An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

"I did my undergrad there, then went into the Navy..."

"Oh? I don't remember you mentioning that...?"

"Yup. Aviation, went into an anti-submarine squadron, flew for a few years -- hated it, though. Carrier landings at night...really disliked that, can hardly get in an airplane anymore. So, thought I'd go back to school, thought I wanted to teach. Well, I met Sandy and we moved here. I was going to finish my PhD at UCLA, but by then I'd lost the spark. I think, really, a career in academia struck me as a waste of time. At the university level, it's not always about teaching, so for me it was a 'why bother' thing. A friend from the Navy was with the department, he flies helicopters by the way, and he took me up, then got me out on some ride-alongs in squad cars. That was it for me. I loved it then, and I still do. The work, I mean. Every day is unique, no two are ever alike."

"Lots of excitement, too?"

"The old saying is 99 percent boredom, and one percent terror. That's about right, I'd say."

"You've been shot? Once?"

"Twice."

"Ever shot anyone?"

"Yup."

"Killed?"

"As the proverbial door nail. I've also killed a Pit Bull. I felt bad about that one, though."

"How many of your friends on the force have been killed?"

He looked away. "I stopped counting a long time ago."

"Did that part of it get to Sandy?"

"Every part of it got to her. It gets to most wives...like I said, very few marriages survive more than a few years, and with female cops married to non-cops, it's an almost hundred percent divorce rate -- all across the country."

"I know."

"So, you sure you want to take up with someone like me?"

"I'm one hundred percent sure, Ted. I know the score."

"Let me set you straight, then. You may think you do, but you won't until you've lived with me a while. It'll take almost as much out of your life as it's taken from mine."

"So, why keep doing it? You love it that much?"

"Like I said...it's who I am now. But..."

Three platters came and he looked them over. "Geesh...hundreds of fish gave their lives for this feast..."

"Gad...I had no idea I ordered so much..."

"That's the deal with this stuff," he said as he piled a few pieces on his plate. "I can never get enough."

"Well, let's get to it."

He mixed his wasabi with soy, then picked up a thin slice of ginger in his chopsticks and dipped it into the soy. He painted the mix onto a piece of salmon and picked it up, then noticed Carol looking at him.

"I've never seen anyone do it that way," she said.

"Oh, this Japanese family I know. They taught me, told me it's almost heretical to dip your piece directly into the soy."

"Really?"

"Yup. Too much soy hides the flavor of the fish, something like that."

She bunched her lips and shrugged. "Learn something new everyday I guess, but I really like the way the soy and wasabi tastes." She tried it his way, then made a face. "Nope. Too much fish that way."

He laughed a little, then dipped along with her.

"You're doing that...why?" she asked.

"I like it too, but don't like offending the sushi-chefs. Most of them cringe when they see us gaijin dipping away like this."

She looked around, noticed the Japanese patrons were painting, not dipping, and she shook her head again. "Nope. I'm a Boston Jew, not a geisha. I can only bend so far."

"Attagirl."

She gasped, then her head canted to one side. "My dad used to say that to me, all the time, too. Weird flashback thing going on there, for a moment anyway."

"Oh?"

"Yeah...like I was somewhere else...on our boat, maybe..." She shook her head. "Weird."

"Flashbacks are like that. Sort of a déjà vu thing. Something activates that circuit and it's like we're back in that moment."

"Yes, exactly. Did you take many life sciences classes?"

"A bunch, yeah. I thought about med school for a while, but couldn't see myself doing the work. I always wanted to be outdoors, not in an office."

"Well, I'd say you found your place in life."

"I'd say that life found me. I just happened to be ready for it when it came along."

"I can't believe we ate all that fish," she said a while later.

"No dessert for me, kiddo."

She laughed. "Do you have tea at home?"

"Sure. Wanna wait, have some there?"

"It's early. Why not?"

It seemed like a moment later he was in the kitchen, and he found the brewer and put on green tea while she went to the living room.

"Is this her? Sidney, your mother-in-law?"

He walked in, looked at the picture. "Yup, she was about my age then."

"She seems familiar to me. Was she ever in the movies?"

"Two, I think. One with Gregory Peck, the jilted wife of a friend. Here's the studio publicity still," he said, opening up a photo album.

"Damn...she was gorgeous."

