Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars Ch. 01

So, while working on Deep End I started work on a new story, a sailing story, of course. I don't like working on two stories at once - which is why I usually ending up doing just that - but this is a work-in-progress, too, and unfinished (boo-hiss). Still, have fun. I'll finish this before Deep End, I guess.

The title? A song, of course. I like Sinatra's version, but there are dozens out there, including a nice one by Queen Latifah (oh, try her rendering of Poetry Man).

So... Pour yourself a Drambuie and settle in, put on some music and have a read.

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Corcovado, or Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

I

She was gone now. Gone just now, and he was alone in their house, their home, and memories seemed to push in on him.

Twenty-three years together. Gone, down in flames, an assumed destiny reduced to the lowest common denominator by depositions and faultless recriminations. Contrived recriminations, he reminded himself. False memories, misplaced motives.

He heard it first, through a grapevine he'd never known existed, that she was having an affair. Young guy. Some guy who had time on his hands...time enough to take care of her liquid dreams. First, a quiet confrontation, then an equally quiet agreement, and once arrived at it was over - there was nothing left to say, little left to do.

Or...was there? Like...what comes next?

He moved his belongings down to the marina, moved onto the little boat they had sailed on weekends - together. It was big enough, he told himself, to hold onto the things left, the things worth holding onto.

He went to work two days after he moved aboard, drove out to SeaTac, walked to the dispatch office, picked up and scanned through the preflight briefing for the leg to KSLC. He read the met synopsis, checked off the squawks and signed the fuel load-out, then walked through the quiet terminal to the security line. He checked his watch - 4:20 in the morning - while he shuffled through the crew line, then, when he was through, he walked out to the gate and onto the old 757.

All the lights were off - save a few in the galley that cast oblique little pools of blue and amber where the Jetway met the doorway, and he grinned at other memories. How long had it been, he wondered, since he had been the first to board? How long ago had he worn three stripes on his sleeves?

He went to the cockpit and reached into the darkness, feeling for the switch on the overhead panel that would turn on the dome light, but it was second nature now - and had been...for fifteen years. He had to admit...this confined little space was home, his real home. Barbara had never understood that, not really, and had never been willing to share him with this other world. Even if she was proud, in a way, of his calling, she hated him for this one chaste passion.

He sat and started flipping switches, activating electrical buses and checking ground power status, then he started entering data in the old girl's nav system. He heard a couple of flight attendants come aboard, listened to their careless banter - because they assumed they were the first aboard this morning - and he smiled when he heard one of them notice there were lights on in the cockpit.

Then...footsteps.

A knock on the door.

"Captain? You here already?"

He turned, looked at Marcy Stewart and smiled. "Yup. That seems to be the case."

"Can I get you some coffee, Jim?"

"No thanks, darlin'," he said. He liked Marcy, had been to her wedding two summers ago and, because her father had recently passed and he had walked her down the aisle, given her away as best he could.

"We heard about Barbara," she said, walking into the cockpit just a little. "I'm so sorry, Jim."

He nodded, turned back to the panel and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment - then he felt her standing right behind his seat, her hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm copacetic."

"How many we got this morning?"

"Looks full. Sorry. No rest for the wicked."

"Orange juice?"

"Oh...sure. A little one?"

"Comin' right up."

He watched the fuel boss supervising the truck for a moment, then heard his FO walk through the galley on his way up...

"So, it's true," Will Eberling said as he came in and hung up his coat. "How long you been here?"

"Half hour, maybe."

"Leave anything for me to do?"

He almost laughed. "Maybe. I hear the aft head portside is clogged. Why don't you go do some of that plumber shit..."

Eberling ignored that one, contorted his way into the right seat and ran through his procedures, and even managed to set up his FMS in less than ten minutes. "Ready to hit the bricks?" Eberling said when it was time to do their walk-around down on the ramp.

"Starting to rain a little," he said as he made his way to the galley. It was cold out, too, like not quite 40 degrees yet, and it was still snowing like crazy in Salt Lake. He made it down to the concrete and walked to the number one engine, confirmed oil and hydraulic pressures were good, then he walked around the gears and tires, giving them a practiced look over. When he was finished he walked over to the fuel boss and took the chit, looked it over once and signed it.

