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MEN OVERBOARD
The ship, five-hundred sixty-three feet of inglorious haze gray, floats indifferently upon the damaged waters of Hong Kong Harbor, held fast by thirty-tons of anchor buried deep in a quagmire of thick silt more than one-hundred twenty feet below, a steady five knot current keeping each man-sized link of the anchor’s chain taut against its neighbor. Her cargo, comprised of fuel oil for other ships and forty-eight thousand tons of munitions, includes enough nuclear weaponry to vaporize most of the free world. Ominously named after the Hawaiian volcano Kilauea, she lies at the ready more than five miles from shore, where harbor melts into sea and stout winds tear the water’s surface into notoriously choppy swells void of any syncopation. A soft symphony of moaning cables, swirling breezes, and the brawny slap of saltwater on sturdy hull echoes across the weather decks, sneaking deep into her bowels and the fertile dreams of her slumbering crew.
In a little more than three and one-half hours reveille will sound, urging each man up and to the task of getting the ship underway, these past seven willful days time enough to drink too much and whore around, to fight and puke and drink some more, enough stories lived to fuel lifetimes of embellishment for this crew of three-hundred saints and sinners, fathers and husbands, brothers and sons, each man and near-boy. The time is near for a return to the sea, to toil and sweat, to purify and recharge body and soul, time to reflect before the next exotic stop and more of the same. Mothers—I’ll tell you—don’t let your sons become sailors.
Shawn Peter VanDeen, a freshly-minted man-child just turned twenty-one and only nine months removed from the manicured dairy farms of Northeastern Iowa, lies in his rack sleeping quite fitfully as the hour approaches 2:00 am in this part of the world, the soft red ooze from a nearby compartment light bathing the left side of his pimpled and peach fuzzed face with an other-worldly light. If any of his shipmates are awake and watching, they’ll see young VanDeen ensconced in lustful dreams, hungry for the young bargirl he’d slept with two nights ago, and if they look closer still, they’ll observe his left hand anchored as firmly to his one-hundred percent Dutch crotch as is the ship to the ocean’s bottom. He slumbers without remorse, for at this stage of his young life the world truly is his oyster, its pearls tantalizingly close.
This last day in Hong Kong VanDeen had been required to remain onboard, summarily held prisoner by the responsibilities of duty and watch, unable to partake in one last self-indulgent night of carousing, awash in alcohol and Asian wonder. While many of his shipmates had ploughed ashore on decrepit water taxies crewed by ancient and weathered Chinese mariners, men of indeterminable age, who none the less scampered lithely about collecting fares while peddling warm Pepsi and mayonnaise sandwiches, he’d spent this day’s hours working in the ship’s armory cleaning guns and inventorying ammo. The armory was a tight but quiet space, virtually cut off from the rest of the ship by the abrupt regimen of security, and he greatly enjoyed these episodes of respite from the stifling chaos that normally invaded his days onboard this big, gray, pig of a ship.
At precisely 2:04 am, Shawn Peter VanDeen is coarsely awakened from his dreams of soft, nubile flesh and manhood gained by the loud wail of bells and boson’s pipe that seem vaguely familiar, hugely annoying, and largely irrelevant until the Petty Officer of the Deck’s voice spills sharply from the compartment’s 1MC speakers, “Man overboard, man overboard, this is not a drill, there’s a man overboard the USS Kilauea, all hands heave to and muster on deck, I repeat, this is not a drill!” His eyes flash open as realization floods his young mind, and he’s the first to bolt from his austere rack out of the sixty-plus men he bunks with, quickly into his pants, his bare feet flowing into steel-towed boondockers harsh against the backbone of his toes, up and towards the exit, a grey-white t-shirt forced over his head as he runs for the armory. In just seconds he’s pushing through shipmates headed the opposite direction in the too-narrow passageways, and he imagines how a salmon must feel as it fights against current and gravity towards the spawning pools of its own creation. He reaches the armory at 2:06 am and watches the shake of his hands as they battle the key into the hard lock. Muffled shouts and the throbbing echoes of so many feet running hard fill the dank spaces deep within the ship’s belly, and he feels his mind and body quicken as the first tingle of adventure’s call seeps into his membranes.
