Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

I still couldn't get over the size of it. The submarine was divided into three segments, each nearly two hundred feet long and forty feet high. Farthest aft was the propulsion unit-the massive steam turbines that drove the screw, and the sixty-thousand-horsepower General Electric S8G nuclear reactor that created the steam; then the hollowed-out missile room; and, finally, the CCSM deck-the five-story command-and-control module beneath the fairwater that extended to the sonar dome in the bow. It was a large underwater building.

Cowper met me at the top of the companionway. Staving off my embrace, he handed over a big leather pouch, and said, "Take good care of this ditty bag-I've put a few things in there might come in handy. Don't let that Kranuski see it, whatever you do. Come on." Before I could reply, he began leading me aft, saying, "The natives are getting restless. I need you to communicate to them what I plan to do. Here."

We were standing before one of the watertight doors to the missile room. He leaned his arm on the gleaming valve wheel and said in the nasal voice of an old-time elevator operator, "First floor: missile compartment. Ladies lingerie, sporting goods, household appliances, and other picture postcards." He pulled the door open, revealing that cavernous tunnel of cargo. "Be it ever so jumbled, there's no place like home. What do you think? Can we fit everybody in there?"

I didn't see how. "It's going to be hard with all that stuff in the way."

"Yeah, they turned her into a vault. A giant safe for all their crap. Anything they couldn't stand to leave unguarded when they closed up shop, and anything they thought they might need in the future. It's like a do-it-yourself kit for restarting America from scratch. They probably have the formula for Coke down there somewhere."

"So what do we do?"

Cowper either grinned or gritted his teeth, I couldn't tell. He looked incredibly old.

"Heard of the Boston Tea Party?" he asked.

The sun rising over the bay was like hot lemon and honey to the sickly cold multitudes laboring on deck. From a distance we would have looked like termites at work on a floating log, vanishing into holes and emerging with bits of stuff, then dropping it into the water. Or perhaps slaves of the pharaoh, dismantling a tomb rather than building one.

In spite of Mr. Kranuski's and Mr. Sandoval's strenuous objections, a bearer brigade had been organized to clear the missile room. It happened before the crew could stop it-we were ten times their number and simply piled in, There was no fighting, and they didn't dare shoot anyone for fear of making lots of Exes.

All the next week we remained anchored off the north shore of Conanicut Island, painstakingly passing things up the three logistics hatches one at a time. There was great incentive to work fast, because as soon as floor space was cleared, it became living space, which in turn reduced topside crowding. The only problem was that much of the stuff was too big to fit through the hatches and could only be rearranged below.

"How did they ever get all this in here?" I asked Julian on the second day. I couldn't believe how much had been done while I was sleeping.

"In port you can use a crane to lift out the entire escape trunk. Makes a much bigger opening."

"There's no way to do it now?"

"Well, we might be able to rig a scaffold and winch, but it's not something I'd want to try at sea."

"Why not?"

"Just feel. This thing rocks like a bastard. Swell kicks up, you could lose the escape trunk over the side. Then you're left with a seven-foot-wide hole in the deck, which isn't too good on a submarine."

"I guess not."

The boat itself was a breathtaking sight by day, a black peninsula almost six hundred feet long-longer, I was told, than the Washington Monument was tall. We were conspicuous in the channel, and a number of smaller vessels examined us from a discreet distance. We weren't alone out there on the water, and as the days went by, we saw more and more refugee vessels, trickling in from all over to gather like seagulls around a dying whale.

A lot of boys were thrilled at the sight and desperate to join forces with other survivors, but word came down that we were to make no attempt to signal or in any way communicate with outsiders. If a boat tried coming to hailing range, it was warned off with a volley of gunfire. Many of us were unhappy with this, and we didn't even get an explanation because the command center was off-limits to all but "essential personnel."

After that first night, a division had sprung up between the working adults and the "nubs"-nonuseful bodies. In practical terms it meant that everything forward or aft of the missile bay was off-limits. We had free run of that huge chamber and free topside access, but I felt vulnerable without Cowper and hoped he would make contact soon.

I had been through the bag he gave me, and was incredibly grateful for the basic items he had packed: a wool blanket and knit cap, a windbreaker, a pair of blue coveralls (men's small but still too large for me), sneakers, and a waterproof survival kit with tissues, antiseptic wipes, bandages, tape, aspirin, eating utensils, small tools, flint, needle and thread, soap, penlight, and a compass. There was also an official-looking padded envelope, sealed with string, on which he had written, To be opened in PRIVATE! Privacy was a rare phenomenon; the only time it was really possible was in the head, and even then only if I could get someone to stand guard. Many already thought I used far more than my share of bathroom time, that my refusal to pee in public like a dog was some kind of finicky affectation. Ignoring their looks, I smuggled in the envelope and wasted no time ripping it open.

Inside was a heart-shaped locket on a chain and a set of pictures. They were well-worn, as if they'd spent ages in a wallet. In the locket was a trimmed photo of a prune-faced newborn. Was that me? Had Cowper, proud papa, taken the photo? I picked it out and on the back someone had written, Terminal Island Nav. Shipyard, CA. On the margin was a meaningless notation: 4 ABL S FR 13. At first glance I thought it was some cutesy Valentine-candy sentiment-4EVER 2GETHER or something-then I tried deciphering it, but couldn't come up with any initials or abbreviations that fit. Something something Friday the 13th? I gave up for the moment.

The other photos had nothing to do with me… and everything. They were older than the first, faded, and showed polyester artifacts from the seventies and eighties. They were of a younger Cowper with his family: a wife who was not my mother, a daughter who was not me. All of them aging through several jumps in time, the last one showing the pretty blond daughter in cap and gown. Years and years of happiness.

This had been his life. He had lived his whole life before I was ever born, and by that time I must have seemed like such a bother. Been there, done that. And my mother? Had she come in at the end and brought it all down-the Other Woman? Could I honestly say I was surprised? Wasn't this exactly what I suspected all those years? I wanted to kick myself for the dumb-animal hurt I was feeling. No wonder. I fumbled the pictures back into the envelope and could barely hear the people talking to me as I left the head, suddenly desperate for fresh air. Yup, I thought, no wonder.

As the missile room was gradually cleared, I found it astounding to gaze up from the lead-bricked bilge into those soaring cathedral heights. For twenty years it had contained a forest of twenty-four Trident missile silos, each one seven feet wide, extending through every deck. Its crews had been accustomed to jogging laps around its perimeter-nineteen to the mile. The "trees" were gone, the steel-grated decks perforated like a colossal Swiss cheese or ripped out altogether, leaving airy chasms surrounded by red caution tape. Fanciful assemblies of scaffolding and plywood rose like primitive cliff dwellings to the upper tiers, and it was up these we ported the endless tons of freight. Even though we worked in twenty-minute relays and labor-saving pulley systems were in place, it was the most exercise I'd ever known. I worried about getting a repetitive-stress injury, but said nothing.