A Commodore of Errors (34 page)

“Oh, I meant no offense,” Sylvia said. “I just thought the oatmeal had, well, too many oats in it.”

“So order the goddamned cream of wheat.”

When the cream of wheat came, it was too creamy.

Captain Tannenbaume, who had been sitting next to his wife without saying a word, decided to draw the line there. He took the bowl of cream of wheat out of the messman's hands and said he would eat it.

“Why do you let people push you around like that?” Sylvia asked.

Captain Tannenbaume shrugged. “I don't like to impose on people.”

Sylvia looked at Mitzi and nodded toward him. “He's got no
chutzpah
.”

Captain Tannenbaume dropped his spoon of cream of wheat. “
Chutzpah
?”

“She's right, Sonny,” his mother said. “A little
chutzpah
would do you good.”

“My wife uses the word ‘
chutzpah
' now?”

“Oy, would you listen to this schmuck?” Sylvia leaned over the table and put her hand on Mitzi's arm. “'My wife uses the word
chutzpah
?'” Sylvia had a knack for mimicry—she sounded just like her husband, and she and Mitzi laughed.

Captain Tannenbaume ignored his wife's needling. He was more interested in her new vocabulary. He was familiar with the words—his mother used them all the time—but they just sounded so foreign coming out of his Thai wife's mouth.

“Is this part of my wife's makeover?” he asked Mitzi.

Mitzi shrugged. “The Commodore wants her to fit in. She needs to speak the lingo.”

“It wouldn't hurt if you spoke the language a little yourself, sonny,” his mother said.

“Oh,” Captain Tannenbaume said through a mouthful of cream of wheat. “Does the Commodore want me to speak the language too?”

Captain Tannenbaume noticed the look Mitzi and his mother gave one another. It was a look that did not bode well.

“Look, if you think I'm changing how I talk for that Commodore, you've got another thing coming. I'm not changing for anybody.”

“No, sonny,” his mother said, “nobody wants you to change for anybody, either, but would it be such a bad idea to use your
Yiddisha Kop
once in a while?”

“My
Yiddisha Kop
? Since when do I have a
Yiddisha Kop
?”

“But, sonny boy, I've always told you you have a
Yiddisha Kop
.”

“You should be happy you have a
Yiddisha Kop
,” Mitzi said. “Would you rather be a dopey WASP?”

The messman interrupted them when he brought Captain Tannenbaume his usual breakfast of bacon and eggs with white toast. When Captain Tannenbaume picked up his fork and pierced a slice of bacon, Mitzi slapped his hand.

“Stop that. You got yourself a young wife now,” Mitzi said. “Think about your health.” Mitzi took the bacon off his plate. “Like you need all that cholesterol!”

Captain Tannenbaume looked at his young wife sitting next to him. “Well, maybe you're right.” He reached over and squeezed Sylvia's hand. “Maybe I'll give up the bacon.”

“Mitzi's right, sonny.” His mother's words came out in a rush. “In fact, maybe you should give up pork altogether.”

“What is it with you and pork, Mother? You've been trying to get me to give it up my whole life.”

“Pork comes from the pig,” Mitzi said. “Pigs are the only animals that shit where they eat. Did you know that?”

Captain Tannenbaume had to admit that he did not and told his mother if he knew that about pigs he would have given up pork a long time ago. Mitzi smiled at Mrs. Tannenbaume, as if she had just won some prize.

“I was a little girl when my mother taught me not to eat pork,” his mother said. “I guess I forgot the reason . . . ”

Now it was the Steward who interrupted them, barking at the cook for coming into the galley on his day off.

“Captain, could I talk to you?” the cook said. “Right away?”

“If you need to see the captain when he's in the officers' mess, you come to me first,” the Steward said. “I told you for the last time, I am the only one in the steward's department that's allowed to interrupt—”

“What can I do for you, Cookie?” Captain Tannenbaume said.

The steward slapped his hand against the side of his own head, something he did whenever something or someone exasperated him. “Captain, what I just said? Didn't you hear me just tell the man that I am the only one that can interrupt you?”

