Saturday, October 24, 2009

The story of Moses as told by his drummer




The Story of Moses

Please note Moses music can be heard on YouTube.com



This story was written as best as I can remember the series of events as they happened. It maybe more of story of myself than one of "Moses" ... I really never knew a whole lot about the man, other than the three or so years I spent playing drums for him. I do not know when he started playing guitar or any bands he had together previously of my meeting him in 1973.






The Story of Moses

1973



After a long wait I finely got my orders, and thank God I wasn’t going to Korea like most of the others had. I was going to Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin Texas. Hot dog was I happy! I really didn’t care where back in the world I was going as long it was back in the U.S.A. and going back to Texas was fine with me. I had left a girl friend in Dallas that dumped me while over in South East Asia. And I was anguished to get some of my things back from her; I had almost left my drums with her before I left Lubbock for Thailand. I was sure glad that I hadn’t.

I stayed in touch with playing the drums as best I could while over seas. I bought a drummers practice pad on a stand and some sticks to keep in shape, I played them a lot. The Thai people gave me funny looks however, “crazy Americans” I would hear some say in broken English.

I would also sit in with some of the Thai rock bands downtown at the bars. It was a funny thing that I couldn’t talk to these guys but yet I could play music with them. Goes to show, Music is a universal language. It would crack me up to hear them playing “American Band” by Grand Funk with that Thai accent. You’d have to hear it to understand how it sounded, but I couldn’t help but have a shit eating grin on my face while playing that song with them.

I didn’t go straight to Austin; I had two weeks leave so I first went home to Lorain Ohio. My car and the drums I had in Lubbock where in storage there, as well as family. I could write a whole chapter in it's self just on those two weeks, but I'll leave it for another time for now.

Once in Austin I had no place to go, I could have gotten a bed in a barracks, but I sure didn’t want to do that. So after I checked myself in on the base, I took a nap in my car. Come morning I got a paper and went apartment looking. I found one about five miles from the base in a four unit building. My landlord lived right next door to me. It didn’t take them long to be bitch’s about the drums. So I would only play when I knew they weren’t home, and then I would hear about the things that fell off of their walls.

The Air Force tried to get me to live on base. They told me that because I was now single (I was married when I joined, divorced a year latter) that I couldn’t live off base. Bergstrom was a mobile task unit of the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, and we had to be ready to move out at any given moment. Which I never could understand why a crew chief had to go with the plane he was assigned too.
I knew that it was time to get the fuck out of the Air Force.

I received a letter from Scott who was still in Thailand it was great news, he also had orders for Bergstrom at Austin. Two old buddies would be together again! I couldn’t wait for him to get there. We had been friends since just after boot camp. We roomed together in an off base apartment in Lubbock where we were stationed together; both of us got orders for Thailand only we went to different bases. I went to Ubon and Scott to Udorn about 300 miles apart from one another.

A few days just before Scott arrived in Austin, I wrote a nasty letter to the base Commander. I just kind of told him I wanted the fuck out of the Air Force and what I thought of it. I had a page from my medical records that I had removed from my file on the plane home from Thailand, I sent it along with the letter that said what I had told the Air Force’s shrink in the Philippines, about all the pot and Opium that I had smoked in Thailand. After a debriefing I was found “fit for duty” and sent back to Thailand. All of that is yet another chapter, I will add that chapter at the end of this called "The years before Moses".

The same day the Commander received my letter I was in front of his desk, and I was taken off the flight line, I was no longer an aircraft mechanic. I was given the job of Dorm Guard, until the time came for them to process my early out Honorable Discharge, which I was only five months away from being discharged anyway. Funny thing, that now here in 2010 I work as a night auditor in a hotel, pretty much the same job as dorm guard was.

The first thing I did before getting out of the service was I sold my old drums and bought a really nice set of yellow Vistalite double bass Ludwig’s. I had been looking for a set ever since I got to Austin. The guy at the music store I frequented called me one day and said he had just repossessed a set from someone and to get right down there or he had another buyer for them. I got there ASAP! He offered me the seven piece set with seven Zildjian cymbals with high-hat and all the hard ware for $900.00 Oh-yeah, I got them! Ludwig Vistalite’s were the hot drums to have in those days, dang they were loud, you didn’t have to hit them very hard to be heard. Today in 2010 they are worth about $3,000.00

So I was soon jobless and this was the early 70’s the economy was in bad shape jobs were very hard to come by. Scott and I found another apartment, one that only had people living up stairs, and they were cool about the drum playing going on. They were three guys who were very Texan. Boy they liked to party and have a good time.

I paid off my new drums with my last pay check, and I put up an ad at the music store where I bought them that said I was looking for other musicians. About a week later I got two calls one was from a country band with a blind key board player. Man did they suck.The other was from some guy named Moses. He and his wife lived out on Lake Travis. She played bass and sang and he played one hell a fine guitar. His stile was somewhat of a Jimi Hendrix, and she sounded like Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. All I knew from what he told me was that he played original music, his own. We set a date to jam in the next few days.

Packing these new drums in to a 1969 Nova was not easy, I had to put both bass drums in the trunk and keep it opened and tied it with rope. The back seat and passenger seat where full of drums and cymbal stands. The drive out there was about thirty miles or so, but it was sure a pretty ride though the Texas hills of Austin. After passing the house up and turning around leaving a cloud of red dust behind the car and coving my bass drum cases, I pulled into a long winding drive. It was a small faded white farm house with a lot of cedar trees around it; you could see Lake Travis in the distance.

A slim rather tall man with long hair came out of the house to greet me. He looked to be right up my alley so far. Long hair tied in a pony tail and dressed in a way that reminded me of Jimi Hendrix. Shaking hands he introduced himself as “Moses” just Moses. I didn’t ask any questions and gave a stern shake back.
We entered the house and he introduced his wife Ellyn, she was a very pretty lady with long blonde hair and a big smile. She too was a tall person; she was a very attractive lady.

The smell of patchouli filled my nose, I loved that smell. I assumed it was coming from Ellyn. But it seemed to be every where, the thought came to my mind maybe they were trying to cover up another odor, it crossed my mind that I had hoped it was Pot. I could have used a buzz just about then, I was a bit nervous; I could tell from the equipment, that he had his shit together with playing music. I felt my drum playing could use some refinement, but I thought I played OK for a guy that really knew nothing about how to play the drums. I picked it up as a child and it just seemed to come to me. Some times over the span of hundreds of jams with other musicians they would know from my playing that I was self taught. But I got by for the most part. I wasn’t great at soloing either; it just never was my thing to show off like that, drum solos are just a lot noise, or that’s how I looked at it anyway. I grew up playing to the Beatles with the stereo Hi-Fi turned up as loud as I could and played along with them. I came to possess Ringos right hand rhythm on my ride cymbal, some thing that is still with me to this day.

Moses helped me get the drums into the house and I got set up in the corner. Drummers always get put in the corner. Setting up is the worst part about being a drummer, and all the crap you have to move around set up and take back down, drums are a lot of work, and they take a mechanic’s mind set. But I sure enjoy playing.
From the first few licks of his Stratocaster I knew this was going to be fun! And Jimi Hendrix came to mind again. A smile came to my face and I just went at it. I had a blast playing to his sound; it was just wild and crazy as I’ve ever heard. The music was all his and it most definitely had a very different stile to it. But man did it sound promising. That night I was asked as Ellyn and I smoked a joint (Moses didn’t smoke);
“If I would like to join the band” of course I said “yes”!

For the next few months I drove the thirty miles out to the Lake to play…EVERYDAY!
I was still living on unemployment at the time after just getting out of the Air Force. Gas was getting to be a hassle for me, I mean man it was like .35 a gallon and going up fast they were saying it would be .50 a gallon soon.

We played a set a day of about 10 or so songs in each set. It was going to take me awhile to get used to the songs and putting a name to them all. I took notes! We played our hearts out and it started to show really fast. Time flew by and soon my old friend Scott was going to be discharged from the A.F. and he planned on moving back to Michigan his home state.About the same time Moses and Ellyn got divorced, and Moses moved in with me just before Scott left, the three of us lived in a two bedroom apartment. Moses made his self a bed on the floor of my room because he couldn’t afford a bed at the time. The plan was after Scott moved out, he would take that room.We had set up all the band equipment in the living room which took up about the whole room, and that’s where we started to now practice, Scott didn’t get much sleep.

One day during a practice Scott just happened to pull out an old 8-track stereo tape recorder. He laid out two mic’s on the floor and recorded the band at one of the practices. We had only been together a couple of months at the time, and the sound was pretty raw. This would turn out to be the only recording ever done of the band.

Ellyn stayed at the house on the lake and still played in the band. She now was the one doing the driving to practice. The guy was crazy to leave her. But I really don’t know what was behind their break up. It was not my business to know. I was just happy that the band was still together.
Moses had a Bachelor’s degree hanging on the wall (I don’t remember what it was for). He could have been making really good money with it. But he worked in a burger joint on Guadalupe Street the main drag, and played guitar, he chain smoked, so he hid his cigarettes from himself in the bedroom closet so he would cut down on them, it worked. He would cut the shirt sleeve off on his left side of all his shirts. Because it got in his way of playing the neck so fast, but he kept the other one long, looked crazy as hell. He lived life with his guitar in his hands. He would eat with it and take a shit with it. It was always in his hands. Damn could he play it!

Just before Scott went back to Michigan we started playing at a biker bar on Saturday nights at a place called the “OneKnite”. Hanging off the rafters in this bar was everything under the sun; from a tricycle, car license plates, an old child's steel rocking horse and just all kinds of ... will, basically "junk" ... it was a really cool place. These were for real bad ass bikers in this place, it wasn’t a biker club house just a bar at 801 Red River Road, which is now Stubbs one of the best place’s in Austin for live music.

