‘What Ima Do With A Drunken Sailor’

There was a time in the ol’ Canoe Club when we didn’t need the so called ‘Mandatory Buddy System!’ Shipmates you pulled liberty with were tighter than Siamese Twins and always had each other’s back!! With the regularity of sunrise, they’d haul your ass onboard from the local gin mill or had your ‘six’ in a pickled brawl… that’s just how we rolled!!!

 

Back when it was alright to have two beers on a liquid lunch while leaving hull numbers widdled in every bar stool from here to Shanghai! Like Cool Hand Luke, we’d take the currency from indigenous folk from around the globe while bestowing collegiate level eight-ball upon them while eat’n the barbequed monkey meat & slurp’n down San Migoos, Tiger Beers & Singhas all the while gett’n coaxed off corrugated tin roofs by Shore Patrol and the local Keystone Constable!! We got drunk on stuff they called the Mojo & the Bull Frog… the kind’a stuff that could probably qualify as weapons of mass retardation!!!

 

We cohabitated with the kind’a lady friends ‘Our Lady Of Lourdes’ would have given you the ‘double fisted kutz’ across your knuckles with an aluminum yard stick and never… ever approved of!!!

 

In those days of Yore, I had a runningmate we called ‘Smitty’ who had a Southern Accent like Karo Syrup dripping off busted china! He was a loud Happy-Go-Lucky, Jack Daniels drink’n redneck kind’a sumbitch!! He was crazy as a duffel bag full of shit throw’n monkeys but we put a lot of beers away together!!!

 

That being said, he was the kind’a fella you wanted around in case you were approached by a bunch of inbred mutant fuckups from B.F.E.! One helluva dangerous brawler with some real kind’a anger control problems!! Actually, he didn’t think he had a problem… as he was perfectly fine with slapp’n the hell outta people he thought needed it!!!

 

The man looked like a fireplug with leprosy, with moon craters a monster truck would have a hard time with! With a voice like he’d been chain smok’n Camels laced in Drano, he wasn’t pretty to look at and he never minced words!!

 

“I’ve been work’n like three donkeys on Texas Crank!”

 

… He would say, which was ironic as he was one extremely lazy sun-of-a-bitch who I don’t recall ever doing anything the least bit productive!! Of course I never said that, will deny ever say’n that, and claim that I was hauled off to a Trans-Siberian Gulag by some KGB folks look’n to yank out my dingleberries and set my testicles on fire!! Like I said… we put away a lot of beers together!!!

 

Attempting to start out on liberty at noon to have a beer in every bar within a twenty mile radius…

 

“Come on Swing, I’m look’n for a place with an infinite supply of beer that makes a sweat filled whorehouse seem like a venue of childhood innocence!”

 

“Let’s check out the sights first… we got plenty of time for drinking when the sun goes down!”

 

“Deployment is like a boner kid… long and hard! I need to wet my whistle, then wet my other whistle when that sun you talk about goes down… if ya know what I mean!”

 

“Spoken like a true alcoholic… having less judgment than bugs in a moonshine bottle!”

 

“Hell I ain’t no alcoholic… I’m a drunk! Alcoholics go to meetings!”

 

Well, he always said opinions were like assholes, everybody’s got one and they all stink! He never was taught how to behave around people who wore shoes!! I suppose I could have found one of them four eyed yeoman types to drink with but what fun would that be? Let’s face it… like a Jerry Springer show, a night on the town with this fella was hard to beat!! One thing was for gauddamned sure, you could guarantee anything from ol’ Smitty, he was never watered down!!!

 

So like barbarians on a pillage we’d cross the brow and venture the town… where ever the hell that was!

 

“We’ve walked a mile and not a drop to drink… where are all the bars, dens of sin, and hole in the wall beer joints? I’m look’n for a dirt dive with a five dollar sally in the alley!”

 

“Why don’t we find a reputable place to hang out?”

 

“LISTEN HERE… People who hang out in shit holes and back alley taverns are a helluva lot more interesting than ones that don’t!”

 

“I wonder about you sometimes!”

 

 “Well it don’t pay to wonder ‘bout things too much… life ain’t all ham hocks and home fries ya know!”

 

That’s when we’d finally found a place to toss the family fortune in the center of the table and suck up some suds! I don’t remember the name of this ‘Last Chance Saloon’ somewhere in the Singapore… but it was happening!! There were some pretty ladies and lots of music play’n and we were drink’n the local whiskey like it was water!!!

