X-Ray… or Xylophone?

[jack_babalon]

My naval career was a magnificent disaster, a slow motion shipwreck sprawled across foreign shores, vast oceans and years measured in hard time. An odyssey of errors that began in a geography worthy of Dante, Recruit Training Command Orlando, where I toiled under the merciless heat of a long brutal summer as well as the constant disdain of my superiors. But it wasn’t until I answered a single question that my blind date with destiny would be sealed: “X-Ray… or Xylophone?”

***


RTC Orlando wasn’t ‘Hell’ in the biblical sense but it certainly qualified under the “is other people” interpretation of the word. This was due to my recruit division being exclusively drawn from the ranks of ex-gang bangers, the walking comatose, the sanity handicapped and a full time bed-wetter.

Of course I had only myself to blame, having gotten kicked out of my division and placed into ‘Hotel PosMo’ within mere weeks of my burgeoning naval career.

PosMo stands for ‘Positive Motivation’ and it’s where recruits of an ‘especially troubled’ disposition wind up. A sort of special needs limbo for possible section 8’s and a psychological processing plant to weed out the irredeemable fuck-ups from the attention whores.

Still, it wasn’t as if I had anywhere better to be. Prior to the Navy I was a high school dropout, habitually unemployed, a skate-punk, a chronic stoner… or in the words of my Pops, (god-bless-his-soul) - “an artist through and through.” By the time I turned eighteen the lease on my parent’s sense of obligation to shelter me was quickly running out. So, with only a brief foray into drug dealing on my resume, I signed up for what would hopefully be ‘not just a job, but an adventure.’

Of course it wasn’t long before I realized I should have given dealing a second chance. Granted, it all usually ended in guns and drama at some point. But, from what I could tell, so did the Navy… only the pay wasn’t as good. Plus, seeing as they bunked me over a chronic masturbator and across from this kid who kept screaming in his sleep, I felt like I’d voluntarily skipped past all the cool chapters in drug-dealing and jumped straight to the prison part.

Then an obvious conclusion hit me. PosMo was a one way ticket back to the cherished life I had so casually dismissed. The Big Punk-Rock Candy Mountain! Where breakfast is served at a proper hour, somewhere around noonish, and you don’t need permission for such luxuries as sleeping or having to use the ‘head’. I was ready to pull a Yossarian and ‘Catch-22’ my ass on out of the Nav for good. The plan was simple. All I had to do was just be myself.

Within moments of this epiphany’s passing, I found myself signing up for a one-man tour of duty in Psycho City, USA. In the Mess Hall I ate off the plate with only my teeth. I barked in my sleep and talked to myself, in all manner of ludicrous accents, about subjects as diverse as the works of Rilke to how I once made passionate love to an old shoe. I scrawled lewd stick figure pictures on the mirrors with a bar of soap and filled out all my forms with half-remembered Misfits lyrics.

The Pièce de résistance, however, came during a routine inspection where I mustered in formation wearing nothing but my birthday suit best. It was then our Recruit Division Commander bellowed – “Alright, Mad Man! Push-ups… for-fucking-ever!”

I dropped into position and automatically began pounding them out. On each rise of the push-ups I chanted out: “One fucking ever, two fucking ever, three fucking ever, four-fucking-ever… Sir!”

I leapt back up and snapped into position.

This had the predictable result of sending our Commander into an apoplectic trance. He had a scarecrow’s physique, but his linebacker’s neck rose to bloom a head two times too large for the rest of his body. He immediately planted that enormous face just kissing distance from mine and launched into the Great Screamfest of ‘94. I was bombarded under a fiery tirade that would’ve easily humbled the worst rant of a syphilitic dictator or third world weary generalissimo. His face flushed red from the heat of his wrath. Boiling rivers of veins bulged across that massive throat. Foam trickled from the corner of his mouth and I was showered liberally in his spittle. Fifteen minutes passed and then, without warning, someone hit the mute button on his tirade. Our Commander’s jaws continued to snap mechanically with the flow of obscenity laced threats he was delivering, but there was no longer any volume to them. At that point he snagged me by the throat, yanked me forward, looked me dead in the eyes… and gasped. That was when my RDC collapsed into my arms.

‘Mission Accomplished’ I thought as everyone started panicking around me.

The next day, practically packed and ready to ship back to either the real world or the brig, my superiors instead did the last thing any rational or sane person would do.

They promoted me.

Despite my protests to the contrary, (or directly because of them), I was made RCPO – Recruit Chief Petty Officer – of ‘Hotel PosMo’. Responsibilities were listed as followed: “The ensuring of discipline, good order and security of the division is maintained at all times.” It also meant the implementation of all commands from the Division Commander. In layman’s terms, this meant I was now supervising the asylum and directly responsible for the actions of the inmates within. Conversely though, the inmates would also be held responsible for the warden.

A lesson promptly delivered by our new RDC, a gaunt and gray peppered flat-topped Amazon, (who assured me that if I pulled another stunt like the one on her predecessor, I’d be the one rolling into Sick Bay).

