Towing Jehovah

Neil Weisinger stood atop the plate, teeth chattering as he transferred fresh water from an insulated gallon jug to a cylindrical white Thermos bottle advertising Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “Good afternoon, sir,” said the AB, saluting. “We got a team of licensed welders under the deck right now, cutting the stem loose.”

“You’re a two-time deserter, Weisinger.” Anthony shed his knapsack.

“Not exactly, sir,” said the AB, capping the bottle. A corrugated straw elbowed out of the lid. “I didn’t break out of the brig — Joe Spicer kidnapped me.”

“If somebody’s a deserter,” mumbled Christopher Van Horne, “he should be hauled off…”

Unzipping the knapsack, Anthony removed a liter of burgundy and gestured for the Last Crusade bottle.

“…hauled off and shot.”

Anthony dumped out the water and, in a small-scale recapitulation of the pump-room boys ballasting the Val with blood, filled the bottle to the brim. Kneeling, he placed one glove on the valve, the other on his father’s shoulder. “Hello, Dad,” he whispered.

“Son?” The old man’s eyes flickered open. “That you? You came?”

“It’s me. Hope you’re not in pain.”

“Wish I was.”

“Oh?”

“I knew this guy once, a demac on the Amoco Cadiz, dying of bone cancer. You know what he said? ‘When they give you morphine like there’s no tomorrow, there isn’t.’ ” An oddly seraphic grin spread across Christopher Van Horne’s ashen face. “Tell Tiffany I love her. Got that? Old Froggy loves her.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“You think she’s a bimbo, don’t you?”

“No, no.” Like a firing-squad captain providing his prisoner with a last cigarette, Anthony pushed the corrugated straw between his father’s lips. “Have some wine.”

The old man sipped. “Good stuff.”

“The best.”

“No more beard, huh?”

“No more beard.”

“You didn’t go down with your ship.” His tone was more curious than accusing.

“I’ve found the woman I want to marry. You’d like her.”

“I really stuck it to those squadrons, didn’t I?”

“She’s got Mom’s energy, Susan’s spunk.”

“Smeared ’em all over the sky.”

Anthony withdrew the straw. “Something else you should know. That uncharted island in the Gibraltar Sea — I named it after you. Van Horne Island.”

“Gave every damn Dauntless hell. More wine, okay?”

“Van Horne Island,” said Anthony again, reinserting the straw. “You’ve finally got your own private paradise. Understand?”

“It’s really shitty, dying. There’s nothing good about it. Sure wish Tiff were here.”

Sliding Raphael’s feather from his knapsack, Anthony held it before the old man, its vane quivering in the wind. “Listen, Dad. Do you know what kind of feather this is?”

“It’s a feather.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t give a fuck. Albatross.”

“Angel, Dad.”

“Looks like albatross.”

“An angel hired me. Wings, halo, everything. This cargo I’ve been hauling, it’s not a movie prop, it’s God’s dead body.”

“No, I’m the one with the body, I’m the one, and now it’s all wrecked. You left the bridge. Tiff’s a real knockout, isn’t she? Wonder what she sees in me. Half the time my dick doesn’t even work.”

“I’m going to get the job done. I’m going to haul our Creator to His tomb.”

“You’re not making a whole lot of sense, son. It’s so weird, being crushed like this and not feeling anything. Angel? Creator? What?”

“All the bad things you ever did to me — Thanksgiving, locking up the Constitution — I’m ready to let them go.” Anthony pulled off his gloves, holding his naked hands before his father. “Just tell me you’re proud I drew this mission. Tell me you’re proud, and you know I can finish it, and I should put the spill out of my mind.”

“Constitution?”

