CUBI
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CUBI I don’t know about you, but I awoke with the smell of rich dark earth in my mouth. It was musty and I could smell the corruption, and waited for the cock to crow. Must have missed curfew and had to go to ground to avoid the Philippine National Police and the Shore Patrol. Couldn’t remember. Had I stayed out in the Barrio? Not safe these days, I thought, pawing at the alarm. I did not turn on the BBC and I have no idea what is happening in the world. Only a sense of longing and of loss. I floated in a form of paralysis. In the silence I could hear clearly the banging of metal and the sound of voices, the clink of bottles. I could hear the scratchy voice of Dispatch calling the cab. I think I was in Cubi. Beniktikan Cab, please come in… Headed out toward the gate over the Shit River , or headed in? I tried to move a limb and felt numb. Must be coming home. Only place in the world that you could take a twenty dollar bill in your pocket and go to the moon and most of the way back. It always started on the point in Cubi, at the carrier pier. The place took its name from Construction Unit, Battalion One, that built the airfield and the docks. It was a fine airfield, one of the best in the region, built completely to American standards. It was the staging ground for the naval presence off Vietnam , hundreds of ships, and all of them called here, coming or going. Later, when the war was lost, we glared at the Russians who smugly occupied our former base at Cam Ranh Bay. Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991. It buried Clark Air Force Base in dozens of feet of ash, and the plume got as far as Subic Bay , and blanketed Subic Mainside and the clubs along Magsaysay Boulevard . It was a convenient time to leave, with the Russians on their asses. And so it ended. I looked up in the darkness. If only I could get to the Club Rufadora, everything would be fine. That place was an island of sanity off the main drag, and the women were relaxed, part owners or at least independent contractors. I had a friend at the Rufadora that I saw every few months when the ship came in. I should have done something to formalize the relationship, but it was the way of things then. A bit of home far away. She would be old now, as old as me if she had survived the eruption of the volcano and the closing of the base and the end of an empire. Why could I not remember her name? I wondered sometimes, in the dark, if anything had been left behind from that relationship. It was hardly exclusive, but still…. Eventually I was able to pry myself upright and turn on the radio. But the feeling of disorientation continued. I thought about the hat. It had once been white, a trim ball-cap with a stiff bill, curved to frame the face and shelter the eyes. I had sewn the patch on the front myself. It was an important part of been there, done that back in the day. The aviators on the ship awarded themselves colorful patches for each hundred landings on the ship, advertising their proficiency as Centurions. There was an immediate and irreverent response ashore. Romie, the slim Filipino who operated the little bar at the BOQ sold patches that looked remarkably similar. The difference was that a hot-dog was embroidered in the middle. Cubi Dog Centurion said the words around them. It meant that a hundred of the Navy-procured hot dogs had moved from the steamer and into the bun and slide across the bar and down the gullet, washed down with cold San Miguel beer. The hat is tattered now and the patch is faded. The bill is limp, the stiffness not surviving time and the washing machine. I winced at the metaphor. Thankfully, I had the forethought to ask Romie for two, and I think there is one that is pristine in a cruise box, somewhere. Maybe in the storage locker. So many moves. I leaned into the shower and turned the valves turned up toward raw steam, hot as the sun on the jungle and as wet as the monsoon. I closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, breathing in the moisture. I had no interest in going to work. I knew where I wanted to go, but I can’t. None of us can. It is completely inaccessible, except in the place between sleep and waking. Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra |
