by Arne Bue
Sewell looked up, saw Harry poking his head around the entrance to the office, looking. "Anna said you wanted to talk to me, Captain," Second Mate Lingenberry said. He held his cap in both hands and fingered the beak.
"Come in."
"John, I don't drink like Gary." Lingenberry was looking down at the documents spread about the desk. The Second Mate had lost weight, had gone sword thin, but on watch, in Captain Sewell's opinion, the man was still lithe and full of vibrant engines.
"I know that, Harry," Sewell said. "But I thought we should talk anyway."
"I had a slug from a pint of Old Crow Gary had with him. We talked awhile before coming aboard. Getting it out maybe did some good."
"Something aboard ship bothering you, Harry?"
"More of a personal matter, John."
"You and I have been working at sea a long time. You're a damn good officer. You're always here for the ship, and you're always here for me, personally, for Elaine, for the crew."
"Thank you Captain. I appreciate that." Lingenberry looked out into the passage, as though he'd be more comfortable and safe there than here in the Master's Quarters. He was not opening up. He was avoiding.
"Anything I can do?" Sewell asked. "Everything OK at home?" Lingenberry had been married six years. Sewell and Joyce had met the wife, Cheryl, at a party. She'd enjoyed the dancing. A blonde. Wore a tight red dress and twisted around a lot.
"At home's not so good," Lingenberry said.
"Need time off?"
"No," Lingenberry said. His face betrayed a certain torment, a secret stress. Waves of grayness passed over him. He said, "Cheryl's seeing some guy." Lingenberry looked at his feet and his own hands and studied the beak of his cap. He moved around, re-positioned himself.
"I hadn't heard," Sewell said. "How long's this been going on?"
Lingenberry took in a mouthful of air. Sewell recognized the ingrown, gnawing melancholy, same as he'd been living with.
"Heard about it three weeks ago. She and I talked about six months ago. Said she wants to have a kid, I don't. Guess that's where it all falls apart. She started running around, says she wants a divorce, tired of me being away all the time."
"You've kept this pretty well hidden."
"First time I really talked this out was with Gary, in Seldovia. Every time I come home, I hear from my neighbor, a snoopy bitch, how Cheryl's been down at Chilkoot's, dancing with this guy."
"Do you know who it is?"
"Works construction. Just some guy.
Harry Lingenberry's been no angel, either, Sewell thought. His wife had probably heard.
"You've got a woman on the side, Harry," Sewell said, coming right out with it. "Maybe that's none of my business, but I don't want to lose a good officer, and I'd hate to see you lose Cheryl. She's a good woman."
"I'm not ready to start having kids," Harry said. "They're a bother. They change everything."
Sewell's dad had always said character was formed in the world's torments. His dad had said, also, life was too good to be taken seriously. Sewell had learned from the countless sessions he'd had with crew that when there was a family problem, then come right at it, both barrels. Right up there on the table where everyone can see. Then solve it. May take a long time, but start now. Harry's wife wanted kids. Captain John August Sewell and Joyce had never had any children.
"Kids change your life around," Sewell said. "What you think they'd do?" He looked right at Second Mate Harry Lingenberry. Harry looked at his feet and at the deck. "Boils down to this, Harry," Sewell said, "Cheryl wants children. You don't. You want to fool around. She finds out. She fools around. You hear about it, and don't like it. That about the size of it?"
"Yes."
"Harry Lingenberry, the double-standard man. Right?"
"Captain, I don't want kids."
"You don't want a wife."
"That's not it."
"You want Cheryl waiting for you, but you don't want kids and you want another woman at the same time."
Lingenberry seemed at war with himself. Sewell said, "Harry, get a life, a real life. I want you and Cheryl to see a family therapist. Cheryl's a good woman. Believe me, I know what it's like to lose a wife. I'm still getting through this, losing Joyce." Something came up in his throat. "I don't know if I'll ever get through this," Sewell continued, his voice shaking, "but one thing I do know, Harry. Your wife is a good woman. She deserves a family. Kids. I want you to think a long while about this. Turn your life around. Stop this fooling around."
