5 - Her Forever Job
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 5: HER forever job
A letter eventually written four years later and mailed at the end of 2003…
Floyd:
Please keep your calm. Your emails have all been received. I like handwritten things. I didn’t have stationary. Now I have some. That’s all.
I take to heart this from your emails: the project idea wasn’t supposed to be spread to A N Y O N E. I’m tired of being the one everyone expects to pick up the damage. I will apologize for “telling Ben who told your wife who told your VP who told you”—if that’s what it takes to end this ongoing anger.
“Friendship begets beauty” or something like that. I don’t remember how the saying goes exactly.
It would be nice if you found my little note from that month when we worked together. You were very kind. So, I didn’t want to embarrass anyone and I left it with the secretary. It says it all. Something sure was pulled on the shoot. If your own company is disrespectful to you then I don’t know what to say. I’m asking you to take off those rose-colored glasses and dig in when people on the payroll act hateful. Someone is manipulating things and letting you pick up the tab. That’s why I “charged ahead”. Get in there and talk to the people who shows you respect first if you want to find out if you are a good person. Not the others! Then ask me again if I am a friend you can trust.
I don’t listen to my dad anymore right now. I don’t understand why that is so complicated to understand. I asked you to call him directly. You said your interest was “in passing”, and now you are asking for his “alluring content” once more. It hurts because you’re asking more and more about my father’s life when you are kind of supposed to be interested in me.
You went around me. And you won a big award for the short film you made about mom and dad’s “sinking ship” of a relationship. My brothers and I are forced to bear that, socially.
Anyway… I did ask Chief Engineer Aidan Declan Meade for something new. He sent me an email. I’ll print it off. This will be all I ever have for you in the world.
With love from your busted, bruised and broken-up ol’ pal,
Fiona!!!!!!
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:
You don’t go over very nicely when you’re mad, Fiona. You get that aspect of your character from your mother’s side of the family. I’m going to write something here for our project together, and, in exchange, you can be a little sweeter and kind to me inside your emails. You used to be perfect and friendly and sweet back when you were a little girl. Hey—take out everything I type to only you before printing this thing and sending this thing off to Friendly Floyd.
LOVE, YOUR DAD.
Stories from my time at sea. Written for wonderful Fiona, my daughter. (header)
Remember when everyone was scared that the turn of the millennium would hurt all the clocks built inside of all of the Earth’s machines? That happened before the Year 2000.
I was working on vessels in the San Pedro Harbor. I did night jobs as an engineer for every kind of ship or engine. I did that stuff for a long while. When 2000 was getting near, we checked through all the port’s systems.
One afternoon, I stopped in for a drink at a nearby bar. There was a merchant marine who talked to me for hours. He saw me feeling low, and he wanted me to cheer up. I told him I was divorced, for a second time, from the same woman. I confided everything I could think of. He went on and on to me about how he lived on a boat.
“Come on down to the docks here in San Pedro and live like I do,” he said to me.
He thought I should move in next door and live right there in the marina. He was lonely. He figured I could be someone to keep him company.
“If you find a boat I can live on for free, I’ll go along with it,” I said to him.
He actually found one. No mast, but I could do anything I wanted with the damn thing. Somebody had abandoned it long ago. He told me that all I needed to do was start paying rent. It was about a hundred and sixty dollars a month to tie her up.
It was a sixty-foot cement sailboat, but no ship builder ever called it cement. Ferrocement is the name, and it has a smooth finish that’s just like plaster. They put up a mesh, like putting up chicken wire. They can build any ship’s walls with that kind of stuff. When everything is finished, you can’t tell that the vessel isn’t made out of wood.
I could have lived in the sailboat he found. I meant to do it when we talked, and I intended to move in when he told me had actually gotten a place for me to stay. But, in reality, when it sank in, I had to decline. Living in the docks, it just felt so desperate after I had owned fifty acres and a blueberry farm. I left the sailor standing there.
I sort of fell into a hotel chair. When I wasn’t working, I was in front of a television set inside a pretty rundown hotel, down in Long Beach, California. I did it for a long time. I worked during the day on regular port engineer jobs, or I took night jobs there handling any machinery surprises. All the money I earned went to Aoife. She was building her own life without mine to intertwine with whatever she was making.
I spent a lot of evenings back in the hotel, sitting in the chair, drinking wine. I didn’t like being alone. Every day I told myself that I knew I was going to be okay. I believed I would end up back with Aoife. I thought about her every morning. She used to drive me forward to the next port whenever we talked during our phone calls, back when we were married.
I didn’t like having time off. As the year 2000 approached, I found myself spending more time alone.
Aoife and the kids were always doing great.
The little ones were taking their time, learning at an idiot’s speed compared to their older brothers, but I believed they would catch up soon. They didn’t have any inner-turmoil to overcome.
