1990, 2011 Conrad Scott Sarvis

Notes: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. There is not nor ever has been a United States Ship called the Cruces. Definition: Cybettian [see-bet-ee-uh n] 1) of or pertaining to Cybette [see-bet], a character in a novel by C. S. Sarvis. 2) of or pertaining to a serious bet, as one made at sea where there is no escape from paying it or suffering the consequences. [from the homophone sea + bet]. 3) Dyslexic form of 'Betsy'.

For the poet is an airy thing, a winged and a holy thing; and he cannot make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his senses and no mind is left in him.... Socrates

No man will be a sailor who has contrivances enough to get himself into a gaol; for being in a ship is being in a gaol, with the chance of being drowned. A man in gaol has more room, better food, and commonly better company. Dr. Sam Johnson

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. Rumi

The Side Adjacent * *1* The old man sat high above the sea, the wind making immediately in his hair what it took longer and more secretly to make in the water. His hair hoary, the water green, the sky blue, the migrating ink a muted black on hands tying and retying the same knot over and over again. The stippling had been precise; clearly denoting a character on each weather-worn, rigging-curled finger; but like his mind now and his life before had wandered. And the knot wasn't one he had learned at sea but one he had acquired before, perhaps as a boy or in a former life. It had no use he could remember, being just two loops disappearing into each other when the ends were pulled, leaving the line and the hands and the sea.

Roland could smell the brine-laden wind and hear the sea birds screeching at some indignity over the monotone of the English teacher. Others in the class who took a glance out the same single window of the air-conditioned school room saw cars in the student parking lot and a stand of trees beyond undulating in the afternoon heat radiating up from the metal and pavement. Mostly the students' attention was divided between the teacher and the clock. It was fourth period and the class was listless from the subject and time of day. As Roland was arduously painting the old man's facefading and changing, though always of a dark Portuguese complexionthe legs of a pair of pants came out of the eyes and the rest of the image faded into the reality of the teacher standing in front of the window, a gaudy half-lit silhouette of artificial light against the bright natural light of the window. He could tell from the shifting postures of those around him some question or other had been directed toward him. He wished he had skipped out after lunch. Pardon me? Already off to seek the Dark Tower, hmmm? A few chuckles from the class and then he remembered one of the assigned poems from the day before, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. Oh, I kept thinking it was sorta like that poem by Robert Frost, about the two pathsor a continuation of it. He hoped the answer was vague enough for the unheard question. The teacher became excited, And Childe Roland has taken the less traveled? Yeah. The teacher shifted from the window toward the blackboard. But where does that leave the Dark Tower? Is it merely at the end of a less traveled path? No, it's his father. It didn't make any sense; Roland said it without thinking. It seemed to perplex the teacher, but before he could question Roland a girl was saying how she thought it was the personification of death. This brought a general murmur of approval, but then someone else disagreed and from there Roland was safe from having to explain himself. He glanced back over his shoulder at Cybette's desk to see what she had drawn now. She was always drawing in English class, writing in art. From any casual observation she just spaced out in math, though the math department knew otherwise. This year she was the youngest and only girl in a single class for second semester college calculus; a class of six in a high school of over 2000, the geekiest of the geeks. The five others were age-appropriate juniors and seniors while she was an underage sophomore. Everyone thought she must study like mad outside of class, but this was not the case. He expected to see some form of naturemountains, flowers, trees, birdsbut this time it was different: Triangles? he thought, trying to discern some over all design. When he looked at her she seemed to be studying it most intently. After class in the locker-lined hall she would not look at him, not in the face. But had she ever? He asked her about the drawing. Triangles, she answered. I can see that. What's the matter, you having trouble with trig? I'm not taking trig. They were strolling down the hall, Cybette holding her books to her chest, arms crossed over the books, watching the floor a few feet in front of her. Neither one of them was very verbal and becoming a couple hadn't changed that. Roland had been interested in Cybette's friend, Barbara, who seemed as if she just tolerated him, when one day he had chanced upon Cybette alone between classes and was talking to her, about what, later, he could never remember, when he noticed she was just smiling at the place above his head. He instinctively smiled back, almost looked up, but then somehow knew she was concentrating on her peripheral vision. He had never seen anyone do that, and the smile was for him. They became a couple though neither used that word or 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' or 'dating'. They just were. But things had become strange over the last couple of weeks. When they had trysted in her parents' condo Cybette had been sick. Barbara was there, sleeping or pretending to be asleep, it was the only way Cybette could be on the bottom floor in the hours after midnight, with her parents in their bedroom on the third level, with no inclination to investigate any noises filtering up to their room. He let it go; whatever it was she didn't want him to know in words. They continued down the hall,

Roland holding the button of his pen against the lockers as they went, click click tick, click tick, click.... So, are you going to have Barbara over this weekend? I don't know.... Well, I'll be down at U.B. Where else? she soundedannoyed. Yeah, okay, see you. He turned at the corner and they parted at a ninety degree angle, Roland toward study hall and Cybette to art class, Roland pacing off the side adjacent while Cybette the side opposite, the growing hypotenuse between them cutting through paint, dry wall, metal studs, wiring, pipesthe angles knowing the building between them. Roland decided to skip the rest of the day and dumped his books in his locker. ***

U.B. was across the street from the Virginia Tech infirmary, on the second floor above Little Docs drugstore on the corner of Draper Road and College Avenue. The gaming area was U-shaped, with the interior part of the 'U' being taken up by a combination storage room / janitor's closet and the two bathrooms. On its front window, which you couldn't read unless you were standing across the avenue it read: University Billiards Family Fun Center There was one other pool hall in town was off Main Street, behind the bus depot and across a side street from a bar. A fight broke out there at least once a week, sometimes racial, always red. University Billiards attracted milder townies, college students who ventured out from the student union, and high school kids delinquent and otherwise. Roland had never seen a family up there, despite the sign. Seven of the full length

pool tables were left from the original nine, two supplanted by air hockey and table tennis, and more than twice the number of pinball machines were lined up along one wall, three of which Roland could beat consistently. He would invest his dime for one game, run it up to five games and then sell them for a quarter, two more than the machine gave for that amount. As an hourly wage it wasn't much, but he made enough for smokes, pop, bag of chips, and maybe some time on a table. It was slow, being a week night with a farmer's rain falling, but he managed to sell fifteen games. Afterward he half watched a game on Table 3. Donny Sump was beating another guy Roland new by face but not name. They were playing Eight Ball. The clacking of ivory and squeaky chalking of cues mixed with the clanging and ringing of a pinball machine, together playing counterpoint to the wet traffic noises wafting in through the open windows. The clouds, while losing rain, held down the unseasonable warmth for April in the Appalachians of Virginia. Donny wore a tank while his friend sweated in a 'T'. They asked if he wanted to play Cut Throat, but he declined. Then after another break Donny came close and said under his breath, Wanna buy some acid? What kind? Roland asked. He had collected lots of second-hand information about the drug. Windowpane. He'd heard of it, along with sugar cubes, orange barrels, yellow witches, Mr. Natural, and purple microdot: it was a college town. Doesn't that stuff fry your brain? Roland asked earnestly. Donny laughed and took his shot; he stared at the balls long after they had come to a rest. The other guy played in the same manner, and it was only then Roland noticed the slow, meditated tempo of their game and the black and white of their eyes with just a thin ring of color between. Alcohol fries your brain. And that pig tranquilizer Dirtbag sells as Angel's Dust. No, acid let's you see. Roland couldn't help staring at his hugely enlarged pupils, round black two-way mirrors. And it doesn't have any speed in it like microdot, just pure L.S.D., as good as sugar cube. Somebody was punching up songs on the jukebox around the corner. Knights in White Satin started playing. All I have is change even if I did want some, Roland said. I'll spot you a hit. Then after he took another shot, Look, you never done it before? I'll turn you onto it, just for the experience. Five Card Draw was the easiest to beat, as well as being the oldest and last of the nickle machines. The headboard depicted an old-time casino scene with a shootout in progress, the orange plastic at the gun muzzles flaring intermittently. The lower left portion was filled with a royal straight flush in hearts. The spring-loaded plunger was so decrepit it couldn't propel the ball into play even when pulled all the way back, so it had to be hit with the ball of a palm to send the steel sphere to the head of the tilted bed where it would descend into a stand of weak bell bumpers and, after some fugitive Brownian motion, skip over five piston holes running horizontally across the lower middle of the bed and down to the flippers. By flipping the ball into the left piston hole it would be launched into each adjoining hole, racking up points until it reached the right hole, which launched it back up into the bumpers. A slide on the left side, accessed by a definitive flip from the right flipper, would guide the ball back to the top of the bumpers and activate the gate that would save the ball from exiting down the right side. Roland had won twice and matched once by the time Donny and his friend clocked off their table. They watched him finish. Want to play? Roland asked them. Sure, Donny said. Roland was surprised; Donny usually shunned pinball regarding it as inferior to pool. He punched up three games, but Donny and his friend didn't really have a chance from their lack of experience and state of mind. It was apparent they were just as interested in the trailing phantom balls as the real one and would flip at them long after the real one had disappeared down into the bowels of the machine. Any competition among them evaporated. Where did you get the tattoo? Roland had been studying Donny's right shoulder. It was a large rose with two birds holding up a banner with a strange design. Norfolk. Did some construction work down there last summerHa! he exclaimed as the ball

disappeared between the flippers. The other guy took his turn. Apparently he preferred to remain anonymous; no introductions had been made. What's that banner supposed to mean? It used to have a girlfriend's name but we split up, so I got it criptofied. Don't ever get a girl's name, unless it's your mother's. Nah, I'd get a dragon, or maybe a ship or an anchor. Sailor stuff, huh? The wooden pop of a game won sounded as Nameless sent the ball into the left piston hole, collecting the points of the hand. He was playing much better, and Roland caught a glimpse of his first trail. I saw an old sailor down on the docks one day, had tattoos all over him. Said he'd been in a monsoon off the coast of Japan once and got swept overboard off the front of the ship and back on in the back. Sheee... No, no lie. That's what he said anyway, and it sure didn't seem like he was bullshitting. He had a list of every port he'd been in on one of his legs, went from his knee down to his ankle, with tick marks beside the ones he'd been to more than once. Roland was only half-listening now, watching the number of ghostballs grow trailing the actual one; the past trailing the present, the briefest of history incarnate. He stepped back from the machine and passed his hand in front of his eyes and watched the phantom hands and fingers magically appear from his real hand and then just as fantastically get reabsorbed by it, felt them shuffle back innot on the side they entered but the opposite side, as if the ghosts were going to show him some future. Seeing trails, eh? Donny smiled. Yeah. Roland gazed down the line of pinball machines. The colored lights were brighter, more saturated. Reds and oranges became miniature suns bursting on the horizon setting off blues and greens, phosphorescent flowers and leaves in a strange land of costume and design, electricity and plastic. He turned and was shocked by the yellow walls of the pool hall turned gray by the not so cool white florescents lighting the room. Gray but bright. A couple of college students were playing table tennis and the ball painted a disappearing web across the low strewn net, the paddles sending a shuttle of reality to and fro across the green warp of table, weaving a diaphanous fabric at once was appearing and disappearing. Roland floated over to the relative darkness of a chest-high window and lost the room behind him to the street below. The rain had all but stopped. The most prevalent sound was car tires picking up water, and every moving thing had a trail of ghosts shuffling into it when it stopped, the present exposed and integrated with the past, humanity not looking forward into the future but into the past, the most recent happenings the nearest and easiest to see, traveling backwards through time, only barely able to glimpse over our shoulders now and then at the future. Roland glimpsed over his shoulder at the sound of query from Reginald the college student who ran the register nights. You okaywhoa! at the sight of his eyes. What? He made his way to the mirror in the men's room and was immediately struck by the image, the eyes, the very black and very white separated by the thin iris of blue. When he came out Reginald was still there with broom in hand, he was just starting to sweep up. Donny said to have a nice trip before he left. Roland thought he almost winked. Reginald played it straight and ignorant though, no alcohol or drug use was allowed, just in case the cops showed up. There wasn't another soul in the room, but still he kept up the act. You been staring out that window all night. Roland looked at the RC clock over the counter; it was eleven o'clock, closing time for a week night. Six hours had passed in what seemed a minute or two. You okay? Reginald asked again. Yeah, sure. Just taking in the lights. Let me get out of your way. Roland started toward the door Hey, if you need a place to crash.... No thanks, I got it. And Roland was out the door and down the stairs before he could hear Reginald locking the door behind him. He walked down College Avenue to the doughnut shop but passed by, seeing the dirty orange decor and older people nursing their coffee. The second show from the movie theater let out and he jayed across the avenue and walked up the grassy hill rising parallel to it. It was wet from the rain, but

he sat down anyway between two trees, and watched the people disperse before they could be called a crowd. At this distance they had no ghosts. The marque came down and the doughnut shop closed. The night grew quiet with only an occasional car breaking the wet rustle of a capricious breeze in the trees knocking down lingering drops of rain. The lights of the pinball machines shone from the darkened room through the undraped front window of U.B. like a far off galaxy, the street lights nearer stars. He lay back and watched the limbs of the two trees overhead play cat's cradle. They kept dropping string and after long Roland was wrapped in a cocoon, not trapped, but safe and growing, changing into not what he knew. His scapulae tingled, and the marrow of his bones drained away and was replaced by air. The silhouetted, branchy hands playing with strings of fate, what silent souls spun and wound and finally woven into the tapestry of life dropped down on him, wrapping him with the essence of humanity, surrounding him though he not a part of it, only his metamorphosis one of its effects. This cloth of acid thought was suddenly blasted from his mind by a blinding white light suddenly exploding three feet above his head like a super nova. He was paralyzed. All right, buddy, you got some I.D.? The campus cops had come down on him from the top of the hill. Roland leaped up, knocking the flashlight out of a cop's hand. Hey! He thought he heard the slap of leather but was flying blindly down the hill, fireworks of red and green and blue frenetically going off in his pupils disintegrated enough from the induced blackness for him to skirt a hedge, dodge a parking meter, and fly low down the avenue, crossing where it T-ed with Main. He cut between two buildings, running blindly down the dark narrow alley, and burst out into a dimly lit parking lot. He dashed across, leaped another street and slid up a small knoll. Up and running again, heaving air, paralleling the roadhe cut diagonally from it, bounded across a gully while spinning in midair, landed backwards, then jumped down into the water. Splashing, then leaping zigzag side to side, he made his way to the culvert providing passage for the water under the road. Inside, the steel ribbing hurt his knees, but it was a slow warm pain in the cold running water. The fireworks still went off, exploding with every pound of his heart, mostly red now against a muted purple and yellow matrix. Midway through the culvert he was able to stand up underneath a manhole cover and was stretching there when a car rumbled over and was not quite lost to the ear when it returned. Roland squatted down and briefly saw a light glance off the side of the gully and then heard the police radio through the rumbling. He froze, but the cruiser passed over. It didn't return. In the morning he crawled out of the culvert and made sure he could straighten before climbing out of the gulley. He was stiff and it felt as if his running muscles would cramp up on him at any moment. It was early, most folks still asleep or just getting breakfast, and he made his way across a vacant lot towards Roanoke Street, collecting last season's burrs on his wet pant legs. His sneakers turned shiny and squished with every step. The clouds had cleared and it looked as if it was going to be another August day in April, mist already rising from the wet ground in thin streamers. Walking up Roanoke Street toward home he passed the fraternities, home of well-to-do students with their late-model, mostly sport cars waxed and shiny in the driveways. Trailer parks with their tenants of blue collar workers and learning poor came toward the end of the long block, with older houses sandwiched in the middle and in between. Diagonal to the graveyard there was Slum Frat; it wasn't an official fraternity. It housed some learning poor and learning burnt. A huge white structure whose lapboard sagged from every corner meeting tall grass cut twice a summer like wheat, above the portico someone had painted a large Greek Delta, or the way the architecture students made their 'A'sor was it just a triangle? Roland crossed Jackson Street where it veered off Roanoke to meet Harding Avenue and stepped lightly into West View Cemetery, thinking of triangles: Father, Son, Holy Ghost; animal, vegetable, mineral; sky, grass, stone. He looked at the stones; an urn, a hand, a lamb; Christian, Atheist, Agnostic. He thought of personal relations: Father, Mother, Roland; Father, Roland, Dark Tower; Roland, Cybette,... Oh.

* *2* I Most mathematicians don't think much about the implication of homophones. Trigonometry is one of the oldest branches of mathematics, which is one of the oldest branches of philosophy, which is the oldest love, knowledgeeven if you sometimes have to prefix that with 'carnal.' And now since I'm on my third paragraph I can draw a triangle:

Now if I take the paragraphs above my triangle and, by a process known as magic, turn them into points I have, with just the slightest wisp of imagination, another triangle

as long as none of the points are hiding from us (that is, they're all on the same plane perpendicular to our angle of view) or each other, which would over-define a line. The number three (3) has many implications, not the least of which is three is a crowd. Sort of like when a girl tells her guy that somebody (that anonymous third person) substituted No-Doz for her birth control pills or gelatin for the contraceptive jelly or wine (not water) for the vinegar in her sponge orfor the musically mindedthey're going to have to add a chair to the violin section. Because between a man and a woman that is the question: whether they are going to start using the oldest math where 1 + 1 = 3. Some couples are gay, which isn't really funnyor is, I guess it depends on how you inflect that word but I think it's sad. They'll never be able to draw more than a line:

Sure, they can adopt, but they can't do the old math, not really. It doesn't matter on which plane they are or how they are related to each other in space, they can only be a line. But then they can't add to the overpopulation of the world or create unwanted babies either.

II The implication of pronunciation. There are three basic functions in trigonometry: SINE, COSINE, and TANGENT; but sometimes there's not enough room and they're written SIN, COS, TAN. Then if you pronounce the first function the way most people do you quickly get into morality, which, I think most would agree after looking at all the sundry kinds in the world, is a very complicated thing. If you pronounce it the way math teachers do, regardless if you have enough room or not, I would spell it SIGN. COSIN could be two signsor two people sinning together, however you define sinand TANGENT; well, that's what I'm on now. Since this is the second chapter I can draw two triangles together:

This drawing is worth at least a thousand words, maybe more. The Magen David, the Jewish symbol of faith, and two triangles making love. (Christians are called, Jew are chosen, ad nauseam.) Both are part of our western cultural heritage going back, some say, to the ancient Greeks. When you go back that far religion changes, men fought thirty-year-long wars, played with trigonometry, and wrote bawdy plays. At the present time men and women may do all these things except make unwanted babies. They still can, but they don't have the permission. When my father's family lived in China his older sister brought home an infant girl who had been set out on a rack by the side of the road. She asked my missionary grandmother and grandfather if she could raise it. They said no, and told her to put it back. The Australian aborigines believe the souls of lost children go into Koala bears. It's a nice thought. They're cute and only eat the leaves of Eucalyptus trees.

* *3* Listen, when I get out of boot camp I'll have enough money and we'll fly to New York and get it taken care of. They were in a sleeping bag on the floor of the basement. It wasn't just for privacy as it had turned cold again and Cybette's father had turned off the furnace during the warm spell and resisted turning it back on. Barbara not five feet away, slept or pretended. Roland was spooning Cybette, her back to him, unanswering. A cicada started up outside by the sliding glass door and filled the room with its leggy scream, slowly died out in the placid cricket calls. Or if I don't get leave I'll send you the money, Roland continued. It seemed the thing to do: bored with school, routed into Those-Who-Aren't-Going-To-College curriculum because of poor grades, with Cybette probably pregnant. But also having the unexplored feeling young men have felt since old men learned it was more productive to be sedentary, to farm the land and raise animals rather than hunt and gather, a feeling with wayward feet and searching eyes, a lust to wander out into the world and lose himself to what he might become, to see new things, to meet strange people and explore their cultures and perhaps gather a special knowledge not known from his part of the world. Or that's how he tried to spin it to himself. He just wanted to escape; the navy seemed as good a route as any. Again Cybette's soul fed the cicada's cuticulaic ululation. Having nothing more to add to the one-sided conversation Roland said, I gotta go. He went through the sliding glass door and out the gate, closing it quietly behind him, glancing up at her parents' curtained and dark bedroom window. He found the unfinished pint of Evan Williams he had stashed by the fence and walked out into the cow pasture behind the condo. The moon was full and near, shining down on a minefield of cow patties, the bovine mine layers larger dark moguls in the grass at the far end of the field. Roland walked so he would pass them on the left, but when he came close couldn't help calling to them. Moo Cow Mooooo Cow. Ummmm, fra-shooo, the bull buckled to his feet, steam pluming from his dilated nostrils, staring at this slight two-leg with the moon in his eyes. Roland took a pull at the bottle. Hey, Moo Cow. The bull kept staring. Whyn't you let me borrow one of your heifers there; we'll go behind the bushes and Fra-shooo! The bull hooved the ground. Well be that way. Wouldn't want anything after you anyhow. Roland had to be home by eleven or have found a place to spend the night; he didn't have to call; that was his father's rule. After his father ate his only meal of the day at seven he'd start his serious reading. At nine he'd pop the top of his first beer and at some point switch to light reading. By eleven his mother would be asleep and his father would begin his alone time. It was sacrosanct, not to be interrupted. Tonight he walked home and knocked. He heard his father lumbering to the door, saw him peer through the curtain and then fumble with the lock. What are you doing here? You know you're supposed to be in by eleven.... The tone and style were the same as what presaged a belt whipping for some wrong he or his brother or sister had committed: a list of justifications peeled off while he unbuckled and drew off the leather, lashing away until one or another was rolled up in a ball exposing the least amount of skin possible. Roland was too old for belt whippings now. He stood facing him just inside the door. I think Cybette's pregnant. He strode past him into the living room where a fire burned against the chill, a white-man's winter lingering into spring. The radio was tuned to a classical music station, the volume so low the flames of the fire easily dominated, throwing out warm orange light against walls dulled by wood and cigarette smoke. Roland's shadow arched across the room as he stood by the fire, arm on the mantle, staring into the flames. You want a drink? his father asked. Sure.

It was the only time they ever talked, when his father was drinking. Even when Roland was very young and could only listen, talking with his father always necessitated the consumption of alcohol. The balance of bourbon and water on ice temporarily attenuated their roles, and they became friends, almost equals for the night, sometimes until the birds broke the reverie and reminiscing in the early gray dawn. One of the earliest times had been in Sylva, North Carolina, at Cool By the Creek Motel. His father and mother had gotten into a screaming, yelling fight and had decided they were going to get a divorce. Roland would go with his father and the two younger children, Guillaume and Persephone, would go with their mother. He and his father drove to the motel, which was situated downstream from a paper mill and sat on the bank of a creek which ran black and foamy from the chemical waste. His father fixed their drinks the same, half and half, they were drinking man to man, though Roland was still in elementary school. His father talked of moving, back to California or New Mexico. Roland became filled with a sense of adventure and silently steeled himself against any feelings of loss for his mother or brother or sister. When they finally decided to turn in Roland found it difficult to walk; his father leaned him up against the side of the building but even it was none too steady. Roland thought, how could that be, the building hadn't had anything to drink. Wow, you're really drunk, his father said. He fell twice getting to the front, to the long wall of doors and windows holding their room, somewhere. Something was very wrong. The shot of adrenaline got him to the door of their unit and to the doorway of the bathroom before he vomited. He woke in the bed and made it to the middle of the room before vomiting again. By the third time he thought for sure he had gotten it out of his system, but he woke a fourth and fifth time with growing disbelief, each time not making it as far. The sixth time he leaned over the side of the bed. The seventh he just sat up. In the morning before opening his eyes he wished for it to have been a dream, but he could smell it despite his saturated olfactories. He counted the soaked in puke puddles. The first one by the bathroom had food bits riding on top. In the light hanging over the morning his father looked at him and went back to his mother and made up, not for the first or last time. Handed the drink Roland took a long swallow; the walk from Cybette's had sobered him considerably, even though he had finished the pint, and he didn't like the feeling. Are you sure, has she had tests? I don't know, I think she just missed her period. But she's been getting sick. Is she going to have an abortion? Yeah, I told her we could fly to New York. Do her parents know? No, I think she wants to be sure before she tells them. The older man stirred with a forefinger before he drank. Then he patted out a cigarette and tapped the filter end against the face of his watch, packing the tobacco. While clearing his throat he lit it, the excess paper at the end flaring momentarily. He took a deep drag and said with the smoke, Well, if she is, we can pay for it. Roland was astounded. He and his siblings always had to go to their mother when they needed money. He knew he couldn't ask her this time, for the amount or the reason. I don't think Mom would go for it. We don't have to tell her. I'll take it out of savings. A paternal tone visited his voice, You'll have to pay me back of course, then jostled out by the alcoholic camaraderie, You little fucker. I didn't lose my virginity until I was nineteen, to a whore in Auckland, New Zealand, who had more smegma than her refrigerator had cottage cheese. How old are you now, sixteen? Yeah, but I lost it when I was fourteen. He couldn't help bragging. Fourteen! Why you little fucker. Should have bought you a pack of condoms a long time ago. Rubbers! I thought you never used them? Once or twice. It is rather like washing your feet with your socks on. Still, it keeps you out of the kind of trouble you're in. They were sitting cross-legged in front of the fire; Roland shook his head and hid his eyes in a hand. There it was, stabbing through, impossibly intense, incapable of being assuaged no matter how he tried to think himself past it, Things are going to be okay, everything will be fine, he told himself over and over again

but only felt the desperation renew itself impossibly. His father put a hand on his shoulder. Take it easy, old man. I know it seems bad now, but you'll live. Ten years from now it'll just be a footnote. Did you ever get anyone pregnant? Well, there was your Ma. Dad. Yeah. There was a girl when I was in college, but her father was a doctor, which was convenient. Hey, why don't you fix us another. He held out his glass. Roland took it and his and went into the kitchen where a perpetual fifth of bourbon stood on the counter, moved behind the wooden windmill planter during the day out of his mother's sense of propriety. The frying pan clock read twenty til two. He tried to be quiet with the ice since his mother was probably trying to sleep. Roland couldn't remember her not sleeping in the back room on the fold out couch since they had moved to Virginia. His parents' double bed was in the front bedroom with purple painted walls and three loose windows where the curtains blew when there was a wind. His father had taken to sleeping on the living room couch in the winter time, getting up to stoke the fire when he became cold. The house had electric heat, but he liked the fire, buying and splitting five to six cords of hard wood a winter to have it. Roland came back into the living room. Flames danced and the light warmed his father's white hair as he gazed into the fire. We discussed 'Childe Roland' in English the other day. That poem's a little wise for high school. I don't think I read it until my sophomore year in college. Mr. Schwartz didn't think so, he's our teacher. How did it go? Okay, I guess. He called on me and I compared it with Frost's poem about the two paths. But then he wanted to know where the Dark Tower came in. And? Oh, I think the general consensus was that it was a personification of death. Ummm. A common bleak view. His father took a deep drag off his cigarette. After the third breath thin wisps of moist smoke still escaped from his mouth. What do you think it is? Roland asked. I don't. I think the whole poem is rather like the sun. You can feel it's warmth, and see from its light, but if you look directly at it you'll go blind and see nothing. Always liked it though. I remember reading it to you when you were just a baby in Rockford. I remember. Ha! How could you? You couldn't have been more than two. But I do. It's mostly an impression, but I remember the sound of your voice, especially the end when you'd say the last line: 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.' Used to scare shit out of you. But you never cried. I thought you were getting mad about something. His father laughed, What else do you remember about Rockford? We lived in a small house, and I remember pulling Gum around the yard on a sled. You know, that house could almost fit inside this room it was so small. It had been a playhouse for the landlord's kids who lived in front of us, in the big house, but it's all we could afford on my school teacher's salary. Those were lean times. Your mother didn't like it one bit either, having to move from the West Coast and used to a factory worker's wage. Took more than a third cut in pay when I took that job. But I told her if she denied me this one opportunity to get into teaching.... She must have thought I was just another collegeeducated working stiff, typing those resumes and letters of application. And then, after how many years, that one reply; boy, how your mother resisted.... Did you name me after Childe Roland? A long drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the fire. Perhaps. Perhaps? Think about it too much and you'll go blind, foo woo. He took a poker and jostled the logs, sending sparks up the chimney. A coal popped out and he brushed it onto the hearth to die out. They were surrounded by poets: Emerson, Yeats, Browning, Dylan Thomas,

Walt Kelly; representative poems professionally penned, mostly in Spanish Gothic, matted and framed behind glass, the glass reflecting the fire more here, less there.

I've been thinking of joining the navy. If you and Mom will sign the papers since I'll only be seventeen. His father turned from the fire and looked closely at his son who returned his gaze, wondering what he saw behind those eyes. You know, you could do so well in school....

I know, I know, but it's so boring. Roland was tired from the subject. Well, it's your decision; I'm not going to be the hoary cripple that guides you. My hair may be white but I'm no cripple. He rose heavily from the floor and tottered toward the bathroom. You're your own man. Roland thought of going in and crossing swords with him like he used to when he was a boy drinking with him, but went out the side door instead to the edge of the yard. Steam skinned off the streamer as it melted the frost reflecting a pale dawning sky.

* *4* Two companies were ahead and five to seven behind, all standing out on the steamy asphalt grinder. As one company filed into the chow hall others would march forward one at a time and take its place, going to parade rest until it was time to move a few more feet forward. The companies were queuing up for the midday meal, their recruit chief petty officers calling out orders in varying timbres, accents, and degrees of intelligibility; some so primeval or evolved as to only be understood by their respective companies. One dropped the first consonant of all words replacing it with an aspirate: Heft Hace! Howard, Harch. Homp'nee Halt. At precisely 12:00 noon the first canon round went off, echoing down the corridor between the barracks and out across the twin grinders. The recruits were called to attention and for the next twenty-one minutes, twenty-one canon blasts, each was given the opportunity to contemplate his country's independence while limed to the pavement by a code of hyper-military etiquette only found in boot camp during peacetime. All sweated, most cursed, a few passed out; Roland contemplated the bead on the tip of his septum. It had reached a kind of equilibrium and neither fell away nor receded. He could imagine it reflecting the Florida land and sky and recruits. He usually didn't mind marching or standing in formation. It was relaxing and conducive to meditation, and you could be relatively sure some khaki brass wasn't going to walk up to you and ask if you ate pussy. You eat pussy, boot? The chief petty officer had strolled into the barrack after the evening meal the day before. Somebody called attention on deck. The chief asked the nearest recruit again, You eat pussy? Well, I.... The recruit started meekly, smiling. YOU CALL THAT ATTENTION?! The chief yelled, suddenly angry. Now with a ramrod spine the recruit answered, Yes sir! Yes sir what? Yes sir, I eat pussy, sir. You do, huh? Yes sir. Well hit the deck and start eating. And the chief directed him to a modified pushup position with the forefingers and thumbs together at the tips forming the semblance of what, by most accounts, was a very large vagina. The recruit started lapping the floor between his hands.

You eat pussy? the chief asked a second recruit. No sir, the recruit replied, thinking he had learned something from the example of the first. You don't? No sir. Well, you must be queer than. No sir! You mean to tell me you don't eat pussy and you ain't queer? Yes sir. Damn, you must really be fucked up. Well? No sir. Are you calling me a liar? No sir! You'd better let your buddy there show you how to eat pussy. Yes sir, and he assumed the position. You eat pussy? The chief asked a third recruit. Only kittens, but not too young Cooper answered without the hint of a smile. Someone's laugh turned into a cough. The chief snapped around, all heads and eyes not at attention snapped back. Breathing stopped. Smartass, huh. Let's go. And everyone knew where. Except Coop may very well have eaten cat; he was the type of guy who might eat outside the box. He was first squad leader in second platoon, the one Roland was in, and the only one out of twelve to have kept his position since the company formed, even though he was always on the edge of trouble. This time he had stepped over, and when he returned from battalion's mast he was moving slowly, slightly bent over, but with a smile on his face. When asked what happened he just said, Nothing to write home about, but it hurt him

when he laughed. No one who had gained first hand knowledge of bat's mast ever talked about it; most just shook their heads, it was like a black hole. But everybody was talking about the square needle in the left nut. In the chow hall, What week are you? Third. Guess you're dreading the sixth. Why should I? That's when you get the square needle in the left nut. Sheee.... No, really. Vaccination against desertionary. You think those pump guns in the shoulders was bad. What about the waves? Where do they get the square needle? This was an ongoing debate. Some said in the left tit, others in the stomach, like rabies shots. It was largely settled, at least in Roland's company, when a recruit asked a corpsman during one of the shot sessions and the corpsman had confided it was in the right ovary, which might look like a shot in the stomach to those unfamiliar with anatomy. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. The unseen canon went off. Roland thought of the little cannons they fired at the college football games his father took Guillaume and him to when he was at Western Carolina. Those cannons only fired paper. R-C-Poo was still at attention, forward and to the right of the company, saluting a flag nowhere in sight. He was short, dumpy, soft. When he gave marching orders during infantry drill his eyes bugged-out behind thick lenses and his voice climbed higher than most of his wave counterparts. He had gotten promoted from platoon leader to recruit chief petty officer when the former RCPO got set back for being a non-swimmer. For some reason he had not been issued navy glasses with the standard black plastic frames and retained his civilian wire-rims, which, in an environment where all outward personal identity was avidly eradicated, gave him an individuality the company commander construed as leadership ability. Right now his elbow was beginning to sink and arm tremor from the fatigue of the long salute. The USS Asphalt Grinder in heavy swells of heat, going nowhere in midday doldrums. Each company had two platoons and each platoon six squadrons, all of which had young men with new buzz cuts covered with blue baseball caps, in color matching their pants and slightly darker than their shirts except where they were soaked with sweat. Each recruit felt he was a fleck of white or black or brown in a sea of blue but was in fact blue in blue on blue. Even the gold on married men's fingers was consigned with the dog tags where it was only seen during personnel inspections when they were brought shirt side out to glint in the sun. Each company had its own barrack, which was indistinguishable from any other, especially from the inside where there was no place for the sun to rise or set since the blinds were permanently drawn. Two rows of bunks in each barrack were precisely set a corridor away from the long walls with an open, double locker in front of each bunk facing the centerboard, which itself was between two rifle cases with plugged rifles, whorehouses with their pieces. At one end of the barrack was the outside exit and at the other a small room (The Smoker), company commander's office, and three exits; to the roof, head, and battalion commander's office. The sheets on all the mattresses were folded with hospital corners, right triangles, making Roland think of Cybette every time he made one, as did the last fold in the seldom used wool blankets, a corner folded back forming two triangles base to base, a square at the foot of the rack. The uniforms and underwear were folded in a similarly exacting fashion and placed in the open lockers according to detailed specifications, and when the company was in, two pairs of boondockers were under each locker. The barrack was generally neat and tidy except the night before barrack inspection when it was sculpted and immaculate: neutral shoe polish applied to scuff marks in the floor, sheets pulled and refolded (a man at every corner to pull the sheet taut as a drum head) as well as blankets and uniforms, and everything scrutinized for dust and lint. Two men would go submarining, pulling themselves under the rows of bunks on a blanket sprayed with dust cleaner. For the final touch Culpepper, the flag bearer and smallest one in the company, would be hoisted up into the air duct in his dust bag to go shimming the length from intake to exhaust. The next day after a class in military conduct or saluting they would stumble into shambles: unslept in racks torn asunder, mattresses thrown into the smoker, clothes strewn everywhere, and the whorehouses turned over because the inspector couldn't find dust anywhere else. There was no attempt to show what was unsatisfactory with the bunks or lockers, no learning expected in the experience, just the resultant mess. Roland had come to the same conclusion about personnel inspections, no learning was entailed. He'd

been found unsatisfactory at the three he'd been to and didn't know why except for the first one when the top laces on his left boondocker had been left-over-right instead of right-over-left. It was eating at the pit of his stomach. After the last one the company commander had ordered him into his office and warned him he was going to set him back if he didn't straighten up his act. But it wasn't his act needing attention; he acted like everyone else, stayed in step when marching and was just as bad as the next boot in his company at infantry. It was something about his appearance. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm, another canon blast echoing through the waves of heat. They almost had weight now, pressing down through the hot air. Roland wiggled his toes. He wondered if anybody else was wiggling his toes just to be doing something, to be not quite at attention. He got really bold and stretched his hands, balled them up into fists, and let them go slack. If everyone was at attention as they were supposed to be he could break formation and head for the wall without anyone noticing, for to be truly at attention meant to stare fixedly at a point directly in front of you and not be distracted by anything in your peripheral vision, so all he had to worry about was the boot directly behind him. Ducking down in an eye winkthe boot behind would refocus on the boot the next line down while he made his way under all the lines of vision, unnoticed. A few of the recruits did more than just think about getting out. It wasn't easy, of course; they had sworn an oath and signed a contract and were expected to uphold it. Yet scuttlebutt was if you went to the infirmary with a back injury from falling out of your top bunk or slipping in the shower you could wing it. You'd march behind the company for a week or two with the sick, lame, and lazy; get transferred to sickbay; and then get out on a medical discharge, sometimes with compensation. Another way was to prove you had lied on your contract, you had neglected to tell them you were a bona fide conscientious objector or have psychological problems you can document. Roland thought of getting out everyday but only passively, the way a tree thinks of walking. On the broiling grinder he was feeling sedate and giddy, not unlike when they had marched after a long morning of infantry practice through a super-cooled wing of sickbay, getting a pump-gun shot in each shoulder, and then out into a steamy courtyard. From there they marched into a large maze of a room filled with cubicles and chest-high counters and ordered to fill out a card for their dog tags. Each recruit received two, along with a short chain. These were all on a longer chain worn around the neck. If you happened to be in pieces over your death, one tag was kicked between your teeth while the other put on the smaller chain hung around a toe. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. Somewhere glass broke; an aberrant gust of sand blew across the grinder, as if someone had broken an hourglass. Bam! Bam! Bambambambam!...Bam! Roland woke and froze. The moon was gone from the window and only starlight filtered in from the Carolina sky. Through the window he could see, across the valley, the porch light of their nearest neighbor; they left that light on all the time, even during the day. Roland! Guillaume whispered from the bottom bunk. Yeah. Roland whispered back. What was that? I don't know. They heard Persephone begin to cry. It crossed their minds their parents might be having another fight except there was no yelling or screaming. They heard their father lumber out of bedit must be late if he was sleepingand open his bedroom door. Goddammit, he said in the hall, more tired than angry. The explosions had stopped. Silently Roland swung down from his bunk and Guillaume joined him as they creeped to their bedroom door and opened it. Their father was just returning from the kitchen with a mop and met their mother coming out of their room in the hallway. What happened? she asked. Bottled the beer too soon. He set down the mop and stooped to roll up the soaked hall rug. Foamy liquid flowed out from under the hall closet door in a wide shallow stream. She sighed and passed by him to get to Persephone's room, trying to keep her slippers from getting wet. What happened, Dad? Roland asked, wanting a kid's explanation. I bottled the beer too soon. If you bottle it too late it turns into vinegar, if you bottle it too soon it's still generating a lot of gas and can make the bottle explode. One bottle sets off another. Looks like we lost a

case. He finished rolling up the carpet and carried it toward the kitchen. The back door opened and then a heavy, wet thud sounded as he dropped the carpet in the yard. Roland and Guillaume were just venturing out of their bedroom with the same, unspoken idea it would be fun to pad around in the beer when their father returned. You boys better get back to bed; it's a school night. Okay, Dad. And they went back to bed. Roland was just falling back to sleep when there was another explosion, a GODDAMN SHIT!, and then a much longer series of explosions than the first, subsiding into ...GOD! DAMN! FUCKING! SHIT! GOD! DAMN! FUCKING! SHIT...! Each exclamation made with the ball of a bare foot being kicked into the wet cardboard cases of broken glass. A long silence and then something from Guillaume. Gum? he whispered and hung his head over the bunk. The snicker Guillaume had been trying to hold burst forth like somebody trying to blow his nose and do a Bronx cheer at the same time, stifled in his pillow. Roland immediately buried his face also, not knowing why it was so funny. A low, long muffled explosion. Still dark, still in bed, but now in North Dakota, younger, colder. He buried himself deeper under the layers of blankets, but no sooner was he settled when the blankets were pulled off and his father was holding him up. He's fine. They're all fine, his father said and stood him down on the floor. Thank God, his mother said. She was holding the baby close to her chest. Guillaume tried to climb her leg, wanting up also. It was pitch black outside. Roland and Guillaume were bundled up and driven to the MacNamey's, the babysitter's, a place Roland had been and did not care for. Mrs. MacNamey had ten children all older than him, and they never played anything he could participate in. This day by mid-morning the family was enthralled in some card game. Roland asked Guillaume if he wanted to run home, he had memorized the way, and together they ran holding hands, on the other side of the street from the railroad tracks until they reached the house on a corner with a white picket fence where they turned from the tracks toward a church many blocks down the street whose spire rose high above the houses. Then they looked at each house on the left until they found theirs. Mrs. MacNamey came and enticed Guillaume back with a popsicle, but Roland didn't want to go back, so his mother let him stay. His father was cleaning the upstairs, yelled down if he was going to stay he had to help clean, so his mother got him a bucket of soapy water and a rag. The walls and floor were covered with soot from the furnace blowing up. Though it had made a terrible mess his mother was happy: it meant spring was here. It had blown up about the same time the year before, for the same reason. With the warming days the furnace was turned down and soot built up in the chimney until the exhaust was too small. Most of the year was cold. So cold a battery charger, oil heater, and head bolt heater were all put on the car at night so it could be started in the morning. Then it would go clopping down the street like some strangely shod horse until the tires thawed and rounded out the flat spots where they had contacted the ground overnight. The first winter his mother hung a wash on the line and it froze; she tried to beat the ice out with a broom handle, but finally brought it in, stacked like cord wood until it thawed. His father hosed down the backyard every evening for a week to turn it into a skating rink. Roland, standing on tiptoes, could barely see through the bottom pane of the kitchen door. Father turned the hose on his watching and the water made a panicked rapping trying to get in, froze on the storm door, bending and twisting the winter scape. So cold for so long that after much pleading to go out mother would bundle him and Guillaume up with layer upon layer of clothes: long underwear, pants, shirts, sweaters, scarves, gloves, mittens, hats, coatsa process taking the better part of an houronly for them to be beating on the door after five minutes to get back in. So cold. But finally, when indoors had become a palpable prison, there was the first thaw. And then the furnace would blow up. Removing the oily soot was hard work for a small boy, and he began to flag. His mother said in a low voice so his father wouldn't hear, Why don't you go play in the backyard? He trotted gingerly where the skating rink had been and then stopped, bracing his legs, and slid across the yard. He realized he was hungry but didn't go back in; Mrs MacNamey should be feeding him today. His mother came out with a load of wash and started hanging it on the line. He eyed the sole tree in the backyard

whose top branches cleared the roof of the house and started climbing. When he was level with the secondstory windows he called down to his mother, who looked around and then up. She sucked in air but didn't say anything, dropped the wet shirt she was holding back in the basket and walked stiffly toward the backdoor. He continued to climb, up to the very top branches, and though there was no fruit on the tree gave the branches a good shaking. He heard his father laugh from the ground, he and his mother were looking up at him, his father still laughing, his mother stricken. She called up in a high, taut voice, Roland, I'm going to make lunch now. It's time to come down. After lunch his father made balloon letters. On pieces of paper he wrote to whomever might find this balloon to please write them back the date and place found. He rolled them up and put them in the balloons. Then in a quart beer bottle half filled with a clear, poison liquid, he dropped in strips of metal. After bubbles started streaming up from the metal he put the the rubber sphincter of the balloon over the opening and the balloon grew. Through the thinning rubber you could see the letter partially unroll. When each was full they tied it off and let it go. No one ever answered any of the letters, though one of them burst high on the church steeple down the street. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. Roland looked over the head of the recruit in front of him, past the chow hall, and focused on a point far in the distance. For a long moment he thought he was at the boot camp in San Diego. They had moved there after North Dakota. He remembered going down from there to Tijuana and seeing a bullfight. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. Back in North Carolina blowing up cow patties with firecrackers, the first one a great shower of shit. Standing too close so they ran all the way down to the house and hosed off and then all the way back up through the woods to the hill-top pasture and blew up every cow patty they could find. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. Boy, that was fun. Roland smiled, almost delirious in the heat. Boooooooooo-ooommmmm. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. Boooooo-oooo-ooommmmm. When the twenty-one-minute salute concluded the next three companies filed into the chow hall, all careful not to step on the brass threshold garnishing every doorway, watched over by a master-at-arms with a fast foot for those who forgot. Everyone took off his ball cap as he entered and stuck the bill in his duty belt, a green web belt with black steel eyelets and a 'T' fastener, tucking the back part of the cap into the front making a quarter sphere out of it. Illegal small talk coursed through the line as they collected trays, glasses, and flatware before drawing up to the serving line. Coming in from the triple degree heat of sun, the chow hall was cold. Man, feel that A-C. Don't eat the salad, they caught a couple service weeks doing it in the lettuce bin. That should give it some tang. You're sick. I am sick, mashed potatoes again. God, I never thought those guns would stop. Hey, Coop, isn't that our sister company? Cooper regarded the ladies filing in on the other side of the the long isle of eating and drinking utensils. They were eyed more closely than other waves because they were on the same time table and so would have liberty at the same time, their seventh and eighth weekends. Yeah bud-dee. See the second platoon leader, the tall one, curly brown hair? I got a date with her sevensix-day. We're going But then she was looking at him and he gave her his undivided attention and biggest smile. She smiled back. He cocked his head and pointed his chin toward the tables on her side of the chow hall and she nodded yes. Although separated in all other things (theoretically), male and female recruits were allowed to mix in the chow halls and sit at the same tables, so long as hands were kept topside. The dual line went down either side of the island and parted at the steam table; men going left, women right. After they were served Cooper and Roland made their way over to the other side and sat down with Coop's date. The chow hall, emptied after the salute, was uncharacteristically quiet. For the first time one could distinguish individual noises of glass, metal, plastic being struck or slid together in different combinations. Individual voices could be heard and placed instead of the usual din. A wave of noise came

from the kitchen when the double doors opened letting out another deep pan of food for the steam table or rack of flatware from the scullery; the electromagnetic hum and mechanical gear-grind of giant mixers, escaping steam, instructions; quickly ebbed when the double doors flop-l'oped back down on it. Roland watched the recruits coming from the serving line seat themselves. The waves, as often as not, sat across from as beside each other, the closest spot in the group, but at an all male table they always started off across from one another. Cooper sat beside Cindy, HALL was stenciled above her left breast, Roland beside Cooper, and they were quickly joined by three more waves and two boots. Cooper and Cindy were involved in private banter, so Roland tried to pass pleasantries with the girl beside him. She was short with a full, open face and a beauty mark on her right cheek. How long have you been a sailor? She emitted a quiet little laugh, Oh, about three weeks, and you? About the same. I'm in your brother company, three-six-nine; we graduate together. If we graduate. It does seem like forever, doesn't it. Like that twenty-one minute salute. Was that how long it was? God, I thought I was going to die. I don't take this heat well at all. She fanned her face with a hand. Cooper broke in, Hey, Adoles, wanna go to Disney World with Cindy and me seven-six-day? Disney World, I thought that was in California. Disney Land's in California, the World's right outside Orlando. I heard that. Another boot precipitated the play on words. There's a bus that comes right to the gate; everybody goes. Cindy had a warm, inviting southern accent. Sure, sounds fun. He turned back to the beauty-marked wave but she was chatting animatedly with the girl across from him. The last wave sat at the corner of the table picking at her food; she was thin and pale, remaining tacit despite the jovial and competing efforts of the boots sitting across and beside her. Roland couldn't tell whether they were from his company or not. While they were in the recruit indoctrination facility, RIF, he had gotten to know quite a few people but at the formation of the company with its squads and platoon, and then after the haircuts, many acquaintances were lost. It was like one of those advertisements for hair transplants, but in reverse: in the 'Before' picture there was hair of varying length and happy, unique faces, then the 'After' picture with crew cut and the long faceand all the faces looked the same. For many the cutting of hair had been a cutting personality, as it had been a cutting of strength for Samson, and they fell back on their basal character, varnished over by military mores. These two had started a circular conversation: That's Life. What's life? The magazine. How much does it cost? Thirty-five. I only got thirty. That's life.... They were going around for the third or fourth time, varying their intonation so it sounded new and unrehearsed at any given moment, and no one had told them to shut up. The thin wave started chuckling in an almost predictable way except it grew with each breath until she was laughing uncontrollably. The two continued, proud of their accomplishment, through the fork clattering on the floor, but stopped when she upset her tray. At some point the laughing had become convulsion, the eyes rolled back into her head, and one of the recruits broke her fall backward onto the floor. A master-at-arms and a couple of waves from her company surrounded her and then the stretcher came and she was gone. Epileptic, someone said in the murmur. Most had given it a moments notice but kept on eating; you only had fifteen minutes. Poor girl. Probably O-T-R. Couldn't handle it.

That's life.... On their way back to the barracks after chow the recruits straggled, the only time they were allowed to do so. You were suppose to march, just as if you were in formation, but as long as you kept your hands out of your pockets nothing was said. Of course they still had to salute and greet the khaki brass they met, Good afternoon, sir, or passed, By your leave, sir. In the real navy you'd never salute or call the chiefs 'sir' since they were enlisted men also, but here even a third class petty officer was an officer. A few enlisted recruit command personnel rebelled against this. Once, when their company was lined up and snaked around the walls of sickbay for one of the inoculations, the second class who checked them through had a large sign on his desk: I AM NOT A SIR. And then there was the Tasmanian Devil. A salt and pepper braided cord hanging off his shoulder signifying his rank as one of the chief inspectors, he was infamous for tearing up barracks and obliterating infantry maneuvers. But it was his manner of greeting recruits straggling back to their barracks which gave him his name. He would return a dozen or so of their salutes and Good afternoon, sir's and then all of a sudden break into a gesticulating fit, yelling imprecations not to salute him or call him sir, he was a chief and not an officer; and then would just as suddenly remember where he was, shake it off, and continue on his way. Roland spied a wave coming out of one of the barracks and slowed his pace so she'd be on the main walk before he passed her. She was in her dress blues. He wondered for what occasion, dress or undress whites was the usual uniform for tropical weather. Perhaps a funeral? As she turned past him he smiled and said, Hi. Hold it right there, recruit. Do you know what this means? She fingered the bars on her lapel. Roland flashed back to a class in military insignia and realized she was an officer. Yes, ma'am. Let me see your notebook. Roland took the folded notebook from his left rear pocket and handed it to her. She scrutinized the POD everyone had to copy down the night before from the chalkboard. This your third week, recruit? Yes, ma'am. 3.3 DAY was clearly printed in the upper right corner. I'm not going to give you a demerit this time, Adoles, considering you haven't been here that long, but don't let it happen again. She handed the notebook back. Yes, ma'am. He moved quickly to depart when she re-froze him: RECRUIT! Oh, he stepped back to salute, Good afternoon, sirI mean ma'am, sorry ma'am. She glowered at him for an eternal moment then returned his salute. That will be all. Yes, ma'am. After the rush of blood left his face he was left with a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, made worse when he got back to the barrack and realized a personnel inspection was scheduled that afternoon. It hadn't registered when he copied it down the night before. Not that he had to concentrate on the capitalized print they were required to write in or the spelling of the words as some recruits did, but he simply avoided the thought, his subconscious taking it from his mind with the assurance fate would intervene and the inspection would never happen. What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost or something. I told you not to eat the salad. Cooper was shaving the shadow already coming out since morning. I almost got a demerit from a lady lieutenant. What did you do, try to jump her bones? No, forgot to salute her. Hey, Coop, I'm really worried about this inspection. If I don't pass they'll set me back for sure. Well, give yourself a good going over. Just check what they check everything they check: shoes, dungarees, gig line.... I do, twice, but he gets to my face and just turns to Yo Yo and says, 'unsat.' Shave. Coop, I shaved the peach fuzz off 1-1-day and it hasn't grown back. Cooper looked at the boyish face. No, guess not. Well, do you catch their eye when they come up to you?

