California Liberty

 California Liberty 

By Paul Davis 

I was just returning from evening chow after my eight-hour watch in the message center aboard the USS Kitty Hawk as the aircraft carrier launched aircraft from “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam in 1971. 

As I entered the Radio Communications Division's enlisted men's compartment, I heard Salvatore Lorino’s distinctive raspy, fast-paced voice. 

Lorino often visited me while we were on Yankee Station, partly because we were both from South Philly and became friends, and partly because he had two meth customers in the division. 

Lorino, a young hoodlum whom I knew slightly from the South Philadelphia neighborhood where I was raised, was several years older than I. He was about six feet tall, lean, with black hair, rugged features, and a long face with a perpetual lopsided grin that alternately charmed and menaced. 

Entering the compartment, I saw Lorino sitting in a folding chair across from Ingemi, Hunt and a couple of other sailors. The radiomen were laughing at a story Lorino was telling them. 

“Hey, Paulie, I was jes telling them about the time we went to the bullfights in TJ,” Lorino said as I sat down and listened to the story of our trip to Tujuana, Mexico. 

“We was out of Boot Camp for only three months, so we was jes a couple of “Boots” from South Philly when we went down to the border…” 

As he told the tale, I counted. Lorino got seven out of ten facts wrong.

 

While we were stationed in San Diego prior to setting sail for Southeast Asia, we were on three-section duty, which meant that Lorino and I had two out of three weekends off. I liked San Diego, especially Mission Beach, but I was not too fond of the honky-tonk bars that most of the sailors and Marines frequented in the downtown area. I preferred to visit the bars near the local colleges, where the girls were mostly from out of town, just like us.  

I also liked to visit Tijuana, which was just across the border from San Diego. I laughed as Lorino began his tale, recalling how Lorino rooted for the bull rather than the matador. At one point, Lorino stood up and shouted out to the bull, “Now! Get ‘em now!”  

The Mexican bullfight aficionados around us were not amused by the loco gringo, but the Kitty Hawk radiomen hearing the story certainly were. 

Lorino then launched into telling another liberty story. Lorino went on to tell the sailors in the compartment about the time we visited a club on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. 

“We was in a club in LA and Paulie got us the two best looking girls in the place.” 

Lorino and I traveled in civies when we ventured to Los Angeles. I was fond of LA and liked the vibrant city’s nightlife, and I visited there previously on many of my free weekends. I liked to go to West Hollywood and hit the “happening” clubs on the mile and half of Sunset Boulevard that was known famously as the “Sunset Strip.” 

I told Lorino about the Strip and how it was home to trendy restaurants, sleazy bars and hip nightclubs. The Strip was a girl watchers’ delight and walking the Strip at night was like being part of a wild parade. Someone called the Strip a “cultural carnival.” 

I also liked the great rock music played at the clubs there and I liked dancing with the young, pretty girls. Growing up in South Philly, I had gone to teenage dances every weekend, so I knew that hitting the dance floor and dancing well was a good way to meet girls. 

Along with servicemen like Lorino and I, there were hippies, college students, tourists, music and movie people, and almost everything in between at the clubs. 

I wore my "civies" to the clubs, but unfortunately, like the other servicemen with regulation short hair, Lorino and I stood out from the young men who sported the longer hairstyles of the day. It appeared that the prettiest and most desirable girls shied away from military guys.

On the night Lorino was telling the Kitty Hawk sailors about, I asked an exceptionally good-looking college student named Susan to dance with me at a club on the Strip. She was a pretty, shapely blonde and she wore a loose blouse and tight dungarees.

“I like your high black boots,” I told her. “You can kick me if you want to.”

She laughed.

I spent a good bit of time with Susan on the crowded dance floor. Lorino grabbed Susan’s girlfriend and took her onto the dance floor as well. After a while, we took a break from dancing, and I bought Susan a drink at the bar. Lorino slid next to me with Susan’s girlfriend in his arms.  

Susan was a bit inebriated and giddy. I held her and she looked at me closely. 

I grinned, thinking this was a romantic moment and I was about to kiss her.

“Why do you have short hair?” Susan asked, stopping me from leaning in to kiss her. “Are in you in the military?” 

