Chapter 10: Training

After an excruciating twelve weeks of boot camp, Darren and Steve expected to trade physical exhaustion with total boredom for the next three months. On Monday morning they report to their classroom and find eight others waiting. Three of them finished boot camp in the same class as Darren and Steve but with different drill sergeants. The others were transferring to a new specialty after meeting the minimum time requirement in their original assignment.

“Ten-hut,” echoes into the room from a voice in the hallway. Everyone jumps to their feet and stands at attention as a well-decorated colonel enters the room.

“Sit,” he commands.

“I am colonel Violet. I’ll teach you the basics of what you’ll need to know, but the real knowledge you’ll need will come with the hands-on training.”

The colonel is scanning the men in his classroom. No one seems to have a question. He continues.

“Nine weeks from today you will be doing this work on your own supporting a dock manager somewhere in the world. That means you have one chance to learn this material. If you fail, you’ll be doing grunt work on the dock.”

He now has their attention.

“The classroom portion of this class is six weeks. On the Friday of week six there will be a written exam. You must score better than 90%. If you do not score high enough you will have to go through a weeklong review and a different, more difficult final. It also means you will lose one week of hands-on experience.”

“Any questions? No? Then let’s get started. Turn to chapter one.”

The class fulfilled the men’s expectations. It was incredibly boring. On Friday of the third week colonel Violet gave them a surprise exam. He let them out early for a long lunch so he could grade the test before they returned.

“Gentlemen,” the colonel started when the class was back in session, “I graded your papers.”

There was an uneasy aura in the room. Each man knew he did not do very well on the exam and was concerned what the colonel would do next.

“Every class struggles with the surprise mid-term exam, but this class struggled more than most, but not necessarily the absolute worst.”

The class stared blankly at their teacher, waiting for him to continue.

“The average score for this class was 59.1%. The best score was a 71. The worst score was a 22. My worst class scored a 57.9%, so your scores are only marginally better.”

The room’s atmosphere dropped to a deathly pallor. One of the students raised his hand, and when acknowledged meekly asks, “Are you going to return our tests?”

The colonel snorts, “Why? You all failed. Miserably. Does it matter who failed worse than someone else?”

He is now glaring at his pupils that have treated the class as a joke until this point.

“On Monday and Tuesday we are going to review the material we covered over the last three weeks. On Wednesday you’ll take another exam similar to the one you took today. To answer your unasked question, no, next week’s exam doesn’t count, but if your scores are not over 90% you will have to consider your commitment to this program.”

Colonel Violet had not unpacked his briefcase after lunch. Instead, he collects it from the desk and pauses before leaving the room.

“I am taking the afternoon off. You can either stay here and get started on the review of the material, or you can also get an early start on the weekend. See you Monday.”

The remaining weeks of class were as excruciating as boot camp. Having paid so little attention the first three weeks meant every night was spent studying the material that was originally glossed-over. Also, the colonel did not tell the class that the first half of the class was much easier than the second half.

The hard work ultimately paid off. All ten students passed the final and were assigned to a dock manager at the nearby seaport. Darren was assigned to a manager named Hugh. He primarily worked with shipments of equipment returning from Europe, sending what could be reused to Korea, and what could not be salvaged went to a scrap yard. Steve’s dock manager’s name was Forrest, and he worked mostly with outbound supplies for the new helicopters being deployed in Korea.

Colonel Violet was right on several accounts. The class was difficult, but it only scratched the surface of what the students would need to know to be a successful dock manager. The guys struggled to keep up with their mentors. After two weeks they were able to handle the basic shipments without needing to bother Hugh or Forrest to doublecheck their forms.

Late Friday afternoon Steve shows Forrest his paperwork for the last shipment to be loaded onto an outbound ship. Everything looked good so Forrest gave it his stamp of approval.

“Looks good, kid,” Forrest says as the throws the forms onto the completed stack. “Hey, if you’re interested, some of the guys and I have a poker game on Friday’s nights. This week it is at my house.”

“Ah, I’d love to come, but I’m going out with a buddy from boot camp,” says Steve.

Forrest says, “Bring him along. We’ll have eight at the table. Buy-in is $10.”

Steve blanches at the buy-in amount. It is almost twenty percent of his take-home pay each week.

Forrest scribbles on a loose piece of paper he finds on his desk. “Here’s my address. Only a mile or so from here. Game starts at 8:00 if you and your friend are interested.”

Steve finishes tidying his desk in preparation for Monday morning and then heads back to the housing he shares with Darren. When he gets home Steve broaches the idea of the poker game.

“Hey, my manager asked if I wanted to come to a poker game tonight. Said you were invited as well.” Steve waits, then adds, “Buy-in is $10 so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

Darren does not hesitate. “Other than some food, and an occasional drink at the bar, we don’t spend money. $10 is a lot for us, but a poker game sounds like an interesting evening.”

They hang out for a couple of hours, then walk to Forrest’s house. They see three cars in the driveway and shyly walk to the door. A petite redhead answers the door after they knock.

