An Evening on the Beach - Flash Non-Fiction

Japanese Restaurant by Andrew Haimerl

An Evening on the Beach

It had a ring around it.  The ring was much like the ring around the bathtub after washing three boys before bedtime.  A brown/black scum that takes a hard brush to eradicate.  Even then the ring persisted.

This ring was six blocks wide and encompassed the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Yokosuka.  It was replete with liquor bars, package stores, tattoo parlors, souvenir stores filled with stolen intellectual property and an occasional restaurant of repute. 

My evening started with my shipmates and a visit to a nice restaurant.  From there a round of some souvenir stores to get a pool cue and bootleg music on 45s and LP.  After that, one of the lightweights would peel off from the group and head back to the ship taking all our merchandise for us. 

That’s when we hit the package store for a couple liters of Coke and 151 rum.  I picked up a couple six packs of Colt 45 malt and a pint of rum of the kerosene variety.  With our evening in our arms, we headed to the nearest bar.

As the Sun fell behind the ocean, the ring became less distinct.  The worn constructions and trash disappeared into the shadows, and as the display lights grew brighter in the rising darkness, the ring started to look pretty.   That didn’t really matter though.  In the bar, it was dim night and day.  At the counter, we checked in our booze for a hundred Yen.  They would provide us with our own until we either ran out or passed out.  There were plenty of barflies to bring them to us for an occasional purchase for them of a Coke and Coke.  They acted as though they were getting drunk along with us.

I found us two couches facing each other with a large coffee table between them.  My several drinking mates and I plopped down and commenced to have a relaxing evening getting hammered.

How could one measure one's consumption?  Especially after having a few belts of 151.  You start stacking the glasses on the table.  They weren’t large glasses, bigger than shots but smaller than a kitchen glass.   They were starting to pile up.

The evening was going along swimmingly.  I’m kicked back, burrowed into my niche on the sofa with my long legs stretched out under the coffee table.  To the Japanese, I am a giant.  Six-foot-one and a fit 180 pounds.  Non-descript to them, my face could be any one of hundreds of sailors that pass through.  Then… all hell breaks loose.

A First Class Radioman, Jonesy, comes ambling into the bar about seven.  He’s built like me, a six-footer and lean.   He plops down next to me and helps himself to a couple of our drinks and gets into an argument with one of my fellow Sonar Techs.  Who knows what it was about. 

They both scream I’d drink your piss.  Yuck, this situation was degrading rapidly.  Nearly as soon as said, the pair drops their drawers and commence peeing in the glasses and tossing down piss shots.  I can’t believe my eyes. 

The Japanese are going crazy, screaming at us.  They call the Hard-Hats.  That’s Shore Patrol. 

The Radioman departs before the law gets there.  When the Hard-Hats arrive the Japanese point to me.  I’m hauled over the back of the couch by my armpits and taken outside.

“It wasn’t me!”  I shout. 

I wasn’t drunk enough.  Shore Patrol believed me, but I was forbidden to re-enter the bar.  With my booze lost and my buddies still in there.  I headed back to the ship.

There will be another day.