Pa:ix

PERS PECTI V ES

x ss ,i ... . ............ ..... ... ,. .... _.._ .._,

MYAGE
. .. Mack Woodruf f


(EDIToR's NOTE: Wve wish to call at-
tention to this story as being the only
suannscript submitted to PRSPECT1VES
by a freshman. We accepted it because
of its literary serit, but wec hope it will1
encourag ycontribbtions from all unser-
graduates, regardless of class.)
WTHEN the Fort Ridley returns to an-
ama she is a young-old ship. She is
the way ships are when they labour in
heavy seas and swelter in hot sun, when
the weather strips the salt-corroded
paint from their sides. She is a lady
without her rouge and lipstick. She is
a tanker six months in the Pacific.
You watch the captain standing on
the starboard wing of the bridge. His
heavy, erect frame dwarfs the squat,
swarthy-skinned pilot beside him.
You're thinking of the many times
you've watched the captain like this; on
watch at sea, leaving port, coming into
dock, always with that relaxed, easy
manner about him, belying the vigilance
which you know is there, too. You feel
childishly safe and secure when he's on
the bridge. The ship is strong. The
captain is the ship.
The pilot leaves and you wait out the
"right away" that means four hours.
Then the company officials come
aboard followed by the customary train
of lesser officials and inspectors. They
check the cargo tanks to see that'
they're gas free and of course they
aren't, so the crew cleans them again.
They check your papers, your record,
your overtime. They give instructions
they're supposed to and a lot they
aren't. You sit in the officers' mess and
are embarrassed watching the crew
come in one at a time, quickly unbutton-
ing and buttoning their trousers. You
wonder why they give this inspection
at the end of a trip rather than at the
beginning. You wonder why officers are
exempt. You wonder why in hell they
use the officers' mess. You get a draw
from the purser. You go ashore, you
get drunk, you get laid, you worry. You
loathe yourself.
That first night ashore you're thirsty.
You catch the rattly, ancient bus out-
side the yard gate and careen recklessly
through narrow streets to the top of the
hill where Balboa sprawls like a drunk-
en whore. The driver practices every
AAA expedient except caution; a drunk
stares inanely at your tie; a fat native
woman rubs her thigh up and down
against your leg. After twenty-six days
from Leyte restrained within the limits
of a ship 500 feet long and 60 feet in
beam, you're ashore and feel confined
on a hot, crowded bus. You're ashore
and feel more confined than you ever
felt at sea. Then you're outside on the
crowded sidewalk and thirstier.
The Ancon Bar is at the top of the
noisy, dirty street that tumbles precipi-
tously toward the yellow line at its base,
marking the end of Balboa and the be-
ginningof Ancon. Scattered here and
there throughout the city is a jewelry
store, a doctor's office, a grocery store,
an old church, but the vast majority of
business is pleasure trade. Pleasure for
sailors, G.L's and merchant mariners.
Pleasure for canal transients who come
in rich, starved for pleasure-who go
out dissatisfied and poor. The four
pretty sisters from Gary who couldn't
find billing in the states, the careworn
juggler, the Cab Calloway mimic-they
all have a place here if their acts will
please. The sounds of their efforts are
loud in the streets.
"Bluemoon" girls in the nightclubs
sell their company for a drink, and
twelve different native tunes from
twelve different saloons blend in fren-
etic cacophony in the heavy air and
whisper-Take me and let me please
you. Take me and let me take you-
You've been taken here before and

