A Commodore of Errors (32 page)

That afternoon, at coffee time, the chief regaled the others with the story of his breakfast with Mitzi.

“She's something else,” he said. “Something else altogether. She did things to me I've never even read about. It was the eggs Benedict, is what did it. Mitzi loves eggs Benedict. And the Hollandaise sauce? The things that woman does with Hollandaise sauce. I'm having”—air quotes—“'breakfast' with Mitzi every day.”

Captain Tannenbaume watched as the others hung on every word of the chief ‘s story. Captain Tannenbaume shook his head. He'd already heard Mitzi's side of the story from Mitzi herself. She said the chief had acted like a perfect gentleman, served her breakfast in bed, and waited on her hand and foot. Mitzi thought the big Swede looked pretty sexy in his Elvis getup, and she gave him an obvious green light to make a move, but he never did. He seemed a little nervous, she told Captain Tannenbaume. And now here was the chief talking shit about Mitzi. That's why Captain Tannenbaume didn't like to attend coffee time. He'd realized long ago that, when sailors are aboard ship, all they do is talk about women, but when a ship arrives in port and they're surrounded by women in the dockside bars, all they do is talk about the ship.

He grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down on the brand-new couch across from the chief. The officer's lounge, unlike the crew lounge, was neat and clean at all times. “So is she a real redhead, Maggie?”

Captain Tannenbaume's question caught the chief off guard. He did not respond.

The others in the officer's lounge waited for an answer.

“What do you mean?” the chief said, looking at his feet.

The second engineer jumped in. “Come on, Chief, you know what he means.” The second looked around at the others. “Is she, you know, a
real
redhead?”

The chief, of course, had no way of knowing, and Captain Tannenbaume got more satisfaction than he probably should have watching the chief squirm. But it served the bastard right. The guy held court every day at coffee time as if he was God's gift to women, and Captain Tannenbaume knew damn well that most of it was bullshit. The chief was fifty-five years old and still living with his mother back home in Minnesota. How much of a Casanova could he be?

“So?” he said, “What color is she below decks, Maggie?”

The chief ‘s eyes glazed over.

Captain Tannenbaume was enjoying this interrogation far too much, but then he remembered the cute little trick with the air-conditioning on the bridge. Not to mention the sextant. He looked around the lounge and saw the others looking at the chief, as well, and Captain Tannenbaume knew that he would finally get his revenge.

Ironically, it was Mitzi herself who saved him.

“So how's my big Swede?” Mitzi said it as she breezed into the lounge. The whole room turned to see Mitzi at the coffee urn in her red miniskirt with the red pumps and the frilly white socks. Mitzi poured herself a cup of coffee and then went over and sat on the chief ‘s lap. She wore the ascot around her neck and playfully took it off and placed it around the chief ‘s neck.

“You left your scarf in my cabin,” she said.

The chief beamed—the lucky bastard. Captain Tannenbaume knew that Mitzi was playing him for the fool, but to the others, it sure looked like the chief had scored big time. He had seen enough. He drained his coffee and rinsed out his cup—the cup that had “Master” printed on it—and placed the cup on the rack. He walked over to Mitzi and held out his hand. “Come with me, young lady. Coffee time is over.”

Captain Tannenbaume heard the entire lounge groan, but he didn't give a rat's ass what they thought.

“Aw,” Mitzi said. “I just got here.”

“Now, now Mitzi,” he said. “You've been assigned to this ship as a cadet and cadets work aboard ship. My wife is very eager to learn how to be a good Great Neck wife and you are here to teach her. At least that's what I've been told by Commodore what's-his-name.”

Mitzi got down off the chief ‘s lap. She held the chief ‘s face in both hands and then pinched his cheek. “See you tomorrow at breakfast time, Chief.”

The others in the lounge groaned again, this time louder than before. When Captain Tannenbaume and Mitzi were at the doorway, the chief called after Captain Tannenbaume.

“Hey, Cap, I heard from Sparks we've got pirates along our route of travel. Want me to fire up the Fire Main?”

It was the first Captain Tannenbaume had heard about pirates this trip but he didn't let on. “I'm on top of it, Maggie,” Captain Tannenbaume said over his shoulder as he guided Mitzi out of the lounge. “You just worry about keeping the plant turning and let me worry about the pirates.”

The chief and the others listened to Captain Tannenbaume explain to Mitzi as they walked down the passageway that pirate sightings were commonplace along their route of travel but that they presented no real threat. They could tell that Mitzi was not buying it. When Captain Tannenbaume and Mitzi were finally out of earshot, the chief told the others he wasn't buying it either. Pirates
were
cause for concern and he and the other engineers knew it. They were all too aware that they were down below completely blind to what was going on topside while there were pirates lurking around. Trusting the mates to keep them safe did not give them a warm and fuzzy feeling, especially since the
God is Able
still used the same old method of deterring pirates—running out fire hoses on deck and blasting the pirates with water as they tried to climb up on deck. Fighting pirates—armed with Ak-47s—with water hoses did not inspire the engineers with confidence, especially since the deck department was responsible for manning the hoses.

“We oughta be armed with a few good hunting rifles is what I think,” the chief told the others. “Something with a scope on it would do the trick. Relying on the mates armed with nothing but fire hoses makes me nervous.”

