Excerpts from Sunshine, a completed screenplay that I'm adapting into a novel (unedited)
from CHAPTER ONE
The bus finally slowed down to a halt, allowing it’s headlights to showcase a short stocky officer standing at parade rest. He looked like his name should be Buck and that he liked to wrestle. His eyes were barely visible underneath his white officers cap but I could tell that he was staring right at me. I assumed that he was in charge by the way he just stood there and let the bus come to him.
Clifford pulled back a long metal handle, slamming the bus doors open, and then looked at me through the rear view mirror, almost as if he was cuing me. Nobody moved. After picking up my seabag, I slowly stood up. A few guys behind me followed suit as we made our way to the open doors. A freezing gust of angry wind, combined with the stink of disgusting seaweed, warned me of things to come.
Later that night two senior cadets showed us to our barracks and apparently they were getting discharged for medical reasons so they were much more relaxed and jovial than the rest of us. The barracks were pretty much what I expected; rows of neatly made bunk beds, shiny metal sinks next to a long line of commodes. Although the “showers” were a little unsettling. They weren’t really showers, they were just nozzles that hung from the ceiling; all pointing to one big central area.
At the end of boot camp we were given a dream sheet; a list of places that we would like to get stationed. There were thirty-three of us in Hotel 126, and thirty-three stations to pick from. Some of the more glamorous stations that were on the sheet were Hawaii, Miami Florida, Alameda, San Diego and Portland Oregon. The barracks had the aura of the last day of high school as we all waited patiently for the first guy to stand up and announce his pick.
“San Diego”, he said.
“Damn”, echoed throughout the barracks.
The next guy stood up and turned to face the company.
“Hawaii, you bitches!”, he yelled out.
A guy next to me leaned over, “Yo, where the fuck’s Borinquen?”
“Um not sure,” I said while crossing off Hawaii.
“Alameda, California," the next guy yelled off.
The barracks were now empty with the exception of me and Company Commander Buck. It was finally my turn to pick and the only station that was left on my dream sheet was an icebreaker stationed out of Washington. Buck stared at me, chewed his tobacco, and then with a cocky southern drawl he said, “The US Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star. Boy aren’t you a lucky son of bitch.”
“Sir?”
“It’s an icebreaker son.” Stationed out of Seattle Washington. You’ll be on Deep Freeze 89’ to Antarctica.” He laughed while walking out, letting the door slam behind him.
“The Polar Star?” It sounded like a joke; like an animated disney movie. “They Polar Star,” I repeated. “Who the hell goes to Antarctica?”
from CHAPTER 3
SS3 MaClain hustled through the galley while I tried to keep up with him. He was dressed in kitchen-whites and he was wearing an oversized chef’s hat.
“You hoping to be a Subsistence Specialist?”, he called out over the crackling deep fat fryers.
“Um, I’m not sure what that is sir.”
“A cook like me,” he said proudly, “And I’m not a sir yet, but thank you.”
We swerved around gigantic stainless steel ovens while I tightened my apron, “I’m actually looking at aviation.”
“Ahhhh shit, go on witcha bad self”, You're gonna need a lot of study time. Like I said, you lucked out. Galley duty is....ready for this...a piece of cake!”
I ignored the pun but laughed anyway. I’ve never seen anybody so excited about a kitchen before.
“Over here we have the coppers where we make chilies, soups, etc. I recommend letting them cool down before you handle them. We'll be using a lot of those tonight, I'm making stuffed green peppers. You ever have those?”
“I don't think so.”
“You're in for a real treat, that's a big favorite with the crew.”
I followed him into a tiny, stainless steel room that looked like a post dinner junk yard.
“Okay, so you’re going to be our scullery technician. Do you know what that is?”
“No sir.” I said smiling.
“It’s a dishwasher.”
“Oh.”
“It's pretty self-explanatory, on-off, open-shut, simple. Any questions?"
“Um, no.”
He tossed me a pair of wet rubber gloves and yelled out, “Okay, scrubb a dub-dub!”
That night I laid in my rack unable to sleep due to Joey’s load snoring. Rhett was asleep with his Coast Guard manual face down on his chest and Catman was out somewhere. A single red nightlight prevented the room from being entirely pitch black and it was kind of cool; like a seedy bar somewhere in a dark alley. Right at the time when Joeys snoring was about to attack me, I decided to get dressed and explore downtown Seattle.
Coincidentally Bolen was standing watch again on the quarterdeck but this time he gave me detailed directions to all the hip spots downtown.
“Check out JM’s on 1st Ave, lots of chicks."
“Do they check id’s there?
“Just use someone elses.”
“ID?”
“Yeah, we all do it.” All white guys look alike with shaved heads.”
“Oh right.”
“The Red Robin on 3rd doesn't check ID's. Mega chicks too. Snobby place, high class, like an Olive Garden or Red Lobster. That's where you'll meet the hot, older desperate types."
“Well all right”, I said, while trying to make it sound like that’s all I wanted to hear. I continued down the long swaying brow and stepped onto the pier.
The streets were soaked from the rain and I watched my feet as they stepped over bright, colorful reflections of the city, mirrored on the wet ground.
“Can you spare some change?” asked a rugged looking man in in his late fifties. A white, frizzled straw-hat guarded his face from the rain while he held out his hand. A purple, neon sign that read “Hot Jacks”, backlit a line of hipsters and goth types as they stood in a line to an entrance of a night club. I walked through a flurry of clove cigarettes while trying to decipher which Cure song was playing from inside the club.
Seattle was much nicer than I had imagined and even though it was raining, people were out and about. Pier 36 seemed like the place to be; rock music combined with loud drum beats blasted out of a long line of bars, clubs and restaurants that connected to each other along the soggy wooden pier. Loud cheers erupted from a place called “Rodeo Bar” and I looked in the front door to watch a blonde girl in tight jeans as she fought for for her life atop a mechanical bull. It was my first night out in my new city and part of me was excited, but the other part of me thought about what Catman wanted to, but didn’t say to me three nights ago.
I walked up to a take-out window of Ivars; a small restaurant that was dominated by the smell of seasoned seafood, and ordered a large bowl of New England clam chowder. I stood there and watched the steam escape from a boiling pot of water and wondered what the fuck I just did with my life.
The next morning I decided to visit the ships store and check to see if my name was on the school list. A cadet sat on a high metal stool and watched me as I surveyed the list.
“How long you been in?”, he asked.
“About two weeks.”
He laughed, “Shit dog, I’ve been in for nine months and I’m still waiting for Quartermaster school.”
“Yeah, I was just checking.”
He held up a cassette tape and smiled, “This is the shit bro.”
His name tag read COLSTON and he was wearing an Atlanta Braves base ball cap that was too big for his thin, pimply face.
He handed me the tape and continued ranting, ‘Yo, Phill Collins, Face Value. It’s his new shit bro, well it came out a couple years ago in 85, but it’s new for us.”
“Yeah why not, how much?”
“You can have it.” He bumped his chest two times followed by a poor attempt at a gang sign.