Two-Minute Legend

Once we had docked our whole unit got excited. We hadn’t been on American soil in eight months. Stopped at a few ports in Europe and some island hopping in the Caribbean to refuel. It was electric to be one stop away from home. Not having to do extra thinking in memorizing critical phrases for food and entertainment. From the expression on the people we asked, they must of thought we were morons. Especially Jarvis. Let me tell ya, guy was a fucking idiot. His international symbol for women—shaping the curves of a woman in midair and then slapping the ass of his imaginary lady—did not get us friendly nods by the local men and he always managed to ask the biggest, most violent guys too. Of course we had to back him up when he put his foot in his mouth, which seemed like every other step he took was straight in there. Being in the Navy opened the world to meeting and seeing different cultures. Seeing the world right? But guys like Jarvis never seemed to leave their little shit hole of hometown thinking, instead carrying it like some white trash pack rat.

Now, the Navy didn’t have the cleanest record and recently had a fresh black eye from an incident in Japan. A sailor got drunk out of control and ended up getting arrested by the local police. The media likes to jump on those. So, sometimes they make it a requirement that four guys stick together and one unlucky bastard isn’t allowed to drink. Isn’t it a kick in the pants when you’re getting ready to enjoy your night and you can’t leave the damn ship without your liberty buddy? There’s something that wasn’t in the brochure. When you leave the ship you have to sign-off with your liberty buddy and you gotta return back to the ship together. The Navy doesn’t trust us, and it sucks, but I suppose there’s reason for it too. Kind of like the D.D. It’s to make sure that every sailor makes it back to the ship safely. At least that’s what they want you to believe. I suppose it’s possible one guy could be dying in some ditch somewhere and you wouldn’t even know it if his buddy got separated.

Chock it up to new administration or new Commander-in-Chief whatever, but it had trickled down, and emphasis was on behaving ourselves. Saying we had to be more “friendly to our foreign neighbors.” It was also sort of encouraged to try and speak the home language when docking in another country but most of the guys didn’t bother. Jarvis and a couple of guys rolled their eyes at that, explaining that we were Americans and they should know English anyway. “Where is your toilet? TOY-let? The can?” He resorted to charades, making the motion of squatting, before giving up and finding the nearest alley.

Well, Jarvis had a way of getting out of being the guy that would lay off the alcohol. Me, Pellatt, and Jones would be playing pool or talking to locals in a bar when Jarvis would reappear by our sides with a pint of beer in his hand. We’d all yell at him, “Jarvis what the hell are ya doing?” He’d come up with some lame excuse like, the guy at the bar said it was on the house and that he would be disrespecting him, personally, if he didn’t drink.

“I didn’t want to get you guys in trouble,” he’d say taking a big gulp of beer, “like last time.”

But he would keep on drinking. Usually me, Jones or Pellatt would draw straws and see who would give up their buzz, sober up, and make sure our group made it back alright. For some reason, people thought he was a cool guy, Jarvis, at least Jones always vouched for him. He’s an all right sailor, but I hated getting stuck with him as a liberty buddy sometimes.

Anyways, so we’re some island, I can’t remember now, but it’s so close we can see Florida or something. Everyone finished up their tasks for the day, like beavers, all the guys getting dolled up in their uniform just waiting to taste the beers and unwrap some sweet eye candy. Then we gotta buddy-it up. It doesn’t make sense to anybody, but even the higher-ranking officers gotta do it. Everyone holds in their groans. I had been looking forward to a quieter night away from Jarvis, but I wasn’t gonna sacrifice my night and stay in either. After all the time abroad, everyone’s liberty buddies were set.

Anyways, I wanted to teach that son of a bitch a lesson. On paper, I made sure Pellatt was my buddy, and that Jones and Jarvis paired up. We went bar hopping. By the third bar of the night Jarvis was feeling it, slurring his insults, joking around with Jones. I tell Jarvis that this girl is eying him from across the room and point to a red headed vixen. I nudge him and tell him to go for it. Me, Jones, and Pellatt watch as he walks over and talks to the red head, we raise our glasses to him and continue drinking. An hour passes and Jarvis comes gallivanting recklessly through the crowd, a giggling fool, twirling the ends of a black boa wrapped around his neck.

“Hey, Jones guess what I got?”

“What’dya get Jarvis, you old dog, huh?” Jones started laughing like a moose. A second later, he went slack next to me. Me and Pellatt looked at each other and knew we had to drag their drunk asses back.

The next morning when we lined up for inspection, Jarvis got it! Oh man! The Sarge let him have it. He yelled at him in front of our unit.

“Private! What the HELL in God’s name is that on your neck?” The Sarge pointed with his entire face.

“What Sergeant?”

“Well, since you can’t see it—Jones! Inform Jarvis!”

Jones was struggling and looking at Jarvis up and down. Then it came into direct focus.

“A hickey sir.” Jones said as he snapped back into atten-hut.

“Do you need to go back to basic training Private Jarvis?!”

“No, sir.”

So the Sarge starts going at him talking about how “the dress and appearance of a seaman in uniform is to be kept in a clean, professional military image,” lecturing everyone for ten minutes about how your appearance should be spotless. I kept a straight face throughout. Ha ha. After they were both written up, half months pay taken, and forty-five day no Liberty—forty-five days of NO JARVIS. It was great. Jones didn’t defend Jarvis so much after that. Word got around about Jarvis and everyone started calling him, Speck. The name just stuck. He couldn’t get rid of it. Even now, when I talk to some of the old boys about Jarvis, I have to correct myself, “Oh, you know, Speck.”