12. Sunny Day, Dark Knight

“Hey Droughton, we saw you on your motorcycle Saturday heading out of Waikiki.”

I was passing through the mess deck on my way to the engine room when some coners sitting at a table there stopped me.

“Yeah, I was in Waikiki Saturday afternoon on the bike… could have been me.”

“With that fucking flaming red hair of yours? Of course it was you! But we don’t give a shit about you. No, we want to know who the fuck that chick on the back of your bike was. She looked fucking hot.”

“Who, Mitsuko? She’s this Japanese girl I met.”

“You fuck her?”

“Well… yeah. We’ve been going out for a few weeks now.”

“Son of a bitch! I’ve been on this fucking rock nearly two fucking years, and I haven’t even gotten laid for free yet. I gotta go to a fucking rub-and-tug place just so I don’t fucking explode, but this mother fucker’s over here, what for like three or four months, and he already has a fucking girlfriend? This is fucking bullshit!”

“Well, she’s not really my—”

“She Japanese-American or Japanese-Japanese?”

“Japanese-Japanese. From Osaka.”

“What the fuck!?! Chicks from Japan don’t talk to Americans! Where in the fuck did you meet her?”

“In a bar.”

“In a fucking bar? Are you fucking shitting me? You know bars out here are big fucking sausage fests! It’s like ten fucking guys for every god damn fucking chick.”

“Yeah.”

“All these fucking squids, jarheads, Army assholes, and Air Force fags on this god damn rock? Fuck, it’s like there’s a stampede every time a fucking decent looking tourist with titties walks into a bar. I know you fucking know that.”

“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I definitely know that.”

“Jesus Christ… in a fucking bar? God damn Japanese chick in a fucking bar? How the fuck did you pull that off?”

“I dunno. I was just at this little tiny Tiki joint on Kuhio all by myself, I was like the only customer there for a while, then I got up to take a leak, and when I returned there was a cute little Japanese lady sitting on the stool next to mine.”

“And what, you said, ‘Wanna fuck?’ and she was like, ‘Oooh-keee leets fook.’?”

“Nnn… Not exactly. I was pretty drunk, and I don’t really remember how I did it, but I know we talked for a while, and it was kinda hard because her English is pretty broken. But then I think I just sort of told her we were going out on this day at this time to this place. And she went along with it. Guess I just kinda bulldozered her into a date. But then it turned out she actually liked being with me.”

And that was pretty much exactly what happened to the best of my recollection. I really didn’t remember too much of our conversation other than she was from Osaka, was afraid of motorcycles, and we had a date to climb a volcano. I had just repaired the Marauder with a replacement front brake lever, right side handlebar end cap/vibration damper, and associated hardware from Montgomery Motors. We were ready to rock! Well, until this cute little Japanese lady rendered it inoperable once again. This sudden lack of viable transportation was a situation that needed a resolution. Since my automobile was on Long Island, the wrong island and not Oahu, I would have to borrow a vehicle from a shipmate.

Most sailors I knew were horrible with money. We were paid on the 1st and 15th of each month. I shit you not, some of the guys would have absolutely no money on the 2nd and 16th. It was fucking amazing. Because of their financial follies, they were then basically stuck eating slimy skin mushy baked base chicken or cow skin rawhide ribeyes in the mess hall and confined to watching television or playing video games in their barracks. And I thought I was bad drinking all my money away! I could at least stretch it to a few days before payday.

A big part of these guys not having any balance in their bank accounts was because a lot of them bought brand new sports cars or 4×4 pickup trucks right out of bootcamp that were way out of their budget, and now they had steep loan payments. We were warned about “predatory lenders” with all the car dealerships that clustered around the training command in Orlando.

Loan sharks are eager to lend to sailors because their wages can be garnished if a few payments are missed once the lenders contact the command. Sucker seamen who sign contracts are a guaranteed cash cow for the car companies. I fortunately resisted such temptations and managed to escape the Sunshine State without buying a brand new overpriced automobile that would sit rusting on shore while I was out in the salty sea.

With no automobile of my own in the Aloha State, I was worried about borrowing someone’s brand new SS Camaro or K1500 Silverado pickup truck. What if I wrecked it? I didn’t want to be stuck paying that off. So, I asked Jay-Jay if I could borrow his shitty little jalopy.

Jay-Jay was in the small minority of the sailors on my boat that were fiscally responsible. He bought what we referred to as an “island beater” for a few hundred bucks off of someone leaving Hawaii, and his plan would be to sell it for a few hundred bucks when he left. If I wrecked it, I could afford to pay him back. Well, as long as it was on the 1st or the 15th. But as an island beater, if I put a dent in it, I doubt he would even care. Might even raise the value.

Look, an authentic island beater! You don’t get dents like these from the factory. This is custom character right here. Do I hear six hundred bucks?

The bright and sunny morning of the date, I rode my motorcycle to Jay-Jay’s house, which was over in the Aiea neighborhood. He handed me the keys to his late 80’s faded silver Chevy Cavalier with a grey cloth interior. There was just one thing he neglected to mention when I asked him if I could borrow his beater until those keys were actually in my hand. This was the warning he gave me:

“Yeah, um… don’t stop at red lights for too long because it will overheat. You’ll be fine on the highway though.”

“Uh… did you just say don’t stop at red lights for ‘too long’?”

“Yeah. Not too long. Just stay in the right lane and make a turn or something.”

That was wild. No prolonged stopping at red lights? Okay, so clearly, he had an issue with the electric cooling fan or the temperature switch that controls it. But it’s not like I could control how long the light stays red, and who’s to say everyone in the right lane would be turning? I thought about it for a few seconds and figured it would be fine. The traffic should be okay by Honolulu when I was picking my date up since it was early morning on a weekend. Plus, we were going to Koko Head at the extreme southeast corner of the island; to get there, we would be driving on mostly interstate grade highway with no traffic lights, and that favorite Kalanianaole Highway of mine. Yeah, we’d be fine.

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Thanks.”

I cruised into Waikiki without issue, and pulled up to the same block where the Really Crap Hole Tiki Bar was located. I was pretty drunk when I met Mitsuko at the Tiki and didn’t quite remember what she looked like, but there was an attractive slender Asian girl just a little bit shorter than me standing where our date’s meeting point was. She was wearing olive cargo pants, a black tee shirt, white sneakers and a jean jacket. Could definitely climb a volcano in that. That must have been Mitsuko. I pulled over beside her and she opened the door. Once she got in and we greeted each other, she had an odd question for me.

“Are you Batman?”

“Batman?”

“Yes, Batman.”

“Well, no I’m definitely not Batman. I mean, I’d hope you’d think I was more like Superman, but you know, I suppose that’s debatable.”

“No. Are you Batman?”

“Batman?”

“Batman. Are you Batman?”

“Batman… Hmm. Okay, I think I’m missing something here. I don’t really understand what you’re asking me.”

“Mmm. Wait please. Okay?”

She pulled out her pocket translator, and I felt like an idiot.

“Oh! Bad man. You’re asking me if I’m a bad man. Well no, I don’t think I’m a bad man. But I mean, if I was, maybe I wouldn’t admit to it though. Like, I don’t think bad men tell people they are bad right up front. I dunno. Maybe they don’t even know they’re bad. But, uh… No, wait! I mean… I probably shouldn’t have said that. Okay, do over. This is a do over. We’re going to do a do over. Uh, so like… no, I don’t think I am a bad man. Yeah, I’m not a bad man.”

“You are not bat man?”

“No. As far as I know, I am not a bad man.”

“Okay, okay. We go.”

Sorting out whether or not I was a bad man while stopped on the side of the road resulted in the temperature gauge climbing a bit, but it didn’t reach any alarming level. I continued down Kuhio, caught a green light to turn left onto Kapahulu, and made it onto the Lunalilo Freeway (H-1) without incident. The needle settled back down once at speed with plenty of air being forced through the radiator.

“So… We’re going to Koko Head, okay? I climbed it once before. Very beautiful. Very beautiful at the top. Do you understand?”

“Koko Head for hike? Beautiful at top?”

“Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s really beautiful at the top. The deep blue ocean… and the fluffy white clouds… and the pretty green mountains. Very beautiful.”

“Okay! Very beautiful!”

“But the first time, I climbed right up the side with no trail. Understand? First time, too steep, no trail.”

“First time no trail?”

“Yeah, no trail. But we’re going to find a trail. Okay? We’ll find one. When I was on top, I saw a trail. So, we’re going to go up the trail. Okay?”

“Okay, we go up trail.”

“Yes. We’re going up on the trail. I looked at my map, and I think it shows the trail I saw. I think I can find where it starts. We’ll find the trail. Okay?”

“Okay! We find trail!”

And we did. I followed the Kalanianaole Highway around Koko Head, took the first left near Sandy Beach and kept driving towards the volcano as the roads permitted. I actually wanted to stop at Halona Blowhole briefly but was worried about overheating after shutting down the shitty little Cavalier. Without the electric fan kicking on, the coolant would continue to absorb heat from the engine and might boil over when starting the car back up and driving away too soon. I didn’t think the amount of time to watch the water spouting up before becoming bored would be enough time to prevent a boil over, whereas after an entire hike up a dormant volcano and back down did seem like plenty of time for the engine to cool off. I drove past Halona Blowhole without mentioning it to her.

I parked the beater in a little gravel parking lot inside the C-shaped crater, grabbed my backpack which contained yellow Gatorade and beef jerky, and then found the trailhead. It was on the east side of the inner wall of the crater, and the path would have us going up to the ridge in a clockwise direction. The trail wasn’t too steep, unlike my charge up the south outer side by the blowhole, but it was still surprisingly challenging due to numerous small boulders which we had to climb over, sometimes requiring using hands and feet.

Fortunately, Mitsuko was quite the little trooper and made it to the top of Koko Head with little difficulty. We walked along the ridge to the southern end for the same vantage I had on my second day on Oahu and lingered there for a bit. The view of the crystal blue ocean and light blue sky did not disappoint her.

“Woooowwww. Very beautiful!”

Another thing that was beautiful was that once again, there was absolutely no one else on top of this volcano. It was just the two of us. I found this rather extraordinary. How was this not mobbed with locals and tourists alike? Did everyone simply go to up Diamond Head instead and then scratch “dormant volcano” off their bucket list? Koko Head need not apply? Off to the big island to see an active one actually spewing lava? Yeah, I guess so. Well, their loss. The solitude made our trek all the more enjoyable.

With Mitsuko and I having no plans after this hike, I had more time up top this time as I wasn’t worried about losing daylight during a motorcycle ride. We could continue further up the ridge. After hydrating with Gatorade, snacking on the jerky, cooling off in the Kona winds, and snapping a photo with a disposable camera, we decided to continue along the ridge in the clockwise direction to make it to the highest point over on the west side.

I’m glad she agreed to continue. At the 1208-foot summit, we found an abandoned funicular railroad with a single set of extremely deteriorated narrow-gauge tracks and a tiny, dilapidated machinery room. The railroad ties looked like a thousand-foot-tall staircase; I would have to return to climb it one day either with Mitsuko again or maybe with Carlos as he was new to Oahu. That funicular equipment just had to be explored! And it just blew my mind that there weren’t mobs of people clamoring all over it. Not even a single person on a late Saturday morning. Unbelievable. Koko Head should have been a huge tourist attraction. It’s a volcano, has amazing views, and it’s right by the packed to the gills Hanauma Bay, Halona Blowhole, and Sandy Beach!

I didn’t know it at the time of climbing it with Mitsuko, but the magnificent Koko Head was not the result of lava flow after a great big eruption as one might imagine when picturing the formation of a volcano. At least that’s how I had imagined its creation.  But no, Koko Head is the type of volcano classified as a “tuff cone.” This variety of volcano is formed when liquid hot magma comes into contact with ground water, creating a steam explosion. The steam atomizes the lava, which falls back down to Earth as ash, creating a fairly wide and short cone. The ash lithifies into solid rock over time as the sediment compacts and expels trapped liquids due to pressure. This relatively soft igneous rock is known as “tuff” if it contains 75% or more ash in its composition. So, that’s how you get a tuff cone like Koko Head—if you believe the science.

If you are more into religious explanations, I have a good one for you. I sure do. And I honestly wish I could believe how tuff cones were made according to religion, because it’s so much better. You see, Hawaiian mythology says Koko Head was created during a tussle between Kamapua‘a, the shape-shifting pig god; Pele, the goddess of fire; and Kapo, the goddess of seduction (who was also Pele’s sister). Lore states that Kamapua’a (the pig) tried to rape Pele, so her sister Kapo threw her detachable vagina down to Oahu to distract the pig-god-man long enough for Pele to escape. Koko Head is the result of Kapo’s coochie crashing down into the Earth’s crust. It’s basically just a giant punani print. And that kids, is how muff cones are—err, I mean tuff cones are made—at least according to religion.

Here are some passages from a somewhat academic, textbook-like publication if you want to fact check me. It’s just two little excerpted paragraphs from two different chapters. Take a look:

HAWAIIAN MYTHOLOGY (1940 – Martha Warren Beckwith)

XII – THE PELE SISTERS

Kapo’s power to separate her female sexual organ from her body gives her the name of Kapo-kohe-lele (Kapo with the traveling vagina) called also Kapo-mai-ele. When Kamapua‘a attacked Pele near Kalapana, Kapo sent this kohe as a lure and he left Pele and followed the kohe lele as far as Koko Head on Oahu, where it rested upon the hill, leaving an impression to this day on the Makapu‘u side. Then she withdrew it and hid it in Kalihi. When the Hawaiians dream of a woman without a vagina it is Kapo.