The OneKnite was will known around Austin for many years, and many of the locals would go there. It was rumored that Janis Joplin played there once in her first days at UT before going out to San Francisco. Willie Nelson was known to show up there and get a buzz on. He would sing with the bands some times, or just on his own. But for some reason he never jammed with us. HeeHee ! Wonder why? Some of the other artists that played the OneKnite were Eric Johnson, Roky Ericson, and Jimi Vaughan as will his brother SRV before Antone's discover him, and I understand that after I left Austin Kenny Wayne Shepherd played the OneKnite.

The whole band went to the “The Armadillo World Headquarters” to see Jimi Vaughan SRV's older brother who we took as our rival for the time’s and anyone even close to a Moses in playing and sound. My reaction was of amazement…that we sounded better and better all the way around and feel. I felt like some thing unjustifiable was going on in the music world. It just didn’t seem fair, but life never is very fair at times.
Now I know I wasn’t being fair to myself, we had not put in the time that this guy had or had the right opportunities as he as yet. If I had just had kept the band together it would had made it - and made it big! Yeah maybe we needed some things to change and to refine with our music, like bringing out the vocals so they stood out over the guitar and drums so that they could be understood. But time would have fixed all of that. … “Oh to have a time machine”

So Scott moves on to Michigan, at about the same time Ellyn is telling Moses that she wants to stop playing the bass and just sing and let Moses’ brother Gideon take over the bass playing. Which was OK with both Moses and I, he was a better bass player. So a couple of months after the divorce Gideon started playing the bass for us and he too moved into the apartment, Moses kept his bed on the floor in my room and Gideon took Scotts old room.

The music took yet another turn for the better. Gideon was not an easy person to get along with; you just had to handle him with care. He was a really nice guy and fun to be with, we got along with each other. I don’t believe he much cared for my drum playing. But that was just his disapproval; Moses seemed to like it just fine. The band was now a four piece.

A couple of months later some friends of Gideon’s moved in with us as will, a chick named Rikki and her boy friend Bill. They would be our groupies more or less. Rikki had two monkeys for pets, dang the rest of us all hated those animals. The apartment was getting pretty dang crowded.

The music was coming together very nicely and getting very tight. We played it every day six days a week and took Sundays off. Rikki, would bring one of the monkeys with her to OneKnite bar. She was a short chick and wore a funny looking top hat on her head. She would pass the hat to the bikers for our pay. Other wise we’d play for free. On a good night we’d make $40.00 one other night the hat never came back. Someone took it, the hat and the money, that sucked!

Some crazy things went on in this bar. It was always so damn hot in there that I had to play without a shirt. I’d be covered with sweat after just playing one song. And fights of course, we have seen some bad ass fights right in fount of us. Yet the band would just keep on playing. One particular fight I remember watching from my drummers thrown. This black chick was dancing with this white dude, and all seemed just fine, then out of the blue she picks up a chair and whacked the dude over the head with it, and then she just walked out the door.

Moses’ playing captivated people, from the first lick’s of that guitar he would have them all in the bar looking his way. Being a drummer you can sit back and watch people and what is going on around the bar. I could see that their eyes were on him, drifting to us, but focusing mostly on Moses’ playing. You just couldn’t help but look at him, that sound was captivating.

So the months went on past and soon a couple of years had gone by.
The band was still only playing one night a week at the OneKnite. (Guess that’s why they called the place that.) And I was just plane fuck’n starving to death. I mean I was hungry for food! Real food! Looking for work was going nowhere. Until one day when the unemployment office found me a temporary job at the IRS, running a check printing machine. Boy did that test the ethics. Every minute I thought about how I could sure use to make one of them out for myself. And this was only going to last three months as soon as this job was over I would be out of unemployment benefits as well.

I tried to find the band other jobs but to no avail. The music was far too original for a dance club. It was a mix between Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and with Grace Slick for vocals and a drummer that sounded like Mick Fleetwood with Ringos right hand ride cymbal rhythm. What a crazy sound it was, Moses music was hard to put into a category. It was Blues with maybe what was called in those days an Acid-Rock kind of sound. Moses' guitar playing was most definitely an original sound. The only people that would try to dance to Moses Music looked like they were triping on Acid. But the music indeed really was very good in its own way. We were getting closer to being a great band, and I was about to blow it all.

Life was not easy at this point in time, fact is it down right sucked!
One day this guy shows up at the door, He say’s he is a lawyer looking for a Mr. Shaw. Being a fan of Hendrix I was not real receptive to people in a suit and tie. ("Hey mister business-man you can't dress like me!") I told him he no longer lived here and that I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks. After a funny look from the guy he tells me that he needs to talk to him about some back child support payments. I could have crapped! Just what I needed at this time in life, it kind of felt like the sky had just fallen. Not that I didn’t want to take care of my child, but I could hardly take care of myself at the time. As a parent that is a hard knock to take. Having only spent the first year of my daughters life with her, I did miss her tremendously. For years ever since my wife left me in Lubbock to go back home to Toledo, Ohio. I thought of her everyday but was finding myself lost as to what to do about it.

I spent that night with one of our groupies some chick named Christen that I had meet at the OneKnite some time back. We had had sex for hours on end many times before. But this night I just couldn’t get it up. Had things on my mind.....I was thinking of leaving Texas and going home to Ohio. To fix the child support thing and to try and take care of my child and find a real fucking job and be “normal” again. “Heehee! Yeah fucking right,” I was going to be “normal” what ever normal was. I had heard there were jobs in my home town at the ship-yard that paid really good money.

I felt if I had told any of the band members about my even thinking of leaving Austin, that I would be very easily be talked into staying. I kept it all to myself, I felt this just had to be done. But yet I didn't want to hurt all these people who where close friends of mine. Like the title of one of our songs, I was "Lost".

This chick was in the mood for sex, and changed her clothes into a very sexy night-gown. I laid there watching her and talking the whole time about going back home. I rambled on about everything and anything...the band, Moses, food, money...my drums, hell even my Mom. She tried to talk me out of going, but I knew that it was time. We never did have sex; I fell asleep and slept like a rock for a couple of hours.
I woke about 6:00am and was wide awake when my eyes opened. Leaving was on my mind. I knew Moses and all would be gone to work by the time I got home. So on the way I picked up as many box’s as I could find. Looking in my wallet I had $2.00!

When I arrived home after stopping at a store to get some boxes, I found that Moses was the only one there, every one else had gone. Just as I pulled in the drive he came out the door to make his way down the street to get the bus into town to go to work flipping hamburgers down on the drag.
We spoke just a couple of words, some thing like “have a good one” … and he walked on down the drive-way. I turned and watched him as he walked on down the road; I sat down on the steps. A tear ran down my face. I knew I was going to miss him and the band and the music so very much!
I wiped off the tears stood up and turned toward the door and went in.

I packed up the truck with everything I owned. Boy was it packed. Lots of things I had to take back out of the boxes to get them in the truck. By noon I was ready to go. I put my stereo and a small TV and a camera up front with me and my four year old St. Bernard “Brandy”. I made a stop downtown at the pawn shop. Got about $65.00 and was off. I drove late into the night and next morning. The whole time I was thinking if I should really be doing this or not. I knew how Moses was going to feel. I knew it was going to hurt him when he walked in that apartment after work. I was copping out for sure, and there were other options I suppose I could have taken. But I felt that this had to be done. I was not happy with myself for neglecting my daughter and just worried with my life, yet I loved the band and the music so very much.
Leaving was hurting and hurting bad!

So as I drove on up highway I-35 north, I tried to think of the future and what the fuck I was going to do when I did get home. When I got to Waco which was only about forty miles or so North of Austin, I pulled off the interstate and pulled over. I thought about tuning around and going back, I kept trying to talk myself into it, I got a cup of coffee and drove on.I was about to fall asleep, so some where in Eastern Oklahoma I pulled over to the side of the highway again and took a nap. Brandy (the St.Benard) was asleep next to me taking up the whole seat. At about dawn the dog goes fucking crazy barking. Some fucking cop tapping on the window with a very bright flash light says I got to move on. So I did. Drove to the next exit and got us something to eat. I was stopping a lot because every time I would see cheap gas I would get some.

At the Kentucky border the money and gas where getting pretty low. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it all the way to Cleveland Ohio.At Cincinnati I had to stop, I was out of money and gas was at a quarter of a tank. I pulled over at a rest area just south of the city still in Kentucky and looked though some of my things trying to find something I could pawn in the morning. Figured I’d get rid of most of my eight track tapes.
I took a nap at around 4pm and woke about 9pm with the dog hungry. So was I. Then I got to thinking that if I remembered right an old friend from over seas from the Air Force lived in Cincinnati. I dug out the phone book and looked him up. He told me to meet him at a store and I could follow him to his place.

Ken was a bass player; we had bunks in the same pen as we called it, in the barracks on base together in Thailand, and became pretty good friends. He was married to a tall thin girl named Denise. She was a good looking girl. She was a bitch it seemed at first, but I don’t think she liked the idea of my being there.
I stayed on the couch for a couple of days, and just happened to find a job in the paper at a gas station.
Ken and I jammed a few times with a few guitar players he knew, but none of them came close to a Moses.

I met a neighbor chick of Ken’s (Jennifer) who was the daughter of his landlords. And we hit if off quite will. We fell in love and a few months later she moved with me into our own apartment. I found work back home in Lorain Ohio at the ship yard that was owned by George Steinbrenner. I was welding making pretty good money for the day. We married in 1978 and our son was born in November. We moved back and forth a couple of times between Lorain, Ohio and Cincinnati over the next ten years, every time the ship yard would go on strike we would move back to Cincinnati, when it was over we moved back to Cleveland.