Inside the armory he unlocks the tallest cabinet and grabs two full clips, ten rounds each, and stuffs them into the olive-green webbing of an ammo belt, and then lifts the cold and solemn steel of an M14 rifle from its coffin. He turns to go and smashes his right shin on the knee-knocker as he heaves through the hatch. The pain sears into his mind and separates him briefly from this moment, but quickly he’s back on task. “Fuck”, he thinks while locking the armory door, this single word pulsing, then stalling in his brain, and once again he gathers his momentum down the now empty passageways, up steep ladders and across purposely rough decks, up to the O1 level and left to the port boat davit where he’ll pass the rifle and ammo on to the boat officer. He arrives at his destination breathless and proud just after 2:08 am.
Lieutenant Ralston’s voice is barely audible above all the gruff and questioning men gathering at their man-over-board stations, each bleary-eyed sailor wondering who’s gone over, and those no longer drunk from this night’s binge may even be wondering about the how and why. VanDeen spies Lieutenant Ralston’s bald head gleaming under the jolt of flood lights shining just above the boat davit and pushes his way to him, the sea of men parting readily upon glimpsing the M14 in his hands, and he perceives the rifle’s power as perhaps his own.
“Lieutenant, Seaman VanDeen reporting with one M14 and twenty rounds for the shark guard.” The Lieutenant ignores him for several seconds before he turns and asks one simple question followed by one direct order: “Are you qualified on that rifle son?”, and VanDeen replies quickly, “Yes sir, I am.” The Lieutenant looks him over with the squinty-eyed scrutiny of one who’s seen brave men and foolish men likewise fail and succeed, and having heard no quiver or break in VanDeen’s swift reply, softly commands “Climb up in that boat son, you’re the shark guard tonight.” VanDeen starts to question, but stops before his lips betray him, and clumsily, one hand heavy with the M14 and ammo belt, and the other grasping the boat’s gunwale, he hoists his body over and into the motor whaleboat, its twenty-six feet suddenly too small this damp, dark night.
“Fuck VanDick, watch where you’re sticking that piece of shit gun!” VanDeen feels his mood sink just a little more, this voice all too familiar. It belongs to that son-of-a-bitch Shiny, this apt moniker due to the constant and radiant sheen of his complexion. VanDeen thinks this gleaming little bastard is the biggest ass on the ship, and of course it figures that he’ll be subjected to Shiny’s particular brand of scorn on this night of nights. “Shut-up Shiny, I’m not even awake yet” is all VanDeen can come up with in defense of whatever it is young men feel compelled to defend. He gathers himself from the ropes and gear lining the keel and sees Shiny grinning there behind the boat’s wheel, looking for all the world like a man squarely in his element. He shoves a lifejacket at VanDeen and spouts “Put this on VanDick, we’ve got to get our asses movin’.”
With the novice air of someone impersonating a sailor, VanDeen stands and wobbles as he steps through the leg loops and slides the swollen, pumpkin-colored Kapok up and over his too-square shoulders, the vision of desperate men bobbing like big orange marshmallows upon distant, lonely swells capturing his mind’s eye as he cinches the chest strap tight. He takes the middle seat and nervously waits as the third member of this random crew climbs aboard, then nods his greeting as the newcomer finds his own space near the bow. ”How you doin’ partner, I’m Carlson” twangs the newcomer, southern cool trickling from his voice.
He’d learned right away that the only names used on ships and at sea were last names or nicknames bestowed with or without affection by your shipmates. “VanDeen” he replies over the clamor of activity spreading across the weather decks, “I’m the shark guard tonight”, and he thinks how outlandish this declaration sounds coming from a boy just escaped from an Iowa dairy farm. Carlson looks at him with an easy smile that settles the mood within the tight confines of their tiny vessel just a bit and says, “Well that’s good VanDeen, cause I’m the swimmer and I don’t want no shark taking a bite outa my Texas butt tonight.” VanDeen relaxes and laughs at this scrap of Texas irony flung his way and knows he trusts this guy already. Carlson looks past him to the stern and raises his voice over the din, “Hey Shiny, how’s things with you?” Shiny stands in the back puffing on a Camel no-filter, his sorry attempts at smoke-rings lost in the evening’s mist, and shouts back “Fuckin’ just dandy Tex, you ready yet?”
