A Commodore of Errors (25 page)

“What's wrong with it?”

“It's old and splintered! We should tear the thing down. And look how far out it extends over the water.”

Miss Lambright laughed. “What's the matter, Commodore? Are you afraid?”

The Commodore slapped at the air. “Don't be ridiculous, Miss Lambright. Of course I'm not afraid. I just don't like walking out over all that water without a life jacket.”

“So why don't you wear a life jacket?”

“Well, I do have one with me. It's in the trunk.”

Miss Lambright put her hand on the Commodore's forearm. “Do you want me to get it for you?”

“No! I'll be laughed at.”

“But how else will you get to the ship?”

“Maybe we should just reschedule. Until this front blows through.”

Miss Lambright looked again at the flag. “What front? There isn't a puff of wind.” She opened the driver's side door and got out of the car. “I'm getting your life jacket.”

“No!”

The Commodore whirled around in his seat. Through the rear window, he saw Johnson walking toward the car.

“Miss Lambright! Get back in the car!”

It was too late. Miss Lambright opened the car trunk and took out the life jacket just as Johnson walked up.

“Miss Lambright,” Johnson said, stopping next to the LeBaron. “I've been looking for you. What are you doing here?”

“I drove the Commodore here so he could gather his thoughts this morning.”

Johnson pointed at the life jacket in her hand. “Like how's he going to get down that long rickety pier this morning?”

Johnson laughed when he said it. The Commodore fumed. Johnson had done this on purpose. As superintendent, Johnson presided over the board and, as chair, was able to make certain unilateral decisions, such as the venue of board meetings. Johnson had made the decision to hold the board meeting in the wardroom of the MV
Kings Pointer
, the academy's training vessel tied up alongside Mallory Pier. A number of years back, a rumor had taken hold that the Commodore was afraid of the water. He always suspected that Johnson was the one who had started the preposterous rumor. The Commodore knew that it was time to put an end to the lie. His very credibility was at stake.

He got out of the car and took the life jacket from Miss Lambright. “Thank you, Miss Lambright. You may go now.”

The Commodore ushered Miss Lambright to the driver's side and shoved her into the car. He then turned and faced Johnson. He made a great show of putting on his life jacket. He looked Johnson in the eye as he buckled the last buckle.

“I'm making a point, do you see? Mallory Pier should be condemned. The life jacket symbolizes how unsafe I deem the pier to be.”

“Sure,” Johnson said.

“Shall we go?” The Commodore's voice cracked ever so slightly.

“No, you go ahead.” Johnson slapped the Commodore on the back of his life jacket. “Great idea. The life jacket as a form of protest. I like that.”

The Commodore started off for the pier then stopped. He turned around to Johnson. “You sure you don't . . . ” The Commodore heard his voice crack again and stopped to clear his throat. “Ah, you sure you don't want me to wait for you, old boy?”

“No, no. You go on ahead by yourself.”

Miss Lambright called out from the front seat of the LeBaron. “You want me to walk with you, sir?”

The Commodore waved his hand. “Nonsense, Miss Lambright. I am certainly able to walk down the pier myself.”

The Commodore turned around and steeled himself. It was only a pier, after all. He took one step forward and froze. He did not want to look down but he couldn't help himself. He saw the water through the cracks in the pier—it slapped the undersides of the stringers and made a frightful sound. The Commodore looked up at the flags on the yardarm of the
Kings Pointer
. The flags were moving in the breeze, he was sure of it.

Get moving! And don't look down
, he told himself.

The Commodore took a hesitant first step. He had to move. Johnson was looking! He forced himself to take a second step. His legs obeyed but were also convulsing uncontrollably. The Commodore managed another step, and then another. He wanted to run toward the gangway but his legs shook so hard that it prevented him from walking as fast as he would have liked. The gangway of the
Kings Pointer
loomed in the distance. As he got closer, he thought he saw two gangways. He lunged for the gangway on the left.

A midshipman standing watch at the head of the gangway caught the Commodore just in time, preventing him from going straight over the side of the pier.

“Commodore, are you okay?”

The Commodore leaned his entire weight on the young midshipman.

“I'm fine, young man,” the Commodore said. “It's the heat.”

The midshipman led the Commodore onto the gangway. When they reached the part that extended over the water, the Commodore stopped and gripped the handrail. The midshipman held the Commodore's free arm with both hands and pulled, the way a farmer pulls a milk cow. The Commodore let go of the handrail and the two of them fell forward onto the main deck. Another midshipman came over and helped the Commodore to his feet. The Commodore's face was ashen.

“Sir, you don't look so good,” the second midshipman said. “Why don't you have a seat over here?”

The Commodore pushed the boy away.

“I'm fine.”

The Commodore steadied himself.
May God damn you, Johnson! How dare he do this to me! And Miss Lambright. Embarrassing me with the life jacket.
The Commodore was fuming—he didn't need the life jacket, he wasn't afraid of the water, it was that damn pier. If it were up to him, he'd do away with Mallory Pier once and for all.

Just then a gang of midshipman rushed up to him. A chorus of “Is everything okay, Mr. Commodore?” sprang from their lips when they stopped in front of him. The Commodore bulled past them.

“You are sycophants, all of you. Have you no pride?”

The Commodore said it in a harsh whisper. He did not want any of the board members to overhear and think that he was in need of help of any kind. It was imperative that he project a strong image today. When one of the midshipmen tried to take the Commodore's life jacket from him, the Commodore chastised the young man, a blistering attack that made the others shrink away. The Commodore took a moment to compose himself, clutched the life jacket under his arm, and entered the wardroom.

