Jason Bruckner
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Earlier in the day
Around 9:30, Jason unlocked the door to Manny’s Tap Room. It was a ritual he’d been doing since his days at Penn State, when his father had started to teach him the family business. More than twelve years now.
Pushing open the front door, Jason smelled the familiar aromas of exhaled smoke, spilled beer, and fried foods. As he lifted the shades in the front windows, late spring sunlight blasted the old, dark woods of the bar and surrounding fixtures. As he walked through the place, inspecting everything for the neatness and cleanliness his father had always demanded, he nodded. The night crew had done their usual good job and Manny’s looked as ready as ever.
Grabbing the remote off the back bar, he keyed on the big flat screen, where he’d catch up on the world with a little Fox News, then slip over to ESPN for some scores. He wasn’t the biggest sports fan in Lancaster, but if you owned a bar, you needed to know enough to talk a good game.
Most taverns would love to be like Manny’s—a comfortable, affordable place with local charm and genuine warmth. Jason’s father, Richard, had always worked hard to maintain that standard; and even though these days he spent most of his time driving golf carts around the Overlook course.
The television droned on with a story about highway fatalities on Memorial Day weekend, and Jason hardly listened as he re-counted the deposit from the bar register. But when the next story splashed in from a Fox correspondent in Baltimore, Jason found himself more than half-listening to a young blonde female reporter as she unfolded a tale about a dive boat explosion in the Chesapeake Bay. It was one of those “news alerts” with few early details. As with most unfolding tales of tragedy, the network promised updates and film as soon as it became available.
Jason was distracted by the front door opening. A flash of blonde hair and a fresh white polo shirt signaled Nevah’s arrival. She was Manny’s most popular waitress for a lot of reasons—the way she looked in low-slung jeans and her effusive personality being up there near the top of the list.
“Hey, Jase, how’s it going?”
“Can’t complain,” he said as he watched her glide past him on the way to the kitchen.
“Cedric not here yet?” she said, noticing their short-order cook’s absence.
“He’ll be here. He always is.” Jason continued to get the bar ready for the first customers of the day.
It wasn’t until around 2:30 that the lunch business slacked off, giving Jason and his staff a breather. As he polished the bar, Nevah started talking, making small talk as she normally did, and for the first time in hours, Jason could actually hear the audio on the big TV.
Even though he had been barely paying attention, something hooked him in his subconscious and he began screening out Nevah’s words. He grabbed the remote, notched up the volume.
“—explosion in the Chesapeake Bay this morning. We have an update from Roger Powell on the scene in Annapolis.”
Jason watched as the face of an earnest young TV journalist appeared with a marina in the background. “Thanks, Allyson. The Coast Guard has identified the boat as the Sea Dog, which was a charter vessel out of Annapolis. Early this morning, its captain, Donald Jordan, had taken members of a dive club out on the Bay to investigate a sunken ship. So far, the cause of the explosion which killed the captain and divers Andrew Mellow, Kevin Cheever, and Lawrence Schissel is unknown. Ensign Gary Hawkins of the Coast Guard had this to say…”
The screen cut to an interview with a young officer, who said, “It’s really strange because we had a distress call for this boat just yesterday—they had a diver drown while he was inside the shipwreck.”
“What kind of wreck had the divers found?” said the reporter.
“World War II submarine.” The Ensign looked on the clipboard he was carrying. “It was called the U-5001. It’s the second Nazi sub ever found in the Chesapeake Bay waters and—”
“Hey, Jason, we’re running out of napkins!” Nevah emerged from the kitchen with a half empty pack of them.
“Wait!” he said, waving her off and looking up at the screen.
“What?”
“Ssshhh!” Jason glared at her, then back to the screen, where the segment played on with the reporter wrapping it up. Jason grabbed a pen and a waitress’s order pad. “What did they say the name was?”
“—and local police are investigating the possibility there were two additional divers on the boat still missing. Thomas Chipiarelli, a firefighter from Baltimore City, and Dexter McCauley, the proprietor of an Annapolis dive shop. More on this tragic story as it develops, Allyson. This is Roger Powell, Fox News.”
“What’s wrong?” said Nevah. True concern in her voice.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I…just wanted to hear that story, that’s all.”
“Well, we’re going to need more napkins by tonight,” she said.
“Okay, you can go up to BJ’s and get some,” said Jason, who was trying to collect his thoughts. There was something about that news story that nagged at him. He wasn’t sure he’d heard it right, but it sounded like that guy had said U-5001. If he’d heard her right. Could it be possible?
“Okay if I leave now? While it’s slow?” said Nevah.
“Sure, go ahead.” Jason said absently, then: “I need to stop back at the house. I’ll be back in a little while.”
U-5001.
The mention of the name struck deeply in him. Oh, man, he thought, are you kidding me?
Ten minutes later, Jason pulled his Murano SUV up to the house on Foxshire Drive. Everything looked serene, and it was.
Dad was probably finishing up the front nine by now—something he was doing with great regularity since Jason started to assume most of the duties down at the bar. Jason was happy to see the old guy have some time to enjoy himself after sending two kids to private schools and college. Richard Bruckner had become obsessed with turning in a card that broke 80 at least once before he died.
His mother was in the backyard working on her gardens, which had become a hobby years ago, and now consumed her with constant weeding, pruning, and replanting. The lawn behind the house had long ago disappeared and the multi-tiered gardens looked like something out of an English village in the Cotswolds. As he passed through the gate on the side of the house, he saw his mother doing something to a bed of day lilies that already looked spectacular.
