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LIFEBOAT
   by Holly Rennick
   AUTHOR'S NOTES
   "Them fuckers in the Services get all the credit for winnin' the goddamn
war.  But who got their asses shot out of the water to get them their shit,
for chrissake?  Us fuckers in the Merchant Marine.  Goddamn sub-bait." -
Cookie Rorke
   "If you don't like romance, Cookie says go fuck yourself." - Holly
Rennick, Merchant Marine Cadet
   PART 1
   The son-of-a-bitch sub!  Everybody said they'd been run out of these
parts and all we was carryin' were more fuckin' refugees.  Fuck!
   Cookie bobbed in his lifejacket and watched the M/V Parkton disappear, a
sorry excuse for a vessel, to be sure, but still his ship.  All them
fuckers in steerage think they're gonna to get a new start and now this! 
Goddamn the whole thing!
   As he'd seen the sub hurridly dive, Cookie figured maybe a destroyer
wasn't too far away, but what good is that when you're already sunk? 
Fuckin' Navy!
   The lifeboat had been empty, probably dumped by the fuckin' deck crew.
He'd scrambled over the gunwale and pulled one survivor with him, a girl
maybe sucked out the concussion hole.  Life's mainly luck.
   The girl was maybe fourteen.  Thick black braid.  Eyes almost blue,
strange for one with such dark hair, Cookie thought.  A lot more than
fourteen by the stare in those eyes, though.  He couldn't understand a word
she said, but fuck it.  She was lucky to be alive, though maybe that
wouldn't end up being much of a reward.
   Nobody else floated by, not live ones anyway.
   The lifeboat seemed sound and at least the fuckers hadn't spilled the
rations.  But goddamnit, his Giants were playin' them asshole Dodgers at
the Polo Grounds and it would've been on the short wave.  Luck goes both
ways, he realized; he'd been on the ladder to the radio room when the
torpedo hit.  Anyway, who gives a shit?
   The fuckin' destroyer still didn't show and after a few hours of
huddling wet, Cookie realized he'd fuckin' better get to work.
   The girl's name seemed to be Mirta, something like that.  Cookie's
asking "Momma?" and "Daddy?" must have made some sort of sense in her
language, because she shook her head.  She didn't try to explain more.
   She may have been a foreigner, but at least she saw how a lifeboat
works, making herself useful rewrapping rations and even snagging an extra
oar that floated by.  Not that they'd row anyplace, Cookie realized, but at
least she had some sense, not like most foreigners.
   Cookie had been torpedoed once before, that one up in the North Atlantic
where it was colder than a witch's tit.  They say the third's the one that
sends you with the ship.  He'd done his share in this fuckin' war.  Goddamn
Merchant Marine!  They'd pay him for the fuckin' days till his ship got
sunk.  That's all.  Nothin' for sittin' in this goddamn lifeboat.  Fuck
everything.
   Cookie figured they were close enough to the African coast to drift
there eventually, but he'd keep a flare ready for something quicker.  The
fuckin' M/V Parkton wouldn't have taken this goddamn route if it weren't
for the subs and they still got us, he complained to himself.  There was no
way to complain to the girl.
   They ate okay for being in an open boat, though Cookie would have liked
a little variety.  He'd cooked his way around the world enough times to
know what could be provisioned if you cared how it tastes.  The girl took
what he served without comment.  It would have been nice to talk, though,
if she'd known how.
   Into the second day, still no ship appeared and Cookie knew it could be
a while.
   The girl didn't say anything, or better put, didn't say anything that
made sense to Cookie.  She didn't even seem that affected, like a paying
passenger would be.  Maybe wherever the fuck she came from, Cookie guessed,
she'd had lots of ships sunk, so to speak.
   When the girl let herself over the side, her hands on the safety rope,
Cookie figured she was peeing.  Cookie thought it stupid to get yourself
fuckin' wet, but maybe they're more private where she comes from.  Just in
case, Cookie looked the other direction.
   Cookie didn't give a shit; he just waited to get rescued.
   By the next day, though, watching the swells was tiring in itself.  A
turn in the weather was at least a change.
   When splashes of sea soaked the girl's blouse, pasting it to breasts
high and angular, Cookie could see her nipples.  Probably whatever fuckin'
place she came from, underwear's a luxury, these days.  Puny tits, he
decided.
   Cookie had fucked tons of women.  There were whores, in fact, if their
daddy wasn't watchin', would fuck him free.  Bein' a sailor, you fuck when
you get the chance.
   He wasn't sure if he'd ever fucked one this young.  Whores lie.  He'd
fucked a Chinese girl he'd thought a teenager and it turned out that she
had four chink kids, the oldest ready to be fucked herself.
