Sex and the High Command (4 page)

“Indeed I would, Captain.” He was accepting the folders as he sat down, and when he hit the seat he was absorbed, oblivious to the arriving tea or the waiting captain. Once he paused, tapped his finger on the folder, and said, “Does that follow? Yes, it follows.”

Hansen considered the doctor’s unilateral dialogue undiplomatic in the presence of four stripes. He asked, “What is this profile business?”

Dr. Gresham lifted his eyes, blinked twice, and said, “A personality index profiling male attitudes toward females. We call it Lothario X.” His lids lowered and he was lost again.

When he wolf-whistled between his teeth, Hansen asked, “What’s this profile business all about?”

“I’m in the dark, myself. It’s a secret project that the Bureau of Medicine is working on with the Bureau of Personnel.” He paused. “The nonpsychological factors bug me.”

Obviously, the doctor was finding more in the service record than the captain had found. He would nod at times, in agreement with himself, tap the paper, and resume reading. “Wonderful! Wonderful! Breast feeding!”

“A nonpsychological factor?” Hansen inquired.

“Definitely psychological. No, he checks out in the nonpsych areas: age thirty-seven, native-born, bachelor, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and he’s from Tennessee.”

“What does that mean, psychologically speaking?”

“Nothing. That’s what bugs me.” He closed the file, tapping it with his fingertip. “Freud would have a field day with this fellow.”

Hansen resented the term “fellow” for a Navy hand. “How can you say that about a man you’ve never seen?”

Dr. Gresham tasted his cold tea, replaced the cup, folded his hands over his briefcase, and focused his eyes on the captain. “He’s a bachelor at thirty-seven, which evinces a latent hostility toward women as a compensation for an overly active Oedipal drive. This means he loved his mother but resented her relations with his father. Now, get the picture, Captain. When McCormick finds libidinal expression, symbolically he’s seducing his mother and thereby taking a backhanded swipe at his father.”

“His parents are dead,” Hansen reminded the doctor.

“Parents never die, Captain: We merely bury their bodies… So, McCormick’s made this marvelous adjustment on a sado-masochistic level; because incest is frowned upon by his Puritan ethic, he’s punishing himself. In short, he’s whipping and getting whipped, simultaneously.”

“Are you saying he’s abnormal. Doctor?”

“ ‘Abnormal’ is a loaded word. In the sense you use it, definitely not! McCormick is the super, all-time, ail-American boy. Now, take his job, water tender, down where those liquids drip, gurgle, and blurp—the genito-urinary tract of the ship. And he loves it. Notice that three point nine professional aptitude? But wait. Captain! He’s a water tender, not an oiler. Water’s the fluid of life, symbolically drawn from the breasts of Mother Earth. Remember, in all probability he was breast-fed, coming as he does from a mountain area. This points to a double drive, anal and oral, fixated on the sado-masochistic level. Incredible, Captain! Eros charged with the memories of mother love. Spanked at one end, fed at the other. The gamut. Imagine the richness, the texture, of this libido. For it, the act of love is nursing, punishment, revenge, sinning, expiation of sin, plus the job-oriented joy of blowing tubes. This libido has so many plus factors that it reaches spiritual levels of anal-oral eroticism and, heed my words. Captain…”

As commanding officer of a floating scientific laboratory, Hansen had known intellectuals, had learned to tolerate their enthusiasms, but this egghead was a hummer. His owl’s eyes glowed, and his mole’s nose twitched. Listening, Hansen felt sympathy for all landlubbers at sea on a raft in a hurricane.

“For this man, love is an apotheosis. He punishes sinners, particularly the authoritarian figure of his father, whom he subconsciously identifies with God, and the mother he loves. One who punishes God achieves brotherhood with God. Moreover, Captain, God is also fixated on a sadistic erotic level, spiritually speaking, and only He and McCormick punish sinners because they love them. Thus, McCormick becomes a saint in the boudoir. At the explosive moment when his libidinal urge is released, the marmoset soars on the wings of an eagle right into Abraham’s bosom.”

“He’s a Protestant,” the captain said.

“That’s the point. Captain. In this area, terms lose their meaning. McCormick’s experience cannot be defined in the lexicon of the sex psychologist. It is supercharged, hypercarbureted, sixteen-cylinder whoomph! What does he look like. Captain?”

“I don’t know.”

“Immaterial. He’s probably tall, rawboned, blue-eyed, possibly red-haired, with a protruding Adam’s apple.”

