Chapter 12

The driver’s training the next week was a chore. I got up and we did PT, then I would go to the motor pool where I was given classes in driving in Japan. And it was a lot to learn, more than just which side of the road to drive on. All of the signs were completely different, their stop sign was like an upside down yield sign to us, and I had to remember speeds were kilometers per hour and not miles per hour.

But on Wednesday afternoon I passed my test, and got licensed also for the HMMWV. This was just now entering service, and was the new version of the jeep. But much larger, I think even wider than the Blue Whale is.

I went to the shop, and Cpl. Simmons told me I would be going with Jones in the morning. “Now, this is actually not bad you will see. You will be driving until lunch, and feel free to stop on whatever base you want to eat at. You come back here to check for anything outbound, then repeat the process, starting in the North and making your way back here and getting any disks and reports to come here. Load the disks, you should be off by 5. We do this so you learn the island fast, and so if we send you to say Kinser or Hansen, you know exactly where they are.”

“That makes sense, but why is Delgado not doing this?”

“Well, we are going to have her as the regular operator of the PDP system. And she will learn a few places in case she needs to make a call. You, like Jones we later on will likely use you as one of our roving troubleshooters. In a few months we will have you work here, and learn all about the hardware and operation of the various data input terminals they use in the units. Don’t worry, you both will learn all aspects, but that is how we will likely use you for now.”

“OK, that makes sense Corporal, thanks. Do we ever do programming?”

He laughed at that. “Oh no, almost never. At most we may dig into a little code to say change a program that was specific for say Pendleton and make it work here, but that is about it. Some of us do a little specific programming, I wrote one a few years ago to tell the Julian date, but that is about it. Naw, programming is normally done by civilians in the states who make big bucks, not us.”

I nodded, that did make a lot of sense. They soon let us go for the day and I headed off for chow, and back to the room to work on a letter I was writing for Linda. I was going through the user manual and it had a short program that played music, so I started playing with it until it was playing a semi-decent version of “Unchained Melody”. I set it up to play in the background as the text of the letter scrolled across the screen.

Not really professional quality, but I think it came out alright. And nothing in it was so personal that she could not play it for her mom and Mandy. I then added a smaller note for them on a different program, this time playing the Peter Gunn Theme. I made a copy and put it in a disk envelope I had gotten, and wrote a hand written note explaining how to run the programs, and which was for which.

And the next morning, I followed Jones to the motor pool after PT. There we checked out the duty van, and drove to the chow hall and got breakfast to go. He gave me directions as I drove, and soon we were on the expressway. Now that was new, I had never driven on a toll road before. I got a ticket when I pulled on, and he handed me a slip of paper he had filled out with the date, departure, and destination written on it.

“You want to fill this out before you go, we even have a stack of blanks in the glove box. Hand it to the toll taker at the other end with that ticket, and it is no charge. If you get your own car, learn the surface routes. The expressway charges like $8 to go from here to Camp Schwab, each way. And don’t try using it in your POV, that is a good way to get a boot in the ass from command.”

I followed his directions, and by the time we hit the last destination I was thoroughly lost. I admitted to that, and Jones laughed. “I was too, don’t worry. You will remember most of them within a week, and in a month you can do it blindfolded. And I will show you other things too. Best and worst chow halls, USOs, base clubs, PX, things like that. And forget about the camps up north, Hansen and Schwab are purely grunt territory, no chicks allowed. But there is some mighty fine pussy at some of these other ones.”

I laughed. “Don’t forget, I’m engaged. Oh, I enjoy looking but that is as far as I go.”

“What about you and Delgado? Somebody was saying they saw you two holding hands at BC street last weekend.”

“Well, she is a good friend. We were at Stumps together, and she took a lot of weekend trips with me. But she is also friends with my fiance, so all we are is friends. I will not ask where you heard that, but tell them we are just friends and nothing else. And yeah, we hold hands sometimes. I actually have permission from my fiance to do that, so long as it is only that.”

“Hey, that’s cool dude, message understood loud and clear. Yeah, I sometimes would hold my cousin’s hand, so I get what you say. But there are a lot of horny dudes around, and not much round eyed pussy to go around.”

