Confessions of a Drunken Coastie, Part 3
Editor’s Note: From 1988 until 1991, Crash Barry served as a sailor in the U.S. Coast Guard aboard a 210-foot-long ship that patrolled from the Gulf of Maine to the Caribbean. This is the third in his series of true stories about fighting the War on Drugs and the War on Haitian Refugees.
“Hey look, it’s Crazy Mary,” Seaman Logan said, walking away from the rest of us as we pretended to scrape rust from the hull of the Coast Guard Cutter Tumultuous. “Wonder if she has time to give me a blowjob before I go home?”
As Logan approached the moon-faced girl sitting on an old bike with coaster brakes, a little boy in a baby seat on the stern, D-Man shook his head in disgust. “Yeah, please do us all a favor and go home to your ugly wife and kids. What a friggin’ scumbucket.”
“Who is that?” I asked. I’d seen the 20-something woman pedal down to the State Pier in New Bedford almost every afternoon around quitting time during the first two weeks I’d been stationed aboard the ship.
“That poor soul,” drawled Staples, “is the unfortunate child of God known in these here parts as Crazy Mary.”
“Yeah, I got that. But who is she? Why does she ride down here every day?”
“Some fella on the Coast Guard Cutter Intrepid knocked her up and then got transferred to Detroit before she had the baby. For some reason, she thinks he’s gonna come back.”
“She thinks that ’cuz she’s retarded,” D-Man sighed. “I should kick Logan’s pimply white ass for fucking around with her.”
“I knows how you feel, but ya’ll realize we can’t do a thing about it.” Staples shook his head. “That lil’ son-of-a-bitch would go crying to the First Lieutenant if we even lay on hand on ’im. Then we’ll all get in trouble. Besides, we only gotta put up with him for another month. We’re friggin’ lucky he ain’t going north with us.”
“Yeah, still,” D-Man said, punching his left palm with his right fist. “The slimy bastard deserves a serious ass-whooping.”
A minute later, Logan returned wearing a shit-eating grin on his pockmarked face. “Gotta love New Bedford,” he laughed. “She’ll be back in an hour. Gonna bring the kid back to her mom’s. Then I’ll get her a fifth of coffee brandy and she’ll suck my cock. That’s a deal, I tell ya.”
No one said a word, even though I could feel anger seething among my shipmates.
Chamberlain broke the silence. “She’s someone’s sister, dude. Someone’s daughter.” He frowned and shook his head. “Can’t you tell she’s … touched?”
“All I know is she gives good head,” Logan sneered, stroking his wispy moustache. “And I can afford the price tag.”
•••
“Hey, Doc!” I shouted, a week later, running toward the quarterdeck shack where the ship’s corpsman, Petty Officer Second Class Ross, sat working on a crossword puzzle. It was a little after midnight and we were on watch. I’d just finished my hourly round of the cutter, which included keeping an eye on the Tumultuous II, a 24-foot, rigid hull, inflatable speed boat that was temporarily out of her cradle and moored between the ship and the State Pier. “There’s someone in the small boat!”
“Whaddya mean?” Doc asked.
“I shined my light down and saw someone jump out of the boat.”
He looked at his wristwatch and noted the time in the ship’s log. “Let’s make this quick, OK, so I can get back to my puzzles.”
We walked to the end of the pier where a Jacob’s ladder, lashed to a bollard, dangled down to the boat.
“Be careful,” Doc said. “Don’t want you getting stabbed by a dirty junkie. Not in the mood for stitching up a knife wound.”
I laughed and shoved my steel mag light into my belt, then climbed down. The tide was out, so the ladder ended five feet above the small boat. When I let go and dropped to the deck, something — or someone — scurried into the underworld beneath the pier.
Shining my light into the darkness, I saw her, less than 10 feet away, bare-armed and shivering among the cribbing.
“Mary! What the frig are you doing down here?”
She whimpered, covered her ears, then turned around and tried to make her way deeper under the pier, but the gloomy forest of barnacle-covered timbers was too complicated for her to navigate. I followed her into the shadows and tried a gentler approach.
