The Passage

by David Poyer

  A slim silhouette curved against the sliced light that filtered through the louvered door.

  The sea pounded and swished against the hull as Little Mary, not saying anything, pushed him back onto the damp briny-smelling cushions. She unbuttoned his shorts and jerked them down with firm, practiced motions.

  Suddenly, tears stung his eyes, and he put his hands on her hair, cradling her head in the reeling, plunging darkness.

  WHEN she led him back up into the cockpit, she said to Big Mary, “You were right.”

  “I was?”

  “Yeah. Like a horse.”

  Dan blushed as they laughed. His head felt empty, as if his brains had been sucked out. He looked out to where the land was a black line. They were pretty far out for a small boat.

  “Yeah, I figured you was one of us,” said Harper.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A cunt hound,” he said. Big Mary slid her hand up Dan’s leg and into his shorts from beneath. “Not like some I can name.”

  “What do you mean?” He didn’t feel comfortable with her fondling his balls. For one thing, she had long fingernails. For another, he didn’t feel comfortable having sex practically in front of another guy, especially one who worked for him. But it was a little late for second thoughts. He took the cold one Little Mary handed up from below.

  Harper drawled, “I ever tell you I was on the South Carolina? They used to call her ‘the Love Boat.’ Want to know why?”

  He didn’t care, but because it was Harper’s boat and his party, he said, “Why?”

  “Because they had queers up the ass. There was a yeoman, and he started ordering other queers in. They spread the word, and guys started requesting transfers, and finally there was a hundred and ten out of six hundred crew. They called themselves ‘the Family.’ I was a chief then.”

  The girls had gone below, and Harper lowered his voice as if he was telling a dirty story, although he hadn’t when he actually had been telling dirty stories. “There was this guy in Combat—if you put your hand over his mouth, he looked like the most beautiful woman you’d ever hope to see. Remember when they came out with the fifty percent bigger Mars bar? He used to put two of them together and swallow them. Put ’em in his mouth, then take them out—dry. The master-at-arms finally caught him sixty-nining another guy.

  “That’s the only way you can get them, see—you either have to catch ’em actually fucking each other or else make them admit it … . The strangest one was a storekeeper. A couple of Navy docs came aboard and took him off. Stripped his rack with rubber gloves and put everything in plastic bags. I’m still not sure what that was all about.” He looked aloft, then turned to check the horizon. Dan did, too.

  “And the Kearsarge, an Essex-class carrier out of San Diego, they used to call her the ‘queer barge.’ They had a boiler technician chief, they found Polaroids of two hundred sailors in his locker. He’d get the young kids down there in the hole, feed them jungle juice, then his guys would strip them and tie them up. The kids weren’t queers, but they got made into queers … . And LaSalle, the flagship in the Persian Gulf, another nest of ’em.” Harper searched the cockpit for cigarettes, found Big Mary’s pack. He lighted one, looking off at the now-dropping sun as it gilded the sea. “Shit, just thinking about faggots makes me want to dump my lunch in my briefcase. But it’s funny. There were guys who didn’t believe it. I guess just not everybody sees things like that. And some of them, it’s hard to tell.”

  Dan said, “Why are you telling me this, Chief Warrant?” “Why? Ain’t no why, Lieutenant. Just that I was glad to see you ain’t got knee- pads on your trousers. What about that little brown fucking machine? She’s got a nice body, a nice attitude; she takes care of herself. I figured you’d like her.”

  “She was something.”

  “Know how to tell you got a good blow job? When it’s over, you got to pull the sheets out of your ass.”

  “It’s not just the sex. She’s nice. How’d you meet them?”

  “The usual way. Hit ’em with a monkey’s fist.” Harper chuckled. “I was standing on the pier when one of the other ships left for deployment. One pulls out, another slides in, you know? Big Mary had this see-through top on. I asked if I could buy her a drink. The rest is history.”

  Dan felt something; he wasn’t sure what. “And Little Mary?”

