2015 DRAFT
10. Round and Round and Round
Three months earlier
7 April 1968
Navy School for Underwater Swimmers
U.S. Navy Base, Key West, Florida
After the Friday run, a group of Crazies groaned into Runnin’s Bonneville and headed north to escape the womanless waste of Key West. When they reached the outskirts of Miami, they arbitrarily picked The Airways Motel, figuring to set up a base before heading out to the clubs. They dumped their overnight bags in their rooms and met at the bar. Settling into drinks, joshing with the barmaid – a matronly woman who seemed to be constantly shaking her head – they expressed satisfaction at merely having put some miles between themselves and the school.
“I think they got a pool here,”Lester said. “I’m going to check it out.”
“Aaaaaghhhhh,” Iffy reacted. “Are you fucking nuts?No water. I won’t even drink the stuff.”
Lester was back in seconds, white-faced. He tried to say something, but no sound came out of his open mouth. He gestured, and they all followed him to a sliding glass door. Outside, there were perhaps a hundred young women playing around a pool, all of them in bikinis, and not a man in sight. Grunting as if punched in their stomachs, they stampeded back to the bar, overcome by sudden nerves.
“What’s the matter, boys,”the barmaid asked. “Don’t like this week’s flock?”
“What is this place?” Lester asked.
“Oh, come off it, you really don’t know?” Studying the blank faces, she shook her head. “Dumb luck. This is the school dorm for Pan Am stewardesses. They graduate forty of the bitches every week.” It took time for that to sink in.
Always suspicious, Iffyasked, “Why aren’t there three hundred guys in this bar?”
“It’s not that the girls don’t want it – you should hear the randy talk. But the airline works ‘em hard, and, I guess it’s a secret.”
Runnin’ cleared his throat. “Excuse me, ma’am,” his voice was not much lower than an earnest choir boy, “but, uh, can a man, take these here gals, out on a date?”
The woman smiled. “Don’t have to get real fancy about it.”
They ordered doubles and chugged. Courage stiffened, the intrepid frogmen headed back out to the pool. They plunged into a laughing, appreciative crowd like glad-handing politicians. Standing in the doorway, Greene saw the bosoms and bottoms jiggling and flashing, and the sheer numbers incapacitated him. The magical scene began looking carnivorous. He had imagined himself finally ready to let go of Kristen, to open himself to the moment, but he felt like a concrete block. Smiling miserably, he turned back to the bar. A tall brunette, nicely dressed in a black suit and heels, came lithely across the room and took the adjacent seat. Next to the swinging beef in bikinis, she looked cooland sophisticated. Her green eyes found his in the mirror.
“Can I buy you a drink?” she asked. She didn’t look old enough to get served.
“Certainly.”
“Bourbon?”
“I’m on gimlets.”
“One gimlet, one bourbon, on the rocks. Make it Jack and double ‘em.”She turned to look at him. “You passing through, or do you have a room here?”
“In for two nights.”
The girl pulled out a pack of Newports. “I can hardly say that I don’t’ smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with the boys who do.” Greene watched the flame of his Zippo shaking, slightly.“Flying through?”
“I’m stationed down in Key West. Navy Frogman School. Drove up.”
“That’s funny. Most people go to Key West for the weekends.” She swiveled on her seat. “Hey! Where’re those drinks, honey? You mashing the bourbon?” She turned to him. Why’d you come up here?”
“Well, the women in Key West are all spoken for, even the unspeakable ones.”
“When did you last get laid?”
Greene’s head snapped back and he felt a welcome stirring. “Well, ah, I guess about, a month ago.”
“Then it’s about time! Cheers!” she said to Greene and took a major belt. “Yeah, I been stuck here for about the same. You beat your meat?”
“Well, yes,” Greene said, blushing outright, relieved the barmaid had moved down the bar.
“Do you spit in your hand or do you use cream?”
“Mostly spit,” he rasped, “but I’ve used shaving cream, too.”
“Mentholated?”
“No, ah – un-mentholated.”
“Give mentholated a try,has a nice heat. Do you do the knob, or do you stroke up and down?”
“Mostly the tip,” Greene said, lighting up a cigarette to cover his unease. He narrowed his gaze. “But up and down to slow down.”
“So you like it slow?”
“Yes.”
“I shave myself whistle slick.” She let the non-sequitur hang there like a master angler’s dangling lure.
“Unusual.”
She slipped her hand into Greene’s lap. Fondling him, she introduced herself. “My name’s Connie Freeman, and I come from a tiny berg in the Oklahoma Panhandle – Slapout. I fucked my way through all seven available men in Beaver County, including one unavailable Indian, and once with the sheriff and his deputy, both at once, one in front and one up my backside, screaming my head off in the back of their prowl car, before my seventeenth birthday. I worked my way east, on my back, hands and knees, devastating Fort Supply, Woodward, Tulsa, Memphis, and Atlanta.” She said the names slowly and lovingly, her eyes glazed.
Greene was now properly hooked. “What made you come here?” he managed to ask.
