Chapter 28

The beginning of the week was fairly normal, with them working the hell out of us. A new wrinkle was that we were going to be working out at the gym three days a week. My week was filling up rather quickly and I just hoped there would be enough down time for my body to recover. That’s when one of those thoughts from the first go round popped into my head.

On YouTube I used to watch two guys who competed in those World Strongest Man competitions, and in a multitude of videos they talked about recovery. The majority of things that I could remember weren’t feasible for me due to lack of technology or its expense.

There were two that I figured were doable. First, were massages, though again cost would dictate how often I could do those. The other was the one that was the easiest and cheapest, which made it the best idea – cold baths. If memory served me right, it would help with soreness and inflammation. Then when you warmed up this was supposed to increase blood flow which then increased healing, again supposedly.

Cold baths were something I could do on the cheap, as all I would need is some sort of tub and ice.

I took me awhile, but after calling around and checking the classifieds, I found what I was looking for. Someone was selling a seventy-five-gallon plastic stock tank for thirty-five dollars. The guy said he’d hold it for me until Sunday.

Things were interesting at language lessons, as Ms. Miwako brought up something halfway through the session.

“Barnim, have you been reading the book I gave you?”

“When I have time. I’m about three quarters of the way through it.”

“You’re almost finished? Are you grasping it?”

“Yeah, I think I’m getting most of it after going over each part a few times.”

She sat there for a little bit.

“Barnim, do you know what a polyglot is?”

“I have no clue what that is.”

“That’s someone who has an easier time than most people learning a new language.”

“I didn’t know that, but what does that have to do with me? I speak Polish fluently and took two years of high school French.”

“So how did you learn Polish?”

“At home, my grandparents and Mom mainly spoke Polish at home.”

“How much do you remember from your High School French class?”

“A good bit, though I wouldn’t say that I’m fluent.”

“Well, you’re probably a good bit ahead of where you should be after two classes. Reading and comprehending the book will help. Once you’re done with that one, I have another one for you.”

We went on for another forty-five minutes before calling it a night. As I was walking out the door, Ms. Miwako gave me a boost to my confidence.

“Barnim, I think you’ll have a really good base by the time December comes along. I don’t think you’ll be fluent by then but you’ll be fully conversational at least.”

I decided to flex my Japanese skills.

“Thank you. Have a nice evening.”

“Very good. You as well.”

I then continued with what was becoming ritual after my classes. Stopping at a convenience store for some fresh cut fruit. When I walked into the barracks room, Norbert was bitching and moaning about how sore he was.

“Have you taken a shower yet?”

“What’s it fucking matter to you?”

“Just answer the fucking question.”

“Yeah.” He just couldn’t stop being an asshole

After showering myself, I went over to my wall locker and pulled out an unopened jar of Tiger Balm. After applying it to my sore areas, I sacked out for the night.

Thursday morning, we spent extra time running and in the weightroom. Once we were done, we had another class on Underwater Escape Training and found out our practical training would be next week. We did some practice with a set of benches. It was a mess; guys were fumbling all over each other. Once again, we were yelled at for the majority of the time.

Lunch was OK, and afterwards was a class on the SMAW. It covered capabilities and how to employ it against hardened targets. We were assaulted by power point, and as boring as it came across, I paid close attention as this pertained to my job.

A lot of the presentation was old stuff, though there was a good bit of new info. We were going to head to the range for live fire which was going to be this Friday after our Underwater Escape training.

We spent a little time with the SMAW trainers before securing the workday. It was then stuffing my face and on to Muay Thai camp. Master Chutimant was waiting for me when I came out of the locker room.

“You are admitted to the camp, and now we have to learn just how much you need to be taught. Get in the ring now.”

As I climbed into the ring, there was a guy in the ring waiting for me, already geared up. The guy was wearing a big thing on his body that covered his whole upper body and wrapped around towards the back. Added to that, were the punching mitts, then his whole lower legs were covered in pads.

“Now we run through your paces.”

I was told to approach it as a sparring session and given a set of sparring gloves to put on. As I set up to start, I got smacked in the back with a padded stick.

“Turn hands, not proper form.”

I had my hands in a normal boxing position. Turning my palms out towards the front, it just felt off, but I went with it.

I kept getting hit with that damn stick and he was constantly yelling at me.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong. You supposed to know what you are doing.”

“Let me do it my way and you’ll see the difference.”

“You too willful. We see though, go ahead.”

I took my normal stance as he then began calling out instructions. He was still yelling at me, though it wasn’t with as much venom as the beginning. This went on for a while before I started to lose a little zip in my punches.

“Take a short break. Then we see how bad you kick.”

