Free Sand in the Wind by Robert Roth

some fat sailor said, ‘How ’bout hurrying up so we can watch the program?’ Simpson answered real friendlylike, ‘How ’bout kissin’ my ass?’ Well anyway, this squid forgot he didn’t have any guts and told Simpson he was lucky his arm was in a cast or he’d get his ass kicked. Naturally I didn’t want to see any trouble start so, quick thinker that I am, I tried to cool things off by sticking the end of my mop in the squid’s face. I told him there was a fly on his nose, but he didn’t believe it and came charging at me. I’m not saying this guy was big, but when he got up, the ship started to rock. Before he reached me, Simpson came on like Tarzan and flung his mop between the fat slob’s legs. The big turd hit the deck so hard he slid ten yards on the water from the bucket he knocked over on the way down —”
    Hamilton nodded his head while saying, “Served the fucking squid right.”
    “— Five of his friends started after me. Luckily, Simpson was an all-state pitcher in high school, because by this time he was over at one of the pool tables flinging billiard balls. Only the United States Navy would be stupid enough to put pool tables on a ship —”
    “That’s ’cause the Marine Corps doesn’t have any ships,” Forsythe pointed out.
    “Anyway, I saw one of the squids look towards the other pool table. Realizing the tactical danger of such weapons in the hands of the enemy, I hauled ass to the table and jumped on top of it. Luckily, the last slob to use it hadn’t put his cue back in the rack. I’m not bragging, but I put on a display of swordsmanship that would have made Errol Flynn drool. The only guy able to touch a ball was the first guy that tried. I caught him reaching for the five ball. His wrist’ll never be the same. I don’t wanna give you the idea that I was fightin’ ’em off single-handed, Simpson was really on target. Boy, did he have a fast ball. One of those guys is gonna have an earache for the rest of his life. Anyway, Simpson got two lying on the floor at the same time, so the others ran. You shoulda seen the faces of the two on the floor when they realized the others had hauled ass. It didn’t take ’em long to follow. In the meantime, Fatboy, who started the whole thing, finally got up. He decided to leave also. He could really run, considering he was dragging one leg behind him. Didn’t run quite fast enough though. Simpson bounced a cue ball off his head just before he got out the door.
    “So here was me and Simpson all alone in the rec room. We had to decide whether we were going to hold the ground we’d taken, or retreat to a more strategic position.”
    “You shoulda taken over the whole ship,” Hamilton suggested.
    “We were pretty fagged out, so we decided to hold what we had. We stuck a Ping-Pong table in front of the hatch and sat with our backs up against it. After resting a minute, I left Simpson at the hatch and started collecting the pool balls in my empty bucket. It wasn’t ten minutes before some guy starts banging on the table like a maniac, saying he’s an officer and to let him in. We didn’t know whether it was a trick or not, so Simpson moved a card table near the door, put the bucket of pool balls on it, then climbed on himself. When I got the Ping-Pong table moved back far enough, Simpson, who was standin’ on the card table with his arm cocked, said it was okay, the guy was an officer. Anyway, we let the funny-looking fag in, and he was really pissed. Not only because of what had happened, but also because Simpson couldn’t stop laughin’ because of the look on the weirdo’s face when I pulled the table away and he saw Simpson ready to let go with the billiard ball.
    “Anyway, they kept me around for another week trying to figure out what to do with me. My attitude was gettin’ bad and I wasn’t gettin’ along too well with the doctors because they kept on tellin’ me I had a bad attitude —”
    “How long did it take them