The Mop is mightier than the sWord
Jul. 7th, 2010 02:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonBefore I learned to wield the pen I first had to master the mop.
My education came while serving breifly onboard the USS Artemis Jones (CG 158), a Flight II Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, years before my naval career was truncated by a shore leave excursion in Barcelona spent hashish smoking with the locals. I had freshly arrived from Basic, after flunking the pre-BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALS) course down in Orlando, to arrive onboard my first ship during the opening stages of Operation Desert Storm. For you younger readers out there Desert Storm was like the current boondoogle our country is embroiled in now, only it was a fraction as long, had an actual ending and the graphics were more akin to a Nintendo 64 than a X-Box 360. Being both a coward and a lover by nature, I had managed to disappear in the 'paper work' for much of the month of October, allowing myself to get bumped off every available flight out of NAS 1 in Sigonella. In this time I befriended a gang of navy-brats, almost became the lead singer to a Napalm Death inspired thrash-metal band and had a chance of going AWOL to runaway with a beautiful Italian girl whose name I now forget. Eventually though ADMIN got wise to my scam and my ass was unceremoniously flown out to the Saratoga before getting helioed out to the 'Jones'.
Within hours of being assigned my bunk, given a locker to unload my duffel bag and shown a quick tour of the ship, I was given my first assignment.
An EN3 by the name of Gelhardt took me down to AUX-1, intorduced me to the boys in A-Gang, and then promptly thrusted a mop in my hands with orders to get to work hitting the spills pooled around the massive compression engines and evaporators. I took to the task with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man making his bed before heading off to the chair. As far as I was concerned this was my life for the next four years (three years, eight months and one week actually). I was going to be an unstoppable navy SEAL, a human killing machine fueled by Ministry and the receiving end of a unhappy childhood. Now I was 'Mop-Boy' and my prospects weren't looking too bright.
During the course of this first task I met one of the two chiefs running the auxiliary engine room I had been conscripted to by a lottery of need. One was ENC Troy, a small man in his mid forties who spoke with a soft Tennessee accent and was never found without a coffee mug in his hand. The other was Chief Walde who - despite resembling Robert Crumb physically and built scrawny enough that his khakis hung off his slight frame - managed to somehow put the living fear of God in me everytime we talked. This was Walde, who took no effort to conceal his disapproval to the way I lackadaisically swabbed the deck.
After silently evaluating my performance for a few moments he cleared his throat and walked over to me.
"Hey, hey... Babble, is it?" he asked.
"Babalon." I corrected keeping my eyes on the 'deck'.
"Hey, look up here when I'm talking to you."
I do and do my best to hide the building rage in the process giving as close an approximation to apathy as I could muster.
"You probably think this is just shit work doled out to the lowest man on the totem pole, in this case you. Am I right?"
"Permission to speak freely, Chief?"
"This ain't the movies, Babble you don't have to... y'know what forget it. Permission granted."
"I think it's exactly that!"
Chief Walde nodded sagely giving the demented smile of a sadist in a convent.
"Do you know what sinks ships?"
I'm tempted to blurt - 'loose lips' - but instead just shrug my lack of an answer.
"A failure to apply Attention to Detail before it is too late."
He pauses here to grab the mop out of my hands and thrust the business end just under the LPAC where a stain of oil that I missed in my rounds stands now as blatant as lipstick on a married man's collar.
"Just one puddle of oil, no biggie right? But then a faulty wire in the control box or a short in the fuse or someone tries to sneak in a smoke down here on watch (which I promise better not be a mistake I catch you making) and next thing you know... BANG!" and he shouts the last word so that I jump back and almost slip on the spill.
"Attention to detail, Babalon! It starts with you with a mop and goes all the way up to the Old Man on the Bridge. Got it?"
I nod eager and get back to swabbing the deck, not impressed so much by the lesson but by the vociferousness with which it was delivered.
Later, sleepless in the bunk, the Jones swaying across the soft chop of the Med and the constant roar of turbines reverbatating through our quarters depriving me of much needed rest I cast my mind back to Chief Walde's gruff lesson...
... I click on the small airport passenger light in the overhead of my bunk. Reach under the pillow where I had stashed away a small notebook and slowly, remembering as best I could the previous month's fleeting 'details' (the broken tooth of a Marine who wanted to kick my ass, the nervous tic of an old bartender back in Sicily, the first burst of naked constellations witnessed on the bow) and clumsily begin to press those first spark of words upon the patient page.