I grabbed some water and got back into the ring. I wasn’t going to let him think that he could run me into the ground. He then ran me through another series of commands. First it was leg kicks, then any other type of kick he could think of, elbows, knees and the Thai clinch.

“You just OK. Not do anything great. I don’t see what Master Boripat see in you. Now we see how you do against live opponent.”

He turned and leaned on the ropes. “Davith, get over here.”

The guy that came trotting over was the closest to my size that I’d seen here although I still had about four inches and about twenty-five pounds on him. The other thing that stuck out was the color of his skin. Everyone here had the coloring of being from Thailand or a Pacific Island. Davit was several shades lighter. Davith and I were the only ones who looked like they didn’t come from Asia or the Pacific.

The rules for the sparring were quickly laid out. We were not to try and knock each other out. No elbows to the head, we weren’t using full power, and we would go for three two-minute rounds.

We went to opposite corners and Master Chutimant told us to start. We both came out, and as we were coming together I started watching him. Davith had a classic Muay Thai stance. Hands almost palm forward and was on a bouncing front leg.

My hands were in a classic boxing position as we came together. I started snapping jabs and he started putting out leg kicks. We were trying to gauge distance and I wanted to know how much of a reach advantage I had. I could touch him, though he could just reach me with kicks. We traded jabs and kicks for a bit.

I caught him off guard when I started mixing in leg kicks every now and then. They both thought that I couldn’t kick worth shit, he caught on quick and started checking them. We both kept adding and changing what we were doing. Little wrinkles here and there would surprise the other one for a second.

Just after the third round started, I grabbed Davith in a Thai clinch and caught him with a decent knee to the ribs. It had a little more power than I intended, but not enough to do any real damage.

He gave a grunt, broke loose and glared at me. It was then a flurry of kicks and punches that pushed me back to the ropes. A punch got through and had a lot more power behind it than we were supposed to use. It stunned me, and I knew it was going to leave a pretty good shiner.

Now I was pissed, though I took a breath to keep it from letting it put me into a blind rage. I fired off rapid fire punches with an occasional elbow waiting for the opening. Davit took to covering his face and shoulders leaving his midsection open, so I did what I was good at. I put a good amount of power behind a left-hook to the body. He took a step back and went down to one knee. Master Chutimant got in the ring.

“STOP, STOP.”

He told Davith to get up and then turned around and took a look at my face.

“You both fine. You still just OK.”

“Thank you Master Chutimant.”

That ended the night’s session. After getting changed, I stopped and got a small bag of frozen peas on the way to the Base. Walking back into the barracks room, the two of them stared at me. Norbert took a second look and then decided to gloat at what he thought was a chink in my armor, or so he thought.

“First Sergeant is going to be interested in your getting into fights.”

I just ignored the little weasel and took a shower. Laying down, I put the bag of peas on my face. Norbert kept going on about how I was going to get in trouble for fighting. I could only chuckle at this moronic tactic. I hopped down and grabbed a package of fruit from the fridge and looked at him before getting back into the rack.

“Norbert, please go run and tattle. It’ll do nothing but show me how much of an asshole you really are.

I ate my fruit and threw the bag of peas in the freezer part of the fridge. Laying down, I let my exhaustion take over.

Waking up, I got ready for PT with this odd feeling that something was going to happen. I just didn’t know what.

Sgt Le Pesant and the Corporals got the platoon into formation. We were going to do a five-mile run, and everyone had better finish or die trying. Sgt Le Pesant started running next to me about a mile or two into the run.

“What the fuck happened to you Badzinski?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about Sarge.”

“Don’t bullshit me Badzinski. The left side of your face looks like ten pounds of hammered dogshit.”

“Oh that. I was training last night.”

“Right. So when are the MPs or the cops going to be knocking on my door looking for you?”

“They aren’t.”

“So that’s what you’re going with?”

I explained about my martial arts classes. Sgt Le Pesant was skeptical but didn’t push the matter any further. I spent the rest of the run at the back, pushing the stragglers to get moving. Everybody made it, though just barely. Breakfast and classes followed, then we were turned to Field Day.

Somebody had their panties in a twist. We were Field Day’ing until 1900, as there was always something that had to be redone. That left me cleaning with just Norbert which was brutal. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, so I didn’t have to listen to his whining anymore.

Once we got released, I didn’t even bother changing out of my BDUs but just grabbed dinner at the Mess Hall and was on my way.

Standing in the shop with Sameulu, I was being told how things would go tomorrow when I realized something. Whether it was on Base or here at the house, I was constantly being told what to do. I wasn’t trying to be my own boss, at least here at the house, but sometimes you just want to be free to do whatever the hell you want.

