A Commodore of Errors

by John Jacobson

  Miss Lambright’s voice again. “Do you want to take the call, sir?”

  “Yes, Miss Lambright, put her through.” The Commodore lifted the receiver, wiped it quickly with an alcohol wipe, and held it to his ear. “Hello, Mrs. Tannenbaume.”

  “Are you too busy to talk now?”

  “No, I am not busy, not at all, madam.”

  “I’m sorry I called you Flouncy that time. I hope I didn’t offend you.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. Flouncy is a perfectly fine nickname, you have not offended me.”

  “I think those loud Martinizing machines at the cleaners hurt my ears. They’re ringing like crazy.”

  “Those loud Martinizing machines hurt my ears as well!”

  “Someone told me you have a hearing machine. And that maybe you can test them for me. I hate to waste money on doctors.”

  “Well, someone is correct. I do possess a hearing machine. And why should you waste good money at the doctor’s office? It would be no trouble at all, Mrs. Tannenbaume, to test your ears. Please come right away. I will administer the hearing test myself.”

  “Thank you. That’s awfully nice of you.”

  “You are quite welcome, madam.”

  The Commodore hung up the phone. He could not believe his change of fortune. He knew there was a reason he wanted to get back to his office that morning. How else to solve one’s problems but to think them through? To think, to really think, was one of the hardest things to do. It came as no surprise that precious few in the world ever did think. Instead of thinking, most people ran around asking, What do you think I should do? It drove the Commodore crazy. What do I think? It is your problem, fool, do your own thinking. No, the Commodore did not need others to think for him—he thought for himself.

  And today, by simply calming down, by sitting quietly in his office, by thinking, he came up with a brilliant solution to his problem. Mogie wanted a Jew who knew how to drive a boat? Captain Tannenbaume would be that Jew. And with Captain Tannenbaume in hand, the Commodore’s nemesis, old Johnson’s Johnson, would finally be removed from office. Oh! The thought of a United States Merchant Marine Academy without Johnson made the Commodore’s heart sing. The cad had run roughshod over the Commodore’s boys long enough.

  Getting Johnson out of the way had proved to be more difficult than he first imagined, but the Commodore intuited immediately that pushing Tannenbaume aside would be far easier. Just before the unveiling of the Mariners Monument—oh, delightful irony—the Commodore would simply expose Captain Tannenbaume as a Gentile. Mogie, of course, would be furious at the deception and demand that Tannenbaume step down.

  The Commodore’s mind raced. He felt he could make a plausible argument that the unveiling of the Mariners Monument was too important to postpone, that a superintendent would have to be in place to preside over such an important ceremony—too many people would be watching—that the only thing to do would be to make the Commodore the new superintendent. The plan was elegant in its simplicity: Tannenbaume would replace Johnson; then, just before the unveiling of the Mariners Monument, the Commodore would replace Tannenbaume. Why had he not thought of this before? Instead of whining to Raymond, he should have been in his office thinking. Instead of listening to Mrs. Tannenbaume give sex lessons to Putzie, he should have been in his office thinking. Instead of wasting his time trying to straighten out Miss Lambright, he should have been thinking.

  And, now, instead of beating himself up, he should be thinking. Think! What was the next step? Mrs. Tannenbaume, of course. He had to win her over. She, after all, would be an accomplice to his plan. Why had he not been nicer to the woman before? He knew that to win friends and influence people he needed to make genuine and sincere compliments, but what possible virtues did Mrs. Tannenbaume possess that he could dote on? The woman was short and inadequate. She fancied herself a teacher on the strength of her thirty-five years as a typist, which proved she was delusional. How on earth was the Commodore, a man deeply rooted in reality, supposed to deal with a woman as degraded as Mrs. Tannenbaume? The Commodore knew he possessed a real life, but Mrs. Tannenbaume? The woman lived a fairy tale life, the best he could tell. For one thing, she had no idea how others perceived her. Perhaps the Commodore could help her. He would try, if for no other reason than it would be in his best interests.

  Miss Lambright’s voice came over the intercom. “Mrs. Tannenbaume is here to see you, sir.”

  RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND

  The Commodore looked at his desk. It was spotless, a sea of mahogany. He opened the bottom right-hand drawer and took out a sheaf of papers. He divided the sheets—old memorandums and position papers written by others—into neat little stacks and spread the stacks out on his desk before him. He took out a yellow legal pad and fountain pen from the center drawer and began to write. When Mrs. Tannenbaume and Miss Lambright entered the office, he did not look up. Miss Lambright offered Mrs. Tannenbaume a chair in front of the Commodore’s desk and left them alone. The Commodore kept his head down and wrote on his legal pad. After about five minutes, he placed the fountain pen down and looked up at Mrs. Tannenbaume.

  “Forgive me, madam, I am task-oriented. When I start something, I am simply compelled to finish it. It is said that President Lincoln had the same compulsion.”

  “You and President Lincoln?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said.

  The Commodore spread his hands out to indicate the stacks of paper on his desk. “My work never ends, as you can see.”

  “I asked your secretary if I was interrupting you. She said you where practicing your chin lift.”

  “You are interrupting me, madam.” The Commodore’s voice rose when he said it. He caught himself. “But I do try to make time for others. Pro bono, of course.”

  “Like free hearing tests?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I’m sorry for calling you Flouncy.” Mrs. Tannenbaume said it matter-of-factly.

  “Never mention another word about it, please. Now, let us check your hearing, madam.”

  The Commodore retrieved the hearing machine from the credenza behind his desk. He placed the machine on the coffee table and motioned for Mrs. Tannenbaume to take a seat on the couch. The Commodore removed the headphones from their carrying case and handed them to Mrs. Tannenbaume, who placed them on her head.

  “They don’t fit very well,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said.

  The Commodore thought of offering her his bandana, but the thought of his headphones pressed tightly against her doubtless waxy ears was more than he could stomach. “We do not require a tight fit for our purposes, madam. The machine is high-fidelity, I assure you.”

  She took them off and looked at them. “Is there any way to make them tighter around my ears?”

  The Commodore grabbed the headphones with both hands and pulled them down on Mrs. Tannenbaume’s head.

  “Hey, not so rough.”

  “If you were more compliant, madam, maybe I—”

  The Commodore stopped himself. He shoved the headphone jack into the machine. Could the woman be more headstrong? He watched Mrs. Tannenbaume play with the headphones: on her head, off her head, on her head.

  “Are you ready, madam?”

  “I don’t think they fit me. Is there another pair?”

  “No there is not.” The Commodore struggled to keep his voice from rising. “Hold them in place with your hands.”

  He sat down on a chair across the table from Mrs. Tannenbaume and watched her hold the headphones in place with her hands. The Commodore fiddled with a few buttons on the machine.

  “Are you ready to begin, madam?”

  Mrs. Tannenbaume nodded.

  “When you hear an audible sound in your left ear, raise your left hand. When you hear an audible sound in your right ear, raise you right hand.”

  Mrs. Tannenbaume removed the headphones from her ears. “I’m sorry, what’d you say? I was holding the headphones too tight against my ears.”

  “I said when you hear an aud
ible sound in your left ear, raise your left hand.”

  “And what if I hear a sound in my right ear?”

  “Then raise your right hand!”

  “You don’t have to yell.”

  The Commodore glared at Mrs. Tannenbaume.

  “Look. If it’s too much trouble . . . ”

  The Commodore paused to take a breath. “Please, Mrs. Tannenbaume. Let us begin again.” He lowered his voice but he could not prevent it from quavering.

  The Commodore transmitted a high-pitched tone to the left ear. When Mrs. Tannenbaume raised her left hand, the headphone slipped off her ear. It took her a minute to get ready again. The Commodore counted to ten several times. Finally, he transmitted another tone to the left ear.

  Mrs. Tannenbaume raised her right hand and then said, “No,” and raised her left hand. Now the headphones slipped off both ears. When she tried to catch the headphones, she knocked them off her head entirely. The headphones fell between the coffee table and the couch, and Mrs. Tannenbaume leaned over to pick them up, and when she did, she inadvertently placed her left hand on his hearing machine.

  The Commodore slapped her hand off the machine.