"That all Captain?"
"Then, I want you to come talk to me again. And when you do, I want to hear you tell me you're going to get this problem of yours solved. That clear?"
Lingenberry seemed a little angry. Sewell had pushed him, but maybe he was listening. The ship was going out into the Chain, and Captain Sewell needed a good man like Lingenberry fully operational, not half there, worrying about a double-standard existence.
"That's all. Just work this out, you an Cheryl. You're a better man than this, Harry."
After Lingenberry left, Sewell went over manifests from five years ago. He wasn't running the Tustumena to the Aleutians that far back. But something caught his eye.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the morning, Mr. Nakano, hungry, worked through the passageways and down the stairs of the ship on his sore knee all the way into the dining room. Situated on the stern, the eating area for passengers served, too, as the "weather deck," because here passengers and crew experienced slightly less pounding, heaving, pitching and yawing when the sea roared and smoked. The dining area was approximately, Mr. Nakano observed, the size of boss Shige Nishimoto's spacious den in Tokyo. The deck-bolted seating spread evenly about, table edges ridged to keep cups, plates, forks and knives from sliding. Mr. Nakano once heard the waitress Judy Wood say people who try to walk about during inclement weather do the "Tustumena Tango."
Mr. Nakano ordered the scrambled eggs.
A table over, a tense-looking man spoke to a woman with a wan face, short dark hair. The man's voice was high-pitched and of the type that carried well across the space of the dining room, cutting through the subtle sounds of the ship s heartbeat. The man, in Mr. Nakano's estimation, had eyes with a disturbed cast to them, for they gazed in fear out at the sea.
"Jesus, last January was bad," he said. Mr. Nakano heard a quick intake of breath, like someone about to plunge into icy water. The man was looking out at the waves. The sea was not particularly vicious this morning, calm enough that Mr. Nakano need not hold the coffee cup to keep it from tilting and spilling.
The man said, "The old Corinth Hale, she run on the rocks in Alitak Bay. Remember? An 86-footer, and she still got in trouble."
"You bring that up every trip," the woman said, her voice cold. Mr. Nakano noticed how she clenched her jaw, how that made her cheek bones lift.
"Crew radioed the Coast Guard. The men of the Corinth Hale got in their survival suits. Thirty-eight degrees in them waters." The man stared off. He sat as though his bones ached.
"Read this," she said. She held out some papers, but the man was lost.
"Down she goes," the man said, straining with an almost unnoticeable lean of the ship. "They was about 200 yards from the beach. That young kid, he got to the beach. The others, my brother, the rest of them, they didn't make it." His eyes seemed glued to the sea.
Mr. Nakano did not wish to look at the windows because although he could see the ocean, he also saw reflections, and he'd seen enough of them of late, his mother Noriko, his father Etsuo. He finished his meal and stood up to leave. The man was still staring off, and the woman had stuffed the papers in a handbag. The seas had brought her an inner pain, and her distress stirred within Kenso Nakano an anguish. He remembered his parents.
They never forgave me, he thought..
He must make himself feel better. Taking photographs required much concentration. He would do that, keep his mind busy.
Nakano walked the promenade
deck. He took a photo of a small open fishing boat with high sides and considerable sheer of the gunnel. One man worked the boat. The dory was on the Tustumena's starboard. Perhaps the man tended to crab pots.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In quarters, every time Third Mate Gary Quinsen closed his eyes and tried to sleep, Aurora popped into his mind. She'd sent him three pictures. There she was standing on the beach in the orange bikini, her hand on her belly, just beginning to show a little roundness. Aurora was smiling, happy.
On the back of the picture she'd written, "Hey, man, you going to be a big daddy. When you going to come name your baby?"
She also included another photo of her at work, the United Airlines ticket counter. The third photo was of her and her daddy, Jimmy. He was a skinny little guy, had his arm around Aurora's waist. He wasn't smiling.
Jimmy ran a small tourist trap, a store that sold postcards, books, newspapers, and artifacts. He made a living. Gary always figured there were a thousand and one ways the guy could improve on his operation.