“Well, I’m not competition. If Delgado wants to date somebody, then I say good for her. But he had probably better understand her and I will still spend time together because we are friends and share common interests.”

We then got into talking about D&D. And Jones admitted he had heard of it and seen it played, he himself had never played it. I described how it works, and some of the things I had done while playing. He got a lot of how it worked however, since he had played games on the computer like Wizardry.

“Yeah, pretty much like that, but more words involved. And dice instead of a computer generating if you hit or not. But almost every computer fantasy game was written by D&D geeks.”

Finally the first half was done, and that was a lot of driving! And when we got to Camp Schwab, I understood what they meant by it being the “Armpit of Okinawa”. It was a small camp way up north, tucked into a small bay as if it was an armpit on the island. And it was run down looking, without much to offer unless you were into SCUBA diving. And Jones told me the town outside was even worse, nothing but one strip club, one half-way decent yakisoba bar, and that was about it.

We stopped at Kadena for lunch, and then back at the shop. There was nothing outbound so we started again, this time starting at Schwab and heading South. We picked up from two to ten disks at each stop, and as I was driving I saw that Jones had a bunch of cartridges in the back and was loading them as I drove. “Have your passenger if you have one do this, makes the end of day go faster. This way we bring them in, put them in the machine, leave the keys with the duty desk, and that’s it.”

“We don’t turn the van in every night?”

“Nope, I only did that last night because you needed to check it out this morning since you are now driving. Most times we only turn it in on Friday, and pick up a different one. We always have a van on call, in case somebody needs it.”

“What about tonight? SSgt Kelly said we could use it to go to Kadena.”

“Yeah, to them that is an ‘MWR Function’. Go ahead, if a van is needed they will check out another one. But remember, turn it back in when you get back, trip ticket filled out.”

Finally we had all the disks, and pulled up at the shop. We loaded the cartridges into the computer, turned in the keys, and walked to chow. I raced through it and drove back to the room, grabbed my civies and throwing them in a backpack with my player items I went across the street. Frannie was waiting for me in the lounge, and we were soon heading out again.

“This is much better than trying to take the bus Pete. We will get there with time to spare, last week I barely made it.”

I pulled in front of the USO and changed in the bathroom, then we walked to the PX. We still had a half hour, so I asked her what she had told them about me. Thankfully, only that I was a player, and had been the DM who had taught her in school. Whew, nothing about my being a professional game writer. “Please, keep that between us. I just want to play and have fun, the last thing I want is to have them thinking I am some big shot and want to take over.”

“Yeah, I got that. Hell, I had no idea until the very end myself when I saw your game room. And trust me, I could tell the difference. The guy that runs this is fun, but his adventure was kinda amateurish compared to what you put us through.”

“Yeah, that is what I want to avoid. I may DM with them someday, but I do not want anybody getting their panties in a bunch thinking I want to take over. I don’t, I just want to play. I honestly prefer playing to being DM, but most times I seem to be it because nobody else wants to do that much work.”

We headed into the room, it was a small 10 by 10 foot conference room with some folding tables and chairs, one of them set up and three people around the table. I was introduced to Fred, who was both the group leader and normal DM.

“Frannie here says you are good, and seeing what we saw last week I am taking her at her word for now. She was really good for a novice player, and she said you taught her so that is a good recommendation right there. OK, we have a few simple rules. No drama, no fighting. The DM outranks all, what he or she says goes. Also, no rank here. I am Fred, you are Pete. Frannie there is Frannie, and Jacki there is just Jacki. I do not care if you are a Private or a General, in here all that stays outside the door. This is a sanctioned MWR organization, it is all for fun.”

I told him I had no problem with that. He then asked me my background, what kinds of characters I preferred playing, and things like that. Jacki came over and gave me a cute smile when I pulled out my character notebook, and whistled as Fred flipped through them.

“Those are good, did you draw those?”

I was puzzled for a second, then smiled. “Oh no, my fiance’s sister did those. She likes drawing, and loves to make character sketches. She plays also, and normally makes them based on something the character did in the game.”

“Darn, wish she was here. Tell her she is really talented. In fact, it looks a lot like some Fred showed us a few weeks ago.”

