’Twas the week after Army, and all the good mids
Were prepping for Christmas, while Dan’s on the skids.…
The doggerel echoed in his tired brain as he slogged back and forth. On the terrace again. Rifle digging into his shoulder. With the plebes and third class, marching off their venial demerits. With his lips freezing, cheeks and toes numb. He hadn’t slept well either. Dreaming about being late to a thermo test, out of uniform, no pencil, without a clue.
At this rate he’d be out here until the day he graduated. If he did graduate.
It wasn’t snowing this afternoon, but the wind off the Severn was razor cold, the empty sky the off-white of cracked ice. Where did the gulls go in the winter? Grimy heaps of dirty snow barricaded the entrance of the Mid Store. Past that the playing fields stretched muddied, tracked-up. Rimes of ice ridged the green slow-moving river. To the east, glimpsed for a moment as he about-faced, the sailing craft lay frozen, immobile in their sheltering basin. As if locked into a stasis field by invading aliens.
No one knew how to react to a tie with Army. The plebes, missing the preholiday carry-on they’d so eagerly anticipated, were restive, like serfs denied emancipation. The upperclass had different issues, like finals, but the depressed mood was everywhere. As if the Dark Ages, the legendary abyss that riveted a clinical depression on everyone between Christmas and spring leave, had arrived early.
The leather sole of one boonie skidded on a frozen patch, and he nearly went down. Barely catching himself before the rifle hit the deck, he came to a sloppy attention. About-faced. And began trudging back.
He was peeling sopping socks off, changing for evening meal, when DuKay knocked on his door. The plebe bulged, a gray planetoid in multiple sets of sweat gear, face streaming with sweat. “Yeah,” Dan snapped. “What is it, Donkey?”
“Sir, lieutenant wants you in the company office.”
Scherow raised an eyebrow from his rack. Dan hesitated, one sock on, one off. The discarded one lay limp and wet on the tile deck. “Now?”
“Yessir. ASAP.”
Oleksa probably just wanted one of his little chats. Dan kicked the socks under his desk, pulled on fresh ones, jammed his feet into his class shoes, and headed out.
In the passageway he threaded between howling second class and frantic, sweating plebes. Walloped in the ass with an atlas, a fourth class shot down the hall, leapt into the air, and belly flopped onto a row of mattresses. Carrier landings … Dan knocked at the door of the company office, entered, and sounded off. “Midshipman First Class Lenson, reporting as ordered.”
“Lenson? Come in. Close the door.” Oleksa rose from his latest hobby, a hulking dull-silver computer he was trying to transfer USNA forms to. Plopping behind his desk, he flicked another toy. A shiny steel ball smacked a row of similar spheres, and another on the far end sprang up. Then the process repeated … The company officer was in blues, white shirt, black tie. His blouse hung behind the door. The room smelled of coffee and ozone. Probably from the computer. “Siddown.”
Dan perched on the edge of the chair, then forced himself to slide back a couple of inches. Trying to relax. Click, went the balls. Click. Click. What did the guy want? But you couldn’t ask. Just wait for him to get to it.
The submariner drawled, “So, how’s restriction treating you?”
“Uh, all right, sir.”
“How we doing, marching off all those demerits?”
We? “Uh, we’re making a dent in—”
“But we have a ways to go, right?”
“That’s right, sir. Just … do it an hour at a time, I guess.”
Click … click. The thing was hypnotic. Watching it made you believe in perpetual motion.
Oleksa lifted a paper, then dropped it. “I’m concerned by what Mr. Door’s been telling me. About the bad blood between you and our neighboring company. Stemming from the, um, death last month. Though finding the body must have been a shock.”
“Yes, sir. I—”
“I know I’m not, um, privy to everything that goes on around here. But I hear you think one of your own classmates was responsible in some way.”
Dan swallowed. He’d typed up the honor violation report on his old Royal, but it rested still in the combination-locked desk safe that was the only place a mid could call private, along with the note Patterson had left.
