The Compound
A Navy van rolled through the dank Turkish countryside. Night in Istanbul was as dark as you’ve ever seen and the headlights stabbed feebly into the blackness. Inside a group of sailors jostled from weak suspension on unpaved roads. They were all decked out in dress white uniforms and dress shoes. They were four teams of two from each ship in port, each wearing blue felt armbands that covered the rank insignia on their sleeves with gold initials: S.P.
The driver braked slowly and came to a stop in the center of the road. “This is it,” he said. “Fall out.”
Splink, a compact guy, twenty years old, bent down and tried to see out the windows, but the dome light revealed nothing more than his own reflection as the door opened.
“What is this place?”
None of the other sailors in the van spoke up.
This assignment reeked of punishment though Splink couldn’t remember having done anything aboard ship to warrant it.
The duty orders had come as a surprise only hours earlier back on the ship. He’d had plans that involved being on the other end of the dark road between him and the port. There was a bank of pay phones near the landing there, from which he desperately needed to make a call.
Instead, he exited the van and took his place in a loose formation. Sweat flowed from beneath the headband of his Dixie cup, through his regulation haircut, down his temples and onto his neck. Instead of wiping it away, Splink held his hand under the bottom of his dress white jumper, gripped his T-shirt and tried to quiet the firestorm erupting beneath it. His stomach was still sore and he tried to minimize movement. The ulcers frothed acid into his gut and his throat, made him wish he could swallow ice.
In a sudden burst, a chief in dress whites shouted, “Welcome to The Compound, shipmates.” He had a toothpick between his teeth and a face like a rock. Splink didn’t recognize him.
The chief ordered the sailors to take their posts and relieve the preceding watch. As Shore Patrol, they were there to guard the entrances of a concrete building, long as it was wide, but only one-story tall. Splink was paired with McRoy for the next six hours, when their own replacements were due to relieve them.
McRoy, known as McRoid behind his back, was a three-hundred-pound Southern Baptist on the wrong side of copious amounts of steroids. He was a boatswains mate. Worked the decks of the ship, chipped paint, rigged lines, and manned the helm while the Jacksontown was underway. Splink couldn’t fault the guy for the steroids. Booze, ’roids, dope. Everybody had their thing. For once though Splink was on the winning side of the equation, because having a guy McRoy’s size with him during shore patrol was better than an Uzi. The air smelled of sweat and shit. Anything could happen in a shithole like this.
“This stink reminds me of home,” McRoy said. “Paper mill in Pascagoula spews this kind of air. I shit you not.”
On the western side of the building, Splink recognized the guys they were relieving. The taller one was from the signal shack, the shorter one a push button from CIC, and as they passed the shorter of the two said, “The only directive is that you keep all US service personnel from entering. No matter what.”
The taller one said, “Good luck, boys.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” the shorter one added.
McRoy spoke up. “Don’t we get walkie-talkies or something?”
“Are you kidding?” the shorter of the two said. “You want comms? Just holler. Anyone within range will hear you.” He laughed as he walked toward the van.
***
“I’ve heard about this place,” McRoy said. “The Compound, they call it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He slapped Splink on the shoulder with one of his catcher-mitt hands. Splink’s narrow shoulder caved at the force of the blow. “What reason could they have for bringing us out here to Bumfuck, Turkey?” McRoy laughed.
Splink tightened his duty belt and looked at the structure they were to guard.
McRoy bent over, lifted a leg of his dress white pants and extracted a small can from his sock. He tapped the lid with a thick finger and then loaded his lip with a pinch of Copenhagen. With his lip adequately stocked, McRoy returned the can to his sock.
McRoy and Splink ran in different circles, but Splink knew McRoy ate either Cheetos or Doritos from the ship’s store every night and had orange fingerprints on his pillow.
“Well,” Splink said, looking at the concrete exterior walls covered with pockmarks and peeling beige paint. “What the fuck?”
McRoy spat a brown stream into the sand beside the path. “You New York boys are supposed to know all about whorehouses.”
Splink had never been to one before, had only seen a couple a full year into his enlistment. None of the places he’d ever seen were as primitive as this.
“I’ve seen thousands of these,” McRoy said. “Been to hundreds. Not any place this fucking nasty.”
“I’ve seen them before, but I’ve never been in one.”
“Are you from Mayberry or something?”
“Sort of.”
Splink felt dirty just standing out in the Halloween scene of wet, stinking air from the shit farm surrounding the place. The only women he saw through the one barred window along the wall had faces partially obscured by unkempt hair and shadows. They made licking motions at McRoy and spoke baby talk in their native tongue, which sounded like a fast repeating of “L M N O P, L M N O P.”