XIV – KAMAPUA‘A

At a place near the coast in Puna called Lua-o-Pele, where the earth is torn up as if there had been a struggle, he is said to have overtaken the reluctant Pele and forced the fire goddess to submit to his embraces. Pele’s sister Kapo, aware of Pele’s peril, sends her own wandering vagina (kohe-lele) to light upon a tree and attract Kamapua‘a from her sister. He follows it to Oahu, where its impression may be seen today on the Makapu‘u side of Koko Head where it rested before Kapo withdrew it and hid it in Kalihi valley.

So, there you have it. See? I didn’t make that shit up. (And I must say, it is definitely worth keeping “kohe-lele” [koh-hay lay-lay] in your lexicon in case you need to use “wandering vagina” in a sentence without creating any drama.) But you know what I’m still a little bit confused about? I don’t understand why it’s called Koko Head when clearly it should be called Kapo Tail, but whatever. Let’s get back to the Kapo Tail trail—err, Koko Head trail rather. It was time to head back. There’s only so much yellow Gatorade and beef jerky you can consume before desiring real sustenance.

While Mitsuko was quite the capable little volcano climber, she had trouble navigating some of the more challenging terrain on the way back down. When she was stuck, I’d extend my hand to give her stability as she jumped down. What made this amusing was the exceptionally polite nature of Japanese culture combined with their inability to pronounce the “th” diphthong. If she was holding my hand, each time she landed from a leap, often multiple times in a row, she would express her gratitude.

<thump>

“Oh, sank you.”

<thump>

“Oh, sank you.”

<thump>

“Sank you.”

<thump>

“Sank you.”

<thump>

“Oh, sank you.”

<thump>

“Sank you.”

After each and every jump, I received a “sank you.” Every single one. So polite! This continued all the way down to the bottom of the crater and did not cease to be amusing. I did not laugh at her however. I didn’t want to make her feel self-conscious about her English—which was clearly far and away superior to my nascent Russian or non-existent Japanese. So, while I didn’t laugh, all of her “sanks” coming down the volcano did make me erupt into giant uncontrollable smiles. I don’t think she connected those smiles to her pronunciation.

Back at the bottom of Koko Head’s crater inside the Cavalier, I figured I’d simply be driving Mitsuko back to Waikiki, and then I’d go on my merry way. Too my surprise, she wanted our date to continue. It took me a little while for me to understand what she wanted to do though. It was the combination of me assuming she’d want to go home and her broken English which confused me. But eventually I pieced together that she wanted to grab a few beers at an outdoor bar in the Restaurant Row complex.

Restaurant [Death] Row was on Ala Moana Boulevard near downtown Honolulu a few blocks away from Aloha Tower. Within it was a cluster of bars, restaurants, and dance clubs which had a tendency to go belly up. It was also the exact location where my Marauder and I went belly up as well just a few days prior on Presidents’ Day. Funny she should tell me she’s afraid of motorcycles, and then pick a place to drink right where I wrecked my motorbike. Figures. I kept that tiny tidbit my little secret however.

The best beer the outdoor bar had was Heineken. And you know what? It was absolutely perfect sitting in the sun after a long hike. I don’t think my heavy motor oil of a beer would be as refreshing as a crisp Heinie at that moment. It was perfect. Mitsuko also ordered a Heineken and asked for glasses for the both of us. With them, she introduced me to the Japanese custom of pouring each other’s beers into their glasses. Mitsuko was very attentive and kept refilling mine when approaching empty. I let hers run dry a number of times, however, to much fanfare when I realized my failure.

“Oh, shit! Sorry! Shit, shit, shit! Here, I got this! Shit!”

She laughed at my negligence each time I discovered it, which happened far too many times than I’d care to admit. I felt like an idiot for being so oblivious. I was apparently not good at learning new customs. Another thing I was not good at was pacing. The Heinekens were going down rapidly on that nice warm sunny day. After my fourth one in less than an hour, I was beginning to worry about what I should do to put some time in before driving again. Unprompted, Mitsuko offered a perfect solution, but not without confusion. Right across from the bar inside the Restaurant Row complex was a movie theater.

“My uh… my Engrish teacher… he say to see movies. Uh… may I go?”

“You want to see a movie? Right now?”

“I look at them? You stay here?”

“Oh! You want to go to the movies by yourself?”

“Okay. I go look.”

She left me behind before I could even pay the bill, and I was a little bit befuddled. This whole “go see a movie by myself” thing happened so abruptly. She didn’t even say goodbye. But then I noticed that she didn’t take her jean jacket. Did she forget it? Is she coming back? Like soon, or after the movie? I had no idea what was going on, figured I’d just get another beer, and then go see a movie on my own too to pass the time if she didn’t come back. I could always return the jacket another time. For now, however, I simply wanted another beer. But she returned to the table before the waiter did.

“Uh, so what happened? Nothing you want to see playing at the moment?”

“Do you want to see?”

“Wait. You want me to see what’s playing?”

“You want to see a movie?”

“Oh! See a movie together? Right now?”

“You go see?”

“What do you mean? See a movie together or do you just want me to go by myself to see what’s playing?”

“We go to the movie?”

“Alright, I think you mean to actually see a movie together, right?”

“We see a movie? Yes?”

“Yes. Okay, sure. Yeah, that sounds good. We’ll go see a movie after we settle up.”

We settled up with the waiter, and then we looked at our options at the theater. The movie with the least amount of time to wait for was Firestorm. It was basically Backdraft in the woods with a bit of Cliffhanger thrown into the mix. It received terrible reviews, but I liked it. More importantly, as a brain-dead action flick, the English was likely simple enough for Mitsuko to understand it, yet also proper enough for her to learn from it.

When the Firestorm was over, we had a couple more Heinekens at the same outdoor spot from earlier. As the sun began setting, Mitsuko asked if I wanted dinner. Considering the fact that all we had to eat the entire day was beef jerky and popcorn, we were both starving. Our date started with a hike, then it turned into a bit of day drinking, and then it turned into watching a movie. Might as well turn it into a dinner date too!

She suggested sushi, which I never had before. I didn’t even like cooked fish back then (other than fish sticks and clam chowder), but there was no way I was going to turn down the opportunity to try raw fish for the first time with a cute chick who was actually from Japan. Up until this day, I had only one other person ever invite me out for sushi. While I did tag along to the Japanese restaurant with this sushi slurping Submarine NR-1 shipmate, I simply dined on things like beef negimaki and udon noodles. I told Mitsuko I was in. I was down for some sushi.

Mitsuko used a pay phone to call a friend to figure out where the best sushi restaurant to go to was, I used another to call Jay-Jay to make sure he was okay with my continued use of his Cavalier (he was), and then we were on our way. Unfortunately, the place her friend suggested was only accessible by a grid of streets with a shit ton of traffic lights. And wouldn’t you know it? I kept catching all the red ones.

She saw me nervously watching both the traffic light and the instrument cluster, alternating between them perhaps a bit too dramatically. I could see that she looked both a bit confused and a bit concerned, so I explained the predicament the best I could with hand gestures. Using my right index finger to represent the needle and my left hand in a circular “c’mon, c’mon” motion, and then both hands to make a big poof simulation, she seemed to understand.

At each light, the temperature gauge just kept climbing while waiting. Then when it turned green, I’d punch it to get some airflow through the radiator, bringing the needle back down to the normal region. This sequence repeated light after light, but with each time, climbing just a little bit further and further into the red zone. I wasn’t sure if accelerating quickly helped cool off the engine with extra airflow or added excessive heat from making the engine work harder. And I just couldn’t believe my luck of hitting each and every damn traffic light right when they turned red. It was like someone was pranking me. The needle kept rising while waiting.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, c’mon c’mon, c’mon!”

Then it happened. At one particularly long light where I probably should have made a right turn but didn’t, there was this loud bursting noise and a huge cloud of steam came pouring out of the hood, grill, and underside of the car. I ran the red light, turned off the ignition, and coasted to the side of the road.

“Well, shit.”

I had to collect my thoughts. Is this a problem? Yes, but hopefully not a big one. This shouldn’t be more than just a slight setback. I mean, think about it. I was a mechanic at heart, and I was driving a mechanic’s car. Surely, he’d have a bunch of tools and a flashlight in the car so I’d be able to fix the jalopy up in a jiffy. Surely, he would. His trunk should be full of tools.

I popped the trunk and to my amazement, the only thing inside the otherwise barren trunk was a broken hacksaw blade. Just then I realized there was a difference between a US Navy machinist’s mate and an actual mechanic. I suppose that would explain why the cooling fan was inoperative for this long in the first place. The mostly bare trunk sunk my spirits only momentarily as after a brief investigation of the situation, the broken hacksaw blade turned out to be all I needed.

It was pretty dark out, but we were close enough to a streetlamp that I could just barely see under the hood. The good news was that the lower radiator hose had simply popped off and wasn’t ruptured. The clamp was still dangling on the hose, so all I had to do was slide the hose back onto the radiator outlet and tighten the clamp using the broken hacksaw blade as a flat head screwdriver after bending it into an L-shape for extra torque. Other than everything being hot as fuck, it was an easy fix. Yet I still needed some water to refill the coolant system.

There was nothing immediately nearby us in this residential neighborhood, so we began walking around to see if we could find anything. In a few blocks, we discovered a dingy old garbage can behind a gas station and a working spigot. I filled the garbage can up with a few gallons and started walking back to the car. The garbage can was filthy, and I didn’t want to hold it against my clothes, so I held it away from me with my arms stretched out a bit. This provided poor leverage and was very tiring. Mitsuko could see that I was struggling and offered some encouragement.

“Fight!     Fight!     Fight!     Fight!     Fight!”

She kept repeating “fight” as she skip-jumped along side of me while raising a fist outward with each skip-jump exclamation. It was really fucking adorable and even better than all those “sank you’s” when we were coming down the volcano. We made it back at the Cavalier, I topped it off, we brought the garbage can back to the gas station to let the engine cool down just a little bit more. We then made it to the Japanese joint without overheating again.

The restaurant was authentic in the sense that Mitsuko was able to order everything in Japanese. The first thing to come out was her Sapporo beer and my Asahi Black beer, which I liked immediately. (Note that I successfully refilled her glass each and every time this time.) The next thing to come out where these tiny little crispy crabs that looked like squished bugs. Surprisingly, I liked them. Then the actual sushi came out. I tried each and every one that was in front of me, but unfortunately, with the exception of one piece, I did not like it at all.

The exception was the freshwater eel called unagi. I would later discover that unagi sushi is not actually raw. It’s cooked and glazed with teriyaki sauce, making it a particularly palatable first-time fish for nigiri noobs. Mitsuko was understandably disappointed that I wasn’t enjoying the cuisine, so I exaggerated how much I liked the tiny crabs and the eel. As this made her noticeably happier, I kept pressing how delicious the slimy little unagis were.

“It’s really good! I really like the unagi! I’m so glad I tried it! I’m definitely going to try it again!”

Mitsuko was happy enough to not only give me her piece of unagi, but to also pay for the entire dinner, which surprised me. I drove her back to the corner of her block where I simply hugged her goodbye after making plans for the following day. I couldn’t keep the Cavalier idling for too long but had time to tell her that for our second date, I would not be borrowing anyone’s car. I was done with that! She understood completely. We decided on simply meeting in Waikiki as there were plenty of things to do there, with so many bars and restaurants, a movie theater, the beach, and even a zoo.

I stopped at a gas station in Aiea to top of the Cavalier with gasoline and ethylene glycol, returned the jalopy to Jay-Jay, and rode home to Moanalua on my Marauder, thus concluding one of the most memorable first dates of my life.

The plan for Sunday was to meet in the afternoon outside in Waikiki after parking my motorcycle, and then we would simply wing it—kind of how we did it after climbing Kapo Tail. With all the things we could do in Waikiki, there was no need to go beyond walking distance. We’d no doubt find something to pique our interest. Yet as I rolled up on my motorbike, our plans changed immediately.

She was standing by a pile of volcanic rocks on Paoakalani Avenue, a one-way street between Kalakaua and Kuhio towards the eastern end of Waikiki. I told her I would just park the bike and come back, yet apparently just the sight of my bright red and chromed out Suzuki VZ800 Marauder was enough for her to reconsider her prohibition on motorcycles. One thing’s for sure, the bright beaming bike stood in stark contrast to Jay-Jay’s jalopy. Mitsuko immediately requested a ride on the Marauder.

Thankfully there was no requirement for helmets in Hawaii for licensed riders—which I was not—but the cops wouldn’t know that unless they pulled me over for something else. I had stopped wearing my helmet since that prick at the DMV stopped me from taking the road test for absolute bullshit reasons. Fuck that guy. With no need for helmets in Hawaii, Mitsuko was able to hop right on my motorcycle. Otherwise, she would have to wait by the rocks for nearly an hour for me to return to my place to grab her a helmet, and then ride all the way back to her block. Holy hell do I hate those nosy nanny laws butting into my business!

