Towing Jehovah (31 page)

"Impressive vessel you got here," said Gallogherm, striding around the wheelhouse like he owned the place. "Took over our whole radar screen."

"We're a bit off course," said Dolores Haycox, the mate on duty. "Damn Marisat—always crashing."

"That's an awfully strange flag-o'-convenience you be flyin'," said Gallogherm.

"You've seen it before," I told him.

"That so? Well, you know what Mr. Mulcanny and I are thinkin'? We're thinkin' there's a major irregularity about this tramp tanker of yours, and so we'll be needin' to see your Crude Petroleum Right o'

Passage."

"Crude Petroleum
what?"
I said, wishing I'd run their cutter down when I'd had the chance. "Phooey."

"You don't
have
one? It's a strict requirement for bringin' a loaded supertanker through Irish territorial waters."

"We're in ballast," Dolores Haycox protested.

"Like hell you are. You're at the top of your Plimsoll line, sailor girl, and if you don't produce a Crude Petroleum Right o' Passage posthaste, we'll be obliged to detain you in Galway."

"Say, Commander," I asked, catching on, "might you happen to have one of those 'Crude Petroleum Rights of Passage' on your cutter?"

"Not sure. What about it, Teddy?"

"Only this mornin' I noticed just such a document flutterin' about on my desk."

"Is it ... available?" I asked.

Gallogherm flashed me a majority of his teeth. "Well, now that you be mentionin' it . . ."

"Dolores, I believe we have a stack of—what do you call them?—American Express travelers' checks in our safe," I said.

"The price bein' eight hundred American dollars," said Gallogherm.

"The price being six hundred American dollars," I corrected him as the mate went off to fetch the checks.

"You mean
seven
hundred?"

"No, I mean six hundred."

"You mean six hundred and fifty?"

"I mean six hundred."

"I'm sure you do," said Gallogherm. "Then, of course"—he pinched his nostrils—"there's the large and fragrant matter of that sewage you got in tow."

"Smells like an Englishman," said Mulcanny.

I knew exactly how to bamboozle them. "Actually, Commander, it's the dead and rotting carcass of God Almighty."

"The what?" said Mulcanny.

"You've a scandalous sense of humor," said Gallogherm, more amused than offended.

"The Catholic God or the Protestant?" asked Mulcanny.

"Teddy, lad, can't you recognize a joke when you hear one?" Gallogherm gave me a conspiratorial wink.

"So, what we've got here is an ambitious sea captain who's gone and converted his supertanker to a free-lance garbage scow, am I right? And just where might this ambitious captain be intendin' to make his dump?"

"Way up north. Svalbard."

Haycox returned in time to hear Gallogherm say, "In any event, it's your Solid Waste Right o' Passage we'll be needin' to see."

"Don't overplay your hand, Commander."

"Solid Waste Rights o' Passage normally run six hundred American dollars, but this week they be goin'

for a mere five."

"No, this week they're going for a mere four. What's more, if you two pirates don't stop jerking us around, I guarantee it won't be long before this scam of yours ends up on page one of the
Irish Times"

"Don't you presume to be judgin' me, Captain. You've no notion of what I've seen in this life. Ireland's a nation at war. You've no notion of what I've seen."

Grimly I signed and recorded $1,000 worth of travelers' checks. "Here's your lousy toll," I said, greasing Gallogherm's palm.

"A pleasure it's been to do business with you."

"Now get the fuck off my ship."

At 1600, Follingsbee and Pindar appeared with the groceries. If you factor in Gallogherm's shakedown money, each orange cost us about $1.25, and the rest was equally outrageous. At least it's quality stuff, Popeye—juicy yams, crisp cabbages, robust Irish potatoes. You'd envy us our spinach. Midnight now. A choppy beam sea. Ursa Minor high above. Before us lie the Faeroes, 80 miles distant as the petrel flies, and then it's open water all the way to Svalbard. Rafferty was just on the intercom, telling me the forward searchlight has picked out "an iceberg shaped like the Paramount Pictures logo." We're steaming for the frigid Norwegian Sea, trimmed with blood, all ahead full, and I'm feeling like a master again.

Beer mug in hand, Myron Kovitsky shuffled up to the piano stool, sat down, and, pressing his Jimmy Durante nose in place, began pounding the keys. He scratched his schnozzola and raised his gravel voice, singing to the tune of "John Brown's Body."