My education came while serving breifly onboard the USS Artemis Jones (CG 158), a Flight II Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, years before my naval career was truncated by a shore leave excursion in Barcelona spent hashish smoking with the locals. I had freshly arrived from Basic, after flunking the pre-BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALS) course down in Orlando, to arrive onboard my first ship during the opening stages of Operation Desert Storm. For you younger readers out there Desert Storm was like the current boondoogle our country is embroiled in now, only it was a fraction as long, had an actual ending and the graphics were more akin to a Nintendo 64 than a X-Box 360. Being both a coward and a lover by nature, I had managed to disappear in the 'paper work' for much of the month of October, allowing myself to get bumped off every available flight out of NAS 1 in Sigonella. In this time I befriended a gang of navy-brats, almost became the lead singer to a Napalm Death inspired thrash-metal band and had a chance of going AWOL to runaway with a beautiful Italian girl whose name I now forget. Eventually though ADMIN got wise to my scam and my ass was unceremoniously flown out to the Saratoga before getting helioed out to the 'Jones'.
Within hours of being assigned my bunk, given a locker to unload my duffel bag and shown a quick tour of the ship, I was given my first assignment.
An EN3 by the name of Gelhardt took me down to AUX-1, intorduced me to the boys in A-Gang, and then promptly thrusted a mop in my hands with orders to get to work hitting the spills pooled around the massive compression engines and evaporators. I took to the task with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man making his bed before heading off to the chair. As far as I was concerned this was my life for the next four years (three years, eight months and one week actually). I was going to be an unstoppable navy SEAL, a human killing machine fueled by Ministry and the receiving end of a unhappy childhood. Now I was 'Mop-Boy' and my prospects weren't looking too bright.
During the course of this first task I met one of the two chiefs running the auxiliary engine room I had been conscripted to by a lottery of need. One was ENC Troy, a small man in his mid forties who spoke with a soft Tennessee accent and was never found without a coffee mug in his hand. The other was Chief Walde who - despite resembling Robert Crumb physically and built scrawny enough that his khakis hung off his slight frame - managed to somehow put the living fear of God in me everytime we talked. This was Walde, who took no effort to conceal his disapproval to the way I lackadaisically swabbed the deck.
After silently evaluating my performance for a few moments he cleared his throat and walked over to me.
"Hey, hey... Babble, is it?" he asked.
"Babalon." I corrected keeping my eyes on the 'deck'.
"Hey, look up here when I'm talking to you."
I do and do my best to hide the building rage in the process giving as close an approximation to apathy as I could muster.
"You probably think this is just shit work doled out to the lowest man on the totem pole, in this case you. Am I right?"
"Permission to speak freely, Chief?"
"This ain't the movies, Babble you don't have to... y'know what forget it. Permission granted."
"I think it's exactly that!"
Chief Walde nodded sagely giving the demented smile of a sadist in a convent.
"Do you know what sinks ships?"
I'm tempted to blurt - 'loose lips' - but instead just shrug my lack of an answer.
"A failure to apply Attention to Detail before it is too late."
He pauses here to grab the mop out of my hands and thrust the business end just under the LPAC where a stain of oil that I missed in my rounds stands now as blatant as lipstick on a married man's collar.
"Just one puddle of oil, no biggie right? But then a faulty wire in the control box or a short in the fuse or someone tries to sneak in a smoke down here on watch (which I promise better not be a mistake I catch you making) and next thing you know... BANG!" and he shouts the last word so that I jump back and almost slip on the spill.
"Attention to detail, Babalon! It starts with you with a mop and goes all the way up to the Old Man on the Bridge. Got it?"
I nod eager and get back to swabbing the deck, not impressed so much by the lesson but by the vociferousness with which it was delivered.
Later, sleepless in the bunk, the Jones swaying across the soft chop of the Med and the constant roar of turbines reverbatating through our quarters depriving me of much needed rest I cast my mind back to Chief Walde's gruff lesson...
... I click on the small airport passenger light in the overhead of my bunk. Reach under the pillow where I had stashed away a small notebook and slowly, remembering as best I could the previous month's fleeting 'details' (the broken tooth of a Marine who wanted to kick my ass, the nervous tic of an old bartender back in Sicily, the first burst of naked constellations witnessed on the bow) and clumsily begin to press those first spark of words upon the patient page.
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no subject
on 2010-07-07 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-07-07 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-07-07 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-07-08 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-07-07 11:13 pm (UTC)Shouldn't that be "too" bright? Attention to detail!
Honestly, though, I really enjoyed this.
no subject
on 2010-07-08 12:59 am (UTC)Really glad you enjoyed it:)