6 - Her New Friend

The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter

A Novel

For Andrew

e-book: “The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter”

The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter By Corinne Devin Sullivan

ISBN 979-8-9909558-0-6

© Corinne Devin Sullivan. 2024. All rights reserved.

Publication made by: CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN BOOKS

Published in the United States of America, in November of 2024.

Chapter 6: HER NEW FRIEND

A letter written in a hurry on New Year’s Day, 2004:

Hello, Mr. Floyd Ladd. 

Last night, I was caught by surprise. I didn’t expect you to make such a big deal out of everything we had said to each other since we met. I am fine that you brought up the so-called “permanent employment” thing in front of everybody you invited, even though it set me in your personal light, not my own.

Even though you and I have been “business contacts” for years, now I feel like I am losing a  lifelong pen-pal for… what? 

I had to make a choice this morning, and my choice is that I’m going to take a break from looking out for things for you and everyone you care about, for now. I am sick and tired of details that spill into people being terribly angry! I’m headed to Florida. I put my brother Ben’s address on the back of this. Send any letters you pen to me there, please.

Keep something nice in mind! I want to make a new place for myself. I have been thinking how to develop something new… so here’s one: In March of 2000 I was hired at “the biggest firm in Hollywood”. They had these huge investment properties. Every day their clients’ lives were trashed. What was okay then is terrible today, and what was terrible back then no one cares about today. Here’s my idea: follow their biggest star and watch him clear things out of the closet so the audience takes it all in. Hint: the person I am thinking of was married to an old friend of mine. I think you know who I’m thinking of. Big, big pull there. 

My dad is kicking retirement around. 

Say, don’t use anything from him since you haven’t committed yet to working together. He won’t be pleased if you change any of his past just to get sizzle out of your audiences—which is what you just did to me in front of the whole choir when you went on a roll last night during your “four-day Hollywood party” which was, in a word, egregious. 

Nothing is official except for us being friends who are together in the same industry. Sorry things ended up terrible. It would be nice if you could open to me a little more. I guess that’s not stylin’ these days, is it?? 

I’m putting things on pause. 

Fiona 

P.S. Dad sent the enclosed writing to me right when I started up my computer this morning. Seeing his little e-mail address at the top of my computer screen made me feel strange. I saw your name on its subject line, and that reminded me about how good of friends you and I have finally become even though its still only a man’s world, isn’t it? Meade’s e-mail is the only thing that made me write.  

What happened to be enclosed with the aforementioned letter was this here print-out…

Dad, You can write any story you want about the ocean here… CLICK “SAVE” PLEASE!!!

…as well as this here documentations and such:

Fiona, 

It’s my money paying for anything Aoife gives you. Let’s be clear on that. That gives me a lot more say in your life than you like. I know it. But, hey, mind your manners with me, will you please, kid? 

Thing is, Aoife is the mother of my children. I pretty much gave into anything she ever asked me for. That’s the way it has always been. It’s how it’s always going to be. But you are on your own. You should be married to someone who supports you, or you should have a profession that covers your costs. 

I am being “transparent” in this crap, if that’s your new word for the week. 

I have a feeling you never read a word. I’m writing for my own benefit. Period. 

If you are going to print this, will you hurry and delete the stuff I wrote for you? You didn’t delete anything—not a thing—from the earlier letters. That’s what Friendly Floyd told us. I’ll forward you whatever else he said when I get back from the shipyard. 

Dad (Meade)

Stories from my time at sea. Written for wonderful Fiona, my daughter. (header)

There was both a fun beginning as well as an official ending to Marriage Number Three. Right away, Aoife and I settled our divorce in less than a year. We had become “in the know” about doing the divorce ourselves, too. It cost me a lot less, the third time. 

I had returned to Seattle. I lived at my uncle Jerry’s place. He was in his nineties now. He was still the nicest person I had ever known. And I switched my drivers’ license back over to Washington State. Then, I went out and bought an old truck at one of the many used car lots. 

