New Homeport Island (2 page)

There was an elevator leading to the second floor, it was a
 smooth ride and my librarian was giving me a tour of the
 reference section. After a brief interlude she said she had some
 reading to catch up on and looked forward to seeing me often.
As the police arrived they had a general concern about
 them as to ‘what had changed? ; It’s always like this’. The
 change was of course was that our ship did not consider any of
 this normal or right. And the librarians noted how bad the storm
 was and that it was just beginning. A cause for me to check out
 the farmer’s almanac to see just what we were really expecting
 being that the local weatherman was rarely correct.  
The police were surprised to see federal labels in play on
 something so common to them and became very concerned
 about how intense the storm was really going to be. And they
 attended to the instructions we scripted with good cheer, because
 something had just gotten better.    
“Yesterday it was so cold, I started crying. We’ve been on
 the streets for over a year. I looked over at my daughter and just
 kept telling her I was sorry as I sobbed…” said Janet, she was
 bundled in what little she had from when she was last functional
 as well as what she found left on the streets, and was given out
 of charity.
“My daughter needs a coat, I mean she is going to die in
 this cold and all she needs is a coat…”she said trailing off into a
 hard cry starring at the ground, she loudly interjected into her
 cry, “but she needs it.” She had sent her daughter into the library
 to warm up and warned her not to draw any attention.
“She’s fifteen now and there are options for her that I once
 had too.” she looked detached and almost hypnotized as she
 starred up to the sky. “Those boys over there look to be

anywhere from eighteen to twenty. It’s just time…” she
 continued.
The homeless man she was speaking to just shook his head
 with his teeth chattering. He was just being friendly; he couldn’t
 focus on what she was saying but they were taking turns venting
 about whatever crossed their minds.
When her daughter returned she told her, “Andrea, you’re
 going to have to be a woman now. You’re going to have to do
 whatever it takes”
“I have been mom.” she replied, “we’re still alive and we’ll
 survive.” Andrea said in reply to yet another one of mothers
 ultimate conclusions. It seems her mother is prone to decide that
 this is the moment. Right now I will take inventory of my life
 and decide why all this has gone this way; Mistaking moments
 of idolatry, for moments of reflection. “Are we going to have
 another moment mom?” she asked with a smirk on her face.
Her mother took hold of her hand and said, “This is one of
 those moments…in a few hours that library will be closed and
 tonight is going to be deadly cold.” she spoke as a narrator for
 some summer nights play, and continued with an accusative
 tone, “I am struggling to find you a jacket since you lost your
 last one.”  
Andrea replied with astonishment, “You mean the one I
 lost when I was thirteen?”
“Ya...” her mother blurted out dismissively, “Because it
 would be old, right?”
“That truck driver was your boyfriend mom…” Andrea’s
 eyes darted around to see if anyone heard her. Then smiled and
 looked in the direction of a small group of guys gathering
 themselves to head out from the bus stop to whatever goings on
 they could find.

“Andrea, that’s what I mean…those boys are close enough
 to your age. You’re going…to have to do…whatever it takes…”
 she looked into Andrea’s eyes looking for the understanding of
 what she meant.    
Andrea blurted out the reply, “I’ve been with boys before
 mom…”
Janet replied, “You need a jacket Andrea.” with very little
 emotion or inflection to her voice. And in the same tone she
 continued as though she were a hypnotist implanting a
 suggestion, “Whatever it takes…”
    Andrea scratched a little nervously at her nose while
 looking at her mother’s shoes and looked back up at her
 mother’s eyes and said, “Then I should probably go back in
 there,” pointing at the library, “there are guys in there too and I
 know how to handle them.”
Janet… her mother, focused on her daughter briefly, then
 replying as though her daughter had just insisted on leaving her
 side at the mall to hang out with her friends asked, “Where do
 we meet..” and with a pause added, “and when?”
Andrea looked at the library door with anticipation and
 excitement and said, “Give me about an hour to find out.” They
 briefly hugged and Andrea went back into the library, as her
 mother watched the young guys at the bus stop walk and drive
 away.  
There in the snow with fog swirling from car tail pipes and
 occasional buses throwing snow and slush everywhere, Janet
 surveyed her surroundings preparing to prowl, but still in a
 delirious fidget which she had been in for months. She knows
 she has to survive the night but has no genuine recollection of
 surviving even just the night before, let alone a life time of ups
 and downs.