I just knew that my being in the Navy would be a “turn off” for her, so I thought fast. 

“No, but I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied sheepishly. 

“Why not?” 

“My hair is cut short because Sal and I just got out of San Quentin prison.” 

Her interest and imagination ignited, and she leaned into me and whispered, “Why were you in prison?” 

“We robbed a bank.” 

I heard Lorino behind me laugh. Susan nodded her head slowly, as if to say she understood. She then smiled, kissed me full on the mouth, and we returned to the dance floor. Lorino and I later took the two girls back to our hotel room. 

Apparently, this fresh-faced college girl was just fine with me being a bank robber and ex-con, but she would have surely bolted had I told her I was a sailor. 

Go figure.  

Thankfully, the girls in Olongapo had no such prejudice against sailors. 

 

On a roll, Lorino also spoke of the time we visited Disneyland in Anaheim, California. On that visit to Disneyland with Lorino, we dared to smoke marijuana openly, boldly, and quite stupidly, as we walked around the popular amusement park. 

On the Haunted Mansion ride we shared a joint in our continuously moving vehicle. At one point in the ride, the vehicle pivoted to the right before a mirror, and through Disney’s technological magic, a ghost appeared in the mirror between the reflection of Lorino and I. The ghost grinned and wrapped his arms around us.

Looking at the image between us in the mirror, I offered the joint to the ghost. I thought this was funny, and Lorino thought it was hilarious. 

The security guards monitoring the ride through the mirror were not nearly as amused. 

At the end of the ride, two security guards dressed as Western Sheriffs stopped our vehicle and ordered us to get out. 

“Are you part of the amusement ride?” I asked in jest. 

Lorino thought that too was hilarious. The guards remained unamused.         

The guards held us in a building until the Anaheim police arrived and took us into custody. We were handcuffed, placed in the police car and driven to the Anaheim police station. We were held in separate rooms. I was searched by an Anaheim police officer, and he confiscated the pocketknife I was carrying. 

I was worried about prison and getting kicked out of the Navy. Thankfully, the police officer took pity on me and told me that he was cutting me loose. He said he had been a Marine when he was a young guy, and he also did dumb things then. He told me to take off. 

I asked about Lorino, and the officer told me to “Get while the getting is good.”

I asked if I could have my knife back, and the police officer just stared at me in disbelief. I left the police station quickly and took a bus back to San Diego.  

Lorino later told me that he was arrested because he was holding more than an ounce of marijuana in a plastic bag in his pocket. He was held over the weekend and appeared before a judge on Monday morning. Lorino pled guilty to possession, was fined, and then released. 

Unfortunately for Lorino, the Kitty Hawk shoved off on Monday morning and the carrier went to sea while he stood before the judge. Lorino missed "ship's movement," which was a serious offense. Upon his return to the carrier, Lorino went before a Captain’s Mass and busted back to seaman apprentice and lost a month’s pay. 

I felt guilty that I was lucky to not be charged and “skated” through the incident, and left Lorino holding the bag, quite literally. Lorino shrugged and told me not to worry about it.

The sailors sitting around the compartment appeared to be quite amused at the pre-deployment adventures Lorino and I experienced.  

© 2025 Paul Davis 

Note: You can read other chapters via the below links: 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The Ground'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan, Davis-San

Paul Davis On Crime: A Look Back At Life Aboard An Aircraft Carrier During The Vietnam War: 'The Compartment Cleaner'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Murder By Fire'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Admiral McCain'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Hit The Head' 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'A Night At The Americano'  

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Missing Muster' 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Barracks Thief'

Site One: The Joker

 Site One: The Joker

By Paul Davis

As I write this in my comfortable book-lined basement office, I’m sitting at my desk in front of my computer and enjoying a good cup of coffee and a fine cigar. 

I’ve never smoked cigarettes, as I was an amateur boxer in my youth, and we were told that smoking cigarettes would rob us of our valuable second wind. (Although some professional boxers have been known to smoke crack). 

But I’ve enjoyed cigars for many years, going back to my early 20s. 

I recall how I often enjoyed smoking a cigar out on the deck of the USS Saugus (YTB-780) back in 1975 when I was a young sailor. The Saugus, a 100-foot-long Navy harbor tugboat, was assigned to the U.S. Navy’s "Site One" nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

Having previously served on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War, I had to adjust from serving on one of the world’s largest warships to one of the Navy's smallest boats. 

