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News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Happy Birthday To The Late, Great American Humorist And Novelist Mark Twain
Happy birthday to one of my favorite writers, the late, great American humorist and novelist Mark Twain.
Mark Twain,
whose real name was Samuel Clemens, was born on this date in 1835.
You can read about Mark Twain's life and work via the below link
to Biography.com:
Mark Twain - Quotes, Books & Real
Name - Biography
And you can read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour below:
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Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Chapter Five: Join the Navy And See Olongapo
Below is chapter five of Olongapo, which was originally published in American Crime Magazine.
Join The Navy and See Olongapo
By Paul Davis
The United States Navy back in my day advertised that one could “Join the Navy and see the World.” But for young sailors like me serving on a 7th Fleet aircraft carrier in the early 1970s, we thought the recruiting pitch should have been, “Join the Navy and see Olongapo.”
During the Vietnam War, the
U.S. Navy assigned three aircraft carriers and their battle groups to the 7th Fleet’s
Task Force 77. The carriers operated on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin
in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. The USS Kitty Hawk, an 80,000-ton warship that measured 1,047 feet
long, with a beam of 129 feet, and a 250-foot flight deck with 80 aircraft, was
one of the three carriers that operated on
Yankee Station in 1970 and 1971.
Two of the three carriers
were on Yankee Station continuously, launching aircraft that performed combat
sorties against the Communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong around the clock,
as the third carrier rotated visits to port of calls to Sasebo, Japan or Hong
Kong for much needed R&R. The carriers also rotated in and out of Subic Bay
in the Philippines for “upkeep” and to let the sailors go crazy in Olongapo.
I had been duly warned by
older sailors that Olongapo was a dangerous and treacherous town. My older
friends who had visited Olongapo on
the previous combat cruise had warned me that it was so very easy
to be robbed, cheated and even murdered in Olongapo.
I recall a particularly
shocking illustration of just how rough and heartless Olongapo could be. A shore patrol jeep pulled up to the carrier’s
enlisted brow as I was departing the Kitty Hawk, and out stepped a young sailor
who appeared to be naked under a gray blanket that was wrapped around his
waist.
He looked as if he were in
shock as hundreds of American sailors and Filipino yard workers and vendors
laughed wildly at him as he walked up the brow. To make matters even worse, a
cruel sailor grabbed the tip of the blanket and yanked it off of him and tossed
it into the water. The humiliated young sailor, now naked, covered his crotch
with his hands and ran up the brow. He was then escorted away from the laughing
crowd.
I learned later from the
ship’s “scuttlebutt,” which is what sailors call gossip, that the sailor had
passed out drunk in a hotel room and a Filipina prostitute robbed him of
everything from his glasses and watch to his underwear and socks. The hotel clerks
pulled the crying sailor out of his room and threw him into the street naked.
The Navy’s Shore Patrol showed up, placed a blanket around him and brought him
back to the aircraft carrier.
To add insult to the
proverbial injury, the sailor was reprimanded for losing his Navy ID card and
he went to Captain’s Mass, a sort of naval hearing. The captain busted him down
a rank, but his real punishment was that he was ridiculed by nearly everyone on
the carrier for the rest of his time on the ship.
I felt sorry for the sailor,
although I was only 18 years old at the time, and this sailor might have been a
year or two older than me. But I was a street guy from South Philly. Being
robbed of all of my possessions, including my clothes, would never happen to
me.
I spent the first day we were
back in port with Hunt on Grande Island, the U.S. Navy’s recreational island in
Subic Bay. We went scuba diving in the beautiful, clear water off the island.
Afterwards, I played first base in a softball game, and I eat a hot dog and a
hamburger and drank several bottles of San Miguel beer. Then Hunt and I napped
in chairs on the beach, enjoying the strong Southeast Asian sun and the cool
ocean breezes.
After our
nap, Hunt and I, along with about two dozen other tired, hot and somewhat drunk
sailors and Marines, boarded the amphibious landing craft that would take us
back to the base. The boat, which resembled the landing craft that landed
allied troops at Normandy in WWII, was crowded. I heeded my older friend's
warning and stepped back against the bulkhead.
