A Commodore of Errors (45 page)

“You can say that again.”

Captain Tannenbaume walked out to the bridge wing and looked around. New York. He was finally home. And he was home to stay, too. The idea of being superintendent of the academy had finally gotten a grip on him. Especially now, knowing that Mitzi was going to be his secretary. And who knew? Maybe she'd become more than his secretary. The thing with Sylvia had been a mistake—he already admitted that to himself. Thank goodness Sylvia recognized it, too. Oh, he knew all about the shampoos she was giving the second. Word gets around on a ship after all.

Mrs. Tannenbaume came out to the bridge wing where her sonny boy was standing.

“Well, Mother. Tomorrow's the big day. The unveiling of the monument. Have you talked to the Commodore? Do I get sworn in as superintendent before or after the big event?”

“The Commodore never mentioned anything about that. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume looked up at her sonny. “Oh, sonny boy. I'm so proud of you. Think about it. After all these years, you're finally going to be accepted into kings Point. It seems like a dream.”

“I'll admit it does feel too good to be true. I owe it all to the Commodore, and I've never even met the man.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said at the mention of the Commodore. “You're in for a treat.”

“So I gather. Mitzi's been telling me about him.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume felt a pang of anxiety. That their lives were in the Commodore's hands was making her increasingly uneasy. There was something about the man she did not trust. She knew that he was far too self-absorbed to advance anyone's career but his own. But at this stage in the game, what could the Commodore do to upset the apple cart? Mrs. Tannenbaume knew that the Board of Directors had approved her sonny as the next superintendent. And she knew that Mogie wanted a Jew in that position.

Oh, yes, there is the Jewish thing to worry about
. She'd almost forgotten about that. Her only hope was that a little bit of Mitzi had rubbed off on her sonny after all of their time together these last few days.

What Captain Tannenbaume said next put Mrs.Tannenbaume more at ease. It was almost as if he had been reading her mind.

“To tell you the truth, he sounds a little
meshuggeneh
. Almost like he has to be the big
maccachah
all the time.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume looked up at her handsome, youthful son. “Oy, sonny, you're going to be just fine.”

Captain Tannenbaume missed his mother's vote of confidence. He was busy looking up at the stack. More to the point, he was looking up at the black smoke that was pouring out of the stack. It was the acrid smell more than the smoke itself that alerted him to a problem. Bad fuel. That's because it was the last of the fuel—the dregs, the sludge-like gunk that sinks to the bottom and never gets used. Unless, of course, there is nothing left to use. Captain Tannenbaume heard the phone ringing in the wheelhouse but he didn't need any engineer to tell him what had just happened.

The
God is Able
had just run out of fuel.

The ship was coming up on the Stapleton anchorage in the upper bay. For a moment, Captain Tannenbaume thought he might be able to steer his beat-up old ‘tween decker into the anchorage and simply drop the hook. But such luck
was not to be. A car carrier—a big, boxy, notoriously-difficult-to-maneuver ship —bore down on the anchorage from the north.

The two ships met in the middle of the anchorage in the way that two ships are never supposed to meet. News helicopters were hovering above the two ships within minutes.

The collision ruined Captain Tannenbaume's homecoming, as collisions tend to do. His long career as a sea captain was over, no one had to tell him that. And his new career as superintendent was over before it even started, and no one had to tell him that either.

LIKE A MOTH TO A FLAME

I
t took a while, but Mrs. Tannenbaume finally talked her sonny into going to the academy anyway. “We came this far,” she said, “why let something like a little collision stop us now?”

Captain Tannenbaume informed her that there was no such thing as a “little” collision, and besides, this collision was a
big
collision. The only consolation was that nobody was hurt. Yes, the engineers ruined their nails fighting the small fire that broke out when the fuel line ruptured, but fortunately, as soon as the fuel in the line was expended, so were the flames. And yes, the fact that the second engineer singed his hair, the very hair that Sylvia so lovingly washed every day, was the height of irony, although singed hair, like blackened fingernails, could hardly be called an injury. There were a smattering of other scrapes and bruises: the chief fell out of his bunk and smashed his face on the side table (although some said he chewed up his face the day before while shaving under the influence of Benadryl), and the steward burned his hand pretty badly when
his pot of gumbo came crashing off the hot stove. Then there was Sparks who, in the middle of dismantling the Single Side Band radio—the one remaining piece of electronic equipment on board—poked a hole in his hand with an awl when the two ships came unexpectedly together.

