The Magical Stranger (8 page)

Chapter Twelve

N
avy aviators live on the line between bravery and stupidity, science and idiocy. One day you're planning a complicated twenty-eight-jet air strike over Afghanistan, the next your buddies are urging you to take a shit on a Dubai boulevard after your tenth Jack Daniel's. It has always been that way, fly hard, get drunk, and chase skirt. Tupper wasn't against it. His days with the Gutter Rats were filled with idiocy. He knew that naval aviators had the capacity to instantly toggle between the heroic and the moronic.

His Black Ravens were no different. There were rock stars like Beav and lovable goofs like Lieutenant Al Delvecchio. The son of a Reno cop, Delvecchio was a muscle-bound, well-meaning lout not afraid to call you a pussy if he thought you weren't drinking your fair share of Irish car bombs at a squadron bachelor party. Last year, Delvecchio had launched on a five-hour mission over Afghanistan without a piss tube, a piece of plastic you shoved into your flight suit when you had to urinate. He was dying in the backseat when his seatmate offered up a Ziploc bag that she'd brought a sandwich in. Delvecchio grabbed the bag gratefully and filled it to the top. His fellow backseater pulled out a cell phone to take a picture. Delvecchio triumphantly held up the bag and began waving it around like a water balloon.

That was a mistake. He caught the bag on a switch and it ripped. Urine spilled across the dashboard, shorting out circuits and the jamming pods. The plane limped home, and Navy accountants calculated the damage to be near $40,000. Delvecchio had his call sign: “Ralph,” aka “Retarded Al Pissed Himself.”

Tupper preached to his men that in the new, uptight Navy you had to pick your spots: one DUI, one blown assignment, and your career was dead-ended. But they didn't always listen, just as he hadn't listened when he'd been a JO. Everyone had to learn the hard way.

A few days after Tupper's flight with Buttons, a Prowler managed to get in the air with no problems. Flying the plane was Lieutenant Carl “Hot Carl” Ellsworth, a fun-loving South Carolina boy with a quick smile and a knack for finding mischief where others found monotony. Hot Carl had Turd next to him and Crapper in the backseat.

They were running the Prowler through some mandatory checks and were bored out of their skulls. But then they saw a shiny bauble just a few miles away. It was Midway Island. The location of one of the United States' most important naval battles wasn't even a naval air station anymore, just a deserted speck of coral surrounded by endless blue ocean. It was late afternoon and there were no other planes in the area. They had fuel to burn. Hot Carl turned to Turd and asked him if he wanted to buzz the place. Turd said, “What the hell,” no one had told them not to.

It wasn't even much of a buzz. Hot Carl took the Prowler down to 1,500 feet and flew over the island, blasting his twin Pratt & Whitney engines. They noticed a deserted-looking airfield and a lot of birds. Crapper jumped on the radio.

“Man, what a hole.”

They made one more pass and then headed back to the
Nimitz
and landed with no problem. The following morning, Tupper was awakened by a call from a pissed-off CAG. Hot Carl's Midway pass had everyone's panties in a twist. Midway's airfield wasn't active, but there was a controller on standby in case a civilian or military plane had problems while crossing the Pacific. The controller had already gone home for the day but rushed back after Hot Carl's first pass, thinking the Prowler was in distress. He put the airfield on high alert.

That was the least of Tupper's problems. The bigger shit sandwich was that Midway Island had been rechristened Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in 1993. Midway had gone from world's largest naval battle to home of the world's largest gooney bird refuge. Someone at the refuge had snapped photos of the Prowler flying low and scaring the hell out of the gooneys. That guy complained to his boss at the Department of the Interior. The Department of the Interior then complained to the Department of the Navy who complained to the fleet in Honolulu who complained to the
Nimitz
's CO. The shit ran downhill until it reached CAG.

Now he was hammering Tupper. He listened to CAG's complaints, but his initial response was a flashback to his JO days. He didn't say anything except “Yes, sir,” but he thought “You've got to be fucking kidding me.” Sure, no one had said they could fly over Midway, but no one had said they couldn't. If you couldn't blast your jet over a hunk of coral every once in a while, what the hell was the point? Let the men have some fun.

This was a mistake. That afternoon, CAG called Tupper and the crew into his office. He told them about the complaints. A smirk crossed Hot Carl's face. CAG let him have it.

“You think this is a joke? You think this is fucking funny?”

CAG ripped the crew a new one for twenty minutes. All Tupper could do was keep his hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing. The crew was dismissed, but Tupper lingered behind. He wanted to ask his boss a question.

“Did you chew them out because you didn't trust me to chew them out? Because I can chew some ass.”

CAG said that wasn't it, but Tupper didn't believe him. CAG's punishment was making the crew chart and file new air maps for flights over Midway taking into account the gooney birds' nesting sites. (In the end, Tupper wasn't happy with the crew's work and did the maps himself.)

