Things
hadn't been going all that well for me for a damn long time. Long enough in
fact that I couldn't really remember when it was that they had been going good.
When I stopped to think about it I was pretty sure I didn't even know what feeling
good actually meant for me anymore. My life had become something that I
couldn't even begin to comprehend and nothing going on around me was making
things the least bit easier for me. I was at the very least stuck in a life I
had no desire to be a part of and there wasn't a door or a window that I could
see to crawl, walk, run, jump or anything else that one might be able to do
through. From my perspective I was plain and simply screwed and that was just
about the most I could say about the whole situation.
If
anyone would have been the slight bit interested or for God's sake cared to any
small degree I could have told them they'd put me in the wrong place. I was so
misplaced it wasn't even funny and I guarantee you I sure as hell wasn't
laughing. I didn't want to be in Dam Neck, Virginia learning about Nuclear
Electronics so that I could be on a nuclear submarine for the next six years.
Hell no! If I was going to have to be in the Navy I was supposed to be at the
Great Lakes Naval Training Center and I was supposed to be singing with the
Blue Jackets Choir. And if I was going to have to be in their military then the
way I figured it I should have been in Canada and removed from the whole
Vietnam War thing instead of where I was.
But I
wasn't in Canada and I wasn't in Chicago but I was in Dam Neck, Virginia and I
was looking at becoming some sort of whiz bang kid that knew a whole bunch of
stuff our government and the Navy I was a part of didn't want anyone knowing
about. Now let's be honest here. That was pretty cool for a kid from a little
town in Wisconsin who when someone asks where it is you have to tell them about
a vacation place that includes something called the Ducks to give an
approximation of its location. I mean there was Top Secret questioning of folks
and everything just to make sure that I could be there. Honestly, how cool is
that? The thing was there wasn't a damn thing cool about it as far as I was
concerned.
Growing
up in New Lisbon, Wisconsin with a population of twelve hundred on a good day
and more bars than grocery stores didn't lend itself to providing a well
rounded perspective of the world for a kid heading into something loosely
termed adulthood. What little I knew and thought I understood about the outside
world came from the nightly TV news with Walter Cronkite. There wasn't a daily
newspaper in my world and no one talked about what was going on "out
there" though to be honest with you I wasn't all that sure where "out
there" was. In short to think that I was someone equipped in any way,
shape or form to walk out into a world that included the sixties and the
Vietnam War is to believe that Santa Clause really did give me that bicycle for
Christmas.
So
let's be honest about all of this, I didn't actually start out a prime
candidate for much of anything no matter what the Navy test scores claimed to
indicate and worse than that even if those test were right I didn't feel like I
was part of anything special nor did I deserve to be part of anything special.
And deserving had everything to do with everything. Our instructors were telling
us that our class was the best ever and that they were rewriting the tests
because we were doing so well. Hell, I wasn't even studying all that much and
the stuff they were putting in front of us wasn't all that complicated if you
just stopped and thought about it for a second or two. So no I wasn't feeling
all that special because I knew the truth about me.
Dam
Neck, Virginia was one of those problem you never even stop and consider if
you're not me but soon enough I came face to face with something that was maybe
more significant in importance for me
than the fact that I didn't want to be there. Did I mention there being more
bars in the town I grew up in than there were grocery stores? Yeah, and I
mention this once again only because they were bars with real beer. The problem
was that what had suddenly become my own special little piece of purgatory had
beer which from an early age I had not been discouraged from avoiding but in
this case it wasn't real beer. Well, not real beer in the way I understood
beer. It was that 3.2 beer which I would come to find out I'm actually allergic
to if getting kicked out of a bar and cleaning up after myself in the barracks
is any indication. Mom and Dad hadn't encouraged my drinking but they hadn't
discouraged it either and the truth was I'd come to like beer but by beer I
mean the real beer and not the stuff that they suck the life out of before they
bottled it.
To say
I was not content with my life is to say I wasn't content with my life. I
didn't want to be in the Navy, I didn't want to have to think of being in the
Navy for six years and at this particular moment in time I sure as hell didn't
like that the best I could get to take it all away for a moment was 3.2 beer.
He was
from Iowa and that's the best I can tell you. He was in my barracks though I'm
not sure he was in my class. None of that was important mostly because he was
one of those guys I secretly wanted to be like. He was cool if you could be
cool in a Navy school sort of way. He also as I would find out was the barracks
supplier.
As God
is my judge I can't remember how it all came about though it wouldn't surprise
me if it was something to do with me bitching about how there was only 3.2 beer
and how that just wasn't right and all of how I get when I get when I get like
I get. I'm sure there was more to the whole thing but in the end he said that
he had something and I might really like it if I was interested.
Honest
folks, I'm a coward in my humble opinion. I might think I've got a whole bunch
of courage right there inside of me but the truth is that unless I can see
there ain't no blood involved I'm probably not your guy. What my friend from
Iowa was offering me went outside my parameters of what was acceptable within
my life. I'd been taught, hell, it'd been drilled into and through my skull,
that you follow the rules no questions asked. From the hell and brimstone that
was thrown at me on Sunday mornings to the people of that little town that
seemed to walk the straight and narrow to my parents who would accept nothing
less I was not one to wander off into the realm of drugs. For God's sake they
throw you in jail for that sort of stuff!
