Cabahug

 Cabahug 

By Paul Davis 

Joselito Cabahug was a scrawny Filipino criminal known to his cohorts as Duling, the Tagalog word for crossed-eyed. But no one dared to call him that to his face, as Cabahug was short-tempered and prone to violence when insulted or angered. 

He was born in Olongapo's Barrio Barreto in the Philippines with his eyes crossed. His poor family were unable to provide medical help for him. Despite his small stature, Cabahug grew up mean and tough and he struck out at anyone who dared to ridicule or tease him about his eyes. In time, his perpetually angry, twisted face and crossed eyes took on a truly sinister look that struck fear into people.   

Cabahug joined a youth street gang in Olongapo in the early 1960s and committed numerous petty crimes, eventually graduating to armed robbery. Due to his frightening looks and his penchant for violence, he rose to be the leader of the teenage gang. He was arrested and sent to prison for armed robbery, and his reputation grew substantially after he performed a contract murder in the prison for Homobono Catacutan. 

The Olongapo gang leader was impressed with the fearless and frightening young thug, and he used bribery to get Cabahug released from prison. Catacutan recruited him and used him as an enforcer for his "shabu" crystal meth business. Catacutan’s customers and rivals, and even the police, were hesitant to confront the gang leader when he had the demented and evil-looking Cabahug at his side.      

Cabahug often backed up the gang’s chief enforcer, Tibayan. The two ferocious killers were ordered by Catacutan to hand out beatings and to assassinate rivals, cheats and police informers. 

Cabahug became legendary in Olongapo when he hunted down two of Catacutan’s shabu dealers who were cheating the gang leader. Cabahug captured the two drug dealers and took them aboard a boat. At sea, he tortured the two until they gave up the whereabouts of their stash of money and drugs. He then stabbed them to death and tossed them overboard. The two mutilated bodies late washed ashore, and the word went out to the underground that Cabahug brutally murdered them. 

Sometime later, Cabahug murdered a bar girl who was suspected of being a police informer. Like the two cheating drug dealers, Cabahug tortured the young woman until she admitted she was talking to the police. Her ravaged body was dumped in front of a police station. 

Cabahug was high on Lieutenant Colonel Rosa’s list of criminals he wanted to bring to justice, but he was unable to get anyone to testify against the notorious killer.          

Bulan befriended Cabahug when he worked as a clerk in Catacutan’s grocery store. Cabahug, who had no true friends, appreciated that Bulan was not frightened of his looks and violent reputation, and the clerk appeared to genuinely like him. Bulan, thinking ahead, wanted the notorious killer on his side when he eventually made his move to take over the gang from Catacutan. Bulan promoted Cabahug after Catacutan was murdered. Bulan from then on had his own loyal bodyguard and killer. He later ordered Cabahug to kill his partner, Tibayan. 

Some years later, Bulan sat in the Ritz, suffering from the gunshot wounds from Salvatore Lorino, the American sailor from the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, had inflicted on him. Bulan swore he would get revenge. He finally made up his mind on a course of action. He called over Cabahug and ordered him to find and kill the American sailor named Lorino.     

The following evening, as Lorino was in a hotel room with Jade, there was a knock on the door. Jade answered the door as Lorino lay in bed smoking a cigarette. Cabahug knocked Jade to the floor and rushed in. Thanks to his South Philly hoodlum instincts and criminal experience, Lorino saw Cabahug running in and he dove from the bed as Cabahug drove his Butterfly knife into the bed sheets. 

Lorino was quickly on his feet and grabbed the bedside lamp and smashed it against Cabahug’s head. Lorino was taken aback at the sight of the crazed, crossed-eyed intruder as Cabahug leaped from the bed, his knife in hand. Lorino backed into a wall and leveled a hard kick into Cabahug’s chest as the enforcer rushed in. Cabahug fell back on the bed and Lorino jumped on top of him and knocked the knife from Cabahug’s hand. Lorino brought down a slew of punches to Cabahug’s face. Lorino reared back his right hand and delivered a hard punch that stunned Cabahug for a moment. As Lorino stood up and took a breath, Cabahug recovered, leaped from the bed and ran out the door.         

Later that evening, Cabahug reported to Bulan that he failed to murder Lorino. Bulan looked at Cabahug’s bruised face and dared not reproach his chief enforcer. He simply told Cabahug to try again.    

At the Americano, Lorino told Walker about the attack. He told Walker that he and Jade were fine, although the girl was shaken. When Lorino mentioned that the attacker was crossed-eyed, Walker said, “Cabahug.” 

“Who?” 

“Joselito Cabahug, a thug who works for Bulan,” Walker said. “He’s a cross-eyed, crazy-looking bastard.”    

“I hit the motherfucker so hard, I think I might have uncrossed his eyes,” Lorino told Walker. “But he still got up and ran out the door.” 

Walker left the bar and walked over to Camama’s hotel to pass on to the Old Huk what Lorino told him about the murder attempt. The elderly gang leader had already been informed about the incident by one of his hotel clerks. Camama was furious that Bulan would dare to send the crazy killer Cabahug to his hotel to murder one of his American shabu dealers. Camama told Walker to have Duke Valle shadow Lorino for his protection. Lorino was a good earner for the Camama gang, and the Old Huk didn’t want anything to happen to him.  

The Old Huk turned to Sicat after Walker left and told his lieutenant to retaliate. Sicat nodded. Sicat and Coco Labrador, another veteran killer, roamed Olongapo hunting for Cabahug, but he appeared to go underground. But there were other targets, and the Old Huk approved of Sicat’s idea. 

