A Commodore of Errors (35 page)

“Two times,” Captain Tannenbaume had bragged to the chief earlier in the voyage, after the chief had humiliated him with the whole sextant thing. Two times a day he had sex with his wife: once at night and once again when they woke up in the morning. That was the way Captain Tannenbaume liked it, and for Sylvia, after spending three years in a Singapore cat house, two times a day was like being on vacation.

Swifty walked out onto the wing. “Sir, would it be all right if Mitzi gave me a pedicure tomorrow?”

“This would be during your watch, I take it?”

“Sir, it's just that the chief mate runs me ragged with overtime work when I'm off watch, and the only chance I have to get one of Mitzi's pedicures is when I'm on. Everyone else is getting a pedicure, why can't I get one too?”

Captain Tannenbaume just stared off, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
So this was what life at sea had come to. Third mates demanding pedicures on the bridge.

Captain Tannenbaume waved Swifty away. “Whatever. You're no good to me on the bridge anyway, son.”

On the way down to his cabin, Captain Tannenbaume bumped into Sparks. He was about to bring up the fictitious noon position reports, but then thought it wasn't worth the bother.

“Any word from the agent about whether or not we're getting a GPS in Suez?”

“I still haven't heard from the agent,” Sparks said. “But don't worry. We'll get the GPS in Suez if I have to go ashore and get it myself.”

Captain Tannenbaume waved off Sparks the same way he had waved off Swifty. He closed the door to his cabin and sat down on the settee in his office. Jesus. He hadn't worked on his desk in days. Just the thought of it made him exhausted. He wondered about the superintendent's job. Since there would be nobody above him—there was no home office he'd have to answer to as far as he knew—he wondered if he'd even need a desk at the academy.

RIGHT-OF-WAY

C
aptain Tannenbaume woke up on the settee a little after dawn with the side of his face covered in drool and immediately wondered why his wife went to bed without him. When he crawled into bed and tried to spoon her, Sylvia pushed him away.

Captain Tannenbaume shot up in bed. “Sylvia, what the hell is going on?”

“Oh, didn't I tell you? From now on, we
schtup
once a week, on Saturday night.”

“
Schtup
?” Captain Tannenbaume said.

“Yeah,” Sylvia said. “You know—the hoo hoo and the ha ha.”

“Once a week?”

“But you have to take me out to dinner first. And it better be a fancy place.”

“What the hell has gotten into you? And where the hell did you come up with ‘
schtup
'?”

“The women in Great Neck
schtup
,” Sylvia said matter-of-factly. “But only once a week.” Sylvia sat up in bed and inspected her nails. They were getting
longer, and Mitzi's garish nail polish gleamed in the early morning light. “And one other thing. There will be no more hand jobs, either.”

“What!”

“Mitzi says it will ruin my nails.”

“Oh, is that what Mitzi says?”

Captain Tannenbaume threw off the covers from his side of the bed, grabbed the phone off the bulkhead, and dialed the bridge. When his mother answered, he told her to put Mitzi on the phone.

“She's in the middle of giving Swifty a pedicure.”

“Finish pedicuring Swifty yourself, Mother, and send Mitzi down to my cabin, pronto.”

“Is something wrong, sonny?”

“Yes, Mother, something is wrong,” Captain Tannenbaume said. “I quit. Tell that Commodore of yours to find himself another superintendent.”

Mitzi and his mother were in Captain Tannenbaume's cabin before he had a chance to hang up the phone.

“Okay,” Mitzi said without prompting, “forget the Saturday night–only thing. Have sex as often as you'd like. Just don't let it get out that you have sex twice a day, or the women in Great Neck'll think you're Irish or something.”

“And the hand jobs?” Captain Tannenbaume asked.

“As far as the hand jobs are concerned,” Mitzi said, “we can go with fake nails, so maybe Sylvia could just remove the fake nails for the hand jobs and put them back on for formal functions.”

His mother raised her eyebrows.

“What?” Mitzi said.

“I don't get this business about the hand jobs. Aren't they messy, sonny?”

Captain Tannenbaume didn't want to have this conversation with his mother, but there was no way around it. “A regular hand job keeps my prostate nice and limber, mess or no mess.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mitzi said. “Mogie swears by them.”

Captain Tannenbaume's ears perked up. “Mogie?”

Mitzi waved her hand. “An old boyfriend.”

Captain Tannenbaume looked away.
So Mogie's her boyfriend?
He ran his fingers slowly through his hair. He did not want to let on that he knew about the reams of telexes that Sparks had been intercepting from some guy named Mogie. Mostly, he didn't want to let on about the reams of telexes that Sparks had been sending back.

“So that's settled then?” his mother said. “You're back on board, sonny?”

Captain Tannenbaume did not respond. He was thinking about the telex he had picked up off Sparks's desk a few days back—it was the very first time Captain Tannenbaume had read a telex not meant for him. There was something in it about a stool. Some fellow named Mogie had wanted to know if Mitzi missed his stool. knowing Mogie was an old boyfriend changed the complexion of that question.

“Sonny boy? You're not really going to quit are you?”

Captain Tannenbaume could not take his eyes off Mitzi. So Mitzi gave hand jobs. Was that what the stool was for? Captain Tannenbaume pictured a farmer milking a cow. The dexterity of it all sent his heart racing.

“Sonny?”