“Why can't we be the ones to man the hoses?” the second asked.

“Union rules,” the chief said. “The deck department works the deck, plain and simple.”

“Isn't there anything else we could do?” the electrician asked. “Shouldn't we at least have sea marshalls on board?”

“The company's too cheap to pay for security,” the chief said. “I asked. They said to run out the fire hoses.”

“But there's gotta be something else we could do,” the electrician said.

“It wouldn't matter if we could,” the chief said. “Like I said, it ain't our bailiwick. Union rules forbid us from working the deck.”

The others just nodded their heads, agreeing with the chief that there probably was nothing else they could do but hope the mates would protect them in case of a pirate attack.

“We're in the Hope business,” the chief announced. “And that's all there is to it.”

A THREE-STEP PLAN

C
aptain Tannenbaume made it a habit to check in on Swifty at least once during cthe morning eight-to-twelve watch. Discovering that Swifty was unaware of what ocean they were in earlier in the voyage had been a bit unsettling to say the least. He normally gave his mates free reign to run their navigation watch as they saw fit but he knew he'd have to keep a closer eye on Swifty. And even though he had come to expect the unexpected whenever he popped in on Swifty, he never imagined that he'd find what he found today.

He'd entered the navigation bridge from the starboard wing as he was fond of the surprise entrance—the better to keep his deck officers on their toes—but with the sun in his eyes, he didn't see the chunk of plywood hanging from the overhead just inside the bridge wing door until it was too late.

When the wooziness wore off, he could see that the plywood was actually a sign that read
Mitzi's.
Whoever made it didn't take the time to sand the rough edges where the plywood was cut with a handsaw, so now Captain
Tannenbaume had a nasty gash on his head. It became immediately obvious to him what the plywood sign was for. In the space of a single day, Mitzi had turned the navigation bridge of the
God is Able
into a beauty salon.

Captain Tannenbaume did not recognize his own bridge. Someone had rigged a makeshift hair dryer behind the captain's chair using heat guns and aluminum paint trays bent and shaped in the form of a human head.
Probably that little shit of an electrician
. Captain Tannenbaume had to admit that the heat gun/paint tray gizmo was an ingenious idea, but he did not appreciate how the captain's chair had been fashioned into a perfect barber's chair. As the captain's chair was only for the use of the captain, it was assumed that no crew member in his right mind would dare risk the captain's wrath by taking the liberty of sitting in his chair. Captain Tannenbaume, who otherwise ruled his ship with a light hand, had once found a young AB by the name of Carlyle sitting in his chair at night, in the middle of the twelve-to-four watch. A number of years back, Carlyle's father happened to be the head of Marad, the Maritime Administration, and no doubt because of his father's position, the young AB acted as if he were untouchable. Captain Tannenbaume fired the boy on the spot. About three months later, he received a letter on official Marad stationery from old Tanner Carlyle thanking him for firing his son.

Next to the captain's chair was a table, another rough-cut job made of two-by-fours and plywood, with an assortment of nail polishes, polish removers, nail cutters, files, scissors, hairbrushes, combs, teasers, curlers, and an old Olympia curling iron he recognized as his mother's. As his head cleared, the odor of nail polish, acetone, and hairspray hit him like a brick.

Captain Tannenbaume became aware of Swifty for the first time and overheard him on the phone. “No, she's all booked up today. Try back tomorrow.” Swifty hung up the receiver. “I tried to call you, sir, but the phone has been ringing off the hook. The entire ship wants a pedicure from Mitzi.”

“Where the hell is Mitzi anyhow?” Captain Tannenbaume asked.

“Coffee time.”

“Well, call down to the lounge and get her ass up here.” Captain Tannenbaume looked like a gunslinger with his feet planted firmly into the deck and his hands at his sides. “I want my bridge back.”

Before Swifty had a chance to pick up the phone, Mitzi, his mother, and Sylvia sauntered onto the bridge.

“Whew,” his mother said as she reached the top of the stairs. “That nail polish remover is honking.”

“It smells just like a beauty salon,” Mitzi said, with obvious pride.

Captain Tannenbaume nearly pushed his mother aside to get at Mitzi when she reached the top of the stairs. “What the hell do you call this?” Captain Tannenbaume pointed toward the captain's chair and the heat guns.

“You told me to get to work.” Mitzi pointed at Sylvia, who stood shyly on the top step behind her. “You want me to turn her into a Great Neck wife or don't you?”

Captain Tannenbaume simply could not allow Mitzi to speak to him that way in front of his crew. Yet, standing there in front of Mitzi, he had the absolute sense that he was no match for her. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that, sure enough, Swifty and Ski were waiting to hear his response.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “Yes, I did order you to get to work on your sea project. And I see now that you are simply following my orders.” He turned and looked at Ski when he said the bit about following orders, as if to say, “Make sure the crew gets the message.”

Mitzi ushered Sylvia to the captain's-cum-barber's chair and pushed her down in it. Sylvia didn't seem to mind, which surprised Captain Tannenbaume, who knew his wife to be a tad headstrong like most teenagers. Mitzi then motioned for him to stand a few feet in front of the chair.

“Look at her,” Mitzi said. “Do you see what I'm seeing? The flat hair. The boring fingernails. Do you see what I'm talking about?”

Captain Tannenbaume looked at his young wife and liked what he saw.