We were called into Master Chief’s office for like the eleventh time that week. Since our return from Restriction, Master Chief Dobson had a big old hard-on for spooking Styler and me. She just liked to make the other chiefs laugh—damn boot-lickers—but Petty Officer Styler took things pretty hard. There were two other guys who got busted in Tokyo, but Dobson liked those sailors, said they had redeeming qualifications. Styler and I were unqualified reprobates, FUBAR, mildew she couldn’t get rid of. Of course, all this was true, but it still hurt when she said it, standing around a dozen assholes with five or more ranks than me who were all in this unit because they were shit-sacks themselves.

            “Fireman Apprentice Reynolds. Petty Officer Styler. Are you aware that it is a four-day weekend?” Master Chief Dobson said. She said apprentice with demeaning pizazz—she liked to remind me that I had dropped three whole ranks. 

            “Yes, Master Chief,” Styler and I said in unison.

            “I’m glad you can read a calendar. How is it that neither of you ended up with duty this weekend?”

            “Our section gets off in twenty minutes Master Chief. We just got lucky,” I said, a big chodey grin on my face.

            “Thank you, Fireman Apprentice, I know how a duty rotation works. What are your plans for the weekend, gentlemen?”

            Today, Dobson didn’t have her usual host of lackeys in the office sucking up and shooting the breeze. It was the July 4th weekend, which, for sailors, is a holy ritual demanding four days of debauchery. This applied to chiefs too, who had a much better duty rotation, so only one or two of them had watch over the holiday. There was one other person in the room with us: Chief Lemann, a guy who was in the garbage squad because he put his balls on his sub pilot’s shoulder whilst on deployment. He was one of those big black chiefs who could crush walnuts between his pectorals.

            “Well, answer her then,” Chief Lemann said.

            “We didn’t have any plans, Master Chief,” Styler said. “I’m just keeping it low-key, maybe going to the base barbecue tomorrow.”

            “I’m sure you are. What about you, Fireman Apprentice?” Dobson said.

            “Mostly hang out in Kailua, Master Chief. Maybe hike the pillboxes,” I said.

             “Likely. Listen, gentlemen, I just wanted to remind and encourage you not to have a little repeat of your Tokyo affair is all. Remember that while you’re still in our United States Navy, you can get drug tested at any time. I won’t hesitate to drag you up to command and have you piss in a cup,” she said with a laugh. “Maybe they’ll throw you in the brig this time.”

            She jostled us some more before we were dismissed, arriving just in time for muster. The duty handoff was uneventful because our division existed only to provide structure for the wayward souls processing out or floating between the cracks of Pearl Harbor’s military infrastructure. We literally guarded a warehouse—our division’s HQ—used to house old maintenance equipment and overflow storage. Quite the allegory.

            By 16:05 we were already in Styler’s car, cruising to his apartment in Honolulu. We left base and got on the interstate, the roads near dead by then. We didn’t talk much on the drive, smoking Camels and listening to Jhene Aiko as we pulled into his high-rise downtown. This motherfucker spent thirty-six days in a Japanese prison and could still afford a sick pad in the city, while I had less than 500 bucks to my name, living in the cockroach quarters on base. But Cody Styler was a good dude and we were friends. Besides, he always bought me drugs on the condition we did them together, heralding my prodigious Sherpa abilities.

            We made it up to his studio on the 21st floor and he changed while I grabbed beers and sat on his bed. He just moved in and most of his stuff was tossed around the place, but the room shone in white and gold, a regal pearlescence in the face of squalor. Hawaiian sunlight always shimmered with that golden hour effervescence. Still, Styler’s place was nice, messy not dirty, and you could watch the ocean swell along with the bustle of Waikiki.

            “You think Master Chief knows anything?” Styler said from his closet.

            “Nah dude, she just likes to give us shit,” I said. “Besides, most of what we’re doing they can’t test us for. Cody, don’t worry about it—they can’t fuck us any harder than they already have.”

            “The cone can always be shoved farther up,” he said. Cody left the closet in white shorts and a red graphic tee, and I handed him a beer as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “But look what I’ve got.”

            Cody Styler was a wiry white boy from Florida with hawkish features and a big smile. At his feet he had one of those pull-string backpacks. He proceeded to remove the biggest bag of shrooms I had ever seen in my life. They were grayish-brown and withered, a healthy mix of stems and caps.