After a brief direct contact lesson on just how hot exhaust pipes are (despite my warning which clearly, she didn’t understand), off we went. At first, we rode around the block at a relatively low speed and stopped right where we started. Paoakalani Avenue, right on Kuhio Avenue, right on Kapahulu Avenue, right Lemon Road, and right back on Paoakalani Avenue. This resulted in a request to go a little farther.

“More!”

“More? Okay, you got it!”

This time I crossed Kuhio Avenue, turned left on Ala Wai Boulevard, and then we rode all the way to the other side of Waikiki towards the Honolulu end. I figured I’d turn onto McCully Street and then double back on Kalakaua Avenue, yet this still wasn’t a long enough cruise for her.

“Is this good? Head back or do you want more?”

“More!”

“Okay, we’re going for more! Hold on!”

I hopped onto Ala Moana Boulevard, which begins to get progressively curvier near Restaurant [Death] Row and Aloha Tower. It then has a really fun banked sweeping ninety-degree left turn just past China Town. If she could handle that, I figured she was cleared for motorcycle duty. Turned out Mitsuko absolutely loved the tight high-speed turn, held onto me, and didn’t fight the heavy leaning required to negotiate the turn. She ate it up in fact. Yeah, she just loved the exhilaration.

Mitsuko was most definitely cleared for motorcycle duty now, so it was time to kick it up another notch and go for the interstate grade Queen Liliuokalani Freeway (the newer, western portion of H-1). We put on some good speed, and while she held onto me tightly, Mitsuko was undaunted. She seemed to be laughing actually.

As we approached Aloha Stadium, I realized I had no destination in mind. If we kept going, we were going to end up in the mass suburbia of Aiea. We couldn’t have that! The alternative was to commit to going all the way to the north shore, which I thought might be too far for a first-timer. I’d rather leave some left to desire than to overdo it. Then I immediately remembered a nearby attraction I had been meaning to check out for the last couple of months.

“Wanna go to a museum?” I shouted, “It’s very close.”

“Okay! We go!”

The museum was actually at the same exit as Aloha Stadium and only a few miles away. Very convenient. We parked and went inside. Just barely past the entrance, looking at the black and white fifty-five-year-old photographs on the wall, I realized exactly what sort of rocket scientist I was. For the record, I had taken a Japanese citizen to the Pearl Harbor Museum and Arizona Memorial for a date.

I’m such an idiot!

I was mortified looking at those pictures of destruction and death wrought upon Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. 2,403 lives extinguished and 1,178 injured in the Sunday morning surprise attack. My stupidity left me speechless, but Mitsuko certainly had something to say.

“Oh, Japanese peo-pull… vedy, vedy bat!”

Oh my god, what had I done? What was I thinking!?! I wasn’t thinking! And I couldn’t think of the right thing to say in response. But I had to say something. After a brief pause, I made a nervous attempt to soothe.

“No, no, no. That was a long time ago. Japanese people are very good now. We’re friends now. Japan and America are strong allies. Everybody’s friends now.”

A little bit awkwardly stated, but it seemed to work. We continued along the museum perusing the artifacts, and fortunately Mitsuko was not only not offended by my choice of activities (where I was basically calling out her country as being led by sneaky, blood-thirsty war mongers), but she also seemed genuinely interested in the history. She mentioned that they didn’t teach her much about the Pearl Harbor attack in her school back in Osaka. Let me tell you, it was one hell of a relief to see her curious and engaged in all the exhibits! I can’t image what was going on inside her head, but with her acceptance of and interest in this piece of world history, I really dodged a bullet there!

We finished looking at all the indoor exhibits and proceeded outside to see the remaining exhibits. The first thing to catch my eye was that there was a nearly completed big ass bridge being built to Ford Island. La Chiefa had sent me to an air conditioning and refrigeration C-school located on Ford Island, and I had to take a water taxi there. I loved that. I suppose too much because after the first day, Queen cancelled my class and recalled me to the San Fran. It was fun while it lasted.

I remember heading to class wondering why I chose sub service. There were sailors out here driving these tiny boats and water taxis all day out in the Hawaiian paradise. I particularly would have liked to be the person piloting this tiny utility boat that basically looked like a little floating pickup truck. I watched it during my entire morning commute aboard the water taxi. Why didn’t the recruiter tell me that this was a job in the Navy?

The qualifications couldn’t have been all that difficult. Everyone else on the water taxi was also watching this little utility craft as well, although probably not for the same reasons as me. While I was longing for that sort of simple, honest job in paradise vibe, the others were transfixed watching the pilot try to “rope” in a stray dolphin with a long bright orange floating oil barrier. Each time encircled, the dolphin would somehow escape. It was as if water was three dimensional. Like I said, the qualifications for being accepted as small boat operator couldn’t have been too difficult. I could have been the person playing games with those silly cetaceans.

Sorry boss. They got away again.

Aside from the new bridge that I mentioned to Mitsuko as being brand new, there were all sorts of torpedoes, a couple of Polaris submarine launched ballistic missiles, a Regulus submarine launched nuclear cruise missile, and a Type 4 Kaiten suicide submarine to see. (I had mistaken this late war last-ditch effort Kaiten as one of the Type A Ko-hyoteki midget submarines sunk or captured at the start of the war.)

But by far the greatest piece in the museum’s collection outside the sunken USS Arizona (BB-39) was the Balao (285) class WWII submarine USS Bowfin (SS-287). The Bowfin was not just on static display to be viewed from the outside. This highly decorated old diesel boat had been modified to accommodate the general public touring through it.

The Bowfin is a highly decorated submarine which went on nine war patrols and is credited with sinking sixteen large enemy vessels totaling 98,658 tons (including nine cargo ships, four troop transports, two tankers, and one frigate), plus an additional twenty-two small craft (such as patrol boats, trawlers, and schooners), and one bus. Yes, that’s right. The USS Bowfin sunk a bus when it destroyed a pier with a torpedo, causing the bus that was on the pier to fall into the sea.

Because of our late start, we would have to choose between taking the ferry to the USS Arizona memorial or going inside the USS Bowfin. (Note that the mighty battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) where the Japanese signed their surrender had not yet been moored in Pearl Harbor at this time, so was not among our choices. In early 1998, it was either the Arizona or Bowfin.) I thought I had punished Mitsuko enough for the day and felt we should skip the somber sunken ship and go inside a surviving submarine. I told Mitsuko we should go on the Bowfin so she could see something somewhat similar to what I did for the Navy.

I said somewhat similar as there couldn’t possibly be anything on an old diesel boat that was anywhere near remotely in common with a modern nuclear-powered fast attack submarine. But I was wrong. I was surprised to see numerous pieces of equipment that I was familiar with, such as a Sharples lube oil purifier. It looked virtually identical to the ones on the San Fran in which I had mastered in the art of petroleum product puke prevention. In fact, I was so surprised that I forgot my decorum and began to disassemble it for cleaning and inspection right there in front of Mitsuko. It was satisfying to be able to show a nice lady a little bit of what my day-to-day life was like.

I reassembled the purifier, we completed our tour of the Bowfin, and the two of us returned to my Marauder. We had a really great time inside the submarine and at the Pearl Harbor Museum as a whole, which made me wonder if I ever ended up being romantically involved with a German girl sometime later on, should I perhaps “accidentally” take her to a Holocaust Museum on our first or second date? Debatable and for another time.

We cruised back to Waikiki, and I introduced her to New York style pizza at the International Market Place. Both Mitsuko and I indulged in the pineapple pizza, so maybe it was a little bit New York, a little bit Hawaiian to be more precise. I mean, I hadn’t ever seen pineapple on pizza back in New York. This was a Hawaiian thing. After a couple of beers at the Tiki bar, she declined my offer to walk her home. Hmm. Probably shouldn’t have taken her to the Pearl Harbor Museum. We gave each other just another simple hug goodbye, but we did make plans to go out and wing it again the following Wednesday in Waikiki.

Monday morning, I woke up with 1073 days to go. We had been in heavy maintenance mode for a couple of weeks parked way out at the IMF pier, and this week would be no different. We had already swapped out the two steam generator safety valves—where I directly participated in the replacement of the starboard side one. (I should note that this evolution required three people and a chain-fall.) Then I moved onto pressure testing numerous little relief valves, ones that were small enough to handle onboard by myself.

Things were soon about to be shook up from routine, however. After choking on a lot of ass during the starboard main engine morning huddle, Queen La Chiefa pulled me off of relief valve pop-testing duty to perform a welding repair to the port side high pressure air compressor (spoken “hi-pac”). That sucker vibrated so much that the pipe union on the discharge line would crack regularly and piss out air at unholy decibel levels. Chief Queen said that we were out of replacement fittings, so my assignment was to repair the cracks with the TIG welder.

The reassignment was a welcome break from boring relief valve pop tests, but the real shake up that he announced was that we were about to go onto round the clock shiftwork with two 12-hour shifts and no days off for two weeks. This was mainly in order to hydro-lance the main condensers and two other large heat exchangers in the main sea water system. No days off for two weeks was bad enough, but La Chiefa specifically placed me on the night shift on account of my drinking habits. He literally told me that was why he specifically selected me for nights. (“Considering your proclivity for, shall I say, exuberant indulgence…”) Apparently Chief Queen had bought into the captain’s whole mantra of “nothing good comes from excessive drinking.” Pffft. Whatever. What do they know?

Shitty shiftwork and its stogy sobriety wouldn’t start until the following week, however. I still had one regular work week left, and right then and there, I had some welding repairs to do. Queen La Chiefa assigned Carlos as my fire watch and helper. The TIG welder was stored way down in engine room forward for reasons unknown to me. There’s no reactor compartment access down there, and engine room forward is only accessible by ladder, not stairs, making it difficult to transport the welding unit around. (Note that the only access to the reactor compartment is two decks above in engine room upper level. This just made it that much harder to be the designated hero in an emergency.)

Prior to even setting up to weld, by far the most time-consuming part of the job was to get what was called a “tag out” on the equipment. I won’t bore you with the details here, but it’s a lot of paperwork and waiting to make your work area “safe.” Once the port-side hi-pac was tagged out, Carlos helped me drag the equipment up to engine room mid level, which included the welding machine, torch, cables, argon bottle, hoses, grinder, more hoses, more cables, fire extinguisher, personal protective equipment, welding blankets, and a portable partition. We set up all the equipment and safety gear, I donned my badass cowboy looking suede leather welding jacket, gauntlets, and helmet, and I was ready to rock. Carlos had his aluminum shield with the little tinted window at the ready. Just before starting, Carlos had a request.

“If you were to give me any free pointers from your welding school, I would be most appreciative.”

“Oh, you’re a bit of a welder yourself?”

“No… which is most unfortunate.”

“Ah, so you weld as well as you ride motorcycles?”

“Absolutely.”

“No sweat, I could show you a thing or two.”

“That would be most… fortunate.”

“Okay, so the most important thing to remember when welding is one-tee, two-tee.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what the instructor kept responding with anytime I asked a question, so it must be important.”

“Okay one-tee, two-tee. Got it. What else?”

“Second most important thing is to make sure you don’t reverse your electrode polarity.”

“What happens if you reverse the electrode polarity?”

“Try to imagine every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.”

“Alright, important safety tip. Thanks Egon. But seriously, what actually happens if you reverse the polarity… actually?”

“You know, I don’t even know. I’ve never tried reversing the polarity. Maybe it unwelds the metal.”

“Seems logical.”

“Yeah, I dunno. Anyway, ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Watch your eyes.”

I quickly snapped my head forward to flip my welding helmet down and struck an arc. At that instance, there was a mini-explosion brighter than any arc I had ever witnessed, and then it immediately extinguished itself after a groan from the welding machine and a loud zapping noise in front of me. I lifted my welding helmet back up and saw that the tungsten electrode on my welding torch had completely vaporized.

I looked over at the TIG machine, tugged on the cables, and noticed I had connected the leads backwards. Right after warning Carlos not to do it, I had reversed the polarity with the torch on the positive terminal and the ground on the negative terminal. This is how you would connect a SMA unit (aka a stick welder), but not a TIG welder. My mistake was probably out of habit from hooking it up that way all summer long the previous year while aboard Submarine NR-1’s support ship, the MV Carolyn Chouest. I was stick welding anything the crew could think up for me to make. Couldn’t admit such a mistake to Carlos however.

“Yeah so, I just wanted to show you what happens when you reverse the polarity on your electrode. You know, since you were so curious. Apparently, it turns the solid metal tungsten into, uh… some sort of a gaseous form and then becomes part of the atmosphere… which of course makes it rather difficult to weld with.”

“I bet that’s where you’d have to apply the old one-tee, two-tee trick.”

“Right. That’s exactly right. But that particular welding with the atmosphere one-tee two-tee technique is rather advanced for a beginner. So now let me show you how to connect the TIG machine leads in a more traditional manner.”

“Would you say you must connect the leads punctiliously?”

“No, I would not say that. Not unless you can tell me what that word means.”

“I cannot.”

“Then I’d say, just connect them so some fucking diggit doesn’t get a chance to come around the corner and shout out, ‘Attention to detail, shipmate!’ or some bullshit like that.”

“Yeah, fuck those guys.”

“Fucking diggits.”

