{"id":20157,"date":"2024-08-02T08:19:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T12:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=20157"},"modified":"2024-08-02T08:19:18","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T12:19:18","slug":"meet-me-at-the-quarterdeck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/meet-me-at-the-quarterdeck\/","title":{"rendered":"MEET ME AT THE QUARTERDECK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recruit Gaines, tall with a farmer\u2019s tan so startling he looks like two recruits spliced together, bites his lip and stands at attention in his tighty-whities. He\u2019s a nineteen-year-old football star from Texas who got in trouble for getting drunk and spray painting \u201cfuck you\u201d on the hood of his principal\u2019s car. When they hauled him in front of a judge he was given two options\u2014go to jail or join the Marine Corps. He chose the Corps, and he often regrets the decision. I stand next to him because we share a bunk in the squad bay. The squad bay looks just like it does in all the movies\u2014Jarhead, Full Metal Jacket<\/em>, so on so forth\u2014a giant oblong building with bunks lining the sides and an office for the Drill Instructors at the very end. And right next to the office is an open, slightly discolored patch of polished concrete. It\u2019s affectionately known as the quarterdeck, and it\u2019s where Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker takes us when he wants to fuck us up. Which is where Recruit Gaines and I are headed if he can\u2019t get his shit together. I try to ignore his vibrating body and beet-red face because I\u2019m afraid that if I get a good look at him I\u2019ll piss myself laughing. Every few seconds a snort escapes through his nose and I nearly crack a rib trying to keep it together.<\/p>\n

In approximately four years, Recruit Gaines will be shot while deployed to Afghanistan. He\u2019ll die on his back, reaching out for the Corpsman while his platoon trades rounds with the Afghani man who shot him. He\u2019ll bleed out before Doc can get to him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recruit Chapman stands in front of his bunk on the other side of the squad bay, just across from me and Recruit Gaines. He\u2019s a seventeen-year-old Kentuckian whose mom signed some forms so he could join the Corps before he was eighteen. He often jokes it\u2019s the only good thing she ever did for him. Standing at attention on the other side of the squad bay, he\u2019s cool and composed with a blank look on his face and the remnants of his civilian gut poking out. A few weeks into bootcamp and we\u2019ve seen every shape and size a man can be\u2014fit, firm, dumpy, soft, short, and tall. So the sight of a pale boy in skivvies with a gut and stringy happy trail doesn\u2019t surprise us or even raise our eyebrows. The image in front of us is ninety-nine percent par for the course. The one percent that threatens to throw Recruit Gaines and I over the edge and get us smoked on the quarterdeck is the fact that Recruit Chapman, moments away from having his body inspected for rashes and skin mold and other injuries by Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker, has intentionally left his nuts hanging out the side of his underwear.<\/p>\n

Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker is also cool and composed as he works his way down the line of recruits. As he stands in front of a different wannabe-Marine, the young man presents his fingernails for inspection and looks to the left and the right so that Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker can shine his moonbeam into their earholes and up their nostrils and ensure the recruit is cleaning themselves properly. He scans from our eyeballs to our toes, looking for decay and dirt and other leftovers from the civilian world. One-by-one, the recruits scream the appropriate responses to his orders and display their bodies for his approval.<\/p>\n

Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2019s job is to be ever-present and loud and intimidating. As a result, we\u2019re all paranoid and jumpy and constantly looking over our shoulders. Or we used to be, anyway. We used to flinch when we would hear his boot squeak against the polished concrete, or when we would smell his cheap cologne. But that was when we were fresh-faced civilians who\u2019d just stepped off the bus and onto the famed yellow footprints of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in sunny San Diego. By now we\u2019ve come to expect him to always be nearby. So we\u2019re not paranoid or jumpy so much as over it and exhausted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSituational awareness\u201d is what Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker calls it. It\u2019s hard-earned and probably seems pointless to most folks. But once it\u2019s embedded into your DNA, it stays.<\/p>\n

Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker reaches the next recruit in line, Recruit Hammond. He\u2019s a twenty-one-year-old farm boy who wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of North Dakota for a few years, so he joined the Corps for a little adventure and some college money. As Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker stands in front of him, Recruit Hammond\u2019s body tightens up, his eyes fixed straight ahead. But before Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker can begin the inspection, Recruit Hammond makes a fatal mistake\u2014one that will cost him a peaceful night\u2019s rest when he\u2019s put on all-night fire watch, one that will ensure the rest of us are ever-mindful of not fucking up in the same manner, one that will breed even more resentment for Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker amongst his platoon.<\/p>\n

Recruit Hammond, the idiot that he is, makes eye contact with Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh GOOD boy,\u201d he screams, millimeters away from Recruit Hammond\u2019s soul. \u201cYou wanna eyeball me?! Good. Quarterdeck NOW!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAYE SIR!\u201d Recruit Hammond screams as he bolts around Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker and sprints to the quarterdeck, stained with decades of recruit sweat and tears, and waits for his time to get fucked up. Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker will soon fuck Recruit Hammond up by forcing him to do jumping jacks and push-ups and mountain climbers and crunches and planks until he shits blood. We\u2019ll all watch and thank God that we weren\u2019t dumb enough to get caught making eye contact with Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker.<\/p>\n

Recruit Hammond stands at attention on the quarterdeck and vibrates and turns red and tries not to cry or think too much about the injustice of it all. But no matter how pissed off he gets, he\u2019ll never backtalk Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker. Instead, he\u2019ll talk shit about the man behind his back. Because he\u2019s a good Marine. Or he will be, anyway.<\/p>\n

A few years later, Recruit Hammond will die during a training exercise in Hawaii when the Osprey carrying his platoon malfunctions and crashes into the ocean. The Marine Corps will launch a three day search and rescue operation and will find only the wreckage of the aircraft. Recruit Hammond will receive the rank of Corporal, posthumously.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most of us hate Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker. We joke that he\u2019s a late-twenties-something-man-boy with a razor-shaved head and a murderous rage that\u2019s, admittedly, better-directed at us than his soon-to-be-ex-wife. But on the day he hands us our Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblems\u2014the symbolic gesture that commemorates your transition from \u201cRecruit\u201d to \u201cMarine\u201d\u2014most of us will cry like little bitches and be proud to have survived his relentless torture. We\u2019ll consider it a point of pride and brag to other Marines about the way we were treated in bootcamp\u2014the worse, the better.<\/p>\n

Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker will get divorced and then remarried two more times. He will complete his rotation as a Drill Instructor and then return to the Fleet as a Platoon Sergeant for a line unit in Camp Pendleton. He will receive a Bad Conduct Discharge when he is found guilty of sexual assault two years shy of retirement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leaving his nuts hanging out of his underwear just to piss off Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker isn\u2019t new for Recruit Chapman. Well, the \u201cleaving his nuts out\u201d part is new. But fucking with Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker isn\u2019t. Fucking with him isn\u2019t new for many of us. We\u2019re all in a weird headspace, simultaneously eager to prank each other\u2014and Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2014but also terrified of retribution. It\u2019s a lot like gambling\u2014high risk, high reward. We just want to see what we can get away with. And it\u2019s only fun because the consequences of losing are so dire. Some of the recruits, like Recruit Hammond, don\u2019t have the stomach for fucking around and tend to get caught for simple infractions. Like, for example, making eye contact with Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker. Others of us though, like Recruit Chapman, crave the thrill.<\/p>\n

Over time, most of us developed a desire to push the envelope by pulling pranks that ranged from silly to atrocious\u2014things like pissing in canteens, tying shoes laces from big toes to bedposts, stealing the guidon from other companies of recruits, replacing a recruit\u2019s cammie bottoms with pairs that are two sizes too small, and raiding the MRE stashes of other platoons.<\/p>\n