"Too many demons, I guess. She might have made the big time, but back in those days she was drunk by noon."

She shook her head. "You think she can't recognize you now?"

"Last time Sandy and I went out there...well, it was a bad scene. Sandy cried all the way home."

"Do you miss her?"

"Sandy? I don't know how to answer that one, Carol. If there wasn't that wall of betrayal, sure. But she gave up on us, she left for parts unknown, and I had to climb through that rubble before I could get back to the good stuff. I miss the memories, though."

"You miss memories? How so?"

"Well, it's that rubble, I guess."

"Are you still mad at her about it?"

"More sad, I think. Sad that she gave up on us. Well, tea's ready." He poured two and they sat in the kitchen, contemplating the amber glow in their cups.

"Where are these from?"

"Hmm, what? The cups?" He watched her nod at him, then scrunched his face a little, trying to recall that day. "They came from a little Shinto shrine we found in the mountains outside Sapporo. The monks there operated a kiln, have for centuries, I think, making the same shape and pattern. We purchased several."

"So...every picture tells a story?"

He nodded his head. "Maybe so. When you can find the right picture, I guess."

"What's that mean?"

"Hmm? Oh, I guess sometimes things are never what they seem, even in a photograph."

"Okay. Tell me about the one thing you'd like to do before you die."

"I wish I could, Carol, but I don't know what that'd be. Everything I've ever wanted to do, well, maybe I didn't set my sights high enough, but I feel like I've done most everything I ever really wanted to do."

"Nothing?"

"Well, one night maybe ten years ago Hopie and I..."

"Hopie?"

"My sister, Hope. She's the one in the..."

"Hospital?"

"Yup. She talked about sailing. Sandy and I listened to her, to the way she talked about that, then a few years later she bought that boat of hers...and I always wondered what that would be like."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I don't know. This guy I used to fly with...he helped her pick out the boat. Last time we talked he and his wife were planning to take off -- sail away and see the world. Haven't talked to him in years, I don't know if they ever got around to it, but we all talked one night about that kind of thing. Made an impression on me, I'd say that much."

"It's what I want to do. Have since I was a kid."

"What? Sail away?"

"Uh-huh," she sighed.

"That's interesting. I remember you mentioning that..."

"Yes, it is. It's beginning to feel like..."

"Something's bringing us together, maybe?"

"When you said 'attagirl'?" She paused, sighed. "Yes, that's what hit me." She was lost for a moment, drifting...

"What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" she said, startled.

"It's like you were lost for a moment, looking right through me."

"I think maybe I was -- I'm trying to understand something. You know, that first night in class I was drawn to you. Physically, I mean. I felt like I wanted to be near you, physically, so when we were at the pool, even in the pool, I tried to get as close to you as I could. Then the other night on the boat. Same thing. I put it off to you're being the sexiest man alive..."

He turned red. "Don't say things like that..."

"Oh really? You don't get it, do you? There were four women in our class, and after that first classroom session we went out together and that's all they wanted to talk about..."

"What? Me..."

"About how much they wanted to fuck you, Ted. Is that plain enough for you?"

He looked down, shook his head. "Bullshit..."

"No, not really. But when we got off the boat yesterday it was all I could do not to tear you apart right there in the parking lot. I've never wanted anyone so much in my life."

"Look, this is making me a little, I don't know, uncomfortable. That's just not how I see myself...I never have."

"Yeah, I know, Mr Modest. But I didn't want you not understanding where I'm coming from."

"Physically attracted, you mean?"

"Yes, but I think I'd also like you to appreciate how totally uncharacteristic of me this feeling is. Until I saw you, that first night in class, and it hit me out of the blue. I've actually been a little concerned about the reaction."

"Concerned?" His phone rang and he looked at the CallerID display. "Sorry, I should take this."

"Sure..."

"Hello...Mindy? What's up? Yeah? What'd the docs say? Anything they want me to do? They do, huh. When? All of us, Tuesday morning? Okay, I'll call in, see if I can get the time. Yeah. I'll call you as soon as I know. Yeah. See you then."

He rang off, put the phone away and then looked down -- at his hands. "Well, shit," he whispered. 'So, we're really going to do this...?' he said to himself as he looked around the house.

"What is it?"