With the welding machine connected properly and a new tungsten electrode installed, the repairs took less time than it took to actually set up the machine properly. I then had time to go into more detail explaining the welding fundamentals to Carlos, and did so in a much more serious manner.

Following the lessons, we broke down the equipment, stowed it all, returned the paperwork to the Engineering Duty Officer, and removed the tag out. (Note that the repaired union held out as long as I was stationed aboard the USS San Francisco without cracking again.) I must say, I was feeling really good about the assignment and discussed this glowing feeling with Carlos.

“Yeah, welding on the hi-pac was a pretty cool assignment. It’s like, I finally made an actual repair to this big black stinking sewer tube. You know, I’m just so tired of all this mindless boring-ass inspecting, and checking, and testing shit all the time. And always fucking changing oil on everything even if it doesn’t need it. Shit like that’s so fucking boring. I fucking hate that shit. I just wanna do real repair work. Like fix actually broken things, you know?”

“So, you’re saying you wish the boat would break down for you more often?”

“Uh… yeah, I guess so. If that’s what it takes for me to do real mechanical work, sure.”

“Would that not be considered… scrofulous?”

“Carlos, I have no idea what all your SAT vocabulary words mean.”

“Neither do I.”

“Like, where do you even get these all these crazy ass words anyway?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“Do you like have a dictionary in your pocket or something?”

“No, I’m just happy to see you.”

“Wow, that’s disturbing.”

“Absolutely. It is most absolutely… disturbing.”

I had duty the next day, so by the time of my date with Mitsuko on Wednesday, I would have been on the boat for thirty-six hours with maybe three hours of sleep. Thankfully we were just supposed to meet in Waikiki for a low-key pizza dinner at the International Market Place again. Mitsuko had really taken to the New York style pizza. After consuming our interstate blended New York style Hawaiian topped slices, we walked to the Crap Hole Tiki Bar.

She stopped in an ABC store along the way while I waited outside. After a few drinks at the Tiki bar trying to think what we might be doing next as it was still relatively early. I didn’t know where the night was heading, but I was sure as hell that it wasn’t going to be back to her place so had to think of something. I was sure of it, that is, right up until the point she invited me back to her place. She said she had something to give me. This took me by surprise.

Up until her invite, it was quite obvious that she didn’t want me to pick her up or drop her off directly in front of her apartment. First it was on Kuhio, then on a side street, and tonight at the International Market Place. Maybe she just didn’t want me to know her exact address until she felt comfortable around me, yet over the phone she mentioned in broken English that men were not allowed inside her place. She also said she didn’t want them to see her with a man when I had offered to walk her to her door.

At first, I thought maybe it was a peculiar Japanese custom. Maybe single women weren’t supposed to be seen alone with men. But I guess in reality she just said men weren’t allowed inside to make the whole not wanting me to know where she lived seem less insulting. I don’t know. But on this particular night, this particular male was in fact allowed inside her apartment. Among other places.

Her building was clearly a hotel converted into studio apartments. Everything was very beige and poorly lit. The bathroom and closet were immediately on the left as I went inside her unit. Past the bathroom and closet, there was one big room with a queen size bed centered against the left side wall, with one large window straight ahead, a rather plush chair in the far-left corner, and a desk and a minifridge along the right wall. She had a microwave and a hot plate on the desk for basic cooking. The window had earth tone floor-to-ceiling heavy curtains that were pulled closed.

Mitsuko pulled out a couple of Asahi Black beers from her ABC bag and then grabbed four pieces of individually saran-wrapped unagi sushi from the mini fridge. Mitsuko and I had an exceptionally hard time holding any sort of meaningful conversation, so I never really knew what was going on inside her head. Yet right then and there, I understood how observant she had been this entire time, taking mental notes of things I liked. She might not have been able to express all her thoughts to me with words, but she certainly was able to express some of them with deeds.

I sat down in the plush chair with my beer and unagi, and she sat across me on the bed. After the snack, she got up and stood in front of me without saying anything. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I held my arms out. She turned around, sat on my lap, and curled up around me. I wrapped my arms around her. Neither one of us said anything until she started gently pulling up on the hairs on my left arm repeatedly.

“It so…”

“Hairy?”

“Umm… it very uh, orange!”

“Yeah, orange. Or red. We usually call it red hair.”

“Wow! I never see this!”

“Yeah, most people in Japan have black hair, right?”

She tried to pull on some of her own arm hair to show what she was used to seeing in Japan, but she had so little arm hair that she couldn’t really pull on anything. Mitsuko then turned her attention to my chest hair poking out a little bit from my tee shirt.

“Oh, orange here!”

She began softly pulling on it.

“Yeah, it’s orange—or red—all over.”

I pulled up my shirt so she could see, and she rubbed her hand back and forth across my chest. She seemed to enjoy this, so it gave me an idea.

“Here, get up for a second.”

We stood up so I could take my shirt off. I sat back down, but on the bed this time. She continued rubbing her hand around my chest hair while standing in front of me. That gave me another idea.

“Wanna get comfortable on the bed with me?”

“Okay. Okay.”

I moved further onto the mattress, she took her shirt off, and we embraced each other on the bed while laying down. We faced each other, occasionally kissing on the lips but without tongue or any words as she played with my chest hair. This silent yet suggestive play continued for a little bit of time with no more forward progress until she noticed my armpit hair and gently pulled on it.

“Yes, it’s red there too. It’s red everywhere.”

“Oh, everywhere?”

“Yes. Take a look.”

I unbuttoned my pants and pulled my boxers down a little bit to expose my pubic hair without exposing my boner. This excited her.

“Oh! Orange!”

She immediately sat up and started pulling on my pubes gently. Then she had something to share. Mitsuko stood up and took off her skirt and panties to show me her pubic hair. I stroked her fluffy black pubes briefly, and then she bent down to grab her clothes as she giggled and covered her mouth. While she collected her garments to put on the chair, I took the opportunity to take off my pants and boxers while still laying on my side. She got back onto the bed facing me and began gently pulling on my pubes.

Mitsuko and I started kissing again, now with a little bit of tongue. She moved her hand onto my cock. I unhooked her bra and began caressing her breasts. She began to stroke me. We were now kissing passionately. It was too much. Now ready to explode, it was time to get it on. I pulled her towards the center of the bed and rolled her on her back, then began fucking her.

Well, I didn’t exactly smoothly and firmly position her without words and instantly get it inside of her like some sort of pro. No, there was a little bit of technical difficulties at first, I should admit. The entrance was much closer to the butthole than I had remembered. I was certain it was immediately below the clit, so after quite a number of my thrusts were thwarted, I had to fiddle around until I found where it goes. Perhaps she thought my fumbling around felt good, possibly seeming like I was brushing her clit with my tip purposefully as it deflected upward from the non-hole area, because once I actually found the hole, she was extremely wet and inviting. It slipped right the fuck in. It felt like having sex for the first time all over again.

So warm and tight!

The whole thing went from unagi to punani in just a matter of minutes. I did not see that coming. I also did not see me coming, uh, coming. Mitsuko was a small girl with narrow hips. Once inside of her, I found her to be significantly tighter than Treasure, Jane, or Jennifer. She fit me like a glove! On top of that, because I hadn’t anticipated scoring that night, I hadn’t purchased any condoms. Not prepared for such overwhelming sensations down below, I blew my load pretty quickly with most of it thankfully outside of her. The boner remained firm however, as it wasn’t a full load blown on account of the rapid pull out. After a quick trip to the bathroom sink to wash off any cum, I immediately went back to work on her.

Mitsuko was fairly quiet, making what I would describe as little creaking noises. She didn’t sound anything like the three previous professional girls (who may have been faking it) or like any lady I’ve watched in a porno. If she came, I think the only way to tell would be by her facial expressions or her spastic convulsions. I wasn’t sure she if had a rather muted climax or not from those potential signs, so I just kept going at. I was able to do so only because I had already partially came, and yet still remained hard. I was in some sort of orgasmic no-man’s land. A demilitarized zone where I nearly finished, but not quite. It reset the boner timer while completely bypassing the flaccid factor.

Eventually Mitsuko began drying up, so we stopped fucking when it began feeling uncomfortable and I could see that discomfort in her face. This was right around the one-hour mark, so maybe the hookers were onto something. Is this what time is based on? (Time to a standard orgasm will be called an “hour.” Time to a premature ejaculation will be called a “minute.”)

I didn’t ask Mitsuko if she did have an orgasm, standard or not, as I would expect we’d need her pocket translator. Kinda weird thing to ask electronics. Wonder if you type “Did you come?” into one of those things, would respond “5318008 3434.” But I digress. Anyway, I just assumed she didn’t come. I was thinking it should be pretty fucking loud, even for a Japanese lady. Like how she sounded on the back of my motorcycle cruising down the Liliuokalani Freeway. I figured next time I would bring condoms and lube. We both deserved nice, full-blown proper orgasms!

The ride back to my Ala Napunani apartment was full of satisfying thoughts. Now at just barely twenty-two years of age, I finally had sex with a woman who didn’t make me pay for it afterwards. Seemed like she really wanted to do it with me. No trickery. She came up with a plan to have me come over, and everything progressed nice and organically. This was the first time ever that having red hair was advantageous for me that I could think of. It finally paid off!

Then there was the act itself. She felt pretty tight around me. Maybe I’m normal sized and those professional vaginas were too big after all. And man, it felt really good without a condom. There was just so much sensation! It was like riding a motorcycle without a helmet! But shit, that was a really fucking close call nearly coming inside of her. I definitely needed to buy some protection before meeting her again, which was the next day after work.

The morning muster gas chamber was uneventful. I was back on small relief valve pop-testing. There were so many of those little fuckers that it felt like they were breeding. It was better than just changing oil, I guess. After the morning meeting, my most dreaded 1MC announcement was made once again. These fuckers were relentless.

“ATTENTION ALL HANDS. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. THERE WILL BE A RANDOM—”

“No way! I just went like fifteen fucking minutes ago.”

“—FOUR. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. THERE WILL BE A RANDOM DRUG SCREENING FOR THOSE WITH SERVICE NUMBERS ENDING IN FOUR.”

I turned to Carlos.

“Random my ass! They’ve called four four fucking times in a row now. Like, what the fuck? Does Hash Brown’s service number end in four or something? I bet it does! It has to. I fucking bet you they’re trying to nail Hash Brown, and I’m just getting all caught up in this shit. This is fucking bullshit!”

“Absolutely.”

“Mother fucker. I just fucking went! Fucking Navy!”

The odds of “randomly” calling the same single digit number four times in a row is one hundredth of one percent. There’s no fucking way that this was “random.” I had a giant fucking list of reasons why I couldn’t wait to get out of the fucking Navy in 1070 days, and getting called all the time to take a whiz quiz a few minutes after I had just peed was right at the top of the pile. I fucking hated it.

I had never done drugs in my life, other than alcohol, which is legal, and now once again, I had to consume uncomfortable amounts of water and coffee without stopping until I had to urinate. The chiefs that were just waiting to see you pee in a cup would reprimand you if they saw you on the mess deck not drinking and drinking and drinking unhealthy amounts water or coffee while they waited for you to go. It’s like they didn’t know the difference between a stomach and a bladder.

It doesn’t go straight to there!

As usual, I was among the last to pee. All the chiefs thought I was an asshole. Like I was purposely holding it in or something to avoid work. This was definitely not the case. I never once popped positive on a drug test, so all these whiz quizzes did was make my life in the Navy that much more degrading. Even Queen La Chiefa would be irritated by my poor pee-pee performance. It irked him that I couldn’t timely tinkle when told to. I should add that on top of these “random” tests, there were “all-hands” drug tests as well. For the first few months in Hawaii, I was peeing in cups for them to examine about twice a month. Fucking Navy, I swear!

Thankfully I was going to use my dick for other purposes after work. It was pretty evident that Mitsuko was thinking the same thing as the plan was that instead of meeting somewhere out in Waikiki to grab a bite to eat, I was to proceed directly to her apartment after work. I was certain that meant fornication first and food following, so I had to make a pit stop at the grocery store in Waikiki called the Food Pantry prior to my arrival.

I had seen condoms there before in pursuit of yellow Gatorade. It was on Kuhio Avenue at the corner of Walina Street. That’s the same one-way street where I got pulled over and chewed out by the cop with Aloha attitude for making a stinky PU-turn. At this point, I no longer wore helmets, so it briefly made me nervous, looking around for police cruisers out front when I parked. The coast was clear.

Inside I spotted the condoms but hesitated. I didn’t want anyone to see me grabbing them. So, I decided to find some lube first to buy some time. Having thus far so little experience with copulation, I had no idea you were not supposed to use petroleum jelly as a sexual lubricant as it tends to dissolve latex condoms. But a big jar of Vaseline was a good way to block a little pack of condoms from the view of other shoppers. Now I just hoped I would get in a line that had a dude cashier.

High five, man.

Of course, the cashiers were all women that day. The day that I would be buying condoms for the first time in my life, I had a female clerk at the cash register. I don’t know why, but I felt extremely embarrassed. I felt like I was being judged. I felt like dying.

She touched my package and scanned it! Now she’s looking at me! Maybe I should have purchased some Magnums! No, I should have gone to a vending machine in a truck stop or something! Oh my god, having sex is so difficult!