He was always saying, "Hey, you, Gary. You marry Aurora and you run this store so I can sit down awhile and play rummy with my buds. Gary? Gary? Hey, you, Gary. Where you going? Don't you like me?"
Gray Quinsen thought he could hide.
But Aurora kept sending him the photo's. Polaroids. Always a big, ear-to-ear grin that tore at him.
He'd always light up, take a pull on the pint, hope she'd go away, but she never did. Every time he tried to sleep she'd pop in there again, her and Jimmy.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mr. Nakano observed the people with oily complexions in the observation lounge, the three he'd seen in the ticketing office before the ship departed Homer. They were looking at him. The woman with stubble on her face wore too much rouge.
Later, as Mr. Nakano headed to his stateroom, the swarthy husband appeared before him in the passageway.
"Do you have a pen I may have?" the man asked, leaning in. The man's breath stunk of garlic. His words were polite enough, but his eyes were hard as black marble.
"No, sorry," Mr. Nakano said.
The man placed his hand on Mr. Nakano's chest as though to feel for a heart beat. Mr. Nakano brushed the hand away. The man's eyes looked over Mr. Nakano's coat. His wife, a large and square woman joined them. She'd covered her weight with another tent-like dress, a drab green one, and her legs were without stockings this day and unshaven. She peered intently at Mr. Nakano. The husband's hand moved along Mr. Nakano's coat lapel.
Again Mr. Nakano again pushed the man's hand away. He stared with gluey eyes at the man and then looked right at the wife.
The man placed his hand on Mr. Nakano's neck.
Mr. Nakano drove his good knee into the man's groin.
The man doubled over. Mr. Nakano slipped past the woman, down the passageway and descended to the foyer as quickly as his sore leg would allow, his heart pounding, chest pained.
Second Mate Harry Lingenberry stood at the purser s counter with the Porter, Billy Sullivan. They were talking to Anna Knight, stationed behind the brass bars. The man and woman had followed right behind down the steps, but when they saw the Second Mate they continued out to the deck, the man glaring.
The Porter noticed.
"They giving you trouble," Mr. Nakano?
"No. No trouble," Mr. Nakano said. He gave them a timid smile, one he hoped showed a slight embarrassment, and he'd spoken with a accent he hoped would indicate to them his command of English was quite poor, which, indeed, it was not.
The Second Mate followed after the oily couple.
At dinner, the younger, third man joined the same, surly couple in a booth across from Mr. Nakano. The young man stood out from the other two with his dark looks, oily hair and a white smile over horribly bloodshot eyes. The three of them looked at Mr. Nakano, but did not come to his table. Instead, they'd become quite interested in a distinguished couple Mr. Nakano had seen earlier, the Bergers, he'd heard the waitress Judy say. They'd seated themselves in a booth next to theirs.
The threesome began talking to the Bergers. Mr. Nakano could not hear the conversation, at first, until Mr. Berger shouted, "Of course not. How dare you speak to us that way!"
All three looked about, and got up. They paid Judy at the counter. She followed them with her eyes, a worried look.
"What'd those people do?" she asked the Bergers.
"They wanted money. They wanted to touch my wife s gold necklace. That woman said she just wanted to try it on. I said no. But they insisted."
"I'll report them," Judy said. "The Captain will want to talk to you about this."
Judy looked over at Mr. Nakano as though she wished to question him, too, an uncomfortable situation in his estimation: being questioned by any crew member about anything, Mr. Nakano believed, was dangerous. Mr. Nakano hurriedly paid for his meal and limped forward through the ship and up the stairs to his cabin. Because of those people, Mr. Nakano could come under questioning from Captain Sewell, from Anna Knight or other deck officers. He would not allow that. He had never willingly entered into casual conversation of any kind whatsoever with ship s crew. That would weaken his position, his system, his route, his creation.
He would never allow himself another encounter with the oily, hard-faced woman and the two men. He vowed to avoid them whenever he saw them on deck, in the side lounge which looked to be their favorite hangout, or the small cocktail lounge forward of the dining area, a place Mr. Nakano never went anyway.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mr. Nakano must get a locker.
