CHAPTER
4
Something
scrabbled in the box, a chittering noise. There was something
alive inside.
“Careful,”
Wentz warned. “Once they grab you, they don’t let go.”
Pete stared
fascinated into the styrofoam box. “I didn’t even know they got
this big, Dad.”
Wentz pulled
the station wagon into the driveway. “See, Pete, your old man’s not
as dumb as he looks. I know a guy in the Coast Guard who had to
chart part of the Chesapeake for the government a few years ago,
and they have this thing called thermal sonar. That’s why we went
to the West River estuary, ‘cos this friend of mine, see, his sonar
picked up thousands of really big crabs out there. No one knows
about the place except me and him.”
“Cool,” Pete
enthused. “Thermal sonar.”
“Come on. Your
mother’ll never believe it.”
Wentz grabbed
the crab traps while Pete brought the box. Wentz felt strange
walking up the driveway of the quaint Alexandria colonial, a house
he’d bought a decade ago and had soon thereafter moved out of when
Joyce divorced him for familial negligence. Wentz deserved it, of
course. He’d promised her three times he was retiring—then canceled
his retirement papers. He’d scheduled vacations with her and Pete,
then simply didn’t show up. The last straw had been the time he’d
promised her he was getting Christmas week off on leave time, then
turned around to volunteer for special duty when he’d heard Test
Command was looking for sign-ups for a variable-wing
mini-fighter.
What a tubesteak I was,
he thought now, lugging the gear into
the garage. War was one thing, but joyriding was no reason to
snowjob your family. In truth, Wentz didn’t want some other
stick-jockey to fly something that he hadn’t. He’d been jealous, so
he’d abandoned his family.
Yeah, what a dick…
The
out-processing counselor had made some pertinent points. Coming off
twenty-five years of military service might mean some serious
adjustments. And Wentz knew that he’d have to put any former
bitterness aside or this simply wouldn’t work. It was
Joyce who’d agreed to give him this last chance. The rest lay
with Wentz. First thing on the To-Do List is stop being an
asshole, he
thought.
That’s why he
hadn’t said anything to her on Friday when he and Pete got home
from the baseball game. He was pissed off royally when he’d learned
that Joyce had told Pete he was bluffing about his retirement. But
then he remembered what the counselor had said, about compromise,
about making an effort to see the past from
Joyce’s viewpoint. What right do I have to be pissed
off about anything? he realized. She’s the one
giving me the chance. What did I ever do
except let her down for ten years?
Nothin’.
So he’d said
nothing about it.
“Damn it,
Pete,” Wentz said. “What’s all this garbage in the garage? You
know, you could do a better job keeping this place
clean.”
Pete looked
dumbfounded at his father. “What? I cleaned it last week. There’s
nothing wrong—”
“Don’t talk
back to your father, son.” Wentz pointed. “Like that tarp over
there. Looks like you just threw a tarp over a pile of garbage.
What’s under there?”
“I don’t know!”
Pete exclaimed at the accusation.
“What’s under
there? You hiding something?”
Exasperated,
Pete pulled up the tarp.
“Oh, wow, Dad!
Thanks!”
Propped up on
its kickstand was a brand-new Honda XR800 dirt
bike.
“It’s the
latest model,” Wentz said, “and wider tires for better traction.
Ninety horse-power; you’ll definitely be kicking up some dust. Just
remember, you can’t drive it on the road.”
“Thanks, Dad!”
Pete rejoiced, hugging his father. “You’re great! Can we take it
out now?”
“Let’s do the
crabs first. Then we’ll take it out to Merkle’s Farm.”
Pete was
ecstatic. But it wasn’t just that Wentz had bought his son
something he wanted; Wentz looked forward to showing Pete how to
maintain the bike, how to heed the safety precautions, how to
assume the responsibility of owning it.
Father
stuff.
“Mom!” Pete
shouted when they stomped into the kitchen. “Dad got me that Honda
dirt bike! It’s the best one they make!”
Joyce Wentz
half-smiled, leaning against the counter. Statuesque, long chestnut
hair and noon-blue eyes. “I hope he got you a helmet to go with
it.”
“Of course I
did,” Wentz assured. “And knee and elbow pads. I also told him he
could pull wheelie’s in the back yard. That’s okay with you, right,
honey?”
“Funny
guy.”
Wentz kissed
his wife on the cheek.
“Oh—jeeze,”
Joyce blurted. “No offense, but you guys smell like low tide
and—”
“Cat food,
right, Mom?” Pete answered.
Joyce paused
through a queer expression. “Well, yeah—”
Wentz slapped
his son on the back. “Like I was telling you, Pete. Your old man’s
not as dumb as he looks. It’s a little trick I picked up when I did
TDY at Whidbey Island. Puncture a can of cat food with an ice-pick
and put it in the trap. On the west coast, the watermen all use cat
food as crab bait instead of chicken necks.”