“Oh, yes,” Captain Tannenbaume said. “Okay, Stew, what is it I can do for the cook?”

The steward turned to the cook. “Okay. Tell me what it is you want me to tell the captain.”

“We're supposed to be in the middle of the Indian Ocean,” the cook said. “I was having a smoke on the fantail when I noticed that we're hugging the coast of somewhere.”

Captain Tannenbaume looked directly at the cook. “We're hugging a coast?”

“Captain, please,” the steward said. “I'm trying to school the man.”

“Oh. Sorry, Stew. Well, uh, can you ask him how close to land we are?”

The cook waved his arms up and down in front of Captain Tannenbaume. “We're really fucking—”

The steward cuffed the cook upside the head.

The cook turned and waved his arms in front of the steward. “Tell him we're really close. Tell him we're really fucking close!”

The steward turned slowly toward Captain Tannenbaume. “The cook says we're really fucking close to land now, Captain.”

Captain Tannenbaume stood up.

“Which side—Sorry, Stew. Can you ask him which side of the ship?”

The cook was too excited to point. He waved his arms over his head and said, “The . . . ”

“Hey!” The steward really slapped the cook upside his head now. “How many times? Huh? How many times I gotta said it? Only department heads talk to the captain.”

“Well then, how come the messman gets to talk to the captain?” the cook pointed out. “He's no department head.”

“He is the only—”

“Uh, Stew.” Captain Tannenbaume put his hand on the steward's shoulder. “This is pretty important.”

The steward took a deep breath and counted to ten. “Captain, please. You want me to run a tight department, and then you do not let me school my men.”

“Of course, Stew.” Captain Tannenbaume struggled to keep patient. “Go ahead and school your man here.”

The Steward counted to ten again. He gave the cook a hard look. “Okay, Cook. Now. Tell
me
. Which side of the ship the land is on?”

“The port side!”

Captain Tannenbaume did not wait for the steward to pass on what the cook said. He tore out of the officers' mess, leaving the steward furious.

“How I'm supposed to school my men!” he shouted after him.

Captain Tannenbaume turned right out of the officers' mess and raced through the passageway on the port side of the ship to the watertight door leading to the main deck. Mitzi, his mother, Sylvia, and the cook followed close behind. He opened the door and they all fell out onto the main deck.

Sure enough, there was land, about a hundred yards off the port beam. Captain Tannenbaume recognized the mahogany brown cliffs surrounding the ancient city of Muscat, on the Arabian Peninsula. Somehow, the
God is Able
had found its way into the Gulf of Oman and was steaming right for the Straights of Hormuz. Years ago, as a junior officer, Captain Tannenbaume had worked on a tanker that made regular runs to the Persian Gulf, and Muscat was an oasis in an otherwise desolate landscape. He'd recognize it anywhere. He also knew that the ship had good water right up to the shoreline, and the best he could tell, the
God is Able
was running directly parallel, so he relaxed some.

Mitzi, however, was not relaxed. She punched the cook in the shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you telling me we're supposed to be in the middle of the ocean right now?”

“Yup,” the cook said. “That's what Tibby told me. And he said we were running way too close to shore with all the pirate warnings we've gotten lately, especially with no fire hoses laid out on deck.”

Captain Tannenbaume went stiff at the sound of Tibby's name.

“Oh, that's what Tibby told you? Well tell Mr. Tibby he is wrong. It just so happens that I ordered a change of course so that Mitzi here could have a look at the ancient city of Muscat.” Captain Tannenbaume pointed at the shimmering mirage. “There, Mitz, all for you. I wanted this trip to feel more like a cruise for you.”

“You did that for me?”

Captain Tannenbaume saw the hurt look on his mother's face.

“And for you, too, Mother.” He fake-punched his mother in the arm. “My little supernumerary.”

Captain Tannenbaume noticed that Sylvia did not seem to be feeling left out, so he did not say anything to her. Instead, he put his arms around all of them and ushered them back inside. “Let's go on up to the bridge for a better look.”

When they got to the bridge, they found half the crew there, jostling for a position around the chart table. Swifty seemed to be the object of their attention. Captain Tannenbaume assumed they were all trying to get a good look at the chart, to figure out where the hell they were.

