A Commodore of Errors (29 page)

Captain Tannenbaume smiled. “Indeed we do, young man, indeed we do.”

“Get him up here,” Swifty said into the phone, “and pronto.”

Captain Tannenbaume looked at his watch when the electrician finally arrived on the bridge. The little shit sure took his sweet time. The electrician stood about five foot four and wore enormous workboots in a pathetic effort to give himself a little extra height.
If he wanted to look taller, he oughta think about getting rid of that damn ponytail
. In addition to his enormous boots he wore an enormous moustache, the kind that puffed up around his nose and covered
most of his cheeks. Captain Tannenbaume did not care for facial hair. He'd always thought that people with facial hair were trying to hide something.

The electrician walked up to Swifty. “Someone was looking for me?”

“That would be me,” Captain Tannenbaume called out from his chair. He waited until the electrician came over to the chair before addressing him again. “We've got some stale lightbulbs that I'd like changed out. Why don't you start with the masthead light.”

“I don't know, sir. With all the, ah, fog, and all, maybe I'd better not go aloft right now.”

Captain Tannenbaume noticed that when the electrician said “fog,” he covered his mouth with his hand to hide the smile on his face. He'd wipe that smile off his face.

“Don't play Philadelphia lawyer with me, Electrician. I ordered you aloft.”

“Union rules forbid going aloft in precipitation.”

It was the chief engineer. Captain Tannenbaume hadn't heard him come in through the chart room. Captain Tannenbaume's head rolled back and he let it rest on the headrest. He looked up at the overhead and let out a big sigh.
What the hell is Maggie doing up here?

The chief walked up to the front window and pressed his nose up against it. He turned to Captain Tannenbaume. “Fog counts as precipitation, don't it?”

“Don't fight me on this, Maggie, I want that masthead light replaced.”

“But what about the fog?” The chief said it to Captain Tannenbaume, but he looked at the electrician when he said it. Captain Tannenbaume saw the electrician's hand go to his mouth again.

“What the hell is so goddamn funny!”

“Now, now,” the chief said. “Let's remember to mind our manners.”

“Manners my ass, Maggie. If Miss Manners here had any manners, he wouldn't be covering his mouth with his hand all the time!”

The chief was about to say something when the phone rang. Swifty answered it. “Captain,” he said, “it's . . . your mother.”

As Captain Tannenbaume got down from his chair, he pointed his finger at the electrician. “Don't go anywhere. You're going to be changing lightbulbs up here whether you like it or not.” He grabbed the receiver. “Yes, Mother.”

“What's all the racket about up there? I'm trying to sleep.”

“It's the foghorn, Mother. And anyway, it's time for you to get out of bed.”

“Oh, no. I'm not getting out of bed until Syl—until that girl gets out of bed first.”

“That girl has a name, Mother. I'd like for you to use it.”

Captain Tannenbaume suddenly became aware that the others were listening in on his conversation. He decided to get back to business.

“Anyway, Mother, I'm busy now. We're socked in up here and I've got a job to do.”

When Captain Tannenbaume hung up the phone, the chief asked, “Isn't it unusual to experience fog in the Indian Ocean?”

“You can get fog anywhere, Maggie, if the conditions are right.”

“Oh? What conditions would those be?”

“Look, Maggie, I can't teach you meteorology over a cup of coffee. It took me years to master the subject.”

“I've just never heard of fog in the Indian Ocean, that's all. The North Atlantic, yes, but never the Indian Ocean.”

Captain Tannenbaume felt slightly unsure of himself whenever he debated with the chief. He had to admit that the big Swede was smart and knew a lot about a lot of things. But still, weather was the captain's bailiwick, not the chief engineer's.

“Just keep the plant turning and leave the weather to me, Maggie. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do.”

Captain Tannenbaume turned his back on the chief. “Swifty, give me an update on traffic. Ski, check the magnetic compass against the gyro.”

“No traffic in the radar, sir.”