Meanwhile, the twins were used to constant challenge. Now, they were still going to a university but it was for a graduate program. They had gotten accepted to every university and graduate program they ever did, all on their own. They were about to rent the house they had bought in Jersey Shore. They wanted to mingle with wealth and politics down in Florida.
By then, you had announced your complicated decision to ignore the duty to fulfil my one, single requirement in your life: finish college. Your desire to work in film seemed far-fetched to me even though you had made some money to move into an apartment in Manhattan off some job you finished a year or so earlier.
Back then, it seemed like I didn’t fit a need in anyone’s life anymore. But, I liked that you continued sending cards to me. There was always pile of them stacking up at the union hall.
The twins accidentally bought a Volvo from 1973. They thought it was a treasure piece, but it kept breaking down. They asked me to visit so I could fix the car. Otherwise, the cost would prohibit getting it up and going, and they would have to sell the thing just as spare parts. I was able to break away for this and make a trip back over to New Jersey.
Aoife picked me up. She was cordial. There was a slim yield of blueberries but nothing was ever harvested so I shouldn’t have asked. It was only her, Malcolm, and Ted living on the farm, at that time. It didn’t seem like Terrence was around.
The weather was getting cold. The autumn colors were beautiful in the country. Still, New Jersey felt like the wrong side of the country, and the port-a-potties stacked like freeway signs were really getting to me. The car ride felt strange. Aoife brought up my history as a fighter in one of Seattle’s fight clubs. I did that only way far back in my teen years. I didn’t like her accusative nature.
Everyone looked nice and grown up when I got to the farm. The dining-room was sort of my permanent abode, whenever I was there. I never encountered Terrence. I’m not sure where Aoife had put him. I didn’t know if he even actually ever existed. He might have been a made-up character by all of you.
I spent a few days huddled over the Volvo. I had driven it up to the door of the building that still bore its sign that said, “Dad’s Place”. I started fresh and early and kept at it until after sundown, with only the light from the shop giving me enough to see the car.
I found an old box of Elvis eight-tracks. I had stuffed them up on a shelf when we first got the place. While I was fixing the boys’ car, I must have listened to every one of them things, just over and over again.
“It’s the deluxe edition, man. But from 1974!” You said to me one day when you stopped by from your place in the city.
I recall you leaning over the open hood while I removed things from the engine that I could see were causing all the trouble inside.
“1973, Fiona,” said Ben, correcting your error.
I didn’t know if you were visiting me or the twins. You all showed up to the farm on the same day.
Dinner rolled around, but Aoife had made plans already. She stuck sweet, little Ted with a babysitter. It was you and I, and the twins and Marcus, and we all went to get something to eat together. Do you remember that? It was one of the best times we ever had together.
The Volvo needed a test drive. Fiona, you and I thought it was the coolest car in the state of New Jersey. The boys were kind. They let the lady have the front passenger seat.
“This is a real fun time, guys!” You shouted out to a fairly dead scene inside the car.
The Volvo just rambled towards the closest burger joint I knew how to get to.
“Pretty fun,” said Sam. “But it’s not for us.”
“Yep,” Ben said. “Not very fun for me. Mom’s getting lucky, again, with Keith, while we’re going out for food.”
I just about ripped both of them in two by yelling at them both to stop talking that way. I took some care to talk about the fine woman I understood their mother to be. You and little Marcus were stunned into silence and pretty much dead for the rest of our trip out, so far as conversation went.
The burger place I knew of had closed down. I looked at all the empty windows and the “For Sale” billboard that was misleading to anyone who stared long enough.
“Hey, there, old man,” said Sam. “Let’s roll!”
“Yea, you’re not the Wonder Bread Champ I heard about in my younger days, Dad,” said Ben.
I let the twins pick the next place out. They said it would be their favorite burger restaurant forever. The place was busy.
I knew I should make a little lighter conversation for Marcus than the one we were having during our car ride. Marcus was the one in trouble all the time with math in school. But, I forgot about it when Ben and I sat facing each other inside the restaurant.
I said, “I’m glad we talked. I didn’t know about Keith. Your mom must not be seeing the other person? Where is Terrence these days? Anyone been seeing him around?”
“Nope.” Ben and Sam said in unison.
There was a lot of talk about selling the farm and getting into a new place. After they graduated their current university program, the twins were going to get into another school down south. They wanted more credentials. And, they planned to invest in houses in Florida for that.
Ben went to the bathroom. He returned and just strolled over to sit at another table. He didn’t care to bid anyone a “good-bye”. His friend was eating side-by-side to us, with his own family. All of my grown-up children looked older than I felt.
