Trouble Triangle (Tyler's Trouble Trilogy) (20 page)

I staggered outside and stood at attention, along with everyone else in the division. Jack and I swayed. There were twice as many people there than had ever
been before. I closed one eye.

"You okay?" Mark whispered from beside me.

"Not really. I'm seeing double."

Lieutenant Johnson arrived and moved up and down the rows of personnel giving his verdict on each one's appearance. Master Chief Steele followed him, making notes on his clipboard. Before long, he stood in front of me.

"Well, well, well. Now what do we have here?" His head slowly moved from my boots up to my head. "I hope you don't get writer's cramp, Master Chief. Ready?" Master Chief nodded. "Right. Boots not shined, bottom of pants frayed, belt buckled not polished, shirt not pressed, shirt pocket not buttoned. Do you have an approved chit for growing a beard, Fireman Chambers?"

I only opened the right corner of my mouth to reply. "No, sir."

"Holy cow! What the hell were you drinking last night, Chambers? You smell like a gutter street hobo." He fanned his hand in front of his nose. "Unshaven, dirty cover, and while we're at it, may as well hit you for a haircut. Failed." He stared at me. Fortunately, him being four inches shorter than me, I didn't have to try avoiding looking him in the eyes. I just looked over him.

Master Chief's pen finally caught up. Both of them stared at me. I looked straight ahead. My peripheral vision grew narrower. Blackness came in from the sides, like someone closing a set of dark velvet curtains. Just as the curtains met in the middle of my nose, I went into freefall.

I came to with Master Chief smacking the side of my face. My head throbbed. I wasn't sure if it was from hitting it on the ground or from the Jack Daniel's Debbie forced down me. All I knew w
as I hurt. From the inside out.

"Come on, Chambers." The patting continued. "You locked your knees, didn't you?"

I jerked my head around, and did a quick assessment to make sure I hadn't shit my pants. All clear. I rejoined the land of the living. The rest of the division must have been dismissed. It was just me, Master Chief and half a dozen of my
shopmates
surrounding me as I lay on the tarmac. I could still shit myself at any moment with Master Chief's breathing his coffee breath on me as fear gripped my bowels about what might happen next. Master Chief grabbed me by the arm and helped me to my feet.

"Move your ass over to sickbay," Master Chief ordered. "Get checked out, then report to the division office."

I followed Master Chief's orders. Sickbay noted that I was
hung
over
, but suffered no
physical damage from the fall.

Knowing I was in for an ass-chewing of epic proportion, I stopped by my room, picked up my shower gear, went down the hall to the bathroom and showered, shaved and spruced myself up. I managed to find a uniform which was more presentable then the wrinkled mess I had on. My head still pound
ed, but I felt slightly better.

I walked back to the division office. Holly looked up from her typewriter when I walked in. She hooked her finger, gesturing for me to move closer. I walked over to her desk and leaned down.

"What's wrong with you?" she whispered. "The Lieutenant came back from the inspection and told me to get the papers ready to send you off to drunk school for a month. You better get your best line of bullshit ready." She picked up the phone and rang through to Lieutenant Johnson to let him know I stood outside waiting. She put the phone down. "You can go through now." She cupped her hand and whispered, "Good luck."

My stomach somersaulted and my hand trembled as I reached for the doorknob. I drew a deep breath, opened the door and walked in. I was hit by the stench of stale cigar smoke. Lieutenant Johnson sat at his desk. Master Chief Steele stood in the corner with his bazooka arms folded across his chest.

I walked to the center of the room and stood at attention, four feet in front of the Lieutenant's  desk. I sounded off. "Fireman Chambers, reporting as ordered, sir."

Lieutenant Johnson stood up. "Fireman Chambers, you're a fucking disgrace," he said it in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, which made me feel worse than if he had shouted. The way he said it made it personal. Thirty seconds or more passed in silence; 'Fucking disgrace' left ringing in my ears. I felt dizzy. The room spun and was picking up speed. I reminded myself not to lock the knees. That's all I needed was to topple over again.