Oh no, we're at attention, we're supposed to be looking straight ahead. Even when they're standing right in front of me. I mean, I guess if one of the inspectors were just my height and got right in my face, I'd have to, but that hasn't happened yet. Well, that's by the book but the book might be wrong. If you just stare straight ahead you look like you're spacing out or a zombie or something. I always catch their eye, just for a second. If it's a wave inspector I give them a half-wink, like this, and Coop demonstrated, looking in the mirror. Don't they call you on it? Most of the time, but then, see, you've started a conversation. So you half-wink a couple more times, real quick, like you've got a nervous twitch, before you say, Ma'am? And if they got size 'B' boobs or larger you give them a quick look too. You can tell out of your peripheral vision. But don't smile, never smile. You're just letting her know she got your attention, you take her seriously, and she can be on top if she wants. Roland was skeptical but Cooper was adamant; he hadn't flunked one personnel inspection. After wiping off the excess shaving cream with a towel he said, Okay, I'll be the inspector, you're the inspectee. Stand at attention, pull out your dog tags. Let's see, laces left-over-right, shine okayyou might want to spiff them up dungarees clean, gig line's straight, shirt's clean, tags aren't tangledyou should make eye contact about herecollar's straight.... He looked closely at his face, leaned forward looking at his chin, first straight on and then to the side. You got hair in your chin. Turning to the mirror Roland scanned his chin. I don't see any, where? Cooper exited the head and returned with a small pocket mirror, signaled Roland over to an outside door. ''What are you doing? We need to go up on the roof. What, are you crazy? What if we get caught? We'll say we're checking to see if our fag shoes are dry. C'mon. When they reached the roof in the sunlight Cooper handed Roland the mirror. Look, he said and turned Roland so the sun glanced off his face. Roland saw the peach fuzz shining from the dimple in his chin. You've got to turn your razor sideways to get in there. Now help me find A-B-P. He was already rifling through the white canvas shoes they wore to the swimming pool and put up on the roof to dry after they squish squashed their way back to the barrack. Each recruit's initials were stenciled inside. When he found them Coop took a tube of shampoo from his pocket and squeezed half the tube deep inside the left shoe. Roland shaved his dimple, and they marched to the south grinder for inspection. Hip hop bippity-bop let me hear your left foot drop, Umph ahhh...umph ahhh. Ooooo that sounded mighty fine, let me hear it one more time, Umph ahhh...umph ahhh. Your lep...you lep...your lep riiight-aright your lep. There was a simple pleasure in marching, stepping in unison, executing turns in three steps on the outside or just a pivot on the inside; multiple footfalls making a time, a human clock with pendulous booted heels marking measure; here now, now here. Moving through space while marking time, those in front as those in the rear as those in the middle, together in the fourth dimension. Coming toward them on the other walk was a wave company in its own time, calling cadence an octave higher. Ines, who was calling it for 369, decided to try out a little poetry he'd composed for just such an occasion: Look to your left and what do you see, what we want on liberty, hey left...all right! The company commander, Chief Powell, shook his head and mouthed an apology to the wave C.C. but did not call his company to a halt. A few smiles were exchanged within and across platoons by those who dared to turn their heads, but it was safe, the C.C.'s marching at attention by the front of their companies. They were halted at the southern end of the grinder near the obstacle course and turned, right face, facing some barracks and ordered to parade rest to await the inspector. Roland was almost in line with the end of the building, the brick wall foreshortened into a thick red line meeting yellowed grass and a summer blue sky. The sun was making its long tack down the western heaven along his left shoulder, emblazoning the wall into flame. Try as he might to find a meditative focus along its length, his eyes were forever pushed up like sparks in a fire above the line of the wall where they rested in the sky. The queasy, scraped feeling in his gut remained, but became detached, drifting far below him. And in the sky was a cloud but not a cloud, a haze

with a hard edge spinning and churning, turning in on itself and blown out in a wind without law, up, rising white and diaphanous in the ever more saturated blue, and time became an abstraction. Mysty myrtle, no, a hoary leaf from last summer's life and a strange tree, caught by a breathing gyre in a jaundiced sky above the sun setting through old gold gates and into a red house. She was the third point as life ran into the purple grass: The leaf, the sun, the girl; a giant triangle standing between heaven and earth, a creation. As the sun set the leg to her was felled and buried in the ground; the leg to the leaf remained, chased by the horizon's shadow until it was loose upon the sky; and the last between her and the leaf became but a point of reflection. Shadows came to be friendly and grew out of themselves, whispering of the light. Her dark sister came, lingering in the shadows until they were all joined and one, then reached for her hand, but she was staring fixedly at a point above a head she could not see, and time was no more. When he noticed the inspector two recruits down the sun was much lower in the sky, and they were at attention. The barrack's wall was a burning ember turned on end, a single star shone above it. Although it was still warm, his dungarees were dry. He could smell the palm and brine, having disappeared in the midday heat, the land drawn up to the sun now sinking into the returning odor, could hear birds in the trees and traffic: the unordered, muted sounds of cars and trucks stopping and going beyond the wall, civilians oblivious to what was happening on this side, the birds oblivious to sides. Something sweeter mingled with the brine and palm, and Roland realized they were being inspected by a woman, then was further jolted when his furtive glance saw the lieutenant he'd met earlier that afternoon. Ice needles bore into his pores and his testicles tried to climb back through his inguinal canal. He concentrated all his energy into staring at the barrack wall. The inspectrix came to him and knelt, hitched his dungarees over his boot tops, checking the laces; coming up to the gig line she grasped the flap of cloth covering his fly and tugged on it, as if to summon the butler, her knuckles pressed against his pubic bone; she rose and jingled the dog tags and looked up into his face as he stared over her head at the wall; the wall reflected back late afternoon red in his eyes. She stared at them forgetting the rest of the head, perhaps a moment too long, stepped back into the recruit yeoman's poised pen and clipboard. They jostled a bit then moved on to the next recruit, she saying nothing, which meant he had passed. Roland lay under his bunk with fingers in the springs and wire web of rectangles a few inches from his face. The tiled cement was cool and drew the heat out of his back and the back of his legs. The deck was hardest on the bone at the back of his head, and he rolled off it to his left and looked down the low, flat tunnel made by the other bunks, the top and sides of the tunnel dim but the floor lit between the bunks all the way down until it ran into the far wall. For some reason it reminded him of when he used to attach a playing card with a clothes pin to the fork of his bicycle and turn the card into the spokes and go pedaling down hill faster and faster, the flip-lips turning into the sound of a small paper engine until the card was finally beat free. He rolled over on his stomach and rested his chin on the tops of his fingers. His back and legs tingled as the chilled skin warmed. Looking out underneath the locker he could see the steel pole supports of the centerboard but no crossed or inclined legs; no one ever sat there except to write or receive letters. The whorehouses were on either side; he could just barely see the butts of the rifles as they stood useless and locked, a cable running through all the trigger holes. They were called whorehouses because rifles were called pieces, and as the issuing gunner's mate at the armory said, It's the only piece your going to get while you're here. Roland didn't see anything very feminine about a rifle. Sure, bullets went into it, but their coming out defined them, dealing death in a fraction of a second. Their rifles were plugged so nothing went in or out of them, only lugged around and used to learn infantry manuals, learning tools, but as far as they figured in a sexual metaphor, eunuchs.

The company commander had taught them most of the manuals. Chief Boiler Technician Powell was missing much of the fingers on his right hand, especially the little and ring, from having searched for a steam leak with his hand when he himself was fresh out of boot camp some twenty years or so ago. He found it as his fingers were loped off by that invisible, pin-sized stream of high pressured steam and fell into the oily bilges. Roland, with most rest of the company, had noticed when the chief tried to show them how to bring a rifle to trail arms and lacked the grip. Right now he was in his small office beside the smoking lounge explaining something to R-C-Poo. The smoking lamp was lit and the preponderance of the company was in the lounge, a bare room save for six buckets half filled with sand. They were the only thing in the room besides men, cigarettes, and smoke. The men covered the floor and took on every aspect of repose so long as a cigarette could be brought to or hang from lips. Normally Roland would have been in there too, but at the moment he rolled back over on his back and stuck his fingers in the wire mesh, letting his elbows dangle out. Everything seemed either order or chaos with no in-betweenor rather only order with little pockets of chaos. From the time they were ordered up in the morning until they were ordered to bed at night most everything was regimented. What they did, when, and where were always known; no whys ever came up or were quickly stifled; hows were told or shown, as when the nonswimmers were told to float on their backs and move their legs like they were riding a bicycle, and when they were ordered to line up at the high dive,

Who? was answered by, You! The most highly regimented affair they'd gone through was when they returned to the armory and shot . 45 caliber semi-automatic handguns. They had been to two classes beforehand: one covering the parts and how to field strip the gun and put it back together; the other on how to shoot it, bringing the sights down on a target while holding two thirds of a breath of air, then squeeeeezing the trigger. Now they filed past all the plugged, useless rifles into the firing range where at the head of each lane was a stand with a clipless gun. The recruits were lined up four deep per lane at a time, the rest in bleachers behind; issued mickey mouse ears; and given a clip with one round in it. After they fired it and the gunner's mates were relatively sure no crazies were on the line, they were given another clip with five rounds in it. After they loaded the guns they commenced slow fire. Roland had seen from the first shot his gun fired up and to the left of the sights, so now he aimed down and to the right, adjusting slightly after every shot. When the targets were brought up he had gotten two within the second ring from the bull's-eye and all of them had hit the target; the best score second only to a recruit who had fired guns since he was a little kid and was bound for gunner's mate school. According to his academic marks, Roland was qualified to go to any school the navy had except Nuclear Power or Advanced Electronics since he lacked the math. But he shunned them all for the prospect of being a boatswain's mate, a rate for which no school existed, just on the job training. Bo's'n's were the heart and history of the navy; they were the ones who set the sail when there were sails to be set, moored the ship, dropped anchor, spliced line, tied knots, climbed the rigging, and were in charge of the boats. But above all else they were macho bad. Popeye was a bo's'n if he was anything, you could tell by his oversized forearms from working line and wire. Bo's'ns were the first sailors. His father had been one and looked it: he had tattoos all over his body; an eagle and anchor on his forearms, a lion's head on one shoulder, a sailing ship on his chest, as well as smaller, homemade tattoos on his legs and feet and hidden under some of the professional ones. He looked like a tattooed albino bear. When Roland thought of his mother with his father they seemed like two different species, for she was dark and svelte, an Australopithicus gracile, married to an Australopithicus robustus, light-skinned and broad-shouldered, giving rise towhat? Persephone looked like their father, big-boned, thin-lipped; Guillaume was wiry and dark like their mother; but Roland couldn't see much of either in himself. When he went through the entrance examination he was 5' 7 and 110 pounds, just over the minimum weight for his height. He had a chicken chest and boats for feet but was assured by the doctor he would fill out. His father said he had filled out when he was on the deck force of his ship, the USS Jadar (an obsolete freighter only bombed by the Japanese once and then by accident because they knew it hurt more than helped the U.S. war effortat least to hear his father tell it). Envisioning the hard, manly work and invigorating sea air, Roland took up the line. Besides, the navy had the cracker jack uniform with Dixie cup hat, and it, along with crossed anchors of the boatswain's mate crow sewn on the left sleeve, approached an acme of military dress. But then some high-ranking official had changed the uniform with no regard for tradition or convenience. The cracker jack dress blues and whites were replaced with a uniform much like what the chief petty officers wore except the khaki and brass was replaced by black and silver. Even the omnipresent Dixie cup which could be worn with all the uniforms was replaced by a white combination cap with black visor to go with the dress uniforms and a blue baseball cap for the dungarees. The main of the new dress uniform had to be hung up to keep from wrinkling, taking up twice the locker space of the old uniform (which was rolled or folded) and had to be dry cleaned. All for sailors sometimes at sea for months on ships already cramped for space and with no dry cleaning facilities. This high level military ingenuity is common during times of peace when the brass is not hanging over a map of military targets and movable forces or abstractly contemplating the agent to patient death ratio. The uniform change was the biggest disillusion to the image Roland had built up about the navy, after the fact and length of boot camp. His father's boot camp had lasted only a couple of weeks; they didn't even get issued dog tags in the rush after Pearl Harbor, and he remembered it mostly as unorganized and chaotic. Here chaos was defined by the once-a-week mail call. The recruit master-at-arms would dump the pile of letters and packages on the centerboard and say, Now wait until your name is called: Jones. Smith. McDonald.... But someone would snatch at some familiar stationery, and then another, and then a mistaken grab would sound behind the master-at-arms with someone's name, and it would disintegrate into a free-forall of called names, heres and yos, letter sniffing, and general jubilance. Or the sorting of canvas shoes where no attempt at order was made, everyone trying to go through eighty

pair of shoes; they went around asking for their initials. Cooper, F-U-K? Y-O-U? S-O-B? R-C-Poo, What the...Who the hell put this crap in my shoe!? Cooper struck a pose of mock disbelief, mouth and eyes open wide, dropped when the RCPO turned toward him. Cooper, did you put this goo in my shoe? That's not really my kind of prank, don't you think Poo? All right, in a voice approaching the upper register of a good soprano, this company's liberty is secured until the culprit comes forward. R-C-Poo stalked off the roof with his soiled tennis shoes clutched under his arm like a riding crop and pounded down the stairs to the door of the head. The recruits looked around at each other, could he really do that? Did he have the authority? The questions dispelled when Poo popped his back out the door and yelled in a decrescendo, Just kidding, slamming it shut before the ensuing barrage of shoes. Poo had a sense of humor after all. On liberty they all looked like ice cream vendors in their undress whites: white pants; white, short-sleeve shirt open at the collar showing a white triangle of T-shirt; combination cap. The only thing missing was aluminum carts with pictures on the side of white, brown, and red glops atop tan cones. At Disney World it looked like an ice cream vendors' convention; lined up for rides, at booths buying geedunk, tossing pennies in a fountain, or just milling about. Some were getting their picture taken with incarnate cartoon characters: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto. Roland, Cindy, and James Cooper ran together until they cued for the Tunnel of Love at which point Roland cued for Magic Mountain, a roller coaster inside a man-made mountain. It took over an hour of waiting in line to get on the ride and less than five to go spiraling and looping, twisting and turning to the bottom. When he staggered blinking from the brown darkness out into the white glare, Cooper and Cindy were waiting for him. Y'all go in the Tunnel of Love? Roland borrowing Cindy's Georgia phraseology. Cindy was smiling broadly. Shore did, she squatted slightly putting her knees together, like the beginning of a kid's pee pee dance, three times! Cooper cut Roland a wink. Yeah, me and Cindy thought we'd go into town, you wanna come? But Roland could tell he was going to start being a third wheel so he declined. He wound up at the enlisted men's club since he was too young to drink anywhere else. There they believed if you were old enough to die for your country you were old enough to drink. He drank to that sentiment most of the night and finally staggered back to the barrack by the unconscious, primal instinct he shared with homing pigeons, making his sinusoidal way down the almost deserted walkway between rows of barracks. It was the first time he'd been out at night since he'd been there, and he noticed the street lamps for the first time, their blue light turning the red brick a dark grayish purple, the lights staggered like so many sentinels guarding the grounds from darkness. The darkened buildings and blinded windows seemed deserted and added to the feeling of emptiness. It was like the college where his father taught, between semesters when all the students went home and left the campus like a recent ruin. Roland realized the place as transient; they'd all be gone in a couple of weeks, home for a week, then off to various schools. But the following week Roland didn't get his orders like everyone else and started having the nightmare after graduation he was put back in RIF to start all over again. He thought the computer or personnelman must have disliked him passing up a school. Or perhaps God was punishing him for not writing Cybette. He had sent her a month's pay by way of her high school counselor, Mrs. Graham, not wanting to risk sending it to her parent's house. Writing was difficult at best; papers in school, thank you notes his mother made him write for gifts from relatives he'd never met; he had little ability to communicate that way, especially at this level or with these circumstances. Roland extracted his sleeping fingers from the wire mesh. His arms and hands were numb and bloodless; he slid out from under the bunk with difficulty. He could move his forearms, but his hands hung limp and useless, totally without sensation, and he beat them against his legs to get the blood flowing. Dexterity returned slowly as he fumbled with the dauber and polish and boondockers. Shoe shining was the only art in boot camp. Practiced by all and mastered by few, the basic technique was well known, but the details of the higher methods were as guarded as the secret rites of the Freemasons. One practice was to melt the polish: after the basic shine was on the shoe another light coat of polish was applied and then the upside down boondocker brushed through the flame of a butane lighter turned all the way up. This gave a quick, glassy

finish, but it was found after scuffed was virtually impossible to restore. Most found cotton balls and water were the safest method, using ever decreasing quantities of polish. It was a soft shine, easily scuffedbut easily touched up too. Roland couldn't get a good shine on his boondockers since service week when he had worked in the scullery for four days and his boondockers became water logged with dirty dish water; now a greasy, soapy residue constantly bubbled up through the polish. He worked the cotton in little epicycles around the toe in ever decreasing orbits ending up circling the tip and then went out again until the pinched cotton rode the sole to the back of the toe and over the top of the arch to the other side. He caught his reflection in the convex black leather, his face tiny and distant to the huge hand by the toe, the reflection broken only where the line of fluorescent lights curved around on the surface, refusing to become a part of the scene, showing the smooth grain of the leather. One of the milling dots running along the sole of the boot grew up the toe and bent into a dull sickle shape breaking the lights where they were the brightest. The first thing I'm going to do when I get to school is buy me a pair of corfams. Cooper spoke of the patent leather shoes all the officers and most of the chiefs wore; shiny black plastic never needing shining. He sat down beside Roland with his back to the wall and started playing drums on his legs, striking the air with a palatial tshhh to signify symbols. He went into a feverish drum roll concluding with an elbow into the wall behind him, booom, deeper than any base drum. Wooo! Can you believe it? Four more days and we'll be out of this joint. Seems like we were in RIF only yesterday. Yeah, I just wish I had my orders. You still haven't gotten any? Nope. Damn personnelman, always fouling up the paper work. What school you going to? I'm not; going to be a boatswain's mate. Boatswain's mate? You don't want to do that. Deck force is where they put all the fuckups and dumbshits. I don't mean ninety-day-scullery-duty fuckups either, I mean chronic, never-cured, be-in-thestate-penitentiary-if-they-weren't-in-the-military fuckups. Roland kept shining his boots. Cooper shook his head and looked as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. You ought to go to yeoman's school or be a disbursing clerk. What school are you going to? Operations specialist. On a sub, I hope. Gotta go to sub school first. But first, first and foremost, I'm gonna buy me a fifthno, a caseof Puerto Rico rum and lay out on the beach for seven civilian days. And if I can find a sand bunny, seven nights, too. You're not going home? Are you kidding? Spend a week in a trailer court watching my mom do other peoples laundry and bitch about life? Not a chance. That's why I joined this outfit, get away from that shit. And I'll never go back, never go back; I left my mom and forty-eight shirts, and I'll never go back, never go back. A marching cadence was beat out on his thighs. Hey, you never told me if you made any time with Cindy, Roland said. Cooper had come back from liberty so drunk for two days afterward he did little more than hold his head and mumble. Who, that prick tease? Man, you wouldn't believe it. After we left Disney World we went into town, I bought her dinner and drinks, then we went dancing, more drinks. It started getting late so I asked her if she wanted to go to a hotel and she says sure, get a room at the Hilton, and just when were starting down the road to salvation she starts crying, says she's sorry she has a fiancee! Can you fucking believe it? And she starts telling me about this fight they had and she thought she wanted to call it off but yada, yada, yada; like I give a shit. So I excused myself, said I was going to be right back, and left. Went and got a bottle of something dark and nasty.... Hey, we ought to take leave together! Sit out on the beach, catch rays, drink rum, pick up chicks. Nah, I have to go home. Girlfriend? Sort of. Besides, my parents would never forgive me if I didn't come home. Suit yourself.

Tattoo was called over the PA and the smoking lamp extinguished. The smokers repaired from the lounge and everyone made ready for bed. Look it Cumquot. Can't even wait till lights out, Cooper said disgustingly. On the other side of the barrack was what could have been a scene out of a lost book of Gulliver's Travels: Gulliver lay in Lilliputian heaven (a top rack) and the hyperactive, blessed dead Lilliputians were trying to erect a tent (navy blanket) over Gulliver's pubis from the inside with halting, jerking, debatable success; for the top wouldn't stay up. Hey, Smidy, you have your electronic flash? Cooper asked, rose and walked over to where Smidy was standing by his open locker drawer. They went into a hushed conference with occasional glances across the barrack but mostly looking down to where Cooper drew with his finger on an open palm. Hey, Adoles. Cooper started. You can count me out of this one, Roland said and hoisted himself up onto his own top rack and waited for the lights to go out. Cooper shrugged, looked around re-strategizing, saw the barrack watch and approached him. After a moment smiles and nods of agreement went all around. The word spread. After lights out it was especially quiet, just the rustling from Cumquot's rack, a stifled moan, and then Hey!, a bright flash, and a scream, You sons of bitches! The whole company burst out with laughter, the lights came on and everyone pointed and laughed at Cumquot, in flagrante, but then the barrack watch at post by the head could be heard over the din reciting his spiel: Seaman Recruit Erickson, service number 489...., but the Tasmanian Devil strode past him and into the barrack. POP TALL! he ordered. Everyone jumped from his bunk to attention in front of his locker. A few O, shits were murmured. The Devil did not call R-C-Poo to front and center or the RMAA or the barrack watch, who had started to follow him into the room trying to finish what he was supposed to say but had stopped and gone back to his post. The Devil didn't say anything but stood for a moment then slowly strode up the line of recruits on Roland's side of the barrack, pausing in front of one and now another. When he rounded away from the end and started down the other side he directed to no one in particular, How long you got left? Four days, sir, someone spoke up. He continued down the line until he came to Cumquot, the hastily wiped evidence of his transgression still wet and apparent on his T-shirt. For Christ's sake, man, put a sock on it. Someone laughed but the Devil didn't acknowledge it. Halfway to the exit he said, Keep it down in here. Yes, sir!, the company answered in relieved enthusiastic unison. On graduation day they fell out onto the walkway with their pieces for the last time. They marched to the field set up for the purpose, bleachers for guests and a reviewing stand for the recruit command officials, without calling cadence, only digging the left heel every fourth step to keep in step: dig, two, three, four, dig, two, three, four... the hard rubber resounding through the barracks and grounds noticeably absent of any nongraduating companies. They marched onto the field and past the reviewing stand. Eyes, right! Ready, front. Made two left-turn marches and were let go to parade rest with half a dozen other companies: half a thousand left hands behind backs with as many right hands holding a leaning rifle out at arms length. Official after functionary approached the podium and gave the same speech they gave every Saturday, more for the guests than the recruits who fell like flies during the four hours of ceremony from locked knees and heat. One hit his head on a rifle butt making a nice wooden plock, like a giant pinball machine matching.

* *5* When Roland climbed the stairs to University Billiards at first he thought they'd remodeled; new paint on the railings as well as new tread on the stairs. But then he opened the door and saw a line of hair dryers and was swamped with the complex odor of cleanser, conditioner, straightener, and dyes inhabiting such places. The manicurist, a white-garbed girl with a pouting mouth, asked if there was anything she could do for him. What happened to the pool hall that used to be here? he asked. Pool hall? The manicurist turned to one of the other girls washing a lady's hair. Oh, you mean The Family Fun Center. The shampooer's hands paused on her patron's head while she spoke, They went out of business last month, owner had a stroke or something. Well, you sure did set up shop quick, Roland said. Marks still showed on the floor where the pool tables had been. The manicurist smiled, I wouldn't know, I just moved here from Pembroke. Would you like a manicure?, she asked hopefully. No, I'll pass, thank you. Roland shouldered the strap of his sea bag. When do you have to go back?, the manicurist asked. Huh? The navy. You're in the navy, aren't you? Roland was wearing his undress whites. Yeah. Seven days; I have seven days leave. Well, have a nice time. Thank you, I will. He started to leave. If you change your mind about that manicure.... He drifted down College Avenue and stopped in at the doughnut shop where he saw Beth and Betty, sisters and students at his high school. Both were big girls with short black hair; some people thought they were twins. Betty was in his grade. Beth met him at the register where he slid up his tray of doughnuts and orange juice. Roland! My god, Betty, look at his hair. When did you get back? Few minutes ago. How is it? Boot camp wasn't so bad, guess I'll find out what it's really like when I report aboard ship. When do you have to report? In a week. Well, good luck! She started ringing up the next customer. Thanks, Roland said. He sat down at the low counter which faced the front window, sidewalk, street. Most of the students were gone for the summer, but the doughnut shop still did business. He leaned over the counter trying to read the movie marquise next door. As he settled back down on his stool and looked out across the street and up the hill he remembered the times he'd sat here, usually early in the morning when nothing else was open. The newspaper man would pull up in his box truck, fill the machine outside the door, come in and give a paper to Mr. Grokel, the owner, and get a coffee and doughnuts in return. Mr. Kelby would be sitting at his corner table nursing a cup of black after setting down the chairs, just as he was late at night after he'd swept and mopped. The warm, moist, sweet smell of the shop would dominate the whole block, lazily waking the tenants who lived on the second floor above the shops and turning owners from their locked store fronts with keys still in hand to hurry down the sidewalk to jingle the bell hanging just inside the door. But the busy odors of the day would encroach and confine the smell to the shop and sidewalk just outside the front door; girded by gasoline and diesel, women with too much perfume, and the plain wet heat spiced with the flavor of cut grass and sighing conifers. Usually he came here after spending the night with Cybette, sneaking his way out the back door before her parents woke. School was out, he wondered how he might see her. Betty came around wiping off tables and picking up trays. Did you hear U.B. closed? Yeah, I was just up there; put in a beauty parlor of all things. Where does everybody go now?

I think some of them hang out at the student union, but most go to Mr. Fooz. Was it open before you left? It's where Center Drug used to be. She shook her rag out above the waste basket beside the dirty trays. Yeah, but I've never been in there. They sell submarine sandwiches, got pinball and foozball machines. No pool tables though. Hey, have you seen Cybette this summer? No, she usually goes to Minnesota for the summer, doesn't she? She said it in a tone implying if anyone should know, he should. He did, but he also knew she was or had been pregnant, though how the family plans would change because of it he didn't know, especially since her parents shouldn't have found out. Didn't y'all write when you were in boot camp? No, I..., he stared out the window at the top of the hill, ...didn't really have time. He flushed hotly. Betty gave a little humph and wiped the cabinet around the trays. When do you have to go back? I told but he had told Beth. Seven days. Walking home, shifting the sea bag from one shoulder to the other, he passed an older man who smiled and said hello, something to which he wasn't accustomed, older people greeting him. The frat houses stood mostly empty, a lone car or two in their vast parking lots indicating brothers attending summer school to make up for their partying during the school year. Webby, an aging man with Down's, was outside the house he shared with his ancient mother, sweeping the walk as was his tireless habit. Roland could understand when he said good morning or good afternoonhe always knew where the sun wasbut everything else was unintelligible, though pleasantly said. An old Harley leaned hard on its kickstand in the small yard of a smaller green trailer by the street; the owner sat in the doorway whittling a stick. When he looked up Roland said howdy, but the biker just stared at him through his sunglasses. Roland passed the large barren Victorian standing on a promontory of land out into a sea of trailer homes long having lost any aspect of mobility, their wheels replaced by concrete blocks. The one beside the house, separated from it by a paintless picket fence, had siding all the way to the ground save a gap for the dogs coming out from underneath with their highpitched yapping. The black man on the trailer's porch raised his head from what he was reading to watch Roland pass. Summer claimed it would last forever. The shoots of spring green tipping the evergreens had long ago faded to mute summer blue and tall meadow grass had yellowed to reflect the rising and setting sun. Pith was slack while urban animals were mostly listless and moved as little as possible when their shadows were hot puddles beneath them. Birds established territories early and went briskly about the business of feeding their young retiring for the long midday and only going out again in late afternoon before bats took their place in the evening. Roland set his sea bag down when he came to the corner of the cemetery, the oldest part, by what used to be a county road and the edge of town. Some of the founding fathers lay buried here under half a dozen rectangular cement boxes looking like stone coffins, grossly mimicked by the trailers across the street. When his family first moved here he thought they were buried in the boxes, but peering between the cracks of a slab top trying to convey through pitted words and the erosion of time the passing of the interred along with the prayers of the survivors, he could just see palsied clover and weed almost white from lack of sun. The horizontal boxes gave way to upright slabs of rain stained and lichen encrusted limestone, readable by only the most patient. These were quickly replaced by granite slabs, some of monumental proportion, and hunched among these was a small grassy mound topped by a diminutive obelisk guarded by two plugged cannons: the confederate memorial. As people died the graveyard grew up the slight slope, the stones getting progressively moderate and standardized, and then horizontal again like the boxes except these were small slabs set in the ground and easily passed over by the mower, large enough for name, dates, perhaps a line of scripture. A few of the stones echoed names of buildings on campus. Roland picked his way through the stones. He ruminated on the waxed coffins with their brass handles and trimmings six feet under. Were they rotting? Were there worms that far down? No, probably not. But water damage, or were they waterproof? Did the coffins have guarantees, and how could you check them? It must be quiet down there, so quiet with so much earth around. Gone back to the earth in a time-release capsule, embalmed; slowly released over the millennia. A new grave swelled the ground, yellowish dirt showing between the seams of replaced sod swatches waiting for rain to ease the airy pain. The grave too new for a headstone, he looked for the foot marker

furnished by the funeral home, usually an aluminum spike with plate holding square copper colored letters, but there was none. Where had all the plastic flowers gone? He imagined the rain when it finally came filling the spaces and feeding the roots, bringing the earth and sward together down upon the box in a long, heavy sigh. He hoisted his sea bag and continued up the slight hill toward home. Though the windows were open when he let himself in, there was a mustiness he'd never noticed before, something to do with cats and old carpet. Otherwise things appeared much the same: piles of books around his father's easy chair, a finished game of solitaire on his table, four nines topping their respective suits. On the stairs to his attic bedroom was the unopened box of civilian clothes, two books, and camera he had to send back from boot camp when he arrived there. Guillaume's door was closed, but Persephone's was open and he could see her room was clean with a new coat of flat beige paint on the walls, semigloss on the door and window molding. Stuffed animals almost covered the bed in the middle of which lay one of the real cats. Josephine! You're not supposed to be in. Did Mama forget to put you out? Roland petted the cat and she closed her eyes and started purring contentedly, kneading a teddy bear. Or did she just not see you with all these decoys? Sly kitty. He picked up the box on the stairs and went up to his room and opened it. Evidence of a former life, an eternity and a moment ago. He took off his uniform and put on a pair of jeans, tight after the loose ice cream pants. The room was as he had left it, though now hot and stuffy. The old Houdini posters were still on the slanted walls which were otherwise covered with wheat pasted photos from magazines and newspapers: comics, animal, birds. He opened the homemade curtains with a familiar clatter of wooden curtain rod rings above the double window in the truncated triangular end wall and popped the windows open. You could almost see the whole town from this vantage point if the house and trees across the street didn't block much of the view; but even if clear it would have been only the glancing top of the town, roofs and tree tops, for the hill on which their house was built was too slight to offer any real lookout over the valley. At night in the winter, above the ridge pole and through the bare limbs, lights shone in a fat line as if a galaxy on edge and made faint the stars above. You could hear the train whistle reaching up from the river in the early hours of morning, the distance making it cold, quivering as it echoed off different faces of rock as the train rounded a bend and crossed a dark road. But it was summer and the green surge muffled and muted the whistle to a drone fluctuating around but mostly remaining below the hum of the window air conditioner across the street. An occasional car passed sluggishly by on the childless street. He lay back on the bed and watched the billowing dust his descent raised collect on the spider webs in the corners and combine with the hot, wet air into a colloid of which he slowly became a part. When he woke it was almost dark and the house was awake: coming from downstairs a large fan turned on full speed howled at the TV news, minutely punctuated with the rhythmic laying of cards. In the dim light he saw his way to the stairs, and down, and came to the threshold of the living room. His father sat at his card table set in front of the TV with the fan a couple of feet away tilted back against the wood box to blow full on his flank. What was different was his father wearing glasses cut in half and set forward of the bridge of his nose. He studied the cards through them. Hello, Dad. He paused in his game looking up, first through his glasses tilting his head back, then forward over the rims. Roland! When did you get in? This afternoon, I fell asleep upstairs. His father rose from the table and extended a hand. It was strange, they had never shaken hands before. When they saw each other last, on the day he left for boot camp, they each had tossed back a shot of bourbon and waved their parting with watery eyes. Now Roland felt his meaty hand and still-firm grip. He took a step closer and patted him on the back with the other hand. It's good to see you, old man, his father said, then turning toward the kitchen, Hey, Ma, Roland's home! What?!, the rising inflection of his mother's voice from the back room. They walked into the kitchen just as she was coming down the five steps. Roland! She spread her arms wide enough for three sons then gave him a long hug. I thought you weren't coming home for a couple of weeks? Me neither, but I received a second set of orders which by-passed the seamanship school to go directly to

a ship, so I kept those and tore up the others. You mean you received two sets of orders, neither one of which supplanted the other?, his father asked. Yeah. Doesn't sound like the navy's changed a bit, same old snafu. So, when do you report aboard? In a week. Great, it's good to have you backand with a haircut. Feels good, he ran his hand over the grown out buzz cut. Are you hungry? his mother asked. Your father and I've already eaten but we have ...., and she started peeling off all the familiar foods, but he wasn't hungry. His father went back in the living room, turned the television down a notch, and returned with his glass mug of ice. He never missed the news. The television in the back room could now be heard receiving a different station, and it blended in with the news, fan, and his father getting water from the tap. His mother, who had gone from the refrigerator to the cabinets above the counter, was now kneeling at the open door of the cabinet between the stove and the sink pulling out cans in the family for years, carefully packed and moved every time they had moved, but never eaten because of their unpopularity with the family (beets were high on the list) or missing labels and so, unidentified, were easily stored and forgotten below the counter top. She had come across a can of hash. ...could make you some eggs and corned beef hash, I know you usually have that for breakfast, but.... No, Ma; really, I'm not hungry. Well.... She stood up and gave him another hug. God, it's good to have you home. Then she heard her TV. I'm missing 'Street Car Named Desire'!, and dashed around the counter and up the stairs. Marlon Brando was one of her 'secret lovers', as Dad teased her. Come watch it with me!, she called. He stood a moment listening to the stereo of news and Kowalski, the quickened laying of cards and shhhh of the steam iron. Josephine now sat contentedly on the hutch by the refrigerator and he sat down beside her and put her in his lap, turning her over onto her back where she lay in a catatonic daze caused by the conflicting sensations of being on her back and being petted. She intermittently purred and half-closed her eyes. Beside him in a wicker basket he noticed some of his letters and a wave of embarrassment washed his face. The yearning for home and feelings of loneliness he had penned in them now seemed childish and needless, for here he was. A season had passed, spring had given way to the long green of summer. Things had lost track of their beginnings and had no prescience of their ends, as Roland now wondered how he ever came to join the navy or when he would ever get out. His discharge date was almost four years away, in an alternative universe called the future. He thought he had learned his lesson, a lesson of life for life, having been stripped of the lingering fantasy world of adolescence by the cold realities of military life. He felt sure he was ready to shun the night life downtown and go back to school with fervor. But this knowledge wasn't given it was bought, and the only way to pay the debt was with time. He felt a pang of the young loneliness and desperation he had felt embarrassed for just a moment before. He rose from the hutch and cradling Josephine like a baby repaired to the back room. His mother stood with iron in midair poised over one of her husband's shirts, watching Kowalski on a drunken rampage. The action stopped and Brando stared over the camera in his torn tank top. Then a Mr. Clean commercial came on. There you are. You know when this was first made into a movie I saw it with my best friend, Charity, at a theater in Albany. I was only twenty years old. It was originally a play, wasn't it? By Tennessee Williams, on Broadway, and Marlon Brando starred in that too. That's where he got his big break. Where's Purse and Gum? Persephone's gone with her friend Karendo you know her? Cute girl with long sandy hair? Anyway, she and Purse went to Maine to visit Karen's aunt for a couple of weeks. What about Gum? Well, Guillaume and your father got into a great argument one night shortly after you left and your father kicked him out of the house. This wasn't surprising; his younger brother had left of his own accord before and had lived out of the house for over a month when he was fourteen.

Do you know where he's staying? I think with a friend down in Indian Run. Still in school? Ummm? I think so. Her attention had gone back to the movie, which had come back on. Save for a short wall of books, this room was very much his mother's. Curios and small antiques filled glass doored cabinets hanging on the walls or stood on the floor. An antique spinning wheel idled by the door to the kitchen, and chest and boxes of various sizes protected the baseboard from sight. There were candle holders and lanterns of every fashionable shape and age with candles of the proper length, color, and scent to go with them. Her old hope chest sat in front of the couch making into a bed over it and served as a coffee table and place to store presents. The small television on the cloth draped Chippendale end table looked like the giant eye of some buddhaic creature whose skull was barely large enough to contain it and support the rabbit ears sprouting from it; the inward selflessness the four-legged beast had attained manifested itself in the outward display of received television waves. His mother stood in rapt attention, ironing as many shirts and trousers during the commercials as she did during the movie. The light from the kitchen shone through the doorway onto a bamboo bird cage hanging from the ceiling in the corner, inside of which was a velveteen bird. He could hear his father getting ice from the freezer and water from the tap, then his heavy footfalls on the stairs. Hey, Ma, you haven't seen my book on mystery plays, have you? Small, blue and white paperback? she asked, not taking her eyes off the TV. Yeah. Last time I saw it, it was in the stack between your chair and the dictionary. I already checked the living room. He passed between her and the set to peruse the wall of books. If it's there it will be on the second or third shelf, right side, she said. His eyes went there where all the two-tone paper bound books were stood. Over the years his mother had started grouping books by their appearance rather than author and title. No, it's not here. He turned from the shelf scratching his beer belly through his immaculate white undershirt. What are you two watching? 'Streetcar Named Desire' with Marlon Brando, she whispered, as if she were in a movie theater. Humph, his father sounded. It was somewhere between the 'Oh?' preceding his turning on the same program in the living room and the 'Euuuk!' followed by graphic noises of expectoration and his mother's admonition, 'Is that really necessary, Charles, you're not watching it.' He paused for a moment longer then left in search of his book. The last barrage of commercials started before the conclusion; his mother looked up from her ironing. You know, I prayed for you when you were in boot camp. Her religion came up unexpectedly and was usually kept in brackets (at least to her husband and Roland) to normal, everyday life. Gum had sometimes accompanied her to the services, and Purse always did though in secret she said it was just for the singing, but never Roland. I prayed for you in the morning when I rose and at night before I went to sleep and during the dayyou sounded so depressed in your letters. Didn't they have a church there? Yes, there was a chapel. I think they held nondenominational services. Well why didn't you go? Mom, I think maybe five guys out of the entire company went; besides, it was the only time I could write letters. Well, that explains why your letters were so depressed; you and your father have always been inclined to the dumps on Sundaysand holidays. I just can't fathom.... She knew it was a one-sided conversation. She reached down and unplugged the iron and sat down beside him. At least you're home now. She leaned over and kissed him on the check. And the worst is over, right? Roland hoped so. His father's heavy tread was again on the steps, I can't find that book anywhere! She jumped up. I declare, I saw it by your recliner..., her voice trailed out into the kitchen as Roland and his father followed. She stood in a knee-high labyrinth of books, journals, maps and other unbound papers holding the book up as they walked in.

Where was it? His father was amazed as usual. Between your chair and the dictionary. She said exasperated then stalked, as well as she could, out of the room. They heard her close her door. I guess that's all we'll see of Ma tonight, his father said. The grate and stone in the fireplace were bare, save for the light dusting of gray ash the hearth broom had left behind. In its stead of meditative focus the television was tuned to the cable news network running a cycle of world and national news segments, sometimes three days old. The sound was turned down, though after the crickets quit calling one could hear snatches of elevator music tinning out in the smallest, highest notes. When the incandescent wall lamp mounted above his father's recliner was turned off the television bathed the room in a cool blue phosphorescent glow washing over the rug and between the spindly legs of the card table and chair set out in the room and buffeted against the recliner scraping the wall when it was reclined in and turned. The clutter, which was set around and under, moved about as boulders and sea grass in a tidal pool. The light faded noticeably as it reached to the small chest topped with the unabridged dictionary set in front of the window. The book stand was new and too small for the huge book lying open in it like a descending bird. The dictionary had been in the family at least since North Carolina, for he remembered fetching it for his father from its place outside the periphery of other books, where it was less likely to get stacked on. The couch and other furniture faded back against the far wall and the light was lost altogether in the black doorway to the kitchen. The fan, now turned low, still leaned against the wood box; the silver-blue light shooting along the blades when stared at long enough turned into an angle in perpetual pirouette. So, how goes it?, his father broke the silence. Roland shrugged his shoulders, Okay. I guess you're ready for the fleet. Roland took a long moment to reply. You know, if I could get out now, I think I could go back to

school and really do well. Yeah, well.... It'll be good for you. Don't you want to make a Pacific cruise, see Hawaii, Japan, maybe New Zealand? Yeah, that should be fun., but there was no conviction in his voice. And when you get out you'll have the G. I. Bill. That's true. His father put a friendly hand on his shoulder, It won't be so bad. In a way I wish I were going with you. Still get the urge to hit the trail or set the sail now and then. Still going to be a bo's'n? Yeah. They asked me again in boot camp; I asked about photographer's mate, but it was full. Well, we're really proud of you, Roland, and I must say again, you look good with that haircut. I was thankful for it in the Florida heat, I can tell you. Hey, he lowered his voice to a bellowing whisper, did you ever get that thing taken care of with Cybette? I sent her the money. And she took the trip? I, uh...I'm not sure. I think so. Don't you know? Didn't you write? No, not really. I didn't know what to say. I mean, we barely talked about it before I left; and besides, her family usually goes to Minnesota for the summer, and I don't know the address. Roland, you are your own man now, and I don't mean to lecture you,..., but of course he did. Why did people do that? Say they don't want to do something but then go ahead and do it. As a lecture, he treated all the questions as rhetorical; did not join in the exploration of all the possible tangents. The subject died with his silence and shared bourbon. .... We had one guy on the ship who would never take a shower. Didn't matter how much flak everyone gave him about it he just wouldn't shower, so finally a bunch of us dragged him back to the fantail, threw a bucket of water and sand on him and scrubbed him down with canvas, good ole canvas and sand bath. Rubbed him raw, and you can bet he never went without a shower after that.... If word went out a thief was on board it never reached the officers. We'd set up our own watch and when we caught him we'd pull him down in the hold and beat shit out of him. At quarters the next day if he was asked what happened he'd say he fell down the ladder. He knew better than to squeal, or a worse fate would become him. Did I ever tell you about the time we found beer in the hold? Someone found a hatch that hadn't been locked, and he let a couple of us in on the secret; we got plastered every night going across. Then the night before we pulled into port we realized here were all these beer cans with our finger prints on them, some of them fallen down between the cases with no way to get them out. So we let the word out and most of the deck force went down there that night. Of course the masters-at-arms found out about it. We were lying in our bunks reading comic books when they came by. We asked them, Gee, what's up, M-A?' 'Some deck apes down in the hold drinking beer.' 'Gee, wish I'd known about that.' I think half the deck force went to captain's mast over it. His father finished his drink and Roland took their glasses to the kitchen and fixed them another. ... Of course the whole time we worried about the Japs, wondering if they were going to bomb us or if we'd catch a fish. Whenever there was a full moon everyone would haul his mattress top side; that was the worse time, when a periscope could easily see us silhouetted against the horizon, but we couldn't very well see it. At least you won't have to worry about that since Vietnam is over. As long as we don't go fucking around somewhere else in the world. Roland heard Josephine's light tapping as she tried to scratch her way through the sliding glass door of the patio and rose to let her in. The frying pan clock read a quarter to three. Well, I think I'll take a shower and hit the sack, came back in. Oh? His father looked at his watch by the television light. Didn't mean to keep you up. Oh, no, not at all. It's just been a long day. I guess so. You were in Florida this morning, probably got a little jet lag. Yeah. Well, good night.

Right. In boot camp it was culture shock, now it was lack of culture. He wasn't really a sailor yetor at least he didn't feel like onebut he wasn't a civilian either. He was home, but it didn't feel the same. He went for long walks in the wood behind their house and beyond where town gave way to country; cow pastures, more woods, and corn. Downtown it seemed more students stayed behind this summer than summers past; no longer was the campus the long-lit ghost town where they'd take bicycles rented from the student union and turn the walks and short stairs into a motocross course, putting more wear and tear on the wheels and frames in a few hours than the bikes had seen all year. Now a few students shadowed the Gothic facades, under trees and on the cooler sides of buildings, reclining with a friend or book, sometimes with pencil in hand; or downtown in Nats, the natural food store had opened just before he'd left, or up on the hill baking themselves in the summer sun. They came into Mr. Fooz for lunch and ate subs and drank soda or beer, played pinball or one of the video games. No machine was less than a quarter and all of them had super sensitive tilts. One young lady, a freshman in sociology, usually came in at two and sat at one of the two windows on either side of the large door opening in on the long room. She'd drink a couple of beers while studying and Roland took to sitting with her after the lunch rush when the place was almost empty. Studying would give way to talking; she about the psychology or sociology class she was taking, her hometown and friends there; he about the town, boot camp. But by five she was gone and he was left to wander round town or contemplate the player participant machines. They were full of glitter, brighter, more intricate bed patterns and lights, but the flippers were weak and the score to win a game unreachable. The video games were even more jazzed up and incomprehensible, all in the screen; they cost fifty cents to play and you couldn't even win a game. One bleated out Play me in a synthesized voice every two or three minutes it was not being played. Roland called Cybette's house, but her father answered, and he hung up. So they weren't in Minnesota. Then he called the high school and learned Mrs. Graham, Cybette's counselor and friend, was counseling for the kids attending summer school. He made an appointment to see her and walked there the way he used to walk. It wasn't the same building the class of '76 had started out in, a great L-shaped, two story structure with banks of windows in all the rooms complimented by a double row of shades cutting through the middle of them, unrolled up and down when a film or slides were shown. The only similarity between the old and new building was the two stories. The exact shape of the new structure couldn't be seen from the outside nor grasped from the inside with its labyrinth of corridors and innovative open classrooms, partially closed off with partitions. From the off-center hubthe cafeteria on the first floor, a sunken library on the secondthe corridors radiated out in artistic disarray, losing any real reference to the outside as they moved away from the one bank of windows on the east side of the cafeteria and a corridor outside the library. Elsewhere, here and there, a single, thin pane would crack the walls, teasing. From the outside it looked like a giant tomb or cenotaph, out-of-town visitors thought it was industry and weren't enlightened when they saw the brick and concrete sign that had lost all its letters. Roland climbed the steps and passed through the smoking area. The cement chipping up in great slabs exposing gravel underneath, from poor mortar and the use of salt in wintertime, seemed worse than he remembered. Inside, the carpet was covered with hard, blackened bubble gum and upstairs it was torn in long strips. The lockers were scratched and dinged, some hanging open, loose on their hinges. Great water stains in the suspended ceiling mirrored those in the carpet. He circled the library and made his way to the administrative aspect of the building. When passing through the main office by the two secretaries his chest swelled unconsciously and he felt euphoric at the lack of authority this place now had over him. He came to the short, dead-end hall of counselors' offices and knocked on Mrs. Graham's door. Come in. When he entered he found the same short, petite lady he remembered with short brown hair, but now she had two black eyes and a swollen bruise on her forehead. Roland! Come in, have a seat. Mrs. Graham, what happened to you? Car accident. My word. I was discharged from the hospital two days ago, had a bad concussion, but I seem to be doing all right

now. I'm still on medication, though. Roland could see blood in the white of one of her eyes. So, what brings you here? The sight of her had made him forget why he'd come, Oh, just thought I'd stop by and see the old place. ...but he had made an appointment... I just got out of boot camp a few days ago. Oh, yes, you joined the marines, didn't you. Navy. Navy, right, navy. How do you like it? Well, boot camp wasn't that bad, but I'm sure the fleet will be better. I'll have the G. I. bill when I get out, so I'll be able to pay college tuitiondid I tell you I got my high school equivalency? No, I thought you had to be eighteen to take the G.E.D. Usually you do, but the navy pulled a few strings. That's great. I didn't know the military could do that for you. I'm sure you'll do well. Thanks, I hope so. Roland folded and refolded his hands, shifted in his chair, then he remembered why he came. I was wondering if you had been in touch with Cybette this summer. Since I sent you the money to give to her. Cybette...Cybette.... You know, Cybette Utrecht; she's one of your best students. Mrs Graham absently shuffled through the papers on her desk then opened the file drawer in her desk. You know, I really haven't gotten back in the swing of things.... Then she stopped, staring at the brass door knob, recognition growing up her brain stem. Cybette's in Saint Albans.

* *6*

Moon. Waxing silver sickle cutting blue grass before it's grown, harvesting by the grayest light what is only a possibility in Nature's eye. Growing, gathering in her arms a giant bale full of bleak white mountains and dark maria where eyes are cast and reeled, cast and reeled on seas pulling the living mirror into spring and neap, flood and ebb, and always in between and among the crashing waves and wash, foaming white receding. The arms grow and strain and meet two across and they are lost in the light holding a friendly face, and it is in my house, coming through the cracks in the walls and baseboard, through the floor and ceiling the moonbeams shatter on the nothing and settle in a soft patina all round, gathering moondust, pleats stirred by the lightest footfall. Under the eaves by the rain barrel moonflowers bloom and the owl in the tree hoots at the blind horses. The moon empties my house, the beams seep and shatter and the dust settles and glows and dissolves away the furnishings and curtain till nothing is left and less, touching negative space that fills and breathes. The older arms tire and untie the bale from the dark side with dry seas and top the possibility with blue silver. Nothing wafts and mixes with the moondust into disappearing streamers slowly leaving behind what they took, the furnishings and curtain precipitate. The new arms hold the old moon, atrophy, and finally reach across and grasp a darker pair. She comes dancing up from the basement, playing through the triptych wardrobe mirror ring-around-the-rosy, the mirrors falling radii, disappear into a million broken pieces and she drapes and enrobes herself, knitting a garb of silverbacked glass, black onyx with her touch. The dark lady is girlish and friendly, black and shiny, comes to play

pat-a-cake, but the nurses chase her away with shots and IV's. They make such noises like giant white pigeons with their white sideways hats and white blouses and skirts and white shoes. But she comes back when they're not looking, naked, a shadow sitting behind me brushing my hair. It feels so good I half close my eyes and feel her cool, warm touch and she hums a tune, sings snatches of a familiar song in a language I don't knowyet it is familiar as if I've heard it in my sleep or in a dream I can't remember or in my mother's womb. My body knows its vibrations, my mind is ignorant of its intent. Hmmm hmm hmmm. And secrets by her tone and manner. I guess they are just gossipy stuff of which quilt-making parties are made where the women snatch swatches of cloth from a rag bag and sew, letting their common unconscious shape and color the quilt while common consciouses, talk of people and places, events without consequence. Then it is pat a cake pat a cake again or hide and seek and I have to guess where she's hiding; behind the tree, under the wheel chair, or a gurney being wheeled behind me. I always find her eventually; I know if I just waited long enough I could guess right the first time but it is fun to think of all the possibilities. Then she closes her eyes and covers them with her hands and pretends I've gone to hide, as if I could move from where I am, and guesses: you are behind the tree, I saw you looking; no, in the tree, on the bough in the limbs with the owl....

