LESLIE CARROL KELLY

L. C. Kelly

Corporal Leslie Carrol Kelly must've been born with his pecker in his hand.  He had that same gap-tooth, shit-eatin' grin on his face as long as I knew him. 

Kelly.

He was one of those guys who saw everything as an opportunity to turn things to his advantage.  His aim in life was to get out of the military and go back to Texas.  And become a politician.  I would be his speech writer, he always used to say.

Kelly had a way of getting right up to the mousetrap to sniff the cheese.  He had a natural flair for edgy adventure.  I found myself his reluctant wingman more times than I’d be smart to admit.

Nothing criminal, of course.  At least not entirely criminal.

Kelly was from Texas.  The Padre Islands.

He loved Texas.

HOOK 'EM HORNS!

He used to say when referring to The University of Texas Longhorns in Austin.  His future wife worked there.

Kelly looked and acted much older than the scant twenty-three years he could actually put claim to.  His size and flinty self-assuredness made him a natural magnet.  For all kinds of people.  He was a born negotiator.  A real ‘sea lawyer’.  Even officers sought his advice.

A couple years older than me, Kelly was my first real friend in the Marines.  He and I spent a lot of time training together in the states.  And Puerto Rico.

Members of our unit regularly rotated through Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, a submarine base on the eastern end of the island of Puerto Rico.  It was a refueling and maintenance facility for both the US and British navies. 

We trained on a little island just off the base.  It was called Goat Island.  Only we were allowed to enter.  I never saw one goat.

From there, we bombed targets to smithereens in the waters just off where the poor fuckers on the island of Vieques lived.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Over my entire four year enlistment, I worked with probably no more than fifty people.  From that group, we regularly deployed in pared-down air support radar teams.  Two officers and thirteen or fourteen enlisted men. 

Sounds all very hush-hush, and in a way I guess, it was.  Our jobs even required a security clearance.  For the times - the late Sixties, early Seventies - we were deploying what was a fairly sophisticated and surreptitious, ground-controlled air weapons system.

We came to know one another very well, officers and enlisted alike.  And it was never really a surprise to run into someone from this group at various duty stations around the world.

Other than joint operations, we enjoyed considerable autonomy; always a bit removed from the larger Marine Corps structure.  Even in Viet Nam, we were stationed near Army helicopter units, not Marine outposts.  We hid in plain sight.

Kelly delighted in subverting the natural order of Marine Corps life.  He was a master at it.  Somehow he wrangled himself a semi-permanent deployment to Goat Island.  A new position.  Admin for the deployed unit.  Look out Puerto Rico.

Actually, it was really no secret how Kelly got orders.  Just one reason.  To get him out of Staff Sergeant Blankenship’s hair.  The last straw was the ticket Kelly got while driving the car of a captain who was overseas.  Didn’t help that the wife was in the car too.

Puerto Rico is a paradise.  And Kelly must have thought he had died and gone there.  In his flip-flops and shorts, he was the King of Goat Island.  For the most part, there was usually a training group coming through, and Kelly kept pretty busy. 

But, there were also times when he had the place all to himself, drinking beer and snorkeling in the clear blue water just off the island’s short beach. 

Life’s other refinements - like groceries, booze and cigarettes - awaited a short jeep ride off the island and directly onto the Navy base. 

Kelly’s primary job was to maintain radio contact with our home unit in North Carolina and coordinate training deployments.  Other than that, he was in charge of securing the area and keeping the pantry in the operations shack, an old mobile home, stocked.

Turns out, he was very good at it.

Before long, word got back that Kelly had shaped what had been a loosely run, on and off deployment operation, into a highly productive training environment.

Guys were coming back singing his praises.  Even the officers.

I knew I’d be the last to find out.  Sergeant B wanted to keep me as far away from Kelly as he could. 

We had history.

One night, Kelly and I pulled guard duty.  That gave us the next day off. 

Just after reveille, we turned in our weapons at the guard shack.  Through the course of the night, we determined we would finally go check out the college scene in Raleigh.  We’d catch a little shuteye and head out early.

And so we did.

In Raleigh, we met a couple of giddy young coeds and had a few beers with them.  After a bit, they said they were going back to the campus for a football rally.  They invited us to come.

What the heck. 