you'll be taken here again. It's good to
be ashore.
It's early evening but the heat of the
day still hangs heavy on the city. The
air is muggy, stifling-your body is a
sticky, dirty thing you'd like to take off.
The captain is in the Ancon Bar, and
you're with him and drinking beer.
The captain is a big man with a big-
ger belly. He's a Swede, and he talks
slow the way Swedes do, and is generous
the way Swedes are. He has passed
sixty, but his mind is quick and his
years are light on his shoulders. You
drink with the captain and he tells you
about this city when it was a paradise,
not a fleshpot. He tells you about the
canal when it was an infant. He was
a pilot's apprentice then, learning to
guide the great ships through the cuts
and across Gatun Lake and through the
cuts again until he knew them like his
own right hand. He tells you stories of
this land and other lands and the sea-
rich, untamed stories of people he's
known, storms he's weathered, women
he's slept with. He listens apprecia-
tively while you tell him about your
home in the Midwest, your family and
your girl. Your stories interest him.
The Midwest is a strange land to a sea
captain who is familiar with only the
outer fringes of his country.
The captain has many friends here.
They remember him and stop to drink
beer with him and be nostalgic with
him. You're getting very drunk.
Then you're in another bar and then
another, and in nightclubs where danc-
ers and drums do awful things to your
head and "bluemoon" girls sell their
company. You are very drunk and in
the kaleidoscope of your memory there
is a dirty hotel and dirty love. on dirty
sheets and then you're outside again
and the air is cool and you want to lie
down and you stumble up the empty
sidewalk toward where you think the'
ship is.
If all the ugly heads in Panama are
lined up side to side that morning after,
yours is the ugliest. Your eyes are twin
roadmaps. Your tong e doesn't belong
to your head. It's a useless, alien thing
that sits in your mouth and makes
foolish motions.
Your head, your eyes, your tongue
and you take a shower together and
fight some breakfast. You stand watch
together and you all join the captain
and chief engineer to walk uptown.
It's the Ancon Bar again. The cap-
tain forces the "hair of the dog" down
your throat. If you've never tried a
Panamanian whiskey sour,-don't. In
America it's venomous. In Panama it's
downright lethal, but it turns the trick.
Your head, your eyes, your tongue and
you join forces. United, you stage a suc-
cessful offensive against your stomach.
Ten days later the Fort Ridgely is a
lady again. They go over her from fan-
tail to foc'sle head. They clothe her
shapely lines and give her powder, rouge
and lipstick. That evening at dusk she
is a vain, proud ship steaming through
the canal. She catches the pride of her
crew. She is glad to be underway again.
The crew is glad to be underway again.
You're going stateside.
Busy towcars pull you through the
locks. You move slowly through the
dark cuts and gaps, guided by the red
and green lights. You're in Gatun Lake,
moving fast through black, remote wa-
ters; more cuts, more gaps, the last
lock. You're in Colon on the Atlantic
side. When you go on watch at mid-
night, you're in Lemon Bay, and four
hours later, when you leave the bridge,
you're in the Caribbean.
You feel the surging strength and
power of the ship in the catwalk under
your feet as you walk aft. You feel the
cool rush of wind against your face.
You stand and let it wash the stench
of shore leave out of your body and

mind and soul. You let it fondle you
and numb your senses, and there is no
other peace quite like this-unblemished
and vital.
You're in your' bunk and through the
open porthole the ocean's vastness is
rising and falling from view. The high
whine and low rumble of the screw is
a part of your body. You drowse down
the few, short steps into reverie. You're
between the deep sleep and the half
awake, and you remember, remember,
remember-
You remember going aboard the Fort
for the first time. The day was cold as
hell, you were green as hell, you felt
a quick disgust for the rusty, ungainly
hulk at the end of the long refueling
dock. sYou were fresh from the Acad-
emy and the ships in the textbooks were
beautiful-shapely and painted-and
the officers always wore blues and the
brass was always polished and the
messboy always wore a white jacket).
Now you were aboard: the decks were
chipped and crusted and the shrouds and
stays were sagging and corroded on the
masts. You saw paper littered on the
tank deck and lines in jumbled piles at
the bases of the light lift booms. You
slipped and almost fell (in a dignified
Academic way, of course) on the oily
deck by the cargo hose connection and
someone laughed. You looked up and
saw a big man standing straddle-legged
on the catwalk, smiling down at you.
His hands were jammed deep in the
pockets of a timeworn windb eaker,
and he wore an old, grommetless cap
on which the braid and insignia were
turned a nondescript greenish color by
salt spray. You didn't know he was the
captain. He seemed so much a part of
the ship that you cla sified him as just
another dirty fixture.
But later, when you met the crew,
they were friendly, and the captain and
officers were friendly. Still later, you
were at sea, and they hadn't told you
about that in the textbooks. You were

