit of the circle around the gravity of the stage. We stand there quietly for the eternity of a breaths length, waiting on West to navigate us through the final ceremony of this theatrical ritual. West, 70's mustached and narrow eyed, reeks of that subdued intensity you only get off holy mystics or professional Californians. His silence is sucking in the audiences expectations and allowing it to flow through us like an electrical current through a human circuit. Finally he raises his hands into what is a cross between a Buddhist Mudra and a gesture commonly known as the 'Shocker' -(All fingers spread out except the wedding one signifying the occult meaning - 'Two in the Pink, One in the Stink').We mirror the gesture and the subsequent gestures that ride an invisible line vertically from sternum to crown, out and around and returning back to just above the navel. We raise our hoods simultaneously and we spread our arms out into an interlinking cross.
Now it's my turn.
Feel that?
The raw fear tapping into the nerves like a drill. A fist clenched in the gut. The flash of sirens flooding your car. A hanging judge clearing his throat at your trial. A loose noose around the neck. A bad report card silently read by your parents. A thousand glass spiders trying to crawl out of from under your skin. The slow motion moments before a car wreck. Me stepping out of the circle, stepping up onto the box that's doubled as altar and desk for the other acts, standing up there. Exposed. Vulnerable. Invisible no longer all eyes fall on me. The heat of the stage lights slowly roasting me under the thick brown robe i'm wearing. There's maybe 40, 50 people tops in the audience but right now it looks like an entire army has been marshalled out there in the dark, each face a thousand. I take a deep breath and reach inside me for the lines i've been constantly rehearsing, practicing, repeating and pulling back... nothing! I stand up there on the gallows frozen.
"At Ease!" Our Company Commander barks and we snap out of our rigid posture of 'Attention' into the slighty more comfortable Parade Rest' position. It's a Black Flag day, and here at the O.R.T.C. (Orlando Recruit Training Command), that means we're supposed to be exempt from exercising and marching outside until the temperature drops. But my divisions got an old school Squid, one who thinks that concepts like 'heat exhaustion' and 'dehydration' are the by products of a soft bellied generation of whiners who couldn't make the grade in the Navy of back in the day.
"Alright Ladies" He grumbles "Command has come down with the order to find a Re-cruit suit-able to be the Ad-mirals Chaffuer for the day. Preferably some-one who is not a complete and utter fuck up. Unfor-tunately we only have you Ladies to choose from... so who's it going to be?" He marches up and down the line and stops at me.
"You Mosca!" His breath slaps me in the face with hate and halitosis "You wanna be the Admirals Chaffuer...?" Before I can reply that I can't due to my not having a license our RCPO speaks up and volunteers.
He spins around and asks him if he can handle the driving the Admiral's limo? The R.C.P.O. (that's Recruit Chief Petty Officer to you civilians), a natural ass kisser and ergo destined to go far in the Service, asserts that he can drive the Limo whole heartedly with a sincerely and sickening sense of gratification in his voice.
"Good!" The C.C. sneers turning to his #2. "We have a volunteer!"
Our RCPO marches smugly out of the ranks, where he is directed to a large pile of dirt with a single shovel sticking out of it like Excalibur. Next to the pile is a beat up old wheel barrel.
"Now then this is the Ad-miral's Limo" The CC says nodding to the wheel barrel, "You will fill up the Admiral's Limo and 'drive' it to there" indicating a spot a few dozen yards away "Do you have any questions?". The RCPO was soul slapped and looking stupid. He mumbled a 'No sir' and proceeded to shoveling the dirt into the 'Limo' while we stood there and watched him fill it up, 'drive' it over and come back to repeat the process. When the pile had sucessfuly been transfered he was ordered to 'drive' it back, meaning he had to redig the pile and transfer it back to the original position while we all looked on suppressing our smiles.
"The lesson here ladies...?" Our CC snarled as the RCPO began humping the dirt back behind him "Nev-ah and I mean Nev-ah Vol-un-teer for any thing! Do I make myself clear?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" We chant.
16 years later and i'm about to prove that i've forgotten that lesson.
It's the end of our only writting meeting and we're wrapping up the night by deciding who will read what and when they'll read it. Up until that moment all I wanted to do was help script some stuff and bounce a few ideas for the show I had off the Theater Company i'm currently embedded with. I've pushed to get the show to end with a reading from Aleister Crowley's 'The Book of Lies', chapter 23, called 'Skiddo'. The piece keeps with our theme of Initiation and 23 I felt and it was also one of the first things I've ever read by the 'Beast'.
"Okay" The Magpie announces in a voice that is both shrill and matter of fact, he's decided that he's the director and that a process of creative democracy would be counter productive to his expectations of the direction of the show: "We got the final Initiate piece, then Mama Hen's reading from the 'Principia Discordia' and finally the Crowley... so who's going to read that one?"
No one says anything but rather everyone exchanges glances quietly amongst each other. That is until I open my big mouth!
"It's an easy piece to read and a fun one at that" I say with a shrug oblivious of what it is i'm actually doing, "Hell, even I could do it!"
The Magpie nods satisfied and caws out matter of factly:
"Fine... you're reading it then!"
I can here the laugh track and the Wak-wak-wak-waaaaaaa.... music playing. Somewhere, out there in the cosmic ocean, both my former CC and RCPO have gotten huge fucking hard ons as splashes of evil grins are thrown across their face. I had forgotten the Golden Rule of the military: Thou Shalt Not Volunteer!