I cruised around every day in my new truck with its windows down and the heat turned up, and with loud music playing that I enjoyed. In the mid-afternoon I was able to catch some double feature movies for something like $6.00 a ticket. Or, I headed into downtown Seattle just to get grilled duck from the Uwajimaya supermarket filled with Japanese food, or to eat fresh crab, or to get myself some corn on the cob. 

About a month went by that way. By then, I had tried every donut shop in the city. 

I kept plugging in to the ten-cent movie theater in my mind, from time to time. In those days, I imagined how cool it would be to shove off to American Samoa for a whole year, way out in the South Pacific, like I did when I first began my career as a merchant marine. There, the natives speared fish and would hand out a plate to anyone who walked by. They ate everything raw with some spices and herbs. It is still the best seafood I ever tasted.  

With time, I started talking to Aoife once more. Next, I had to go down to the Port of Tacoma to start regular work again. I was fine with this arrangement.  

I accepted an engineer job right off the bat. It was the first ordinary “day job” with “long-term prospects” I had held in thirty years. Driving in to that work every day really reminded me of Marriage Number One. Back then, I had been hired to be the Port Engineer in Seattle. It was a high-up position, one where I often worked overtime. 

After the first divorce happened, I always thought that if I had just taken my time off when I had earned it, I would have been mentally safe. 

If I had enjoyed a few months with the twins, and if, at the same time, I had helped Aoife while she was pregnant with our daughter instead of sailing out to the Orient solely to bring in more income, we would still all quietly have stayed put. Marriage Number One might have been “the one” if Aoife hadn’t demanded I go straight to work right at the beginning of my vacations. 

This next installment of my life’s story took place in 2003. 

Aoife was my ex-wife, again, at her own better judgement rather than a choice I had anything to do with. She continued to have me pay for most of her expenses. Fact is, I can’t say I didn’t like hearing from her. I always liked to get her phone calls no matter what was going on. 

Aoife and I understood how the more our family needed money, the more we were always going to be stuck together, even if only to make ends meet.  

After a couple of months, I was asked to hold the night shift from time to time.

One night, well after midnight, the Port of Tacoma was empty but for only a lone freighter whose crew was hard at work. The place felt dead. My shift was over a few hours ago, but my replacement was unaccounted for.

I waited. 

The Port Engineer finally told me things were covered. He wanted to send me home. I was a young sixty-three, and so the guy goes ahead and calls me by my new name, “old man.” He does that even though he doesn’t really have any replacement there, and even though I have already worked harder than both the replacement and him combined. He was going to leave the position empty for another hour, rather than ask me to stay a little more. 

“Good night, old man,” he said, one more time.

I headed out. It was April, and the weather in the Puget Sound was good. I didn’t necessarily need my jacket, but my Uncle Jerry insisted I take one. Every evening when I was getting ready to go to work he showed up. He handed me a coat and said something like, “Here you go.” 

That night, it was eerie in the dockyard because it was too quiet. Docked ships sat quietly. The machinery that took things up onto them was shut down for the night. Things would start kicking up again there around 4am. 

The pavement was slick with a little rain. The sky was clear. I turned the key in the door of my truck. I let the engine warm. While I sat there, I put on some music from my favorite band, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Five minutes later, I put the truck in reverse, and got on the road to my uncle’s place just outside of Seattle. 

Back in the late Sixties, in these dockyards, when I was fresh out of the Navy and looking to build something up as a merchant marine, I would secure any possibility for an adventure that came my way. Eventually, big business crept in, and I guess they tore the dream apart with their fake industry take-overs. Maybe that’s why the young people are nervous. The boys and women who make it through merchant marine schools seem a lot more frightened than I ever have been. I’m not sure what they are scared of. The new ones aren’t really trying to get onto any high-paying jobs unless somebody anoints them. Some are happy filling spots a deckhand would have taken back when I was getting my start so long as benefits are listed out in detail. 

The entire shipping industry had started to feel strange to a guy like me. 