“We’ll find out… Orderly, pass the word for Chief Water Tender McCormick to lay up to the captain’s quarters, on the double.”

“We must beware of his sense of humor, Captain, because he has the subtle wit of an abstract reasoner.”

“How could you analyze his reasoning power?” Captain Hansen’s question was punctuated by the bosun’s whistle followed by the summons to McCormick.

“How did the orderly get to the quarterdeck so fast?” the doctor asked.

“He telephoned.”

“Ah, I see… McCormick’s reasoning power. He’s Anglo-Saxon, and abstract reasoning is the British national genius. Something to do with their fogs and mists. The French genius is for painting. In their brilliant sunlight, they respond to color and clarity of line. Anglo-Saxons are more literary minded. They breed the Shakespeares, the Miltons, the Johnsons…”

“Ben Jonson?”

“I was thinking more of Samuel Johnson… Your antecedents were Scandinavian, I take it. They have a dual national genius—for breeding and for sailing.”

“Then why are the Scandinavian countries underpopulated?” The man’s theorizing irritated the captain who barely restrained the harshness in his voice.

“Because they sailed away from their miserable lands to breed Normans, Englishmen, Scots, Turks. In Aleppo, once, I met a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed Levantine. Ah, such rapport…”

Sixteen cylinders were beginning to purr, but Hansen had no time for dalliance, past or present. “Doctor, I have to evaluate the truth in McCormick’s story, and McCormick didn’t tell the story.”

“That bothered me. Captain,” the doctor sprinted ahead. “Men such as McCormick ordinarily don’t boast. Well, the truth’s relative, anyway.”

“Yes, but I’ve got to get the facts.”

“Put him on his scout’s honor.”

“I’ll put him on his honor as an American bluejacket.” Hansen’s voice was harsh. “How long have you been in the Navy, Doctor?”

“About three months, sir. I had a large practice in Beverly Hills, but it dwindled away. All of a sudden, the women didn’t need psychiatrists anymore.”

That explained it—a Beverly Hills head shrinker. Hansen’s raft quit pitching, and the sea grew glassy until a lanky, red-haired man with a protruding Adam’s apple stepped through the door and said, “Chief McCormick reporting. Captain.”

“At ease, Chief,” the captain said. “Dr. Gresham is here because the story in the ship’s paper attracted attention, shoreside.”

“Captain, I sure hope that little old girl wasn’t any Typhoid Mary.”

“No, Chief,” the doctor said, “the Navy’s having a personnel problem, and you may help us solve it.”

“I heard about it, sir. Are the women on strike, Commander?”

Gresham opened his briefcase. “That’s as good an answer as any.” He pulled out a pipe, a tobacco pouch, and a clipboard with a sheet of graph paper attached. “We think it’s a boycott as part of a woman’s peace movement. The Chinese missile threat seems to have frightened the ladies.” He thumbed the tobacco into the pipe. “We hope you can help us isolate elements which make up male sex appeal.” He lighted his match and sucked the flame into the bowl. Between interstices in the down-drawn flame, he said, “Now, Chief, I want to ask you a few questions in a sensitive area.” Gresham’s voice became low, resonant, comforting. “If it embarrasses you to have your captain present, I’m sure…”

“Doctor, I’d rather Captain Hansen hear. We’ve got some confused hands below, and I hear tell he’s got some confused officers. If I can help, I sure want to.”

“Then, be seated. Chief,” the doctor said. “Remember, even the most personal questions I ask are ultimately impersonal. We’re aiming at a general definition of a specific set of traits.”

“Commander, I’ll tell anything I know, but I don’t have no power over women. Sometimes it takes me as long as an hour and a half to get them persuaded, because I don’t fool with nothing but nice girls.”

“Then, how do you account for the three venereal complaints on your health record?”

“Doctor, I think three out of eight hundred and sixty-three girls, counting after puberty, speaks well for the decency of women all over the world.”

“Fantastic!” Dr. Gresham was losing his objectivity. “Were there any before puberty?”

“Might say I fungoed a few.”

Gresham jotted a point on his chart, looked up, and asked, abruptly, “Do you practice masturbation?”

By heavens, Hansen thought, they had not changed that question since he was a midshipman.

“You can call me either a liar or a pud puller, Doctor. You take your choice, sir.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful! What about your mother? Ever have a yen for her?”

“No, sir. Ma was a little bony.”