Just as Hunt had warned, and
true to the crazy tradition, as soon as the boat cast off its lines, the
passengers in the hold of the boat began punching each other indiscriminately.
The coxswain who drove the boat was elevated at his station above the fray and
he ignored the ruckus below. Hunt pulled me against the bulkhead and we pushed
away sailors who got too close and tried to punch us.
The short voyage to the base
seemed to take forever as Hunt and I defended ourselves. When we finally
landed, Hunt and I stepped over the sailors who lay on the deck stunned or
unconscious and stepped ashore. Unscathed, we returned to the Kitty Hawk.
Back in the berthing
compartment, I took a shower and laid down in my rack with my happy thoughts
about going back into Olongapo that evening and seeing Zeny again.
Everything I heard about
Olongapo turned out to be true. I could see why young American sailors loved
the city. There were plentiful attractive hostesses in the bars on Magsaysay Drive who laid in wait for the American sailors looking for a good time and had money to
spend.
During the early evenings
some anxious sailors opted to pay a fee to the bar’s mama-san so
they could take the girls out of the bar for a spell and go to a hotel room for
“short-time,” as the brief sexual encounter was called in Olongapo. The
Americans sailors called the act a “Quickie.”
But most sailors partied with
the girls until the end of the evening when the bar closed, and the girls were
free to leave the bar without paying the mama-san.
The girls accompanied the
dipsy sailors to near-by hotels. In the morning, the happy sailors left the
girls money on the bedside table. Unlike prostitutes, Olongapo bar girls did
not set a fee for sex prior to going to the hotel, but the American sailors
usually left the girls a generous amount of Philippine Pesos and American
dollars before they left the hotel.
I recall a Filipino priest
telling me that the bar girls did not consider themselves to be prostitutes.
They earned their money from a percentage of the money sailors spent buying
them drinks, and they had sex with the sailors as they considered them to be
their boyfriends. The goal of many of them was to marry an American sailor and
move to the United States for a better life, and many of them did.
I departed the carrier that
evening dressed in "civies," civilian clothes, and headed into
Olongapo with Mike Hunt and Dino Ingemi. Also
going into Olongapo with us was a 2nd Class Radioman named Owen
Trent, a tall, lean and quiet Texan. I called him the “Tall-T,” which he found
amusing. Trent, like Hunt and Ingemi, had all been to Olongapo on the Kitty
Hawk’s previous combat cruise.
As we were walking down Magsaysay Drive, a street vendor
near us called out, “Hey, Joe. You want sunglasses? Cheap!”
As we walked past him, I told my friends that I met a
sailor who told me he really hated it when Filipinos called him “Joe.”
“I explained to him that
Filipinos have called all Americans Joe since World War Two,” I told my walking
companions. “He said he knew that, but he still hated it when they called him
Joe. I asked him why and he said, “Because my name is Joe.””
Ingemi and Trent laughed. Hunt groaned.
I and my friends visited the Starlight and
Zeny rushed up to me. She kissed and hugged me, and she pulled me to a table.
Hunt, Trent and Ingemi had corralled their girls and we all sat at the table
and ordered San Miguel beer. The band was outstanding, and we all danced and
drank and had a good time.
Jeffrey Greenberg, a thin 3rd Class Radioman from
Connecticut with a brown moustache and small, round glasses, came into the bar
and joined us. I liked Greenberg, as he, like me, loved books. Greenberg was a
college graduate with a degree in in English Literature, and we often discussed
literature on our down-time aboard the carrier.
He shared my great fondness for Mark Twain, and I
introduced him to Raymond Chandler, one of my favorite writers. Greenberg
became a devotee of Raymond Chandler’s fictional private eye Philip Marlowe
after he borrowed, read and enjoyed the four Chandler paperback crime novels I
had with me on the carrier.
Ronald Redmond waddled over to our table in Greenberg’s
wake and joined us. Redmond was a 3rd Class Radioman who
claimed proudly that he was a “lifer.” Redmond found Navy life far preferable
to the poor and rugged rural life in Oklahoma that he endured prior to joining
the Navy. Short and wide, loud and profane, most of the other sailors tried to
avoid him. No one had invited him to join us at our table.