Although I was not thrilled with Scotland’s awful winter weather, especially when the tugboat was ordered out into the Irish Sea to rendezvous with submarines and we encountered 50-foot waves and Gale Force 10 winds, I generally liked serving on a small boat with a small crew with no officers. 

And the people of Scotland were friendly and kind to me and the many other American sailors who were stationed there during the Cold War.

I spent time in Dunoon, which was the town nearest to the base, and I had a flat in Glasgow. I also visited Edinburgh quite often, ventured north to visit Inverness and Loch Ness, and I visited a good number of other Scottish cities, towns and offshore islands during my time there. I also visited London.

The Scottish winters are cold and rainy, but Scotland is quite beautiful in the summer. As a student of history, and being Scot Welsh on my father's side, I enjoyed visiting the many historical sites in Scotland. I also enjoyed visiting the Scottish pubs.

I traveled all over Scotland, the United Kingdom and Europe during those two years on the tugboat. 

During the Cold War the U.S. Navy base at Holy Loch was the headquarters of Submarine Squadron 14 (COMSUBRON 14). The base, called "Site One," consisted of the USS Canopus, a 644-foot-long ship called a submarine tender, a floating dry dock that could accommodate submarines, and a large barge with a super crane. All were anchored in the middle of the loch.

Submarines ventured to Site One from the sea before and after their patrols and tied up to the anchored submarine tender. The submarines received supplies, maintenance and repairs at the floating Navy base.

The base also had several small boats that tied up to the barge. Two of the boats were 100-foot harbor tugboats, which were the workhorses of the bustling floating naval base. 

The USS Saugus and the USS Natick (YTB 760) towed ships, barges, submarines and other craft in, out and around the site, as well as put out fires and broke up oil slicks.

The tugboats were often sent to sea to rendezvous with submarines for medivacs, classified missions and transfers of the COMSUBRON 14 Commodore and his staff. The tugboats also went to sea to perform in exercises with the submerged submarines and then retrieved the torpedoes used in the exercises from the sea.

Working on the tugboat was hard, physical and dangerous, but we were proud of our service. Working with the rugged and independent crew on the tugboat felt like I was serving in McHale's Navy, one of my favorite TV shows from my youth. 

I worked on deck, stood helm watches while at sea, stood security watches in port, and during my second year onboard I was the boat's supply petty officer.     

Stationed on the USS Natick, the other assigned tugboat to Holy Loch, was a big and burly West Virginia hillbilly named Joe Marks. He was quite a character, an irrepressible joker, and we enjoyed cutting each other up. It became something of a rivalry. He took my sarcastic asides in good humor, and he sometimes gave as good as he got.

In summer, Marks liked to go around the boats shirtless and shoeless. I called him Li'l Abner after the barefoot hillbilly in Al Capp's cartoons.

One evening while I had the watch on the Saugus and Marks had the watch on the Natick, Marks came out on deck as I did for "Evening Colors," the tradition of lowering the Flag on ships. Moored to the large floating barge, we looked up as a team appeared on the tender's fantail to lower the ship's flag, as we were to follow suit. 

Marks, that crazy fool, was shirtless and barefoot as he lowered the flag on the Natick. I laughed and then I called up to the team on the tender told them to look at the sailor as he lowered the flag. 

The team looked down and could not believe that the tugboat sailor was half naked. 

"Fuck you, Davis," Marks said. "I'll get you for this."    

The senior petty officer on the tender reported the incident to the Natick chief, and the chief chewed out Marks when he first came aboard in the morning. 

Later that morning Marks tried to rile the Saugus' chief and get back at me.

Most of the crew were afraid of Joseph Coolidge, the Saugus’ chief petty officer, an odd, humorless man who rarely spoke, much like another Coolidge, the 30th president known as “Silent Cal.” 

As the story goes, President Coolidge was once confronted by someone who told him that he bet a friend that he could get the quiet chief executive to say three words.

"You lose," President Coolidge reportedly replied.

Although Chief Coolidge said little, when angered the tugboat chief would bark orders with a powerful voice that made most errant sailors shake. 

