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originally published January 17, 2008

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Long Gone Blues
by Sam Martin

(a Down in the Dirt chapbook)

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Cherse

Sam Martin

    “’J.B.’ That’s your name, idn’t it?”
    Jess smiled. “No, kid. That’s what I drink—-J&B.”
    “Oh. What’s ‘at?”
    “Scotch, kid.”
    “Oh, yeah. Ha!”
    Jess was always sober, even when he drank. Even more so when he drank, which he did after every watch. Jess looked a man the worse for wear and tear, from both the alcohol and the war wounds—-both physical and mental, from both WWII and the Korean Action. In this latter, he had been peppered, on deck, no less, at his gun station, by lucky hits from the very plane his crew was trying to shoot down. He felt heavier, even after the lead was probed for, found, and removed, but his head also felt heavier, and had ached ever since, from seeing his crewmates shot to death in their gun harnesses, and from he, alone, having survived the bullet barrage. He had drunk alcohol since then, to pretend the pain disappeared. He had the wet eyes of the alcoholic, the lower lids sagging, exposing his ocular blood vessels. He ears were not only abnormally large, but hung down in great circular lobes that appeared to show traces of puncture holes, although he denied having ever worn earrings. His nose was big and bulbous, and his face was enlarged, swollen, as was, in reality, his entire body, including his rounded hands, from his abuse of spirits.
    The kid was too young to recognize that something was biting Jess. He just took all things as they were, to him—-new.
    “I may have made a bad cherse, kid.”
    “A what?”
    Jess’s face brightened slightly.
    “That’s how we say “cho-iss” (he exaggerated) back east, son.”
    Jess’s gloom lifted as he realized he’d found somebody who hadn’t heard his story.
    “Cap’n Kid” he began, and fought off a smile, “they do call me J.B., for “Jess Barnacle,” ‘cause I stuck close to ships all my life. Hell, I was in the Merchant Marine before Dubyah Dubyah Two, and in a few skirmishes since then. I’m just a Gobber, got sense enough to follow orders. But one time I made a mistake, I think.” Jess shifted his weight around on the coil of rope-line on the bulk-head he was sitting on. “What’s your name, kid?” he added.
    After hesitating, the kid answered, “They call me ‘Goober’.”
    “H’Ill be damn’! Well, I guess everybody’s got a nickname in this man’s Navy, and yours fits ya. Y’aint no bigger’n a peanut.”
    Goober felt good, but he didn’t say anything, except, “Whadjou do?”
    “I saved a man’s life.”
    Goober didn’t see how that could be wrong, and he said so. (Every minute he lived, he grew older.) “How? What happened?”
    “I was in the Bosun’s compartment one night after watch, and I heard some noises in the next compartment. I thought it was some swabbies tusslin’, but when I hit the hatch, it barely moved. I pushed in somehow and found the Chief down on the deck, trussed up like a hog with a’ apple in’ is mouth. His eyes looked scared—- and sump’n else, too.”
    Jess paused too long for Goober.
    “Well, what happened? Whadjou do?”
    “I untied ‘im, and took the gag outta ‘is mouth.”
    “Wha’d he do?”
    “He rubbed ‘is wrists ‘n’ ‘is ankles. Then he looked at me—-“Don’t you say nothin’ about this to anybody—-you hear!?”
    “But they’uz gonna throw you overboard!”
    “That’s an order, sailor!”
    “I braced. ‘Sir!’ I said. I had to. It was a direct order from a superior!” Jess almost whined. Goober grew a little. He waited.
    “About a week later, it happened. I was amidships, but I heard the bursts from the bridge. The Chief had secured a large-bore weapon from somewhere (Supply said it wadn’t theirs.), and blasted the officers on watch. Some of ‘em died; some of ‘em wished they had. Of course, the watch-guard killed the Chief, but there was still a hearin’, and they called me to testify. I reckon they found my name on the Chief’s log.”
    “The Captain on the Hearings Panel ordered me to tell my story, so I did. Then he asked me,
     ‘Why didn’t your report this, sailor?’
    I braced. “Sir, I was under orders!”
    I swear his lips didn’t move, but he said, “I see. Alright, dismissed!’”
    “I did’n about face and stepped out o’ there as fast as I could.”
    “I got a lot of s..t assignments for years after that, but I stuck to my guns. I always followed orders from a superior.”
    Goober mumbled something Jess didn’t hear.
    “What’s ‘at?”
    I said, “I don’t know if it ‘uz justice or revenge.”
    “I don’t either. But I know what they tried to do to the Chief, and I know what he did to them.”
    “Yeah.” said the kid, now ready for the rest of his life.
    Jess died a few months later of alcohol poisoning, and was buried at sea, at his request. The Ship’s Captain who presided over the burial service, and who knew Jess’s story, remarked, just as the package slid into the water, “We all get chances to do right in this life; some of us get only one.”

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