Benigno Del Rosario was dapper, handsome and loquacious. He rose from being a waiter and bartender to become the Ritz’s popular manager. Del Rosario was in the Ritz working when one of his waiters told him that one of the bar girls was outside of the bar throwing up in the street. A hands-on manager, Del Rosario went outside to investigate. 

As Del Rosario stepped outside, Sicat and Labrador opened up on the bar manager and shot him multiple times. Del Rosario collapsed and died instantly. Sicat and Labrador ran down the street and leaped into a jeepney, which sped off.

Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Rosa came on the scene of the murder in front of the Ritz. Shooting people down in public in front of bars that drew in American sailors and their valued dollars was bad for Olongapo. Rosa and his officers interrogated witnesses. A bartender informed Rosa that a waiter had told Del Rosario that one of the bar girls was sick outside of the bar, which caused the manger to venture outside where he was shot and killed.

Rosa questioned the waiter, who at first denied he told Del Rosario anything. But when the waiter was dragged to the police station and harshly questioned, he confessed that Coco Labrador had threatened his family if he didn’t set up the bar manager. Rosa and his men sought out Labrador and arrested him at the Americano bar. At the police station, Labrador denied threatening the waiter and denied knowing anything about the murder. He also refused to implicate his boss, Sicat or the Old Huk. 

After Rosa left the interrogation room to urinate, Labrador punched the police officer guarding him. He took the officer’s sidearm and ran out of the interrogation room. Rosa encountered Labrador in the hall as he was fleeing, and Rosa pulled his sidearm from its holster and shot Labrador dead.      

Lorino spent the evening with Jade at the Americano. When the bar closed, Lorino and Jade left the bar and headed towards the hotel next door. Cabahug leaped from a jeepney and began firing at Lorino. Lorino pushed Jade to the ground and fell on top of her. Duke Valle came out of the shadows and shot Cabahug twice in the head. Valle placed the barrel of his gun under his nose and sniffed it like he saw so many cowboys do in the movies.          

When Bulan heard the news of Cabahug’s death, he gripped his knee in pain and cursed his luck. He did not grieve for Cabahug. Bulan would have to think of another way to pay the American sailor back. 

© 2025 Paul Davis 

Reeinald Bulan

 Reeinald Bulan

 By Paul Davis 

The son of an honest and hard worker in a restaurant in Olongapo, Reeinald Bulan grew up in a large, happy family. Reeinald Bulan, however, was the only member of the family not happy with his lot. The timid, chubby, shaggy-haired boy was bullied unmercifully in school and on the streets of Olongapo. The berated, bruised and battered teenager dreamed of becoming a powerful and feared crime boss. Then, he dreamed, he would take revenge against those who tormented him. 

Bulan scoffed at his father’s work ethic and the long, hard hours he put in at the restaurant, thinking he was a fool. Instead, Bulan admired Homobono Catacutan, an elderly and gaunt criminal with a scary knife scar across his right cheek and nose. Catacutan owned the grocery store where Bulan worked as a clerk. 

To Bulan, Catacutan didn’t appear to work at all. He mostly sat in a chair, drank San Miguel beer, smoked cigarettes and gave orders to his underlings. Bulan enjoyed bringing Catacutan his beer and cigarettes, and he enjoyed listening to the gang leader snap orders to his gang members. 

The Olongapo gang leader liked Bulan’s apparent cleverness as well as his subservient and slavish attitude towards the boss. Catacutan took Bulan under his wing and trained him to handle the legitimate business books as well as the illegitimate books for his criminal enterprises. 

Girls were never much interested in Bulan as a teen, but in his mid-20s he was an assistant to Catacutan, and due to that exalted role, he was able to have nearly every girl he desired. Catacutan paid him well and Bulan lived lavishly and enjoyed the night life of Olongapo with beautiful girls at his side. He moved out of his father’s modest home and took the apartment above the grocery. He paid good money to furnish the apartment well and he entertained women and Catacutan’s gang members in the apartment, suppling food, alcohol and drugs. 

Thanks to his lavish parties and his ingratiating manner towards his fellow criminals, Bulan became popular with the drug dealers, enforcers, and thieves in the gang. Catacutan did not see Bulan’s budding popularity as a threat. Rather, he was proud of Bulan. He saw Bulan as an up and comer in his criminal enterprises. He did not, however, see Bulan as a future gang leader, as he thought the portly young man was physically weak and lacked the sort of command presence that crime bosses in Olongapo needed to thrive and survive.    

The child-less Catacutan believed that he needed an heir who had brains like Bulan but also had the toughness of Ernesto Tibayan, his short, squat and not-to-bright chief enforcer. Catacutan wanted to train someone to step up as the gang leader in the event that he retired, went to prison or died. Catacutan regretted that he did not have anyone in his gang who had both skill sets needed to take over his criminal empire.    

Catacutan’s criminal empire included two hidden labs that produced shabu and a small army of dealers selling the crystal meth in Olongapo. He also employed several tough, violent men to act as enforcers. His dealers sold shabu in his bar, the Ritz, and Catacutan used his grocery store as a front to sell stolen items from the American naval base on the black market. Catacutan also sponsored and bankrolled several criminal gangs who pulled heists, kidnappings and other profitable criminal acts. 

In the mid-1960s there were several gangs selling shabu and committing other crimes, but Catacutan’s only true competitor was the Old Huk, whom Catacutan hated and feared. On several occasions, the Old Huk’s men came into conflict with Catacutan’s men. But both gang leaders were wise enough to cease the hostilities before it came to an all-out war between the two major criminal gangs. Open gang warfare in Olongapo would bring the police out in force and both businesses would suffer.    