   Did he have a string of brats in the ports, he wondered?  He didn't give
a shit, but probably not.  Too many of his shipmates got the clap or syph.
He usually wore a rubber.
   It would be a snap to fuck this one.  She probably put out for the
Nazis, so why not?  Her word against his when they got picked up and nobody
would understand her, anyway.  Stuck out this goddamn ocean, anybody would
do the same.  Fuck 'em enough and they get more into it.  Maybe she'd beg
for more in whatever language she spoke.  He'd never fucked in a lifeboat
before.  Shit, yes.
   There weren't any rubbers in the lifeboat -- he'd have fixed that if
they'd put him in charge of the kit -- but what the hell?
   He'd forced women before, nothing that rough, just bitches who winked in
the bar, then turned uppity in the alley.  Usually when he finished, they'd
tell him to go fuck himself next time, pull their skirt down and wander
back toward the music.
   As the girl slept, he lay on the planking beside her and touched her
blouse.  You want 'em to fight, just not get at your nuts.  He at least
wanted her to push his hand away.
   Cookie didn't realize her eyes were open until he saw the disconnected
stare.
   Cookie wavered.  "Sorry.  Accident," removing his hand himself and
hoping she'd understand the apology, if not the English.
   The girl lay still long after he moved away, but -- he was relieved to
see -- at last she returned to her dreams.  He'd give her a little more
time to recuperate from the sinking.
   He decided to rape her the next morning, but there were too many fish on
the lines and by the time they'd finished gutting, she was too messy.  So
was he.
   He figured he'd do it that afternoon, but a squall threw itself at them
and Cookie's attention was devoted to catching fresh water.
   That evening the sky was clear and the moment was perfect.  The sport of
it challenged him.  He'd rehearsed in his mind how he'd hold two wrists
behind her back while he pulled up her dress.  Doing it in a boat would be
tricky because if she scrambled loose, she could throw herself overboard.
That wouldn't be right.  He wouldn't tie her hands, though.  That would be
too easy.  He'd let her struggle to submission, make her acknowledge his
strength.  Should he make her lick him first?  It never hurt a girl to do
it, he figured.
   He wouldn't mind a few scratches, though there were no shipmates to
show. "Fuckin' dame fought like a cat, she did, till I got on board, then
she wouldn't let me fuckin' stop."
   But when he fondled the girl awake, she just lay stiffly, looking at
sky, not at him.  The buttons of her blouse didn't match, he noticed, as he
undid them.  He wished her breasts were bigger as he squeezed them like
market fruit.  Her skirt was thread-bare, easy to bunch up.  When he pulled
down her underpants, hand-stitched from linen sacking, she gave no contest.
He stared at her triangle of matted blackness.
   Well look at this, he thought, exposing his hard-on.  I'll bet it scares
you to see one so big.
   She yet lay still, not bothering to close her legs when given the
chance.
   Cookie looked away.  Shit!  This ain't no fun.  He'd make it quick, for
the girl's sake.  There'd be more times to do it longer if they weren't
rescued soon.  Maybe she'd get in the mood or somethin'.
   But Jesus Christ, the girl's not even bothering to tell him no. 
Probably been fucked through the Russian lines, the German lines, the
Allied lines, for chrissake!  Probably nothin' left worth fucking.
   Well, he knew there'd be somethin' worth fucking, of course, given her
age.  She'd get scrappy and make it better.
   But she only looked past him.
   Fuck it, he thought, still stroking his cock.  Maybe he didn't need it
right now.  He was in charge of this fuckin' lifeboat and needed to be
watching the horizon.
   He pulled up his pants a bit awkwardly.
   Unsure of how to redress her, he covered her with a sail.  But the
canvas looked too coarse, so he replaced it with his jacket.  He hoped
she'd warm up.
   He'd not stay awake all night, but he'd keep watch for a while.  A
fuckin' ship always arrives, sooner or later.  What he'd do would be to
rethink the Giants' batting order.  They'd been leavin' too many goddamn
runners on second.  Fuckin' sub!  Did they beat the goddamn Dodgers?
   A shooting star passed overhead, heading south.
   When he awoke, the girl was dressed, boiling a fish stew over a Sterno
and ignoring him other than to lay his jacket in the bow.  But he knew she
watched him while he washed his face with salt water.
   Shit, he decided!  She probably wasn't used to this type of weather.  He
gestured for her to keep the jacket.
   She nodded and he could see the blue in her eyes.
   For fish stew, it wasn't bad.  She must have found some better spices.
   The breeze blew them onward to wherever breezes blow.