The varnished wood bulkheads, brass handrails, and high-backed leather club chairs of the wardroom exuded power and exclusivity. A dark hardwood floor covered the steel deck and a navy blue rug with a gold anchor lay beneath the polished mahogany conference table. The wardroom on the MV
Kings Pointer
was one of the Commodore's favorite rooms. He just wished it were not on a ship. When he became admiral, he would have the academy's fine cadre of carpenters build a replica of the wardroom on terra firma, in Wiley Hall, and not on some hulk floating at the end of a deepwater pier.

The Commodore took a seat against the bulkhead in the back of the wardroom. He could have sworn he felt the little ship roll. Perhaps the wind was increasing. The Commodore decided to put his life jacket on, for safety's sake. The secretary of the board, Mrs. Coffee, took roll call and announced that they had a quorum and that Commodore Dickey was the only scheduled guest speaker on the agenda.

Johnson flipped though his copy of the agenda. “Ah, my dear, it says here that Mayor Mogelefsky will be addressing the board today.”

“Yes, sir, that's correct. However, the mayor's office called this morning and said that the mayor had to cancel.”

“But it was my understanding that the mayor had business before the board. Are we striking that business altogether?”

Mrs. Coffee looked around for help.

“Mrs. Coffee,” Johnson said, “I want to know. Are we striking that business from the agenda?”

“Well, ah, sir,” Mrs. Coffee said, “the business does remain before the board. Parliamentary procedure requires we address the business.”

Mrs. Coffee was the octogenarian widow of Commandant Coffee, the second commandant of the Merchant Marine Academy and the acknowledged architect of its regimental system. The Board of Governors had invited Mrs. Coffee to join the board after her husband died an accidental death at the hands of Morris, the academy's landscaper. Morris had inadvertently severed the wrist of Commandant Coffee when the commandant insisted on showing Morris the correct way—the regimental way—to trim a hedge. No one suggested Morris severed the commandant's wrist on purpose, but still the same, the board deemed it prudent to keep the widow Coffee close to the vest. Mrs. Coffee, like most widows, liked to keep busy, and she jumped at the opportunity for more busy work.

To Mrs. Coffee's left sat Mrs. Willowsby, widow of the academy's great benefactor, Ashord Willowsby, Class of ‘46, who went on to found Willowsby Plastic of Dakron, Ohio, a maker of plastic bath toys. Ash made a fortune with his bath toys and bestowed his millions on his dear alma mater. The academy had been sucking at the tit of Ash Willowsby for a long time, and when that sweet mother's milk stopped flowing with Ash's death, the Board of Governors wailed like a baby. Mrs. Willowsby, although childless, just could not bear to hear a baby cry, and she let it be known that in exchange for a seat on the board, the academy could latch onto her breast in perpetuity. The childless woman finally experienced the warm glow of motherhood.

To the widow Willowsby's left sat Captain Cooper Thompkins, known to everyone as Captain Cooper. A graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy and a classmate of Johnson's, Captain Cooper was an ex Exxon captain whose
career came to an abrupt halt when he inadvertently dropped his ship's sixty-ton stockless anchor on top of a tugboat, killing the tugboat's skipper, Frank Beebee. Captain Cooper went to great lengths to console Beebee's wife, Marge, and over time, they became close, so close that the two ended up getting married in the chapel at the academy. Cooper made Johnson his best man and Johnson, in return, offered Cooper a seat on the board. The disgraced captain was grateful for the chance to restore his reputation, but Frank Beebee's family cried foul. How, they wanted to know, could a criminally negligent sea captain become a board member of the country's finest maritime institution? Beebee's sister, a sixty-year-old mining company spokesperson from West Virginia known as Miss Beebee, acted as the family spokesperson. She so impressed the academy with her deliberate language that they made her a member of the board as well, ensuring that the Beebee family spokesperson forever remained mum on the appointment of Captain Cooper to the Board of Governors.

The widows Willowsby and Coffee were impressed with Miss Beebee's direct manner as well. They were amazed when Miss Beebee spoke up and asked a question at the very first meeting she attended as a new board member. My, the widows could scarcely believe their ears but there it was, Miss Beebee challenging Johnson on a rule of order. And she was right, wouldn't you know it. There
was
a spelling error in the minutes of the last meeting. When the chair announced that the minutes of the meeting were approved subject to the corrections per Board Member Beebee, the widows sat back in awe. In all their years on the board, the widows had not once opened their mouths, at least not about business before the board. Captain Cooper—he really was a nice man after all—often changed seats with Miss Beebee so that she would not have to talk over him. And the nice chairman, Admiral Johnson, did not seem to mind their chatting at all; in fact, he seemed to encourage it. They repaid his kindness with their votes. Miss Beebee told the widows that in West Virginia a lady dances with the one who brung her. The widows thought Miss Beebee a sage and followed her every move.

The charter for the board specified that it be comprised of seven board members, but the board could legally function with a minimum of five at the
discretion of the board's chair. Johnson, as chair, liked the makeup of the board just the way it stood. The meetings ran like clockwork. He and Cooper discussed the various items, and when they came to an agreement, as they always did, Johnson interrupted the widows to procure their votes and move on. When business came before the board regarding Johnson's various peccadilloes, as it often did, Johnson simply explained that the allegations were unfounded and that, for the sake of the august institution they served, the matter could best be handled with a vote of confidence in the job he was doing as superintendent. Miss Beebee told the widows that to get along you have to go along, and the geriatric widows overlooked Johnson's “youthful” indiscretions. That is, except for the time the widow Coffee summoned the nerve to say she'd heard there were pictures of the tryst that Johnson allegedly had with a female midshipman. Miss Beebee's and the widow Willowsby's ears picked up at the mention of photographs. Johnson, who had destroyed the licentious photographs, steadfastly informed the widow Coffee that no such pictures ever existed. Miss Beebee, especially, seemed disappointed.