I don’t know why I was so embarrassed. It’s not like the lady made an announcement afterwards throughout the store.

Attention all customers. Attention all customers.  The guy exiting the store right now just bought non-Magnum condoms! Non-Magnum condoms! He has a small penis! Small peris alert! Look out for the guy with the little pee-pee coming through. And Leilani, clean up on aisle five. Small pee-pee guy knocked over the lubricants. Clean up on aisle five, Leilani.

This of course did not happen, but that’s sure what it felt like. Stupid. I know. Once back on the bike and cruising over to Mitsuko’s place, it was all forgotten. Got the condoms, got the lube, we were all set for sex. But first there were beer and snacks. Mitsuko had stocked back up on Asahi Black and little unagi sushi pieces. Then it was time to get down to business.

I made suggestive faces while nodding towards the bed. She smiled and shook her head yes. We both stripped down to our underwear and got onto the mattress. I alternated between kissing her on her mouth and sucking on her tits, and then I slid down. I pulled off her panties and attempted to go down on her, but she immediately became extremely shy about this. Mitsuko waved her hands at me and caught my head with her thighs. She didn’t really say anything as much as make exasperated sounds.

“Are you okay? Is everything alright?”

“No. No-no-no. No, uh…”

“No head? Okay. Okay, I won’t go down on you. Message received.”

She let go of my head, and the both of us sat up. Mitsuko then used her arm to motion me to lay back. While she did not want to receive head from me, she was most definitely up for giving some head to me. I slid my boxers off happy to give her the opportunity. However, once she started, it was evident that she did not have much experience doing this. As for being a recipient, I of course was also inexperienced. But I had seen it done by professionals in porn before, plus two of the three ladies of the night that I had experience with certainly went down and right into town on me. It was like Jane and Jennifer both used my dick to stab their mouths. It seemed as if they had a meatball lodged in the back of their throat and were using my cock to dislodge it and ram it down.

Grrrrr, get in there! It’s my grandma’s recipe!

With Mitsuko, it was more like she was enjoying a lollipop. There was quite a bit of suction involved—like she was literally sucking my dick—but her lips played absolutely no part in the blowjob other than to keep the seal intact. She was not bobbing her head up and down at all. My dick sort of just sat in her mouth like that lollipop, and she’d occasionally give the tip a lick, sometimes even doing a little swirly one.

Well, this is a pleasant way to pass time.

While the warm, moist vacuum of her mouth felt nice, it didn’t really do a whole lot for me other than making me want fuck her even harder now. Like it needed to be done! The moment I couldn’t hold back from taking her, I told her that was enough and it was time for her to lay down. I put on a condom, got on top of her, began thrusting at her crotch until it caught a hole, and then just went at it rapid fire like a little fucking rabbit. She was quite wet, so we didn’t even need the improper lube.

With the condom on, it definitely reduced my sensitivity. I suppose that wasn’t necessarily that bad of a thing. At least I wouldn’t blow my load so quickly this time. The night before, we had only fucked in the missionary position, and this night started out no differently. At first, the only experimentation I did was with the speed and the stroke.

After getting a bit tired fucking her hard and fast with my arms straddling her as if I was doing pushups, I dropped down onto my elbows and slowed down a bit to a medium pace while dripping sweat onto her. Eventually I put my full weight on top of her with my arms wrapped around her tightly into one big hot, moist, and slippery mess. I began thrusting very slowly and deeply, and even used the tip of my feet to help get it up in there as far as I could go.

The face she had been making, which I understood to be one of pleasure, started to turn into confusion and also what one might describe as a little bit of discomfort. Her little creaky squeaks became more of deep breaths and audible exhales like we were in a Lamaze class or something. I noticed this yet kept thrusting away as I thought it felt outrageously good and she hadn’t dried out yet, so maybe that was simply a Japanese orgasm reaction.

This is a different response now. She must be coming!

But no. That was not the case. She started tapping me to stop, which I did immediately. I then pulled out, looked at her inquisitively, and she tried to explain while bouncing her pointer finger against an open palm.

“Maybe, uh… maybe too deep?”

The way she said it and the use of hand signs was fucking adorable. I now knew why guys like Bento had Asian fever. Little tiny vaginas made our little tiny dicks seem a whole lot bigger than they actually were! This was great! But the glee I had just experienced was quickly replaced with shame. I found it very disturbing that I was now thinking of Bento during sex, basically giving him a virtual high five. I tried to clear my mind of such thoughts. I slid back into Mitsuko and started thrusting much more gently.

Then I had more intrusive thoughts, this time about another guy on the boat named Rick. He was a coner in A-Gang and supposedly had the biggest dick on the San Fran. That knowledge in itself didn’t bother me and also wouldn’t be cause for inappropriately picturing his giant smiling gap-tooth face while banging Mitsuko.

Oh my god! That fucking shit eating grin of his! Why!?!

I found myself thinking about him because of some random stripper and the conversation she and I had over a fake champagne that I bought for her one night when Charlie wasn’t around. She just plopped onto the stool next to me and started up a conversation immediately, likely spurred on by my high and tight haircut.

“Military?”

“Yup.”

“What branch?”

“Navy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your MOS?”

“I don’t have an MOS. I mean, it’s like… the Navy doesn’t use MOS’s. We have NEC’s.”

“Okay, so then what’s your NEC?”

“My main one is thirty-three fifty-five.”

“What’s that?”

“Basically, I’m a mechanic on a submarine.”

“Oh wow! Small world. I just met another submarine mechanic. Which submarine are you on?”

“The San Francisco.”

“No way!”

“Yes way.”

“That’s crazy! The guy I just met said he was on the San Francisco too!”

“Well, we are in port.”

“Do you know a guy named Rick?”

“Uh, yeah I do know a guy named Rick on the San Fran. Is this particular Rick tall and thin with a big, uh…”

“Dick?”

“I was going to say a big gap between his front teeth, but yeah, word on the street is he’s, uh… well equipped.”

“That’s for sure! His dick is fucking huge!”

“Haven’t seen it myself, but others have described it to me as being like a baby’s arm.”

“Oh my god, that’s hilarious! That’s a perfect description! He has the biggest dick I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“So like, he came in here a few days ago, and we go up for a lap dance, right?”

“Right. Okay.”

“And so I’m doing my dance and this thing’s poking me in the ass, and I’m like, ‘What’s in your pocket!?!’ and he says, ‘My car keys.’ so I go, ‘You’re not gonna to start a car with that!!!’”

“Could start something up with it I guess.”

“Oh yeah, totally! Fuck, he was really turning me on with that thing during the dance!”

“Wow. Neat trick.”

“Yeah, so I said to him, ‘I have a bottle of tequila back at my place if you wanna come over.’ and he goes, ‘I don’t like tequila.’”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Oh my god, you guys are all the same. Like who cares about the fucking tequila!?! Since he was so damn clueless right there, like you are right now apparently, I was like, ‘Let’s try this again. I have a bottle of tequila back at my place we can totally ignore if you wanna come over.’”

“That was clever.”

“Yeah, then, you know, we, uh…”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“But you know what?”

“What?”

“He’s like too big. Kinda hurt a bit to be honest.”

“Yeah, it’s hurting me just thinking about it.”

However, I was trying not to think about that. I did not want to think about gap-toothed Rick banging that stripper. I refused to think that. But I had to think about something. That’s how my mind works. I’m very visual. I drifted into my thoughts and figured that scenario would never in a billion years happen to me. What I ended up thinking about was how it would be much more like this if she had given me that particular lap dance instead of Rick:

“What’s in your pocket?”

“My keys.”

“Oh, you drive a Mini? That’s so cute!”

“No, it’s for a motorcycle. And I don’t like tequila.”

“Uh… okay, sure. Whatever.”

“Do you like vodka?”

“No, not really. Yeah so, the song is over now. Do you want another dance?”

“Yeah… I guess so. I mean, that is if there’s any more money in my pocket next to my little mini-key.”

“Dig deep, sailor.”

Yeah, pretty sure that’s how my dance would go with that random Déjà Vu stripper. But I no longer had to think such disappointing thoughts. Now there was hope for me. My dick was actually one size too big for Mitsuko. Maybe I should have been going to strip clubs that mostly featured Asian girls. But that’s another thing I didn’t have to worry about. I had someone to have sex with already. In fact, I was having sex with her right then and there while thinking all these stupid intrusive thoughts.

Fucking intrusive thoughts!

I had to get those thoughts out of my head. It was time to switch things up with a new position. I rolled the both of us over as one unit with me still inside of her, placing her on top. This was unannounced and seemed to take her by surprise. The transition was what I’d describe as discombobulated. Nothing smooth about it. Not that calling out, “Cowgirl now!” would have helped us any, however.

Mitsuko eventually found her rhythm while on top after a bit of awkward bouncing and shifting around and some “Oh sorry’s.” Oddly, once she got going, I felt much less sensation. There was virtually no sensation for me in this position to be honest. Was surprised by the lack of sensation. It was like she was simulating a hooker’s vagina when on top. Fortunately, she ran out of steam rather rapidly. Looking back, I think she actually came while riding on top, but I didn’t realize that at the time. All that convulsing and giggling afterwards. I just thought she was laughing because she was embarrassed for being worn out and in need of a break. Figured it was my time to take over.

Okay new position! Time for doggy style!

This one I definitely liked. Doggy style felt really good. Big fan of the it. I began banging her harder and harder and faster and faster again. Cowgirl style was only good for taking a break and refilling the health meter. Now at full strength, doggy style was by far the best position. We hadn’t even gotten into the weird ass tantric stuff yet, but this one was perfect. At least for me. She started looking back at me, and it seemed as I might have been going “maybe too deep” once again. This must have excited me as I came so hard I almost went weak kneed.

“Holy fuck!”

I pulled out after I completely came, collapsed onto the bed, and rolled onto my back. I was hot and sweaty and breathing rapidly. My hardon dissipated quickly. Just like how she had been so curious and mesmerized with my red hair, Mitsuko immediately began inspecting my limp dick. She was fascinated with the cum inside the little hot pocket extension at the tip of the condom. It was completely filled and then some. She kept squishing it and making various “oh” and “hmm” sounds.

This should have been amusing, but for some reason, maybe from being exhausted, I found her behavior really strange and disliked it. So much so, I immediately felt like leaving. I got up to take the condom off and wash up. She was still naked on the bed when I emerged from the bathroom. I really didn’t want to, but I got back into the bed and cuddled with her for quite a bit of time. We didn’t say anything while embracing.

The whole time on the bed I was thinking about how much I wanted to leave. I realized there was that unfinished business of going out for some dinner, but I didn’t feel like going anywhere after coming. We cuddled in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually I had to say something so I could leave.

“Uh… I’m kinda tired. Been at work a lot lately, so… yeah, I’m pretty tired.”

“Tired?”

“Yeah, tired. And like, I know we only ate a couple of little snacks, and you probably wanted to go out for a real dinner, but I’m just not hungry right now, so I don’t… I dunno, I’m just not hungry at all.”

“Not hungry?”

“Yeah. Not hungry. And I’m pretty tired. So, I think maybe I should just go home. I think I just need to get some sleep at home. Okay?”

“Oh? You go home now?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go home now. So maybe… how about we go out to eat tomorrow night instead? Okay? Tomorrow? Like to a sit-down place with table service. Maybe an Italian restaurant? You seem to really like the pizza at the International Market Place, so maybe we can go to an actual sit-down Italian place when I get off work tomorrow. Okay? Does an Italian restaurant sound good to you?”

“Okay. Italian restaurant tomorrow.”

“Yes, exactly! Sounds good right?”

“Okay. It sounds good!”

“Great! I’ll call you after work tomorrow. Okay? I’ll call you after work?”

“Okay!”

It was weird how I just wanted to leave like that. The ride home this time was confusing. It didn’t make any sense how all day long all I could think about was how much I wanted to go over her place, rip her clothes off, and fuck the hell out of her. But then immediately after doing just that, all I could think about was getting the hell out of there. So strange that I suddenly didn’t want to be with her and just wanted to leave her apartment as soon as possible. I didn’t know what was going on in my mind. It was all confusing.

In the morning, the first thing I thought was that I had 1069 days to go. The second thing I thought was that I was really looking forward to going out to dinner with Mitsuko after work. The third thing I thought was how weird it was wanting nothing to do with Mitsuko immediately after we had sex. I must have been tired and cranky.

I called Mitsuko when I was home from work and then cruised over to Waikiki. I knew exactly where she lived now, so I parked my Marauder out front of her place. We walked along Kuhio Ave to go to an Italian restaurant about a block away from the pizza place in the International Market Place. It was on Seaside Avenue and called Matteo’s.

While walking to the restaurant, I began to notice some patterns in Mitsuko’s behavior. Conversation was difficult with her, so there were often lulls in it. I then just realized that she never initiated any of the conversations. If I stayed quiet, she would too. And she had this tendency to fall in line and walk behind me. Not off to the side and slightly behind, but walking directly behind me as if she were literally following me in my footsteps. I’d start talking to her like she was beside me, turn my head to see her reaction, see she wasn’t on my right side, then turn my head to the left and wonder where the hell she was. Mitsuko was directly behind me!

“Oh hey, what are you doing back there?”