Although he acted like an amiable toady, Bulan was secretly ambitious. He still harbored an ambition to become a crime boss, but he kept that plan to himself. He knew that Catacutan saw him as only a glorified clerk, albeit a criminal one.

So when Tibayan was ordered by Catacutan to murder a dealer whom the crime boss discovered was cheating him, Bulan asked Tibayan if he could come along and do the murder. Tibayan, who liked Bulan, agreed.

Tibayan and Bulan entered the Ritz and saw the dealer sitting at one of the tables. Tibayan walked past the dealer and motioned for him to follow him and Bulan into the men’s room. The dealer, who was soaring high on shabu, got up quickly and followed the two other men into the rest room. Once a customer in the men’s room left and the men had the room to themselves, Tibayan grabbed the dealer’s arms and held him tight. Bulan pulled out a knife and plunged it into the dealer’ midsection. The dealer struggled as Bulan stabbed him several more times.   As Tibayan dropped the dealer to the floor, Bulan laughed uncontrollably.

Tibayan told Bulan to stop laughing, calling him a gago in Tagalog. He told the young fool to wash the blood from his hands and arms. 

Tibayan reported to Catacutan that Bulan murdered the dealer, swiftly and without hesitation, but the experienced enforcer was concerned about Bulan’s odd reaction to the murder. Laughing hysterically after killing someone was peculiar and to Tibayan, a professional killer, it constituted unprofessional behavior.

Still, Catacutan was proud of Bulan for committing the murder and he gave his clerk a cash bonus. From then on, Bulan became Catacutan’s chief lieutenant.  

Bulan was now involved in all aspects of the gang’s criminal activities and Catacutan relied on Bulan’s advice.           

Bulan was happy to finally be accepted in the gang as the boss’ lieutenant, but he was in a hurry to be the boss, and he didn’t think Catacutan would retire or die anytime soon. To hedge his bets, Bulan became a police informant, providing an Olongapo police officer with information about Catacutan’s criminal activities. He hoped that the police officer would arrest Catacutan and send him to prison, opening the way for Bulan to become the boss. He also thought that it was good to have a serious professional relationship with a police officer. 

Another police officer who was on Catacutan’s payroll discovered that Bulan was an informant, and he reported this fact to the old gang leader. Catacutan was furious as well as hurt, as he had treated Bulan like a son. Catacutan lured Bulan to the back of his grocery store where he planned to have his protégé murdered. Catacutan brought along Ernesto Tibayan and he ordered the enforcer to shoot and kill Bulan. 

Thankfully for Bulan, Tibayan turned his gun on Catacutan, shooting him in the head. Tibayan told the relived and laughing Bulan that he felt Catacutan had outlived his usefulness. He said the two of them should work together and take over Catacutan’s gang and both the old gangster’s legal and illegal businesses.

Bulan quickly bought out the legitimate businesses from Catacutan’s widow. The widow, afraid that she too would be murdered, sold the bar, the grocery store and other property to Bulan at a very reasonable price. 

With Bulan’s sharp business mind and Tibayan’s fearsome reputation, the two took over the gang without complaint from the criminal underlings. One of Bulan’s first acts as the boss was to go after his chief tormentor when he was a teenager.

Rodrigo Torres went to work on the U.S. Navy’s Subic Bay naval base as a welder after he left school. Married with two young children, Torres was no longer a bullying adolescent. He had matured and was loved by his family and well-liked by his friends and co-workers on the naval base. 

Bulan assigned two of his enforcers to find out where his old classmate lived and worked. When they reported back to Bulan that Torres worked at the naval base and lived in a small home with his family, he ordered the two men to cut him down with bolo knives. Preferably, Bulan said, on a public street in front of his family to humiliate him before killing him. 

A few days later, as Torres was leaving the naval base’s gate, his young wife greeted him. The two enforcers pulled out their long bolo knives and began to attack him. The crowd in front of the gate dispersed in fear and horror from the brutal attack as Torres’ wife tried to stop the bolo-wielding killers. One of the enforcers kicked the woman hard and she fell to the ground. Two U.S. Marines at the gate came running out of the base, their M-16 rifles pointed at the killers. The two enforcers saw the Marines coming towards them and they abandoned the bloody body on the ground and took off running. 

The two Marines, unsure if they had the proper authority, did not fire at the fleeing killers. They knelt at the hacked and bloodied body, and they attempted to give Torres first aid, but he was dead. His wife stood over her husband, crying and screaming, as the Olongapo police came on the scene.   

The two enforcers reported proudly to Bulan how they butchered Torres in front of his wife and the other Filipino base workers. They neglected to tell Bulan that they ran in fear from the American Marines. Bulan was pleased. 

Another of Bulan’s initial acts was to eliminate one of the gang’s smaller competitors. Catacutan allowed Manny Bautista and his small gang to operate in Olongapo as he saw no threat or true competition from them. Catacutan also liked Bautista. But Bulan wanted to show his ruthlessness. He had Tibayan and two enforcers attack the gang’s leader in his home in front of his wife and children. Tibayan and his men entered Bautista’s home early one morning and they beat both him and his wife severely as the children cried and huddled in a corner. 

After the vicious beating, Tibayan took out his gun and shot Bautista in the head and killed him. He grabbed Bautista’s wife by her hair and lifted her up to her feet. Tibayan told her that she must leave Olongapo, or they would be back to murder her and her children. She agreed to leave Olongapo.            

The three murders in succession; Catacutan, Torres, and Bautista, cemented Bulan’s reputation as a gangster to be feared. Even the Old Huk, who in his time murdered far more than three men, took notice of the up-and-coming gang leader.