The sound of women moaning, some happily, others as if in pain, filled the gaps in conversation between Splink and McRoy as they paced their beat. “This has got to be an all-time low point of Cold War security,” McRoy said.
Rainwater, or maybe sewage, poured through a hole in the rusty gutter along the tin roof. Splink had his hand slipped up under his jumper. It was now to the point where he shoved his fist deeper into his abdomen, applying direct pressure to the burning.
***
After an hour of pacing up and back along the western wall of The Compound, Splink said, “All right, I’ve got to take a piss.”
McRoy launched a stream of spit, arching it two steps ahead of Splink. “Don’t go where I can’t see you.”
Splink walked at an oblique angle, to the left of McRoy. If he’d remembered correctly, it was the direction of the road they’d come in on.
Once Splink had walked a few feet, McRoy yelled, “Okay, Splink. That’s far enough.”
Splink kept walking.
“Piss right there. That’s far enough.”
Splink pushed off with his left foot and got just enough purchase in the slime to lunge forward. His stomach clenched tighter as he hit a full out sprint.
“You motherfucker!” McRoy yelled.
Splink ran in the near darkness until his uniform ensnared on the wires of a low, barbed wire fence. When he looked back, McRoy’s silhouette was approaching. In that instant, he heard boat horns in the distance, no doubt passing the same channel as their ship had on its way into port. They reminded him of his youth growing up within earshot of the river. Those far away horns called out to him long ago and were probably the reason he joined the Navy.
McRoy walked up, reached down, squeezed Splink’s neck with one hand and drew back with his right.
“Hit me if you want,” Splink said.
“Your girl can wait until tomorrow,” McRoy said. “If she ain’t been fucking on you by now, she ain’t going to tonight.”
“It ain’t a chick.” Splink squeezed his knotted stomach with his hand beneath his jumper. “It’s complicated.”
“Well in retrosight,” McRoy said, “I guess you should’ve switched duty with somebody, shouldn’t you have?” He grinned that cashew butter-colored grin. Splink glared at him.
“This is different.”
“You pussy-whipped motherfucker,” McRoy said. But he replaced his hands by his sides. “Got you no self-respect?”
“Jesus, McRoy. It’s not a girl. It’s my mother. Okay?”
“Oh, man. What’s wrong with her?” McRoy said, reaching out a hand. “Is it terminal?”
The grip on Splink’s stomach tightened, then twisted. He bent forward in response to the tightness there. “Fuck. I didn’t want to get into all of this.”
Splink had gotten a letter that morning as they first set anchor. It was postmarked weeks before at the FPO in Norfolk, and his mother was writing to tell him she and Jonas were getting married.
She hadn’t known Jonas. She’d met him twice—once at a grocery store, just by chance, and again at a civic function—before they started dating. Splink didn’t know enough about him. It was too soon.
McRoy reached out a giant hand, placed it on Splink’s shoulder. “Are you okay, brother?”
Splink breathed in deeply, exhaled slowly. “Don’t start with that sympathetic bullshit.” He waved off McRoy. “But if you have to know, yesterday was the anniversary of my father’s death and I just found out at a couple hours ago at mail call that my mother is getting remarried.” Splink then stood up. “Her wedding is tomorrow.”
“Stupid fuck,” McRoy said, spitting another brown stream into the dirt. “You had a better chance with a story about some hot bitch back home.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you.”
“Then you’ll cover for me.”
“Hell no.” McRoy waved his hands out wide and then tucked them behind his back, parade rest style. “I’m sorry about your father, man. Seriously,” he said. “But you got no case.”
“No case?”
“Look, the vows said, ‘Until death we do part.’”
“Spare me,” Splink said. “You’re one to be talking. Fucking hypocrite. You call yourself a Christian, but you live like a fucking Viking when we get liberty. Then you devote a few hours to leading an unofficial worship service on Sundays for what, four people in a study room opposite the mess deck? Fucking spare me.”
“Why?” McRoy asked. “Because I seek salvation for my sins? You think that’s hypocritical? You think I should cut off my balls and become a monk because I believe in the judgment and forgiveness of our almighty God?”
Splink didn’t speak.
“Go on then. Believe what you want. Call me that all you want. I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks. And I recommend you start doing the same thing.”
Sins. Yes. He knew about those. He’d had seventy-two hours liberty while pier-side in Port Everglades earlier in his enlistment. This was halfway through the six months his father’s doctors had estimated he’d had left, and Splink had gone to South Beach with his buddies, met some crazy girls from the Midwest and paired off for their private parties. After three months at sea, he’d needed some R&R before dealing with all of the heaviness back home. He’d thought there would be time.