He said
it was called Green Apple which I really liked the sound of. After all I was
all about the Beatles and there was this apple on their label and James Taylor
had recorded this really great album with them and so what could be the
problem? If you want to know about how I figure things out in life there's a
real insight.
There
it was in his hand; this green tablet and nothing more. I'd heard about LSD and
for some reason I thought there should be something more to the whole thing.
Just a pill? Really?
"You've
never done this before right?", he asked.
Hell no
I hadn't ever done that before. I hadn't ever done a shot or slept with a girl
and you're asking me if I've done LSD before?
"Nope"
was my very, very honest reply.
"Maybe
you should take a half tab the first time" he said.
Half
tab he said, that was cool, wasn't that cool? Yeah, half tab sounded really
cool and I was going to be really cool too because I wasn't cool right now and
after this nothing else would matter because I would be cool. I'd done some
Green Apple and damn I was cool!
Truth
be told the next thing I knew I didn't feel cool at all but instead scared
shitless knowing I had a half tab of Green Apple in my shirt pocket. In my mind
everyone had seen and everyone knew and I was so screwed that nothing I'd ever
do would make it all right.
As it
turned out the MP's didn't come to arrest me for procession. No one seemed to
notice. The only one that had a problem with it was me.
It was little more than a leisurely walk from my
barracks to the Atlantic Ocean and the guy who'd given me the Green Apple had
suggested what I should do is go down to the beach and take it there. With my
paranoia it made perfect sense and so off I went.
Gentle
waves and grey skies were my palette as I sat down on a mound of sand some
distance from the shoreline. As I recall the beach was empty which helped
tremendously as I stuck my hand into the pocket of my shirt and pulled out that
half tab of Green Apple. To this day I can't tell you whether it was a feeling
of curiosity or just a simple "what the hell" that found me placing
that pill on my tongue and then swallowing.
Sure
I'd heard the stories about LSD and bad trips and all of that. No I didn't have
the first idea of what was going to happen but the truth was that had been the
reality of my life up to that moment. I had never known what was going to
happen and this was nothing new.
It was
fall and cool but not so cold that just sitting there in my dungarees was
uncomfortable. I sat there thinking that something should happen the minute I
swallowed that pill but it didn't. The truth was I didn't know what to expect
and so I sat there watching the ocean as the waves came rolling in to the shore
one after another in some sort of measured cadence. I waited and I watched not
knowing but still feeling the cool ocean breeze and watching the waves come
marching in one after another after another.
Were I
to tell you the ocean is alive you might understand but I suspect not in the
way that I came to see it. As I watched the sea came alive with colors in ways
that didn't seem like colors. The tops of the waves began to sparkle though
there was no sunlight. They glistened and shined in a way that I couldn't begin
to explain and I was completely mesmerized. In the years to follow I would see
wonderful and beautiful visions more than once but I would never see something
that has stayed with me like the colors of those waves that day.
For
whatever reason, to this day I strongly suspect it was my innate paranoia, I
decided it was time to head back to the barracks. Yeah the waves were still
beautiful and all of that but someone might realize that I was enjoying myself
way too much and then there'd be hell to pay on my part according to my thought
process.
The
walk back to my barracks included walking by other dormitories. Three story
dormitories as I recall with the very basic dormitory architecture. Blank red
brick walls and rectangular windows. And that was what I was looking at heading
back to the place I called home.
Whether
I was consciously thinking about anything in the moment or not I can't say but
what happened next was something right out of some cartoon from the way back
days. I was looking up at the dorm windows when the window literally changed
into the sort of comic faces that I remembered from my younger days. The thing
was they were laughing at me in that huge cartoon way that only windows that
have come to life could possibly laugh at me. What had only moments before been
such an enjoyable moment had now become something that seemed to be telling be
that everyone knows and I will be severely punished for my indiscretion.
In the
end nothing happened because of my actions that day. I never decided to give my
"friend" any money for more little green pills and nothing more was
ever asked. Not many days/weeks after that I would be sent off to the fleet
rather than remaining at a school to learn about the latest ways to, depending
on your view of things, protect our nation or destroy the rest of the world.
Though
I didn't realize it at the time what I later came to believe to be the truth
for me at least was the fact that having spent time at Dam Neck taught me
things I would have never have come to realize otherwise. Even though I had
thought that the Navy wasn't the place for me my experiences there solidified
my beliefs and would never waver.
Whether
or not it was factual I believed that I had been forced into my reality with no
options. I detested feeling that way especially when I was watching others
around me seemingly sliding by and avoiding all together something that I had
thought was a responsibility. Perhaps most of all I detested the fact that I'd
come to realize that I hadn't been smart enough to realize there might be
options other than moving to Canada.
Sitting
there on that beach watching those waves rolling in all sparkling with colors
that seemed to surpass the colors of the rainbow showed me something that I
hadn't thought was a truth for a very long time. I came to understand that
there truly is beauty in this world if we will only stop and look for it.
Walking
back to the barracks that day taught me something else that I have kept with
me, they are laughing at me whether I know it or not.
I'd
never change my day with that half tab of Green Apple and I would never do it
again. You see although I don't doubt the dormitory windows might very likely
turn into caricatures and laugh uncontrollably at me once again I fear that I'd
not see the tops of the waves glistening with colors untold.
I have
to believe there's beauty in this world that dances on the tops of waves and
not just a bunch of dormitory windows
laughing at me.