   ***
   The vessel that plucked them from their lifeboat was British, so nobody
knew shit about the National League.  It dropped the two in the Crown
Colony of Sierra Leon where the U.S.  Consulate would tide Cookie over
until an American ship could sign him on.
   If anyone in that shit-hole of Freetown could understand the girl,
Cookie couldn't find the fucker.  It wasn't that hard for Cookie to pass
her a few dollars from his poker winnings.  He'd find her sitting in the
square, a white face amidst black.  Maybe she slept here, he wondered. 
Anyway, she had to fuckin' eat.
   As there wasn't much else to do, Cookie stepped into the Church of the
Sacred Heart.  He knew it was the right kind by its name.  As he'd not been
to mass for quite a while, he confessed and felt lucky to get off with 100
Hail Marys.  Cookie took the father's "Welcome back, my son," at his word,
as seamen are prone to do.  Never mind that the priest who entered the
other side of the confessional was as black as coal.  "Welcome back," the
father had said.
   Cookie lit a candle and said a little prayer that the girl would get
safely to wherever she was going.
   This goddamn place had an English newspaper, but it didn't say shit
about the pennant race.  It's the fuckin' British influence, he realized,
nothin' to do with 'em bein' black.  American niggers know who's how many
games behind.  Fortunately the Consul General followed the game, so the two
had an excuse for a few beers.  Cookie couldn't believe the guy liked the
Cubs, but at least he knew the lineups.
   When a Yankee freighter hit port, Cookie stopped by the square to bid
the girl adieu.  The hand-wave she understood, but maybe he should shake
her hand as well.  After all, they'd been on a lifeboat together.  When he
did so, he saw wordless tears in the blue eyes.  What's she gonna to do in
a shit-hole place like this, he wondered?  Not that he didn't know what her
only choice would be.  Not that he didn't like niggers, mind you, some of
his best friends, the stewards, were niggers.  But you couldn't leave a
white girl in the middle of 'em.
   The Consul General saw Cookie's point that she'd been bound for
somewhere when they'd been sunk, so probably she'd had some sort of papers.
In a war, papers get sunk along with ships like the M/V Parkton.  "That's
why FDR made you Consul General," Cookie called on his baseball buddy's
authority.  It wouldn't be that hard to issue her somethin' new if someone
makes sure she gets on the goddamn ship.
   The girl's name was Mirta; of that Cookie was pretty sure.  Her second
name was "Ozbekchi" he translated, knowing none of her tongue, but aware
that the fuckin' form needed filling.  Best he could figure out, she'd come
from somewhere behind the Soviet lines, someplace where whatever future
she'd had burned down, and started walking west.
   She wouldn't have done such a goddamn risky thing unless things were
pretty bad, Cookie figured.  Probably some fucker said follow the sun until
you get to a safe place and there weren't no safe places all the way to the
Atlantic.  At least she made it.
   She knew some Russian-sounding words, but a seaman on the British
freighter said she didn't know much.  Must be from one of them fuckin'
places no one's heard of, Cookie guessed.  He wrote "Kricastan", a sound
that seemed like it could be a place over there.  Any fucker who stood by
the Cubs wouldn't admit that as the representative of United States
Government, he'd never heard of it.  The White Sox, Cookie could
understand, but the goddam Cubs?
   Cookie gave an address on the Lower East Side for her family; leaving
the line blank would jeopardize the visa's approval.  Her father works for
the Sanitation Department, Cookie decided.  A public servant would look
good.  When she understood that the question was her age, she held out ten
fingers, then nine again.  Cookie was surprised, but probably they don't
eat very well over there.
   Leaving the Consul General's office, papers in hand, the girl saw a
poster of the Statue of Liberty.  She looked at it for the longest time and
took Cookie's hand until they reached the consulate gate.
   The purser wasn't about to take on a passenger with no fare.  But, the
newly-signed cookie assured, this one was a cook herself.  Fuckin' Grand
Hotel in Kricastan, he added, figuring there'd be one.
   Save havin' to hire an assistant cookie, he told the purser.  Cookie
wasn't that sure about his endorsement, other than what she'd done with the
fish stew, but when he showed her the galley and pointed to a picture of a
cake, she knew where to start.  He'd never tasted one with walnuts and
found it not bad.
   Cookie could have bunked her.  In a freighter like this, the cookie
sleeps beside the galley.  Nobody would have cared.  She wasn't like a real
passenger.  She knew she owed him, so wouldn't have made a stink.  The
mechanics mate would have sold him the rubbers, as he wouldn't have wanted
to leave the girl with a loaf in the oven.  Not to a nice kid.
