The Trinity

by David LaBounty

  Chris has been granted a top secret clearance, the Navy having conducted an investigation on his very unremarkable background, interviewing teachers who barely remembered him and neighbors who seldom saw him or paid him much attention. He was a shoo-in for a clearance.

  He is given a badge with his laminated photograph attached to it, permitting him access to the building, past the guardsman, who is British and a member of the Ministry of Defence Police, or MoDP.

  The British own the buildings and protect and maintain them, but it seems to Chris that the Americans are more than in charge.

  Chris listens to the chief. The chief tells him what is expected of him, now that he is in the fleet and not in school. He is responsible for himself now, getting to work on time and sober. If he comes in hung-over, he will be written up. The chief expects him to advance his rank in a timely manner while he is here.

  And, Chief Lassiter adds, he should get off base and try not to become a barracks rat, someone who never leaves the base and spends all his free time in the barracks lounge drinking beer from a soda machine and playing pool or watching Armed Forces Television.

  Chris will start that night. Chief Lassiter tells him to hit the rack and come back at 1730 to start the shift that begins at 1800 and ends at 0600.

  “And forget everything you learned in Pensacola,” the chief says. “It won’t mean shit here. It doesn’t mean shit out in the fleet. The equipment is different and the mission is different. The mission is always different, depending on the game they’re playing.”

  “‘They’?”

  “The commie-pinko-faggot hippies.” He pauses, waiting for Chris to laugh, but Chris doesn’t. “The Russians, who do you think? I’ll see you tomorrow morning and I’ll talk to you and your supervisor and see how you did. Go hit the rack.” The chief looks down at his desk and says no more. Chris walks away.

  This gives Chris just six hours to get some sleep after being awake less than that. He had slept well the previous night, as his roommate was gone until the wee hours of the night and apparently returned sober as he entered the room and put himself to bed noiselessly.

  To kill time, Chris goes to the base bookstore, which is a little Quonset-style hut full of paperback novels and magazines from the States and several days-old copies of USA Today and the European edition of the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

  Chris buys a novel, a book about World War II, and a copy of the Stars and Stripes. He eats a hurried lunch in the galley and returns to his room; he knows his roommate is at work and the room will be vacant.

  He strips himself down and climbs into his bed, where he smokes and reads the newspaper. It is almost propaganda and is mostly about army bases in Germany, where most of the newspaper’s readership is stationed. There is a smattering of current events: the latest diabolical activities of Muammar Qadaffi in Libya, backing terrorists who hijacked a plane over Italy and killing an American serviceman and supporting an airport attack in Vienna. The possibility of the Americans retaliating is strong and Chris swells with pride at the harsh words of President Reagan, telling the nation that the United States will be bullied by no one and that the U.S. has the finest servicemen and women in the world. Chris is proud to be a part of it.

  The paper also contains a smattering of sports, stories about the upcoming football playoffs and the ongoing basketball season. Chris couldn’t care less, so he puts the paper under his bed and tries to read his book about American prisoners of war in Germany during World War II who manage to escape and sabotage the Nazi plant where atomic bombs are nearly being completed.

  Libya, Russia, and earlier, Germany… Chris wonders why it’s always the Americans fighting evil.

  He reads several chapters of the book and grows restless; his mind and body are too awake to sit peaceably in bed, so he smokes and thinks about his upcoming job and the messages he will read.

  His thoughts then turn to his family, who never completely escape his mind. He wonders about his mother and contemplates trying to find her address from a relative and sending her a letter. He decides against it as he recalls those evenings in boot camp that seem so long ago, memories of letters never received and the anguish it caused.