Shiny signals to Lieutenant Ralston that the three men and the whaleboat are ready to be lowered over the side. As much as VanDeen loathes Shiny he has no choice now but to give in and believe, believe that Shiny knows what he’s doing, and suddenly remembering that quite probably a man, one of his shipmates, is alone out in the dark and the cold greasy water, believe that some small victory will eventually mark the end of this night. Now, as the boat davit lifts them free of the whaleboat’s cradle, as he and Carlson listen intently to Shiny’s instructions, VanDeen feels that particular sense of impending doom begin to fill his belly. As the three men steady themselves and swing out over an ocean of foreboding some fifty feet below, each can feel the combined gaze of the ship’s crew all at once wishing them luck while condemning them with envy, sending them hope and hurling futility like softballs, their three uneven destinies now sewn into a single, crazy tapestry of the bizarre.
As the boat slips steadily towards the dark water below, Shiny attempts to resuscitate the engine, all the while shouting instructions, and it’s readily apparent who will lead them now. “You need to stand and hold the rope with both hands, let it slip through, but be ready to fuckin grab a hold tight! That way if this fuckin’ thing falls, your dumb ass won’t fall with it”. Thick, knotted, manila ropes hang from the boat davit and into the whaleboat for just this purpose, and VanDeen and Carlson stand quickly and embrace the ropes as the logic of Shiny’s words rings true. The motor startles awake, and VanDeen feels strength and reassurance in the vibrations resonating throughout the small boat as Shiny guns the engine in neutral to quickly warm it.
“When we hit water, you knock that pelican hook loose up front Tex. VanDick, you get back here by me and knock this one loose soon as I tell ya, and be careful not to get hit in the fuckin’ head.” VanDeen does as told, but then looses his balance as the boat impacts the water harder than he’d imagined. Carlson knocks his hook free without difficulty, but VanDeen is late doing the same, and this causes the bow of the small boat to slam vigorously into the mother ship, knocking each man from their feet and down into the vee of the keel. “Goddamn it VanDick, get that fuckin’ thing loose now”, Shiny screams into the darkness as the three men struggle to regain their balance and dignity from the boat’s bottom. VanDeen staggers through his ineptitude and to his knees, finally bumbling to a haphazard resolution of his task. With both ends finally free, Shiny slams the transmission into gear and gets them away quickly into the night.
VanDeen’s person reeks of embarrassment as he begins to sputter apologies, but Carlson stops him cold, “Fuck it kid, nothing hurt, and we got more important things to worry about, like some poor son-o-bitch floatin’ out here alone.” Mercifully, Shiny agrees and even adds, “Fuck man, you should’ve seen the first time I came down, nearly ripped off a finger on those Goddamn ropes”. VanDeen can hardly believe that Shiny isn’t berating him like a drill sergeant, as if out here on the slick waters of this far away place he just might be more than merely some green sailor unable to pull his own weight. Intuiting he’ll have another chance at redemption before this night is finished he peers intently into the chill and nothingness, far beyond what his eyes can see, and imagines himself a hero.
The small boat evaporates into the suffocating darkness and quickly becomes nothing more than a slowly eroding memory to the crew left behind. Again and again, the boat lifts to a brief hover before crashing down into thick furrows born from the confluence of the night’s hearty winds and the harbor’s swift currents, and each man holds fast to the sides with at least one hand. Carlson asks, “Have ya got a clip in yet kid?” VanDeen shakes his head and releases his grip on the gunwale to put one in. He’s instantly pitched about and bangs rudely from side to side as he wrestles a clip into the gun, then once more clutches the rifle across his lap and resumes his anxious grip on the gunwale. Greasy water is spraying continuously off the bow and into the whaleboat, and VanDeen thinks about saltwater corroding the metal and tiny mechanisms at the heart of this gun, that maybe it won’t work when needed, that perhaps he won’t be able to do whatever he’s asked to do. Each man soaks and feels the chill of this evening close to the bone, the amount of resilience necessary for their survival directly proportionate to the hard elements and their growing isolation.