   But it wasn't as if he really needed it.  He'd fucked some chocolate
ones in Freetown and could make it to the Bowery.  Besides, if it was
settling a debt, it would make her a whore.  She wasn't that, no matter
what she'd gone through.  Give the kid a chance a make a new life.
   She'd bought a brassiere in Freetown, larger than she needed, but in
Africa they have big tits.  Cookie was glad because it gave his shipmates
less reason to stare at her.  Their attention was additionally discouraged
by the flash of whetted steel as Cookie cubed beefsteak while reading a
tattered Look Magazine.
   A cookie and his assistant dance closely.  It's nothing to do with the
two-step, which Cookie knew a little bit; it's to do with fast workers
anticipating each other.  A galley's too small, the grease too hot for
errors.  A cookie's assistant with a filleting knife makes left turn,
thinking cookie's on the right, and cookie's gut's slit, not the cod's.
   Cookie and the girl danced silently.  If he reached across her corn
fritters for the oil, her fork wasn't in his way.  Cookie figured that
bein' on the lifeboat, maybe she'd learned some professionalism.
   But sometimes even good dancers misstep.  While the two kneaded bread,
the ship might list and he'd bump her hip.  She'd at first looked up, but
when it didn't happen again, at least not on purpose, she ceased scooting
to where she couldn't work the dough.  Cookie was the one embarrassed,
actually.  Maybe she didn't mind that much, Cookie wondered.
   Cookie would take the girl's hand to show her how to crack two eggs at
once or peel a potato in the quickest manner.  He liked the feel of fingers
interlocked.
   When Cookie whacked his head on the goddamn hatch cover, the girl held
him against her chest while she bandaged the wound.
   Over the galley table he'd sometimes see a breast when the neck of her
blouse opened and the too-large brassiere fell loose.  He tried not to
look, but sometimes he forgot.
   Thinking of Mirta gave him a hard-on at times.  He'd not have been a
sailor if he couldn't snap to attention, his justification.  But it wasn't
only about her breasts.  He'd seen women with lots bigger.  No, it was just
thinking about Mirta, none of his goddamn business, he knew, but she was
what he thought about.  He wished he'd treated her nicer.
   Once he'd gotten a hard-on when they were dicing vegetables and he could
see the top of her brassiere.  Why would seein' just that much give him a
hard-on, he wondered?  It didn't make no sense.
   Maybe he hadn't turned away fast enough.  He didn't know if she noticed
his fly, but she muffed her recitation of oven temperatures in steps of
twenty-five-degrees.  Cookie couldn't teach her English, he figured, but he
could teach what he knew about.  It hadn't occurred to him that she could
blush, but maybe it was because of her counting error.
   Another time he'd gotten an erection standing behind her at the
dirty-dish sink and she backed into him when the floor tilted.  He was sure
she couldn't tell, though, since he was wearing his apron.
   As any Merchant Marine knows how to take care of himself at sea, Cookie
got physical relief.  He thought about sex, of course, but not nearly as
much as he thought of just being with the girl.  When Cookie dwelt on her
sexual aspects in the privacy of his bunk, he didn't let himself fuck her.
They just touched each other.
   Anyway, you don't screw someone you're escortin' to America on behalf of
a U.S.  Consul General.  But fuck Uncle Sam, Cookie realized.  He was just
doing what any decent American guy would know was right.
   Even if she'd learned more English, Cookie realized that she'd not
understand how he thought about her.  He wouldn't know how to say it.
   But what that girl could do with spuds and a few spices!  It wasn't like
he wasn't gettin' nothing out of it.  Shit no!  It wasn't half bad to have
someone like her around.  He sometimes even peeled the potatoes and he was
the goddamn cookie.
   A wizened sailor entered the galley, his watch spent coiling cable in
the elements.  The boatswain had told Cookie that the old fucker merchant
marined the last war as well.  Didn't give a shit about gettin' sunk. 
After the old man finished his soup and studied last year's calendar, the
he rolled dice, right hand vs.  the left.
   Cookie watched the mariner blow his nose.  "Jesus H.  Christ!" Cookie
muttered to his assistant.  He wished he could have explained himself
better, that they were lookin' at himself in thirty years.
   Cookie liked it when Mirta joined him in the radio room to listen to
ballgames.  He'd spread coffee cups across the chart table to indicate the
fielding positions and demonstrate a home run by running the salt shaker
around the diamond.  While it wasn't clear that is student appreciated many
of the details, it seemed to Cookie that she instinctively recognized the
logic of a well-executed bunt.