The Tustumena had neared Kodiak, green-lighted buoys on the port side, red ones to the starboard. A whip of kelp had attached to the red-lighted one and stretched in the current. Mr. Nakano heard a bell sound on one of the buoys. A pontoon airplane roared and lifted from the narrows leaving a wake that pointed to Pilar Mountain.
The Tustumena entered a slim channel feeding into the community coming up in the near distance. The gray Near Island Bridge floated above and past the ship as she passed beneath. Scattered clouds flattened the morning, and a briny ambiance peculiar to fish processing livened the harbor. The Nordby, a halibut boat from Ketchikan, docked. The Echo from Juneau passed on the port side. The Lorena Ann followed. A male sea lion thrashed in the boat harbor, thick necked and mean. Mr. Nakano looked across the harbor at the fuel tanks of North Pacific Fuel and over to the Alaska Pacific Seafood Cannery. Below in the harbor's dark green water, a cauliflower-shaped jellyfish billowed and contracted. Mr. Nakano took in these shapes and shadings with a sketch-artist's eye, running in his mind the charcoal strokes he could create later. He lengthened his arm and with his thumb gauged proportions and relationships of shapes. He took into his memory the shadings. He shaped his hands as a frame to give himself focus and composition alternatives to play with later. Then he took several photos.
The ship moored a hundred meters past the bridge at the ferry dock with the sign that read ALL VESSELS SCHEDULE DOCK USE WITH HARBORMASTER. Deckhands and dock workers made the ship fast to the pier, seaman lowered the gangway and swung the car lift into operation. Vehicles rose from the ship s insides and owners drove them onto the dock.
With Anna Knight busy, this was in Mr. Nakano's estimation an ideal time to claim a locker. He entered the passageway leading to his stateroom. A cough carried down the passage to him. Someone ill, thought Mr. Nakano. The coughing continued, a hack from deep in the lungs. With each breath came a wheeze. Perhaps bronchitis, maybe emphysema, thought Mr. Nakano. His father, Etsuo, had coughed during his last years; violent morning bouts had drained him of life. Near the end, Mr. Nakano s father coughed through the night, his right index and middle fingers gone yellow from the climbing stream of cigarette smoke. Mr. Nakano rounded into the passageway expecting to see the person who coughed so.
But no one was there.
Anna Knight s voice trumpeted through the ship-wide speaker system:
There is absolutely no smoking on the car
deck at any time. And vehicle drivers: please do not start or move your vehicle until directed. All foot passengers will be using the gangway which will be in place in just a few minutes. Once again we'd like to remind those passengers vacating the staterooms to please turn in your key at the purser's counter prior to leaving the vessel. For the information of all crew and through passengers, the scheduled departure from Kodiak is 5 p.m. If you do step ashore, be sure to take the white receipt portion of your ticket for boarding purposes. Please be back aboard no later than 4:45. Once again ladies and gentlemen, we have a scheduled departure from Kodiak at five o clock.
Mr. Nakano descended the stairs and walked forward. The lockers stood four rows tall, three wide, tawny brown in color. He put his sketchpads in locker 5, deposited quarters in the slots, and dropped the key in his coat pocket.
Anna Knight worked in the purser's station behind the brass bars. She looked up at Mr. Nakano, but did not smile or acknowledge him. Wrapped in her navy blue coat, Mr. Nakano knew she'd soon be ready with her radio-phone to work dockside with the offloading and boarding. He observed several passengers working down the gangway. A few began boarding, some probably visitors.
No one displayed interest in Mr. Nakano that he could see. The ferry dock joined with the end of Center Street, and there were phones on the dock, three of them in connected booths. Crew and passengers formed a small line, probably for calls to friends and family. Mr. Nakano returned to the passageway.
A box with reading material for passengers, mostly old newspapers, rested on the deck near the lockers. Mr. Nakano saw an issue of the Anchorage Daily News, several days old with a headline that collected his attention.
