Darkside (2002), page 2
“Rock and roll,” he said, but she was already gone. He hung up the phone. It was almost amusing, he thought, how pervasively the fleet junior officer culture infected the Brigade, especially the seniors, or firsties. After the naval aviation Tailhook scandals of the early nineties, many junior aviators felt they had been made scapegoats for incidents to which a nonzero number of very senior officers had also been party. Some of these senior officers had been only too willing to offer up an unlimited number of JO careers if that meant they could save theirs from the ensuing feminazi witch-hunts. The JOs had secretly begun calling any officer over the rank of lieutenant “the Dark Side,” with a cultural nod to Darth Vader of the Star Wars films. When this term filtered up to the senior officers, there were immediate and heavy-handed back-channel thunderations, which, of course, only served to cement the appellation.
He finished his coffee and went upstairs to get ready for work. His first class today was at ten o’clock, so there was plenty of time. One of the bennies of being a full prof. But maybe too much time, because as he entered the bedroom, he was struck again by how quiet the damned house was. It didn’t even have the decency to creak and groan, like any self-respecting fifty-year-old house should. He felt the familiar flush of desperate loneliness that seemed all too ready to overwhelm him at moments like this. He took a deep breath and willed it away.
She was gone.
That’s all, just gone. Just gone. And there was nothing he could do. He had gone through his entire life asserting control over himself and his circumstances. But when that state trooper had come to the door, stone-faced, rain-soaked hat in hand, Ev had known in an instant that those days of even keels and steady, visible purpose had just been hit by a large torpedo. Just like Joanne. Who was just—gone.
They had had the life they’d had. All the memories were banked, the good ones gaining ground, the not so good ones fading like old newsprint, visible if you really wanted to see it, but disappearing if you were willing to leave it in a drawer somewhere for long enough.
You do this one day at a time, he told himself. Just like the twelve-steppers down at AA. You concentrate on what you’re going to say at the ten o’clock seminar. You focus on doing the next thing—shower, shave, get dressed. He swallowed hard as he stood there in the bedroom. He knew all the standard nostrums by heart, could hear all his friends reciting them so sincerely and earnestly. Meaning well. Trying to help. Breathing silent sighs of relief that it hadn’t happened to them.
He couldn’t help wanting to remind some of them.
He looked at himself in the full-length mirror hanging on the bathroom door. Just over six feet, black hair—well, mostly black—a narrow, lean face with intense brown eyes, a crooked nose, courtesy of an unruly canopy, and more lines than had been there the last time he’d looked. He’d managed to keep himself fit and trim, which, given the physical fitness culture of the Academy, was unremarkable. But the lines were deeper and the shadows under his eyes more pronounced. Funny how living alone changed things, and how the body kept score.
He sighed. Damned house was ambushing him again. Maybe Worth was right. The day after Julie threw her hat in the air at graduation was going to be emotional for them both. The day after that, once she had driven away to Pensacola and her new life, was going to be a genuine bitch.
“But right now,” he said out loud, “it’s shower time.”
That’s right, it’s me. Aren’t you glad? Sure you are. I’ve just been walking down the passageway, yelling at the chow-callers to keep their eyes in the boat, and, just maybe, they won’t attract my attention. They don’t want to attract my attention, because today I’m Psycho-Shark, man-killer, man-eater.
I love to look at all the pretty plebes, the live ones. Standing rigidly at attention next to the upperclassmen’s rooms, clamoring like the sheep they are, counting down the minutes until morning meal formation. As if the superior beings inside the rooms didn’t know what time it was. “Sir! There are now three minutes until morning meal formation! The menu for this morning is…” Seriously dumb!
There was one who didn’t get the word about me. I gave him the Look. Let my eyes go blank, opened my mouth just a little, showed all my teeth, slowed my stride fractionally, made it look like I was turning in his direction, just like a big tiger shark, perusing prey, easing past the target, then the sly turn, the effortless dip and bank of pectorals. I love it when their voices pitch up a note or two as they continue to shout out the required formula while pretending—no, hoping, praying—I’m not coming back to them.
