USS MULLINNIX DD-944
|
Palermo, Sicily 1961
|
|
Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
Palermo is a city of Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo. It's noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence. It is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Both Smythe and Larkin had the duty. McGee thought he'd run into town, have a couple quick drinks, maybe a couple more, then make a short night of it.
Sicilians eat large quantities of street food, including the renowned arancini, a form of deep-fried rice croquettes. Sweets were another specialty. As McGee bounced from the Seven Stars Pub to Ye Grapes, to The Magpie & Stump, he stopped and sampled frutta martorana, pignolata of messina, buccellato, cannoli, granita, and cassata siciliana. A couple drinks, then a sweet, a couple more drinks, then another sweet, and so on.
Next up was the Black Swan, then the Old Bottle, and then The Hangman’s Rest, and finally Little Louis. Little Louis was a long room with dark woodwork. It smelled of aniseed and sawdust. Two lamps shed their light on walls and a ceiling that hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in a long time. Behind the zinc-topped bar itself, above rows of bottles, were hung photographs of Italian boxers, posing with their fists at the ready. All the photos were in dusty wooden frames. In the corner, on a shelf near the ceiling, a model of a sailing ship. A bit shabby now, but still a real beauty. Protruding from the ceiling were prongs of an iron grate used to protect the bar after hours. Little Louis, the owner, had thickened around the waist since his boxing days. He had a flattened nose, cauliflower ears, and a battle-scared mouth. His smile a grimace liberally flecked with gold.
Little Louis, besides booze, served granita in his bar. A semi-frozen dessert of sugar, water, and flavorings originally from the island, related to sorbet and Italian ice, but with a coarser, more crystalline texture. McGee continued to mix desserts and drink.
He stumbled into the head in the back of the place. Graffiti of phalluses and misspelled swearwords covered the walls. Mosquitoes so big they turned your dog tags over to see your blood type. He started singing while he was taking a leak, “Oh, she looked so fair in the midnight air as the wind blew up her nightly. Her tits hung loose like the balls on a moose, and I fucked her every Friday.”
Finished, he staggered into one of the back rooms. Peeling paint the color of pea soup cracked and flaked off on his palm as he held the door open. It was a narrow, long room, created by throwing up a wall across the end of the garret as cheaply as possible. The interior wall wasn't finished off, and sharp points of nails showed where they had broken through the thin wood slates. Through an open double window the warm breeze blew the dirty, stained curtains up from the floor, where they fluttered lazily for a second before falling flat, waiting for the next little gust to start. Always moving, going nowhere.
There was a table to the right, and a mattress on the floor to the left. He went to the table first, and pushed aside a plate of stale bread, black olives dripping in green oil, and a piece of hard, yellowed cheese. This disturbed a couple of fat, slow moving flies at their feast and they halfheartedly lifted off to buzz McGee's face. An open bottle of brandy stood on the desk and a couple of empties had rolled into a corner of the floor. He pushed around a stack of newspapers, yellowed sheets that looked like invoices for liquor shipments, and old magazines. An ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and burned out matches sat on top of a small metal box. He moved it and coughed as he waved away the cloud of ashes that drifted for a moment in the stagnant air when he set it down. The room felt close and airless, even with the windows open. The air had nowhere to go and all the old smells of food, dust and cigarettes had settled, coating every surface with their odors. Something else, too. Sweat?
With his last coherent thought, "I got to get to the ship...", he managed to get into the street, trudging through biscuit-colored structures blown with flies and garbage.
He barely remembered passing a hunchbacked, limping figure dedicating himself to wandering the streets on the outskirts of the city. The brick walkways smelled of damp stone and the wild spearmint that grew in green clusters between the bricks.
Aboard ship the next morning, he had a second heartbeat in his head. Vodka vapor was seeping out of every pore and making him dizzy. He still had toothpaste crust in the corners of his mouth from brushing his teeth in an attempt to get the remnants of the shit taste out. McGee’s body had lost the ability to generate spit so his tongue was suffocating him. He didn't have the foggiest idea who the hell he ate breakfast with on the mess decks. Any attempt to take a dump results in a fire hose like discharge of alcohol-scented fluid with a rare 'floater' thrown in. The sole purpose of this 'floater' seemed to be to splash the toilet water all over his ass. Death sounded pretty good.
To be continued...
Back to Liberty Call
Back to Ship Company
Home
© 2022 by Frank Wood, All rights reserved