            “Holy shit. How much is that?” I said.

            “Yeah dude—a whole six ounces. My chick practically gave it to me. Her friend dated good ol’ Petty Officer Seller before he moved back home, and she knew about our, uh, current position.”

            “Damn, I swear everyone knows each other on this island. You know they have to test your shit to bust you for shrooms?”

            “They’d never pay for that test—it’s like 700 bucks. Can you imagine Chief Lemann with a handful of my crap?” Styler said. “Hope he likes rice-fed Florida boys.”

            He then procured a small bag with several blue and red pills from his pocket, face betraying his nerves with a small frown.

            “Hey man,” I said, “if you’re nervous, we can keep it low-key this weekend. Chill by the beach, swim, hang out in Kailua, whatever. You should be relaxed and confident going into these big trips, not polluted with Master Chief’s negativity. She’s probably jealous because she can’t drink anymore. Too many DUIs.”

            “Is that true?”

            “I don’t actually know, but I presume that’s why her dependapotamus husband drops her off and picks her up from base.”

            Styler chuckled, relaxing slightly. He had a rough go of things over the prior months, even more so than the rest of us. In Japan, they stuck a catheter up his cock against his will, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. And ever since he got back, he had been the laughingstock of the Sub Command, those assholes refusing him even a modicum of mercy and human decency. Like they never did a line in Tokyo.

            “Cigarette?” he asked.

            “Yup,” I said.

            “You want to test run some of these tonight? Maybe split an eighth before we head to the east side?” Styler said as we got up, placing the Ziploc bag on a dirty glass table.

            “You know I never say no to free drugs,” I said.

            We finished our beers on the balcony before coming back in to take the shrooms. He eyeballed an eighth and we split it, me eating them raw while he put his on some nuked pizza. Then we began our trek into Kailua, through the tunnel to the windward side and into the jungle. When passing to the east of Oahu, the air grows wild and damp, filled with that tangible essence of rainforests and the ocean. The psilocybin kicked in as dirt and magic filled my nostrils, the island auras dancing in waves across my periphery as the weekend began; our bodies glowed like the setting sun as we walked those happy Kailua streets, tapping the giddy spirit of young adulthood, drinking from the well-spring of Hawaiian aloha.

***

            Thursday afternoon, we met our comrade-in-harms, Petty Officer Angel, at the base barbecue. They roasted an entire pig at this thing, and half the sailors in Pearl Harbor were there.

            “You guys have balls like fucking paperweights coming to this thing high,” Angel whispered to Cody and me, “or you’ve completely lost your minds.”

            In our defense, it was a tiny dose of shrooms, and we did it mostly to combat the vicious Molly hangover. After a few hours of shrooming the night before, we’d added some uppers to the mix; everything has a price in this life, and the extreme euphoria of MDMA is succeeded by a crushing low, like an existential hangover fueled by apathetic depression.

            But we managed to eat some of the hog and greeted a couple of our friends on duty before heading out. We saw Master Chief Dobson as we left the parking lot, husband red in the face and screaming something inside their ugly, yellow, Land Cruiser. She was yelling too—we were glad to slip away unnoticed. We spent the rest of the day at the beach, swimming forever.

***

            Wren was our coke head friend with a beautiful heart and peachy skin. She kept her hair in a bob and always wore a cheeky swimsuit and beach throw, standard island attire. We were fast friends, drinking Dos Equis at 10 AM on the kitchen floor of an unairconditioned bungalow. Time collapsing, it was now Friday, the patron saint of indulgence and debauchery.

            “Well thanks for inviting me anyways. It’s really nice to have some friends right now,” I said.

            “You’re really forward,” Wren said, giving me a strange smile. “I think that’s what people like about you, that honesty.”

            “Eh. I exaggerate a lot. Just a different kind of lying.”

            “Maybe. But Angel said that even in jail, you were super real. Like, you would still challenge your superiors and stuff.”

            “Well, it’s not that hard when a chief is trying to strip away your basic rights,” I said.

            “You doing okay? With everything?” Wren said

            “Yeah. I don’t know. I guess? It’s kind of hard to say.”

            “You just seem so happy most of the time.”