As it turned out, Captain Tannenbaume did not have much time to think about whether or not he should proceed to the Academy as planned. It had not taken long for word to get out that the captain involved in the collision in the harbor was about to be sworn in as the next superintendent of the Merchant Marine Academy, and the irony made it too irresistible a story for the media to pass up. Several dozen vans belonging to the various news outlets were camped out waiting for Captain Tannenbaume on the pier in Brooklyn. So when a fire rescue boat dropped him, Mitzi, and his mother off at Pier 1 in Brooklyn the next day, Captain Tannenbaume was more than happy to escape into the van that was waiting there to whisk him and his companions back to the academy. Much to Mitzi's dismay, she could not persuade the midshipman driving the van to drive over the speed limit, and the news reporters beat them back to the academy with time to spare.

Mr. Thompson, the gate guardsman, intercepted the van when it reached the main entrance. Mr. Thompson was under strict orders to escort Captain Tannenbaume directly to Wiley Hall, where the Commodore awaited his arrival. However, in his alcoholic stupor, Mr. Thompson jumped in the wrong van, and instead of escorting Captain Tannenbaume directly to the Commodore, he escorted Fox News. It was up to Miss Lambright to keep the reporters out of the Commodore's office, where the Commodore was busy putting the finishing touches on his speech.

The Commodore had been in his office since daybreak, and his Toe Hang was still not quite right. Miss Lambright told him it was fine, but the Commodore would not listen. He explained, again, with as much patience as he could muster, that the Toe Hang was his singular chance to become “one” with his audience. He was dead in the water without an effective Toe Hang and it exasperated him that Miss Lambright could not appreciate that simple fact.

The Commodore was also unhappy with his hand gestures. They were too choppy. In fact, the Commodore fretted over every aspect of his speech. His breathing was erratic, his eye contact with the audience was jumpy. Miss Lambright told him again that she thought everything was fine and that he was going to give a great speech, but that just upset the Commodore even more.

“If you think everything is fine, my dear, then I know that I really am out of sync this morning.”

Miss Lambright left the room in tears, but the Commodore quickly coaxed her back in and asked her to comment on his pause, scan, and nod technique.

“It comes across as insincere,” Miss Lambright said.

He tried it again.

“No, it still seems unconvincing.”

“How can I develop any confidence in my speech with all of this criticism you're giving me?”

“I really like your Toe Hang,” Miss Lambright said in a soft voice.

“You think my Toe Hang is fine? How would you know? You do not have a discerning bone in your body.”

“No, really, sir—”

“Do not coddle me, Miss Lambright! Return to your desk this moment.”

It was shortly after the Commodore sent Miss Lambright away that Fox News showed up. The truth is, Miss Lambright did not try all that hard to keep them out of the Commodore's office.

The reporters barged in and found the Commodore in front of the mirror doing his Infinity breath. The cameraman immediately slung his clunky camera to his shoulder and began filming. When the Commodore saw the cameraman in the mirror he froze, and if it wasn't for Mitzi, he might have remained frozen in the mirror for the entire day.

Mitzi had slipped unawares into the office through the side door and, after quickly sizing up the situation, proceeded to walk the cameraman out of the office by his ear. One look from Mitzi was all it took to make the others decide to leave the room with their colleague. When the last of the news reporters had filed out, she went back to the side door to let in Captain Tannenbaume and
his mother. They stood by the door, hesitating to venture farther in without the Commodore's permission.

It took a moment for the Commodore, in his agitated state, to realize that this was Captain Tannenbaume—
the
Captain Tannenbaume. He looked at Captain Tannenbaume, then at Mitzi, and then back at Tannenbaume. He knew that the only thing standing between him and his dream of being admiral was this man standing across the room from him. The Commodore felt his throat tighten. He turned to Mrs. Tannenbaume but could not bring himself to ask if this was her son. All he could manage was a raise of his eyebrows.

“Yes,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said, breaking the eerie silence. “This is my sonny boy.”

The Commodore went to Captain Tannenbaume like a moth to a flame. He stood before him and, without addressing him, inspected his person. It distressed the Commodore to find that Captain Tannenbaume was so youthful in appearance. The man did not have a gray hair on his head. And his skin! How on earth was his skin so smooth after all those years at sea? To compound the Commodore's distress, he found that if he did not stand up as straight as possible, his counterpart might even be a smidgen taller than he. Captain Tannenbaume's jaw was firm and he seemed well muscled under his khaki uniform. The Commodore sensed that Tannenbaume was well aware of his superior physical attributes.
The man exudes confidence. Or is it arrogance?
Captain Tannenbaume's steely eyes unnerved the Commodore.