Mitzi came to the Commodore’s side and soothingly brushed her hand up and down his back.
“Inform Captain Tannenbaume and his mother that a breakfast is being held in their honor at this time in the officers’ club. Mayor Mogelefsky is expecting them. Tell them that now, please.”
Mitzi turned around, but Mrs. Tannenbaume cut her off.
“We heard him. Is the big maccacha going to join us?”
“Yes,” the Commodore whispered to Mitzi.
“Yes,” Mitzi said. “The Commodore will be joining you.”
“When?” Mrs. Tannenbaume asked.
“Soon,” the Commodore said through Mitzi.
“Soon,” Mitzi relayed to the Tannenbaumes.
The Commodore grabbed Mitzi’s arm. “Ms. Paultz.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please make them go away.”
A CAPTAIN AND HIS
COMELY CADET
It didn’t take long for the cameraman to convince Miss Lambright to loosen the top button of her blouse. And then the next button. And then the next. Before long all of the newsmen were crowding around Miss Lambright’s desk for a better view of her having her “official portrait” taken. So Mogie was able to walk right past Miss Lambright and the newsmen with nobody noticing him. He found the Commodore stretched out on the couch with a cold compress draped over his eyes and Mitzi sitting on the coffee table holding the Commodore’s hand.
“A migraine,” the Commodore was saying. “All morning practicing my speech and nothing going right, and now I have a migraine.”
“But I bet your Toe Hang is as impressive as ever.” Mitzi’s voice was soothing.
Before Mitzi knew what was happening, Mogie had her by the arm. “You haven’t seen him in over a month and the first thing you do is ask him about his Toe Hang?” Mogie tightened his grip on Mitzi’s arm. “How long have you two been schtupping?”
“Oh gawd, Moges. Me and the Commodore? Get real. Please.”
The Commodore rose off the couch, the compress wrapped around his eyes like a blindfold. Mitzi helped him over to his chair.
“I can assure you, Mayor, I schtup no one.”
“Yeah, right. All you WASPs are hornier than a three-balled tomcat. The crack of dawn ain’t safe with you people.”
“Don’t talk crass in front of the Commodore, Moges. He don’t like bad language.”
“Bad language, Mitz? You want to now what bad language is? It’s talking in code.” Mogie waved his hand at the Commodore. “Which is all these people do.”
Mogie stuck a cigar in his mouth and circled the room before confronting the Commodore at his desk. “So where’s Tannenbaume? What’s he got to say for himself? It’s all over the news, this accident of his.”
The Commodore slowly removed the compress from his eyes. “I sent him over to the officers’ club. I told him we were having a breakfast in his honor.”
“A breakfast? I wasn’t invited to any breakfast.”
“There isn’t any breakfast. I sent him there so that I could get him out of my office. There is no room for arrogance in this office.”
“You mean no more room, don’t you, Commodore?” Mogie laughed at his own joke. “Hey, Mitz. That was pretty funny, huh? He means no more room.”
Mitzi ignored Mogie. She had taken the compress from the Commodore and, out of habit, began setting up the Commodore’s desk with his phony work papers.
“I can’t believe our new admiral just ran into a boat in New York harbor,” Mogie said. “I thought you said we needed a captain who knew how to drive a boat? This guy doesn’t know gunnisch about driving boats.”
“Ship,” the Commodore said. “It’s a ship, not a boat. And Captain Tannenbaume’s ship ran out of fuel.”
“How’d he run out of fuel?”
“He didn’t want to buy fuel over in Europe because it’s too expensive,” Mitzi said, coming to Captain Tannenbaume’s defense. “You know, because of the euro.”
“What a schmuck. He wants to save money so he doesn’t fill up but then he runs out of gas? He’s a schmuck this Tannenbaume.”
“The other ship ran into us,” Mitzi said defensively. “It came out of nowhere.”
“The guy on the news said all Tannenbaume had to do was drop the anchor when he ran out of gas.”
“It all happened so fast, Moges. Morty didn’t have time to drop the anchor.”