I smiled, and said that unless he lived in LA it was unlikely he had seen her work, other than her doing a few sketches for people at conventions. By then I was meeting everybody as they came in, and once they decided a ranger was needed I pulled out two sheets and handed them to Fred.

“Animal Companion? What is that?”

“Oh, sorry. Optional rule I got from a magazine. Hold on a second, I have copies in my other notebook.” I pulled my supplemental notebook out and handed them over. He read through it quickly, and nodded. “OK, that’s fine. You have a wolf as a companion, I will treat it as an independent familiar for most game play. OK, here we go.”

We started playing, and I was joining in half way through a wilderness adventure. He did a good job of integrating me, having them wander across my camp and inviting me to join them. It was routine, but a lot of fun. One thing Fred did not like was when a bunch of goblins were going to ambush us, I reminded him of the ability of my wolf to detect them by sound and smell long before we would. The surprise night ambush was ruined and we easily defeated them.

Finally we called it a night and everybody went out of their way to make us feel welcome. And on the drive back Frannie said it was fun, as she had never seen me play before.

“Well, being DM is different. I prefer like tonight, when I can hang back and just be part of a group. One thing about being DM you should know, it’s lonely at the top. I am by myself, nobody has my back and literally the entire group is working against me. But that is fine, that is the role. But I much prefer just being another player.”

“Well, you were good. Can I borrow that notebook with the extra rules? I would like to go through it and see if there is anything I can use in it.”

“How about this, take it to work and make a copy for yourself. The majority are from articles I have written, but some are from other people, just whatever I thought would be fun to play.”

I dropped her off at the barracks with my notebook, then turned in the van and headed back to my room. Of course Jones was watching another porno, I just grinned and got undressed and slid into bed.

On each Thursday after that, the routine became for Frannie to be waiting in the shop with her backpack and a change of clothes. And I would have my backpack already in the van. Jones told me on those evenings to go ahead and take off, he would load the cartridges so Frannie and I could just hop in the van and took off.

We were soon at Kadena, and this time we pulled into the PX and changed in there. Then after putting our uniforms into the van we got some Cheese Steak Sandwiches in the food court as we talked. I told her that the next night I was going to call Linda, and she told me to send her my love.

“I have to admit, I had no idea I could use the phones here like that.”

“Well, you are lucky in two ways. First, we are the communications people, so of course we know how the systems work and how to use them. And second, you live close to a base that has such an exchange. My family lives nowhere near a base, so I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can, I talked to Jones and he does. Ask one of them to get an account with somebody like MCI. They can send you a card with the account number, it’s like a credit card. You can then drop into any US exchange, dial a 1-800 number, enter the number you want to call, then the account number. There will still be long distance charges, but from the base in the US to your house, and not from here.”

“Wow, I never thought of that! You can do that?”

“Sure. When I got to boot camp they gave each of us a 5 minute MCI card so we could call home. And there are other companies, I had seen some for one called Sprint. They claim cheaper long distance than the phone company, and they seem to be big. But you have to call them to make the connection, so that makes it a bit of a pain.”

“That will be a lot of numbers, but it will be worth it. I have used MARS a few times, calling overseas is just so expensive. But I will do that next week, thanks Pete.”

With sodas in hand we went to the conference room, and once again Fred and Jacki were the only ones there already. Jacki gave us a cute grin and waved, as Fred said “You son of a bitch! Now I know why her work was familiar! Tell me this is not you!” He then tossed down an opened module in front of me, and of course I recognized it right away.

I closed it and looked at the cover, and shrugged. “Nope, that is not me. This is written by, oh my, Jenny Talia.” Of course it did not help that I was fighting to not grin, and Frannie was giggling away. Jacki was also giggling.

“Fred, I told you that would not work. Pete, I’m the one that connected the artist, she has a very unique style, and those in there are almost a perfect match. Of course, there is one other thing, go ahead and whip it out Fred.”

He was not mad, but with a grin he then pulled another module out of his backpack. “Chaos in the Capitol”. He smiled, and said “Now tell me that Peter Culver is not you, Pete Culver.”

