USS MULLINNIX DD-944
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Naples, Italy 1961
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Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
"Hey Smythe, let's go find some two-legged girls," yelled McGhee.
"Fuck you, asshole!" answered Smythe.
Dusk had arrived in the Mediterranean, casting a pale rosy tint to the sky as the two sailors left the ship. The local dockworkers were still staring at the warships brisling with guns. Dock yard cranes were engaged with unloading metal containers filled with Italian textiles and produce. A gust of wind kicked up and the palm trees swished loudly for a few seconds before the fronds dropped silently back in place.
They kept walking along the embankment until it curved left and came to a road. They went on, in the shade of a row of three-story buildings facing the water. They were built of stone, with fancy ironwork grills over the bottom-floor windows which were shuttered tightly, like summer homes in the rich part of town.
"Looks like they heard we were coming," joked Smythe.
The road curved away from the water as the buildings grew smaller, packed in more tightly. Stone turned to cinderblock and smooth pavement turned to flat stones, narrowing down to an alleyway marked in the middle with a damp brown stain. The flies found them again. The streets were filled with pimps, drug dealers, crooked cops, jack-rollers, scam artists, sexual predators, strippers, hookers, shylocks, mind-blown street people with tracks on their arms, transients, drunks, drifters, and tattooed sailors.
They were in the bad part of town. If you left a cheese grater out, someone would steal the holes. People were grilling meats and fish, octopus, giant squid with special oil and lemon sauce, sausage, mixed grilled vegetables, and smoked mackerel.
"Is there any food on this street that won't give me the shits?" asked McGhee.
The pub was call The Spinnaker. The large, colorful, rounded sails often seen on racing boats while they are sailing downwind are called spinnakers. Few know where the name came from. The word is derived from the name of the first yacht to use such a sail, the "Sphinx". The sail was so much larger than any other sail previously seen that it became known as "Sphinx's acre"; hence the term spinnacre or spinnaker.
The pair weren't looking for much. Since leaving Norfolk over three weeks ago, leaving the ship for a simple cold beer was a good start. Pink geraniums twined along the balustrade. Masses of carnations sent a sweat, heavy perfume into the vivid blue sky.
Inside, the quaint old bar was everything they expected and more. In fact, it sucked. The locals hovered around the bar like shadows from a bygone age. Their voices seeped their way and then retreated like a murmur of the sea at ebb tide. There were two bartenders in attendance. The nearest was acne-scarred and fat, with a soggy cigar stuck between his teeth. He smiled. It was a horrible smile. You could smell the cigar smoke on his fingers.
Bartender number two - his teeth were bad, he needed a shave, his shirt was filthy, and his shoes looked like they'd come from the Goodwill's throw away bin. This was secondary to the blow fly on his left hand - it was liked it was stitched into his skin while he made drinks. The sailors were concerned that was the hand he wiped himself with.
The din that was a continuous shout-fest from the back of the place suddenly turned into a roar. Smythe felt his neck stiffen, a startled animal's reaction. Violence was always sudden. A fistfight in a back-water bar, drunk sailors smashing bottles, jeeps pulling up, white helmets and Billy-clubs. Combat. The same adrenaline fear, your whole body flushed with it, everything happening fast. It was nothing like the movies, no sound-effect punches, choreographed swings. Clumsy, puling at shirts, gouging, falling down, like the guy that was just thrown to the floor, covering his face to ward off a kick.
They stared at each other.
Then a voice that sounded like he had swallowed a clot of Red Man said, "You wait'n on an engraved invitation?" The man moved then, swung. Smythe ducked under it and hit the man in the nuts with a right uppercut, then he swiveled and kicked at the inside of the man's leg, catching him just above the ankle. It brought him down.
The man stood up and said, "Them chink tricks ain't gonna help you none."
Tensing, McGhee pointed out, "They seem to be working all right."
The man came again, throwing a right cross that was so slow you could have gone out and bought a beer and been back in time to dodge it. It went over Smythe's right shoulder, and McGhee kicked out and caught the man on the side of the leg, mid-thigh. The nerve cluster there lit up and the man went down with a yelp. When he hit the floor, Smythe kicked him in the jaw. The man fell on his back and groaned.
Thinking the guy had add enough, "You can get up if you want," Smythe said.
Surprisingly, the man got up and came again, and this time Smythe caught him over the eye enough to make him step back, and then it was like a wolf at the slaughter. Smythe hooked him in the belly with a left, and then it was a double right jab to the face, and finally McGhee kicked out with his front leg and caught the man in the lower abdomen and sent him flailing back against the table, which crashed underneath his weight.
A moment passed, then two. With a last spurt of energy, the man stood the best he good. This guy was as tough as a Woolworth steak. His knees locked and he stood still, arms fallen, as his eyes looked at nothing. Then, finally, like a tree, he fell, hitting the puddled beer so hard he kicked up splatters, some of which suddenly danced across Smythe's legs, the bar, and the ceiling.
From out of the darkness, McGhee felt a sudden rush from his left - the man's mate. His shaved head looked like foreskin, as if his mother had been inseminated by a yeast infection. McGhee's elbow slammed hard into the man’s face just under the eye, driving him back. He got his hands around the Italian's throat fighting off breath like somebody farted, but 2 more arrived from nowhere, breaking McGhee's grip, knocking out two teeth.
Smythe slammed the first one under the eye with the palm of his hand, feeling the blow strike hard, hearing him grunt. They pounded into each other's torsos with fists and open hands, their sweat fell on each other's faces. Happening in slow-motion and fast-motion at the same time. The sound of a big meaty fist smashing into a ribcage is really unpleasant, but Smythe knew he'd rather hear it than feel it. The guy went down like a sack of potatoes falling off a truck.
The second newcomer caught a McGhee-thrown chair over his head, went to one knee, dropping a knife, then toppled clumsily forward.
The man that originally had attacked McGhee, seeing his three mates sprawled on the floor, had had enough. Knowing these two American sailors were not to be screwed with, jumping out the door.
An old man emerged from the rear door walking with two sticks. He looked like a spider dressed in black, a high white collar that shone like moonlight. He looked like death. His face was small and crumpled, almost a baby's again and he had one lock of no-color hair running across the top of his head. He looked like something the mortuary forgot.
When he spoke, the words fell out of his mouth as slow and gentle as a sweet afternoon rain. "They no good." Pointing, "You good. Thank you veddy much." Hearing him talk made you sleepy.
Smiling, "You are more than welcome," said Smythe. "Who are they anyway?"
"Bad men. Very bad men. Now you go."
Back on the street, McGhee said, "Where did you learn to flight like that?"
"You know that game kids played called 'my dad can beat up your dad?'"
"Yeah."
"Nobody played that with me."
McGhee responded, "Let's go get a drink."
"Drink? After all this shit, you want to go get a drink?" asked Smythe.
"Do you know what I call an afternoon when I get drunk?" McGhee asked.
"What?"
"Afternoon."
To be continued...
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