Sam stayed still. Whenever his brother was a few yards away, conversation with him went downhill. Finally, he smiled like a champ and then stood up and walked over and joined them, carrying both of the twins’ meals that had now been served by the waitress.
It was just you, and Marcus, plus me, left alone in that booth.
“I’ll get them back, Dad. Marcus, come with me,” you said and started to get out of the booth.
“They stay where they are,” I said.
Then I let you have it.
I said something like, “Fiona, don’t ever say something stupid like that again. You prompt those two dickheads every time.”
I cannot remember what you said in response. We’ll just forget it, for now.
On the ride home, you were crying all over the place, and Marcus followed your lead. You have that trait, like your mother does. Men go along with any emotion that’s on display for more than sixty seconds until they learn. Marcus looked translucent through his tears. I got so broken up after you both wandered off to your bedrooms that I also cried for the rest of the night.
You spent a day or two hiding in a book, and then said it was time to leave.
I finished fixing the Volvo well enough over the next few days. In front of everyone, I made a big production out of handing Ben and Sam the ignition key. Aoife had called everyone back to the farm for a final send off for both the car as well as for myself. It looked like everyone felt pretty good, by then.
The point of the story is sometimes things work out a way you didn’t plan for. Exactly one day later, the boys each were paid for their work on a campaign by some big politician who hired them. They bought themselves a new historic car, and they gave me the Volvo as a present.
I made the Volvo my ride up to Boston, to catch a ship. That job fell through, but nightwork was still available back in Los Angeles. I drove that old Volvo all the way across the United States. It stayed in one piece. I admit I had to spend a night or two getting some things adjusted at shops along the way.
Back in San Pedro, I sure felt better after seeing everyone. I had memories to last. That was what I had paid for, for all those years at sea. Finally, something came through for me. As well, I had a family even if my ex-wife wasted everything I earned on her current boyfriend.
Next, I was working a nightshift on a Military Sealift Command. It was permanently in the harbor, though in any normal circumstances these MSC vessels will go out to sea regularly as well as efficiently. This one was simply staying put. That was the plan at the moment, for the very least.
The Captain allowed me to bring aboard the Volvo so I could continue to improve it. I drove it straight onto the ship. I worked on it between my shifts.
Suddenly, a second MSC ship arrived into the harbor. I watched the thing brought in. It was temporarily shored up, close to us.
The second Military Sealift Command was headed next to Thailand. A regular engineer from the parked MSC wanted to transfer to it because a trip to Thailand would be a lot more exciting than staying put. I went up to the Union and accepted the permanent position to help the replacement work out. The sailor was thrilled. I didn’t really mind, either way. It was a different job in the same engine room, but on a set time schedule for the rest of the year. Plus, I could leave the Volvo parked on-board, and I would still have time to work on it.
It was the middle of the night in Long Beach. The car was in a corner of the ship’s largest hold. I might have been inside there all alone.
I got to work, and also I got to thinking. Somehow, I wasn’t proud of anything anymore. I used to tell everyone about my wife and about my kids. Now, I didn’t want to mention any of you, for at least a little while. I got to thinking all of you weren’t really that great of friends for me to keep. Of course, I would support everyone financially. I would always take care of you, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hang around with everyone, too.
Fiona, you have always been a sweetheart. But the twins—at that stage of their lives—were arrogant as sin.
The radio was on, but it was playing a list of songs I didn’t like. It played them again and again.
Maybe it was just because when Ben was about thirteen years old he had his head shaved. He was a big guy, about six-foot-one, with big muscles. He got to talking, and I got angry at him, and I told him I was going to punch him up. I almost did, too.
Sam had just looked at me. Ben stepped over to one side after I walked right up to him.
Ben said, “Dad, I’m not going to fight you.”
You and Marcus sat in the living room, watching all of us argue. When I thought I was going to get a nice word from my carefully brought up daughter, you glared every time you saw me walk by, like you couldn’t see me anymore.
All of you are completely different individuals. Even the youngest one, Ted, is just so inherently and completely different from the short one, Marcus. None of you really do understand me. I don’t think you truly understand Aoife, either. Of course, we as your parents don’t fully understand you and your brothers, either.
By then, the Volvo was half-pulled apart. The MSC was quiet. I should have been going to bed, but I kept cleaning and checking the parts, then laying them out around me on a tarp I had placed before I got started that night.
Aoife and I have a very different type of relationship. It’s not like anyone else. There has never been anyone in my life like her. We really understand one another. Rarely do we agree. I’d like to say it was the greatest love in my life. In the end, she was just the best friend I ever had, though she has taken every dime I ever made, any nickel I have ever laid down anywhere next to her. Still, she is the most honest person I know.
A sound went off outside like an alarm, late at night.