"Sir, permission to stand at parade rest," I requested, hoping that would slow the speed of the spin.

"Permission denied. This is the goddamn military, Chambers, not some fucking high school ROTC," he said, his voice raising. "You and your uniform were appalling this morning. And we all know why. You were drunk. Do you have a drinking problem?" He placed his hands on his desk, knuckles down, and leaned in.

"No, Sir."

"Then perhaps you'd like to tell me why you go out and get so rat-assed on a work day that you can't even stand up the next morning."

I took a deep breath while I silently thanked Holly for the tip off. It gave me a little time to come up with something. "Well, sir, I had some bad news yesterday. I got a letter from my girlfriend back home." I dropped my look to the floor and let my voice go soft like I was choked up. "She dumped me. What really hurt…it wasn't the long distance relationship thing that killed it. She hooked up with my best friend, and he just enlisted in the Marines."

I closed my eyes for a moment and thought of that dog movie. God that was so sad when that dog got shot in the end. Tragic. A little dog taking a bullet to save the baby. Bingo. Tears pooled in my eyes and a tear ran down my cheek. I gave a quick sniffle. "I called back home to talk to my mom. She's always good at helping me through troublesome times." Another tear ran down my other cheek. This was good
.
"She told me she's got cancer. She started chemo but it's fifty/fifty whether she makes it or not."

Lieutenant Johnson did some head jerking toward Master Chief. He came over and offered me a Kleenex. I took a couple and wiped my eyes.

"Thank you, Master Chief," I said. "I was just going to have a couple of drinks to help numb the pain, but I kept thinking about the fact that my mom might be dead in six months. In the end, I finished off a bottle of Jack Daniel's." I gave another wipe with the tissue. "I'm sorry, sir. That's no excuse. I shouldn't let my personal problems interfere with my military duties. I apologize to you for reflecting badly on the division. I accept full responsibility for my actions, and am prepared to accept whatever discipline you choose to impose." I gave another wipe with the tissue.

The Lieutenant stood upright and sighed. "I lost my dad to cancer last year, so I know what you're going through. It's tough." He removed his glasses and rubbed his eye, then put the glasses back on. "Okay, Chambers. Under the circumstances, I'm going to treat this as a
one time
incident. But if it gets too much for you and you need some counseling, or if you find yourself drinking too much, let me know. We can get you help."

"Thank you, sir."

"Do you want to take some emergency leave to see your mom?"

"No, thank you, sir. Not yet. I'm hoping my prayers will help her for the time being. I might need to go back later if she gets worse."

"Of course. Remember what I said. I'm here to help. I don't like to see one of my men in distress. Dismissed."

I did an about-face and left his office. Holly looked at me as I walked by her desk, searching for anything that would tell her how it went. I clenched my fist in front of my stomach, and gave it a little shake. She smiled.

I went back to the shop and pretended to work. Watkins cut me some slack for some reason. Wiping down the machines was the easiest job going, but that's what he assigned me to do; a task I was grateful for. I just wanted to get through the day with as little noise as possible. Just as I was about to leave, Watkins came up to me, and put his arm around me.

"Sorry to hear about your mom, Chambers. I hope everything works out okay. If you need anything, you know where I am." He patted my shoulder.

"Thanks. I appreciate that. But I have a feeling she's
gonna
be okay."

I stood outside the barracks Thursday evening waiting for Holly to pick me up and thought about how to best approach the subject of her going to see Debbie. I could hardly tell her I was hiding under the bed when she paid her a little visit, so I needed to employ a bit of tact.

My
Columbo
thought process was randomly interrupted by the dread that she would no doubt want to go see some girl movie; or by wondering how serious she was about having sex in the restroom at the cinema. I packed a clean hanky just in case I needed to shove it down her throat to stifle orgasmic cries.