They know, the plebes. They know about me, even if a lot of my so-called classmates don’t. It’s the nature of prey to recognize a predator, you see. And I am, by God, a predator. A top predator, in every sense. They get a come-around to my room, they don’t sleep the night before. Especially the girls.
There’s one girl they call Bee-bee, the fat girl. Bee-bee for Butterball. All quivering chins and heaving bosoms under that flushed face. Trying desperately not to acknowledge that I’m walking past. I can smell the sweat on her from twenty feet away—we can do that, you know. We have a truly excellent sense of smell. All those tiny, exquisitely tuned dermal receptors. It’s a chemical thing. Just kidding, of course. But sharks can do that, so I assume the profile as much as I can. For Bee-bee, I change my sequence. Just a little. Slow down, turn my head, oh so casually in her direction, stare down at her—belt buckle, yes, and listen to her squeak. What does she think I’m looking at, her crotch? Not with that fat roll hanging over her belt, I’m not.
But you know what? I can smell her fear. She’s not going to make it here. The Dark Side hates fat midshipmen. As well they should. Fat people are lazy, unmotivated. Natural prey, by definition. As I’ve always said, the girls can stay, but only if you remain sleek and strong.
I prowl every day. My grand passage to formation. I leave my room with just less than two minutes to get down the ladder to the zero deck and out onto the formation yard. I have it timed, you see. Right to the second. After almost four years of this bullshit, any competent firstie does. That’s how I make it look so effortless, arriving at the edge of the formation just as the bells ring, always supremely casual, totally nonchalant, just like a big shark rising from somewhere down in the deep gloom, appearing miraculously alongside and slightly below a school of underclassmen. Well, what the hell, it is morning meal formation. You know, chow time? Heh-heh.
And I love it when the guys on the team call me the Shark! Let’s face it, when it comes to men’s freestyle, I AM the team. Six three in my dripping feet, 210 pounds of spring steel, and shaped like a humanoid manta ray, only I’m faster, much faster. I’m the monster of the freestyle. Fast enough that I actually have time to look sideways and lay dead eyes on anyone who can keep up with me. It’s so cool: I give him the Look, show those teeth, watch him stub his stroke for a second or two, or screw up his breathing when he realizes I’m not breathing and I’m still staring right at him. And then I’m gone, accelerating without seeming to change anything. I’ve heard the norms talking, in the locker room head afterward. “Fucker just stopped taking air, man. Looked at me like I was meat, like he was gonna slip under the lane divider and, like, fucking bite, man. Freaked my ass out.”
It’s my teeth. I can’t help it. I have really big teeth. One time before a meet, I borrowed some black nail polish from one of my Goth moths and painted my teeth to look like points. Final heat, there was this guy, thought he was pretty good, grinned at me when he realized he could stay with Navy’s monster right through the final turn. Then I gave him the Look, and a second later, exactly one stroke later, I showed the teeth. Poor baby did a guppy mouth. Tried to swallow the pool. Made him heavy, I suppose. Shit happens. He was lucky his timer saw him go down. I never saw him, of course. I was too busy winning. I did see the bubble, now that I think of it. Big one, too.
The best part of formation time is when the plebes, all finished with their chow calls, come chopping down the center of the passageway, hands rigid at their sides, eyes in the boat, yes, sir, knowing within a few seconds what time it is, but having to give way to the upperclassmen, because that’s how it works here at Canoe U. They had sixty, now fifty seconds to get down the stairwell—that’s ladder to you, plebe-dweeb—and into ranks. We don’t obstruct them on purpose, although it does happen. And, of course, you bump into me and you get an automatic come-around. On the other hand, if they aren’t in formation by the time the formation bell rings, they’re down on the demerit pad anyway. Can’t win, if you’re a plebe, can you? No, you can’t. That’s the beauty of the system. Make it hopeless, see what they do, see who gives up, who doesn’t, and then help the strong ones figure it out. To recognize the system, and, better yet, how to beat the system.