“These little brown fuck
machines are something else, but I like me a “heifer,” a big ole gal,” Redmond
told us. “Not these skinny little “Flips.”
“There are some water
buffaloes outside of town in the rice paddies, if you’re interested,” I replied
drolly. The other sailors at the table laughed.
“Shit, Davis, I might just
head out there.”
“Redmond, you’re an animal,”
I said. “They ought to lock you up in a cage, hose you down once a day, and
feed you raw meat.”
“Hell, Davis, throw in some
pussy and it don’t sound bad.”
“I rest my case.”
I turned away from Redmond
and ignored him and concentrated on my beautiful companion Zeny, whom I called
“Zany Zeny.” I don’t think she ever got the joke.
As our party was just getting started, I saw Lorino walk in the bar with his distinctive South Philly swagger. He pushed off two girls gently but firmly who tried to pull him to a table. He saw me and I waved him over. Lorino knew the other sailors from the Communications Radio Division from his frequent visits to me while at sea, so he sat down at our table without introductions.
We were all having a grand
time when a short and stocky seaman named John Bland from our division
staggered in. His face was bruised and bloody and his shirt was
torn. Bland came over to our table and the girls got up and left to go to
the rest room.
“What the fuck happened to
you?” Ingemi asked.
Bland explained that he had
gone into an alley next to the Ritz bar with a street
prostitute who promised him fellatio. Two Filipino men followed them into the
alley, and they beat Bland and stole his money and watch.
“I think it’s time for a
little payback,” Hunt said.
“I’m in,” Lorino said quickly.
Hunt told Bland to stay with
Trent, Greenberg and Redmond at the Starlight and said the
rest of us will go to the alley next to the Ritz Cracker and
confront the girl and her two friends.
“She’s wearing a bright, red
dress,” Bland said. “You can’t miss her.”
I didn’t like Bland. He was
an ingratiating guy from Darby, Pennsylvania. He thought he was clever, and he
was always trying to scam people over small things, like a Coke or a minor work
detail. The dislike was reciprocal. Bland didn’t like me because I would call
him out on his shady, small-time schemes. I also told the other sailors that
his name was also a description of his personality.
I was certain that Bland
thought he had scammed the prostitute by convincing her to perform the sex act
in the alley for free. Incredible, but that was Bland. Yet, I joined eagerly
the avenging patrol, and we headed out.
It was decided that Ingemi
would talk to the girl on the corner after Hunt and Lorino slipped into the
narrow alley. Ingemi would then allow her to take him into the alley, as she
had done with Bland.
As I was the youngest guy in
the group, Hunt told me to stand at the foot of the alley and keep a lookout
for the Navy’s Shore Patrol and the Olongapo police.
Ingemi approached the girl in
the red dress on the corner. After a brief discussion, they walked up the
alley. Only a moment or so later, two Filipinos charged into the alley. One was
of average height and lean, and the other looked like a big Japanese sumo
wrestler.
As the two bruisers jumped on
Ingemi, Hunt and Lorino came out of the shadows and pounced on the two Filipino
robbers. I stood sideways at the foot of the alley, one eye on the fight and
the other eye on the street looking for Navy Shore Patrol or local cops.
The girl in the red dress
bolted from the fracas and Ingemi kicked her in the behind with the side of his
foot and she fell forward and splayed out on the ground. She rose quickly and
scampered past me and into the street.
I saw the lean Filipino break
from the fight as Hunt, Lorino and Ingemi beat on the sumo. As the lean one ran
up the alley I stepped into the middle and dropped my right hand at my
side.
The Filipino thief stopped
and went into a martial arts stance. I went into my boxing stance. He swung at
my face, but I reared my head back and to the right and slipped the blow. He
then threw a kick at me, but I stepped back, and he missed. I leaned in and hit
him in the face with a good stiff left jab and hard right combo.
He fell back against the
wall, but he bounced back quickly, and his right leg flew up and his foot
kicked me hard on my left side. I caught his pant leg in the air after the
kick. I pulled on his leg, and he lost balance and fell against the alley wall.