  He hates his mother, but deep down, he needs her. He subconsciously desires to be loved. Since he’s been on his own, he feels mature and independent, but his heart feels desolate and his mind can’t define it, can’t find words to describe this emptiness. He stares at the ceiling and then retrieves his Walkman from the bottom of his locker. Because he is feeling melancholy, he foregoes his current favorite cassette by a band called U2 and decides to listen to the radio instead. He flips the switch to FM and finds nothing and then switches it to AM and he finds a cornucopia of talk and sounds and music that he hasn’t heard. He lingers on each station for a while and finds it fascinating and eventually identifies the local station, Radio Tayside. He listens to a news program about local politics and sports. He finds himself feeling a bit more of a part of this refined but somewhat rugged nation of Scotland that lies on the other side of the barbed-wire fence surrounding the base.

  He vows to find himself in this country; he promises himself that much. He also guarantees that he will fall in love. He imagines a Scottish girl somewhere over that fence who is pretty and kind and smart and who will allow him to make love to her. He isn’t shallow, but he is a young man and his virginity is killing him. His nineteenth birthday is in mid-February, and he fears he will be (if he isn’t already) the oldest virgin in the entire Navy.

  The last hours of the afternoon quickly pass. He showers and dresses and goes to the galley for a dinner of ham and mashed potatoes. He foregoes the milk and drinks cola for the caffeine, as he knows he will be tired.

  He then walks nearly a mile underneath a rapidly darkening sky across the ancient and potholed concrete runway that was used during World War II to the far side of the base where the communications buildings stand. His stomach suddenly becomes upset as his nerves get the best of him. He trembles and sighs as he presents his badge to the Scottish sentry who guards the building that only a cleared American can enter.

  They rise before the sun on this damp Saturday morning as mist falls upon the hard ground outside Crowley’s house, saturating the un-raked leaves, which are starting to crumble and decay.

  Into the Allegro they go without showering. Rodgers smokes a cigarette to combat his hangover, but the bumpy ride in the back seat of such a small car curving along the North Sea coast is more than he can bear. He gets sick before he can roll the window down.

  They breakfast in Arbroath, halfway between Dundee and Lutherkirk. They pull into a little restaurant along the highway aimed at lorry drivers. They park clumsily and leave the window open to allow the vomit and body smells to escape the car.

  The breakfast is simple, greasy and bland: fried eggs, links of sausage, a slice of tomato, and black pudding (only Crowley knows what black pudding really is, dried blood and oats). Crowley takes tea with milk and sugar the way the British do; the other two ask for cola. They eat in hung-over silence and stare out the window facing the east, watching the invisible sun lighten the cloud laden sky over the deep and black and cold North Sea.

  As the night turns to dawn and the dawn turns to day, they hop into the car and proceed to Dundee and to the favorite nightclub of the sailors of Lutherkirk. They are there on a scouting mission, Crowley tells them.

  The landscape lends itself to their task. Across the street from the club is an ancient and small urban cemetery. The haphazard tombstones are leaning and faded with age, and some are being lifted from the ground by the roots of the large oak trees covering the entire ground.

  They park the car and enter the cemetery and look across the street. There are no obstructions between the graveyard and the main door, and no streetlights to illuminate the cemetery grounds.

  Crowley walks through the cemetery and reads what tombstones he can: McGregor and MacLeish, Wallace and Scott, and he makes out the f
aded years in the crumbling white markers, born in 1792 and dead in 1852 or ’53. Crowley feels this resting ground of white souls is holy, a blessing of the task they have given themselves.

  Beyond the cemetery is an alley and beyond that is West Bell Street, with many passages through the buildings leading to the sidewalk and the presumed getaway car.

  Crowley maps it all in his mind. The plan is obvious to the other two. Rodgers crouches behind the largest tombstone and peers over the top while eyeballing the club. Hinckley thrusts his hands into his Navy pea coat, his only warm coat, and searches the sky and the street and the alley beyond. Crowley taps an oak tree and decides that is where the note will be tacked, announcing to the world who committed this act. Let the cleansing begin. A warm feeling erupts from the base of his stomach and spreads to his chest.