Eberling was waiting for him at the metal stairway, looking southeast. Mount Rainier was barely visible - just - in the dim, early morning light, and he stopped and looked into the shades of gray for a while, then they walked up to the vestibule that connected the old girl to this earth.

Marcy was waiting for him, a glass of orange juice in hand when he came back to the pools of light.

"You sure you don't want something hot?" she asked, looking at the water running off his rain-coat, and his nose.

He took the juice and downed it, shook his head. "Maybe before we shut the door?"

"Got it," she said.

He noticed the way she looked at Eberling just then. Kind of a "keep an eye on him this morning" look.

"There are no secrets between crew members," he remembered one of his training captains telling him once - almost thirty years before. Just the opposite of life in the Navy, he'd had to remind himself. Everything was different - again.

Yet there'd been one constant all through his life so far: Barbara. And Ted, he had to remind himself.

She'd been by his side since their second year together, at school. She'd stuck with him when he'd decided to go into the Navy after graduation, and she'd visited while he struggled through OCS, and he couldn't have finished without her, he knew. She was his future even then, and they knew it. They got married after he finished up at Pensacola, and when they moved to Pearl she seemed to love him all the more for his calling.

But...things change, don't they? People change, too.

Eberling was calling out the pre-start checklist now, and he woke up the old girl with her old, familiar routines, got her ready for another day in the air. He was on automatic pilot too, and he knew it...going through all the old, easy motions. He didn't have to think about what he was doing now; all these motions were in deepest muscle-memory. His fingers found switches without any need to look, because every little thing in this cockpit had it's own sound and feel.

"Yaw dampers - "

"One and two, check..."

"IRS - ALIGN to NAV..."

"One, check...two...and three..."

He watched the pushback truck line up, felt the slightest jolt as they mated - then he was talking to the ground boss...

"Clear to start One, Captain..."

"Starting one..."

Eberling finished the switch from ground power to internal buses while he kept his hand on the tiller, then the truck was free...

"Delta 217, clear to taxi Bravo to one-six left. You're number two behind a Scandinavian 340, contact tower one-nineteen-nine. Good day."

"217 to left and nineteen-nine," he said - and suddenly, in that moment, he knew he'd be okay. All the weight from the past couple of days slipped from his shoulders and he took a deep breath, shook his head.

"You okay, Jim?" Eberling said - a little too quietly.

"Yup. Five by five." He watched the taxiway lights slip by - in an order he understood all too well - and he braked when they were still about a hundred yards behind the A340 - while Eberling called out the last items on the pre-takeoff checklist.

He watched the -340 turn onto the active, it's drooping wings heavy with fuel - then it's engines ran up and she lumbered down the runway.

"217, taxi to position and hold."

"217."

He turned onto the runway, lined up on the centerline, flipped off the taxi-lights, turned on the wing lights...

"217, clear for takeoff, contact departure one twenty decimal four for a Summa One departure."

"217, 120.4, Summa Four, roger."

He advanced the throttles to 40%N1 then cut them to idle for a moment, turned on the auto-throttle and the flight director, then engaged the auto-pilot...and the old girl eased down the runway for a few seconds - until she transitioned to full take-off power - then she screamed down the runway and leapt into the sky.

"Positive rate," he called out, and Eberling raised the gears, then: "One-sixty, slats two. One seven five...clean the wing..."

He watched the autopilot track in on the Summa intersection, then as it made the transition to the Baker City VOR...

He didn't remember much about that day, only the feeling of normalcy that seemed to come for him so gently, so quietly. He remembered having dinner with Marcy that night, at some raucous place in Malibu. How she'd held his hand after, telling him that it would be alright soon.

"It already is, Marcy."

She'd nodded once, then looked at him long and hard. "Divorce is like death, Jim. You'll grieve..."

"No, I won't. She was cheating on me, Marcy. I won't grieve over that. I can't..."

Then she had just nodded her head again. Slowly. Knowingly. Just like Barbara might have...

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And, of course, it hadn't been quite that simple...because at points both lawyers were trying to run up the hours...but the thing about it was - he didn't want a fight, and neither did Barbara. She was willing to give him the house and the boat, but then he'd asked "Where the devil will you live? That guy's apartment?"