Once he turned them in, he’d be a bilger.
The lesson was hammered in from the first day in the Yard: you looked out for your classmates. Back in the dim mythical past, one Richmond P. Hobson had fried two full pages of his peers for smoking, being late to formation, and improper uniforms. For two years no one had spoken to Hobson, looked at him, or acknowledged his existence. Dan didn’t think a formal Coventry still existed, but there was no doubt he’d be in shit city.
Click … click. Oleksa cleared his throat. Dan sat up straighter in the chair, which seemed to have turned slippery under his ass. “Sir, you read my, um, my prelim investigation. I think he was responsible. At least, for pushing too hard.” He hesitated, wondering if he should mention that the note had reappeared. Then decided to hold off just a little longer.
Oleksa nodded, pursing his lips. Then got up and peered out his window, parting the blinds. Looking down, as if he expected to see something interesting in the alley between the wings. Though usually it held only dumpsters and maybe a laundry truck. “Mind if I offer a little advice?”
Dan worked his shoulders surreptitiously. “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. Maybe I could use—”
“I looked over your peer evaluations, Dan. All the way back to Plebe Summer. You have a rep as somebody who’s kind of … more uptight than the average run. Convinced he’s always right.”
“Sir.” Dan blinked. “I don’t get to see those.”
Oleksa waved it off. “I know, all you see’s the rankings. And it’s not necessarily a bad look, to be locked on. Even if you believe you’re more righteous than some of your classmates.”
More righteous? While he was spending every free minute walking off multiple Class A offenses? “Uh, sir, I don’t see myself that—”
“Well, maybe not. Still, there’s such a thing as getting along. Both in the Navy, and the world at large.” The lieutenant glanced at his watch. “Due home for dinner. Just thought I’d offer that to you, for what it’s worth.”
The steel balls leapt, fell, rested, leapt once more. Dan blinked as invisible energy shuttled back and forth. Would the fucking thing never run down? “Uh, thanks, sir, but I’m still not sure exactly what you’re telling me.”
Oleksa looked weary. He ran his thumbs around his waistband, where his gut had pulled the shirt out. “Okay, lemme try again. You’re gonna see some things in the Fleet, sometimes, that might not seem exactly in line with the way they should be. Or are supposed to be. Or are advertised to be.
“I’m supposed to guide you guys, but there’s only so much I can do. You know? Just a little around the edges. A nudge, here and there.”
Dan frowned, bemused. Oleksa was still speaking to the window, so close his breath frosted the cold glass. “I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is, when we start out, everybody wants to think he’s special. A hot runner. The top one percent. But the reality is, most of us aren’t. We’re just someplace in the middle of the pack. Where the pack goes, we go. And that’s about the best we’re ever going to get.”
Fuck was he talking about? Dan nodded, faking comprehension.
Chow call went out in the passageway. A plebe two doors down, bellowing as loud and fast as he could: officers of the watch. Menu for evening meal. The movies out in town. Ending with, “Time tide and formation wait for no man. Five minutes, SIR!”
Dan stood. “Ah … permission to shove off, sir?”
Click … click. Yet Oleksa still stood looking down into the alley. At last he muttered, as if to himself, “Get out of here.”
The overhead lights in King Hall seemed dimmer than usual. The windows, black. Meatballs, gravy, mashed potatoes, and mushy, overcooked peas and carrots. Dan let the third class harass the plebes a little, then suggested they let them eat. “In fact,” he added, “why don’t we just give them carry-on.”
After an astonished moment the fourth class unlimbered their jaws and slid back in their chairs. They looked suspicious, as if they didn’t deserve to eat normally. Muff shot him a silent glance. Gratitude? Or resentment? Dan didn’t care.
“Going home for Christmas, Dan?” Teddy said suddenly.