After a year of successfully running the gang’s criminal enterprises, Bulan felt he no longer needed Tibayan. Bulan now had under him other far cheaper men for muscle. So he ordered one of those cheaper killers to murder Tibayan.

Even with the Old Huk as a stern competitor, business and life was good for Bulan.

Then he met Salvatore Lorino.

© 2025 Paul Davis 

'Missing Muster'

 Missing Muster

 By Paul Davis

As we were nearing the end of our WESTPAC (Western Pacific) 1970-1971 cruise, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk was on station in the Gulf of Tonkin, launching aircraft that performed combat sorties against the North Vietnamese. 

On the deck just below the flight deck, I was shifting through copies of message traffic at my small desk in the Message Processing Center. I came upon a copy of a message to the carrier’s captain that solved a mystery that had haunted the officers and men aboard the carrier since the beginning of the cruise in November of 1970. What happened to Seaman Moore? 

Seaman Martin Moore was one of only a few casualties we had suffered on the cruise. Thankfully, all of pilots had returned safely to the aircraft carrier after bombing raids over North Vietnam. Unlike some of the pilots from our sister carriers, our pilots hadn’t been shot down and killed or taken prisoner. 

As I read the message, I recalled the frantic search for Seaman Moore as we sailed from Hawaii to the Philippines prior to reporting on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. 

Aboard the ship at sea, sailors were gathered periodically in groups and attendance was taken in what was called “musters.” Musters were held at various times to account for all of the nearly 5,000 crew members and airwing personnel. On the third muster at sea, it was reported that Moore was missing. He had been accounted for in the first two musters held while the carrier was at sea.   

On the assumption that he had fallen accidentally overboard into the sea, aircraft was launched to scan the Pacific Ocean and look for the missing sailor. The ship was also searched, compartment by compartment, looking for the sailor. It was thought that he was perhaps dead or dying somewhere or he was hiding on the carrier to avoid work. 

When two Marines showed up at the Message Processing Center, Chief John Helm would not allow them into the center to search for Moore. Despite the order from the carrier’s captain to search all spaces aboard the ship, the chief stopped the Marines from entering the center as they did not possess the proper clearances to do so. The chief was backed up by LTJG Albert Moony. 

As the Marines, Chief Helm and LTJG Moony had a standoff in the passageway outside of the top-secret center, a call was put into the Marine commanding officer, who in turn called the ship’s captain. Commander Thomas Larkin, an officer on the captain’s staff, showed up along with the Marine commanding officer. 

Chief Helm was adamant. 

“These Marines are not cleared to enter the Message Processing Center,” Helm said. “We can’t allow them in.” 

“The chief is right, Sir,” Moony added. “This is a high security area.”  

Larkin told Helm and Moony that he was cleared to enter the center. He offered to go in and search in lieu of the Marines. Helm, Moony and the Marine commanding officer agreed. Chief Helm punched in the four digits on the security panel that opened the door to the center.    

Larkin entered the Message Processing Center and walked around with Moony and Helm, holding a photo of Moore. He showed the photo to the sailors in the center and asked us if we had seen him. 

I glanced at the photo and noted that Moore looked a lot like Alfred E. Neuman, MAD magazine’s goofy cartoon character who sprouted “What me worry?” 

Moore, like Neuman, had a mop of reddish-brown hair, gap buck teeth, big ears and a silly grin. 

Satisfied that the missing sailor was not in the center, Larkin thanked Helm and Moony and left the center. 

As the captain ordered, the entire aircraft carrier was searched. Moore was not found, so he was reported as missing at sea and presumed dead from drowning.

 

But according to the Naval Investigative Service report I was reading, Moore was alive and well in Honolulu.                       

According to the NIS report, Moore had deserted the ship when the carrier sailed from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to Subic Bay in the Philippines. 

With images of World War II naval combat in his head, with sailors being killed from Imperial Japanese fire and sailors drowning as ships were sunk, Moore was frightened that he would die aboard the carrier in devastating combat with the North Vietnamese. 

Apparently, he didn’t know that the 7^th Fleet aircraft carriers operated in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam in a battle group. The carrier was not only protected by the ship’s aircraft, the carrier was also protected by destroyers, a submarine and other defenses. The North Vietnamese shot at the carrier pilots flying over North Vietnam, but they didn’t dare try to attack the aircraft carriers at sea. 

Moore did not discuss his great fears with anyone. If he had, they might have told him this. By all accounts, Moore was a dim lad. 

The NIS report stated that as Moore was a loner and did not have much of a social life, so he was able to save a good bit of money. As the Kitty Hawk was preparing to leave Pearl Harbor, Moore failed to report back onboard. Wearing civilian clothes, he checked into a cheap Honolulu hotel and hid out. 

For many months, he ate little, bought little, and spent his days on the Waikiki beach, watching the pretty girls in bikinis. He watched the girls, but he was far too shy to approach them or dare to speak to them. 

Moore had not contacted his family back in Boulder, Colorado. He didn’t know that the Navy had reported his presumed death to his parents, as he had not given a thought to how the Navy would respond to his missing status.  

Moore’s stay in Honolulu ended after two local thugs beat and robbed him. The thugs punched and kicked him and ripped his well-worn shirt. They took the money he had in his shirt pocket. They left him on the beach unconscious. The police took him to a hospital and as he lay unconscious, the police checked his pocket and found his Navy ID. 

The Honolulu police reported the incident to the NIS and the NIS ran his ID and discovered that Moore was listed as missing at sea. When Moore awoke, he saw two NIS special agents at his hospital bedside. They questioned him, and he confessed that he had not reported aboard the Kitty Hawk prior to the ship's sailing out for the Philippines.  