“Use the forty-eight-mile scale. I want early warning of any closing traffic.”

Captain Tannenbaume liked the way his rapid-fire commands sounded. He'd show the chief a thing or two about being in charge. What did the chief know about the responsibilities of command? The chief engineer was only in charge of one department aboard ship. Captain Tannenbaume got down from his chair and paced back and forth on the bridge with his head down. He'd show the chief and his little sidekick what it was to bear the heavy weight of
command. The deep forlorn sound of the foghorn only served to heighten the sense of drama. As he paced back and forth, Captain Tannenbaume tried to think of another command that he could give. He whirled around. “Swifty, have you posted a lookout on the wing?”

“Um . . . no, sir. I didn't think of it.”

“Goddamnit! I want a lookout on that wing now!” He was putting on a real show for the chief now. By the time the fog lifted, the chief would have a newfound respect for him. Maybe he was finally getting through to the chief.
Maybe it's a good thing that he's up here seeing firsthand what it is that captains do.

The door to the bridge opened and the lookout, an ordinary seaman named Thibodeaux, walked in. Tibby was from Massachusetts. Both of his parents were Harvard PhDs, and although he himself barely made it out of high school for profound lack of interest, he clearly possessed an IQ that was off the charts. At nineteen he still had a chip on his shoulder and went around telling everyone that on his next ship he was going to Africa. “Joseph Conrad country,” he called it. That no one on board had ever read Joseph Conrad gave Tibby a sense of superiority. The little shit even had the audacity to ask the captain if he had ever read Conrad. When Captain Tannenbaume said he had never heard of Conrad, Tibby told him Conrad was the greatest chronicler of the sea, ever. Captain Tannenbaume told the little shit that he preferred Patrick O'Brien. Tibby said O'Brien was inauthentic. When Captain Tannenbaume saw Tibby enter the bridge, he felt a tinge of uneasiness. The little know-it-all had better not embarrass him in front of the chief with any more questions about books.

“Tibby, get out to the wing. We need a lookout.”

“Why do you want a lookout?” Tibby said.

“Don't question me, OS! Just get out there on the wing. Can't you see we're in fog?”

Tibby looked toward the back of the bridge and saw the open window. “Why's the window open if you have the air-conditioning blasting away?”

“The AC's stuck,” Swifty said. “We opened the window so it wouldn't be so cold.”

“Well that's where your fog is coming from,” Tibby said.

“What are you talking about?” Swifty asked.

“What happens when you take a glass of cold water outside on a hot day?”

Captain Tannenbaume felt the color drain from his face.

“It's not foggy outside,” Tibby said. “The windows are full of condensation.”

Tibby rolled open the large sliding door to the bridge wing with one swift pull on the handle. The intense Indian Ocean sun inundated the bridge in white light. The sun was so strong Captain Tannenbaume had to shield his eyes from the glare.

“Will you still want a lookout?” Tibby asked, but Captain Tannenbaume could not make out the young man's words over the laughter coming from the chief and the electrician. His head felt gauzy and all he heard was static.

Captain Tannenbaume walked off the bridge like a blind man, with one arm covering his eyes and the other arm out in front of him feeling for the bulkhead and the door. His cabin was dark and it made his head feel better and he took off his clothes and crawled into bed with his young wife. Captain Tannenbaume fell into a deep sleep the second his head hit the pillow and he did not hear the danger signal sounded by the supertanker off the starboard bow of the
God is Able
. Everybody on the bridge sure heard it and, ironically, it was the chief who saved the day when he took the wheel away from Ski—who froze when he saw the huge supertanker bearing down on them—and swung the ship hard to starboard. The supertanker captain stood on the bridge wing waving his fist and yelling at the
God is Able
as it slid past the side of his ship, close aboard.

When they woke up, Sylvia told Captain Tannenbaume she was tired of lying in bed all day and that she might as well start dealing with his mother now. She asked Captain Tannenbaume if he wanted to go to breakfast with her but he said that he was waiting for an apology from the chief first.