In retaliation for my having hospitalized a twelve-year veteran of ‘this woman’s navy’, the company - my company - was subjected to a six hour regimen of nonstop physical training under the glare of a punishing late August afternoon. This was compounded not only by the weight of the fully stuffed duffel-bags strapped to their backs but also by my steady gaze as I was ordered to stand there and watch.

When dusk at last arrived, they were finally allowed to stand at ease. Then they were reminded that this is what would happen each and every time they failed to motivate their RCPO properly. They were also reminded that if they had a problem to take it directly up the chain-of-command, whose first rung was now yours truly.

That night, in the barrack’s head, I had a little talk with our new Recruit Master At Arms, who as it happened, was the old RCPO. This demotion didn’t sit well with him and a seven hour workout inferno did precious little to lighten his mood. The RCAA’s main responsibilities were making sure the barracks were clean, that all cleaning supplies were stowed away and to run the show in my absence. At the moment it also included putting the new RCPO in his place.

His name was Mendoza and he was eight feet of muscle compacted into a squat 5-foot six frame. His eyes were constantly locked into a narrow stare of suspicion and when he spoke it was in a gruff monotone. No one knew why he was in PosMo, much less the Navy instead of the Marines. All we knew was not to ever, under any circumstance, mess with him. So when he ‘requested’ a private talk in the head, everyone in the barracks watched our exchange with bated breath. When I declined, he growled, “We can talk in there… or I can whip your ass out here. Your call?”

Reluctantly I chose ‘in there’.

First thing he did was check to make sure no one else was in there. Coast clear, he walked over to the sink, dropped down, fiddled with a loosened pipe fitting and produced a pack of Reds along with some matches all cocooned in layers of sandwich bags. He retrieved a cigarette, lit it up, passed it to me and I hesitantly accepted the ‘hit’ as he stowed the smokes back away.

The ember was halfway to the butt when he finally spoke – “So what’s your damage, man?”

“Come again?”

“Why you in here?”

“I keep asking myself that very question.”

Thoughtfully blowing a stream of smoke to the ceiling, he leveled his hawk’s stare between us. Silently, it swept all pretense and bullshit aside before driving itself into the uncomfortable place where the truth waited.

“I... I don’t know. Seriously.” I dry gulped and shrugged, squirming under the heat of his relentless gaze. “The psych’s called it a ‘Severe Confidence Problem,’ which I guess is one way to sum up attempting to strangle a fellow recruit during an uncontrollable crying fit.”

Mendoza remained stone impassive as I roasted in the uncomfortable silence of having said everything and not enough. Awkwardly I added, “He laughed at me.”

A single blink was his only response. Then, nodding slightly under the gravitational pull of some vast contemplation, he relaxed the glare to pass me back the smoke.

My head pounded under the nicotine rush. Hacking up a cloud of smoke I passed the Red back. Mendoza took another drag before flushing the evidence down.

“Okay, here’s the deal.” Mendoza spoke with a soft confidence, “You’re quitting the psycho routine ASAP. Got it? Because you will not, I repeat, will not screw these men’s lives up anymore than they already are. You got a ‘confidence problem’? Well so does Michaels when he pisses up his rack and Jones every time he wakes up screaming. The difference is their dealing with it. What’s your excuse?”

“My ‘excuse’?” The words rose with unintended fury, “Fuck you! That’s my ‘excuse’! I don’t belong here, okay. You guys think you want this, this… life? Great. Take it… ‘cause I sure as shit don’t. Sorry, but what d’ya want me to say here? So what say we do everyone a favor. Let me get kicked out and the rest of you can go back to life here on the ‘Island of Misfit Toys’.”

Mendoza nodded and gave my offer a moment’s thought before deciding to counter it with a rabbit punch to the gut.

The breath slammed out of me and a wave of flash asphyxiation hit. I crumbled to my knees, cradled the impact and wheezed the air back into my lungs.

“You belong where you’re at.” Mendoza spoke as quietly as he did his prayers before lights out. He paused at the exit before looking back at me. “Deal with it.”

With that he killed the lights and walked out.

The next morning, right before breakfast, our commander proceeded to inform me, with naked glee, that my little ‘stunt’ had earned our division an inspection this time next week. I would have seven days to get the company’s act together before Uncle Sam decided to shut down PosMo for good and shit-can the whole division in the process. Meaning everyone, from the RCPO on down, would be summarily discharged from active duty… for-fucking-ever.

The men didn’t take the news well. Their immediate response was to swarm in on me with naked rage. Who could blame them? Passing the inspection was a tall order and a slim chance. Not only would we have to march perfectly, but everything in our barracks would have to be squared away and ship shape to an admiral’s standards, a difficult feat even for a seasoned division on the eve of graduation, one requiring teamwork and Spartan determination. Virtues foreign to our experience as a collective.


