Darkside (2 page)

Everett Markham, full professor of international law and diplomacy in the Political Science Department, Division of Humanities and Social Studies, United States Naval Academy, banged his head on an open cupboard door and dropped his coffee mug, all in one graceful move. He swore as he batted the offending door shut, rubbed his head, and groped around the darkened kitchen floor for the mug, which, fortunately, had been empty. He couldn't find it.

This is what it's like to turn fifty, he thought. Need coffee in the morning just to get stereo vision, and every supposedly inanimate object in the house knows it and lies in wait for you. Or, you could turn on the damned light, he said to himself. But that would hurt my caffeine-deprived eyes. He realized he was doing this a lot these days, talking to himself, even holding some fairly detailed conversations in his head on the most absolutely inane topics. He gave up, turned on the kitchen lights, opened one and then the other eye, and spied the mug lurking next to the center island. He managed to plug in the tiny Krups coffeemaker without executing himself, rubbed the back of his head again, and went out to the front porch to see where the village idiot had thrown his
Washington Post
this time.

Ev Markham was a widower. He lived alone in a large two-story house overlooking the head of Sayers Creek, which was an inlet of the Severn River just upstream of the
Naval Academy. The house had belonged to his parents, and he'd grown up in Annapolis, in the shadow of the Academy. Like more than a few such kids, Ev had been mesmerized from an early age by the proud ranks of midshipmen bedecked in blue and gold, the midweek parades, the boom of the saluting guns, the thunderous Army-Navy game pep rallies, choral recitals in the cathedral-like chapel at Christmas-time, and those big mysterious gray ships anchored from time to time out in the bay. His father, who had served in the Navy during World War II, had been a doctor with good political connections in both the capital and in the Yard, and he'd eased the way for an appointment for Ev, who had graduated from the Academy himself in 1973.

He retrieved the plastic-wrapped newspaper out of an injured camellia bush, frowned at the broken branches, summoned visions of retribution, and then went back into the house. Maybe if he put up a piece of piano wire across the sidewalk, say about neck-high, Einstein might slow down long enough to put the paper somewhere near the front porch. But then he remembered that the paperboy was no longer a boy on a bike, but an elderly Korean gentleman driving a little Japanese pickup truck. And besides, there never had been sidewalks. He plodded back to the kitchen, poured a mug of coffee—into the cup this time—and went out onto the back porch, which overlooked two hundred feet of lawn and trees descending to the creek. Two sincerely ambitious Yuppies were straining at their oars as they sculled out from the other side in their fancy singles. The water was perfectly still, and they cut through the foot-high mist like competing phantoms under power.

His lawyer and best friend, Worth Battle, harped incessantly on the subject of Ev's living alone in a house so full of family memories. Worth also kept trying to set him up with lady friends, but, with the possible exception of one really nice lawyer, none of them had raised even a spark of interest. He smiled at the thought of going through life with a name like Worth Battle. Back when they had been plebe-year roommates at the Naval Academy, Ev had appreciated
all the hell his roomie caught for having such a name, because it deflected a lot of fire from himself. As early as plebe summer, they had speculated that one day Worth would have to become a lawyer, if only to get even.

The problem was, Ev loved the old house. He lived in it mortgage-free, and now, with five wooded acres directly overlooking Sayers Creek and within healthy walking distance of the Academy and the state capitol, it was worth a small fortune. But more than that, he'd grown up here. It was the only home he'd ever had. It was also the only home his daughter, Julie, had ever known, and during the past four years, it had allowed him to see much more of her than did most parents of midshipmen. It was a place she could bring her friends and classmates, a place where they could act like normal college kids once in awhile instead of spit-and-polish tin sailors. But since his wife, Joanne, had died, he'd seen less of Julie than he'd have liked. And when she graduated in a few weeks, he'd see nothing of her except for the occasional Christmas leave, as she dropped into that same naval aviation pipe he'd been in for so long. The irony did not escape him. Pretty soon, there'd be nothing but memories here. Good ones and not so good ones. Then he might actually have to decide.

The phone rang. It was Julie. Midshipman First Class Julie Markham, United States Naval Academy, he reminded himself. Soon to be Ensign Julie Markham, United States Naval Reserve.

