Catardi’s aide, Lieutenant Commander Wanda Styxx, handed Catardi a velvet box. “For innovative and meritorious service in the United States Submarine Force, Lieutenant Anthony Pacino is hereby awarded the highest honor a submariner can possess. Gold dolphins, indicating Lieutenant Pacino is qualified in submarines.”
Pacino stared in surprise and shock at the velvet box holding the gold dolphin emblem, the award coming nine months before he rated it. In the eyes of Navy Regulations, he was still a non-qual air-breathing puke, but Catardi and Seagraves had waived all that and decided to make him a qualified submariner.
Pacino couldn’t help it. His eyes got moist as the admiral unpinned his airborne wings, re-pinned them under his medals, then pinned the gold dolphins in their place above the medals. “If I stick you, Patch, it’s purely intentional,” Catardi grinned, stepping back to examine his handiwork. The shining gold dolphins were centered and level above Pacino’s ribbons. Catardi came to attention and saluted Pacino, and Pacino returned the salute, his hand and posture rigid, a tear threatening to run down his cheek. Wanda Styxx smiled sweetly at him and winked.
Pacino looked out into the crowd on the pier and could barely believe his eyes. It was his father in a black business suit, clapping with the crowd. And it wasn’t his imagination, the old man was wiping a tear from his own eye. Pacino waved a salute at him and his father saluted back.
The rest of the afternoon and evening were a blur. A few moments with the elder Pacino, who had to rush to Washington with Catardi and Styxx, then to Quinnivan’s for a post-operation ship’s party. A few times, Pacino gazed down to sneak looks at his dolphins, still not believing it was all real. He looked up and saw Commander Ebenezer Tiny Tim Fishman saluting him. Pacino returned the salute, grinning at his friend.
He called for a ride to his apartment, wondering whether his Corvette would start after being away for over two months. He pulled off the starched service dress whites, dumped them in a corner, showered and got dressed in jeans. He bit his lip as he hit the starter for the engine, but it coughed and came to life.
Pacino wheeled the car to Quinnivan’s, parking it in the driveway next to the red Ferrari, being careful not to ding the door of Elvis Lewinsky’s pride and joy. As he stood to walk into the house, he saw Elvis Lewinsky standing there.
“Hello, non-qual.” Lewinsky was grinning at him.
“Hey, Fucking Engineer, I’ll have you know I’m the proud owner of a pair of gold dolphins. Solid gold dolphins. Presented by the commander of the submarine force himself.”
“Yeah, well, when you’ve been aboard long enough to remember where the wardroom is, let me know, non-qual.” Lewinsky laughed. “Come on. Word has it Bullfrog Quinnivan has a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan waiting for you. Can’t keep the boss waiting.”
Pacino nodded. As he and Lewinsky entered the lower level of the XO’s house, the crowd erupted in shouting and jeering, most of them teasing that he was too green to possess dolphins and that as far as they were all concerned, he was still a non-qual air-breathing puke. Expecting this situation, he’d brought the dolphin emblem Catardi had pinned on him. He pulled it out of his pocket with a dramatic flourish and pinned it to his Polo shirt above the left pocket amid the laughter and taunts. Quinnivan came up to him with a glass of the Macallan scotch.
“Mr. Lipstick, wearin’ your new dolphins, I see. And you’re cryin’ inside because the crowd is still calling you a non-qual, yeah?”
Pacino smiled and shook his head. “On a submarine, XO, never let the crew know what bothers you.”
“Attention all you scoundrels, ne’er-do-wells, misfits and pirates!” Quinnivan yelled at the crowd. “I’ve heard about enough out of all you assholes laying into poor Lipstick here that his dolphins were a fookin’ gift. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to take the backing off the pins of these dolphins, exposing the pointy needles of the thing, and each one of you is going to get a chance to punch Mr. Pacino in the dolphins, as hard as you want. And I don’t care if you put him in the emergency room, but after you each take your shot, that’s it. No more of this ‘non-qual air-breathing puke’ nonsense. When we’re done, Mr. Pacino here is as qualified as any of us. Everybody got that?”
The crowd booed and hissed, but they were all smiling. Quinnivan organized a queue and the officers lined up to punch Pacino in the dolphins. The hardest shot came from the captain himself, who grinned as he fired a punch into Pacino’s dolphin emblem, Pacino biting his lip and refusing to wince, the pins of the emblem puncturing his chest. He could feel blood running down his chest and into the fabric of his shirt. Then Quinnivan, whose punch was more gentle, until it came time for Rachel Romanov’s turn, who came up, dramatically balled up her fist, frowned and wound up to hit him. Pacino clamped his eyes shut in anticipation, but then she pulled her punch and just caressed his chest where the dolphins were, winking at him.
“I’m going to miss calling you a non-qual,” she whispered into his ear. “But I’ll find something else to tease you about.” Pacino stared at her. Since their arrival in Norfolk, she’d been positively nice to him. None of her previous annoyance was visible. It was as if she’d never been mad at him.
By the time of the last officer’s punch, Pacino’s chest was throbbing and blood had seeped through his shirt, making a large wet red stain, but he didn’t care. He was a non-qual no more.
It was then a large man entered the room, wearing leathers and carrying a motorcycle helmet, who raised his fist and bellowed, “It never happened!” The crowd immediately responded with their reply in loud unison, “We were never there!” He finished, yelling, “USS Vermont!”
“I’ll be damned,” Quinnivan said. “Man Mountain Squirt Gun Vevera. Aren’t you dead yet?”
Vevera laughed, accepting a glass of scotch from Quinnivan. “Catch up, XO. Stem cell therapy. Duke University Cancer Center. I’m in remission. Fuck, XO, I’m healed. I’ll be back aboard as soon as you sissies get back from your little stand-down vacation.”
Captain Seagraves joined the crowd around Vevera. “XO,” Seagraves said. “Do we have a job for Mr. Vevera?”
Quinnivan smirked. “I’m sure we’ll find something for him to do, sir.”
“Welcome back, Duke,” Seagraves said to Vevera, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Do I get to take a punch at the former non-qual?” Vevera asked.
“Just take it easy on him, Squirt Gun,” Romanov said, smiling. “He has delicate feelings.”
Man Mountain Vevera’s punch was even lighter than Romanov’s. “Welcome to the major league, Patch.”
Rachel Romanov came over and took Pacino’s hand, leading him upstairs, where she asked Shawna Quinnivan for a spare shirt and a first aid kit. She sat Pacino down on the master bathroom’s toilet lid and peeled off his bloody shirt and tenderly cleaned his wounds from the pins of the dolphins and bandaged him up, then helped him into the XO’s shirt. She pulled the bloody dolphins off his shirt, washed them in the sink, reunited them with the backing pins and handed the emblem to Pacino. She sat opposite him on the lip of the tub and looked up at him. He noticed her eyes seemed puffy and red. “Thanks,” he said. “You okay, Nav?”
She blinked as if trying to hold back tears. “Bruno and I broke up,” she said, sighing. “It was a long time coming.”