“Well,” Joyce
remarked, “I guess cat food smells better than chicken necks… So
just how many crabs did you catch? Last time you guys went out, you
brought home two crabs.”
“Check it
out.”
Wentz smiled
when Pete opened up the styrofoam box. Joyce nearly shrieked when
she looked inside.
“They’re huge,”
she commented.
“Half a
bushel,” Wentz added. “We’d have caught more but we didn’t have a
bigger box.”
“I have to
admit, I’m impressed,” Joyce said.
“You’ll be even
more impressed when we’re cracking these suckers open,” Wentz
guaranteed. “Pete, put an inch of water in the pot and pour in a
cup of vinegar. Then lay in the steamer tray.”
“Okay,
Dad.”
Joyce curled
her finger at Wentz. “We’ll be right back, Pete.”
She took Wentz
by the hand into the dining room. Wentz paused to look at her, and
thought, Jesus, what a beautiful woman. What did I do to get this
lucky?
Last night,
they’d made love for the first time in a year. It was wonderful…
probably more for Wentz than for her; he hadn’t exactly been the
Man of the Hour, more like the Man of the Minute. They’d fallen
asleep wrapped up in each other; Wentz slept dreamlessly. The only
dream he wanted was in his arms.
He was about to
kiss her, tell her he loved her, when she pressed a hand against
his chest. Suddenly, she didn’t look pleased.
“So what’s with
this dirt bike?” she sternly asked.
Wentz stood
duped. “It’s something he wanted so I bought it for him. What’s the
big deal?”
“The big deal
is you can’t buy your
son.”
Wentz’s gazed
thinned. “I’m not trying to buy him. He worked hard and got his math grades up, so
I gave him a dirt bike. What, a father can’t give his kid a
present?”
“Not
an absentee father,” Joyce countered.
Careful, Jack warned himself. Look at it from her
side. “The
absentee part ends on Monday when I retire.”
“Don’t you get
it? Giving your son presents whenever you decide to come around
isn’t being a father.”
Bust my chops a little more, why don’t
you? But,
still, Wentz remained silent, like a scolded
child.
“It gives him
the wrong impression about things, Jack.”
“I thought he
deserved it, that’s all,” Wentz said very slowly. “For getting a B
in algebra.”
“That’s not how
it works in a family. Don’t you think you should’ve talked to me about
it first?”
“Yes, you’re
right.”
“Don’t you
think we should’ve given him the bike, Jack?”
“Yes, I’m
sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Everything she
said made sense, of course. It always did. Wentz had no idea how to
be a real father because he’d never been around to assume the role.
He was just a guy who stopped by every now and then, bringing
presents.
She faced him,
her lips pursed, her arms crossed under her bosom. “If you really
are going to make a go of this, Jack, you’re going to have to do
better than this.”
As hard as
Wentz wanted to keep it all in check…he couldn’t. Suddenly he felt
attacked, and the instinct to defend himself shattered his better
judgment.
“Fine, great.
I’m an asshole, I’m a prick. I’m an
absentee
father who
buys his kid presents to cover up his guilt. But contrary to what
you obviously believe, I really am going to try to make this work.
It would really be nice if just once you could give me a
break.”
“I won’t even
respond to that,” she said.
He couldn’t
help it now, he couldn’t reel it back in. “And you know, it
really fucks me up when you trash me to him.”
“What are you
talking about?”
Wentz nodded
cockily. “The other day when we went to the baseball game, he asked
me if I was bluffing about my retirement. He says
you told him that.”
Joyce’s cold
eyes didn’t blink. “Considering your track record? What else am I
supposed to think? And yesterday someone named First Sergeant
Something-or-other called and said you were promoted to brigadier
general.”
Wentz stalled.
“Oh, yeah, Top. They gave it to me after I made my last flight. I
forgot to tell you because it honestly slipped my mind.”
“You get
promoted to general and it slips your mind?”
“It slipped my
mind because it’s not important to me. It’s no big deal. It’s just
typical Air Force ploy; they give you a big promo as bait to get
you to sign up for one more hitch.”
Joyce smirked.
“But General Wentz isn’t taking the bait, huh?”
“No, General
Wentz is not. And at noon tomorrow, General Wentz will
be retired.”
Her rancor
seemed to drift off. “I just wish I could believe that. I believed
it in the past and look what happened. How many times?”
Bottle it up! he commanded himself. Keep your mouth
shut!
But he
couldn’t. The arrogant fighter-jock wouldn’t allow
it.
“Well, honey,
I’m really sorry about that little thing we had called the Gulf
War, and I’m really sorry about the classified orders I got
reassigning me to Nellis and Tonopah, but there’s not much you can
do about it when you’re on active duty.”