That’s how I’ve done it, only I was doing it long before I got to this place. Beating the system. Every place I’ve been, since I was a little kid, there’s always been a system. Whether in Juvie Hall, the foster homes, the parochial school, there’s always been a system. If you truly want to rule, all you have to do is first recognize the system, then beat it by appearing to play by its rules while taking what you want. And you know what? The people who run the system are usually so damned dumb, they can’t see you doing it. This place is no different in that regard. They’ve got all these chickenshit rules, so you focus on those rules. Shine your shoes, polish your brass, keep your room sharp, bounce that dime off the bedspread, man. Study what they tell you to study, excel at all things athletic, stand tall, speak loud, keep your hair short, your body pumped, your abs ripped, and, man, you will be a star. Just like me. Oh, you might not have many friends, but, hell, I didn’t come here for friends. I came here to get those wings of gold and that great big Mameluke sword.
See, you don’t need friends to select Marine aviation; you only need a certain percentage of your class to stand lower than you do. It’s like if you and I were being chased by a big bad bear—I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you. So my classmates don’t like me. Big deal. But they sure as hell know who I am. And the Dark Side, especially the Marines? Hell, they love me. Set me up at attention in a set of tropical whites, take my picture while I’m bellowing out an order, I’m Poster Boy.
Well, it’s going on class time. Just a couple more weeks and we get to flee this place. I finally get to join my mighty Corps, and, of course, learn all about a new system. They’ll have one. And being Marines, it’ll be a pretty simple system. Not simple as in dumb, but simple as in clear, pure, strong. But I’ll play it and beat it, too. Piece of cake. Easy as slurping down the weekly shit-on-a-shingle breakfast in King Hall. Hope they hose off the plaza over there before noon meal. I saw a fire truck, but there’s been no fire that I know about. Something messy on the plaza, I hear. Or was it someone? A plebe, maybe? Hope so—there’re too many of them.
Just before noon, Ev Markham stood on the front steps outside Sampson Hall, wishing he could have a cigarette. He’d quit smoking when he’d left carrier aviation, but the desire for just one had never been truly extinguished. It was a perfect spring day in Annapolis, with clear blue skies and a vigorous sea breeze coming in off the bay. The trees were in bloom, the lawns were coming green again after the wintry depredations of dark ages, and the Severn River was positively sparkling. The wedge of Chesapeake Bay he could see from Sampson was a vast sheet of silver punctuated by fishing boats and the seemingly motionless silhouette of a black-hulled tanker pushing its way up to Baltimore. It was no wonder the visiting West Point cadets, whose fortresslike academy up on the Hudson was still ice-bound in the early spring, called their rivals’ school in Annapolis “the Country Club.”
The last midshipmen were exiting the granite-covered academic building, hustling back to Bancroft for noon meal formation, throwing a chorus of obligatory “Morning, sir” at him as they trotted by. He was a popular-enough professor, and it didn’t hurt that he taught a subject that was considered non-life-threatening, as compared to, say, advanced organic chemistry. He was finishing his imaginary cigarette and admiring the big houses on the cliffs across the Severn River when Dolly Benson, the Political Science Department’s secretary, stuck her head out one of the massive bronze doors and called him in for an urgent phone call from his daughter. Surprised, he followed her back to the departmental offices. A call from his daughter at this time of day, with noon meal formation bells about to ring, was unusual. The Naval Academy was a place of rigid routines. Any break in that routine usually meant trouble.
“Yeah, Julie. What’s up?”
“Dad, I think I’ve got a problem. My company officer came to our room and told me to get into Class-A’s and report to the commandant’s office.”
“Whoa. Why?”
“I have no idea. I don’t think Lieutenant Tarrens does, either. He just said to get up there ASAP. What should I do?”
“Get up there ASAP. And you have no idea of what this is about? Academic? Conduct?”
“No, Dad,” Julie said in a mildly exasperated voice. Rightfully so, too. Julie stood in the top 20 percent of her class academically and had never had a significant conduct demerits problem.
“Well, then, go find out. If you haven’t done anything wrong, just go see the Man. He doesn’t bite.”