“Dad!” she said breathlessly, scattering his ruminations with her energy. “Have you heard?”

“Heard what, Jules?” he asked patiently. Julie seemed to go through life at full burner lately, as commissioning day approached.

“A plebe. Fell. Or jumped. Off the eighth wing's roof. Into the road between King Hall and Mitscher Hall. Mega-gross. Like, fire-hose city.”

“Thanks for sharing, Julie,” he said, quickly blanking out the gory image. He'd seen the aftermath of a plane captain falling eighty-four feet from the flight deck of a carrier onto
the pier below, courtesy of a jet engine turnup. “What do you mean, fell or jumped?”

“Oh, you know. Dark Side is saying that of course he fell; the word in the Brigade is that he jumped.”

“You're going to have to lose that ‘Dark Side' business once you get out there in the fleet, Julie. Your senior officers won't appreciate that stuff.”

“And they do something about it, from what I've been told, which is, of course, why they're called the Dark Side.”

“Yeah, but think about this: You go naval air, you're looking at almost a ten-year obligated service. By then, you'll be up for light commander. How do you make the transition to O-four if you've been calling everyone who's an O-four or above the Dark Side?”

“Oh, Da-ad,” she said. “Ten years? That's eons from now. Hey, I gotta run—it's two-minute chow call.”

“Rock and roll,” he said, but she was already gone. He hung up the phone. It was almost amusing, he thought, how pervasively the fleet junior officer culture infected the Brigade, especially the seniors, or firsties. After the naval aviation Tailhook scandals of the early nineties, many junior aviators felt they had been made scapegoats for incidents to which a nonzero number of very senior officers had also been party. Some of these senior officers had been only too willing to offer up an unlimited number of JO careers if that meant they could save theirs from the ensuing feminazi witch-hunts. The JOs had secretly begun calling any officer over the rank of lieutenant “the Dark Side,” with a cultural nod to Darth Vader of the
Star Wars
films. When this term filtered up to the senior officers, there were immediate and heavy-handed back-channel thunderations, which, of course, only served to cement the appellation.

He finished his coffee and went upstairs to get ready for work. His first class today was at ten o'clock, so there was plenty of time. One of the bennies of being a full prof. But maybe too much time, because as he entered the bedroom, he was struck again by how quiet the damned house was. It didn't even have the decency to creak and groan, like any
self-respecting fifty-year-old house should. He felt the familiar flush of desperate loneliness that seemed all too ready to overwhelm him at moments like this. He took a deep breath and willed it away.

She was gone.

That's all, just gone. Just gone. And there was nothing he could do. He had gone through his entire life asserting control over himself and his circumstances. But when that state trooper had come to the door, stone-faced, rain-soaked hat in hand, Ev had known in an instant that those days of even keels and steady, visible purpose had just been hit by a large torpedo. Just like Joanne. Who was just—gone.

They had had the life they'd had. All the memories were banked, the good ones gaining ground, the not so good ones fading like old newsprint, visible if you really wanted to see it, but disappearing if you were willing to leave it in a drawer somewhere for long enough.

You do this one day at a time, he told himself. Just like the twelve-steppers down at AA. You concentrate on what you're going to say at the ten o'clock seminar. You focus on doing the next thing—shower, shave, get dressed. He swallowed hard as he stood there in the bedroom. He knew all the standard nostrums by heart, could hear all his friends reciting them so sincerely and earnestly. Meaning well. Trying to help. Breathing silent sighs of relief that it hadn't happened to them.

He couldn't help wanting to remind some of them.

He looked at himself in the full-length mirror hanging on the bathroom door. Just over six feet, black hair—well, mostly black—a narrow, lean face with intense brown eyes, a crooked nose, courtesy of an unruly canopy, and more lines than had been there the last time he'd looked. He'd managed to keep himself fit and trim, which, given the physical fitness culture of the Academy, was unremarkable. But the lines were deeper and the shadows under his eyes more pronounced. Funny how living alone changed things, and how the body kept score.

He sighed. Damned house was ambushing him again.
Maybe Worth was right. The day after Julie threw her hat in the air at graduation was going to be emotional for them both. The day after that, once she had driven away to Pensacola and her new life, was going to be a genuine bitch.