Now it was Captain Tannenbaume who refused to get out of bed.

SAFETY FIRST

I
t was Mitzi who got everybody out of bed. It was her first cruise and she wasn't going to let anybody spoil it.

Her mother told her before she left that if she had any issues aboard ship, anything at all, all she had to do was call the purser's office. Her mother had been on over one hundred cruises, so if anybody would know about these things, it was her mother. Mitzi woke up on the third day with the sun streaming through her porthole and decided to have breakfast served in her room—her mother told her that at least once on her cruise she had to have breakfast in bed and Mitzi figured today was as good a day as any. She looked at the ship's phone directory taped to the bulkhead next to the phone in the cadet's cabin and found the number for the galley. The chief cook answered the phone, and Mitzi told him she wanted breakfast served in her room.

The cook hung up on her.

When Mitzi called back, she overheard the second cook tell the chief cook to “tell that bitch to get her ass down here like everyone else and what the fuck makes her so special.” That infuriated Mitzi. She didn't think she was special—she just wanted breakfast in bed. It looked like it was time to call the purser's office. She got the number off the phone list and dialed it as fast as she could. The phone just rang and rang. She checked the phone list to make sure she had the right number and dialed again. Again no one answered. Mitzi let it ring.

She, of course, had no way of knowing that not only was there no purser aboard the
God is Able
, but the purser's office was now a storeroom used by the chief engineer.

At one time, every ship had a purser. The purser's main job was paymaster, but he was also responsible for signing the crew on and off the ship, maintaining the ship's articles, keeping track of their Mariners documents, and issuing shore passes. It was a big job when ships carried a big crew, but when the size of the crew on cargo ships began to dwindle with the advent of container ships, the purser's job became obsolete. The
God is Able
was over forty years old, and her purser's office was centrally located on the main deck so that the crew had room to form a line when the ship hit port and the purser paid out draws, an advance of money subtracted from a sailor's earned wages. This meant the purser's office was prime real estate, and when the purser became a thing of the past, a battle royale ensued as to which department aboard ship would get the office. The chief steward complained that he did not have enough space to store all the sheets and towels and tablecloths, not to mention all of the precious foodstuffs. Also, if he had the use of the purser's office, he'd be able to keep mops and buckets handy and maybe the main deck wouldn't look so grimy all the time. The chief mate said he'd be damned if the purser's office became a glorified slop chest. The mate needed a new ship's office, the one he had was tiny and located on the upper deck. The ship's office needed to be centrally located so that when the ship was working cargo, the cargo bosses could find him. “Why do you think longshoremen never follow the stowage plan?” the mate wanted to know. The chief steward told the mate that if he was out on deck where he belonged,
maybe the cargo boss could find his ass. The mate ignored this and repeated that he'd be goddamned if the purser's office became a fucking slop chest.

The chief engineer stayed quiet and let the steward and the mate duke it out for a while. When he finally weighed in, the chief intoned that the question of who got the use of the purser's office was strictly a safety issue. The ship did not have a safe space to store spare lube oil, and he always felt the purser's office would be the perfect place to keep it. It was an air-conditioned space, and the lube oil needed to be kept in a cool place because of the “flammability thing.” Captain Tannenbaume, who was judge and jury, said, “Safety first,” and that was that. That lube oil had a flash point equal to that of water apparently went over the heads of the chief mate and the steward, but Captain Tannenbaume did not bother to let them in on the chief ‘s secret. The truth was, if the chief didn't get his way on this, he'd be a royal pain in the ass, and Captain Tannenbaume just wanted the power struggle over the purser's office to go away. In the end, the chief used the purser's office to store beer for the engine department. The office was stacked to the overhead with cases of Heineken. That the chief never did keep the dangerous lube oil in there burned all of their asses, but what could they do? The chief had the key to the office and that, as Captain Tannenbaume said, was that.