“You’ll be fine,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Brody said. “I know. I should tie to the pier in about an hour.”
“How long are you going to be here?”
“The dry docks are full up in New London, so I’m going to get all my preventative maintenance done while I’m here. Several weeks at least.”
“Carole’s not going to like that,” Jake said.
Brody’s voice became a baritone whisper.
“I wanted to tell you over a beer,” Brody said. “Carole is leaving me. No one else knows yet.”
Jake remembered the last Christmas he had spent with the Brodys. He flipped his wallet open to a picture of John and Carole Brody wearing the matching sweaters he had given them. Nothing seemed to be going right.
“Let’s hang out tonight,” Brody said. “I need to drown my sorrows.”
“Sure. You want to go out in St. Marys or head down to Jacksonville?”
“Local,” Brody said. “Let’s keep it simple.”
Jake and Brody passed through the dining room and onto the hardwood floor where patrons could order pitchers of beer and eat casual food in Seagle’s Waterfront Café, a pub outside the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. It was a weekday and the clientele was sparse.
Brody kicked back his second draft beer while Jake was still sipping first.
“Come on,” Brody said. “You’ve got to keep up with me.”
“I have no problem with pickling myself if that’s what you want to do,” Jake said. “If anyone’s got a right to drink, it’s you.”
“I didn’t know who else to talk to,” Brody said.
“So what set Carole off?” Jake asked.
“She says I’m a failure and that I drink too much.”
“What made her say that?”
“I keep a bottle of whiskey in my stateroom, and the crew knows about it. So does my commodore.”
“That’s serious, but isn’t it an unwritten law that commanding officers are allowed to indulge now and then?”
“Maybe in the old days. Not anymore.”
“What’s this failure crap about?” Jake asked.
“The selection board convened. I didn’t make captain. I only have one shot left, and it’s a long shot.”
“The selection board is a bunch of morons.”
“Let’s drop it. Tell me what’s up with you.”
Jake tipped back his beer.
“You probably read an accident report about a hydraulic plant rupture,” he said.
“That wasn’t you, was it?”
Jake stood, lifted his shirt, and exposed a series of scars on his back.
“Damn!” Brody said. “How are you?”
“Life’s good, despite my little injury,” Jake said. “Full recovery. I’m running and lifting again and even riding the dirt bike. I have one more patrol before rotating to admiral’s aide duty for SUBLANT.”
“You’re going to be the aide for the commander of the Atlantic Submarine Fleet? That’s a great career move.”
Would have been, Jake thought. Won’t happen now.
“I talked to your executive officer a few months ago,” Brody said. “He said you’re the best tactician he’s seen.”
“You called my executive officer?”
“We did a midshipmen cruise on the same rust bucket before my senior year at Notre Dame and before his sophomore year at the Academy. I was just checking up on him. I thought I’d check on you while I had the chance.”
A waitress came by, and Jake ordered another pitcher and two shots of tequila. Jake’s mind wandered through a haze of inebriation. He studied the lounge and fixed his gaze on an attractive redhead in her mid-thirties clad in a tight sweater and jeans. He stared until her pale blue eyes caught his.
Ashamed, he turned away, although he saw her smile and flip her hair over her shoulder.
Three men dressed in Dockers and sweaters approached. Each greeted Brody as ‘Captain’, the traditional term for a commanding officer, and a crowd formed around the table.
“Hey guys,” Brody said. “What are you doing here?”
“Just a bunch of sailors in port prowling around town, Captain. There aren’t a whole lot of places to drink around here, so we figured we’d find you,” a tall lieutenant named Brian Keller said.
“You mind if we throw some down with you, sir?” asked Lieutenant Carlos Fernandez.
Brody made introductions and Lieutenant Keller’s eyes got big.
“You’re the one who saved the skipper?” he asked.
“Well, I helped,” Jake said.
“Bullshit,” Brody said.
The swearing told Jake that Brody was drunk.
“You saved my ass and don’t be shy about taking credit.”
The group huddled to listen.
“What is it now?” Brody asked. “Almost four years ago?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Almost.”
“I had just finished my executive officer tour on the Florida and took over as a battalion officer at the Naval Academy,” Brody said. “Having earned my commission at a superior academic institution—”
“Notre Dame? That’s hilarious, Captain,” Fernandez said.
“Pipe down, ‘Purdue’,” Brody said. “Anyway, I didn’t know the culture at the academy, so I just enforced the policies the commandant told me to enforce. Apparently, I built up the reputation as a hard-ass.”
“That’s an understatement,” Jake said.
“Anyway, no one can argue that I did the right thing by having a midshipman expelled for slapping a black plebe. Since I was the ranking black man on staff, word about the incident got to me first, and I took care of it.”
“A lot of people respected how you dealt with that,” Jake said. “They started opening up to you, and I think that’s when you stopped being a hard ass.”
“Yeah, well, Midshipman Livingston didn’t like it. He was waiting for me with a baseball bat. Can you believe that ass actually stalked me long enough to figure out my jogging patterns? Lucky for me, Jake passed me and ran across Livingston first.”
“Passing you was easy,” Jake said. “A turtle could have done it.”
Chuckles filled the air.
“He had the bat hidden behind some vans and said he was walking off a cramp,” Jake said. “Lucky I recognized him in time to turn around. Luckier still that I came back for you.”
Inquisitive eyes turned to Brody. He looked at his beer and smiled.
“As Midshipman Slate was passing me, I stopped him and fried him for jogging after Taps. I was going to have him restricted to the academy for weeks. Later, when that ass jumped out from behind the van and whacked my shins, my first thought was that God was punishing me for punishing Jake.”
“By the time I got there,” Jake said, “he was huddled on the parking lot and that redneck wasn’t stopping with the bat except to catch his breath.”
“Not until you showed up. One second I’m getting beat, the next, Jake’s throwing rocks at the guy, pissing him off, and luring him toward a van. Before you know it, Jake’s on top of the van, and the stupid shit tries to follow him up with the bat. Jake swoops down and has the guy’s arms behind his back in a — what is it?”
“Double arm bar,” Jake said. “I wrestled in high school. Hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“You also didn’t mention that you were still thinking about becoming a Navy SEAL at that point.”
“I was crazy back then,” Jake said.
“And we decided the next morning that you would be much happier as a submarine officer,” Brody said. “I consider my sage and unbiased career advice a token of my gratitude.”
“Smartest move I made,” Jake said.