To Tupper, it was a ridiculous situation—a deleted chapter from
Catch-22
—but he noticed a change in CAG's attitude toward him. Gone was the “We're all in this together” bonhomie; in its place was “What are you doing now to screw with my air wing?”

The
Nimitz
hit Yokosuka Naval Base outside of Tokyo a week later. It was the ship's first port of call, but that didn't mean the work stopped. Tupper held another captain's mast, this time over maintenance leaving a small wrench in a Prowler cockpit. It sounded inconsequential, but when the jet started twisting and turning at five Gs, the wrench could fly up and bean the pilot or smash his instruments. Tupper busted three more sailors, but he didn't restrict any of them to the ship for the port call. Everyone needed to blow off some steam.

Tupper was no different. On their last night in port, Tupper and the department heads jumped on a commuter train and headed to the suburb of Kanagawa and a Korean barbecue dive recommended by Stonz who had been stationed up the road in NAF Atsugi a few years back.

They were miles from the ship and they cut loose, the sake disappearing faster than the beef. They talked shop for a while, made fun of CAG, and grew quiet when Stonz worried about his son on his way to Afghanistan.

They closed the restaurant and missed the last train home, leaving them with five hours to kill until the first morning service. The men were dressed like software nerds, in khakis and loud Tommy Bahama shirts, and the locals gave them a wide berth. There may have been some public urination. Tupper was particularly hammered. He mumbled that it would be awesome if there were a base with a Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) nearby. The men staggered around a corner and found Camp Zama, a sprawling U.S. Army base. Magically, his wish was granted. The men high-fived each other; they couldn't believe their luck. They flashed their IDs at the guard station, and the MPs called for a van to take them over to the BOQ. They were all drunk and profusely grateful, none more than Tupper. While checking in, he asked the desk clerk a question.

“I want to personally thank the base commander for his hospitality. What's his phone number?”

The clerk wasn't sure if Tupper was serious.

“Uh, sir, it's 2:00 a.m. I think he's asleep.”

Tupper would not be denied.

“Wake him up. I HAVE to thank him personally.”

Eventually, Vinnie steered Tupper away from the desk. The men went up to their suites and changed into BOQ-issue kimonos and slippers. They hung in the hallway bullshitting for a while. Tupper was still pissed off.

“I want to thank the base commander. It's the fucking right thing to do.”

Vinnie let out a sigh.

“Skipper, we can call him in the morning.”

Tupper wandered away while his men kept talking. Then they heard the door to the stairs slam at the end of the hallway. That popped them out of their stupor. They looked around and Tupper was gone.

In their inebriated state, it took a few seconds for them to understand the implications. Turd and Vinnie sprinted toward the door. They stumbled down the stairs and were now outside. At first, they didn't see anything. But then Vinnie spotted a familiar-looking man a few hundred yards away hightailing it in kimono and slippers. It was Tupper and he was making a break for Zama's officers' housing. They gave chase.

By the time they caught up with him, a military police van had sidled up next to Tupper. The skipper was still on his mission.

“I just want to thank the base CO for his hospitality. Can you help me out? Which one is his house?”

The MPs were flummoxed. But then Vinnie flashed his ID. He sweet-talked the MPs into letting them walk Tupper back to the BOQ. Upstairs, Vinnie made sure his boss was asleep before he went back to his own room.

The morning came quickly, and the massively hungover men caught a ride back to the train. Nothing was said about Tupper's midnight run. They all understood. Sometimes, you just had to light your hair on fire.

But this was different. Tupper wasn't a junior officer pissing into a glass in a hotel room. He was in charge now. If he had found the base commander's house and awakened him at two in the morning that would have brought down more shit than a dozen flights over Midway. This was the new Navy. One call from the MPs to the
Nimitz
and Tupper's command tour might have ended before it really started.

Chapter Thirteen

M
om and Dad come home from the hospital empty-handed. Christine stays behind for an extra day because of a bad case of jaundice. What they do bring home are some hospital brochures on sudden infant death syndrome. That night, I read the words a hundred times. Could this happen? Could Chrissie just go to sleep and not wake up?

I remember Dad's words to watch over her. He leaves on workups a few months later. Mom is home alone, this time with three of us. She rocks Christine to sleep and then places her in the crib. I sit quietly in my room and wait. Mom drifts off to sleep, and I slip back into Christine's room and make sure she is sleeping on her back and hasn't thrown her blankets over her head. I do this every night before and after my cookie raids. Mom catches me one night and tells me I'm banned from Christine's room after dark. I disobey her the next night.