She did it again while walking to Matteo’s. I grabbed her hand and gently pulled her alongside of me so I wasn’t just talking to the air on the way to the restaurant, not that we really had much to say that could be understood. Really, the only thing I needed her to understand was that I was soon going onto nightshift with no days off, so it would make going on dates a lot harder. I think she understood me by the time we made it to Matteo’s.

Inside, the restaurant had fairly dated décor from the 1970’s and the menu was straightforward American style Italian dishes. I probably had the chicken parmesan, and I don’t remember what Mitsuko ordered. But I do remember that we didn’t talk as much here. This dinner was filled with a bit of quiet eating whereas we should have been really getting to know each other as it was only our fourth date.

During previous meals, we talked a lot more, but didn’t really say much of anything. Our conversations contained overly dramatic expressions of confusion when we misunderstood each other and exaggerated laughter that one resorts to when there is a language barrier. It was almost theater-like.

An example would be when I kept forgetting to refill her beer glass at Restaurant Row on the first date. I was reacting in a manner that a child would probably find humorous. After a while, that sort of acting becomes tiring, and now the conversations were fewer and farther between. When I did initiate a conversation, I could see how frustrated she was when I couldn’t understand her. She wasn’t mad at me; she was mad at herself and kept apologizing for it. I felt bad for her.

“Look, your English is great. You speak two languages. I only speak one. So, you don’t have to say sorry about anything. You’re doing great.”

After dinner, we decided to walk the “longer” way back to her place by going down Kalakaua Avenue along the beach. I had an idea of how to prevent the long periods of silence but also not talk simply for the sake of talking. No, I had something constructive to discuss.

“Hey, say ‘three thanks’ to me.”

I thought she was to the right and a little behind me, but once again I was talking to the air as she was actually directly behind me. I stopped and turned around, motioning her to walk next to me.

“Why are you always walking behind me?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry.”

“No, you don’t have to apologize. Just walk beside me. Stay next to me. All the time, okay?”

“Oh, okay. Okay.”

She actually seemed quite happy about this. She beamed and wrapped her arm around me as we continued walking. I figured it was some sort of cultural thing. However, when researching the veracity of my claim for this book online, most of the search engine returns stated that what I observed is not only untrue in modern Japanese culture, but that it was not ever true. In fact, I saw on one website that this claim of mine is “one big fucking fantasy in the minds of the white male.”

Maybe so, but not for this white male. I didn’t like when she did that because I was in no way shape or form looking for a submissive woman. What I was really looking for was a real ball-buster like that Russian girl Anya. And I definitely didn’t fanaticize Mitsuko walking behind me. I didn’t imagine it; I witnessed it. I saw her do this many times with my own eyes. During this research for my writing, after a bit of scrolling, I did eventually find an old New York Times article written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist named Fox Butterfield who referenced what I had in fact observed:

JAPANESE WOMEN TOO, ARE BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS (New York Times – June 17, 1974 – Fox Butterfield)

“…By convention, Japanese women are supposed to be demure and subservient, a brood of shy, giggling Madame Butterflies content to raise their children and leave worldly affairs to their husbands.

But appearance is deceiving in Japan, and power often rests somewhere behind the throne, with those who pretend not to have it. In medieval Japan, for instance, the Emperor was merely the creature of the shogun, or generalissimo, who carefully swore his fealty to the Imperial Palace.

So too, in some ways, Japanese women have always exercised more power than it seemed. In public they might dutifully walk two steps behind their husbands, but at home the men turn over their pay checks to their wives, receiving only a small allowance in return…”

Take that however you’d like as I didn’t find too much more online supporting my observations, and even this article came out nearly two years before I was born. But I know what I saw, whether it was cultural or simply peculiar to Mitsuko herself. And once I got past this positioning problem while walking back to her place, to prevent any problems associated with silence, I went back to my constructive conversation plan.

“Mitsuko. Say ‘three thanks’ for me.”

“Hmm?”

“Can you say ‘three thanks’ for me? Three thanks.”

“Tree sanks?”

“Three thanks.”

“Tree sanks.”

“Three. Thhhreee. Thanks. Thhhanks.”

“Tree sanks.”

“Okay, if you want, we can work on that. Do you want me to help you with your pronunciation?

“Okay! Yes!”

“Alright, let me see. Three, tree, three, tree… Thanks, sanks, thanks, sanks… Hmm, I think you’re keeping your tongue too far back in your mouth. I think you just need to put your tongue against the back of your teeth. Wait, say ‘think teeth’”

“Sink teef.”

“Think, sink, think, sink, teeth, teef, teeth, teef… yeah okay, your tongue is definitely just too far back in your mouth. I don’t think it will be that hard for you to make the right sound if I could just get you to change where you put your tongue when saying those words. Do you understand?”

“Uh…”

“Tongue too far back. Put tongue forward to your teeth. Understand?”

“Oh! Okay, okay.”

We went to a street light so I could show her where I was placing my tongue. I figured it would be easier for her to try with her not just pressing her tongue against the back of her front teeth, but to actually curl it around the bottom of her front teeth. Might be a little exaggerated, but seemed like an easy way for her to make a more proper “th” sound.

“Do you see my tongue? Look. Right under my upper front teeth. Like roll it up there when making the ‘thhh’ sound. Look: ‘Thanks, thanks, thanks, thhhuuh, thhhuuh, thhhuuh, thanks.’ Try it.”

“Thhhssanks.”

“Oh yeah! That was it! Try it again. ‘Thanks, thanks, thanks’.”

“Thhhssanks Thhhsanks Thhhanks.”

“There you go! You got it!  Keep saying it. Three thanks, three thanks, three thanks.”

“Thhhree thsanks. Thhree thanks. Three thanks.”

“Perfect! Try ‘think teeth, think teeth, think teeth’.”

“Thhhink teef, thhhink tee…thhh. Thhhink teethhh.”

“Good! You’re doing really well!”

I kept making her say various combinations of words with the ‘th’ diphthong until we made it all the way to Kapahulu Avenue down by the zoo. I was surprised how quickly she caught on.

“Alright, guess we should cross over here and then head back to your place? Okay?”

“Okay.”

Once we crossed over and walked up Kapahulu.

“Uh… What, mmm, what age? For you, what age?”

“I’m sorry? What age for me? You’re asking me how old I am?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I uh,  just turned twenty-two a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh? Twenty-two?”

“Yeah, twenty-two.”

“Oh, oh… uh, hmm. Hmmm, okay. Okay.”

Despite her “okay,” Mitsuko looked to me a little bit concerned.

“Is that bad? Is twenty-two a problem? How old are you?”

She shook her head ‘no’ and waved her hands.

“Alright, you don’t have to tell me. Generally speaking—in America at least—men aren’t really supposed to ask women how old they are. It’s uh… it’s considered rude. So, yeah, don’t worry, it’s fine. You don’t have to tell me your age.”

I had absolutely no idea how old she was, so by this conversation alone, I figured maybe she was in her thirties. To this day, I still have no idea. It certainly didn’t matter that day. Her place was only two blocks up and half a block over, so we didn’t have time to linger on this conversation. And no age gap was going to prevent us from banging that night!

Once we were inside her apartment, we wasted no time getting me inside her vagina. I pounded her with frenetic energy as she made those unique creaking noises louder and louder now, hopefully showing her that there were some advantages to dating a fit twenty-two year old serviceman. With my youth and her tiny, light weight frame, were fucking all over her room and in positions I didn’t even know the names of yet. But I know she came this time for sure, as she finally started getting more vocal about it, and then I did too from all the excitement.

But once again, I immediately began having strong feelings of resentment. Again!?! I wasn’t tired or cranky from stinky duty that night. These emotions were strong, and I immediately wanted to leave, but I was able to hold them in check to cuddle with her. None of this made sense to me, but the feelings were there nevertheless. At that exact moment in time, I had absolutely no attraction to her and did not want to be laying there hugging her. Why didn’t I want to hug the only girl in the world who ever made me come? Almost three times in fact! Yet even thinking this, I just wanted out of the bed.

Mercifully, her phone rang. It was one of those big beige corded landline phones on the night table next to the bed. She sat up an answered it, so I rolled out of the bed, put my boxers on, and sat in the plush chair in the corner. I sat there looking at her naked body as she spoke on the phone in Japanese for about fifteen or twenty minutes, wondering how I had found her attractive earlier if I no longer did now. I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me. My reaction made no sense. My feelings for her flipped suddenly right after coming hard. Again. For the second time in as many days. It had to be some sort of hormonal thing.

But why resentment? She made me come for crying out loud! What was wrong with me? Was this maybe a Catholic guilt thing? My god, the sheer number of religious lectures against temptation and sin that I had endured as a teenager must have brainwashed me! Premarital sex was one of those sins. But I only went to church to meet the ladies, not to actually listen to the lectures. As a teen, why would I listen to that shit? I was rebellious and wanted some lady friends. That was the only reason I was there.

It was hard to meet girls back then as I was enrolled in an all-male high school, so it fucking figures that the one place I actually could meet them kept telling me that I couldn’t touch them. Now I began to wonder if those damn homilies had subconsciously sunk into my brain without permission only to activate like a sleeper cell spy network immediately after fornicating. Sneaky bastards. And hell, the Catholic church was vehemently against masturbation. Now I’m getting off hands free in an unbound lady’s vagina. Could I really be feeling guilty for having sex before marriage?

Maybe, but then why didn’t I feel this guilt after banging three hookers or after my first night hooking up with Mitsuko? The obvious difference was that I didn’t come with the hookers, and my first night with Mitsuko was more like coitus interruptus. Perhaps the state of being horny completely overrides any feelings of guilt. Then whatever hormones released during an orgasm immediately satiate any and all of that horniness. Did I just revert back to my natural state after coming?

As she was on the phone, I started to wonder that maybe I didn’t actually like her all that much. Was I blinded by being horny? Did it block my thoughts about not being able to connect with her? All that time spent sitting across dinner tables with each other not being able to say anything? I know she was an intelligent, thoughtful woman, but we just couldn’t hold a meaningful conversation. It felt like I was talking to a child despite knowing it was all on account of that giant language barrier. Maybe that prevented me from being attracted to her, but then my horniness just plowed right over that until being reset by releasing my little swimmers.

Or maybe my feelings for Mitsuko were somewhere in the middle. Perhaps my extreme attraction for Mitsuko prior to sex was exaggerated due to horniness, and these feelings of resentment towards her after coming were also exaggerated, but in the opposite direction. Like maybe this was all an over-correction similar to the overshoots when changing reactor power or my theory for those feelings of euphoria after a hangover. I figured my emotions were just over-corrections on the way to reach the proper equilibrium.

Still, the feelings were real. No one had ever told me they had feelings like this, so when I was first experiencing them, I didn’t know why I was feeling that way. I hated it. Now at least I had some theories. Maybe there wasn’t really something wrong with me. Maybe this was normal. Whatever it was, I knew I had to keep how I felt from her. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.

I left shortly after her phone call. She said it was her father. It definitely didn’t help the way I felt. I had just fucked her. I was in a chair staring at her naked body. And she was talking to her father. I had to go. I told her I had duty in the morning, which was a Saturday, and reminded her that I started on no-days-off nightshifts on Monday. We made plans to meet for pizza and a motorcycle ride Sunday afternoon.

Around lunchtime on Sunday, I swung by Mitsuko’s place to pick her up on the Marauder, and after a quick stop for some the International Market Place pineapple pizza, we set out for a cruise on the Kalanianaole Highway. With a high speed sprint down the Lunalilo Freeway (the older, western portion of H-1), and a slow speed carving through my favorite highway on the planet, we arrived at parking lot of the Halona Blowhole.

I had wanted to take her to the blowhole on our first date but was worried about Jay-Jay’s jalopy overheating. We didn’t stay too long. There’s only so much time you can spend watching a wave crash into a cave and blow up through a vent. We blasted off to finish cruising along the Kalanianaole Highway and returned to Honolulu through the tunnels of the Pali Highway, but not before stopping at another scenic overlook before those tunnels.

We went for a stroll on Kalakaua Avenue along the beach after parking the Marauder outside her place. The struggle to hold a meaningful conversation was once again ever so present during our walk, but I had a new idea to fill the silence. I began asking her how to say some useful phrases in Japanese as it was a forgone conclusion that during my upcoming six-month deployment, we would pull into one or both of the US Naval bases in Japan.

“Thank you very much” was, of course, domo arigato, and that was easy enough to remember because of the Styx song. What was more difficult was to not immediately follow up that nicety with Mister Roboto. Japanese was going to be difficult! In fact, the answer to domo arigato would take quite a memory trick to commit it to my lexicon. “You’re welcome” is doitashimashita. It’s a mouthful, but fortunately sounds a bit like “don’t touch my moustache,” which was a lot easier for me to remember and would definitely come in handy in Japan.

We hit up the Crap Hole Tiki Bar for a few drinks and then retired to her place to get down to business. It appeared that I wasn’t going to see her for quite some time. Weeks perhaps. I was about to go onto these dreaded barless nightshifts with no days off a while she had her daytime classes. Before completing my nightshifts, she would be returning to Japan for a couple of weeks. And I was fairly sure that I’d be out to sea upon her return, as we still had the Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination and the Tactical Readiness Examination to compete in not a lot of time before heading out on our six-month WESTPAC deployment. So yeah, this was likely my last chance for sex for god knows how long.