As ice formed beneath his fingernails, Anthony slipped his gloves back on. “Look at me. Say, ‘Put the spill out of your mind.’ ”

“What kind of stupid death is this?” Like crude oil seeping from a subterranean reservoir, blood rose to fill the old man’s mouth, mingling with the wine; his words bubbled up through the pool. “Isn’t it enough I shot your tow chains apart? Isn’t that enough?” Tears came, rolling over his naked white cheekbones. “I don’t know what you want, son. Constitution? Angel? Aren’t broken chains enough?” The tears reached his jaw and froze. He shook violently, spasm after spasm of unfelt pain. “Take ’er over, Anthony.” He grabbed the rim of the valve handle and tried to turn it, as if he were living back in 1954, a pumpman again, working the weather deck of the Texaco Star. “Take over the ship.”

The pure hopelessness of the situation, the morbid comedy of it all, brought a sardonic smile to Anthony’s lips, a grin to match his Creator’s. For the first time ever, his father was offering him something that he wouldn’t — couldn’t — take back… only there was one small catch.

“She’s not yours to give,” said Anthony.

“Red sky at night — sailor’s delight.” The old man closed his eyes. “Red sky in the morning — sailors take warning…”

“Tell me Matagorda Bay doesn’t matter anymore. The egrets forgive me. Say it.”

“Mare’s tails and mackerel scales… make tall ships carry low sails… red sky at night… sailor’s delight… delight… delight…”

And then, with a feeling of profound and unutterable dissatisfaction, Anthony watched his father inhale, smile, spit blood, and die.

“May he rest in peace,” said Weisinger.

Feather in hand, Anthony stood up.

“I didn’t know him well,” the AB continued, “but I could tell he was a great man. You should’ve seen him when those planes went after the Val. ‘They’re trying to kill my son!’ he kept screaming.”

“No, he wasn’t a great man.” Anthony slipped Raphael’s feather into the topmost pocket of his parka, enjoying the feel of its gentle heat against his chest. “He was a great sailor, but he wasn’t a great man.”

“The world needs both, I suppose.”

“The world needs both.”

As Oliver Shostak eased himself over the side of the stainless steel rewarming tub and settled into the 110-degree water, he inevitably thought of an earlier avatar of secular enlightenment, Jean-Paul Marat, sitting in his bath day after day, enduring his diseased skin and dreaming the death of aristocracy. Oliver’s shoulder throbbed, his ribs ached, but the sharpest pain was in his soul. Like Marat’s revolution, Oliver’s crusade had come to a wretched and humiliating end. At that moment, he harbored but one major ambition, a wish eclipsing both his desire to stop shivering and his urge to see Cassie, and that ambition was to be dead.

“Your prognosis is excellent,” said Dr. Carminati, crouching beside Oliver. “But stay put, okay? If you move too much, the blood will flow to your extremities, cool off, and lower your temperature, and that could trigger lethal cardiac arrhythmia.”

“Lethal cardiac arrhythmia,” Oliver echoed dully, his teeth chattering like castanets. A most appealing idea.

“Your kilocalorie deficit is probably near a thousand right now, but I predict we’ll normalize your core temperature in under an hour. After that, an Iceland Air-Sea Rescue helicopter will take you to Reykjavik General for observation.”

“Was that really God’s body the Valparaíso was towing?”

“I believe it was.”

“God’s?”

“Yes.”

“It’s hard to accept.”

“Three months ago, the angel Gabriel died in my arms,” said the young physician, starting away. “Since that moment, I’ve been open to all sorts of possibilities.”

Steam rose on every side of the tub, obscuring the hypothermia victims lined up to Oliver’s left and right. So efficient was healthcare delivery aboard the Maracaibo that, once borne to the sick bay, they’d all been treated without delay: shoulders relocated, ribs taped, bones set, burns greased, gashes disinfected, lungs filled with warm, moist air from a heated Dragen tank. No amount of efficiency, however, could revive the faceless body that had passed through on a gurney shortly after their arrival. Oliver knew that he and the dead man had spoken several times in the Midnight Sun Canteen, but he could recall nothing specific from any of their exchanges. To Oliver he was merely another overpaid and anonymous war reenactor, currently engaged in his final performance, playing the corpse of Ensign George Gay.