Then again, I was the one who got old, not the Port Engineer, nor all the other people I complained about. 

Three months earlier, just before I returned to Seattle for good, I caught a ship just to keep things fresh. They placed me as Chief Engineer. It was one running out to Okinawa. 

Everything was more high-tech than it had been the year before. Things were racing ahead in the industry. Pretty much all of them now had ship-tracking services to steer vessels away from storms and typhoons. In my day, we had to ride out anything that suddenly came our way.

During the trip over, the Second Engineer had trouble with apathy turning up in all his people. Over coffee together, in the mornings, we would talk about everything. We talked about the people who are younger than we had become. One day, the Second Engineer entered the mess hall with a fairly annoyed expression on his face. 

“Dammit, it’s not making sense,” he said to me. “My wife didn’t get my check after four weeks.”

Then, down in the Engine Room, when it was only me and the Wiper holding the watch, the Wiper told me what he did with it.

He told me, “The Second gave me his mail to mail. I forgot to do it. I felt so bad.”

I asked what he did with all the envelopes and stuff, and he said, “I threw it away. I felt so bad. I forgot everything until it was about a week later. I couldn’t tell him I hadn’t mailed it in all that time, Chief. What do you think?”

I wouldn’t believe it when he said it. What kind of low-life does something like that? Man, the kid actually did it, too. Didn’t even feel a need to share his confession with the victim or to rectify anything. 

At that point, I had to kind of take the Wiper under my wing. His name was Baxter. His dad was a Wiper in the Union, as was his grandfather, and his uncles were, as well. What was up? Was this kid just pretending? Did he like walking in someone else’s shadow? 

Now, an oil spill in the Engine Room would normally be any Wiper’s cup-of-tea. The day after Baxter’s unsettling confession about throwing out the Second Engineer’s mail, there was an oil spill in the Engine Room. Naturally, I called for Baxter. He was awake, in bed, but couldn’t come over to do this work. 

“I’m on Sanitary!” He shouted out to answer my query. 

I dared look inside. He was in his pajamas.

“You’re in bed.”

“Well, I’m on Sanitary.”

I could handle the oil spill with my other crew members filling in for him, that one time. But that’s not the way I leave things. And if it was honestly Sanitary keeping him away from his work, then Baxter would have to be the one to clean up all the rooms and swab the decks down below. But, one way or another, he wasn’t doing any of that, either. He just stared at me.

I approached him. I reached over, and I put my hand on his shoulder but it felt strange to do that, so I removed it. I only did it because my own son, Sam, told me I seemed cold the last time we talked. Sam recommended I try putting my hand upon his shoulder to ease tension the way people did in the olden days. 

“It’s a cosmic fraternal brotherhood, dad.” Sam had told me that day, with complete sincerity. “It’s a thing no one complains about. What’s the big deal about touching another man’s shoulder?”

Baxter happened to look offended the moment I touched his shoulder. I sat on the empty chair inside his room, instead.  

I said, “You’re getting into bed without a thought about that oil you’re supposed to clean. Just leaving it to burn on the engine, where it can take the ship down. Take your bed up with it. You believe it’s your right. But you can’t be here if you treat my Engine Room this way, and I mean that.”

“Man, you know I’m trying to make everyone happy, down here. I’ve put in something like seven extra watches since I came aboard. Honestly, Chief, I don’t like this treatment. It isn’t fair.” 

I didn’t take it all in, right away. I had to think about it, instead. Then I told him, “Your dad did it, and your grandfather did it. You don’t like it so you’re planning to take down your family’s reputation, single-handedly. Put all our lives at risk? You do it without a second thought.”

Actually, that was not what I had planned to say. But if he wasn’t solidly committed to the ship then he needed to depart it. 

Then he screeched, “I don’t really like being in there—it’s hella frightening, man!”

Anyhow, Baxter actually did get out of bed. Did the job right, too. Next, he wanted to pretend we each had a new best friend in one another. That was fine. But, on Sunday, when he had a double-shift, he was too tired for it. Things changed back, and I had to round him up one more time.