  They attempt several practice runs; Crowley parks in the street behind the cemetery, Hinckley stands in the alley, a stage whisper from where Rodgers takes his post. From the alley, Hinckley can see the graveyard and the nightclub and the street on the other side, in case Rodgers can be seen. Rodgers makes a pistol of his index finger and thumb, fires and turns and walks slowly and follows Hinckley across the alley, through a passageway between a small pub and a dress shop, and they calmly climb into the waiting Allegro.

  It is lunchtime. They are satisfied with their progress, and they eat lunch in the same small pub that flanks the passageway. They order fish and chips laden with vinegar and salt and drink a pint or two of lager. It is just 11:30, and the pub is nearly empty. They sit at the bar a few stools over from a bent-over and solitary older man. The man hears their accents as they order their food and drinks and accuses them of being American. Crowley puts on his best smile and says, “Ah yes… we’re guilty, but we’re really the same, you and I, from the same line.”

  Crowley continues to engage himself in conversation with the nearly toothless man. Crowley is expounding on his not-too-offensive theory that the planet would still be in the Dark Ages if it weren’t for the Industrial Revolution and the innovation of the Western Europeans. The man merely agrees and thoughtlessly says, “Aye.” Crowley buys him a drink and leaves him his phone number, in case he ever wants to talk about the history of man.

  The trio leaves. The stage is set. They make plans as they drive back to Lutherkirk and Crowley’s stone cottage.

  Rodgers cleans the gun and loads it. Hinckley considers the note and then starts to write, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates.

  Crowley merely sits in his tired armchair with his eyes closed and his head tilted back, his fingers tapping the armrest in time with the Wagner recording on his turntable.

  When he senses the two young men are done with their assigned tasks, he opens his eyes and levels his gaze. Hinckley hands the priest his note, which the priest reads quickly. He smiles.

  “Excellent, excellent. You possess a talent, Mr. Hinckley.”

  Hinckley’s face turns red. No one has ever really complimented him on his efforts before. He stares down at the dirty shag carpet and thanks Crowley.

  “So, Friday?” Crowley inquires of both sailors.

  The young men nod in concurrence.

  “Excellent, excellent. If either of you need to talk, I can be found in the chapel all day tomorrow and of course throughout the week. I think for today we shall separate, as I think Mass tomorrow will be especially difficult. My heart isn’t in it at all, with what we’re proposing to do next weekend. So I think I will retire early and send you two back to base.” Instead of driving them back himself, he calls for a cab and hands Hinckley a five-pound note.

  Crowley hugs both young men as they make their way down his crooked driveway to the main road to wait for the cab. “I love you both,” he says, with a bit of melancholy that neither Rodgers nor Hinckley has seen in a grown man.

  “That was weird,” is all that is said between the two as they return to the base and back to the barracks and their late Saturday afternoon ritual of playing pool in the barracks lounge and then supper in the galley before heading off to the enlisted club, where there will be more playing of pool accompanied by loud music.

  They won’t talk about Crowley; they won’t talk about their other lives. They will spend the evening in drunken ignorance of the responsibility of the shameful deed they have put in front of themselves.

  Without admitting it to the other, each young sailor is feeling the pangs of regret, but they are fearful and in awe of Crowley. Someone of his rank and stature and age can’t be all wrong.

  Chris’s job proves to be very different from what he trained for in Pensacola. He had to spend hours of frustration mastering Morse code, and it was all for naught. All codes and signals are deciphered here by monstrous computers standing monolithic in their own climate-controlled room.

  Chris has only one co-worker, his supervisor, a female petty officer second class. She is thin and bespectacled; the long brown hair that she sweeps up while in uniform is revealing wisps of gray, and her long and narrow and sallow face seems tired, with crow’s feet forming around her eyes. At first glance, one would guess her to be chronically unhappy, but Chris sees a kindness in her face. She smiles vaguely as she shakes his hand upon introduction. He notices that she could have been or could be pretty, in a different set of circumstances, out of her dungaree uniform.