Late Autumn, it was already dark and we were among the last to arrive.  Excitedly, the girls jumped up the steps ahead of us and into the school’s grand entry.  The entire place was dimly lit, suffuse in the school’s colors of mauve and periwinkle. 

Just inside, the girls waited for us by the one door open to the packed and raucous auditorium.

Kelly and I looked at one another and waved them off.

We’re outta here.

Throwing their hands in the air, they ran shrieking and squealing into the fray.

The following is an admission of a complete lack of moral fiber and possibly, turpitude. 

Or.  As we saw it.  Fun.

Right next to the massive entry door was a trophy case.  Gleaming within its wood and glass confines - in the centermost position of importance - was the Holy Grail. 

 

The State Football Championship trophy!

Kelly and I nodded wordlessly. 

Could we really get away with ‘liberating’ it?

To our surprise, we could.

Luckily the car was nearby.

We hustled down the chill night street like a couple of suspicious rug merchants.  Our heavy coats wrapped around our boodle. 

We returned to the barracks.  It was late Friday night.  The place was jumping.  Music was playing, guys laughing.  Some played poker.  Lights out wasn’t until 2:00 a.m.

Amidst great fanfare, we triumphantly entered and placed the Trophy in the middle of the squad bay for all to admire. 

The joy was short lived.

Saturday morning, Staff Sergeant Blankenship made an unusual visit.  He wasn’t supposed to be there.  Somehow, word of our triumph had gotten to him.

Luckily we were at morning chow when he came flaming through the barracks looking for us.

Returning, we made the mistake of going past his office.  There was the trophy!

OOOPS!

He stopped us in our tracks like only a former Parris Island drill instructor can do.

“GET YOUR SORRY ASSES IN HERE!”

Cussing like he invented it, he climbed our frames and gave us the fear of all things powerful. 

HIM. 

To complete our ignominy, and to nobody’s surprise, he made us take it back. 

I thought we might get killed. 

Later that night we placed it at the back entrance of a popular college bar.

Eventually, things blew over. 

Until. 

One traffic ticket later. 

Kelly was gone.

It took a while but I eventually patched things up with the good sergeant.  Not too much later, I finally got deployed.  It was most memorable.  It lasted almost three months.

We flew from North Carolina to Cuba.  At Guantanamo Navy Base they gave us a box lunch with a dried out mustard on baloney sandwich and an apple.  After dropping off supplies and refueling our C130, we flew on to Puerto Rico.

Kelly picked us up wearing shorts and a tropical shirt.  He had a deep tan, and if possible, it seemed as if his Texas drawl had become even more laconic.

He took the long way through the base to show us around.  Navy ships and submarines.  Cool.  We eventually stopped at a gate.  Kelly had me get out and unlock it, then re-lock it after he drove through. 

We crossed a little bridge and drove onto a contoured spit of land.  It was dirt and sand and rock; strewn with palm trees.  A natural breakwater offshore kept the water clear and bathtub warm.

The encampment and all of our equipment sat on a sandy rise that faced the beach.  It was nestled into a rocky recess that time and erosion had made exclusively for us.

The island was ours.  Nobody bothered us.  Troops slept in tents; the officers slept in the shack. 

We did have access to a barracks on the base.  But few used it.  Except on weekends. 

And hurricane season.

The weather was generally balmy and agreeable.  The scent of warm sea breeze offered a constant reminder that you were in the Tropics. 

We worked hard.  And played hard.  The unspoken rule was that a sense of ease would prevail.  Even the usual separation of officers and enlisted was selectively blurred. 

Blurred… is also a fine word to describe the nightly bull sessions around the sacred fire pit.  We chugged our way through truckloads of Schlitz.  The beer that made Milwaukee famous – and countless Jarheads drunk on their asses. 

We’d toss the empties into the white-hot center of the fire and watch the thick metal cans melt in the heat.  The stories were endless.  And as different as the people telling them.  Some fascinating; some scary.  All real. 

From the sacred fire pit, it was just a reasonable stumble to the tents and shack.  The nightly fire was a tradition that everyone there looked forward to.  Officers and ‘snuffies’ alike. 

It was paradise.

Gigolos.

One of Kelly’s better ideas. 

Until he got arrested.  And I woke up on a bunk fifty miles away.

My first real venture off of Goat Island came a week after Kelly won a bunch of money at the Navy NCO Club. 