The first month of bootcamp was pure fear for us, and stepping out of line wasn\u2019t even an option. But by this point, we\u2019ve all realized it\u2019s just a game.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if you do exactly what you\u2019re told to do, you\u2019re going to get fucked up.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if you memorize the Rifleman\u2019s Creed, you\u2019re going to get fucked up.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re the first in line, or the strongest or the smartest recruit in the whole goddamn platoon, you\u2019re going to get fucked up.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter, you\u2019re going to get fucked up. So you might as well have some fun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The closer Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker gets to Recruit Chapman, the harder Recruit Gaines and I bite the inside of our lips to try and keep from laughing. Recruit Chapman breaks character to wink at us. We snort and watch as Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker comes closer and closer to Recruit Chapman and his wrinkly, exposed nuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBro keep it together,\u201d I whisper out of the side of my mouth to Recruit Gaines. \u201cChapman\u2019s dumbass is gonna get smoked and if Baker catches us laughing he\u2019s gonna smoke us too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fuckin\u2019 trying dude,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell goddamn try harder fuckstick, because you\u2019re making me laugh too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDude one of his nuts is, like, noticeably smaller than the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

I snort so loud that Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2019s head snaps in my direction. He glares through me. He raises his right hand and points at me menacingly. His \u201cknife-hand\u201d is aimed directly at my nose where, unfortunately, a line of snot is running from my nostril to my lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello boy,\u201d Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker says in his frog voice\u2014a low, guttural voice meant to save his throat from becoming raw after countless hours of screaming at recruits. \u201cWhat\u2019s so goddamn funny right now?!\u201d The grin disappears from my face and I snap even more into attention than I already was.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing, sir!\u201d I scream. Recruit Gaines stiffens next to me, the happiness he felt only seconds ago retreating into his body. Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker doesn\u2019t buy it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh don\u2019t worry boy,\u201d he says with an evil smile. \u201cYou\u2019ll be dealt with.\u201d He turns his attention to the next Marine he has to inspect\u2014Recruit Chapman.<\/p>\n

He stands in front of Recruit Chapman and begins scanning his body. The happiness hibernating inside Recruit Gaines and I comes alive and threatens to get us fucked up along with Recruit Chapman. Only seconds separate us from an epic explosion. We bite our lips again and wait for the inevitable.<\/p>\n

Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker shines his moonbeam into Recruit Chapman\u2019s ears, then his nostrils. Recruit Chapman turns his head and allows his body to be examined. He\u2019s stone-faced and doesn\u2019t seem to have a care in the world, despite the fact that he\u2019s probably about to lose one or both of his nuts. Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2019s moonbeam works its way down Recruit Chapman\u2019s body, part by part.<\/p>\n

Recruit Chapman\u2019s neck, clear of any injuries or rashes.<\/p>\n

Recruit Chapman\u2019s chest, offensively white compared to his farmer\u2019s tanned arms, free of any injuries or rashes. A high-pitched whine comes from Recruit Gaines\u2019 body. Teeth marks are permanently stamped into the inside of my lip.<\/p>\n

Recruit Chapman\u2019s stomach, also offensively white but covered with light brown hair and freckles, free of any injuries or rashes. Recruit Gaines actually leans over and his shoulder touches my shoulder and I\u2019m certain I\u2019m about to piss myself. Then it happens.<\/p>\n

Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2019s moonbeam finds Recruit Chapman\u2019s rotten-looking testicles and freezes. Waves of physical pain radiate down the row of recruits who are also aware of Recruit Chapman\u2019s antics and would rather crack a rib trying to hold in their laughter than let it out and get fucked up along with him. I\u2019m red-faced and my eyes are bulging out of their sockets and I\u2019m convinced I\u2019m going to pass out and smack my head against the smooth concrete and end up dying from a fucking brain hemorrhage. Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2019s neck snaps his head up, aligning it with Recruit Chapman \u2018s dead eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello boy!\u201d he screams, not in his frog voice, but in a high-pitched, frantic voice. \u201cYou think you\u2019re funny?! Good bitch! You and your tiny nuts get on my goddamn quarterdeck right GODDAMN NOW!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAYE SIR!\u201d Recruit Chapman screams as he bolts to the front of the squad bay.<\/p>\n

Recruit Chapman will never deploy to a combat zone. He will finish his military career unscathed. A few years after leaving the Corps, he\u2019ll marry a girl he met in high school and become a police officer in Houston. A few years after that, he\u2019ll kill himself with his service weapon. Those who went to bootcamp with him will remember his antics and good nature. Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker will fly across the country to attend the funeral.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Recruit Chapman\u2019s about halfway to the quarterdeck, well on his way to joining Recruit Hammond, Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker stops him.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop bitch!\u201d he screams. Recruit Chapman stops at attention and does a perfect about-face, his nuts still hanging out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYES SIR,\u201d Recruit Chapman screams as his body does a 180 and faces Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker. The momentum of the about-face swings his nuts around fast, like a yo-yo whipping in a loop. His body stops suddenly, but not his balls. They swing around and bounce off his thigh and roll back into place. It\u2019s the straw that breaks the camel\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

