A Commodore of Errors (44 page)

Mrs. Tannenbaume noticed that she did not react the way she usually did whenever someone asked her if she was Jewish. She didn't stiffen up, didn't try to change the subject. She was starting to feel comfortable around Mitzi, like
they were girlfriends. Mrs. Tannenbaume didn't have too many girlfriends. She just never felt like she could get too close to anyone. But Mitzi was different. Mitzi said what was on her mind, just like she did. Maybe she and Mitzi could be friends after all. “Speaking of kooks,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said, “how about that Commodore?”

“Oh, gawd. What a kook. No—no.” Mitzi put her hand on Mrs. Tannenbaume's shoulder, laughing. “He's not kooky—he's quirky.”

“He's a flouncy is what he is.”

“A flouncy?” Now Mitzi was really laughing. “What's a flouncy?”

“Someone who's full of himself. You know, always flouncing around. He's a flouncy.”

Mitzi was laughing uncontrollably now. Sparks and the others were looking over toward the captain's chair to see what was so funny.

“I've never heard someone called a flouncy before,” Mitzi said, drying the tears from her eyes. “Oh, gawd. That's too funny.”

“And what's with his obsession with this kid who's gonna be on the monument? I've got the pedal to the metal so that we'll get back in time for the unveiling of this monument of his.”

“I know,” Mitzi said. “He's been practicing his speech for weeks now. Actually, he spends most of his time on his Toe Hang.”

“So what is a Toe Hang, anyway?”

“Oh, gawd,” Mitzi said, laughing again. “You don't even want to know.”

Mitzi had a great laugh. Mrs. Tannenbaume understood why men loved her. She had it all. A great body, a head-full of hair, a great laugh. What more could a man want?

“When he's not practicing his Toe Hang, he's doing his Infinity breath. In front of the mirror.”

“His Infinity breath?”

“It's a yoga thing. And get this. On his exhale, he says Edwin. EDDDDDWIIIIIIINNNNNN. So to say he's obsessed with the boy is an understatement.”

“Wow. I have to say, I can't wait to get back for the unveiling myself. I gotta see this Edwin with my own eyes.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume and Mitzi carried on like this for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Mrs. Tannenbaume had not felt this good in a long time. At one point she wondered what Sylvia thought about her mother-in-law laughing and joking with Mitzi when she never did that with her, but when Mrs. Tannenbaume turned around to look for Sylvia, she was nowhere to be found. Neither, Mrs. Tannenbaume noticed, was the second.

When she and Mitzi were finally finished
kibitzing
, Mrs. Tannenbaume asked her how her sonny was doing. Mitzi said he was down below napping. Mitzi also said that she thought he was really looking forward to being admiral.

“And I'll tell you,” she said, “he's just what that wacky Merchant Marine Academy needs. A real captain with a
Yiddisha kop
.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume could not agree more. She could not wait to see her sonny boy in his admiral's uniform. By tomorrow afternoon, the ship would be in New York and the day after that was the unveiling.

“I'm on top of things up here. You go below and talk business with my sonny.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume did not have to tell Mitzi twice.

HOMECOMING

M
rs. Tannenbaume smacked Sparks upside his head. “Come on, Handsome Smooth, say something!”

They were in the radio shack where Sparks had fired up the Single Side Band radio, their only hope of getting out a May Day message, seeing as the VHF radio was out of commission. Back when Captain Tannenbaume wanted his deck officers to make meeting arrangements with other ships on the VHF, Mrs. Tannenbaume took matters into her own hands. She had been drilling it into their heads to maintain course and speed, and the last thing she wanted was for them to use the VHF to make meeting arrangements, so she cut the mic cord with a pair of scissors. The VHF receiver still worked, they just could not transmit. It never occurred to Mrs. Tannenbaume that they might one day need to do so.

The long slow swell coming from the north, the thing that Swifty knew meant
something
, did indeed mean something. A long slow sea swell is the classic forbearer of a storm. But Swifty and the mates missed it, just like they missed the significance of the cloud formations at sunset—the converging mares tails. They missed the big drop in atmospheric pressure because of the broken barometer, and they missed all of the weather reports warning of the violent nor'easter barreling down the east coast of the United States because of the shattered telex machine. So they really had no one else to blame but themselves for banging dead-up into a low pressure system off the coast of New York.

But Mrs. Tannenbaume was not interested in playing the blame game. She just wanted Sparks to get out the May Day message. But with all of the excitement of the storm—not to mention the pressure of getting out a distress message—Sparks's stutter had come back with a vengeance.

