There was one bar off base I drank in at Keesler that had a Lou Donaldson record on the jukebox. "Hog Maw." There was another bar on the beach that had several jazz records on the jukebox, but it was mostly airmen, too. I didn't go off-base to drink with airmen. I went off base to get away from airmen.

One weekend I met Phil Claypool in that bar on the beach. He was playing in a novelty band that was touring NCO Clubs in the south.

I'd been in the band with Claypool at Waco. He was from California. A sharp dresser.

He liked West Coast jazz, which he described as cerebral. He called East Coast jazz animalistic.

I would have called East Coast jazz authentic and West Coast jazz derivative, or watered-down. Pure and adulterated. Phil was white.

I was embarrassed to be a reenlistee. I even lost a stripe, for being out over 90 days.

Phil was embarrassed to be playing in a novelty band playing NCO Clubs in the south. The bandleader was also from that Waco band, a trumpet player named Ray Helal, whose nickname was Hambones.

I wasn't embarrassed I was ashamed. A retread was someone who couldn't hack it on the outside and crawled back in for a bed and three square meals a day.

An enlisted man in the service was lower than a garbageman, a day laborer, or a wino sleeping in the bushes, in civilian life, because he had to take orders from people who liked giving orders.

I found a bar to drink in off base that was like Kay's Place. Same songs on the jukebox, same retired military personnel, drinking on credit. These were wet-brain drunks from the Old Soldiers Home, out on weekend pass.

I was 22 years old.

Low bars and mean companions.

My life had turned into a country music song.

It was like a soap opera. You knew what was going to happen next.

I even had amnesia.

In The Truman Show, the director was defensive about attributing Truman's father's absence to amnesia. I gave myself amnesia.

I drank to forget.

Why?

I forget.