            “I-I don’t know,” I said. “I am happy in a way. I feel free, like I’m in a new phase. It’s been a very humbling year for me. But I’m also guilty. Very guilty.”

            “Why?” she asked. Wren was curious, maybe even too empathetic.

            “Has anyone told you the real story?”

            “No one will talk about it. I’ve only heard little snippets.”

            Angel entered his kitchen then, shirtless in basketball shorts, grabbing a beer from the fridge and sitting above us on the counter. He was a fit, beautiful white man with an easy smile, and the only Messianic Jew I’ve ever known. He opened the top with the butt of a Bic lighter and a ka-sish, giving an exaggerated exhale after his first gulp.

            “I’ll have to tell you sometime,” I said.

            “Tell her what?” Angel said.

            “How I find shirtless sailors with half-sleeves irresistible,” I said.

            “Hey man, it’s not easy being this pretty. And okay, keep your secrets, Reynolds—it’s not like you’re crashing on my couch or anything. You guys excited for tonight?”

            Life then passed in an orchestra of motion, here sitting around the kitchen laughing, there tidying the house for our own cabal. Slippage like this happen when you take hallucinogenics; the hangover often includes an incalculable time dilation, especially when used on subsequent days. There was the arrival of Styler and his true bestie, Renault—a lanky, handsome black man with a laugh that sang. Then, our rides were on their way, and five of us ran through our stores  one last time, finishing beers and meeting around the coffee table like knights on a mythic quest. Styler and I planned to do what the Dead Heads call Jedi-flipping. 

            “Alright y’all, don’t forget to drink lots of water throughout the night, and find me or Cody if you need a smoke. We’ve got almost a full case between our two mannie-packs. Anyone else taking shrooms tonight?” I said.

            Everyone said no except Styler. We split a quarter ounce, munching on mummy dicks as the fellowship continued on.

            “Alright. We’ll split the goods here. Two tabs for Cody and Reynolds, one tab for everyone else. Anyone just doing Molly?” Angel said, splitting the half-a-tic-tac paper stamps that carried the LSD.

            “As a reminder,” Styler said, “the boy-wonder Reynolds and I will be unavailable for Sherpa duty tonight. We embark now on a journey of self-discovery.”

            Everyone else took their prescriptions—one small tab and a triangular pill dubbed a Red Nintendo—and stashed them in their desired hiding spots.

            In Ubers like carriages, we charted for Oahu’s North Shore. Besides Angel’s housemates, Renault was one of our few ex-shipmates who would still associate with us. Of our various nuclear engineering subtypes, he was an electrician, the division least affected by our Tokyo soiree. Most others on the boat hated us with the fervor of starving wolves—partly due to the extra duty, but mostly because that’s just how sailors are. They called Renault the OBNOB, which was casually racist, but the military is rife with social paradox.

            The scenery blended into viridian dreams, gold light dancing in beams shining through the windows. My body vibrated like a plucked string, rising into the glow of psilocybin. Dispersed clusters of palms danced in the wind, and I saw dust shimmering in real time. I lost track of the conversation, but the driver followed my eyes in his mirror, knowing. My façade cracked as the yellow sunlight bled red and blue, a ring of police all around us on the road.

            “What are the cops doing here?” I said, too alarmed.

            “Ah, don’t worry about them, bruddah,” the Hawaiian driver said. “They have to at least pretend to be here. Besides, they are close for when haoles get into trouble.” He winked at me.

            We passed quickly, a sandy odor climbing through the air conditioning. There was a stage in the distance, with three mammoth LED monitors. The concert grounds were encased in a natural bowl, lined with wavering palms to one side and event facilities on the other. It was more a festival arena than a simple music venue, with room enough for half-a-dozen more stages and supporting booze and food stations. We were part of a convoy of degenerates now, wandering into an escapist dreamscape in our attempt to mainline the raw passions of the world. The land around the fleet of rideshares had once been green and flush, but was now arid in our collective decadence. We arrived, and in the transition from vehicle to entrance line, I took the two small tabs tucked into my wallet and placed them under my tongue. Although the trees and the earth were already breathing, I clung to my Jedi-flip timeline like a sacred dogma, faithfully imbibing the flesh and blood in their prescribed order. We caught back up with Angel and Wren.