   Approaching New York, the ship slowed to meet the tug at daybreak.  For
Cookie it was just another west-bound crossing, but then again, it was a
crossing uncharted.  He was on the deck before dawn when he saw Mirta alone
on the forward hatch, facing into the headwind.
   Cookie approached, shuffled his feet to announce his presence and sat
beside her.
   "Almost in port."
   She nodded, but Cookie wondered if she'd heard.
   "New York's a great place," he offered.
   She nodded again.
   As it was cold, Cookie laid his jacket over her shoulders.  He spoke of
skyscrapers, Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, the Brooklyn Bridge, baseball.
He so much wanted to tell her that everything would be fine.
   Mirta didn't understand much of what he said, Cookie realized, but at
the end replied, "Rahmat.  Dankew."
   Cookie asked the Blessed Virgin to be with the girl.  The girl was a
little like the Blessed Virgin, maybe, he wondered.  He spoke before he
thought better of saying it.  "I'll miss you."
   He put her hand in his and held it.  He really would.
   ***
   Cookie didn't know what Mirta expected when they reached Manhattan, but
when they sailed past the Statue of Liberty, she hugged him, tiny breasts
burrowing into his sweater.  He'd seen her naked on the lifeboat floor,
even once fondled her, but these breasts felt different.
   He'd miss the little dame.
   ***
   But there was, of course, no one for Mirta at the East River dock and
Cookie had to subway the City with her, popping up in neighborhood after
neighborhood for her to listen.
   She clung tightly.  As she mastered the rudiments, though, Cookie could
feel her fear wane.  Her steps were longer.  He liked the idea that New
Yorkers might think that the girl on his arm was his girl.
   Cookie's arm could feel the mismatched buttons, the lumpy African
brassiere, the heartbeat within.  Once as the two pushed toward a
turnstile, she'd turned toward him and his elbow fully crossed her breast.
It made Cookie content to have her close, a feeling that Cookie associated
with years so long ago.
   When it happened again, this time at a Midtown crosswalk, he turned in
search of a street sign and let his arm cross back.  "Lexington Street," he
offered.
   "Lex eng tone," Mirta repeated, abruptly stopping and again pulling his
arm again against her.
   "No, not 'tone', 'tun', honey."
   "Lex eng tone," Mirta tried a second time as if to say she thought it
important to know this new land.
   Cookie again read her the street sign, and she practiced pronunciation
until the light said walk.
   It wasn't much further where the two came upon a bent-over oldster, one
more forlorn foreigner to Cookie, pushing a too-large rack of suits.  Mirta
must have suspected something more, as she addressed the worker in her
language.  While the fellow didn't answer in like tongue, he must have
caught the essence, as he turned to Cookie, "She go to Brooklyn.  Avenue G.
Her people."
   Cookie shook their helper's hand.  "Thanks, buddy," and helped him
negotiate the route to a sidewalk lift.
   In Brooklyn, Mirta at last heard recognizable words yelled by a rotund
woman to a boy playing stickball.
   Whatever language the women spoke, Cookie hadn't a clue, but she wore a
scarf and she and Mirta jabbered away like long-lost sisters.  The boy,
about eight, already at home in Brooklyn, relayed his mother's questions to
Cookie.
   "Where's your family?" Cookie had a sister Betty Sue who'd been in
Chicago, but he'd lost her address.
   "How did a man learn to cook?" That's what cookies do.
   "How much do you make?" Forty-five a week.  The woman was impressed, but
Mirta didn't seem especially interested when the boy relayed the number.
   "What's your tattoo say?" Mirta must have told the woman she'd seen his
back when he'd hop over the lifeboat side to pee.  "Mother." The woman said
that was good.
   "My mother," summarized the boy, after listening to the women's
prolonged deliberation, "says you are good for this girl."
   Cookie turned in astonishment.
   "This girl," the boy taking seriously his go-between responsibility,
"says you have honor.  You must ask my father to marry and he will say
yes."
   Cookie didn't know what to say, from whom the instruction originated,
even, but when he looked at Mirta, the blue eyes held him.
   The father (who seemed to Cookie not much older than himself) knew the
patriarchal role, even if he hardly knew his surrogate daughter.  He
explained in passable English what was expected.  Cookie must always work,
teach his sons a trade and rarely drink.
   The wife listened intently, missing the English, but astute about
negotiation.  At her husband's, "I put a Frigidaire," she frowned,
apparently recognizing the subject.
   A refrigerator, wondered Cookie?  Then he realized and grinned.  "No
Frigidaire, bud!  Here in America it's the guy who gives his gal a ring."