Tomorrow the Alovili Aiga was having a get together that started at 1700. We were going to spend about five hours out on the water spearfishing as they wanted fresh fish. This was going to be my introductory class on spear fishing. I would be there to learn and be Sameulu’s pack mule, which was becoming a routine job for me here and on Base.

I was OK with it as I was being taught stuff that would prove to be beneficial later on. We packed everything into the back of the Volvo so that we could just get up and go in the morning. There was a pretty good-sized cooler that went in with everything else. We spent a few minutes before I took the car back over to the Grandparents house.

I decided to try and call Kiku tonight seeing as tomorrow was going to be a busy day. Calling twice and getting no answer, I wasn’t too surprised as it was Friday night after all. She was probably out somewhere, so I set everything out for tomorrow. I was grabbing a glass of water when Mariana came into the kitchen.

“Barnim, can I talk to you?”

“Sure, what is it that you want.”

“Why when you’re here, do you ignore me?” So she berates me all the time and now wants to put it all on me. That wasn’t going to fly.

“Mariana, you all but said I was a degenerate. And you wonder why wouldn’t want to be around you all the time. Please, explain to me how you can infer that it’s all my fault and I’m wrong for avoiding you?”

She stood there for a second just staring at me. Something briefly flashed across her face. I couldn’t tell if it was recognition or indignation. She then stormed off towards her bedroom. I heard her call me a monster as she went. It was time to call it a night.

We made our way out in the morning while it was still dark, just like work. There was a stop at a gas station for ice, donuts and drinks. We drove out to Makapu’u Beach.

We sat on the tailgate eating donuts while Sameulu showed me how to sharpen the prongs on my sling spear. He was sharpening the bolt on his spear gun while we watched the sun rise. It was slightly cloudy which magnified how pretty the sunrise was. I wished that I’d brought a camera with me. The yellows and purples just stood out and enraptured me.

“Hey, they’re sharp enough.”

“Huh?”

“You realize that you’ve been staring out over the water while sharpening the prongs for almost ten minutes?”

“Was it really that long? The sunrise just kind of sucked me in.”

“Its beauty is enthralling, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“So, let’s get changed and out on the water.”

As we were getting into our wetsuits, Sameulu explained his spear fishing philosophy. The primary fish that we were going to target were invasive species. There were three that made the top of the list and were always targeted. Roi or Peacock Grouper was number one on the list. They were targeted by all spearfishermen that Sameulu knew. The other two were To’au or Blacktail Snapper and Ta’ape or Bluestripe Snapper which were more prized. That was due to there being something wrong with the Roi.

It had been found that the Roi had some sort of toxin that was abundant in the fish. It could make people sick, with horrible symptoms. Diarrhea, vomiting, numbness and being overall weak that could last weeks to months. Sameulu kept his and gave them to a family member that used them for fertilizer. The other bonus was that there was no size or bag limit on those three fish.

The other four that we were going to target we had to watch the size and how many. Those were Uhu or Parrotfish, Mu or Bigeye Emperor, Men Pachi or Soldierfish, and Uku or Grey Snapper. Sameulu looked at me with a lopsided grin.

“You are going to be Ok killing your namesake?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Soldierfish, your namesake. You okay with them meeting their end?”

“I’m perfectly fine with it.”

I leaned in a bit closer to him.

“I’m a Marine not a soldier.” I had put a hint of menace in my voice.

Sameulu just chuckled and responded, voice patronizing as hell. “Okay my little Marine. Let’s get going, we don’t have time to waste. I have to teach you and catch fish.”

We made our way down to the waterline and then to waist deep. Lesson number one was how to remove water from inside your mask. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Apply pressure to the top corners of the mask and blow through your nose. The pressure loosened the seal, and the blowing pushed the water out.

It took a couple of tries before I stopped sucking water into my nose, but finally got it down pat. After that we put our fins on and made our way out. We swam out with a cut down surfboard that carried our gear. Looking under the surface there was a sort of a canyon formed by the coral reefs, we were cruising down the middle.

We stopped about two hundred yards from shore, and he informed me that we were in about thirty feet of water. My job at this point was to watch and make sure everything went safely. Beside me and the surfboard, we had a “Diver Below” float.

I watched and studied everything that he was doing being very interested in what was done before slipping beneath the surface. There was a routine that Sameulu went through. I would put my face into the water and watched as he’d glide down to the sea floor.

I was timing his trips down; on average they were between three and four and a half minutes. When he came back up, Sameulu would spend about ten minutes or so back at the barge. Which is what I called the piece of surfboard.

After about his fifth trip and three fish Sameulu looked across the barge at me.

“OK, so it’s your turn. You want to make sure that you’re as relaxed as possible. You’ll do fine.”

“Alright.”

