Spring Green Ch. 01

Graduation rolled around that May and I was slated to head off to Virginia a few days later; Uncle was in a little bit of a funk. Hell, I was too. An important chapter in our lives was drawing to a close and we knew it; things would be Different. Our lives were going to Change, again. What was interesting about that time, as I look back on things from thirty years on, was how much I changed in those years. The impulsiveness my father had posited in me had slowly, inexorably given way to more a more immediate gravity; I had become a little less spontaneous, a little more cool and reserved, definitely better suited to the life Chuck had made of his world.

I was driving down 95 through New Jersey on that first trip south when I pulled off the road to grab some coffee. I looked down and noticed my old boat shoes were double-knotted.

+++++

I didn't see Ruth and Chuck for a few years. I spent a solid two years trapped in D.C. behind a desk, always preparing for another exam, before I had two consecutive days off. I did have three-day weekends all the time so made it up to Boston for Chucks birthday that first year, but that was also the first year I'd ever spent without seeing the ocean, let alone sailing on it. Mom got sick about that time and I landed a temporary posting to the Embassy in London; Chuck and Ruth came over more than once to lend a hand and I kept them posted as best I could on changes in my life -- but you could say those were brief conversations that had plenty of time to spare for rambling discussions of the weather.

The temporary posting turned into a semi-permanent position and I took a flat near Paddington Station, an area teeming with Indian restaurants; I proceeded to eat curry three times a day and soon developed all sorts of interesting gastrointestinal disorders. 'The shape of things to come?' I wondered.

A year later I had a three week stretch of vacation lined-up for the coming summer and called Chuck; he had decided to do the Bermuda Race and wanted to invite me along but didn't want to intrude "In case you have other plans." Right. Other plans? "Well, you never know!" I can still hear his voice. He was happy with the new boat and Ruth was as ever the light of his life. He reminded me of Dad when I heard the same deeply resonant, discontented happiness in his voice. Doing an ocean race like this was a big deal, he went on. "Grand memories are made on trips like this, William," he said. How true, how true. How very much like my father he sounded in those flooding tides.

I started relearning how to shoot noon-sights with a sextant and use sight reduction tables to sort out the math for Altair; I started exercising and going to a Japanese place near the Embassy to clean out all the curry, and I even managed to find a couple of Brits with Admiral's Cup boats who wanted a semi-seasoned navigator. I was in training! I started to run again, lift weights. Change was in the air!

About that time I had a semi-serious affair with a girl I'd met while out jogging one day. Sweet kid, really lovely: when I looked at Angela I got week in the knees. Her clock was ticking, however, and I seem to remember all she had on her mind was making babies. And taking me out to the family farm for a look-see. She didn't want me to go off sailing; no, she wanted to go off on holiday and stay with her family in Devonshire. Let's see... three weeks of up-tight cream teas or a mad ocean race with Uncle Chuck and three of his best, most disreputable friends.

Still, breaking up with that girl really seemed to hit me hard. I can still see her face. She simply couldn't believe anyone would walk away from the wonders of Devonshire.

+++++

I flew into Logan in late May, helped get the boat ready to race; Chuck took time to acquaint me with her updated electrical systems and the minor idiosyncrasies in the updated Nav setup. All this while we provisioned and got ready for the start off Newport. The Race Committee came by to inspect all the boats and their systems and especially the safety gear. Seminars were held on the hydrodynamics of the Gulf Stream and its interactions with the atmosphere; radio procedures for emergencies were detailed and our responsibilities thereto spelled-out. The whole affair was all very well organized and the entire process seemed to enliven the physicians he'd invited to come along as crew. We were getting stoked; Chuck was flat-out beside himself with excitement. He'd never raced his own boat to Bermuda and he was all raging testosterone, almost like a predator sprinting in for the kill.

And really, the point I'm trying to make is this. The race was a big event, certainly, but wasn't it all about having fun. That "fun" seemed to have gotten lost in all the testosterone; as I looked around at the men in these pre-race seminars I saw more than a few hyper-competitive risk-takers among the people gathered. Probably bankers and stockbrokers and lawyers, all well-heeled and prosperous I'm sure, movers and shakers each and every one of them. But were they having any fun? Or were they just exporting their fierce competitiveness from the boardroom to the sea. Looking at Chuck was all I needed to see the answer.

I would say happy, yes; maybe even having fun -- of a sort. Maybe in the same way engineering the hostile takeover of a rival business can be fun. "Oh yes, George, sorry to have snuffed out your life's work and put you on the street, but hey, business is war. I'm sure you understand..." Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but while I watched these men strutting about like peacocks in their plaid trousers and Polo shirts I began to feel a little uneasy. Maybe just a little out of my element. I think my father had been uneasy with these sorts, as well. Maybe he'd just taken to fighting their war where he could, fought the battles he thought he might win. I think I began to look at Chuck a little differently after that. If this was his idea of fun then we'd soon part company.