Mogie was up in Mitzi’s face before the words were out of her mouth. “Morty? So you two are on a first-name basis? The two of you on a little boat in a great big ocean. I can just imagine what went on out there.”
The Commodore’s migraine was quickly receding now that he realized how easy it was going to be to scuttle Tannenbaume. In fact, it was looking like it would be easier than he had originally presumed. He casually walked over and draped his arm around Mogie’s shoulder and pulled him away from Mitzi.
“Now, now, Mr. Mayor. You know the sway the sea holds over a woman. That a tryst occurred between a lonely sea captain and his comely cadet can hardly come as a surprise to you.”
“She didn’t deny it, did she?” Mogie said, looking over his shoulder at Mitzi as the Commodore pulled him away. “She didn’t deny it.”
The Commodore realized that Mogie had reason enough to get rid of Tannenbaume because of Mitzi alone. The Commodore also surmised that, in Mogie’s mind, running out of fuel was a greater indictment of Tannenbaume’s character than the fact that he collided with another ship. For the Commodore’s part, it never even occurred to him that Tannenbaume’s collision would prevent him from becoming admiral. In fact, most, if not all, of the faculty and staff at the United States Merchant Marine Academy had had a serious accident at sea of one sort or another. That was why they were at the academy—they had nowhere else to go in an industry that insisted on competence or, at the very least, no egregious acts of incompetence. So the best course of action to rid himself of Tannenbaume for good was to make Mogie think that Tannenbaume had serious designs on Mitzi. The Commodore had no idea what actually occurred between Mitzi and Tannenbaume aboard ship, but he guessed that Mogie’s suspicion of a tryst was not too far off the mark. After all, there seemed to be no sign of Captain Tannenbaume’s wife, not that that surprised the Commodore. knowing what he knew of professional seaman, not to mention professional ladies of the night, he never really expected Captain Tannenbaume’s marriage to make it past the long voyage home.
The Commodore pulled Mogie over to his desk and was about to say something regarding Tannenbaume’s reputation as a ladies man when he was interrupted by the alarm clock sitting on the coffee table. He had set the alarm to help keep on track that morning, knowing full well that Miss Lambright could never be trusted to do that for him. The alarm alerted that there were only two hours to the unveiling. The shrillness of the alarm’s buzzer rattled the Commodore, and he could not bring himself to turn it off. It was Mitzi who finally silenced the alarm.
“What’s that for?” she said.
The Commodore did not even hear the question. He was thinking again about who would be in the crowd at the unveiling. If Tannenbaume were present, he was sure—more sure than ever now that he thought about it—that the bleachers would be overrun with reporters there to see Tannenbaume and not him. For months now he had visualized friendly faces in the crowd and now he wondered if he would get nervous when he looked out at the audience and saw nothing but strangers. Wondering whether he would get nervous made him all the more nervous. Yes, it would be disastrous for me if Tannenbaume attended the unveiling.
He summoned everything in his being to shrug off the great weight of inertia brought on by his anxiety. He took up where he left off with Mogie, dragging the mayor over to window, out of earshot of Mitzi.
“Mr. Mayor, I have no doubt that Captain Tannenbaume and Mitzi have formed a—how shall we say it?—bond of some sort. I suggest we go to the officers’ club this moment and inform Captain Tannenbaume that his services will not be needed after all.”
/> Mogie pulled himself away from the Commodore. He looked over the Commodore’s shoulder at Mitzi. “So you think the two of them are schtupping?”
The Commodore kept his voice low and discreet. “There is a certain smugness in Ms. Paultz’s manner this morning. It is almost as if she knows that she will soon be untouchable, ensconced as the new admiral’s concubine. As you yourself said, she hasn’t denied it, has she?”
The Commodore studied Mogie’s neck vein. It told him all he needed to know.
“Let us allow discretion to be our guide, Mr. Mayor. We ought not to say a word to Mitzi, lest she tip off Captain Tannenbaume of our intentions.”
Mogie was no longer looking at Mitzi. He was staring hard at the Commodore. So hard that the Commodore’s mouth went dry. Had he said something to upset Mogie?
