Stranger Than Fiction (True Stories) by Chuck Palahniuk

Author:Chuck Palahniuk [Palahniuk, Chuck]
Language: rus
Format: epub
Tags: prose_counter

POSTSCRIPT: The photographer for this piece, Amy Eckert, jumped through a lot of government hoops to make it happen for Nest magazine. She warned me that, since Nest was a «design» magazine, the Navy brass seemed worried it had a homosexual reading audience and the piece would be a big exposé about homo activity in a submarine setting.

The photographer stressed how I was never to broach the subject of anal submarine sex. Funny, but until she mentioned it, I'd never even thought about the issue. I was more interested in the slang vocabulary specific to submariners. I wanted to build a picture of very unique words. Slang is the writer's palette of colors. It broke my heart when, before the article was published, Navy censors removed all the slang, including "donkey dick" and "baboon ass."

Still, the sex phobia became the big invisible elephant that was hard to ignore.

One day, in a tight passageway, I was standing with a junior officer as sailors squeezed past, doing their job. My hands were down at my waist, trying to take notes as we talked.

Apropos of nothing, the officer says, "By the way, Chuck, when guys rub up against you like that, it doesn't mean anything."

Until then I hadn't even noticed. Now it meant something. All that rubbing.

Another day, on the mess deck after lunch sailors were sitting around, talking about the problems of allowing women to serve aboard submarines. One man said it would only be a matter of time before two people fell in love, somebody ended up pregnant, and they'd have to scrub a ninety-day mission to return to port.

To this I said no way. I'd been on board long enough to see how cramped their life was. No way, I said, could two people find the room and the privacy to have sex on board.

And another sailor crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back in his chair, and said, "Oh, it happens!" Loud and clear, he smirked and said, "It happens a lot!"

Then he realized what he'd said. He'd acknowledged the invisible elephant.

Every man in the room was glaring at him.

What followed was the longest moment of angry silence in Navy history.

Another time, I was asked to wait in a hallway, across from a bulletin board with the day's announcements. The first item was a list of new crewmen and a note to welcome them aboard.

The second item was a heads-up that Mother's Day was coming.

The third item said that "personnel self-harm" was at an all-time high aboard submarines. It said: "Preventing self-harm of personnel aboard submarines is the Navy's highest priority." Creepy Navy-talk for suicide. Another invisible elephant.

The day I left the Kings Bay Naval Base, an officer asked me to write a good piece. I stood, looking at the sub for the last time, and he said fewer and fewer people saw the value in the type of service he valued most.

I saw the value. I admire those people and the job they do.

But by hiding the hardships they endure, it seems the Navy cheats these men out of the greater part of their glory.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.