A lot.  More later.

Kelly had been telling me about the great things to do and see in San Juan, starting with

The Old City.  The hotels, night clubs, bars and restaurants were over on the glitzy Condado Strip.  Lots of pretty ladies there, Kelly instructed me. 

He fixed it in my mind that perhaps we might meet up with some wealthy ladies who’d like the company of a couple of young, able-bodied Marines.  Wink.

We took the Saturday morning bus to the San Juan Naval Base.  A little over an hour away.  Old San Juan was just outside the gates.  Our liberty passes got us a bunk and a locker at the transient barracks.  For the most part, it was Navy guys on assignment or passing through, who stayed there.

Some sailors just don’t like Marines.  And show it. 

Especially the two dick weeds with lockers across from ours.  One of them suggested that ‘things happen’ sometimes here after dark.

We ignored them and headed to the NCO Club.  There you could get cheap beer and some great empanadas.  After an hour or so, we were full and had a pretty good buzz runnin’.

It was time to hit the streets.  We finished our drinks and headed off the base. 

First stop and right out the gate, Old San Juan.  Founded by Ponce de Leon, around 1508.  It was the fortified bulwark and departure point of Spanish exploration in the New World.  

A thriving world unto itself, Old San Juan is a crushingly compact warren of Colonial Spanish buildings and housing.  And countless bodegas.  And bars. 

Past shabby pastel doors, about a hundred steps or so down a cobblestone street, Kelly pointed ahead to a sleazy hotel on the corner. 

“Cool bar.”

Looked like trouble to me.

We entered. 

Adjusting our eyes to the dark, we felt our way to the bar. 

All wood and ageless plaster, this place was from another era. 

Dim bulbs in metal fixtures and lazy fans hung from the tin-tiled ceiling.  Drapes dimmed to a glimmer what light might have come through the tall, rounded windows.

Darkened nudes, pastorals and pirates, muted by years of nicotine and dust, posed blankly from greasy velvet wallpaper.  Mismatched seats, all in various stages of decomposition, defied us to stay. 

Weathered grooves from generations of elbows said otherwise.

Kelly was right.  This place was cool.

Our beers arrived and we toasted to liberty in San Juan.

With no introduction at all, a practiced warble came up from behind us and landed, perfume first, in our midst.

“I’m Mary.  You like?  Seven and three.”

Ever the old hand, Kelly gave her a dollar and said we weren’t interested. 

“Seven and three?”  I asked blank-faced.

“Seven for her.  Three for the room.”

Suddenly, boisterous British laughing and swearing swept in from the glare of the sun. 

Four English sailors.

They came directly over to us. 

They asked if we were US military.  As if our high and tight haircuts didn’t already say as much.  These were still long hair, hippy times.  We nodded in the affirmative and Kelly told the bartender to set up a round.  Them included.

The Brits responded by doing the same.  

We toasted to the long alliance between the British military and the US military. 

“Not withstanding that Revolutionary thing,” one of them reminded us.

A fast friendship fell upon us.

After a pretty good slosh, one of the sailors said we should go back to their ship and drink beer for free.  The others agreed.  Their destroyer was conveniently parked not too far away.  We took a jitney and were on board as their guests in no time at all.

Here’s where we learned more about the British Navy than we could imagine.  Or maybe wanted to know.

These guys were all section mates.  Their bunks and lockers were all along the same passageway.  They shared everything. 

Once we settled in, one of them got down on his knees by a break in the decking.  He lifted the hatch and below was revealed seeming unending cases of Triple Diamond Ale.

Three thousand to be exact.  With another five thousand in reserve, a quick voice added.

“We get a daily ration of three beers per man.  Part of British Naval tradition that goes back to the daily rum ration of yore.”

Only a Brit could say that.

The beer proved to be immensely to our liking.

Then followed the stories.  Kelly and I were pikers compared to these hearty sea-goers.  All of them were what we considered ‘lifers’.  They were in for the long haul.  Twenty years or more.

Two had been a part of the Navy since they were Sea Scouts.  At twelve.

One of them asked me what kind of stuff I liked to read and handed me a book.  A ragged paperback.  The wear weary cover appeared to depict two men holding hands.  And more.

“Read much of this?”

I damn near spit out my Triple Diamond Ale.