I ran to check my station. I learned what the trouble had been. The other MSC was back. I watched everyone pull it back into port. They had taken her out for a test run. Now, she was really smoking, and that is never a good sign. There had been a fire.
On steamships you can’t just turn them on and drive off. You have to take it easy. You’re bringing its engine up to an incredibly high temperature. It takes two or three days. You can do it by, maybe, one-hundred degree increments. If you don’t take that time, you can get accidents. Not everybody is patient to turn one up slow.
Everything was switched around during a meeting of the masts. The ship I was working on was now going to Thailand, and I was needed upstairs on deck for paperwork.
That old 1973 Deluxe Edition was laid out all around me. I somehow pieced it back together. I put some oil and gas into it and drove it off the vessel just in time. But I was so uptight. I don’t know where my head was at because I put diesel into that Deluxe Edition Volvo without thinking. I locked the damn thing up. It was all broken again, now.
Everyone on the parked MSC was getting the vessel ready to go to sea. But, I couldn’t think of doing anything else except returning in time to fix the car.
“Fiona said the twins had already promised to give her that old car, Meade. You know she’s broke. Probably, she is going to move into one of the twin’s houses when that rent money is finished in another year or two. Point is, don’t leave that car abandoned in some parking lot in LA. Don’t sell it just to get rid of it. She said she wants to keep it forever, Meade, because you spent all that time fixing it.” Aoife casually mentioned all of this over the telephone when I called to say we were about to leave the harbor.
She added, “It’s Fiona’s ‘abandoned part of family history…’ something like that is what she told me.”
I didn’t mention filling it with diesel. I was uncertain how all the parts were working. I promised Aoife I would get the car back to New Jersey after I returned from the next voyage.
As soon as I entered the cafeteria to pour myself some coffee, people were laughing and clapping each other on shoulders. Everybody on-board was getting a big raise in pay as this ship was now ocean-bound. It was a big jump upwards, especially working in the Engine Room of an automated ship headed to the Orient. Plus, the vessel was wonderfully built so it was just a joy to handle.
Stuff like that happens if you just take it easy.
The voyage out was calm. It was almost serene. I brought along with me a collection of writings by Sir Winston Churchill. I was reading everything I could get my hands on.
What did I want when I returned home? I was just trying to put things together in my mind. I wasn’t certain about anything at that moment. Still, crises aversions seemed second nature to my mindset.
In Thailand, I took time to go ashore on the last day of the year. It had been a really hot afternoon. I just relaxed by the ocean. Fireworks were going off everywhere. I kept my head back, watching all the colors, and I was looking out at the sea when 1999 became the year 2000.
I walked a few blocks inland, and then I walked back to the sea. I kept heading along the water, listening to all the celebrations, thinking about the family I had succeeded in putting together, along with everyone’s mother, Aoife. She was far away from me, but not that far from me.
It was really happening that night. People there had been really big on foot-boxing. Boxing matches were going on in all the bars. There were probably two square miles of bars along the beach. There was a big whore house because they use that there. Prostitutes and their groveling clients showed up everywhere I looked. The place reminded me of Singapore, where I had acted badly years and years ago. That was where I had blown to pieces Marriage Number One.
Sitting there, with all that going on, I just knew what course to take.
Finally, I stood up. I walked back to my hotel. I got the man at the front desk to help me make a phone call.
Aoife answered. I wished her a happy new year. She sounded sweet as well as happy. Then I proposed to her, over the phone that night. She agreed to another time together. It would be for the third time in a row. She told me how she had been thinking about us for a week straight. She didn’t like being alone with anyone else. We both knew it was right to do.
After that, I was just unwinding. I walked back outside. The people didn’t mind me smiling and laughing with them, like I used to do all the time.
A woman approached and told me, “You look like you’re made of money.”
I surprised her little crowd gathered there by telling her, “No, honey. I am made of solid bone,” and I walked away as fast as I could.
I was walking and enjoying my life. I really hadn’t expected everything good to happen so fast. I guess the magic was still able to happen for me, in my life. Above it all, nobody lost their clocks or their machines when the Year 2000 got started.
The car was fixed when I got back to Long Beach. That was a bit of a surprise. I never found out how that was done. It was sitting there unscathed in the parking garage I had to pay for.
Right away, Aoife flew in to meet me. She hadn’t done that in years. She was up in spirits. I guess you had agreed to take care of your little brothers.
I picked Aoife up at the airport, in the newly washed-up Deluxe Edition. And away we went!
We were married in Carson City, at some tiny chapel. It was really nice inside. Aoife spotted it right when we rode into town. She only wanted to gamble there, but we got married anyway. An old man stood there and married people by the hour. For him, we were some more people tying the knot. For me, it was the best time of my life.
Everyone told us, over and over again, “Third time is a charm.”
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