   Cookie knew a Lebanese who'd give him a deal on pawned jewelry.  But
what the hell!  He'd pay a little extra if it was a nice one.  Fuckin'
Lebanese, they own everything, but they'll give you a fair shake if they
know you.
   The mother beamed when the boy explained to her that a daughter's
marriage is free in this country.
   "I teach her about ring," the father decided, the arbiter of new-world
ways.  "She live nere until marry day, but you to come for talking. 
Brother watch her pure," with a matter-of-fact throat cutting gesture.
   Cookie got the old-world message.  A little brother can sneak up on you
and these fuckers keep their knives sharp.  As they should keep then, the
culinary part of him appreciated.
   After the handshake, the father mentioned that he operated the elevator
in a hotel and that his friend in the kitchen was looking for help.  He'd
put in a good word.
   Cookie had never imagined he'd be married, but then again, he'd never
promised that he wouldn't.  Mother wouldn't believe it, rest her soul, but
at least he knew where to start tracking down his sister.  Well, he
wouldn't believe it either until it happens.
   He had the boy tell Mirta they'd go shopping tomorrow and that her
father would explain the American custom.
   "But now," added Cookie's father-in-law-to-be, "we enjoy," producing a
bottle of something remarkably smooth, perhaps derived from a fruit,
decided Cookie.  It turned out that the fellow played checkers -- as wily
as a Chinaman, Cookie learned the hard way -- but Cookie employed the
board's edges to his advantage.  At the end, they called the match a draw
because it was going to take all of them to the goddamn Germans.
   ***
   Cookie never did understand all the steps in a wedding rooted in a land
so distant, but he got the central ideas.  Having been an altar boy at
Immaculate Conception, he knew some lines in Latin, and although this
wasn't Latin, it seemed familiar for an important ceremony to be in a
mysterious language.  The incense was almost the same, and he didn't forget
smells.  You can't properly cook without a discerning nose.  Mirta's veil
made it hard to see her, but he understood it to be temporary.  The boy
cued Cookie when he had to do something.
   Mirta broadcast her smile when the portion of the ceremony ended in
which she had to look sad.
   After the toasts, Cookie felt a tad high, but maybe just from having
kissed his wife.  She stood proud on his arm as he recited "Casey at the
Bat." These people understand drama, Cookie acknowledged, if not the rules
of the sport.  Well, that wasn't quite right.  The boy knew how to get into
Ebbets Field for free.  Goddamn Dodgers!
   Cookie had never danced with men before, but knew that sailors used to
do so.
   Cookie was totally sober when he carried an excited Mirta across the
threshold of their new apartment.  Not much of a place, he realized, but a
good start.  Nicer than the digs where he'd slept between sailings.  Their
one piece of new furniture was the bed.  They'd find a larger apartment
when there was reason for more rooms.
   Cookie remembered Mirta's blouse soaked by salt spray.  The cling of the
cloth was all he let himself picture.
   He undressed her, taking care to fold her day-old Macy's undergarments.
The newlyweds giggled at the newness of nakedness.
   Though she'd learned her English numbers, he didn't want to know how
many times she'd been stripped by soldiers.  He wished he'd not exposed her
on the lifeboat.  That he'd not gone farther he was very glad, proud of
himself, even.  What a real Merchant Marine would do.
   Cookie had seen lots of the world, but he'd never seen anything more
beautiful than his wife.  He undressed in the shadows, as not to frighten
her.
   From the intake of breath when he caressed her breasts, Cookie knew that
it was the first time they'd been kissed.  He rested his cheek on them
until she ruffled his hair and he knew that she wanted him to kiss her
lower.
   When he sensed that she was ready, he climbed above her.
   He'd known her hips were narrow, but now he worried that maybe she'd not
be large enough to enter.  Well that wasn't quite right, he knew; enough
shovin' gets you into about anything.  He'd not want to hurt her, though.
   She smiled, squeezing Cookie's heft, pulling him toward her.  As he
positioned himself, her eyes said not to worry.
   Only when she winced did Cookie realize the vestige of her journey, but
it was only for a moment and then she began to move with him.  He let her
decide how much.  Once he'd thought she was crying, but she'd reached to
kiss him, so maybe he was wrong.
   As he didn't want to press her downward, he used his arms to lift his
weight and center their communication where he'd so much to say.  The bed
squeaked in its newness.
   Only when Mirta began to breathe deeply did Cookie realize that she
might come.  He knew he should pace himself, but the suddenness of her
gasps and words pulled him with her.
   His virgin bride.  When she came like a storm at sea, he hoped he could
do as well again.
   Maybe he was sort of a virgin himself, Cookie wondered before he
climaxed.
