I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it.
Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered "the bomb". The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes.
Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. Y'know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know was that our bomb mission was so secret: no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week.
Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’ by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars—you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo—and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away.
But sometimes he wouldn’t go away.
Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks 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 sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men: they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well... he’d been bitten in half below the waist.
At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us—a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here—anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three-hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest; June the 29th, 1945.
"Anyway, we delivered the bomb."
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You're Abe Froman?
That's right, I'm Abe Froman.
The Sausage King of Chicago?
That movie has so many good lines
I do have a test today, that wasn't bull####.
It's on European socialism. I mean, really: what's the point? I'm not European, I don't plan on being European, so who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists: it still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car.
🎵I recaaaaall, Central Park in faaaaall,
How you tore your dress, what a mess, I confess...🎵
It's not that I condone fascism. Or any -ism, for that matter. -Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." A good point there. After all, he was The Walrus. I could be The Walrus; I'd still have to bum rides off of people.
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The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it. – Terry Pratchett
