Military types love to get up early, and so it made sense that Gretchen found a Navy lieutenant waiting for her when she came in at 7:30 to open up this morning. She told me he’d been there waiting since “oh-seven-hundred” as he put it. And he didn’t seem to mind waiting a while longer, either – until 10:06, as a matter of fact – when an irate West African diplomat stormed out of his appointment with me twenty-four minutes early, apparently unwilling to accept the idea that Alassane Ouattara is, in fact, the duly elected president of Ivory Coast, once again proving that denial is, as they say, not just a river in Egypt.
“Thanks for making time for me, sir,” the lieutenant began, seating himself forthrightly in the chair immediately in front of my desk.
“I always have time for our men and women in uniform,” I told him. “How can I help you?”
“Um, well, first of all…” my guest stammered uncertainly, “I think I should let you know that, uh, making a naval officer’s salary, I can’t afford to pay the rates your secretary quoted me when I spoke with her earlier, and I…”
“No problem,” I interjected with a genial tone. “Do you like chocolate?”
“Huh?” He shot me a puzzled look. “Yeah, sure. I mean, who doesn’t, right?”
“Good,” I informed him, “because the next twenty minutes of my time have already been paid for by the world’s largest cocoa exporter. And you can have them for free. Now, what’s on your mind?”
“I… that is, I’m… uh, until recently I was assigned to the USS Enterprise,” he began. “And, well, I don’t know if you’ve heard about what happened to the captain the day before yesterday…”
“Of course I have,” I confirmed. “Your former executive officer, or ‘XO’ as he’s called in the Navy, is a Captain Owen P. Honors. Until Tuesday, he was the newly appointed commander of the Enterprise, legendary nuclear powered aircraft carrier and pride of the U.S. Navy. But just as the Enterprise was ready to sail on its next tour of duty, the Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper serving that great vessel’s home port, broke a story about some… questionable videos that Captain Honors produced back a few years ago. They were shown to the crew on closed circuit television while the Enterprise was stationed in the Persian Gulf, flying sorties supporting American and allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He called the series ‘XO Movie Night,’ and the newspaper edited a few to remove the rank profanities and then posted them on its Web site for… well, for the entire world to see.”
“Right,” the lieutenant nodded, “and you said the crucial thing, right there, because those videos were never intended for anything but entertainment of the Enterprise crew.”
“There’s not the least doubt in my mind,” I assured him, “that Captain Honors honestly believed that. And I likewise have no doubt that you are here to seek some advice on how to help him out of his current predicament. But before we get into that, perhaps you could tell me – how did my name come to your attention to begin with?”
“Well,” the lieutenant shrugged, “I’m stationed up here at the Navy Yard now, and as soon as I heard about what the Pentagon brass did to Captain Honors, I contacted him and asked what I could do to help. He said he’d been talking to other military guys who had gotten the shaft from the Obama Administration, and he said General Stan McChrystal recommend you; and could I maybe pay you a visit? He said the scuttlebutt is, you’re the smartest person in Washington.”
“Which,” I quickly pointed out, “is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.”
“Baltimore?” The lieutenant’s eyes lit up. “Sure love going down to The Block! Any kind of [expletive], [expletive] or [expletive] you want, they got it there, better and cheaper than anywhere in Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton, Atlantic City or Philadelphia – [expletive], even [expletive] New York!”
“I’ll take your word for it, sailor,” I dryly shot back. “Can we start by you telling me, based on your extensive experience with this man, what the boiling bilge water your good Captain Honors was thinking, for Christ’s sake?”
“Like I said,” the lieutenant shrugged once more, “he was thinking the crew would have a good laugh before the show on movie night, that’s all.”
“So,” I pressed on, “he made a video about ‘The History of the Word [Expletive],’ made two dozen jokes about ‘faggot Surface Weapons Officers,’ and spanked his ‘Little XO’ in front of the camera, ending up with a money shot of Elmer’s glue landing on his shoes?”
“Okay,” the lieutenant sighed, “I know, when you put it like that, it sounds kind of… um… pervy and all. But it was really, really funny at the time. You had to be there, you know?”
“But didn’t it occur to him,” I resolutely continued, “that saying things like ‘Here’s two hands at the back of her head,’ and ‘My air boss salty nuts are not for [expletive] clowns,’ might just possibly… offend a some people?”
“I donno,” the lieutenant evaded, “I guess he figured, if they can’t take a joke, then [expletive] ‘em. We’re sailors, after all.”
“Understood,” I acknowledged. “But did he have to say ‘Marines know all about kissing their sisters,’ or, ‘Ask the Checkmates about being gay?’ Did he have to show two guys in the same bunk with a teddy bear? And speaking of plush toys, what was with that parrot of his, anyhow?”
“Oh that,” the lieutenant chuckled. “It was like, the parrot was his alter ego or his [expletive] or something, I guess.”
“And the picture of his head Photoshopped onto a guy in a thong bikini?” I demanded. “The gay leather bondage donkey show in the XO stateroom? The female sailor, fan dancing on a table with a piece of bubble wrap? The simulated gynecological exam? The men in cowboy hats and women’s two-piece bathing suit tops? The men in blue bathrobes wearing women’s makeup? ‘Two chicks in a shower,’ as he put it? Two guys in a shower?”