  Mrs. Tannenbaume, with nothing to hold on to, fell to the floor between the coffee table and the couch. She landed on the headphones. The Commodore heard the hard plastic crunch under Mrs. Tannenbaume’s weight. The sound sickened him, like the limb of a great tree snapping under the weight of a late-winter snow.

  His headphones! How was he supposed to test his hearing now? And after all the trouble he went through to acquire the hearing machine. The untold number of government requisition orders. The untold hours he spent “justifying” the expenditure of government funds. The Commodore had typed the requisition orders himself—he would never leave the task to Miss Lambright—and attached a separate page with a detailed justification of the requisition. The RO’s came back marked “insufficient cause,” “lack of justification,” and most insulting of all, “totally unnecessary.”

  Unnecessary? It is unnecessary to check one’s hearing on a regular basis? Says who? Dr. Birkhan, the chief medical officer of the infirmary? The man was not even an MD, he was a doctor of osteopathic medicine!

  It did not help his cause when he addressed the requisition order to Practitioner Birkhan, the Commodore knew that, but he simply could not bring himself to call the man a doctor. The Commodore had finally asked Johnson to intervene on his behalf, but Practioner Birkhan was having none of it. “Over my dead body is that fruitcake getting a hearing machine, if he wants one so bad, he’s going to have to steal one, and then we’ll see where we are, heh?”

  In the end, the Commodore took the man’s advice and simply absconded with the hearing machine.

  Of course, this meant that it would be next to impossible to requisition a new pair of headphones and he did not wish to press his luck by stealing another pair. Why had he ever agreed to share his machine with this woman?

  Mrs. Tannenbaume pulled herself back up onto the couch. She held the broken headphones in her hand. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

  The Commodore knew he had to keep the upper hand. He knew he had to forgive Mrs. Tannenbaume for breaking his headphones. He got up from his chair and stood in front of the window overlooking the waterfront and the future sight of the Mariners Monument. He thought of Edwin. He absolutely had to control his temper when dealing with this difficult woman. He owed Edwin that.

  “My dear Mrs. Tannenbaume, there is nothing to be sorry about. Accidents happen, do they not?”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Heavens, no. Do I look mad?”

  “Well, you look a little stiff is all.”

  “I am not stiff, madam!”

  The Commodore clenched his teeth.

  “Mrs. Tannenbaume? Have you ever had a tour of the academy grounds?”

  Mrs. Tannenbaume blushed. “Why no, I haven’t. I’ve always wanted to see the academy, but my sonny boy says he’ll be furious with me if I ever set foot on the academy grounds. When he was a boy, he applied to the academy but was turned down. I guess he still holds a grudge. But he doesn’t have to know that I am here now, I suppose. This is different. I’m just here to get my hearing tested.”

  “Why was your son not accepted?”

  “He failed the physical. He was sickly as a boy.”

  “I was not aware of that.”

  “We were both shut out from kings Point, I guess you could say. When I moved here, I wanted to live in kings Point but I couldn’t afford it. So I bought a house right on the border of kings Point and Great Neck. My next-door neighbor, Mr. Howells, lives in kings Point. I don’t. Such is life.”

  “But with a name like Tannenbaume, I should think you would fit right in a town like Great Neck.”

  “It’s Tannenbaume with an E. I’m not Jewish.” When she said it, the words lacked her usual defiance.

  “Yes, I’ve heard you say that before.”

  “I still have to tell people. People just assume I’m Jewish, you know.”

  “Well, your language is liberally sprinkled with Yiddish expressions. It is an understandable mistake.”

  “You live in Great Neck long enough, you pick up a few expressions. It’s no big megillah.”

  The Commodore smiled. If Captain Tannenbaume sounded anything like his mother, he would have no problem passing as Jewish.

  “Come, Mrs. Tannenbaume, allow me to give you a personal tour of the academy.”

  “Well . . . if my sonny boy found out, he’d be awfully angry with me.”

  The Commodore clicked his heels and bowed at the waist. Mrs. Tannenbaume blushed.

  “Please allow me.” The words dripped off the Commodore’s tongue. He held out his arm. Mrs. Tannenbaume placed her hand inside of her tall escort’s arm and they walked out of his office. Miss Lambright was not at her desk, but the Commodore could not have cared less. He had Mrs. Tannenbaume right where he wanted her.

