I
had still not lost my dream of getting into the Naval Academy at Annapolis. I did not confide in anyone, however—even my
brother—because the average enlisted man in the Navy would deride anyone with
ambitions to be a “gold braid”. It would
be a kiss of death with many of my new shipmates.
I
went to the VP-23 squadron educational officer, a young reserve ensign named
Rodney Foss, fresh out of the Naval cadet program, ostensibly for the purpose
of getting some reference books to study for my third class petty officer’s
examination. I waited until Ensign Foss
was alone in the office then, after swearing him to secrecy, told him what I
wanted. The young officer checked my
personnel folder for my high school record and was delighted. He felt that I had a chance to take the
examination for the Annapolis preparatory school. I was near the age limit (twenty) but Foss
thought there would be time.
When
I impressed upon ensign Foss the reasons that I wanted my application to be a
secret, he promised that he would file the application himself and keep all the
records locked in his desk. If he
entrusted it to a yeoman in would no doubt become an item of scuttlebutt and I
would be subjected to much derision. I
told Foss that if that happened I would request a transfer and I did not want
to do that.
The
friendly young ensign swore on his honor as an officer that he would say
nothing to anyone. If my application was
turned down, he would destroy all records and that would be the end of it. He also promised to quietly check into the
requirements for the examination and promised to provide me with a list of
reference books that I could study.
It
would be less than honest if I painted myself in those days as lily
white. As I mentioned before, I did my
share of carousing in those early days in Hawaii and I did not always stay out
of trouble. I did receive a Good Conduct
ribbon after four years in the Navy, but the reason was that I managed to avoid
getting caught. My troubles were usually
personal and resulted from a combination of too much booze and the quick temper
that seemed to come with my reddish blond hair.
One
such incident occurred one night when I had gone on liberty with a good
shipmate, Oscar Hook. We decided we
wanted to go dancing and see if we could pick up some girls. Hook stated that he knew a coke joint that had
live music and a dance floor out in Waikiki near the original Trader Vic’s (I
forget the name of the place so I will call it “Jack’s” since that might well
have been it).
There
had been some problems at Jack’s with some inter-service fights between either
sailors and marines or sailors and marines together against Army
riff-raff. Jack had banned booze from the
premises.
We,
of course, wanted something to spike the cokes (we figured the old saying “candy
is dancy, but liquor is quicker” was true). Hook had an answer as to how to smuggle in
some bourbon. He stopped at a drugstore
and bought a douche bag and a bottle of bourbon. In a filling station head, we cut the nozzle
off the douche bag tube and poured the bourbon in the bag. I was too skinny, but Hook weighed around two
hundred pounds with a generous belly and he was wearing a loose regulation
jumper. He tucked the douche bag inside
his waistband and it hardly showed.
At
Jack’s, Hook remained seated at a table and I carried the cokes and ice from
the bar. Hook would then slip a drink
under the red-checkered tablecloth and squirt a shot of bourbon into the coke.
We
had gotten a pleasant glow on when two hapa-haole wahines that Hook knew came
in and sat with us. Both were terrific
looking. One was Kay with short black
hair, quick happy smile, and laughing eyes.
The other was Lani (short for Leilani, meaning “heavenly flower”). Lani had black hair down to her waist, the
face and body of a beautiful young Polynesian wahine, and a very quiet voice
and smile. Both girls worked as models
at a souvenir photo shop in Waikiki. Lani
was, indeed a heavenly flower in my eyes and we were soon on the dance floor.
The
trouble began when a very drunken Army private tried to cut in on us and dance
with Lani. She did not want that and
resisted. When the private kept
pestering us, my temper flared and I shoved him hard enough that he fell
backward. He came up off the floor sucking
and swung a wild roundhouse punch at me.
I retaliated and almost instantly the place was bedlam with sailors and
marines coming to my aid and soldiers fighting back. The girls present were cowering along the
palm frond walls.
I
had just decked the drunk private when Oscar appeared on one side of the me and
a green-clad marine on the other. The
marine yelled over the noise, “Back toward the window. The shore patrol will be here and we’ll have
to bail out!”
Sure
enough, in a couple of minutes over the sounds of battle and breaking furniture
there were shrill whistles of the shore patrol outside the door. The marine shoved Nook and me through a side
window and dive headfirst after us into the thick shrubbery. The marine vanished into the darkness in one
direction and Hook and I took off in another.
As we went I heard someone yell, “Watch the back!” and a white-clad shore
patrol came around the building.
The
SP spotted us and gave chase. We cut over
to the next street and ran for our lives with his pounding footsteps a half block
behind. He pursued us down Kalakaua and,
as we came to the Wagon Wheel restaurant there were two SP’s coming up the
street from the other direction. Hook
yelled, “In here!” and shoved me into the restaurant.
The
Wagon Wheel had an open dining patio in the left of the front door. We cut through there, causing no end of consternation
among the diners. The rear wall of the
patio on the alley appeared to be made of woven palm fronds. Hook, with his two hundred pounds charged the
wall like a football guard and hit it with his shoulder. It was not just palm fronds—behind them was a
steel mesh fence!
Oscar
bounced back with a curse. I could hear
the SPs approaching the restaurant door.
Using a vacant table by the fence, I boosted Hook over and swung after
him. We sprinted down the alley to the
next street then swung off into the tree-lined streets of a quiet residential area. Two blocks along and getting short of breath,
we cut through an alley and discovered a detached garage with the door
ajar. The SPs were not within earshot as
we slipped inside the garage.