Jennifer learned to play bass, we found her a Hofner vintage bass guitar and we put a band together playing in bars around Cleveland and Kent State. We called it “Stage Fright” because of her, she was scared to death to go out on stage and it would take some talking to get her out there, but she did a fine job of it. I can still see her walking to the beat of the music toward me behind the drums, she would put one foot on the left bass drum and be smiling from ear to ear. We’d wink at one another and off she'd go with her natural stage presence that she had toward her microphone. The stage fright was always short lived, she was a natural performer and playing the bass just seemed to come to her, she was really pretty good.
We were the perfect couple in so many ways.

On April 8th of 1985 she was killed in a car accident with my son in the car, he was hurt pretty bad, it was a miracle that he lived though it. An eighteen wheeler had turned into them at the driver’s door. My world had changed again, with out notice.

I stayed in touch with Scott the Air Force buddy from Michigan. When I went up to see him one time he pulled out the old 8-track tapes of Moses he had made before leaving Austin. We copied them on to cassette tapes so I could have copies of them. I then made back up copies using them. Every guitar player I ever played those tapes to was in shock with his playing.

Looking back now at it all, I know I could have stayed in Austin and in the band. I could have flipped hamburgers and made do. But guess one can just make the wrong decisions sometimes, you can only hope they are the right ones for the time. This one, if I could go back in time and redo, I would have stayed!

~Destiny may be seen either as a fixed sequence of events that is inevitable and unchangeable, or that individuals choose their own destiny by choosing different paths throughout their life~

There’s a feeling I get
When I look to the west, (In my case East)
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.
And it’s whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow
Don’t be alarmed now,
It’s just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
And it makes me wonder.
~Led Zeppelin~

So here it is 2010. The rest of my life as a drummer has been cover band after cover band. All of which have their own long story’s. But this has been the story of “Moses” … the band that should have been but never got the right breaks, and cut short by myself.

In 2007 I used the cassette tapes and made them into Mp3’s and posted them on YouTube.com I only had so many old pictures to use for them. I posted the song that I always thought would be Moses’ first hit, a song called “Captain-Captain” and it started getting lots of hits pretty fast. So a few months later I posted most of the rest of the songs that I had.

I was hoping to try and find him. I figured “someone” has to know this guy. And surely he is still playing if he is still on this Earth. I really need to talk to him before I leave this world, because "I don’t think I’ll be late" and I need to know…”Did all that really happen?”

As of this writing 1/1/2009 I’ve not found him.
Peace and happiness to you for taking the time to read this.
This has been a rough draft of this story, it’ll be edited and updated sometime in the future as time permits me.

Rick Shaw
Last update:
3/03/2010

                           UPDATE 2010

MOSES HAS BEEN FOUND ALIVE AND WELL ON PLANET EARTH - STORY TO FOLLOW AS SOON AS I GET TIME TO DO SO.










Below is a chapter that I left out of the main story.
Because of its "x" rating given to it by myself



Now before I get ton of mail from women on this. Please keep in mind I was a 22-23 year old testosterone driven American male, living in the 1970's and the "Free Love" was flowing, or even over flowing from the 60's it "was" a time of Sex, Drugs and Rock-N-Roll.


I started writing this part of the Moses Story back in 1992 as inserts to a diary I was trying to back date from memory.As an update to this as of 2010;I would like to say that I have learned over all these years that it is "quality not quantity" when it comes to ones sexual pursuits in life. And I might add that the testosterone levels have dropped drastically as I’ve aged. Not sure if I like that or not?



But I’d put an “X” rating on the chapter below, so...
You Have Been Warned!





“One night after the OneKnite”



I was fucking a different chick every Saturday night. Mostly biker chicks, some good looking others not so good looking, as Mo would tell me “Rick its quality not quantity”
“Yes” I would say; “and to find her I have to go though them all, aye?”

Then one night after we were done playing and packing up, I was kneeling on the floor putting drums into case’s and this fine...“NO VERY FINE” looking chick walks up to me and keels down to my level and says “ I just wanted to be sure that you where real” and she touched my face with her hand. My dick about jumped out at her.

I had to have her, she was so fine looking just down right fucking hot! I could tell that she had American Indian in her. She was tall, with long dark black hair to her waist, fine tan, short shorts, halter top with the tits to knock your eyes out with, and a biker jacket. With a thick high heal squared off toe pair of boots. Just a tad of the lower part of her ass checks showed from her white shorts. She stood up to walk away from me and I graded her hand and I stood up pulling her to me and kissed her, Man did she return the kiss. Lots of tongue went with it. When we broke I said “I just wanted to see if you were real”.
She looked me in the eyes and said “ how long before you can get out of here?”
I told her it would be about an hour and that I had to take the equipment home, She said that she would follow me if I wished for her to. Did I ??? Hell yes!!!!! Follow me to the end of heaven girl ! Damn she was fine. She went back and took her seat at the bar next to her friend, I saw her whisper in her friends ear, and she looked back my way, when she saw me looking she gave me a wink.

I turned back to the stage to take down more drums, the rest of the band was frozen all of them just standing there staring at me with their mouths open. I just smiled back and went on working.
A friend of the bands Arnold, also witnessed all of this and came over and asked if I wanted him to drive the truck home. So I could leave with this chick. “Oh hell yeah man” I said.

So I went up to her to talk. After all I didn’t even know her name yet. When I sat down next to her she turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder she looked into my eyes again and asked if I was ready to get out of here. Some big ass biker dude was hitting on her. And she wanted out of the place. I told her I had a driver for my truck and asked her if she had a ride, she "yeah lets go" and she stood putting her jacket back on.The guy gave me a bad ass look and I thought I was about to get my ass kicked. We stood to leave, and he put his hand out for me to shake, I took his hand and he started to squeeze it rather hard. I squeezed right back. He looked me in the eye and says “ lucky man you are, lucky man”

I looked back at the chick “Yeah seems as though I may be, as of tonight” when I released my grip so did he. I took her by the hand and we left. Once out side, I started to walk to the parked cars on the street, figured that’s where her car was. It wasn’t, I heard a loud whistle coming from behind me. She had a fine Hog sitting at the door. She was pulling out a set of chaps to put on over her legs she got them tied and climbs on and fired it up.“Damn, nice night for a ride” I said. “Sure as hell is, get your ass on here or I leave ya in my dust”

I no sooner sat down and we were doing 60mph. She accelerated so fast that the first place I reached for was around her. My hands were just under her tits, her jacket was partly zipped and blown open by the wind. The feel of them bouncing against my hands was driving me nuts. God I wanted to grab those tits. The moon was full and it was very warm out. It was a fine Texas night out, it was a fine night for a ride.
We rode out to the lake, to Hippie Hollow on Lake Travis. As we got near the lake the air got very cool, her nipples got hard and stood out pointing the way to the lake. We got off the bike, then it seemed as if someone just turned on the hot Texas warmth with a switch.

She grabs a leather bag off the side of the bike and we hiked on though the woods to the rocky edge of the lake. She found a large flat rock and spread out a blanket. Then she sat down and padded the rock telling me to sit. Out of the bag she pulls out a large bag of pot and a very expensive camera with about four lenses. She picked up the camera and took a picture of me. “Camera bug are you?” She kept on taken pictures of me, the camera had a self winder on it , and it would take a couple of pictures a second.
“Yes I am - photographer for a magazine” she says. “Oh? Which?” “For now that’s all you need to know, lets just say I'm into the feminist movement ” Her eyes meet mine and she leans over and kisses me. It was just a very quick short kiss.

Out of her bag of goodies came a bottle of Jack Black. We proceeded to get very fucked up, the pot was some damn good shit. I laid back on the rock and took in the full moon and the Texas sky full of stars not a cloud in sight. She lay with her head on my chest. We passed a joint, neither of us said a word. We seemed to both be in our own worlds, not really talking at all. We just held one another and were making out from time to time and just stared into each others eyes, we stayed that way for quite some time.

Then with out a second thought she stood and took off all her cloths and jumped in the lake. As I laid there I was so taken by the sight of her naked body as she got out of her cloths. She was so fine looking, I wasn’t just turned on in a sexual way, but by the artistry of her body.
“Come on in ! The waters fucking cold as hell, feels great!” she say's smiling up at me.
I was sitting up on one arm looking down at her and laughed at her, “you’re fucking crazy” then I stood and took off my clothes and in I went. Luckily I timed the dive just right and came up just in front of her. I was glad to find that I could stand on the bottom, I’m not one to tread water for very long. And finding the bottom of Lake Travis is not an easy thing to do. I soon realized I was standing on a rock and damn lucky I didn’t hit it when I dove in. But luck was on my side tonight.

The water line came just over her nipples. Every once in a while they would show as if to come up for air. The Moon lit her up with such a romantic glow. I had to have her. I took her in my arms and kissed her. She returned the kiss putting both of her hands on my face. The kiss seemed to last for ever. Then she pulled away from me and says “ Stop, Please, I could fall in love with you. And I happen to like my life just the way it is.” I was thinking to myself ..."Damn what is it about these women and this falling in love shit just after meeting them?" I was speechless. I just stared into her eyes. She kissed me again, with a short peck kiss.
“Maybe we should go.” she said. “Sure what ever ya say”.

We got out of the water and got dressed. She was taking more pictures of me as I dressed, the flash was blinding me. “You going to sell those or what?” I asked. “ Maybe, never know!”
“So this Magazine you work for, it’s not Playgirl is it?” I said half jokingly.
She looked up and just smiled. She never did answer me just gave me a wink.