We was fly in' in our bombers at one hundred fuckin' feet,

Da weather fuckin' awful, fuckin' rain and fuckn' sleet;

Da compass it was swinging fuckin' south and fuckin' north,

But we made a fuckin' landing in da Firth of fuckin' Forth.

Durante stopped playing and showed the crowd a big loopy grin. The men of the
Enterprise
shuffled uncomfortably in their seats. No one applauded. Oliver cringed. Undaunted, Durante took a slug of Frydenlund and launched into the chorus.

Ain't da Navy fuckin' awful?

Ain't da Navy fuckin' awful?

Ain't da Navy fuckin' awful?

We made a fuckin' landing in da

Firth of fuckin' Forth.

Rising from the stool, Durante said, "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!" Hard times had befallen the Midnight Sun Canteen. Bored to death and sick of the cold, the Great American Nostalgia Machine had started adulterating its repertoire with off-color songs that, despite their historical authenticity, were clearly nothing Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, or the Andrews Sisters would have ever performed in public. The hostesses were tired of pretending to have crushes on the pilots and sailors, and the pilots and sailors were tired of the hostesses being tired of them. As for Sonny Orbach and His Harmonicoots, they had quit the scene entirely, off reincarnating Glenn Miller's band at a bar mitzvah in Connecticut, a long-standing commitment they'd insisted on honoring despite Oliver's offer to double their wages. Those servicemen who still felt the urge to dance were forced to settle for either Myron Kovitsky's feeble piano-playing skills or Sidney Pembroke's Victrola rasping out Albert Flume's original 78-rpm records of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and the real Glenn Miller. Oliver had to admit it: his grand crusade was on the verge of collapse. By sitting around doing nothing for three weeks, Pembroke and Flume had amassed enough in retainer fees to stage a first-rate D-Day, and while the notion of sinking a Jap golem still appealed to them, they were far more anxious to get home and locate a reasonable facsimile of Normandy. And even if Oliver
could
somehow convince everybody to stay at Point Luck until a PBY recon flight spotted the
Val,
it was quite possible that, because of the dreadful Arctic weather, Admiral Spruance would refuse to give the go-ahead. Flaps and landing gear were sticking during the milk runs. Gas lines were clogging. The flight deck was freezing faster than Captain Murray's men could clear it: an unbroken sheet of ice as vast as the mirror of the Hubble telescope.

Oliver spent these gloomy days at the bar, doodling randomly in his sketch pad as he tried to come up with reasons it was okay for them not to obliterate the Corpus Dei after all.

"Fellas, I got a question for you," he said, putting the final touches on a caricature of Myron Kovitsky.

"This campaign of ours—is it truly justified?"

"What do you mean?" asked Barclay, deftly shuffling a pack of playing cards.

"Maybe the body should be left alone," said Oliver. "Maybe it should even be brought to light, like Sylvia Endicott insisted the night she quit." Rotating on his bar stool, he placed himself face to face with Winston. "A disclosure might even spark your True Revolution, right? Once everybody knows He's cashed it in, they'll leave their churches and start building the workers' paradise."

"You don't know very much about Marxism, do you?" Winston arranged two dozen stray Frydenlund bottle caps into a hammer and sickle. "Until they're given something better to replace it with, the masses will never abandon religion, corpse or no corpse. Once social justice triumphs, of course, the God myth will vanish"—he snapped his fingers—"like that."

"Oh, come off it." Barclay made the queen of spades vault magically from the pack. "Religion will always exist, Winston."

"Why do you think that?"

Al Jolson wandered drunkenly onstage.

"One word," said Barclay. "Death. Religion solves it, social justice doesn't." Turning toward Oliver, he caused the jack of hearts to leap into his friend's lap. "But what does it matter, eh? I hate to be blunt, Oliver, but I think it's pretty damn likely Cassie's ship has been lost at sea." As Oliver winced, Jolson began singing a cappella:

Oh, I love to see Shirley make water,

She can pee such a beautiful stream.

She can pee for a mile and a quarter,

And you can't see her ass for the steam.

At which instant Ray Spruance's portrayer's static-laden voice exploded from the loudspeakers.

"Attention, everyone! This is the admiral! Good news, boys! Initial dispatches from the Coral Sea indicate that Task Force Seventeen has badly damaged the Japanese carriers
Shohu
and
Shokaku,
thereby preventing the enemy from occupying Port Moresby!"

