My Journal

By Harriman Nelson

3

“Sweetheart?” Emily asked as she stepped out of the shower and put her arms around me. “Did you get through to Lee?”

“Not yet. Bethesda will let him know we had to cancel our plans.”

“No, Harry. ‘We’ did no such thing. ‘I’ wrecked our plans, and you can still go visit him.”

“I’m not going to abandon you.”

“I’m fine now…go on.”

“Lee will understand.”

“Darling, he might understand about my meltdown, now that the press has gotten wind of it, but he’s bound to be crushed that you can’t be there. Now, be a good boy, call the airlines and get the very next flight. Sweetie, for me? I feel bad enough as it is. Please go see Lee.”

“Are you sure? And don’t apologize. You didn’t know you had classic claustrophobia.”

“Go.”

“All right, all right,” I agreed, dreading being hounded by the press up close and personal this time. And then I had an idea, and picked up the phone, using speed dial.  “Ah, good,” I said as Chip answered. “Lad, sorry to interrupt your shore leave but I need a favor.”

It wasn’t long before I was aloft in the flying sub, with Chip as pilot, Kowalski as co-pilot, (he volunteered as soon as he heard about things) but I insisted on extra pay. Neither he nor Chip would have even thought about extra pay. I’d also asked Ames along for the ride as my travel companion. Never hurts to have someone along to run interference if needed, and for any ‘go-fering’ that might pop up.

Ames, like most of my employees, and unlike me, was gadget savvy, and had tuned his ‘smart phone’ to the latest news broadcast…

“….In other news,” the anchor was saying, “Ms. Jessica Hawthorne laughed about the anxiety attack Mrs. Nelson had, which caused a slight delay for the flight.”

“Well, if you ask me,” Jessica, in her orange prison garb said, “she should have gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and just borne any kind of nervousness she had. What a wimp.”

“Sorry, sir,” Ames said, quickly turning the devise off.

“No, turn it back on. I should be aware of the latest.”

“We also met with Mrs. Crane, Captain Nelson-Crane’s mother,” the anchor continued, “at her home in Cape Cod.”

“Well, I know just how she felt,” she said, wiping the sea spray grunge from her beach cottage windows, “I’m claustrophobic myself. Trust me, when you can’t breathe and your heart feels like a ton of bricks and races so fast you can’t count the beats, as even the air closes in around you, well, it’s very incapacitating. My heart goes out to her. Admiral and Mrs. Nelson were going to go visit my son, you know.”

“Speaking of the captain, how is he doing?”

“Oh, he’s very disappointed with the artificial eye the experimental wing at the naval hospital issued him. Not at all what the experts led us to believe it would work like. And now they want to try a modified version of it. Lee’s agreed, but despite what he says, I can tell he wishes now that he’d never volunteered for any of this experimental stuff, a lot of good it’s done him.”

“But he can see with it, somewhat?”

“If you call a few shadows and those little mini boxes like you get when your cable TV goes on the fritz any kind of ‘sight’. Oh, some of the test patients have had better results, but…the doctors think Lee’s optic nerve was probably just too badly damaged in the explosion. And if that’s not enough, he’s been suckered into some other experiment that’s supposed to help his broken bones knit together faster. He couldn't tell me too much about the drug therapy they’re using for that, but I know it's dangerous!  I hope Ronald Hawthorne, and I refuse to call that bastard Nelson, will rot in hell for all eternity for what he’s put my boy through. Jail’s not good enough.

“Lee’s hopeful he might be able to resume command of Seaview without a working right eye. He says there’s not too much need for depth perception aboard a submarine but the Secretary of the Navy will still have to approve of a one eyed captain, as the sub is called upon for military action at times.  But driving? Well, that’s pretty much wishful thinking, just like finding buried pirate treasure under this house.”

“Pirate treasure?”

“This is Cape Cod. Everyone thinks their granny’s tales of pirates burying their treasure under the ocean front houses is true. Even the realtors have to tell you about any such nonsense associated with these houses.”

“Then there could be an element of truth.”

“The historical society thinks so. And it might be fun to search. But I, like so many residents, have other things on our minds right now.” 

“And so,” the reporter said as the image reformed to the news desk, “we may be bringing you more on pirate treasure, along with the latest on Captain Nelson-Crane.”

“Very well, Ames,” I said, “turn it off now…Chip, what’s our ETA?”

“About three hours, sir.”

I had to wonder if Emmie and I had been mistaken about not buying one of those dilapidated properties near Santa Barbara. But somehow I don’t think there were too many pirates off California. Still, I’m no historian. Might be interesting to check into.