be filled with your joys and torments
and angers and sorrows, filled with your
life, before you'd let the lapse be broken
down into seconds and hours and days,
stultified in man's efficient, unfeeling
way. The captain taught you how to
live, and when the chance for promo-
tion came, he gave you that, too., And
that was six months ago, and Christ
you're tired, and you're asleep.
And nights follow days in quick suc-
cession. You stand watch; you sleep;
you eat; you work on deck. The Fort
is out of the Caribbean and in M aona
Passage between Yucatan and the west-
ern tip of Cuba. She's out of the pass-
age and in the Gulf of Mexico. A few
lapses later you're at dock in Galveston.
And while you load cargo for New York,
the captain goes ashore to see the com-
pany officials. Four houra later he is
back, walking slowly down the dock,
head lowered and more than sixty years
weighing heavy on his shoulders.
The Fort rounds the Keys and swings
North, fighting the Gulf Stream. She's
off Pacific Reef, American Shoals, Som-
brero Keys. She's passing the battered
remnants of a torpedoed Liberty ship,
aground on the port beam; her twisted
plates and shattered masts a gris
reminder of a war just ended.
The captain is drinking steadily.
You've never seen him take a drink at
sea before and you're ashamed of him
and wish the hell he'd stop it.
The Fort is out of the Gulf Stream
now, and going North, full ahead. She's
gaining latitude and there's a chill in
the air and then it's Winter, North At-
lantic. It's cold as hell and the captain's
still drinking.
You're anchored in New York road-
stead and it's twelve months and half
way around the world since you last
saw it. You're waiting for the pilot to
take the ship to dock. It's three a.m.
and the sleet is turning to ice on the
decks and you're making conversation
with the quartermaster and the A.B. on
watch. You're thinking that New York
Harbor is just as ugly and grim and
cheerless as it was a year ago.
It's four a.m. The orderly is coming
in the side port with coffee. You pour
a cup for the captain and start down
the ladder to the boat deck. He is stand-
ing shirtless in the cold. staring fool-
ishly toward the foc'sle head. You grasp
his arm and lead him into his quarters.
The air inside is stale and hot. The
room looks like all rooms look after a
six day drunk. The captain is shivering.
You put him on his bed and wrap him
warmly in blankets. You hold his head
while he drinks the scalding, black cof-
fee, and you wonder how long he's been
standing in the cold. You'open a port-
hole and are straightening the room
when he starts to speak.
He mumbles that he's never taken a
drink at sea before, but that he had to
this time. He asks you if you don't
know that and you don't know it but
you nod your head. He goes on, child-
ishly, his tongue heavy and confused
with drink, saying that he's too old and
has to retire and can't be a captain any
more. His words become incoherent and
he's mumbling to himself. You turn out
the light and return to the wheelhouse.
You hate this dirty city and its dirty
weather, but most of all you hate the
stupid, buttheavy bastards who sit in
plush offices ashore and play cute
games with men's lives.
The captain is on the bridge when
the pilot comes aboard.
You're standing in the dark shoulder
of the "El" on Third-ae. at 17th-st.
asking yourself if shaking hands was
enough. You wonder if he understood
that you wanted desperately to thank
him and say goodby but that words just
wouldn't come, and all you could do was
grasp his hand firmly and say things
with your eyes.

Marion Carleton
glad it was a surprise; a gentle,
mollifying surprise that you'd always
remember.
The mate told you your duties and
the crew helped you to master them.
The captain showed you how to use a
sextant and work sights quickly and
accurately. He taught you the stars by
name and how to navigate by them,
and how to use the glasses and speak
to a ship through the wheel. He taught
you all those things, but most impor-
tant, he showed you that the sun, and
the moon and the stars and the sun-
rise and sunset are magnificent, tangi-
ble things-not mere lines on a chart or
ciphers in a table. He gave you the sea
and the sense of power and content that
goes with it. You learned to live from
lapse to lapse, and each lapse had to