Hallucination
Hallucination
A semi-true account of a boy at sea.
By Mark Mika
I had been on board the massive ship for only 5 hours. The wide blue water of the Mediterranean behind me as I sat on the fantail, smoking a cigarette, and stared in silent awe as we passed Gibraltar to our port and headed out to the open Atlantic.
I had always associated the jagged rock sticking out like a tongue from the sea with insurance, now it was a landmark.
Thirty-six hours before I had stood at the wide airport window with my father, staring at the gigantic trans-Atlantic airliner, as we waited for the call to board.
A week before that I had graduated, mercifully, from boot camp, saying goodbye to life long friends I would never see again.
I was eighteen and very fond of myself.
Now I sat perched on this 452 foot grey monster, holding 218 men and boys, watching the frothy, bubbling wake as the twin screws- each as large as a Toyota Corolla- churn the blue waters of a sea I had only known in books as they hurled the ship forward towards… Egypt. I had never left the state of Illinois, or before that day, been on an airplane.
I was eighteen and very fond of myself and remember thinking quite clearly… this is fucking epic!
The morning had passed like the blur of dream trying to be remembered upon waking and I had yet to learn a single name of my new crewmates. After the requisite “permission to come aboard Sir,” was stammered from my mouth the officer of the deck had rapidly assigned me a berth where I stowed my gear. I awkwardly tried to find my way around in the dark belly of the passageways and ladders that make up the inside of a Navy ship, the men I passed barely acknowledging the “green squid” that I was, if lifting their eyes to mine at all.
I managed to find the head and took a nervous shit, wishing without hope that I could simply sit my ass on the cold seat for the next four years and be left alone. I found the mess hall and sat at a table filled with men, actual real men, with big faces and loud voices laughing at things I didn’t understand.
I ate in silence. One of them, a huge black man with the voice of a lion noticed me and looked as if a fly had landed on the pizza he was stuffing in his cavernous mouth.
“Carter!” He shouted while reading the name on my dungaree shirt.
“What fuck-hole you come from bitch?”
I blinked a few times and would have shit my pants if I hadn’t emptied my bowels minutes before.
“Highland park, it’s near Chicago.”
“Chicago! Fuck sakes meat, I’m from Dundee! We’re fucking homies!” He bellowed with strange glee.
“Uh, yeah- cool. I’m Carson.” I offered with some small reduction in terror.
“Carson Carter! God Damn boy, sounds like a cartoon character!” I was starting to wonder if he always talked at the top of his lungs.
I started shoveling food in my mouth, the urge to get the hell out of their suddenly washing over me.
“Carson Carter!” He repeated like a parrot on steroids. “Guess we’ll just see about you as we go. What are ya, eighteen, nineteen?” He didn’t wait for an answer but had at least stopped bellowing.
“Young-dumb- and full a cum.” He offered to no one in particular. “Finish yer chow and get topside- go find smitty, he’s the big fat white boy that lives in the boatswains locker. He’ll assign you your watch duty. We’re getting underway in two hours.”
I found smitty who was fat and white and appeared to be living in the boatswains’ locker. His voice was kind and he was two years older than me. He explained how the next few days would go with amused brevity.
“We toss lines at fifteen hundred, your green as a Martian’s pussy so you get the mid-watch-twelve to four- we’ll float five days before we get to Alexandria…”
“Alexandria?” I asked.
“Yeah, as in Egypt- numbnuts. We shoot through the straits, go play hide and seek with some fucking sub for a few days, then come back through to the Med.”
He continued..
“Working hrs underway is eight to three, unless you’re on watch. We got three watch teams so you’re four hours on, eight hours off. Sleep when ya can. Since ya don’t know your ass from hickory I’ll putcha with someone tonight to take you through the stations…. Ka-peesh?”
“Ka-peesh.” I said. And having been seemingly dismissed as he had already turned to a plate of donuts I turned and walked back down below to my bunk.
A short time later we were indeed, underway-lines had been tossed, the ship pulled away from the Spanish pier- and some hours later, here I was, smoking on a deck of a ship staring at the God Damn Rock of Gibraltar. The good hands people. I thought.
***
“Carter…. Carter.” The whispered voice woke me in the darkness. A pie-faced pale orb was inches from my face. I had been dreaming of the game I threw three touchdown passes in and then later, at the party, fucked Suzy Flannigan for the best 5 minutes of her life.
“Cmon man, we got watch. You’re with me tonight.” The hovering moon whispered again.
I dressed quickly in the black cave of the berth, the only light a dim red glow from the purring ships emergency lights. The moon was in fact, a boy named Dudley; he was my age and had come aboard three weeks ago. I followed him in a waking daze through the cavernous passageways and up a flight of stairs, out a watertight door that when closed and latched behind us, sounded like a gong in the hollow darkness of the sea at night.
We were topside, on the fantail and in a darkness so complete it could have easily been outer space.
“Lets go.” Dudley said. “Put these on.” Something hard, funny shaped and metallic hit my blind hand.
“Put em on dude, it’s your coms. You talk to the bridge and forward lookout… press the mic button here and say.. bridge- aft lookout reporting- Seaman Carter on station.”
The headphones were soft and rubbery, the large microphone dangling from my chest attached to a metal plate. “Bridge- aft lookout reporting- Seaman Carter on station.” I spoke into the night.
“Aft lookout- bridge- Aye Aye.” A voice softly came through from the other side of the rabbit hole.
