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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Flying Home to Church

Page 24

Wye made that clear. "Come on, wife, we got three hours to get logged-in and listen to some jazz. Along the way we got to do the damn drill with spit-shine and the other crap. You may want to get some playtime stripes the next two years but all I want is to get through this place and go to sea. I want to run a ship. I really want to run a ship. You can have your half of the room and I'll have mine. Move it, wife."

Reis had long ago stopped crying and now he laughed.

"Can't live in a room in that way."

Wye spun back to him. "You're pretty savvy, remind me of my Father's best friend who watched over me after my Dad got killed flying a new plane when I was maybe seven or eight. That friend was a Jew. Nothin' special there, either way. They just liked each other. You're right on the mark. Can't live that way. I guess I lived alone longer than you in one room with another person...."

"I didn't mean...."

"I got it. But while you were goin' to some fancy prep school to get in here I was bustin' my ass workin' bein' a jock playin' a game that's supposed to be fun to earn my tuition and board and room to get an education. I got to hate the damn game. Tried to quit just to be an architect, and they wouldn't let me. No play no pay. I'm here because we didn't have the money for me to go anyplace, and I wasn't quite good enough for the big time. But I sure as hell ain't goin' to let these bastards grind me down. Shit, I'm here because everybody liked my Father and they honored him by giving me this chance. So you?"

"We probably got some different bastards in mind, but I get the word."

Wye took a step over and gave Reis a shoulder hug. "This ain't no dummy drill. We'll beat 'em together. Now enough of this bilge pumping; let's get the fucking gear up to the room."

And so they did. Over the next two years they lived together and made a marriage, and as men can do came to love each other. They thought each other slightly crazy, but taught each other different truths, and came to like and enjoy and trust each other and that taught other people important things.

The word got out. Ever more numbers of quite different people began to stop by just to talk. An All-American tackle used to come by to ask Run-Run how to make a spin pivot after he made his first block at the line. Some others wanted to know how Run-Run was mastering that mechanical range finder that was in truth the first generation computer. Until the last year most of them left Cat alone about academics. Then they discovered that he was the best navigator and ship-handler in the class. Still, mostly they came to learn how to do a one-hand snap roll on the snare or compose a photograph or write a paragraph.

Mechanical Rangefinder aboard U.S.S. North Carolina
Mechanical Rangefinder aboard U.S.S. North Carolina

It can happen. The magic does exist.

Reis made All-American midfielder twice. Then Cat said to hell with basketball and began to run the gut-wrenching obstacle course designed to make an island invasion seem like a waltz. He usually defeated the best competition from West Point and the Marines. And, like Run-Run, he vomited a lot after the toughest contests.

Cat liked Basie and Shaw and Run-Run preferred Elllington and Goodman. They settled on alternating three records. But Run-Run's stepfather and his mother taught Cat about Mozart and other such important matters. And Cat was not so dumb that he didn't learn to like Mozart too. And Run-Run once allowed that Basie wasted fewer notes than Ellington.

They lived easy with each other; could put an arm around a shoulder, tell each other to go to hell about who cleaned the shower for Saturday inspection, and danced with each other's dates. Many impressive upper-class girls (and their parents) were after Run-Run. But his mother was a better looker by far, and his father taught him not to let a brush of a breast diddle your mind. As for Cat, he had this girl Susan back there in that tinky-winky town and he nohow notime put his hand in the wrong place.