Mack the Knife

It was perhaps on my first trip to town, on the occasion of  my first exposure to the open market, that my cube mate Don saw to it that I aquired that necessary staple of self-defence, that object of dark alleys and nefarious dealings, outlawed in 50 states; Mack the Knife! I bought a switchblade! I can't now imagine that I'd have been very effective in defending myself. Besides a total lack of experience with knife fighting and the usual state I'd no doubt have been in if ever the occasion called for me to defend myself, which was in some state of drink.

   My drug of choice having been liquid intoxicant, of mostly any sort. Old Crow for the town clubs, Lancer wine at home in the barracks or if really broke buddy  Ken Russom and I would split a bottle of (sp?) Manischewitz  wine, 85 cents at the liquor outlet. A fruity beverage that provided a acceptable level of intoxication but left you with morning mouth that tasted like a rotten box of fruit and a case of the shits.
Ah Boy, We was livin' high, O' ya!

   But it was in town that you'd be expecting to do any knife work. One night, having  made the rounds of the clubs and bath houses with a friend, one rank higher than I, which entitled him to forgo the curfew which constrained me to return to the base, was the night. He had the cabbie drop him off at this particular bath house and I would ride back to the base through the dark maze of Ubon streets and lanes. As a matter of course, he would fully fix in his memory the taxi lic. number in case I didn't get safely delivered. I on the other hand was being trundled off by a cabbie, whose tertiary language was not even English.

    As an aside of sorts, it's a strange phenomenon to consider that thousands of GI's at Ubon running riot through  the town, conducting every sort of common and nefarious commerce with the local populace in only the minimal of a common interface language. Mostly I suppose we each had a good idea what the other wanted or had in mind and with the aid of rudimentary phrases and words, not all of which we knew the exact meaning or context we seemed to get by.
    So I'm in the back of this cab in a semi-drunken state trying to get my bearings as to the route the cabbie was taking back to the base. In the back of your mind was always the possibility being mugged or murdered. The cab seemed to be going slower. The street was unlit, we passed dark lanes that I began to wonder if I was to soon be experiencing. It wasn't unheard of that a cab would turn into an out of the way place and with the help of waiting accomplises the GI passenger would be dragged out and mugged. It's possible that he was taking the closest cross street to the main drag back to the base.  I wasn't so certain then. Perhaps at home the next day he was telling his wife about the drunk American he had in his cab the night before!
   Once I clicked open my 'blade in the back seat and expressed my desire to go 'back to base lao lao!' he picked up his speed toward the main throughfare that I recognized four or five blocks ahead. Perhaps we wasn't slowing down on that dark cross street. But I'm here to tell the tale. And that was the only time Mack the Knife got to speak.