  CAPTAIN TANNENBAUME

  TO THE RESCUE

  The Commodore’s tour of the academy dazzled Mrs. Tannenbaume, as he knew it would. The oppressive heat and humidity of the summer had miraculously parted for the remainder of the afternoon, thanks to a northwest breeze bringing cool dry air, and their tour of the campus was as enjoyable as a stroll on the Champs-Elysees in springtime. The Commodore showed Mrs. Tannenbaume Amphitrite Pool where, as tradition required, midshipmen tossed coins into the pool of the Greek goddess to bring good luck on exam days. He took her to the Schuyler Otis Bland Memorial Library and showed off the library’s seven-foot-high rotating globe, pointing out all of the ports he visited when he was a plebe many years ago. He allowed Mrs. Tannenbaume to ring the ship’s bell at the base of the oval in front of Wiley Hall. Together they peered up at the gold eagle perched atop the world’s tallest un-guyed flagpole. The Commodore even walked Mrs. Tannenbaume through the barracks, a restricted area of the campus generally off-limits to visitors, where she saw plebes brace against the wall and sound off when the Commodore passed by.

  “Sir, Midshipman Fourth class Russell, sir! Sir, good afternoon, sir!”

  “Mr. Russell. How rude of you not to acknowledge my lady friend.” The Commodore spoke gently. He knew how nervous the boys became in his presence.

  “Ma’am, good afternoon, ma’am!”

  Mrs. Tannenbaume turned red. The Commodore patted Midshipman Russell on his shoulder. “Carry on, young man.” Midshipman Russell turned on his heels and walked six inches from the wall, as plebes are required to do. When he came to the end of the hall, he “squared” the corner by stopping and turning on his heels before resuming a purposeful stride. Mrs. Tannenbaume watched the plebes square every corner as they made their way through the corridors.

  “Why do they walk that way?” she asked.

  “Discipline, madam. It teaches the boys discipline.”

  “The sailors on my sonny boy’s ship could sure use some discipline. The way he talks about them, they sound like
a bunch of ragamuffins. His ship is a regular Hogan’s Alley.”

  The Commodore wondered about that. Why would a man who clearly ran a tight ship—he had just finished rereading a few of Captain Tannenbaume’s Fitness Reports —allow the union hall to dispatch subpar sailors to his vessel? Well, the Commodore would get to the subject of Captain Tannenbaume soon enough. In the meantime, he had more to show Mrs. Tannenbaume—an effective tour is all about pacing and he had to keep up the pace. He took her by Land Hall, the social hall of the academy. The strict regimental regulations of the academy were relaxed in Land Hall and the boys wore their official gym gear—blue athletic shorts, white T-shirts, and white tube socks pulled up to the knee. They still acknowledged the Commodore but were not required to “sound off.” “Good afternoon, Mr. Commodore” sufficed in the relaxed atmosphere of Land Hall.

  Mrs. Tannenbaume studied the boys’ faces while they lounged on sofas and studied.

  “One of my sonny boy’s fathers was a sailor,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said.

  “One of his fathers? How many does your son have?”

  “Well, since we’re not sure which one of my boyfriends was the father, we say that he has three.”

  It was the Commodore’s turn to blush. He did not like to hear such talk. And he certainly did not want one of his boys to overhear Mrs. Tannenbaume’s blue talk. A change of subject was in order.

  “Let us proceed to the chapel, Mrs. Tannenbaume. It is a nondenominational chapel, of course, reflecting the diversity of our boys’ backgrounds.”

  Mrs. Tannenbaume looked up at the whitewashed chapel. “It doesn’t look anything like the St. Aloysius.”

  “We call it the U.S. Merchant Marine Memorial Chapel,” the Commodore said. “It was conceived as a national shrine to merchant seafarers lost in both world wars. A Roll of Honor lists all wartime maritime casualties.”

  Mrs. Tannenbaume gawked at the big white chapel. “You know, I always wondered if one of Captain Tannenbaume’s fathers—the one who was a sailor—made it through the war.”