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Weapon Inspector

By Nicholas Allanach

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Michel had had his share of shit duty before, but never anything as humiliating and degrading as this. Sure he’d cleaned up the mess hall, scrubbed down nearly all of the urinals, and stayed up many nights staring blankly out over the deck of the U.S.S Richard M. Nixon battleship guarding F-16 fighter jets from an “unseen enemy.” Michel had always dreamed of joining the Navy. When he was a young boy, back in New Jersey he would always pretend he was as cool as Tom Cruise, or Val Kilmer, in Top Gun. In high school Michel strut through the hallways between classes with the collar of his brown leather bomber jacket flipped up. Through his mirrored sunglasses Michel could see all the girls giving him the eye. Take a ride into the danger zone! But that was then, and this is now.

Top Gun had never actually showed Michel the reality of being in the Air Force. Tom Cruise was never stuck on a battleship for three months on his way to the Middle East, and there sure as hell wasn’t any scene of Tom taking part in the shit duty Michel now found himself assigned to.

The job wasn’t officially called “cock watcher” but that was the term the men on ship had coined for the poor son of a bitch who had the unfortunate duty of staring at guy’s dicks all day while they pissed into little plastic cups for the ship’s weekly drug test. Michel thought the whole process absurd! First of all, it was impossible for anyone to sneak drugs on board, and even if they did where would they do them? Someone was always watching, and if a joint were lit up anywhere on the ship it wouldn’t take long for someone to notice the obvious smell. But despite these hurdles and the 100% negative test rate, the orders still came down from above for the monthly piss test. Of course, it was usually Michel who-for whatever reasons-got caught in the bathroom, bent down, intently watching his shipmate’s piss into a cup, all the while wondering why the hell he got stuck doing this while other guys were out flying jets?

Sometimes, at night, while Michel slept, the endless procession of penises would haunt his sleep. Eventually, the hundreds of circumcised and uncircumcised members would combine into one large entwining mesh of penises, a tangle of snakelike organs haunted his vision, pissing out putrid urine that made Michel toss and turn all night. During evenings like this, Michel of course found it highly difficult to sleep. He instead lay awake in his bunk, listening to the sound of the men sleeping around him. Michel was not homosexual, but he couldn’t help but think of the blatantly homosocial tendency behind this “cock watching” function. Did the Navy want Michel to be gay? No, this couldn’t be right, Michel had heard of many soldiers previously thrown out of the Navy for their affectionate actions towards others. But despite the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy throughout the defense department, Michel couldn’t help but notice the blatant homosexual tendencies clearly operating on the surface of the military’s behavior. Hell, Michel may not like his job as “cock watcher” but a queen from back in Jersey would be in fucking fag heaven. After a long time, Michel fell asleep thinking about how the boat itself was named after a man, yet was always referred to in the feminine.

The next morning after breakfast in the mess hall, Michel smoked a cigarette on the flight deck before having to report for “cock watching” duty. It was a beautiful day, a balmy wind raced off the Red Sea. Below, the crew quickly and efficiently prepared the jets for their flight missions. Michel was never fully sure of where these planes went but knew they left every morning and afternoon to always return back a few hours later. For some reason the ear piercing whine and roar of another jet racing off the deck, over the ocean and into the sky, didn’t send the usual chill over Michel’s flesh. A week ago, Michel would’ve envied those pilots, wishing that he had the opportunity to fly those planes instead of staring at cocks all day. But he had recently been having some thoughts that definitely did not concur with military protocol! These thoughts had all started from his realization that there was no real reason to watch cocks all day.

In many ways, Michel’s job as “cock watcher” was as equally insignificant as the jobs of the pilots themselves. Drugs being used on this ship were just as much of an illusion as the “unseen enemy” over those waters. The only thing that was real and of any significance was the process of cock watching itself, for it was in the actual process that one created a routine and regiment that strengthened the “don’t ask don’t tell” homosexual illusion that tied Michel to every other dick on this ship. Just like the process of war only strengthened the illusion of a “just cause.” Hell, Michel wouldn’t even be on this ship right now, if it weren’t for that fucking Top Gun movie! Tom Cruise was a fag Michel wanted to bash! But instead, he was caught floating on a tin can in the middle of the Red Sea, watching pissing cocks and planes taking off, reporting for duty and taking part in the insignificant missions that kept this whole process of illusion in tact. If he had his way, he would go back in time and burn that brown, leather bomber jacket and convince himself to start listening to the Grateful Dead and smoking pot, because there are other illusions far more pleasurable than this.

Fuck it!

Michel tossed his cigarette butt over the side of the ship into the ocean and headed on down to the infirmary to begin another long day of “cock watching.” Inspect this and take a real ride into the danger zone.

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Nicholas Allanach is a writer living in New York City. His work appears in Canon Magazine, and he can be reached here.

© 2004 Me Three