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The Wine Dark Sea
DEPARTURE
03 NOV 89:
It is a long, sad morning in Jacksonville. The sky is painted in tones of grey and the guilt vibrations are heavy. It is finally the Day; worse, actually the second Day, since we got down actually to Deployment Plus One a couple weeks ago with all the attendant emotional baggage. The day before we were supposed to throw the cruise boxes in the station wagon and disappear over the horizon came the terrible fire on Forrestal, the damage so great that no one could tell when or even if we could depart. It was an uncertain stay of execution and the depression that followed was inevitable. We had all been ready to do it, men and women alike, and the uncertainty gnawed and tore the fabrics of our dinner tables. The last roast beef dinners had been cooked weeks before and the wives seemed unwilling to embark on yet another series of Last Suppers. The air of unreality reminds me of my wife's first pregnancy, when she passed her due date by fourteen days. In the back of my mind I thought there was the possibility that the baby would never come and she would be pregnant forever.
Last week the survey teams finished their work, applied last minute bandages to the miles of damaged cable runs and pronounced us safe to sail. The date was set. This is finally it, and frankly it's a relief.
You have to leave in order to come back and I am sick and tired of getting up at 0400 every morning in order to start the triangular shuttle of Top Secret documents from Mayport to Cecil and back again. As soon as we get started east across the Atlantic we can start counting the days down to home again.
At 0730 I take the kids to school. Neither of my sons understand the enormity of what is about to happen or the not-well concealed desperation in Mom's voice.
They just hop out of the car and trundle off to school. They promise to be good boys and I say I'll see them in April sometime. The yo0unger is excited to play on the big playground. As I walk away the older boy is playing grab-ass in the line waiting to enter the schoolroom, not a care in the world. It is tougher at home. She is wobbling between grim fortitude and sobs throughout the morning. It would be difficult for her to make me feel worse. Her favorite line is "I can't do it" followed by tears.
"You can do it" I say confidently "And even if you can't, you still have to do it."
I cover my discomfiture with confident small talk of the financial matters I have
arranged to get us through a half year of split checking accounts, mortgage and rent payments. I call to ascertain the status of the second note on our home which will pay off all the bills and both the cars. Then I run through the paper ballet which will support the home in my absence: "Remember, Honey: I have written all the checks for the rent and the mortgage and your allowance. Deposit the allowance check on the 15th of every month. The rent and the mortgage payments get mailed on the on the 1st. The proceeds from the land sale will give you a cushion in the green checkbook. I'm taking the blue checkbook. I'll try to call from Spain and remember to write down any questions you might have. If you need a new washer or something, just go ahead and buy it. Don't sweat the small stuff. Couldn't be simpler."
She looks doubtful and the conversation founders on the vastness of the gulf which will soon separate us.
Outside, the weather is Jacksonville fall. Humid but a hint of chill in the air. In side there is a last, very poignant love making in the big empty white house. After, as I throw bags in the car she says she wants the radio left on so she won't return to a silent house. We hold hands most of the way out to Mayport.
Traffic is light and she looks very pretty in her new red dress. When we arrive at the pier there are knots of couples talking or embracing among the platoons of cars. We kiss a few times. It isn't going to get any better. I tell her I love her, pick up my duffel and walk up the brow to the quarterdeck. I face aft and salute the flag and then salute the
Officer of the Deck, who obviously has been seeing a lot of stressed out people coming up the ramp. "I report my return onboard, Sir," I say crisply.
"Very well" he says and returns my salute. I hop down onto the quarterdeck and turn back to look at the parking lot. She is standing next to the silver Taurus wagon. I can see the brilliance of her dress against the dirty white of the cracked concrete. I wave and then point at her. I sign a heart, then a steering wheel, followed by circular motions next
to my head. I love you, you are driving me crazy. See you in Paris.
I take a last look at the beach at Mayport, the gulls wheeling over the channel of the St. John's river and then turn and walk through the hatch into the hangar bay. See you next year, America.
I walk forward through the Air Intermediate Maintenance (AIMD) tunnel and up two ladders to the 02 level and my stateroom. You have to ease into these things, I tell myself. I stow away my Cup o' Soups, pistachio nuts and underwear. I lay down on my rack, just to see what the next six months were going to feel like.
I look at the creamy green paint on the bottom of the rack above me and can feel the edges of my own narrow sanctuary against each shoulder. It feels chilly and it looks like steel all around. I listen to a new tape I had bought...Indigo Girls...and thus fortified, lock the place up and go to work.
The ship departs at 1243 local, 03 November, 1989.
At last the clock is running, not toward Separation but to Return.
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