  “They’re friends. They’re in some kind of wives’ club together.”

  “Some kind of—” He went tense. “You mean she—”

  “Sure, they’re married, if that’s what you mean. Little Mary, her husband’s Air Force in Japan. Don’t sweat it; he’s having a good time, too. Ever been to Yokosuka? USS Newport, an old patrol frigate they built for the Russians. We’d ask the girls, ‘You got clap?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Syphilis?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Gonorrhea?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You got VD?’ ‘No, me no got VD.’ Short time was a hundred yen; all night was two hundred yen, and your blues were clean and pressed in the morning. Three hundred and sixty yen to the dollar. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

  Dan didn’t laugh. They were on a reach now, still headed out. The wake chuckled under the counter, smooth yet slightly roiled, as if things were moving under the surface of the sea. “I didn’t know she was married,” he muttered.

  “I ever show you the old shell game?” Harper said. He was drunk, Dan realized, even through his own beer fog. But the man carried it. He didn’t reel or glaze, just got more intense. “Hey! Bitch!”

  “Yeah, asshole?”

  “Hand me up some of them plastic cups.” Harper fished in his pocket, broke the foil pack. He arranged the cups mouth-down on the cockpit seat and put one of the condoms under one of them. “See which one I put it under?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This one here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now watch close. You take this one and move it here—and that one and move it—and—” He lifted his hands. “For twenty bucks: Where’s the rubber?”

  Dan considered. Harper’s hand had hesitated, then reversed direction. A little faster and it would have fooled him, but the chief warrant was drunk, just the tiniest bit slow.

  “Come on, which one?”

  “That one.”

  Harper grinned. He lifted the cup, and Dan stared at nothing. “Forget the twenty, Lieutenant. You never seen this? Here’s how it’s done.” He put the cups back and did it again, and this time Dan saw that the hesitation was not an accident but that it drew the eye while the other hand twitched the right-hand cup aside. “Classic misdirection. Make ’em think they’ve won. Then, when they lift the last cup—nada. They’re dicked.”

  Dan looked at the dropping sun. “How long we staying out? We don’t want to go back in the dark, no radar—”

  “I know the channel,” said Harper, grinning. “And we got loran. Hey! Little Mary! Your man needs another ba me ma. Enjoy yourself, shipmate. Next week, we’re going to sea.”

  11

  THE house was a five-bedroom on a cul-de-sac in a quiet subdivision, one of many carved out of the flat piney land west of the Ashley as the city had grown. Leighty, in slacks and a cotton sweater, was in the kitchen slicing carrots when he heard the door chimes.

  “We’re a little early,” said George Vysotsky.

  “I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Come on in. Hi, Carol.” He shook Vysotsky’s hand, gave his wife a hug. Then he followed them into the high-beamed living room. An older couple smiled up from the sofa. “George, Carol, I’d like you to meet the Kavanaughs; they live down the street. Robert’s retired. Joan, George is my number two on the ship. Carol has three little ones at the moment, but she runs a framing shop in her spare time. Grab a chair, the sofa, whatever. Jeannette’s warming up dinner. How about a drink? We’ve got wine, beer—”

  “Beer for me,” said Vysotsky, settling himself into a recliner. He looked casual in a sports shirt and slacks. Carol stood at a floor-to-ceiling window for a moment, then said, “I’ll see if Jeannett
e needs any help.”

  “George, what’d you think of the game?”

  “Not much. I had guys on my team back on the Shangri-La that could have outpitched that Reasoner. Say you were ex-Navy, Bob?”

  “Army, does that get me thrown out?”

  “No, hell. Europe? Asia?”

  “I’d date myself if I told you,” said Kavanaugh. “But what the hell. North Africa, Sicily, south of France, Germany. Then a very cold place called Korea. I got out after that, started a food-service business.”

  They talked about baseball for a while, then Leighty cleared his throat and caught Vysotsky’s eye. The XO followed him out into the backyard, where dusk was falling. They looked across the pool to a metal framework draped with vines. “You get any grapes on those?” Vysotsky asked him.