When he was released from the hospital, Moore was taken into custody by the NIS and charged with desertion.  

Who reported Moore present in the first two musters, or why, remained a mystery.  

A Night At The Americano

 A Night at the Americano

 By Paul Davis 

As the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk was departing “Yankee Station” off the coast of North Vietnam in 1971 and sailing towards the U.S. Subic Bay naval base in the Philippines, Salvatore Lorino visited the Radio Communications Division’s berthing compartment. 

I just got of watch in the ship’s Message Processing center and as I entered the compartment, I saw Lorino talking to Mike Hunt, Dino Ingemi and a couple of other radiomen. Lorino jumped up from his chair and hugged me, South Philly style, as he called me his goombah, which in South Philadelphia Italian means a good friend. 

Although Lorino worked in the Deck Division, he often visited me and the other friends he made in my division. The radiomen in my division got a kick out of Lorino. His South Philly swagger, his perpetual lopsided grin, and his rapid, raspy voice amused the sailors. 

I was 18 years old at the time and Lorino was a couple of years older. Lorino, six feet tall, lean, with black hair and rugged features, was a meth dealer on the ship, and he had a couple of radiomen as customers. I had asked him not to deal drugs in my division, but his brief response was "Hey, business is business." 

It was not meth business, called “shabu” in Olongapo, that brought Lorino to the berthing compartment this time. Rather, he wanted to see me. He wanted to ask me to accompany him to the Americano bar in Olongapo when we docked in Subic Bay. 

I said no, as I enjoyed the Starlight bar and the company of Zeny, the beautiful Filipina hostess that I had been seeing. 

Mike Hunt suggested that I should visit the Americano to see what it was like there. 

“Scout it out for us,” Hunt said. “If you liked the bar, we’ll all go there.”  

“I’ll tell Zeny that you got the duty on the ship,” Ingemi said. “I’ll buy Zeny and Marlena drinks. That’ll keep the other guys away from Zeny.” 

The first night in port at Subic Bay, Lorino met me at the enlisted brow, and we walked together down the brow to the pier. Lorino was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans and black cowboy boots. Ever the clotheshorse, I was dressed in a black knit shirt, tan slacks and Italian black loafer shoes.  

We walked out the naval base’s gate, walked across the bridge over “Shit River” and strolled down Magsaysay Drive until we came to the Americano. 

When we stepped inside, I heard the Filipino house band playing country music, imitating a popular American country group. Although the Filipino band was quite good, I wasn’t a fan of country music. I preferred rock and R&B dance music. 

As we stood in the entrance, a hostess rushed up to Lorino and hugged him. 

“This is Jade,” Lorino said. “She’s got a friend for you.” 

Jade took us to a table, and we sat down and ordered San Miquel beer. Jade waved over another hostess, and she introduced me to Tala, a pretty young girl with an oval face, black marble eyes, long dark hair, and a slim figure. Tala sat next to me. 

The Americano’s manager, Maxwell Walker, a heavy-set and nearly bald man in his fifties, came over with the waiter who delivered our drinks. The retired U.S. sailor was known as the “Chief.” 

“How’s my favorite guy?” the Chief asked Lorino. 

Lorino replied that he was great, and he introduced me to the Chief as his South Philly home boy. 

Lorino had told me all about the Chief, the Old Huk, and the other Olongapo criminals he had been dealing with when we were at sea. He was proud of his Olongapo connections, although I cautioned him.     

“Go say hello to the “Old Huk.” You know he loves you,” the Chief said, pointing to a table in the corner where an old, wizened man and a skinny younger man wearing large sunglasses sat. 

Yeah,” Lorino said with his lopsided grin. “He loves the money I bring in.”  

Lorino took my arm and took me over to the table.   

“Hello, my friends. This is Paulie, my goombah from South Philly,” Lorino said to Amada Camama, the Olongapo crime boss known as the Old Huk, and his assistant Jackie Sicat. 

“Paulie’s a writer.” 

Lorino called me a writer based on the three feature articles I wrote for the ship’s newspaper back when we were both in Special Services. I doubt that Lorino actually read the pieces, but he told me he was impressed. Back in South Philly, the only writers he knew were number writers. 

Most guys in the Navy addressed each other by their last name, and a couple of sailors abbreviated Davis and called me “Dav.” But because Lorino and I were both from the same South Philadelphia Italian American neighborhood, Lorino called me by the diminutive of Paul, my first name, like they do in South Philadelphia.  

“Paulie’s also a boxer. I seen him fight, so don’t fuck with him.”  

Amama just nodded, but Sicat lowered his sunglasses and gave me a curious look. 

When we walked away, Lorino told me he built me up to impress his partners in crime. 

“Great.” I said. “Now if something happens, they’ll shoot me first.” 

Lorino laughed.         

After a few drinks, Tala pulled me to the dance floor during a slow number and I danced with her, holding her close to me. Amama and Sicat passed by us as they headed out the door. 

Even with the band playing loudly, we all heard gunshots from outside the door. Lorino was up and running towards the door and I followed in his wake. 

Amama was crouched in the doorway, and Sicat was firing a pistol at two other Filipinos who were firing back from behind a jeepney. Lorino stood in front of Amama to protect him, and I stood off to the side. 

The gunfight on Magsaysay Drive only lasted a minute. Sicat shot one of the gunmen, and he collapsed in the street. The other gunman took off running down the street. 

Amama patted Lorino on the back and then he and Sicat stepped into a jeepney and drove off. Lorino and I went back into the bar. 

The Olongapo police and the American Shore Patrol showed up and began asking questions. The Chief, his bar employees and the bar’s patrons all told the police and the Shore Patrol that they didn’t see or hear anything. 