A solitary sailor clapped. A lone flier said, "That's nice."

"He's leaving out a few details," said Wade McClusky's por-trayer, joining the three atheists at the bar.

"He's afraid to mention we lost
Lexington
in that particular battle."

"Truth: the first casualty of war," said Winston.

"Attention!" continued Spruance. "Attention! All men attached to Task Force Sixteen will report to the ship immediately! This is not a drill! All men from Scout Bombing Six, Torpedo Six, and
Enterprise
will report immediately!" Spruance suddenly shifted to a jovial, folksy tone. "Strawberry Ten's just spotted the enemy, boys! That Jap golem's in Arctic waters, and now we're gonna bushwhack the sucker!"

"Hey, comrades—you hear that?" squealed Winston.

"We've done it, guys!" shouted Barclay. "We've got irrationality by the balls!" Oliver hugged his sketch pad, kissing his caricature of Myron Kovitsky. The
Valparaíso
was afloat!

Cassandra was alive! He pictured her standing on one of the tanker's bridge wings, scanning the sky for the promised squadrons. I'm on my way, darling, he thought. Here comes Oliver to save your
Weltanschauung.

McClusky strode to Pembroke's Victrola and, detaching the huge conical speaker, held it to his mouth like a megaphone. "Well, boys, you heard the admiral! Let's get off our duffs and show them Nips they got no right to mess with the natural economic order of things!"

So now it was here, that bittersweet juncture each man had awaited with supreme patience, the moment when he must seek out his favorite hostess and bid her
au revoir.
Choking back tears half-crocodile and half-genuine, the sailor nearest Oliver clasped the hand of his best girl—a chubby woman with pigtails and dimples—and solemnly vowed to write her every day. The hostess, in turn, gave the sailor Oliver's money's worth, assuring him she would carry their brief encounter in her heart forever. Throughout the Midnight Sun Canteen, phone numbers were exchanged, along with fleeting kisses and sentimental tokens (brooches and locks of hair from the women, tie clips and aviation badges from the men). Even Arnold Kovitsky got into the mood, striding up to the mike and transforming himself into Marlene Dietrich singing "Lili Marlene."

The servicemen trembled and wept, stunned by the sheer hypnotic beauty of it all: the song, the farewells, the call to arms.

A blond, apple-cheeked flier whose name badge read BEESON turned to McClusky and raised his hand.

"Yes, Lieutenant Beeson?"

"Commander McClusky, sir, is there time for one last foxtrot?"

"Sorry, sailor, Uncle Sam needs us right now. Battle stations, men!"
September 14.

Latitude: 66°50'N. Longitude: 2°45'W. Course: 044. Speed: 7 knots. Sea temperature: 23° Fahrenheit. Air temperature: 12° and falling.

At 0745 two momentous events occurred. The
Valparaíso
crossed the Arctic Circle, and I shaved off my beard. A major operation. I had to borrow a pair of butcher's shears from Follingsbee, and after that I went through a half dozen of Ockham's disposable razors.

Ice enshrouds our cargo, a smooth crust running head to toe like the casing on a sausage. By the time we reach Kvitoya, His meat will be solid as marble.

"See, the putrefaction's stopped, just like our angels predicted," I said, striding up to Ockham. "We don't need the Vatican's damn formaldehyde."

The padre was standing on the afterdeck, watching the pump-room gang glide around on His sternum. Ice-skating has become the crew's principal recreation of late, eclipsing both stud poker and Ping-Pong. Their gear is jerry-built—cutlery affixed to hiking boots—but it works fine. For extra protection against the cold, they coat their hands, feet, and faces with glory grease. Ockham looked me in the eye and smiled, obviously relieved that I'd just placed us back on speaking terms. "Someone should contact Rome and tell them He's finally stable," he said as Bud Ramsey fell squarely on his ass. "Surely you'd prefer not to have Di Luca out chasing us in the
Maracaibo."
I couldn't argue with the man's logic, and I even allowed him to compose the message. (He did this in his cabin. They'll be selling earmuffs in hell before I let Ockham on the bridge again.) At 1530 Sparks faxed the good news to Rome, and at 1538 a second communique went out, this one to sunny Spain. It was only a dozen words long. "Expect me in Valladolid next month whether you want me or not," I told my father.

We're getting very near the end, Popeye.