Recruit Gaines and I explode with laughter, no longer capable of holding it back. And we\u2019re not alone. Every wannabe-Marine in the squad bay loses their shit at the same time. No one is even trying to hold it back or thinking about how Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker is going to fuck us all up by sending us to the quarterdeck to get smoked or punching us in the gut or screaming into our faces so close that we can smell the bits of salad stuck in his back molar.<\/p>\n

But through the laughter, we all think to look at Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2019s face, just to get an idea of the pain we have coming our way. What we see is the last thing any of us expect. Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker, the leanest and cruelest and loudest sonofabitch any of us have ever been forced to live with does not look mad, he does not scream, and he does not try to fight what\u2019s coming next. His cheeks are bright red. Calmly, he reaches up and grabs the top of his cover\u2014a Smokey Bear hat with a Marine Corps emblem on the front\u2014picks it up slightly, lowers it to the front of his face so that we can\u2019t see his expression, and begins to laugh so goddamn hard that the rest of us are simultaneously shocked and entertained all at once.<\/p>\n

A squad bay with nearly one hundred wannabe-Marines and one total cocksucker of a Drill Instructor drop the act and let loose their laughter. For weeks we\u2019d been playing our parts and obeying orders and screaming at the top of our lungs and running over there and marching over here and referring to ourselves as \u201cthis recruit\u201d and crying when we read letters from home and being completely unable take a shit or even get a boner. In one moment that only lasted a few seconds, the last bits of humanity exploded from our bodies. It was enough to make us forget that two wars lingered in our immediate future, and that many of us would probably die in country or during a training exercise or take our own lives. Those of us who survived would spend the majority of our time performing happiness and compassion and sadness to the civilians who cared about us.<\/p>\n

I would survive bootcamp. I would survive both wars. And I would survive two or three attempts to kill myself. I would survive all of those things and drift from town to town and job to job, wondering what I was supposed to do with my life.<\/p>\n

Eventually I would decide go to college and become a writer. I would get it in my head that guys like Recruit Gaines and Recruit Chapman and Recruit Hammond\u2014even guys like Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker\u2014for all their faults and their mistakes and their misdeeds, deserved to be remembered. And I would dedicate my life to making sure they were remembered not just as Marines with weird senses of humor, but as men. Men who, for one reason or another, agreed to perform an often-shitty job in the hopes of making their lives\u2014and the lives of those they loved\u2014one millimeter better than it was before they joined the Corps.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what so many civilians don\u2019t seem to understand. We\u2019re not all gun-toting, dip-spitting, far right fuckheads who want to kill somebody and talk shit to \u201cLib-tards\u201d and collect American flag tattoos. Some of us, the vast majority of us, are just kids who wanted to go to college, to travel the world, to support our families. When we signed the contract, we did it hoping for the best. And like any other kid, we never thought the worst possible scenario would ever happen to us. We never thought we\u2019d be the one to die in Afghanistan, or in an Osprey crash, or by our own hand. For better or worse, we just wanted a chance to live beyond our means.<\/p>\n

But we wouldn\u2019t know any of that for years. That night in the squad bay, just before Recruit Gaines and I got called up to the quarterdeck to get fucked up alongside Recruit Chapman, the only thing we knew for sure was that Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Baker was capable of happiness. That, and one of Recruit Chapman\u2019s nuts was bigger than the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s what so many civilians don\u2019t seem to understand. We\u2019re not all gun-toting, dip-spitting, far right fuckheads who want to kill somebody and talk shit to ‘Lib-tards’ and collect American flag tattoos. Some of us, the vast majority of us, are just kids who wanted to go to college, to travel the world, to support our families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3736],"class_list":["post-20157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-marines","writer-matt-eidson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20586,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20157\/revisions\/20586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}