The dead gunman in the street was carted away by the police. Inside the Americano, the band began playing again and the sailors went back to dancing with the bar girls. 

As we sat back at our table, Lorino in a low hush told me about the street war going on between the Old Huk and another drug gang.         

 “You better break away from these shady characters and the shabu business,” I told Lorino. “You’re out of your league here. This isn’t South Philly. You’re going to end up dead or in jail.” 

Lorino just gave me his lopsided grin and shrugged. 

 

Later that evening, Lorino, Jade, Tala and I took a jeepney to Jade’s house in the Barrio. The house, no better than a shack, was clean and comfortable if rustic. 

Jade gave us a beer and Tala took my hand and led me to a bedroom. 

The next morning Lorino and I headed back to the ship. There were no jeepneys around, so we walked through the Barrio village towards Magsaysay Drive. We came to a rickety small wooden bridge a few feet above a muddy creek. 

At the other end of the bridge was five teenage shoeshine boys. The shoeshine boys were notorious thieves and violent criminals. Lorino swaggered towards them and waved hello. 

One of the shoeshine boys came forward and said, “Hey, Joe! You want a shine?” 

“No,” I replied firmly. 

The shoeshine boy threw a ball of mud onto my left shoe. 

“How about now?” he asked with a grin. The other shoeshine boys laughed. 

My reaction was immediate. 

I punched him in the face, and he dropped to the wooden floor of the bridge. 

We then heard a series of clicks as the other shoeshine boys whipped out Batangas "Butterfly" knives. I pulled out my own pocketknife and we squared off. 

Lorino pulled out a wad of Pesos and tossed them into the muddy creek. 

The shoeshine boys all jumped into the creek to retrieve the Pesos. 

“Look at what that fucking kid did to my shoe,” I said in anger. 

“Come on, let’s go,” Lorino said to me and pulled me away from the bridge. 

We caught a jeepney and we drove back to the naval base’s gate. 

“Gotta love Olongapo,” Lorino said.

Hit The Head

 Hit the Head

 By Paul Davis

 “I gotta hit the head,” is U.S. Navy speak for a sailor needing to use a urinal or toilet. 

Bathrooms on Navy ships and shore stations are called the "head.” As I heard it, the name derives from the old sailing ships, where the toilet was located in the bow, or the head of the ship. The Navy is big on traditions and nicknames.   

On the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk during our 1970-1971 combat cruise, the Communication Radio Division’s head was equipped with four urinals, a half dozen sinks, a half dozen toilet stalls and a half dozen shower stalls. 

Cleaning the head was the responsibility of the compartment cleaner, a position I held for a month when I was first assigned to the division. 

I told the other sailors at the time that I was the “head man." That always got a laugh. 

While on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, the radio division was on what was called “port and starboard” watches, with eight hours on watch and eight hours off. When half of the division was on watch and the other half were in their racks sleeping, the head was usually empty. 

One evening during our second line period on Yankee Station, I couldn’t sleep, so I was in the head brushing my teeth. Ronald Redman, a big and heavy sailor, wide as a refrigerator, waddled into the head. 

The Oklahoma sailor was crude and ill mannered. He had a mouthful of chewing tobacco in his jaw, and he spit a glob into the sink next to me. He then began to walk away. 

“Yo! Clean the sink out, you fucking slob,” I said to him. 

“Fuck you, Davis,” Redman said. 

At that moment James Griffin, a chubby and congenial 2^nd class radioman, walked into the head. He saw me hit Redman square in the face with a swift and hard left jab. The jab caused Redman to step back, but he just stood there and didn’t say anything. 

“That’s enough, Davis,” Griffen said, stepping in between us. 

“I don’t want to fight you, Davis,” Redman said. “Because you is smaller than me.” 

“Oh, yeah,” I replied. I hit Redman in the face with a good short right. 

Redman fell against a sink and his left eye swelled and closed. 

Griffen grabbed my arms and warned me that he would put me on report if I hit Redman again. 

“I ain’t gonna fight you, Davis, cause I don’t fight guys smaller than me,” Redman said as he held his left eye and waddled out of the head.   

To my surprise, it appeared that Redman had one redeeming quality.

 

Most of the sailors entered the head wearing flip flop shower shoes, a white towel with snaps held around our waists, and another white towel around our necks. 

Jason Bullard was different. 

The tall and fat 3^rd class radioman came into the head wearing a white fleece bathrobe. After showering, he emerged from the shower stall with a towel wrapped around his head like a girl and the full robe on his body. 

Despite Bullard’s effeminate ways, he was not ridiculed or picked on. He was a popular guy in the division. We presumed he was a homosexual, but he didn’t proposition anyone as far as we knew. Bullard was intelligent, cheerful and funny. He often made self-deprecating comments about his swishy ways. We all laughed when he swayed into the head like a movie queen, and he would laugh back, usually making some clever quip.    

Bullard’s best friend on the Kitty Hawk was Jeffrey Greenberg, a 3^rd class radioman who shared Bullard’s love of books. I became friendly with Greenberg when he saw me reading Mark Twain’s short stories. He struck up a conversation with me about Ole Sam Clemens, a writer we both loved.  

I later became friendly with Bullard. “I’m surprised that a high school dropout and street urchin is so well read,” he said.  

I laughed. I told him that I wanted to be a writer, and he encouraged me to get my GED high school equivalency via a correspondence course and then take college correspondence courses. I took his advice. 

 

It was on another line period off North Vietnam when a serious assault was committed in our head. 

I didn’t like Louis Durand. The tall, lean 27-year-old 3^rd class radioman with curly reddish hair was from New Orleans. He was proud of his college degree from some university, and he often spoke of it and how he was better educated than our officers. 