Holding on to his raised leg, I pinned him to the wall. I hit him in the face
with several good short rights, and he collapsed.
I looked past the knocked
cold Filipino and saw that Hunt, Lorino and Ingemi had finally laid out the
sumo in the alley. Hunt took off the three watches that the thief was wearing
and went through his pockets and took all of his cash.
Ingemi took two watches off
the thief I knocked out and took his money as well.
“Who says Italians lose all
the wars,” Lorino said to Ingemi with a broad, lopsided grin.
We all went back to the Starlight. My knuckles were scrapped and bloody and I lifted my shirt and saw a deep purple bruise where the Filipino thief had kicked me. The other sailors had similar minor injuries. The girls passed around bandages. My side was sore, so I ordered a beer and a shot of vodka to help ease the pain.
Hunt laid the watches on the
table and Bland picked out his. He also said they stole $100 dollars from him,
although I suspected the actual figure was more like $10. Hunt gave him $100
from the money he had taken from the two thieves. He gave the other watches and
some cash to the girls.
He held up the rest of the
cash and proclaimed, “The rest of tonight is on the girl in the red
dress!”
After the Starlight closed, our crowd broke up and we went our separate ways. Zeny and I headed to a nearby hotel. We took a room and had a fine time together in bed until I passed out from drinking far too much San Miguel beer and vodka.
I woke up the following
morning and discovered that Zeny was gone. Also gone was my watch, my wallet,
my shoes, and all of my clothes. The only thing left was my pocketknife, which
I had placed under my pillow the night before.
I was in shock. I knew Zeny
from my previous visits to Olongapo, and I trusted her. I panicked. I thought
of the poor slob sailor who had returned to the ship naked under a blanket.
This could not happen to me. I was too smart. Too streetwise. Too cool.
But it was happening
to me. I wrapped a sheet around my middle and paced the floor, wondering what I
was going to do. I cursed. I punched a wall. I looked out the window, hoping to
see one of my friends.
It was perhaps only a
half-hour later, but it seemed like an eternity, when there was a knock on the door.
I opened the door and there stood beautiful Zeny. She was holding my brightly
polished shoes in her right hand and holding a hanger with my cleaned and pressed
shirt and slacks in her left hand. My chain and dog tags hung around her neck
and my watch hung loosely on her wrist. My folded underwear and socks were
under her right arm.
She told me that she took my
clothes to her home and cleaned and pressed them. She shined my shoes. She said
she didn’t know that my slim black leather wallet, which held my Navy ID and
cash, had been in my pants pocket. I kissed her full on the lips and hugged
her.
As I walked down Magsaysay
Drive back towards the naval base, I saw other returning sailors staggering
along, hung over and disheveled.
I smiled, as I knew I looked
sharp in my polished shoes and cleaned and pressed clothes.
© 2022 By Paul Davis
Note: You can read the other posted chapters via the below links:
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The Ground'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail"
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'
Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Chapter Two: 'Salvatore Lorino'
As I noted in a previous post, a friend and fellow Navy veteran who visited Olongapo in the Philippines while serving in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War asked to read Olongapo, the crime novel I’ve written and hope to soon publish.
I told him that I had posted five of the
chapters on my website, and he asked that I repost the
chapters.
Below is chapter two, Salvatore Lorino.
The below story originally appeared in American Crime
Magazine.
Salvatore Lorino
By Paul
Davis
I was standing
at the bar in a South Philadelphia bar & grill drinking a glass of Sambuca
and thinking about my time in Olongapo so long ago. I was waiting for an old
Kitty Hawk shipmate to join me.
I knew Salvatore Lorino
slightly before we served together in the U.S. Navy, as we were both raised in
the same South Philadelphia neighborhood. Our row home neighborhood was clean
and well-maintained back in the 1960s, as it remains today, but back in the
1960s there were a dozen or so troublesome teenage street corner gangs that
kept the police busy. I ran with one of the teenage street corner gangs and
Lorino ran with another corner gang a few blocks away.