He helped himself to more potatoes. Confront his dad again? The violent, angry ex-cop, wallowing in his resentment of a town that had wronged him? Then remembered, actually with relief: he’d still be on restriction. For better or worse, Navy was his life now. Was that what Oleksa had been trying to tell him? He still wasn’t sure.
“Dan?” Scherow prodded.
He flinched. “Uh, sorry … Fuck, I’m gonna be marching tours. You?”
“Zusana’s invited me to meet her folks.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Maybe. I’d stay at a hotel, but I’d spend Christmas with them.” His roomie looked conflicted. “But it’d be the first time I … y’know … wasn’t home for the holidays.”
Dan nodded. Remembering what Oleksa had said, he forced the words out. “That’s a real dilemma, Teddy. But I know you’ll make the right decision.”
That night in their room, Dan waited until Scherow was rehearsing again, staring at the bulkhead and emoting about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, before bending and spinning the dial of his safe. He reached behind the confidential codebook they were supposed to memorize for tactics, and laid the now-crackling, dry note on his blotter. Outside, in the passageway, someone screamed, “Plebe ho!” at the top of his lungs.
“Not fucking again,” Scherow muttered. He jumped up and slammed their door. “This is my big chance. I gotta nail this soliloquy.”
Dan smoothed the note flat, wondering again what to do. Let it go? Or do what was right, regardless of the consequences to himself?
He examined the edge of the tear, where the upper corner had vanished. If only he could figure out where it had come from. There was something there he just didn’t grok.
Okay, Dan. Let’s assume for a moment that the bruises on Patterson’s face, the blood on his clawed fingers, hadn’t been from the fall. That someone else—say, Davis and his two buddies—caught him there in the head that night, maybe taking a smoke break, like his roomies said he did, shoved him through the already-opened window, and left a fake note.
But why would they then steal the note? It proved Patterson had jumped on his own.
And once vanished, why the fuck would it reappear?
He teetered back in his chair, almost to the point of going over backward. Faintly through the door came hollering and cheering as the youngsters urged the plebes on in a crab race. Jeez, he was getting sleepy.… He slammed the chair down and went to the window. “Mind if I?”
Scherow frowned over his script. “We got somebody on window-closing detail?”
“Yeah.” Dan cracked it just enough so a chill breezed the room. Half an hour before reveille, a plebe would ease his way in and silently seal the windows. So everything would be toasty when his seniors woke.
Wait a minute. He’d seen a typewriter in Davis’s room.
He thrust the report chit back into the safe and twirled the dial. Picked up some bond paper and folded it around the note. “Back in a sec,” he muttered.
Scherow shrugged, lips moving silently as he struggled with Hamlet’s eternal equivocation.
The plebes’ door was open, their room empty. Dan found a black typewriter case beside the shower, along with a B4 bag. The tag read M PATTERSON MIDN 4/C. He set the case on the desk, opened it, and cranked the blank bond around the platen. Sat, and set the caps lock. Looking at the note, he typed the longest line.
IM NOT GOING TO MAKE IT HERE AND I DON’T FEEL LIKE TRYING ANYMORE
He held the original beside it and compared the scripts.
Both were in elite font and equally dark. Registration, then. The H was slightly elevated on the note … and on the line he’d just typed. The upper enclosure of the capital R was dark, crammed with lint and carbon from not being cleaned. The same as on Patterson’s note.
Struck by another thought, he lifted the bail, pulled out his sheet, and flipped up the cover. Hit a key, to test which way the spools revolved, then reached in and pulled out a few inches of ribbon. The letters he’d just typed showed plainly, very slightly discolored on the black ink-impregnated fabric. And ahead of them … very faint now … FUCK EVERYBODY. SORRY. MARIO.
He zipped the ribbon back into place and snapped the cover down again. Certain, now, that the doomed plebe’s note had been typed on his own machine.
But did that prove Patterson had written it?
He couldn’t think of any way to test that. As his own presence showed, any upperclass could have come in and done it, when the occupants were out. As they often were, for classes, pep rallies, and formations.
