for me. I just tootle around in a Sunfish nowadays.”
“Oh, that. The war.” Isidore looked at the titles of the books behind the sextant, running from the floor high up above him: The Axis 1945, Iwo Jima, Survival in Auschwitz .
“Would you like the sextant?” Doc asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Take it.”
“No, no. I don’t have anyplace to put it in my bag.”
“I’ll send it to you.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I’ll forget to give it back.”
“I mean take it. To keep,” Doc said, and he drank a bit more bourbon and sang part of an old sea song. “‘From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.…’ I’m drunk.”
At dusk, Doc led Isidore out onto the coarse wet grass. Windows shone yellow up and down the side of the dark house. Someone was playing records and in the window on the third floor there was a slim silhouette with big breasts, which must have been Laura’s. She looked like she was in front of the mirror and doing something to her hair. Isidore scratched his ankle on the thorns of a barberry bush.
Doc held up the sextant to the imperial blue of the evening sky and said with a cigarette clamped in his mouth, “Arcturus.”
He handed Isidore the sextant and Isidore peered through it uselessly. “I can’t see anything.”
“It hasn’t been cleaned since the Battle of Lake Erie.”
“I thought you saw Arcturus,” Isidore said.
“That’s just something I say when I look through a sextant.”
Isidore sat on the end of the picnic table bench, but Doc remained standing, and exhaled a stream of smoke with chin uplifted. Isidore stood again and he almost asked his question but instead he said, “They say the navy is the way to go. You think so?”
Doc looked at him in a calm and gentle way, as though no question could surprise or trouble him. And he hesitated, as if he had mixed feelings about giving a speech, but felt compelled to do it anyway because of the danger posed by Vietnam or because Isidore was nervous and wasn’t saying much or because of the special circumstance of marrying off his daughters before the electric dimness of the Great Lake and the barberry bushes fading into obscurity.
“The navy?” he said. “Well, Izzy—can I call you Izzy? Do you mind? This mess in Vietnam is a whole different war from the one I was in. You should stay out of it. You have a deferment for now, and there’s military money at NIH. Hard to get, but I’ll talk to you more about that, I think you could get it. I’ll help you to get it. Now, World War Two was a different conflict, you see, but you should be glad to be away from any war there ever was and you should steer clear of any war there ever will be, even if it’s against Nazis. The military is like anything else made out of people, which is to say, sometimes very great, and usually very badly fucked up. But it’s different from anything else in that it’s a bunch of fuckups with guns that can blow your head off. I knew a few great military men and not all of them were former civilians, either, some of them were career men who not only cared about their work but thought about it too—you know, men of honor who used all that power they had wisely, prudently, and on behalf of good causes. A navy can move a mountain and come to the rescue. But even in that just war against gangsters and murderers, I spent ninety-eight percent of the time doing complete chickenshit for men with salt in their brainpans and the other two percent I felt like we were running into each other like football players in blindfolds. And that’s before we even got near the enemy.”
Doc waited to see if Isidore would talk. He didn’t.
“The navy is supposed to be safer, I guess, but it didn’t seem safe at the time. You felt the threat of extinction from zeros and submarines all the time, while you played cards, in the john, in your sleep. People say you should live every day as if it’s your last—and maybe that works for people
“Oh, that. The war.” Isidore looked at the titles of the books behind the sextant, running from the floor high up above him: The Axis 1945, Iwo Jima, Survival in Auschwitz .
“Would you like the sextant?” Doc asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Take it.”
“No, no. I don’t have anyplace to put it in my bag.”
“I’ll send it to you.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I’ll forget to give it back.”
“I mean take it. To keep,” Doc said, and he drank a bit more bourbon and sang part of an old sea song. “‘From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.…’ I’m drunk.”
At dusk, Doc led Isidore out onto the coarse wet grass. Windows shone yellow up and down the side of the dark house. Someone was playing records and in the window on the third floor there was a slim silhouette with big breasts, which must have been Laura’s. She looked like she was in front of the mirror and doing something to her hair. Isidore scratched his ankle on the thorns of a barberry bush.
Doc held up the sextant to the imperial blue of the evening sky and said with a cigarette clamped in his mouth, “Arcturus.”
He handed Isidore the sextant and Isidore peered through it uselessly. “I can’t see anything.”
“It hasn’t been cleaned since the Battle of Lake Erie.”
“I thought you saw Arcturus,” Isidore said.
“That’s just something I say when I look through a sextant.”
Isidore sat on the end of the picnic table bench, but Doc remained standing, and exhaled a stream of smoke with chin uplifted. Isidore stood again and he almost asked his question but instead he said, “They say the navy is the way to go. You think so?”
Doc looked at him in a calm and gentle way, as though no question could surprise or trouble him. And he hesitated, as if he had mixed feelings about giving a speech, but felt compelled to do it anyway because of the danger posed by Vietnam or because Isidore was nervous and wasn’t saying much or because of the special circumstance of marrying off his daughters before the electric dimness of the Great Lake and the barberry bushes fading into obscurity.
“The navy?” he said. “Well, Izzy—can I call you Izzy? Do you mind? This mess in Vietnam is a whole different war from the one I was in. You should stay out of it. You have a deferment for now, and there’s military money at NIH. Hard to get, but I’ll talk to you more about that, I think you could get it. I’ll help you to get it. Now, World War Two was a different conflict, you see, but you should be glad to be away from any war there ever was and you should steer clear of any war there ever will be, even if it’s against Nazis. The military is like anything else made out of people, which is to say, sometimes very great, and usually very badly fucked up. But it’s different from anything else in that it’s a bunch of fuckups with guns that can blow your head off. I knew a few great military men and not all of them were former civilians, either, some of them were career men who not only cared about their work but thought about it too—you know, men of honor who used all that power they had wisely, prudently, and on behalf of good causes. A navy can move a mountain and come to the rescue. But even in that just war against gangsters and murderers, I spent ninety-eight percent of the time doing complete chickenshit for men with salt in their brainpans and the other two percent I felt like we were running into each other like football players in blindfolds. And that’s before we even got near the enemy.”
Doc waited to see if Isidore would talk. He didn’t.
“The navy is supposed to be safer, I guess, but it didn’t seem safe at the time. You felt the threat of extinction from zeros and submarines all the time, while you played cards, in the john, in your sleep. People say you should live every day as if it’s your last—and maybe that works for people
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