Sure enough, as soon as the other men dispersed Jones called me over. “Know anything about radio and television?” he asked.
“I know how to listen to radio and watch television, sir.”
I wasn’t proud of it, but sometimes I took advantage of the boss’s tolerant nature. My cracks usually amused him, but now instead of chuckling he gestured toward the broadcast station.
“The manager up there tells me one of their hotshot engineers is building an emergency generator, so they’ll be resuming operations later today or early tomorrow. That’ll make ’em the island’s only means of communication, and therefore its only source of information. Which means they’ll be operating round the clock and need an extra hand. Tag, you’re it.”
Tag, you’re it.
Where had I heard that one before?
At the Daily Post, from Gustav Hermann.
Was I destined to be “it” forever?
I’d no sooner asked that question than another, more pressing, one arose: what would this extra hand be doing? I knew nothing about radio and television except how to listen to radio and watch TV. If that’s what they needed, I was their man. If not, of what use could I be to them?
“Report to the station manager,” Jones said. “That would be Chief Petty Officer Grant Sumner. Stay there as long as you’re needed, and don’t worry about the newspaper. I’ll take care of it. Okay?”
What could I say?
“Okay.”
And off I went, on what some might call an adventure.
#
I trudged up the hill again, and then up the steps of that rickety motel run by Norman Bates and his “mother.” All right, no more morbid metaphors. But the building was creepy, even more so inside than out. Creepily quiet, I’d call it. Maybe the place served as a mausoleum. After all, dead men don’t talk.
Stop it, Nate.
I entered the vestibule with caution.
“Can I help you?” came a voice from behind me.
I jumped a foot, maybe more.
A big guy circled round and offered me a grin commensurate with his size.
“I need to see Chief Sumner,” I told him.
He pointed toward a passageway to starboard. “Last door on the right. He’s with our engineer.”
I thanked him and followed his directions—without getting lost, I hasten to add. At a door conveniently marked Engineering I knocked, and after being invited to enter, I did so. Judging by the evidence, the place was a workshop. Five-tiered shelves stocked with parts, tools and equipment lined the walls, while stretching the full length of the room was a wooden table upon which rested a jumble of metal parts, copper wire, rubber tubing and a boxy-looking thingamajig I assumed was the emergency generator in progress. Fiddling with several exposed wires was a short guy with long hair, several strands of which fell over his forehead. So fierce and intense were his eyes that he looked like a mad scientist, the kind featured in late-might horror movies on TV. Standing across from Dr. Frankenstein was an older guy with a lined face and furrowed brow. The insignia on his khaki uniform indicated a lengthy naval career and his current rank, chief petty officer.
“Chief Sumner?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Rubin, from communications.”
“Oh, right, right. Jones sent you.”
I told him yes, I was the chosen one.
“Excellent, We appreciate the help.” Like a nurse anticipating a surgeon’s needs, Sumner handed his engineer a screwdriver. “Let’s run up to the office and leave Jeff here to do his thing. His brilliant thing, I might add.” To brilliant Jeff he said, “Be back soon.”
The madman grunted and we departed.
#
Sumner seated himself at his desk in his unpretentious second-story office and motioned me to a chair. After lamenting the disaster that had led to my presence, he asked, “You know anything about radio and TV?”
I hesitated before going with a straight answer. “Uh-uh.
“That’s okay. Neither do most people when they get here.”
This was typical of the Navy I’d grown to know and love. All too often it assigned men to billets for which they were singularly unqualified. Given my vast knowledge of ship maintenance, it’s a wonder they hadn’t made me a boatswain’s mate. Maybe they were compensating by assigning me, a print journalist, to a broadcast station.
Sumner continued, “I was doing film production when I joined the Navy way back when. They placed me in human resources and sent me here after my second re-up. I learned broadcasting by the seat of my pants, and now I run the show, which means I handle all the shitty little details.” His fingers drummed the desk. “You know how to run a film projector?”
He must be kidding. But in case he wasn’t, I shook my head.
Sumner scratched his stubbly chin. “That’s all right, we’ll teach you. You’ll pick it up in no time.”
Before I could correct this assumption, he delved into station operations. “Most of our programming comes in on film, delivered weekly from Elmendorf. We run the programs guys like, such as Rawhide and Combat, plus Perry Mason, and of course Dick Van Dyke, because every man on base has a thing for Mary Tyler Moore. We also show old movies, and I mean old ones, as well as some John Wayne westerns. Guys are into him too, but not in the same way as, you know, Miss Moore.” He gave me a man-to-man grin. “We also present some live programming—news, interviews, a country band once a week. As for radio, we’ve got three DJs who play that modern shit they call music.” He clapped his hands over his ears to reinforce the appraisal. “Normally we televise from 1000 to 2200, but under the circumstances we’ll be operating round the clock, putting out bulletins and announcements and filling in with movies, which we’ve requested an extra supply of.” Sumner paused, then said to himself, “Let’s see, have I left anything out?” Apparently he hadn’t because he got to his feet, signaling the meeting was over.
“Thanks for helping us out,” he said. “Now I gotta get back to Jeff.”
I got up.