  “Freeman,” she says. “Petty Officer Freeman, but on mids, you can call me Karen.”

  “Fairbanks, Seaman Apprentice Fairbanks,” Chris replies.

  “I know. I saw your orders a week ago. We didn’t expect you so soon.”

  She proceeds to explain all the pieces of equipment in their small and cramped and poorly lit working area, which consists of two desks, a row of four teletype printers and four or five computer monitors with black backgrounds and green characters that Chris will spend many hours staring into, retyping messages that he rips off the printer. The workspace is flanked by two offices, one for Division Chief Lassiter and one for the division officer. A division as small as this requires only the lowest ranking officer; it is the same ensign who welcomed Chris to Lutherkirk.

  After an hour or so of explanations and demonstrations of how their job is done while a few messages trickle in and are retyped, Chris gets the idea, sees how the work flows, and is amazed at the simplicity.

  Freeman leaves Chris on his own. She picks up a book, and he stares at her in disbelief.

  She understands the stare and explains: “It’s a mid, and no one is around. The chief doesn’t care as long as everything gets done. Some mids are busy, but if there are no exercises and the Russians are being quiet, then we just kind of sit here, so why not? You can do the same, as soon as you get the hang of what we do here. Days are different; the chief and Ensign Hughes are around. He’s a little son-of-a-bitch, and we usually work non-stop, but mids… It’s hard to stay awake sometimes.”

  Chris merely nods and continues to stare at the printers, waiting for messages to arrive. An hour goes by and then two, but all is quiet. He is desperately trying to stay awake. He drinks coffee after coffee from the older-style percolating coffee machine inside the chief’s office.

  The hours between midnight and 5 a.m. are brutal as Chris tries to stay awake and the printers remain silent. Karen continues to read and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and Chris taps his fingers and thinks about home and how he would much rather be on a ship than chained to a desk with nothing to do in the middle of the night, stuck inside a dark room in the middle of a windowless building surrounded by antennas and satellite dishes. The work is not as intriguing or stimulating as he had hoped or imagined it would be.

  Again, it is Friday. Snow flurries spend the day flying through the air in no particular direction and never seem to touch the ground, which is perpetually shiny and white from frost.

  The end of the working day is preceded by an uneventful sunset. Father Crowley drives home after locking the chapel, just before Seamen Hinckley and
Rodgers eat a hurried dinner in the galley and meet a cab outside the gate and proceed to Crowley’s house.

  The two young men have donned black garments underneath their pea coats: black jeans and black sweatshirts and their Navy-issue black watch hats. The cab driver regards them with suspicion as he drives them in silence across the back roads in between Lutherkirk and the A92, but forgets about them as soon as he drops them in front of Crowley’s house. He decides their appearance has something to do with the general oddity of those from across the ocean.

  They enter Crowley’s house through the back. The small kitchen is the only room lit in the house. From outside, the two can hear a scratchy recording of Wagner, though they don’t know the composer. The music is heavy and loud and bombastic and it reinforces the feeling that they are about to take part in a very grave ceremony.

  Crowley is not dressed unusually at all. He has on typical Scottish middle-aged garb: gray trousers, a pale blue oxford shirt underneath a burgundy v-necked sweater. His tam is at the ready on the kitchen table next to his bottle of Boer wine along with several tins of beer for the boys. He enjoys the affluence that a naval officer’s salary brings, far exceeding that of a parish priest.

  “Welcome, welcome.” Crowley embraces the two and kisses them each on the cheek, giving Rodgers the shivers and irritating Hinckley. “Something to eat?” He points to a pot on the stove containing what appears to be canned franks and beans. Rodgers refuses, but Hinckley grabs a bowl from a cluttered cupboard and a spoon from the dish rack alongside the faded porcelain sink.

  “I think we should do this later rather than sooner,” says Hinckley. “People are gonna be more drunk, you know, and move a bit slower.”