He bragged that he had connections in the city, and he was in line to be a big shot when he received his draft notice. Not wanting to die in a Vietnamese rice paddy, he joined the Navy. But he often complained that the Navy was holding him back from his destiny.  

Durand was also quite vocal in his detainment of those with only high school diplomas, and he was even more disdainful of high school dropouts. And he was especially disdainful of 18-year-old high school dropouts, like me, who appeared to be somewhat literate and intelligent. 

In the middle of a group discussion on our down time, Durand would quiz me about some fine point of the subject. I passed his quizzes, which made him scowl and others laugh. But he was positively gleeful when I happened to mispronounce a word.

Bullard, also a college graduate, came to my defense, stating, “Davis is an autodidact. That’s why he sometimes mispronounces words. But I suspect that he is better read than you, dear Louis.”

That pissed off Durand. And he had no snappy comeback.

I didn’t know what an autodidact was. I had to look it up. Bullard was right. I was never a good student, having cut most classes in high school, but I was an avid reader. So I may have known what a word meant, but in some cases. I did not know how to properly pronounce the word due to my not ever having heard the word spoken in a classroom.

After Durand mocked me for mispronouncing the word, I made a joke about it. But in my head, I made a note to punch out Durand if I ever encountered him in Olongapo. Luckily for Durand, he frequented a different bar in Olongapo than I did, so I never saw him ashore.  

 

I later learned that Durand also displayed his haughtily ways in Olongapo. He mocked an airman from one of the airwings attached to the Kitty Hawk. The airman, John Makris, the son of a Greek restaurant owner in New York City, was offended but said nothing to Durand.  

“The Greeks have gone from being great philosophers to being short order cooks,” Durant said disdainfully. The bar girls laughed at Durand’s put down of Makris, even though they didn’t know what he was talking about. But hey, they thought, he’s buying the drinks.

Makris held his tongue and temper and allowed Durand to make disparaging remarks, but he drew the line when Durant coveted Lolita, Makris’ pretty bargirl.

After pulling into Subic Bay after a long line period, Markis went before a captain’s mass and was restricted to the ship as punishment for shoving another airman during an argument at sea. Not being allowed to visit Olongapo during our week-long port of call was a very cruel punishment for a young man.

To make matters even worse, Makris was told by another airman that Durand had paid the bar’s Mama-San, so he was able to take Lolita to a hotel for what was called “Short-time” sex. Durand later that evening left with Lolita when the bar closed.

Makris was furious. He had fallen for Lolita, and he thought she was in love with him. He took a combination lock and stuffed it into a white sock. The “lock in a sock” was a common weapon aboard ship and Makris planned to get revenge on Durand.

Makris lay in the passageway outside of the Message Processing Cener. He waited more than an hour and then saw Durand step out into the passageway and enter the radiomen’s compartment. Makris followed Durand into the head. Durand stood before a urinal when Makris came up behind him and hit Durand in the back of his head with the lock in a sock.

Durand screamed in pain and fell to the deck. Makris stood over Durand and struck him twice more. Three radiomen, alerted by Durant’s screams, entered the head and grabbed Makris.

Durand was taken to the ship’s sick bay and then flown off the carrier and admitted into the Subic Bay hospital. Makris was also flown off the carrier and landed in Subic Bay. He was met on the airfield by NIS special agents who arrested Makris for felonious assault and attempted murder.

I felt bad for both Durand and Makris, although I didn’t like Durand and I didn’t know Makris.

Bullard told us that he read a message that stated that Durand had been operated on and was in stable condition. The message also said that Durand was scheduled to be medically discharged from the Navy.

“Durand said he couldn’t wait to get out of the Navy,” Bullard said. “He said that with his fine education; he had a bright future in New Orleans. It is a shame that he had to be beaned on the head, in the head, to get a jump on his brilliant career.”

“Well,” I said. “That’s one way to get ahead in life.”

The Hit

 The below story is chapter 23 of Olongapo, my crime thriller that I hope to publish this year.  

The Hit

 By Paul Davis

Chief Boatswain’s Mate Mark Mackie was not a popular chief in the USS Kitty Hawk’s Deck Department. The veteran sailor from Nevada served 22 years in the U.S. Navy and worked on a variety of ships in his career. Prior to reporting to the USS Kitty Hawk in 1970, Mackie served on a 50-foot swift boat in Da Nang Harbor in South Vietnam. 

Six feet tall and built like a football lineman, Mackie was a tough, no nonsense senior enlisted leader who inspired respect, if not popularity. He was a stern taskmaster, and he rode his subordinates hard.  

He was especially hard on a 3^rd Class Boatswain’s Mate named Harold Smith, a thin and weak-chinned 25-year-old sailor from New Jersey. Mackie felt that petty officers should work harder than seamen, a notion that BM3 Smith did not agree with at all. Smith thought that once he became a petty officer, he would just tell seamen what to do. Mackie thought Smith was a piss-poor excuse for a petty officer and sailor, and the chief called him a “fuck-up” and a “non-hacker.” 

Also on Chief Mackie’s personal “shit list” was a seaman from Nebraska named Harry Stillman. Chief Mackie called Stillman a disgrace to the United States Navy and a disgrace to the human race. A slovenly, overweight, and somewhat dim 23-year-old, Stillman was a chronic marijuana user. In the days before mandatory drug tests, many young sailors smoked marijuana recreationally, but Stillman took it to an extreme. 

“Do you know why Harry is named Stillman?” a Navy wit asked the sailors in the Deck Department’s berthing compartment. “It’s because he is so fucking wasted on pot he can’t move.” 