The Sun's warmth is like no warmth I have ever felt; it is a constant wonder. The heat comes in a long wave, passes through my smock and skin washing between my bones and muscles, tendons and ligaments breaking them apart, each calling to my awareness. The calcium driftwood knots in my mouth weathered gray, collect the heat in their dead heartwood, which may be wet or not I can not tell for pure heat dominates the sense. The muscles are islands of rock dissolving into sand from the inside out and before the sand reaches the outer edge it too dissolves into something even finer and less material until the islands should lose all form if it were not for the cellular memory of their former shapes saving the membranous edge, lumens. The rest is seaweed fibrous and not, cast between island and island, or island

and driftwoodbut not passivecrawling into crevice and crack all in a sea of sun, a great sea with no air just warmth. The heat adheres to my nerves like dew on a spider's web making what was invisible and unfelt run white and shiny. Poised on the brain the spider of volition sits with a leg on every runner feeling the vibrations of them all as if a circle formation of moths had flown into the periphery of the web. The stimulus is too much and the spider of action is mesmerized into inaction, willpower without will, all from the heat. Eventually it dissolves Time. Quickly any future. Then more slowly the quatrain of the past: the past most recent still smelling of the present, the past less recent, the past less distant, the past most distant until it is only hard isolated events remaining till last. Free verse and fiction. The present shaved down until it is only an identity within itself. Words having to do with time lose all meaning; there are no more years or months, no more seasons nor any hours of the day for the monks to say their prayers, no more hours or minutes or seconds or geography, only zero and infinity circling each other like a pair of stars in a last cluster of collapsing abstraction. The heat, nothing but the heat until my eyes fall open as if I had finally passed. In the bough of the tree, barely discernible is in the nest a single chick, the second hatch of the summer. It is big, almost as big as its mother, who you can tell is getting tired of feeding it. Soon she will push it out of the nest or stop coming and hunger will make it learn to flyeven its hungry chirp is tired. Near the base of the limbs there is a giant knot where a bough used to be; on some days it oozes sap. The leaves hang, tired of the sun. There's more moss than grass under the tree between the roots meandering out from the trunk, if only I could sit there in one of the crotches with my arms resting on the bark and my barefeet in the cool moss. I'm sure if I slept there when I rose I would walk instead of being wheeled. The wheels have become my legs, the latest in prostheses, though less than legs for I cannot control them, artificial limbs with no muscles or nerves attached. They spin beside me when I'm moved and cease when I'm stopped in a different place with a different view. The tree is so inviting. It looks haggard but still stands, always stands with its giant arm-boughs leaning out across feet-roots, the hand-limbs drawn out and up, curling, twisting with its many finger-twigs trying to grasp and hold with a leafy touch the passing summer. The grasshoppers fly with a winged jump from the man mowing the grass, birds land in the swath picking at the grubs and bugs. He cuts the outsides first and when he approaches my inside he stops short, turns the mower, and returns beside the way he came as if he came upon an invisible wall or earth. He cuts around the trees and bushes as he comes to them and for a few passes the uncut grass is a silhouette bust of someone I've seen but then another pass before I know who it is and the profile is obliterated into a rough mountain with a jagged head. The grass mountain erodes smooth, diminishes under the mower and always the nurse wheels me inside. I never see how he crosses the wall or says the words to let himself pass onto this earth; the panes in the window rattle as he passes below and brings some flitting light to the wall where I stare, reflections streaking across the paint like so many electric locusts. The rattle lessens, the muted and amplified noises approach a mean until the mower stops its movement, then its being. Then you can hear the drying green scream as loud as the black. For three nights the moon rings black, caught in the round net of stars until the fourth, now a thin sickle, it cuts a swath through them; in the gathering light of the following nights the stars are loosened and lost down under. The sickle bow drawn taut across the sky, playing an overture, widens to become the neck and still more until it is the sound boxthen goes the way it came, the reverse box playing a cadenza. Or just a bowl of black fruit set on the table of the sky; green-black, ripe, rotting on the table of the gods, antiambrosia. The wolves run when the bowl is empty full of reflection, napping outside my house thick with moondust, drinking from the rain barrel; the horses smell them and whinny and stamp. I hear them on the porch, their padded paws clicking claws on the wooden planks, sniffing at the abandonment; they pace around the house and dig in the moonflower bed. The moon has shown them this place, they followed her here but why she brings them I do not know. They come and pace and howl and nap and leave one by two, three gone. She is filled by a black

sun, crescent profile, full face when she is between me and the sun, black hair streaming around to this side when she is on the other being held and filled by that dark star. Her tail in the horns of the bull, pincers of the crab trying to net the two fish, tangled Orion cutting himself free.... Just a thing on a string, flying round the lighted stars, dress of the universe hiding its real, naked self. Moon, just a pendant catching, halfreflecting, a light. The stars shining of themselves twinkle blue and orange, red and white. I wish I could gather them; put the smaller ones in the cracks of my house, fill the cracks where the moonbeams seep, and hang the larger ones on my walls where they would shine constant in their colors. Then I would close the curtains and lower the shade and my house would become a castle where knights would call and ask were there dragons in the kingdom and if they were bad dragons (for there are good ones) they'd be off to slay them and when they returned with a tooth of the beast I would reward them with a small star which they would set in the handle of their sword or wear from their neck and everyone would know they were great knights and noble for they wore a star from my castle. But they are spread out across the sky fastening the black velvet here and therejewels upon stands having lost all distinction among themselves, god the jeweler. Perhaps we should marry; no, what is that over-large bauble cycling through my month no more, the evil eye blinkered on me? I tell my dark sister of these things and she laughs and pats my knee and combs my hair, makes light verse of my troublesome thoughts: Moon, moon, burning dim, Are you torn limb from limb? What's your fate, what's your life: The sun to marry, to be his wife? Is your wish, not your life Put together limb to limb, Moon, moon, burning dim. and then Twinkle, twinkle little stars Collect you all in mason jars. I wish I may, I wish I might Always with you constant light.... There there. She pats my arm and puts down the brush. She sits with me while I lie, left here in the dark by the nurses till after dawn's blue-graying light. She must be my sister, my twin, she knows me so well, knows all my past before I came to this place though I can not remember being aware of her at the time, in the places before, but she was always with me, has had the same life yet seems to have learned more from it than I. She sits in the shadows and sews something with needle and thread, a scrap of cloth and dried corncob. The lamp from the street and the window make a slanting parallelogram on the wall above the iron girding at the foot of my bed; it is a faint, muted purplesomeone has mixed the gases making the pink and blue lightsthe same additive color in the pink warp and blue weft of the cloth she sews, some kind of doll. The painted electrical cord running up from the light switch sheds its white skin to reveal its black self, joins the cord snaking across the ceiling from the overhead light and together run with a dozen others at the top of the wall next to the ceiling through a hole in the corner. The hemisphere of frosted glass covering the naked bulb reflects a fuzzy image of the window, though the window's light doesn't fall directly on it; none of the light passes through to reveal its cool innards, reflecting to the outside, refracting in. The gaseous chlorine from the linen dissolves the pollen granules and mixes with the smell of old grass. There is expectation in this, waiting with apprehension defying defining; only the genetic memory of the seasons, a circle of passing around me. There is no centripetal or centrifugal forceor if there is it is completely balanced, each canceling the other out. The closest circle is the beating of my heart and the flowing of my

blood, enveloped by skin and smock. Then this building, the room and halls, and in this band the antiseptic nurses and their placating cooing and the doctor whose halitosis overwhelms his breath mints, not placating but teaching, or importuningI can't tell for I don't know what he or any of them say, only their tone of voice and manner of gesturing under my own words. If I stopped to listen I'm sure I'd never hear myself again, I would drown in this stream. Outside this the outside, the trees and grass, birds and squirrels; it is fall, the trees color, the grass yellows, the birds fly. In the early morning before the sun rises the starlings flock in the trees, as many as the turning leaves, and start with warbles and tweets but then add treeps and squawks and a dozen other sounds in cacophonous crescendo suddenly beat down with the many turnings of air euphony, whoop-whoop-whoop as they all take to the air and join another flock in a large grove across the way and start all over again, more distant and resolute in their numbers, to rise in a huge swarm after yet another crescendo to land with still more birds in a large wood. Each bird knows to flock, but only the flock can fly, has the mind and direction. After the birds leave the leaves fall and the man steals the ground's winter blanket, stuffing it a rack full at a time into wire barrels to send up blue-white smoke. We are best friends, I think, in this time. My dark sister isn't in this time, isn't in any one of these concentric circles but cuts like a line across them from me like the luminous tracing line on a radar screen bleeping out my reality. It's mesmerizing; I can't listen to her long; I begin to fall in a void, and I don't know where I am: I can't feel the earth pulling on me any more; there is no gravity, but if I concentrate I can feel the magnetism. If I could turn my wheel chair, right wheel forward left wheel back, I'm sure I could find magnetic north; spinning until the pull reversed my spin and I oscillated in decreasing arcs until I pointed to magnetic northor south, I'm not sure whichbut I would be in line. It's hard not to listen to her; the nurses and doctors are in their orbit, but she cuts to the center. I'm only a point. She's a radius, more than a line a swelling shadow, a shadow within a shadow, born. Morning. Early morning to judge by the window light, grayer today, but really, Cybette, who are you to judge the light, you silly goose. And three nurses helping me today into my wheelwhat's this? Another bed? Oh, still wheels: a gurney. Click-click up go the sides, and now we slide down the hall head first. I've never been this way before. Double doors, room, people in surgical greens, more doors, here's the doctor behind a mask: you can't hide your breath from me. And another man and woman with masks, helping me onto another bed. And a place for my feet, stirrups. Horse riding. I could think of a simpler contrivance to put me on a horse, but shouldn't we be outside? What's all the fuss? Sleep in the roots of the tree would be rest, recreation enough....

The Side Opposite * *1* Adoles relieved the port lookout and scanned the horizon with binoculars. Two white lights: one close enough to see unaidednow he knew where it wasthe other just on the edge of the horizon, blinking like a star. He was tired. So tired he couldn't remember: had he stood the four to eight that morning? They had done unreps all day, not remembering the event, only the words inscribed in the mimeographed blue capitals of the POD: UNDERWAY REPLENISHMENT. His mind became white as a page when he tried to remember. He only had the idea they were all in line, the ships coming alongside to be replenished: fighting ships, long and sleek, cutting through the water instead of half-rolling on top like a keeled bathtub as the Cruces did.

His mind had forgotten, but his arms and hands had not. All day putting the four metal-ringed corners of cargo nets into a pelican hook, blisters boiling up, popping, the skin rubbing loose. His forearms had felt as if they were going to fall off, filling with warm lead between shipsbut this is just what he can't remember, the

break between ships or when the underway replenishment ended. His short-term memory was blasted. His belly felt full so he decided he was standing the long dog, the watch after evening meal. He concentrated on the watch cycle. That was the bad thing about four section duty: when you stood the four to eight in the morning you wound up standing the long dog after evening chow. If you stood the midwatch then you wound up with the short dogbut then you had to get up for the four to eight. It sucked anyway you looked at it. He stepped back from the gunwale and shook off the sleep flowing up him through the deep humming of the ship's engines below the soft shallow soughing of water by the hull. It was easier to stay awake on the fantail with the loud threshing of the giant screw sending back a trail of white foam, which roared in a million poppings of bubbles changing back into blue sea, a constant TSSCHHHHH. But the watch had rotated as it did every half hour: the messenger of the watch temporarily relieved the starboard lookout, who went aft and relieved the fantail, who came forward and relieved the port lookout, who relieved the helm, who relieved the messenger at the starboard lookout. Adoles wondered how the messenger avoided the rotation, hanging around the bridge, drinking coffee, bullshiting with the boatswain's mate. Fucking brownnose. It didn't matter; in less than two weeks he'd be up on the signal bridge, out of deck and into operations, the brains of the ship, as long as the striker board went well. He didn't see how it could go wrong, really; he knew the rateat least the essentials: flags, semaphore, flashing light. He'd started learning it before they had left San Francisco, while he was doing his ninety days of mess cooking. A slot had opened up for a signalman striker, and SM1 Fritz had asked him if he wanted to strike for it. Adoles asked what the rate was like, what a signalman did, but he knew before the SM1 had finished his short summary he was going to go for it. He obtained a deck of cards depicting all the flags and pennants, alphabetical, numerical and special, went through them every short break. He kept a few out of the pack in his shirt pocket spelling a short word, like 'dog': Delta, Omega, Golf; learning the phonetic alphabet at the same time, imagining each flag in his head while he was swabbing down the mess deck after chow, the color and design, then checking them. He spent the longer breaks, usually in the afternoon after the noon meal, up on the signal bridge practicing Morse code with the flashing light or semaphore with Romeo flags attached to sticks. At night he put a hood on the signal searchlight, narrowing the 12 beam of the the 1000 watt incandescent to that of a large flashlight, and reflected the letters he sent off the housing of the pier crane, which was level with the signal bridge five levels above the main deck. Past the crane the lightscape of San Francisco shone back at him.

How awesome the crane seemed the day he reported aboard. Walking through the shipyard in his dress blues, sea bag on his shoulder, feeling as if he were a piece of foreign matter passing around and between the cogs and cams of a giant engine turned inside out. Yardbirds went to and from everywhere, carrying tools of their trade, walking or piled in pickup trucks. A few gathered around a food truck whose shiny, stainless steel sides were popped up exposing cellophane-wrapped sandwiches and iced drinks. Hundreds of sound were buried in the air and silica of the sandblaster, who stood braced in his protective suit and hood on his own yard of metal, blasting rust with a small, hose-tethered canon he held like a fire hose. As he approached the ship he stopped in awe of the crane, a gray erector straddling the pier on steel wheels as tall as his neck, running on rails pinned to the concrete along either edge. A bleeping noise dug itself out of air and sand, and the crane started moving toward him with an electric moan. He looked up as the crane's cab turned away from the ship and the pier's end, swinging its long arm, which played out cable to a descending ball and hook as it swung out over the water. It slowed in its arc as it came around to him and he could see the operator in his little glass box, realized he was going to give the hook to the yardbird who was standing with the looped ends of two cables run underneath a bin filled with scrap metal. The yardbird pulled the loops into the hook and stepped back, signaling the operator. The man in the glass box worked some levers and the cable went taut, paused, then lifted the metal clear of the pier. It swung grandly out over the water in gathering height as the crane started back down toward the end of the pier. Roland followed the noise and one of the retreating wheels to the gangway where he turned and went up. At the top he realized he hadn't noticed which end of the ship was the fantail so he could salute the colors. The Officer Of the Deck, a first class in dress blues with four red hash marks on his left arm, pointed aft. Adoles smartly saluted the flag he couldn't see and then the first class, who returned his salute. Then he recited what he had memorized in boot camp. Seaman Recruit Adoles, reporting aboard for duty, sir. He thought the OOD said Welcome aboard, but his words were lost in the crashing of the crane setting the bin down. The OOD took his orders and after looking them over said something to the petty officer of the watch who took a CB-like microphone from an inner bulkhead of devices set in a shallow doorway and repeated twice, DUTY PERSONNELMAN, REPORT TO THE QUARTERDECK, his voice horning out in all directions. The breeze shifted and the fine sand mist from the sandblaster drifted across the ship. The third class retreated to the one-man prefabricated sheet metal shack erected just forward of the quarterdeck to record the fact of the recruit reporting aboard; Adoles could see him writing through the deeply gouged plexiglass window looking back on the brow. The abbreviation for petty officer of the watch was the same as for prisoner of war: POW. Sailors on main deck tied cloths to their faces and the onboard yardbirds strapped up respirators dangling below their chins. The OOD stood steadfast by the gangway, arms to his sides, turning gray. A seaman in spotless pressed dungarees and corfams came round the corner, poked his head into the shack, got Adoles's orders, and signaled him to follow. Adoles heaved his sea bag back onto his shoulder, and they crossed in front of the superstructure to the port side where they turned aft and then inboard, stepping through two doorways and onto a freshly swabbed mess deck. Before they were two steps toward the ladderwell a voice called them down. Eh! Wet deck! Ain'tchu got eyes? A pale, thin cook in dirty white pants and T-shirt stood over a bucket of water with a cigarette dangling from his mouth; he was just ringing out a swab. Sorry, mate, the personnelman answered affably enough, though he didn't stop walking, this one just reported aboard, got to get him down to deck compartment. Now at the top of the ladder the personnelman put the heels of his hands on the thin rails, lifted his feet, and slid down firehouse fashion. Adoles followed much slower, encumbered by his sea bag on the steep and narrow, riser-less stairs. Now he knew why they called them ladders. They went down another level and came out into a small lounge twelve feet square with two card tables welded to the deck, each on a single, center leg. Through doorways on either side short corridors ran athwartships and branched fore and aft into contiguous cubicles containing six bunks each, three high on either side. The personnelman showed him the empty bunks, only top and bottom ones, and since he couldn't immediately figure out how to get into a top bunk, chose one on the bottom. The rack was narrow, about half

the size of a regular single bed, and the thin mattress dark gray with grime. They issue you sheets? Adoles asked. Yeah, I'll take you around to the ship's storekeeper. Looking at his watch now, We have just about enough time to do that and check you in with the division p-o before chow. Right. Adoles heaved his sea bag onto the deck against the bulkhead and stood ready to follow. I'd lock your gear up first; there's been some thieving onboard. It's locked. Adoles checked the combination lock at the top of his sea bag holding the flaps in tight. The personnelman shrugged and shook his head as if something was too hard or not important enough to explain and turned to leave the cubicle. As they were exiting the berthing area Adoles noticed all the racks doubled as long, low lockers about six inches deep, the lids being were the mattresses lay. Coming back down the short corridor to the lounge he saw the wall on either side of the doorway was made up of a double bank of lockersthe walls of the lounge were in fact all made from the backsides of lockers. He almost asked the personnelman to wait while he went back and stowed his gear, but he didn't want to seem green, indecision being the sign of a recruit fresh out of boot camp. He sweated the whole time they were tracking down the duty storekeeper, sending out a wish his belongings not get stolen. He had the fleeting thought it was stupid to be so attached to things, but when your whole material world was reduced to what was in a bag it all became more precious. Please don't let my stuff get ripped off. He wondered if he was praying. He had never prayed in his life, wondered abstractly if his mother had any misgivings regarding this shortcoming in his upbringing. Now I lie down to sleep, I pray the Lord to keephow did that go? He didn't even know all the words to the blessing he had said in grade school before lunch everyday, having learned it as phonemes under cover of the class, all in unison, ...bias ands we must be fed.... They finally found the duty storekeeper, who issued him a blanket just like the kind they had in boot camp, two sets of sheets, and a pillow case, all the while admonishing him not to lie on the sheets in his dungarees. DINNER FOR THE CREW came over the 1MC, as he learned the PA system was called, which not only echoed across the deck but reached everywhere inside the ship. The personnelman instructed Adoles to meet him on the quarterdeck when RESUME SHIP'S WORK was called. Adoles rushed back down to the compartment and was relieved to find his sea bag untouched. Must be yardbirds, he thought, goddamn civilians. Reassessing, he convinced himself his worry was unfounded: no work was being done down here, nor was it a passageway to any other part of the ship, as far as he could tell. Any yardbirds coming down to the cul de sac compartment would be quickly noticed. He found a cleaner mattress on another rack and swapped, made it up with the fresh sheets not bothering with the hospital corners on the inboard side of thin tin separating him from the bunk in the cubicle on the other side. He started up to the mess decks and on second thought rolled his sea bag onto his rack, out of sight of a casual glance into the cubicle from the corridor. During check-in he was assigned to second division, which took care of the aft main deck, winch house, and king posts as well as the starboard side of the superstructure, weatherways, and boat decks. The petty officer in charge of second division was Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Emerson, who would have had a bookish appearance with his short beard and glasses except he had the habit of leaving his mouth open when it wasn't engaged, giving him a look of idiocy. On their way to see the XO and CO the personnelman instructed him the only time one passes through officers country was if one has business there. How quaint, officers country, made you think it was a foreign land, but when they entered it he realized it was very different from the rest of the ship. The walls of the passageway were white, not green, lined with regular doors with regular door knobs; not the metal, hatchlike doors on weather bulkheads or below main deck. The tile on the deck was buffed to a high shimmer. They came to a wide passageway running athwartships with a ladder to the deck above having all manner of fancy rope work on the railings. On the forward bulkhead was a door with a nameplate at eye level, EXECUTIVE OFFICER cut into the black below the brass-colored veneer. The personnelman knocked on the door and when they heard a muffled Enter, he shoved Adoles's orders at him and said, Go 'head, stepping to one side of the door. Adoles entered a stateroom the size of a large bedroom, which it was in part, a well-made bed in the corner. Two port holes on the forward bulkhead each with two covers; one metal, tied up with a cord, the other plate glass was down. Below the port holes at

his desk was the executive officer; a short, compact man in immaculate, well-creased khakis with silver touching his black hair. His face was so smooth Adoles was sure he had shaved for lunch. He repeated his quarterdeck spiel, Seaman recruit Adoles reporting aboard for duty, sir. At ease he checked the first page of the orders, although he had just heard his name, Adoles. The XO looked through the rest of his papers. you've been assigned to the deck force, is that correct? Yes, sir. The XO looked puzzled. Why didn't you go to a school? Your scores are certainly high enough. He looked up from the papers. Wanted to be a boatswain's mate, sir. Well, we can use some smarts on deck. He smiled and then leaned back in his chair. If a ship were a person the deck force would be her hands and her arms. They do a most important job during underway replenishment, of getting the lines and cables across to the other ship and doing the actual work of transferring cargo; they net it up and send it across; they run the winches. And they have the less glamorous task of maintaining the outer appearance of the ship, the hull and superstructure, chipping paint and painting. He paused as if he had said something of import requiring acknowledgment. Yes, sir, Adoles responded. Well, carry on, Adoles. Welcome aboard. The XO reached his hand over the disk and they shook hands. The meeting with the commanding officer was briefer in the larger, better appointed stateroom. He was a head taller than the XO sitting down and ectomorphic; his khaki shirt hung from his shoulders as if from a padded coat hanger. Rounded bat ears stuck out and aided his proportionally small eyes burdened with an overly wrinkled brow rising up on either side of a widow's peak. His movements were spasmodic and seemed to follow his eyes, jerking his head up, down, rustling papers, but he seemed friendly enough, and by the time the personnelman lead the way out of officers country, up the ladder with all the fancy work, Adoles felt pretty good. They stepped into the wheelhouse and Adoles felt a rush of pride: the wheel of polished mahogany, the finely turned rungs running out from a brass center hub through the rim to form the many handles. It was like any picture he had seen or imagined of the helm. Slightly starboard and forward he could see the now dark, still compass card floating on its jewel pivot under the gyro repeater's half sphere brass cover. Still more starboard but aft was the engine-order telegraph with its double brass handles sticking up and arrows pointing down to STOP. And more brass, everywhere brass polished to a high shine glimmering the green deck tiles as a glowing patina from the low light afforded by the line of portholes on the forward bulkhead and port and starboard doorways. The space was imbued with tradition; everything looked at least thirty years old, too old for the nuclear powered navy. He swaggered after the personnelman toward the starboard doorway past the quartermaster's table hovering at a slant over a cabinet of stacked map drawers. Looks antique, Adoles nodded back toward the wheelhouse when the personnelman stopped in the starboard wing. It is antique. Oldest ship in the navy, the personnelman said. Really? Yep. Every CO who comes aboard writes the CNO recommending decommission, but it'll never happen, not as long as they have the older-class destroyers still in commission. This is only one of two ships that can unrep with them; the newer freighters are too high. Adoles peered over the side. The sandblaster had knocked off so no cloud of silica obstructed his view. Still he couldn't see the water for the pier, but he guessed the main deck had to be thirty feet above the water line. He wondered how high the new freighters were, how low the old destroyers. How many CO's have you seen come aboard? Adoles asked. Three. A. A. McCray is the fourth captain of this tub since I've been here. How long have you been on board? Something over three years, got here after school, and then animated, but after today I only have ninety-nine days. He took a folded paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it on a phone box welded to the starboard gunwale. Adoles saw a picture of a sailor in the old-fashioned crackerjack uniform divided like a jigsaw puzzle, each piece of the puzzle with a number. The picture was as if taken with a fish eye lens, the sailor shooting the viewer the bird, fist and forefinger in the viewer's face, as big as the sailor himself. The

only piece of the puzzle without a number was the tip of middle finger which had FTN written on it. As a matter of fact, you get to witness the coloring-in of the first block. He took a pen from the same pocket and blued-in the block on the sailor's right foot: the number 100 was inked out of sight. Why have there been so many captains? Adoles asked. All fuckups. Shit, I don't know. The personnelman folded the calendar and extracted a cigarette without removing the pack from his shirt pocket, pinching it out with his fingers. Sometimes I think they use this ship as a kind of halfway house, see if they fly or die. Some brass gets his fourth stripe and a wild hair, decides he wants to be a captain, command a ship, even though he hasn't sailed anything but a desk his whole time in the navy. So the navy sends 'em here. Adoles wanted to ask, Why here?, but didn't. His gaze came up and forward over the gunwale and was caught in a web of cables. Two octagonally planned winch houses were between the superstructure and the forecastle and through the port and starboard bulkheads of each stood a pair of king posts at least five feet in diameter at the base, the tops of which were higher than the bridge where they stood. A catwalk bridged each pair. Just above the second, uncovered deck of the winch houses the booms of the king posts leaned out fore and aft on a hinge and pivot, enabling them to be lowered and raised, swung outboard and in. The ship listed with the starboard ones since they were swung out over the pier for the on and off loading of cargo. Between each pair of booms and above a large cargo hatch in the main deck was suspended a steel ball and hook similar to the one on the pier crane but somewhat smaller, and instead of hanging from one cable it was held by two, each running up to the top of a boom, through a single pulley, down the length of the boom, through another pulley, and onto the large drum of one of the six winches welded to the second deck, the roof of the winch house. The hydraulic cargo hatch just forward of the superstructure had been opened and stood doubled over just aft of the gaping rectangular opening it had covered. Adoles could see down to the next deck below, could see where it too gave way to the openingbut no further, just a yawning blackness. An electric forklift pulled up on the starboard side and short cables run underneath it meeting over the driver's cage. A bo's'n at the controls on the winch house maneuvered the ball and hook over it and a deckape pulled the looped ends of the short cables into the hook. All cables went taut as the bo's'n, working the two levers controlling each winch, tried to get equal tension to lift the forklift straight up off the deck. He wasn't quite successful and as the wheels cleared the bulky forklift drifted outboard, destined to gently smash into the starboard bulwark until he gave a compensative tap to the port winch, pulling it back. Then he slowly positioned it over the hole and let it down past the first sub deck and into the blackness, down with increasing speed as he watched the hand signals from a deckape who stood bright in the sunlight against the dark opening of the hatchway where the cables caught in two of the many grooves worn by them into the sides of the opening; Adoles unconsciously gasped at the amount of cable played out, how deep the ship must go past the waterline. The personnelman, who had been smoking and surveying the city, turned and saw Adoles's wonder and the cause of it, but didn't remark on either. Instead he asked, What are you in for? Four years. No, I mean what did you do? He mutely shook his head, by expression saying, What do you mean? Your crime. Everyone on the deck force has done something. When they go to court the judge gives them the choice: jail or the military. They even have a guy down there who went up for manslaughter, and they say that was plea-bargained, that it was really second-degree murder. Come to think of it though, I think he's deserted. You mean you never went before a judge, you never went to court? Adoles shook his head. But you must have done something. The personnelman was sure. Adoles shrugged his shoulders, They wanted me to go to school, I told them I was sick of school, wanted to be a boatswain's mate. You wanted to be a boatswain's mate? The personnelman was incredulous. Adoles didn't answer, just turned to look forward again at the web of cables. Through the corner of his eye he saw the personnelman shake his head and then answer his own question, I guess there are those who do. I just never met them aboard this ship. Guess they need some real sailors to bring down the desertion

rate. Deck force has a high desertion rate? Adoles asked. Thirty percent. Now it was Adoles's turn to be incredulous. Yeah, thirty percent AWOL, I've seen the roster. AWOL or U-A, that's 'Unauthorized Absence'. They call it that if it's been less than thirty days. I guess you're all checked in. The personnelman was suddenly ready to leave. I'd better get back to the office. He paused, still shaking his head slightly, seeing if Adoles had any more questions. Good luck. He turned to go. Thanks. Then Adoles stopped him, Hey, can I bum a smoke? Sure. This time the personnelman took the pack from his pocket and shook out the ends. Adoles stopped him again for a light, explaining he was trying to quit, and then he was left alone. Either from abstinence or not being his brand the cigarette tasted awful, but he smoked it anyway, controlling the urge to gag; inhaling against one nausea while increasing another, spiting common sense at the moment since there was nothing else to spite. He controlled the urge until he flicked the butt over the side, thinking a split second later it wasn't the thing to do with people below, then lifted the lid of the phone box and vomited on the sound-powered phones within. When he found his way back down to the cubicle in the still empty deck compartment his sea bag had exploded, the large canvas olive-green balloon had popped. He picked it up where it lay deflated on the deck by the bulkhead looking at the long slit along its length, imagining abstractly what the fabric pop had sounded like, wondering at the same time why a regular balloon sounded at all when it popped. Why should there be any sound with the fast release of air? The diminished contents of his sea bag was strewn between the two lower bunks. The thief had left his underwear, dungaree pants, and the white canvas shoes; gone were the dungaree shirts, boondockers, ditty bag.... Numbly, Adoles tried to remember what he had had. He checked the clothes bag and found his dress uniforms left intact. Miraculous. Then he reached back for his wallet, still there, buttoned the back pocket to keep it more secure. Quickly he collected the jetsam and threw it into his bunk locker. He almost remembered the combination to the lock uselessly holding the top of his sea bag closed and grew more panicked until he transposed the first and last digits, opening it. He threw the sea bag in, dropped the lid down and locked it, giving the lock and hasp a good yank. Then he took his clothes bag to one of the empty upright lockers backing the lounge and stuffed it in, the locker being too short and shallow to adequately accommodate the doubled up bag. He paced between this locker and the cubicle, trying to decide whether to take the lock off the bunk and put it on the other locker while he went to the ship's store to buy another lock. Finally he left things as they were and went to the quarterdeck to report the theft. The duty master-at-arms did not make out a report the way a policeman would in civilian life. He did follow Adoles to the cubicle where the crime was committed and post-warned him about the thievery onboard and told him what the personnelman had told him, to keep things locked up. Adoles knew now it wasn't yardbirds. While the MAA was there and after he left a rage disproportionate to the crime slowly filled all of Adoles's being like an intravenous drug. It made the inside muscles of his hands contract pulling the fingers inward into tight fists, which themselves were pulled in at the wrists on the ends of skinny arms pushed down and out, triceps trembling. Rage at the MAA's lack of sympathy or real concern; at the change in the navy since his father's tour of duty, the difference between now and then, or the present gray reality and his father's rose-colored memory, at the uncertainty it entailedall stemming off this thieving and the lack of camaraderie it denoted. It was ridiculous, nothing very valuable or personal had been taken; the items could easily be replaced, but the blind rage shut out any logic. The rage was still there that night when he went to take a shower. Everyone except the duty section had gone on liberty, and most of those in the deck force not on extra duty or watch were in the small lounge playing or watching a game of five-card stud. Adoles padded across the dirty deck and up the ladder to the head in his bare feet since his shower shoes had been part of what was stolen; he had forgotten to buy another pair at the ship's storeor a bar of soap, he realized, as he stepped into the shower stall. He found a sliver in the soap tray and got somewhat clean. When he stepped out of the stall the brand-new toothbrush, still in its box, and tube of toothpaste were gone from the skinny shelf underneath the mirrors. He stood in his towel

staring down at the blurring sinks. He started to wet his finger to rub his teeth but cupped his hand instead and rinsed out his mouth. When he was back down in the compartment he stared into the bunk locker, sitting on his haunches still in his towel, trying to put together a uniform for muster. When he got down to the shoes a dawning black sun made him see he had left out his corfams and now they were gone too. His throat constricted and he squeezed down hard on his eyes, hammocking his head in the towel stretched across his knees. He stood up pulling in air, held it, took in more air so now his chicken chest stuck out like a bantam rooster's. Clinched fists, arms stiff at his sides, he marched stiffly to the doorway of the lounge and spoke through his teeth. Which one of you bastards stole my corfams? The card action stopped as a short stocky seaman put his cards down and stood up into Adoles's face. Who you calling bastard, punk? And without waiting for reply unloaded a fully cocked arm into Adoles's jaw. Adoles flew from the doorway, his body arching back like an Olympic ski jumper who had put his skis on backwards but was still going for it, making his body into an airfoil to get the greatest distance, finally crumpling against a bunk locker and falling to the deck. Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Dures, who was trying to get some rack time before his OOD midwatch, rolled out of his rack. That'll be enough, Dees, he said, though Dees hadn't moved from where he had sent Adoles flying. You all right? he asked Adoles, who lay naked against the lower bunk, his towel on the floor in front of him. Adoles nodded once. You want to take this to mast? Dures was looking down at him. Past him in the lounge Dees was staring hard at him, the other deck apes on either side and behind looking his way as well. And another seaman who hadn't been there before was moving among them picking up plan-of-the-days and pages of newspaper, then setting them down. He tried to pick up a hand of cards and was backhanded in the belly. He left up the ladder, barely noticed. Nah. Adoles rose and staggered against the lockers, retrieved his towel. Are you sure? Yeah, and turned toward his rack. It took twenty minutes of chipping paint for the boatswain's mate image Adoles had formed from folklore, cartoons, and his father's thirty-year-old memories to disappear. He waited two weeks to see if the image would re-materialize, if chipping paint with an eight ounce chipping hammer would build any muscle but it didn't. He went and told BM2 Emerson he was ready to go to school. Ha! It's too late now. We got you now, the bo's'n said humorlessly, then stood with his mouth open and such a look of bafflement as if he hadn't half-understood what he himself had just said. They were in the aft-boatswain's locker, which had once been the brig. The lattice of quarter-inch steel plate serving as bars was now hooked and covered with block and tackle, blocks pulled together with their coiled line hung over them; pelican hooks; shackles; chains; and other more obscure, antique deck gear whose use and function had long been forgotten by all but the master chief. The strong wet rope odor competed with the reek of marijuana. Adoles wondered if Emerson could smell it. He'd noticed his own sense of smell and taste returning since he had quit smoking cigarettes. He was sure Emerson hadn't smoked it; his look of idiocy was natural, not drug induced. You could put in a chit, but they won't look at it for six months. What school you want to go to anyhow? Emerson asked. Navigation popped into Adoles's mind. Quartermaster, he said. Well, hell, you can do that OJT. Just let the quartermaster know you're interested, start learning the rate, when there's an opening strike for it. Still, they're not going to let you off the deck for at least six months. We're too short-handed. Adoles's hope easily sank through the deck and hull, past the stilled blades of the screw and settled in the thick harbor muck. He kicked idly at the bottom of a waist-high coil of hawser so thick he couldn't put his hand around it. Must be four, five hundred pounds of rope he thought vaguely, maybe more. Until then you might as well turn to. Emerson pointed two fingers at him and turned them back and forth. Before Adoles walked out from under the shade of the helo deck he saw the master chief leaning on the

white rails of the O-2 level, looking aft omnisciently through aviator sunglasses. He was a small black man who carried a leather bound notebook which tripled as sheaves for a knife and small marlinspike. At quarters he would stand in front of the deck divisions with his head tilted back studying the rigging overhead, clasping the notebook in his left hand, which hung like a plumb bob straight from the shoulder, swaying on his feet as if compensating for a rolling sea. Scuttle butt was the Boatswain's Mate Master Chief drank a hard pint every morning before muster. He usually never spoke, though one morning in response to other petty officers' conversation he had voiced his opinion and his voice came out thicker and deeper than Adoles thought possible from such a small frame. A man's his hands, a woman's her mouth, he said, grabbing at his crotch significantly. To anyone out of earshot he could have just been readjusting things, but to the petty officers gathered around it removed any doubt as to what he meant. The group turned in and laughed as much as being at quarters would allow. BM3 Teijack pushed on his own gig line as if the conversation had aroused him. The only master chief onboard and being the most senior enlisted man on the ship he carried the title, Master Chief of the Ship. Adoles picked up the chipping hammer where he had left it by the winch house and joined Geezer in the chipping. Geezer wasn't his real name, at least Adoles didn't think so, but if there had been a name stenciled above his left shirt pocket it was now covered with paint, as was much of the rest of his dungarees. He wore just about every color of paint in the navy palette. Besides the newer, orangish, red lead covering the left shirt pocket, he had on his right shoulder the older tomato red lead with which the city of San Francisco still painted the Golden Gate Bridge. There was blue one-seventeen primer in smaller splotches, and smears of yellow zinc chromate the navy used as primer on ladder railings. Splatters of haze gray broke up the colors here and there but were mostly consigned to his trousers, which also had a bar of white on the seat where he had inadvertently sat on a freshly painted upper-level rail. His boondockers had seen all these colors, but now were soot black, the color of the top of the stack. A shiny steel toe showed through a hole in the left boondocker where he had tested out a pneumatic wire brush. There had been five hammers chipping at first, a great cacophony easily drowning the noise from the shipyard, but Dees and Vargas had left before the first hour was gone and now Kopephsky was absent also, so it was just the two of them. Adoles's blows came slightly faster than Geezer's; his metal thudding cycled through the other like old, air-powered windshield wipers, coming together every half minute or so for five or six blows, then out again. The sound traveled over the ship and through the main deck, up and down the bulkheads, into the innermost compartments. What's the matter, Adoles. You look like your best dog died, Geezer had stopped to brush the paint chips out of his struggling beard and mustache. Adoles shook his head still chipping, trying to decide how to phrase it. Finally he said, This sucks, stopping his hammer at the same time to emphasize the point. Geezer thought this hilarious and laughed deeply from the belly. Didn't you read the recruiting poster? IT'S NOT JUST A JOB, IT'S AN INDENTURE, and laughed again, his diaphragm twitching at the same rate he had been chipping. BM3 Bear appeared over them with his ever present cup of coffee hooked on his left hand. Unlike Geezer, BEAR was clearly stenciled above his left pocket, but Adoles thought this was a nickname too since Bear was at least six four and 300 pounds. He shaved his mustache and hair around his mouth while letting it grow under his chin and up into his sideburns, making him look like a giant leprechaun. Geezer, where did Kopephsky go?, Bear asked. How should I know? I ain't got the Pole watch, Geezer replied. Fucking smartass. A-Doll, where did Kopephsky go? Adoles didn't like the nickname and took a moment to look up from his chipping, but then Dees and Vargas strolled up changing the subject. Where have you two been?, Bear asked. Paint locker, Vargas replied lazily. You still have some chipping and wire brushing before you paint, Bear said. Yeah, but it's already getting hot so we went for a bucket of shade, Dees rejoined. His eyes were slits, the whites red. Vargas laughed slowly behind green aviator shades like the master chief's. Yeah, and I'll send you down to the boiler room for a knuckle sandwich in a minute, then lowering his

voice among them, Don't look now, but master chief is on the O-2 looking this way, so would you two, turn to, before I get a new asshole chewed? I'm just getting used to this one. Dees and Vargas found chipping hammers and started chipping, Dees striking the deck with the same force a blacksmith uses when forging chain link. Bear started walking away then stopped. "Dees, what are you trying to do, chip your way to P-I? Dees stopped, choked up on the hammer, and began tapping the deck so lightly now the paint hardly came up at all. The frantic tappings mixed in with the other four hammers, which began listening to each other and once, before the noon meal, all came together in a single, soul deafening pounding. They each altered their pace just enough to make it last longer than it would have. The disbursing clerks and personnelmen and boiler technicians who worked inside and had gotten used to the noise stopped and listened anew. Just before each synchronous blow, as the ears were recovering from the last, the panicked tapping from Dees could be heard, a melody as monotonous as the booming deck base. After chow the hammers were replaced by wire bristles on wooden sticks, and they in turn gave way to boar bristled paint brushes. The thin paint left after chipping tenaciously adhereing to the deck was brushed off from around the dents made by the chisel-headed chipping hammers. Sparks of oxidation, safely sheltered in the pits from the wire bristles, showed through the thin one-seventeen like brown freckles through a blue skin. The thicker red lead covered them, and then the next day the deck gray non-skid, paint with sand in it, was put down. Hidden from view the slow rust fire spread out from the pits under the fresh paint. *** The pain shot up into his left elbow like a pointed tuning fork had been driven through his funny bone and beat on with a pair of hammers. By the time he got to sickbay the pain had grown down into his hand so it hurt to move it. The corpsman determined there was tendon damage and sent him over to Treasure Island to see a doctor. He had been to T.I. before, to the navy exchange to replace his stolen uniforms and at night to the enlisted men's club, but this was the first time he thought about the book of the same name his father had read to his brother and him when they were little. He couldn't remember any of the story, just the book, a green paperback with the title in fancy white lettering across the front. By the time the duty driver had taken him halfway across the Bay Bridge pinpricks of sweat covered the inside of his arm and hand, and his fingers were curved and outstretched as if he were holding a small, invisible globe. The doctor made him move each of his fingers. Then with Adoles lying back on the table and his arm hanging over the side, hand out of sight, the doctor stuck the tip of each finger with a needle, each time asking if he felt it. In this way he determined there was no nerve damage and the Palmaris longus was severed, a tendon originating at the internal condyle of the humerus and not really attaching anywhere but spreading out into the palm. It was vestigial in man, sometimes even absent, so there was no need to reattach it. The doctor closed the knife wound with four stitches and prescribed Tylenol. Over the next month Adoles watched the two ends of the tendon disassociate themselves: one quickly pulled down into the cords of his wrist where it lodged short and stubby, while the other slowly disappeared, flapping up into his elbow like a pulled window shade released. As he regained the use of his hand sometimes the window shade end would flutter and grab, pulling itself deeper under the muscles of his forearm, grasping at its forgotten monkey function from the trees. When he got back to the ship the noon meal was being served, but he climbed up to the port boat deck instead of eating. Here the sounds of the pier and yard were muted; the compressed air, steam, bleeping crane on the other side of the ship. He stared down at the dirty green water and the harbor ducks with their slicked down feathers. They dove for a minute or so then resurfaced twenty yards away. Gad, what did they find to eat down there? And then out where the water blinked, where he could see the currents form different patterns of reflection and the lines of force where they met. He studied the scintillas: his eye jumping back and forth from one pattern to the other, jumping smaller and smaller over the line until, losing the essence of each form, the line between them disappeared. The old rage encapsulated like trichinosis stirred. One cell erupted in an oath; others, like boils, in a plan of pain.

Lookout! As he woke from where he was standing, leaning against the gunwale, Adoles could tell it wasn't the first time the watch word had been uttered. The lights he had first seen on the distant horizon; one steady, the other winking; were much closer now. For a moment he thought they were dead in the water, but then he heard the soughing at the hull, the hum of the engines. Yes, sir? he replied to the call.

Why didn't you report those ships? Adoles now recognized the voice as Lieutenant JG Gattiano, the officer in charge of operations:communications and so his future first officer in the chain of command from the signal bridgeif he made it to the signal bridge. Adoles said, I knew you had them on radar, sir. He heard the officer turn shortly and walk back into the wheelhouse. Adoles hoped the officer didn't recognize him, hoped he wasn't on the striker board. Shortly the officer returned. Perhaps from the day's tragedy he was tiredly pedantic rather than penal. Now just because we had them on radar doesn't mean you shouldn't report your siting. If the operation specialist knew you had him on visual as you knew he had them on the scope and you both decided not to report the fact, because the other man knew.... Well, we'd be in a mess then, wouldn't we? But Adoles stood silent, leaning against the gunwale, the ends of the broken dream-memory cut and spliced and already running again with only a moment lost. The wish for pain could not be incorporated into the plan so he traded it for a moment of recognition. The knifer came aft, down the ladders on the starboard side in rotation of the watchfrom the starboard lookout to the fantailuntil he reached the boat deck. Adoles called, Pssstt. He waited until his attacker's shape turned and that ever-so-slight sign of recognition lit his face in the dark star light. Then he brought the dogging wrench around and down on his head as fast as a snake strike. The sound was much louder than he had imagined it would be, like a water melon being hit, but something of a coconut in it too. The body slumped to the deck. Two more strikes to the head and then he threw the dogging wrench over the side. He uncovered the three, seventy-five pound chain links acquisitioned from the chain locker by the weight-lifting deck apes, who lashed the links onto a steel rod for bench pressing. Roland heaved the top link onto the dead man's chest and was startled by the rush of air expelled. He pulled the arms around the link and tied them together, then tied the ankles to his haunches after running a line under his knees and pulled them up tight against the bottom part of the link, ran a line around his neck and pulled his head down to the top of the link; almost a fetal position, taking a link back to the womb. He took a turn around the railing with a heavier line and tied one end to man and metal then he pushed the man-link under the railing and over the gutter lip, easing them down to the moving surface of the water. He unsheathed his knife and cut the rope outboard of the railing. The frazzled deep plucking of the parting line was followed by a low clap-sloosh from the foamy soughing. Adoles knew he would do it as soon as they put to sea. He took the dogging wrench from its rod bracket by the hatch door, just a piece of pipe to lever the eight rod-like handles, to pull the metal edge of the door tight against the gasket making it watertight. He hefted it rhythmically for a few moments, feeling the weight in his wrist. On the O-4 level forward of the boat deck a seaman wearing headphones came out of the wheelhouse and clamped a long low box, short of a fathom long and a span and a half wide, to the railing. He started fingering it like a piano, but no sound came out. Adoles returned the dogging wrench to its bracket for the time being and climbed the two ladders to the O-4 level and saw the box was indeed a keyboard, which mad soft, felt-covered-wood noises as the seaman pressed the keys in time to the music he was listening to through headphones. Adoles guessed it was classical from the complexity, the non-repetitive phrasing, perhaps Beethoven from the blind, passionate face the player wore. His hands were not overly large but easily spanned a chord and the left found all the notes within the stretched out chords. The music paused, and the seaman half-opened his eyes to where the water blinked and caught Adoles smiling in the corner of his eye. Take the phones after the second movement starts. Almost immediately his fingers were moving again. Adoles, with his good hand, gingerly took the headphones off the other's head and put them on. This movement was slower and one Adoles thought he had heard, though he couldn't name it. The fingers paused on the keys, slightly stroking the ivory between the ebony sharps and flats, before striking in perfect time. Watching, the sensation was strange and magical. Adoles looked at the turning little wheels in the portable cassette player hung on the seaman's belt and began to think it was mere ornament, like a piano rigged with a player piano roll so as to appear to be playing a scroll of punched paper music but was only a sham. The music seemed to come directly from the fingers through the keys to invisible levers hitting on strings strung tight in Adoles's head. It was so real and so very

beautiful; it constricted his throat, and he had to take the headphones off before the movement was over. CONTINUE SHIP'S WORK stilled the player's fingers. He offered Adoles his hand below the rib cage for an old-fashioned shake. Hi, my name's Shaun. PETERSON was stenciled above the seaman's shirt pocket. Roland, he said. The first names sounded strange, as if they really weren't their own but people they knew, civilians. As they shook hands Adoles could see Shaun noticed the white gauze and hospital tape on the inside of his left forearm, didn't ask about it, inquired instead, Do you play? No, not really. I had lessons growing up, but I never pursued it. My mom plays for her church sometimes but nothing like that. You're good. Shaun smiled self-consciously, turned to unclamp the keyboard from the railing. No, really. You ought to be playing Carnegie Hall or something. Well, I did have a scholarship to Eastman. What happened? Shaun gave him an ambiguous smile, You know, shit. He had just gotten the keyboard unclamped when another seaman came up to them and anxiously asked, You got any papers? Both thought he meant rolling papers and said no, but the seaman stood looking hard at Adoles's chest, What's that? What, you mean this? Adoles pulled the prescription for Tylenol from his shirt pocket. The seaman took it, scrutinizing the front and back. Adoles thought he had seen him before, then remembered it was the same seaman who had been picking up odd sheets of paper in the deck lounge after Dees had decked him. Anything you roll with that's going to be pretty harsh, Adoles coughed a short, furtive laugh. Shaun suggested, Why don't you just load a cigarette? The seaman didn't seem to hear either of them and said nothing until he had looked the paper over thoroughly. Finally he gave it back and said, That's not it, and left, scanning the deck as he went. What a loon. Wonder what he's looking for. You! They looked up to see Bear leaning over the gunwale of the gun tub. What the fuck are you doing, Adoles? I just got back from T.I. He offered his bandaged arm as evidence. You got back half an hour ago, I checked the quarterdeck log. Now get aft and turn to. Aye aye, sir. You see a 'sir' you suck his dick. Adoles started aft. Shaun called out, Hey, you got liberty tonight? There's a church off Third Avenue that lets me use their piano. Yeah, sure. Meet you on the mess deck. Okay. Even though it was afternoon, Adoles found himself chipping paint. Everyone else was wire brushing and then painting, as was the usual order of things, but he continued chipping the deck and no one noticed him or much less stopped him. Down on his right knee he cradled his hurt arm between his left leg and belly; and even after his knee went numb from the dinging, vibrating deck he didn't dare change position. He chipped straight through until sweepers was called and thought about saying something about the unprotected deck, about the bare metal he had uncovered, but changed his mind. In the morning it would be nice to find a large area of earth-colored rust breaking the monotonous field of deck and haze gray of the winches and winch house. Even the white railings didn't look white anymore but a very pale gray, and the black around the rim of the stack and the upper part of the king posts wasn't really black but a very dark gray. The rust would look nice. For the first time since he had reported onboard Adoles felt a sense of accomplishment. Only after he sat down to eat did he notice the change. He neither remembered queuing up for chow nor forgetting to wash up, but a quite poignant memory was made when he struck himself in the mouth with the chipping hammer when he was expecting chicken fried steak. The tool steel chipped his right eye tooth. He spontaneously blew the chip out and it ticked off his plastic tray then tocked off the bulkhead paneling. At first he was embarrassed, though not surprised. He had been somewhat famous for losing pencils

behind his ear, books in his hand, sunglasses on top of his head, but any embarrassment gave way to total astonishment. When he looked down to the hammer, which he had forgotten to turn in to the after boatswain's locker, had unconsciously carried with him through the chow line, and now had hit himself in the mouth with, it had become one with his hand. His fingers and thumb had melded with the wooden handle and now were shallow ridges in a material somewhat between wood and flesh. There was no real distinction between the hammer and the hand; the material joined the ridges like the webbing in ducks' feet and spread out from the outermost ridges to meet what used to be the handle of the hammer in a sutureless join.