Dudley sat down on one of the large bench like stanchions on the very aft part of the ship, three thin coiled metal lifelines the only thing separating us from the blackness below. A alien green light mixed with the white wash of the wake revealed the ocean below and I sat down beside him.
“So what do we do.” I asked.
“Do? He laughed. “We do nothing. Sit here and if you see a contact, another ship, jet airplane, whatever we call the coordinates into the bride and they plot it on the grease board.” Pretty-fucking simple dude; we’re at peace ya know. Not like we’re getting attacked by japs!”
We sat in the blackness above the green glowing wake and talked about nothing. Normal stuff, stuff I would have talked about in 5th period 4 months ago.
“Here.” Dudley said about 10 minutes in, holding out his hand.
“What is it?” I asked, looking down at the toilet thin square of paper.
“Blotter dude… purple- good shit.”
I thought, fuck it, if it’s good enough for the dead concert last June, it’s good enough for the open sea. I placed it under my tongue, and tasted the familiar tangy yet bittersweet flavor.
Within 10 minutes the normal effect began and I settled down into it as always, riding the wave as it began to slowly build.
***
“Fuck me freddy.” I said laughing quietly to Duds (as I now called him) “Duds, Duds- look-at-those-fucking-stars… man.” I looked up, my neck craned as far back as it would go, uncountable points of light danced above me, around me, through me. They were me, I was them.
“yeeahhh buddy- I hear ya. I love the midwatch.” Duds voice came at me from the night. His arms were raised above him and with his head tilted back like mine he pawed swimmingly at the sky, like a cat playing with a toy.
“I can feel em, I can swim in these fucking things man.” Duds said with enthused amazement.
I followed suit, and I could swim in them too.
After a thousand years inside 10 minutes later his voice came at me again.
“Alrighty then, lets go- here comes the relief.”
A figure appeared out of the curtain of black, I hadn’t seen or heard him, and stood next to us. He was black and I could only his bright eyeballs broke the darkness, until he talked, and his white teeth were blinding.
“Sup duds, got the greenie tonight huh? Gimme the cans.” Eyes and Teeth muttered
Eyes and Teeth touched my arm and I removed the headphones and mic and handed them over.
“Nuttin doing Blue- haven’t even seen a freighter. Trippin like Dylan though right now.” Duds said to Blue. (Formerly known as Eyes and Teeth)
“Word.” Blue expounded.
Duds and I walked through the glue of the darkness; it seemed to impede my forward motion, holding me back like a soft but sticky blanket.
“That’s Blue. Duds said. “We call em blue cause he’s so black he’s blue.” He added laughing. I was however, barely hearing him, a feeling of dread was creeping into me like a wet pair of shoes.
“Were we going?” I asked with concern.
“Bridge bubba gump; gotta do the next station… helm.”
Something exploded in my head, my face was being flayed- my hands, my shoulders were leaving my body.
“Helm… you mean the wheel?” It came from my mouth in Swahili.
Duds was giggling… “yeah, well don’t let skip hear you call it a fucking wheel- it’s a helm on a ship.”
We stayed topside and moved forward, Duds leading me through the gluey night and explained,
“K- look, all ya gotta do is walk up to the guy that’s already driving- his names ick, we call him Ick; short for Ickabod Crane, cause he looks like him- ask him- softly- what course he’s on. Then when he tells ya, just walk up to the officer of the deck, I think its Mr. Whitey, and say..
“Seaman Carter requests permission to relieve them helm, sir. And make fucking sure ya fucking salute- then say- steering course.. Whatever the fucking course is. Got it?”
My mouth lay open like the sea of Cortez. I wasn’t feeling well.
We arrived at the stairs leading up to the bridge and made our way up, the clanking sound of metal stairs under my boots made me feel military and suddenly all apprehension lifted off my body. I felt full of something, something big and powerful- my back was rigid- my hands and shoulders returned to me, my tongue lay flat, wet and obedient in my mouth.
We entered the open doorway of the bridge, Duds and I, and it was dark but also light and alive, like a cave with a softly glowing fire. I walked up to the tall figure standing and holding a brass wheel the size of a trashcan lid.
“Ick, I’m Carter- what’s our course?” I said with muted thrill.
“two-three-zero; fifteen knots, all ahead full.” Ick said wearily, then added with a muffled voice, “make sure ya tell him bout the fifteen knots and all ahead full.”
I spun sharply on my heels and walked over to the man standing by the chartable at the front of the bridge. He had gleaming twin gold bars on his collar and a kind face. The Cheshire cat grin on his face guided me to him.
The words poured full and evenly from my mouth, filling the silent bridge. My hand snapped razorlike to my brow in salute.
“Seaman Carter requests person to relieve the helm Sir. Steering course Two-Three-Zero; speed fifteen knots, engines all ahead full… Sir.”
A brief moment of panic engulfed me as Mr. Whitey stared at me smiling…..
“Permission granted Seaman Carter… welcome aboard.”
I strode back to the helm and as I wrapped my dry, firm hands around the solid coldness of it the sea gave up its dark veil. She wasn’t a void, she was my home. I was five foot six and 600 miles tall! I could swim in the stars! I could walk on oceans! Control massive ships! I stood and gazed straight ahead, out large bridge windows, out to path of the sea as the pointed Focsule of my ship as she dipped her head gently into the 10 foot swells, then bobbing up fresh and clean, dripping my sea from her face and neck.
I felt Duds presence suddenly at my side, my guide to the stars and beyond had returned.
“Good shit, ain’t it?” He said quietly grinning.
I was eighteen years old and very fond of myself.
“Damn skippy Duds… Damn skippy.”