Back on the hog we drove to her apartment, damn was it a nice place this chick had some bucks. She turned off the bike, and says to me looking over her shoulder. “I want you sexually and that’s it, ok?” We both got off the bike and she turns to me and looks me in the eye, “Matter of fact, I’d like to fuck your brains out, that ok with you?” I was speechless again, this chick was sure full of surprises. Once off the bike I pulled her to me and laid one deep meaningful kiss on her. Her response was very much that of one horny chick.

Her left hand went down to my dick. As she unzipped my fly I moved my kiss to her neck, then up to her ear. I whispered in her ear “You know we’re standing in a parking lot don’t you?
“What’s the matter drummer boy ? You chicken?”
“No just wondered if you know that!”
She pulled it out and ran her finger tips up its shaft. Slowly her right hand came down to grip it also. “emmm, yes I do want you”, “Let’s go inside.” she says. Then turns and walks off toward the apartment leaving me standing there with this flag pole to the wind. I had to laugh at myself as I hurriedly tried to get a very hard cock back in my pants.

Damn and I thought that the outside of her place was nice. The inside had a sunken living room with hard wood floors throughout. The back wall was all glass, with one fine view of the city of Austin in the distance. The decor was mostly that of early American Indian. But for a large black baby grand piano that sat in the corner of the room. Over head was a loft with a waterbed with a large canopy over the top made from what looked like deer skin. Over the fire place in the bed room was a large picture of an Indian Chief. Two cameras stood on tripods with large lighting umbrellas all facing the bed. I looked at her “We going to be on camera-camera?” “We can if you’d like.” “Well that’s fine by me, always wanted to be a star.”
“Maybe someday you well be.”
“Yeah maybe.” I said.
As an after thought she say's; “Maybe next time, I don’t have enough film right now.” That made me think that maybe there would be a next time. I was sure hoping that there would be. She turned on a tape player on one hell of a nice sound system. I didn’t see any speakers, the sound just seemed to come out of the walls. It sounded great. It was soft piano music playing. I could tell that it was recorded live. I thought that it was her playing, but I didn’t ask just then.

She flicked on some indirect lighting that shined up on the walls from the floor. She then lit a candle next to the bed. I felt like Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate. Like I was waiting for Mrs. Robinson to seduce me. I loved it. This lady had class for sure. I was totally taken by everything about this girl.

She turned and walked straight for me. The look in her eyes was that of a cat about to pounce. I was her pray, but I wasn’t going to be dead meat!
We made love for hours on end. The sun came up and we fell fast asleep. It was late after noon when I woke. She was not in the bed with me. Just as I rose from the bed I hear her voice from behind me. “You can take a shower if you wish, it’s over there.” I turned to look at her. She was wearing blue cut off shorts that showed more of her ass than the white ones did, and no top. Her long black hair was wet and hung down to her waist, as she tried to run a brush though it. My head and eyes hurt, so I knew that it was not all just a hell of a dream that I had. It was all real and I was still here. Cool !

She walked over and kneeled down in front of me. “Last night was great, I hate how time flies when you’re having great sex. I’ve got to get you home cuz I got to get some work done at the lab. I’ll call you when I get back from New York. I got to leave Monday morning at 6:30am.”
“You live a hell of life girl.”
She took my hand and she says “The things I told you last night, you do understand don’t you?
I can’t get involved with anyone person at this time in my life, ya know? I’m just too busy and I love my freedom and my life just the way it is.” She reached up and touched my cheek. “You’re a sweet guy, quite, but very sweet. I see you going a long way with your music. The band sounds great, and you’re a hell of a drummer.” She pulled my chin up with her finger. “There is a time and a place for everything, if only the timing was right. We’d be killer together, ya know?”
Yeah I knew what she was saying. The time wasn’t right. Damn shame for sure. She kissed me and says “Maybe I’ll see more of you someday who knows?” I took that to mean "In other words I’ll call you, don’t call me!"

After I took the shower she took me home in a red sports car with the top down. I never noticed what kind of car it was. But it wasn’t cheep. As we were passing the University Of Texas tower just off Guadalupe Street, I noticed some street musicians playing. I asked if it was her playing the piano on the tape last night. "Yes it was" she said with a smile, "Like it? I've played since I was a child, you know one of those brain washing things you're parents do to you." Smile ling back I said; "Love it the feel was awesome! I could tell you have played for a long time". So tell me are you American Indian? You look to be and you're decor in your apartment..." She cut me off and said; "Yes Cheyenne".

When we got to my place she didn’t come in I was glad that she didn’t. Most of the band was setting on the porch and the neighbors upstairs where out on they’re deck, they all just stared at us as we kissed bye. They all wore shit eating grins. We looked at one another as I popped the door handle open. She winked and I returned it. I shook my head to one side and said; "wow that was ah...real" and smiled. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. "I'll be in touch, I know where you live" she said with another wink.

I got out of the car and stood back watching her leave the drive-way. When I turn around I just grinned back at the on lookers as I walked on past them and on into the apartment. They all soon followed me in they had to hear about this one. “Just another fuck that’s all it was, another night at the OneKnite" I said.

About two weeks later I come home from looking for a job. There was a hand delivered envelope in the door, it didn’t have a stamp on it. Addressed to Drummer Boy the return address was Playgirl Magazine. My heart started racing as I tore open the letter. It said something about liking the pictures but they want more taken in a studio setting. If I wish to take up the offer be there, if not just disregard.
The letter was signed - Piano playing Indian Girl

It hit me like a ton of bricks! I NEVER EVEN ASKED HER WHAT HER NAME WAS!
I was beside myself and thinking like crazy trying to remember if I had or not. If I had I didn’t remember what it was. The girl had been on my mind everyday for two weeks, and I just realized I didn’t know her name...the pot most be better than I thought!
I walked around the room just starring at it.

The thought of money came to my mind quite fast. I could live a rich mans life style I thought. I could see myself living in an apartment like hers and God knows how I needed money just then. And I would use it to help out the band, get a good PA system and some effects, and get us into a recording studio this could be just the break the band needed. I couldn’t get the smile off my face for days. I pondered it over and over, should I or not? I showed the note to Moses, he was just all smile's and didn't think it was for real. But he said; "hey go check it out man never know". Well I knew it was for real, but now I had some thinking to do.

What ever the hell came over me I’m not sure. Modesty? Me? Modest! Shit!! At this point in time I’d show my dick to any chick that would want to see it. When I thought that thought, I suddenly realized that that’s just what I would be doing if I went and was in Playgirl. And I kind of liked the idea. But then I thought of all the people that I wouldn’t want to see it. Like MOM! and brothers and other family and friends. But then oh! So would people like past girl friends and other women in the past. It would be like saying “Na,na,na,na,naaaaa!!!!!!” ... “ha”

I didn’t go, in a way I felt used by the feminist movement I guess. For the first time in my young life a women wanted me just for my body...ha! And her intent was to make money from taking pictures of me. She was a bit on the dominating side, with the whistling to me and patting the rock to how she made love, she was very much a self-assured women.
So now in a way I kind of knew how women must feel being hit on all the time by men, or maybe even a prostitute being sold for her body. To feel like an object and not as a human being.

We are strange Creatures us humans.

And so to this day I still wonder what life would have brought my way had I gone. But it just wasn’t the right time in space. I never saw her again, even though the letter was an invitation to see her again.
I drove past her place many times but just thought she best be left alone. As was her wish.

"On with the music"






Warning


The following story was written as a pornography!

However I have edited out some of the salaciousness details.

So rather than a XXX rating I've down graded it to "X"





The years before Moses...
1971 - 1972 Lubbock Texas


Nineteen years old fresh out of boot camp and aircraft maintenance tech school in Wichita Falls, Texas and now in Lubbock at Reese AFB my first permanent duty station. Scott my best friend and I were living in a small two bed room house near the base, I was playing my drums a lot in those days, every chance I had I was behind them.

One day I’m playing along with the stereo with a head set on. I’m just jamming on. And I can see out of window as I’m playing. This white hearse is pulling up in my drive-way. I slowly stop playing.
I see this chick get out and go the other side to let this guy out of the vehicle. This guy is blind. I’m thinking what the fuck is this? They come up to the door and knock. She asked if this was the house that the drumming was coming from. I thought I was about to get bitched out for it. I said; “yes it was.” He says that they have a band "The Ken Goodwin Trio" and that they had just lost their drummer. They play six nights a week and need a drummer starting tonight. Was I interested in playing for them? Well hell yes I was! They said they played all kinds of different rock and some country songs, he named off a few songs, some I had heard but most of them I had never heard of before. He told me how to find this place and when to be there. I got there and couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was a strip club. This was one big ass fucking place, Full of cowboys. About twenty five or so girls worked there. I was in heaven. Damn was it fun to be a drummer in a strip club. The girls would throw their clothes at me as they took them off. I caught them on my sticks and would spin them around and throw them back at them. I was having a great time and making thirty five dollars a night too. I was still working my day job on the base as an aircraft mechanic and was one tired mother all the time but I was sure as hell loving it.

I thought it pretty wild and ironic that a blind guy was playing guitar in a strip joint. He played a twelve string double neck, but I don't remember what make of guitar it was, but it was on big ass guitar, and played it well. His best friend Gus, played the bass. We all always had a really great time together. Like I said I didn’t know many of the songs. I just played it by ear and did OK at it.

I have some two mic 8-track recordings of the band playing at this place, and after listing to them today in 2010, I have to say it was a pretty damn pathetic sounding band. “Ha” The things we do in front of an audience.

