My Journal

By Harriman Nelson

19.  Bedtime

It was getting late and I couldn’t help yawning from my seat in the Observation Nose.

“I do hope I’m not keeping you up past your bedtime,” Mrs. Crane said snidely while the flying sub was still being prepped for her departure.

“Not at all,” I replied. I still don’t know why I lied. The way she’d been treating my boy made me want to say something I knew I’d regret in the morning.

In any case Chief Sharkey emerged from the flying sub’s hatch shaking his head.

“No go, sir. There’s something wrong with the inertial navigator. The problem is, we can’t find the bogey and repair it yet.”

“And just how long,” Mrs. Crane glowered, “will that take before I can get off this damn boat?”

 “I wish you wouldn’t insult my best girl’s baby, Mom,” Lee sighed as he climbed down the spiral ladder, apparently having overheard.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” she almost screamed.

“Oh about a hundred. Thousand. Million, maybe.”

I almost snickered along with the crew on duty in the Control Room.

“Just tell me why won’t you honor my request?”

“One,” Lee said as he poured himself a drink from the bottle of Glen Livet on the sideboard, “because until your paperwork to negate my adoption is completed, legally I’m still entitled to use the term. And two, just because you’ve erased me from your heart, I’ll never erase you from mine. Oh, I’ve been sorely tempted at times. But,” he took a break to swallow his shot of the amber fluid, “I just can’t help loving you, warts and all. Frankly I don’t think I’ll even be able not to call you Mom. But if it will help …O’Brien? Have someone take our ‘guest’s luggage back to her quarters.”

“I’m not a guest, captain,” she said, “I’m a prisoner!” she hissed, and left through the aft hatch.

I could swear even the boat sighed in relief when she was out of sight.

“Hurry up and find what’s wrong with the inertial nagivator, Chief,” I ordered.

“That anxious to be rid of her, Harry?” Lee asked as he leaned against the viewport.

“Aren’t you?”

“It would certainly make my life easier. You know, Harry, I can’t help feeling there’s something more to her attitude than my taking your name.”

“Hasn’t appeared to me that there is.”

“Well, Chief?” Lee asked.

“We’ll get your mom off the boat as soon as possible, Skipper.”

“We need the flying sub for our research,” Lee corrected, “just as much for honoring my mother’s wishes to get off ‘the damn boat’. Sorry sweetie,” he added, patting the viewport frame.

I couldn’t see the Control Room crew’s smiles at Lee’s show of affection for his boat,   but I could sure feel them.

“Well, it’s time I hit the hay,” I said as I rose and approached Lee, putting my arm around his shoulder. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“I don’t think I could sleep if I tried.”

“Perhaps a little help from Doc?”

“Perhaps.‘Nite’ Harry.”

“Good night, son.”

But it was me who had trouble sleeping. Unwanted images flashed in my mind of Mrs. Crane confronting Lee. Those were bad enough, but when the images began to include Sheamus laughing at me, I gave up trying to sleep and went to Sick Bay.

“Here you go, sir,” Frank said as he gave me a sleeping pill.

“You sure it won’t knock me out completely, though?”

“No sir. It’s more of a relaxant. Just like I assured the skipper when he was here for one. Yeah, it kind of surprised me too. You’ll be sawing wood just like him pretty soon. I know ‘cause I checked on him a few minutes ago. Sound asleep.”