But he was an all-right person, anyhow. I liked the kid.

Baxter didn’t want to go to sea, to begin with. That’s the type you ought to tell everyone to keep far from a ship. It’s the type of fellow who will throw the Second Engineer’s mail away. So, I never did ask him to handle my mail. Even in Okinawa, I would have walked over to the Marine base and put it in the box myself. That was about a two-mile walk.  

Baxter had a glassy stare sometimes when he looked at you. I didn’t even want to ask. In my day, you would get fired, no matter what. If doing drugs was part of your doctor’s prescription, it didn’t matter. Handling the cargo, and keeping the ship afloat, you don’t mess around with anyone on drugs at sea, not if you want to stay alive. But, these kids had class-action lawsuit’ed a big tyrant for taking away all the boys’ prescription drugs on board, so I didn’t know if I had anything left to stand on. 

I said to him, “Baxter, turn over your drug.” 

He didn’t even complain. Just handed his bottle over to me. I let him know I would throw them all overboard. I gave him a pat on the shoulder

“You could go to jail,” he told me one night, when I got him back up again. He was shoving things around in his room, getting ready to go back to the Engine Room. He wanted a pill but I had already handled them. Threw them all into the water right when he turned them over. While he complained, I was forced to hold my tongue. 

When we were through with work, I told him I was heading to the mess hall. It was my invitation to have some chow together. He walked along with me.

“I’m a hold-over, kid,” I said. 

Baxter didn’t even want to look me in the eye when I started my little speech. We grabbed the food from the serving line and sat together. I watched him load his coffee with sugar.

I went on with, “Young people assume I’m out of touch until their ass is on the line, and it’s me who has to save it. I have to make sure the ship actually gets there. You’re expected to travel from Point A to Point B. Do it on-time, too.” 

I was sailing as the Chief Engineer, licensed to handle any vessel. I told him he could do it, too, one day. 

I said, “I’ve been working at sea since I joined the Navy back in 1969. I was a submariner for, oh, about seven years.”

I couldn’t tell if he had heard me. We both ate for a while. Then I said, “I can’t do anything about my age. Listen, I was a wash-up, too. I was stealing cars and doing everything else.”

Baxter didn’t like any assumptions about the things he stood for. 

“Never been in legal trouble like you got yourself into. Sorry, Chief.” He told me.

I didn’t care if he had or not. I was hoping to start a conversation.

“I’ve got all my Coast Guard certificates for every job. It’s something like two hundred and fifty well-executed voyages at sea.” I looked him in the eye and told him, “That makes me a world-class merchant marine.”

He said, “You sound old. Sorry.” 

Baxter took a good look at me. 

He spoke more sincerely when he stated, “I don’t care if you are old.”

He wasn’t too embarrassed to mention I was out of touch with today’s times. He told me I wasn’t an expert at listening to his personal meaning of things outside the industry that had brought us together. That drove a wedge between us. 

When the job was done and the ship had returned to Seattle, our captain gave the kid a great, big hug. Everyone thought Baxter was the greatest Wiper the merchant marines ever had.

“Keep up the good work, son,” was the last thing I heard the Captain tell him. 

Hadn’t heard about Baxter for at least a year, maybe three, and then, tonight, the Port Engineer mentioned a Wiper called Baxter so I asked about him. Turns out Baxter’s family had paid for him to take classes to move up. Everybody told me how he was sticking with the merchant marines now.

It was a few more hours until sunrise. The Puget Sound sprawled. Fingers and shipping apparatus everywhere. I was racing home. Once I was on the freeway, I turned the music up loud.

WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED BY CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN

ISBN 979-8-9909558-0-6 e-book: “The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter”

© Corinne Devin Sullivan. 2024. All rights reserved.

Publication made by: CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN BOOKS “The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter” Published in the United States of America 2024. First Final EBook. Design by C.D.S. Website: www.corinnedevinsullivan.com