“That something you know, Dad?” she asked, but her normal bantering tone wasn’t there. He realized Julie was scared. He also knew that Captain Robbins, the commandant of midshipmen and a recent flag officer selectee, was not exactly a warm and fuzzy kind of guy.
“Listen, Jules: The commandant is all about business. Whatever it is, he’ll be professional about it. However, if you think you’re being accused of something, stop talking and call me right away. On my cell number. And before thirteen hundred, okay? I’ve got a department staff meeting then. Now hustle your bustle.”
“I guess. Shit. I’m going to miss lunch.”
He could hear the formation bells ringing out in the halls. “I believe you already have. Get going. And call me back.”
He hung up and stood there for a moment. He was grateful that the departmental office complex was empty. Everyone else, including Dolly now, had gone somewhere, either for lunch or to work out. There were individual offices for the department chair, who was a Navy captain, and for each full professor. There was also a conference room, and some smaller shared offices for newer faculty and visitors. There were no students hanging around, either. Unlike students at a civilian college, midshipmen had their time strictly regulated: They were in Bancroft Hall, out on the athletic fields, or in class in one of the academic buildings. Midshipmen rarely spent time lingering around the departmental offices.
He walked over to his own office to make sure his cell phone was on, wondering what the hell this was all about. The commandant of midshipmen’s office was in Bancroft Hall itself. He and his deputy, Captain Rogers, directly oversaw every aspect of the midshipmen’s daily life through a chain of command comprised of commissioned officers who were designated battalion and company officers. The four thousand midshipmen were assigned to six battalions of five companies each. Having been a midshipman, Ev knew that a summons to the commandant’s office was trouble, plain and simple. With her high academic standing and her athletic achievements as a competitive swimmer, Julie was one of the stars of her class, so this wasn’t likely to be about a conduct offense. Another large-scale cheating episode, perhaps? God, he hoped not. The Academy didn’t need another one of those, especially after all the ongoing controversy over the ethics and honor courses.
Forty-five minutes later, his suspicions were confirmed. Julie called in on his regular number. She asked in a wooden, stilted voice if he could come over to Bancroft Hall.
“Certainly,” he said, not liking her tone of voice. “But what’s going on?”
“Can’t talk,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’ll meet you in the rotunda. We can talk there.”
“Five minutes,” he said, and hung up. He left a note for Dolly that he had been called away on an urgent personal matter and would be late for the departmental meeting. Then he grabbed his suit coat and hustled out the door.
Julie was waiting for him in the spacious main entrance to Bancroft Hall, the eight-wing, five-storied marble and granite Beaux Arts dormitory complex that was home to the nearly four thousand midshipmen composing the Brigade. She was standing to one side of the ornate marble-floored entrance, looking small beneath the massive naval murals lining the cavernous rotunda. He felt a small pang in his heart when he looked at his daughter: Julie looked so much like her mother—medium height, dark-haired, pretty, and bright-eyed, except that right now she wasn’t so bright-eyed. Her face was rigid with what looked to him like massive embarrassment. Fifty feet above her head was a twenty-foot-wide color mural depicting battleships under air attack in World War II. It somehow seemed appropriate.
He went to her and saw that she was struggling to contain tears. A couple of passing midshipmen, youngsters, with a single anchor insignia on their shirt collars and arms laden with books, glanced at him in his civilian suit and tie but kept going. Being sophomores, they wouldn’t necessarily know he was faculty, so he looked like what he was: a visiting father, here to talk to his daughter. A freestanding wooden privacy partition masked the side hallways leading back into the Brigade hallways. He saw a lieutenant he did not recognize standing next to the executive corridor partition, watching them. Probably someone from the Executive Department. Given the weird acoustics of the rotunda, he was close enough to eavesdrop.
“Want to go somewhere?” he asked softly, eyeing the watching officer.
“Can’t,” she said through clamped jaws. “They say I have to meet some people from NCIS in a few minutes.”
That stopped him. NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Emphasis on the word Criminal. “NCIS? What the hell, Julie?”