Holly pulled up
in her Mustang and I hopped in.

"Recognize this?" she asked, pointing to a flower tucked behind her ear.

"Not really."

"It's out of that lovely bunch of flowers you gave me the other day. That was really thoughtful, Tyler. Thank you." She leaned over to kiss me. Her loose blouse dropped forward and gave me a perfect view of her breasts
that were unfettered by a bra.

Yep, looked like restroom sex was on. I returned her kiss. "What did you do with the rest of the flowers?"

"Silly me. I forgot to put them in water and most of them died. This was one of the ones that didn't." She tilted her head down, looked at me from the tops of her eyes, and stuck out her bottom lip. "Forgive me?"

God, she was so cute when she did that. "Forgiven and forgotten." No point ruining the evening over some silly misunderstanding. Yeah, I must be having a good influence on her. She probably felt guilty for slapping Debbie, and gave her the flowers to apologize. That had to be it. She's actually a really nice, caring person. I decided to let it go.

We sped off to the theater. Holly’s driving was up to its usual erratic standard. I adopted the policy of not talking while she drove as she seemed to need all her powers of concentration to keep the car on the road and us out of hospital. I often closed my eyes when she decided to do a little multi-tasking and put on her make-up while driving down the road at sixty miles an hour. Steering wheel in one hand, mascara brush in
the other, now that was scary.

We arrived at the multi-screen complex in one piece and  searched the posters of what was being shown.

"Like,
whatta
you
wanna
see?"

"I imagine you probably want to see
Flashdance
, huh?" I commented, pointing to poster of Jennifer
Beals
sitting in an oversized sweatshirt.

"Really?" Pure excitement etched her voice. "You really want—" She stopped herself, and her tone turned serious. "No, like this is my treat to you. You pick."

Scarface
, starring Al
Pacino
, caught my eye. I looked at Holly. She nonchalantly looked around, patiently waiting for me to make my decision. She looked sexy, as usual in her loose fitting white blouse and tight white leggings hugged her every curve. Her pink fluorescent sneakers glowed in the black light above the entrance. Her nearly shoulder-length hair pulled back, showing off diamond stud earrings. I really was lucky to have a good-looking girl like her hanging on my arm. I found it very unselfish of her to let me choose.

"You know what?" I said. She turned with a look of pure innocence, ready to accept whatever I announced. "I'd like to see
Flashdance
myself."

She broke out in a huge grin. "Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"You are so awesome." She kissed me.

I looked at my watch. "Hey, we got forty-five minutes before the movie starts. Why don't we grab a burger across the street before the show?"

Holly nodded, still beaming. We popped across to Billy's Bar & Charlie's Char. Mini-jukeboxes at each booth added to the retro look inspired by black and white photographs of famous movie stars hanging on the walls. We both sat on the same side of the booth and ordered a couple of beers as the hostess seated us. I quickly decided on the Aloha burger, while Holly scrutinized the menu
, line by line, cover to cover.

I grew bored, hungry, and eventually horny. Perhaps the photograph of Marilyn Monroe getting her dress blown up over the street vent encouraged my lust. I pulled Holly's shirt out and took a peek at her boobs.

She slapped the shirt shut. "Stop that," she giggled. "I'm trying to make up my mind here."

I rolled my eyes. That could take us into the next millennium. "Did I tell you how gorgeous you look tonight?" I slipped my hand under the table and rubbed her thigh. She lightly pushed my hand away, but the smile she wore told a different story. While she continued to read the menu, I moved my hand to her crotch and stroked her between the thighs. She looked around the busy restaurant.

"Stop it, Tyler," she whispered, but made no attempt to move my hand. I continued to stroke her. "
Mmm
…"  She cast her head back, closed her eyes and opened her legs a little wider. "Oh, you are a naughty boy," she purred. She rested one end of the menu on her flat stomach. The other end laid on the edge of the table, creating a bridge, hiding what my hand was doing underneath.