"Hopie. She stopped eating last week, started fading after three days so my sister got a court order, starting a feeding tube. Family conference called for Tuesday, up in Seattle. So that'll mean Mindy and me, duking it out with the shrinks up there."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

He looked at her, then down at his hands again before he shrugged, shaking his head slowly. "That'd be a helluva thing to ask of you, this early in the game."

"And you really don't know the rules of this game, do you?"

"Not really."

"Well, I may be able to help with this better than most, you know?"

"Yeah, like you said. Things are kind of coming together in an odd way. Let me call in on this." He picked up the phone and speed dialed the division office, and the sergeant on duty picked up.

"Jim? Ted. Uh, my sister has taken a turn and the docs want me up there Tuesday for a conference. Yeah, it's finished, on the server. Okay, appreciate it. Yeah. You too."

"And?"

"Taking the week off."

"I just made reservations on Alaska tomorrow afternoon, return Friday evening. Shall I confirm?"

"Yup. Here's my credit card..."

"I've got it."

He started to protest but she held up her hand. "I have eight weeks of vacation accrued, and they've been begging me to take it. Guess that settles that."

"You know what? Life can turn on a dime, in the blink of an eye. I get the feeling our lives just changed a hundred and eighty degrees."

"I hope you don't think I pushing in someplace where I don't belong."

"You know, I don't. I really don't. I feel like we're on some kind of weird-ass magic carpet ride, and we're together now. And that's the way it's going to be from now on, too."

"About five minutes ago I looked at you and all of a sudden it felt like we'd been together forever. I know that sounds off the wall..."

He nodded his head. "This morning, when I got in and saw you there in bed, still asleep? Same feeling. Like your being there was the most natural thing in the world, like you'd been there forever."

"Ted. Don't take this wrong, but I know I love you. Whatever that word means, when I look at you right now that's how I feel."

He took her hand again, only this time he looked at it...the skin, the structure of it, even the fingernails he looked at seemed at once foreign -- and familiar.

"Mon amour..."

"Il se sent si bon d'être à nouveau ensemble..."

"What?" he said. "Did you say something?"

"No...I don't think so...? But...?"

He shook his head, saw they were back in the restaurant, not in the kitchen drinking tea, then he looked across at her. She looked confused, out of place, looking around the restaurant, unsure of herself.

"We were in the kitchen, weren't we?" she said. "But I heard...music?"

"I thought so too...but...then I heard...French. Someone speaking French."

They sat staring at one another for a moment, unsure of the world, and their place in it...

"Well yeah, okay. We'd better get home. I'm sure you have a few things you need to do at your place."

"I can do them in the morning. You want me to drive again?" Words were echoes now, unsettling echoes...

"Uh, ya know...yes, if you don't mind..."

"That just blows me away..."

"What?"

"In my experience, I've never known one guy who'd even consider letting me drive his car..."

"What? Why not...?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's a trust thing, or maybe everyone I've ever dated had mondo-macho-control freak issues..."

"Is that, like, one of your technical psychiatric terms?"

She laughed. "I can't believe I just said that..."

"Why? Hell, I could understand that one...but some of those other fifteen syllable words you were tossing around had me scratching my head."

"Geesh, I hate jargon...I'm so sorry..." She looked around again, feeling like she was in a race, falling behind and trying to catch up...

He grinned. "Don't be. It'll take me a while, but I'll catch up." He stood and pulled out her chair, the feeling of déjà vu now overwhelming.

"A week ago I'd have chewed your head off for doing this..."

"What?" he said, looking around uncertainly at the room again.

"The chair thing. Now I want you to do it. In fact, I think I'd hate it if you didn't?"

He helped her stand and they walked out to the parking lot, and he opened her door, helped her up then handed the keys to her -- and again she smiled -- but he felt like the tumblers to the universe had slipped, that something very wrong had just happened. Like an old vinyl record skipping over a bad scratch, they skipped sideways through time for a moment...

Traffic was heavy and she drove slowly, yet by the time she pulled into his drive he was snoring, his head leaning against the glass. She saw a button on the overhead and guessed, hit '1' -- and the garage door opened. After she pulled inside she turned off the motor and looked at him, really studied his features, and inside that moment the feeling of familiarity became almost overwhelming -- like she had known him before, somewhere...sometime.

