MEETING WITH CHICO

• 12, 18, 2021
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MEETING WITH CHICO

On the wall next to the door was a cartoon figure of a goofy-looking frog smoking a cigar and carrying a lit dynamite stick: Freddy the Frog. The faded sign underneath said Underwater Demolition Team 11 and below that, in new paint, SEAL Team One. I had just come in from surf drills over on the Strand. Before I went through the door, I rolled up my wet fatigues so I wouldn’t get water on the office floor. Inside, I stood in front of Lieutenant David “Chico” Waldrop. At attention, of course. He was wearing shoulder boards on his white uniform shirt. It looked like somebody had ironed it just before I walked through the door. Waldrop, six foot three and blonde with a surfer’s tan, was tilted back in his swivel chair.

“Lieutenant?” He didn’t lean forward.

“Lieutenant.”

“Something?” He did not look at me or tell me to stand at ease. I stayed at attention.

“The thing is…” I said. I paused.

“The thing is what?”

“I … I don’t want to swim with Nakamoto.”

He sat upright in his chair and stared at me, open-mouthed.

“What do you mean you don’t want to swim with Nakamoto? You don’t …” He paused. He looked at me like I had just tried to hand him a tarantula. “What do you think we’re running here, Lieutenant?” He hit the first syllable of lieutenant hard, like he was talking to some simple-minded goober named Lou. “Think this is some kind of day camp? Jesus!”

I just turned my cap around in my hands and said nothing.

He said, “You think you can tell us how to run the program? You and your stripe and a half?” Both of us knowing that he had a stripe and a half, too. It was right there on his shoulder: lieutenant junior grade, U. S. Navy.

“I’m sure you know that your shoulder decorations don’t mean a rat’s ass around here. And I know what you’re thinking. Do not get the idea that we are the same rank. We are not the same rank … You’ve been here two weeks and you want to tell us how to run the program?”

“No. I mean, no, I’m not trying to tell you how to run the program. I mean, yes, I know about rank here.”

“Then you know by now that my rank is Instructor and your rank is Puke. Puke Junior Grade….not Frogman, not SEAL. You don’t decide who you swim with. We decide who you swim with.” He was still tilted back in his chair. “Golly, I guess I must have forgotten to ask you who you wanted for a swim partner. Like they do at Camp Pissawatamie. Well, fuck me! Next thing you know you and Ryder will want a marshmallow roast between dives. Make some s’mores.”

We both knew that Ryder was the only other American officer besides me left in the program. He shook his head. “Jesus!”

I said nothing. He stared at me.

“Just what is your complaint?”

I took a breath. “Nakamoto. He tends to panic. He can’t … he’s erratic underwater. He can’t stay on a compass course.”

“That’s it?”

“He can’t talk to us. Or won’t … I’m not sure which. Looks like he speaks only five words in English and you can’t understand three of them. He’s got no loyalty. The first sign of trouble underwater … he won’t … he’ll pop to the surface like a cork.”

I knew the Partner Code, everybody did. It’s written in stone in the Teams. In the water you stay with your swim partner no matter what. You never leave his side. Never. If you let yourself get more than twenty feet from him in the water and the instructor sees it, bam! You’re gone. No excuses. No appeals. Ring the bell or the instructor will ring it for you. Pack your seabag and be off the base by sundown. Sayonara, you pencil necked dimwit.

“He panics. He can’t … he doesn’t like me or anybody in the program. I don’t understand what he’s doing here.”

“You know we can’t pair him with an enlisted. He’s Japanese. That would be loss of face back home. Big loss of face. He has to swim with another officer.” I noticed that he hadn’t disagreed with anything I’d said.

“OK.”

“OK what?”

“OK, Sir.”

“So, you want me to palm him off on Ryder?”

“I don’t want you to palm him off on anybody, Sir. He’s a hazard to anybody he swims with … I don’t care who it is. And he’s … he’s a hazard to himself. He does not belong here.” My voice was unsteady. I was out of line at this point and we both knew it. One word from Waldrop could end my UDT career right there.

“He hasn’t left you yet, has he?”

“I haven’t gotten into trouble yet.”

He ignored my comment.

“Your guys give him a nickname?” A loaded question. Should I give him a little shuck? There was no point. It was clear he already knew the answer.

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

“Oddjob.”

“Oddjob?” Waldrop nodded without expression. Making sure I knew that he already knew.

“Why Oddjob?”

“Because of the Korean guy in the James Bond movie. The one who can throw his hat and cut off somebody’s hand. Oddjob never speaks. He’s built like a fireplug. And his arms are huge. Like Nakamoto.”

There was a trace of a smile, which vanished immediately.

“He know you call him that?”

“I don’t think so. Sometimes we call him Mr. Moto.”

“You know he wasn’t Korean—that actor who played Oddjob. A weightlifter. Went to the Olympics. Hawaiian Japanese guy named Sakata.” Waldrop’s face showed a flicker of enthusiasm, his tone now conversational. “Wrestled pro under the name Tosh Togo”…Waldrop caught himself—he was slipping out of prick mode, sounding like a movie buff, just like a regular guy. He dropped his amiable look and glared at me again.

“So, Lieutenant, what do you expect me to do?”

“Wash him out.” My voice was a little too loud. I had that courage that goes with being right. Being foolish, but being right.