Adoles didn't taste the blood from his lip or feel the cool nerve spot on his chipped tooth when he sucked air. The fingers below his hurt left arm were no longer holding a small globe but configured for the large tuning knob of a receiver, drawn in and fixed out of pain-taught habit. He carefully ran them down his right forearm to determine where sensation ceased. It was hard to tell. The feeling started to fade somewhere above the wrist, but he thought he could feel it down past the ridges and even into the former hammer handle. He couldn't feel the head of the hammer, but when he pulled it against the underside lip of the table it felt like flicking a fingernaila kind of handnail or hoof. He had not eaten since breakfast, and hunger made him move his left hand and remaining fingers to the fork, but the immobilizing pain shot down into his hand and doubled back into his elbow, so he tried to spear the slab of meat with the chisel-headed hammerhand without success. A deck ape from first division took irritable pity, cleaned off the messy hammerhand and worked two annularly small though very wide rubber bands over the chisel head and spaced them apart on the neck of the former handle. Then he slipped the fork handle underneath the rubber bands with the tines protruding out past the head. The Rube Goldberg eating apparatus looked like a cross: the double-headed chisel the arms and the tines of the fork where Jesus would hang his weary head. The fork wouldn't stand much lateral pressure, so he stabbed the whole slab and ate it like a caramelcoated apple. The mashed potatoes and succotash were easier, but still he had to concentrate. When he took

his tray to the scullery window the mess cook pulled the fork from his hammerhand without a look and sloshed his tray. Slowly Adoles heeled his way down the ladder rungs trying not to touch the railings, the left hand for the pain, the right hammerhand for the noise. It took him twenty minutes of working at his bunk lock to discover the pulpy end of the hammerhand, where the wedge had been driven to hold the hammerhead from flying off, had enough friction to turn the knob. Shaun found him staring vacantly into his locker. Are you going over? No, something's come up. He neither displayed nor hid the metamorphosis. Oh, okay. Well, maybe some other time, Shaun said. Sure. See you. Right. The next day at morning chow Adoles noticed two hull technician apprentices with locking clamps appended to their left arms and a machinist mate apprentice with an adjustable wrench on his right. Many of the first class petty officers who frequented their lounge just off the mess deck came and left with coffee cups hooked to their hands by an interlocking handle, half of which used to be a finger. He found he could lightly oppose the thumb and forefinger of his left hand without too much pain and so was able to position the fork handle in front of the rubber bands and push it between the rubber bands and hammerhand using the edge of the table. No one looked at the hammerhand. They all avoided it the way many avoid looking at the space left by an amputation or the man-made metalwork filling it. Or perhaps it was just common, at least not rare, and of no interest; he was just being oversensitive to their usual lack of concern, reading in duplicity where there was only disinterest. When he went aft to muster for quarters the patch of brown rust earth was not there; extra-duty personnel had been put on it the night before, and it was now mulched with a heavy coating of deck gray nonskid. He looked for a spot they might have missed but found none. He didn't hear anything they passed at quarters. One of his mates nudged him in the ribs and said, Hey, did you hear your knifer friend's U-A?, but nothing more. At colors when they turned aft to face the quickly hoisted ensign, while the division petty officers saluted, Adoles saw a flag of gray stripes with a corner of light gray stars on a darker gray background. After quarters even the metal uncovered by his chipping hammerhand was gray. He could only tell where he had chipped by the pitted, smoother surface beside the sandy rough nonskid. The Blacks called the Whites Grays and were proud of their own group name and still prouder of the older Color-eds, though only among themselves. Yet they were neither; like the Whites they were Grays too, just darker. The Filipinos in their glowing tropical gray looked at both groups askance, not figuring in the historical conflict, never slave nor master to Blacks or Whites, removed by their language and culture. But all the enlisted men were slaves. The officers were gray too, but they were the masters; their skin was better kept and smoother, their khakis very close to the haze gray of the outside vertical structures and equipment of the ship; the bulkheads, booms, gun mounts; when they came out of their staterooms on the O-2 level and leaned still against the railings they were all but for shadows invisible. Over time it became harder to distinguish anything. The grays would oscillate across each other like a figure-ground experiment. Adoles had to stop and study things to keep from losing his balance and falling or bumping into them. Except at night, in his dreams. Here color of every hue, value, and saturation filled the landscapes; rich lustrous blacks, like Miss Moreno's hair, honey smooth teak brown skin, cloudy whites, like her gingham dress. They were in seventh period, the last period of the day, in the old high school. The sun came slanting in through the open windows. She stood in front of the class, her upper body outlined against the green chalkboard, the dress cut low on her warm shoulders, her hair falling behind to the middle of her back. The dress terraced layers of lace to her waist and then ruffles and lace to her knees. Below the chalkboard, by the bright wall reflecting the afternoon sun, he struggled for a glimpse of her legs in hazy silhouette. When she moved to the lectern he concentrated on the rise and swell of her breasts. Jose! Miss Moreno said, interrupting his thoughts. 'Jose' was his given Spanish name. Si?, Roland said. Donde esta? Miss Moreno asked.

Aqui. Roland answered. She shook her head, Porque no contesta la pregunta? He looked down to his book: because I was feeling the rise and swell of your breasts, they're a wonder, how they stay up like that, so pert and full and yet so soft; and the nipples sleeping in their areolae. I was wondering if I might kiss them awake.... But she was listening to someone else. How could they expect him to learn Spanish from a lady so beautiful? After the last bell of the day rang, through the clipped sound of shuffling papers and people she said, Jose, I would like to speak to you. The rest of the class left, anxious to get home; they were alone at the desk. She didn't say anything at first, but finished arranging things in her briefcase and snapped it shut. Let's go in my office. This room was narrow, squeezed between this and another classroom, and as long as the classrooms were wide. A door opened to each classroom as well as a third onto the hall. She went around behind her desk backed up to the single large window and laid her briefcase down on the desk top. Leaning over slightly, putting two knuckles and a thumb on either side of it, locking elbows, she donned a no nonsense attitude, the sunlight shining through her dress making a bright white triangle: her legs its legs, the horizontal line of the desktop the base, the highest point her pubis. What seems to be the problem, Roland? Spanish is not difficult, and you're a bright boy, Miss Moreno said. The highest point, yes. He looked up from the triangle to her dark, intent eyes. It's a matter of trigonometry, really. Space. Or area, one half the base times the height. He looked back down to the glowing triangle. She neither sat down nor shifted her legs. A tentative knock came from the door; she moved past him to answer it, leaving him to squint into the afternoon sun. He heard her voice in the hall, Yes, just a moment, the door close again. It's for you, Miss Moreno said passing him. He gave her a questioning look, but she was unanswering. He went to the door and opened it to find Cybette clutching to her chest a now useless hall pass in one hand and a crumpled, chit-size paper in the other, rolled and crumpled like a runner's batonless message. She was staring over his head, her silence confirming all they had expected. The paper was from the dispensary: test results: positive. He didn't fly off the handle this time, throwing his fists stupidly into hall lockers and exploding out onto a second-story landingsuddenly drained, pulling open a window and lighting a tasteless cigarette, while Cybette stood by mutely. No. This time he says, It's okay, it's okay, and puts his hand below her crossed wrists, on her belly, feeling lower, It's okay, we're too young to go down this road; I know the way back, the protospirit being absorbed by the wisdom of his touch, the half-formed spirit and all the memory, mental and physical. The one line of the web is cleanly extracted, the radii on either side pulled in, the sleeping spider not even awakened. He kissed her lightly as the last was done, in her new virginity, and she felt it like the sound of a clapperless bell ringing in the wind. The paper gone, she let the hall pass clatter to the floor and drifted down the hall. He turned back to Miss Moreno's office, but the door was locked. He sensed she was gone. Another day, Miss Moreno in front of the class wearing a bright white, closely knit body suit; he could tell by the way it was stretched between her shoulders and pulled down under the crushed velvet skirt. It was so bright when she moved into the sunlight it glared like knit chromium. The skirt was light lavender to crimson black depending on the angle of light. She had him stay after class again. In her office she sat on her desk with one foot on the floor and a leg up across the corner, swinging her foot easily on either side of the corner, first the front then the side, front, side. It seemed she had forgotten she was wearing a skirt. She asked him the same question. He answered softly, earnestly, honestly. She said she couldn't hear. He moved closer, his hand toward the dark purple cave. He woke before reveille and turned over, the semen wetly sticking the sheet to his belly, the elastic on his jockey shorts strangling the dying member. He wiped off his belly with a clean corner of the sheet and changed his underwear before the lights came on. That evening, not wanting to put the soiled sheet in ship's laundry, he decided to go to a launderette. He hadn't been on liberty since acquiring the hammerhand, and the civilian clothes felt strange; his feet spread out into the square-toed hiking boots. He went down the gangway with the laundry sack over his shoulder,

the giant safety pin hooked over the hammerhand.

He had lost all track of time or season. San Francisco was a seasonless city; the cool, gray city by the bay, someone had said, quoting a poet. A few yardbird welders on swing shift made their way down the pier looking like cosmic night fighters in their helmets and loops of heavy welding cable draped over their protective leathers, pulling a squeaky arc welder. The arc welder was red; he looked twice to confirm this fact; yes, but the kind of red in a hand dyed photograph. He made his way through the dark yard to the gate where a fat uniformed guard nodded his way out. He walked the railroad-split block to Third Avenue, jogged down two blocks toward the city and then up Potrero Hill, crossing an arched bridge spanning six lanes of interstate. Here was more color, orange incandescent and newer white halogen headlights, red tail lights of the vehicles passing underneath. The small launderette was half way up the hill, across the street from a corner market and a day cafe farther up the street. He fumbled at the coin and detergent machines; an old man, apparently the attendant, eying him vaguely from a half-door at the back. One other customer, a large woman, had a proportionate amount of laundry separated among five or six machines according to color and material. She monitored the cycle of each machine as attentively as an alchemist attending the transmutation of lead, adding brightener or fabric softener accordingly, the nylons she was wearing protesting loudly at the inside of her thighs as she moved back and forth along the line of washers. A smaller woman with a heavy basket came in and tossed the load into a dryer and immediately immersed herself in a magazine. Neither looked up when he ripped a shirt hooking it out of the laundry sack with his hammerhand, cursing under his breath. City folks, distancing themselves because they had no distance. Carrying her awkward, angular laundry in pillow cases, an angel entered in white, the white of light with all the colors, through it silky white hose disappearing under downy white feathers and down into shiny white slippers, but no wings. She didn't wear hat or halo, but Adoles could see how the folded bun would fit under one. She started two loads quickly with precision. She nodded at the attendant still at the half door, a voiceless greeting and old query: Watch my laundry? The slow nod and half smile in reply: You bet. She walked back out the door.

Unconsciously, propelled by not what he knew, Adoles followed her out. She had disappeared. He looked up and down the street, though he had seen her turn right, up the hill. He crossed the street to the corner market and found a chocolate covered cookie and ice cream sandwich in the freezer and stood in front of the store eating it, studying the launderette. The man still leaned on the doorhad he ever moved?the smaller woman still in her magazine; the larger now leaning on a washer, mesmerized by a dryer on the farther wall, being gently vibrated, the loose fat behind her arms jiggling. He had a growing use of his remaining hand now, though still only a weak grip. He palmed the hammerhand; much of the cruder handling and grippinghookinghad been taken over by it. The longer he had it the more he resented it, the more he knew it imprisoned him to the deck force. For the first time since he had talked to Emerson in the after boatswain's locker Adoles searched for a way to transfer out, but now it was even less likely. He might be six months on the deck force, but with his hammerhand he was too much of an asset. He thought of cutting it off, a hacksaw ought to get through the stuff, but he felt, to the point of knowing, he would lose all chance of getting his old hand back if he did. He could befriend a hull technician, get them to weld a locking clamp onto it and so become a hull tech himself; the inevitable cataracts from arcwelding seemed a fair trade. But this was also too drastic; if he got his hand back it would be badly malformed. The angel reappeared, going back into the laundry. Two cars passed going up and down the street before he could cross, then he entered just as she was closing the door to a dryer. As she turned toward him he was suddenly unnerved. He jerked his head down, covering the hammerhand with the other, sticky with ice cream and chocolate. He kept his burning face to the floor. What did he think he was he going to say to her? Hello; O hell. No. God be with you, God be, God by, goodby, goodbye.... He rinsed his hand at the prewash sink and automatically transferred his clothes to a dryer. When the dryer's deep rumbling stopped and the silence pulled him out of his blue study of floor tiles she was there with wings. They lay trim along her back, rising from her scapulae to just above her shoulders, curving downward to the tips of the primaries behind her knees. She gracewayed to the door, surrounded by the white aurora. The large woman was busy matching socks and didn't seem to notice the outer edge of the glowing diaphanous sphere pass through her. The angel went through the door raising her wings and paused on the curve, stretching, stepped off yet never touched the street. The wings came down powerfully. Up into the night, she was gone. The sight of her had pulled his spirit out of the muck-sucking depths, but as he came down the hill he tried to pin it down, put words on it, imagine it repeatedly to memorize it, but he lost something each time until even the effervescent white ambiance that had surrounded her was lost in gray mottle. Clunking down the ladders to the deck compartment his returning depression was dispelled when he saw Cooper in the lounge. Coop! What the hell! Adoles couldn't contain his jubilation. He pounded him hard on the shoulder with the flat side of his hammerhand, happy to see a familiar face from what now seemed a happy time. Hey, watch it with that thing. Cooper rubbed his shoulder, eying the hammerhand. So, what the hell are you doing here? I thought you were going to sub school, Adoles said. Cooper answered while he surveyed Adoles, the hammerhand, the blue-turning-brown bruise around the knife wound on his other arm. I did. Got busted for possession. 'No potheads on submarines,' navy policy. Then without asking Adoles how he came to his condition he simply stated it, You looked fucked up and far from faith, followed by what he perceived to be a cure, Let's go get laid. Adoles stowed his laundry, and with Geezer and another deck ape named Boles they drove over the Bay Bridge into Oakland. Boles sat on the edge of the backseat, pushing his thick, navy-issue black-rimmed glasses up on his bridgeless nose, intent on the traffic and lights. Adoles couldn't remember seeing him in civvies before. Geezer lay splayed out next to him, nodding to the rock music on the tape player, oblivious to anything outside the car. Adoles rode shotgun, Cooper drove. The car was jacked up in the back, an old utility for hauling bootleg whiskey now an obligation for any non-sports car wanting to look fast. It had wide tires in the back and a chrome air filter sticking up through the hood, audibly sucking in the cool air. It grumble-rumbled through the muffler, chronically indignant, perhaps at the faster, quieter cars sliding past. They went through a drive-in for burgers, fries, colas and ate in the parking lot. Not until the first prostitutes yelled at them from the curbs of MacArthur Boulevard did Adoles realize Cooper had really been serious, and he wished now he was seriously drunk, XXX. He didn't feel like confronting a prostitute, not

sober anyway, but was alone in this feeling. More than a dozen walked and leaned within two blocks, and the other deck apes called to each other to look at one and then another, usually by an attribute below the waist. Holy Moley, would you look at those pink hot pants. Black leather on the left. Naugahyde. Leather, NaugahydewhateverI'd give her a horn to sit on. Yellow stockings off the starboard bow. Cut the navy crap, will ya Boles? Boles shrugged it off, She's got legs up to her lungs. Yeah, I'd like to knock the wind out of her, Geezer chimed in, hitting the back of Adoles's seat. After a lull in the banter Boles observed, They're all black, ain't there any white ones? Sometimes there's a few over on Shattuck, Cooper offered. Who cares? They're all pink on the inside. Geezer had become anxious, didn't even laugh. Cooper turned on the street dividing the two blocks and pulled into a self-service gas station, now closed. Ladies gathered around, keeping an eye out for the paddy wagon. One said of Boles's glasses, Look at them coke bottles. Then she ran a fore finger down his cheek. Hey, sugar, I'll give you somethin' to look at. She ran the same finger up the inside of her thigh pulling her skirt up dangerously high, eyes closed, mouth open, head back to the night sky as if the touch caused her extreme pleasure. Boles was already out of the car. Yellow Stockinged Legs wanted fifty to go with Geezer. Where do you think you are, uptown Manhattan? I'll give you twenty, Geezer said. Legs shifted from one foot to the other, then back again. Two and a half feet above a mouth chewed gum, but he didn't notice. That sounds fair, she said. Geezer moved to open the door. Twenty apiece, Miss Legs said, But that includes what's in-between. Geezer settled back in the seat. Legs turned around and the backs tilted toward him introducing her ass, counter balancing the torso as it bent over on the other side, brushing away invisible dirt from a shoe. Geezer said, Shit-damn, under his breath, then aloud, All I've got's twenty, honest. A relatively conservative dark skirt moved from the far side of Legs where it failed to compete for Geezer's attention, and up to Adoles's door. He knew there was no escape from the situation without tainting the strange honor of a sailor. Fifteen, he said with no room for barter, take it or leave it. She nodded twice: once down in affirmation, then up to the side, signaling him to follow. They went up to her second-floor motel room; the dress looking brighter than it was from the coal black legs protruding from it. She told him to put the money on the dresser and went into the bathroom to comb and pat at her straightened and recurled hair. He felt younger and less experienced than a virgin, wasn't prepared for the hot flush of embarrassment enveloping him when he realized, while he had taken fifteen dollars, he had forgotten they had gone to the drive-in. She came over to the dresser, looking at the four crumpled bills, thirteen dollars. I forgot, we ate, he stammered, pulling out change. She continued to look until his pockets were empty. Deciding the small pile was enough, she walked to the side of the bed and sat down, dropping her underpants as she went. She didn't take them all the way off but put one foot through both leg holes and pulled and rolled them high up on her thigh, safe from souvenir pickers. On the other leg in the same place was a functionless garter. She leaned back on the bed, knees up and apart. We don't have time for that, just your pants. Adoles took off his pants and underpants. He was not prepared for the task at hand but crawled between her legs anyway, hoping the position would open the valve, let the blood flow, fill. He ground his pelvis against hers but nothing happened. She pushed him off and pulled on him a few times, rose and went back into the bathroom to look at herself, pat her hair. So, how did you ever get into this kind of work? He eyed her profile in the bright bathroom light, concentrating on her sex. She took a moment to answer, still intent on her reflection, I was going to school, needed money.... She ran the pointed handle of the comb underneath a curl. School? College?

Yeah, I was a junior when I dropped out. What were you majoring in? Psychology. Look, I haven't got all night. He was semi-prepared. I think I can handle it now, he said. She gave some curls a last flick and came back to the bed, and Adoles saved his untried honor. When he got back to the car Cooper and Geezer were already there. The prostitutes were back spread along the curb. Black Leather Skirt looked like a trunkless silhouette as she bent way over to talk to a man in a white Cadillac. Cooper asked Adoles, Get yours? Yeah, man. He tried to sound satisfied. How much? Cooper asked. Thirteen. I forgot we had gone for burgers. That's not bad. I got mine for ten. Geezer here shelled out twenty. So what, mine was the best looking, but Geezer's sullen voice betrayed him. It hadn't been worth it. They sat waiting for Boles. Finally he came across the oil soaked service lanes, his lips pulled back from dull teeth. Well, would you look at that shit-eating grin. Hey, Boles, you got something on your chin. These gibes didn't do anything to slacken the smile as Boles got back in the car, but as soon as he closed the door he said, God, it smells like dead fish in here. What do you expect, it's Thursday. So, how much did she get you for? Cooper seemed overly concerned with establishing a financial scoring, analogous to golf. So far par was $14.30. Only thirty. Boles's smile drained away as he heard of the better bargain, then a saving thought came to his face, But I went twice, I got it twice! Geezer burst out unexpectedly, spraying Boles with unswallowed saliva, and his laugh set the rest of them off, the car rolling with laughter with Boles asking, What? What? Had his pussy and ate it too! On the way back to the ship the car was quiet. Boles fell asleep in the back, his head lolling about at the top of the seat, rolling with the curves. Geezer thought of putting some leftover ketchup on a napkin by his head so when Cooper made a left turn he would roll into it, but changed his mind. He turned his attention to the dark bay. Adoles unconsciously ran the hammerhand along the other hand and up the inside of his arm to the wound, feeling the coolness of the metal disappear as it crossed. Cooper turned down the stereo and seemed to listen to the grumbling of the car. Finally he said, I could have had a fifth of Wild Turkey. Only Adoles received more than he bargained for. The next morning he staggered out of sleep to the head and was jolted awake at the urinal by a fire-breathing dragon roaring flames out of the drain, burning his penis from the inside out. He jerked back, slamming the sailor behind him against the bulkhead. Adoles whispered a long, sibilant shit, though it was piss causing the pain. He looked down at his undershorts and saw the green stain at the front of his crotch and knew he had gonorrhea. He started up the ladder to sickbay and fathomed through the pain he had to dress first, so went back down to the berthing compartment for his dungarees. The discharge of pus had soaked through his undershorts and soiled his sheets, but he didn't bother to change them now; he had to get to sickbay. He climbed the three ladders to the O-1 level where sickbay was located aft of operations berthing, off a short passageway. When he got there no one answered his knock, and he grasped they wouldn't open until after quarters. He went back down to the head where his bladder argued with his penis about the urine. It can't stay here, I'm about to bust. Well, it's not coming through here. Where's it suppose to go then? Beats me, not my problem. Not beating you caused the problem. Ha ha. Very funny. Still not happening. Have the kidneys mix it back in the blood. Except blood wouldn't have it so the kidneys and bladder made the penis give passage. As the urine dribbled out in supernatural

pain, Adoles gripped so hard the bloodless white in the knuckles spread to fill the one hand, and with his hammerhand hooked over the side of the open stall, he lifted himself off the deck in speechless, eye-watering agony. At quarters the word was issued they needed a volunteer from first and second division to go mess cooking. Those who hadn't gone were exhorted, since they would be volunteered anyway before anyone who had already gone was chosen. But those who hadn't gone were salty enough to know if anyone was fresh from captain's mast or otherwise on the shit list he would be chosen whether he had been or not, so no one volunteered. They were at the point of choosing when Adoles said he would go, expecting to be turned down given his utility as a chipper, but BM1 Dures wrote his name down in his green memo book. After quarters he climbed back up to sickbay, and this time a corpsman answered the door but blocked his entrance. Hey, doc, I've got the clap. Can you give me some penicillin? Sickbay doesn't open until nine. Ah c'mon, doc. It hurts like hell, my underwear is soaked with puss! The corpsman sighed hugely and turned away from the door. A Captain Marvel comic book and cup of coffee sat on the desk. How the hell did you manage to catch the clap stateside? The corpsman had his head in a glass and wood cabinet, out of place and unseaworthy. In P. I. there'd be a line all the way down the corridor. He emerged from the cabinet with two glass slides, one larger than the other, saw the hammerhand and shook his head as if it answered the question. Adoles said with salt, Whore down on MacArthur Boulevard. Geeez, you deck apes will dip your stick in anything. He put the two slides together and handed them to Adoles. Do the short-arm on the large slide and put the cover slip over it. Can you manage? referring to the hammerhand. Yeah. Head's through there. The corpsman pointed toward a door. Adoles emerged from the head with dry slides. I must have pissed it clean, I can't get anything. Well, come back before lunch, ought to be able to get something then. Ah, c'mon, doc. I'm in pain. Look at my shorts! He started undoing his silver buckle. Nope, have to have a specimen. You won't die, come back at eleven. At eleven-o-five Adoles emerged from the sickbay head with the cover slip floating on a large puddle of pus testing the edge of the slide, threatening to spill over. Hold it right there! The corpsman exclaimed in horror. He obtained another slide from the cabinet and approached Adoles with the care and precision of a space docking procedure. Now I'm going to touch the middle of this slide to the corner of that one and you're not going to move. A small droplet pooled out from the corner. The corpsman pulled the slide away and put on a clean cover slip. Adoles stood frozen. After setting the slide down the corps position a plastic lined trash can underneath the one Adoles was holding, Drop it. Wash your hands. The corpsman disappeared into the lab and after a short time reappeared. That's the worse clap I've ever seen. I've been on two west-pacs and I've never seen the likes of it. Adoles wondered how he could tell bad clap from good clap. Did bad clap have fangs? It felt like fangs, fangs and fire. Here, shake these up. The corpsman handed him two stoppered vials filled with a lumpy, chalky-white fluid. Adoles shook them lazily; long, slow strokes. That's going in your ass, so you don't want any lumps. The shaking became vigorous. He left sick bay with short, guarded steps and turned aft down the passageway. He went through the double doorways, carefully stepping over the rim of the hatch-like one, and emerged topside, overlooking his place of chipping: port side, main deck, aft. Most of second division was loosely assembled there in what appeared to be a giant bull session. He eased himself down the ladder and was approaching the group when Bear spotted him and started clapping, which turned the rest toward him, clapping, jeering, and making sheep noises, Baaaaa. General MacArthur, we heard you've been shot in the ass!

He shot her, the doc shot him: all's fair in love and whores. Fuck you, Adoles said to everyone. Fuck ewe is right! Ey, Doll, you want to sit down? Two of the rabble tried to force him down on a bitt, but they weren't serious about it. The three points of pain, two deep intermuscular and the original gonococcal, put him in no mood for joking, but still he felt better, as if he had passed an unwritten, unverbalized test, a kind of initiation. Despite his alienation to the deck force, the shipthe entire navyit felt strangely good to have crossed that vague, outermost ring of acceptance. There was Dees, the sailor who had decked him, and Zimmerman, who he was sure had ripped and routed through his sea bag, both laughing with the rest. He didn't try to define what he had crossed, but wondered at the positive feeling he had from it. Here they were in some kind of camaraderie. BM1 Dures appeared but his presence failed to disperse the group, the specialty of the occasion holding them together, nor did he tell them to get back to work. But when he told Adoles to transfer his gear to mess berthing, he was going mess cooking, the moment had indeed passed. They drifted away as semi-tame ducks do when you run out of bread. Adoles was slowly transferring his belongings from third to second deck, where the cooks and mess cooks slept, when he met Shaun coming down the ladder with a sea bag on his shoulder. Shaun, what are you doing? Got transferred to deck. O shit. What happened, what did you do? Shaun heaved his sea bag off his shoulder onto one of the lounge tables, Nothing, recently. He stood a moment catching his breath. I was supposed to go in deck when I reported onboard, but I paid a personnelman to change my orders. Adoles shook his head, not following. See, I was at O. S. schoolOperations Specialist, you know, Radarmanand got busted for dereliction of duty. Fell asleep on desk watch. All I had to do was answer the phone, so I figured the phone would wake me up. Then I got a surprise visit from the fucking chief and that was all she played. Anyway, I had the personnelman sign me into O.S.; I know the rate. How did they find out? Beats the fuck out of me, probably that asshole chief called to make sure I was chipping paint. I don't think it was from operations, I know my shit. I was making 'A's in school when they busted me. Fuck. He tiredly kicked the bulkhead. Yeah, that's the pits all right. Roland commiserated. Shaun perked up, Hey, where you bunked, at least we can share a cubicle. Sorry, man, got sent mess cooking today. Roland held up the ditty bag where it hung from his hammerhand, the last of his belongings. Well, I hear that's the pits. So they say, but let me tell you, this is pretty bad. He said it hard, with authority, with secret knowledge meant to penetrate deep. He considered Shaun a friend, but he wouldn't be the one put under. Yeah. Shaun's glance went down to the ditty bag and up where the cord was looped and wrapped around the chipping head, Yeah, I guess so. You can have my bunk if you want, Roland offered as small consolation. The mattress on it isn't too grimy. That night before going to bed, without quite knowing why he was doing it, with a respect approaching religious ceremony, Adoles carefully wrapped the hammerhand in the damp towel he had used to dry off with after showering. When reveille sounded he was face down and palms down, with his left arm above his head and the right under his belly. If he had been standing up he would have been miming a wall. He rolled over and pulled the right arm out of the towel and found his old hand back, pink, as if new born or burned and well healed, but his hand none the less. The second time Adoles woke on the port lookout it was not from a voice. There was no sound at all. He listened hard, but could hear nothing. The white lights were gone, his eyes skimmed the horizon unaided then

scanned with the binoculars, saw nothing. It was even hard to tell where the ocean and low clouds met. The first feeling was the tingling return of sensation to his right hand, which had been caught between his body and the gunwale. Only with the greatest effort could he move his fingers, first trying to make a fist then splaying them out. Each finger felt as if it was wrapped in a stiff spring. The tingling started to pulse with his heart and the springs unwound leaving a prickly sense in the tips. He stepped up on the small stand surrounding the gyro repeater to see the dial, dimly lit with a half watt bulb. He was reassured by the scant warm glow, didn't notice the numbers, their heading. He looked toward the wheelhouse and saw no one from where he stood, only the strange candescence of the red, night-visionsaving lights being all but absorbed in the dark green tiles and lighter green bulkhead. He felt a finger of wind brush his face and finally, finally heard the waves lapping at the hull. The primal sound was so tuned to his basal functioning as to have been forgotten in confidence, lost in evolutionary memory. He peered over the side and thought he saw long angularities of foam appear and dissolve against the hull, but then the white shapes reappeared out in the water, and it was hard to say; too dark, perhaps only the lumen deprived optical region of his brain making them up. The hum of the engines was gone, the rpm's below the point of vibration. Suddenly the rush of air from the stack as the snipes blew tubes. Blowing soot up a chimney sweeper's ass, they called it. The whole fire gang had a strange sense of humor, probably from lack of sun. Their skin was so pale, almost sickly; the blood of heat, embarrassment, anger showing so plainly.... But wait. They only blew tubes on the mid-watch, on the mid or just before pulling into port. They were still miles at sea, far from the coast. A seaman came up the ladder from the boat decks and forward to where Adoles stood, glanced furtively toward the wheelhouse. Sorry I'm late. It wasn't the voice that had been following him in the rotationwasn't a voice he recognized from his watch section at all, and then it dawned on him: he was being relieved, his watch was over. That's okay. Adoles pulled the strap of the binoculars over his head and handed them to him and undid the breastplate strap to the sound powered phones. Only now he noticed he had never put the headphones on his ears, just draped them over his neck. No wonder he had managed to sleep; he wondered more at why he was never called down on it. He handed his relief the jumbled headphones and mouthpiece. Anything going on? He sounded like, what's his name, Stewart? Green monkey in first division. Nothing much. Had a couple of ships pass earlier, but it's quiet now. There's something more though he can't think of it immediately. Then, And we've slowed to half speed, I think. I haven't paid much attention to the line. Half mast, half speed, he said it like it made sense. Except it didn't make any sense to Adoles. What time is it anyhow? he asked. About ten after. They were serving pancakes for mid-rats, if you hurry. Midnight rations, midnight watch; he had been on the eight to twelve, not the long dog. That's why they were blowing tubes. That's why it was so dark. He probed lightly in his mind as to how he could have gotten so confused: a person flicking the wall switch to a long closed room and finding the overhead bulb gone or burned out, making his way across the floor to a desk lamp he remembers, but slowly, with his arms out.... The door slams behind him and he's standing in the center of a dark carousel on the still island while a teeming herd of furniture animals gallop around in their easy, sinusoidal gait. The desk unicorn with the articulated-desk-lamp horn ever elusive. Adoles didn't go down the way the seaman came up, down past the two motor whale boats to the port door of the mess deck, the shortest route, but went aft. He looked for the steaming ensign, but it was too dark. Was it really at half mast? Why was it at half mast? Questions half-formed. He was still half asleep and didn't want to wake up before he hit the rack. His short-term memory was still blasted and the long-term memory not queried as to what a flag at half-mast meant. He strode past the gun trainer and descended the ladders zigzagging down the back of the superstructure to the main deck. He entered the superstructure by the long passageway the crew normally cued up in for regular meals, the cool fluorescent lighting the mess always excessively bright after coming in from a night watch. From this end of the passageway the other end shined brightly, the stainless steel tubing running in front of the

serving line where the sailors pushed their trays reflected a foreshortened coagulation lengthening and separating into streamers of light as he approached.

He was too late for pancakes, the grill was cleaned and the serving line closed. The mess was deserted. On the cleaned and hooded cart that served as a salad bar were two tins and half a loaf of bread. Before the navy he had never seen peanut butter in a can, nor preserves for that matter. The tin of jam was open but not the

peanut butter; he searched himself and the cart for a GI can opener, found none, pulled his knife from its sheath and cut out the top, being careful at the end of the circle not to make any slivers, then spread the dry peanut butter on one slice and the jam on another; it looked something between strawberry and cherry, probably neither. He cleaned the blade on another piece of bread and re-sheathed it. Then it hit him, looking at the open sandwich of red and brown trimmed in crust, the bood and guts trimmed in skin. The last destroyer glided up from behind to their port side and slowed to the replenishing speed of twelve knots. The gunner's mate loaded a shotgun and fired a bird over, the orange shot line whipping off the laid figure eight like an inverted twister getting its wind sucked over the side. Across the coursing water two seaman slowly pulled in the shot line, wrapping it around their hands to get a grip, pulling an arm's length, shaking loose the loop; reaching, wrapping, pulling.... The six-thread manila tied to the shot line inched its way across the span like a shy garter snake. Once the leader was in hand and through a pulley it went faster; the line increased twice until it was five inches in circumference, dipping shallowly between the ships. Tied to this the white pelican hook started across, clanging its dead, low-carbon-steel chirp, just ahead of a large pulley shackled behind with wire rope running through it back to the winches and cargo hook. The pelican hook dived toward the water; the seamen on the other ship strained to keep it clear. The bo's'n on the winch played out the cable. Halfway across a wave caught and pulled the hook aft; the line and cables went taught. The bo's'n cocked over the winch lever prepared to reel in the assembly, but the seamen on the destroyer heaved and pulled it free and clear. They pulled the hook to the side and with a last great heave pulled it onto the deck, while the bo's'n let out cable until it lapped at the little whitecaps pushed up between the ships. Then they hauled the pelican hook up beside the small king post and pushed the bill down through a giant steep padeye and back on itself. A simple link riding freely along the back of the hook was pushed over the doubled-over bill to hold it shut, pushed up the swelling wedge-shaped beak like a muzzle until it was stuck tight. Ingenious simplicity: to unhook the pelican the link would be knocked loose with a sledge and the bill spit out the giant padeye, flying clear or crashing to the deck, dragging to the edge, and plunging into the water to be swept aft in a quarter circle around the winch reeling it in as it jumped and dragged on the water alongside the hull, like a lure for sea monsters. Adoles knew at least a full circle had been made by the quarter circles of the released pelican, at least four destroyers had come and gone, all cutting away at fantastic angles during the emergency breakaway drills, only possible with their twin screw and rudders. This was the last of four or five or sixonly the bridge knew for surethe last after fifteen hours of underway replenishment that had begun at midnight. The warm lead filling Adoles's forearms during the rests between ships had cooled into short lengths of pig iron, work tempered, brittle. The blisters on his hands had long since popped, drained, the epidermis skinned, the lymph-wet corium dried and cracked like a mud flat under a hot summer sun, now wet again with muddy blood. The whole deck force was drugged with fatigue. The only two seaman qualified to man the helm for underway replenishment relieved each other every twenty minutes and saw the course heading from the compass card engraved in white when they closed their eyes. The water passing between the two ships pushed them apart, yet they couldn't deviate from the course more than half a degree, and then not for long. Each had drunk over a gallon of coffee. The bo's'n running the winches had consumed half as much coffee and had worked twice as long, straight through; he had no relief. The rest of the deck force had not drunk anything. The destroyer signaled its readiness and the cycle began anew. Adoles and three other seaman unfolded a cargo net, a storekeeper driving a forklift placed a pallet of stores on the net, they pulled the corners of the net up and over the stores and pulled the metal rings into the cargo hook. The bo's'n lifted the load up and over the side, and they unfolded another net, a pallet of stores was placed on the net.... After an interminable time the postal clerk broke the monotony by dragging forward two bursting sacks of mail and looped their drawstrings onto the cargo hook. The bo's'n worked the levers, and they lifted off the deck and hung out from the hook like a lead-winged samara. Yells came from the destroyer; the bo's'n lowered the load, and the postal clerk took off one of the sacks. The first sack transferred without incident, but as the second was approaching the destroyer the cables unaccountably went taut, snapping the sack up. The bo's'n let out the cables, and the weight of the hook pulled the tossed sack down top-end first, and it flipped back under the hook letting loose a magazine and two other articles of mail, which drifted back onto the water. Voices of anger tore across the way but quickly hushed as the bo's'n worked the winches trying to

steady the bag. When the sack finally reached the other ship the voices came up again, low wrathful growls. After the mail the replenishment ceased, but they didn't breakaway. The bo's'n kept an eye on the cables. Most on deck slumped down under the bulwark staring bleary eyed, too tired to sleep if they could. Adoles couldn't see the signalmen on his ship, but he could see two signalmen on the destroyer taking an official message, one recording the words the other read, the reader sending back a Charlie after each word received. Then the reader sent a Roger and the recorder took the message into their small bridge house. He returned momentarily with a return message, this time reading it to the other who sent it slowly, in longhand, with arms at full length. Despite the slow speed, at first Adoles couldn't read it. He kept getting the signs backwards: Alphas for Golfs, Charlies for Echos. Then he turned with his back toward the destroyer and looked over his shoulder, his body now in the same plane as the signalman's, imagining himself sending the message. ... TO COURSE THREE TWO ZERO was all he caught. He slumped down beside Cooper, who was staring at the deck between his knees. Aft they had rigged the cable for underway refueling, but the large, phallic-shaped coupling was still inboard, hanging down from the slack black hose strung up and down behind it from wheels riding on the strung cable, huddled in lengths like a cartoon snake ready to strike. When they sent it across it rolled under the wheels down the cable with increasing speed until it chu-clunked into the female end on the destroyer. It failed to lock the first time, and they had to back it up and try again and again, amid the hoots and howls from their deck force. Finally it locked, and they began silently pumping oil. Time had stopped. The static hum of the winches and the water tshhhing between the hulls, which could have been water running through a clepsydra, were instead the middle of a word, the vowel in the middle of a syllable with no beginning or end, like the zen oooohhhhhhmmm. Time had run with the unfolding of the cargo net, the setting of the pallet in the middle of it, the bringing up the four metal corners to the cargo hook, the four clanks as they were pulled in, the st-st-st-retch of the canvas as the hook lifted the load off the deck, and then the winches running, one casting the cable out while the other reeled it in through the pulley on the other ship, the cargo gliding across the water as if it were on some kind of slide whose principle of operation was other than gravity. The winches paused when the load reached the other side, letting them unhook the cargo, then the hook came rushing back, the winches running twice as fast. The cycle repeating, wheels, gears, escapement, its own time. They sat against the bulwark too fatigued to talk or feel or care about the hard edges in their backs. Adoles was mesmerized by the hook as it gently swayed over the empty net. Then more stores. Cooper at the corner across from him, forward-inboard; Adoles aft-outboard. Vargas forward-outboard, he wore his green aviator sunglasses, and a seaman from first division aft-inboard. They brought the metal corners up, pulling up hard and in on an oversized load, clanking the loops in the hook, the load went up and over, they unfolded another cargo net.... Time ran. Time changed. They received a load of cargo nets and then the long silent 1MC boomed across the deck, THIS IS A DRILL, THIS IS A DRILL; EMERGENCY BREAKAWAY, EMERGENCY BREAKAWAY. The order was echoed on the destroyer where a seaman stood ready with his sledge. He gave the ring on the pelican hook a powerful blow, punctuating the order as it ended, and the destroyer cut away hard to port. Except the ring had not been knocked free. The cables snapped taut sounding like high-voltage power lines full of electricity, the ship ticked slightly to port, one strand popped and flew back crazily, and then the whole cable snapped. It came lashing back across the deck. Adoles heard-saw the frayed end as it came slashing by, a synesthetic freeze frame of violently sheered cable, hot whipped air purling behind it. Adoles slowly ate the dry peanut butter and jam sandwich, pausing to let the saliva catch up, letting his mind drift. The smell of salt. Not quite the salt always with you at sea to the point where you forgot about it. Sailors of old must have been of more worth or carried an ambiance of worth smelling of salt when salt was a precious thing. On the ship it was a buffer and matrix to all odors; it was in all the topside spaces and came into the ship via the saltwater filled toilets and urinals. It was pushed out of the kitchen and to the edge of the mess deck during meals, but it returned as inevitably as the tide. New salt was the first thing Adoles smelled after the cable passed invisibly fast and disappeared. So it seemed. It had missed Adoles and the other seaman who had been on the aft corners of the net, but it had gone right through where Vargas and Cooper had stood. Coop had apparently seen it coming and hit the deck, belly first, but Vargas still stood, somehow shorter than before, still slope shouldered, slack-faced from

fatigue, as if nothing had happened. Then he toppled over, head first into his boondockers and over onto his back, the torso severed just above the belt. The legs fell back. He lay as tall as he had in life but with his head in his boots and guts at both ends. He still wore his green aviator sunglasses. Cooper pushed himself up from a pushup position but as his arms extended his trunk swung down under him, legless, hipless. Like a man in a side show born without other means, he started to waddle aft on his hands as if he had done it all his life. His intestine snagged and after six feet he was pulled short from high in his thorax. He pegged around to look, said Shit with a sigh, and eased himself down onto his back. The corpsman who came running apparently passed out in mid-stride and plowed head-first into the bulwark. The day's tragedy had made a dichotomy of Adoles's memory. Now, having somehow vaulted over into the land of short-term where significant and insignificant details of the day were remembered together with no differentiation, he could not recall the long-term friendship with Cooper. He sensed they had been friends, perhaps only through the loss he felt, greater than the loss of an unknown life, but he could not recall anything they had done together or any conversations they had had. He put the last of the sandwich in his mouth and let the saliva work on it, not chewing. He noticed for the first timeor the first time he could rememberthe acoustic ceiling tiles of the mess deck. Or were they called overhead tiles since they were on a ship? A false overhead instead of a false ceiling. The crew's mess was the most un-ship-like part of the ship, except for officers country of course, where they even had carpet in the wardroom. Overhead everywhere else snaked and burrowed a maze of hot and cold water lines, high and low pressure steam lines, ducting, wiring, conduit; all marked with direction arrows, use, and cautions. But with the acoustic tiles hiding the overhead maze and the wood paneling on the bulkheads, the mess could have been the cafeteria of a small factory, manufacturing bearings or some such. Of course the portholes gave it away. And the swaying. Semi-consciously Adoles shuffled across the mess deck and down the ladder, initiating the routine for showering and preparing for bed. When he stepped into the head in his towel and shower shoes he stopped and studied the person in the mirror: the short sleeve tan, the tan on his face fading up to where the bill of his cap stuck out, short brown hair, one ear sticking out slightly more than the other. And above his ears the niggers' revenge, as the Filipinos called it, almost half an inch of bare scalp the ship's barber, who was black, gave all the whiteys before a personnel inspection when they were at sea and couldn't get a haircut anywhere else. He still didn't have whiskers, but tonight he shaved off the peach fuzz grown back since boot camp. After he was through he started on his scalp; the double-edged razor quickly clogged, so he went down to his locker for a pair of scissors and cut the hair as short as he could, then shaved what was left. The top of his head was as white and featureless as an egg except for the sagittal suture, which threatened to become a parietal crest, forming a ridge along the top of his head from the back of the frontal bone back to the top of the occipital. The shaved head had a nascent glow above the tanned, many-featured lower face, and it was soft as a baby to the touch.

* *2* Cybette knew the trees without words, only as an artist can. She knew their crowns of fall color, the way they grew in the forest or one alone in a field; of the bark the color-tinged grayness, the smoothness, or the rough scaling islands and long bars between furrows. It was the same with the smaller plants, the shrubs or bushes stickers when they had thorns. Even the tall grass she stood in was nameless: not the grass of suburban lawns even if that grass was let to grow, and not looking like the picture of wheat on a cereal box. Indeed, it was the same with everything of the land she painted, all the vegetation that further softened the eon-worn contours of the Appalachians. The names of the animals were easier but the animals harder to know. The rabbits or hares the baby would scare up crawling around in the grass were the hardest. They would appear and disappear in the tall blades as they bounded away, sometimes passing close by, but only in air and visible for a moment. Sometimes she would break from her water color and try to sketch the leaping retinal memory. The cows were easier but more frustrating in a way. They would stand in the adjacent field with their heads down pulling grass nuzzling the earth, or up chewing cud, or through the strands of barbed wire stretching for the longer grass, and just as she was about to know a side or aspect completely in her sketchbook they would move. But the knowledge was close; it was just a matter of time before the cows would be in her landscapes. She knew their ears already, the funniest ears she had ever seen, looking like furry dished-out clubs when they had been sketched. Some of them had green plastic tag earrings. She was beginning to know the birds through the kitchen window where they flocked around a bird feeder, but no place was for them in this landscape even though they could be seen in the tree; they were too small and far away. On the whole she lived through the shortening days free of words. Her thought ran in light without sound or symbol, white fractured by the earthings absorbing the colors they didn't reflect. The sun striking forged luminous shadows, absorbing more reflecting less the indirect light, cool in the warm waning twilight, earthy mirrors to the giant blue. Across the fence more than a dozen cows came over a rise and ambled down toward the bottom of the field where it was cooler in the late afternoon. One by one they noticed her at her fragile easel and stopped so by the last one they were straggled out in a roughly straight line, their bodies almost in profile, overlapping, and all their heads facing her, all looking toward her. The group pose was so unlikely she didn't even reach for her sketchbook. More cows came over the rise and stopped before getting to the others; in no real hurry, they nosed the ground for grass. But the vanguard still stared. Tails swished from side to side while whole flanks convulsed in twitches keeping the last flies of summer buzzing off their backs. One cow fertilized the grass with loud wet plopping noises. She scanned the grass around her for the baby. She could have barely seen him if he was standing, which he seldom did in the tall grass, but she could tell his wanderings by the trail of pushed down grass he left in the wake of his crawling and his whereabouts by the trail's end, where often he would be napping. She saw it and turned back to the easel and a fresh sheet of stretched paper. She laid a potent line of deep blue at the top, rinsed her brush and reloaded it with clean water, put the tip of the red sable in the pigment while letting the body of the brush wet the paper below, and pulled the sky down, leaving room for the stand of tall yellowing trees on the left, which reached high into the air, and the distant horizon, the faintest blue-gray range of mountains. The pigment faded from the top of the paper as the blueness of the sky did from its zenith to the horizon. She sponged the paper until it was just damp where the bottom of the sky was faintly indicated and lightly touched in the most distant ridge with the faintest bluegray. It spread up into the sky on a fuzzy edge. She came back to the stand of trees defining the field's border with a light, bright yellow for their autumn crowns, and where it touched the still damp sky, the colors mixed and the trees came to have an aurora of green: an element of time, autumn yellow from the summer green. She returned with some earthy red followed hard by a dry sponge, trying to give shadow in the leaves, but it was too wet. For the grass she lightly dampened the foreground with a spray of water, blotted it dry, then laid spreading swaths of earthy red and came back in these with a dark earthy brown mixed with a touch of blue; this would be shadow in the grass. After it had set she took the pointed wedge-shaped handle of a broad flat and started scratching through the intended shadow to white paper and on the virgin paper itself up to the

bottom of the field where it faded into the first nearby mountain. Returning to the distant horizon she brought the ranges down in increasing color and definition; on the nearest hill she differentiated the sprinkling of dark, ever-wakeful evergreen among the deciduous trees in their last waking splendor before winter sleep. Back in the grass she floated a middle green, which caught intensely in the scratchings, cutting through as long, sunlit blades in the shadows. The yellow crowns of the trees were too dry and she sprayed the natural sponge with water and tamped the paper and imparted an invisible damp impression of its varied structure, then came in with the earthy red giving depth, sewing the crowns together to the distant bottom of the field. With a brownish-gray she suggested limbs and darkened it for the trunks. She returned to the field again scratching through to white and floated yellow this time; on the darker colors it disappeared and only showed in the scratches as fall grass. She returned to the trees, the shadow underneath a problem. It was darker than anything in her view, but she had run out of range. She could not use black, it was too cold; besides, shadows were never black. On her tray of paints she put a touch of phthalo blue in a puddle of burnt umber and carefully brushed it between the trunks, hard-edged with the canopy, water softened with the grass. It would do. She rummaged through her small tackle box of painting gear for the tube of ivory black, never put on the tray with the rest of the colors anymore. She found it and unscrewed the top, dipping the point of the brush, just to prove to herself again what she already knew. She brushed out the modicum of pigment on the tray, so thickness was not at issue, and touched a dot in the shadow. While the rest of the pigments blended with each other allowing the flat piece of paper to become, in one plane of reality, a fall landscape; the black sat on the surface, isolated, just a pigment with no reference, absorbing light without being of anything. She glanced toward the cows and back to the landscape again, seeing the retinal bovinity fading against the trees and sky, standing as beforebut something different. She looked back: they were standing just the same, but the cows in the middle of the line were no longer looking at her but at something in front of them by the fence, hidden from her eyes by the tall grass. And then she saw the baby moving under them. He was still crawling though now he could have walked in the shorter grass. Her eyes darted to where she had last seen the trail's end, a dart along a bee's line of disturbed grass to the large animals. Two cows at the end of the line just perceiving the diaper and white T-shirt bolted toward the bottom of the fieldstopping after a few yards, unembarrassed, listening with pricked-back ears but not looking back, then ambled on their way. The rest still beheld the baby who crawled up to the forelegs of a new mother, her udder hanging low but calf mysteriously absent. She lowered her head down to the yearling child and nosed him, he made a sound of surprise, and then she laid him back on his diaper with a long lick. The baby looked up uncomprehendingly in wonder and by the second lick was laughing ecstatically and waving his chubby arms in delight. The third lick knocked him still farther back and half pulled the shirt over his head. Now with a strong taste of cloth the mother cow hoofed back and followed the two that had initially bolted. This started the rest who veered wide for the baby. With his head back through the shirt hole he again made for the object of his interest, the fresh wet pile of cow dung. By experimentally touching it he quickly ascertained its purpose and flung both hands at it sending out a lopsided spray coming back mostly at him. By the time Cybette got to him he was pretty much dark green and happy. You silly, silly. She picked him up and held him out at arm's length, joining in his laughter. Look at you! How am I going to clean you up? She sniffed him cautiously, At least it doesn't stink. She put him down letting him walk to the fence then lifted him over. At her easel she took off his shirt and diaper. That's the first time I've ever seen a diaper needing changing on the outside. She rinsed the rag she had for her water coloring as best she could in the brush water and wiped off his face. His arms and legs were still covered, and she decided not to put another diaper on him. You're getting a bath when we get home, mister baby. She folded her easel, wrapped her brushes, and after dumping the water snapped the lid onto her palette tray. Everything but the easel, paintings, and stretcher board were collected into a daypack. The paintings she secured flat to the board with a cross binding and fastened a strap to the easel. She also fastened a strap from two corners of the board, so with the straight straps of the daypack and the crossed straps of the easel and board, she looked like an overburdened artist commando, through her load was not heavy. C'mon, kiddo, let's go. When they reached the road the baby held up his arms, hands clasping at the air, Mommy, hold me,

hold me. Covered with caca? Are you kidding?, she said lightly, jokingly, but the baby's eye's filled with tears. Just walk till you get tired, okay? Mama has a lot of stuff to carry, and maybe the caca will dry a little, so I won't get too much on me. This seemed to put a whole new face on things and he took on a look of resolution and fortitude beyond his months and started quickly down the road, walking easily unimpeded by a diaper. Back at the farmhouse her mother's car was there, and she came out on the porch as they walked up. The baby screamed, Gram! Gram! Gram! and ran across the yard to meet her. Well, hello, what's this? Are you letting him go naked now, Cybette? And what's all this stuff on you? Her voice became animated and singsong when she spoke to the baby. He discovered cow patties today. Cybette! You didn't let him play.... I didn't let him do anything. He was in it and covered before I could get to him. Where were the cows? I don't know, nowhere in sight. She decided her mother didn't need to know everything. Still, they must have been around. Come on, Troy, let's go play in the sink. Boats! Wanna play boats?! In the kitchen along the north wall was the sink, sunk in a counter running from the northeast corner to where it met a large, wood-burning kitchen range with a metal cupboard-like overhang where you could keep things warm. Through a convection loop, a water jacket on the back of the stove supplied the hot water tank in the utility room halfway to the bathroom. There was a window above the sink, and on the left and to the right to the corner and back along the east wall to the doorway of the utility room were cupboards reaching to the ceiling. Two of the cupboard doors were open where her mother had been augmenting the larder from a box of dry and canned goods she had brought with her. Now she turned the hot water faucet filling the sink, squirting dish washing liquid, making a foamy bubble bath hazardous to plastic boating. Cybette opened the draft and damper and poked at the logs asphyxiated into a slumber. Is the water hot enough? Cybette asked. Her mother felt the running water with her hand then dipped her elbow into the sink, Yes, it's fine. Isn't it wonderful how warm the water stays even after the fire's gone down? Cybette uncovered and prodded the coals together and put in another log. Her mother reached for the baby, Come here, Troy, upsy daisy, and put him in the sink. Why do you call him that? Cybette asked. What? Troy? 'Troy's' a perfectly good name, what's wrong with 'Troy'? 'Troy' is a fine name, but it's not his name. But he does need a name now, doesn't he? No he doesn't, not yet. He doesn't have to pay taxes or social security. He doesn't have to go to school. But he will. what's the teacher going to say, 'Hey, you, No Name, come here.' Her mother sighed her deep, short sigh that said, 'I'm so exasperated with you,' and then aloud, Cybette, I don't understand your unwillingness to name your child. He hasn't told me his name yet. Well, he can barely talk now, can he? What's he going to say, 'Goo Goo, Mommy. Call me Goo Goo.' Her mother turned away from her sarcasm, toward the baby; taking one of the boats and making little engine noises, she crashed into his belly and sank, tickling him underwater with the rounded bow of the boat, which had now miraculously turned into a submarine. The bubble bath had already disintegrated into a green slime rising high on the sides of the sink. On second thought, 'Troy' is a perfect name. Troy was a city of the ancient world. Built and plundered, rebuilt and plundered, ruins on top of ruins on top of ruins. Yes, 'Troy' is perfect. It will always remind me of the hospital, my ruined past. Cybette was embarrassed by the melodrama even as she said it. Oh, honey, I'm sorry. Her mother came from the sink patting her hands and arms on her apron and awkwardly put them around Cybette from the side where she still stood with a poker trailing from the firebox, You know Papa and I are so glad you're better now. We were so worried about you. I know, Mama. I'm fine now, okay? Just fine. Yes, dear. She rocked from side to side, her daughter rocking from back to front had to put a foot back to keep her balance. Cybette returned the embrace with one arm, the other still holding the poker. The new

log on the fire hissed and popped while the baby played. You know, we still worry about you. Out here, by yourself. What if something were to happen? It was another old subject and Cybette dropped the embrace on hearing it brought up again, but her mother caught her hand, still needing the touch, squeezing. What could happen? Nothing's going to happen, and if it does there's always the phone. What if there's a storm and the lines go down? Mr. Ironto is just down the road. What if you're hurt and can't move and there's a blizzard outside. What if a giant comet crashes into the earth? Cybette mimicked in her mother's worried tone of voice. Her mother let go and went back to the sink. She set the baby on the counter and drained the water, preparing a rinse bath. How about 'Gregory'? Cybette sat down at the table. Visits from her mother always wore her out: too many words. For a moment she let her eyes rest on the floral design in the ancient linoleum floor. Then she turned and looked up and over the table through the west window, through the screen of the screened-in side porch, up to the blade of sky just below the eaves where the sun was setting behind the distant ridge, the softly jagged, serrated knife edge of trees cutting through the phosphorescent orange, the two halves dropping below the horizon. The remaining blue light from the sky affected the fall leaves, dulled the oranges, made the reds dark purple, almost stripped the yellows of their color, bleached out but still bright. Tulip-poplars, that's what people called them, the stand of yellow trees she had painted that day, the high-reaching bright yellows of this warmly paletted mountainside. But now the needles of the blue spruce vied with the colors of the day, glowing at the bottom of the ridge and up to the mountain spring which fed the house its water. A white hose from the spring house dove and crossed under the yard, ran along the side of the road then crossed and turned into the woods and up out of the ground to attach to a pipe running up the mountain side, to the spring. After last winter, when snows became rains, lengths of it had become exposed between the house and the woods, white snakes in the mud. Now it lay under dry dirt and yellowing grass. Leaves of the still green oaks were black in the last of twilight; they were the last to turn and still rustled loud with a hard edge from their knarry boughs. Old fireflies feebly blinked their rising yellow-green glow in the hollows and the last cricket of summer chirped its thin metallic voice near the house. During the summer she and the baby had spent this time on the porch swing, safe from the mosquitoes who, with the tiniest sounds, tried to come through the screen. They listened to the bats leave the atticanother thing she hadn't told her motherand other night sounds: an owl close by asking the eternal question, crickets and cicadas, so many crickets, and after a while seemingly only one or two answering the owl, their voices echoing and reechoing from the labyrinth box canyons of night. The distant, unanswered crowing of Mr. Ironto's rooster broke the spell and gave the cricket echos new identity as did the occasional mooing from one of his cows. On some nights, more distant, came the screeching tires and roar from cars or trucks of young country boys on the state road. The overhead light came on as the cool, damp arms of her son grabbed her leg. Come here, you little rascal. Where are the diapers?, her mother asked. There's one in the daypack, Cybette said. Her mother laid a diaper on the table and set the baby on it. Seriously, Cybette. Your father and I don't think it's a good idea for you to stay out here this winter. Didn't we just have this conversation? Too many things could happen; besides, this house wasn't meant to be lived in during the winter Cybette started. I mean, it needs a lot of work. We bought it as a summer place and maybe to fix up by your father's retirement. It's not ready to live in during the wintertime. The whole upstairs is a mess.... We're not living upstairs, I haven't even been up there. We can sleep in the front room like we have beenor even in here to save on wood. Cybette, your father and I have found a school in Maryland. It's a boarding school especially for girls in your predicament. I don't call this a predicament. Her mother broke off and retrained her attention back to the baby who lay splay-legged on the table where she had finished pinning his diaper. Look at him, already fast asleep, she said softly.