Almost gleefully, the doctor made another quick jab at his chart. “When you are approached by a homosexual, do you resent his advances, welcome his advances, remain indifferent to his advances?”

“Well, that depends on the fruit, Doctor. Generally speaking, I’m friendly. I figure I might need a reserve supply someday.”

Listening with only half an ear. Captain Hansen felt that McCormick might be pulling the doctor’s leg, but there was an air of sincerity about the chief, and Hansen felt an affinity for this man who was pouring out his secrets to aid his comrades. However, the affinity was strained slightly near the close of the interview when McCormick started to come up with some theorizing in answer to the doctor’s more general questions.

“And when you’re talking to them, Doctor, concentrate on that little thing… Get them close to a piano playing bass notes.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful! Sympathetic vibrations.”

Hansen rose and went to the porthole, looking out as he tried to hit upon some method of verifying the chief’s story. Personally, he didn’t doubt it—the American woman had too much independence to join in a general boycott—but he could not officially testify on the ground of personal belief.

“Don’t sit like a Frenchman,” he heard the chief instruct an awed doctor, “with your kneecaps together, nor like an American with your legs crossed. Hold your knees about three feet apart, rest your arm over your leg so that your hand droops, like this. All lines draw attention to your crotch. Now, for dancing, we got the whore’s waltz. That’s a real twanger when you’re doing a tango.”

Well, the doctor had used frank language, himself, the captain mused, glancing at his watch, but he wished McCormick would belay the theories. He wanted to get the verification in before Captain Arnold was on the line asking for a report.

“Marvelous! Now, Chief, would you cross your legs as the Americans do?”

Gresham leaned down and pulled a small rubber mallet from his briefcase. “And pull your trouser leg above your knee. That’s right. Thank you.” He flicked the mallet and tapped beneath the chief’s kneecap. In response, the leg kicked slightly forward. “Fabulous!” the doctor chortled. “That’s called the Babinski reflex. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. Chief, you’ve got it.”

Somewhat befuddled, the chief rolled down his trouser leg and stood up.

“Stand by in the passageway. Chief,” the captain said, “I want to talk to you, later.”

After the chief stepped out, the captain asked, “Weren’t you reading too much into the Babinski reflex, Doctor?”

“That was a joke, Captain. He pulled my leg. I punched his.”

“Then he could have been lying?”

“Absolutely! But my questions were cross-keyed to establish median attitudes and motives. For my purposes, a lie consistently adhered to becomes a truth… Now, Captain, would you witness an official act?”

“Certainly, Doctor.”

Gresham removed from his briefcase a bright-red folder with TOP SECRET Stamped across its face. Using a plastic ruler, he connected the dots he had made on the graph paper with a black line which zigzagged down the page. “That’s McCormick,” he said, laying the clipboard face up on the desk. He unzipped the red folder. “This little baby you’re going to look at has a security rating a few grades lower than nerve gas. Believe me. Captain, this doll is a triumph of cybernetics, psychology, and literary research. Observe Lothario X, profile of the perfect lover. Pure sex appeal!”

To Hansen, Lothario X was just another squiggly line, this one on a sheet of lucite.

“This profile. Captain, is synthesized from the reconstructed profiles of the Marquis de Sade, on the one hand, and Saint Francis of Assisi, on the other. It matches, incidentally, the reconstructed profiles of Casanova, Rubirosa, and Willie Jefferson. It inspired the first practical utilization of a computer-stored bibliography in researching memoirs and private letters.”

“Do you think McCormick lied about the girl, Doctor?”

“I tend to think not, but you can’t be sure without an affidavit from his paramour, and she might be lying… Now, Captain, we shall test this little baby empirically.”

“What do you mean?”

“If McCormick’s profile matches the chart, we consider that as evidence that the chart is valid.”

“What if they’re both wrong?”

“Ah, a good question. But we’re testing the chart against a known lover. If the pragmatic and the theoretical coincide, the coincidence is too improbable to be coincidental. Ergo, we will have found the perfect lover.”

“If so, then what?”

“My theory is that they want to use him in a Navy training film.”

“To teach sex appeal?” the captain asked.

“Why not? Now, observe, Captain. These holes in McCormick are register marks. I slide them over the spindles, thusly. Next, I take Lothario X, printed on lucite to permit us to watch McCormick, beneath. Now, carefully, carefully, I lower Lothario X… Holy, jumping Jesus! Captain, look at that little darling!”