“So where do we head Shiny?” VanDeen wonders this mystery aloud, the great blackness of the night swallowing everything not caught in the dim glow of the boat’s navigational lights. In the distance he can make out their ship’s silhouette and the lights of Hong Kong sprinkling across the shore and into the hills as a thin fog works to sponge everything outside the whaleboat into nothingness. “The current runs this way, strong-ass current too, so anyone or anything falls in, that’s where it’ll go.” Shiny says this as a matter of calm fact, as if he’s been doing this exact thing each night for a long, long time. VanDeen looks where Shiny points, and sees only the obstacle of darkness.
Carlson shifts to the middle of the boat and inquires if Shiny knows who is missing. “Well”, begins Shiny, “The Lieutenant says someone cut loose a fifteen-man life raft from amidships and that we should look for one, maybe two guys. The roving patrol saw the life raft go in, and the port bridge watch saw someone jump off the fuckin’ fantail. Shit man, Communist China’s right around the Goddamn corner, what’s this asshole thinking?” Once again VanDeen sees the direct logic in Shiny’s perspective and wonders who among his crew might do such a thing. “Tex, why don’t you get back up in the bow and use one of them battle lanterns as a spotlight out front, and you do the same VanDick, except on the sides. I’ll slow this cocksucker down so no one else falls into this shithole of a harbor”. Shiny slows them to a crawl, just enough forward momentum to maintain a little stability against the chop and wind, and VanDeen notices he’s shivering, the lantern in his hands trembling its slim beam across oil and water, third-world flotsam, and the strange stink of adventure.
The three men burn their eyes into the abyss, searching, hallucinating, each wanting to see something that looks ordinary out here on this pond of the surreal. Carlson is the first to call out with the glow of possibility coating his words, “Hey boys, over there by that styrofoam, what’s that stickin’ up, is that an arm wavin’?” VanDeen and Shiny squint to see what Carlson is talking about, but neither can make out a damn thing through all the spray and bleakness. Shiny guns the engine and steers towards whatever it is Carlson thinks he sees, and as they approach each believes for a moment they’ve found what they came to find, that this evening will have a clean and happy ending after all. But then, from his perch leaned uncomfortably far out in front of the bow, Carlson’s voice fractures this temporary euphoria with the truth, “Dang it all to hell man, it’s just an ol’ bamboo stump floatin’ round. Damn hard to see squat tonight!” VanDeen shines his lantern out on the hard evidence leering back at them from all the shit and slime, and thinks it looks more like one of his father’s dairy cows dropped dead, bloated and stiff, drifted all the way here from his former life.
VanDeen shifts his watch into the harsh light of his lantern and remarks, “It’s 2:47 guys, what do you think they’re doing back on the ship? He’s cold, wet, and tired, and wishes for nothing more than to crawl back into bed and his dreams of nothing and everything. He’d joined the Navy to see the world and find adventure, to live so robustly that when he returned to Iowa his family and friends would know, they’d just know. This night doesn’t feel robust or anything like he thought adventure should. It feels more like trauma and tedium, like shivering wet cold, and defeat. As they continue to careen over the rogue waters and through the infinite minefields of stagnant debris, he starts to wonder how long you search for a fallen shipmate before conceding, and he feels deeply guilty for thinking any and all of these things while someone is out there, maybe drowned, their wretched corpse already starting to swell up in these stinking waters and the stupefying aloneness of this place.