Chief Coolidge had a stone, deadpan face, and he reminded me of the silent film comic Buster Keaton. I called him “Chief Cool,” based on his name and his aloof and taciturn manner, and the nickname caught on with the rest of the tugboat sailors. 

Marks saw the chief sitting with us and drinking coffee in the galley that morning. 

“Morning, Chief Cool. How are ya?” 

The guys in the galley were shocked that Marks would address the feared chief as “Chief Cool.” 

The chief ignored him. 

“Did you know that Davis here started everyone calling you Chief Cool?" 

There was dead silence in the galley. Then, quite unexpectedly, the chief looked at me and smiled. 

I don't think anyone had ever seen him smile before. He got up and left the galley without saying a word. 

Everyone laughed. Apparently, the chief thought the nickname was complimentary. 

Marks was taken aback, but he still tried to get the better of me. 

The weather that day was nice for a change as the Saugus and Natick were moored to the floating barge, and I took a break from my supply petty officer duties and stepped out on the deck and lit a cigar. 

Some of the crew were on the Saugus' fantail smoking cigarettes. Marks came out and saw me with my cigar and he laughed and pointed at me. 

“Don’t you feel old smoking that ci-gar?” 

“No,” I replied. “I feel...prosperous.” 

This got a laugh from a couple of guys, and as Marks probably didn’t know what prosperous meant, he had to come back with a good zinger. 

“It looks like you’re smoking a big ole dick,” he said with a laugh. 

I took a long draw on the cigar and replied, “I would prefer to think of it as a woman’s elongated nipple.” 

I got the bigger laugh.

 

Although Marks was a happy-go-lucky guy, and he got along well with his deck supervisor, he turned downright mean and nasty when it came to Billy Joe Johnson.

Johnson, a short and stocky man in his late 30’s from Georgia, was a First-Class Engineman and Marks’ section leader. Like the USS Saugus, the Natick had three sections. Every third day Johnson’s section stayed aboard the tugboat overnight and the section’s crew members held security watches throughout the night and were assigned to cleaning the tug's various spaces. Johnson’s section and the other two sections rotated staying aboard the tugboat every third weekend.

Marks, the joker, resented taking orders from Johnson, a serious and humorless career sailor, and Marks often clashed with him. On one weekend midnight watch, Johnson woke up and berated Marks’ poor performance and ordered him to clean the galley again. 

Marks called Johnson a “fuckin’ lifer,” and the two argued over the cleanliness of the galley’s tile deck. Johnson told Marks to swab the deck again or he would put him on report. 

Marks responded by threatening Johnson. He told the senior enginemen that he would “whoop his country ass if he ever saw him on the beach.” 

Johnson walked away from the gallery and returned to his rack. Marks grumbled, took a mop and swabbed the deck again. 

 

The Natick, like the Saugus, had two small cabins, one on the starboard side and the other on the port side. The starboard cabin was occupied by the tug’s chief, and the port cabin was occupied by the next senior petty officer, Enginemen First-Class Bobby Joe Johnson.

Other than the times the tug went overnight on a mission, the cabins were used as offices, as the chief and Johnson were married and had homes in the Navy Housing area.  

Marks was not the only sailor aboard the Natick that hated the petty officer. Fireman Mark Towers, a young, skinny sailor with a thin dark mustache from Norfolk, also hated Johnson. Johnson was his supervisor, and Johnson rode the lazy and larcenous fireman hard.

Towers, a petty thief, lingered aboard the Natick after the crew left the boat for the evening, leaving only the duty section aboard. Johnson left the tugboat and boarded the boat that left the base and cruised across the loch to the Scottish pier. He headed towards the EM (Enlisted Men’s) Club with the Natick’s Second-Class Electrician, where the two sailors had hamburgers and cold American beer.

The duty section’s sailors were eating dinner in the galley, so Towers snuck down the passageway to Johnson’s cabin. He broke the lock on the cabin door and stepped into the cabin. Johnson, a pipe smoker, had a dozen pipes hung on a rack on his small desk. Towers placed the rack and pipes into a sack. He searched the cabin and found a watch and $125 dollars in cash, which he placed in the sack with the pipes. He placed the sack over his back like a crooked Santa Claus and left the tugboat.

