rumblings of civil war had begun. In the middle of playing cards, questions were thrown at him concerning the country, especially since many, including Hollis, had assumed the differences between the Chinese and the Koreans were negligible; and as he spoke, answering and then elaborating on what had been asked, the game would be put on hold for a spell — every-one listening to him, sometimes straining to hear him because his voice was so soft, then ribbing him afterward that only a North Korean spy could possess such information.
But with every question asked, Schubert would become unusually talkative, offering long explanations which were given in painstaking detail. He told them it was okay to think of Korea as a bridge for China and Japan, but that the country also had its own rich history which stretched back five thousand years. The nation, he said, was born after a god named Hwanung, who descended from Heaven and turned a bear into a beautiful woman; the woman eventually gave birth to Hwanung's son, and it was that son who, as an adult, ended up building the capital of Korea. Subsequently, as the hours passed with the chaotic, metronome-like sway of the ship, more would be gleaned from Schubert. He told of the Korean king who, in 1420, created a phonetic language for his people, using eleven vowels and seventeen consonants, forming the written language of Hangul. The same king invented the sundial and water clocks. Yet while he painted an alluring picture of that strange, unknown land, Schubert didn't avoid those recent junctures in history which, as a result, had set them sailing across the Sea of Japan: the annexation of Korea by the Japanese in 1910, the nation then humbled into a mere colony, a territory which remained under Japanese control until the Pacific War ended some thirty-five years later. And though he could go on endlessly and in great detail about where they were headed, the men did nothing to interrupt him, preferring instead to listen carefully to the shy Chinese kid from Seattle, perhaps regarding him as one who, by the sheer virtue of his otherness, might somehow hold the key to their survival.
There was, however, a soldier from Texas who truly stood above the rest — at least it seemed as such to Hollis — and whose gregarious presence was difficult to resist or shun. His name was Bill McCreedy, although he often referred to himself in the third person, saying things like “Boy, Creed sure wishes he could hunker down on a hamburger,” and “Scoot on over, give ol’ Creed a place to sit.”
From his cot, Hollis spied McCreedy making the rounds, pausing to borrow a cigarette off someone, striking up conversations with those who crossed his path, or leaning for a while against a bulkhead and, exhaling smoke through his nostrils, coolly surveying the groupings of fellow privates as if they were under his stern command. But he was well regarded by pretty much everyone; in fact, McCreedy had an affable yet dominating nature which attracted others to him, and whomever he spoke with was given the distinct impression they were, at that moment, his closest buddy. Moreover, he knew how to take the lead in any situation — playing poker, shooting the breeze, undertaking various work details — assuming the role of team captain without really trying, smiling as he barked out instructions or orders which were never questioned. His very aura suggested not only power and cunning but, like those who seemed destined for grander heights, an innate ability to get things accomplished his way, doing so with an effortless grin and a benign pat on the back.
Which was why Hollis steered clear of McCreedy, avoiding his overbearing proximity ever since they had all gathered on a Yokohama pier, refusing to meet his dark blue eyes once they were finally secured below deck. The two had brushed shoulders twice, and both times Hollis had kept his stare either aimed forward or at the floor, simply nodding after McCreedy said, “Pardon me, friend.” And while he recognized the inexplicable allure of McCreedy's personality, Hollis was also mystified by the admiration it evoked; for he, too, was drawn to this slightly younger man, casting discreet glances whenever that Texan drawl reverberated, watching at a distance and hoping to remain inconspicuous. He couldn't deny or begin to understand the attraction for such a swaggering, cocksure private — someone who, had the circumstances been otherwise, might have gone unnoticed had Hollis passed him on the street. But he refused to believe it was McCreedy's good looks which made him so appealing — the broad shoulders, the above-average height, the golden-blond Mohawk haircut, the muscular forearms. No, he eventually concluded, it was something else — something primal and unique, something, possibly, which he had always lacked.
Yet try as he might, Hollis could not escape McCreedy's unwanted attention, that vexatious need to make contact with everyone around him. And so when half awake upon his cot — two days after the wavering voyage began, resting despite the ship's continual turbulence — Hollis stirred to the sound of a throat clearing above him, and before lifting his eyelids, he heard that familiar lengthened tone asking, “Well — how on earth
“That's okay,” replied Hollis — rising on his elbows, looking somewhat apprehensive — and noticed, then, that McCreedy was holding his notepad, the pages parted to the drawing of Hollis on the moon.
“You'd be the man on the moon, right? It's Hollis, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I'm Bill.”
“Yeah, I knew that.”
“Guess I shouldn't be snooping, ‘cept your book was on the floor so I couldn't help myself. Hope you don't mind none.”
“It's fine,” Hollis lied, resenting what felt like a calculated invasion of his privacy.
A short silence followed as McCreedy glanced again through the pages, smiling to himself.
“You some kind of artist?”
“No, not at all. It's only something I do to pass the hours.”
“I hear that.” McCreedy flipped the notepad shut, casually tossing it on the cot once Hollis had sat upright and swung his feet to the floor. “Say, you don't got a spare smoke I could bum?”
“I don't, sorry.”
“No problem. Never hurts to ask a buddy, right?”
“Sure.”
Instead of that being the end of it, McCreedy lowered himself to the cot, taking a seat beside Hollis, saying, “What's your story, then?”
The question caught Hollis off guard, perplexing him. He hesitated, staring ahead, thinking: My story? But it seemed there wasn't much to relate. He had been raised in a small midwestern town, an awkward and solitary boy. He liked hunting and fishing by himself. He had always been bookish, had few friends, and spent most of his free time under his widowed mother's complacent but watchful eye, keeping Eden company during the tough years which followed his father's malingering death from TB. After high school he had worked several part-time jobs to help make ends meet — a short-order cook, a salesman for a Ford dealership, a gas station attendant, a cashier at the local five-and-ten — each business located on one of the four corners where the two main streets in Critchfield intersected. Five months prior to his enlistment, Eden unexpectedly remarried, bringing Rich into their home — a wine-bloated, needlessly quarrelsome little man Hollis immediately resented — a retired banker who, in turn, had found his bride's sullen, uncommunicative son rather impossible to like. With Rich's arrival, the house took on an oppressive quality, becoming an environment which, for Hollis, could no longer accommodate anything except the man's selfish, bullying whims — just the meals his stepfather enjoyed eating, the opera or classical music on the radio and nothing else, the disruptive childish tantrums which passed without apology and were only allowed with impunity for Rich; and, sometimes, when Eden wasn't present, the man delighted in taunting Hollis — throwing a cloth napkin at his face, flicking his earlobes with a finger after he had drunk too much — stating that he wasn't really very bright, that he was a full-grown brat who needed to grow up. Hollis always reacted to such unkindness with passive outrage, responding in his own discreet manner — often spitting in his stepfather's food before the man came to the dinner table, or running the bristles of Rich's toothbrush around the inside rim of the toilet bowl. As the acrimony increased — fueled by Hollis's jealousy toward this relative stranger now sharing Eden's bed, and Rich's assertion that his adult stepson was too old to live at home — Hollis, taking what little money he had saved, packed a suitcase and, on the cusp of his twentieth birthday, ran away from home one morning, Eden crying silently on the front porch as her son walked resolutely out of view.
“Don't really have a story,” Hollis said.
“This fella says he ain't got a story,” said McCreedy, as if talking to someone else. “Now that's a first. A man without no story to tell. You might just be my favorite person on this damn boat, Hollis.”
And from that point on, McCreedy made it a habit to stop by Hollis's cot while doing his usual rounds, sitting