“I see you came empty-handed,” Sumner said, “so I suggest you return to the barracks and pick up a few things, like a comb, toothbrush, deodorant, change of clothes, etcetera.”
He straightened a framed photograph facing away from me on his desk. Whose photo was it? Mary Tyler Moore probably.
“Our sleeping accommodations are located on this deck,” the chief said. “Rooms are semiprivate, which is no less than we deserve for working our asses off. When you get back, see me and I’ll show you your quarters. You can relax and turn in early if you want, seeing as Jeff won’t have the auxiliary built before midnight. We’ll start you off fresh in the morning.” Sumner put his hand out and we shook. “Again, don’t worry about all this being new to you. You’ll learn the ropes, just like the rest of us.”
But I wasn’t like the rest of them. I broke out in hives around machines. Now I’d have to operate one, a film projector yet, with all those knobs and switches and whatnot. Plus I’d have to thread a film, the way those geeky projectionists did in high school. Even they screwed up sometimes, but all they got were a few snide remarks from the class. If I messed something up, like the Dick Van Dyke show, I might get hung from the highest yardarm.
I shuddered all the way back to the barracks, and not from the cold night air.
#
My worst fears proved unfounded. Maybe not wholly, but mostly. The projector, as it turned out, was less formidable than I imagined. A worthy opponent but not invincible.
In my one and only training session the next morning, Sumner demonstrated how to thread and run the machine, and then asked me to try it. I threaded the projector with palsied fingers and couldn’t remember which knob and switch did what. But under the chief’s patient tutelage my fingers eventually calmed down and my memory improved. I even mastered two other tasks that, if anything, were harder than operating the machine. Since we had only one projector at our disposal, speedy reel changes were essen
tial, as was rapid splicing when an old, worn-out film tore. Changes and splices both entailed “downtime” during a program, and the greater the time down the greater the likelihood of a lynch mob forming. So I was highly motivated to learn these new skills, reminding me of the old days when I learned how to drive.
Happily, I came out alive after my first shift that afternoon, and even became somewhat adept at the job over the next few days. Still, I was thankful when the base resumed most of its operations two weeks later and I returned to my trusty typewriter.
#
I wrote up the quake for Ahoy, using a little research, personal observation and information issued by the Governor’s Office in Juneau.
The temblor was the most powerful in the country’s history, registering 9.2 on the Richter scale. Anchorage suffered the most damage, which included cracked sidewalks and fallen buildings. About 150 people perished in the state, eight of them in Kodiak.
After consulting a reference or two I learned that a tsunami was a tidal wave triggered by an underwater quake. Alaska’s temblor originated in Prince William Sound, about seventy-five miles east of Anchorage.
The day of the Good Friday Earthquake, as it came to be known, would live in memory if not in infamy.
#
After two weeks of stress beyond the call of duty I needed a drink. I’d done without since the earthquake hit, but now that things had settled down the urge reasserted itself.
Fortunately, Kodiak had its priorities straight, reopening its bars before minor enterprises such as banks and grocery stores. I made up for lost time by making the rounds, quenching my thirst while listening to tales of where people were and what they were doing when all hell broke loose. Naturally the drunker the storytellers got, the more remarkable their accounts.
The following week I returned to the dull enlisted men’s club, where I’d done most of my pre-quake drinking to save money. Beer there cost ten cents a draft and two bits a bottle, while whiskey went for fifty cents a glass. I’d become a miser again because I intended to strike off on my own after returning to civilian life.
Yes, I could save even more money by not drinking at all, but then why go on living?
Chapter 44
It took half a year for the base to clean up and dry out, and a couple months more to apply a little makeup, meaning the usual dull gray paint. I was sitting at the bar in the enlisted men’s club celebrating this restoration when Lance Corporal Daniel Feeney, USMC, pulled up a stool next to me but said nothing, in contrast to his usual amiable greeting. I glanced at him, turned away, then rotated back. I’d never seen him looking so woebegone. I saw that look every morning while shaving, but never on Dan Feeney until now.
I’d met Dan in May while celebrating something or other, maybe my birthday, at the club. He came in and did what he’d done today, took the stool next to me. Only then things had gone a little differently. He introduced himself and ordered two drinks to my one until he caught up, after which he matched me whiskey for whiskey until we ended the evening by singing a medley of Beatles tunes. Well okay, the bartender ended the evening for us by insisting we leave the premises. Obviously not a Fab Four fan.
Anyway, in the weeks that followed, Dan Feeney became my first friend in the Navy, proving it’s never too late, at least for some things.
Dan and I became buddies partly because we shared not only a fondness for alcohol but for reading as well, and, equally important, for arguing. So on our way to getting smashed we debated the sins and virtues of books we’d read in common, mainly spy and espionage novels. For example, Dan enthused over the stiff-upper-lip somberness of John Le Carré’s latest effort, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, while I claimed it was his frigid style and gloomy outlook that had chased the spy inside. To underscore my appraisal, I added that the novel made me regret even more the passing in August of the much more appealing Ian Fleming. Our aesthetic clashes were long and spirited, and would have been heated as well if it weren’t for Dan, who unlike me didn’t take personally an opinion that differed from his own.