My impromptu lynching was only prevented by Mendoza, who interceded with an Atticus Finch worthy speech declaring how Command was hoping they’d try such a stunt to justify shutting the whole show down on the spot. The thing to do instead, he roared, was the last thing anyone expected us to do… the impossible.

We would pull off a perfect inspection.

***

Life slipped into Montage Mode. I straightened up, quit the psycho routine cold turkey and matched everyone under my command push-up for push-up, knot for knot, swabbed deck for swabbed deck. With Mendoza’s help I got the troublemakers in line and under his tutelage learned to quell the tremble within my orders. Ours was a crawling pilgrimage across fear, resentment, anger, hunger, exhaustion, insomnia and ego death. But by day six, with perfect attention to detail, we were marching gloriously across the training grounds with our steps locked in perfect unison and cadence raised high in a choir of fierce determination.

Yet none of them knew the truth. Not my begrudgingly impressed Commander or any of the men under my command. Beneath my façade of recently found military professionalism, was a plot to sabotage our efforts and ensure my escape.

It wasn’t like we had a chance anyway. Pretty speeches aside, we all knew deep down that no division ever passed a perfect inspection. But just in case of an unwanted miracle, I had a back-up plan. Every inspection ended with the RCPO having to answer a routine question. All I had to do was give the ‘wrong’ answer and fumble our ‘Hail Mary Pass’.

The week passed dream quick. In the dwindling hours before our inspection at dawn we basked restless in the dark. Anxiety charged the air and amplified the silence. The mattresses groaned under the collective twists and tosses of sleep denied. I stared up into a solid patch of shadows desperately trying to summon a vision of my oncoming future from the bottomless gloom, brief snatches of unknown pleasures to reassure those shot nerves. But no matter how hard I tried, the void surrendered no omens.

So instead my thoughts turned to the back-up plan. How with one answer I’d be back in the life I once knew. Another… and I’d be launched into a wildcard future that promised to be as treacherous as it was breathtaking.
Of course it was Jackson, ‘The Night Screamer’, who broke the spell.

“Hey… RCPO. You awake?” he called out nervously.

I said nothing.

“I got a question if you are …?” he continued in a stammer, knowing full well I was, “We gonna pass this thing tomorrow?”

“Yes… now get some sleep!” Mendoza hollered meaning all of us.

“I was asking him…”, Jackson’s stammer flattened into a new found defiance.

“Don’t know ‘bout the rest of you guys…” I answered the dark, “but I sure as hell am. Now you heard Mendoza. Everyone catch some Z’s. We’ll need ‘em.”

The anxiety charge fizzled into an ambient dread. Everyone did their best to drift into an elusive slumber. Not me. I was searching for where in myself those words had risen from.

***

Waking before Reveille we gave the barracks a last minute run down. Then we slipped into our dress whites before filing in front of our racks at attention.

Outside in the dishwater gray dawn, the mourning doves cooed indifferently.

Each moment passed at a trickle. The weight of the wait ground our nerves to glass dust. Then… when it seemed you couldn’t stand another second… and just a minute longer than that… they flooded in by the dozens. Within moments it had seemed as if every chief and zero in the 7th Fleet was on deck for our inspection.

A human whirlwind of obscenities and death threats descended. These were men possessed; agents of a terrible wrath and great fury. With snarling animal faces they burrowed through our lockers and toppled the racks, each itching to be the first to find the fatal flaw that would both flunk us and avenge their fallen comrade.

What they found instead was our boondockers polished into onyx mirrors. Our bared throats shaved baby smooth. Our uniforms ironed with razor sharp creases. Our barracks spotless. Their unremitting terror yielding not one single twitch of fear from our gravestone countenance.

Operation Impossible was proving a resounding success. It was Situation No-Win All Fucked Up – somehow we were passing and with flying colors at that. It was down to a flash inspection of the men as an actual admiral (don’t ask me how) strolled down the line giving a visual once over and asking random recruits a basic Q&A of Navy protocol.

Heartbeats slammed hard as fists as each of my men proudly passed muster and snapped off the proper answer leading the Old Man straight to me. Time crystallized around me, the fear that had been mounting within me dwindled into an impassive clarity. When the Old Man stepped in front of me I didn’t even blink. A quick once over, checking me from gig line to shoe shine before looking into my eyes a moment… knowing perfectly well who I was. With an unimpressed snort, he held up a flash card before my eyes.

“RCPO… Identify!” He rumbled.

The card was a white backdrop with a blue cross. A signal flag designating ‘X’ in the phonetic alphabet. If I answered X-Ray we would pass. Xylophone, a common enough mistake amongst recruits, however and my ass was finally going home for good.

But so would the men, my men … and as Section 8’s at that. Forced to bare the stigmata of my whimsical failure for the rest of their lives.

“RCPO… I’m gonna ask you one more time, identify!”

Even as I tried to summon the strength to do otherwise, I shouted back to the Old Man the only possible answer I could give.