Once on the “beach,” as the sailors called the Scottish shore, Towers took a taxi to a Dunoon pub where he sold the pipes to a local thief that he often did business with.

The following day at muster Johnson reported the theft to the Natick’s chief and he pointed a finger, figuratively and literally, at Marks. Marks was insulted and infuriated, and he denied stealing from Johnson.  The chief separated the two and said he would look into the theft.     

Two nights later, Marks stood in the parking lot of the EM (Enlisted Men’s) Club and waited for Johnson to come out of the club. When Johnson came out and walked toward his car, Marks came out of the shadows and confronted Johnson, his right hand raised with a thick, six-inch branch that he had found under a tree. 

“Let’s get it on, you lifer son of a bitch,” Marks said.

Johnson stood his ground silently and pulled his work knife from his pocket. Marks saw the knife, and in a panic, he dropped the branch, turned and ran. 

 

Marks told me the story the following day. He said that he saw Johnson earlier at morning muster and the enginemen said nothing about the incident and Johnson apparently did not put Marks on report.     

“You’re lucky he didn’t,” I said. “You could have could have been charged with threating a petty officer with a deadly weapon. You could have been put in the brig or even prison. Maybe you should cut Johnson a little slack.”    

“Yeah, I guess the lifer ain’t all bad,” Marks said with a laugh. 

Some months later Towers was caught red-handed rifling through a shipmate’s locker, having cut off the combination’s lock with the tugboat’s bolt cutter.

The owner of the locker, a tough deck hand named Al Mason, discovered Towers pocketing some of his money in front of the locker.

Mason punched Towers in the back of his head and Towers’ forehead hit the ledge of the locker’s top shelf and he collapsed to the deck.

The chief heard the noise below in the crew’s quarters and he and Johnson ran down the steps and saw Mason kicking Towers as he cowered on the deck. The chief and Johnson pulled Mason away and Towers was able to get to his feet.

The chief and Johnson marched Towers up to the tender’s brig where he confessed freely to stealing various valuables from the crew, including Johnson’s pipes and cash.

With Towers placed under arrest and placed in the ship’s brig, the chief and Johnson returned to the Natick. Johnson was pleased to see Marks at the galley’s table. He told Marks that he was sorry that he accused him of stealing his valuables.

“Sure,” Marks the joker replied with a laugh. “Does this mean y’all get off my case?”

“No,” Johnson said.       

© 2025 Paul Davis 

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 

Note: You can read other chapters via the below links: 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The Ground'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan, Davis-San

Paul Davis On Crime: A Look Back At Life Aboard An Aircraft Carrier During The Vietnam War: 'The Compartment Cleaner'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Murder By Fire'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Admiral McCain'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Hit The Head' 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'A Night At The Americano'  

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Missing Muster' 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Barracks Thief'

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 

Mouth

 Mouth 

By Paul Davis 

I recently went for a haircut to a local barber shop located about four blocks from my home in South Philadelphia. 

The barber in residence was a young man and a good barber who had a mostly younger clientele. I happened to sit next to another old timer who, like me, missed the good old days when Frank and Sonny ran the shop. 

Originally from Sicily, Frank and Sonny Provenzano came to Philadelphia in 1955 and opened their barber shop in 1965. In the 1960s, when I frequented the shop as a teenager, and into the 70s, 80s and 90s, the Frank and Sonny’s barber shop had a congenial atmosphere akin to an old-fashioned taproom bar or a social club, minus the alcohol. Although the barbers put out bottles of scotch, vodka and sambuca during the Christmas and New Year season. The barber shop was authentically “South Philly.” 

The barber shop back then was always crowded, and on any given day, customers came and went after participating in the day’s running debate on sports or current events, moderated by the two barbers. The ongoing debate, often enlivened with abundant humor, made the long wait for a haircut enjoyable in the always crowded shop. 

Frank Provenzano, the older brother, was a short, balding, avuncular man who retained his Italian accent even after all his years in America. Sonny, who was some years younger than Frank, was short with curly black hair and possessed a sardonic wit that sometimes offended his customers. 