He saw my confusion.  I shook my head.

“Don’t worry friend, it’s not a big deal here.  People sort of go both ways.  Pretty common, actually.  Another grand part of Naval Tradition.” 

“That.  And a good fist fight,” one of his mates chimed in.

They showed us around to other compartments that weren’t off limits.  Even though it seemed big from the outside, it was pretty cramped just about everywhere inside.  It was cool to visit, having never been on such a ship before, but I could never live in such tight quarters.

These guys were amiable enough, but Kelly and I were getting antsy to move on.  We thanked them and told them it was time for us to head out.  They decided they’d accompany us. 

Kelly and I had other plans.

They soon solved that problem themselves.

We went into a fairly nice hotel nearby with them in tow.  All of us were feeling no pain.  Kelly and I sat in a couple of lobby chairs.  We motioned for them to enjoy themselves.

They proceeded directly to the crowded bar and unceremoniously jostled their way in.  A woman with a fresh daiquiri turned away from the bar at precisely the wrong moment.  In his rush, one of the Brits banged into her.  Instantly, her dress was awash in sweet strawberry slush.

From behind, a tall man with a Scandinavian accent and a tanned, muscled reach, clamped his hand on the sailor’s neck and just about lifted him off of the floor.

Instantly, two of the Brits popped the Scanda-hoovian on either side of his head.  Unfazed, he shook them off and the ballyhoo began.  Soon, the melee engulfed the entire bar.

We quietly left the hotel.  Looking at his watch, Kelly noted that it would be good to go back to the barracks, clean up and prepare for our night on the town.

Shave, shower and shine your shoes; the phrase went something like that.  In the space of twenty minutes, we emerged fresh and ready for anything. 

Moving past me, something caught Kelly’s eye. 

No.  Kelly!

One of the two dick weed’s lockers wasn’t fully closed. 

Too late.  Oh well. 

He opened it.

Sizing me up me with a critical eye, Kelly reached in.

“Ah.  This will do fine.” 

He draped me with a sporty camel hair jacket.

“We’re just borrowin’ them.”

“Oh.  And look.”  

Already half way up his arm was a blue seersucker jacket. 

A little snug, he tugged it on.

He grinned that grin. 

“Assholes.”

It’s a pretty long haul from the Navy base and the Old City to just about anywhere else.  Rather than hoof it in our temporary new finery, we took a jitney. 

San Juan is a small island.  Two bridges connect it to the mainland.  At a right angle to them a third, the Avenida Ashford bridge, takes cars and pedestrians over to the Condado Strip peninsula.

Beginning pretty much at the tip of land’s end, we followed a road that skirts around the old medieval city.  From there we took the main route that runs right down the center of the narrow island, through San Juan proper, and to the bridges. 

Along that route, we passed by the Capitol. 

Separate and aloof from all its governmental tributaries, El Capitolio sits on a clutch of land devoted solely to the seat of government.

The typical choke of faceless buildings and departments of this and that, are scattered here and there, elsewhere on the mainland.

Neoclassic in its structure and with an unimpeded view of the coastal waters below, both chambers of the legislature convene under its Italian marble dome. 

Before long we had the jitney driver let us out.  We wanted to walk over the bridge to the Strip.

The timing was perfect.  Eventide.  Not quite sunset.  No longer day. 

The hotel bars would be filling up with people coming off the beach and those getting ready for the evening.

About midway across the bridge we stopped.  Looking out to the ocean, the shallow blue water reflected the fading sun until it deepened and darkened into the depths of the Atlantic.  

To our right, an inland cut of the bay formed the Laguna del Condado.  Fairly broad, it provided a fitting counterpoint to the ocean on the other side of the Strip.

Earlier in the day, there had been a cigarette boat race there.  The roar of the high powered engines was a constant backdrop all over San Juan.  Until they stopped abruptly and the race was called off when one of the boats went airborne and crashed.

Ahead, hotels and casinos with swinging nightlife awaited us where the bridge ended and the palm lined swath of excess began.   Avenida Ashford.  The backbone of the Condado Strip.  Lushly tropical and alluring; its sidewalks promised Cartier and coutourie.  Martinis and lazy massages by the hotel pool.

Big money here. 

Great Gigolo territory.