“Muh- muh- muh- muh . . . ”

Mrs. Tannenbaume continued to bang Sparks over the head. “Come on, you Handsome Smooth you!”

Sparks needed to raise both hands over his head to protect himself from the blows raining down on him, which is why he kept dropping the mic. It was slowgoing, but he did begin to make some progress.

“Ay-ay-ay-ay . . . ”

Mrs. Tannenbaume gave up and left the radio shack to go back to the bridge. She got there just in time to answer the telephone. It was the engine room. They were low on fuel and in serious danger of losing the plant.

Mrs. Tannenbaume hung up. “Ski, what happens if we lose the plant?”

Ski let out a long whistle. “Oh, no, we don't want to do that. Not in this weather.”

So Mrs. Tannenbaume called the chief in his cabin.

“Hullo,” the chief answered, not sounding very good at all.

“Chief. Get down to the engine room. Now! The engineers are about to lose the plant.”

“Hullo.”

“Chief! This is the supernumerary! I said go below!”

“Hullo.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume hung up and told Ski to go wake up the chief. “Call him ‘Handsome Smooth.'”

Ski went down below and gently rubbed the chief ‘s shoulders as he lay asleep in bed.

“Come on, Handsome Smooth.”

The steward happened to walk in just then with the chief ‘s Benadryl. Ski looked up and saw the steward standing there.

“It's not what you think,” Ski protested.

“Not my business,” the steward said, backing out the door. “I'll just leave you two lovebirds alone.”

Ski scrambled up and ran down the passageway after him, trying to explain that he was only doing as he was told.

Mrs. Tannenbaume was back in the radio shack now. She was not very happy with Sparks's progress.

“Duh- duh- duh- duh . . . ”

Mrs. Tannenbaume hip-checked Sparks out of the way and grabbed the mic. “Yoo Hoo!”

A voice broke in over the SSB. “United States Coast Guard back to the station calling.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume had no idea how to make a distress call. She did not know the ship's coordinates, or its call sign, or even, for that matter, the exact nature of their distress. She just knew that she was in the middle of a storm and wanted no part of it.

“Yoo Hoo!”

“United States Coast Guard back to the station calling. Repeat, what is the name of the station calling?”

“This is the Motor Vessel
God is Able
.”

“Motor Vessel
God is Able
, United States Coast Guard. What type of vessel are you?”

“We're a ‘tween decker.”

“
God is Able
, what is the nature of your distress?”

“We're rocking and rolling like crazy.”

“
God is Able
, do you have any engineers on board?”

“Yeah. But they're afraid of breaking their nails.”

“
God is Able
, did you say nails? Are you in need of spare parts?”

“Well, we are running low on nail polish.”

“
God is Able
, stand by.” Long pause. “
God is Able
, do you require a pilot?”

“Yeah, but we ran out of cigarettes.”

“
God is Able
, United States Coast Guard, say again.”

“I say we have no cigarettes but we've got plenty of hot towels.”

“
God is Able
, stand by.” Another long pause. “
God is Able
, channel 16 is a hailing and distress frequency only. Please take your business to a working channel. United States Coast Guard, out. ”

Captain Tannenbaume entered the wheelhouse just as the
God is Able
was passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. His appearance took his mother aback.

“Sonny! You look so rested. You look like a teenager.”

Captain Tannenbaume did not want anybody making a fuss over his appearance, mostly because he'd then have to account for his disappearance. “You've always told me I had a youthful look, Mother.”

“But not like this, sonny. You look like a teenager. You look like—”

Captain Tannenbaume put up his hand to stop his mother. He looked around the bridge. “Where's Sylvia?”

“Uh . . . ” Mrs. Tannenbaume made a show of looking around the bridge. “Oh, is Sylvia not up here?”

Captain Tannenbaume was relieved that his wife was not on the bridge. And he did not have the least interest in where she might be.

“I hope there are no hard feelings about my taking the conn from you last night.”

“No problem whatsoever.”

“Good.”

“The rocking and rolling was starting to get to me, to tell you the truth. I'm sort of glad you took the conn. What was it that you did? Heaving up?”

Captain Tannenbaumed laughed at his mother's malapropism. “Heaving to, Mother. It's called ‘heaving to.' In a storm, to ease the rolling, you put the waves directly on the bow. Then you keep just enough revs on the engine to hold her there. The ship'll pitch a little, but it's a whole lot better than taking twenty-degree rolls.”