“Pan Am. I’m still goin’ east. I wanted to get some of that fancy Europeandoings before I die.”
“How old are you?”
“That’s a tender subject around here.”Connie dropped her voice. “I’m nearly going on nineteen – I swear – but I had to do a lot of lying about that. Nick, I’m not a nice girl, but I’ve been told I’m a lay you’ll never forget. Ever had a girl take you lovingly to every corner of her world? This putting you off?”
“Yes to the first,”Greene squeaked, “and no to the second.”
Connie smiled like an amazed child. “Where’d you get all that?”
“Barcelona.” Greene was grasping the bar to steady himself, “and, ah, San Marino, California.”
“Wow, you’ve been to Europe? A cultured guy. That’s swell!” Her voice dropped conspiratorially again. “What say we kick back the shooters and sneak up to your room. I don’t want these cunts to know. Promise to pour on the steam?”
“OK.”
“Swear?” she asked, the gaff poised.
“Swear,” he said as the big hook slammed into him.
After three anxious minutesin the room he was sharing with Iffy, Greene heard her knock. “Let’s shower,” Connie said as she slapped a can of green-labeled shaving cream on the bedside table, and then tore at the buttons of her suit, “I like eating with clean utensils. Damn. My hands are shaking. Help me with the buttons?”
Not twenty-five minutes later, a paralyzed Ensign Greene was propped against the headboard, feet on the wet sheet, legs spread, and knees, which he could no longer feel, completely akimbo. He had copulated once like a rabbit, once like a man, and once like a deranged donkey. Between, he must have done something else, because his face felt as though it had been dragged for miles over highly waxed linoleum flooring. Connie’s mentholated fingers were gently playing a languorous jazz riff on his testes. He felt the heatwarming someone separate from himself. A key hit the lock.
“Who’s there?” Greene was surprised sound could escape the intense gravity of his paralysis.
“It’s me, darling.” Iffy gaily responded. “I already got three dates for dinner!” As the door swung open, Iffy’s smiling face vanished via the falling of his jaw.
“Oh my,” Connie purred. “You got yourself one more date before dinner, big fella.” Greene laughed at Iffy trying to take in the long and beautiful Connieand the strange frothing action in a place things like that did not happen. “Come on, froggy man, hop out’a your shorts and get wet. Will you take a shower with me? Nick sure got me going, but it’s time for the tag team to take over.” Connie’s fingers never missed a syncopated note.
Twentyminutes later, Connie leapt up from the adjacent bed. “Lands sake! Look at the time!” She threw on her clothes. “I gotta get to my own graduation! My Mom and Dad, bless them, are probably wondering where the hell I am. They came all the way out here. Said it was the best thing I ever did. When do you boys leave?” Both Iffy and Greene stared dumbly at her, and she laughed. “I don’t leave until Monday, when we get assignments. Nod if you’re pulling out Sunday night.” They nodded. “That’s great. My folks leave late Sunday afternoon. Promise you’ll save Sunday evening just for me?” They nodded. “Are there any more of you here?” As they nodded she took a brush out of her shoulder-strap purse and rapidly stroked her hair. “Jeez – that’s great! See you, Nick! See you, Iffy! Now promise you won’t let any of these cheap tarts around here steal you away?” They nodded. “Swear!”
---
If the normal week was a round of endless torture, the weekend had been a demanding marathon through a pleasure garden. All the Crazies did was snack, drink, and make love to eager, fine-looking women. The future bombdefuzers, up against their multifaceted uncertainties, struck a universal chord in the future stewardesses. No one in either group had any idea of where they might behence.Despite the element of repetitiveness, the frogmen heroically responded to the bone-honest demands of the women. Periodically in the bar to get a sandwich and some booze, the Crazies would leave with another woman and others would call out, when you’re done with her, it’s my turn.The faces and bodies of the women became blurred, but Iffy and Greene were true to their oath. Connie was as promised – unforgettable. She again dispatched them both to the land of no return, and then she assassinated the remaining Crazies.
Sitting under the dim fluorescent light before his Frogman Special, his head periodically rolling off its balance point into a snap that produced a bright flash of light, Greene didn’t know if he was dreaming he was at Carlo’s. Regretting his swigs of bourbon during the car ride back down to the Keys, he was envious of the bugs hitting the zapper. Vaguely, Greene remembered calling Larry Horne in the wee hours before they left Miami. Greene couldn’t remember what had been said, but Larry had been miffed.
After Rod Culver’s departure for his inability to buddy-breath, the instructors appointed another football player class leader. Berk’s saturnine good looks had caused him to be the busiest Crazy over the weekend, and he made his first roll call at muster with a barely audible voice. Eric Olson was neither present nor accounted for.
“Olson was asked to withdraw from the school,” Chief Dunne informed them. “The man made a hash of his Dive Tables. If you can’t hack the books, you can’t have the life, and what a life it is! Imagine the book learning you fellas are going to have to master – just to get the chance to blow yourselves to kingdom come. Right HACE! For’d HARCH! Lef. Lef. Doubletiiiime, HARCH!”