After the bar would close the band and the girls and other employees would party on into the morning hours. In back of the stage was a large dressing room with costumes hanging all over the walls. Booze bottles, beer cans and mirrors with piles of cocaine were everywhere and the air was always full of pot smoke.
Some of the girls where hookers, others where house wives and a couple where business women. They sure seemed to make the money. We would sit and listen to the stories they all had to tell about customers and men in general, we would have a lot of laughs.
It was great to be in a room full of naked and half naked women. This one chick would always ask Ken (The blind guy) if he wanted to practice his Braille. She would let him feel her body from head to toe. A couple of the others would do the same. He never complained about being blind. I would say some dumb shit to him sometimes, like “Man you should see this!” Funny thing how you don’t think about what it is your saying sometimes.

One night I had all my plug wires stolen off my car. (Guess because it had Ohio plates on it) So I didn’t have a way to get home. This one dancer that seemed to always have a thing for me, said she would take me home. She was kind of short and had a damn nice body. Her face wasn’t the prettiest thing to look at, but who was looking at her face? We stopped on the way and had breakfast at this truck stop. She was dressed to kill in a very short white one piece dress. She wore no bra and her nipples where very visible. And she wore no panties. She said to me; “Watch this guy’s reaction when he looks this way again” When he did she spread her legs and let him see it all. Man his eyes got big! She was one crazy chick. We had a lot of fun that night.

When we got to my place she asked me if I was going to ask her in. “But of course, follow me” I said. Scott was in bed asleep. A light was on in his room and his door was ajar, as we passed she says “looks like he’s having a nice dream!” She went into his room and ran one finger up his dick. He just moaned a little and turned over still asleep. He never even knew she had done that to him and I never told him.
I had gone into my room and lit a cigarette. She came in and pushed me down on the bed. Off came the dress in one fast easy pull. Climbing on top of me she says she’s been waiting for this all night. I asked her if she stole my plug wires. “No, but thanks for the idea I may use that someday.” she says.
We fucked for well over two hours. She was dancing on dick it seemed. I believe it to be true that women do fuck like they dance. (Or dance like they fuck)

We fell asleep next thing I knew I heard Scott’s alarm clock going off. I had to be at work in a half hour. I left her a short note and went on to work. It was one long day at work. When I got home that night, she had left me a note and a fifty dollar bill. She said “no one should fuck like that and not get paid for it. I’ll see you tonight!!” I thought damn this is cool. I was now a gigolo. I got some more sleep and did it all over again that night.

The band had broken up some time in late August of that year, when one day we showed up to play and the bar was all locked up with a sign on the door that read “Closed by order of the Texas Ranger Division” It would be a while before I found out why or what had happened. But I was damn glad that I wasn’t there when it went down and that I had taken my drums home with me the night before.
Ken and Gus had packed up that same night when we got back home and moved to Ft. Worth. I figured something big must have gone down. At that time I had no idea that I had played a major part in it. Lorrie, my girl friend for the last year came back to school that fall from her summer break at Texas Tech. She had spent the summer at her home in Dallas with her Mother the house wife and her Father the Dallas F.B.I. agent. She stayed with Scott and me for a week or so. Then she got her own place, her apartment was in the same complex where Scott and I had just moved from.

Scott came home one day all excited. He said he had orders to go overseas to Thailand. The very next day I had them too. I wasn’t so excited, I didn’t want to go. I was hoping to stay in Texas and transfer to a base close to Dallas. But that didn’t happen. We had three months to report to Thailand.
I decided to live with Lorrie till the time came to leave. Scott was going to stay on base again and had shipped all his things home to Michigan.

I had to go to Homestead Air force Base in Florida for three weeks to learn about the aircraft that I would be working on over there, the F-4 Phantom. I drove to Florida in my car and got paid by the Air Force to fly there. I had a great time. I was in school only until noon five days a week. And the rest of the day was mine to do as I wished. I was on the beach most of that time. And made a few trips down to Key West to check it out just for fun.

One day I called Lorrie and she said she had a surprise for me and to pick it up at Miami Airport the next day, it was her. She stayed for about five days and we had a fine time. She rented a room and we both stayed there although I could have got into some shit if the Air Force had found out. This room was the very same room that about ten years before my parents and I had stayed in when I was a kid. How ironic is that!
We fucked on the beach every day at the far end where there seemed not to be anyone around. But one day we saw a guy watching from the bushes. I'm sure he enjoyed it Lorrie was a pretty hot chick.

She drove back with me when my schooling was over, and when we were passing though Dallas we stopped to see her mom and dad. Not that I really wanted too. Her dad was standoffish, and kept on giving me a funny look. I could tell that he knew more than what was being said. And he was asking questions that I could tell he already knew the answer to. Like, where was I living now and how long would I be in Thailand. Then he asked one that gave it all away. Big bad ass mister F.B.I. agent fucked up! He asked if I was still playing in the band. Lorrie didn’t even know that I had played in this band, I never told her because of the stripping going on and the partying with all the girls.
And then it all came together. I was being watched!!! And I had been for some time. They had busted the strip club for coke and some other charges. This I later found out from the dancer that took me home the night that my plug wires went missing. Her dad had me flowed and investigated; I had that feeling all along. He had the place busted! Damn and because of me!

Back in Lubbock I took my name off the mail box. And then I packed my things into boxes and my drums in the car. Lorrie was going to store it all for me until I got back I did leave a lot of stuff with her. I had two weeks furlough before my port of call. So I was going to spend it near Cleveland, Ohio my home town, where my mom and family was. The last night Lorrie and I were together; we fucked our brains out and she cried a lot. I woke that morning and drove to Cleveland. Once there I partied with old friends and tried to get some pussy before leaving for Thailand but I struck out, Lorrie was the last American chick I’d be with for thirteen months and fifteen days.



Thailand and Viet-Nam


Scott and I were to be on the same flight together on the way over to Thailand. He was to go another base about six hundred miles from where I would be, I was going to miss him. Once in California something happened and we were put on different flights. We said our goodbyes' and told each other we would be together again in thirteen months and fifteen days. (Little did we know, we would)

On the flight over I had hooked up with another friend from Lubbock (Phil) and this guy was also born near Cleveland, Ohio as I was. The flight had a lay over in the Philippines. We G.I.'s were told NOT to stay off base, but he and I did any way. We got a cab and a room for twenty bucks. The driver said he would be back in the morning to pick us up.

We no sooner closed the door to this room and there was a knock on it. I opened it to find two young girls standing there. I had no idea what they were trying to say to me. Tell the one grabbed my dick and made a motion with her hand like she had money in it. I looked at the two of them and picked the other one. I took her hand and let them in. Phil and I both put ten bucks on the table and off came their clothes.

This girl had the smallest body and little tits, but they looked good on her small body. Her pussy was small and very tight. I fucked the shit out her, as Phil fucked the other in the bed next to mine. They tried to get us to switch for another ten bucks. But we were both fucked out and tired from the trip and the time change. After they left there was another knock on the door. It was some little kid with pot to sell. We bought a joint and smoked it. It was O.K. it put me to sleep. The next morning the cab driver was there at the door just like he said he would be.

Two or so hours into the flight over Japan, Phil came back from the bath room with a fucked up look on his face.“Man I’m fucking dripping!” He said.“Say what?”
“I’m fucking dripping!! I’ve got the clap!”
“Oh-shit!!!!!”
“It burns like hell when I piss! What the fuck am I going to do?”
“Wrap it up in some toilet paper or something.” I said.
I was scared to take a piss for days. But all was O.K. with me. Damn was I glad I picked the girl that I did and that we didn’t switch girls. I never did get anything. But he had me worried. I thought it was funnier than hell. He didn’t!!!

The plane arrived in Thailand at noon on December 2nd. It was November the 30th when I got on in California. My 21st birthday was December the 1st. I never saw it! We had crossed the International Date Line and the 1st had just up and disappeared.

It was so damn hot, you couldn’t move with out the sweat pouring out of you. I was given a barracks to report to for my room that was on the second floor. As I got to the top of the outside steps I was smelling pot in the air. When I got to the top this guy was sitting there smoking a joint like it was no big deal.
He introduced himself as “Burn Out” his name tag said Holiday. He knew I was a newcomer. Then he handed me the joint. I took a hit. I had heard about Thai weed but had no real idea that it could really be as good as it was. The first hit was like I had just smoked a whole joint in the states. I took another. I got so fuck’n high I needed to go lie down. I thanked him and said I’d look him up later. I found my bed. The whole room seemed to be spinning. Hell I could feel the earth spinning. I was fucked up!!!!

I slept till the next morning it had been a long three days getting there. After breakfast at the chow hall I was walking back to my room and ran into Phil. He had gone to clap call as soon as he got off the plane. He said they gave him two shots of Penicillin at the same time in his ass. I was still laughing I couldn’t help it. We decided to take a bus ride off base to check this place out. Man it was like being on another planet. And I mean one that is not even in this galaxy. The roads were totally fucked up. Cars, taxies, trucks, bikes, “Rick-Shaws”, dogs, cows, chickens, kids, and people, lots of people everywhere you looked. And we’re driving on the left side of the road to boot. There didn’t seem to be any lanes on this road. Seemed the whole road was yours till another vehicle came, you just moved over to the left to let them pass. It was madness. As we walked along a downtown street, Girls where coming on to us like crazy. Most of them you couldn’t understand. Others would be saying;”G.I. go fucky, fucky, nit-noi baht.” "aw gan" "dee"
We understood the fucky fucky part but not the “nit-noi baht” thing. We later came to find out it meant little money. One old lady was holding up two small dogs, she was trying to sell them to us. We told her in English that we weren’t allowed to have dogs on base. Come to find out they eat dogs there. Not just dogs but rats, cats, bats, snakes you name it these people eat it.
We got some pot from a kid about thirteen or so, I got a brick of Thai stick for a dollar- and twenty five cents. Man that’s some good fucking pot!! I put it down my pants and we went back to the base to get high.