 

Smitty looked at his ‘glass-0-beer’ and noticed a long pint fluke at the bar and said he had to have one of those! I guess he thought he was Teddy Roosevelt charg’n ol’ San Juan Hill the way he took that pint glass and hollered…

 

“BOTTOMS UP!”

 

… ‘Cause he was a drunken sailor… and that’s what drunken sailors do!!!

 

I knew it was gonna be a long night the way he was carry’n on! Double fist’n one shot… two shot… three shot… four!! A devastating acquaintance would be made in the morning… but it didn’t matter… nothing mattered!!!

 

Ten shots into the night and we were well on our way! We got outside and I could tell ol’ Smitty was already shit faced!!  He could barely walk as he kept falling down the sidewalk!! I knew I was gonna have to baby-sit the son-of-a-bitch!!

 

“Look at you Smitty… Your drunk off your ass!”

 

“Gauddamn it… I ain’t drunk… I’m jessst gettt’n sertttt’d!”

 

He was the kind of fella who could hit you so hard it would realign your hair follicles! I didn’t want any unscheduled dental work… so I didn’t argue!! I’d realized we weren’t gett’n inside anymore bars with him in this shape!!!

 

We were a pretty good ways from the liberty launch, so we started walking back in that direction! He made it just a few blocks and decided to take a nap there on the curb!! I weighed my options, then hoisted this big fella over my shoulder and started for the pier!!

 

I guess in his inebriated state he was losing control of his innards! For the next few blocks he was butt burp’n every gauddamned step of the way!! I'd shift him from shoulder to shoulder and he'd fart again like he was rebuilding the ozone layer one poof at a time!!!

Another block and I was done carrying him!! Between the physical strain of carrying the big ol’ son-of-a-bitch and the stench of his gastric projection, he wasn't going over my shoulder anymore!! I was gauddamned pissed off at this point!! Using my foot, I rolled him over a few times down the way… one anal burp blaster after another!!!

 

I was done… but I couldn't leave him passed out roadside somewhere in Singapore! We had no car, I couldn't carry him anymore, and he didn't roll over curbs or sidewalks very well!! In a complete stroke of luck, a taxi passed by and asked if we needed a ride. So we hauled the big ol’ boy in the taxi and had to prop him up all ‘Weekend at Bernie's’ like…  while he was Blow’n Reveille out his ass like a bugle!!!

Before we got to the liberty launch while giving the car some extra gas he’d somehow managed to upchuck a peristaltic pyrotechnic show all over the back seat and floor of the taxi! Needless to say the taxi driver wasn’t too pleased!! We finally got to our destination and I apologized profusely as a few shipmates swarmed outta nowhere to help us out!!!

 

“Come on Smithy… You can do it… You’ve got this licked!”

 

The whole way back on the liberty boat he was feeding the fish while piss’n himself! We finally make it to the ship and he was escorted to his rack lett’n out one air biscuit after another with puke runn’n down his frontside & a big ol’ wet spot down his leg!! He was lett’n loose of so much gas he was burning a hole in his shorts!! Eventually it got so bad in berthing he couldn’t handle his own odiferous sense and was in the head doing the toilet tango in techno color once again!!!

 

I’ve spent many a night contemplating unison and harmony with the Porcelain God.. but he took the cake that night! I can still here the bastard singing some song I’d never heard before…

 

♪♪ Not so long ago on the one-eyed monster there was a girl of nineteen… so I split her guts until I ruptured her spleen… ♪♪

 

Yep… Drunken Sailors tend to form some kind’a inebriated bond… Like a special club that only us Seafaring Type are allowed to join! Some of us never learn the lesson that you never really buy beer, you just rent it!! As we found ourselves at the liberty launches at 0200 hours in the morning piss’n over the side of the liberty boat while reduced to the lowest common denominator, wreaking havoc on practically everything in our path… we were capsized drunk!!!

 

Yeah, we’d get back and get told what poor ambassadors of our country we had become! But you can guarantee one thing… shipmates would never leave you passed out in a strange alley… without cab fare or an extra few pesos for thirty minutes of euphoria!!  Thank God Employers hire old retired sailors based off what we know and not where we spent our ol’ Canoe Club years drink’n beer!!!