He's had a long day. Like me, Cybette added pointedly. I've never seen a baby so content; I don't think I've ever heard him cry, her mother said in quiet amazement. Well, you'd hear him cry if we went to Maryland. He'd hate it. So would I. But, Cybette, honey, don't you want to finish school? No, Mom, I don't. I want to paint. That's all I want to do. Painting is fine, dear. It's very therapeutic, I'm sure, but you have to start thinking about getting back into your life, back into school. You can't do anything without going to school. You can't even meet boys, she said the last with a conspiratory smile. I think there's evidence I've already met boys. That's not what I meant. But now her mother was flustered, as if she had momentarily forgotten or misplaced the baby in her scheming of things. She rearranged herself, But you can't paint for the rest of your life. Your father and I aren't always going to be here to help you out. Let's face it, in this world you either make a living or make a home for someone who does. Mom, I can make a living with my art, really I can. How? I don't know yet, exactly, but I can. I will. There are a lot of other people who have. I mean, where did we get all the art we have in the museums? Those artists didn't paint for fun, for nothing; they were paid in someway; they made a living. And artists now, who does the art for calendars and greeting cards? And all the paintings in all the galleries, New York must have hundreds of galleriesany big city reallyeven Blacksburg has one. Her mother sat down between her and where the baby still lay on the table. She stroked the inside of his wrist and down inside his palm; he reflexively grabbed her finger in his sleep. Cybette, who do you know who makes a living as an artist? Most of those people are independently wealthy or have a spouse who works. They don't make any money with their paintings. Most, Mom. You said it, most. I'm going to be one of the few. Oh, Cy. She reached across the table for her daughter's hand and bowed her head. With her other arm out holding the baby's hand with a thumb and finger, she bore the appearance of an individual in communal prayer or at a sance. She might have been crying, but when she finally raised her head to gaze at the baby her eyes were dry. He's growing like a beanstalk. Jack of the Beanstalk. She didn't look at her daughter, wasn't trying to push another name. But 'Jack'. 'Jack' was close. A year and a day later it was too windy to paint outside, so Cybette set a board of stretched paper across the kitchen sink and one behind it leaning against the windowsill. On the first she painted the scene framed by the window; a more intimate study of the limbs and leaves of the giant oak dominating the backyard, the short grass, the old wire and weed fence, and just beyond an old tool shed returning to the earth. A new shed stood erect beside the older, but she left it out. On the paper leaning against the windowsill she tried to catch the birds. Brushes grouped in twos and threes, already loaded with paint, waiting for particular species to arrive at the bird feeder, were taken up all at once and held like splayed chopsticks: one thrust, a second parried, a third scalloped and turned, trying to catch the impression of flight as well as the bird. When the child needed her attention she would pick him up at the window and say, Look at the birds, look at the birdies. They would watch together until he would squirm down and go running from the kitchen to the front room and back again, arms out, making one long bird sound. Once he tripped and for a moment flew until landing on his chicken chest with a hush of escaping air. Cybette turned from the sink and saw the grimace at the end of his lungs, but when he caught a breath he let it go again as laughing bird song. Standing over him she smiled tentatively then tickled him under an arm. After lunch she tied her hair back with a kerchief and they walked to the highway to get the mail. She wore a sling chair on her back, but the child wouldn't be carried. He ran ahead or fell behind, stopping to pick up the trunk end of a dead limb and drag it for awhile, the branches making strange tracks in the dusty gravel, dropping if for a rock to fling off the side of the road when it dropped far down to the creek. The less tenacious trees were losing their leaves and they collected in colorful drifts where the wind was momentarily turned and stilled, long hummocks where the road had banks, and the child goose-stepped through them,

sending up an airy barrage of leaves. The road descended and leveled out, the creek on one side and the Irontos out of view on the other, unless you really looked, back against the ridge, then turned toward the water. This it spanned with a short bridge, where they had to stop and plunk rocks, and then climbed up to the highway and the four mail boxes. She retrieved the mail and looked at it the way most people look at the time on their wrists, not noting the hour or minutenot remembering from whom or wherebut only if it was time to start or quit something, to change actions. She put the mail in the pouch of the sling chair to keep it from the wind. As soon as they crossed back over the cattle guard the child ran down to the creek to explore along its banks, turning rocks with a stick, looking for crayfish. Going this way the Irontos' house was in full view, set on the other side of where the spine of the ridge dove and almost disappeared into a plain sloping hill. The picture window faced the creek and hill, observing the comings and goings, and more often than not on her return trip she would see Ethel Ironto waving from the window, bouncing her newborn son. A tertiary road branched off the secondary and ran at the bottom of the hill past the front of their house, on to the Hendersons. Past the Irontos' drive it grew a hummock of grass in the middle and was saved from erosion by being flat and hard packed. After she crossed the bridge Mr. Ironto saw her from the barn and waved her down, walking to meet her at the wooden fence. He wore a red flannel shirt and the usual faded overalls. Well, hello, Cybette. Windy enough for ya? He pulled his baseball cap down tighter on his head and adjusted his stance at the fence, laying his arms across the top rail, letting his hands hang slack. Too windy to paint outside, that's for sure. Well, I imagine so. Liable to get blown away, big gust a wind come along. Cybette nodded her agreement and turned to check on the boy, the wind blowing wisps of hair from her face escaped from her kerchief. Good kite flying weather, though. Has Jack flown a kite yet? Mr. Ironto asked. No, not yet, but I guess today would be a good day, Cybette said. Now that's the truth, I'd say. He's a little young, but like the wife says, he's the most precocious child she's ever seen. He paused for a moment, waiting, then asked, You know that word, 'precocious'? Yes. Well, danged if I knew it. I had to ask her what it meant. I thought she was talking about pickles. Sounded like what kosher pickles are before they're kosher, 'pre-kosher-ous.' Cybette laughed. Mr. Ironto liked to make jokes off his lack of book learning, especially after points of alleviation. His accent swung between the Midwestern of a national newscaster and the Appalachian of his roots, sometimes catching in-between. She's got so many words it's hard to keep track of them all. Worse than a house full of kids. How is everyone, how's the baby? I keep meaning to stop in, but I have so much painting to do. He's fine. Eating, sleeping, and, well, being a baby. Which reminds me, Ethel's going back to teaching next week, and we were wondering if you'd like to do some babysitting. It'd mostly be mornings, at least until I get the hay and the corn in. I think I could manage that, Cybette said. Well, good. Glad to hear it. We usually count on Ethel's folks, but they're visiting her sister in Illinois. Couldn't pay you much, but than maybe we could trade in wood. That would be fine by me; I could use about four more cords before winter sets in. After a second's thought she added with a laugh, That'd be a lot of baby sitting! Sure would, but now that reminds me of another thing. Lindsey has been taking piano lessons and hating it, and she saw your paintings at the county fair and got the notion if she took painting lessons from you she wouldn't have to take piano lessons, and I guess she talked Ethel into it because Ethel asked me to ask you; so, would you? Be willing to give her painting lessons? Why, yes, I think I would, Cybette said. Well that's grand, mighty grand. She'll be happy to hear that; we'll all be happy to hear that. He smiled and winked. Mommy, Mommy, look what I found. The boy came running up with a tortoise in his hand, hunkered down in its shell. Oooh, how pretty, Cybette said. He's pretty? the boy asked.

The color on his belly, look. Cybette pointed. The boy carefully turned the shell over to look. The tortoise's underside was clean and wet, accentuating the kaleidoscopic design of yellows and browns. Oooo! But look at his face, Mommy, look at his nose. He turned the tortoise up so a line of light fell through the crack and across the black pitted yellow eyes and hook nose. The tortoise hissed faintly, emptying its lungs, and clamped its shell tighter. He doesn't look too happy. Where did you find him? Cybette asked. Over there, he turned toward the creek without pointing, holding the tortoise with both hands. Can I keep him Mommy, can I? I don't know, honey. You can feed 'em hamburger, Mr. Ironto offered. Yeah! The boy said excitedly, working his knees, careful not to drop the reptile. Can I, Mom, can I? He needs to get ready for winter, Cybette said. But if he stays with us he won't have to, the boy countered. But what about the mommy turtle and all the baby turtles? Cybette said. I didn't see them, the boy said hopefully. They're probably waiting in the burrow for him. Waiting for him to bring a nice crayfish or minnow home for supper, Cybette said. The boy felt the full portent of this and after a moment walked reverently back to the creek bank and set the tortoise down. He talked to it until it felt safe to go, his light, high, lilting voice mixing with the sound of the stream where it burbled over the rocks. Mr. Ironto straightened up from the fence breaking his contemplation of the boy, smiling, ticking his head and sucking his teeth. Talk about needing to get ready for winter, I'd better get back to it. He turned to go. I'll give you a ring tomorrow, okay? All right, Cybette said. Mr. Ironto waved over his shoulder as he walked back to the barn. Cybette crossed the road and met her son coming up from the creek. On the way back up the hill to home the boy fell into silence and intent, blind scrutiny of the road just in front of him. He walked with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, meandering behind his mother like the tail of a kite, changing tacks when the edge of the roadthe bank on one side and the drop-off to the creek on the othercame into his peripheral vision. Cybette let him think. She herself was wondering how to make green a fall color: make the sky orange, maybe blown out from a sunset, then leaves of green, blue, purple; dark sky, lighter leaves. Would the grass have to be red? Yes, but no relation to the sky's orange, lighterbut not as light as the leavesand.... Are we a family? the boy asked, breaking his and her rumination. Of course, she said automatically. She waited for the sequent, unthinking, with the smallest leaf of expectation, but it never came. Back at the house she set to building a kite in the kitchen with the boy's rapt attention. Cutting the bow and spine sticks from a spruce plank was the longest and most tedious task, rip cutting with a crosscut saw, the thin stave threatening to break off at the saw's teeth, wobbling with the strokes of the blade out from the mother plank. She directed the boy to hold the stave still, not against the plank where it would bind the saw, but slightly out. Her arm grew tired and she had to stop to let it rest, but finally it was done. Next she cut notches into the ends of the staves and reinforced them with quilting thread. Now she notched and lashed the two sticks together forming a cross. After this she tied a string to one end of the bow stick and flexed it into its name-shape, tying the string off at the other end, and then ran a string around to the ends of both sticks, forming a frame. Out of the closet she brought a long role of dark green tissue paper she had from last Christmas and unrolled it on the floor. She set the kite on it and cut the paper large then folded and glued the edges over the string. While they let the glue dry she tore strips of cloth from an old sheet and tied them together for the tail. In a fallow field by the house the wind took the kite from Cybette's hands before the boy could run with the string. The kite dove menacingly toward the ground, but snapped back before it hit, the tail whipping tufts of grass. The boy let the string out as fast as the factory windings would let him. Cybette put a stick through the hole in the hollow cardboard skeleton of the string ball and showed him how to put a drag on the out going string, enough to keep the kite going up.

The boy was transfixed. Cybette stood behind and watched him miming the flight of the kite, first with his head then his whole body; reading the wind through the string, letting the string out when it pulled hard, holding it back when it slackened. When cardboard could be seen through the strands she pulled a foot of string from the air and wrapped it around the stick; while the boy held the stick she unwound the rest of the string and tied the end to a new ball and slipped it onto the stick. The boy hardly noticed; all his attention was on the kite, which was just a speckle of green. Cybette walked back from him a few steps and sat down, viewing the scene as if she were painting it. When it was time to pull the kite in, and after showing him how to take in the string doing figure eights on the stick, she stretched a fresh sheet of paper in her mind and painted the kite's descent. The farthest little speck of kite dabbed not quite opaque and then as it came closer, growing bigger and bigger, painted with more and more translucent washes so one could see its descent, an accordion of time, a camera bellows of light. The boy winding string, tousled hair, wind, loud rustling soft whispering of trees and grass. The kite never touched the ground but was pulled straight to his hand at the same time the wind died, as if relieved of its task, still for a moment. Holding the kite where the sticks joined, the boy turned, and they were at once showered with a whole tree's worth of tulip-poplar samara loosened and carried from afar, spinning for how long in the wind. And the spell of the thing washed over her and the boy's full name came simply: Jackdaw Kite.

* *3* GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTER, ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS. Adoles flew out of bed, over the tops of the other racks, under the overhead maze of water, steam, air, electricity, and through the lounge, up the ladders without touching a rung, over the heads and out through a port hole. Topside, outside, he flew up over the king posts, over the forecastle to just forward and above the bow where he turned into a bowsprit. He woke and realized it was all a dream, except for the 1MC. THIS IS A DRILL, THIS IS A DRILL; GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS, ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS. THIS IS A DRILL. The rest of the ship thought it was a bad dream, a nightmare, an impossibilityexcept for Captain A. A. MacCrae who had ordered it and thought it was the best thing to get the crew's mind back to the task at hand, the task of any peacetime military: preparedness. The deck force responded appropriately: I don't fucking believe this bullshit. God damn fucking assholes. Bastards!, punctuated with a locker kick. The overhead fluorescents came on in their cool, sixty Hertz flicker amid a renewed barrage of protest. It was no small distraction when Adoles swung down from his bunk with his bald head. Jesus, what the fuck happened to you? Shaved my head. Everyone in the cubicle had to touch it. Looks white as an egg. Feels weird, like snake skin. BM1 Dures came around the corner, What the fuck is this? Drop your cocks and grab your socks, general quarters, lets go, move it.... He went down the passageway yelling into the other cubicles. About half the deck apes tried to hurry, mostly the recruits straight from boot camp who had been sent to alleviate the shortage of personnel; the desertion rate of the USS Cruces now the highest in the navy. A bottleneck formed at the bottom of the ladder, and when they reached the second deck where two ladders went up to the mess deck there was plain stoppage, confusion as to the directional flow of personnel. Up port down starboard, up port down starboard, one deck ape recited as a catchphrase. You've got it fucking backwards. Which side is port? another asked, stopping the argument for a moment. This side is port, said the first ape and tried to push and pull himself up the ladder through the sailors above him trying to come down. Down port! Sang a chorus at the top of the ladder. On main deck it was still dark, but he could see most were running up and forward on the starboard side, so he crossed over on his way to the gun mounts on the forecastle. Despite the blackness, he thought he could see darker stains on the deck where Cooper and Vargas had fallen. Why the twin, open-mount three inch fifties were called gun mount #41 and Gun mount #42 was curious, since they were the only mounted guns on the ship, #41 forward and below #42. Perhaps it was to instill fear in the enemy in case they caught the numbers in a communiqueat least forty other guns to reckon with. Word was there once had been a fifty caliber Browning Machine Gun on the fantail, but it had been taken out when they put in the helo deck. The open-mount three inch fifties were reputed to be the loudest cracking guns in the navy's arsenal, much louder than the closed-mounts on the newer ships. The twelve and a half foot barrels sticking out of the breeches looked like twin shock absorbers with giant springs coiled around a third of the way up the barrels. On the mounts themselves, on either side of the barrels, the gunners sat behind a steering wheel looking like it had been stolen from a video arcade, red firing button and all. The first loaders were behind them and between the breeches. They loaded the projectiles into the breeches. Aft of the mounts the second loaders took shells from the on-deck, box-like magazines or directly from the third loaders in the main magazine below the deck, the shells pushed up through a six inch hole. The second loaders dumped the shells in the open side of a short, fixed cylinder with an inside rotating chamber separating the shells and let them spin to

the bottom of the cylinder, keeping the top open for more shells to be loaded. The cylinder was mounted on the back of the mount pointing toward the first loaders, who grabbed the shells and shoved them into the breeches. All this had been theory, explained at the last GQ by the first class gunner's mate. As Adoles came around the squat fire control tower, theory became reality. Shells were coming through the hole and being loaded into the on-deck magazines. He suffered a rush of adrenaline. For the first time he felt the canvas suspension straps on his head as he donned the ill-fitting helmet and stepped up on the mount; he was first loader, starboard side, #42. Seaman gunner's mate Deermote, who was the trigger man, put the mount through its motions, rotating it with an electric groan, swinging to port and reversing to starboard while he raised and lowered the barrels. He pushed the firing button and and the gun tried to load and fire: clackclock, snap! clack-clock, snap! A box of ear plugs was passed around, sterile nodes of orange rubber in clear plastic bottles. The saltier of the gun crew waved the box off and tore filters off cigarettes and screwed them in their ears. A second loader on #41 lit a cigarette. GM1 Caliver yelled down from the fire control tower, Smoking lamp is out! But either the seaman didn't hear or was pretending he couldn't ; he took another, deep drag, the coal glowing long and hot. The GM1 wore sound-powered phones but his circuit ran to the bridge. He talked to the other phone talker in the tower a seaman who was crammed in with him, and the talker relayed the message to the gunner on #41, who told the second loader. The cigarette was flicked over the side. Why is the gunner up there? Adoles spoke to Deermote about the first class gunner in the tower. He thought the fire control tower contained controls to a sprinkler or carbon dioxide system rigged on the forecastle in case it caught fire. He can fire the guns from up there just like I can down here, except he has a better view and the aid of a computer. It's supposed to be more accurate, but it's vintage World War II, only good against prop aircraft. If some jets come at us it'd be firing into exhaust. It was just turning light. Adoles could see the magazine was about a third full, twenty or thirty shells, the door still hooked open. The second loaders were standing idle, off to the side fingering their cigarettes. The small hatch to the main magazine had been secured. He thought he saw Shaun on #41. Nothing happened. The second loaders tried sitting down and weren't rousted by the first class; they settled up against the gunwale. Adoles's adrenaline was metabolized, and he slowly gave way to sleepiness and fatigue only cut through by pain whenever he moved his hands. His forearms felt like aching boards. He thought of Cooper and the sound of a carrousel went through his head. Finally the smoking lamp was lit for ten minutes in the small space forward of the mounts, between the mounts and the gunwales. Deermote grumbled, Fucking bullshit.... We lose two mates and look what they do, have fucking GQ in the dark. Who the fuck ever heard of a GQ drill before breakfast? He paused, listening to his phones, then said, Fuck you! into the mouthpiece. He listened again and gave the unseen voice the finger this time, close to his chest where it couldn't be seen from the tower. Deermote bitched, but he was more into guns than anyone Adoles had ever known. Where most of the sailors had smut on their bunk lockers; girls in various states of undress, seeing how far they could push the XO's daily berthing compartment inspection; Deermote had small arms; a few rifles but mostly large caliber pistols, thick-walled magnums. The smoking lamp was secured. The ship, which had been heading north, made a slow turn to starboard, toward California, into the rising sun. The 1MC started calling reveille and then belayed its last. The ship made another turn to starboard, heading south. The order came down, Second loaders, supply the mount. The second loaders formed a short chain gang from the magazine to the mount, passing shells and dumping them in the cylinders. First loaders, load the gun. Adoles took a shell from the cylinder; it seemed bigger than the ones they had used on the trainer, as long as his arm, heavier. They were hard to grip with his raw palms. He lined the shell up with the breech and gave both ends a shove, keeping his hands from the inside. It went in sideways with a latching noise, then

clack-clock, and disappeared. The first loader on the other side put one in, clack-clock. And so they loaded the gun. The mounts were turned two points forward of the starboard beam, and by sighting along the leveled out barrels Adoles could see the white, balloon-like spheroid launched for target practice. About two miles out it wobbled and jiggled on the water, pushed by a slight breeze, giving it the aspect of a basic life form, some aerophiliac sponge having found a way to ride the water. Commence slow-fire. Before anybody could think about it the mount blew up. Or so it seemed. A deaf person on the fantail would have felt the explosion in his long bones. Everyone went for his ears except the old gunner in the tower, even Deermote had his fingers stuck up underneath the ear pads of his phones. They were firing from the tower. #41 went off just as loud, then #42 again, until Cease firing, came down. Adoles looked around to see where the ringing was coming from and found it everywhere. The daylight seemed brighter though the sun was behind low clouds. Men had to yell to be heard, and their voices sounded tiny and farther away than from where they originated, a warpage of space-time. It made the air seem thicker. They reloaded the guns. The white spheroid was now off the starboard beam, still floating, untouched. The object was to get as near to it as one could without hitting it, something of which Deermote was reminded before the first class switched the firing control over to him and the other trigger man on #41. As soon as the first class turned the switch #42 emptied its breeches, firing at its rated fifty rounds per minute until only a faint clack-clock, snap's could be heard, sounding as if they were coming from another ship. Deermote! The wide rim of the oversized phone-talker's helmet now rode on the back of Deermote's scrunched up shoulders. He turned and the helmet fell off his head, he hadn't bothered to hook the chin strap, his forearms cocked out and hands palms up, accepting mana from the gods while rejecting any responsibility for what had just happened, my hands are empty. But the spheroid was gone. In its place one caught glimpses of the deflated plastic envelope floating on the water. Sea gulls, thinking it a large garbage bag, started flocking over it from where they had been stationed astern. After the GM1 conferred with the bridge, they fired off the rest of the shells, shooting at nothing. Only after they secured the mounts did Adoles notice the brass casings from the shells scattered about on the deck, mostly on the starboard side where they had been ejected from the guns. They must have made a brassy, clanging noise, running into the deck and each other, but Adoles had not heard it. After they collected and stowed the casings they waited again, waited for general quarters to be secured, but instead the drill moved aft for the damage control teams; two simultaneous fire drills, a class 'B' in the after bo's'n locker and a class 'A' in #5 hold. Before the fire drills were secured the engineroom was taking in simulated water from a simulated torpedo hit, the ship's boilers were shut down and the emergency after diesel was fired up, sounding loud and obnoxious, monotonous, like a loaded garbage truck climbing a steep hill. The smoking lamp was not officially lit, but those on the forecastle smoked. A slap-boxing match was put down between two on #42; and then two seaman apprentices, one on #41 standing on the on-deck magazine conversing over the gunwale with another on #42, had a friendly show of blades, which turned into a cut thumb. The one with the thumb started aft to go to sickbay. The first class gunner yelled from the tower, No one is to leave their general quarters station before general quarters is secured! Abbot! Get the hell back here! But Abbot ignored him and left the forecastle. Adoles went down to #41 to talk to Shaun. He was sitting on the deck beside the mount with his back against the gunwale, listening to his ears. He stuck fingers in them, first one, then the other, then both. He looked dazed. My hearing is shot, he said when Adoles squatted down beside him. Yeah, my ears are ringing too. The gunner said it would go away in a few days. It's louder when it's quieter, Shaun said, and closed his eyes and pushed the tragi down over the ear canals with forefingers while the tips of his little fingers were on his temples and his thumbs behind the jaw on his neck, the rest spread in-between. Adoles didn't know what he was talking about until he covered his

own ears and heard the high pitched ringing jump in amplification, especially in his left ear, which had been nearest to the breech. Shaun had been between the breeches. A mess cook brought up a large brown box of smaller pink box lunches, and the gun crews ate fried chicken, coleslaw, and mashed potatoes with plasticware. The lingering atmosphere of gunnery practice gave way to festivity; it was good to eat. The ship was pointed north-east now, headed for San Francisco Bay. Forward of the ship off either side of the bow two voluminous pillars of mist held up a patchwork of low-lying clouds of all variety: darkalmost blackfull of rain, shades of gray, light white and puffy; and through them all, thinning out at the edges or cut out hard, were holes of blue sky. As they approached the gateway of mist, rainbows appeared arching through each widening column, almost in the clouds. Slowly they arched farther and joined together as one; the rainbow ends pulled in from the sea and appeared to originate from the bow of the ship, the ship making a slow watery leap through a ring of prismatic colors. A second ring appeared outside the first with the colors reversed. As they steamed on the rainbows came impossibly close but still couldn't be touched. Mist fell cool on the mounts. Five hours later Adoles sent code in his head, sending sound but trying to imagine the blinking light, white during the day, red at night, the dahs three times as long as the dits: Dah, dit dit dit dit, dit; dah dah dit dah, dit dit dah,... He tried to send the alphabet sentence, The quick gray fox jumped over the lazy brown dogs, but never made it through: The quick gray destroyer jumped...The quick...Cut to the quick...Quickly cut...Cooper was not quick enough.... Each word of the phrases came without thinking, then he broke them down into dits, dahs, and spacespausesof three lengths: the space between letters, which was a third of the space between words, which was a third of the space between sentences. The act of sending the words in code made it different, he was talking to someone besides himself. It was the same when he was practicing semaphore; alone at night up on the bridge, or during the day using shorthand, hands close in to his chest, back to anyone able to read it. Semaphore was much faster, the phrases longer, a smoother flow. By code or sticks something was gained in the translation.

As the ship approached the coast and the Golden Gate he sent, Last time through as a deck ape, and then, crossed fingers. He put a shutter on the sun and with the blinding light sent, O let me be a signalman, then saw it as light from a signal light, each word being sent over and over again, faster and faster, until he read the dahs and dits as whole words, not the letters of the words. They passed under the bridge and the 1MC solemnly ordered, ALL HANDS, MAN YOUR SEA DETAIL STATIONS. Last time on 5. All numbers had a combination of five dits and dahs, except five which was all dits and zero which was all dahs. On his way aft he ran through the dits; dit 'E', dit dit 'I', dit dit dit 'S', dit dit dit dit 'H', dit dit dit dit dit '5' then went back for the dahs; dah 'T', dah dah 'M', dah dah dah 'O', dah dah dah dah except nothing had four dahs. He tacked on a dit and made it a '9'. And then zero, dah dah dah dah dah. Zero had the most dahs and so took the longest time to send. There was some irony in that, the longest time to send nothing. Number five line was the second aft-most, number six going through a chock straight off the stern, and shared with number six the advantage of being under the helo deck, offering some protection during inclement weather. When it was cool but sunny, as it was this day, it had the further advantage of being just aft of the forward edge of the helo deck, and so until they were near the pier, those assigned to number five could drift forward of their station and lounge in the sun, lean on the bulwark, smoke. They passed Alcatraz, the penitentiary buildings hollow and deserted.

You know there was a guy who escaped from Alcatraz, one seaman offered as new scuttlebutt. Bull, no one's ever escaped from Alcatraz and lived, another countered. No, there was, the first one rejoined. He escaped with another inmate and that one drowned, but this other one they never found. That don't mean he lived. Heard tell he got taken in on the tide, washed ashore on Yerba Buena. Who did you hear it from, his mother?

But the ship was generally quiet, sober, reverential of the dead. As they passed under Bay Bridge two tugs joined the ship on the port side. The seamen on #5 were called athwartships and hauled up the aft tug's hawser of manila interlaid with wire and threw the stiff eye splice over a bitt. The tug winched in the slack. Forward, above the second tug, a Jacob's ladder was dropped over the side and the harbor pilot climbed aboard with a walkie talkie on his belt. He was escorted to the bridge. The ship made a slow adjustment to port, the tugs satisfied for the moment to idle and be towed like remoras. A jet or rocket engine ignited, and the sound roared out from the Alameda Naval Air Station, but nothing took off: testing engines. When they had been tied up at Alameda the sound had been so loud you couldn't hear yourself think; it drowned out everything including the 1MC. Even when they had been across the bay in San Francisco berthed at Bethlehem Steel the flame thundering engines could be heard below the sand blaster, filling out the high hiss of sand and air. Now they slowly steamed through the inlet of the U.S. Naval Supply Depot in Oakland, shielded from the intense roaring by land and buildings. The tugs pushed and pulled the ship into place next to the pier, and boatswain's mate strikers threw coiled heaving lines, which caught and seemed to float in the air while the monkey fists tied to their ends pulled off the coils in their arching drop and the waiting sea detail mustered from another ship. The landed seamen pulled the mooring lines down and put the eye splices over bollards and cleats. The sailors on deck took in the slack. The newer recruits on #5 were so anxious to get their hands on the hawser, to pull it taut and the ship as close to the pier as the fenders would allowto be sailorsthat Adoles stood behind their straining, keeping the line they pulled in out of their way. The baby bo's'ns took a turn around one of a pair of bitts and, while the seamen still strained, went around the other bitt making a figure eight, pulling it tight. They stacked and pulled two more on top of the first before they stopped heaving and went on up the bitts with figure eights until they reached the top where they coiled the remaining line over the bitts and figure eights making a giant, drooping nest. The gangway was levered out and lowered; deck apes with rat guards clamored down and tied the wide shallow funnels as high on the lines as they could reach. They returned to the ship and with the rest of the crew waited for sea detail to be secured. An old gray carryall drove onto the pier, turned around forward of the gangway, and stopped. A navy driver and passenger in undress blues got out, opened the rear door. They didn't start for the gangway, but stood and waited. Later some wondered why the bodies were ever put down in the hold. Perhaps the corpsman, if he hadn't knocked himself out, would have had them carried up to sick bay. But the corpsman had been out cold, and no officer presented himself to take charge of the situation. Scuttlebutt was even the captain had fainted. At the time, to those present, it had seemed appropriate. Dead bodies weren't meant to lie in the sun; they were meant to be buried, to be put down. So when the body bags were found and the large pieces stowed, with an unspoken and common understanding they popped the hatch to the hold inboard to where the two had fallen and lowered them down, down to the orlop. The empty hook came up and they sealed the hatch. A fire hose was rigged and the handle of the all-purpose nozzle pulled back to the straight stream position; they blasted what was left toward the scuppers. Now with the ship tied up, a boom was swung out over the pier. The hold's hatch cover was undogged and hydraulically folded over the forward side, the cargo hook lowered to bring up the bodies. It was illogical, not at all of common sense, but there was something sacrilegious about it; as if the bodies had been truly buried and laid to rest. The driver and passenger of the carryall were transformed into grave robbers, waiting on the pier to take away their booty. The winch operator lowered the hook slowly as the occasion seemed to warrant, and it disappeared inside the black rectangle followed by the unloaded cables moving tentatively in their slack. Down they went, on and on, past where any bottom deck could possibly be and still on. Finally the cables stopped and after a long moment started their ascent, moving just as slowly. The seaman directing the winch operator peeked over the lip of the hatch, as if afraid of heights. He held out two hands at the ends of bent arms, elbows at his sides, one hand for each winch, and tapped his fore fingers to his thumbs to keep the winches inching in the cable. The tapping fingers turned to a fist, stopping a winch when the load was too far to one side, then soundlessly tapping again when the load was centered. The seaman stepped back from the hatch and the bagged bodies appeared too suddenly for as slow as the cables had been drawn in. They swayed above the hold in a sling. The starboard winch pulled them up and

away from the hole; the port winch let out its cable and the load swung high under the end of the boom over the pier. An engorged rat climbed out of a gnawed hole in one of the body bags and made a flying leap for the water, its tiny legs outstretched, abdomen distended. It belly-flopped on the pier and scampered in place, frantically clawing at the cement until its muscles relaxed. Another rat's head popped out of the hole and looked down, then climbed up the straps of the sling to the cargo hook and managed to climb onto the slack cable of the port winch. It waddled toward the ship on top of the cable until it slipped and hung underneath trying to right itself, then dropped. It hit the creosote soaked wood on the pier's edge and fell off into the narrow space between pier and ship, into dark water. A third rat had climbed out and sat sniffing, looked around, then disappeared back through the hole. Adoles left his sea detail station and went below to the deck's berthing compartment. All the bottom rack were triced up, and he found one not being used and wriggled over the edge into the dark space, his back to the mattress, but the rack being at an angle, his shoulder bore most of his weight, wedged into the triangular trough. In cross section it was a right triangle: the right angle where the horizontal rack above him met the vertical side coming down, his back to the gappy hypotenuse. He didn't hear the 1MC secure the sea detail or tell sweepers to man their brooms or the crew to knock off ship's work or announce liberty call for the off duty watch sections. He didn't hear the deck apes come down to the compartment, grab shower gear and leave, return and change and go on liberty, or hear the duty playing cards in the lounge. But when the 1MC announced tattoo, TATTOO TATTOO, LIGHTS OUT IN FIVE MINUTES, he pulled himself out of the trough and went up to the signal bridge. It was dark, but he didn't put a hood on the signal light before he turned the rotary switch. When the 1MC called taps he was sending a bright white message up into the night.

* *4* Why did you shave your head? It hadn't been a question Adoles thought the striker board would ask. He thought they would inquire about the signalman rate, what he knew about it or how much he had learnedwhy he had decided to strike for it in the first place. For everything in this regard he was prepared, to show enthusiasm backed up with as thorough a knowledge of the rate as one could have in four months. He knew semaphore, had learned it in only two days, and could send it long arm (the only way for official messages) as fast as the chiefthough receiving it was another story. He knew all the flags and pennants: alphabet, numeral, and special; reading them off the hoist was hard, sometimes they hung slack, furled in on themselves, some of the flags new, others old and faded, but he could whip through the fifty-one flag cards in less than a minute. And he knew Morse code. His fellow enlisted men hadn't asked the question in over a week and, hitherto, no officer had. Now Lieutenant Blaubiss, head of operations and new-owner of the old question, sat in his khakis and collar insignia with the rest of the officers on the striker board and stared at him with open face, waiting for reply. Between papers a second set of blurry faces leaned toward him, reflecting upside down from the polished mahogany of the wardroom table. It was only the second time he had been in officers country and the first time he had ever been in the wardroom. He had half stifled a gasp when he stepped in and his feet sank into carpet. Along two of the bulkheads were dark leather sofas with shiny brass studs holding the cushion in and skirting their length above short wooden legs. These were separated by small tables as richly polished as the long one at which they sat. Above the sofas and tables were candelabrum-like light fixtures and expensively framed reproductions. He could have been in the lobby of a modestly elegant hotel except for the low ceiling and telltale portholesbut even these last could have been the decision of an interior decorator in a seaside resort, the shiny brass fittings lending a nautical theme. The question must have been asked of him a score of times, but now he could recall not a single answer. Usually he didn't have to say anything; shrug his shoulders and wait long enough, whoever had asked the question would answer it for him, suggest an explanation to which Adoles would make a noncommittal noise. Now he picked at the flag cards in his left shirt pocket, reached for the green, navy-issue memo book in the right, and then for the stubble on his head. He stammered, It was hot? It was not a question of heat but whether the answer was acceptable. Lieutenant Blaubiss looked down and shuffled through some papers. He looked a lot fatter sitting down. His neck, which usually came straight from chin down to chest, bulged out like the inflated inner tube of a child's bicycle. The Lieutenant looked up again, Do you know it's against navy regulations to shave your head? No, sir. I didn't know that, Adoles said. Well it is. Your hair has to be this long. The lieutenant held up the space between his thumb and forefinger. Adoles guessed it to be about a quarter inch, or how thick the lieutenant wanted his roast beef cut for lunch. After glancing down the table to see if any of the other officers had questions he said, That will be all. No cards, no code, no semaphore; just wanting to know why he had shaved his head. He wondered half facetiously what they did when someone was naturally bald: perhaps they didn't let him join the navy, and if someone joined with hair and started going bald they gave him a general discharge under honorable conditions, you couldn't help going bald. Or perhaps all you had to do was submit a chit requesting to go bald. RESPECTFULLY REQUEST PERMISSION TO LET MY SCALP FOLLICLES DIE AND THEIR RESPECTIVE HAIRS FALL OUT. He went down to the deck compartment and changed out of his clean, 'dress' dungarees and back into his grubby ones, then went back to the fantail. They were chipping the underside of the helicopter deck stretched out over the water. Cargo nets fastened to the outer edge of the helo deck hung down and inboard to the railing of the fantail, like tilted hammocks. They lied back in the nets and pushed pneumatic needle guns up into the crusty white paint that came off in a shower of chips. The sound was incredible, a score of blunt, nail-like needles pecking through the paint to steel, a metallic roar, so each sailor wore earplugs or mickey

mouse ears or both. Everyone but Geezer word a bandana covering his face from below the eyes; with their safety goggles they looked like nearsighted bandits. The vibration of the needle gun made his fingers white and deadened his hands, the trembling gangrene moving down his arms and into his shoulders. The sound reaching through the ear protection anesthetized his hearing; the white shower of paint chips fell on and past the goggles mesmerized his sight, numbed his whole being so he didn't have to think of his sure defeat at the strikers board. When he could hold his arms up no longer he let them collapse and released the air lever, holding the needle gun in a paralytic grip across his belly like it was a small bazooka meant to be fired from the hip. The heat from his blood filled his shoulders and started reclaiming the arms; a hot spot at the base of his elbow spread back toward his shoulders then slowly started to fill his forearms. He let the heat get as far as his wrists then pushed the gun back up into the paint. Someone pulled on his foot; Adoles let the gun down, shaking his head and the paint chips off his goggles. Seaman Signalman J.C. Jordan was standing there grinning at him, perfect teeth and mischievous eyes framed by the dark face. Adoles looked about himself to see if he was the butt of one of J.C.'s jokes. What the hell you doin'? J.C. yelled over the roar of the other needle guns. His expression now seemed to become serious, but it was hard to tell when he was mock serious or serious serious. Adoles decided to come up to it, What the hell does it look like? I'm chipping paint, he yelled back. Well S-M-C wants to see you A-S-A-P. He's waiting for you up on the signal bridge. J.C. turned and retreated from the noise. At first Adoles couldn't figure it, why Jurado would want to see him. The signalman chief was rarely on the signal bridge when he was up there practicing. Awkwardly, Adoles climbed out of the cargo net and over the rails, leaving the needle gun hanging through the net by its air hose. He didn't see BM2 Emerson so he left, not bothering to tell the others where he was going. He pushed the goggles and mickey mouse ears back and took the cotton out of his ears. Now he could hear and see other work of the ship and taste an expectation in the remembrance of the morning, the strikers board. Jurado wouldn't want to see him if he hadn't made it, would he? No. But a small cynicism said, Yes, of course! Lieutenant Blaubiss is up there too, relishing the expectation of Jurado giving you the word, watching your hopes be crushed. On the signal bridge the chief and first class, Fritz, were standing forward of the shack under the canvas awning, the gangling Fritz leaning on the chart table to look up slightly at the shorter and stockier Jurado, whose back was to Adoles when he stepped off the ladder. Fritz stood up and the chief turned around and held out a thick hand. Con-grat-u-la-tions, Jurado said, his Filipino accent separating and enunciating the syllables, You are now a signalman apprentice. Fritz shook his hand too and slapped him on the back. Then they both moved to either side of the chart table as if something was on it they wanted to show him or the table was a throne to which to ascend. JACK CUSHMAN! Adoles heard J.C. call the name of the hardest hitting defensive back in the NFL like a cavalry charge and he just started to turn when he was body slammed into the table, knocking the wind out of him. A burst of hooting and clapping came from the flag bags by the shack; the rest of the signal gang had watched while J.C. acted. Welcome on top, J.C. said. Had to knock the deck ape out of you, 'cause you're a skivvy waver now! That evening Adoles went down to the deck compartment and found Shaun. I made it! I'm up on the signal bridge! Yeah, I saw your rack was stripped. Shaun greeted Adoles's enthusiasm with something less but still smiled and congratulated him. I feel like partying, Adoles said. You want to go over? Sure, let me stow my gear. They left the ship and cut across the small navy depot to the gate. The land adjacent to the base was zoned for light industry, but a few blocks away began a broken row of gin mills, liquor stores, seedy motels, and fast food restaurants. Shaun and Adoles went into the first saloon and were scrutinized by the sparse clientele: older men from nearby factories at tables and in the booths, a woman sitting at the bar turned and gave them a smile, an invisible crow perched hard on the corners of her eyes. With a towel over his shoulder the bartender came down to their end of the bar.

What can I get you gents? I think we'll get something wholesale, Adoles said and led the way through a curtained, double-wide doorway into the contiguous liquor store. The proprietor reappeared, Same question. Adoles glanced over the shelves. Should we get some rum? Rum and cokes? He looked toward Shaun who grimace slightly. Adoles cast his eye back. How 'bout some vodka? Shaun shook his head. Bourbon. Okay. Adoles turned toward the bartender who was gripping the edge of the counter leaning on straight, elbow-locked arms. How much is a fifth of Jack Daniels? Too much, Shaun broke in before the bartender could answer. Evan Williams, black label. Never heard of it. Smooth as Jack, half the price, Shaun said. Adoles paid for the fifth, and they walked across the street to an empty lot beside an elevated freeway. The speeding cars overhead passed with an open-mouth whisper, the big diesel tractor-trailers Dopplermoaned, aaahh-Owwwww, aaahh-Owwwww; like pain coming, pain going. It was almost dark and headlights from the street started highlighting them in the lot, so they moved into the concrete pylons supporting the freeway. Now to the whispering and moaning were added the deep grumblings of the land bridge itself as well as the cycled sound of radial tires. The night grew cool under the bridge; they hunched down into their coats. The whiskey dropped a heating element from the top of their throats to their stomachs, coiling there, radiating out. I haven't seen you with your keyboard lately, Adoles said. Don't you practice anymore? No, it got shitcanned, Shaun said. Ah, man.... Yeah. Had it stashed in the empty bunk locker in my cubicle, had to saw out a space in the cross partitions to make it fit. Anyhow, the compartment cleaners went through one day and cleaned out all the empty racks. It was gone before I knew about it. Adoles shook his head, Fucking navy. I'll drink to that, Shaun tilted the bottle back. Do you still go to that church in S.F. to play?, Adoles asked. Not since I got restricted to the ship. Shaun had gone to Captain's Mast for altering his orders: got busted, restricted, and fined. Adoles had read it in the POD under the heading, RESULTS OF CAPTAIN'S MAST, crime in the left column, punishment in the right; no names given but everyone knew who had done what. Hey, why don't we cross the bay, go to that church? Nah, I haven't played in months. But Adoles thought he saw a glint in Shaun's vacant eyes. So what if you're rusty, I'd like to hear you play. Come on, let's go. Adoles started walking toward the street and a bus stop. Shaun put the bottle inside his jacket and zipped it up. They had to transfer twice; by the time they reached the church off 3rd Avenue it was almost eleven. A street lamp hung out from one of the front corners, its blue light raking across the plaster walls catching and shadowing the wide arching trowel marks made with a long arm. The large wooden doors were set back in the doorway in shadow and were blacker than the windows on either side of them, which showed some small light within. Above the doors raised black letters were set in the plaster and read: African Methodist Episcopalian. Do you think it's too late?, Adoles asked softly. No, Reverend Fielding doesn't mind. Shaun dug keys out of his pocket and unlocked the doors. The church was dark except for a small brass table lamp illuminating what looked like a high, cloth draped table on the left side of the altar. By the dim light Adoles could see the pews were simple wooden affairs, little more than benches with short backs. Shaun whispered, pointing down, Walk softly, he lives in the basement. They made their way down the center aisle walking on the balls of their feet, touching the pew backs to keep their balance. The brass lamp turned out to be on the piano itself, the cloth to hide the unfinished back and strings from the congregation. Adoles stood to the side, resting his arms on top of the old upright. Shaun

sat on the stool and lifted and pushed the cover into the piano. He stretched his hands out then balled them up twice before he fixedhands hovering on the keyboard, fingers barely touching the keys, shoulders relaxing, eye closedthen broke the silence. The melody struck off with the right hand was slow and uneven with long pauses letting the left hand softly fill it out with arpeggios, broken and wholebut after a moment it no longer seemed clear, for the base notes came to have a melody of their own, which the treble notes now punctuated. Surprisingly, the cloth did not muffle the sound at all, and the wooden floor and plaster walls became a giant soundbox giving the notes a rich resonance. Shaun could have been practicing the piece for a month, so smooth was his playing, but as the right hand went up the keyboard, again assuming the melodic line with something adamant to say, he stopped on a high note. He let the reverberations in the church die down and then hit the note again. Hear that? Shaun asked Adoles, hitting the note again. Adoles turned one and then the other ear toward the piano. Shaun Peterson, a deep voice interrupted from the other side of the altar. Out of the shadow shuffled a barrel-chested, middle-aged black man wearing slippers and a bathrobe. His hair effloresced with white, silvery light, seemingly outside the warm spectrum cast by the brass lamp on the piano. It looked like a halo from a religious painting of the Middle Ages except the painter had used silver leaf instead of gold. I haven't heard you in a month of Sundays. Hello, Reverend Fielding. This is my friend, Roland Adoles; we're on the same ship. Nice to meet you. The reverend shook Adoles's hand. It's always nice to see another sea-going man come to church, even if it's not during service. Yes, sir, Adoles agreed conversationally. We're tied up over in Oakland now, Shaun said, That's why we've come so late, had to ride the bus. Oakland. hmmmm. The reverend seemed to think hard on this, then after a moment said, I always thought it strange we didn't get more sailors in here, being so close to the water, you know. Guess they must find their salvation in something else. He looked from Adoles to Shaun, smiling slightly so just the tips of his front teeth showed, then he came to the point, Smells like you been prayin' at another altar. Yes, Reverend Fielding, we've had a few, Shaun said. Few what? Smells like you could be government certified. His severe tone softened somewhat, I'm not going to preach to you, if you want to hear a sermon you come Sunday, but you know I don't abide by no drinking.... The reverend seemed to lose his thought. When his voice returned it was almost a whisper, But the way you play, Shaun. Aye, there's the very spiritthe very hand of God in it. He now stood behind Shaun and rested his hands on Shaun's shoulders. And if you're half as drunk as you smell that only proves it, he added wryly. He gave Shaun's shoulders a hard squeeze and padded back across the altar toward the unseen basement stairs. Play something, son. Fill this humble house with His voice. Adoles thought he saw the reverend's arms out in the shadows, embracing the thought. When they heard a door shut and the creaking of stairs Adoles shot Shaun a wide-eyed, questioning look. Shaun smiled, letting his left hand remember a base melody. He drinks too, Shaun whispered, Vodka and coffee, so you can't smell it. Then why does he talk like he's so against it? Adoles whispered back. Shaun shrugged his shoulders, concentrating on his remembering. After a few minutes he stopped and gathered the silence again. Then he played a concerto for the left hand. Adoles thought there was something tragic and exalted about it at the same time, tragedy overcome. When he was through, almost without pause, he went back to the first piece he had started when they came in the church, focusing on the right hand, leaving half the base notes out. He stopped on the same high note, pinging it twice, then went up an octave, almost to the end of the keyboard, tested that note, came down two octaves and tested again, listening. He shook his head and put his hands over his ears then went back to the highest note. Adoles pushed the tragus down over his left ear canal and listened: the ringing in his ear was much higher, but akin, making those notes sound somehow flat or dead. Shaun quit pinging the notes and pulled the cover back down over the keys. Let's go, he said, stood, turned, and walked off the altar. Unlike a cartoon figure pausing in midair, he immediately crashed to the floor. It made a terrific noise, and they both froze for a full minute; Shaun splayed out in the center aisle, Adoles crouching on the altar looking from Shaun to the stairs in the dark. All was still.

