Day 102: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: paint

This is a true sea story about frustration from my time onboard a Fast Attack Submarine.

THE PAINT JOB THAT NEVER WAS

When I first arrived on the Submarine I was a junior enlisted man and not qualified on Submarines yet, which pretty much made me a nobody, a warm body maybe, but I was considered worthless for any real jobs. So until I got qualified for something I was relegated to doing the most mundane jobs for useless or near useless people that you could think of. I cleaned, I fetched, I toted, and I ran errands for people with real jobs like watchstanding or working on equipment. One of my first jobs was to chip and paint a section of the bilge in Engine Room Lower Level. This was the dirtiest, nastiest place on the Submarine unless you counted the inside of the tank that held our excrement waste. I was shocked to arrive at the job site and take over for a first class Petty Officer who was not only already qualified on Submarines but had reached the status of Engine Room Supervisor. Why would this senior enlisted man be working on such a lowly job in the darkest dirtiest place on the Submarine?

After asking the question, Why? The Petty Officer went on to explain to me that in his time on the Submarine he had seen every part successfully painted in the entire Engine Room with the exception of this one spot, and he never was able to get all of the old paint removed and keep that section dry long enough to apply a fresh coat of primer and paint. My job, he told me, was to complete the chipping of the old paint with the needle gun that he was handing me and then clean the area thoroughly of all paint chips. If any water came into the area I was to find out where it was coming from and inform him immediately. We would work on this he said until the job was properly completed, he didn't want to transfer off of the Submarine until that last section was painted.

We worked on this area for days, but every day that section of the bilge filled up with water no matter what we did. We even had them trim the Submarine a little so that the aft section was a little lower than the forward part of the Sub so that the water would drain easier and faster, but it still did not stay dry enough long enough for us to get a good fresh coat of paint applied. Eventually, our in Home Port work period was ending and the Sub was getting ready to go back out on patrol, so we had to wrap up this job. Exasperated and defeated I was told by the Petty Officer to just slap some paint on it water and all, yes it would peel, crack and rust but there was no help for it, we gave up.

Fast forward three and a half years and now I'm the Petty Officer First Class getting ready to transfer off of the Sub. Here I am, an Engine Room Supervisor and a senior enlisted guy and we are in Home Port for maintenance, and there is that one last job to complete. Like the man before me I had seen the entire Engine room painted, much of it by me, all except for this one section of bilge that I could never keep dry long enough. It was almost time for me to transfer off of the Sub and this frustrating job was still not completed, now I was down to my last shot, I had to figure out where that water was coming from this time or like my predecessor I would have failed in this one seemingly simple task.

This time I got the spot dry and then I did nothing but watch everything that happened in that part of the engine room determined to discover the source of the intermittent water flow into that bilge. After a combined six years or more of searching, I finally figured it out, there was a tiny drain line that emptied out in that area during a specific cycle of a piece of equipment, all that I had to do was shut that piece of equipment down for a couple of days and I could get the job done. So after getting the proper permissions to isolate that piece of equipment, I was finally able to get the bilge dry and I started working like mad to get all of the rust and now old paint removed from the previous failed attempt. I only had this small window of opportunity so I worked for almost twenty-four hours straight, finally getting all of the paint chipped off before nearing a state of collapse from fatigue, I would have to rest for awhile. But the equipment would have to be restarted the next day and the paint would need time to dry, so I was going to need help completing the task.

This is where the story really takes a sinister turn, a brand new unqualified man had just arrived on the Sub, and he was the only person that could be spared for the job. I'll just call him Sam, it really doesn't matter what his name was, Sam showed up young, fresh and new with clean work clothes and knowing nothing about the Submarine. I looked him up and down and saw myself over three years ago, standing in that same spot and looking at the same job. I explained to Sam that all I needed him to do was vacuum out all of the paint chips and thoroughly clean all of the metal surfaces with this special solvent designed for that purpose. Once the surface was clean and the solvent had evaporated he was to apply two coats of primer and give it a couple of hours to dry and then apply the paint. In four or five hours you should have the job completed and I'll come back to inspect it when I wake up. He acknowledged that he knew what to do and I headed forward to get some rest. How hard could it be I thought, everyone knows how to paint, right?

About seven hours later I got up and grabbed a meal before heading aft to check on the job. I was in a good mood, finally, I thought, after all of these years that monkey was off of my back! But to my shock and surprise when I got down to the bilge there was a globulated mixture of fresh paint and old paint chips and rust that had formed into a goop in the bottom of the bilge. That's what I saw under an inch or two of water, someone must have reported the job completed and they had restarted the previously isolated equipment! It was some kind of plot, someone on that Sub had to have put that kid up to this treasonous act. No one could possibly be that stupid!!! I left in a rage, WHERE IS HE, THAT NEW GUY, WHERE DID HE GO, I shouted at the first person that I saw. No one had ever seen me that mad and everyone was afraid to answer. I shouted at the officer on duty in the Engine Room (Who way outranked me) GET THAT KID BACK HERE NOW!

It was not a joke, as soon as I had left that lazy new kid had simply poured some paint in the bilge, swished it around a little with a stick and a big paintbrush and then went off to find a dark corner somewhere to get a nap. It took three guys to keep me from killing him when I caught up with the guy. It was the last time I went into the Engine room on the Sub, I got my stuff together and went forward never looking back. But even today when thinking about that incident I still have hard feelings, I did forgive the kid because that's all he was, a dumb lazy kid that didn't know any better. But I have never been able to forget all of those years of work and searching for answers that was foiled in just a few minutes by one careless act of pure negligence and disregard of orders from someone on his way out.

I sure hope that kid grew up and became a good sailor without killing someone due to a careless and selfish attitude. And as a form of revenge I hope that he spent the rest of his days onboard that Submarine trying to dry out that bilge and right the wrong that he had done.

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**Disclaimer: I often use the freewrite prompt to tell a story instead of doing a pure freewrite, so they sometimes take longer than 5 minutes and usually have some editing. But I try to do my story straight through at one sitting without any unnecessary breaks.
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Photo registered for reuse from: wikimedia.org
Old' Steem by the wonderful @snook
Footer by the fabulous: @topkpop
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Prompt: paint
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Introduction to freewrite

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