“Hey!” Swifty shouted. “Give me some space. How am I supposed to book you when you're ripping the appointment book out of my hands?”

“Attention on deck!” Ski yelled.

The sailors ignored him. It was Mitzi who got their attention. She calmly walked over to the captain's chair, dismantled the makeshift hair dryer, and then attacked the scrum of sailors gathered around the chart table with the heat gun. One by one, she peeled the scrum back until she got to Swifty. He remained hunched over the appointment book, guarding it with his life, and did not turn around until the heat gun singed the back of his shirt.

When Captain Tannenbaume snatched the book out of his hands and threw it to the deck, the sailors were on it like a dog on a bone.

He grabbed Swifty by the elbow and walked him out to the port bridge wing. He pointed at Muscat. “Do you know where we are, young man?”

“I . . . sir, I've been so busy . . . ”

Captain Tannenbaume got up into Swifty's face. “What about all those positions on the chart? All those perfect sunlines of yours, perfectly matching the ship's Dead Reckoning track.”

“Sir . . . I . . . we . . . the truth is, none of us knows how to use H.O. 229. We can't make heads or tails of the nautical almanac, or the air almanac, or the sight reduction tables, or any of those mathematical tables.”

“So why didn't you ask?”

“We were reluctant to, sir. I guess we were a little awed by what you did the other night.”

“And the noon position reports?”

“Sparks has been making them up,” Swifty said. “He feels bad about smashing the GPS.”

Captain Tannenbaume's head fell to his chest. He suddenly felt very tired, dog tired. He had been going to sea for too long. He lifted his head and looked at the young junior officer standing before him.

It seemed like just yesterday that he himself was a third mate, happy to be an officer after spending years as an unlicensed crew member. He had taken his time working his way to the top of the unlicensed deck department, to the job of boatswain, a job that he liked. He liked running the deck gang, liked organizing the boatswain's locker, liked the neatness of his life aboard ship. Mostly he liked being the boss so that he could go ashore the minute the gangway hit the dock. As boss of the unlicensed deck department, he set the port watches for his men, and he always gave himself the most shore leave. But whenever he overreached, the chief mate would be right there to rein him in. That's when he set his sights on making captain, where there would be no one left to tell him what to do.

When he finally became captain, he realized he could not have been more wrong—there is always someone to tell you what to do. Now it was the home office, usually some dumb-ass manager who had never been to sea in his life. No, he'd been on these damn ships far too long.

Captain Tannenbaume let go of Swifty's shoulder. “Go back inside.”

When he was alone, he leaned against the bulwark to catch his breath, and it occurred to him that this really might be his last voyage. Yes, he'd accepted the offer to be superintendent of the academy, but in his heart, he had not been 100 percent certain he was actually going to go through with it. With each passing day, however, the idea of becoming superintendent seemed more and more appealing. But first, of course, he had to get this old ‘tween decker home.

He called up a chart of the world in his mind's eye. To get to the Suez Canal, all they had to do was turn around and keep the Arabian Peninsula on their starboard side until they hit the Red Sea, then it was straight up the Red Sea to the canal. They'd pick up the new GPS that Sparks had requisitioned in Suez, and from there it was a short jaunt across the Med and then across the Pond to New York. Surely his deck officers could manage that.
They could at least do that, couldn't they?

Captain Tannenbaume looked into the wheelhouse. It seemed Mitzi had straightened everyone out. The sailors were lined up single file, patiently waiting to book their appointments. She was some woman, that Mitzi. Not only was she drop-dead gorgeous, she was a real go-getter to boot. Although he didn't necessarily like the changes Mitzi had wrought, both to his ship and to his wife, he had to admit they were impressive in scope.

The love of a dexterous woman, that's all he ever wanted, really. Seeing Mitzi in action made him realize that Sylvia was anything but dexterous. keeping their stateroom in order was beyond her capability—how was she ever going to keep their home in order? Of course, keeping a home was not why Captain Tannenbaume married her. He married her because she was young and nubile. What was it his mother called it? The hoo hoo and the ha ha?