We climbed narrow steel rungs set into the wall down to the belly of the ship where the engines lay. Bledsoe disappeared for this part of the tour. “Once the chief gets started on engines he keeps going for a month or two. I’ll see you on deck before you leave.”
“Engine room” was really a misnomer. The engines themselves were in the bottom of the ship, each the size of a small building, say a garage. Moving parts were installed around them on three floors-drive shafts two feet in diameter, foot-wide piston heads, giant valves. Everything was controlled from a small room at the entrance to the holds. A panel some six feet wide and three feet deep was covered with switches and buttons. Transformers, sewage disposal, ballast, as well as the engines themselves, were all operated from there.
Sheridan showed me the controls that could be used for moving the ship. “Remember when the Leif Ericsson ran into the dock the other day? I was telling you about the controls in the engine room. This one is for the port engine, this for the starboard.” They were large metal sticks, easy to move, with clearly marked grooves-“Full ahead, Half ahead, Half astern, Full astern.”
He looked at his watch and laughed. It was after five. “Martin’s right-I’d stay down here all day. I keep forgetting not everyone shares my love of moving parts.”
I assured him I’d found it fascinating. It was hard to figure out on one visit, but interesting. The engines were laid out sort of like a giant car engine, with every piece exposed so it could be cared for quickly. If you were a Lilliputian you would climb up and down a car engine just this way. Every piece would be laid out neatly, easy to get at, just impossible to move.
I went back up to the bridge to pick up my papers. While we’d been down with the engines, the loading had stopped for the day. I watched while a couple of small deck cranes lifted covers over the hatches.
“We won’t bolt ’em down,” Bemis said. “It’s supposed to be clear tonight, for a miracle. I just don’t want to take any chances with four million dollars’ worth of barley.”
Bledsoe came up to us. “Oh, there you are… Look-I feel I owe you an apology for running lunch the other day. I wondered if I could persuade you to eat dinner with me. There’s a good French restaurant about twenty minutes from here in Crown Point, Indiana.”
I’d worn a black corduroy pantsuit that day and it was covered with fine particles of barley. Bledsoe saw me eye it doubtfully.
“It’s not that formal a place-and there’s some kind of clothesbrush in the stateroom, if you want to brush your suit. You look great, though.”
11 Grounded
Dinner at Louis Retaillou’s Bon Appetit was delightful. The restaurant took up the ground floor of an old Victorian house. The family, who all played a role in preparing and presenting the meal, lived upstairs. It was Thursday, a quiet night with only a few of the inlaid wooden tables filled, and Louis came out to talk to Bledsoe, who was a frequent guest. I had the best duckling I’ve ever eaten and we shared a respectable St. Estephe.
Bledsoe turned out to be an entertaining companion. Over champagne cocktails we became “Martin” and “Vic.” He regaled me with shipping stories, while I tried to pry discreetly into his past. I told him a bit about my childhood on Chicago’s South Side and some of Boom Boom’s and my adventures. He countered with stories of life on Cleveland’s waterfront. I talked about being an undergraduate during the turbulent Vietnam years and asked him about his education. He’d gone straight to work out of high school. With Grafalk Steamship? Yes, with Grafalk Steamship-which reminded him of the first time he’d been on a laker when a big storm came up. And so on.
It was ten-thirty when Bledsoe dropped me back at the Lucella to pick up my car. The guard nodded to Bledsoe without taking his eyes from a television set perched on a shelf above him.
“Good thing you have a patrol on the boat-anyone could get past this fellow,” I commented.
Bledsoe nodded in agreement, his square face in shadow. “Ship,” he said absently. “A boat is something you haul aboard a ship.”
He walked over with me to my car-he was going back on board the Lucella for one last look around. The elevator and the boat-ship-beyond loomed as giant shapes in the dimly lit yard. I shivered a bit in my corduroy jacket.
“Thanks for introducing me to a great new restaurant, Martin. I enjoyed it. Next time I’ll take you to an out-of-the-way Italian place on the West Side.”
“Thanks, Vic. I’d like to do that.” He squeezed my hand in the dark, started toward the ship, then leaned back into the car and kissed me. It was a good kiss, firm and not sloppy, and I gave it the attention it deserved. He mumbled something about calling when he got back to town and left.
I backed the Lynx out of the yard and onto 130th Street. Few cars were out and I had an easy time back to I-94. The traffic there was heavier but flowing smoothly-trailer trucks moving their loads at seventy miles an hour under cover of darkness, and the restless flow of people always out on nameless errands in a great city.
The night was clear, as the forecast had promised Bemis, but the air was unseasonably cool. I kept the car windows rolled up as I drove north, passing slag heaps and mobile homes huddled together under the shadow of expressway and steel mills. At 103rd Street the highway merged with the Dan Ryan. I was back in the city now, the Dan Ryan el on my left and a steep grassy bank on my right. Perched on top were tiny bungalows and liquor stores. A peaceful urban sight, but not a place to stop in the middle of the night. A lot of unwary tourists have been mugged close to the Dan Ryan.
I was nearing the University of Chicago exit when I heard a tearing in the engine, a noise like a giant can opener peeling a strip off the engine block. I slammed on the brakes. The car didn’t slow. The brakes didn’t respond. I pushed again. Still nothing. The brakes had failed. I turned the wheel to move toward the exit. It spun loose in my hand. No steering. No brakes. In the rearview mirror I could see the lights of a semi bearing down on me. Another truck was boxing me in on the right.
Sweat came out on my forehead and the bottom fell out of my stomach. I pumped gently on the brakes and felt a little response. Gently, gently. Switched on the hazard indicator, put the car in neutral, leaned on the horn. The Lynx was veering to the right and I couldn’t stop it. I held my breath. The truck to my right pulled out of my way but the one behind me was moving fast and blaring on his horn.
“Goddamn you, move!” I screamed at him. My speedometer needle had inched down to thirty; he was going at least seventy. I was still sliding toward the right lane.
At the last second the semi behind me swerved to the left. I heard a horrible shattering of glass and metal on metal. A car spun into the lane in front of me.
I pumped the brakes but there was nothing left in them. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t do anything. In the last seconds as the car in front of me flipped over I hunched down and crossed my hands in front of my face.
Metal on metal. Wrenching jolts. Glass shattering on the street. A violent blow on my shoulder, a pool of wet warmth on my arm. Light and noise shattered inside my head and then quiet.
My head ached. My eyes would hurt terribly if I opened them. I had the measles. That was what Mama said. I would be well soon. I tried calling her name; a gurgling sound came out and her hand was on my wrist, dry and cool.
“She’s stirring.”
Not Gabriella’s voice. Of course, she was dead. If she was dead I couldn’t be eight and sick with the measles. It hurt my head to think.
“The steering,” I croaked, and forced my eyes open.