About thirty minutes later Andrea is as flirtatious as she can
 get away with in a public library and her young heart is falling
 in love once again. Falling in love at such a young age actually
 happens several times a week and her vitality is as strong as she
 is young.  
Outside the library Janet is looking for a man to get her
 through the night. She is a desperately lonely woman, no
 playfulness left to her at all. With some hinting toward her
 circumstance she is nearly mistaken for a prostitute and is
 instead taken for a pan handler. The man she is speaking to has
 become leery and with an obvious degree of sympathy gestures
 toward us telling her, “maybe, they can help.”
  There we stood gawking at the spectacle, Kim Luds, Chris
Marcy, and me. I immediately had images of skid row in
California with a foot of snow and wondered what would we
 do? She approached us and nearly slipped on ice in the road
 twice. Chris said, “This is our chance to just go…”
Kim replied, “Let’s just see what she says.”
“You guys wouldn’t happen to be lonely would you?” she
 asked, there was an awkward pause. We were totally dismayed;
 she was nearly old enough to be my mother and didn’t exactly
 have a porn stars body. She continued, “I’m sorry…I just can’t
 be out in this weather alone tonight.”
I said, “I can understand that, maybe we can set you up
 with something”. Just then her daughter stepped out of the
 library holding a young guys hand and she signaled her mother
 and her mother signaled back. “I’m going to be gone for a
 couple of days mom…” she interjected and hurried off with her
 new friend as her mother waved good bye and mouthed the
 words ‘met me here’.

“Well, my daughter found some one that will get her
 through the night, so I’m more relaxed…I may be able to take
 all three of you but I don’t take it in the butt.” Again we stood
 stunned. I said, “That’s okay…I actually meant we know of
 some programs and we should be able to set you up with
 something before the night comes.”
Chris loudly asked, “Does she…take it in the butt?” Kim
 and I looked at him shook or heads then looked at everybody
 starring at us. I said, “Maybe we should go inside the library and
 pull the books we’ll need.” There were about twelve homeless
 right there at the front of the library sitting on the steps
 wondering how bad this is going to get and trying to memorize
 our faces in the event the police start looking for the girls
 missing mother.  
 We went into the library after Janet explained she had
 an incident in the library and thought the librarians didn’t like
 her so she would stay outside.  The library was comfortably
 warm and well lit but out of snow blindness it briefly seemed
 dimmer inside.
The police arrived with a bus to carry the homeless, about
 twenty, to the county services office. As Janet boarded the bus
 she asked us to keep an eye out for her daughter, and that she
 might be in the hospital for a while. It seems a police officer had
 been watching out for the two as much as he could without
 being intrusive and her condition had been preliminarily
 diagnosed as being mostly sleep deprivation with a chance of
 bipolar mania.
Andrea had slipped away with a college student that was
 friendly enough that the one other time he had been seen he
 explained he was only riding the bus since his car was being
 fixed and when the weather allowed he would prefer to walk

then ride the bus. He had mentioned to an older Hispanic guy
 there that he was on his way to pick up his car and he was going
 to help the girl out. “He seemed kind of protective or possessive,
 she looked like she was in love.” he told us and added, “…don’t
 worry about her plenty of fish in the sea” and he smiled. Later
 that night I noted there was something pleasant about a snow
 hushed Friday, not as much action as I would like but a good
 end of a hard week.
It had been a week of snowstorm surges and flurries, a
 minor nuisance on some days, a threat to everyone’s sense of
 security and a threat to general welfare for some others.
A lackadaisical mood had set in amongst the crew, feeling
 warm and cuddly by the fireside is sometimes just euphoria from
 hypothermia and at other times it is that you are genuinely
 comfortable and content. A restful demeanor in such a hostile
 workplace was a welcomed change.
Stuck on the ship as the snow flurries crashed into artic
 blasts and subsided again into flurries, we felt as though we
 were at the mercy of nature; not at all unlike being at sea and
 was a mind state sailors prized as their greatest asset.  
The week of snow reached its crescendo on a Tuesday;
 drafts of snow wrapped around buildings in a swirl and left city
 streets looking like icy snow tunnels. The light from the street
 lights only carried just so far and pointed down, the end result
 was a very cavernous appearance.
The following morning the snow storm hadn’t let up. Roads
 had to be closed, power had been lost, and phone service was
 unavailable. Night workers were stuck in their places of business
 and many residents still tried to carry on with their normal
 routines, leading to people stuck in the snow in the road, and just
 off the road. Many crew members were absent, only the duty