McRoy freed Splink from the fence, but none too gingerly—the barbs left Splink with a rip in his pants and three on his jumper. “Run all you want. But face it. The contract is over. She’s free.”
Splink had been looking down, fingering the hole closest to his hand.
As an afterthought, McRoy reached down, patted his leg just above his muddy shoe. “You’re lucky I didn’t lose my can of chew chasing your ass. Let’s go.”
Mud squished beneath every heavy step Splink took following McRoy back to their post near the whorehouse. “I ain’t going to say anything about this,” McRoy said. “Don’t you worry. But while we walk this beat for the next few hours, why don’t you just think about how your mother promised to love your father until one of them died. Now she wants to promise the same thing for this other man. You think about respecting that.”
***
Once back in position along their perimeter of the building, Splink seemed calmer, but said, “I shouldn’t even have come out here tonight.”
“Why didn’t you pay somebody to take your watch if this call was so damn important?”
“I thought I’d get quarterdeck duty, maybe the mid-watch. I could have made a phone call before or after.”
“You New York motherfuckers never quit do you?” McRoy said. After refreshing the wad between his cheek and gum, McRoy added, “You got any pictures?”
Splink kept a picture in his wallet. It was the old Olan Mills shot where he sat in front of his mother and father and a background of bookcases.
Splink showed it to McRoy.
“Damn. I knew a PM like that back in Mississippi. Once she was widowed, she went buck wild.”
“Fuck you,” Splink said, tucking the photo back into his wallet.
“Chill, man. She’s an adult. And she’s lonely. Besides, if she didn’t fuck a whole bunch of guys, she’s most likely fucked the guy she’s marrying a bunch of times already.”
“She’s not a whore.”
“Come on, man,” McRoy said, and then spit a stream onto an oblong rock beside the walkway. “You weren’t fooled by the color TV and home-cooked meals every night, were you?”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Your dad brought home the cash and she spread her legs. If she wanted a new sofa and drapes, she tickled his balls during a blowjob.”
“Don’t talk about her like that. That’s sick.”
“Face it, man. She’s just like those women in there. They’re not whores.” He paused, brushed his jumper sleeve across his mouth. “Well, not by nature. They’re debtors’ wives. Their husbands broke the law, probably stole something or killed someone, and while they’re in prison the women serve too. They’re wives who are now whores because their men didn’t take care of business. Some of them had husbands that died owing money. That’s the way it works over here.”
Splink stepped back. His mother was in debt. He sent home half of his paycheck every month to help her out since his father died.
“Same thing in the states, if you think about it.”
“She has to boink some hairy dude because my father didn’t have a decent enough retirement?”
“Technically? She doesn’t have to, not like these women. But she does.”
Suddenly, Splink wanted to know what the women behind this door looked like. He wanted to see what his mother really looked like. The noises coming from the open window entwined in his mind with the sounds his mother might have been making at that exact moment.
He’d heard her moan as a kid growing up in a one bedroom apartment in a neighborhood a boy and his mother could walk in at night. His father had worked two jobs simultaneously for much of Splink’s life, though they were rarely the same two for very long. His mother never worked, but supper was always ready when the old man walked in the door. If he had a night off, they’d send Splink to the Wilsons next door so they wouldn’t have to conceal their excitement.
***
Splink didn’t stay around to ask questions. He bolted for the door, but hesitated once he got there. McRoy stayed behind, and at the last minute, said, “Don’t go in there, man.”
But Splink pushed through the door he was guarding—his sole purpose for being in the Navy at this moment. He recalled his seventh General Order from boot camp training: To talk to no one except in the line of duty. This would be a violation of that order, but he had a duty to his family, to his mother.
“Well, all right then. Don’t be gone long enough for me to get bored out here. Bad shit happens when I get bored.”
The door was lighter than he expected. It slammed against the opposite wall as he made his first entrance into the whorehouse. The interior of the place was small, grimy and quiet, except for the guttural moans of countless women exchanging either pleasure or pain with johns he’d never seen come or go. A slim guard sat behind a small wooden desk with an AK-47 resting on the empty surface. His hat was resting on the back of his head, but when he saw Splink, or more likely the shock of white uniform entering the building, he must have thought there was a live one. An American customer.
The guard rattled off a dozen sentences in a language Splink assumed to be Turkish, and then stood to meet Splink.
Splink removed his Dixie cup and turned, expecting to see McRoy behind him in the open doorway, but there was no one there.
The guard closed the door and held out his hand to Splink. Splink shook the hand, clammy as it was. The guard freed his hand and then rattled off another sentence, this one with a harsher tone.