She got out and went around to his door and opened it slowly, and when the running boards moved into place she stepped up and kissed him gently on the lips.

His eyes opened, slowly, then he looked around, saw they were in the garage and sat up, startled. "Gah...what happened?"

"You need some sleep, kiddo."

"Damn. Another first." He undid his seatbelt and turned to face her. "Nice kiss, by the way. I liked that." She stepped down and he slid into her arms. "Damn nice," he said, taking her into a deep embrace.

"God, you feel so good..."

"Yeah? Well, give me few minutes, and I'll make you feel a whole lot gooder..." He grinned and took her hand, led her to the bedroom, looking around as he walked, wondering if he was still asleep, and had this whole day simply been just a dream within a dream.

+++++

He remembered the approach to SeaTac, remembered the stormy nights landing at Whidbey Island in his S-3, his first night traps on the carrier off Astoria. The Alaskan MD80 was on an extended downwind now, and he could see the naval air station down there through the clouds, and those memories came back to him in a rush. Unwelcome memories, he thought, and he looked out over the wing wishing aircraft had never been invented. He hated them now, hated everything about the Navy, and their aircraft, and above everything else, he hated the goddamned Soviet Union.

"What is it?" he heard Carol ask -- so he turned and looked at her.

"Lot of memories down there."

"A few good ones, I hope."

He smiled, saw an image of Sumner Collins floating in his life raft while he struggled to get back into his own raft, the shark's gnashing teeth just inches from his face. He shook his head, oblivious to his own gnashing teeth -- and Carol's questioning glances -- as the MD80 began a steep right turn onto base. He looked off into the twilight, could just make out Vancouver far away in the gloom...and the shape of Hopie's plan hit him again. Then the flaps whirred and the leading edge flared, the aircraft slowing quickly now. Another sharp right onto final, and he looked down on Anacortes as it slid by under broken clouds -- the other vital link in their chain, he thought. They passed over the big Boeing facility where his father used to work, and then their old house was down there in the trees -- and he turned away quickly from those memories. Away from memories that never left, all born in that one goddamn house.

More flaps, then the gears came down, the MD80s nose dropping off sharply, then power coming up -- and he could tell the FO up front was a rookie by the way the engines spooled up and chopped off. The nose went up, then down, too much rudder, slipping too far into a crab as a crosswind bit into the wings. Downtown looked busier than ever, more traffic on the 5 than he remembered, then sharp, rapid corrections as the rookie tried to calm down over the threshold. Hard landing, down real hard on the left main, a sharp bounce to the right, then the reversers cut in and the nose went down too hard as well -- and he shook his head in disgust.

"Fuckin' rookie," he grumbled.

"What?" Carol asked.

"Goddamn terrible landing."

"Seemed a little rough to me too."

"Inexcusable."

She put her hand on his arm. "Maybe they're hiring," she chided. "Want me to check?"

"Just get me off this goddamn thing. Never again, please? Maybe there's a train...?"

"We'll miss the class at PV if we walk back."

"Fuck, goddamn shitty motherfuckin' greenhorn pilots..." He growled as the pilot braked too hard at an intersection, the crossed his arms and looked up at the Seat Belts ON light. "Of course," he groaned when it turned out there wasn't an available gate, and the pilot announced they'd have to wait on the ramp for one to open up. Fifty minutes later he growled his way off the aircraft and walked up the Jetway, muttering 'never again' one more time. They walked down to the car rental kiosks by the baggage claim carousels, and they took the shuttle out to the rental lot a minute later.

"I thought you'd appreciate this," Carol said when he saw a silver F150 waiting for them.

"Damn!" he said as he kissed her. "Must mean we're going to build a treehouse or something."

"What? Oh, a tool. Right, I remember now."

He laughed. "Thanks. Well, let's get this road on the show."

She laughed again. "You know where we're going?"

"Unfortunately, yes, I do." He pulled into traffic and made his way to I-5, then turned north into the city. He got off on the north side of downtown and made his way to the Silver Cloud on the south side of Lake Union, and they checked-in and went up to their room. He opened the curtains and looked at the marina across the street.

"It's over there, somewhere," he said.

"What? The boat?"

"Yup."

"Do we need to do anything there tonight?"

He shrugged. "Not if everyone does their job."

"Okay. What about your sister? Need to call her?"

He shook his head. "No."