We entered the first hotel off the bridge.  The Hilton.  Done in green and orange, the lobby was a bit gaudy.  But who cared.  We went directly out to the bar near the pool.  The air was still and night had slipped in unnoticed.

Low happy chatter mixed with clinking glasses and margarita blenders blending.  Piped in salsa music provided an upbeat aura to the goings on.

A change came over Kelly.  I had seen it before.  He loved women.  Women loved him.

I bought us a round.  Kelly had scotch.  His ‘serious’ drink. 

We sat.  Observing briefly.

“Your on your own.”

Brunette.  One o’clock.

I wandered over to the rocks on the far side of the pool.

Looking out to the ocean, it dawned on me.

I didn’t know what I was doing.  Gigolo wise.

I didn’t have much experience with women in those days.  I was pretty green.

Perhaps that lent some charm to the conversation I fell into back at the bar, when a beautiful young woman asked if she could take the seat next to me.

I might have blushed when she spoke to me. 

Her eyes lit up and she smiled.   I stood up and pulled out the seat for her. 

She smiled again.

A year or so older than Kelly, she radiated a welcoming, easy presence.

Her name was Pauline.  She was gorgeous.  

Raven hair, butter cream skin and white white teeth.  Hazel freakin’ eyes.  Her laugh, so low, so sultry it could undress you.

She nestled in and got comfy, then looked at me as though she expected me to say something.

I thought, what the heck, then told her about becoming a gigolo with my friend, but that I had come to realize I didn’t know how.

She laughed out loud.

“You can’t be serious."

She told me to forget the gigolo thing.  She laughed again.

“First, you have to know how to approach a woman.”

Over a couple of drinks, we conspired for me to learn some pointers from her.  She told me straight up that what women hate most is insincerity.  Then she grinned and said if you can fake sincerity, you got it made.

She had a great sense of humor and offered some unusual conversation starters.

Although she told me to be careful how I used it, she said her best was when a handsome young airline pilot wet the tip of his finger then touched her sleeve.

“Oh my.  We’d better get you out of these wet clothes right away.”

I told her I wasn’t really too good at such things.  She laughed and challenged me to try anyway.

“Don’t worry tough guy, I’ll be right here if anything bad happens.”

She nudged me off of my seat and pointed to a woman sitting at a table by the pool.  She put her foot gently on my butt and launched me.

“Just introduce yourself.”

The lady was at least twenty years older than me. 

I asked her if I might join her.

She snorted.  Then drunkenly shooed me away.

Good start.   

Determined, I went over to the other side of the pool. 

Two young women were just getting themselves comfortable. 

I walked up. 

They frowned.

I walked away.

Crestfallen, I returned.

Pauline patted my seat.

“Well, we got that out of the way.  Why don’t you see how it works on me?”

I blushed again.

Pauline was staying at the Hilton.  Just out of Grad School in law and foreign affairs, she had come to Puerto Rico for a job interview on a long weekend. 

Her father was a diplomat for a certain South American country that had deep ties to the United States.

She had come to the States at eighteen as an undergraduate.  As soon as she established residency for the minimum five years, she became an American citizen.  It created a rift between her and her father.  She said it was slowly healing.

                 

After a drink and some further introductions, we decided to leave the hotel.  She took off her high heels and we ambled down the Strip looking in shops and store windows.  We stopped for barbacoa at one of the little eateries along the way.  From there, we went across the street to the beach. 

We walked in the shallows and talked about life as we knew it.

She said she hadn’t, when I asked if she had ever been on a military base.  I told her that if she wanted to, we could go to the NCO Club and drink for cheap and dance to the band there.

No jitney this time, we took a cab to the gate in front of the base.  She wouldn’t let me pay.

I got Pauline in as a guest with my pass.  We had to walk slowly because of her high heels.  The air was getting chilly.  I gave her my coat.

It was plenty hot inside the packed club.  Saturday night. 

Great band.  Horns and all. 

Lots of couples. 

And sailors. 

Drunken sailors.

Pauline took it all in.  And loved it.  Great, wild energy. 

When the waitress came, Pauline asked for a martini. 

I did too.

I had never had a martini before.

And.

I had never had too many martinis before.

Man, they sure do loosen you up.   I’m no great dancer.  

For me, it's the same dance.  Every dance.  Slow or Fast.