I had met another guy that was a bass player from Cincinnati Ohio, we bunked in the same cube together. He was pretty good at playing the bass. Being that we both were from Ohio we got along pretty good. He was married and showed me a picture of his wife in a bikini, she looked very sexy. We’d get high together all the time, and party and go sit in with the Thai rock bands at the bars downtown.

That night Ken and Phil and myself took a cab to one of the night clubs to check it out. The band was playing American music, they were saying the English words yet they had no idea of what it was they were saying. I tried to talk to one of the musicians and he didn’t speak English. But I got it across to him that I’d like to jam with them. They let me. It was pretty cool. We played “Smoke on the Water.” It was crazy that I couldn’t talk to them yet I could play music with them. It would crack me up to hear them playing “American Band” by Grand Funk with that Thai accent. You’d have to hear it to understand how it sounded, but I couldn’t help but have a shit eating grin on my face while playing that song with them. It sounded really good however and the people in the bar went crazy, they really loved it. No one wanted me to stop. Ken joined in playing bass and we played a few more songs. Ken and I were the hit of the night.

When I got back to our table, lots of girls were coming on to me. I had my pick of them. All the girls in the bar had a number on them. It was a government number for legal prostitution; it was their way of keeping track of the clap. You could ask a girl for her clap card to check out when she was last tested for it. They had to be checked up every week. But that was no insurance that you wouldn’t get it, she could have just picked it up five minutes ago.

This one older girl was looking pretty good. So I got her a drink, it was really hard not being able to talk to her. I put on a good buzz. She was jabbering on about something and grabbing my dick. I figured out that she wanted to go fuck, but she kept on holding up two fingers and shaking her head saying "song Chái"
(“two yes?”) I had no idea what the fuck she was saying to me.
I finely shook my head “yes” and she grabs my hand to leave. Out side the bar she and I get into a “Rick-Shaw” then to my surprise another girl gets in too. And off the three of us go to a motel room across town. It was a long ride so I smoked one on the way. The guy pulling us worked his ass off to get us there, and then I gave him a buck for the fare. He only wanted .25 cents
I paid five bucks for the room, which was really cost a buck for the Thai-folks, but what the hell I felt like a rich man over there American money went a long way.

We took off our shoes and went on in the room. One girl lit some incense, why I don’t know? Then the two of them just started taking off their clothes, so I did too. They both had very nice bodies. They couldn’t have been over five foot tall, if that, and I have no idea how old they may have been. One looked older than the other. I started to fuck the girl I was with in the bar, the other just sat next to us doing her nails or something? I would finger her pussy and play with her tits as I was fucking the other. Then just like that this girl I’m fucking makes me stop and fuck the other one. This went on for some time. I came in the other girl that seemed to be younger and was a much better fuck. (The one that was doing her nails)

She then gets up and takes me by the hand into the bath room to take a shower. The older one stayed out on the bed. As I was in the shower this girl starts to yell to the other some thing in Thai. I didn’t know what was said but some thing about it alerted me that I was being ripped off. I didn’t have much money any way, only what I was going to pay them with, about ten dollars or so. But I had these blue suede “Dingo” boots I got in the states for about fifty bucks, and I was afraid they would take them. So as I’m freaking out trying to get the damn bath room door open, this girl is freaking out too, yelling some Thai shit to the other one. When I get the door open, I see this chick putting my wallet back in my pants. She starts talking all this Thai shit too. I just smiled, walked over to her, got my wallet and gave her all my money. I got dried off and we started to leave when I remembered that I now have no money for a cab to get back to camp with. I managed to get this across to them and they gave me a buck back. Out side the room there was a few people sitting around with shit eating grins on their faces. I figured they knew what went on and all. And that it was all just a big racket. The next day Phil asked me all about it, I didn’t tell him about getting ripped off. He said that he left the bar with some chick and got ripped off of fifty bucks!! I just laughed.

After a month or so I felt that living on base was getting to be hell, I worked third shift on the flight line. And trying to sleep during the hot day was not easy with a Mosquito neat over the bed and a fan blowing at your feet on to you, topped off by F-4's flying roof top level over the building.
Burnout only had a couple of days left tell he went back world (state side). He had a place off base and he knew all the ends and outs of this crazy place. So I went with him to his bungalow and he introduced me to the house keeper. This guys name was Ernie; he was a big guy that I sure as hell wouldn’t try to fuck with. He spoke some English but not much. He was a really nice guy. He kept on bowing to me like I was some kind of King or something. Burn Out said it was Thai custom to put their heads below others to show respect to that person.

So I rented Burnout’s old room from him. It was great! I bought an old bicycle to ride to base on. I moved in the next day. Ernie would bring me free pot from his own garden, dry it and chop it up for me to put in my bong. And he would bring me food of all kinds; if it wasn’t meat I would eat it. I could pick bananas off a tree right off my porch. Life seemed pretty cool at that time. The rent was only twenty dollars a month and Ernie would clean the place spotless, and his wife cleaned my clothes for me.

One night as I was kicking back with one hell of a buzz on. I see Ernie coming up the steps with a very good looking young chick with him. He was showing me pictures of this girl the night before. But I couldn’t understand what it was he was saying about her. He did his best to introduce her to me. I figured out that her name was Oie. Seemed a lot of the girls there where named Oie. She was very cute. She couldn’t have been over sixteen years old.

Ernie got the point across to me by making a circle with the fingers of one hand and using his middle finger of his other hand and sliding it in and out, that he wanted me to fuck this girl. I didn’t understand it all at that time. I later asked Burn Out about it, he said that a Thai family would pick out a man to be the first to make love to a virgin girl that is to be the family prostitute, so she can go out and makes them lots of money, and that it was a respectable thing to do. And I should be honored to have been picked as the one to do it. Well I was that!! I fucked this girl like crazy. She was a true virgin; she was in pain and very scared. I was as nice to her as I could be. I took it very slow and easy, I felt sorry for her at one point, and started to stop, she took my hand and kissed it, then pulled me back down on her. She seemed very informed about sex. Once she relaxed she was fun to be with and seemed to have enjoyed it.

We took a shower together, while Ernie and his wife cleaned up the blood. It was a crazy feeling. They were all smiles yet they had shit eating grins on they’re faces. Oie seemed to be embarrassed. I was too to some extent. Ernie’s wife brought us some fruit. And some kind of drink that tasted like embalming fluid. I tried my best to drink it, when I had the chance I pored it out the window. I had forgotten about this big fucking hog out side and the drink was all over it. I had to laugh. The way this pig was squealing I think it burned the hide off of it. I was glade I didn’t drink it. She and I played chess for a few hours; it was my night off work. She won every game she was very good at it, and I learned a lot about chess from her.

Ernie gave me the picture of her and I put it on my dresser next to one of Lorrie. She gave me a big hug. I started to think Oh-shit!! Hope they don’t think I want to get married. They were sure acting kind of weird. I was hoping it was just from those drinks.
Oie pointed to the picture of Lorrie and then to her ring finger. I said shaking my head no “Mâi chái, no wife.” She smiled confirming she understood.

I got stoned with my bong, and then she and I sat outside and looked at the night sky for over an hour or so. At one point she was looking at my cross that I wear around my neck. She was showing me a picture of Buddha, and I was pointing to both and the sky saying; “Same, Same Buddha and Jesus Christ, same, same.” She would say; “Mâi chái, same-same, Mâi chái.” or in English; “No their not the same, no!” I just dropped the subject. She was holding on to me very tightly, in a very warm hug. I could tell that this girl lived a very hard life. I felt for her. She was so sweet. I could only imagine what her life would now be like as a prostitute, fucking every G.I. that came along.

She kept on getting me more pot and fruit and drink, (Coke this time) she treated me like a King. Maybe she would make a good wife. Fuck what was I thinking????

We went back up to my room and went to sleep, she held me all night long. The next morning Ernie brought us breakfast of eggs and what looked like bacon cut in very thick slices, I looked down out my window to see if the big ass pig was still there. I smelled it first and took a small bite, it was bacon. (I hope!)
He had hanging on my porch a cage with two love birds in it. They had always been there, and would sing every morning. Oie stood and watched them sing for some time. She could whistle to them and they would sing back to her. She would look at me smile each time and point to me. I took it to mean that they were singing to me. I said to her (in English so I knew that she wouldn’t know what I had said) “Hope it’s not the wedding song!”

I took her shopping that after noon. I got her some clothes and shoes. She got a lot of stuff for fifteen bucks. I learned a lot from her that day. I came to find out that if I was with her I was treated better by the Thai people. We went to a movie down town. It was a Clint Eastwood movie” Hang Em High”. You should hear Eastwood speak Thai, now that’s funny. The English was captioned at the bottom of the screen, I had to read fast. I then took her to the base to show her around. She thought it was really something to see. I stopped at the post office to check my mail to see if I had gotten a letter from Lorrie yet. What I got was two of my last letters to her back stamped Address Unknown, I couldn’t understand it why they had come back to me like that. I put them in my pocket and we got a cab back to my bungalow.

We got back and she had to try on her new things. Ernie was cooking out Water Buffalo stakes, man were they good. Some other Thai folks showed up to eat with them. It was Oie's Papasan and Mamasan. Ernie and Oie as far as I could tell where trying to introduced them to me as such, they were all smiles and treating me like a king too, doing the head bowing thing. Ernie took me by the hand up to my room; he was trying to ask me if I wanted Oie to stay with me. He kept on pointing to her picture and saying “Papasan, Telock”. I pointed to my ring finger and said shaking my head no “Mâi chái! No marry, Mâi chái no get fucking married!!” He seemed to understand he made the O.K. Sign with his hand and in English said “cool man, cool man!” I thought what the hell I could live with this fine young thing for awhile. So I picked up her new cloths and put them in my closet, then pointed to her picture and said: “Oie can do Stay tenee.” (I was pretty sure tenee meant here) Then pointed to my ring finger again and repeated “Mai get no fucking married!!” He was all smiles, and out the door he went to tell the others. Oie came up to the room and runs to me and jumps up with her legs wrapped around my waste, kissing me like crazy. I said: “Guess I’ve got a
roommate?”