   PART 2
   When the sailor who pulled her into the lifeboat prepared to rape her,
Mirta freed her spirit to a safe place far away.  She'd been stripped
before and at least the sailor didn't appear to be cruel.  This, too, would
pass.  But when he abruptly redressed and covered her with his jacket,
she'd fallen asleep knowing that he was a good man.
   In the African city, she was glad when he passed by, a familiar face in
a place so alien.  If he hadn't given her some money, she'd not have eaten.
His name was Cookie.
   When Cookie took her to the office full of scurrying Americans, it took
her the longest time to comprehend that she was getting papers.  America!
She knew it was improper for her to have taken his hand, but she'd been too
overwhelmed to think better of it.  America!  The lady holding her torch in
the air!
   On the ship, Mirta liked it when Cookie would take her hand to show her
a kitchen procedure.  Did he really think she didn't know how to hold a
knife?  Or did he just like it when their hands touched, the same as her?
   Mirta confirmed what she'd suspected the time she backed into him at the
galley sink.  He seemed so determined to remain her protector, but was so
foolish to think she couldn't guess.  She'd seen his erection before, of
course, poised to violate, but that was long ago.  In the galley it wasn't
demanding.  She pressed her hip against him an extra moment for certainty
and hoped he didn't see her blush.
   Mirta knew by their restraint that the crew knew she was the cookie's
charge.  She'd seen how Cookie chose to demonstrate his hand with cutlery.
   It wasn't that she needed all that much extra protection, though.  She'd
dealt with the mop-haired electrician who'd whistled at her on the deck by
coolly ladling split-pea soup over his raisin pie.  He'd said not a word.
   She'd have followed Cookie to his cabin.  There'd have been no other way
to pay her debt.  She'd have taken him even like a German once made her do.
He'd offered her a wheat cracker afterwards which she refused.
   But Cookie asked nothing, never even showed her where he bunked.
   She'd known that the ship was approaching America by the changes of
pace. The crew hustled with fewer curses.  She and Cookie served what would
lose its value once the larder was re-provisioned -- pies of the remaining
apples, a stew of the remaining beef.
   She'd gone to the foredeck after they'd secured the galley.  America
would be so different.  The official had given her papers stranding her on
a foreign shore, but she was willing.
   She'd been fearful when a sailor approached from behind, but it was her
friend, Cookie, her only friend.  He wanted to comfort her, she could tell,
but at the same time, his tone spoke of loneliness himself.
   When he put his jacket over her, she wished it were big enough for two.
She wanted to move where he'd wrap his arms around her, but she didn't.
   The future's what keeps you alive, she wanted to tell him.  I'll miss
you, too.  You're a good man, Cookie.  You'll be a good husband, a good
father.  For a pretty American girl, though.
   But who can see the future?
   But there on the deck when he took her hand in hers, she saw.
   ***
   The next day, her first in America, they'd gone in search of her people.
Americans are so many!  So wonderfully dressed!  So busy!
   She'd been on trains before, but never ones below the ground.  But she
wasn't holding to Cookie solely for guidance.  She'd made her way through
cities far more frightening.  She held to him because it felt right.  At
the street with so many cars, she didn't breathe when she led his arm over
her breast and then back.  Would he notice?
   When he pressed back while they read street names, she knew it was good
for him, too.  He wouldn't have drilled her for so long on the
pronunciation if it weren't.
   As she was wearing his jacket, she knew he could hardly tell she had
breasts, but wished he could feel the hardness.  When they got back on the
subway, she unbuttoned his jacket so he'd be closer.
   ***
   And these Americans!  When they'd met the Chicago train the day before
the wedding, Betty Sue gave her brother the biggest kiss and then gave
Mirta one just as grand!  The two women chatted all the way home, language
difference of no importance.  They agreed that Cookie should wear a tie
more stylish than the one he owned.  Probably a dark shade of blue.
   Betty Sue said her brother didn't deserve a wife so beautiful.
   Mirta couldn't believe that she was getting such a sister-in-law!
   ***
   Mirta knew Cookie would exact what a husband was due on the wedding
night.  Cookie was a man who'd long gone without.  Her journey left no
ignorance about the ways a girl can be taken.  She'd submit in whatever
manner pleased him.  He was her husband, after all, and she'd not let
herself cry.
   Her apprehension, though, was afforded brief respite when Cookie turned
away to undress, as if to shelter her one last moment.
   She wasn't surprised when Cookie touched her breasts; men like to do
that.  But she was surprised when he kissed them, making her nipples stand
as they had when they'd read the street signs.  The touch made her shiver.
She liked it, having him close like a baby might be, and ruffled his hair
to tell him to keep kissing.