I was now anticipating having those feelings of resentment after coming. Mitsuko was now solidly my sexual partner, and I had to work my way through these unwanted emotions. I wasn’t expecting that resentment the first time. I dismissed it as being tired and cranky, so was even more surprised being resentful the second time. But this time, I was expecting these feelings to return. And they did, but they were far less acute.

The feelings were easier to deal with this time, and I was able to cuddle afterwards without my skin crawling. But I now understood all those jokes about giving cab money to a chick right after banging. Maybe I wasn’t the only one to feel this way after all. The jokes seemed to me aimed at girls who were used just for sex. I thought it shouldn’t apply to a woman someone cared about. So, I did wonder if the anticipation of sex was masking my realization that I just wasn’t in love with Mitsuko. I didn’t really know her all that well due to our language barrier.

It was an unusual feeling to not report to work at 7 am on a Monday. Am I really free until nighttime? Felt like I was doing something wrong. I mean, in the military, you almost always feel like you were doing something wrong at any given moment. There would be a chief coming by to confirm that for you any moment now. But this felt extra.

We issued you the order to report at 7 pm! We did not rescind the order to report at 7 am however! You are in a world of hurt sailor!

We all knew the job we would be assigned upon reporting that night, at least in theory. The three junior guys on nights—Bento, Carlos, and I—were to hydro-lance the thousands upon thousands of seawater tubes in both main condensers. It’s one thing to think “thousands of tubes” and an entirely different animal to actually see them.

We have to clean all of these fucking things in two weeks? That doesn’t even seem possible!

On the pier was a giant piece of machinery which pressurized the hydro-lance line to six thousand pounds per square inch. The line itself was steel braided and maybe 3/8” in diameter. It snaked from the pier side pump, over the brow, down the aft escape trunk, down the stairs from engine room upper level to engine room mid level, down the ladder well to engine room forward, through the flood control hatch into the turbine generator lube oil bay, up to the platform in the overhead, and into the forward waterbox of the portside main condenser.

Our turnover from dayshift was quite lengthy. They had already rigged off the thick ass manhole access cover of the port side waterbox. This lancing operation took three squids to conduct. One squid had to squeeze through the more like boyhole manhole and go inside the waterbox to insert the hydro-lance into the tubes, one squid had to be up topside operating the water-lancing machinery, and a third squid right outside the waterbox would be wearing a sound-powered phone headset on to communicate with the topside squid.

The main thing that the briefing emphasized was that the highly pressurized water lance radially shot four tiny high velocity water jets that could pierce though you like a laser. It was imperative to not start up the machine until the lance was a few inches into a tube, and equally important to not pull the lance out until the jet was shut down.

Because this device would supposedly slice through fingers, hands, arms and other important body parts, we had to be extremely careful communicating. There would be no slang or imprecise words or commands that rhymed with anything that could be misinterpreted. For example, “no” sounds too much like “go” on the headsets. Due to fondness for our phalanges, we had to be deliberate and consistent with our language. “Start” and “secure” were better words to use as not only do they not sound alike, but they had a different syllable count. Similarly, we were prohibited from using “increase” and “decrease” at all times and were instructed to use “raise” and “lower” instead.

To make sure the tip was in a safe distance to pressurize, the dayshift had put three pieces of tape on the hydro-lance line, one at two inches from the tip, one at four inches from the tip, and one at the fully inserted point. Once we went over all the details including how to operate the pump rig up topside, Jay-Jay had one last sound piece of advice for us that wasn’t part of the official turnover procedure which was born of experience.

“You’re gonna get soaked inside the waterbox. We ended up just stripping down to our skivvies while lancing so we didn’t have to keep changing poopysuits.”

“Really?” Bento asked, “You guys were just in your underpants in there?”

“Yeah.” Jay-Jay replied.

“I’ll go first.” Bento volunteered.

“Ah, Jesus Christ. Don’t jerk off in there, you sick bastard.”

Carlos took the phone duty outside the waterbox and I was up topside operating the pump equipment with my own headset. This duty was second to only standing solid plant pressure control watch in terms of absolute boredom. We couldn’t joke around on the phones and I couldn’t talk to anyone up topside even if there was anyone around to talk to. I had to pay attention in case the machine had to be shutdown immediately. I just had to stand there in front of the big beast repeating commands over and over again and opening and closing a valve. Over the headset, I’d be saying these four lines ad nauseum:

“Start hydro-lance… Lower Level, Topside, aye.”

“Lower Level, Topside… hydro-lance is started.”

“Secure hydro-lance… Lower Level, Topside, aye.”

“Lower Level, Topside… hydro-lance is secured.”

Boring as hell. But that turned out to be the lesser of my two main complaints. Just standing there on the pier at night, the wind was relentlessly steady. I had never really noticed how the wind in Hawaii simply doesn’t let up. I began shivering. How the hell could I be shivering in seventy-degree weather!?! Back in New York, I used to go out in the snow in a tee shirt. Here my teeth were rattling in the most perfect nighttime temperature known to mankind.

Well… I’m definitely kama’aina now.

After a couple of hours, we decided to switch up positions. I was relieved that I was about to be relieved from the incessant wind. Bento was to take over for me, Carlos was going to go into to the waterbox, and I would take over the comms. Bento came up topside after redressing so that I could give him a refresher on the pump controls. First, I had to ask about his position in the waterbox.

“So how was it?”

“Damn man, there are definitely much better holes that stink like fish that I want to get into than that! It fucking sucks and my ass is all wet.”

“Shit. Well, this is just plain boring. And the wind is just so fucking merciless while standing here doing absolutely nothing.”

“Fucking trade winds are strong, huh?”

“I thought it was Kona winds in the winter.”

“Yeah, nah, they switch over around now. This is too strong for Kona winds. And just look at which way the flag is being blown.”

I quickly left the pier and the strong steady breezes blowing the flag in who gives a fuck what direction it is right now because I’m fucking cold as fuck. This new position down below had absolutely no wind whipping around. I was no longer in danger of freezing to death outside in the inclement nice warm weather of our Hawaiian paradise. I might die of boredom however. In this new position, I didn’t even have a valve to operate. I was just up on a platform in the overhead of turbine generator lube oil bay outside the port side condenser endbell, and for another two hours, I repeated slightly different lines over and over and over again.

“Topside, Lower Level… start hydro-lance.”

“Hydro-lance is started… Topside, Lower Level, aye.”

“Topside, Lower Level… secure hydro-lance.”

“Hydro-lance is secured… Topside, Lower Level, aye.”

After those two hours of boredom, it was my turn to strip down to my skivvies, put on goggles, and squeeze through the boyhole into the waterbox, with Carlos topside and Bento on the headset in the overhead of Lower Level. Inside the waterbox was just barely designed for human occupancy. It was dark, cramped, wet, and stinky. “Box” might imply a square or rectangular shape, but this box was a rounded, concave shape from the inside the endbell. But there was the flat wall full of holes as well. I suppose you could picture the shape as being inside a slightly squashed ball that you can barely sit up in, but it was cut in half and glued to a flat surface.

Once you crawl in through the vertical manhole, you immediately faced that flat surface with thousands of holes in it while crouching down on that inward sloping bottom. The flat wall you face is called the tubesheet. Those holes are the thousands of long ass tubes that run inside the condenser from turbine generator lube oil bay through condensate bay and to the aft waterbox in propulsion lube oil bay.

The stench was from the dead sea life baked onto the insides of the tubes by the steam on the outsides of the tubes. Any sea growth will reduce the efficiency of the main condensers by reducing the thermal conductivity across the tubes. In plain terms, that sea life would increase the number of atoms we had to split inside the reactor to go a certain speed, and it could actually reduce the top speed of our fast attack submarine, particularly if we are in warm waters.

Despite the stench, being absolutely soaked, and never once finding a comfortable position, I liked this role the best. Obviously getting soaked and worrying about getting my fingers cut off while crouched down in that stinking waterbox sucked, but at least it felt like I was actually doing something by repeatedly pushing a hose into a tube and then pulling it out. The time felt like it went by quickly. Two hours was up in no time and then it was time for midrats.

Up top on the pier was a big open sided tent with multiple tables and benches. I was pretty hungry and was hoping for pizza, but I’d even take that mushy baby meat ravioli at that point. To my horror, there was only once choice that night: bug juice and boloney sandwiches. White bread, boloney, American cheese (product), slathered in mayonnaise, and all washed down with colorful sugar water.

It was pretty miserable. I was pretty miserable. I could have been drinking beers and banging Mitsuko that night. Instead, I was scraping off mayo from my disgusting Hawaiian style sandwich while shivering my ass off on the IMF pier out in the open exposed to trade winds with my wet butt in my soaked skivvies inside an otherwise dry poopysuit with a wet crotch ring around it. Fucking Navy! What’s next this night? Another “random” drug test?” Fuck me. 1065 days to go. It had turned just before eating.

After the thirty-minute midrat break, it was more of the same. In fact, the next few nights were all identical. Night after night after night of water lancing the shit out of thousands and thousands of tubes, shivering up topside while operating machinery, and most horrifically constantly scraping off mayonnaise from our exact same boloney only prison menu. That was probably the worst part. Tired, cold, and cranky, climbing out of the hatch of the big black sewer tube for midrats on the pier and just hoping for a nice hot meal. Or at least something different. Doesn’t the Navy have other cold cuts to serve us like ham, or turkey, or even roast beef? Nope. Another pile of boloney sandwiches with half its weight in mayo for you! (Finest food in the fleet.)

Once all the tubes were lanced in the port side main condenser, it was time to inspect each of the thousands of tubes with a borescope to make sure we eradicated the sea growth. This was only a two-man operation with one guy inside the waterbox feeding the borescope tip into the tubes with the second person outside the manhole watching the monitor. Bento once again volunteered first to go inside first. I watched the monitor. Carlos watched me watch the monitor.

Tube after tube after tube seemed pretty clean. We probably should have checked a dirty tube before cleaning them all as a “control.” I wasn’t exactly sure what the marine growth would look like. But then it became quite clear there was a problem with one of them. I shouted to Bento through the manhole.

“Wait. This tube is really fucked up. Did we skip this one? There’s all this sea growth… these little hair-like cilia… things.”

“Might be algae.”

“Maybe. I dunno. But I was expecting baked on shit, not live growth. How would algae grow here?”

“Could grow if the tube is blocked.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, because this tube… it’s like bent or collapsed or something. I don’t know how a tube with pressure on the inside could collapse though. I just, uh… here take a look.”

I poked my head inside the condenser end bell with the monitor and saw Bento had the borescope down his underpants. I was not looking at a pinched condenser tube; I was looking at his testicles. And of that possible algae outbreak? Yeah, it was just his pubic hair. Once I realized he was slowly pushing the borescope through the valley of his balls, I started laughing pretty hard. Carlos asked what was up.

“He put the borescope down his pants.”

“Would you say that the inspection is now… tainted?”

“I’m surrounded by a bunch of comedians over here.”

“I’m gonna need to talk to Bento about this.”

“Alright.”

I got out of the way for Carlos to stick his head inside to talk to Bento.

“Hey Bento boy, have you considered shaving your balls?”

“What?”

“I think it would be best for everyone involved if you just shaved your balls nice and smooth.”

“No way man. I tried trimming my pubes once and nearly cut my wang off.”

“Wow. That would have been most… unfortunate. But you should really give it another shot. Think about it. They could be smooth as a baby’s bottom. I’m telling you, you’re really gonna like it.”

“Hey you homos,” I interrupted with, “Tubes not pubes, alright!?! Let’s get this shit done!”

Thankfully, I have no idea if Carlos was successful in persuading Bento to shave his hairy bean bag, and we quickly went back to inspecting tubes so we could move on from it. Over the next couple of days, there were only a handful tubes to touch up. Then it was time for the close out inspection by the Engineering Duty Officer so that we could reinstall the manhole cover. These sorts of things took a lot of time.

Once the word was given that the close out was signed off, we used a couple of chainfalls to “fly” the thick-ass heavy metal cover into place. We had one of the more senior guys around as a Quality Assurance Inspector (QAI) to sign off that we installed the cover properly, which included replacing the gasket and locking tabs, properly lubricating the threads, and using the proper torque values and “star sequence” when tightening the hardware. After the cover installation was signed off, it was time to pressure test the system.

We called this pressure test a “hydrostatic” test. With the system completely filled with water, which is virtually incompressible, and with the hull valves closed, we would keep pumping in more water in small quantities until we pressed up the system to 150% of maximum working pressure.

This number is of course classified as it would be easy to do the math to figure out how deep a Los Angeles class fast attack submarine could go. We’ll just say we had to pressurize the system to hundreds and hundreds of pounds per square inch. Then we had to hold that value for ten minutes and inspect for leaks. (Leaks present would be obvious by not being able to hold the pressure without continuously pumping.)

The preparation and paperwork prior to performing the test took vastly more time than the test itself. Everything had to be documented, such as the serial numbers of the calibrated test gauges we’d be using and the date they were tested. These test gauges had to be trackable to the shop which performed the calibration down to the piece of equipment that did it, also with serial numbers and paperwork. There always had to be a paper trail. (Someone has to be assigned blame for fuck ups, right? Need to know exactly who to award the punishment to.)