But, not this night.  We danced ourselves silly, wiggling and shaking. 

Martini powered mania.  Rocking and rolling the night into small pieces. 

I think.

“Is he dead?”

I felt like my body had been turned over to science.  I could not open my eyes. 

I could feel my arms folded over my chest.

“Mc CORMICK.   WAKE UP.   Mc CORMICK!”

I tried to push some air out of my lungs, but only sucked in. 

I sat bolt upright. 

I looked around.

I was in a rack at the barracks at Roosevelt Roads.

Fifty miles away from San Juan.

Kelly.  Pauline!

The coat…

What the…

Huh?

The Sergeant of the Guard stood over me.

“McCormick!  The Captain said I should either bury you or drag you into his office.”

He waited for effect.

“Now.”

The Captain was a man of few words. 

“Private McCormick.  How’s that sound, Corporal?  You wanna explain exactly what you and Kelly were doing breaking into some Navy guy’s locker?”

“Did you two think you were invisible?”

“Uh.  Sir.  Well.  Uh.” 

I wanted to tell him about the dick weeds.  But thought the better of it.

“Exactly!  There is no good answer.  I just got a very disturbing call.  Seems Kelly and some Navy personnel got into it this morning.  He is in the brig.  And they are looking for you.”

“Something about a jacket.”

“I am sending you back there.  You are to take the next bus to San Juan.  When you get there, you are to report to the duty officer at the transient barracks.  Give him the goddam jacket.  And take your licks.”

He leaned forward.  Not happy.

“Make this go away.  Am I understood!”

No way I could tell him that I didn’t have the jacket.

“Uh.  Yes sir.  Yes sir.  Aye, aye, sir.”

All I wanted to do was sleep.

I went back into the barracks.  Corporal Martin called me over.  He was a good guy and had known Kelly almost as long as I had. 

“Man, you were OUT.  You looked dead.”

I told him I felt that way.

I was having trouble piecing things together.  I told him the last thing I could remember was having the time of my life dancing at the NCO Club with this beautiful, really cool woman.  In San Juan.

I told him about Pauline. 

And my first encounter with martinis.

He’d been there.

“How’d you get here?  Where was Kelly when all of this happened?”

I said I had no idea how I had gotten back on base. 

Martin asked the guys in the squad bay if any of them knew who brought me back, or had seen me come in.

Nobody had.

I told him that Kelly and I had split pretty early.  I really had no idea where he ended up. 

“We do now.” 

Martin laughed.

“The brig.”

I repeated what the Captain told me to do.  He wasn’t surprised.  We all knew he didn’t tolerate his boys messing up.

Corporal Martin told me that a Navy friend with a car and he were getting ready to leave for San Juan shortly.  He said I could ride with them.

Excellent.  The bus would have left an hour later.  Going with them would allow me some time to go find Pauline and figure out what happened.

The ride took a little over an hour.  I went right to the Hilton.

She had already checked out.  My heart sank.

I went to the bar and ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee.  I wolfed them down.  I had another cup and sat there thinking.  I was running out of options.  I figured all I could do was go to the base and turn myself in.

Without the jacket.

“JIM.  Jimmy.  Jim!”

It was Pauline.  She ran over and put her arms around me.  She kissed me. 

Then she got mad.

She said that she was worried sick about me. 

I realized that she was more serious than angry.

Running her hand through her black mane, she paused to collect her thoughts.

What followed was a whole string of events that I could barely remember.

“We were having a ball; dancing and whooping it up.”

She touched me. 

“You were great fun.  Really.  You said you couldn’t dance, but you were churning it up.”

She got serious again.

“After the band finished playing, and maybe around your fourth martini, we sat and talked about your time in the service.  I don’t know why I ever brought up Viet Nam.  I guess I was afraid.  Earlier you just tossed it off as only a matter of time before you’d be going.”

She said that I started to get all emotional.  I had her in tears telling her the story about how my brother who had joined the Marines two years earlier had been wounded in Viet Nam. 

She said she knew I was starting to fade.  She decided to excuse herself to go freshen up.  And get ready to leave.  When she came back, I was face down with my head in my arms.  Out.

She was able to rouse me enough to get me to understand that she was leaving.  And that she was plenty ticked at me for flaking out.

A Marine told her he’d take care of me.  When she described him, I drew a blank.