  “A few, but the birds get them first. I never seem to be around at the right time.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “I don’t like to take business home, George.”

  “I know that, Tom.”

  “When I walk off that brow, I try to put it out of my mind till the next day. But we’ve got to do something about this yeomanpersonnelman situation, and we’ve got to do it soon.”

  “Benner’s trying hard.”

  “He does okay, but he’s a three-oh sailor at best, and shorthanded he’s getting further and further behind.” The captain took a pull off his mug of beer. “I mentioned it to Fieler—he’s got the Ingram. They’re getting ready to go into overhaul and he says he’s got a second-class personnelman he’ll let me have outright. Straight transfer.”

  “What’s wrong with that gift horse?”

  “My thoughts exactly. You might call his exec and check it out, though. It could be the guy just doesn’t want to go to Philadelphia in the winter.”

  “That would still leave us short. I was thinking of pulling Cephas out of the Weapons office, but then what does Lenson do? I don’t want to throw any sticks in his wheels.”

  “It would be great if we could get somebody aboard before we shove off for Gitmo. Make them part of the shakedown.”

  “I’ll call Ingram’s XO first thing in the morning, sir. But I want to get on the phone again with the squadron.”

  “Sure, keep pushing that button. The system’s supposed to man us to a hundred percent for deployment.” Leighty thought for a moment, hands thrust into his slacks. “There was something else I wanted to—oh, the beard issue. Is that put to bed?”

  “The men have the word. The usual bitching and moaning, but they’ll show up clean-shaven. The only hitch is Mr. Deshowits.”

  “Religious objections?”

  “Yes.”

  “That could be difficult.”

  “I called Chief Hone; he’s checking it out. I know there’s a medical exemption for people who have that ingrown beard problem. But he said he didn’t think they’d be making any other exceptions.”

  “Dinner’s ready, guys,” said Mrs. Leighty, coming out into the backyard. She picked up a tricycle, moved it out of the way. Smoothing her hair, she said briskly, “I hope you all like lamb.”

  “SO long, thanks for coming.” He shook Kavanaugh’s hand, slapped Vysotsky’s back, smiled at the women. Leighty stood with his wife as they went down the walk. “Good dinner,” he told her. “I think they enjoyed themselves.”

  “I like Carol. We ought to see more of them.”

  “Maybe we need to start thinking about a predeployment party. We haven’t had the wardroom together since the commissioning.”

  “I could make chili—”

  “No, I don’t want you to do it. See if that woman can cater it—what was her name, the one who did the crab bisque?”

  “Peggy.”

  “We need to look at a night and get it set up for when we get back from Gitmo. Maybe do a pool party … . How’s Dougie doing?”

  “He’s not feeling well. He went to bed early.”

  “You’re not coming down with anything, are you?”

  “No, I feel all right. And Heather’s still fine.”

  “How did you like the Kavanaughs?” he asked her, looking at a stairway that led off the living room.

  “They seemed all right. Quiet.”

  “He’s ex-enlisted. He probably felt a little ill at ease.”

  “Really? After all those years, and having his own company?”

  “I’ve seen it before,” Leighty said. “Look, I’m going up to the office for a while. Got a lot of stuff to read through before we get under way.”

  “Are you going to be up late?”

  “Not too late.”

  “I’m just going to put these things in the dishwasher,” she said.

  He patted her and went up a narrow flight of stairs and turned on a light at the top.

  The third floor was almost a separate apartment: a large room with a table in the center stacked with books and official references in binders, a set of weights and a rowing machine; a wall mirror. The rug was old, greasy, smelling of dog. A door led to a bathroom and shower; in an alcove was a single bed with a reading lamp clipped to the headboard. A long table held a Radio Shack computer and a printer converted from a Selectric typewriter. Leighty flicked them on as he walked by, stripping off his shirt, and sat at the rowing machine. He fitted his feet to the straps, and for twenty minutes there was no sound but the rapid click of the machine, the barking of a dog downstairs, the hum of the computer and printer as they waited, screen empty. After that, he did a hundred push-ups in sets of twenty, seventy-five sit-ups, then finished with twenty fast pull-ups on a bar in the door to the bathroom.

