Wapanese ricer slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the isle of Lucy to Fire Island... just delivered the bomb. The Irish Kegbomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first jew for about a half an hour. Ashkenazi. 6-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the yarmulke to the canvas sneakers. What we didn't know, was our pub-crawl had been so secret, no phone call had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, jews come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Bagle Heights" and the idea was: jew comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the jew will go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that jew he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a jew... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched kvetchin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many jews, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Bradford Robinson from Martha's Vineyard. Muffy's boyfriend. Dad owns a dealership. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Left an IOU in his shirt pocket. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Learjet 40 saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Zarathustra. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a Lacoste jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the jews took the rest, July the 32nd, 1965. Anyway, we delivered the kegbomb.
