Sea Stories: The Mail Buoy Watch

[jack_babalon]

It didn't use to be like this.

Once upon a time I was a Bilge Rat on a United States Navy Aegis Cruiser. Not just any Bilge Rat either. No, sir. I was A-Gang. That meant if my ass saw sunlight for more than an hour a day then someone, somewhere wasn't giving me enough to do. My job was basically whatever job no one else wanted to do: Swabbing the deck, painting bulkheads, scrubbing verdigree with a steel wire toothbrush, meticulously cleaning each and every shitter in the Head as if the Old Man himself was going to eat his supper off it, washing a few hundred dinner trays an hour in the Scullery (where on a cheap ass boom box I would introduce the crew to Skinny Puppy, Ministry and Bauhaus as they threw their plates at me through a small window in front of the sink).

Still the recruiters hadn't lied. After all it wasn't just a job... it was shit work 24-7-365 times 4 for the contract. It was a dirty job and if someone had to do it then you best believe it was going to be my sorry ass with his sleeves roled up and a pipe wrench clenched in his jaws pirate style.

Still there were snatches of adventure to be had and not just on shore leave either. Though to be honest it never seems like it was all that until years later after the whiskey and nostalgia have mixed quietly in your drink when no one's around.

I had to wrestle two steam lines one time, that had both popped loose of their couplings on the pier. I can tell you this for free: Nothing says "good morning" after tripping balls for twelve hours straight the night before like trying to straddle a hose rodeo style while it's hissing out a few hundred PSI of melt-your-face-off steam!

Remember having to get up at O'dark hundred hours during a terrible winter storm in the Atlantic. All Hands On Deck. Anyone under an E-5 mustered for a work party to man the refueling lines. It was like weight lifting on an assembly line that was stationed on a carnival ride. Cats were dropping out quick with the sea sickness. No one could keep their footing with the ship bouncing up and down more frantically than an epileptic whore. The boxes were wet and frequently slipped from the crews fingers to crash violently, sometimes slidding off the ship straight into the Drink. Me? Well let's just say I was no stranger to the unique terrors of suffering vertical bed spins.

Shit or when I was the first in line to walk into a fire that got started in a paint locker. I couldn't see shit. I was in a black out trying to see through my OBA mask. Scared shitless, hyperventilating so hard I sounded like Darth Vader getting a blow job... and suddenly the hatch in front of me pops open! Next thing I know I find myself being furnace blasted with a wave of raw heat and light. In front of me the flames spit out of the room while the Damage Control Chief starts screaming behind me to go forward!

I was a tweenage Squid who just past his second year in the service had already pissed more sea water than your average Zero had sailed on. I benched 250. Maxed 300. Could work a 20 hour shift on four hours sleep and a hang over. I had been to more countries than I had different lays and believe you me I was counting. I read Dostoyevsky, R.A.Wilson and Crowley in my bunk whenever I scored a few minutes of downtime. "FTN" was my motto. All I wanted out life then was to finish my tour, get home, get fucked up as much as humanly possible and finally crawl in bed with my woman until oblivion took me to that home that waits behind every pair of closed eyes.

But then one day some cocksucker realized that I had never worked the Mail Buoy Watch before.

"Mosca what are you doing?" Chief Ewald barked at me. I told him I had been given some busy work by EN2 Greer and had to separate the 200 dollar washers from the 300 dollar bolts into little bags.

"Bullshit!" he sneered sniffing the cigarette smoke on the air, "You're ass is on Mail Buoy watch as of right fucking now!"

"'Buoy Watch'?" I asked dumbfounded, "I'm not qualified on topside work, Chief you know that..."

"Relax Mosca" Chief E peeled back the smile of a vicious rat, "I think even you can handle this without fucking it up!"

Next thing I know i'm on the bow standing at parade rest with some E-1 boatswains mate fresh out of Great Mistakes while some Ops Zero is giving us the run down.

"Have any of you men ever worked a mail buoy watch before?" he asked with grave seriousness.

"Sir, if I may? I'm an engineer and have not been signed off to work..."

"You're signed off to do as your told..." he squints through his black rimmed glasses at my stenciled name hovering over my left breast, "Moscow! Now are we going to have a problem?"

"No sir, it's just that i've never..."

"Are.We.Going.To.Have.A.Problem?"

"No sir"

"Bravo Zulu!" he has some LTJG hand us a life jacket each, a headset to the kid and gives me a twelve foot pole with a hook on the end of it.