I floated out from the barge and began getting my breathing settled. I pushed myself into the water, scanning for movement as I made my way down. Once I made it to the bottom, I took a look around and it hit me. There was a sensation in my chest, I needed to breathe. Trying to get past it there was a nagging thought in my head. It was almost like a flashing neon sign; you’re going to drown.

Pushing myself off the sand, I put as much force into my finning as I could. The closer to the surface I got, the worse the sensation in my chest got. Finally, breaking the surface, I was gasping for air. The sound from my right finally broke through all the stuff swirling around in my head.

“Stop, relax and settle your breathing.”

Turning my head, Sameulu was maneuvering the barge over to where I was. I was surprised when the browbeating I thought was coming never materialized. Not even the slightest bit of yelling as I grasped onto the barge, though he did start giving me shit from the jump.

“So the big bad Marine got scared.”

“I don’t know what happened. I just can’t explain it.”

“Relax. You actually didn’t do that bad. I’ve seen worse, though not many.”

Well, that was only slightly reassuring.

“Look, you’ve never done this before. There’s going to be some learning pains. You need to relax and pay attention to your body. One key thing you need to be aware of is rest time. If you are down for three minutes, then you need to rest at the surface for at least ten minutes.”

He talked to me about a couple of things that should help. I took a couple of minutes to center myself and my breathing. I took deep breaths and then filled my lungs and slipped below the surface.

I noticed a large number of fish off to my right as I was drifting down to the bottom. I tried to angle my way to where they were. I saw a fish that looked like one of the ones that Sameulu described to me. I took an extra second to line up the shot. The advice was to just aim in front of the fish’s mouth. Releasing the spear, it went low and completely missed the fish.

Pushing off the reef floor, it was to the surface as that sensation was starting again. Breaking the surface, I started sucking in air. Once I grabbed the barge Sameulu started in on me again.

“Stop sucking in air like a fish out of water. That was a decent dive for a newbie. You were down right about two minutes. You made a decent shot.”

“I missed though; it went completely under the fish.”

“That’s why they call it Spearfishing and not Spearcatching.”

We spent a couple more hours moving up and down the edges of the reef canyon. When we started moving the barge in towards shore, there was a stringer of about twelve fish hanging off the side. None of which I speared, which didn’t sit well with me, I needed to do more work.

Sameulu reassured me that I did OK for the day. Even though I increased my time to about three minutes, that fell short of the five to six minutes a dive at the end of the day that Sameulu was able to stay down. Let’s not mention the fact that the only thing I’d hit was water and coral.

Getting out of the wetsuit was an adventure of its own. The fish got thrown into the cooler and we were on our way. When we got back to the house, I got tasked with rinsing off all the gear while the fish were taken care of. I didn’t realize that rinsing off the salt water was that big of a deal.

After we got everything taken care of and I took a shower, it was time for my favorite lunch. Peanut butter, strawberry jelly and banana sandwiches with milk. I was able to get a hold of Kiku while munching on lunch. We were a few minutes into the conversation when there was a knock at the door. I put our conversation on hold as I answered it.

Opening the door, I was presented with something totally unexpected. Kiese was standing there in a stunningly tight two-piece outfit. It looked like a dress, but I could see it was a top and a dress when we walked in. It was green and white, the dress and top were green with a white design. Though the design was on the right side of the top, and the left side of the dress just green. There was one thing that stood out. On the lower left of the top was the same design turtle that was in my tattoo.

As she walked by, there was a twitch in my pants as I took in that ass. It took a second before I noticed that she had a plastic grocery bag in her hand.

“Hold on, I’m on the phone.”

“You have no friends, so who are you talking to?”

“Kiku.”

“Oh, I’ll take it.” She stepped past me and grabbed the handset.

“Hey girl, how’s it going?”

The bad thing was I could only hear one side of the conversation.

“I’m doing good, preparing for a big surf competition. How is school?”

“We’re going to a family get together. Yeah, he has to come seeing as he’s part of the family. I had to bring him his outfit.”

“It’s a whole family gathering, which means he’s required to attend. It should be interesting as it’s his first one.”

“OH, I’ll take GOOD care of him. No, I won’t do that too much. We both know he loves you too much for that. I’ll make sure I get a few pictures of him to send to you.”

“Alright sweetie, I’ll tell him. Have a good weekend.”

She hung up the phone and turned to me.

“Kiku told me to tell you that she loves you and can’t wait to see you. Now take that bag and go change or we’ll be late.”

“Yes ma’am.”

I took the grocery bag and went to my room to change. There was a Lavalava that was a design match to what Kiese was wearing. There was also a Hawaiian shirt that had the design on the right side of the shirt and the turtle on the lower left side. Shoes wouldn’t work, so I grabbed a pair of flip flops.