She shifted a bit and looked at me sternly.

“I was so angry with you.  I wanted to leave.  But not alone.”

She brushed her hair back and looked away from me.

 

“Luckily, the manager helped me get a cab.”

She turned around. 

“To be blunt, it was a mighty poor ending to my night out with a young Marine.”

She sized me up.

“Too young maybe.”

Ouch.

I had never been in such a situation.  I suggested we walk over to the seawall. 

The day was bright and warm.  The ocean was calm and went on forever.

I looked at Pauline.  She turned and managed a half-smile.  She had pretty well emptied the full clip on me.

Chastised, I smiled back as wide as a guy in my shoes could muster.  I said she was right to be upset and angry with me. 

“Pauline.  I really blew it.  Talk about bad form.  I am so sorry!”

Then, it just about laid her flat when I told her about waking up in Rosy Roads.

“Are you serious?”

“I know.”  I forced a smile.  “I know.”

I never felt so out of place in my life. 

 

I sucked it in.

“Yes.  I admit it.  Perhaps I still have a thing or two to learn.”

Her face lightened up.

“You sure as hell learned about martinis.”

All of a sudden her eyes went wide open.

“Oh my gosh.  I just remembered!”

She took a breath.

“I left it with the concierge.”

“What?”

“The jacket.  Your jacket.”

“Oh my.  Yes.”

She paused a moment.

“I was hoping you might come here looking for me.  After waiting around for a while and you didn’t show up, I felt silly.  I left your coat at the desk and took a walk.”

I asked if she could ever forgive me for being such a huge disappointment. 

She put her finger to her lips and pulled me close.  She kissed me. 

And man, I mean she kissed me.

We sat on the sea wall and talked quietly.

We knew our time had come to an end.

It was hard to say good bye. 

But we did.

I retrieved the jacket.  It smelled like her.  I wanted to keep it forever. 

I took one last glance.

Pauline.  By herself.  Looking out to sea.

I looked at my watch.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had been there two and a half hours.

Not good.

I walked across the grass patch from the hotel to the Ashford Bridge.  I put the jacket on to feel Pauline’s presence.

Timing, they say is everything.  It isn’t.  Bad timing is everything.

I was running ideas through my head about how to turn myself in when I heard a
well-known voice.

“Run, Jimmy Mac.  Run.”

Kelly!

In a Shore Patrol van.  Yelling for me to run.

Where!

Another voice came from within the paddy wagon.  It was one of the dick weeds.

“That’s my jacket!”

 Nowhere to go.  I put my hands up.  And surrendered.

 A failed gigolo.

I was surprised they didn’t handcuff me.  Inside the van, the dick weed sat up front with the Shore Patrol guy.

Kelly and I sat on seats behind the wire mesh separation.

Kelly cupped his hand by my ear.  He said they made him come out to look for me when I never showed up.

The Shore Patrol guy looked in the rear view mirror and told us to separate.

Kelly’s eyes drilled me meaningfully.  He knew I new what that meant.  Say nothing.

Inside the air-conditioned barracks, just past the front desk, the Officer of the Day resides for his stretch of duty.  Within his office, under arrest, I learned the details of what had gone on in my absence.

Kelly’s night had begun to fizzle.  When he couldn’t find me, he went back to the barracks and changed into other clothes.  He put the jacket inside his locker.

Which didn’t go unnoticed.

Kelly returned to the Strip.  More successfully.  He did not return to the barracks.

In the morning Kelly went to his locker to check out.  The lock was busted off. 

A couple of sailors crowded around him.  One had the seersucker jacket.  He tossed it at Kelly.

The results came fast.  The dick weed sported a shiner.  Kelly wound up in the brig.

And now, I was heading there too.

But Kelly was never one to be silenced.  He asked the young lieutenant to hear him out.  Already aware of the antics of the personnel in question toward Marines, he listened.

Kelly told him it was just a little Texas justice.  After they had threatened us, and all.

Then Kelly said something brilliant.  When they broke into his locker, they had committed more or less the same transgression as we had.

“Lieutenant.  Sir.  Couldn’t we call this a draw?  And just put it behind us?”

He sat back in his chair and laughed at Kelly’s ingenuity.  He swept his hand and told the guards to release us.

The Captain refused to see us when we returned.  To our delight.