Although the gangs rarely
bothered the neighbors, other than with late night noise, the gangs were often
in conflict – mostly over girls and perceived insults - and they fought one
another in schoolyards, playgrounds and parks. The worst of these teenage gangs
served as breeding grounds for future adult criminals. This was especially true
of the street corner gang at Dalton Street and Oregon Avenue.
Called the “D&O,” the
South Philly teenage gang spawned drug dealers, burglars, car thieves,
gamblers, armed robbers, and an enterprising hoodlum named Salvatore
Lorino.
As South Philadelphia was the
hub of the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra organized
crime family, the more criminally ambitious South Philly teenage gang members,
like Lorino, graduated from the street corners to the bars and nightclubs owned
and operated by the local mobsters.
I remember Lorino as being
about six feet tall, lean, with black hair and rugged features. I recall that
he had a long face and a perpetual lopsided grin that served to alternate charm and menace.
Although Lorino was more than
five years older than I, we both coincidentally entered the Navy in 1970. I
enlisted at age 17 in a patriotic fever, coupled with a strong desire to see
the world. Lorino had a strong desire to avoid a term in the state penitentiary.
So when a judge gave him a choice between prison and the military, he chose the
Navy.
In February of 1970, Lorino
and I reported to the Naval Recruit Training Center, informally called “Boot
Camp,” in Great Lakes, Illinois. We were assigned to different recruit
companies, but I saw him during our training from time to time and we exchanged
greetings. After graduating from Boot Camp, Lorino and I received orders to
report to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, CVA-63.
In November of 1970, we
shoved off from San Diego and sailed to Southeast Asia for the Kitty Hawk’s
fifth WESTPAC (Western Pacific) combat cruise.
Although I was assigned to
the Communications Radio Division and Lorino was assigned to the Deck
Department, he often stopped by our berthing compartment and visited me. My
friends in the division got a kick out of Lorino’s engaging personality and
roguish demeanor.
Lorino gained quite a
reputation aboard the carrier. He was an aggressive predator. He conned naive
and gullible sailors out of their pay. He gambled, cheated and hustled. A large
ship like the Kitty Hawk allowed Lorino to be constantly on the move, like a
shark.
Despite his criminal
proclivities, he was a popular guy throughout the ship. Even the chiefs who
failed to get much work out of him could not help but like him. He was
gregarious and amusing, and most of the sailors on the ship reluctantly
accepted his larcenous bent.
Salvatore Lorino’s short
military career ended in 1971 when he left the USS Kitty Hawk in handcuffs,
escorted by special agents from the Naval Investigative Service.
So, when after all these
years, I heard his rapid-fire, raspy voice on my voice mail, I was taken aback.
His message said he happened to see my crime column in the local newspaper and
called the telephone number listed. He suggested we meet somewhere for a drink,
and he left his telephone number. I was curious, so I called him back and
agreed to meet him.
I told Lorino to meet me at
the Bomb Bomb bar and grill in South Philly. The bar was so
named because after the corner taproom opened in 1936, local racketeers
were not happy with a competing bar in the Italian American neighborhood. So
they planted a bomb that exploded on a Sunday morning when the bar was closed.
Despite the bombing, the owner was not scared off. A second bomb was later
planted and exploded in the bar. But the bar remained open, and it is still
operating today.
The Bomb Bomb was typical
of a South Philly eatery; friendly and unpretentious, with relatively
inexpensive and good Italian food.
As I was sipping my Sambuca
and thinking of my time with my old shipmate, Lorino walked into the bar with
his old swagger and oversize personality. He had not changed all that much, it
seemed to me. His once dark hair was now gray, but he appeared to be the same
old Lorino. Lorino hugged me and we took a table in the back of the bar. Like
all predators, Lorino was keenly observant. He took noticed of my attire, a
light gray sport jacket, an open collar black dress shirt, black slacks and
black leather Italian loafers.
“I see you’re still a sharp
dresser,” Lorino said. “For an old guy.”
Lorino was clad in what
appeared to be an expensive sport shirt, jeans and white sneakers, and I
replied that he looked good as well – for an old guy.
