20 November 2016

Editor’s Note: I was pleased. I managed to pry myself out of bed right around noon. I slept most of the hours after Michigan pried a victory out of the Hoosiers, and the somnolence seemed to have gone a long way to knitting up the raveled sleeves of care, or the flu. Or something. The winter arrived while I was ailing. It brought with it a wind blowing fiercely chill outside, so strong that it ripped the flagpole stanchion off the mount to the tree. Thank God the flag was still blowing free and had not touched the ground.

I noted while still abed that General Mattis, the most cogent Marine of his generation, is being considered for some position in the new Administration. It is not SECDEF, mores the pity, since he has only been off active duty for three years, and the law is that uniforms have to be off for seven before you can serve as the top civilian in the Department of Defense. This piece- the introduction to Mac’s Purple Dragon saga- was written in the August of 2011. Things looked a lot different then.

The best line Jim Mattis uttered- and he had a bunch- was the one in which he gave career advice to those coming behind him in the Marine Corps: “Be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”

I understand the Secret Service was having problems with that attitude when he arrived at Trump Tower in Manhattan yesterday. Like I said, things are a lot different now, too.

– Vic

Purple Dragon

(Elizibeth-with-an-S and her Crystal Lake stones. Photo Socotra.)

Admiral Mac drove over to the Willow in his golden Jaguar- first trip out since he took ill earlier in the summer. We agreed to meet and resume our informal discussions of the latter part of his time in the Navy, and specifically the events that surrounded the capture of the USS Pueblo and his involvement with the PURPLE DRAGON investigation.

You remember that, right? It was the beginning of the summer and the world did not look nearly as stupid as it does at the moment; before the Debt Ceiling Crisis and the disintegration of Europe’s finances- and ours.

I remember reading that the stock market was 30% overvalued, and that Ben Bernanke’s Quantitative Easing, Part Two, was going to end in the middle summer, and that was going to trigger a collapse, and I went ahead and invested anyway.

I am a moron. I should have picked an investment in short term paper and put the money under my matress. Damn.

Anyway, I wrote “PURPLE DRAGON” at the top of the page of my little leather-bound notebook.

Mac looked over at me. “You want to get right into it, don’t you?”

“You have to stay focused,” I said, looking with admiration at the glow on Elizibeth-with-an-S’s face. “Hey, you are back! How was Michigan?”

“Crystal Lake was a hoot. We had the best time. There is nothing like the Traverse City area in the summer. I got a sunburn- that didn’t happen to me when we went to Aruba last winter!”

“It is a special place,” I said. “I love it up there when it isn’t snowing.”

“Wait,” she said, pouring me a glass of happy hour white wine. “I got you some stones.”

“What? Petoskey Stones? I love those things.”

She stuck out her tongue and shook her ponytail. “No, silly. Crystal Lake stones.” She disappeared into the service pantry and rummaged in her back-pack.

“I wish she wasn’t in a committed, loving relationship,” I said. “And that I was forty or fifty years younger.”

“You and me both, said Mac. “You know I am going to be 92 a week from today?”

“It’s amazing,” I said. “I don’t think I am going to get there.”

Elisabeth emerged from the back with five pebbles, ranging in declining size from a fifty-cent piece to an elongated dime. Mac looked on, poking one and then identifying them in turn:

“Breccia, Jaspilite, Limestone conglomerate, Rhyolite and Quartz. Typical upper Midwest collection. Didn’t have those in Iowa, where I grew up. We just had sandstone and limestone.”

That led directly to an extended conversation about the composition of the rich Iowa soil, then then the banking crisis that attended the Great Depression, and then the Doc showed up, he being our flight surgeon from Worls Famous Air Wing SIX, and John-with-an-H left abruptly and Old Jim plopped down, a bit miffed that two very elegantly-coiffed professional women had occupied his normal place at the Amen Corner. Satchel Paige came in, a surprise, but she had heard that the Admiral was going to come out, and like me, she is one of his groupies.

(A Bloody Shame. Bar art composed by Big Jim. Photo Socotra.)

Mac finished his first Virgin Mary with deliberation. Big Jim the bartender makes them with plenty of olives and a wedge of lemon, so they are almost a meal instead of a drink. Doc was expansive in his appetite. He not only ordered the Gruyere Cheese Puffs, Spring Rolls and Pollyface Farms Deviled Eggs for the barfies, but explained that what Mac was drinking was not a Virgin Mary at all, but something else.

“You know what they call in in England,” he said. “No vodka means it is a Bloody Shame.”

“You crack me up, Doc,” I said.

“It’s like my kids say, take the “F” out of “way” and there you are.”

I looked at him in bemusement. “There isn’t any “F” in “way.”

“Precisely. I don’t know why I let them get away with it. No effing way.”

Satchel was hungry and went for the Halibut sliders, and the two elegant ladies split a Heritage Tomato salad with goat cheese substitution due to lactose intolerance.

(Willow Heritage Tomato Salad, with substitute goat cheese garnish. Photo Socotra.)

Old Jim passed a note down the bar, scrawled on the inside of a Willow napkin. Paige handed it to me. I opened it up, just like High School transformed to the bar: “Those women have not stopped talking since they got here.”

I looked over at him, and said: “If Jon-with-no-H and the lovely Bea were here, they wouldn’t be in your place.”

Jim scowled. “Damn right. They shouldn’t be taking that relationship to a new level.”

“There is only one direction on that,” said Big Jim. “Down. Shaah.”

The food arrived and I walked over to ask the ladies if I could take a picture of the Heritage Tomatoes. They were quite gracious about it after I demonstrated my bona fides on the matter by showing them the library of Willow dishes on my cell phone. Handsome looking salad, and that is when I got clued into the laco-intolerance thing, which was more information than I really needed, but useful, I suppose.

Anyway, the food came out and we got completely sorted out on the status of Doc’s security investigation, the rise of petty fascism in our once-fiercely independent nation, the disintegration of our economy, stock market and institutions, and the imminent Fall of the West.

I turned to Mac as he finished his second Bloody Shame. “OK, now about PURPLE DRAGON. How did it start and how did you get involved with it? They say it saved many lives in Vietnam?”

The admiral dabbed at his lips with one of Willow’s blindingly-white cloth napkins.

“I would tell you why the Vietnamese knew the ARC LIGHT B-52 mssions were coming, and why they were ineffective and how the North knew when to lauch barrage SAM missiles to shoot down them down, but that is going to have to wait till the next time, Vic. The problem is that you can’t stay focused. You can walk me out to the car, though.” He rose from his stool and put the napkin on the bar. This was a pretty successful session, if you like Tracy O’Grady’s food, pretty women and tomatoes. And I feel well enough that I may let you drive me out to the funeral in Leesburg on Saturday. If you are up to it, that is.”

(Mac, Doc and a couple Gruyere Cheese Puffs. Photo Socotra.)

“I think I can manage, Sir. If you are up to it.”

“If I couldn’t, it would be a Bloody Shame.”

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com