section and those that lived aboard were present. We had
 received a few phone calls saying they couldn’t make it in
 leaving us with an apparent snow day.
There are however no snow days for the military. The local
 police didn’t have the appropriate equipment and it was actually
 illegal to hazard them in that manner, the same was true of
 county road services and maintenance. The National Guard
 could be called out by the governor’s office for public safety as
 well as the local military; they exist to be hazarded in that
 fashion and had the appropriate gear. The laws regarding private
 property did not stop at personal property but extend to company
 property and in the case of the electric company that was very
 relevant.  
Snohomish county and King county were hit the hardest by
 the storm surges. It was only three feet on average but the snow
 drifts had gotten as high as five feet. The snow was expected to
 start to melt at about 10 A.M., but a second surge of the storm
 hit at about 10:30 A.M.
Mr. Mormus the Executive officer thought having the
 squids at home on a snow day was absurdly unrealistic and told
 them if they were unable to find their way into work we would
 be picking them up from their homes. He considered this a
 priority as we suspected more phone services would be lost and
 there was already a significant portion of the crew unaccounted
 for.  
The police had called in asking what personnel and
 equipment we had available. The steep slope of the road just in
 front of the base required four wheel drive in their estimation,
 though I did manage to get my front wheel drive car up the hill
 only slipping slightly where I hit snow that wasn’t still powder.
We started looking for what we had and what legal provisions

we had to clear as much of the roads as possible. Crew members
 stuck at home with no electricity and young children had said
 they may need their entire family picked up.    
Captain Armitus however, was looking forward to a snow
 day himself. The officers in general saw no need for their
 presence at work that day. The majority of the enlisted followed
 that lead. There is however always work to be done on a ship.
Life at sea is hard and only stops when you’re dead or
 discharged.
Painting the ship was a continuous ongoing project, navy
 gray…a nice contrast to those snowy white caped mountains on
 the horizon. The engine rooms and auxiliary machinery rooms
 had all the maintenance requirements of an entire fleet of
 shipping trucks and vans all compressed into one location, a
 ship.
The ship had a well-diversified work group, when the water
 pipe in the overhead of the helo hanger ruptured the hull
 technicians welders lead by HT1 Hefter just needed a ‘go ahead’
 from someone willing to take responsibility. I gave that ‘go
 ahead’ in the face of the executive officer that was unsure of
 their competence and just what had caused their uncertainty as
 to whether or not it was ships force organizational level work or
 shore intermediate maintenance activity level work or, perhaps
 even depot level shipyard work. This is the worst form of
 bureaucracy…the ‘I’m pretty sure this is someone else’s job’
 bureaucracy.
We found more of that same attitude with various public
 services regarding this unprecedented weather, but as the U.S.
Military we had service members from all over the country and I
 myself had experienced a negative seventy-three degree winter

accounting for wind chill factor while stationed in great lakes
Illinois; to us it was a simple lack of organization.  
Armed with various legal books we began scripting a
 response to the situation. Being a non-commissioned officer at
 this command was very much becoming the paralegal role that
 non-com was always intended to be.  
We contacted the governs office with our briefing and the
 first person we spoke with, a secretary, actually asked if we
 were suing the governor, as seriously as possible we redirected
 her, explaining that the scenario was being faxed as we spoke.
We drew heavily upon our experiences at naval ship yard
 long beach, the closing of that based had caused all manner of
 protest. When we went to be issued our shipyard badges we
 were warned that the FA designation indicating Forces Afloat
 might draw hostility from the yard workers since the admiral
 had decided to close the base. Many crew members and officers
 acquired other designations ADM indicating Administrator was
 taken by many officers; this actually restricted their access to the
 base and even the ship especially during off hours. Several
 enlisted to ORD designation which indicated Ordnance civilian
 contractor.
Given that warning and being very aware that the base was
 being closed by the congressional appropriations committee,
 sub-committee for base closures I took the FA designation
 signifying I was still navy. Attributes that I developed on my
 first ship were die-hard and cast in brass.        
Preparing for the worst was just my cup of tea, and after
 what seemed to be a lifetime of heart break I was ready for
 someone to tempt my rage by coming at me misinformed and
 violent. The picket lines formed first on base right at the pier
 sentry point of the dry dock. They expected the admiral to