Blue Water Sailor
We were ready to carry out the age old tradition of Coasties getting ready for liberty call – shower, shave, count your money and hit the beach. A Coastie on liberty was usually seeking three things; women, getting drunk and a tattoo.
Waiting on the wharf was a big four door 1939 Packard car, with a hand written sign taped to its door.
Red Rooster House
White, Chinese and Black Girls
Smooth Service – Sailors Welcome A huge black man, resembling Pop-Eye the Sailor, wearing only a ragged pair of cut-off pants and a small white captain’s hat perched on his huge mop of dreadlocks
stood next to the car.
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“Hop in mon, Big Nelson take you to the Red Rooster house, you be big-time happy tonight, we got sweet ladies, cold red-stripe Jamaican beer and first class gangi for smokin”.
Yours truly and five shipmates quickly piled into the old Packard with Big Nelson.
Big Nelson hadn’t lied; the downstairs rooms of the Red Rooster were stocked with ladies of all different sizes, shapes and colors. A female version of Big Nelson, smoking a large gangi joint, ran the bar, phonograph and the ladies. The game plan was simple – drink a few red stripe beers, then dance and hang out with the ladies while sizing up the one you wanted to take upstairs after paying “Madam Nelson” one British pound ($4.80 U.S. in those days).
I chose a Chinese looking Jamaican lady who didn’t look too tired; certain she or my shipmates didn’t know it was my first time. I paid Madam Nelson and told her I was taking Miss China upstairs.
“OK mon, you got 30 minutes”.
It was over quick. But, I had finally done the deed; I had passed the test, I had earned my spurs and achieved the sexual nirvana that all virgin young guys strive to reach in their quest for manliness. I was in the brotherhood! Unfortunately, the feeling of euphoria I was basking in was dashed within a few seconds by Miss China.
4 “Hey sailor boy; not bad for first time upstairs,
tie a knot in your condom and toss it out the window”.
Not quite what I imagined Deborah Kerr said to Burt Lancaster after they made love on the beach in From Here to Eternity. How did Miss China know it was my first time? I had been so cool with all my moves. I hoped she wouldn’t spill the beans to my shipmates.
Leaving my white jumper top askew, I did my best “John Wayne tough guy” act as I swaggered down the stairs with a freshly lit Lucky Strike hanging out of my mouth – giving a nonchalant wink and grunt to my shipmates. “Gimmie a red stripe and make sure it’s cold” I barked. I didn’t fool “Madam Nelson” behind the bar, she smiled and winked at me in a motherly way – she knew the drill.
Back on the ship the next morning I could tell it had been a great liberty. There was a good assortment of bruised faces and knuckles, ripped and dirty uniforms, and a new array of fresh tattoos, still oozing little droplets of blood from the blue and red ink needle drawings of leopards, eagles and anchors. It had been a good liberty.
I’m now 71 years old, semi-retired and living back on Long Island. I don’t hang out in the Hampton joints anymore but I still chuckle sometimes when I’m shaving and catch a glimpse in the bathroom mirror of the USCG tattoo on my left shoulder. Yes, I never had a cushy assignment on a Long Island lifeboat station but I wouldn’t trade my time as a young Coastie “blue water sailor” out to see the world for anything.
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