“I’m sorry if I sounded angry.” I paused. “I was just surprised to see you, that’s all. I’m not mad. Just curious. Why did you come down here? This ain’t a fun place to hang out, that’s for sure. C’mon, Mary, let’s go. That’s the quick way out.” I pointed at the steel ladder fastened to one of the wharf’s piles. “Those rungs are easy to climb.”
Mary wouldn’t move. I put my hand on her arm and she pulled away. “No, no, no,” she mumbled dully. “Wanna kill myself.”
My heart sank. I was in way over my head. Could have muckled her, I’m sure, slung her over my shoulder and carried her to safety, but she’d put up a fuss, screaming and fighting the whole way. Then the answer came to me: Doc would know what to do. I scrambled back into the small boat and looked up to the wharf’s edge where Doc stood, smoking a cig. “Gonna need some help,” I shouted to him. “It’s Crazy Mary and she’s threatening suicide.”
“For Christ’s sake!” he exclaimed, flicking his cigarette into the harbor. “I wondered if it was her.” Doc shook his head. “I’m gonna call the cops and then I’ll climb down there and talk some sense into her.”
Less than 10 minutes later, thanks to Doc’s gentle and kind words, along with promises to help her find the help she needed, he coaxed Mary out from under the wharf. We led her to the steel ladder and all of us climbed onto the pier, just as an ambulance and a police cruiser arrived.
•••
A couple weeks later was the Fourth of July, and a big celebration was scheduled for sundown. The fellas and I had spent the day drinking and tossing around the football at Horseneck Beach, returning just in time for evening chow. After dinner, we retired to the Tumultuous’ helicopter deck to smoke cigarettes and watch the vessels streaming into the harbor, all vying for the best spots to view the fireworks.
Staples shielded his eyes from the setting sun as he stared at the boat traffic. “Well I’ll be damned,” he drawled. “Lard almighty! I’d swear on my great-grammy’s Bible that’s Crazy Mary out thare in that little-bitty boat.”
“What?” D-Man asked. “Where?”
“About 200 feet,” Staples pointed, “off the starboard beam.”
There was Mary, sitting cross-legged aboard an inflatable boat more appropriate for a backyard swimming pool than one of America’s busiest harbors, bobbing among the pleasure craft and fishing vessels.
“Oh my friggin’ word!” I exclaimed. Once again, my heart sank. The girl had a death wish. “What are we gonna do?”
“We gotta do something,” D-Man said. “Otherwise, she’s gonna get killed.”
“Welllll,” Staples said slowly, “maybe if we hollered her name a whole bunch of times, she’d come on over here. Tell her we got some of that god-awful coffee brandy she likes so much. That might do it.”
“Then what?” D-Man asked.
“I dunno.” Staples shook his head. “We’ll think of something.”
Chamberlain and I ran down to the pier while the rest of the fellas stayed aboard, shouting words of encouragement and promises of bribes to Mary as she struggled to row the tiny oars and make her way ashore. Luckily, the tide was high, so it was easy for Chamberlain and me to help her up when she arrived alongside the wharf. Once she was safely on dry land, I grabbed her inflatable boat and pulled it up onto the dock. In a flash, I drew my knife and stabbed the plastic a dozen times. She tried to grab the boat away, but she was weak and small and tired, and ended up falling, then sitting on the ground in front of me.
“I CAN’T FRIGGIN’ BELIEVE YOU!!” I screamed. “WHAT ABOUT YOUR LITTLE BOY? MARY, WHAT ABOUT HIM?”
She got on her feet, then covered her ears and walked away. By then, the rest of the fellas had come ashore. Staples and D-Man caught up to her and spoke to her softly, trying to explain how dangerous her boat ride had been. They kept trying to get her to promise not to do it again. Everyone was concerned and gentle. Except me.
Soon the sailors’ attention shifted to the cooler full of beer and the multitude of civilians arriving for the festivities. Someone gave Mary a can of Bud and I watched her eagerly gulp it down. When the sun set and the fireworks began, all eyes were on the night sky. Except mine. I watched Mary. Her eyes were wide with wonder as the explosions and colors filled the heavens. Enraptured. Joyful. She grinned widely and didn’t even cover her ears until the grand finale, when the canon fire echoed off the harbor and became too loud even for an insensitive like me.
When the show ended, her smile disappeared. She looked around and realized she was surrounded by people she didn’t know. Mercifully, the crowd dispersed quickly and she didn’t freak out. She was scared, though, and crying softly when I approached her.
“I gotta get home,” she sobbed. “My momma is gonna kill me!”
Since I was relatively sober, I borrowed a shipmate’s truck, threw the deflated boat and oars in the back, and drove her across the bridge to her home in Fairhaven. She was silent, except to give me directions. When we arrived, I tried to apologize for yelling, but she just jumped out of the truck, grabbed her vessel and headed into an apartment building.
Parked on that anonymous side street, I cried. In a week, our ship was leaving New Bedford for good, moving to our new digs at the mouth of the Piscataqua, the river that divides Maine and New Hampshire. What would happen to Mary?
•••
Fifteen minutes later, I was back at the State Pier. As I parked the truck, it became obvious something was afoot. A Coast Guard helo from Air Station Cape Cod was hovering low over the harbor, bathing the water in searchlights.
“What’s going on?” I asked the petty officer manning the quarterdeck.
“There was an accident right after the fireworks. A boat capsized. Fifteen people aboard. They think four are missing. Including,” he paused, “a baby and a little boy.”
•••
The next day, Mary pedaled down the pier with her little boy in the baby seat and stopped in the shadow of the ship. She just stood there, astride her bike. So I went ashore.
“Hi,” I said. “How you doing?”
“Fine.” She stared at the cracks in the pier’s pavement. “OK.”
“Good.”
“My mom didn’t kill me, ha-hah.” She flashed a bright smile. “She thought I watched the fireworks from the bridge. Ha-hah.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.” She paused and again cast her eyes downward. “Not happy that you broke my boat.”
I sighed. “It was for your own good.”
“No.”
“Did you hear what happened last night?”
“No.”
I told her, speaking slowly and without emotion. A 49-year-old woman was dead. A 27-year-old woman and her baby daughter were dead. A five-year-old boy was dead. The overturned vessel was a 20-footer, overloaded with passengers and further destabilized by a makeshift shack used as a wheelhouse. Rescue crews found all the life jackets still wrapped in plastic.
Mary’s face got paler as she absorbed the details. Then, without a word, she climbed back aboard her bike and pedaled away.
•••
As we took in the mooring lines and the ship’s whistle sounded farewell to the Port of New Bedford, I brimmed with excitement. After two months of being dockside, I was finally underway. Ever since reporting for duty, I longed to taste the salty spray of the sea and feel the roll and pitch of a ship dancing with the swells and troughs of the open ocean. I was so glad to be leaving New Bedford. My gut told me something bad would have happened if I’d stayed in that harbor city much longer. In my short time there, I’d encountered so much heroin, sorrow and pain — surely I would’ve fallen prey to one vice or another.
As the ship backed away from the pier, I scanned the small crowd to see if Mary had come to say goodbye. She hadn’t visited since I told her about the drownings. She must have known our departure time — it was well publicized that we were leaving — but she wasn’t there. I was disappointed. Even a shy, hesitant wave from her would have been enough to ease my conscience.
The ship made her way through the harbor and out the breakwater. By then, the other deckies and I were on the flight deck, smoking cigs and giving Massachusetts the finger. As we turned northeast toward Buzzards Bay and the Cape Cod Canal, word came down from the bridge to check out the bell buoy off West Island.
D-man had a pair of binoculars. “Oh my friggin’ word,” he said. “I can’t friggin’ believe it. Will you look at that!” He handed the binocs to Staples.
“OH SWEET JESUS!” Staples shrieked. “NO FRIGGIN’ WAY.” He pointed at me. “Wanna see your girlfriend?”
“Huh?” I said, reaching for the binocs. “Whaddya talking about?”
It soon became clear. There, holding onto a bell buoy with both hands, a couple hundred feet off our port side, was Mary, afloat in her patched inflatable boat. As far as I could tell, she wasn’t scared or even nervous. She was just watching us leave.