“Hey, Mom, how’s it going?” She looked nowhere near her true age, never having needed to dye her strawberry blonde hair or torture herself with crash-diets. She’d lived an active, fulfilled life working at Manny’s, raising two kids, and lately becoming a horticultural expert.
“Jase, what’re you doing over here? Is there something wrong?” She took off her gardening gloves with the little green dots all over the inside fingers.
“No, not at all,” he said, smiling his best disarming smile. “I need to ask Opa something.”
Mom looked at her watch. “Your grandfather’s taking a nap, I think.”
Jason grinned, nodded. He loved the old man, and it was mutual. Opa Erich had long ago decided he loved Jason more than anyone in the world, and had made it his lifetime job to teach his grandson everything he knew about everything. And it had been a great ride. Some of Jason’s most favorite memories involved time spent with his grandfather—or as he’d preferred to be called—his “opa.”
The old man had taught Jason how to fish, to sail, to use just about every tool on the bench, how to use a gun, how to read the weather, how to stay alive in the wilderness, and a hundred other things from whittling a piece of wood to repairing broken appliances.
One time, when Jason had been maybe ten or eleven, he asked Opa how he knew so much about so many things. The old man looked at him and smiled, touched the side of his head, and said, “I am curious. I ask questions and I do whatever is needed to find the answers.”
That made a lot of sense, even to a young boy, and Jason had let his grandfather’s words inspire and guide him into adulthood. Even back then, Jason had a sense of the special bond between him and his grandfather. Of course they loved each other, but it was more than that—they understood each other.
“Go on,” said Mom. “Go on in and talk to him. You know how much he likes to see you.”
“Okay.”
He entered through the back door on the deck into the kitchen. There was fresh coffee in the pot, so he poured two mugs, then headed down the hall to a small suite of rooms realtors always called an “in-law” apartment. For as long as Jason could remember, this place had been called “Opa’s rooms,” and so they remained. But even though he still looked healthy and way younger than his age, the old guy was so old now, Jason wondered how much longer that would be true.
Gently tapping on the bedroom door, Jason listened for a response.
“Ya? Who is it?”
Jason smiled as he heard the old man’s voice. Rather than the frail reedy peeps of most old people, his grandfather’s voice remained solid, full of timbre, still strong and confident.
Opening the door, Jason stepped into the room, which smelled faintly of medicine and liniment. “Just me, Opa. How ya doin’?”
His grandfather was laying back on his sofa, wearing a sweatshirt that said Nittany Lions and a pair of baggy khakis—because he thought the air conditioning was always too cold.
“Jason. Good to see you!”
“I brought you some coffee.”
“Coffee. That is good. Your mother keeps it so cold in here.”
Despite being in his early nineties, he still had most of his teeth and more hair than a lot of men half his age. Erich Bruckner looked lean and remarkably healthy as he stood with deliberate slowness. Age had not cramped his posture or his bearing, and he’d kept his weight under control by maintaining a careful diet. Smoothing his hair, he faced his grandson like a recruit acknowledging his drill sergeant.
“What brings you to me?” he said as he accepted the mug, brought it carefully to his lips.
Ever since Jason could remember, his Opa had always looked fit and strong, and his gradual slide toward a highly advanced age had never seemed dramatic because he’d looked pretty much the same for as long as Jason had ever known him. And there remained a light in his eyes that still burned fiercely—a beacon telling all that his mind remained ever sharp.
“Remember a story you told me when I was a kid—about Uncle Manny and how he served in a German sub?”
The light in his grandfather’s eyes flared more brightly, as if someone had thrown gas on banked coals. “Yes…”
“You told me the name was the ‘U-5001’. I remember because you said it was the highest number they ever used on a U-boat.”
“That is correct,” said the old man, as he moved to sit in a chair in front of his desk. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Why are you telling me this now?”
Jason sat down on the bed, faced him. “Well, it seemed very important to you at the time. You said if I ever saw U-5001 written down anywhere, or if I ever heard anyone mention it…I should tell you right away. Do you remember telling me that?”
“Yes, I do.” He looked away, as if seeing something distant, then blinked his eyes. The old man took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So, tell me—where did you see the name?”
Jason recounted the newscast, and as he did, his grandfather acquired an odd expression as if he were trying to see through a veil of thick fog, looking at something far, far away.
“Opa, you okay?” Jason tried to grin, failed. “What’s this all about?”
“I have often suspected there was a reason…a reason I’ve lived so long. But now I am thinking there may also be more than one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jason, there are a few things I need to tell you. Things nobody in the family ever knew…”
Jason looked at him with a growing sense of anxiety. The old guy was unnerving him a bit. Because English had been his second language, his grandfather had always spoken very precisely, but now there was even more formality in his words, and it was unsettling.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“A long time ago, I learned there was more to the world than I ever imagined. Since then, I have looked at things differently than most men.”
“Huh? What happened to you?”
His grandfather smiled. “Uncle Manny was not the only one in that submarine…”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I will explain,” said the old man. He was looking at something only he could see. “And after I do, I think I will want you to make a phone call or two for me—but not from here, and not from that little thing you carry around all the time.”
Jason looked at him oddly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I want you to use a pay phone, all right?”
“Sure… Sure, Opa, but why?”
The old man shrugged. “Maybe because I have been watching too many bad movies…or maybe because it is important. We will not know…until later.”