“I don’t understand,” Splink said.
After another couple unintelligible sentences, the guard approached Splink, who stood frozen. “Do you have phone in here?” Splink asked.
The guard pointed his gun at Splink’s torso and then reached into Splink’s front pocket and extracted a wad of bills folded there. Inspecting the money, the guard walked back around his desk and took his seat, where he balanced the machine gun across his lap.
Splink’s throat clogged as he swallowed.
He felt a tug at his left arm, and when he turned he saw a painfully thin woman in a homemade shift dress and bare feet. She was pulling him in the direction of a hallway that must have led to rooms.
The guard pointed at the woman and then at the hallway. Spoke another sentence in his native Turkish.
Splink tried to remember how much cash he’d had in his pocket. There couldn’t have been more than forty dollars, but he considered that a high price.
The place smelled of ammonia and old sex. He let the thin woman guide him down the hallway, which was dark and dense with feral smells. The dim lighting revealed rooms with mattresses on the floor and bars instead of doors. The brig cells they had aboard ship were more spacious than these cages.
When the woman took him back to her room, she pushed him onto the bed. Splink looked up at the thin woman who reached down and patted Splink’s straight blond hair. She made clicking noises with her tongue and then began caressing the nightstick attached to his duty belt. He knew he shouldn’t have been there, but his feet hurt in those dress shoes. He wondered if he could pay her just to rub his feet. That would be more gratifying than anything else such a woman could do. With him lying there, she tried to get his pants off, then stopped. She rubbed his stomach gently, just in the space where his dress white jumper rode up. It was the same thing his mother used to do when stomach pain had him curled up on the bed. He’d made his mother stop the first time he felt himself swell down there. But now, the whore ran her mouth over the swelling beneath his dress white pants while she hummed soothingly. He needed to talk to keep himself from getting aroused, but he didn’t know her language. “Do you have kids?” he asked.
She answered something between hums. All he was able to ascertain was that her name was Tola.
Beyond her doorway, he heard the sounds of people screaming and screwing and he asked, “So how long have you worked here?”
There was still no answer, and the smell of sewage invaded every breath and caused a flood of acid into his throat—which burned his stomach twice as severely on the way down.
The doorway to the room, or cage, was left open, so he knew he wasn’t being held against his will, but he didn’t want to cause an international incident or risk non-judicial punishment on the ship by getting caught. Splink could easily pass time resting his feet until he could leave without arousing the suspicions of the guard at the desk.
***
Splink heard the main door slap open, but by the time he got off the mattress and down the hall all he saw was McRoy holding the guard’s AK-47 like a baseball bat and the guard with his hands up. There was no telling if McRoy would flip the gun around, draw on the guard, but when he rushed him, McRoy contracted the capable muscles in his arms and made solid contact with the guard’s head. The guard dropped heavily, silently, to the floor.
“Motherfucker,” Splink said, running up and checking for the guard’s pulse. He couldn’t fathom it for a minute. While he bent over the guard, he saw one, then another, woman walking out the front door. “It’s slow, but it’s steady,” Splink said.
McRoy tucked the machine gun under his arm and pulled the strap over his shoulder. “Good,” he said. “I’d hate to see these women more upset.”
Splink looked up. McRoy began shouting incoherently. As the women bolted through the door, Splink’s whore, Tola, was shouting at him and hitting him on the side of the head with an open hand. He tried to get her off him, get her to run away and be free like the others but she wouldn’t go for some reason.
“Go,” he said, pushing her out the door. “Get the fuck out of here.” Splink then ran to the row of cells, helped a tall woman in platform shoes step down to the ground, and again yelled, “Go.” As he did, a scattered line of women ran from The Compound.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Splink said.
The first team that responded was comprised of the two Shore Patrol guys from the northern perimeter. Splink didn’t know them, but he assumed they were from the submarine he saw in port when they pulled in.
As they approached, McRoy raised his voice but said calmly, “This Turkish wingnut came barrel-assing out the door, pointing his gun at me.”
The taller of the sonar guys said, “That’s fucking unbelievable.”
“Seriously,” McRoy said. “I halted him with my nightstick, tried to subdue him with a blow to the leg, but he aimed at me. I confiscated his weapon and then neutralized him with a knock to the back of the head. There’s no telling what he was going to do to us out here.”
“The officer of the watch will be here in a minute,” the shorter guy said.
Splink stood off to the side and watched the last of the escaping women make their way into the dark of night. As he looked out the door, Splink got a glimpse of Tola; she held the fence wires apart for the others to climb through before being the last one out. Just then, Splink started laughing and the pain in his stomach suddenly and entirely disappeared.