I'm in junior high now. I come home, toast up two blueberry Pop-Tarts and wait for the
Seattle Times
to be delivered. I pore over every page from “Dear Abby” to “Dondi.” One day, I hear another Navy kid is moving away and the paper is looking for a new paperboy. Dad had a paper route when he was a kid. I can do it too! Mom agrees, reasoning correctly that anything that gets me out of her hair is worth a try. Dad is skeptical.

“You realize that you have to do it every day, even when you don't feel like it, right?”

I tell him no problem. The next Monday, giant stacks of papers are sitting in our driveway when I get home from school. Sundays are the worst. I have sixty customers on my route, but I can carry only ten or twelve Sunday papers in my sack without falling over. Dad walks the route with me in the mist and rain one Sunday, just the two of us. He tells me about buying his mother her first dishwasher with his paper money. I laugh out loud.

“I'm not going to buy Mom a dishwasher. No way.”

Dad stares me down. He looks so disappointed. I try to backtrack.

“She already has one. She doesn't need one.”

We walk in silence for a while. Then he tells me to save my money for something else. He's leaving again in the spring. But this time when he comes back I can meet him in Hawaii and ride the carrier with him from Honolulu to San Diego. There is one condition: I have to buy half of my plane ticket. I tell him it's a deal.

But that's so far away. My twelfth birthday is just six weeks away. Dad goes away for a month, but he makes it home just in time. There's going to be a party with Billy and Eric and Timmy. Then something terrible happens. There is a boy down the street named David Bruce. He is a year younger than me and has the only buzz cut in the neighborhood. I know he wants to be my friend and we play one-on-one football in his front yard, one of the few games I can win since I outweigh him by thirty pounds. I meet his dad after one of our games, working in his garage. He doesn't smile.

But then David and I have a falling-out over something stupid, or maybe he just gets tired of me being mean to him. I see him on the school bus but we never really talk. Then, a few days before my birthday, David's father is killed in an A-6 accident off the USS
Ranger.
I hear the news, but it doesn't register. Dad comes into my room on the morning of my birthday.

“I want you to invite David Bruce.”

“C'mon, Dad, he'll ruin it.”

“I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.”

I call David's house. His mother answers in a shaky voice. I ask her if David could come over later for my party. She starts crying on the phone, babbling thank yous through tears.

David shows up a few hours later in a too-big blue windbreaker that belonged to his dad. He gives me a hastily wrapped stapler as a present. I begin to roll my eyes and Dad shoots me a death look. I say thank you. We have cake and then we play football in the backyard. Dad makes sure David scores a touchdown.

M
om and Dad leave for a weekend in San Diego the next morning. We are left in the care of an elderly babysitter who smells of grape juice. The next day is Monday, October 2, 1978, momentous because that afternoon the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees are playing a one-game playoff. The only problem is the game starts at 11:30 a.m. Oak Harbor time. I'll miss it if I go to school.

So I hold my breath until my face goes red and tell the babysitter that I'm sick. She calls my parents down in San Diego. I sneak upstairs and pick up the other line. Dad listens for a minute, relays the information to Mom, and tells the sitter I can stay home. I can hear Mom in the background.

“He's faking, you know that, right?”

How does she know?! I watch the game propped up on my parents' bed on the $35 black-and-white television we bought at a garage sale. Carl Yastrzemski pops up to Graig Nettles to end the game and I run out of the house to do my paper route, miraculously healed. My parents come home a day later and Mom stares me down.

“I hope you're feeling better.”

Mom keeps asking me what I'm doing with my paper route money, and I can't honestly tell her. Poor accounting is swallowing up my profits. I can't keep straight who I've collected from and who I haven't. I ring a cranky neighbor's doorbell one night and he barks at me that I'd just collected from him a week earlier. He threatens to call my boss. Now I collect just enough to pay for the papers and have some cash left over for movies and ice-cream sandwiches.

But Mom is convinced I have a secret stash of fifties somewhere and I'm up to no good. Dad comes home exhausted one night, and before he can open a beer she starts in with the questions.

“Pete, where is the money going?”

Dad's eyes glaze over. Sometimes, he spends a few minutes trying to help me figure out my bills, but once he becomes confident I'm not swindling anyone or hoarding big money, he lets me go back to doing it myself.

He is more concerned with my paper route's cleanliness. Dad hates litter. More than once, we'll be driving somewhere and he'll point out a pile of garbage and pull over and pick up the trash. He then turns to Terry and me.

“That's not acceptable. You will never do that.”

Like most things, I agree with Dad in principle but not in action. I have giant plastic bags full of rubber bands for my papers and they start multiplying around our house. I'm watching television one night when my neck is hit with a fierce pain. I spin around, ready to punch Terry. But it's Dad. He's holding three rubber bands.

“Every time I find one, you're getting shot.”

He shoots me another half-dozen times over the next week. For some reason, I don't get angry like when Mom is on my ass. I learn my lesson.