Mitzi. You farmer's daughter you.

“Sonny!”

“Yes, Mother. Yes. I mean, no. No, mother, I won't quit. As long as Sylvia continues to take care of me.”

Captain Tannenbaume did not look at his mother when he said it. He only had eyes for Mitzi, the farmer's daughter with the special stool.

The
God is Able
managed to make its way into the Red Sea unscathed. Swifty and his fellow deck officers simply followed the other ships that were steaming in the same direction. They were all going to the same place, of course—the Suez Canal—and there was only one way to get there. At the same time, Swifty managed to keep out of Captain Tannenbaume's hair. Having been relieved of the burden of celestial navigation, not to mention the stress of having to fake the noon position reports, Swifty and his fellow navigation officers actually enjoyed the journey up the Red Sea. The mates basked in the collegial atmosphere of
Mitzi's salon, using the engineers and cooks and stewards—who gathered on the bridge waiting their turn for Mitzi's services—as lookouts and helmsmen while they, the mates, received their manicures and pedicures. Swifty had become so enamored of his daily pedicure that he handed over more and more of his watch-keeping duties to the others so that he could enjoy his time in the captain's-cum-barber's chair without the tedious interruptions of navigating a ship in a congested waterway.

As the ship proceeded northbound toward the canal, ship traffic increased significantly, and Swifty had the others answer the incessant VHF calls from ships bearing down on the
God is Able
from every direction. He taught the engineers to make meeting arrangements with oncoming ships. He taught the cooks how to make overtaking arrangements with ships that were overtaking them. And he taught Mrs. Tannenbaume how to deal with crossing traffic. Mrs. Tannenbaume had a hard time with the rules for crossing vessels. She could not abide having to change course for a ship just because it was on her starboard side. Why couldn't the other guy change course, she had asked Swifty. Why did she have to be the one?

Swifty told her that's what the Rules of the Road stated: a vessel that has another vessel on its starboard side is the give-way vessel. Period.

Mrs. Tannenbaume did not agree with the Rules of the Road. She called them arbitrary. “Fine,” Swifty said. “If you do not want to alter course, then hold your course and speed. You'll see what happens.”

Within the hour, an enormous tanker in semi-ballasted condition was crossing the path of the
God is Able
from right to left. Swifty was getting his nails done in “the chair,” and Mrs. Tannenbaume, acting as lookout, told him that there was a ship on their starboard bow. Swifty told her to alter course to starboard to pass under the other ship's stern.

“No way, José,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said, peering through a pair of binoculars. “That sucker's going to have to alter course for us.”

“Fine,” Swifty said. “Do it your way. Mitzi, do we have any more of the clear polish? My pedicure lasts longer that way.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume ignored the urgent calls coming in over the VHF radio. A half-hour later, the tanker was within a half-mile of the
God is Able
. The other
ship blew the danger signal, five short and angry blasts on the steam whistle, in an effort to get Mrs. Tannenbaume to alter course, but Mrs. Tannenbaume was not budging. The tanker passed ahead of them by no more than a hundred yards.

“Okay, that was too close for comfort,” Swifty said. “Captain Tannenbaume's standing orders call for a Closest Point of Approach of one nautical mile.

“Standing orders my tush,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “A miss is as good as a mile.”

“But the standing orders—”

“Show me these standing orders.”

The phone rang. It was the chief wanting to know who was blowing the danger signal.

“It's all under control,” Mrs. Tannenbaume assured him.

“It doesn't sound like it's under control. We don't exactly feel so comfortable down here relying on you mates to keep us safe,” the chief growled. “By the way, you guys keeping a good lookout for pirates?”

“Oh, pirates, schmirates.”

“If it was my department, I'd have run out some fire hoses.”

“You worry about your department and let me worry about mine.”

“Oh, and now it's your department?” the chief said. “From supernumerary to captain? And speaking of captains, where is that son of yours anyway? I haven't seen him for days.”

“He needs his rest, leave him out of this,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “Besides, we're doing just fine up here without him.”

“Well it sure doesn't sound like you're doing fine,” the chief said, and hung up the phone.

Mrs. Tannenbaume turned to Swifty. “Tell me more about this danger signal.”

“Get the Nautical Rules of the Road off the bookshelf. It's the blue book on the end. You can see it in black and white for yourself.”

When Mrs. Tannenbaume brought the book over to him—Mitzi was blowing his nails dry with the heat gun—Swifty told her to open the book and turn to Rule Thirty-four, Maneuvering and Warning Signals. He read subsection (d) aloud.

“When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other and from any cause either vessel fails to understand the actions or intentions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt shall immediately indicate such doubt by giving five short and rapid blasts on the whistle.”

“So you blow the danger signal when you don't know what the other ship wants?”

“Well, rule 34 refers to ‘doubt,' but mariners call five short and rapid blasts the ‘danger signal.' But the danger signal is sounded not so much to convey actual danger, as to say, in effect, ‘Get the hell out of my way.' Of course—”

“I've heard enough,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said and put the rule book back up on the shelf where it belonged. “I know exactly what to do now.”

The danger signal became Mrs. Tannenbaume's favorite new whistle signal. She blew it morning, noon, and night, and with Mrs. Tannenbaume at the conn, the
God is Able
barreled its way up the Red Sea, a trail of angry ships in her wake.