(FITRON ONE FIVE ONEF-4 Phantom 2 goes aviating off the pointy end of Midway-Maru (CV-41) Photo USN).
So, I readily acknowledge that this is going to be a little schitzo, but if you have been around The Daily for a while you are probably used to it.
This is a bit like a novel I am listening to on my waterproof iPod as I try to swim for an hour each day. It is the only way I can survive the stultifying boredom of treading water with great bat-like strokes and full-extension leg kicks.
In the case of this particular week, the book is called “Into the Darkest Corner,” by Elizabeth Haynes. I am actually not completely sure how it came to be in the Audible Books folder of the device, but I am gratified that it did. It is a page-turning thriller, if one can say that digital pages in audio format can be turned, but the literary mechanism to carry the horrifying story forward is to pair the narrative in two alternating sections, one moving forward from 2003 into something really appalling, and the other moving forward from 2007 as the protagonist attempts to come to grips with the event (and the man) who nearly succeeded in savagely subjugating her and nearly taking her life in the process.
It also helps that Karen Cass, the lady who read the unabridged text, has what I presume is a Lancashire accent, which is North England, almost all the way to the Lowland Scot dialect. When she is talking about the hero having intimacy it comes out as “fook.” There is a lot of sex, too. A story well told.
Anyway, that is sort of what this format is going to be for this adventure in kludging together the story of how Nick Danger came to be, how my life was changed forever, blah blah blah. Part of it is going to march resolutely forward in the here and now of 2015 and part of it is going to be the frozen-in-time story of an aircraft carrier headed in harm’s way at the dawn of the struggle against militant Islam.
So, in 1979, I wandered down to the PAO shop on Ma Midway and handed my copy of the first episode to over to a bored Petty Officer and told him I had a submission for the Multiplex the next morning. He glanced at it without much interest and said he could probably use it, stories being a bit hard to come from where we were steaming off the coast of Africa, and thanked me for my interest in National defense.
Which is exactly the casual process by which life’s paths are determined. I had always been a teller of stories about some of the weird crap I ran into- but in those days, I called them “letters,” not “blog posts.”
I wandered back up to Mission Planning, where there was a curious change to the regular day’s affairs. Normally, we tried to fly eight-cycle days to keep up the Air Wing proficiency; I forget how many sorties that amounted to, but since we were heading toward a Major International Crisis we were concentrating on maintaining our Speed of Advance (SOA) and get to the Northern Arabian Sea.
I was having the eighth or ninth cup of the 200-cup percolator coffee on which we depended for survival and I realized that if I was actually going to do a daily episode of the private detective story, I needed to get cracking and generate something. I walked back to where the Intelligence Specialists had the big clunky IBM Selectric Typewriter with the cool font-balls and ran a piece of paper into the roller and looked at the blank page. The florescent lights illuminated the gray paint on everything, and the dully green linoleum of the fold-down planning tables.
I began to type, and let my fingers determine where we were going to go….clack, clack, the silver type ball pecked at the paper, changing its aspect with each new character like a raven pecking at a lump of suet…..
“THE ADVENTURES OF NICK DANGER, PRIVATE DICK”
TODAY’S EPISODE: “SAPS AT SEA”
WHEN I AWOKE ON THE PIER, THE SUN WAS DOWN AND A BIG BLACK CROW was looking me in the eye.
My head felt like a Russian division had just marched over it and not taken off their boots. There was a lump on the back, just slightly smaller than a billiard ball.
I rolled over and lit up a Lucky Strike. It made my head feel worse. I reached for the long flat flask I carry in the deep pockets of my coat. I took a deep swig. It didn’t make me feel any better, but the fourth or fifth pull made me just not care. After a while I managed to get to my feet. I looked back to where I had parked the Packard.
I was just in time to see it vanishing around the corner hooked to a towtruck.
The situation was starting to smell. It had to be the Fat Man. He was behind every shady deal in Far East L.A. I looked at the long gray boat that towered over me. He had to be in there somewhere. I would just have to get on the ship and track him down.
The crow pecked me on the hand. I drew my Luger, but the bird took off. I pumped off a few rounds but couldn’t connect. Finally, it perched up on top of a huge silver tank. A clear shot. I was just drawing a bead on him when a gray van pulled around the comer with lights flashing. The coppers!
The only way out was up a long double gangway that pointed upward toward the gray side of the ship. I took off.
I hit the top with a full head of steam. Some guy in black pants and a white shirt was standing at the top. All I saw was his mouth open in a little “o” of surprise. Then I was past him and in through a big steel door.
I broke left and something hit me hard on the head. It was like a big black wing settled down on me. I was out like a spark up the chimney.
“Idiot ran right into the F-4,” said the First Class. “Wonder what the eff he thought he was doing?”
“Don’t know,” said the Chief, “but maybe the Master at Arms can figure it out.”
DON’T MISS TOMORROW’S THRILL-PACKED EPISODE:
“NICK DANGER, BRIG RAT”
Copyright 1980 and 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303