When it was apparent the reverend wasn't going to ascend, Shaun laughed through his nose. You okay? Adoles whispered, helping him up. Who lowered the floor? Shaun's voice was heavy and thick. He stumbled to his feet. It was as if the alcohol had been retained in a special organ, which had busted in the fall, releasing its entire contents into his blood stream. Whew!! He exclaimed, taking a deep breath and getting his bearings. The door's that way, right? Right, Adoles said. Outside, they relieved their bladders in the shadow of the church. They staggered toward Third Avenue. Shaun's words stuck to the roof of his mouth, dry of saliva, Water. I need some water, I'm thirsty. Where's a water fountain? The nearest one I know of is in a park up on Potrero Hill. Adoles said. Potrero Hill! That's miles away! Shaun shouted. Would you shut up, Adoles hissed, You want to get us arrested? Adoles was surprised at how the alcohol had affected Shaun and how relatively clear-headed he seemed himself. I'd bet the police would give us water. Have to. Water and a phone call. Yeah, if they find us alive. This is a rough neighborhood, or don't you remember? Adoles asked. Shaun looked around but didn't say anything. They found a bus stop on 3rd Avenue and waited. Adoles knew this late they probably only ran every hour, but didn't know at what minute. The wet cool air made them shiver. Finally the bus cameand went, not even slowing down, the driver looking straight at them. Shaun started yelling, You asshole son-of-abitch, while searching the gutter and ground for something hard to throw at the retreating bus, but lost his balance and sat down hard on the sidewalk, one foot caught in a sewer drain. How the fuck we going to cross the bridge? Shaun asked, his words breaking up. I'll call a cab, Adoles said. They didn't even think of going into one of the bars still open, spotting either side of the street, but staggered up 3rd Avenue until they found a pay phone by a Doggie Dinner. When the taxi came the driver required twenty dollars up front before he would take them across the bridge and a five dollar deposit in case one of them vomited in the cab. He passed back two barf bags. When he dropped them off at the gate he kept the five as a tip. They made their way to the ship, up the gangway, and over the brow without comment from the OOD Adoles showed Shaun his rack and he climbed in, bothering to hang his feet out and push each shoe off with the other foot, the pair clumping into the aisle. Adoles turned to his old rack and took a moment to remember he was in operation now. He climbed the three ladders, coming out in the operations lounge and immediately forgot where OC division was berthed if he ever knew by night. The lounge looked strangely different in the red lamp light though still surrounded by a multiplicity of now dark doorways leading to the berthing of all the divisions of operations as well as the fire gang. He sat down in the cushioned booth with his back to the paneled ladderwell leading to officers country. He tried to orient himself by looking around for a fitting or other thing to calibrate his homing instinct and fell asleep there until reveille.

* *5* Dear Cybette, Sorry I haven't written in so longguess I haven't written at all Adoles crumpled the stationery he had bought at the navy exchange, the palest of blues with silver flecks in it, the navy seal at the top. He thought of the cost and got out a spiral bound notebook. He could copy the letter to the stationery after he figured out what he was going to say. Dear Cybette, Someone once told me never to start a letter by saying you're sorry, Dear Cybette, Sorry I haven't written, but I didn't know before whether you could get mail Dear Cybette, Sorry I haven't written, but I didn't know if I could write you at Saint Albans or not, and when I was in boot camp rumor was they censored our mail and I didn't want to write you at your parents'. Mrs. Graham told me you were in Saint Albans when I was home on leave. I wrote her recently, asking about you, and she wrote me back and said you had gotten out and gave me your address. Adoles read over this last, ripped it from the notebook, and tossed it with the rest in the waste basket. He looked from the desk up to the 24-hour clock an arm's length in front of him on the bulkhead, black face with white numerals. A quartermaster came and wound it every day before noon. The florescent desk lamp buzzed lightly and he pushed the off button, throwing the shack into darkness, letting the night-lit signal bridge show grayly through the plexiglass windows. He pushed the starter button until the ends of the tube blinked on, then released the button, letting the light fill the tube. The buzzing may have been less. He sharpened his pencil and was glad to find the sharpener needed emptying. He held the metal case over the waste basket and dug the packed shavings out then returned the case to the three spiral fluted cylinders that spun and revolved around the pencil hole, describing epicycles. He stood up and saw his distorted reflection in the warped plexiglass; he paced back and forth across the shack and watched his figure slide into and hang outside of the concave and convex bulges, as a man at carnival in the mirror tent. He left the shack and went forward to the starboard gun tub, uncovered the bigeyes, and scanned the depot for something of interest. Finding nothing, he went athwartships to the port gun tub with its bigeyes and scrutinized the harbor. Nothing. He went aft and athwartships to the starboard door of the shack through which he came, crossed the shack and exited through the port door, now stepping up into the port semaphore stand. He stood with his arms at front, trying to think of something to send across the dark water. Nothing. He stepped down, went back into the shack, and sat down. After an indeterminable moment he wrote. Dear Cybette, Tonight is my first night as duty signalman. Since we are in port that means I have to make sure the ensign (that's what the navy calls the American flag) and Union Jack (looks like the blue part of the American flag with the stars cut out) are raised at 8:00 a.m. and lowered at sunset. Anyway, since all the other signalman are on liberty, I have the signal bridge and signal shack all to myself! It's like having your own private penthouse office (it's the highest working space on the ship), at least until morning. That's where I am right now, in the signal shack, sitting at the desk. The shack looks like a triangle with all the points cut off: where the forward point or apex is cut off is where the desk fits in; outside, where the point would be, is where the main mast stands, as tall as a ponderosa pine. In the old days there would be a crow's nest near the top of the mast, but now-a-days that's where they have the radar mounted. It also holds out the yardarms where other electronic gizmos are

mounted but also the pulleys to our signal halyards so we can send messages by flags. Anyway, the other two points of the shack are cut off by the port and starboard doors. Attached onto the back of the shack is the back roomactually the shack was probably attached onto it because it is made out of light sheet metal while the back room is thick plate steel. It only has one entrance, from the shack. Just outboard of both doors are the flag bags, which aren't really bags at all but tall metal containers with a slanting opening at the top. The rings and snaps of the flags are stuck in notches near the top while the rest of the flag hangs down in the bag. There is a kind of stand in front of the bags four steps high from which we hook the flags onto the signal halyards (this is where they come down from the yardarms). Farther outboard and forward of the flag bags are sem stands two steps high and mounted in the railings from where we send semaphore. It's like a two foot section of straight railing was removed and replaced by an outboardcurving half circle of railing. They're just big enough for one person to stand in. Looking down from the sem stands there's the outboard passageway of the O-4 level and then a place cut out of the O-3 and O-2 levels for two boats stacked from the O-1 level. There's two what they call motor whaleboats on the port side and a motor whaleboat and the captain's gig (like a miniature yacht, really fancy) on the starboard side. (I don't know why they call them whaleboats since they neither look like nor are used for hunting whales. Maybe they used to be.) Forward and still farther outboard of the sem stands are the gun tubs, which have a signal/search light and pair of bigeyes each. The bigeyes are like a giant pair of binoculars mounted on a stand in the middle of the gun tub. Fritz, he's a signalman first class (SM1) and my boss, said there used to be machine guns mounted where the bigeyes are, but I find this hard to believe because if an enemy boat snuck up to the side of the ship you couldn't shoot at them from the middle of the tub because of the gunwale! the signal lights on the other hand are mounted on the very outboard edge of the tub and can be pointed straight down the side of the ship. There are four signal searchlights in all: three incandescent and one mercury xenon. Besides the two in the gun tubs, there are two mounted on either side aft of the sem stands. The incandescents have 1000 watt bulbs and are very bright. The mercury xenon is the port aft light and it has a special bulb filled with mercury and xenon (makes sense, huh!). When you first turn on that light it's dim, but after a couple of minutes the mercury vaporizes and mixes with the xenon, which is already a gas, and it gets incredibly bright with a bluish light. much brighter than the incandescents. They all have shutters, which are open and closed by a lever on the right side of the light and that's how we send Morse code with them. There is a chief radioman onboard who can send and receive Morse code at 60 words per minute! But that's by sound. By light, the fastest anyone can send is 15 words per minute because of the mechanical limitations of the shutters. We can also send code by the yardarm blinkers using a telegraph key like the radiomen use, but this is even slower because you have to allow time for the elements in the bulbs to cool for the lights to go off. Everyone thinks I can only receive code at 4 or 5 wpm The truth is I'm up to 12 wpm., faster than anybody else on the signal bridge, besides the chief, but I'm keeping it a secret. If there's one thing I've learned about being in the navy it's that it doesn't pay to stick out. That's why everyone has to have short hair and where a uniform, so they all look the same and no one sticks out. As far as your job goes, though, the only way to stick out is if you're terribly, terribly bad or if you're moderately or more good. If you're really truly terribly bad then it's official: you get hauled up before the captain for captain's mast or get court martialed. If you're moderately or more good it's not official, but the people around you in your rate, especially your superiors, that are only fair or poor start feeling resentment, and if they are your superiors they'll look for any flaws in your character or work performance and enlarge upon them, give you bad evaluations, try to get you transferred or even busted. In my case as a signalman it's mainly SM1 Orville Fritz I have to watch out for. Being a first class he should be able to receive code at 12 wpm, but he can only do 2 or 3, if that! Seriously! Actually, this rates as terrible, but he always has someone to cover for him. During Rough Trade (two weeks of drills the whole ship goes through down in San Diego to make sure we are ready to go overseas) when the inspector tested him on code Fritz made sure Chief Jurado was recording for him. The inspectors sent the message from the port gun tub and Fritz received in the starboard. The chief was supposed to record the message, while Fritz read it to him and flashed the light after each word received. Of course the chief recorded and read the message, whispering each word into his clipboard so Fritz could say it out loud and have some idea about what was being sent. Part of the reason why Fritz is so bad is because he's only been a signalman for a couple

of years. He crossed over from storekeeper when he was a second class for career's sake. Storekeeper is a closed rate while signalman is an open one. I wondered how he ever made first class until I heard the chief helped him out with the test. Fritz is an okay guy, really, but whenever he points his big nose at me and tells me to shine the bright work or swab the deck it really irks me! I keep telling myself he's been in the navy 12 or 14 years and has put up with the crap a lot longer than I have, but it's no use. I can't have any respect for him. On the other hand I have the greatest respect for Chief Jurado. Not only is he a nice guy, but SMC knows the rate inside and out. He receives code and semaphore as fast as anyone can send it and when he sends semaphore with the red and yellow Romeo ('R') flags it looks like a house on fire. I wish he were on the signal bridge more. He usually comes up late in the morning looking for a way to use the new word he's just looked up. He's Filipino and I guess trying to build his English vocabulary. The other day the word was prerogative. He waited until someone complained about an officer doing so-and-so, and the chief said, But that's his prerogative. JC is always on the lookout for the word and when the chief springs it he says, Whoa, Jurado. What kind of Tagalog is that? or some such, and makes everyone laugh. JC's always making us laugh. His last name is Jordan, but everyone just calls him JC, though I don't think anyone knows what it stands for, and he won't say. He's the only black on the signal bridge. Sometimes he calls up another ship by semaphore and says, I'm the only Afro-American up here and I'm tired of being the token. You got any over there who want to transfer? He's funny. He gets along with everybody and vice versaexcept maybe for SM3 Woodrow Southwell. Southwell doesn't act like a bigot, but apparently when he first reported aboard he told some racial jokes and they got back around to JC who's had it in his craw ever since. If JC isn't joking around he's horsing around. The first day I came up to the signal bridge he smashed me into the chart table yelling, Jack Cushman! Jack Cushman is a defensive back for the Oakland Raiders. He's not very big but he hits real hard and has injured quite a few players. I guess JC admires him (JC's not very big himself) and goes around smashing people in his name. I knew we were friends when he took me aside one day and asked me if I wanted to sandwich Lehmann. Roger Lehmann is a seaman signalman (SMSN) like JC, but unlike JC and the rest of us, Roger went to signalman school. School is optional for the signalman rating as it is for a couple of other rates (Boatswain's Mate doesn't even have a school, it's all OJT), but Roger chose to be a signalman in the recruiter's office, so he went to school after boot camp when most people go. Roger doesn't think he knows it all, but most of the time he thinks he knows more than JC or me (and sometimes more than Southwell, even though Southwell is a third class). Anyway, JC went into the shack and told Roger there was this boat he had in the bigeyes, docked on the other side of the harbor, he was having trouble identifying and would he come out and I.D. it for him. Roger came strutting out thereor trying to strut, he walks a little like a duck with his toes pointing utand put his eyes to the bigeyes and was saying something about it being just a regular harbor tug, not an oceangoing tug because blah blah blah, while JC mouthed 1, 2, 3 along with his fingers to get the timing right and then aloud, CUSHman, and we sandwiched him perfectly.

I think Roger was more pissed than hurt; he's not a wimp, really, but he's not into roughhousing either. JC is so into it sometimes when he can't catch me off guard for Cushing he'll just grab me and try to throw me down on the deck. We'll wrestle around and I'll usually end up putting him down, but then when I'm getting up and backing off almost every time he catches me by the heel and I go from feet to butt, boom (and OWE! It hurts on the steel deck), just like that. It doesn't matter how much I'm expecting it he snatches out and there I go. At this point Lieutenant Junior Grade Gattiano usually comes up to see what's going on.

Hey, Tony Joe, what's happening? JC says the first time he came up. I nearly fell over. Lt. J.G. Gattiano looked a little irritated, but he didn't say anything. I'd never heard an enlisted man call an officer by his first name before, much less a nickname-sounding first name like Tony Joe! On the deck force or in boot camp it was unheard of, but I'm learning officers and enlisted men work a lot closer together in operations, and the line between them is not so thick here. Gattiano is in charge of the OC (OperationsCommunications) division, which means the radiomen and us. He usually hangs out in the radio shack, because they get a lot more official traffic there than up here. As a matter of fact, I would say 98% of the time when we call up a ship by semaphore or flashing light it's to shoot the breeze. The other 2% of the time is during unreps or when they're practicing maintaining radio silence. Anyway, Gattiano never manages to catch JC and me in the act, and JC always has an excuse: The swab bucket fell over, he said once. Didn't sound like metal on metal to me, the lieutenant said. Full of water? JC countered. Or I dropped the box of cleaning gear. Or One of the drawers in the chart table fell out. How in the world did that happen? We were checking for water damage, sir. Adding the 'sir' in all seriousness. Or sometimes the truth though none of the circumstance, Adoles here tripped and took a fall. Is that right, Adoles? Yes, sir. I don't see how a fall can sound like a ten-car locomotive piling up clear down in the radio shack. JC and I were all rapt innocence and shrugged shoulders, Beats us. Well, try to be more careful. Yes, sir. One time he came up and said it sounded like an epileptic doing a rain dance up here. That busted us up. I guess he knows we horse around. *** Apparently not everyone wants to go overseas. Last night one Seaman Steichen put a marlinspike into every gauge in after-steering, hoping to delay our departure. The roving patrol saw him on the fantail and then when he made his next rounds he found the damage. Steichen's in the brig over on Treasure Island now awaiting court martial. Someone said he didn't want to leave his girlfriend. I guess that's one way to stay stateside. It's less than two weeks before we go. The sailors who work in the engine roomthe fire gang or snipes as they're calledare pulling double shifts in order to have the engine overhaul completed in time, while most rest of the crew twiddle their thumbs. On the signal bridge our in-port routine is pretty much swab the deck and shine the bright work in the morning and do 'training' in the afternoon. Our morning work would probably only take a few hours, but everyone paces themselves so as not to get done too quick and give Fritz the idea we don't have enough to do. When he does get that idea he goes to the paint locker and gets some paint remover and uncovers some happily long-gray thing to reveal its real brass self, which we then have to work up to a bright shine and then shine daily in our morning routine. And being prone to repetitive behavior, he doesn't stop with one bell cover or phone box lid or other brass gizmoand there is an incredible lot of brass mounted on the forward gunwale, as well as all the poles holding up the canvas awningbut goes on and on until we even have to shine in the afternoons to keep up with it all. When JC's had enough he goes to the deck ape in charge of the paint locker and makes a deal with him, something along the line of, When that honky, Fritz, comes up here for paint remover tell him you've run out. (You can't chip the paint off brass because it will ding it up.) By then Fritz is pretty satisfied anyway with the amount of brass blinking at him and he relaxes and takes to hanging out in the first class lounge. Usually Jordan, Lehmann, and I can handle the topside work while Southwell loiters in the shack and

does paperwork (ha ha), but after Fritz goes on one of his paint removing binges Southwell's out there too, and he is usually the one who goes to the paint locker and gets a small can of haze gray. Slowly, over the course of a month or so, Southwell paints over everything Fritz had us uncover and things are back to normal, except maybe for Fritz who paces around the chart table, looking around like he's lost something. But there's always busy work. At least we don't chip up good paint like they do on deck. 'Training' as it's called is mostly a joke. It's supposed to start right after the noon meal but usually two of us (whoever gets there first) are crashed out in the back room, especially when it's hot, because the tiled deck back there is cool. After a quarter hour or so we get rousted, and if it's not too hot or inclement we go outside and practice semaphore or flashing light, once in a while flag hoist. If the weather is not good we congregate in the shack and practice code using a little metal box with a night light mounted in it hooked up to a telegraph key. It might last an hour, then people start to leave for soda or to run 'errands'. After 1400 (2 p.m.) or so Roger and I are usually the only ones left. We shoot the bull, sending semaphore to each other across the signal bridge. If Tony Joe or another officer comes up it looks like we're practicingand we are, I guess. Sometimes, when Southwell or someone else is up there to hold down the shack, Roger and I will go 'check on the union jack, it looks tangled, and we'll go forward and mess around on the forecastle, forward of the three inch fifties, at the very front of the ship, just to be somewhere else. There's just not much real work to do. If this was a civilian ship there'd be one fifth the personnel, but a war ship needs all the extra people for fighting and damage control and replacementscannon fodder. But since we're not at waror even in a 'conflict'they have to make busy work. *** They are everywhere when you think about it. Even the so-called chain of command is one. It may be a chain when you think about one seaman: he has to answer to his petty officer, and his petty officer has to answer to the chief petty officer, who answers to the division officer, who answers to the department officer, who answers to the executive officer, who answers to the commanding officer, the captain, with more or less steps depending on where the sailor is in the chain. But when you look at the overall structure, it's a triangle or a cone or pyramid: the captain's at the top, directly below him is the XO, below him are the department heads and so on with ever increasing numbers until you get to the broad base of enlisted men. Of course, all the captains are at the bottom of their own pyramid; they have to answer to the squadron commander, and all the squadron commanders have to answer to the fleet commander and so on all the way up to the chief of naval operations who has to answer to the President. But then the President has to answer to the American People, some of which are sailors. So I guess overall it's not a triangle but some kind of circle. A circle of triangles. All the pennants are long trianglesthough some of the ends are cut off, truncated. The Zulu ('Z') flag is made up of four triangles of red, blue, yellow, and black all meeting in the center. The Oscar ('O') flag is a red and yellow triangle with a common diagonal in their hypotenuses. They're everywhere, touchable and untouchable. Even the formula to find the distance to one's horizon is a triangle. The chief quartermaster explained it to me; it's really quite simple using Pythagoras's theorem, the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides: c2=a2+b2 where 'c' equals the hypotenuse and 'a' and 'b' equal the other two sides. It's about 4000 miles from the center of the earth to the surface of the earth where the horizon is; that's one of the sides of the triangle. The signal bridge is about 70 feet above sea level, so I am 4000 miles plus 70 feet from the center of the earth; this line is the hypotenuse. Now all you have to do is convert miles into feet and plug the resulting numbers into the formula to get the line to the horizon: 4000 x 5280 = 21120000 = side 'a' in feet. 21120000 + 70 = 21120070 = side 'c' (hypotenuse) in feet.

Solving for 'b' we have

which is equal to 54376.511 feet. Convert back to miles by dividing by 5280 and you get 10.2986. So my horizon is about 10.3 miles away.

We can see things farther away then this though, because they usually stick up above the ocean and so peak over the horizon. Like if a six feet tall man was in a small boat basically standing on the water his horizon would be about 3 miles, so if he were 13 miles away we could still see him. Since you are at about 2100 feet above sea level in the Appalachians your horizon would be about 56 miles if it weren't for all the other mountains. Since we are about 2300 miles away from each other, b = 1150 miles, I figure we'd both have to be 162 miles above sea level before we shared the same horizon.

where d = c - a *** The old boatswain's mate likes to say he joined the navy when ships were wood and men were steel, implying now since the ships are steel, the men are wood. I don't know, I think I'd rather be wood than steel. Steel rusts away to nothing. While wood might become warped, twisted, and bleached, it still endures. And has been alive. I guess steel has been alive indirectly, but its living is so deeply buried....

*** Well, we pulled out of Oakland today, westward bound. The pier was full of wives and girlfriends, friends and family. Many tears were shedon the pier of courseshouted through with wishes and promises while most of the sailors kept a stiff upper lip and tried to look salty. Some even waited on the Golden Gate Bridge and waved to us as we passed under. I thought of you. In a few hours we were out of sight of land and only now do I feel how big the ocean is. Before, we always cruised along the coast; down to San Diego, back up to Seals Beach; and even when the shore was out of sight you still felt it was there. Now, heading into the setting sun and the vast Pacific, you get to looking at this open ocean water, coming up and going down in peaks and valleys having no relation to island or continent, and you think of how it goes on and on and on for miles and miles in every direction. Really boggles the mind. I guess you'll receive all the letters I write you now in a bunch since they'll all go out together whenever we pull into port. There's still some debate on whether we're going to stop in Hawaii or go straight on to the Philippines.

*** A lot of people come up to the flying bridge now, especially after working hours, since there's no place to go. They come up and watch the sunsets, which half the time are sensational and the other half of the time stupendous. There's also the green flash they look for. The chief quartermaster said it's supposed to occur as the sun sets and its white light is fractured in the curving atmosphere. The green band of light is very thin and our place on the turning earth passes through it in a fraction of a second, thus causing a green flash. The chief said he's never seen it, but Southwell claims to have seen it 3 times. We are in 4 section watch now: Southwell, Lehmann, JC, and Hornsby and me. Hornsby reported aboard the day before we pulled out of Oakland. He must be in his late twenties and was in the navy before. He got out as a second class, but they would only reinstate him as a third class because he had been out too long. His first name is Raymond, but he says to call him Sam, short for Sam Sludge, Killer and Part-time Outlaw. He wrote this in big letters on his sheets with a drawing of that short cartoon character with the big hat, mustache, and 6-shooterswhat's his name? The XO jumped all over it during his daily inspection of the berthing compartments and Sam had to change them. I guess they allowed that kind of thing on his last ship. He's about 5' 7 with a medium build, but he walks like he's 6' 3 and 220 lbs. If anybody else tried it you'd have to laugh but for some reason no one laughs at him. He smokes cigarettes (did I tell you I quit smoking? Yeah, it's been about 5 months now. Almost everybody else on the ship smokes), chews tobacco, and dips snuff, and I've never seen anyone with teeth as dark brown as his are. I really wonder if he brushes them. It's almost like he's proud of them, the way some of the first classes and chiefs are proud about how dark the inside of their coffee cups are and never wash them, just rinse them out. Fritz stood the first watch with Hornsby and me and showed us how to keep the log, if Sam had forgotten, but otherwise there's not much else to do since we're independent steaming. We pass a ship every other day, if then, and the officer of the deck might call up on the 3MC (essentially an intercom but built so ruggedly it looks like it could withstand a nuclear attack) and ask us to identify it, even though they have the same drawings of ship configurations we do. After ship's work there is always a game of some sort going on in the shack. During JC's watch three or four other blacks come up and they play bones, which is what they call dominoes. It's not like any kind of dominoes I've ever played, or at least any manner. They slam them down with such force you are sure they are going to break (but miraculously they don't). During our watch Sam usually has a game of some kind of rummy going, usually Knock, while he tells one of his many incredible stories about the Philippines or other experiences during his first hitch in the older navy. He has a kind of actI don't know how else to describe it, sort of like a salty, rough and tough cowboy routinethat seems to attract a following of mess cooks and younger seamen on the deck force, half of which now want to strike for signalman. I guess he's like a father figure or big brother to them, giving them advice, teaching them a little bit about the rate, all mixed in with stories. I don't know, it all sort of irritates me. I usually go in the back room (like now) and dog the hatch door, sealing out the sound to just a murmur, and read and write. Guillaume wrote me twice when I was in boot camp, but I haven't heard from him since. He thinks joining the navy was the biggest mistake I ever made.

Persephone writes once in a while, usually about the cats: what Josephine's caught recently, besides the usual moles; how Manitou got a flat chicken bone caught in the roof of his mouth, which caused him to quit eating hard food, made him drool constantly, and gave him really bad breath. They didn't know it until they took him to the vet, who popped open his mouth and with a pair of forceps removed the bone that fit the roof of his mouth perfectly. How Jasper still comes in the patio late at night yowling until Dad lets him in advising him about his tomcat ways.

Mom and I write regularly; I get a letter from her every week or so telling me about the family in general and sending me newspaper clippings of stuff. I was keeping a diary but it disappeared. I left it on my bunk when I went to the head (the bathroom) and when I got back it was gone. Seems like a strange thing to steal, but on this ship you never know. I guess that's why I write you so much.

I only wish I knew if you were getting my letters. Somebody's getting them, they're not being returned. I wish you would write. I've never asked before, I didn't really feel I had the right; I was such a jerk, didn't say a lot of things I should have.... *** You wouldn't believe the stars at sea! There are so, so many you never see because of city lights and smog. It's incredible. You can't imagine it. Last night was the first clear, moonless night and when I came up for the mid-watch I gasped. It was unbelievable. The Milky Way, something I haven't seen since I was a kid in the boonies of North Carolina, was three times as bright as I ever remember it and so dense with stars it almost looked like a cloud, like the stars were just billions of light particles, and so close, as if you could reach up and swat your hand through it, sending the stars swirling after your hand in in-turning eddies. They spread over my head and down to the sea with no lessening of brightness, and watching the ones on the western horizon slowly disappear, it is easy to see how ancient sailors believed and feared the ocean's edge where you would plummet over on a waterfall. The brighter stars seem impossible to be outside our solar system or even the earth's orbit, too big to be starstoo close to be starstoo bright to be satellites, and colored: red, orange, bluish white. Sometimes, for a few moments running, watching them rock back and forth as I lay on top of the shack, they seem likeno, they don't seem like anything in this world, they're impossible to describe. Just the stars and the sometimes sound of waves at the bow as the ship catches up to a following sea. *** It's like one of Sam's stories come alive, yet I saw it with my own eyes: three sailors jumped overboard, one a day for three days in a row. They all jumped from the starboard side just forward of the superstructure so the starboard lookout would see them, and when the lookout yelled man overboard the ship made a hard turn to starboard to keep the man from being sucked into the screw. Everyone went to their man overboard stations, which except for the life boat crew, is the same as quarters, so they can figure out who is missing. Meanwhile, the top motor whale boat gets swung out over the water by its davits and the life boat crew gets in and are lowered into the water. Then they go get the man, who by now is somewhere forward off the starboard beam, since the ship has gone 360 degrees in a widening arc. Apparently they all jumped because they didn't want to go overseas. Why they waited until we were 1000 miles away from land is anybody's guess. By the third day when they went to get the third man the boat officer, Lt JG Sturgeon, was so irked he grabbed the man in the water by the hair, pulled him up the side of the boat far enough to get a hold of his belt at the back of his pants, then threw him, headfirst, into the hold of the boat. If any others were thinking of carrying on the stunt I think that made them change their mind. He's in sick bay now with a mild concussion and wearing one of those thick collars for neck injuries. *** Well, the jumping radicals went to mast this morning: two are going to get court martialed while the third got fined and restricted to the ship. He claimed they had been tossing a football around on deck and he had accidentally gone over the side going for a high pass (Yeah, right). At least all this broke the day after day tedium of work, water, and sky. Sometimes during the day I go up to the forecastle, climb over the gunwale of the forward gun mount where the jack staff is and lie belly down on one side of the little crescent-shaped piece of deck there and peer over the edge where the bow cuts through the water. More often than not there are flying fish jumping out from there, gliding out just above the water, skimming the waves broad on the bow. There's no TV at sea of course, and now when they show the movie in the evening the mess deck is packed. They hang a sheet crossways from the ceiling in the middle of the longest part of the L-shaped room, and as many people sit on the projector side as do on the backside where the images and words are reversed. Sometimes I pass throughor rather by(passing through is out of the question) there on my way up to the

signal bridge, either for watch or just to escape to the backroom. I have yet to see a single movie. *** Now at night, besides the stars, there's another show, a kind of light show for the wet soughing. In the water by the sides of the ship there's a bright but deep green glow, as if the water were saturated with fireflies down to the keel. The glowing wavers, as if it were contained in a billowing windsock, and when the moon is up and there's a bluish light on the foam spreading out from the bow it looks totally surreal, like there's some kind of iridescent manta ray-like sea monster flapping his huge sea wings just below the ship, the wings almost breaching, glowing so brightly, and then flapping down and away into deeper water and the moon-lit foam takes over for a time with its own fantastic light, and then here the green glowing wings come again. Totally incredible. They say it's from microorganisms living in the water in these warmer latitudes reacting to the ships passing. Wish you could see it. We off-loaded two palettes of mystery cargo at Enewetak Atoll yesterday. You wouldn't believe how small that place is! It's shaped like a crescent moon except with longer arms, maybe two or three hundred yards long, but at its widest point only twenty or so yards wide! All you could see was a couple of Quonset huts and a helicopter pad. A tug-like boat came out to us pushing a barge and we swung out a boom and lowered the palettes onto it. Gad, I couldn't imagine being stationed there, talk about desolate! We never stopped in Hawaii, if I forgot to tell you. It seems like we've been at sea for months instead of weeks. Some of the sailors swear the cooks are putting saltpeter in the chow to lower the crew's libido (of course they don't put it like that). I think being at sea for weeks with a ship full of men might have the same effect. Many have taken to working out, jogging around the main deck after knock-off and lifting weights, which they improvise with links from the anchor chain tied onto long pipes. They're huge links, must weigh 50 70 pounds each. Some come up to the signal bridge to do chin-ups on the pipes holding the awning over the flying bridge, and full-weight push-up in the sem stands. Less than a week now and we'll pull into Subic Bay, in the Philippine Islands (PI for short). It is the main naval base in this part of the world, and those who know call it the Gateway to West Pac. There are many wild stories about it. My watch is just about over, so I'd better go down and get some rack time. Yours truly, Roland

* *6* No, it's legal. You can get anything you want. Sam brought the paper cup he was using as a spittoon up to his lips and deftly dribbled a glob of brown saliva into it, then reached for his coffee mug. The ship was at modified sea detail, no line handlers, and then somewhat relaxed, at least on the signal bridge. JC had disappeared, and Southwell said outright he was going down to get some rack time and wasn't flagged a bit by Fritz's disapproving look. In the shack, Sam sat at the desk with sound-powered phones on and the log opened in front of him. There were two deck apes and a mess cookall three seamen on their first western pacific cruisesitting around the desk, listening attentively. They had heard stories about the Philippines stateside and all the way across, but now the luxuriant smell of the tropics thick with promise came across the water on a warm breeze blowing through the dark islands. They would be in Subic on the morrow's afternoon. Anything you want if it's not a good titty-fuck. Fritz sat down to be dealt in. Fritzroy, I've heard you talk about titty-fucking all the way across, exactly what you mean by it? Sam poured the last of the coffee into his mug and dumped the used grounds in the waste basket. What? You mean you never had a titty-fuck? Fritz was incredulous but immediately set to explaining his favorite subject, You take a woman with big titties, his large gangly hands held invisible size D breasts, and grease up her charlie locker. Then you lay your dick in there and fold the titties over it, he demonstrated with his hands, and fuck, lurching at the hips. If you got one who's willing you get her to look down and open her mouth and get a blow job at the same time! He slapped the plexiglass covering on the desk, punctuating his laugh and setting off the seamen who were titillated by the imagery. Adoles stood with his back to the backroom bulkhead, watching for brass and looking out through the hooked-open doors at the dark island silhouettes and moon-lit water. He recalled seeing Fritz's wife on the pier the day they left the states; she was a big woman with large breasts. Sam shook his head, You're a sick fuck, Fritz. Sick? You call that sick? It's not as sick as you poking 'em in the backside. Sam still shook his head, begging to differ. How much does it cost, I mean, for the whole night? a young seaman asked. Nothing, if you play your cards right. Sam nodded to the seaman who was shuffling the deck on his knee, who in turn joined the other seamen in their looks of disbelief. O, you can pay fifty pesos to buy them out of the bar How much is that? Well, you get about seven pesos to the dollar, so, figure it out, 'bout seven dollars. Like I said, you can buy them out and get a motel room, that'll cost you another thirty-five or so, or you can just go back before curfew and go home with her. But how do you swing that? Listen. First you find a nice girl, not the first girl in the first bar that grabs your ying yang. But a nice girl, young, one who doesn't look like she's serviced the whole Seventh Fleet. Buy her a Lady's Drink, talk to her, ask her if she has a boyfriendI mean out-and-out ask her. This isn't the states, you don't have to lolygag around; these women don't play the games the women do stateside. If you ask them if they got a boyfriend they'll usually tell you. If they don't have a boyfriend then you say you really like her but you want to go bar hopping, listen to some other bands and so on, and if it's all right with her if you come back just before closing time. If they okay that you're in like Flynn. One of the seaman squirmed in his chair, But what about V.D.? Using a slide projector, the ship's corpsman had shown the crew, in graphic detail, the various kinds of venereal diseases and the preventative measures to be taken against contracting them. Celibacy was only mentioned as a joke. The girls who work in the bars are usually clean, they get checked once a month and get their card punched. If they get caught with the clap they can't work in the bar and a lot of them wind up on the streets. That's why you don't ever want to mess with the streetwalkers. But if you're really worried about it get you a mamasan. Find one who's just been checked and go steady; shack up, pay the rentit won't be muchbring

her a little something from the exchange when you go over. You wouldn't believe what a little bottle of American shampoo can do; jump all over you like you brought 'em a diamond or something. Knock, Sam said, and laid down his cards. The deck ape keeping score asked, What are you going to do, Sam, get you a mamasan? Hell no. Why do you think I rejoined this outfit? I got me some steady tail stateside. I'm going out and get me some strange, every night. He grinned as he gathered the cards to shuffle. The uninitiated seamen calculated. Either way it looked good, getting laid every night. None having had the empirical experience of venereal disease left the balance tottering, the decision to a discriminating wind of fate. Sam launched into a story. You should have seen Doss, on my first ship. That fucker was crazy. Every night he'd go over looking for something different. One night he decided he was going to fuck the ugliest woman in Zambales. He went up and down Rizal Avenue asking for the ugliest woman in every bar we went in, then all over Olongapocouldn't find one ugly enough. So we went to Subic City and he found one there who, was, ugly!, let me tell you. She could have stopped a train. Face was so flat looked like it got hit with a shovel, pimples and pockmarks all over 'cept on her lip where she had this huge wart with thick hairs growing out of it. He took her in the back of the bar and left me out front trying to talk the price down on a blow job when I hear him yell, 'Hey, Sludge, come here.' So I go back there and man alive, let me tell you, I almost puked. Her legs were covered with running sores, I mean running. Sam coughed up a wad of mucus, as if to emphasize the point, and shot it with deft accuracy into the waste basket. Did he fuck her? Yep. Nah! Yep, sure did, without a raincoat too. Boy, I bet he caught some nasty shit. Nope, never did. There was a din of disbelief. But Sam was firm, I'm telling you, that boy was as lucky as he was crazy, never caught anything. One time he decided he wanted to see how many different hookers he could nail without buying them out of the bar. He got five before curfew, and then went home with a sixth! The seamen still shook their heads, but smiling, and Fritz didn't dispute it. It could be true, and they thought again of their own possibilities. An ancient black fan mounted above the status board blew hot air down on the desk and dispersed the cigarette smoke which never quite left the shack even with both doors open. Adoles left the scene and walked to the forward gunwale where he leaned on his elbows and watched the bow, felt the ship slowly lift, pause, ease back down; long-plowing a foam-filling furrow. He fixed his eyes on the dark forecastle but concentrated on his peripheral vision: on one side the gibbous moon reflected from the water in a swath of teeming crescents diving under a dark island passing by to portthis set against the passive starboard view of darker water and lighter sky. Together they made a double vision, the sensate part of an illusion toggling in and out with the reality, the ship propelling the whole world and ocean beneath it backward, the ship static at the top of the world. Everyone was at the top of the world; it made sense for the earth to only have a top-side, if it had a side-side or a bottom-side things would fall off. It seemed something of a revelation to him, and he thought of cutting back through the crowd in the shack to the backroom and writing it to Cybette, yet he continued to stare doubly askance at the passing water, the illusion sucking the volition from the sides of his eyes, the ship pushing the water. Out of the ground side of his double-sight, in the right half of his peripheral vision, a figure moved from the starboard gun tub. Roland? it questioned timidly. Adoles recognized the voice. Shaun. How's it going? GOOD! good, the second word taken down two notches to mitigate the enthusiasm of the first. Shaun had been in good spirits all the way across. Adoles thought he just liked being at sea; indeed, he didn't mind it himself with the minimum of work and plenty of spare time, but from his vantage point on the flying bridge Adoles could see no slackening in the drudgery of the deck force and no reason for Shaun's alacrity, save the simple fact of being at sea. One day Adoles had been scrutinizing the rigging and forecastle through the bigeyes, just for something to do, and caught sight of Shaun on the starboard side just below the

forecastle pushing a paint brush up into the bulwark. He had a perpetual half-smile threatening to break full whenever he paused to look over the edge at the watery horizon. Hot night, Shaun added as he parked himself beside Adoles, putting his forearm through a pivoting yoke welded to the gunwale for a telescope long gone. Ain't that the truth. How's deck? O, you know. Same ol' shit. They watched the water pass, the warm following wind gusting now and then, flapping the canvas awning. Did you see those lights earlier? Shaun asked. Yeah. Sam says they're fishermen in banca boats. The light attracts the fish. Ha, think of that, but Shaun wasn't ; he was looking forward. Well, guess tomorrow's the big day. You going over? No, got the duty, Adoles said. Drag! Yeah, but I'm expecting some good mail. You? You bet. Finally get to meet Sherry. Sherry? Yeah, didn't Ino, guess not. She's this girl I've been writing. Bird told me about her a few months ago, gave me her address.... Bird was an aging 3rd class gunner's mate with a leprechaun beardlike Bear's but dirty whiteand a huge, pendulous belly hanging over his belt as if nine months pregnant. Now Adoles remembered the caricature of a Norman Rockwell painting, Bird and Shaun outside the forward gun shack by number one hold, Shaun sitting on the hatch listening attentively while Bird stood with one foot up on the hatch, leaning his upper body weight on an upraised knee, waiting for the water to break through his inguinal canal. ...sent me her picture. Shaun pulled his wallet and showed Adoles the photograph. In the moonlight Adoles could only see she had long dark hair. Neither considered moving to the populated light of the signal shack. Adoles handed him back the photograph, Nice. Shaun paused to look at it himself before carefully sliding it back into his wallet. Not only nice looking but a nice girl. Her father died last year and she supports her mother and younger brothers and sisters. Her mother's gone blind with cataracts. What does she do? Shaun shifted his feet, Works in a night club as a dancer, says it's the best paying job she can get. She never goes out with any of the sailors. Shaun leaned back from the gunwale and gazed down at his shoes, cleared his throat before divulging the intimacy. She says she's waiting for me. Adoles imperceptibly shook his head, knowing what he should say but not saying it. Surely Shaun had been warned, as he had, all the women in PI were hookers: whores and husband-fishers, putting their sex on a hook hoping to snag one, waiting just for you, for just the innocent fool enough to fall in love, marry, and take them stateside where they would see how relatively poor a sailor was in the states and nine times out of ten stray for greener pastures. There was a painful metal creaking behind them to starboard followed by a heavy tap, tap, tap and the beige bulk of Lieutenant Blaubiss came into view. At the top of the ladder he made a wide turn aft toward the signal shack, his khaki shirt tails flapping about his pants' pockets. I bet'cha he's gained thirty pounds since we left. They watched the officer navigate himself through the doorway and Fritz shoot up and around like a corkscrew into view, standing almost at attention except for the hand of cards held behind his butt. No one had been watching for brass after Adoles left. Lieutenant Blaubiss didn't look as if he was chewing them out though, and after a moment Fritz sat back down. The lieutenant locked his knees and leaned back against the backroom bulkhead, his chin resting on a thick roll of fat circling his neck looking as if it would inflate like a croaking frog at any moment. But it only jiggled slightly as he talked with greasy lipsalways greasy, as if he had fried chicken for every meal. Adoles turned back to the bow and saw it coming around to starboard, the moon swinging over the port beam and its reflection just free of the dark island now and reaching to the horizon. The faint ringing of the engine order telegraph filtered up from the bridge: faster or slower? Answered in a moment by the decreased

drone of the ship's engines, the voluminous ventilation fans behind the flag bags unburying themselves from the heavier noise. And then the more rapid, erratic bobbing of the bow. They were ahead of schedule, the ship continuing at this speed through the night and into the morning until the CO ran the ship into the end of the pier. Adoles was surprised by how much of the crew stayed onboard after early liberty was called. Standing in the port gun tub, he saw an initial wave of twenty or so deck apes in loud civilian colors tear down the gangway by four-steps and create such reciprocation in the ladder as to cause the end resting on the pier to start bouncing off the concrete with loud crashing noises finally ceasing when two seamen, who could not keep in step with the flexing, lost their footing and rolled the rest of the way down. They laughed at the tumble and their sea legs as they tried to race down the pier. Then a pale group from the fire gang went over, only slightly less enthusiastic, squinting at the sun. Others straggled off. Something over 300 were onboard and in four section duty about 225 could have gone on liberty; Adoles guessed perhaps half of this number had, which included all the signalman except himself and Fritz, who also had the duty. Many still in their dungarees went down to look at the rubbly impression the bow had made in the pier, crush-cutting through a twelve-by-twelve creosote timber and into two feet of reinforced concrete. The CO had tried to dock without the use of tugs. He ordered full right rudder as they came coasting toward the pier, but there were no turns on the screw and so it had a negligible effect on the ships direction. He realized his mistake thirty yards out and ordered the engines full astern, but too late. The froth from the screw reached midships by the time the ship made contact, lurching slightly. He didn't try again but called the harbor tugs. Now a frail Filipino yardbird smiled and gestured at the damage when the sailors came off the ship to look. They looked and went back onboard and formed loose groups from forecastle to fantail, first class and chiefs with their eternal cups of coffee hooked on fingers, most everyone smoking, loaded with expectation and shooting the breeze with laughter and levity, all the while keeping an eye on the road where the gray carryall had disappeared with the ship's postmaster to retrieve almost a month's worth of mail. When the vehicle finally did appear the groups converged on the invisible and eroding edges of the quarterdeck where the OOD paced between the top of the gangway and the port door into the superstructure chanting, Clear the quarterdeck; C'mon, keep it clear; clear the deck.... The postmaster yelled up from the pier he needed a work detail, but before the duty master at arms could muster one a dozen seamen were on the pier gathered around the rear of the carryall. Each grabbed a large sack of mail and ascended the gangway, followed by the postmaster and met at the top by the duty master at arms who led the way down to the ship's post office. There the postmaster unlocked and undogged the hatch door, admitted the sacks and himself, then dogged and locked the door again so he could sort the mail. Finally, DIVISION MAIL P-O's REPORT TO THE SHIP'S POST OFFICE rang out from the 1MC. Adoles stayed in the gun tub, leaning on the gunwale and feeling the waves in his legs from being a month at sea. Ten minutes later Fritz came up to the signal bridge with the signalmen's mail. On the chart table he sorted the small bundle into three stacks: his, Adoles's, and the rest. Fritz received two letters from his wife; Adoles received four, three from his mom and one from his brother, the first from him since boot camp. Adoles shuffled the four and looked again: mom, mom, gum, mom. He rifled through the other mail sitting on the chart table, double-checking. Although Fritz was engrossed and grinning at his wife's handwriting he said, We'll get the rest tomorrow, they never get it all the first day in. Of course. He's get her letter tomorrow. But the next day EARLY LIBERTY FOR WATCH SECTION ONE, was announced and set Adoles to doing the combination lock on his bunk locker. He stopped and went to the head, came back and started again, stopped and went to a forward porthole. Someone had dogged down the thick glass to let the AC have another go at keeping the superstructure cool in the tropical sun, which had already heated the morning air to eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Fritz was already out of his dungarees, standing in his T-shirt, and jockey shorts so loose around his thin legs they could have been boxers if it weren't for their design. You going over? He asked Adoles. Maybe later, thought I'd wait for mail call, Adoles said. It'll be here when you get back. Lieutenant Blaubiss wants to buy us a beer, Fritz said casually. Adoles jerked. Socializing with the lieutenantany officers socializing with enlisted personnelpushed

the bounds of credulity. Fritz didn't seem to see his reaction, though he had a curious smile on his face as he concentrated on buttoning his Hawaiian shirt. Adoles opened his locker and picked through his civvies, put on a pair of corduroys and a long sleeve blue shirt, which could have passed for dungaree except for the white buttons. The only civilian shoes he had were a pair of wide-toed hiking boots, which let his toes spread out and with the nonmilitary cut of his clothes made him feel too aware of his dress. Fritz had pulled up plaid slacks under the screened palm trees on his shirt and pushed his feet into the same scuffed corfams he wore everyday. Forward of the quarter deck they met the lieutenant, a diminutive radioman whom Adoles hardly knew, and a quartermaster they called Small Change. Though it was not quite 09:30 the wet tropical heat was already on the island and seemed to be as much a part of the perspiration beading up, running together, and spreading out dark in clothes as the cause of it. Lieutenant Blaubiss had replaced the khaki shirt with polyester. This one had no tails but hung out and around like a maternity blouse, the collar already dark with perspiration. No one made a move for the gangway. Adoles was beginning to wonder why they didn't go down to the land end of the pier and wait for a bus when a compact taxi sprinted to the bottom of the gangway. The lieutenant rode shotgun, sandwiching the small radioman between himself and the driver; the rest piled in the back. They drove away from the water and into the tropical smell of the island lapping at the landed odor of the ocean which replaces all sailors' olfactory base after three days at sea. There had been hints as they steamed through the islands, but now the sultry rain forest, even though it was cut away from this part of the base, was almost lewd in its lushness, its green fertility. The lieutenant had the driver drop them at the NCO club so he could have a couple of mixed drinks before going off base, where the only safe thing to drink was the one brand of beer available, San Miguel, and then only if you opened the bottle yourself. They went into a large, windowless building through double doors squeezing shut on a peninsula of floor sticking out past a second set of double doors and into a sea of dark carpet. The air conditioning struck like a cold sledge, and they all stopped to let their eyes adjust to the dim, artificial light. The bar became visible with the mirrored wall behind reflecting their image back through exotic bottles and liquors of every description. The rest of the gloom gave way to a low but cavernous room with table after table stretching into real darkness, their chairs turned seat-side down on top of them, cordoned off by arm-thick, felt covered hawsers like they had in the banks stateside, reminding Adoles of the stuffed snakes he and his brother had as kids and which now slithered among the other stuffed animals on Persephone's bed. The cordoned-in section around the bar had the chairs down on the sea of carpet, which turned out to be only an island the bar commanded. They half surrounded a large table, the inside of their half-circle facing the door, and set to drinking. Lieutenant Blaubiss consumed a small harem of Pink Ladies while Fritz sipped at his Tom Collinses like a plastic perpetual motion bird bobbing its head in and out of a beaker of water. Along with the quartermaster and radioman, Adoles ordered beer from a deep freezer, the bottles were so cold. The beer fizzed so little until one took a swallow, then suddenly became animated going down. Adoles thought he could hear the bubbling from his stomach when he opened his mouth for another swallow. Soon the coldness of the beer and air conditioning caused him to shiver uncontrollably: he clamped his jaw, which kept his teeth from chattering, and tightened other muscles, stopping other visible shaking, but still the cold vibrated through his body. No one else seemed so inflicted. With all the talk about Olongapo on the way over, he wondered why they had even stopped here at the NCO club to do what they could do most anywhere stateside and on any base in the world. But Lieutenant Blaubiss seemed to relish his Pink Ladies as the early courses to a very large meal, and Fritz and the others didn't seem to mind. Finally they left the club and Adoles welcomed the enveloping heat. The lieutenant waved off a taxi waiting to drive them the short distance to the gate. They walked down a wide walkway, trimmed by sculpted shrubs guarding a well-manicured lawn. They passed the base library and came onto the money exchange, a narrow white building with teller windows lined the entire length of one long side. They exchanged their dollars for pesos; Adoles's twenty bought nearly 150. They came around the corner of the money exchange and saw the bridge, a low arch over the hidden river. A high cyclone gate blocked any motor traffic and was joined on both sides by a matching fence, razor wire unballed all along the top. The guardhouse was on the right with a marine stationed out front beside the