  He stood in front of the mirror, looking at his body, the muscles hard and defined, engorged with blood from the fast, hard workout. He touched his chest lightly, feeling the resistance of muscle. He looked into his eyes. Me, he thought. This is me. Now is now. I am at home. Everything I need is right here.

  He turned away, looking angry, and sat down in front of the computer.

  LATER he stood in his bare feet, listening outside one of the bedrooms. His hand rested on the doorknob. Then he turned it silently and eased the room within into visibility.

  The boy lay amid rumpled covers, legs flung out. In the dim light coming through the window, the man stood looking down at him. The faint roughness of the boy’s breathing was just discernible. He’d had a virus for the past few days, been cranky and tired. His hand reached out to the boy’s forehead, brushed his hair lightly. The child turned his head, drew his limbs in, flung them out restlessly, turned over. He waited motionless till all was silent again, then eased the door closed. He looked in on his daughter next. She was sleeping with a large stuffed clown. He knew it was silly—she was fine—but he still watched the covers till he could see the rise and fall of her chest.

  He padded down the stairs into the darkened living room. Moving silently, he policed up glasses and ashtrays and carried them in and left them in the sink. Then he went back to the stairwell.

  He paused at the second floor, looking out the window at the end of the bedroom hall. He just stood there, looking out.

  The streets in this subdivision were empty at night. Only occasionally did a car roll past. But from up here, he looked down on a square of light several houses over. Leaping shadows moved back and forth across it. He couldn’t see faces, just bodies. Only when he leaned close to the glass could he hear very faintly the distant shouts, the faint scrape and thud and thump as a basketball was lofted, missed, kissed asphalt, lofted again, shuddered off the backboard into a flurry of young lithe bodies that knotted, then broke again into a run.

  Watching the leaping shadows, he remembered the first time his brother had taken him to the Y to swim. He’d undressed in the cold cubicle and come out, to find everyone naked. Then they’d gone through a little tunnel and come out into a wide white echoing place. Sun streamed down from high windows, outside which you could see the upper parts of trees. And all around the pool were naked young men—diving from a lo
w board, clinging to the edge of the pool as they talked, jumping from the sides, seeming to float in the air before plunging down into the foaming, slightly murky water. The chlorine tang made his eyes smart. He saw their penises glistening, water running from them as they climbed out of the pool. Arms, muscles, legs, thighs, ribs, flesh. He hadn’t even swum that day, not till his brother threw him in. He’d wanted nothing but to stand by the pool, shivering, and look.

  It was the first time he’d realized that men were beautiful.

  “Tom?”

  He turned and saw his wife standing in the doorway to their bedroom, holding her housecoat closed at the neck. Her hair was down and her bare face shone, floating in the darkness.

  “You startled me. I thought you were asleep.”

  “I’m sorry. I was waiting for you. Are you coming to bed?”

  “I’ve got a couple things to do yet. I don’t want to bother you. Maybe I’ll just take my shower upstairs.”

  She didn’t answer and he added, “Is that all right?”

  “I guess so,” she said.

  “Good night, if I don’t come down before you go to sleep.”

  “Good night.”

  At the top of the stairs, he stopped and leaned into the wall. He held his hand over his face, then took it away, breathing rapidly several times. Crossing the room, he sat down again in front of the keyboard.

  12

  “WITH all due respect, you don’t want to do it, Captain. It’s too close to your sailing date.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the right approach, Mr. Grobmyer.”

  “Sir, we see this day in and day out. NAVSEA tells you this; type commander tells you that. You can waste a lot of time and money running back and forth on that treadmill.”

  “You’re saying these specifications may change?”

  “Hell, I’ll flat out guarantee they will, Captain.”