I was, after all, my father's son.

+++++

I don't want to dwell on the race; it isn't important. We knifed through the Gulf Stream with ease and negotiated the reefs around the north side of Bermuda with no problem. We finished fourth in our class, a respectable showing for a cruising boat, and Uncle was pleased as punch. I flew back to London, Chuck and his doctor-buddies sailed on to Nova Scotia and worked their way back down the coast back to Boston; I heard later they ate a bunch of lobster and had a grand time. End of story.

Mom was better by then and good thing, too. Soon after my return the head of section called me to his office and told me to get my things in order and be prepared for a hot climate. He detailed my new posting and I groaned. I bitched. I hesitated -- right there in his office. Thoughts of quitting and returning to Boston danced in my mind, of maybe moving up to the 48th floor and putting my recent experience to use in more profitable undertakings; all sorts of crap flashed through my head -- and then I remembered those strutting peacocks in their plaid trousers.

"Out of my element," I said softly as memory washed away anger, revealing cold stone.

"What's that, Bill?"

I shook myself physically away from thoughts of Boston, returned to my flat and packed my things. A few days later I was on my way to Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. The assignment of my dreams.

Yes. My thoughts exactly. I spent the next twelve years of my life there, and saw Uncle Chuck and Aunt Ruth only rarely. Sailing was soon little more than a fond if distant memory, and I seem to recall that my shoelaces came undone from time to time.

+++++

He called the day after she passed away, the day after his 67th birthday. I hadn't talked to him in a long time, a couple of years at least by that point in our lives.

He cried while he told me he'd managed to finally get her down to the boat, that they'd actually talked about doing a couple of weeks together in Maine on the boat next summer, and how he'd all of a sudden come to look upon the years ahead as a new and vital part of their time together. So the thing about it I want to bring up is that he seemed to me to love her just as much those last days as he ever had. That had not, apparently, ever Changed; she was the bedrock under all his life, the mathematical constant that governed his motion through the stars. Death did little more than Change the circumstances of his love. But he could no longer tell her how much he loved her, how much he needed her, and soon realized he would have to grow content with memories of her if he was to survive. And the trouble is I knew he was not the type of man to be so easily contented. Memories can only take his sort just so far.

I took emergency leave and flew back for the funeral. Those were the toughest few days of my life because I knew there wasn't a damn thing in the world I could do to help him. I wonder if I failed him, even now.

+++++

A few more years passed with little said between us; I really didn't know what was going on with him during that period. He had tried to forget about Ruth, he wrote once, by sailing up and down the east coast, but that had been a bust. Then one day another letter came. He had taken-up riding, was cruising all over the country on a Harley. I sat up when I read that letter twice.

Chuck -- Uncle Chuck -- Mr Staid Plaid Pants Chuck? The Old Man in the Mountain whose glacial expression changed as frequently as those on Mount Rushmore -- that same Chuck? The guy who thought change was a four-letter word not fit for polite company, not even in the country club locker room? Let's see here: Uncle Chuck has gone and bought a hawg and is doing cross-country road trips? Hell, at this rate he'd join a commune and start dropping acid before he hit seventy. I asked the ambassador for vacation and got a month, then called Chuck and told him I was on my way.

"Good," I heard him say through the scratchy connection, "we've got some unfinished business to get out of the way."

+++++

He met me at the airport in the same old slate blue Land Rover and we drove over to his slate blue-hulled boat. He had her completely provisioned and cleaned-up, by the way; she shone like a diamond -- her teak and chrome was all glittering-faceted brilliance under the sharp April sun -- as we jumped on board stood-to to cast off our lines like I had done so many times before -- with him. Chuck brought her into the wind while I raised the main and unfurled first the Yankee, then the staysail. We reached out the inner channel under the final approach to Logan, jets screamed by just overhead as he pointed up a bit into the wind and the little cutter bit into the breeze. We quickly made our way out of the inner harbor and beyond, onto waters so familiar they seemed like home.

We'd hardly said a word to one another through all this and I wondered why that felt so natural. Had we really so little to say to one another? Or did we have so little need for words? I watched him as he sat behind the wheel, his grey eyes focused on the pulling sails, his ruddy cheek turned a little into the wind to feel each molecule hitting his skin. He made course corrections with each little Change in the wind so gently, so intuitively, that I wondered why other Change had been so difficult for him. Was it that he didn't know how to react to things he didn't feel on his skin? Surely not.

Then I thought about Ham, his boy, his son, and all the Change that had rained down on Chuck in the years after his son's death. Had he handled that grief so badly? What would I have done that he hadn't, I wondered: follow in my father's footsteps and paint whores in Paris? Or... had all that steely resolve been an act? Had Chuck pushed Change aside to better provide stability and comfort for the woman he loved? Hell, hadn't he done that for my benefit too? Had Chuck been trying to provide stability for his kid brother and in the end resented my father because within their peculiar gravity Dad always seemed so exuberantly, maliciously unappreciative? There had never been any doubt about Ruth's love, had there? But what of my love for the old guy?