"Now listen up, because this is very important... due to current security restrictions we cannot use our Seahawk to get the mail today. So the Sorry Sara has decided to drop off a mail buoy for us... you do know what a mail buoy is don't you Moscow?"

"No sir..."

"It's a fucking buoy with our mail attached to it!" he screams in my heat and his breath slaps the last bit of sleep deprivation off me, "Right now we're just a few knots away from an interception course. We're going to keep watch for it on the bridge, we'll holler down to Seaman Clueless here when we approach the buoy and you'll catch with the pole. Think you can handle that?"

"Sir?" I looked at the length of the pole and realized that there was no fucking way it could reach down that far into the drink.

"Don't fuck this up, Moscow!" he turned around with his pet LTJG and made his way back to the bridge.

Me and Seaman Clueless made our way to the front of the Bow. It was a clear day over the Med. The dome of the sky was filled with whale clouds drifting on a mid summer wind. I scanned the horizon. I didn't see another ship. I didn't see a buoy. I didn't see anything but miles of endless sea and the square root of Jack Shit out there.

Then I heard a crackle over Clueless' headset. He nodded at the voice, nervously muttered an "Aye" and told me that we were approaching the buoy. I lean over the side gripping the pole like a caveman about to spear a mastadon.

But I don't see it.

I tell Clueless to have the bridge run a double check.

They Do.

It's right in front of me.

I lean over again, then the sides, frantic, starting to get nervous. I don't see it. I tell Clueless to tell the Bridge that I don't see anything.

Silence.

Long terrible, fucking silence.

Then a scream comes over the headset that I can hear just fine!

"It's just passed you on the Starboard side"

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?!?!?!?

I run over Starboard side and see nothing but waves.

"There must be some mistake..." I mutter and of course, clueless tells the Bridge just that. Clueless gets an answer ASAP. He's being called everything but a Child Of God. He winces. He scowls. He looks at me with fuck you eyes because i've just royally screwed the pooch six ways from Sunday!

"The Captain wants to see you on the Bridge, Mosca" Clueless snorts through flared nostrils, "They want both of us... nice job there!"

We make our way up to the Oh-Four level. The Bridge. It's a Surprise Party In Hell. Everyones there. The Cheng. The X-O. Our Zero. Both Chiefs. Every Division head on the ship, half the fucking Ops Department and for some reason most of A-Gang. Shit they even got some prick filming the whole thing on a camcorder. They're all shaking their head at me when I walk in like I just crossed the Green Mile.

Then the Captain lifts his head up from a map. Asks someone if that's "the sailor that lost the ships mail". They give a death sentence nod.

"We need to have a word, son." this fat fuck tells me in his Ice-cream man whites, "Come here a second."

I sleepwalk stagger over. My hearts pounding lead by the pound into my heart. I can't breathe right. I'm going dizzy. I can't believe this. I just can't believe this... I get in front of him and it all just spills out of me.

"Sir, i'm sorry about what happened... but with all due respect you need to know that I am not qualified to work a mail buoy watch!"

"You're not!"

"No sir... i'm an engineer and this falls outside the watches i've been trained for. This isn't my fault. I told them. I told them I wasn't qualified. I did..."

"Son, relax" Captain Chubby smiles sending a ripple to flow over all five chins, "... you've been had."

"I'm sorry sir?"

"There is no Mail Buoy, Son. The boys were just having some fun with you..."

"..."

Then the Bridge bursts into laughter. I look over startled at the Camcorder and the asshole filming it gives me a little wave. The Old Man takes me by the hand, shakes it and gives me a big old slap on the back.

"No shame... we've all been there."

Everyone came up to me and shook my hand. Even Ewald.

I'd like to say that that was my initiation into being 'one of the guys'. It wasn't. But things were different after that. I had climbed a rung on the ladder. Earned Naval Karma points big time. Was now considered one of the Salts albeit grudgingly so.

A month later on the Mess Deck we all made our way to catch the Saturday Night movie - "Die Hard 2". I just got done with a 14 hour day and had a rare night of no watch. I sat down with my buddy. The screen was pulled down. The lights were killed and the movie sputtered to life.

Only it wasn't fucking Bruce Willis up there. It was Yours truly shitting himself stupid in front of the Old Man.

They say 'a true initiation never ends'.

I finally caught a glimplse of the truth behind that saying. It was all so clear. There was nothing I could do now but join the crew in having a laugh at the poor prick stammering excuses up there on the big screen.

Comments

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

That is so fucking wrong... made me queasy just reading it. There are reasons that I don't like people and this is right up at the top!
xxx