“You could’ve
gotten that waiver you were telling us about,” Joyce reminded
him.
“Certain kinds
of classified orders prohibit early-out waivers—”
“It broke
Pete’s heart.”
That’s all she
needed to say. It was like a guillotine falling. It ended the
argument before it ever really got started. Wentz wanted to kick
the wall, knock things over, bellow out loud, but then he realized
why. Because he couldn’t hack the truth; he was too selfish to
admit it. Oh, yes, Joyce had every right to treat him like
pondscum…because that’s what he was until he proved
otherwise.
And I will prove it,
he swore to himself.
Damn it, I
WILL. He
closed his eyes, took a deep breath, pushed his selfish angst
aside.
He looked at
Joyce.
“I’ll make it
up to you—” He raised a quick finger. “I know you’ve heard that one
before, and I know I’ve let you and Pete down a bunch of times in
the past. Just the fact that you’re giving me one more chance makes
me the luckiest man in the world. I won’t screw it up this time—I
swear to God. You gotta believe me.”
“I know you
mean it, Jack,” she said, “but I also know you’re a career pilot.
You’re addicted to flying; you all are—”
“No I’m not,
for Christ’s sake.”
“Jack, I know a
dozen other women whose husbands are all pilots—and they’re all
divorced, it’s all the same.”
Wentz nodded
after thinking about it. “All right, I guess it is something like
that, the adrenalin and all, the rush. When you get to fly the most
sophisticated aircraft in the world, it does something to your ego,
and, yeah, I guess I was addicted to the thrill. But that’s behind
me now.”
“Is it really?
You quit the Air Force tomorrow, and what happens next week? You
start flying for the airlines. Right back in the saddle.”
Was she right
about this too? There was no time left to fool around. This truly
was his last chance. “All right, you’re justified in saying that.
I’m just going from one plane to another. So—” Wentz walked to the
walnut highboy where he kept his papers. He pulled open the top
drawer, withdrew his employment contract with United Airlines, and
ripped it up.
“I don’t give a
shit about that job,” he asserted. “It’s just busy work, and now
that you mention it, it’s gonna be pretty damn disappointing
trading in a $50,000,000 mach-three-plus ATF for a jumbo jet that
won’t get out of its own way.” Wentz balled up the shredded
contract and tossed it in the trash.
“Do you really
mean that?” she asked. “That’s fine with me if you do. We don’t
need this big house. We can move someplace smaller, tighten the
budget, get cheaper cars—”
“We don’t have
to do any of that,” he told her. “I don’t even
need a job. When they promo’d me to brig general, my
retirement pay went up about twenty percent. Plus…when you’re a
classified test pilot, you get this thing called SOM credit. It
stands for special operating missions—it’s a hazard pay bonus you
get when you retire. Mine’s been building up with interest for over
twenty years.”
Joyce peered at
him.
“It’s…a lot of
money,” Wentz admitted.
“So you’re
telling me you’re never going to fly a plane again?”
“I’m
not telling you, I’m promising
you.”
Her eyes looked
as big as cue balls. “So…what will you do?”
“Give you a
break, for one thing,” he answered at once. “Drive Pete to and from
school every day like you’ve been doing since kindergarten. I’ll do
stuff around the house, mow the lawn, weed the beds, shovel the
driveway in the winter. I’ll be a house husband—you think I give a
shit? I look good
in an apron. You’ve busted your tail
for the last ten years, now I’ll take up the slack. I’m not kidding
about this, Joyce. You quit school to put me through college, now
it’s my turn. You can go back and get your degree.
I’ll wash the damn dishes. You can open a crafts store like
you always wanted. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want, I’ll do
whatever it takes to see that you get it.”
Joyce looked
nearly shocked. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Damn fuckin’
straight.”
“Don’t cuss.
Pete might hear you.”
“Hey, Dad!”
Pete called out from the kitchen. “The water’s boiling!”
“I’ll be right
there,” Wentz said. He put his arm around his wife, pulled her
close. “You’ll see,” he whispered. “No more broken promises. And by
the way…you’re fuckin’ beautiful.”
Joyce blushed.
“Don’t cuss…”
He kissed her
and went back into the kitchen.
“Yeah, that’s
boiling,” Wentz observed of the pot. “Now I’ll show you another of
your old man’s trick’s.” He opened the refrigerator, pulled out a
large bottle of beer. “Once the water’s boiling, you pour in about
eight ounces of a good German marzen, or something with a lot of
malt. It makes the crabmeat come out of the shell
easier.”
Pete watched as
his father poured in some of the beer.
“What are you
gonna do with the rest?” Joyce coyly asked.