Shiny steers the boat in long sweeping arcs trying to get some unknown angle or catch the glint of something foreign amongst the homogeny of floating debris. He recognizes most of the objects—soda cans, plastic bags, cardboard, cigarette butts, a comb, the leg of a doll—as vivid artifacts echoing the environmental pitfalls of modern living even here on the other side of the world, and by now they look natural, like flowering landmarks of prosperity and poverty alike. “I’m thinking we turn this fucker around and start a pass to the right and back towards the ship—what do you think VanDick?” VanDeen hesitates to answer, suspicious of Shiny’s motives behind wanting to know his opinion, but then slowly, he releases his own logic, “This boat can cover a lot more water than a raft or a man swimming, so if he’s out here, we’ve passed him by already. If we go back towards the ship with these wide turns, we might just run over him.” VanDeen hears his own voice ringing, surprised by its full and sure tone, and Shiny spins the wheel hard and throttles them back towards warmth and things familiar, as if VanDeen’s words have somehow gained a weight specific to the gravity of this night.
Carlson’s hyper-vigilance is now etched in silence as he continues at his post in the bow, unflinching, believing that the next foot traveled will reveal a clue or even the big prize, and if not in this moment, then hopefully in the next. His eyes fight off each oasis that appears, unwilling to accept anything but truth. His knees grow raw beneath his dungarees as his legs press hard into the narrowing of the bow as he battles to maintain his tenuous perch. His posture speaks of steadfast resolve and never say die, of the eternal need to fight ‘the good fight’ and ‘David versus Goliath’. VanDeen stares at his back and thinks of all the underdogs who scrap and fight, who give it all up for one chance in a million, one final shot at redemption for all the wretched souls who think of this life as a done deal. Seeing him up there, so stoic and alone, VanDeen knows this night’s outcome is out there still and waits for them to arrive, that each winner and loser still hangs equally in the balance.
As Shiny starts another arc to the left, Carlson pivots right like a weather vain caught before a summer’s storm spilling across the vast openness of his Texas youth. He thinks he sees a yellow raft there off the starboard bow, a shimmering, momentary sighting that quickly fades like all the rest, but wait! Again this vision rises from the boil of angry water, like the mythical phoenix suspended above wet ash and ruination, the source of this Siren’s call at last revealed.
Shiny sees Carlson’s focus shift and follows by turning the boat hard on its starboard side, aiming towards the spot where the Texan’s sight lingers, just there, a few yards ahead and to the right, a semi-miracle served up disguised as a bright-yellow life raft. Shiny slams the throttle shut and lets the whaleboat drift to a stop not more than fifteen feet away. The raft looks empty as it bends and drops over the grimy slop of the harbor, and the three rescuers feel the power of fate and loss pushing them back once more towards the inane and abysmal. But then they see it, like some ghostly apparition slithering from the ocean depths, a single hand reaching up to grip the raft’s safety line. They balance on weary sea legs and gaze transfixed by the spectacle of this one hand fumbling incoherently as it fights to raise its owner from the raft’s rubber floor, each rescuer now reduced, however temporarily, to the role of bit player in this unswerving theater of the absurd.
“Fuckin’ Wilson?” Shiny’s voice breaks their collective stupor by flinging this expletive question out into the coal blackness, the answer languishing right in front of them, the raft’s sole occupant stupendously drunk or something much worse. “Jesus, he’s messed up bad Shiny. Pull us up closer so I can grab that line and bring him alongside”, implores Carlson through the surprise they all feel.
VanDeen knows this guy, in fact they checked onboard the same week and share the commensurate bond and burden of enduring a rookie sailor’s “rights-of-passage” these past six months. Wilson had been assigned to Shiny’s division in the deck department, while VanDeen went to Weapons, the nature of their respective work keeping them on parallel, but separate, courses. VanDeen had witnessed Shiny and Wilson running together as liberty hounds frequently in the past, but always avoided any interaction due to the taunting Shiny would inevitably heap on him.