What did it say about me that I had to ask that of myself? Hadn't I been just as relentlessly unappreciative as my father? Did I love the old fart, or was love beyond my understanding too? Why hadn't I fallen in love? Where had this wall I felt enclosing me come from? Would it take the raging winds of a storm to push me to the edge of understanding?

Just what would it take?

+++++

"I don't want to dwell on the reasons," he said, "but there are a few things I need to go over, that you need to know." He seemed unnaturally calm as he sat there in the boat, calm even for him. We'd just dropped the hook in the bay beside the Kennedy Library; he had of course already loaded sandwiches and soda before I arrived, probably enough to feed an army for three weeks. Surprise, my what a surprise! After eating in silence, the sun on our necks and a fresh breeze rippling through the remnants of our hair, this odd turn of chilling calm felt more than a little ominous. I noticed his shoelaces then -- single knotted and one was coming undone.

"Is everything alright, Chuck?"

"Probably not." He looked lost. "Maybe. Who knows?" He proceeded to tell me that over the past year he'd been treated for a mass behind his right knee.

"A mass?" I said -- but I felt like the world had just dropped out from under me. "What is it?"

"It's malignant, Bill! What difference does it make what the goddamn thing is."

"Is or was? You said it is malignant?"

"Yeah, it is, and not responding to radiation. Remission's always a possibility, though. But look, that's not what I want to talk about," he turned away, turned to face the sea.

"Okay Chuck, let's have it." Why did it suddenly feel like I was the father, and he the son? What did he feel? Did he feel like he was talking to his son? Or to his brother? What about me? Did he feel like he was talking to a nephew or was I suddenly his uncle?

"We've got some papers to go over. Family stuff. While you're here." Now he was speaking in staccato bursts, like he had Change in his sights just before the helicopter he piloted spun out of control and fell towards the Mekong. "I've got a Will ready. Family I'll need you to look after, William. Here, in Boston."

That was news to me. I struggled with the math: let's see, there was Ruth -- but I doubted she'd figure prominently in his will at this point. He had me, my mother. There was some distant family in France that I'd heard mention of once or twice in passing. But no one else. Oh! That I was aware of. I felt. Confused. A little. Upset. By the direction. This conversation. Was taking.

Something was. Changing. Something big. Unexpected. Out of. Character.

He was watching me, gauging my response. I remember my left eyelid twitching, my mouth growing dry.

"My secretary," he said so softly. "Masterson. Judy. Masterson. You remember. Her?"

I did.

Maybe I nodded my remembrance, maybe I didn't. I was shaking inside. Earthquakes tore at the foundations of my understanding.

"I have a daughter, William."

"Indeed? Bravo!"

"You know, Bill, you sound a little like I imagine I used to sound. Disapproving. Pompous."

"You left out incredulous. Did Ruth know?"

He shook his head, looked away. "No," he whispered.

"You have a daughter, you've provided for her for, what? For how long, Chuck?"

"She's twenty, will be anyway, this summer."

"Twenty? Twenty years? This has been going on for twenty years?" I was blown away and am certain I was beginning to sound a little hysterical.

He nodded his suddenly leonine head. He looked tired. The lonely and tired of an old lion. The head of his pride and no longer as quick as he used to be. "Her name is Madison."

"Madison Masterson?" I chuckled. "Isn't that a little over the top?"

He shook his head again. "Madison Addington. I adopted her some time ago. I call her Maddie."

"That was thoughtful. Have you married, what's her name? Judy?"

I think he was crying now but I don't remember. "She passed away, oh, a few years before Ruth."

"I see. Who raised her, Chuck? Did you hire someone, uh, to take care of that, too?"

"Bill?"

"Yes, Chuck?"

"Fuck you, Bill."

I looked away. I'd never heard him so much as whisper anything remotely resembling that word in all my life, and anyway, having been locked away within the inner sanctums of the diplomatic world for a dozen years his was an unforgivable breech of etiquette. My feathers were ruffled.

But maybe I deserved it. Every bit of it. I was cornering the market on assholes that afternoon, that's for sure.

"Alright, Chuck," I said as I watched him, "what do you want me to do?"

He turned, looked at me with all the intensity an old lion can muster: "Cross the Atlantic. The three of us. I want the three of us to cross together."

The world grew fuzzy and dim and I wondered why, then I heard myself laughing... laughing so hard I almost fell overboard. But maybe I was crying a little, too. Hard to tell.

Things got a little quiet after that. We had trouble pulling the anchor up from the deep muddy bottom and even the jets roaring in as we motored past the airport seemed unnaturally quiet. I found myself holding my breath from time to time, and I think I even wondered why.

End part I