            “Did Conrad ever tell you about the time he got his ass whooped at one of these?” Angel asked. “I was the one who picked him up and took him to the hospital with Chief Tula. He was the center of a haole-local beatdown, and got destroyed. I mean, if you haven’t noticed, look around.”

            The event security consisted of a vanguard of Hawaiian dudes, spanning the spectrum from bulging with muscle to sumo sized.

            “Oh shit,” I said, “Is that why the cops hang out down the road?”

            “Bingo,” Angel said. “Welcome to the Electric Summer, Reynolds.”

             We made it through security without hassle and descended into the arena-like bowl of the show grounds. The sun hung on the western edge of the island, lighting the sky behind the trees in oil-painting incandescence, orange fire rippling through intermittent clouds. The main stage was tucked into the right side of the bowl with a smaller stage on the far left, and a sprawling complex of tents and activity in the center between them, like a market. Each side of the arena had a garrison of porta-potties, and there were wide swaths of open space, on both flat ground and the hilly perimeters. By far the most striking object was the 30-foot pink elephant that guarded the edge of the bazar, lit from the inside and shining in cartoonish splendor.

            Now incapable of conversation, I watched flocks of partygoers as my insides hummed a violent fortissimo. In a sea of lust, dude-bros slabbered over women in bralettes, short-shorts, short-skirts, bikinis, pasties, G-strings, no clothes at all, and hell, sometimes just normal going-out clothes. It was a savannah, the animals congregating near the watering holes and bathrooms, all sexes and orientations seething with pheromones and looking to mate. My alarm shook me from my introspection, time for the final ingredient. The blue bathroom smelled strongly of piss and shit and sterility, an olfactory irony magnified by my hallucinogenic senses. I took my Red Nintendo and left the pungent abyss, hoping the ecstasy wasn’t cut with meth.

            I lost my friends, but I wasn’t particularly worried in my transient state. My existence couldn’t fathom much outside of each vibrant moment, and moving through the masses felt holy, connecting with a lost congregation seeking communion in vice, gyration, and distraction. I became untethered, memory spiraling downward towards oblivion, at once on autopilot and tactilely present. I became of the people, dancing, laughing, floating from place to place. Hours passed as the shadows of night grew long, the last sliver of sun disappearing when I saw him. No shirt, smiling, then stark and firm when he met my eyes. A specter.

            Chief Lemann. He was somehow more massive out of uniform, his chest glistening in the digital light-show erupting from the stage. He said something to the woman dancing with him, but I didn’t stick around. I prayed he wasn’t real.

            My consciousness slammed back into the pilot seat, body rigid with shock. It couldn’t happen again. I couldn’t go to jail again; I couldn’t disappoint everyone again. I would have killed myself. Alarms hammered in my head, a sober version of myself entombed in layers of euphoria and disassociation, grappling with the controls of a sinking ship. Tendrils of anxiety ingratiated my mind and I ran, fleeing the Mainstage through the bazar and barreling into a vacant utopia of picnic benches. It was a hidden pocket of the venue, like a cemetery or secret garden. Two people were smoking cigarettes three tables away, and the place had a few lingering paper plates and drink cups scattered on the ground. I followed their lead.

            I chain-smoked, placing the butts across the diamond-patterned hollows of the table, the cloak of night fully draped across the sky. The festival shone like a star, polluting the darkness overhead. With each drag, I reconnected to myself and the world, the numbness at my lips reminding me that I was a person. I was still alive, the taste of tobacco and smoke and carcinogens washing away my fear of death. Of all my failures.

            I had the wherewithal to grab a few cups of water from a nearby hydration station, and when I returned, Cody Styler was sitting at my table. He was perched in the artificial stadium light like a raven, watching, unbelonging to both the core and the edge of things. He too was smoking, handing me a beer and another smoke when I sat across from him.

            “Saw you over here earlier,” he said, flicking the Bic a couple times, “and thought I’d join you. You mind?”

            “No dude, I’m glad to see you.”

            “How’s it going?”

            “It’s… it’s a lot. I can feel the wind and the trees breathing if that makes sense?”

            “Yeah, me too. The grass is holographic, and I can taste individual grains of sand. The Camels saved me.”

            “Oh man, me too! I was having a full-blown meltdown, and I went through a whole damn pack,” I said.