“Who died and left you boss, Commodore? I’m still calling the shots here. You think I’m a schmuck? You think I don’t know that you’re looking nine-ways-’til-Tuesday for a reason to get rid of Tannenbaume?”
The Commodore knew better than to respond. He allowed Mogie to stare him down.
“Let’s go,” Mogie said, finally. “Let’s go have a look at this guy.”
Mogie walked out of the office with his shoulders hunched high and his head down low. The Commodore had trouble reading his body language. Was Mogie going over to the officers’ club intent on confronting Tannenbaume, or was he merely reasserting his authority over the Commodore? The Commodore signaled to Mitzi that they were leaving.
When the three of them passed through the Commodore’s outer office, they found Miss Lambright sitting primly at her desk, typing. Topless. Not one reporter paid them any mind as they slunk past.
YOU DON’T KNOW
GUNNISCH
Captain Tannenbaume stood outside of the officers’ club with his mother. “No, Mother, for the last time, I’m not going in.”
“But, sonny, they’re having a breakfast in our honor.”
“Mother, did you see how the Commodore greeted us? He barely even acknowledged me.”
“But you’re so close to being the head honcho. Don’t quit on me now.”
“Don’t you get it, Mother? I’m a captain who just ran out of fuel and hit another ship. They don’t let you run a maritime academy after something like that. I really don’t know why I even agreed to come here this morning.”
“But, sonny—”
“No, Mother.”
When Captain Tannenbaume spun around to leave, he ran smack into Mitzi. She put her hand on his chest to stop him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she said.
“I’m out of here, Mitzi. I never should have let you two talk me into coming here this morning.”
“Hey.” Mitzi pushed Captain Tannenbaume again in the chest, this time with both hands. “Stick around, would you. Let’s see how this thing plays out.”
“I don’t know, Mitz. I really don’t think they want me now.”
“But of course they do, sonny,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to this place.”
“Did I hear someone say ‘the best’?”
It was the Commodore. He and Mogie were making their way up the pea rock path toward the entrance of the officers’ club. “The best, indeed,” the Commodore said as he and Mogie joined them in front of the officers’ club. “Mayor Mogelefsky, may I introduce you to the best captain in the fleet—Captain Tannenbaume.”
Mogie took a step back so that he would not have to crane his neck to have a good look at Captain Tannenbaume.
“The best, huh? What a joke. I thought we were getting someone who knew how to drive a boat. You don’t know gunnisch about driving boats, Tannenbaume.”
“Gunnisch?” Captain Tannenbaume said.
Mrs. Tannenbaume elbowed her sonny in the ribs. “He means you don’t know nothing about driving boats, sonny.”
“What’s the matter, Tannenbaume? You forget your Yiddish?”
Captain Tannenbaume just stared at Mitzi. Mitzi, in a nervous voice, said, “Oh, Mort. Don’t pay him any attention.”
“So your name’s Mort? Oh, I’m sorry, it’s Morty, isn’t it?” Mogie was flailing his arms around. “So, Morty, tell us about this accident of yours. I thought you knew how to drive a boat.”
“The God is Able is a ship,” Captain Tannenbaume said.
“Well, I guess God wasn’t so able the other day, huh, Mitz? Hey, how ‘bout that one, Mitz? God wasn’t so able.”
“It ain’t funny, Moges. None of your jokes are funny.”
“Well, how about this joke right here?” Mogie was pointing at Captain Tannenbaume. “The schmuck ran out of gas trying to stretch a buck. How funny is that?”
Captain Tannenbaume took a step toward Mogie, but Mitzi was there to stop him again with her hand on his chest. The Commodore pulled Mogie away. They stood next to the ship’s anchor guarding the entrance to the officers’ club. While they talked, Mogie never took his eye off Captain Tannenbaume.
“Look at the two of them over there. Mitzi’s gaga for this guy.”
“She does appear to have some affection for the man.”
“How the hell is the guy so young looking? I was expecting some old sea dog.”
“As was I. The sea actually appears to have done him wonders. His skin is translucent.”
Mogie run his fingers through the few strands of hair left on his head. “Look at the thick head of hair on him. He looks like a damn teenager.”