Lorino also noticed my Rolex Submariner watch held by a black leather band on my left wrist. He lightly tapped the crystal above the watch’s black dial and white dot hour markers with his finger.
“Nice watch.”
“It’s my prized possession. A
beautiful woman bought the watch for me on my 30th birthday,” I
explained. “I married her a month later.”
He laughed.
We ordered a bottle of red
wine and quickly dispensed with what we’ve done with our lives since our Navy
days. After the Navy, I went to Penn State for a year; he did two at the state
pen. I went to work for the Defense Department, doing security work as a
federal civilian employee; he went to work for Federal Prison Industries as a
federal inmate. I was happily married with grown children; he was happily
divorced without children. I covered crime as a reporter and columnist for the
local newspaper; he committed crime for the local mob.
We drank several glasses of
wine and I ate a generous serving of Chicken Parmigiana with Ziti.
Lorino had a large bowl of mussels with Linguini.
At the table next to us was a
young couple who looked like tourists or newcomers to South Philadelphia. As
our tables were close together, we overheard the young man say, “That was great
Italian sauce.”
Lorino titled his head
towards the couple, frowned, leaned over and poked the young man’s arm hard
with his index finger. “You’re in South Philly, cuz,” Lorino informed him. “And
in South Philly it’s called “gravy,” not sauce.”
“Sal,” I said in a low voice.
“Leave them alone.”
The couple reared back in
fright. They got up quickly, paid the waitress and hurried out.
“Fucking Medigans.”
Lorino said, using the crude insult that some Italian Americans call
non-Italians.
“You haven’t changed,” I
said. “You’re still a fucking nut.” Lorino shrugged and sipped his wine.
After our fine and filling
meal, we drank coffee and launched into swapping sea stories and reminiscing
about our time in the Navy with boyish enthusiasm. We spoke mostly about
Olongapo.
While most young American
sailors saw Olongapo as a wide-open city to have fun in, Lorino saw Olongapo as
the land of opportunity.
Lorino spoke fondly of his
adventures in Olongapo. He told me he was introduced to Olongapo by Douglas
Winston, a 2nd class Boatswain Mate that he worked for in the Kitty Hawk’s Deck
Department.
“Winston was a miserable and
annoying prick,” Lorino explained. “But you know me, I get along with everyone.”
Winston was thin but sported
a pot belly that dropped over his belt. He was about 30 but looked much older
with a craggy face and a bulbous nose. Lorino was one of the few sailors who
would associate with Winston off duty.
As the Kitty Hawk sailed from
Hawaii to Subic Bay, Winston regaled Lorino with tales of Olongapo. He told
Lorino about the great bars where one could meet great girls. Winston also told
Lorino that one could acquire anything that one could possibly want. Olongapo
knew no limitations.
“If you can’t get your nut in
Olongapo, you’re a real fucking pervert,” Winston told Lorino.
On Lorino’s first night in
Olongapo, he and Winston were drinking beers with a couple of hostesses in
the Ritz, which American sailors called the Ritz
Cracker. As Lorino was searching for a connection to buy methamphetamine in
bulk, he leaned over to one of the girls and flat out asked her where he could
score some meth.
She got up from the table and
walked away from Lorino without a word. Winston laughed. After a few minutes, a
portly Filipino with shaggy black hair came over, sat down and said his name
was Reeinald Bulan.
“Hey, Joe, you want to buy
shabu?”
“Shabu? Ain’t that a killer
whale in a zoo? I want to buy meth,” Lorino replied.
Bulan and Wilson laughed.
“The famous whale is Shamu,” Winston said, chuckling. Lorino
shrugged.
“Shabu is crystal meth,”
Bulan informed Lorino. "How much you want?”
Lorino pulled out his wad of
U.S. dollars. “This much.”
Bulan counted the cash in
Lorino’s hand. “That’s a lot of shabu. You wait here.”
Ten minutes later, Bulan came
back to the table and beckoned Lorino to follow him to the men’s room. As
Lorino walked behind Bulan, he slipped his knife out of his back pocket and
held it by his side. In the men’s room, Bulan handed Lorino a small U.S. Navy
Exchange paper bag. Lorino dipped his finger in, placed a bit of the meth on
his finger and snorted the meth. It was very good. Lorino handed over the money.