            “Well, you seem better now. Angel was freaking out because we lost you, and that was stressing me out, so I’ve been doing my own thing too. But I don’t really blame him for being like that, you know?” Styler said.

            The last five months of our lives had been dominated by one event—a group of sailors partying in Tokyo’s Roppongi district, separated in their gleeful inebriation. Angel, blind drunk, left with a prostitute, our friend Charlie Kim announced his drunkenness to the streets, and Cody, taking off his shirt, disappeared into the motion of Japan’s underbelly. I was with Kim— we found two Slovakian models who wanted to come back to the hotel and party. How could we have known that Cody would be arrested, brought under charges of drug possession and distribution? That he would spend the next forty days in a Japanese jail cell with a diet consisting mostly of cold rice? That we would serve two months of house-arrest on the tail end of deployment, and two more when we returned to Hawaii?

            “I mean, yeah, I get it. He was gonna be a lifer dude. Angel was gonna be a six-year chief,” I said. “And Kim too. He was a fucking shoe-in, best Reactor Operator we had.”

            “Hey man, we all made our own decisions that night. You gotta stop beating yourself up over things. It’s not your fault,” Cody said.

            “Thanks dude,” I said. “It’s just hard, you know?”

            “Oh, I get it. I’m the one who got caught. Like you don’t blame me, even just a little?”

            “No way, man. How could I?”

            Cody was the one who got caught—ran to the ground and cuffed by a squad of Tokyo’s finest, excited to nab a strung-out white boy—but I got the first few grams of coke from the Nigerians. The youngest sailor on paper, ringleader nonetheless. And despite everything, the four of us would cling to a lie, to each other, in hopes of exonerating us all. But we paid a heavy toll, and it took all my strength to wade in the guilt without drowning. So, Styler and I talked about somethings and nothings instead, sharing consciousness and a connection to the trees. The Event was always on our minds, one sentence removed from every conversation. Eventually Renault found us, then Angel, both sweaty and smiling.

            “We thought we saw you guys!” Angel said. “Of course you’re hanging out in the darkest, most depressing corner of the festival!”

            I thought it was pretty in that lights-too-bright at the fairground kind of way.

            “Yeah, we’ve been hanging out here for a bit. Where’s Wren?” I said.

            “We left her over by the pink elephant. She was chatting with a friend,” Renault said, giving Angel a sly smile. “You guys should come join the party, we have a whole corner set-up over there.”

            “Can we smoke?” Styler said.

            “Yeah, everyone else is,” Angel said, “besides, I want to check in, see how you guys are doing!”

            The Jedi-flip still roiling inside of me—crushing euphoria curtailed by a steady nicotine buzz—we followed Renault and Angel to the realm of the pink elephant. Pink elephants, lotuses, sacred geometry, and burning incense flickered at my perceptions. The imagery inside the high-ceilinged tent was too poignant, me on all the drugs that inspire these cartoonish depictions and finding them dreadfully camp. In the corner adjacent to one of the elephant’s feet, Wren had her naked back turned to us, sprawled across an organized mess of cushions and beanbags. She was talking to one of her friends, a slim Hawaiian, and the still-shirtless Chief Lemann.

            In my hyper-connectedness, I felt my entourage pull-back, hearts in their throats as they came to the same palpable realization, fear oozing off them like a metal taste in the mouth. My conscious pilot was more comfortable now with the waves and distortions of my higher state, and I cast off my disbelief.

            “Wren! How’s the night? Why aren’t you dancing?” I said.

            “Tai!” she said, jumping to her feet and hugging me. “Where have you been?! And I was, but look at this spot! Why would I leave?”

            Her pupils were dilated, big black spots wrung in a halo of soft blue. She was right, of course—their corner did have a mythical Middle Eastern vibe, all sepia, if not a little cartoonish.

            “Oh, how rude of me!” Wren said. “This is my friend Kalea and her friend Andy. She saw me cruising here and came to say hey!”

            “We actually know Andy,” I said, smiling at Chief Lemann. “We’re friends from work.”

            “Oh that’s—um. Oh…” Wren said, trailing off as she took in the situation, mouth agape.

            “It’s nice to meet you!” Kalea said, bouncing up and giving me a hug. “To meet all of you! Wren, I need to use the bathroom. Let’s go!”