And so...he'd let her have the house, because, he told her, he knew she loved it so.

And when she broke into tears and ran into his arms he'd held onto her, instinctively, protectively - just as he had for the past thirty years - then he'd kissed her on top of her head and slipped free, that one last time. He signed some papers a few weeks later and it was a done deal, and somehow it was like the last thirty years had never really happened.

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Altair was inscribed on the boat's navy blue stern...which was how his son found it that morning. He'd moved the boat from Shilshole Bay Marina to Lake Union a few weeks before, and only remembered to let Ted know the night before, before he boarded his overnight flight in Boston for the trip home. His own flight got in a half hour after Ted's, and by the time he made it to the dock Ted was already lounging in the cockpit.

"Ah...the prodigal son returns, but - my God...you look just like Jesus! When's the last time you went to a barbershop...?"

"Hey, Dad. How's it hangin'?"

"Still down to my knees."

"Yeah...but does it still work?" Ted quipped as he hopped down to the dock and hugged his 'old man.' "Well, at least you still look like you could..."

"You might, too, someday, if we could only get you out of diapers."

"Ooh...low blow."

"Get your stuff stowed?"

"Yup. You sure you want me to take the aft cabin?"

"Yeah, I like it up forward. Where I put my stuff when..."

"You really got three weeks off?"

"Almost four. I don't have to report back until June 28th, and man-o-man, am I looking forward to some downtime."

"So? Where we headed?"

"Feel like hitting Desolation Sound?" He watched his son's eyes light up like a little kid's and they both smiled, then he looked around the deck. "Got everything you need?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Did you call your mom? Let her know you're in...?"

The change that came over his son looked just like a fat summer's cloud racing across a hot August prairie - bright sunshine to cool, lingering shadow in a heartbeat, then the heat again. Ted was still sorting through his anger, trying to understand her sudden, final betrayal, but he had yet to reconcile with her - said he never would. He had been content to let it go at that while Ted was so far away, but now that he was "home" he was going to have to do something about it. Barbara was still fragile where Ted was concerned.

"No," was Ted's final stony, sullen reply.

"Okay." Which seemed to take the wind out of his son's sails. "You wanna grab the bowlines while I warm up the motor?"

"Will do."

A few minutes later he backed out of his slip into Lake Union, and he let Ted take the helm while he tidied up the deck, making Altair ready for sea -

- but first - they'd have to transit Ballard Locks, and Ted had never tackled them before.

So he ran the lines needed while Ted steered down-channel, then he took the wheel when the lock's entry signal turned green -

"When we get lined-up in there, toss your lines up to the lock-keeper on the dock. He'll tie us off - our job is to let out line as the water drops and we fall, keeping us off the wall - and the boats around us. It gets pretty turbulent, so brace yourself."

A half hour later they were running through Shilshole Bay - leaving Seattle in their wake - when the sun broke through early morning, low-scudding cumulus.

"You bring any beer?" his son asked.

"Diet Dr Pepper and chicken salad sammies today."

"No beer?"

"No beer."

"Dude...you're sick."

"Dude...you're twenty."

"But...I thought it was like against the Law of the Sea to leave port without a case of Budweiser."

"Yup, that's probably true."

"So?"

"Sorry, Dude. I'm just not into that stuff."

"Got any new books, at least?"

"Nope."

"Jeez, Dad...a month without beer...and no books? You going for the priesthood or something?"

"No. One in the family will be enough."

Ted looked away. "What makes you say that?" he said a while later.

"Jesuit school, Jesuit college all those theology classes. Or maybe I don't know you that well."

"You're the only person who ever got me, Dad."

"So...seminary school is next on your horizon?"

"I think so, yeah. But..."

"What about med school?"

"Yeah, that too."

"Still no girlfriend?"

And again, Ted turned away, lost, trying to find the right words. "I was kinda hoping to try that this summer."

"Try - what?"

"The whole sex thing. Girls, that kinda thing."

"Oh," he said, grinning at the irony. "No girls in Beantown?"

"Just hasn't been right."

"I see. Would you grab me a DDP?"

"Sure. Want a sandwich?"

"Nope, not yet."

He watched his boy amble down the companionway and come back up with four Diet Dr Peppers, and they both downed one in a fast gulp, then opened their second and sipped that one slowly.

