“No sir, I have not.”
McCutcheon’s eyes dropped to the wayward petty officer’s hand. “Sailor, is that fingernail painted?”
“Yes sir,” he said sheepishly.
“That means in addition to everything else, you are out of uniform.”
He heard footsteps on the ladder; the corpsman appeared, plastic cup in hand, ready to take Dunham’s urine. He was followed by Dunham’s chief.
“Dunham, you little fuck,” he said, not completely without affection.
“Chief…” Just as Dunham started to respond, a bugle began playing, marking sunset.
They all turned to the flag and saluted as the colors were lowered. It provided a useful, thoughtful pause just as it was starting to get crowded topside. When the last notes echoed across Pearl Harbor, it left them all in a more contemplative mood.
“OK, Dunham, go below with the corpsman, fill that bottle.”
“Aye, aye sir.”
He left.
McCutcheon and the chief looked at each other after they departed. “Can he be saved, chief?”
“Yes sir. He’s a promising mechanic. And he’s certainly not the first young man to make a bad career decision based on a piece of ass.”
“Amen.”
“I’ll tell him to put on a clean uniform and shave before the captain gets back. To look contrite. He’s disqualified everything for now so we’ll put him to work in the galley.”
“Sounds good.”
They both lingered topside, enjoying the sunset, one of their last before a long journey under water.
“Did he look sick to you?” asked the lieutenant. “I thought he seemed a little pale.”
“Pussy withdrawal,” said the chief.
“In that case: good. He deserves it.”
On the pier, Seaman Luke Winn looked up from the empty paint cans he was stacking and tried not to stare. He’d been hearing about Dunham since he arrived two weeks before, the AWOL sailor with the hot Hawaiian girlfriend. Most of the conversations on the topic were some form of this question: would you? Would you accept all the consequences for a few days in the sack with Dunham’s girlfriend? Winn had not seen her, and had little knowledge of what terrible things the navy could do to an AWOL sailor, but he was strongly inclined to say: maybe. Although he’d never seen her, in the stories that were passed around the boat she was exotic and beautiful, and Winn didn’t think he’d be able to say no to whatever such a girl might ask.
The legend of Dunham had steadily grown during his absence. To some he was a hero, a martyr for the love of womankind. To others, he was a reprobate, a danger to the Boise, the submarine force, and Democracy. Winn had never actually seen him before, so he looked Dunham over good as he talked to the duty officer. It was a little bit of a letdown: he just looked like any other dumb squid, a little tired maybe, shorter than he had imagined. It was the same kind of vague disappointment he’d felt when he had first seen the captain. He’d expected, on some level, a guy with a peg leg or an eye patch, or at least some kind of battle scar. But instead Captain Jefferies had banker’s glasses and a quiet voice.
“You want to go up there so you can hear better?” Chief Zimmerman had snuck up on him.
“No, chief,” he said, startled. He got back to stacking the paint cans, every one of which he had helped empty with his brush, during his unending days of painting in Pearl Harbor. When he looked up again, Dunham was gone.
Dunham went to work immediately, assisting with the preparation of food for the entire crew. Only then did the magnitude of what he’d done begin to dawn on him: AWOL. People went to jail for it. During war time, men were shot for it. He’d managed to spend those blissful days with Ashley without thinking of the consequences once, so intoxicated was he by the pleasures of the flesh, the beautiful young girl who was in love with him, just like he was in love with her, willing to do anything for him. If scientists could create a girl specifically for him, it would be Ashley, three quarters Asian and one quarter American, all four quarters hot. Going back to the boat had been unthinkable. But now he was back and he couldn’t stop thinking.
So here he was, stacking Number 10 cans of navy coffee and awaiting his fate. It looked like they weren’t calling shore patrol for him at least, to his vast relief. He wasn’t going to the brig. He would have a long shitty patrol, for sure, an array of punishments and petty humiliations, but he would get through it. Missing Ashley would be the hardest part.
Chief Cassidy, chief of the cooks, came up behind him, laid his hand on his shoulder.
“You feel like scrubbing some pots?”
“Not really, chief.”
“Tough shit. And maybe it will help you rehabilitate.”
“Good point, chief.”
“Take a quick smoke break, change into some dungarees, come back in ten.”
“Aye, aye.”
Dunham didn’t smoke, but he did take breaks.
As he walked to his berthing area, some men welcomed him back like a returning hero, shook his hand, asked him what it was like on the other side. Others avoided eye contact with him. For some, maybe, his absence from the watchbill had caused the resentment, but in truth the ship could suffer the loss of one man in port without too much trouble. Dunham thought it more likely that they were mad at him because he’d broken their deal, the deal all shipmates had with each other on every ship: we’re all in the same boat. As bad as it could get on a nuclear submarine, they were all supposed to be in it together, suffering equitably. That wasn’t supposed to change until you either got out of the navy or your sea tour ended, and they resented you for that, too. By taking off the way he did, he had violated the covenant.
Now that he knew he wasn’t going to the brig, he wasn’t too worried about the guys who were pissed at him. He would work hard, win them back, volunteer for every shitty duty. Despite going AWOL, he was good at his job, and his presence was valued. And when it got really rough, he had a few memories of Ashley he could replay, scenes of their love in vivid HD, viewable only in his mind. They were set mostly in or around her bed, but a few were on the beach and once hidden in the trees near Waimea Falls. He’d had to gently put his hand over her mouth then, she was yelling in pleasure, he was certain a park ranger would come arrest them both.
He knew that on his death bed, as his last breath escaped, that would be the last memory to cross his mind.
He had promised Ashley a letter. She had an old letter she treasured from her grandfather to her grandmother, written from the deck of a destroyer during World War II. (That grandfather was her one-quarter American.) She’d memorized every word of it, and made him read it with her, and he had to admit that it did appeal to him, the yearning, the straining for the right words, the fear that the war would keep them from ever reuniting. Ashley thought that letter was the essence of romance, and she lamented that no one got love letters to save, preserve, and hand down any more, just text messages and maybe emails that would evaporate with your next phone upgrade. She had made him promise to write her a real love letter, with paper, an envelope, and a stamp, and to send it in the last mail bag before the ship departed. They’d even bought a small stationery set together at the mall during one of their rare, brief excursions beyond Ashley’s bedroom.
In his berthing area, he pulled the letter out of his pocket and reviewed what he’d written so far.
Dear Ashley:
So this is the letter I promised you.