Bulan smiled and told Lorino
to have a beer on him. “You want girl for the night?”
“No thanks, but I’ll take a
beer.”
Lorino felt the stimulating
effects of the meth, even though he had snorted only a small portion. Lorino
drank the beer down, thanked Bulan, and said he’ll be back to do more business.
Bulan shook his shaggy hair and grinned like a mad fool.
Lorino left Winston at the
bar and walked happily down Magsaysay Drive. A Filipino in a short-sleeved
shirt and jeans suddenly appeared before Lorino, blocking his path. The
Filipino held up a badge in his left hand and a revolver in his right. Lorino
stopped and looked the Filipino cop in the eye. A second officer came up behind
Lorino and placed his firearm in the small of Lorino’s back.
“Hand over the shabu, sailor
boy.”
Lorino frowned and then
handed the Navy Exchange paper bag to the police officer in front of him.
“You cops are the same all
over the world,” Lorino said disdainfully. “Bigger crooks than us.”
“You want to go to prison,
sailor boy?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then go back to ship and
don’t come back here.”
The two police officers
laughed, pocketed the paper bag, and walked into the Ritz. Fuck,
Lorino muttered to himself. Bulan and these crooked cops didn’t even try to
hide the rip-off. Lorino walked across Magsaysay Drive, dodging jeepneys, and
went into another bar. He brushed off the girls who approached him and went
directly to the bar. He beckoned the bartender to come over.
“Where can I buy a baseball
bat?”
Lorino had a beer as the
bartender produced a baseball bat from under the bar. Lorino paid him. He
weighed the bat in his hands and smiled. Lorino planned to go all “South
Philly” on the two crooked cops and Reeinald Bulan.
After he downed his drink,
Lorino walked back across the street to the Ritz with the
baseball bat in his hand. He didn’t see Winston or Bulan anywhere when he
walked in, but he saw the two cops drinking at the bar with their backs to him.
Lorino walked up to them and
struck the two officers repeatedly across their heads and shoulders with the
baseball bat. The Filipino police officers dropped to the floor in blood
puddles. They never had the chance to draw their weapons.
As the bar girls screamed and
the American sailors backed away, Lorino leaned over and dug into the cops’
pockets, looking for his meth. He did not hear Bulan come up behind him, but he
felt the sharp pain in his back from a knife.
The pain was sheering, but
Lorino was able to turn around quickly, and he swung the bat at Bulan’s knees.
The Filipino drug dealer fell to the floor. Lorino struck Bulan’s knees again
and again as the drug dealer wiggled and screamed in pain on the floor. Lorino
reached down and pulled the Navy Exchange bag from the Filipino’s pants pocket.
Lorino got up, dropped the
baseball bat, and despite his knife wound, he walked calmly out of the bar and
walked two blocks down to the Starlight, another bar that
Winston told him about. He found Winston there and Lorino sat down,
leaned over and told Winston that he would cut him in on his new drug
trafficking enterprise on the carrier if the petty officer would store the
shabu on the ship until he returned. Winston agreed happily.
Lorino passed the paper bag
to Winston. He then asked Winston to hail a jeepney and take him to the base
hospital.
Lorino missed the Kitty
Hawk’s next Yankee Station line period, as he was recuperating from his knife
wound in the Subic Bay base hospital. He told the investigating NIS special
agent who visited him that he was drunk and no idea who stabbed him. Raised in
South Philly’s Cosa Nostra organized crime culture, Lorino
would never speak to cop, so he didn’t tell the special agent about Bulan.
After Lorino’s release from
the hospital, he was temporarily assigned to the base until the Kitty Hawk
returned to Subic Bay. In time, Lorino felt fit enough to go back into
Olongapo. He ventured to the Americano bar and sat down with a
hostess.
The waiter brought over a
beer for Lorino and a whiskey for the girl. The Americano had
an American Wild West motif and a band that played country & western music.
Lorino didn’t care for country & western music – he was a Motown R&B
fan – but he was in the Americano looking for a connection,
not entertainment.