But even properly calibrated gauges aren’t enough to prevent a fuck up like over pressurizing the system. Maybe we’re knuckleheads and started the hydrostatic test with the gauges valved out. Therefore, there must also be a means for automatic over pressure protection such as having temporary relief valves installed which could not be isolated without isolating the entire rig from the system. There was paperwork for that too.

This might seem like a big deal after simply completing what was essentially just a cleaning operation, but this was the main seawater system. Failure of this system would doom the ship. None of us would be returning home to our wives, girlfriends, bartenders, and strippers should the main seawater system let go. They might even make a movie about it. Nobody wants a movie made about their submarine. We had to test the system thoroughly to deny Hollywood the opportunity.

Dayshift cleared all the tagouts, filled the voluminous main seawater system, and brought the hydrostatic test rig down to propulsion lube oil bay. It was an air operated reciprocating pump which made chugging and hissing noises, required a regulator and a hose connected to our ship’s low pressure air system to operate, and was about two by two by three feet, all contained in a metal tube frame that was always awkward to lug around.

There was just one last step to do before we could commence testing that the dayshift didn’t get to. Since our hull valves were designed to seat with pressure from the outside for obvious safety reasons, not the inside, the valves had to be “gagged” shut. (Note: the obvious safety reasons were for the same reason our hatches open outward: higher seawater pressure tends to push the hatches and hull valves closed even tighter.) We needed the gag the hull valves shut so that the hydrostatic test pump didn’t pop them open from the inside.

This entailed installing a massive bolt into each of the hull valve assemblies and torquing them to somewhere around 1500 ft-lbs—I don’t quite remember, but that’s ball park. But it was a torque value I’ve never experienced in my life. I think up until that point, the most I had ever torqued something to was 175 ft-lbs on my 4×4 pickup truck, and that required all my might to get that satisfying “click” of the torque wrench.

Petty Officer First Class Harrison was on the nightshift with us and was to supervise the testing. He was also driving the gagging operation. He had procured the biggest socket I had ever seen, one that was at least four inches in diameter and had a one inch drive. He grumbled that it wasn’t an “impact” socket. This is easy to tell as standard sockets are either silver or polished chrome whereas sockets designed to be used with impact wrenches were always coated in a black oxide finish to distinguish them.

We were, however, not going to use some massive impact wrench to gag the valves. We would be using a device called a torque multiplier. Two of them stacked on top actually. A torque multiplier looks like a giant ratchet except it not only has the expected male drive on the bottom like an actual ratchet, but it oddly also has a female drive on top. Inside, instead of having a reversable ratcheting clutch, it has a set of planetary gears.

So, you snap in a traditional ratchet or a torque wrench into the female drive on top, hold the long bar of the torque multiplier stationary while swinging the bar of your ratchet. The output shaft will multiply the torque value and reduce the speed by its rating, typically two-to-one or three-to-one. We used both. We stacked a three-to-one on top of a two-to-one, so we only had to set our torque wrench to 250 ft-lbs in order to tighten the gag bolt to 1500 ft-lbs.

We were all set, and things proceeded nice and smoothly until the biggest socket that I had ever seen in my life suddenly shattered, with one of the big chunks of metal shooting directly onto Harrison’s foot. He took it like a man but hopped around shouting expletives for quite a bit. He came back limping, stating that’s why you always use impact sockets with torque multipliers, and that’s why you always where steel tipped shoes. He figured his foot would have been severely injured without the safety shoes, but still, the piece of the socket got him good after deflecting off the steel tip and into an unprotected part of his foot. He was in immense pain. And the hydrostatic test was dead in the water that night as we would have to wait until the proper socket was procured.

This was done on dayshift, but they too were unable to complete the hydrostatic test due to malfunctioning equipment. They spent all day chasing down where the pressure was escaping on the test rig and repairing it. We took back over on nightshift and successfully completed the hydrostatic test. We broke down the equipment, ungagged the hull valves, and completed all the paperwork with the QAI present.

We were finally done!

With the port side… Yeah, we had to repeat the entire operation all over again on the starboard side. Another week full of lancing thousands and thousands of tubes in our underwear, another week full of shivering up topside in the relentless trade winds, another week full of checking tubes and not pubes with the borescope, another week full of hydrostatic testing, and another week full of boloney.

It really all the same with the exception of one slight detail concerning the boloney sandwiches. For whatever reason, during the second week, the boloney sandwiches were no longer premade. My guess is someone had complained incessantly about the meal choice, and the mess specialist chief said,

“Fine! You fucking machinists’ mates can make your own god damn sandwiches. We’re not on shiftwork. We were just doing you a favor.”

And just like that, the mess specialists were no longer preparing the boloney sandwiches for us. That’s my guess as to what happened, but this was never confirmed. Regardless, when the next midrats rolled around, sitting on the table under the tent cover were big blocks of uncut boloney and American cheese product and white bread loaves. I don’t think any of us were expecting that none of the raw sandwich material was delivered pre-sliced. Was the Navy saving that much money having the mess specialist do all the slicing on the ships?

An unsliced loaf of bread is no big deal, but I have to tell you, seeing an unsliced block of boloney six by six inches and two feet long is a bit unsettling to see. It was an unnatural brick of forged meat. And so was what they left us to cut the meat and cheese-like prodcut bricks with. Just a box of disposable plastic knives. The blades weren’t even long enough to cut all the way through the blocks. Anyone who tried to power through all from one side of the meat block including using part of the plastic knife that wasn’t even sharp—if you could even call that little ridged part sharp—simply ended up snapping the cutlery in two.

You really had to cut it from both sides but no one was ever able to make neat slices with consistent thickness. The meat came out thick and jagged, and most of us ended up with boloney and cheese wedges instead of slices. You could kind of assemble them as interlocking meat and cheese but the bites would be inconsistent and alternate between being mostly boloney and mostly cheese. I actually gained some extra respect for the mess specialists for making the professionally prepared sandwiches that seemed factory sliced. Regardless, the monotonous meal really sucked no matter who prepared it.

I really should have just brought my own midrats, but I was always too exhausted to go shopping before reporting to my shift. The more sleep I could get the better. Maybe I should have left some money with my roommates to pick up snacks or at least a bottle of deli mustard the next time they went grocery shopping. They were twidgets after all and therefore not on these 12-hour no-day-off shifts like me. In fact, as far as I could tell, they were only working half shifts when not on duty. Fucking twidgets. Recruiters never tell you these details when picking your path.

The silver lining was that there was no mayonnaise to scrape off, but I was still dumbfounded that we did still didn’t have a mustard option.How the fuck do they not have mustard? I never heard of anyone putting anything other than mustard on boloney. But alas, after a week of some-assembly-required boloney kits, we too had completed cleaning, inspecting, and testing the starboard side of the main seawater system. Queen La Chiefa rotated us back to day shifts.

Our reward for a job well done? More jobs. Yeah, we just worked two weeks straight with no days off, so why give us a nice well-deserved day off to reset? Because there was still shit to do before taking the boat out for a little post IMF shakedown. Now that I was back on days and would have at least one day off the upcoming weekend, you might expect that I would be making the most of my time with Mitsuko before the various upcoming underways. I would have been doing just that, but she had already returned to Osaka for a couple of weeks. Chief Queen had done an amazing job of unwittingly preventing me from getting laid.

With hydro-lancing complete and virtually all of the mechanical deficiencies addressed, the only thing left for us swabbies to do maintenance-wise was paint. The San Fran did have a bit of wear and tear inside and outside of her. Along with Carlos, I was assigned the big ass main sea water piping in propulsion lube oil bay. The cold-water pipe insulation was fairly soft, so the paint had cracked all over from all of the expansion and contraction.

The cracking looked like reptilian scales the size of quarters. Not only that, but the ugly-ass seafoam green had faded into something even nastier like this yellow-green that perhaps could be called sea vomit. A number of spots were also stained dirty brown from dripping turbine oil. Overall, it just looked like ass and really did need to be repainted, along with many other parts of the engine room.

The overhead of propulsion lube oil bay was quite vast and there was just a myriad of piping components. Carlos and I were up on our own ladders painting and painting and painting seafoam green everywhere all day long. After each of these twelve-hour shifts painting down in the belly of the boat, we were high as fucking kites. Who needed to go out drinking when you can huff paint for twelve hours a day, several days a week? But after a few days, it was just too much. I felt really light headed and nauseated. I’d ride home on my motorcycle completely dizzy after the end of the shifts and sometimes barely remember the ride. Towards the end of the week, I started reading the labels.

“Yo dude, ever read what it says on these fucking paint cans?”

“I thought there were no dudes in the engine room.”

“Nah, fuck Queen La Chiefa; today he’s getting a whole lot of dudes in the engine room. And so dude, have you read your can?”

“No. My can is all painted over. Can’t read shit.”

“Well, I just read mine.”

“And?”

“And we all have brain damage now.”

“Absolutely. We absolutely do. I feel so fucking high.”

“Yeah, me too. We should have read the warnings first.”

 “What do the warnings say?”

“It says, ‘Open all windows and doors for cross ventilation.’”

“I see this particular type of paint was specially formulated for use inside the bottom of a submarine.”

“Yeah, clearly. But it goes on, ‘Fumes may cause serious brain and nervous system damage.’”

“Well, that is most… unfortunate. I prefer my brain and nervous system damage to have a sense of humor.”

“Right…”

Yet still we painted and painted and painted away. Despite the inevitable brain damage, it was nice to see the engine room look so bright and shiny, at least that part of it. Even that ugly-ass sea foam green looks pleasant after several fresh coats of semigloss. But what made the most difference to the ship’s appearance, hands down, no questions asked, was the coners painting up topside. The harsh sun and seawater environment had taken a toll on the hull. Stroll along the pier and most of the boats were looking weathered just like ours.

Faded, greyish-black paint, rust all over the sail and fairwater planes where paint had chipped, long diesel exhaust streaks down from the penetrations in the sail, green and brown marine growth along the waterline. The coners did a nice job cleaning all of that shit off of the hull and sail. The San Fran looked so sharp with a nice, fresh, deep, dark coat of jet-black paint. She stood out on the pier while you marched on by. This was now a boat one could surely be proud of. Tip top!

We brought the San Fran to life and took her out for just under a week to make sure all of our repairs were sound. I don’t recall anything going awry, so the short underway was mostly used to push along the noobs’ qualifications. The good news was that by the time we returned to port, Mitsuko would be back from Osaka. I’d have a whole weekend with her before going back out to sea for the dreaded Operational Reactor Safeguard Examination (ORSE) workup.

I picked her up on the Marauder late Saturday morning for our usual cruise along the Kalanianaole Highway and some pizza. We again stopped at the Halona Blowhole, but this time we climbed down the rocks onto the beach. I’m not sure if you’d call it a beach or a little sandy cove. We went to the other side and climbed back up the rocks and made our way out to a rocky point away from all the other tourists at the blowhole parking lot. The hard volcanic rock had all these little cave-like nooks, one of which was suitably secluded for us to claim for our viewing pleasure. I sat down and leaned against the back of the little rock cave, and she sat on top of my lap facing the same direction to watch the waves come in.

It was a very beautiful location. And due to the surprising seclusion, I thought it might be a good spot to have some outdoor public sex. No one was around, but anyone could technically climb up there just the same as we had. The thought of getting caught should make the sex a bit more exciting. Why not be adventurous? We’re so young! At least I am! Live life! Live our life as a collection of unforgettable experiences (even if we couldn’t express them to one another)!

That’s what I was thinking, but yeah, there was just that little problem of communicating this plan with Mitsuko. Despite all of our miscommunications, one thing that seemed to go pretty smoothly between us was when it was time to get down to business. That always seemed to unfold organically. Maybe it would be like that here as well. Does she have a sense of adventure?

And at first it proceeded well. She was very much interested in kissing. It was quite the romantic spot after all. As it became more passionate, I figured it was time to kick it up a notch and began caressing her breasts. She didn’t mind… until I tried moving my hand from on top of her clothes to below them. Then it was like I asked her what her age was. I got the “no, no, no” hand wave. Well, that was the limit. Kissing and caressing on top of the clothing. There would be no outdoor public sex adventure today.

I had really gotten ahead of myself. As we were kissing, I was getting as ambitious as wondering if I could get a blow job at the blowhole. At least a few of those lollipop style swirly tip licks. Whatever. I wouldn’t be picky. But that obviously wasn’t what was going on in her mind. She was probably thinking something romantic. What a sweet girl. I am a monster.

It would be a while before I saw Mitsuko again after this weekend. I had the ORSE and TRE work ups to complete, so we’d be out to sea for a bit. I’d be back here and there, but elephant in the room was the six-month WESTPAC deployment. I wasn’t exactly sure when that was starting, plus she was returning to Osaka again somewhere in that same timeframe, so there was quite a bit of uncertainty in our future. We had to make the most of it this weekend, and we certainly did. Mitsuko and I hooked up in her apartment much less adventurously all weekend. We both needed that!

Monday morning, I slid down the weapons shipping hatch ladder, dropped my seabag off in berthing, and made my way back to the engine room for the startup. While walking through the mess deck, a group of coners were hanging out. One of them stopped me.

“Hey Droughton, we saw you on your motorcycle Saturday…”