"What about that gal from Rhode Island? Didn't work out?"

Ted shook his head. "She was weird, like she was looking for someone to be her daddy."

He laughed. "I know the type."

"Mom?"

"No...a couple of stews I've known..."

"Dad!?"

"No, not that. It's more like I'm a, well, a Father Confessor to a lot of the girls. When they get in trouble it seems they always come to me."

"Trouble?"

"Abusive boyfriends, husbands. Unwanted pregnancies. That kind of thing. I guess I have that kind of face."

"You always have."

"What?"

"As long as I can remember. You remember Pete Baker?"

"The kid with eyes like a smallmouth bass? Used to sleep over weekends?"

"Yup. He thought you were God Almighty Himself. You'd come in from a flight in your uniform and all he wanted to do was stay up all night talking airplanes..."

"So? What are you getting at?"

"Remember when he broke his leg? Playing football?"

"Yeah...we went to see him at the hospital."

"Yeah. All he wanted was to hear you tell him everything would be alright. Didn't matter what his mom said. To him, well, you were his dad."

"What?"

"You didn't know that, did you? You have no idea how you affect people, none at all. I think that's what's so hard to take about you."

"Hard to take?"

"Yeah. It's like you're this high priest, the High Priest of Boeing."

He laughed at that - for quite a while. "Of Boeing. I like that."

"Yeah? Well, it's true. You've always had that effect on people. Half the kids from school who came over hoped they'd get a chance to talk to you..."

"About?"

"Anything."

"I think we need to stop off for some beer."

"See? There's a method to my madness."

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They docked in Friday Harbor that night, and though the sun was still up when Altair entered the little harbor, once the boat was tied-off in the tiny marina they decided to head below and grab some sleep. It was just past two in the morning when he woke up - at his customary time - and headed topside to look things over.

Altair was a chunky forty-five feet long, broad-beamed with an enclosed center cockpit that provided better-than-decent shelter from the often drizzly weather on Puget Sound. The tradeoff with this design was simple enough to understand, however, because while it kept the sun and the wind and the rain out, he had lost the stars, and his most beloved star of all - Altair.

Old habits die hardest, he grumbled as he stumbled around the deck in the dark. He woke up at least once every night and to check the dock-lines - more often when the weather was wild - and he held onto stanchions and lifelines as he made his way forward, stubbing a toe once on a cleat and trying not to curse.

"You up already?" he heard Ted say, and as his eyes adapted to the dark he spied his son sitting on the bow pulpit.

"Every morning at two, come rain or shine."

"You know...that's not normal."

"It is...if you have to be in the cockpit by four."

"Maybe that's why Mom always slept 'til noon. Or...maybe it was the bourbon."

"It wasn't easy for her, you know."

"She knew what she was signing up for, Pops. You were her meal ticket, her free ride."

"She's your mother, Ted, and I'm not sure she deserves that."

"You always went too easy on her."

"Easy?"

"The booze. The fucking around."

"Don't talk like that."

"Jeez, Dad...she'd been cheating on you since I was in middle school."

"And your point is?"

"My point? Well, when you were gone she was either stone drunk and passed out by the time I got home from school, or..."

"Ya know, Ted, it's water under the bridge. I don't want to hear it and you don't need to live there. It's over, and it seems to me a little forgiveness is in order - eh, Padre?"

He stood in the silence that followed, looking down at the stars reflecting off the water, searching for Altair.

"What about you, Pops? Did you fuck around?"

"Not once."

"Figures. You're the most saintly soul I've ever known. Too bad you're an atheist."

"I am not an atheist."

"Oh, come on, Pops. The only time you've been in church was for a wedding or a funeral..."

"What does church have to do with God?"

They laughed at that one, one of his favorite lines, but he knew in his heart he might be wrong about all that stuff.

"I spend a lot of time in church now," Ted added. "With the Fathers."

"That sense of community is a powerful thing, son."

"I know."

"Is that what attracts you to the idea?"

"Maybe a little, but it's the idea that there's some purpose to all this, that maybe things happen for reasons we can never really fully understand."

"My father was the same way. Said the only religious experience he'd ever had in his life was when he climbed a mountain over in Switzerland."