Any Crackerjack who hasn't went to the PI and performed a short time, long time, love you no shit fresh water wash down with Cold San Magoo and his ass parked on a dirty ol’ bar stool wasn’t worth a shit stain on a pair of skivvies back in the ol’ Canoe Club... gauddamn it we had standards to uphold!!!
Too many politically correct blowhards today fail to see what used to be considered a young Crackerjack’s obligation to run the streets of Magsaysay to Subic City like an adult Disneyland!!!
If you weren't there… don't try to understand it! Once you’d become an official card carry’n bottom feeder to the Westpac Fraternal Order of Swashbuckl’n Idiots… there’d be pride in being a Ship to Shore Whore! It showed you were tough enough to stand the conditions of loose panties in the South Pacific while strung out on Mojo, strength testing a few prophylactics here and there, building your immune system against the likes of NGU, Chlamydia… and the Clap... ‘Cause that’s what Swashbucklers do!!!
I mean, what’s sailoring without the frills and thrills of a ‘girl in every port!!!’
Back in the days when every pretty girl back home tried to emulate Madonna or Cyndi Lauper on an MTV video… I had a shipmate, we’ll call him Conrad, who’d ran into quite the dilemma!!!
Conrad was not your typical rollicking, happy-go-lucky swashbuckler! And he sure as hell wasn’t a’kin to the brightest light in the harbor either! He was down on his luck and couldn’t seem to find the girl of his dreams… let alone any girl for that matter!!
“When you’re a virgin… everyone jumps in with advice as they like to tell you the solution to ending your misery would be to get a hooker! Well… I don’t want a hooker! Hookers don’t wake up in the morning and scratch your back or do your laundry!”
“Most people suggest changes I could make that would make me more attractive to women… tell me places I could go where the fish might bite… you know! I've tried damn near everything but lesbian clubs, nursing homes and biker bars!! Believe me, I've done damn near everything to include mail order brides… nothing seems to work!”
“You know… I look into the mirror when I shit, shower, & shave and say to myself, ‘what a fat ugly son-of-a-bitch that is looking back at me!"
This was the kicker…
“Well, Conrad… you’ll find the right gal, everyone does… she’ll come along!”
“Yeah, social theories are nice but real life isn’t sooo theoretical! I’m starting to believe I just might be gay… If I’m not attractive to women then maybe it’s men!”
“Whoa… wait a minute there shipmate… Are you gett’n excited when you see your fellow mates bending over… experimenting with any of them strange plug in contraptions, and unexplainable doo-dahs for light in the loafer types?”
“…Uhhh no…”
“You got a problem with watch’n sports on TV… talk with a lisp… subscribe to GQ or Red Book… use pet names for everywhere and everything… wear pink stuff much of the time?!?
“No… none of that!”
“Then rest easy shippy… unless you got built in ‘GADAR’… your just a few fruit loops short of a bowl but you ain’t no pillow biter!”
Yeah… Some people don't just have brain farts… but their brains completely shit their pants from time to time!
“Yeah buddy, I don’t think you want anyone going up your shit creek paddling the pink canoe… you’re just a bit confused, about as confused as a baby in a topless bar!”
You see Conrad could fall off the ship and still not hit water he was so clueless! We went out for a night on the town… Pacers, Dirty Dans… & the likes, and I convinced him somehow that he was as straight as an arrow!! Anyone with a nudie mag collection the size of his ain’t float’n up no Hershey highway!!!
“Hey Swinger… you won’t tell anyone we had that conversation… you know about me thinking I might be gay and all?!?”
“I wouldn’t say shit if I had a mouthful!”
And a few months later we were on Westpac! It was time to concoct some wild and crazy memories!! When we pulled into Subic… most of the fellas onboard were like ownerless dogs living in the street, ready to mount anything that moved… We were gonna make it a liberty Jerry Springer would be proud of!!!
As Conrad and I hit the brow…
“On to heartbreak, loose women, and Momasans filling our glasses and taking barfine requests… Hoorah!”
“Hey Swinger, check out that one over there!”
“Yeah, she could suck start a leaf blower!”
“Hey Conrad… just stay clear of the Benny Boys!”
He just glared at me with an ax murderers stare… like I’d just put choral hydrate in his drink!”
…And the night was on…
Days had gone by and I hadn’t seen Conrad for a while until one duty day on the ship…
“Hey Salty Dog… you having fun on the town?”
“Yeah, Hey… I think I found the one! Her name is Jenelynne and I think I’m gonna ask her to marry me!”
“What the hell?!? Conrad… you just get here to the Wild, Wild, East… The sanctity of Mango style tatas to sow your wild oats and you wanna marry the first love me long time girl you stick your dick in?”
You gotta realize I’d already had my liberty brief from my Sea Daddy! Getting into relationships with bargirls is a bad idea and you certainly shouldn’t marry one!! Those who do often live to regret it! You don’t wanna be one of those ‘Bargirl-done-me-wrong kinda fellas!!!
I know… I know… I’m sure sometimes it works out! But don’t count on it!!! A bargirl’s very existence relies on bleeding you dry of every last penny you have!!!
Not only that… when you go on deployment… she becomes a Westpac Widow! I mean look at the ‘Trophy Lounge’ back home for Christ Sakes!! It was nothing but a meat market for ‘love you no shit’ girls!! When you’re not around she’ll go back to doing what she knows best… how to be a love me long time hooker!!!
Ultimately she becomes money hungry and you become a gauddamn walking ATM for her and her whole gauddamned family back in the PI!
“What the hell Conrad… you just wake up this morning and decided, I’m gonna marry a hooker and that shit’s gonna work out just fine in the long run? If it floats, flies or FUCKS… it’s cheaper to rent than to own!”
“But I love her!”
“Man… remember that conversation we had before we left the states… you know, you thought you were a homo because you’d never been laid?!?”
“I know but she’s the one!”
“It’s not love…”
“And she’s got a kid from a guy who left her!”
“What are you her knight in shining armor? You gonna whisk her away from all this treachery? Don’t confuse love with horniness!”
“You don’t understand…”
“OOOH I understand… It’s ‘I just got laid for the first time and the gates of heaven just sprang open for a few seconds!’ It’s bad Ju-Ju man… a bad idea… don’t do it!”
“But what should I do… I can’t get laid like this back home!”
“Listen… there’s always somebody for everybody man… but you can’t fall in love with every twinkly-eyed ‘LBFM’ sex goddess that’s given you woody when she walks your way!” This girl’s been banged like a broken screen door in a hurricane for God knows how long!!”
You know the ol’ saying… It's one thing to want an adventure, another to know how to have it?!? Poor ol’ Conrad was naïve and oblivious to what he was about to do!! He tempered down over the deployment… don’t know if he’d realized the error of his ways or was just keep’n quite to keep from being hassled!! We didn’t talk much after that! Kind’a makes me think he got suckered!!!
But you know how it goes… as young’ns we know more than everyone else… and behave with the appropriate amount of reckless stupidity! And just to think Olongapo is now a respectable business area with an address where it was once sociably acceptable to grab women’s behinds and pee in the street!! I hear Barrio Barretto is brighter and better but still much the same as it ever was… maybe one day we shall see!!!
