Admiral Mac drove over to the Willow in his golden Jaguar- first trip out since he took ill earlier in the summer. We agreed to meet and resume our informal discussions of the latter part of his time in the Navy, and specifically the events that surrounded the capture of the USS Pueblo and his involvement with the PURPLE DRAGON.

You remember that, right? It was the beginning of the summer and the world did not look nearly as stupid as it does at the moment; before the Debt Ceiling Crisis and the disintegration of Europe’s finances- and ours.

I remember reading that the stock market was 30% overvalued, and that Ben Bernanke’s Quantitative Easing Two was going to end in the middle summer, and that was going to trigger a collapse, and I went ahead and invested anyway.

I am a moron. I should have picked short term paper and put the money under my mattress. Damn.

Anyway, I wrote “PURPLE DRAGON” at the top of the page of my little leather bound notebook.

Mac looked over at me. “You want to get right into it, don’t you?”

“You have to stay focused,” I said, looking with admiration at the glow on Elisabeth-with-an-S’s face. “Hey, you are back! How was Michigan?”

“Crystal Lake was a hoot. We had the best time. There is nothing like the Traverse City area in the summer. I got a sunburn- that didn’t happen to me when we went to Aruba last winter!”

“It is a special place,” I said. “I love it up there when it isn’t snowing.”

“Wait,” she said, pouring me a glass of happy hour white wine. “I got you some stones.”

“What? Petoskey Stones?”

She stuck out her tongue and shook her ponytail. “No, silly. Crystal Lake stones.” She disappeared into the service pantry and rummaged in her back-pack.

“I wish she wasn’t in a committed, loving relationship,” I said. “And that I was forty or fifty years younger.”

“You and me both, said Mac. “You know I am going to be 92 a week from today?”

“It’s amazing,” I said. “I don’t think I am going to get there.”

Elisabeth emerged from the back with five pebbles, ranging in declining size from a fifty-cent piece to an elongated dime. Mac looked on, poking one and identifying them in turn:

“Breccia, Jaspilite, Limestone conglomerate, Rhyolite and Quartz. Typical upper Midwest collection. Didn’t have those in Iowa, where I grew up.  Just sandstone and limestone.”

Then we talked about the banking crisis on the Great Depression, and the Doc showed up, and John-with-an-H left abruptly and Old Jim plopped down, a bit miffed that two very elegantly-coiffed women had occupied his normal place at the Amen Corner. Satchel came in, a surprise, but she had heard that the Admiral was going to come out, and like me, she is one of his groupies.

Mac finished his first Virgin Mary with deliberation. Big Jim makes them with plenty of olives and a wedge of lemon, so they are almost a meal instead of a drink. Doc was expansive. He not only ordered the Gruyere Cheese Puffs, Spring Rolls and Pollyface Farms Deviled Eggs for the bar, but explained that what Mac was drinking was not a Virgin Mary at all, but something else.

“You know what they call in in England,” he said. “No vodka means it is a Bloody Shame.”

“You crack me up, Doc,” I said.

“It’s like my kids say, take the “F” out of “way” and there you are.”

I looked at him in bemusement. “There isn’t any “F” in “way.”

“Precisely. I don’t know why I let them get away with it. No effing way.”

Satchel was hungry and went for the Halibut sliders, and the two elegant ladies split a Heritage Tomato salad with goat cheese substitution due to lactose intolerance.

Old Jim passed a note down the bar, scrawled on the inside of a Willow napkin. Paige handed it to me. I opened it up, just like High School transformed to the bar: “Those women have not stopped talking since they got here.”

I looked over at him, and said: “I Jon-with-no-H and the lovely Bea were here, they wouldn’t be in your place.”

Jim scowled. “Damn right. They shouldn’t be taking that relationship to a new level.”

“There is only one direction on that,” said Big Jim. “Down. Shaah.”

The food arrived and I walked over to ask the ladies if  I could take a picture of the Heritage Tomatoes. They were quite gracious about it after I demonstrated my bona fides on the matter by showing them the library of Willow dishes on my cell phone. Handsome looking salad, and that is when I got clued into the laco-intolerance thing, which was more information than I really needed, but useful, I suppose.

Anyway, the food came out and we got completely sorted out on the status of Doc’s security investigation, the rise of petty fascism in our once-fiercely independent nation, the disintegration of our economy, stock market and institutions, and the imminent Fall of the West.

I turned to Mac as he finished his second Bloody Shame. “OK, now about PURPLE DRAGON. How did it start and how did you get involved with it? It saved many lives in Vietnam?”

The admiral dabbed at his lips with one of Willow’s blindingly white cloth napkins.

“I would tell you why the Vietnamese know the ARC LIGHT B-52 missions were coming, and why they were ineffective and how the North knew when to launch barrage SAM missiles to shoot down them down, but that is going to have to wait till the next time, Vic. The problem is that you can’t stay focused. You can walk me out to the car, though.” He rose from his stool and put the napkin on the bar.

“This was pretty successful. And I feel well enough that I may let you drive me out to the funeral in Leesburg on Saturday. If you are up to it, that is.”

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com