“Oh, you must be Steve and his friend,” she says with a somber expression. “Are you sure you want to be here tonight? The game can get cutthroat.”

After Darren said that it was a lot of money, but that they spent so little, Steve convinced himself that this was going to be a lot of fun.

“Of course,” Steve says as she offers his hand. “I’m Steve, this is my friend Darren.”

The redhead steps back and gives them a resigned sigh. “This way, almost everyone is here.”

She leads them into a small room across the hall from the kitchen. Five men are already seated around the table. Forrest is sitting nearest the door and introduces each player starting to his right. This is Bugs. As Forrest says the name the man taps the thick glasses sitting on his nose. Next is Tiny, who taps his large protruding stomach. Horse, who only gives a sly smile. And Tank, who flexes his biceps.

“Hey everyone,” the two say in union, then Steve says, “I’m...”

Before Steve can say anything Forrest interrupts. “He’s Pimples,” says Forrest without any hesitation. Steve turns beat red and knows everyone is staring at the zit that has formed on his chin.

“Just own it, kid,” says Tiny. “No big deal.”

Forrest then looks at Darren and sizes his up before speaking. “And he’s Tonto.”

Tank jumps in and says, “Our host is Naps – short for Napoleon, and the guy not yet here is Dweebs.”

“Tonto, sit next to Tank. Pimples you’re here by me. Dweebs will sit between you two,” Naps instructs as they hear a knock at the front door.

A few moments later a scrawny man wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt with a pocket protector enters the room and slides into the open chair.

“We’re all here,” announces Naps. “Buy-in is ten dollars. Tiny, collect the money and distribute the chips.”

As Tiny exchanges each bill for a stack of chips Naps continues his monologue.

“If you run out of chips your second buy-in will be for five dollars. Any further buy-ins will be for twenty dollars. House limit is one dollar the first hour, three dollars the second hour, five dollars in hour three, and then for those that are still in, we go to no-limit. It’s dealers choice from these games: five-card draw, five or seven-card stud, or Texas hold-em. Pimples, Tonto, do you know how to play the games?”

“We’ve played draw and stud, but I’m not as familiar with hold-em,” says Tonto honestly.

Naps describes the game and then deals a dummy hand to the three of them, explaining each step and some high-level pointers on what he considers good strategy.

At the end of the tutorial and the exchanging of money and chips, Naps calls out, “Hey Babs, bring us a round of beer before we get started?”

Horse looks at Dweebs and says, “You didn’t bring that disgusting shit-for-beer you brought last time, did you?”

Dweebs looks down as he answers, “No, no I brought an American beer.”

Pimples says, “Were we supposed to bring beer? We didn’t bring anything.”

Tanks says, “No problem. For your first game we’re just glad you’re here.”

The redhead that let them in appeared in the doorway. She had changed out of her blouse and slacks and was now wearing a low-cut burlesque top with red trim and a matching pair of black and red panties. Her toned legs were covered with fishnet stockings and elevated with high heeled shoes.

There are whistles and catcalls from the men around the table.

“That’s new!”

“You look great, wish I could get my wife to wear something like that.”

“Damn, girl.”

She distributes the beer and then retreats to the kitchen to return a few minutes later with several small bowls of popcorn and peanuts that she places around the table.

“Let me know if you boys need anything else,” she says playfully before departing.

Naps is shuffling the cards. As he riffles the deck he looks at Pimples and asks, “High or low?”

Pimples isn’t sure what he’s being asked and tentatively says, “Low?”

Naps throws a card face-up to each person at the table and says, “Low-man deals first.” After eight cards are dealt Naps sees that Horse and Tonto both have a five and are tied for the lowest card. He throws each another card – eight to queen – and says, “Horse is our first dealer.”

Naps passes Horse the deck as Horse collects the face-up cards and adds them to the deck. He riffs the deck several times and then offers a cut to Tiny. Taking the cut deck back Horse says, “First game is five-card stud.” He deals each man five cards.

Tank passes. Tonto wants to get a feel for the game, so even though he has a pair of twos in his hand, he also passes. Dweebs follows by passing. The hand is finally opened by Pimples.

“I’ll start with a nickel, white, I mean.”

The regulars all look to Naps. Tank says, “Your regular?” Naps has a habit of betting the maximum on the first hand no matter what he held.

Naps grins as he reaches for a blue chip. “One dollar,” he dramatically announces.

Everyone around the table passes until it gets back to Pimples. He looks at his hand – pair of jacks, with an ace, eight, two.

“No guts no glory,” says Pimples and adds ninety five cents to the pot.

Horse looks at Pimples and asks, “How many?”

He delays as he looks at his hand. Two or three cards? He finally decides.

“I’ll take two,” he says as he throws the eight and two face-down back to Horse.

Naps slowly pulls one card from his hand and slides it to Horse.

“Just one for me.”

Horse deals a face-down card back to Naps and says, “Because we’ve hit or limit already for this hand, let’s see what you’ve got?”

Everyone looks to Pimples who got incredibly lucky with this draw – an ace and a jack. He says, “Full house,” as he lays his hand down on the table.