Another thing my friend and I shared was a fondness for women, although also unlike me Dan did something about it—or, on occasion, women did something about it for him. Drawn to his gentle manner and delicate features, they practically threw themselves in his lap while I sat there trying, and generally failing, not to be envious.
Right now I sat there trying to cope with this new, more woeful Dan Feeney. Not only had he failed to greet me with his usual good cheer, but he’d spoken only two words so far, “double Scotch” to the bartender. I tried acting sociable by switching from beer to whiskey, but strangely this failed to lift Dan’s spirits. I might have inquired what was troubling him, but he seemed so disconsolate I hesitated to find out. Finally I took the plunge.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
No reply.
Another round of drinks arrived and Dan drank deeply of his. Somewhat lubricated by now, he looked directly at me for the first time that evening, only with such anguish in his eyes I had to avert my own. The sight in the mirror wasn’t much improvement, so I turned back to Dan.
“C’mon, what’s wrong?” I prodded. “You look like you’ve lost your best friend, but since I’m here I know you haven’t.”
Normally that would have produced a yuk, but not tonight.
“I’ve … the thing is, I’ve lost her,” he said.
Cryptic, but a start.
“You’ve lost whom?” I asked.
“Irene.”
Irene?
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” he insisted. “We broke up yesterday.”
For the second time in a year, the ground moved under my feet. I guess earthquakes come in various guises, and believe me, Dan Feeney and Irene Driscoll splitting up qualified as a seismic event. They were so compatible, so simpatico, so whatever you called it when two people dripped with affection—and yes, lust—for each other
They’d met a couple months after Dan and I became friends, and I could easily see why he fell so hard. Anyone with the gift of sight could. Simply put but not overstated (trust me on this) Irene Driscoll, née Thanopoulis, was breathtaking. Equal parts Greek and Aleut, she boasted a swarthy complexion, an aquiline nose, long lustrous hair, dark sensual eyes and a body like Aphrodite’s. Okay, maybe that last one’s a little much, but flowery similes aside, you can see why, whenever Dan and Irene showed up at the club, or whenever she joined us for a session in progress, I stared at her shamelessly.
“Why’d you break up?” I asked. “You two were so close.” As if he didn’t know.
Dan swallowed more of his drink. “I told her I was sorry. I even acknowledged that what I did was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. And I promised, swore a thousand times over, I’d never do it again. But she wouldn’t listen. Said she’d been through this before and now knew better than to trust a man’s promise.”
He went silent again while I shook out a Lucky, lit up and pieced things together.
Shortly after meeting Irene, Dan told me a little about her. She was a divorcée, formerly married to Marine Captain Zachary Driscoll, who, she discovered after a year of wedded bliss, had failed to practice the Marine Corps motto in his own home. When she confronted him with this discovery he begged for a second chance, pledging semper fidelity forever. She relented, but “forever” lasted only a month and she refused to give him a third chance.
Now Irene had ended it with Dan after learning he’d done something stupid stupid stupid. I figured he’d screwed around on her. Yet I found this hard to believe, because Dan Feeney was the most honest, the most upright, the most decent human being I’d ever met. I couldn’t accept the notion that he’d cheated on his girlfriend—his stunningly beautiful girlfriend, in case I haven’t mentioned it.
I asked him if my hunch was correct.
“Yes,” he said in a voice so low I could barely hear.
I finished my drink and ordered two more. Plus one for Dan. When the
whiskeys arrived, I downed one of mine in three swallows.
I asked him, “Why, for chrissake?”
“I have no idea.”
Perhaps sensing the inadequacy of his reply, Dan enlarged on it.
“A guy I knew, an ex-Marine, invited me to a party at his house in town, and since Irene was visiting her parents in Anchorage I decided to go. I was having a pretty good time, all things considered, drinking beer, meeting people, schmoozing and so on, when after about an hour I went out on the terrace just to be by myself for a while. And that’s when this gal, a real looker, came out and started talking to me, you know, friendly like. I was enjoying our conversation when all of a sudden she started massaging my crotch. Right there, out in the open, on that terrace. Naturally I pushed her hand away, but she put it right back and continued massaging. I tried getting away from her, easy-like, so’s not to create a scene, but she wouldn’t have that either. She threw her arms around me and rubbed up against me and … oh God, Nate, she felt so good and smelled so nice, when she grabbed my hand I just followed her inside, like a zombie. And then we went into the bedroom and got undressed and, well, you can guess the rest.”
Indeed I could, but I tried not to lest I get a boner, or jealous, or both.
Dan went quiet again and we drank some more while I attempted, unsuccessfully, to blow smoke rings. My friend didn’t smoke and I was surprised he even drank, he was such a choirboy in all other respects.
But drink he did, so I asked, “Were you drunk?”
He shook his head. “A little high maybe, but not wasted. I can’t even use that as an excuse.”
Being a true friend, I offered another possibility. “Were you and Irene having trouble?”
“Not even a little. Everything was copacetic between us. Better than that, things were going great. Which is one reason it hurts so much now. I keep thinking how wonderful things were. God, I really blew it.”
Nathan in Spite of Himself Page 22