He asked the girl about the
“Chief,” and she pointed to a nearly bald, hefty American in his 50s who stood
behind the bar. Winston had assured Lorino that the Chief, an American
expatriate and retired Navy chief petty officer, was a good guy to know in Olongapo.
Maxwell Walker, originally
from Arizona, told everyone to call him “Chief” as he said he was a retired
U.S. Navy chief petty officer. He also told people that he was the owner of
the Americano. Neither was true.
Although he did in fact
retired from the U.S. Navy after 20 years of service, he never achieved the
rank of chief petty officer. He retired at the next lower grade, a 1st Class
Boatswain Mate, but he liked being called chief, so he promoted himself in
retirement. And he was not the owner of the Americano. He was
an employee, hired to lure in American sailors. His Filipina wife, a former
hostess, was the Americano’s mama-san.
Lorino went up to the bar and
introduced himself to Walker. He told the chief that Winston told him that the
chief could hook him up.
“So, you’re friend of
Winston’s?”
“Yeah, we work in the Kitty
Hawk’s Deck Department. He told me I could get a gun here.”
“Why do you want a gun?”
“My business.”
“If I sell you a gun, it
becomes my business.”
Lorino told Walker the story
of the rip-off and how he was stabbed by Bulan. He told Walker how he beat the
cops and Bulan with a bat, but he now wanted payback for the stabbing.
“Yeah, I heard about that,”
Walker said laughing. “Reeinald is a piece of shit. If you want good shabu, I
can fix you up with some people here. Look, ya still looking to score good
shabu?”
“Yeah. I got plans to go into
business on the Kitty Hawk.”
“Tell ya what, I’ll give you
a gun. Do what you have to do with it and then toss it in Shit River. Come back
here and we can do shabu business.”
Lorino took the gun, a .38
Smith and Wesson revolver with a two-inch barrel. He hefted the firearm in his
hand. Lorino thanked Walker and left the Americano. He walked
down Magsaysay Drive to the Ritz. He brushed aside the girls
who rushed up to him and looked around for Bulan.
He spotted Bulan sitting at a
table with a pair of crutches leaning against his chair. Without a word, Lorino
walked up to Bulan briskly, pulled out the .38 revolver from his waistband and
shot the Filipino drug dealer once in the left foot and once in the right knee.
As Bulan lay screaming in pain on the floor. the bar patrons and employees all
backed away from the shots.
Lorino walked calmly out of
the bar and onto Magsaysay Drive.
“Gotta love Olongapo,” Lorino
said loudly and happily to two passing sailors.
© 2022 By Paul Davis
Note: You can read the other posted chapters via
the below links:
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The Ground'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail"
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'
Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station
Sunday, November 26, 2023
A Little Humor: Snoopy's Guide To The Writer's Life
Some years ago, I bought a collection of Snoopy’s failed writer cartoon strips, with some more successful writers than Snoopy offering short pieces on Snoopy the aspiring writer.
You can read the description of the book from Writer’s Digest below:
Snoopy's
Guide to the Writing Life
Edited by Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz
Writer's Digest Books, 2004
About
the Book
Snoopy sits atop his doghouse, banging out stories on a manual typewriter.
Usually they begin "It was a dark and stormy night..." Always they're
rejected. In Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life—a wonderful gift
for writers—a roundup of 30 famous writers and entertainers respond in short
essays to their favorite Snoopy "at the typewriter" strip.
Each
essay focuses on how the strip presents an aspect of writing life—getting
started, getting rejected, searching for new ideas, and more—everything that
beginning and professional writers deal with on a daily basis.
The
essays are light and sometimes humorous, but all of them offer insight and
inspiration for writers working at any level. The book presents a powerful
line-up of contributors, including:
- Ray Bradbury
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
- Julia Child
- Elizabeth George
- Sue Grafton
- Evan Hunter
- Elmore Leonard
- Danielle Steel
- And the Beagle himself!
Editor Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz (son of
the late Charles Schulz) provide introductory chapters that address the writing
life and how Snoopy's experience—his tenacity and resilience—can inspire us all.