            She dragged Wren away before she could respond, wrangling her from the tent in a flash. Angel and Renault slipped away too, unable to confront the dumpster fire. I took a seat instead, life pulsing all around me, heartbeat pounding in my ears.

            “What’s up, Chief? Cody, have a seat dude, he’s not going to mast you right here. Cigarette, Chief?” I said.

            He took it without a word, and Styler sat down, rigid and fraught in the decadence of our faux opium den. I gave Lemann my lighter—he lit the cigarette and tossed it back.

            “You don’t gotta call me Chief here,” Lemann said. The silence resumed.

            We sat there for a while, a navigable aura of uncertainty mingling with the smoke. Folks nearby were talking about ketamine, a big baggie of yellow-white powder making a cameo. There was joy all around us, and it flowed through me. I just smiled like a chode and smoked.

            “You know,” Lemann said, “I don’t hate y’all like you might think. They want us to, especially after all that illegal shit you did in Restriction, but I don’t. I didn’t become a chief to punch down at young sailors.”

            “Why did you become a chief?” I asked, taking a drag.

            “Same reason as most, I guess. Stayed in to make a difference, got lost somewhere along the way.”

            “Hey, at least you were found innocent at your DRB, ” I said. 

            “You know about my trial?” Lemann said.

            “Oh, the Command Jag-off wouldn’t shut up about it. Said you brought out a parade of Master Chiefs and officers from the SUBPAC as character references. First recommended retention on the waterfront in years, and you put your balls on the pilot!”

            Styler laughed at that and Lemann cracked a big toothy grin.

            “I thought it took an act of Congress to demote a chief,” Styler said.

            “To lose rank, maybe. But doesn’t mean they can’t force separate us,” Lemann said. “Mandatory retirement, that kind of thing.”

            “At least you get a severance package,” Styler said, prompting Lemann to guffaw.

            “You know, in a different life, you boys would have made great sailors, maybe even chiefs. You’ve got the grit,” Lemann said. “But I gotta know. What really happened in Tokyo?”

            Like a Jedi, I was connected and present—a hyper-powered, multifaceted machine of conscious perception. I felt the sand kick in dry spirals as people screamed and danced in the night, laughter galloping around our tent. The pink elephant stood guardian, a bulwark against the trials of this reality. I surfed on aether waves, an inner love beaming like a lighthouse against the rocky hollows of my soul.

            “I’m sorry chief, I wish we knew. But we don’t remember,” I lied.

            “Aww, come on! Give me something!” Lemann said, “You wouldn’t believe some of the things the chiefs say. You know I won’t tell anybody.”

            Cody and I shared a glance, the keepers of secrets, the curse that followed us everywhere, one slip-up from rearing its ugly maw. And he smiled, the emaciated Florida boy with crooked teeth—the genius who made it out of his backwater town only to be ruined by my friendship.

            “I’m sorry, Chief. But Reynolds isn’t lying. None of us remember anything,” Styler said.

            “I don’t believe that shit for a second, but I won’t push. I can’t believe that none of y’all have cracked. You know in the old Navy, that kind of loyalty might’ve been able to keep you boys in. Things are changing, though,” Chief Lemann said. “Not saying you shouldn’t have got what was coming to you, but the Navy’s losing too many good sailors. Sailors like you—folks who’ve got each other’s back, even through the shit.”

            “Damn. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a while,” I said. “Thanks Lemann.”

            “Yeah, thanks Chief,” Styler said.

            We heard Wren’s nervous chatter from across the tent, a cue from the universe to rewrap our exposed tenderness. Lemann and I weren’t that different—both sailors, both ostracized from the only world we knew, trying to pick up the pieces of a fractured life and salvage something worth waking up for. He hid a deep sadness behind his eyes, a well of unmade opportunity and lost dreams. And it was the same maxim that saved the lot of us from suicide: keep calm, lawyer up, and take the lies you forge to the fucking grave.

            “Hey, Andy. I’m sorry about your situation too, man,” I said. “Couldn’t be easy.”

            “Thanks Reynolds,” he said, getting to his feet. “Means more than you think buddy.”

            He extended his hand, and I rose to meet him. His calloused palm pulsed with warmth, an empathetic understanding.