As they ran themselves into the torture circle after a three-mile, warm-up jaunt, the sun rose and Greene began to recover. They started in with burpies, and he felt his orange juice beginning to slip out of control. Putting himself on automatic pilot, he concentrated on revisiting the different sweet bosoms and taut neck tendons, the facial expressions of shyness, wantonness, and pure pleasurable agony. This didn’t get him thorough the flutter-kicks, but he got hold of Connie’s shining face. He was suddenly sliding along the grass on his own face. Gagging and dry heaving, he felt the deep, clammy sweat that was more of a solid than a liquid being squeezed out of his pores like poisonous toothpaste. In a world so tightly circumscribed by misery, Greene could see part of Chief Dunne’s left sneaker out of the corner of his eye, and then the bourbon-laced orange slosh in his belly rocketed out onto the grass. The chief jumped nimbly out of the way.
“Outstanding barf, Ensign Greene!” The voice came from a great distance. “Except we are at week five – and you’re still tossing your cookies. I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Greene.” Hauling air into his gasping, foul-tasting mouth, Greene watched the strands of his thickened saliva, prismatically reflecting the dawn sun as they dangled toward the grass. “Report to the parking lot at fifteen-thirty.”
As the rest of the class was going home at 1530, Mahmood and Greene joined Ensign Thumm, who had let his tanks topple over in the landing craft, and Five Team, who had whiffed the stake. A number of teams had surfaced because of lack of air, but they hadn’t been punished.
“Aww – are the softies gonna toughen up?” Lanny Tubman sneered.
“May Allah skewer your spiteful little balls,” Mike Najdi hissed back at him.
“Rag head hocus-pocus is all yew got, softie,” Lanny viciously taunted.
“See you at the Captain’s!” Iffy gaily called. “Remember – Connie’s comin’ down!”
Chief Dunne strode out of the screen door, instantly assuming silent command over every reality in their world. “ATTENTION ON DECK!” The five miscreants cried.“Let’s make it sweet, fellas. Select some nice palm trunks, and we’ll head to our favorite beach.”
Greene got home at 1715. The three steps to the porch appeared insurmountable. He slowly took off his uniform, careful not to let it touch the cuts on his hands. It had to go to the laundry. When was he going to do that? He placed it on hangers. After-shave would be his detergent, and gravity would be his iron. He wanted to get to the Captain’s to say hello to Connie, but the bed started singing arias.
“Darling, you haven’t a stitch on.” Iffy was on the porch. “I knocked, but you were elsewhere.”
“Entirely possible.” Greene nodded. “Care for a drink?”
Iffy had a fit of the trembles. “I don’t know if it’s the water or the booze. But, guess what? It’s J valve time!” He dramatically revealed the joint he had cupped in his hand. “Connie laid it on me – she’s got a couple of ounces.” They sat on the porch, passing the smoke. Greene didn’t bother to get dressed. “I saw the chief put the palms on you.” Greene glanced at his raw hands. “Got your neck, too. Still, better than the hawser. I was serious about preferring to drown.”
Greene nodded. “How’s Connie?” A goofy smile glided over Iffy’s face. “I’d like to pay my respects.” Greene glanced down at the miniscule thing nestled between his legs. “Can’t do much else.”
“I’m in the same boat.”
“Think she’ll be – offended?”
“Ahh, no. Connie’s a realist. Besides, she’s already made some pretty serious arrangements.”
“What’s she up to?” Greene smiled. “Or – who’s she up to?”
“Leandro, for openers.”
“Right there on the bar?”
“Nono. Wants to do everybody. A formal banquet of –” Iffy had lost his mind to smoke.
“—Orgasm?” Greene suggested.
“Of the, the whole class. The works.”
“Enlisted too?”
“You bet. Democratic. EOD three-six-eight, soup to nuts.” Iffy giggled. “Don’t know why, but she’s got it in her head that us intrepid frogmen bomb defuzers are something special.”
Greene smiled vacantly. “There’s a reasonable supposition.”
“Damn right. Get this. Her parents gave her money for her graduation, and she’s blowing it to rent the bridal suite at the Plantation Hotel. She’s gonna nap and work on her tan during the day and fuck everybody into the ground at night. Very specific about that part. Wants everyone to get his absolute fill, every mad desire. No turns unstoned.”
“I’m speechless.”
Iffy showed mock astonishment. “For you, that’s heavy! Lester and I did the class roster and worked it out on a bar napkin with her. Everyone has a slot. Except married. She wants no part of that, unless the husband brings the wife.” They both pointed at the bungalow wall adjoining the Kink quarters and made silent grimaces and expansive eyebrowwigglings.
“How long does everybody have?”
“Sixty glorious minutes.”
“They’ll never make it. If she put her mind to it, she can kill a man in ten.”
“Ah, we may know that, but the innocent don’t yet get it. The pussy palace is open from sixteen-hundred to oh five-hundred. That’s – ”