U.S. Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, 1992
“Hey, Bozung, you up for a set?”
Doc Mishky’s calling me from the far end of the tennis courts.
He’s been playing with a good-looking lady, who I assume to be his wife.
Now she’s walking towards the parking lot.
“See you at home,” she tells him.
Doc’s standing on the baseline, ball in one hand, racquet in the other.
I’m standing in front of the large, green expanse of plywood with the horizontal white stripe painted across it at the opposite end of the courts.
I’ve been hitting against the wall for about half an hour.
It’s my routine to do so a few nights a week.
“What do you say?” Doc says. “Get over here.”
Yes, sir.
Doc’s our flight surgeon.
He tends to the pilots and occasionally works at the base hospital.
And he gets to wear a flight suit, which is the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.
And, better, he gets to go flying a couple times a week.
I work in the administrative department, filling out forms and writing memos.
I do not wear a flight suit. I wear blue, bell-bottom jeans and a blue chambray shirt. Dungarees.
And I do not get to go flying.
But I do play a lot of tennis. By myself.
The guys I work with don’t play.
They’re mostly aircraft mechanics, sweating it out every day in the hangar or out on the flight line while I sit in the air conditioning in admin.
They didn’t think too much of me at first.
I’m the preppy kid who detoured into the Navy for college money.
They’re the wrench-turners who work on cars for fun. Or high-performance aircraft.
They’re about as comfortable holding a tennis racquet as I am a toolbox.
But we do share one interest: beer.
The drinking age in Puerto Rico is only eighteen, and the booze is cheap at the enlisted club.
Which is where I sometimes meet guys from the squadron on Saturday nights.
But not too often.
We’re just . . . different.
I walk over to Doc’s court and take my place on the opposite baseline.
Doc hits the ball to my forehand to start the rally.
I’m pretty confident in my game, only months removed from my high school varsity tennis experience.
And Doc’s pretty damn good himself.
He has graceful, fluid strokes. He hits a classic, one-handed topspin backhand like Ivan Lendl.
I’m a huge Agassi fan, so I hit a two-hander.
We rally for a while, and then Doc asks, “You ready?”
Yes, sir.
“Up or down?” he asks me.
He’s holding his hand over the Prince logo on the end of his racquet.
This is how you figure out who serves first.
You guess whether the logo is pointed upwards or downwards. If you guess correctly, you serve first.
“Up,” I say.
Doc moves his hand from the end of the racquet.
Sure enough, the “P” logo is standing upright.
My serve.
About tenth grade, I figured out how to put some real pace on the ball.
And that was especially true of my serve. It wasn’t unusual for me to get a half-dozen or so aces every set.
Which Doc is about to find out.
I put a pretty solid first serve into the left corner of the deuce court. Doc seems a little surprised by it and mis-hits a return into the net.
Fifteen-love.
Then, I aim for Doc’s backhand in the ad court, figuring he’ll have an even harder time handling my serve there.
But, this time, he’s ready for it, and paints the line with a beautiful, one-handed winner. I didn’t even have a chance.
I end up holding serve the first game.
One-nothing.
We switch sides of the court, and Doc serves.
He’s a good three or four inches taller than I am and uses every bit of his height when he hits the ball.
He serves just as hard as I do. Maybe harder.
He takes the second game.
And then he goes on to take the first set, six-four.
I’m proud of the fact that we’re pretty evenly matched. He’s at least ten years older than I am, after all.
He takes the second set, too, but it goes to seven-five.
“Nice playing with you, Bozung,” he says when it’s over. “That’s a helluva serve.”
Thanks, sir. Nice playing with you, too.
And I really mean that.
It’s nice to play with a person for a change.
And he’s an officer! That’s pretty damn cool.
I see Doc at the courts again the following week.
As before, he plays with his wife for a while and then calls me over.
And it goes on like this for several weeks until it becomes a regular thing.
We play almost every Thursday night.
Which is pretty incredible, when you realize we aren’t even friends.
See, Doc and I aren’t allowed to be friends. He’s an officer, and I’m enlisted.
It would be prejudicial to good order and discipline, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Whatever that means.
But we still play.
And I look forward to it every week.
Even though we aren’t friends.
He doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t call him “sir” on the tennis courts.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful.
But, on those courts, he’s the closest thing I have to a real friend in Puerto Rico.
It just feels . . . normal.
And I appreciate that.
Thanks, Doc.
Up or down?