“Drink it. What
else? When you’re in an SOM wing, you can’t drink. They even
polygraph you to make sure you’re not lying. And since I’m not
doing that stuff anymore…”
Wentz took a
hit off the bottle
“Wow. That’s
not bad,” he said. “First beer I’ve had since Reagan was in office.
A little Johnny Black would do well now…but I’m not
complaining.”
“The water’s
back to a boil,” Pete alerted him.
“Better let me
do that, Pete,” Wentz said. “You grab ’em from the back, otherwise
they’ll tear your fingers up.” One by one, then, he transferred the
crabs from the box to the steamer. “Nothing personal, fellas,” he
said to the crabs. “But you’d do the same to me if you had the
chance.” Then he dumped in heaps of spices.
“How long does
it take?” Pete asked.
“About thirty
minutes, or when the trap doors come loose. Crabs this big might
take a little longer.”
“I can’t
wait!”
For the first
time since he could remember, Joyce actually looked
happy. She believes me, Wentz thought. It was a gratifying relief. They
were a family again, through thick and thin. That’s all Wentz
wanted, more than anything.
And now it was
looking like he’d get it.
“Get the
mallets and placemats out, Pete,” Wentz instructed. “And plenty of
paper towels.”
“Okay,
Dad.”
Wentz walked
back over to Joyce, put his arm around her waist.
I’m not
bullshitting this time, he wanted to say, but what would be the point in
that? He was determined to prove it.
I’ll show her…
Several
soft thunks seemed to resound from outside. Wentz wasn’t even
paying attention. But Pete heard it, and he looked out the kitchen
window, pulling up the lace curtains.
“Hey, Dad.
There’s Air Force guys coming up the driveway.”
The hell? Wentz went to the window, looked out. Sure enough,
the first thing he noticed was the tell-tale powder-blue sedan
parked at the curb. Two Air Force SP’s remained stationed at the
car, while one more approached the house.
“Who the hell
are these fucking bohunkers?” Wentz said.
“Jack, don’t
cuss,” Joyce implored.
Wentz loped to
the foyer, then brusquely opened the front door after one knock.
“What do you want?”
A 1st
lieutenant in summer dress stood curtly on the doorstep, built like
a body builder. He wore a gunbelt and an armband which read AFSS -
SP. “General Wentz?” he inquired.
“What do you
want?” Wentz repeated.
“I’m Lieutenant
Hamilton, Air Force Security Service Courier Detachment, and I
have—”
“What do you
want?” Wentz said as rudely as possible for the third
time.
“I have an
urgent hand-deliver-only TDY message, sir.”
Wentz
impatiently snatched the yellow piece of paper from Hamilton, then
frowned when he read it.
“Who the hell’s
this?” he demanded. “What’s he want to see me for?”
“It’s
classified, sir,” Hamilton stated the obvious.
“Tell him I’m
sick.”
Hamilton just
stared back, wooden-faced.
“Goddamn it!
I’m cooking crabs with my kid!”
“Sir, it’s an
AFSS command order,” Hamilton informed.
“I’m not
coming, it’s out of the question—”
Hamilton’s brow
rose. “Sir, if you don’t come with us willingly…we have orders
to—”
“Damn it!”
Wentz felt an
inch tall when he turned around in the foyer. Joyce stood there
looking back at him, glaring.
“I’m sorry,
honey, but I gotta go to the base,” Wentz said. “This muscle-rack
and his goons will drag me there if I refuse.”
She didn’t say
anything, but Wentz could read her lips when she said to
herself: Goddamn you…
“I’m not
bluffing about tomorrow, I swear. At one minute after noon, I’m a
civilian. I give you my word.”
“Just go,” she
said and walked up the stairs.
Pete looked in
from the kitchen entrance, disappointment plain in his
eyes.
Wentz held up
his hands. “Pete, I’m sorry, man.”
“It’s all
right, Dad. You gotta obey your orders.”
“When the crabs
are done, stick a few in the fridge for me.”
“Okay,
Dad.”
Wentz seethed,
humiliated. He glared at Hamilton, then looked up the
stairwell.
“Joyce?”
No
response.
“Joyce! Don’t
forget! Tomorrow, noon. Be there!”
Wentz turned
and left the house. “You sons of bitches,” he said right to
Hamilton’s face. “I ought to bust you down to E-1. I could, you
know that?”
“I’m just doing
my job, sir.”
“Your job isn’t
to fuck up my life. I ought to transfer the lot of you to our
tracking site in Nord, Alaska. See how you big bad SP’s like some
of that shit.”
“We apologize
for the inconvenience, sir.”
My ass…
Guilt loomed
behind Wentz like some huge, subcarnate shape as he walked down the
driveway and got into the government sedan.
When the sedan
drove away, Wentz had no idea in the world that he would never see
his wife and son again.