But assume Mario had typed it and stepped off into eternity all on his lonesome.
Then where had the note gone after that?
If Davis had seen it there in the head, why not leave it in situ, to forestall any doubt?
“Fuck,” he muttered, stymied again. Mind blank as a sheet of fresh cotton bond.
The door opened. The two plebes, one tall, one short, stumbled in. They were shaking, red-faced, stained with sweat. “Bastards,” the short one muttered, before catching sight of Dan. He snapped to attention and started to sound off.
Dan silenced him with a finger to his lips. He pointed to the gear by the door. “That his stuff? Your roomie’s?”
“Yes, sir. Nobody knew where to send it.”
Right, he was an orphan. “And this typewriter?”
“That’s his too, sir.” They exchanged glances. “Do you want it? We were going to keep it, sort of to remember him—”
“Oh, that’s not—no, I don’t want it.” He got up. “Look, did you, um, ever see any other upperclass using it? Coming in, like, to type something?”
They shook their heads. Dan eyed the open door. “Okay. Well. Don’t tell anybody I was I here. Capisce?”
They nodded again, expressions blank. “Good plebes,” he said. Thinking, as he left, Shit, what a stupid thing to say.
Halfway back to his room he halted, in the suddenly empty, echoing passageway. Frowning down at the note again.
At the upper corner, where a piece had been torn off.
“Crap,” he muttered. Now it made sense. What had been nagging at him all this time.
Like his roommate had just said: nobody knew where to send his personal effects.
Patterson didn’t have a family to write to.
But his note had begun DEAR MOM AND DAD.
The note had been typed on his machine, sure. But he hadn’t typed it.
Whoever had, hadn’t known the plebe was an orphan. But he must have realized his mistake shortly after the plebe’s death. And figured he had to make the note disappear.
Then, later, had figured he could have it both ways: make it look like a suicide. And throw suspicion in another direction. On another first class.
On Dan.
“Taps, taps, now lights out,” the 1MC announced. Scherow was still emoting on his side of the room. Dan flicked his desk lamp on, trying to concentrate on partial integrals. But he couldn’t conjure what the symbols stood for. His mind kept slipping off into fantasizing about Mignon’s tits, Licia’s lips on his dick. Anything to evade thinking about what he should do now.
At last he got up and pulled on his b-robe.
When he looked into the company wardroom, the TV was still on. It was supposed to be off after taps, but since Oleksa was out, and no midshipman officer of the watch would pap his classmates, it was blaring. Coke cans and Lay’s bags from the basement machines littered the deck. His classmates’ faces were slack, lit by the flickering tube. He hesitated, then walked on.
The elevator was off-limits for mids. He pushed the button and got on, feeling a sudden sense of liberation from all restraint.
Maybe you ever only really appreciated freedom when you didn’t have it.
He strolled out onto an empty T-Court. The wind was icy on his bare ankles. He halted where the body had sprawled. The windows of the Main Office were brightly lit. Considering his demerits, getting fried for being out here would put him over the limit.
Maybe this was how Patterson had felt.
Slipping by submerged, pretending to be someone you weren’t.
Anyway, what mattered was that someone, and he was more and more certain it was Davis, had lied, fabricated evidence, and, maybe, committed murder.
It was obvious what was right. Not because the regs, or the honor code, said it was.
This wasn’t just about Davis, or Oleksa’s advice on going along to get along. It felt more like, how was he, Daniel Valentine Lenson, going to live his life from here on out.
He wondered if Patterson was looking down. Watching him. Probably not. He wished he’d done better by the kid. Whatever he did or didn’t do now, it wouldn’t bring back the dead.
He stood there for quite a while shivering in the thin bathrobe. In all that time, no one crossed the windswept expanse of frigid yellow brick.
He stood at the door of the battalion honor rep, tapping the formal report of an honor offense against his lips. Making sure he was ready to go through with it.
Finally, he lifted his hand and knocked.