Some weekends, I get my friend Billy to deliver my papers so I can head up to the mountains with my parents. We just bought a condo up in the Cascades with Dad's friend Laddie Coburn and his wife, Ulla. Laddie is everything my dad isn't: a smart-ass who does what he wants. He's got an opinion on everything, even things he knows nothing about. He's cool. We show up with strollers and bags and Laddie waves from the couch and doesn't offer to help. That seems awesome. He also has a stash of European porno magazines that I discover. I worship him.

Terry and I head off to the condo's clubhouse every day to swim in the pool while Dad retreats to a log cabin owned by the condo association with a black briefcase full of papers. He's got fitness reports to churn out. Mom is left alone with Chrissie; she doesn't even have a television or phone. By dinnertime, she is exhausted. She complains and Dad does the dishes quietly.

Every night, he sends me to take the trash over to a dumpster about a hundred yards away from our property. One pitch black evening I make my way with a Hefty bag slung over my shoulder. I'm about to throw the bag in when a black shadow cuts me off.

“BOOOO!!!”

My heart explodes in my chest. I drop the bag and piss myself a little. Is it a murderer? Could be, Ted Bundy's back on the loose. Nope, it's Dad! He must have snuck out behind me and run ahead. His face is purple and a freaky smile is on his face.

“Did I get you?”

He did. But I don't understand. I could see Laddie doing something like this but not my father. I'm scared. I start crying.

“That's just mean.”

We walk home in silence. Dad puts his arm around me and says he's sorry. I tell him it's okay. He opens the door and whispers in my ear.

“We don't need to tell your mom about this.”

And we don't. It's our secret.

T
hen Dad leaves.

I drift off at school. In science class, I write down all the bones of the human skeleton on seven Juicy Fruit wrappers, get an A on a test, and feel ashamed. Dad would kill me for that. But I can't help myself. I keep doing stupid things. I bring rubber bands to school and try to shoot a buddy, but I miss and hit my crusty science teacher in the neck. He walks over slowly and smiles.

“I think it's time for a swat.”

Out in the hall Mr. Renegar gets ready to bring his paddle down on my bony ass. But first he tells me he's drilled holes in his paddle to make it more aerodynamic. Then he hits me twice. I scream and swear. That gets me another.

Mom is less than sympathetic. Christine has constant earaches and she is exhausted. She reads the note sent home from school and then tosses it on the dinner table.

“Good for them.”

She immediately regrets it and tells me that came out wrong. I tell her I know. I go out into the rain and deliver my papers and on it goes.

I do nothing to lighten her load. The deadline to raise $250 toward my Hawaii trip comes and goes. I have $43 in my pockets. In my spare time, I teach my baby sister to walk into a room slamming her hands on her head screaming “Dopey me” in honor of something Robin Williams did on
Mork & Mindy
. I go on a father-and-son Boy Scout camping trip with someone else's dad. David Bruce moves away. Last I heard, his mother had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

I taunt David Tapia in English class about how I'm heading to Hawaii and he's not. I turn thirteen and get a note from Dad: “Happy 13th. Welcome to Being a Teenager. Yuck!” Mom forgets and then makes me a cake at the last minute.

We barely speak. I stop constructing sports fantasies in my head and begin a new one: how great life would be if Mom were gone. I figure out what relatives would watch over us while Dad was at sea and how our life would be full of glamour and mystery. I'd be in charge of Christine; that part I could handle.

And then the opposite happens.

T
he helos are not looking anymore. Mom takes Terry and me into the kitchen away from the chain-smoking wives bearing deli trays.

“It's just us now. We're used to that. Your dad's watching us now. Let's show him how strong we can be.”

We're sitting at the kitchen table where Dad served waffles on Sunday mornings. She gets up, straightens her blouse, and walks back toward the grown-ups. I can hear her gasping for air. I don't know what to do so I do nothing.

The next day, a priest stops by. I am upstairs in my parents' bed staring at the ceiling. The priest is tiny and peculiar-looking with moppy hair. He sits down on the bed and puts his hand on my head and prays. He tells me to call him at any time; he'd be happy to have me over to the rectory or maybe we could go skiing. He says Dad was a great man and a good Catholic; he'd want me to be close with his priest.

I nod blankly, promising that I'll call him, but I know I never will. He gives me the creeps. (He'll be busted for pedophilia twenty years later.) The priest asks me to remember something.

“Remember all the good times you had with your dad. Those memories can last you your whole lifetime.”

I try, but what do I have? I remember the drives to church and the lectures about littering. I remember a man who made others snap to attention. And I remember him gone. I remember a man who made Mom happy while I make her miserable. I know I do not carry one ounce of his decency in my bones. I wished Mom dead and God punished me by taking Dad. Simple as that. But I don't say anything.

The priest tells me one last thing before he puts on his hat and heads downstairs.

“You're the man of the house. Your mother is counting on you.”