Stillman was always buzzed from smoking pot, and the pot gave him the “munchies,” so he snacked continually on large amounts of Coke, Ritz crackers and small cans of Vienna Sausage. He purchased the soda and food from the “Gedunk,” which is what sailors call the ship’s store. 

Stillman was also always first in line at the galley for his three hearty meals a day, and he was a regular nightly visitor to the galley for Midnight Rations, called “MIDRATS.” MIDRATS offered hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and French fries to the sailors going on late watch, as well as to other sailors who liked a late-night fast-food meal.         

Having taken enough abuse from Chief Mackie, Smith suggested to Stillman that they pool their money and hire a Filipino hitman to murder Chief Mackie on the following day when the Kitty Hawk once again visited Subic Bay. Stillman was all for the conspiracy, as long as Smith did all of the planning and work. 

Smith was one of Lorino’s customers, and the meth dealer was asked to join the murder conspiracy and chip in to pay the killer. Lorino passed. Although Lorino was not much of a worker, he got along with Chief Mackie. And what did murdering a tough chief have to do with business? 

Upon the recommendation of Winston, Smith and Stillman went to the Americano in Olongapo and spoke to Walker. Walker introduced the petty officer and the seaman to Banoy Abad. Sitting across from Abad, Smith and Stillman were frightened, but Smith managed to propose that Abad “hit’ Mackie.  

“For one hundred dollar American, I kill the man, sure” Abad told Smith and Stillman. 

Smith, who had $800 dollars on him, was surprised that the scary Filipino criminal would murder Chief Mackie for so little. It was said that life was cheap in Olongapo. Apparently so was death. 

Banoy Abad was a needle-thin and pinched-faced psychopath even before he began to use shabu, but once he became a regular user of crystal meth, he was off the chart crazy and extremely violent. 

Abad, who never knew his father and whose mother was a street prostitute, grew up wild and crazy on the streets of Olongapo. He began his criminal career as a shoeshine boy. While giving a sailor a shoeshine, he would whip out a straight razor and hold it against the unsuspecting sailor’s Achilles Heel. 

The sailors were at first surprised that a little Filipino kid had a razor against their heel. But most sailors knew a laceration of the Achilles tendon was painful and would cripple them, so they pulled out their wallet and gave their cash over to the small street urchin.   

Abad grew up to be a frighting armed robber who preyed on drunk sailors, street vendors and bar girls. He and his partner in crime, Rizalino Cruz, another uber-thin and half-crazed meth-head, were notorious street bandits and murderers.    

Smith told Abad what bar the chief frequented while in Olongapo and he showed the Filipino hitman a photo of the chief. The photo of Chief Mackie had been posted on a bulletin board after he was named “Sailor of the Month.” Smith had ripped the photo off of the bulletin board.

 

Later that evening, as Mackie and a bar girl left the bar, the two Filipino hitmen attacked Mackie with Butterfly knives. Although Mackie was drunk on San Miguel beer, he saw the Filipinos rushing towards him out the corner of his eye. He pushed the girl aside and threw up a sharp elbow which Abad ran straight into, causing the assassin to fall backwards. Cruz stabbed Mackie in the chest, and the chief grabbed the shorter man’s head in a vice and threw him up against a jeepney in the street. 

Abad recovered quickly from Mackie’s blow and was up and charging the chief again. Mackie hit Abad in the throat with his open palm. The blow instantly killed Abad and he dropped to the street. Cruz started to run, but Mackie caught him by his wrist and elbow and broke the hitman’s arm. Cruz dropped his knife and screamed out in pain. Holding on to Cruz’s broken arm, Mackie used his right leg to sweep the Filipino’s legs out from under him, and Cruz landed on his behind. Still holding onto Cruz’s injured arm, Mackie kicked him several times in the side.

Officers from the Olongapo City Police Office, followed almost immediately by the U.S. Navy Shore Patrol, arrived on the scene of the attempted murder. The Philippine police officers took Cruz into custody. Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Rosa examined Abad as he lay in the street. Rosa looked up and announced to the other officers that the notorious criminal was dead. 

Rosa smiled. 

The Shore patrol took Mackie to the Subic Bay hospital and the Olongapo police took Cruz to a local hospital. Abad was taken to the morgue. Cruz was interrogated harshly by Rosa as a doctor treated him, and he gave up Smith and Stillman without hesitation. He did not mention Walker’s involvement, as he feared the Old Huk. 

Rosa passed the information from Cruz to the American NIS, and the special agents sought out and arrested Smith and Stillman. 

After he was arrested, Smith thought briefly about giving up Walker and Lorino the meth dealer as a means of getting a lighter sentence, but he thought better of it.   As Smith was not a particularly brave man, he feared making these two violent criminals his enemies. 

An Olongapo police officer on the Old Huk’s payroll called Camama and reported the attempted assassination to the gang leader. The officer gave all of the details to Camama. The Old Huk, who already knew that Walker had introduced the American sailors to Abad, was displeased at Walker’s reckless, and profitless, actions. 

The Old Huk ordered Jackie Sicat to reproach Walker for mixing up with that crazy man Abad and the even more crazy Americans. Sicat entered the Americano and beckoned Walker to come to him. Walker edged over to Sicat and stood silently as Sicat proceeded to call him an idiot and fool for mixing up with Abad and stupid Americans. 

“I just introduced them as a favor to a regular customer,” Walker explained. “I didn’t know what was going down.” 

“Old Huk say if police come here and involve us, you be face up dead in Shit River,” Sicat said. 

Lorino, who was standing nearby, was glad he passed on getting involved in the attempted murder. 

© 2024 By Paul Davis