He stood in front of the sink, half-hiding it from Callie- Reaching into the bowl, he scooped up the roach in the toilet paper, taking care not to squeeze to rightly. Callie’s voice came from behind.
“What’s that in your hand?”
“It’s, uh, nothing much-“
“What is it? A bug of some sort? Is that what it is?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind?”
“It’s a black bug.”
“It’s a what?”
Jake sighed. “It’s a cockroach.”
Callie sat gingerly on the side of one of the two single beds, causing its springs to make boinging noises. Jake reached for the closed toilet lid and hesitated; he decided to flush the toilet first.
“How big was that roach, anyway?” Callie called from the other room.
The toilet groaned and rattled as it filled up. “I didn’t measure it.”
“It’s a big one. I know it.”
He lifted the lid, plopped in the wad of tissue paper, and flushed again.
“My God, it’s bigger than I thought. Hasn’t it gone down yet?”
“Callie. Relax. I didn’t try flushing it down the first time.”
“Then why did you flush the toilet?”
“Just checking it out, that’s all. It really seems to be working great.”
The toilet gave out a screech just before it stopped filling up. Jake watched it long enough to know it wouldn’t overflow, then he went and sat down next to Callie. She was on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands.
Jake was relieved to see that she was tearless. “I know this place is the pits.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at him. “Does the bathroom have a shower or a bath?”
“No. But there’s a shower down the hall.”
“I have a brilliant idea. Why don’t we go to the Hilton instead? Or the Holiday Inn? That’d be fine too.
“I think we’re stuck. There aren’t any decent places around here.”
“Well, check the beds for crawling things. I want to be sure I’m not the next meal for something. If the beds pass inspection, I guess I’ll survive.
“Will you?”
“Sure. As long as I have you.”
The jeepney was orange and white, and frilly tassel jiggled from its canvas top. With Callie and Jake in back, it left Po City behind and headed out on a macadam road that was filled with potholes. The young Filipino driver seemed to delight in hitting the holes at full speed and ignored Jake’s pleas to slow down. His passengers were knocked about and, at times, propelled straight up into the air.
Callie asked, “How much longer?”
“Twenty or thirty minutes.”
“I don’t think I can last that long.”
“Hang tough.”
“If I were pregnant, I’d lose the baby after this ride.” The driver honked his tinny horn at some chickens in the road.
They got out of the jeepney on the outskirts of a small fishing village.
Jake persuaded the driver to wait for them by tearing a twenty-dollar bill and giving him half. Then they trudged more than two hundred yards to the beach.
Holding hands, Callie and Jake strolled barefoot on the clean white sand where it was soft and damp from dissipating waves. Jake liked it when the fizzing water of a wave swirled around his ankles and, as it receded washed between his toes and sucked at the san beneath his soles. Jake and Callie were alone on the beach.
Callie said, “That sunset is gorgeous “You should see one at thirty thousand feet.
“I’d like to. It must be spectacular.”
“It is. I hope I see another one from the air.”
Callie was wearing Jake’s Jersey City Athletic Club T-shirt; on her it looked like a nightie- Jake was bare- chested and he had rolled up his jeans.
They had walked a distance on the damp sand and now, they headed back toward the blanket they had taken from the hotel closet, the dark blue blanket that Jake suspected was navy-issue.
Callie asked, “What can happen to you’?”
“They could court-martial me. They could send me to prison.”
“Surely they wouldn’t send you to prison.”
“It’s a possibility. They’re conducting an investigation on the ship now.
When it’s over, they’ll probably decide to court-martial us.”
“But a court-martial is like a trial, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s the military’s version of it.”
“Then it could be decided in your favor.”
“Not likely.”
“But it could be.”
“Listen, what I did was damned serious. A few weeks ago one of my sailors lied to me. I wanted the skipper to hammer him good, but the Old Man decided not to. I wanted this guy disciplined because he lied, because he broke my trust. What I did is a lot worse than what that sailor did. They’ll come down hard on me, you can count on that. They won’t let me get away with disobeying orders, not something this big. The State Department will have to be told, maybe even the president.”
“I understand. I’m not trying to deny the seriousness of what you did. But I don’t think you should assume there’s no hope. Now what else could the navy do to you, short of sending you to prison?”
“They could boot me out with a dishonorable discharge. I’d have one helluva tough time getting a job in the civilian world with a dishonorable on my record. They could ask me to resign my commission, and give me an honorable. That way, I could at least get a flying job.”
“Anything else they could do?”
“Well, at the very least I guess they could give me a letter of reprimand or censure, which would be put in my personnel file. If that happened, I could stay in the navy for a while. But there wouldn’t be much point in it. I’d never be promoted. I’d be a lieutenant for the rest of my career.”
“Couldn’t they just bawl you out and leave it at that?”
“Slap my wrist and send me on my way? Fat chance. Any way you cut it, my career in the navy is over.” Callie didn’t respond.
The sun had been replaced by a bright three-quarter moon. The air was cooler and they sat shoulder to shoulder on the blanket. Callie’s arms encircled her drawn-up legs, which were almost hidden by the T shirt. “How will you handle it if it turns out you can’t fly any more?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll just have to adjust somehow. But I sure as hell won’t miss the war. The bombing. The killing. I’m sure tired of all that.”
“You’ve done your part.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I don’t like the idea of leaving the fighting to others. It’d be like … running out on the other guys.
Sure, the war sucks.
But I’ll quit fighting only because the navy makes me quit.” Then he added, “You think we should all quit. Now. Right?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s my opinion. But we don’t want to get into that again, do we?”
Jake thought about it. “Nah. Who wants to talk about the war, anyway? The hell with it. Let’s go for a swim.” Jake moved about thirty feet to the left of the blanket to undress. While removing his jeans and underpants he stole some glances at Callie, who undressed sitting down, taking off her shorts and panties beneath the T-shirt, which she kept on. When she giggled it startled him. He’d never heard her giggle before.