only walk-through. Leading up to the guardhouse was a long row of tables where more marines stood ready to inspect cameras, bags, and packages for black marketables like cartons of cigarettes, all under an open pavilion providing shade and beckoning breeze. Fritz took a deep breath through his nose, Yeah, smell that smell! The tidal river brought in the somehow ancient fragrance of ocean brine conquering human excrement, organic yet infertile. Shit River!. You know you're in PI when you smell that, the lieutenant elaborated. Everyone grinned. It's not nearly as bad as it was last cruise, the quartermaster remarked. You're right, the radioman agreed. They still couldn't see the river yet. The marine at the guardhouse scrutinized them expertly with a brief glance and let them pass with a slight nod. In the water below the bridge four small boys dove from a banca boat. The boat was held in place against the invisible receding tide by a string tied to a piling under the bridge. When the boys saw the sailors they started shouting, Hey Joe, throw peso, throw peso. They climbed up on the wooden boat, brown, gleaming, wet, holding up their hands. The lieutenant fished out some centavo pieces and tossed them just over their heads; three of the boys fixed on the coins' arc and dived after them, into the turbid water. The fourth reached but did not dive. Come on, Joe, throw one to me. The lieutenant and others continued over the bridge; Adoles pulled the change the girl at the teller window had given him and threw it in the water. Over the bridge a row of makeshift shacks leaning against one another, T-shirts covering the outside and hanging down in front of large, paneless windows which matched the doorless doors. On the T-shirts were silkscreened all manner of design and slogan in a myriad of colors for any branch of the military but mostly pro and con navy and marine, rock groups, Philippine and West Pac I was there's. One was just black on white, a large eagle swooping down on a mouse who was showing the bird his middle finger, across the bottom was written, The Last Great Act of Defiance. Across the top of another above a multicolored mushroom cloud was written, Made in America, Tested in Japan, then at the bottom at the base of the cloud, Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Vendors, who had been slumbering in their shacks, parted the curtains of shirts or stood in their doorways hawking, Hey, Joe, buy a shirt? Nice shirt, only twenty-five pesos. Wait, Joe, have shirt for you, look this shirt, your size.... Out of nowhere a swarm of kids surrounded them. Two girls and a very small boy in front said, Buy gum, buy gum, Joe, holding out packets of Juicy Fruit, while older boys at their sides and back acted out a kung fu movie scene, throwing side kicks and karate punches with the appropriate vocalization, all the while reconnoitering the sailors pockets, ready to turn a straight-fingered jab into a wallet snatch. Wala pera, wala pera, the lieutenant intoned and the others echoed which put the shirt vendors off. No money. But the vendors didn't question how these Americans were gong to pay for a jeepney as they piled into the back of one of the many outlandish vehicles sleeping at the first intersection, waiting for sailors to stream over the bridge after regular liberty call. In function the jeepneys were little more than regular army jeeps converted to carry passengers, the back extended to accommodate benches along both sides, covered with a canopy. But in paint and decoration nothing was further from the military camouflage green. Some incorporated fixtures from other vehicles in multiplicity: exotic hood ornaments pushing, stretching, or flying across the entire front-end; multiple tail fins the horrific painted ends of flames emerging from the rear wheel wells; and between the front and rear wheels a row of hubcaps as if garnishing the tracks of a garish tank. Others looked as if they had driven through a parade after being coated with syrup, collecting things thrown or fallen from floats; confetti, ribbons, and streamers stuck and strung everywhere. Paper accordions sprayed or painted thickly to make them weather-resistant and more gaudy went round all four sides, pulled taut across the top of the windscreen and festooned at the back windows, tacked up at the canopy struts. With changes of speed the streamers made waves in the wind. The jeepney Adoles and the others climbed into had a fruit and vegetable theme: plastic bananas along both sides alternatively curved up then down to the hood, which was a massive salad of cabbage heads, carrots, grapes, apples, oranges, and other, less identifiable specimens. Lieutenant Blaubiss spoke to the driver, You know East End Club? Sure-surehey-hey-hey (wink)take you there real quick. The driver cranked the engine and a cloud

of blue smoke billowed out from underneath. Fast ride, best jeepee in all Subic, he patted the dash before using both hands to careen around the corner off main street. They paralleled Shit River for a couple of blocks then took a left and started zig-zagging their way over the back streets. The neighborhood was mostly residential with a shop or market of some kind on most blocks. Though few had signs some had odors telling of their business, especially where they sold fish. People watched them speed by: a boy with a stick and the tireless, spoke-spare rim of a bicycle, an old lady in front of a shop sitting on a bag of grain. The houses were girded with eight to ten feet stone walls topped with barbed wire, spikes, or broken bottles; the first-story window, when they caught a glimpse of them through a gate, were barred with wrought iron. The driver braked for the first time on the ride and the jeepney slowly ground to a halt. The lieutenant asked how much the fare was. For you, special rate, only six peso, the driver said. Special rate my ass, here's three, the lieutenant said. Oh no-no-no, not enough, you try rip me off. No, you try rip me off. Daytime, no business. I change my mind, give you two peso. You rip off thief, I call police. Okay, we'll be inside. The lieutenant heaved out of the jeepney and joined the rest of the sailors, who had congregated on the sidewalk. The driver reeled out what could only have been the worst vituperation replete with spitting, hissing, hawking; then jumped from his vehicle and ran around to the lieutenant. Wait-wait. I just joking, three peso okay. Two. The lieutenant held up the coins. The driver mumbled, but grabbed the coins before the lieutenant changed his mind again. He got back into his jeepney and sped off. They had been dropped in front of a hulking wooden two-story taking up most of the block. Doors closed in from the street and seemed unused, but in the middle of the wall wide stairs climbed from the street up into darkness. Above the stairway large carved letters painted in flaking red read, EAST END CLUB. Strange, stairs going up from the street like that, just there, exposed wood, no doors or anything to go through, unpainted as the rest of the building and creaked as they climbed. At the top, set back from a dark, shallow landing, were double doors and Adoles found himself at the front of the sailors having them opened for him. He stepped gamely into the space and had barely discerned a dozen or so unoccupied ladies around the bar and scattered among the tables when he heard Lieutenant Blaubiss shout, Cherry Boy! Before Adoles knew what was happening half the girls were upon him, holding his arms and legs, undoing his shirt and pants, all while picking him up and carrying him to the back of the bar. If it were an Olympic event, this was definitely Team Philippines. He was shocked into muteness but started kicking and writhing to stop their actions and succeeded before they had him half way across the dance floor. They set him down, Oh, he want forepay, we do forepay, and pulled him toward a table on the edge of the dance floor. He tried to compose himself. The lieutenant and the rest tried to stand while they laughed, the radioman and quartermaster holding their stomachs losing their breath. Adoles felt himself blush to an ever greater degree, long past anything he thought possible, wet fire burning his face. Maybe you just want one girl? I nice girl, clean, always true, I nice girl do, show you good-good dime, no bide, see. The second girl grabbed his crotch and smiled; she had no front teeth. He pulled her hand away shaking his head, found a crackly voice and said, Could I get a beer? He sat down at a table in stony silence and avoided looking at his companions who continued to laugh. The room was so different from the club on base. No carpet or waxed tiles but rough planks, gray with dust that wouldn't be swept up. All the chairs were wood though in different styles, which matched the mismatched tables. No fancy liquor bottles or mirror behind the bar to reflect, which made the bar close to the wall and with the heat made the whole room close and smaller than it was. All the light emanated from four windows whose panes were so dirty they allowed no clear image from the outside; the upper halves were pulled down showing sky and encouraging a slow draft from the stairwell. In the club on base there had been a few other sailors, a man behind the bar with garters on his shirt, and a pretty waitress. Here there were no other sailors, and the women outnumbered the men more than two to one. And they weren't pretty. At first a couple of them seemed so, in a way, but then no front teeth or a deformed arm or an eye on the wall when

the other was on you. The older woman who stayed behind the bar and seemed to be the proprietor may have been a rare beauty once, but now one side of her face was paralyzed into a constant frown. It almost seemed as if she were wearing a half mask. Small Change made his way over and through his laughter said, C'mon, Adoles, lighten up. Everyone's a cherry boy their first time over, and punched him in the back to emphasize the point. Adoles smiled tightly and ordered another beer though he hadn't finished the first. Three women gathered around the lieutenant. He was comparing them by sight and touch, playing one off the other. Your butt isn't as nice as her's, can you move your hips? This started one and then the other two gyrating their pelvises in the most provocative manner they could manage. Fritz immediately sought out the biggest breasts and was talking wetly to them through his saliva, despite their relative smallness compared with the body to which they were attached; the full face atop a bloated neck and large, pregnant mid drift. The radioman sat back in his chair like a midget king on his throne, a courtesan on either side fawning for his attention while he drank from his bottle as if it were a goblet of fine wine. The quartermaster sat down beside Adoles and was joined by a girl who sat on the other side, pulling his arm trying to get his attention. Making a hand-finger measurement, she spoke and laughed in Tagalog to the older woman behind the bar, her words holding something big and portentous. Half of the old lady's face smiled while the other half frowned. My first cruise some mates took me to a bar in the Jungle, where the blacks hang out, except I didn't know it then. We had early liberty, like today, and there weren't many sailors over. I thought my buddies were acting kind of strange, like something was up, and then when I came back from the head they had split. I was drunk enough to think I wanted to finish my beer even though these girls were giving me the evil eye. Then this one comes at me with a straight razor and says, 'The only thing we like about white boys is cut off they balls.' So I left, in a hurry! The quartermaster sat back and asked the girl tugging on his arm her name. Adoles looked up. The front-toothless girl leaning against the bar smiled, made a black 'O' with her lips and pushed her tongue into the side of her check. He chugged his beer and held the empty bottle up for another. The warm brew and heat had unthawed the supercooled beer he had drunk at the NCO club and together they were now entering his bloodstream in a rush. Within a few minutes the room was filled with a warm glow, everything the light hit was a little fuzzy around the edges. A girl he hadn't seen before came and sat beside him. She had a large nose for a Filipina, bent over to one side. The skin on her face looked as if it had been pulled over to cover something. She looked at him intently, not saying anything. Adoles stood up and grabbed the edge of the table, swaying from side to side like a one-eyed man gauging the depth of his surroundings. It felt as if he were back on the ship in heavy swells. He decided to sit down and think about this a minute. He felt something under his chin and turned to see the silent girl probing his eyes, now with a hand inside his shirt rubbing his chest. He was caught staring in her eyes a moment then asked, Which way's the rest room? She squinted slightly, not understanding. The head. Concern for his bladder sweeping across her face, she quickly withdrew her hand and pointed behind her to a dark doorway. He rose more steady now, and clomped surprisingly straight across the room, feeling once more his feet strangely spreading out in the wide-toed hiking boots. The dimly-lit head was little more than an in-house outhouse, a hole cut in a box-like bench attached to a wall, a small table on which sat a large, dirty bowl half filled with water, and a towel hung where a mirror had been. Adoles tried to unzip his fly until he realized buttons were there instead of a zipper. Then he sent a full stream into the pitch black hole where it disappeared without a sound. Despite his full bladder he pinched the flow and listened. It was eerie, no sound at all, the lack making him feel as if he had found a crack in reality where objects fell and fell, not hitting anything, fell into a kind of space like outer space with little gravity. Then the creaking, watery ripping of this separate nether world breaking loose until he realized it was only his urine finally hitting something mucky, wetly splatting in the cavernous pit far below. Back in the bar the quartermaster's girlfriend had disappeared. Adoles thought of taking her chair, sitting away from the silent girl who had been waiting for him, but then that would be rude; after all, she hadn't said anything lewd or made a grab for his posterity. The quartermaster had pulled up to the table and was resting on his elbows, hand over a fist, the side of a forefinger rubbing his bottom lip; he seemed agitated about something, the sweat beading up on his forehead.

Adoles suddenly felt like talking. Hey, how 'bout our captain running into the pier. Anybody knows you have to have the screw turning to make the rudder work. Dumb shit, probably thought he was steering a canoe or something. There was an officer on my Dad's ship, ensign straight out of the academy, they put him in first division, or he was up on the forecastle, anyway, when they were anchoring out. The chief boatswain's mate was directing the operation and every time he called out an order the ensign would repeat it word for word. Finally the bo's'n got pissed and yelled in the same commanding voice, 'Ensign, get the fuck off the forecastle!' Small Change smiled appreciatively though still agitated, wiped the sweat from his forehead. He took a deeper breath and sat straighter in his chair then took a quick swallow of beer. He definitely seemed afflicted with something but Adoles didn't want to stop telling his story. The ensign was half way through repeating the order before he realized what the bo's'n had said. He was flabbergasted, didn't know what to say, but finally sputtered out, 'You can't say that to me! I'm an officer, you're only an enlisted man,' and stormed off the forecastle thinking he was going to get the bo's'n in a heap of trouble. But nothing came down from the bridge, and the next day they all saw the ensign up there with a pair of binoculars. Every time he thought someone on deck was looking at him he'd snap them up and scan the horizon, acting like MacArthur. The quartermaster jerked down in his chair, jerked back up, said, Ah! Jungle ants. Adoles pulled his feet off the floor and hooked his shoes around the chair rung, looked down around his chair and saw none but still kept his feet up as he leaned back on the hind legs of his chair to look at the quartermaster's. There between the quartermaster's legs was his girlfriend, now magically transformed into a giant robin with a slippery beak trying desperately to pull a night crawler from his pants. Adoles probably would not have fallen over backwards if he had stopped the progress of his backward leaning before he saw the spectacle; but, as it was, Newton's first law of motion held and he crashed to the floor, heels over head.

The next thing Adoles knew he was on the main drag. It seemed to come out of a dream and the day's earlier remembrance; the scene all over again as they were crossing the bridge, the T-shirt shacks and jeepneys, and farther on the nondescript facades of day-sleeping bars. But moving forward the day staggered dark, the bar fronts came alive with flashing neon and incandescent defying the flaking paint and weathered wood, bending the rods and cones of eyes away from anything on the building that wasn't them. There were no street lights. The jeepneys puttered up and down the street with headlights on loaded down with passengers under the wavering canopies; on the near side the passenger's backs dimly lit by the colored light, on the far dark silhouettes now and then outlined by a line of neon. The street was full: military personnel and prostitutes meandered in every direction as if it were a long, grassless park; crossing with purpose, strolling along beside the sidewalk, cutting a long diagonal with vague destination. For the vehicles there were no crosswalks or sure-stops, only a slow worming, stuttering through the pedestrians. On the sidewalks the bars were sewn together with stitches of people, endless threads of sailors going in and coming out, an occasional marine, and girls never alone but arm in arm with a joe despite the wet heat. A low din from the buildings filled the spaces between the shouting and laughing on the street, a semi-muted throb and squelch of a different band coming from each bar; rock and roll, country and western, top forty from six months ago; each amplified loud enough for a space twice the size it overfilled. Basses shook the walls, while trebles made furniture moan and glass buzz. Moving along beside the sidewalk the air became permeated with the seasoned smell of barbecue. Adoles looked about him and found the source in a side street, a small Filipino grilling pieces of skewered meat on half a fifty-five gallon drum cut lengthwise, filled with coals and covered with a grate. Bar-b-q monkey meat, one peso, the vendor hawked. The medical lecture about tuberculosis and food handlers mixed in with what Sam had said, it was more likely dog than monkeyeasier to get, and whose going to know the difference? But both thoughts were defused by the succulent aroma, and he didn't barter but paid three pesos for as many sticks and relished the delicacy. Back on the main drag he peered through open doorways into smoke filled bars with go-go dancers gyrating on platforms above the dance floor, smiling through the music and haze above the clientele, their reflective tassels and crease-defined protuberances weakly glinting. Below the go-gos the loud music had the effect of creating intimate space. A few did watch the band and dancers, but most communicated over the noise, yelling into one another's ear a few inches away but never overheard by even people sitting at the same table. Someone could plan with another a third's death, rape, or robberywith the third unaware sitting right across from the two. The fabric of bars was now and then broken by a quieter business such as a motel, movie house, or curio shop. It was between two of these Adoles heard a trumpet, alone and unamplified, coming from a westernstyle doorway with swinging louvered doors. Inside, the spotlit trumpet player stood at the front of a low stage pleading something prophetic and melancholy. There was a band, but they were sitting quietly in the shadows, as was a surprising number of the audience. The blower kept his eyes shut tightly until he started to move along the edge of the stage, then he took peeking squints; down three steps to the small, empty dance floor, he walked back to below where he had been, front center stage, and dramatically covered his eyes with a free hand. Slowly he lied down on the floor on his back, still blowingand the spell was broken by a whistle and thrown coin. Some of the shower of coins following were tossed at his feet, but most were aimed at the flaring bell of his upturned trumpet. Now Adoles saw why he protected his eyes. It was standard routine, probably done every night. The band fired up and Adoles left the bar as it degenerated into just another swatch of the loud moaning fabric. Up the street one bar on the second floor dominated the block with a loud rock music throbbing from the many open windows. COWBOYS in double tubes of pink neon lit up the roof line. Adoles climbed the stairs and came into a huge room packed with sailors and girls to the walls, sitting at and on tables, dancing in front of the band (if the confined squirming could be called such), and standing everywhere in between. The lead singer seemed to be belting out a rash of staccato lyrics from the movements of his mouth and head, but any words were lost in the guitars, keyboards, and drums, none of which could be distinguished from the other. The music seemed vaguely familiar, though at the present volume he was not sure he would have recognized anything.

On the dance floor one couple had made some room, not doing some fantastic dance, they weren't dancing at all. A stout, fair haired sailor yelling at his diminutive, dark complected partner suddenly threw a fist at the girl's face, which missed when she ducked. She stood up into a second one though and flew back, landing with the hemline of her dress around her neck. The band lost its beat and the music disintegrated. The sailor could be heard above the crowd, Goddamned beanie boy, goddamn fucking fagot! He tried to kick the feminine young man in drag, but missed, tottering back and caught by some shipmates. The man on the floor crawled rapidly through the dancers toward the tables, the hem of his dress still above his waist and male genitalia clearly bulging through the pink panties. He disappeared. The band started a new song, and couples on the dance floor all as one started flexing knees, twitching hips, elbowing their way around and between other couples as if a switch had been thrown, shuffling to a dance with no steps. The duped sailor looking drunkenly after the beanie boy. Adoles clumped down the stairs and continued up the avenue, away from the base. The dull ringing in his ears made the hubbub on the street seem as if it was farther away from where his eyes told him it came, made him feel as if his perceiving self was not quite where he seemed to be, though he would have had trouble pointing in what direction. An ancient raspy voice cut through the lingering roar of the Cowboy's band; he turned to see what apparition could have coughed those malformed words, Beg your pardon? he asked. Blow job, two pesos. Broken, squeaky words from a drooling, black, two-cornered hole; the back of a palsied hand at one corner wiped her saliva back into a deep crack. He took a quick, long step away. He wanted to stop, just to look around and think about things for a moment, but the hawkers were everywhere and clotted round when he did. He ducked into The Hole in the Wall and was surprised by the quiet. It was small compared to the other bars: no dance floor, an empty three-person stage except for the two microphones on their stands, a short row of booths countering a row of tables overlooked by a bar. A duet came off break and onto the stage, a female vocalist with a male guitar player. She sang about her sailor who had gone back to the states. The States, take me to the States. Adoles drank two beers before a girl asked him if he had a girlfriend. Back on the street he wondered what time it was. Curfew was midnight; he didn't want to get too far from the gate. Hey, Adoles! He turned toward his name. Small Change came barreling through the crowd followed by the diminutive radioman in his wake. Where you take off to? Let's go up to the Circle Club, see some real action. By the time they reached the Circle Club, at the hub where Rizal Avenue spokes off in three directions, the quartermaster had garnered six more sailors from the Cruces, three operation specialists, two deck apes, and a yeoman. All together they took on a personality none of them could have had on their own. They ascended the stairs like an awkward herd of wild animals, pawed their way through thick curtains and incense at the top and into the darkest bar. It was as if they had come out from under the noon day sun with cramped, contracted pupils. The rear of the pack jostled the lead as it moped forward, hands out like a blind man set down in a wood. A hostess came and the straggled out pack was led through a labyrinth of heavy material hanging from ceiling to floor, rugs ? drapes ? to a small area where the dark cloth walls billowed out allowing room for one stoutly built, over-sized table and a short dozen chairs. They crowded the chairs around. The women who brought the beers were powdered up with ghostly white faces glowing in the dim light. They smiled and jumped from the grab ass and left as soon as the bottles were on the table. A few noticed the beer was twice the usual price. The undraped ceiling murmured, laughed, percussed the happenings of the rest of the indefinably large room. Who do they think they are, round-eye? The yeoman spoke of the waitresses and broke the rare quietude after moping in the dark. No, just pale-faced slant-eye, atomized it. A figure appeared from the folds of cloth, a little heavy for a dancer. She wore a long loose dress with shadow-filled slits cut high up her thighs. She heaved her hips into a strategically held tambourine and accompanied the tight beat and clanging silver discs with a storm of jangle from the brass bangles teeming on her arms and wrists. An invisible hawser attached to her pubis pulled and jerked her around the table as she

struggledsmiledagainst it halfheartedly. One of the deck apes caught her and she grabbed his ears and ground his face into her pubis until he loosened his grip and let her go. The sailors whooped and howled, slammed hands and fists against tables and thighs. She made a whirling pass around them, then somewhat gracefully stepped from floor to chair to table. The far end of the invisible hawser had been disengaged and now flopped around the heads and necks of the sailors as she gyrated and bucked, weaving and twining among them, binding them to a cause they were already hardened to. Everyone had pulled his bottle from the table when she gained it, but now one was put back, set in the middle. Everyone pushed back from the table to dig in his pocket for pesos. Encouraged by the dancer, they made a stack on top of the bottle turning it into a game in itself; some held their breath and closed one eye as they placed one on top of another, not wanting to be the one to knock the stack over. When it was high enough the dancer hobbled toward the bottle, taking little, straddling steps, hiking the hem of her dress up high enough to clear the coins. Her hips bobbled and legs began to quake as she lowered herself down, down toward the coins, almost touching them, then dropped the hem of her dress curtaining the act as she dipped and jumped, the coins clinking mutely in her vagina. Amid the raucous cheers the radioman jeered, What was that? I didn't see shit. You call that a show? He had moved around to the best vantage point to see nothing. Ah, whatsa matter Transistor? Wish them pesos were your dick? If you wanna see 'em disappear, put some on your nose! A cheer went up, Nose job, nose job.... And it quickly became obligatory. The radioman, though tense, did not struggle as he was laid on the table. He crossed his arms over his chest, at the wrists, protecting his heart, and smiles flashed across his otherwise serious and expectant face. The dancer reappeared after making a withdrawal. She goaded the low stack higher but the radioman's nose was neither as wide nor flat as the bottle mouth, and the stack kept pouring off. She was losing interest in performing the act for so little but an operations specialist held up a 10-peso bill, so when there was a short stack of five coins she started at the radioman's feet and straddled baby walked up the length of his body. She shook the dress over his head and lowered herself down. The OS holding the bill stepped up on a chair and whispered in her ear. She shook her head, but he pulled another bill from his pocket and she gave a quick, furtive nod. She continued to lower herself down, but paused before she was half way and then amid the brass-wood clanging of upset coins on the table the radioman started sputtering and pawing inside her dress like a drowning man. She leaped off him snatching the bills from the operation specialist's hand and disappearing into the dark labyrinthine surroundings. She peed on me! ...'The bitch peed on me!' Small Change mimicked in falsetto. They staggered out from any semblance of attention, yowling with laughter at the story; only the diminutive radioman stood without moving. They were at quarters the next day, the entire operations department on the signal bridge. Standing with his back to the chart table facing the group, trying to control his own laughter, Fritz called them to attention when Lieutenant JG Gattiano came up the starboard ladder. What's going on here? Nothing, sir. Fritz composed himself, the other's settled down. Well 'nothing' sure is awfully funny. The officer stood rigid with his authority, by all aspects ready to pursue the matter to the roots, unearth the whole tree if necessary, but when he finally continued it was regular business. I am sure you have all read the POD, by his tone it was clear he was sure they hadn't, which was true, exactly the portion that had been on liberty. Fresh water washdown from bridge to bilges. Signalmen have the flying bridge done by o-nine-hundred, at which time the rest of operations will commence on the bridge and rest of the O-4 level, to be completed by ten-hundred hours. Turn to. Without pausing he crossed the signal bridge and went down the port ladder before they could finish moaning. What's with him? Probably didn't get laid last night. Fritz said, All right, you heard him; Southwell, you and Adoles grab the buckets and.... Lehmann, where do you think you're going? Sick bay. Lehmann was following the rest of operation off the bridge.

That can wait until after washdown. But I've got to go. Bad. Hey, you guys, Lehmann's got the clap. JC brought his hands together in one resounding clap, Owe! You sure, did you check his shorts? I didn't think he knew how to use his bath thing. Yeah, probably got it off a toilet seat. Southwell and the rest joined in the requisite chiding. Go then, but you got the brightwork when you get back. All of it. Fritz at his most imperious. All right, the rest of you get to work, quit goofing off. Adoles followed Southwell back behind the flag bags and around the stack to where the swabs stood through short pipes welded to the railing, business-end up for drying. Beside and among them buckets were secured. Southwell stooped to untie one. Boy, did I fuck my brains out last night! Picked up this hooker in the Sea Dance Saloon, and we fucked till dawn. JC came around the flag bag, What the hell is this, a circle jerk? Yeah, you want in? Couldn't contribute nothin'. Used all my ammo last night, killin' pussy. JC pulled an imaginary set of hips toward his and gave them a pubis punch. Boom! Dead pussy layin' 'round all over the place. Southwell stood up from the untied bucket, Hey, I heard ya. Picked up this wahine last night and fucked her brains out. Thought she might of worked for a sperm bank, kept saying, 'Do it again, Jerry, do it again.' Ha ha! JC glared at him: What was that? You think you funny, honky? To Adoles he said, Is that story Small Change told really true? Sure enough, Adoles replied. That girl jumped off him and he was soaked, dripping wet. He yelled, 'She peed on me, the bitch peed on me!' JC fell back against the broad side of the stack grabbing his stomach, while Southwell grabbed the railing, both laughing. Suddenly JC stood straight and put one finger to his lips and pointed with the other. Transistor was coming from the bridge, down the port side beneath them on the O-4 level. JC whispered, 'She peed on me,' on three. Ready? One, two, SHE PEED ON ME! They whined together. The radioman shot them the bird without stopping or looking up. The laughter of the three quickly became inaudible from lack of breath. Finally Southwell said weakly, Man, I ain't going to be worth shit today. Only got about an hour's sleep. Shit, I didn't even get that; can't sleep with jungle pussy. Wake up, your shit be gone, JC said. You're lucky you didn't catch anything, JC, Southwell said. Oh, I did. Got a big dose of clap. Aren't you going to sick bay? Adoles asked. Nope. Goin' over tonight and pick up that bitch that give it to me. Tell her, his voice mincing, 'Say, babe, I'm sorry, but I think I got an infection or somethin' down thereNo, no. It ain't no VD, somethin' else, but I don't want you to get it so I'm gong to use to use a condom, okay?' And she'll say, 'Oh, JC, you so cumsiderate.' Then I'll go in the bathroom and roll the rubber on and coat it real good with that chem heat the corpsman gives out for sore muscles. Then I'll say, 'Hey babe, you ready for me?' And boom! (another pelvis punch) Kill the pussy. Owe-ee! Southwell grabbed his crotch. Then there's that bitch give me the clap twice last cruiseand the second time she swore she was clean! Going to give her the clap and a burn fuck. No, I got too much to do to get three day's restriction waiting for penicillin to do its job. I'll wait till we pull out for Japan and everyone's restricted. Fritz came around the flag bag an avatar of awkwardness: a load of deck brushes falling out from between one arm and chest and a fistful of handles going every which way in the other. What is this, a circle jerk? One of the brushes clattered to the deck. Yeah, and you the pivot man, got your piece of bread? Yuk, yuk, yuk, JC said. Come on you guys, if we don't get this place washed down by o-nine-hundred the ops pops is going to come down on me like a Kansas hail storm. Okay, Fritz, hold on to your shorts, we're coming, JC said.

Southwell made spurting noises with his mouth. Hornsby had already rigged the hose, it trailed up the starboard ladder from the spigot on the O-4 level. There y'all are. Looks like we got a quorum! They hosed down the bulkheads, screwed the long handles into the brushes and scrubbed the brine loose, and hosed them again. When the bulkheads were clean they scrubbed the deck and pushed the salt and dirt toward the deck drains, which emptied onto the O-4 level. Then they swabbed the deck; using the welds of the deck plates as guides, they pushed and pulled the swabs from left to right to left while taking little steps backwards, describing a sidewinder trail. Lehmann came up from sick bay walking carefully and started on the brightwork. As the others finished with the deck they stood around in the shade of the canopy feeling tired from the heat and previous night's escapades, each wondering when he could steal to the backroom and lie down on the cool tiles. Shaun came up and Adoles met him in the starboard gun tub. He was the only person Adoles had seen besides Gattiano who didn't look hung over. So did you meet that girl, what's her name? Sherry. Yes, she was waiting for me at the gate. She's so beautiful, everything I thought and more. So nice! We went to a beach, just talked and swam and talked some more. You didn't get laid? Well, sure, that too. Hey, she asked me if I had a friend, for her sister. I have a picture.... He pulled a slightly larger than billfold-size photograph from the bill compartment of his wallet. A studio photograph, the two sisters turned toward each other but looking at the camera, smiling, Sherry the younger with long hair and a shy, innocent face; the older with short hair framing an indelible cynicism. The impression was accentuated by a mostly gold front tooth. I don't know, Shaun. I met this girl last night.... Adoles tried to think of one. Ah, c'mon man. She had some boyfriend from the base, air force, but they broke up, so it's not like she's gone out with the whole fleet. Her name is Connie, she works in the same bar as Sherry. I could buy her a couple of drinks, Adoles said finally. Sure, sure. If you don't hit it off, Shaun shrugged his shoulders. I just told Sherry I'd try and fix her sister up with somebody. Okay. You have liberty tonight? Yeah. See you on the pier then. The morning passed in the rising wet heat. After midday chow Adoles beat the rest to the backroom except for JC who was already crashed, arms folded across chest, mouth slack, relaxed. Adoles lay down on the other side of the two back-to-back metal cabinets of cubbyholes facing out from the middle, filled with rolled up flags. There was a slight odor of mildew, which was not unpleasant, speaking of cool, moist darkness. JC snored for a few breaths until he woke himself, smacked his jaws and shifted slightly. As they came up from chow each one of the rest of the signal gang undogged the hatch door and looked in to see the two areas of deck large enough to lie down on occupied and so redogged the door to look for another place to sleep. Since he had the duty Hornsby brewed a pot of coffee and took up the watch for any brass. A loud greeting of the officer, while bolting to attention sending the chair he was sitting in back to hit the backroom door, a signal to those within to take up the inventory someone had started long, long ago and was never meant to be finished. Throughout the ship men slept. Deck apes retired to the boatswain's lockers and the paint locker; storekeepers crawled in among pallets of stores in the holds; inside the walk-in coolers, cooks took naps in chairs wedged against the cooler doors; radioman, ready to be in the middle of a drill, slept with earphones on in the radio shack by code keys, not listening to Morse but for any officer who might start entering the access code of the electronic door lock; firemen sweated and slept behind the boilers or made the long climb down to shaft alley. And every one of the men who slept and didn't have the duty set his internal alarm to go off a few minutes before liberty call.

* *7* Ridge crests could be seen now, not obscured or heightened by crowns of trees, but showing between trunks, hard and naked against the sky, rocky in places, windblown. The tree twigs hung above, randomly hatched haze out of which grew down, with increasing definition, ever larger limbs and boughs to trunks. Down the ridge sides mutely colored trunks with lichen or moss showed themselves dark against the fallen leaves. The soft rustling greens had turned and fallen through the fall spectrum and now lay a bleached brown, covering the leaf blanket from the year before, each year older layer underneath more and more decayed and soil-like so in places there was no clear distinction between earth and leafage. Fields were haphazardly spread out in valleys and up less steep slopes, the trees swept away and the outcropping exposed by the small streams meandering through them if you let them tell it, large once in mythic proportion, frozen, glacial. But then rounding bends whole forests came down from the mountainsides, often with pied white trunk sycamores presiding on the banks. Wood smoke rushed up from chimneys, thin and churning with hot gas in the morning with drafts and dampers open, fresh logs popping and hissing, the metal of the stoves slowly clicking, ratcheting the heat up one tooth at a time. During the day the smoke varied, but the sun was constant in its neglect, leaving shadows longer. At night the stoves were stoked again but the air-loose dampers closed to hold in the smoke and heat and the drafts shut against the room air, and the fires died to embers. The pin holding the ratchets fell out and the heat clicking wound down as if under a load, increasing to a moaning between the large click-shrinking of the stoves. The logs popped once or twice, but were quickly suffocated and wheezed softly. The smoke loitered thick and languid above the chimneys under a cold moon, indicating air pockets and the slightest breeze. Through the night the embers gave their place to ashes while making their place in the logs, ready to flame again in the morning. Cybette heard Buford Ironto's pickup whining up and then along the ridge until the clutch engaged for a moment as it coasted off the ridge down a short, steep declivity into a turn and less steep slope, then whining again in first gear; the road full of ditches, ridges, rocks, and pot holes so as not to allow the speed of second. The road turned here and there but followed a wide arch coming around to a low side of the ridge the house was built on. The truck crossed a cattle guard and drove between out buildings whose purpose was being lost with disuse: a small, never painted, weather gray barn and animal pen on the right; a tool shed ? on the left (a huge pedal-driven grinding wheel in front, rock and rust) with two smaller rooms added latter on either side; the whitewash newer, not as badly flaked. The road forked and in the fork a strange building, mostly roof, with the walls huddled over to one side. The right road of the fork continued up the high shallow valley to Mr. Doughty's; Cybette saw the pickup from the kitchen window after it passed the sheds and taken the left. In the summer she only heard it once before she saw it, she had been outside and the sound came faintly through the thick green baffle, now gone, save for the tattered patches of marcescent oak leaves and scattered evergreens seeding down from the north ridge. The bare limbs of the deciduous did not reach to hold sound just a longer staying sun. The air was crisp and dense and the ground hard with cold, so winter noise traveled freely among and across the broken ridges, yawning over the dale with ease. It turned in front of the garage used as a woodshed and stopped. Buford pulled on the emergency brake and cut the ignition. After he stepped down from the cab he reached back in for a great handful of envelopes, which he had to adjust to grip firmly, and a low-sided pan covered with tinfoil. Cybette met him at the screened-in porch door. 'lo, Cybette. Hello, Buford, come on in. She pushed the door open wide near the hinges, stepping back to to let him pass with his pan platter. Did you have a nice Turkey Day? Buford asked. Very nice, and you? She let the screen door bang shut and maneuvered around him to open the kitchen door. Oh, yeah. Had so many relatives come over we had to eat in shifts, and we had a separate table for the kids.

My word. Everybody ate too much, course. Thought Uncle Bill was going to get sick, but he took a walk and settled things. Buford held up the pan before putting it down on the table with the letters. Brought some cookies. Those sure were some fine brownies you baked. Cybette and Elaine had gotten into a friendly, unspoken competition of sorts with their baking; they had traded goods so many times in the same low-sided pan she had forgotten whoose it was. Well, thank you kindly. I was just about to perk a pot of coffee, would you like some? Ah! That'd be mighty fine. And here's your mail. Got a slew of letters from that sailor friend of yours. A smile and wink accompanied his voice, a little teasing, but Cybette had her back to him carefully measuring coffee into the percolator. Must have been out to sea quite a while, get a whole bunch like that all at once. She waited for a direct question, one to which she would have to speak, but none ever came, and she was comfortable with the silence. Buford referred to the sailor, the envelopes with the ship's logo on them: a giant bald eagle in flight with a full cargo net hanging from its talons, but never asked about him in particular; that would have been rude. Finally he said, Colder than a, a igloo out there; been thinking I ought to unplug my freezer and set it out on the porch. Can't recall a November ever being this cold. How 'bout you, Grandad? Buford addressed the old man sitting between the kitchen stove and the woodbox. The old man raised his hand and smiled but did not answer, thinking he had only been greeted. I say, ever remember it this cold in November? Buford raised his voice for him. November.... No, can't say I can, the old man replied. Cybette watched the pot, disproving an old adage. Buford stared out the window at the cold, still full from yesterday's feast. The old man put the trees back together.

He came in late summer and set to splitting the logs without thought. Slowly, methodically he tapped the steel wedge into an upright log until it was set, then taking a step back he brought the sledge down on it two, threeseven, eight times, depending. The smaller, straight grained logs flew apart at a blow leaving him to pull the wedge from the ground. Above knotty logs he chose diameter and then radii isolating the knots or separated them with a wooden screeching from their knot holes. With the really big logs, the logs from the trunks of the oldest trees, he drove a wedge on a radii, near the edge, and watched for the sweet crack. No diameters here, there were too many rings to cut across, too many years. When the crack appeared it veered off from the wedge line and picked up a different radii or concentricated along one of the rings, a bad year perhapsor something unexpected, unseen in the grain, like an elongated 'S' shape. He drove another wedge in the weakness or perpendicular to it but always trying to keep near the edge so he could bang the wedges out if the log had not split after he drove them in most of the way. Once in a while a great log fooled him and he would bury the wedges. The sweet crack would be wide, why tease a section out? And he would drop a second wedge in it and give it a mighty blow, expecting the segment to fly off but the crack just yawned wider with both wedges buried. Against his better judgment he would set the third wedge in the crack, driving it between its brothers and the wood because for sure it would part now, but when the last blow sent it down into the log also the crack only gaped wider, laughing and strong. The crowbar followed to try and pry the wood apart or a wedge out and then the last resort, an ax to chop the section out. The ax always worked though one could chop down a middling tree with the effort. He stacked the split wood along the outside walls of the screened-in porch until it was over his head two rows deep and then in the space cleared inside the doorless garage where the unsplit logs had laid tumbled. Six or seven chords he guessed; he could have measured but did not. The work had kept the pain of his wife's death at a distance; when the last log was split he found at that distance it had taken root and would not come near. Now in the short, waning days of winter he tended the kitchen fire and grief and remorse did not visit him; he was free to put the trees back together as the pieces came into the kitchen. He had been bringing the wood in himself, but Cybette had seen how stiff he was in the mornings and set Jackdaw to it, who felt hugely important for having the job. Bringing three or four logs in at a time he built them up past the sides of the woodbox as steep as the roof of an alpine house. The old man contemplated each log, finding its place in its tree before putting it on the fire. Two white oaks and a red oak figured prominently, magnificent trees, especially the red, which must have had a field of its own for centuries judging from the extent the crown was turning out to be. The two white oaks were huge too and had been growing together twenty or thirty feet apart, for the limbs on their common side were sparser and the boughs had twisted and turned seeking out their share of light. The white oaks had grown near a river or pond and children, because a smooth half-ring was worn through the bark and into the wood on the top side of a lower bough where a rope swing had rubbed. Haven't seen Jack down at the house lately, Buford said when the pot started bubbling. He's not sick or anything? Oh, no. He's been up in the woods lately. After his morning chores he tells me, 'Mommy, I'm going exploring.' She said it the way Jackdaw said it, with great significance and import. Doesn't ask me, mind you, tells me. I let him go though. Saw him this morning going up the north ridge, following the hose up to the spring. Yeah, well, guess he gets tired of three girls and a boy still in diapers. Buford looked away from the window toward her, He still making kites? No, I don't think so. But then his room is so full of them I probably wouldn't know if there were any new additions, she said and gave a little laugh. Ever since autumn a year and season ago when she had shown himhad really just made one while he watchedhe had been obsessed, almost possessed. While other children his age were coloring outside the lines of their coloring books he was drawing kites, freehand at first with wobbly lines, then with a rulernot kites flying over a house or hill but the diamond shape of a kite, which he would then cut out and try to build a framework for. He failed miserably of course, at first, and when the frustration became too much he would run around the house or down the road until he was breathless. Then he'd be right back at it. He was in his own world when building where manners did not exist. When he would express a need he would expect it to be fulfilled with no 'please' or 'thank you' required. When she reminded him of these niceties it often provoked more frustration.

More glue. What do you say? He looked up at her as if she might be a foreigner or hard of hearing, I, need, glue. I heard you, but what do you say? And when she could tell he had no idea what she was referring to, Please. Please I need.... But he was already out the door behind a shower of paper thrown up. Please, please, please.... It was a waste of time saying it. He had the attention span of an autistic. He easily spent hours on end making, designing, or looking at pictures of kites. He discovered the 'K' volume of the encyclopedia, where Cybette had gotten the design for the one she had made, and studied the photographs and diagrams for hours on end. He could half read, half recite from memory the entire article, for it had replaced fairy tales as bedtime reading, though often times he was still working when she went to bed. But then she would see her boy again when a sound or the silence made him look up and he discovered he was alone and it was dark outside. Turning on all the lights didn't help, it just made the windows framing the darkness darker still and less distinct with glare on the panes. Waking grandpa sleeping on the couch didn't help either. Gramps. Hmmm, falling inflection. Gramps! What? I thought I heard something? You probably did, you got young ears. Gramps, it sounded like a ghost! Probably was, this late at night. Grandpa! Maybe Grandeedee come lookin' for me. EEEeeep! Now Cybette at the door bundled in her layers of night clothes and robe, What's going on? Jackdaw made a running leap and she caught him high on her hip. I heard a noise and Grandpa says they're ghosts! Grandpa, Cybette said chiding. Well I'm not going to lie to the boy. Probably just Grandma come looking for me. Grandpa! Don't say such things, you're going to give him nightmares. How on earth so? Grandma loved you both, probably loved me too. But even if it's a different ghost they can't hurt you. They can't? Jackdaw asked hopefully. No, they're just wandering spirits not able to leave this world for one reason or another. But they're not made for this world so they're awkward in it, bump into things. That's why you hear them. What you really have to be careful of are Toe Munchers. Grandpa said sitting up, the subject warranting his full attention. Toe Munchers?! Jackdaw hiked his feet higher up on his mother's front and back, trying to climb higher from the floor. Grandpa. Cybette tried to interrupt him. Yes. But only you, Jackdaw, their mouths are too small for big toes. There was one in that corner before I fell asleep, he indicated the corner behind Cybette. Jackdaw turned his head to look and the old man grabbed his foot and made the chewing noises of a rabid saber tooth tiger,YANGYANYAN..... Jackdaw shrieked, Cybette stepped back out of reach, Enough! You're terrible! but there was no conviction in her voice. She left carrying Jackdaw upstairs, and he could hear her placating him, her untroubled tone doing as much good as her words. He lied back down smiling, turned over, put his hand on the back of the couch. Buford was looking out the window again when he said, Seems like every time I looked up this past fall I saw kites flying over the trees, some days half a dozen or more. I don't know how many balls of string I bought. And then he discovered balsa wood one day when I

went into the hobby shop to see if they carried any quality paints. He was pining for it before I could get out the door. Finally I said he could have his Christmas present early if he wanted, and he didn't hesitate, grabbed every long stick they had in stock. If I hadn't had such good luck at the fair this year I'd never have done it. I knew you'd done good, Elaine said you sold out. All but one, but got two commissions; that's a first. Usually those fair goers, the out-of-towners, are here today gone til next yearif then. But these two ladies from New Jersey wanted portraits, one of her father, the other of her children, so they sent me photos and I'm working on them now. Just about through with the father. Hope I have his color right; I only have a black and white photograph to work from. She said he was light complected, a little pink in the face.... Cybette was thinking of the painting when she realized the coffee was done and poured two cups and brought them to the table. She sat at the end with her back to her grandfather, between him and Buford, not being rude but protective; she knew Grandpa didn't want to be drug into the conversation, which Buford was inclined to do once she sat down. They set their cups off the saucers and filled them with cookies from the pan on the table. Jackdaw paused high on the ridge above the spring. He was breathing hard after the nonstop climb and was sweaty, but he didn't undo his jacket, the zipper might get stuck, only took off his stocking cap. The cold air about his head made it feel much different than the rest of his body, like a blue headed woodpecker. He watched his breath condensing in great plumes from his mouth and nose and at once became a fire-breathing dragon outside its lair. He reached out with his arms and stretched his tremendous wings and gave them a mighty flap: the nearby trees creaked and moaned in the gust of wind breaking off smaller branches and sending them with a swirling cloud of dead leaves and debris into the valley to rain down on farmers' houses. Behind him in his lair great mounds of treasure were piled: cords of finely cut balsa wood, great bales of string, and pile upon pile of gold, diamonds, and rubies. Behind one pile of necklaces a girl was tied up pleading with dragon, Please, o please don't hurt me. It was Lindsey Ironto. The dragon let out a cruel, smoke bellowing laugh, spitted fire landing all around the girl and lighting up the cave. Jackdaw was behind the dragon now, crouched above the cave opening with his sword drawn. He leaped onto the dragon's back, high between its wings, and the beast twisted around with an irritated roar and spotted him with a blood red eye. It took a huge breath and sent a roaring blast furnace blaze down its fire proof scales. Jackdaw crouched lower in the cranny between its shoulders and felt the heat singeing his skin. Seeing him still alive the dragon reached with its left claw to its right shoulder and yanked the scaly skin taut so Jackdaw was popped out of the cranny and nearly off the dragon's back. The dragon was taking another breath to do away with him when Jackdaw leaped up the scales and drove his sword deep into the soft spot on the dragon's neck. The dragon screamed terribly, causing the whole mountainside to shake and rocks inside the cave to cascade from the ceiling. It leaped into the air and flapped its giant wings twice before its life was spent and it started plummeting to the earth, back first. Jackdaw scrambled around onto the creature's belly before it hit, and when it did the force of his weight pushed the dragon's guts out its mouth, just like the cat he'd seen hit by a car on the highway. The dragon's fall further rocked the mountainside and the lair started caving in. He ran in, threw Lindsey over his shoulder, and ran out, dodging the crashing boulders and stalactites filling the cave two steps behind him. Lindsey was gushing with appreciation. O, Jack. I thought I was going to die. He untied her hands and feet. You saved my life. How can I ever thank you? She threw her arms around him and kissed him. The fantasy ended with the blush. He looked around even though he was in the middle of the woods. He began walking west along the crest. Great slabs of rock jutted diagonally up and out in line with the steeper north slope, as if they had fallen over onto a lower, less steep hill, now the south slope. In the slightest cracks of the rocks water seeped in and froze, made the cracks wider, then soil and all kinds of seed and spore blew in; only the toughest plants survived, scrawny brush and wild grass, their roots growing down, minisculy and inexorably wedging the monolith apart so eventually the plant would send a great boulder crashing into the large trees down the hill and then cling precariously, impossibly, to the new crack born cliff. Rare drama in these old mountains, Jackdaw was lucky to happen upon it. He paused on the highest boulder and looked down to where the south slope disappeared under the cliff of stone. Great rocks had fallen and cleared a place below, down to the trees they now leaned against. He looked across the trees and thought he could see wood smoke coming up from where his house was hidden from view.