As the drama ebbs onward, Shiny stands like a pillar of sea-salt behind the whaleboat’s con, the thickness of this night camouflaging his burgeoning despair and holding him captive. VanDeen wonders why Shiny isn’t moving them forward, the end of this strange rescue just beyond their reach, and he gestures his puzzlement in Carlson’s direction. “Hey Shiny, come on man, move us up before that son-o-bitch falls in and drowns himself!” Shiny leaves his fog and takes just a second to glower in the face of Carlson’s retort, then eases the whaleboat forward until it bounces into the raft, momentarily pushing them once more apart before both vessels settle together. Shiny kills the engine, and the three intrepid rescuers find themselves confronted and confounded by this strange offering from destiny’s lot, this night’s irony missing its mark.
Carlson grabs the safety line and waits for VanDeen to slide forward and help as Shiny sits down in the stern, sparks a Camel, and attempts to divorce himself from this moment, this place. “Tie this line around that cleat over there kid”, drawls the Texan as he hands the line to VanDeen. He does as instructed, using a technique taught to all men who travel the high seas, and then watches Carlson slip easily into the raft. He sees that Wilson’s face and hair are smeared with vomit, that the raft is filled with several inches of puke-infused seawater swirling in perfect unison with the passing of each roiling swell. Carlson doesn’t seem to notice, and by now has propped Wilson into his lap and is cleaning his face with the tail of his own shirt, lovingly, like someone’s mother might do.
“This boy’s in bad shape, somethin’ more than just booze got into him tonight.” VanDeen can hear the overt worry flowing through and with Carlson’s words, and he feels the shadow of this night pushing them all closer to the precipice of something that feels like sickness and fear and loathing and hopelessness, one big, steaming, helping of total shit served up on life’s plate out here in the dark.
“Hey Shiny, I think it’ll be too damn dangerous and hard to get him in the boat with us. You back the whaleboat up and I’ll tie this here line to the stern cleat and ride along with ol’ boy in the raft. Just tow us nice and slow cause he’s real sick.” Shiny says nothing as he flicks the Camel into the water and rises slowly, the weight of doing anything that will take them ‘home’ this stark night heavy on his conscience. He knows the Captain as an incredibly adept hard-ass, that his sick friend will return a villain, that the depth of Wilson’s error in judgment will pale in comparison to the Captain’s seething wrath and subsequent punishment. To return his friend to the ship at this point is tantamount to throwing him squarely into the lion’s den, and Shiny longs for some divine salvation to appear and take his hand from the boat’s wheel, to remove him from his role in this night’s complicity.
VanDeen unties the rope as Shiny brings the engine to life, then slinks past whatever’s simmering in Shiny’s mind and sailor’s heart, into the stern without speaking as he feels the evening’s dark pallor raining down evenly on them all. Shiny somberly maneuvers the whaleboat around and then backs it up until VanDeen can once again grab the raft and hold it close as Carlson ties a bowline around the stern cleat, the beginning of the epilogue to whatever escape Wilson had sought this fateful night. Carlson retreats to the far end of the raft and lifts Wilson’s torso free of the rancid water and leans the sick man into him, wrapping both his arms around Wilson’s chest to keep him upright and safely in the raft while it’s towed back to the separate fates awaiting each of them.
VanDeen turns and stays crouched in the stern, presumably to guard and tend the thin line now securing one craft to the other, but mostly to avoid passing through whatever sacred space Shiny has carved there by the con to hold his anger and his loneliness at bay. He watches as Shiny slowly moves the boat forward, away from the thick “what ifs” of the night and towards the more certain future that awaits them back on the ship. He thinks back to his grandfather and his tales of combat, of boys turned men overnight, of survival and loss, of the weariness that invades body and soul until a gray nothingness mercifully washes over with the guarantee of one’s continuation in this life, if not one’s salvation.
Up ahead he can feel the ship looming, vanished beyond the wall of fog that seems to foretell the hour of reckoning soon to be upon them, and he knows the stench of this night will linger, perhaps forever. There aren’t any hero’s this night, just four men encountering a certain crazy destiny they couldn’t foresee. Shawn Peter VanDeen looks at his watch and notes it’s 3:18 am, then closes his eyes and settles himself into the bulkhead for the long ride back to whatever awaits. His weariness this night runs deep, down to his very marrow it seems, deep enough to tease at the fringe of his soul and the end of his youth.