I left for work early that night. I stopped at the phone station to try to call Lorrie it took some time for me to get though. When I did the operator said that the number had an international bock on it and could not receive the call. I was wondering what the fuck was going on. I thought about her dad, that maybe he had something to do with it. My mind was on Lorrie all night long. I had a hard time getting my plane ready for flight.

About two in the morning they called us all to the commander’s office, they had some news for us. Tricky Dickey said the war was over. Everyone was in a really joyous mood and out came the Champagne. I wasn’t in such a joyous mood, but I did hope maybe it meant we would be going home soon. (It didn’t)

After my plane took off on its mission. I got up on the revetment wall and wrote Lorrie another letter. The night sky was always so neat looking, so full of stars. I got it done just at sun rise when the double rainbow that is in the sky every morning from all of the humidity had just started to form. It was quite a sight to see and everyday it was there. It always seemed to last for about a half hour, then the hot sun would come up and burn it away. I wiped a tear from my eye and jumped down off the wall then road my bike over to the cow hall to eat.

The talk that morning was all about the war being over and how everyone thought that it meant that things were going to be different here now. I had a feeling they wouldn’t. I sure felt lonely and home sick. I road my bike back to my bungalow. When I got home Oie was still asleep, I got in bed with her and made love to her. Then fell fast asleep myself. Slept tell almost time to be back at work. I noticed that she had her school uniforms in the closet. She always looked so innocent in them. Made me feel like I was robbing the cradle, I was!!!!!

A few months had pasted Oie and I got along great. We taught each other our language’s as much as we could to get by. And I had corrupted her in many of the western ways of doing things, like not walking ten passes behind me as was Thai custom.

Still all my letters to Lorrie came back to me as address unknown. I had sent her a few rings I had bought for her. They too came back, so I gave them to Oie. She never asked for a thing from me. When I would buy her things, you could see how much she appreciated them and you could see the genuine love from her. She was a really good person inside.

As the months went pass the base was getting ready to move out. A lot of the guys were getting orders for Korea. I prayed like hell I wasn’t going to be one of them. My plane was being loaded every day with missiles and bombs; they would always come back with out them. It all ways made me think “the wars over my ass!! “

One morning after smoking a joint with my pilots as we did from time to time, they took off on what they said to be a "clandestine mission". I could see the fear in their eyes, if it wasn't fear then maybe antisapation, as if this was one mission they didn’t want to go on.
"Oh-what’s up?" I asked. "If we told ya we'd have to take you with us, one of those need-to-know things" the Captain said to me with a smile. I just smiled back at him and went on with my job.

The plane was loaded down with air to air and two smart bombs, I strapped them in they're seats, hooked up the air to get the turbines turning and we fired her up. With my fluorescence green wands I guided them out onto the tarmac, gave a salute to the Captain and they were off. I climb up on the revetment wall and watched them take off as I burned another joint.

One of the other mechanics got in a cockpit of one of the planes and listen to the radio transmissions to hear what was going on. He said it sounded like they were on a bombing run up North someplace. At one point they were in a dog fight with Viet Cong Migs. We heard that one of the planes had taken a hit and went down in an open field, and the plane was still in tack. The Marines were called in and a napalm air strike was called to the sight. We heard that they were coming back in to the base. No one was sure just who’s plane had gone down because we got caught listening, we were made to get out of the planes so we could not hear what was going on. So we waited for the formation to pass over head. We knew we would know which it was by the missing plane in the formation, I had my camera and took a picture. It was the plane in the revetment next to mine. A reconnaissance with a camera or two on board, which was really from another air base up north of us at Udron, which was the base where Scott had gone to. For some reason the plane had been on base for a about a week. This plane stood out from the others with it's odd looking long nose. Its crew chief came along with the plane as well, which struck me as weird because we had plenty of crew-chief’s in the squadron right here. Also there was a AP on guard of it; he wouldn't let you near the plane. Little did I know I was about to meet this crew-chief next door and get right up close to this RF-4.

Several of us were called into a meeting room of the commander’s office. They wanted two of us to go in to get the camera off the downed plane. SSgt. Chucky as he told me was his name as he wished to be called was going for sure because it was his plane that was assigned to him in Udron he would know that plane better than anyone. He was the crew-cheif that I had not met next to my revetment with the RF-4 recon.'
"My friends call me Chucky people that don't call me asswhole" he said.

Airforce personal all have their last names over they're left brest pocket. But I never was one to make much notice of the names of people. But when he said his name was Chucky my eyes went to his name tag. It seemed to be a French name LaBuon or something like that, I couldn't pronounce it, so I let it drop.

Then they asked for a volunteer to go with him. No one did, So I got picked. Just my luck!!! …My 1st sergeant had it in for me anyway, we never got along from day one, and he just flat out hated my ass. He was a drunk and I was a pot smoker and we both knew it and just flat out didn't get along. I believe he would have picked me even if someone else had volunteered, the fucker just down right didn't like me.

Everyone was dismissed except for SSgt. Chucky and myself. The commander looks at me and says; "You can do this Shaw, follow the Staff Sergeants orders he'll guide you. We have the area cleared, even still just keep your head down and get the job done and get the fuck out of there" ... "Sir" I said. "Just where are we going?" He looks up at me and says; "Could be Hell son! You're headed to a hot zone with a down plane that is being fired upon" ... "I thought the war was over?" I said with a sick feeling inside of me ... "It is Sergeant, things happen, things happen." he said as he stood up from behind a desk. We were dismissed by him with a salute from us both, we turned and followed him out of the room looking over his shoulder he says; "Follow me men we'll get you set up, you need to get going ASAP"

We were issued a gear bag of tools and told to be ready to go in twenty minutes. I wanted to tell Oie but there wasn’t time. I asked one of the guys to tell her and that I would be back as soon as I could. (I hoped) oh-holy crap! What the fuck was going to happen? I was beside myself, I didn't even know a damn thing about the cameras on a recon F-4 I didn't work on recon's. Why the fuck pick me for this shit?

The tool bag was full of what we would need to get the camera off with. They didn’t give either of us a gun, I didn't really think we were going to need one. We were put in a truck and drove out to the chopper pad. I had never been on a chopper before, it was pretty neat. The flight took most of an hour or more, I was close enough to the pilot to see the compass, we were headed East North East for most of the time, then the pilot said some pilot lingo into his mic the only word I really heard or paid and attention to was "Da-Nang", my head turned toward the pilot in quick jerk, "oh-crap" I thought to myself, and he landed and we took on fuel.

We took right back off with thirteen Marines now on board with us, they had the guns, and I started to feel damn glad that some body did. One of the Marines handed us both a camo helmet as he says; "here put these one fly-boys you just might need them." He had no expression on his face at all.

Three other choppers joined us headed NNW and about forty five minutes into the flight we turned west for another good fifteen minutes. The ground below was full of mountain's with flat valleys.
Once we were over the area where the plane went down we could see it down below us.
And things didn’t look so good down there. Looking like ant's people were running here and there and you could see gun fire. The napalm was something else to see, a huge wall of fire in the jungle just north of the plane. An F-4 flew past us like with a flash of noise and a streak of green. We all jump in our seats; another wall of flame went up in the air east of the downed plane.

Chucky had got us a couple of speed handles with the right tips put on them so we could start taking panels off the plane as soon as we got to it. He said he would do rest "just get those screws off and fast man!" he said. "We only need to get to one camera in the nose, and it could be a bitch man" he said with stern and worried look on his face. "You just spread the tools out on the ground and hand them to me as I need them."

We landed on the ground in a clear spot and the Marines got us to the aircraft. The pilots were dead in their seats shot dead-not from the impact of the plane. A few bodies of VC laved here and there, I tried not to look at them. A chill went though me, and I felt like I had to take a piss. And the choppers left us there climbing high and fast into the sky above us.

I was afraid that the gas tanks would take a hit and explode. Thank God they didn’t. I wondered why the pilots didn’t eject and just let the plane crash. Why had they tried to save the plane? Only to lose their lives, surely they could have ejected and been rescued the hell with the fucking plane.

We got the camera off after some difficulty, the fairing, which rounded the flat lower surface of the baseline
of the nose was just about on the ground, the fount nose gear had collapsed but it was still keeping the nose a few inches off the ground. Marines used shovels to dig out around it for us. Speed handles turning as fast as we could both turn them I couldn't say how many screws we took out just to get a panel off, but it was many of them. The panel was pretty good size and swung open at one end on henges. Once we had it opened the camera looked to be on a rotating mount so it could be aimed 360 degrees.

I layed out the tools and the Ssgt went to work with great speed, I felt like a nurse handing the tools to a Doctor. He had to take the helmet off because there just wasn't room for it on his head as he leaned into the airplane working on this thing. Finely he says; "got it, give me a hand" ... shit we needed more than a hand it felt like we were going to need a fork lift.

We waited for what seemed for ever and the choppers came back for us. We started to make it back to one that was the closest to use. This thing was about two to three feet long and it took us both to carry it. I wasn't sure we just had the camera but also it's fairing housing. It felt like we had half the plane in our hands.

At the half way point back to the chopper, I started yelling “God no, God no!!!!!” I was so scared and freaked out that I was totally out of it. I thought of Lorrie and Oie and my mom, even my dog back home. So many things went though my head all at once. Everything happen so fast, yet it was like slow motion, I could swear I heard Led Zeppelin playing in my head.