Walking farther, the crest quickly mellowed into a forest path, which, though still rocky in places, was all around covered with soil. The vegetation remained relatively meager along the top, the trees keeping to the slopes and now mountain laurel coming out from between them. Why did the path seem so worn? Surely cows didn't come up here. Maybe people, but it didn't seem so. Then he remembered the spring and thought animals must come this way to get water. But he couldn't think of any forest animals big enough; all he'd ever seen were squirrels and chipmunks, and they were not big enough to make a trail like this, nor would they need it. Mountain sheep? He had never heard of such an animal. Mountain goats? no; mountain lions? Grandpa said there used to be mountain lions. Used to be. Mountain pigs, he started laughingstopped: boars. Wild boars. Old Yeller was killed by a wild boar. In the woods. He stopped walking and held his breath. It it was deathly quiet, not a sound or a thing to make a sound in sight. The delicate topmost branches, waving at nothing, neither touched nor creaked. Then a low grunting came from the woods ahead, just off the trailor so he thought. He stood for minutes listening, like a diver in a listening pool except it was quieter than water in a pool taking all the sounds from the earth it touched and turning them into a hydrone; it was too quiet, as if everything was listening and so all the more still, listening to something huge and ominous and just as quiet. He stopped trying to hold his breath and let it come quick. Looking around, trembling with fear, he spotted a tree he could climb and forced himself to walk softly toward it except now he was running, springing up onto it bracing himself for the trunk hitting him in the chest, shimmying up to the lowest branch and climbing quickly, almost to the top. He clung to the tapering trunk, pressing his cheek into the cold bark. His labored breathing tried to break into crying, but he would not let it, got mad at it and squeezed the trunk tighter. There's no boars, there's no boars.... There are boars and bears and.... The thought came to him like a saving grace: and they're sleeping, everything is sleeping. That's why it's so quiet. All the animals dreaming; there's no food to eat so they have to sleep. Relief flowed over him and he relaxed as much as his position let him. The forest became a friendly place again, despite the cold. As he became rested he found himself hungry so climbed down to head back. He picked up a stick and didn't swat the bushes or try and break it against a tree or prod the earth, but imagined it the spine of a kite. Even twigs, if they were at all straight, he imagined as spines of miniature kites and sometimes tied bow sticks on them and a piece of cloth. These were just play kites for when no wind blew, which Lindsey's dolls flewat least until one day when a big gust of make-believe pulled the doll from the stream bank where they had been playing and dropped her in Sinking Creek. Lindsey ran down stream and waded into the shallow water to catch the floating plastic. Marsha would have let go! Lindsey said. But she'd been wrapping the string around her hand, Jackdaw pointed out. In any case the dolls had not flown a kite since. He held the stick up at an angle, its flight profile, and saw the rest of the kite in his mind, imagining lift and drag. It would fly in a strong wind, but was heavy, better if made with balsa. Numb ears called his attention; he dropped the stick and took his stocking cap from jacket pocket and pulled it on. Through the cap he pressed his ears against his head feeling their cold anew. Hunger panged and he continued on, quickening his pace. Just before he arrived back at Big Rock Cliff (as he had decided to call it) he saw some deadwood hidden by bushes from the other direction. A long, slender trunk with many branches. It must have been down two or three years, for when he experimentally kicked at a branch it snapped off cleanly at the trunk. He went down the length of the tree kicking off the branches and then again up the other side, pausing to side kick the ones on the top side. This done, he tried to break off the too skinny top by placing his foot where he wanted it to break and pulling on it. His eyes squeezed shut with the effort and for protection if it should break, but it did not. He dragged the branchless tree to a knee-high rock and set the top on it. Jumping up he came kicking down with both feet, and the top snapped off easily hitting him a glancing blow in the side. He looked at the new length then picked it up and brought it back to the trail. He set the larger end down and hoisted the other onto his shoulder and stepped backward, pushing it higher in the air. When the branch was at the right angle he awkwardly pulled in his vertebrae and set the wood in its place, with the top going up past his head. Tentatively he let the branch go and put his arms out, the bow stick. Never fly, way too heavy, and he rolled out from under the useless spine stick letting it crash to the ground. He dragged the pole to the cliff and pushed it off, end first. It fell like a diver, nosing down, then over, almost a back flop when it hit

broadside and broke in three pieces which cartwheeled and slid down to where the rest of the crest's detritus collected at the dry dam of trees. He could have been at the top of the worldwas at the top of his world, looking down in all directions: down the trail where it came and went, down the steep north slope, and down, down, to where the south slope emerged from the cliff and tilted off toward the spur his house was built on and the broad valley. He held out his arms again and imagined a kite that big, one light enough. What could you make the sticks with and then what would the cover be? His mind groped beyond the boundaries of its knowledge and quickly returned to imagining the kite. A kite like that could pick you up like one of Lindsey's dolls. But holding onto the kite here, the rope dipping down and up across the gulf, tied to the top of that tree, the wind gusts and you go up, up.... He was dizzy from the empty stomach and full imagination. He leaned forward still half in the daydream, lying on the spine with his arms along the bow stick, leaning forward with it. The ground tether slid up the spine until it was at the top and then somehow let go, and the kite was no longer held in the wind, but glided upon it. After Buford left Cybette went back to her easel. It was set up in the living room where Grandpa slept, just south of the kitchen. Gramps kept a small fire in the stove to augment the heat from the kitchen. She felt good about the painting. Oils were such freedom after water colors and the only way to paint a portrait. Since they stayed wet one could tone an area down or color it up, right on the canvas, or wipe it out completely with turpentine and try again if it was too far gone. They were so forgiving compared to water colors, and forgiveness was what she needed painting this man's portrait. Mrs. Spang, his granddaughter, had said he was light complected, but when Cybette received the blackand-white photograph he looked downright swarthy. Perhaps the granddaughter remembered an older man who stayed inside more. The man in the photograph was probably in his forties; dark hair, brown (not black like his suit), combed down his forehead and then swept over covering his baldness, which peeked out anyway where his part had been. Short stubby eyebrows above piercing dark eyes, as if he were having a confrontation with the photographer, his long nose pointing accusingly above confident lips knowing he was right. But the lips somewhat softened this expression too, mutely saying, Since I am right there is no need arguing the point. All this framed by a beard worn like a muffler on his neck, slightly lighter in color than his hair and graying below the corners of his mouth (not quite white like the little bit of shirt showing between the lapels). His necktie was something of the time, thin and obscure in its blackness, the highlights telling of silk but no design. Of course the blacks could have been reds since black-and-white photography saw red as black, if he had sported a riding crop he may well have been in pinks. But from this she realized his face was probably more ruddy then swarthy, and after she had been forgiven many times learning the outline and contours of his lineaments, she had to strike and re-strike a balance between brown tan and rubescent good healthand these with the pale memory of his granddaughter. The result was somewhat washed out, pastel-like, but a good journeyman's effort and quite acceptable given the circumstances. Stepping back from the painting one last time she approved the figure, back-lit with a dark, rosy gray light ebbing away from his shoulders to nothing by the picture's edge. She had painted his head slightly tilted, perhaps giving him a more open, inquisitive demeanor than the medieval inquisitor of the photograph. Wooden stripping tacked on the edge of the stretcher bars projected past the front of the painting and kept the wet paint from touching the thin linen she set it face down on. She pulled the cloth up and stapled it all around to form a dirt and dust barrier but still allowed the painting to dry. She leaned it against the wall between the living room and kitchen and took up the painting of the two children and secured it on the easel. They were still ghosts of grisaille, burnt sienna and white. This one would be easy though, mechanical; little more than copying the color photograph. Through a window and front porch she looked over thirty feet of clump brown grass before it dropped away down a bank to a sloping pasture full of outcrops ending where the creek wound its way through the dale. At the bottom of the pasture, on the east side, a man-made pond just above the creek was fed by the same spring as the farmhouse, the water overflowing the tank in the spring house and fed through a pipe to the bank and down the hill. The pond in turn overflowed into the creek. Across the stream a long, flat corn field met sloping pasture again with a few less outcrops up to the state road, which was bounded on the other side by woods growing up and over the far ridge. Over the grass from the living room she could only see

these gray woods on the far mountainside and the top of the field, and now through the leafless trees and bushes edging it, an occasional car passing along the road. Not a scene to paint but to rest on from painting. The screen door banged then the kitchen door opened and shut, and she heard Jackdaw in the kitchen. Oh boy! Cookies! Not until after you eat a sandwich, she called from the living room. Ah Mom, just one, I'm starving! Nope, I don't want you filling up on cookies. She came into the kitchen wiping the brushes she had used in a rag. The piney smell of turpentine trailed her to the door of the utility room and mixed strangely with cookie odor. But just one? Please, please. Let me wash these brushes and I'll make you a tuna sandwich. Then you can have all you want. Not arguing with a deal like that, Jackdaw strode over to his great-grandfather sitting by the stove and leaned against his knee. Hi, Gramps, he said. The old man leaned back from his rumination, and Jack moved between his legs and hugged him around the waist with his head turned against his chest listening to his heart. Well, hello, Jack. Gramps put a hand on the boy's head. What have you been up to? Jackdaw stepped back, Exploring! Oh yeah? Where at? On the mountain. He pointed over Gramp's shoulder through the wall. All the way to the top and down that way. He pointed off to his left. My. Did you see any bears? No, they're all sleeping, he said, very sure of the fact. Hmmm, guess you're right. As suddenly as he came, he left Gramp's side and went to the doorway of the utility room. Cybette stood in front of the deep sink rubbing the bristles in a bar of soap then sudsing them in the palm of her hand and rinsing away the paint-soap emulsion then repeating the cycle, the suds becoming less and less colored. Mom, what are those planes called without engines? Hmmm? Oh, gliders, she said. No, I mean the real ones you can fly in. Same think, hon, gliders. Gli-ders. He sounded it out while walking to the lower cabinet by the kitchen table where the encyclopedias were. Cybette continued cleaning her brushes but then started, perhaps it was the paper sound from the encyclopedias. She leaned back from the sink and spied him through the doorway, Oh, Christ. Over the weeks the old man put together the two white oaks and all but the giant crotch of the red, where the largest boughs left the trunk. That one would have been hell to split. He did not remember splitting it, but then he had not remembered splitting those of the white oaks either, and yet their pieces had come in, mangled and twisted. There was no sign of the red though. He waited under the whites, swung out on the rope and splashed in the water, swam back to shore, took up the rope again, marking a fun time; a clepsydra of childhood with a young pendulum. Playing in the second growth he had already put together, half-circling the two ancient trees on the river. It was the best summer of his boyhood, and he only emerged from it long enough to scrutinize the logs going in the fire. The red oak was unsettling though, standing there in the field with its boughs and limbs floating around and above the trunk. No season, or the seasons passed as quickly and often as the sun is hid and revealed on a windy, partly cloudy day; neither heat nor cold accompanied the seasons, nor smells, nor even air: the reality of the thing hinged on the missing crotch whose airy silhouette could be seen among the boughs. On a gray day weighted down with clouds he went out to look. Since he had not seen one piece he was sure it had not been split. He scanned the ends of the shrinking chords of stacked logs below the screened in porch, perhaps he had used it to prop them up. On cold feet he crept to the dim woodshed and in, to the back where he paused until his eyes adjusted to the dark, then looked his way out. Around on the front porch he found it. Standing on end below Jackdaw's bedroom window. For a moment the window had his attention, framing the window on the other side of the room common to the

screened in porch, kites hung by string in between. The crotch log stood in front, a marker or testimony or step to it all, for it was not used as a kindling block, which would have been its most obvious utility, no hatchet marks on the end grain softening the edges and turning the wood pulpy, only little chips of bark flaking off. He lowered himself down on the front porch swing and looking up, the great red was complete along with the place. It was summer; hot, though he was not sweating; bright, though he was not squinting. The bugs were lazy in the grass, the grass lazy in its growing, thin and short beneath the tree where it competed with the moss. They had spread a checkered blanket and eaten; she was laughing about something he had said, and he was smiling back at her, happy he'd made her happy. The sunlit pasture past her face was a blinding white and the sky above whiter still. The days of time fluttered with her laughter flitting through them; what a joyous thing. The world beyond the tree and it's island shadow disappeared into a warm white abyss as dark as it was light, the shadow under the tree as light as if under the noon day sun it had never seen, the tree was engulfed. She took his hand as the light swarmed around them and he understood past any word or being. It began to snow. Heavy flakes pattered the frozen ground until it was covered. Cybette didn't notice until the warm incandescence from the lamp clamped at the top of her easel was cooled and complimented by the reflected daylight coming through the window, lighting the impasto shadows on the painting from the side. Jackdaw remained oblivious, droppingnot flyingpaper airplanes, or only giving them a slight push, as what a boy might be able to apply if he were scaled down and running with it off a cliff. The cool light seemed to chill the room; even Jackdaw was huddled up to himself while dropping the folded papers, one hand and arm holding his chest, the fingers tucked under the other arm. But when she checked the stove the fire had burned down. In the kitchen she put three logs in the range and opened the draft, looked again at the chair. She almost called to Jackdaw if he had seen Gramps, but of course he hadn't. Outside she retraced Gramp's path almost exactly, though when she paused she squinted into the snow or peered around the woodshed, not at the wood. When she found him on the porch she knew he must be gone, but still she asked, Gramps? She sat down on the swing, Gramps? Hello? Hello, Elaine? Yes, Cybette? Yes. Is Buford there? He's out putting the blade on the truck. Is something wrong? It's Grandpa. He's...he's.... I'll go fetch him, hold on. Buford's pickup hummed up the drive, the tire chains digging in the snow as quietly as if it were pile carpet, the blade on the front bumper raised high above. Cybette stood out from the front porch near the head of the drive where the bank dropped off before mellowing into pasture. Buford pulled up beside her; his window was down despite the cold. He shyly glanced at her from under the brim of his hat before getting out of the truck and starting toward the body still reclining in the porch swing, as if to check, but then decided he didn't have to. He turned back toward her, You call your folks yet? No. I wanted to get him inside. Before anything. Buford looked down the spur toward the chicken coop before replying. You might want to see if the funeral home can make it out first. If they can't, for three or four days.... She nodded, not really following his train of thought but knowing he knew what to do. You want me to call? She nodded again, Yes please. C'mon, he put his arm around her hunched up shoulders and steered her behind the swing on the porch where snow was drifting, though one could not feel the breeze, and walked her around the far side of the house. The kitchen was hot with the fire roaring in the range. Cybette tripped the draft and the stove huffed and shook before resigning itself to straining air through the cracks around the stove lids. In the living room Jackdaw sat cross-legged in front of the now cold stove, carefully modifying a paper airplane with a pair of scissors. Cybette stood in the doorway a moment watching, then went and sat beside him. She absently felt

the stove's curving side near the bottom. Jackdaw, honey, there is something I need to tell you. Uncharacteristically, he was listening, What? Grandpa is gone. Where did he go? He's, he's gone to see Grandee. But Grandeedee..., and then he understood the oldest euphemism. He stared at the sheet metal underneath the stove. Buford stood in the doorway after hanging up the phone. It doesn't look good. They say they can't make it over Brush Mountain, and the weather service says it will be snowing for the next three or four days. Who knows when they'll get the bypass clear. He paused to see if the news would arrest her thoughts. Finally she looked up from Jackdaw. Do you have an old blanket? he asked. Buford prepared a pallet in the woodshed, and they wrapped the body up, and Buford carried the bundle in and set it down. A short time after he left; lowering the blade on the pickup and scraping the drive as he went, the muffled grating noise catching rocks and popping them out behind, lost in the drift or marooned on the road, the dark, dirty holes already obscured by snow; he called to ask if Gramps had a plot, a place to be buried. No. His wife was cremated, her ashes spread, Cybette said. Well, I don't think Mr. Doughty would mind if he was buried down the hill. His wife wouldn't have had it, but he's practical and considerate about such things. The family cemetery was down the the ridge from Mr. Doughty, who lived above her. From Cybette's it was across the pasture, over a low rise and almost half way up another, in elevation only a few feet below her. That would be fine, she answered. Okay. I'll see about things and call you back, Buford said. All right. After she rang off with Buford her mother called and agreed to the plan, was sorry they couldn't make it out, was worried. Do you have enough food? The radio said this could settle in for a week or more. I have enough food to last all winter. Don't exaggerate. I'm not! Every time I give you a list you double it, except the perishable, and then add stuff you think I forgot. You're right, I'm sorry.... Poor Gramps. He had a good life though. It's not a bad thing. No. And I think he really liked it out here, splitting wood and tending the fires. Made him feel usefulI mean he was useful, helpful. O sure. We didn't talk much, but I think he appreciated that, not having to talk. Sure he did. I mean, it was better than a nursing home. Cy, honey, I don't think he could have been happier. Yeah.... Just a minute, hold on. She put the phone down and went to the bathroom for some tissue. When she returned her mother asked, How's Jackdaw? O gosh, I'd better check on him. I'll call you back, okay? Okay. In the living room Jackdaw had abandoned the stove and was staring out the window curled up in a ball in a blanket sideways in the old upholstered rocking chair, nodding his head slightly at two hertz, lateral to the runners so the chair wasn't rocking. Cybette could see her breath. Wind buffeted the house and a gust blustered down the chimney and blew a puff of white ash swirling out into the room. The ashes dispersed and seemed to disappear before touching the floor. May as well shovel ashes since the fire's out, she said, but neither of them made a move toward the bucket and small shovel stowed by the wood box in the kitchen.

Why did Gramps have to die? He spoke in a monotone, half to himself, half past the pane of glass he stared through. He stopped nodding his head. Because that's the way it is; everyone dies sooner or later. Everything that lives. It's just part of life. Is my father dead? No. Then where is he? He's out on the water. He's on the ocean, in a ship. Is he ever going to come here? She thought of the letters, a line, I think so, some day. She went to the kitchen for the bucket but wound up in the utility room reaching down the box of letters. She took them to the kitchen table and started opening them, looking for pictures. In the morning there was a hole in the storm. A diesel hum reflected off the cold creek and wavered up through the pasture and found some sympathy in a pane here and there in the south windows making them buzz in their dried caulking. Then steady, moving around and slowly up the pasture; then hush, almost gone for an idling long while before gunning up and bogging down and gunning up again, free running and straining and free running. Digging. Or was it a gargantuan cuckoo clock, the pendulum beneath swinging free with gravity until caught at the end of its arc and forced up a degree, the clock motor straining against the great weight until a clutch engaged and the pendulum swung down while the engine roared free apart from the arc. The pendulum climbed higher and higher. Nearing the top the motor didn't have to strain as much and finally it pushed it over the top and the pendulum described a full circle. What would the cuckoo do now? The cyclic diesel stopped and it was desperately quiet. An hour latter Buford came up the drive in his truck, he and another man riding above the repercussive whisper of chain hitting snow and tire on chain. A large, rough box was glued in the bed. Buford pulled up past the woodshed and backed toward the cavernous opening. Cybette and Jackdaw were still bundled up from bringing in wood. She fussed with his scarf and the collar of his jacket and then they went back outside. When Buford saw them coming he started to shake his heador was it just a tic, it stopped so quick. He introduced them to Clement Walker, who on any other occasion would have been Clem, and explained the preacher had a case of double pneumonia and couldn't make it out even though the snowing had paused. She would have been annoyed Buford had invited such a person without consulting her, but guessed it didn't really matter. It would have made Buford and Clement more comfortable about interring the body while she would have felt only a little awkward since she had never been to the Church in Newport to which Buford and Elaine belonged. O, that's okay, it'll be all right. He's at peace......with the Lord came to mind and would have been said by Elaine without a thought, but Cybette did not speak of God out loud or his relationship with other people, for her relationship was more personal and idiosyncratic than the Christian neighbors she had met. When one or another asked if she would like a ride on Sunday she declined, and if pressed would say she worshiped God everyday, his Beauty and painting his Creation, which was a good answer for most. The way she said it, with such confidence and good will and well being, made some think she had figured out something they as yet had not. Buford nodded once, heavily, looked to the coffin which had been built from half weathered boards, gray on the outside, pale yellow at the cut ends; looked to it over dark bags under his eyes. He had worked through the night to get it built, pressing to get the old man buried before the storm proper blew in, which it was scheduled to do around midday. He and Clement turned to the box, which had not shifted at all on its ride up and was in fact frozen in place, having been built in a heated shop and then set in the snowy bed of the truck backed in long enough to start the snow melting. They tried to knock it loose with the balls of their gloved hands, but Buford had to get a crowbar and break the crust all the way around first. He pushed until the other end was resting on the tailgate and was picked up by Clement. It looked like a boat that had been frozen in a lake, the icy skirting showing the water line. They carried it into the shed and set it down beside the blanket-wrapped corpse frozen in an attitude of waking, pushing out at the blanket. In staggered motion they took off the lid, leaned it against the far side, stood, moved two steps to the body, picked it up, moved two steps, set it in the coffin. Buford took the hammer from the leg loop on his coveralls and eight penny nails from a breast pocket. He set the first nail in

the middle of a long side and a sniffling Jackdaw cried out. Buford did not pause but drove the first nail home, went to the middle of the other long side and did the same, then started working his way evenly to the ends, pulling the warp out of the lid, Jackdaw's crying like too much water on the wrong side of a busted dam, tearing down a valley. Clement stood off to one side, shifting his feet, looking down. Cybette stooped to her knees hugging her son, trying to comfort him. The men loaded the box, and Clement shinned in after it, crunched around to sit on his haunches and lean back against the cab the others climbed in. They drove up to Mr. Doughty's where Buford backed not too close to the spur. They unloaded the box, tying one end on a piece of bowed roofing tin, and with both men on the other end, broke the drifted snow down to the cemetery. The grave yawned so black in the surrounding whiteness, the dozen or so other graves so quiet with just humble markers showing above the snow, wooden crosses and slabs of sandstone. Two tracks of compressed snow came up from the creek and converged and crossed and were lost in the flattened space where the backhoe had maneuvered in and out of place. Buford and Clement set the coffin across the hole and ran two ropes underneath it, putting the ends together and pulling the slack evenly until the middle of the lengths were underneath the box. Then holding both ends together they each straddled the grave facing each other and lowered the coffin down. Down, the coffin resting on its ends slightly above the rounded grave bottom. The ropes were not caught between the wood and earth and pulled free as if they had held nothing at all. They all stared down at it, a sprinkling of snow flakes drifting down, small crystalline flowers of frozen water alighting on the lid. Buford looked around and then down again, said finally, May he rest in peace. Clement followed with an Amen. The flakes drifted heavier and the landscape became fuzzy, losing contrast. The mound of earth quickly turned white and only the sides of the grave remained dark, the darkest thing in sight, framing the snow covered lid. You can wait in the truck, Buford broke the silence again. Start the motor, get the heater going. Cybette looked up to the truck and then across to her house. Thanks, but I think we can make it across the pasture; it's not drifted too deep. You sure? Yes. But she did not leave until the men had shoveled the first earth on the coffin, obscuring the white rectangle of snow.

* *8* What was that all about? Hornsby asked. I told Fritz to fuck off, Adoles answered. Why'd you do that? Adoles sighed. He was tired from standing night watches for weeks. Since the ship had started playing war games with the amphib group the signal gang had gone to two watch sections: twelve on, twelve off, in order to have enough signalmen on the flying bridge at all times. For the purpose of the war the signal searchlights had been turned into guns or missile launchers, depending upon what they sent. The only time they saw any action, though, was at night because the landing operations always took place under cover of darkness. He wanted me to drag swabs. I reminded him I had nights, he said that didn't matter, as long as I was up here I might as well do it. That's when I told him to fuck off, Adoles said. Hornsby adjusted his baseball cap over thoughts grappling for articulation. The sun was on its way to setting over the waves and with distant clouds promised another spectacular sunset.

JC sauntered forward, What's squabbling? He had seen the incident from the shack but had been in the middle of a game of bones. Adoles waited for Hornsby to answer, but Hornsby was still too busy thinking, so Adoles said, He wanted me to drag swabs so I told him to fuck off. No shit? He's gone to put me on report. That asshole. You got nights. Yeah, that's what I say. JC left back to the shack in disgust. Hornsby cleared his throat. Fritz isn't a bad egg; he's just a lifer, you know. He actually gives a shit. You're a lifer and you don't give a shit, Adoles thought but was too tired to say, didn't want to compound the conversation. Or he gave just enough of a shit to get by, didn't spread it around like Fritz did and smell bad about it. If he gives so much of a shit, why doesn't he know shit? Adoles countered. Dumb, Hornsby replied candidly, without hesitation. Dumb but superior. Adoles felt prickly ice creep into his empty gut, he had slept through chow again, wondering if Fritz could get him busted, just after he had made E-3, Seaman Signalman. Or worse, put back on deck. Since the mock war had been declared it had settled down into a fairly unchanging routine: every night the amphibs, with the USS Cruces protecting their seaside, would approach shore to deploy marines and machinery; every other night repulsed by land, and every night attacked from sea. The Cruces would meet the other ships in the blue force shortly after dark and transceive encoded messages by light containing the order and formation the ships would take on their way in. Then shortly after midnight, while the amphibs were landing the troops or fighting the shore, a ship or ships would come over the seaward horizon refusing to identify themselves and they would do battle. Sending 'G's was firing the guns, and they fired continuously with unlimited ammunition. After an hour or two of this and the realization it wasn't going to sink the red force ship(s), the captain authorized the launching of a vampire missile: 'VP' they sent in Morse, DIT DIT DIT DAH DIT DAH DAH DIT. This never sank the enemy ship either, but she played dead and stopped firing her lights at them. Then more encoded groups with amphibs, sunrise, relieve the watch. Southwell, Lehmann, and Adoles would go down to breakfast bleary and afterwards try to sleep in their bunks with the compartment cleaners horsing around or drills rousting them out. In the wardroom officers went over last night's maneuver, its faults and virtues, success or failure, and modified their strategy for the coming night. Twice a week or so, during the day, they did underway replenishment drills, and like as not one of the ships would send over mail. Among most of the crew, where and what they were doing was not known. The word from the bridge was they were partaking in an 'exercise', but if the Vietnam War had been a 'conflict', what was an exercise? They had gone to general quarters twice, had seen the gunners cycle rounds through the three inch fifties, had an abandon ship drill, and feared for their lives. It would take little to sink the Cruces; a fish in one of the main holds and she would sink like a broken bathtub. When they were asked the sailors in operations assured the rest it was just play. Then why won't they tell us where we are? The exact location of the exercise was confidential. The quartermasters claimed they did not know. The chief quartermaster, sick of being badgered, uttered the ineffable name of an obscure town on the east coast of Africa over a third way round the world from where they actually were. Where the fuck is that? But he wouldn't elaborate. The rumor mill cranked out a score of phonetically related names and twice the explanations as to where each was in the Pacific. One deck ape on watch rotating from the helm to the starboard lookout saw Mercator written on the map the navigator was huddled over on the chart table. Soon the word spread, We're going to invade Mercator! Augmenting the evidence and reinforcing the rumors the exercise was not a game was the ignorance of where they were bound afterward. Nobody knew. Young salts reasoned if this was just practice then they would know. With the smell of too many men in too small a space at too high a temperature, the odor of evening chow being made was brought up by the superstructure's exhaust vents behind the flag bags; Adoles swallowed the saliva it produced. He ought to go down and be the first in line for early chow but he loitered, already bemoaning his fate and his tactless, cloudy disposition that had shaped it.

DINNER FOR WATCH STANDERS, was called. Then, strangely since no one at all from the night watch section had come up yet, DINNER FOR THE CREW. They were supposed to be relieved one for one: when one from the oncoming watch came up one from the off-going watch went down. Hornsby forgot or ignored the fact of Fritz being gone and said, You're my relief, and was gone. JC emerged from the shack followed by his friends who left the flying bridge by the port ladder. Where is everybody? JC asked. Adoles shrugged his shoulders. JC waited a minute leaning on the chart table but finally stood up and said, There ain't shit happening, I'm going down, and left by the starboard ladder. Adoles was alone on the signal bridge. Automatically he became more alert and went first to the starboard gun tub and scanned the horizon through the bigeyes, then crossed to the port gun tub and did the same. On this horizon he spotted the mast and upper superstructure of a cruiser or destroyer, too distant for positive identification. He looked over the gun tub to the port lookout who was lounging with his back against the gunwale, blabbing with someone underneath the gun tub. Lookout. You got a ship, Adoles spoke down to him. The lookout looked up. What? Where? I just looked. Adoles pointed. It's over the horizon; you'll just see the mast and top of the superstructure. With his binoculars the lookout scanned the horizon in the direction Adoles pointed for a long moment, then he spotted it. Got it, he said under his breath and swung around on the gyro repeater, noted the bearing, and called into the bridge house, Sir, I have a sighting at approximately one-nine-zero off the port bow. The lookout put up his binoculars again scoping the ship. The OOD came from the bridge house with a pair of binoculars and looked himself. I'll be. You can see it, he said, then to the lookout, Good work, sailor, that ship is over twenty miles away. Thank you, sir, the lookout said, and gave Adoles a thumbs-up when the officer was looking through his binoculars again. Adoles went back to the bigeyes. The ship looked more like a destroyer now, not top-heavy enough to be a cruiser, and headed straight toward them. Fritz came up the port ladder and went back to the shack, came forward again. Where is everybody? he tried to snarl. Adoles turned from the bigeyes and shrugged his shoulders. We have a ship, he said and nodded back toward the horizon. Fritz put his eyes to the giant binoculars, Looks like a oiler or a tender. Adoles wondered if it was something genetic that made a person roll his eyes when he heard something really stupid, roll his eyes up as if he were going to faint or dieand if this made one sigh too, for he couldn't help doing both. Fritz was unusually sensitive and alert and caught the exhalation. What the fuck's your problem, Adoles. He flung down the handlebar-like handles of the bigeyes and the instrument hit a hard stop, the whole gun tub vibrating at a bass frequency, like an impossibly huge bell. You don't think we do any work up here during the day? You don't think we're all not tired of these war games? We're supposed to be a team; we should work like a team. If you or anyone from night watch comes up during the day, they should be willing to lend a hand, and if me or anyone from days comes up at night, we should lend you guys a hand. Adoles could not recall anyone from days ever being up there during night watch. After the sun went down they avoided the signal bridge like the plague. Fritz's present speech sounded much like his usual pep talks except the acid beginning some of those was not being leeched out by his desire for understanding and cooperation. Obviously you haven't learned that, Fritz continued, and seem incapable of learning it. That's one of the main reasons I'm giving for my recommendation that you be kicked off the signal bridge. You're a fucking hotdog, Adoles, you don't give a shit about anybody.... Adoles quit listening since no response was required, and concentrated on his own silence. Most days he would have argued every point: what was wrong with knowing the rate, being a hotdog? And as far as he could tell, everyone was out for himself, or at least had to watch out for himself; See-Yo-A, as JC pronounced the current, unwieldy, slang acronym, CYOA: Cover Your Own Ass. See-Yo-A, or they gonna

see yo' ass, bend over! And when was the last time any of them displayed a team spirit? SIGNAL BRIDGE! YOU GOT INCOMING! The 3MC speaker box buzzed from the neat tangle of boxed and unboxed instruments under the canopy on the forward gunwale. It was so little used, even since the war began, both Fritz and Adoles snapped their eyes toward it before they reacted to the message. Then they looked to port. The ship which had been over the horizon was now plainly visible and sparking the bluewhite light of vaporized mercury in xenon at them. It was not sending 'G's but calling the Cruces by its letternumber designation, A-9, A-9.... Fritz loped over to the port gun tub and turned the rotary switch to the signal searchlight and flashed a receiving signal. The signaling ship sent the code for official message to follow. Fritz sent a wait while Adoles scrambled to the shack for a message board, momentarily energized. When Adoles was beside him Fritz sent the go-ahead. Adoles glanced up once and saw the light was being sent at ten to twelve words per minute, way too fast for Fritz to read, and then remained poised with pen to paper, waiting for the inevitable excuse never acknowledging the ignorance. It came quick. Owe, Fritz put a thumb and forefinger to his temples. Damn migraine. You'd better read the light. He reached for the message board with his other hand. Adoles seemed to study the light. Shit, Fritz, that must be eight to ten words per minute. Way faster than a lowly seaman like me could read, he said. Fritz glared at him. Adoles did not have to say, What are you going to do, put me on report? In fact the sender, which was now plainly a destroyer and even more plainly heading straight toward them, had slowed to six words per minute waiting for an acknowledging flash for the first word, which he sent over and over. It was still too fast for Fritz to read. The light stopped, then started again: A-9, A-9.... What in hell's name is going on up there! The unelectrified voice calling up from under the gun tub was now recognizable: it was the XO Even he could read the call sign. Fritz's face contorted into an aspect Adoles had not seen nor thought possible of a mortal, something along the lines of Pain pleading with God for a soul. Lehmann's head popped up over the inboard gunwale as he came soft-shoeing it up the port ladder. Fritz jumped on him, Lehmann, read the light! His voice was a choking, shouted whisper. Lehmann scuttled around the tense pair and began reading the message aloud. Fritz wrote, furiously trying to keep his hand from shaking. Lehmann took his eyes from the signaling and looked toward Adoles, then stepped back and brought his fists to his eyes, Damn, got something in my eyes. Fritz looked up from the message board with renewed panic. The XO did not call up this time, but they heard his little corfams stomp the ladder treads as he started his awful accent. In a loud voice Adoles pronounced the last word sent and grabbed the light. He held the shudder down on the entire incoming message, sent faster and faster until the sender, pushing his limit, got sloppy; then Adoles went back to flashing for each word. At the end of the message, after signing off and before the XO could say anything, Adoles turned to Fritz. Are you okay? Fritz gazed at him agape, though his forehead was heavily furrowed; it was a strange expression. Now what is going on up here? Why did you have such a problem receiving that message? The little XO stood holding his hips at the ends of straight fingers, making his elbows stick out as much as possible. Sir, Fritz was checking the wiring to the light and when he stood up he got dizzy so he put his head down to regain his balance, and when he stood up again he hit his head on the bigeyes and, well, he was in pain. And then Lehmann, here, started reading the light, but he got something in his eyes Sand, or something Lehmann put in. He had rubbed his eyes red. So then I read the message. Sir. Adoles finished. The XO had remained stock-still throughout the explanation, fingertips on hips, the phalanges in line with ulnae propping up the humeri as if to make them extensions of his shoulders, to make his diminutive torso appear wider than it was. His eyes continued to squint incredulously. No one spoke. The destroyer made a rakish turn to port and now paralleled the Cruces. Adoles reached the message board from Fritz before it fell from his slack hand and looked over the message; the handwriting was shaky but readable. Adoles unclipped it and held it out, Here you go, sir. The XO took the message and stalked off the bridge. Fritz wandered amidships where he passed

Southwell, who had just come up, and continued to the starboard ladder, which he descended carefully, as if he had, indeed, been recently hit on the head. Lehmann said, Damn, that was good; you ought to be a politician. Your mama, Adoles replied. In the afternoon of the following day Fritz called a meeting of the signal gang. ...Tempers have run short. I think we all have said things maybe we shouldn't have.... Everyone knew this talk was so Fritz could let Adoles off the hook while saving some face, They sat and leaned listlessly in the heat, half-listening. ...and they help each other out, and I don't see why.... Adoles didn't see why he had to be rousted from his rack right after he'd gotten to sleep again after noon chow, and he was sure his temper would be longer with a couple more hours of sleep. ...Can't last much longer, so let's all make an effort to keep the sunny side up, all right? Nods and murmurs of agreement. All right! He exclaimed, accepting more rapport than there was. How 'bout some sodas; I'll buy. Adoles, you fly? Adoles paused only a moment before answering, Sure, accepting his position as low-man on the totem pole and so the obvious go-for. And he was relieved to no longer be on report. He took the order for pop and went six decks down to the sole soda machine outside the ship's store. He brought back six very warm sodas, the refrigeration unit on the machine having broken down. Not even Fritz could keep up his demeanor of cheer with the too warm drink in his hand. Can't have this, it's a fire hazard, Hornsby said and took his and Fritz's soda and set them on the deck, one on top of the other. He unfastened the large CO2 fire extinguisher from its wall bracket and put the oversized horn over the cans and gave them a long blast. He switched the bottom can to top and gave them another long blast. The disapproval on Fritz's face was nipped when he was handed the super-cooled drink. Eventually the war ended without incident. The many rumors it had generated dissipated as quickly as the snow on the soda can tops Hornsby cooled. The ship went to Sasebo, Japan, where many of the young crew discovered absinthe. It was reputed to be opium based and illegal in the States so naturally imbibed in great quantities. The morning after the first night Adoles tasted the liquor he found a bump on his head, his shirt with streamers of blood, his wallet gone, and no memory whatsoever of how any of it happened. And many whites who went off base experienced prejudice for the first time. They were warned, some Japanese bars and other establishments didn't cater to Americans and not to be surprised if you were not served and asked to leave. The navy called it CULTURAL DIFFERENCES. But even having been warned it felt strange and bad to Adoles when a bartender shook his head with a look on his face as if the commode was backing up and he could smell it, the bar growing quiet, and the Japanese patrons all staring, unsmiling, as he departed. These occurrences of discrimination by the Japanese may have been somewhat responsible one day for Adoles calling JC a nigger. Adoles privately admired and envied the blacks their culture and rich argot made stronger by the confinements of the military rather than starved out as the feeble slang of the whites had been. He watched the different handshakes and listened to the jive, trying to understand it. One thing he had observed among blacks who seemed particularly close was their calling each other nigger: Watch out, nigger! Say, blood, what's fallin'? Fathers' day, home boy, baby needs shoes. You be waitin', I be hatin'. Slush man gots me for two bills. Ah, you a sad nigger. Adoles thought he and JC were close, as close as any two sailors on the signal bridge; he sought confirmation. JC strolled up from noon chow on a particularly lazy day and Adoles said, Say, nigger, what's happening? JC looked as if the switch had just been thrown on some electrified pussy he had been trying to kill. Man, you can't say that to me. Hey, JC, you know I'm cool. Yeah, you're cool, all right. Downright chilly. Ain't no one calls me that. Even niggers don't call me

that. Which was true, when Adoles stopped to think. He never had seen JC in one of those conversations. Adoles was sorry he said it and was mute with embarrassment. JC became quiet too, but for rage. He left the signal bridge and wasn't seen the rest of the day. They were not close at all. Off the bridge, in the common areas of the ship, they barely spokemuch less ever thought of going on liberty together. And when they were on the signal bridge where their worlds overlapped as the red, blue, green, and yellow lands of the world overlap in Switzerland, neutral ground, they did not attempt to solve their differences or speak of anything important. If Adoles posited a question or problem of life he perceived, JC either made a joke or said, Adoles, you think too much, that's your problem. Neither JC nor Adoles ever spoke of the incident, and JC wasn't one to hold a grudge. The ship went to Hong Kong. Beer was over a dollar a bottle in the bars, so most of the crew went tailorshop-hopping instead. The tailors offered the sailors free beers, while the sailors fingered materials and flipped through fashion illustrations; the oriental men with measuring tape draped over their shoulders did not mind if the sailors left without buying anything, for other sailors who had had more to drink at other shops would wander in and buy something, usually more than one thing, and oftentimes a whole wardrobe: dress blues, leisure suits, shirts, pants. The other thing to do was get a tattoo. Almost as many tattoo parlors as tailor shops crowded the waterfront but the place to go as everyone knew was Pinkey's This cruise Pinkey's was off-limits due to cases of hepatitis generated by that parlors habit of not cleaning its needles between tattoos. Those swabbys whose high point of the cruise was to fill the spaces among the myriad designs they already had were crushed. One claimed he had gotten al his tattoos at Pinkey's. I can't go to any one else, it would ruin my portfolio. Pinkey is the Picasso of the parlors; no one else even comes close. The rest use transfers out of book; Pinky free hands. He can copy you a design, but even that will come out better. He can draw anything, check out this centaur. Undaunted, and predictably, a group from the fire gang and a few from deck went anyway. The shore patrol interrupted Pinkey and his apprentices and hauled the sailors back to the ship with their unfinished tattoos. An impromptu captain's mast the following day restricted them all to the ship. Adoles did not go to Pinkey's, but he did go to the other parlors and flipped through page after page of designs: anchors, birds, ships, flowers, swords, fruit, tigers, lions, dragons, wolves, stars, barber poles, banners; but nothing appealed to him. On the walls of the parlors were photographs of people who had gotten full-body tattoos: one man was a hawk, the raptor's head faced out from his chest with wings spread out and around to his back covering his arms, the feathered body the man's body, down to where his legs emerged from a black jockstrap below the bird's abdomen, feathered to mid-thigh; a transitive beast. One woman wore the velvety black petals of a flower spread above her right breast, the sinuous black and green stem curving smoothly down around her breast and then back around her naval, sprouting pulpy green leaves becoming part of her anatomy. And then there was the back of a sailor, a pack of hounds coming over his shoulder and halfway down the spine, chasing a rabbit leaping over a buttock, diving for safety. Roger Lehmann decided to get a scorpion on the outside of his left calf. He turned to the man sitting by his guns, smoking a cigarette. Where are your tattoos? Lehmann asked, pointing to the man's arms, which were bare. He was the first artist they had seen who didn't seem to have a mark on him. The man pointed to his crotch. Ah, go on; I bet. Whereupon the man pulled a most-wilted rose from his pants, spreading the skin around so they could see the inked design. They did not know it was a rose until he pointed to a picture on the wall. I'll take this scorpion, Lehmann said, pointing to the arachnid on the wall with a raised tail. The man pointed toward Lehmann's crotch. No, no, Lehmann laughed nervously. On my leg, here, he patted his calf. The man shrugged his shoulders and began stropping a razor. After Lehmann got his tattoo Adoles went back to the first tailor shop he had gone into and ordered a leisure suit of a denim blue, velvet-like material; a pair of brown pants he thought would look good with the jacket of the suit, and three shirts: one white, one lemon green with bell sleeves, and one bright orange with so many snake-like forms of yellow and purple.

He did not find a tattoo he liked before the ship pulled out for the naval base at Yokosuka, Japan. There they arrived in time to have their liberty secured for the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Young Japanese lined the main gate chanting and carrying antinuclear and anti-American slogans and signs: YANKEE GO HOME, NUCLEAR COWBOYS, AMERICA MURDERS. The sailors grumbled, Fucking Japs, they started it. Two storekeeper strikers were caught going to the exchange with a rolled up banner of butcher paper they had painted with REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR. Forthwith, enlisted personnel were restricted to the ship. They went back to Olongapo and the crew carried on as they had before, though perhaps not as intensely or with as much fervor. The clap line was not as long in the morning and the swabbies were not as fast off the ship in the afternoons. In the evenings the Olongapo girls were not as tuned to or excited by a Cruces sailor: all the cherry boy had been had. Many of the sailors had settled down with one girl and the ones who had not were just swinging dicks, Paruparo, the girls said, Tagalog for butterfly. One of the been-hads was SN Shaun Peterson, though Adoles didn't know it until he saw his name listed in the POD as one of those scheduled for captain's mast. Adoles went down to the deck compartment, the first time he had been down there in months, and found Shaun getting into his dress whites for the meeting with the captain. What did you do? Adoles asked. I married Sherry without permission. You need a chit to get married, can you believe that? Shaun said. You married her!? Adoles could not believe it. Yeah, why not? I love her. There was nothing to say. What could you say to someone who had heard all the warnings and admonishments about the fish-for-men and bit anyway? What could you say to Love? And who was to say, some of those marriages worked out; Hornsby's was an instancethough perhaps not a good example. Peterson did not get busted or fined, but he did get restricted to the ship until after it pulled out from the Philippines, when they were homeward bound. While those men who thought of home as the family or girl they had left stateside were feeling their homesickness turning into sweet anticipation, Peterson's homesickness was just beginning. When the ship docked in Oakland, California, most of the crew went on leave; the ship was left with a skeleton crew, one of which was Adoles who spent his days shining brightwork and swabbing the deck. Being young, time moved slowly; he thought he would never be out of the navy, but this was okay, this was peace. Watching others become civilians again did not convince him he would one day become one too, for they seemed to have undergone and passed a test no longer administered. Many had been off the coast of Vietnam during the Conflict, which was the most manifest form of the test, while others had taken a less discernible kind, more dear for its obscurity, but all showed they had passed by their manner, which was nonmilitary while also being salt wise. And they had all been in the navy an eternity longer than Adoles. When most of the signal crew was back from leave he put in for two weeks and received it. He bought a round-trip ticket to Roanoke, Virginia, and the night before his plane was to leave bought a bottle of whiskey and rented a cheap motel room and ended up staying drunk most of the two weeks, not wanting to hear over and over again, When do you have to go back? and ultimately not wanting to know the answer to why Cybette never wrote. During the day he nursed his hangover with beer by the pool filled in with dirt and turned into a giant planter for windblown flora. At night he pursued another hangover with 100 proof. Before he went back to the ship he received a refund for most of the plane ticket and with his savings bought a motorcycle. He rode by and through and over the points of interest highlighted on the bay-area map, but he never stopped. When he returned to the ship he thought things would be different, but they weren't. After twenty minutes onboard it seemed as if he had never left. The monotony might change in a generation but so slowly as to be unnoticed by all but those with biblical lifetimes. He took the advancement test when the requisite time had passed and made third class, but everyone else below Fritz had taken and passed tests, so he was still low man on the totem pole. He made second class while on his second western pacific cruise, just before Southwell's four-year duration ended. The ship was in Manilla, Philippines, and Southwell refused to extend for the remainder of the cruise so was flown back to the states, all of which led to a striker coming up from deck. SA Caldwell knew more about playing cards than signaling, but he had already become a fixture on the signal bridge when he wasn't working or had the watch, playing knock rummy and listening in awe to

Hornsby's stories. Adoles was no longer low man, but it didn't matter; Caldwell was an adept skater and not about to be the new gofor. Nothing of note happenedand perhaps not even thenuntil the ship was homeward bound on Adoles's second cruise. Many novice officers were on board fresh from the academy, while the non-lifer enlisted crew was salty most having made at least one westpac. The lifer enlisted crew was salty, of course, but they did not figure into this either to help or hinder. It started with a wager between a busted down seaman and the boatswain of the watch: the seaman bet the bo's'n he could take the ship twenty degrees off course without the officer of the deck, one Ensign Spooner, or any other officer finding out. The bo's'n, not believing it impossible but wanting to see it done, took the seaman up on his bet. He let the rest of the enlisted watch section know, especially those who were near or watched the compass rose cards on the gyro repeaters, so they would not call out when the ship got so far of course. The watch rotated and the seaman came to the helm. Immediately after reporting the course he was to adhere to, as was standard procedure when a sailor took over the helm, he put on two degrees left rudder then turned the wagon wheel of the helm this way and that as if keeping to a course, but the rose card did not click back and forth under a heading yet slowly came about to twenty degree north of their easterly course. A small cry came from aft of the bridge in the operations room where the operation specialists had watched the growing deviation with a similar levels of excitement and levity. Ensign Spooner went to investigate, and the seaman quickly brought the ship back onto course. Word of the seaman's feat spread throughout the enlisted ranks of the ship and sparked a competition among deck apes standing bridge watch and rotating through the helm to see who could get the farthest off course without getting caught. The record of deviation was broken most every overcast day and cloudy or moonless night when there was not a strong mark in the sky or strong shadows on the ship. To keep track of the officer of the deck the phone talkers on the bridge and in the operations room plugged into the damage control circuit, which was common to them and the signal bridge; where a signalman, who normally did not wear any phones when the ship was at normal independent cruising, plugged in a pair on the forward gunwale, in case an officer came up to where the rotating sky was more apparent. The conspiracy spread and evolved from the deck force to the storekeepers who wanted to see how much of a list they could create by shifting stores athwartships in the hold. This was a more complicated task, though, since the whole crew would feel a change in list whereas when it was taken slow enough, no one noticed a change in course. The storekeepers conferred with the deck force, more familiar with the ways of the sea, and the challenge became to see how much of a list they could create and neutralize in how short a time, imitating a slow swell of the sea, as from a typhoon thousands of miles away. Damage control stations in the holdsnever activated except during GQplugged into the DC circuit to communicate with the bridge, while all the ship's forklifts were paired up facing each other on the upper level of the holds, just below main deck, with a quadruple load between them, four pallets of heavy stores. At a common signal they all strained up their loads with an electric groan, rolled starboard to the bulkhead, paused, then pushed and pulled up the slight incline to halfway between amidships and the port bulkhead, then back to amidships. The artificial swell passed. The executive officer, one of the few veteran officers left onboard, came up to the bridge and scanned the horizon but did not seem overly concerned; he didn't even mention it to the OOD as he passed pleasantries. They had fooled all the brass, but the storekeepers were not satisfied, so they conspired with the deck force to create a much greater feat. During the first night of the new moon, when it was overcast and pitch black, not only did the storekeepers move their stores as they had before, but the deck apes swung the booms outboard on the same side. This created a great roll, for the booms alone, swung out to the pier-side of the ship when they were off- or on-loading stores, could make the ship list 15 degrees on their own. Now together with the shifted stores, the roll was over twenty. The mercury riding in the shallowest of the ship's roll indicators, shaped like a flattened 'U', disappeared over the top of an ascender and wasn't see again. Young officers flooded the bridge thinking they had hit an iceberg or a whale had tried to surface under them, and then the XO was there, What in the hell was that?! Rogue wave, sir, as far as I can tell, the bo's'n of the watch answered. The busted down seaman who had sparked and then been lost in it all sought to regain his place of prominence. Shortly after the faux rogue wave; while the executive officer, officer of the deck, and two junior officers were still conferring in the starboard wing; the busted down seaman rotated to the helm and

got the bo's'n's attention. Full circle, he said. The bo's'n whispered harshly, Are you crazy?! The XO is in the starboard wing! The busted seaman smiled and eased on five degrees left rudder so the wake wouldn't be seen from the starboard side. The bo's'n didn't inform any of the watch section: deviations in course were now standard procedure. He went back to his station by the aft bulkhead where the 1MC was mounted and the little, legless foldout table was hanging by its chains and supporting the ships log. The XO came in from the wing. Did you record that rogue wave, boatswain's mate? Yes, sir. The bo's'n turned to the log and read, 'TWENTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO. EXPERIENCED ROGUE WAVE FROM THE SOUTH CAUSING APPROXIMATELY TWENTY DEGREES OF ROLL.' Very well, carry on. Helm! Yes, sir. The busted seaman stiffened. Steady as she goes. Aye aye, sir. The seaman called as the XO exited the bridge. The enlisted personnel were never caught or even suspected of their pranks, but the ship made progressively worse and worse progress as the course changes and duration off course increased. Two and a half days from California during most of one midwatch the ship was 180 degrees off course. All this suggested to the naval high command the USS Cruces was becoming precipitously unseaworthy. After homecoming and a week's R&R in Alameda, they made the half-day cruise to Mare Island in the northerm part of San Francisco Bay where the ship would be examined and, if necessary, overhauled. Divers went down and inspected the hull and screw for sudden and prolific barnacle growth creating enough drag or making the propeller inefficient enough to have caused the ship's poor performance, but they reported nothing unusual below the waterline. Instruments were checked, calibrated, and checked again; test were run on the boilers, but nowhere could they find cause for the ship's disability. They were still trying to discover or decide what was wrong when Adoles became a two-digit midget: 99 days left. He did not make a short-timer's calendar and some days he was not sure how many days he had left. But he always knew he was short. During his discharge physical at Treasure Island he learned the ringing in his left ear left by the three inch fifties showed up in his audiogram as an inability to hear anything at that frequency. The corpsman who administered the hearing test asked Adoles if he wanted to apply for compensation and started telling him the procedure he would have to go through, but Adoles interrupted him, Nah, forget about it. Just let me out. And he got out with little fuss. The eager re-up pup, a chief personnelman, didn't even come and talk to him. He boxed up his sea bag and things he would not need on the trip and shipped them to his parents' house, so the day he left the ship he bore only a backpack with tent and sleeping bag strapped to it, and a duffel bag; little more than if he were going camping. Leaving the quarterdeck he let the lifer officer of the deck salute him, turned aft and faced the American flag he still couldn't see through the superstructure, then descended the gangway. On the pier he strapped the bag and pack in front and behind the sissy bar and looked up to the signal bridge expecting to see someone there, someone to see him off, to send or receive a SO LONG, but there was no one. He rode to the landed end of the pier and looked again, but the signal bridge appeared deserted. He felt something amiss, as if he were losing or keeping something he shouldn't. He wanted to say goodbye, to draw a line and cross it. He waved to the ship in case he couldn't see somebody at a port hole and rode on, off base, down the road.

Hypotenuse My two colleagues have impressed upon me the need for Denouement. I said after reading them, The Two Sides, knowing the length of one and the other, each for him or herself, there's really no needeven arguing each should calculate it on his or her own. They said I was confusing Denouement with myself and to quit procrastinating. There are two sides to every story; when they both agree and gang up on you they have a point. Which is where it all started, the pointbut that's another story. They switch sides, you know, the Side Opposite and the Side Adjacent, depending on what angle they refer tonot the 90 degree angle, he's always rightbut the other two that add up to 90 degrees. Either way, I stay the same. Where all this started, with Roland daydreaming in English class, looking out the window but seeing the old man high above the sea, tying and retying the same knot over and over: that knot is not made up. I'll have to make a video clip and show younot me personally, I don't give good face, but an actor. Richard Harris would have been perfect, alas. Perhaps Clint Eastwood or Morgan Freeman. We'll see. Anyway, the tying and the untying, Nouement and Denouement. But also the leaping and landing. At some point you made a leap of faith and now you're about to land. It's my job to stretch out under you and provide the place. I hope I do a good job. In preparation please consider a few things: A circle might be defined as a polygon with an infinite number of sides. so perhaps it follows A triangle may be a circle with the least number of sides. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things, extraordinary people can do things beyond many peoples' imagination or belief ability. There is no Truth in relationships, only Love or the lack of it.

Cybette did not read his letters but checked them for pictures. She found the drawing to how to find one's horizon and knew what it was right away, saved it out. The words on the pale blue stationery, always pale blue with silver sparkles, she stuffed back in their envelopes and saved for mulching the garden she started the spring after Grampa died. How long has it been? Six, seven years? She noticed the return address lose the FPO and start wandering, up and down the west coast and then slowly east, never from the same place twice until he came to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In his second letter from there he sent her a photo of the Sandia Mountains from an open space. In reply she sent him a small oil painting of a Virginia landscape in her head.

It's spring, three days since he received it. She's in her garden mulching, spreading the paper, words down, around the plants, watering as she goes so they don't blow away on the breeze. Jackdaw is up on the ridge working on his 'magnum opus'. He won't say what it is, says talking about it will jinx it, but from the materials she's seen him haul up there it's pretty obvious it's a giant kite. She stands up from the last plant and is enthralled by spring as she has been half a dozen times this morning. How can the air be so sweet? New green budding everywhere, on the trees like decorations. And the birds there overnight, filling the air with song, adding to the chorus of budding green, rushing burbling creek with old thaw and water fallen new, the soft earth turned by earth worms and churning clouds that weep and rain. It is a quiet motorcycle and she doesn't hear it pull up on the other side of the house. He flicks down the kickstand and dismounts stiffly, takes off his helmet and puts it on the handlebars. He goes to the closed screened-in porch door, calls hello through the open kitchen door and hears the empty house echo. He walks around to the front, across the front following the spur, to the other side where there's a long skinny garden. And there she is. Either his memory has accommodated the years or the years have erased the memory and left his mind open, for she looks just as she should. Already smiling as she turns, she doubts and knows it's him, a well-built man with sunburned face and whiskers. She looks right at him, right at him, and he feels for the first but not last time in his life a pang in his heart. He looks away first, at the garden, My letters? They kept the weeds down, she says. When he looks back she's staring over his head and he feels he's lost something, but her expression isn't spaced out but strange; a combination of fear and disbelief? He's about to ask what's wrong when they both hear the boy's laughter and then, Hey Mom, look at me! And Jackdaw passes overhead hanging from a triangular glider, his face wide with thrill. He banks sharply over the spur, zooming toward the ground, then pushes back and away, catching air, lofted high. Hahooooo! floats down from the joyous. THE END