            “Hey guys!” Kalea said, returning to our circle. “How’s it going?”

            “As much as I love hanging around my sailors, babe, it’s getting a little boring in here for me. Want to dance a bit before the show’s over?” Lemann said, winking to Styler and me.

            “Oh my god, yes!” Kalea said, and they were off. “Wren, text me this week!”

            Chief Lemann cracked one last look to us as they left the tent, a knowing smile splitting his lips as he gave a mock two-finger salute.

            “Holy shit! Kalea told me everything,” Wren chattered, crashing to the cushions on the ground. “What are you gonna do?”

            Styler and I basked in our secret, hesitant laughter spilling from the two of us. Cody handed Wren a cigarette.

            “Jesus, you guys are smoking a lot tonight. What’s so funny?” Wren said.

* * *

            Styler and I were called into Master Chief Dobson’s office early Monday morning, right after divisional muster. Every misplaced and displaced chief and senior chief in the unit was present, sitting in office chairs, flicking through their phones while we stood at attention.

            “At ease, gentlemen,” Master Chief Dobson said. “How was your weekend?”

            “Good, Master Chief,” I said, “Mostly as we said Wednesday, Master Chief.”

            “Petty Officer Styler? Cat got your tongue?” she said.

            “No, Master Chief!” he said. “Went to the base barbecue and hung out at the beach.”

            She studied us, pouring over our uniforms with discernment, studying our composure for cracks to pry at. Surprisingly, she turned to the chiefs.

            “Chiefs, listen up,” Master Chief Dobson said, a well-practiced bite behind her words.

            The chiefs were alert in a flash, phones away and sitting in fear as Chief Lemann rose. She looked at him with curious ire—a grudging respect laden with underlying disgust. I wondered what she thought of Lemann’s situation and whether her own judgements made his life a living hell too. He looked as scared as we were and wouldn’t meet our eyes.

            “This morning, Chief Lemann came to me,” she said, “and told me something I found interesting. What do you guys think?” A series of timid chuckles followed, accented with relief.

            “He thinks we’re being unfair to these maggots. Surprisingly, I’m inclined to agree with him,” Master Chief Dobson said. The room went dead.

            “How many hours,” she continued, “have we sat in this room and talked shit about these young men? How much manpower have we spent trying to fuck their lives up, when you’re all here for the same shit? For fucks sake, Gorago, you drunkenly beat one of your sailors into the Korean ICU. The only thing separating you is a gold name tag.”

            I looked at Dobson as if for the first time. The lines on her face were hardened by the gauntlet of experience, accelerated by the stress of a job she gave everything to. She was sharp and cunning, and that day, human. The chiefs were pale, their sullen eyes locked to the floor like scolded children. But they too were judged by their mistakes—single actions that would go on to define their entire careers, even how they viewed themselves. It was difficult to find a Chief there who wasn’t going through a divorce.

            “So, Fireman Apprentice Reynolds, Petty Officer Styler,” Dobson said, “I apologize for how we’ve treated you. This doesn’t mean I’ll drop the Command’s investigation or that you don’t get on my nerves, but I have no excuse for my actions. And for what it’s worth, I saw you both at the base barbecue, visiting Petty Officer Angel on duty. Doing what good shipmates do.”

            “You should have said hello, Master Chief,” I said.

            “You don’t think I’ve got better shit to do than say hi to you? Nothing ruins a day like an unexpected Master Chief, anyways. I won’t draw this out. Fireman Apprentice, Petty Officer—you are dismissed. Don’t give me an excuse to haul your asses back in here.”

            Styler and I left in an unbelieving daze. The aftereffects of the Jedi-flip lingered at the corners of my consciousness, an impossible connectedness emanating from that warehouse; the sky rippled with disappearing fractals, revealing the geometry hidden in the folds of reality. Maybe we were still degenerate reprobates, taking up space in the Bardo of new beginnings, but my boots were polished, my uniform was clean, and the Hawaiian sun embraced me as a lover. It didn’t matter that we were still under investigation with the NCIS, stripped of rank and certification as nuclear operators, bleeding money from a Tokyo sized puncture wound. In spite of everything, Styler and I laughed and smoked, cracking the morning Red Bulls, believing that we might just make it out alive.