I could hear bullets zing pass my head very close some left large exploding holes in the ground next to me... I started to yell out a prayer and I was angry as hell, at whom or what I didn't know.
I was saying; “God get me out of here!” “Please god get me out of here!!”
The thought went though my head to stay still and not move.
Over and over I repeated this, then I yelled “Jesus Christ get me out of here!!!”

The next thing I knew I was being dragged across the field by some Marine who had me by the collar. They pulled me in the chopper and shells were hitting the side of it with a thud ping and ricochet sound. Two other Marines got the camera and off we went climbing higher and higher off the ground.
Then the next thing I knew I saw a fist coming at my face. Not once but three times. The guy that pulled me to safety beat the shit out of me. I woke on the tarmac on a gurney at Tan Son Nhat Air Base.
We were told that we were not going back to Thailand, but on to the Philippines after a change of aircraft now a C-130 and to take the camera there. Some first lieutenant AP told me its contents were under Top Security and that all Air Force personal involved with it were to stay with it... I had no idea what was on that film. But I felt pissed off that it was that fucking important. It was only a fucking picture or film what the fuck!
I wanted to go home!

We landed at Clark Air Base the Philippines; it was early morning 2 or 3am.
I was a total fucking mess. I couldn’t eat or sleep. And I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. So they sent me over to the hospital to be checked out. I was put in the nut ward and basically "debriefed" ... I was told to forget about it, and it never happened, go on with life and just fucking forget about it. For two weeks this went on, but it wasn’t so bad, I got a lot of rest and they did help calm me down. Must have been the Valium!

I called my Mom to tell her all was ok, and just to hear her voice. I tried to call Lorrie but got the same call block. I wrote another letter, it too would come back again I would find out later. I know her dad had to have something to do with this. The F.B.I. can do what ever is needed to protect their family, he was fucking with me...The fucker!!!!

I had told the shrink that I was on drugs, and I told him what I was going though with Lorrie and I wanted the fuck out of the Air force. Guess he didn’t care, he had heard all that before from countless others. His words were; "So what the fuck makes you so fucking special, who the fuck isn't on fucking drugs over there"
 I was then told that I was fit for duty. I was shipped back to Thailand on the next C-130 leaving for Ubon the next day.

Years later I would find from reading news on Viet-Nam that in 1973 Hearings on Secret Bombings Begin.  The Senate Armed Services Committee opens hearing on the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. Allegations are made that the Nixon administration allowed bombing raids to be carried out during what was supposed to be a time when Cambodia's neutrality was officially recognized. As a result of the hearings, Congress orders that all bombing in Cambodia cease effective at midnight, August 14.
Emmmm?  I wounder?


As I got to the gate at the bungalow, Oie saw me and came running. She laid a big kiss on me and was jabbering something. We went in and fucked. It was nice to be back with her. She was or had fallen in love with me. I didn’t want her to be but I could tell that she was. My mind was on every thing that was going on at once. I felt like I needed to get away again, part of me wished I was still in the hospital. It was calm there and they gave me drugs and all I had to do was watch T.V.

The day got back I was called into the commander’s office at once. He asked if I was going to be O.K... I told him I thought I needed to get away from all this I thought I was to damn stressed out to work on a multi- million dollar aircraft. He gave me a three day pass after he bitched me out saying; "Damn son you just spent two weeks doing nothing!" But he gave it to me. So I decided to go to see Scott at his base over three hundred miles away. I needed to see an old friend that was as close to home as I could get for now.
Erie got me a taxi driver to drive me all the way to Udorn. He only wanted fifty bucks for the round trip and would also take me anyplace in that city I may need to go. He would sleep in his cab. I took him up on it, we left that Friday morning. I was going to take Oie with me, but she had school.

This was one ride I’ll never forget. Once out of the city the road turned to dirt. We got to some mountains at one point. I wasn’t sure we would make it over the top, but we did.
The driver got hungry and stopped at something like a road side rest. I sat in the car as he ordered what looked like cooked bat on a stick. He offered me some, I declined. I rolled a joint instead. I saw this girl in the door way of the shack. She had been starring at me for some time. The next thing I knew the cab was surrounded by girls looking in at me. They were rubbing my chest hair and giggling about it. I was out so far into the country that these people didn’t ever get to see American G.I.’s. Guess I was quite a sight to see. They were all very good looking. I thought I was about to get into an orgy. But some old lady came out and chased them all off me. They all exchanged words and then she to rubbed my chest laughing. The driver got back in the cab and off we went into the hills. I turned to look back and all these people where waving by to me, I waved back.

Then we get to a road block with Thai military guards with M-16’s. They asked the driver for an I.D. and searched the cab. They found my pot and just put it back in my bag. I thought I was a goner, then they just let us go on our way. The road turned back to a hard surface, we were getting close to a town. I was glad to see it because we were all most out of gas and I never did see a station.

We got to the base and they wouldn’t let my cab go in because he didn’t have the right pass. So I walked on in to try and find Scott. I was told what barracks he lived in, but the guys there told me he lived off base. This black guy knew him and took me to his bungalow.

Scott wasn’t home, so I waited out side for over an hour. Then I saw someone walking this way. I could tell it was him. I walked right toward him, and as we passed I said;” Ha man, nice day isn’t it?” He flipped out! He didn’t know it was me from looking at me, but my voice gave it away. We had a good laugh and hugged each other. His place was pretty cool. He had some lady doing his clothes for him when we went in he ran her off. We proceed to get very fucked up. We talked about every thing that we had been though since we last saw each other. I left out the Viet Nam part of my story. I didn’t want to talk about it. He told me that I had put on weight, and I had from laying around in the nut house for two weeks. Scott knew some Thai guys that played in a band at some club down town. So we had the driver take us there. These guys thought they were hot shit. We smoked some pot with them and listened to them play. They saw that I had my sticks with me; I always had them on me so I would keep in touch with them. They asked me to play, but they didn’t want to jam. They just wanted me to do a solo. I’m not real good at that kind of thing but I tried anyway. They weren’t impressed, nor was I it sounded like shit. They got a good laugh out of it.

That night we went back and I talked them into letting me play one song with them. I could tell they didn’t want to let me. So they waited till the last song of the night to let me play. I blew there drummer away. Like before the G.I.’s in the club loved it, and didn’t want me to stop. I was given a standing ovation. I thought that was pretty cool. The band gave me a smirks look as I left the stage. So I went up to a mic and said; “Let’s hear it for this band ain’t they great?” And they got allot of recognition. That made them happy. and stopped them from kicking my ass.

The three days went by all to fast, and it was time to head back to my base. We said our good-bye and I was on my way back down that dusty road. I didn’t wear my uniform this time just my cut off shorts. I smoked as many joints as I could on the way back, we came on the same check point and the car had to smell of pot, they did the same inspection and let us move on. The driver stopped at the same place to eat. And the girls were all over me again. This time rubbing my hairy legs as well. This time they were taking pictures of me. I often wonder if I’m hanging on some chick’s wall over there.

Oie was waiting by the gate when I arrived at my place. She was very happy to see me. We fucked all night that night. She was turning into a nymph. I had sure taught her how to fuck quite well.
The next night at work I was surprised to find most of the planes were gone from the flight line. They had been shipped to the states. Five of them were blown up so as not to leave them for the Thais or if the Vietnamese were to invade, or just for the tax right off? Fuck who knows?

My job now was painting other equipment that would be shipped out. "Palace Lightning" was the plan under which the USAF would withdrawal its aircraft and personnel from Thailand. For the most part I was just killing time. I missed my plane and my pilots. They had become a part of me. The base was getting empty fast. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I too would be shipped out some where. In some ways I now really didn’t want to leave. I was going to miss Oie and Ernie and this pot. Yet I really wanted to see Lorrie.

That morning on my bike ride back home I went shopping for things to bring home to the states. I had passed a bath house, I always wanted to check one of them out, I had heard that they make you feel pretty good. So I stopped. It was crazy as hell. After paying my five bucks I was taken to a back room where there was a large one way window. Inside this room I was looking into was bleachers full of women.

They all wore a number like at the clubs. I picked out this one very pretty girl and she led me to a room up stairs. She ran the bath water and in English told me to get undressed. I got in the tub and she washed me from head to toe, stopping to clean my dick very well. My dick has never been so clean. She dried me off and I laid on a table for the message. Man did it feel good. At one point she walked up and down my back, felt great. Then she says; “I fuck you five dollar!” I got in my wallet and paid her. She took off her cloths and started to play with my dick. She then climbed on top and fucked my brains out. It was very good. Guess she thought that I’d never come. I had Oie and Lorrie on my mind; I was having a hard time concentrating. I started to wonder what the hell I was doing here. Then suddenly I let go of all of my thoughts in my head and the head of my dick took over. I fucked the shit out of her. When I left, I felt like a million bucks, for sure. Hell, maybe ten million!

Two months had now passed my job for that time consisted of being there. There was nothing at all for us to do. Most of the time we were told to leave but to stay were we could be found. Which meant being at the N.C.O. Club on base. Getting shit faced with everyone else.

The day came, Orders, I was to report to Bergstorm A.F.B. in Austin, Texas. I graded a map to see just how far from Dallas I would be. Not far!! Suddenly I was ready to get the fuck out of here. I was going home. Telling Oie and Erie was not easy. Although they knew that this day was coming too. We all had a tear in our eye. On the last day I gave Ernie my bike, and Oie my stereo and a heart shaped locket, inside a picture of me that I had a friend take. Oie and I walked the five miles to the base holding hands which is a Thai custom no no. At the gate she gave me a long deep from the heart kiss. She touched my cheek and she turned and walked away never looking back, not once. I stood frozen with a tear running down my face. She passed out of sight.

"To be continued"