The Day I Burned The Outhouse Down
A True Story
Another In The Nostalgic Series
By
Robert A. Chapin
Copyright 2011
Smashwords Edition
The year was 1968 when the cost of gas was $. 34 gallon, a movie ticket $1.50, minimum wage $1.60, eggs $.53, annual income $7800.00 and rent $130.00. The U.S. had a population of just a little over two hundred million in 1968 as opposed to the over three hundred million in 2011. LBJ was president, I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke and The Smothers Brothers were the entertainment of the day.
I was serving in Vietnam. A farm boy from Western Massachusetts, I was raised Catholic, served as an alter boy at our Sacred Heart of Jesus church and the early 1960’s was my time for the youthful antics. I think the worse thing I ever did was to smoke corn silk - with that putrid foul aftertaste. Smoking silk was the reason I never continued smoking. There was one occasion however when I did let my guard down which gave rise to my smoking.
It was 1968, I was in Vietnam stationed with The First Cavalry Division (Airmobile) - the helicopter battalion. Marijuana was easily available in country and I never had the desire to try it. I was a sergeant and in order to keep with the standard of professionalism the Army required of me I passed up every chance to try the Asian Jane as it was called.
We had a company clerk by the name of Gardner Cox, who wore those thick Coke bottle glasses and always dirty. His uniform often spotted with yesterday’s food. Not to say that everyone in Vietnam was as scruffy, but there was always that element that gave the rest of us a bad name.
Gardner Cox loved his marijuana! Like so many alcoholics who can drink and not show the effects of the booze, he could be half strung out on the overpowering drug and no one would know he was on a silent mind trip.
In our compound, we had a four seat outhouse. It was constructed quite elaborately with two sets of steps leading from the ground up to a platform with a railing and approximately 36 inch wide porch and four separate doors. It had all the appearance of a western ranch porch. Once inside, each stall was private with walls barely wide enough to drop your pants and take care of natures calling.
From the outside, beneath and in the rear of the “crapper” were four 55 gallon drums cut to a height of approximately 36”. Each drum was placed on a skid and slid under the appropriate toilet. Every morning, a person designated the “poop cop” would approach with a forklift, place the tines under the skid, remove and replace it with a new skid and empty barrel. The barrels by the way were originally filled with Dioxin Poison otherwise known as Agent Orange. Prior to replacing the skid, the barrel contained about 2 gallons of fuel used as an agent to assist in the burning of the excrement. The used barrels were then taken about a mile out into a field and ignited. The burning excrement produced thick black smoke which could be seen for miles.
Gardner Cox was relentless in his pursuit to have me smoke one of his prized Asian joints. I refused his advances only for so long, and finally gave in to the pleasures he promised the drug would provide. One of my concerns of which there were several was with my rank of sergeant and if anyone heard our conversation - or saw me smoking a joint, I could be busted down a grade.
Gardner Cox suggested we smoke the weed in the outhouse - and although he would have to cram into one stall we could stand on the open toilet. This is not the way I had envisioned my first date with the mind blowing drug. I was anxious but also nervous.
Gardner asked me to go ahead of him and get myself into the 2nd stall. I arrived, pulled down my pants, sat and waited. Five minutes passed and with a light tap on the door Gardner Cox appeared ready to go with a crudely rolled joint resembling a Fourth of July firecracker, and a book of matches. My previous experience with marijuana was some time earlier when, ironically, I was involved in an investigation of a Private who was busted for smoking the stuff.
“What the hell ya’ doin’ with yer’ pants down?” he admonished.
“Gardner! It
just feels natural that when I sit on the toilet to have my pants
down!
It feels natural to me!”
I placed the joint between my lips, struck a match and brought it to a date with destiny! As I puffed, the flame on the match had already advanced to my fingertips and licking at my fingers I dropped the match igniting the hair on my legs.
Now, with fingers and leg hair singed, I opened my legs wide and the still burning match dropped down into the fuel. It had taken only a split second for the gasoline to erupt into a bright orange fireball engulfing the stall we were in. Another fifteen seconds and the fire spread to the adjoining containers and then with one huge explosion we all went up in flames.
I was catapulted up and out of the burning building about twenty feet onto the canvas roof of a Jeep - the commander’s Jeep! Although I was not on fire and did not suffer any injuries, the official army issued jute belt on my pants was smoldering like someone taking a puff on a cigar when it glows that deep orange color. Gardner Cox was not far behind as he came crashing against the driver’s side of the same Jeep.
Dazed and busted up, and with glasses covered with shit and soot, he forcefully whispered:
“I told ya’ not to drop yer pants! Do you know how much this stuff costs? Ya’ stupid sonofabitch!” Gardner admonished me.
Fire crew’s arrived and within 30 minutes the entire outhouse section had been destroyed and Gardner and I found ourselves standing in front of Major McKenzie. When I began to relate the incident, the major began to laugh so hysterically that he fell from his chair and suffered a fractured elbow.
As punishment, Gardner was ordered to kitchen police (KP) for two days and I got to spend a three day R & R in Saigon. That night Gardner and I patched things up in my living quarters. He smoked… and my choice of poison was Jim Beam - straight and warm right from the bottle.
I don’t remember much of what happened that night, but at 0600 hours the next morning I was awakened by one of my buddies who placed me between the safety of two rows of sandbag walls when I passed out the night before. Our mission that day was to fly from Camp Evans in The Central Highlands to the sprawling Marine Air Base at Da Nang in search of much needed helicopter parts. I recall a hangover of such throbbing pain that the loadmaster on the twin rotor Chinook literally strapped me to the rear cargo door onto the grappling hooks like that of a prisoner being handcuffed allowing me to puke out of the helicopter out into the open air.
We did manage to get the parts needed and then it was on to the next scrounging mission the next day. That’s how it was in Vietnam…
Thanks for reading these short stories - they are all part of a series I have collected and lived through over the years.
Bob