“Nope, can’t do that. And yes, I am also Jenny. But please keep that a secret, I’m trying to keep it unassociated with me because some would not want to publish my works if they knew I did that one. Probably all of the game industry knows that is me, but this way they can still hire me with the fact it is not public knowledge.”

“OK, makes sense. But shit dude, you are a big name. Why just slip in as a player? You could have your own group easily, heck even take over this one if you wanted to.”

“Why would I want that? I really do just want to play, I like playing. And yeah, I would like to DM again, maybe use the group on a weekend for playtesting new adventures. And trust me, if you play any of the adventures I wrote I would act as if I had never even heard of it before, to a point. I actually have done just that, only say not using the dagger of healing because I know what it was. But I refuse to use inside knowledge, that would ruin it for everybody else playing.”

“OK, that works for me. Jacki, you happy with that?”

“Peachy keen, Fred.”

The four of us sat at the table, Jacki next to me as we continued to chat. I asked him if he had anything else I had written, and he admitted he only had the Dildo one, and the Chaos Adventures. “OK, next week I will bring over more of them. One of them is kind of a set of expansion rules, written by myself and one of the publishers. That one is written by ‘Mike Hawk and Jenny Talia’.” That was as far as I got, Jacki was slapping my arm as she and Fred were both laughing.

“Oh Pete, that’s horrible!” she said. “My cock and genitalia! How in the hell did you come up with that?”

I told her about wanting a pseudonym that was female as a way to encourage other women, and my publisher picked Mike. “I only suggested the change in order, he was going to list me first as it is based on my earlier work. But I thought putting his name first sounded better. Oh, and my fiance wrote an adventure, and it bookends nicely to Dildo. I will loan that to you also, she uses the pen name of ‘Holly Wood’.”

Frannie told them that she had played it, and it was a lot of fun. “I mean, honestly. You know how all the players change sex? Well, from there you go into the part Linda wrote, where they basically have to prostitute themselves in order to help build a temple. It was sexy and a lot of fun, then at the end of it the story returns to the first one where they can change back. You can use it alone, but they work best together.”

I looked over at Jacki and asked her if she had played it. “Oh yes, we do an occasional weekend group. Those are not here, we hold them in a barracks or somewhere else. Those are not MWR sanctioned, so we can be a bit more lose in what we do. And I tell you, I got myself the first time we did it! I decided to play a big buff barbarian, so I could go against my normal character type. Only to fool myself, and still end up playing as a chick! I wanted to kill Fred for that, I thought he had made it!”

Fred chuckled, and nodded. “And Pete, I have to admit I knew who you were the first moment I saw you. While I was home on leave last year, I went to a convention in Atlanta. And in the movie room they were presenting a game you had done a few years ago of Chaos. You looked like a cowboy, but add maybe two years and cut your hair and I knew it was you the moment we met.”

“Well, Frannie here knows, and I told her I wanted it kept a secret. I do not want to take over your group Fred, I just want to play like anybody else. Oh, and here, this is for you.” I pulled out a notebook Frannie had made that week, and handed it to him. “This is a copy of my notebook, with all the alternate rules and expansions I have made, along with some others. This way you can go through them all, and decide what you will allow in advance without them being sprung on you like I did.”

He smiled and thanked me, and Jacki immediately took it away. We all laughed, and at that time the others started to arrive. We were soon going again, and had a lot of fun. Frannie’s mage was knocked out, but thankfully she recovered.

On Saturday I decided to head over to Kadena. I had lunch, and decided to wander over and see what movie was playing. And as it was a clear day and not raining I saw the outdoor skating rink and decided to give it a go. So I rented a pair of skates and after having the guy adjust them a few times was skating away.

I was having a good time, but also feeling a bit lonely as I had not gone skating by myself in over four years now. Not since that day when I ended up at a punk rock rink and a cute little thing bumped into me. I was remembering all the fun times I had in the past with Linda, Holly, Mandy, and the rest when I noticed somebody skating next to me.

“Hey there Jacki, when did you get here?”

“Oh, about 15 minutes ago. You were really into it there, you skate great. But then you got a kind of melancholy look and I thought I would ask what’s up.”