The two barbers supplemented their income by operating as bookmakers and loan sharks, and my crowd often made sport bets there and borrowed money from them when the bets didn’t work out. Like many of the young guys from my crowd, I thought of Frank and Sonny as my uncles rather than just my barbers. 

In the late 1970s, when I was in my late 20s and single, the shop was so busy that the two brothers brought in a pretty young girl to cut hair in the third chair they had in the barber shop. 

I recall one Saturday afternoon when the shop was standing room only. When it was my turn, the young girl waved me towards her chair. I told her that I would wait for Sonny. 

Although my short dark parted hair and my short trimmed dark beard was easy to cut, I was fussy and particular about who cut my hair. Not counting the four years I spent in the Navy, Frank and Sonny were the only barbers who had cut my hair since I was a kid. 

“Go ahead, let her cut your hair,” Sonny said. “She’s good.” 

Reluctantly, I agreed. 

I sat in her chair as she wrapped a long white sheet around my shoulders and placed a white strip around my neck. She then just stood there beside me as I sat in the elevated barber’s chair and looked at me with her head cocked to the right. She turned to Sonny in the middle chair. 

“I can’t cut his hair,” she said with an exasperated air. “He’s too good-looking.” 

Sonny frowned, Frank chuckled, and the other customers in the barber shop roared with laughter. The girl was soon let go by the brothers and she went to work at a nearby woman’s beauty salon. 

I was teased mercilessly both in the barber shop and elsewhere for some months after that. Friends would greet me with “Hey, Good-looking.” And a bartender and friend at our bar looked at my other friends when I walked in and said, “I can’t serve Paulie a drink. He’s too good-looking.” 

That got a big laugh at my expense.       

 When I wrote about the barber shop in the mid-1990s in my column in the local newspaper, I quoted Frank stating, “We are a friendly shop. Everybody is more of a friend than a customer. We have customers who have moved to New Jersey and other places far away, but they still come back here for a haircut. A lot of shops give them a haircut and throw them out. Our friends stay about talk about the salaries of ball players and such. This is an Italian neighborhood, although we have all kinds living here, and we all get along.” 

Thanks to their loyal, multi-generational following, the shop remained open for years even during the long hair days of the 1960s, when many other barber shops folded. 

Frank and Sonny always seemed to have a handful of oddball characters hanging around the shop. They would sweep up the hair from the floor and make coffee runs to a nearby delicatessen for the two barbers and any customers who also wanted coffee. But mostly the characters entertained the barbers and the customers with unintentional humor.    

One of their most entertaining and often annoying characters was Martin Alberto. 

Alberto was around 5’10, lean with dark wavey air and a permanent five o’clock dark shadow on his face. He was a minor criminal, into “this and that,” but he often spoke like he was a big shot mobster, even though everyone knew he certainly wasn’t.    

As he was a non-stop, speed-talker, known as a chiacchierone - a chatter box in Italian - Alberto was called “Marty Mouth,” Motor Mouth,” Mighty Mouth,” or simply “Mouth.” 

I recall one early evening when I entered the shop and Alberto was pacing up and down the shop and talking fast. Sonny had an older man I didn’t know in his chair and Frank had my friend Bob Longo in his chair. Frank and Bob were smirking as Alberto went on and on.     

“I know it ain’t right to do a cop,” Alberto said. “But I gotta tell ya this prick detective is getting on my last nerve. He’s always pulling me over when I’m driving around the neighborhood and questioning me right in front of everyone. He even pulled me into South Detectives and grilled me for an hour, but I didn’t fold. I didn’t tell him shit.” 

Alberto, voice high and fast, spoke of how this detective was pressing his luck by harassing him. 

“He don’t know who Marty Alberto is! I’m into some heavy shit right now, and this cop is crowding me. If I gotta go to the bosses and ask permission to whack this fucking cop, I will. And if they don’t give me the OK, I may whack his fucking fat ass anyway. I tell ya, I had it with this prick supercop.”            

Just then Frank pulled off the barber’s neck to knees white sheet and Alberto saw Bob Longo’s blue police uniform, badge and sidearm. 

Alberto was – for perhaps the first time in his life – speechless. 

Alberto turned quickly and bolted out the door as Bob Longo just shook his head and I, the two barbers and the other customers roared with laughter.

© 2025 Paul Davis