“He does have a baby face, indeed.”
Mogie sighed heavily. He was no longer waving his arms around but was standing with his feet planted wide and his hands on his hips.
“There’s no way I can have this guy hanging around here. I’ll never get Mitzi back.” Mogie looked up at the Commodore. “Shit. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I guess I’m going to have to go into business with you after all, Commodore.”
The Commodore’s knees almost gave way. His ambition to lead the Merchant Marine Academy was about to become a reality. He felt light-headed. He tried to speak but couldn’t.
“Oh, look at you,” Mogie said. “You look like you’re about to cry.”
Mogie looked back at Captain Tannenbaume and Mitzi. They were standing close together and Mitzi had her hand on Tannenbaume’s arm.
“Oh for chrissakes,” Mogie said. “I ain’t letting them two out of my sight. We’re going to have to wait until after this monument thing of yours. Then we’ll turn Tannenbaume loose and have the guards escort him off the property. We’ll send him right back to that boat of his.”
“But the reporters,” the Commodore said. “Captain Tannenbaume’s presence will bring the wrong element to the ceremony. Edwin deserves better.”
“Oh, quit it, Commodore. You’re acting like this kid of yours is still alive. Trust me, him and all his ancestors are long gone.” Mogie looked at his watch. “So when does this thing start?”
The Commodore cocked his ear toward Barney Square. “Oh, my. I hear the marching band starting up. We have to get going.”
Mogie went back to where the others were standing. “Let’s go. The Commodore’s kid’s about to be unveiled. We’ll talk more after the ceremony.”
Captain Tannenbaume tried to pull away from Mitzi but she still had him by the arm. Mrs. Tannenbaume grabbed his other arm and she and Mitzi dragged him with them. They followed behind Mogie.
The Commodore wanted to take one last look at his appearance before the ceremony so he took the quickest way back to Wiley Hall, cutting across Barney Square. The regiment had begun mustering in companies and battalions when the Commodore reached the square. He stopped to watch them muster up.
This was his regiment now. These were his boys. Finally, they would be getting what the Commodore knew they craved. A leader. Someone to look up to. Not just him, but Edwin, too. An icon. That’s what his boys so desperately needed.
The Commodore took a deep breath. The brisk air of this p
erfect October day filled his lungs to capacity. He had never felt better. He saw the midshipmen looking at him. After today he would be their leader.
And he would show them the way.
A TRUE UNVEILING
It was the perfect day for the unveiling of the Mariners Monument. The Board of Governors, who liked the pomp of official ceremonies, chose to sit not on the dais with the other dignitaries but in the first row of bleachers where they had a better view of the proceedings. The October sun shone so brilliantly that the widows Willowsby and Coffee needed their white parasols to stay comfortable, even with the cool breeze coming off the water. Miss Beebee chose to go sleeveless, which simply awed the widows.
Captain Cooper sat to the left of the widows. The Board of Governors had been looking forward to meeting Captain Tannenbaume’s wife. The widows and Miss Beebee kept turning around in their seats, craning their necks to see if they could spot Captain Tannenbaume’s spouse, but they did not see anyone who looked like she could be the new First Lady of the academy. They only saw Mitzi and a woman who looked like she could be Captain Tannenbaume’s mother. Every time they turned around, the gleaming sun flared off the white parasols and sent a blinding flash of light across the grandstand. The formal parade on Tomb Field before the unveiling ceremony had not been one of the academy’s best. Not one battalion managed to march in a straight line. In fact, the lines were so straggly it was difficult to tell whether it was a parade at all. The marching band was badly off-key and the Manual of Arms, per usual, was a disaster, with more than one rifle ignominiously dropped. The regiment of midshipmen was preoccupied with the same thing that had the Board of Governors so preoccupied: Where was Captain Tannenbaume’s wife? They had heard the same rumors as had Captain Cooper, that Captain Tannenbaume had married a bar girl, and since nearly every cadet had been with a bar girl named Sylvia in some port of call during their sea year, they all were eager to find out if it was their Sylvia who had married Captain Tannenbaume.
A Commodore of Errors Page 31