“But right now,” he said out loud, “it's shower time.”

 

That's right, it's me. Aren't you glad? Sure you are. I've just been walking down the passageway, yelling at the chow-callers to keep their eyes in the boat, and, just maybe, they won't attract my attention. They don't want to attract my attention, because today I'm Psycho-Shark, man-killer, man-eater.

I love to look at all the pretty plebes, the live ones. Standing rigidly at attention next to the upperclassmen's rooms, clamoring like the sheep they are, counting down the minutes until morning meal formation. As if the superior beings inside the rooms didn't know what time it was.
“Sir! There are now three minutes until morning meal formation! The menu for this morning is…”
Seriously dumb!

There was one who didn't get the word about me. I gave him the Look. Let my eyes go blank, opened my mouth just a little, showed all my teeth, slowed my stride fractionally, made it look like I was turning in his direction, just like a big tiger shark, perusing prey, easing past the target, then the sly turn, the effortless dip and bank of pectorals. I love it when their voices pitch up a note or two as they continue to shout out the required formula while pretending—no, hoping, praying—I'm not coming back to them.

They know, the plebes. They know about me, even if a lot of my so-called classmates don't. It's the nature of prey to recognize a predator, you see. And I am, by God, a predator. A top predator, in every sense. They get a come-around to my room, they don't sleep the night before. Especially the girls.

There's one girl they call Bee-bee, the fat girl. Bee-bee for Butterball. All quivering chins and heaving bosoms under that flushed face. Trying desperately not to acknowledge that I'm walking past. I can smell the sweat on her from
twenty feet away—we can do that, you know. We have a truly excellent sense of smell. All those tiny, exquisitely tuned dermal receptors. It's a chemical thing. Just kidding, of course. But sharks can do that, so I assume the profile as much as I can. For Bee-bee, I change my sequence. Just a little. Slow down, turn my head, oh so casually in her direction, stare down at her—belt buckle, yes, and listen to her squeak. What does she think I'm looking at, her crotch? Not with that fat roll hanging over her belt, I'm not.

But you know what? I can smell her fear. She's not going to make it here. The Dark Side hates fat midshipmen. As well they should. Fat people are lazy, unmotivated. Natural prey, by definition. As I've always said, the girls can stay, but only if you remain sleek and strong.

I prowl every day. My grand passage to formation. I leave my room with just less than two minutes to get down the ladder to the zero deck and out onto the formation yard. I have it timed, you see. Right to the second. After almost four years of this bullshit, any competent firstie does. That's how I make it look so effortless, arriving at the edge of the formation just as the bells ring, always supremely casual, totally nonchalant, just like a big shark rising from somewhere down in the deep gloom, appearing miraculously alongside and slightly below a school of underclassmen. Well, what the hell, it is morning meal formation. You know, chow time? Heh-heh.

And I love it when the guys on the team call me the Shark! Let's face it, when it comes to men's freestyle, I AM the team. Six three in my dripping feet, 210 pounds of spring steel, and shaped like a humanoid manta ray, only I'm faster, much faster. I'm the monster of the freestyle. Fast enough that I actually have time to look sideways and lay dead eyes on anyone who can keep up with me. It's so cool: I give him the Look, show those teeth, watch him stub his stroke for a second or two, or screw up his breathing when he realizes I'm
not
breathing and I'm still staring right at him. And then I'm gone, accelerating without seeming to change anything. I've heard the norms talking, in the locker
room head afterward. “Fucker just stopped taking air, man. Looked at me like I was meat, like he was gonna slip under the lane divider and, like, fucking bite, man. Freaked my ass out.”

It's my teeth. I can't help it. I have really big teeth. One time before a meet, I borrowed some black nail polish from one of my Goth moths and painted my teeth to look like points. Final heat, there was this guy, thought he was pretty good, grinned at me when he realized he could stay with Navy's monster right through the final turn. Then I gave him the Look, and a second later, exactly one stroke later, I showed the teeth. Poor baby did a guppy mouth. Tried to swallow the pool. Made him heavy, I suppose. Shit happens. He was lucky his timer saw him go down. I never saw him, of course. I was too busy winning. I did see the bubble, now that I think of it. Big one, too.