“That was a gag about water rationing,” the lieutenant politely interrupted. “We were running low on potable water, so the admiral ordered everybody to limit their showers to three minutes. So Captain Honors made videos of two guys and two chicks in the shower, see? And he’d pull back the shower curtain and yell, ‘Hey! Three minutes is up!’ And then they would say ‘But there’s two of us! Doesn’t that mean we get six minutes?’ You gotta believe me, Mr. Collins, if you’ve been taking three minute showers for two weeks, that’s funny as all hell!”
“Then could you please tell me,” I parried, “what the back story was on the scene where a sailor’s trying to plunge out a toilet full of turds with his bare hands?”
“Oh sure,” the lieutenant eagerly offered. “That was a joke about how when we got in theater, the admiral ordered all the tools locked up for security reasons. Then he ordered an inspection and forgot he’d had all the plungers and mops and stuff locked up along with the tools.”
“Okay,” I conceded, “that almost makes sense, in a really warped way. But how do you explain what Captain Honors thought was funny about guys eating Baby Ruth bars done up to look like turds out of a toilet bowl?”
“Well,” the lieutenant muttered ruefully, “I know that the sailors on an aircraft carrier get much better rations than soldiers and Marines out in that damn desert do, and maybe we shouldn’t make jokes about it, but still… how many servings of Navy chicken do you have to eat before it starts to taste like sea gull? The problem here, I think, Mr. Collins, is that all this stuff was taken completely out of context.”
“The problem,” I corrected, “is that context doesn’t exist anymore.”
The lieutenant gave me a mystified stare. “It doesn’t?”
“No,” I insisted, “and that’s why you should never write anything in an e-mail or an instant message that you wouldn’t be comfortable reading with your name next to it on the New York Times Web site the next morning. Or, for that matter, make any video you wouldn’t mind seeing go viral on the Web with ten million hits a day. Thanks to the Internet, you see, anything and everything can be taken, and, in fact, routinely is taken completely out of context and displayed for the entire planet to gawk at. And Captain Honors obviously never got the memo about that, did he? Now, I must confess, my curiosity is killing me – what in the world was that big white thing Captain Honors shoved up that sailor’s behind?”
“Oh… yeah,” the lieutenant nodded, “that. Um, we talked about that thing a lot, actually; trying to figure out what it was. My best guess is, it’s some kind of aircraft joystick that Captain Honors dipped in flame-retardant foam rubber. I mean, with that little red button on the bottom, it sure looks like it’s a joystick… to me, anyhow.”
“That’s an interesting guess,” I allowed. “The Pentagon brass just took to calling it the ‘Unidentified White Phallic Object’ – the ‘UWPO.’”
At that the lieutenant nearly fell out of his chair. “The Pentagon brass?”
“Yeah,” I revealed, as casually as possible. “They sent a commander over here Monday morning to talk about ‘The Honors Affair’, as they’ve taken to calling it.”
The lieutenant’s eyes grew wide as saucers. “So that’s why you know so much about this!”
“Exactly,” I confessed. “We spent over two hours reviewing all the videos and another hour discussing what the Navy ought to do about Captain Honors.”
“What – what – what,” the lieutenant stammered, “what did you… um… advise?”
“I advised them to put Captain Honors in command of a desk,” I told him matter-of-factly.
“All on account,” the lieutenant softly murmured, choking back a sob, “of the stuff we were just talking about?”
“No,” I clarified. “Not at all. If it had only been things like that, I would have recommended the Navy should leave him in command of the Enterprise.”
“Then what…” the lieutenant’s voice trailed off uncertainly into nothingness as he gazed at me imploringly.
“It was the Glenn Close cameo,” I said, watching as the lieutenant’s face fell all the way to the floor.
“That?” He obviously could not believe his own ears. “How… how come?”
“Well,” I encouraged him, “think about it. Captain Honors put Glenn Close, a five-time Academy Award nominee, in a black Enterprise windbreaker and hat, then had her sit behind his desk in the XO stateroom in his chair, holding that stupid stuffed parrot in a bucket on her lap. Then he took her picture and used it in one of his videos, mixed right up in there with all that weird, sick, homo-bizzaro insanity that he – and you, and your buddies – apparently think is really funny. You know what she said when she found out about it? She said, and I quote, ‘I am distraught that my image has been used to perpetuate something that I abhor. The cynical, unauthorized use of my image in this video is deeply offensive and insulting, and was the result of a seemingly innocent request made during a visit to an aircraft carrier over four years ago.’ That’s what she said.”
“And that’s why,” the lieutenant whined, “you recommended the Navy take the Enterprise away from Captain Honors?”
“Absolutely,” I proclaimed.
The lieutenant shook his head, overwhelmed by incomprehension. “But… but… what for?”
“Because,” I declared, “Hollywood is afraid of Washington, and Washington is afraid of Hollywood. So they are both very, very afraid of offending each other. And although it’s not in the military regulations, it might as well be – you never, ever, invite a major A-list Hollywood celebrity onto your airfield, into your fire base, or on your ship and do anything that makes them look like a fool. And that, unfortunately, is exactly what Captain Honors did; and that’s why now, after Glenn Close found out about it, he’s toast.”
The lieutenant’s head dropped. He began staring at the floor. Gretchen warbled the desk phone – my next consultation had arrived. Sensing that his time was up, the lieutenant rose, shook my hand, and gave me one last, disillusioned look of farewell. “I guess I’ll go now. Thanks for your time, Mr. Collins. But I just don’t get it. How the [expletive] does that [expletive] work?”
“It’s really quite simple,“ I explained. “For nearly a century, there has been a silent agreement: Hollywood directors don’t fight wars, and Navy officers don’t make movies.”