The
garage contained an ancient Model A Ford sedan.
We sat down on the running board to catch our breath, listening for
sounds of pursuit that did not come.
When we were breathing normally and still heard no sounds, Hook produced
the tube of the douche bag still in his waistband and we each had a shot. I realized then that we were bareheaded. I produced my white hat which had been folded
and tucked into the back of my waistband.
Oscar felt around, then cursed, “Dang it, I must of left my white hat on
the table! I can’t get back to the base
out of uniform—they’ll pick me up for sure!”
We
each had another pull at the douche bag bourbon, (it had developed a slight
taste of rubber but we were far enough along to ignore that) and solemnly
considered the problem. I had another
shot and the little light bulb came on over my head. “Tell you what, old buddy,” I pronounced
owlishly, “I’ll go get you a white hat.”
“Where
an’ how you gonna do that?”
“By
now there’ll be a bunch of drunken sailors over at the Waikiki Tavern. I’ll jist borry you one.”
“Hate
to swipe an’ ol’ shipmate’s hat.”
“Aw,
I’ll pick me a fireman off a ship. You
sit right here an’ save me a belt and I”ll be back before you know it. Now don’t you try to go ennywhere—the SPs may
still be out there looking for us.”
I
straightened my rumpled whites, squared my white hat, listened at the door,
then slipped out into the warm darkness walking as steadily as I could.
It
went as planned. I passed a couple of
SPs with a careless wave of a hand, made it to the Waikiki Tavern, and as I
reckoned the bar was in full swing. I
strolled through the din to the head where I was washing my hands when a very drunk
sailor stumbled in headed for a booth.
His white hat was tipped on the back of his head and he never felt it
when I lifted the hat as he staggered by.
I flipped it flat and tucked it in my waistband under my blouse as
retching sounds came from the booth.
When
I arrived back at the garage, I was dismayed to find the running board
empty. Hook had disappeared. I called his name softly and was answered by
a snore form the car. Oscar was happily
asleep in the back seat. I felt the
douche bag—it was flat and empty.
I
finally got Oscar out of the car and unsteadily on his feet, straightened his
uniform, and clapped the filched white hat on his head. Hook was a big man and the hat was too
small. It perched precariously atop his
mop of unruly black hair.
I
considered our options. There was no way
I could get him on the bus to downtown Honolulu, onto the bus for the Pearl
Harbor Navy Yard, and into the Ford Island boat without getting picked up. Even as I thought it over, Hook slowly slid
down to a sitting position on the running board.
I
investigated my wallet, then checked out Hook’s. Between the two of us we had enough cash for
a taxi to the Navy Yard. My problem was
to find one and get him into it. Finally
I got him on his feet and we unsteadily made it out of the alley and to a
corner under a streetlight where I propped the big man against the pole and
told him to hang on.
My
heart sank when the second car past was a Honolulu police car. It slowed and backed up to us. The officer in the passenger seat said, “Got a
problem, boys?”
I
was now sober enough that my words did not slur. “No sir.
My buddy here just doesn’t feel so good.
I need a taxi to get back to the base.”
The
policeman looked us over carefully, apparently decided we were harmless, and
said, “Stay right there. We’ll send a
cab.” The police car slowly pulled away.
It
worked. In a few minutes, during which
Hook slid down to sit on the curb and snored leaning against the pole, a taxi
pulled up. He deposited us at the Navy
Yard gate and we had no problem. The
liberty boat coxswain was used to such sights.
During
another liberty after we had moved to Kaneohe and I was on mess cooking duty, I
was on the other end of such a problem.
I was on Saturday evening liberty with a shipmate—Pickett, I believe it
was—and we went into the Honolulu Café on Beretania Street for some
supper. There we ran into two of my
Vancouver High School 1939 classmates, George Stonehouse and Frankie Enz.
Turned
out that Stonehouse and Enz had gone through boot camp together and both ahd
been assigned to the heavy cruiser INDIANAPOLIS. The “INDY” had just moored at Pearl and they
were on their first Honolulu liberty. We
had some drinks after supper, then took them for a tour of the joints in the “tenderloin”.
After
considerably more drinks than we needed (I recall the tip of my nose got numb
which was the signal I had had enough, but I ignored it and was having a great
time) we wound up in a place down on Nuuana Canal. Later I vaguely recalled that there was a
crap game in a corner and I got into a beef with a drunk Marine corporal. When we started to come to blows the madam
ordered us to take it to the alley outside, which we did.
It
was a dandy scrap and we each decked the other a couple of times when an SPs’
whistle shrilled down the street.
Pickett hustled me off down the alley, got me back up to Beretania, and
we boarded the “Red Peril”. I slept in
the back seat all the way to Kaneohe. I
do not know what happened to Stonehouse and Enz as they were otherwise occupied
at the time of the fight and I never saw them again. (Late in WWII the INDIANAPOLIS was torpedoed,
blew up, and sank in minutes with few survivors.)
The
next morning when we mess cooks were turned out at 0400, I was on my bunk still
in my whites and I was a mess. I stank
of gin, was sick as a dog with a hangover, and there was blood on the front of
my blouse. Checking myself over, I could
find no damage to account for it. I
asked Pickett later about it and he just laughed, “Hell, Frieze, you beat up on
that Marine. It was his blood after you broke his nose!”
Like
I may have said earlier, you don’t get a Good Conduct ribbon for being an angel—you
get it for not getting caught!