   She'd not known that a man might kiss you down your body.  She was
startled, but it excited her at the same time.  She wanted him to keep
kissing, but knew that he'd his needs, too.
   Wanting him to know that she wasn't afraid, she brushed her knee against
his penis until it was fully erect, and when that felt not close enough,
used her leg to roll it back and forth.  Other men had thrust themselves
against her, she realized, but she'd never reached out.
   When Cookie climbed above her, she kept her spirit from flying away. 
She wanted it there for her husband.
   She didn't care that it would hurt.  If pain mattered, she'd not have
made it to America.  But Cookie entered slowly, just the tip until she felt
herself relax for the next increment.  Bit by bit, she let him in, each
surrender more willing than the last.  By the time he was fully within, the
days of her journey were fading, the days of her future opening.  She'd
told herself she'd not cry, but couldn't hold back tears that cleansed.
   The smoothness of it surprised her.  The wetness was hers, not yet his.
Wanting Cookie to remain, she clenched to hold him.
   She'd learned that if you lie immobile, they'll finish faster.  But this
she wished it to last.  She moved with Cookie as he slipped in and out, in
and out.  And every time she feared he might be done, he again entered.
   Mirta knew that it was the man's job to decide, but she decided as well,
lifting so he'd enter deeper.  She hoped her inexperience didn't make her
too demanding, but didn't know what else to do but pull him with her arms
and push him with her hips.
   She knew she'd said, "Kha" and only afterwards realized how thin were
the apartment walls.  At least the neighbors wouldn't know it meant, "yes."
   Not knowing even the word for orgasm in his language, or hers, made its
arrival more astonishing.  She'd known that women might feel something, but
when she began to twitch, she was startled at its pleasure.  She didn't
want it to end, but at the same time, wanted it all.  At the end, their
bodies slick with sweat, it wasn't just his erection within her; it was his
whole body around her and her spirit around him.
   A girl doesn't talk about these things except to her mother.  But maybe
she didn't really need to understand it in her own tongue, she wondered;
this is a bigger language.
   The other times, it had been nothing more than a slimy poison, a
delusion of someone's manhood, that afterwards drained from her.  Tonight,
these were precious seeds that flooded her.  She held them in.
   She hoped she'd be a good wife.  She hoped it would be a girl.
   ***
   After Cookie left for the hotel, Mirta went down the hall to the Polish
woman who spoke a little Russian, but also knew some English.  She'd
offered Mirta the loan of her vacuum, but it wasn't about that.  Mirta
didn't know how to operate one, anyway.
   The Daily News on the table would do as well as anything, Mirta decided,
though she didn't know it was called the Daily News.  It took a few tries
to communicate to the Polish woman that all Mirta needed was to hear how to
say what looked to be the shortest headline.  She had all day to practice.
   When Cookie arrived home, a bag of quite-good croissants salvaged from
the day's surplus, she knew his priority was to lead her back to their new
bed.  But she forestalled him long enough to point with pride to
yesterday's sports page.  "Je-ents Ovar Fil-del-fya."
   She watched Cookie's eyes widen when he realized that she'd read it.
   That accomplished, his priority was hers as well.
   ***
   In the ship's radio room, Mirta had thought the game of moving
saltshakers on tabletops rather unexciting, but she'd applauded Cookie's
commitment.  Only in New York after he took her to a great stadium where
she saw players throw and hit the ball did she grasp the challenge.  It
wasn't that different from a game she'd played as a girl, actually.  The
boys usually tried to hit the leather ball over the others' heads.  She'd
beat them by swinging her paddle towards where they weren't standing.
   ***
   In a new city, one can make love anew every day.
   The two made love on the balcony where they could look down the canyon
of brick and steel all the way to the East River.
   The two made love on the rooftop behind the utility shed.  The couples
in the building knew not to disturb one another if the mattress was
occupied.  Drag the mattress out of the elements when it's not needed was
the rule.  The wives joked that a quarter of the building's children got
their start up there.  The breeze would blow over Mirta and Cookie and
they'd remember how it had blown likewise, so long ago.
   The two made love when the Giants won.  Not as often when they lost. 
For the Puerto Rican couple in the apartment above, Mirta came to
anticipate, it related more to the Yankees.
   The day the war ended, along with half the City, the two made love in
Central Park.
   PART 3
   I guess I'm the point of this story, the proof, so to speak.  I'm on the
Central Asian Studies faculty at NYU.  Speaking Uzbek gives a leg up in the
tenure process.  Perhaps you've seen me on TV when PBS needs a talking head
to differentiate all those new Stans.  PBS producers aren't fools.  They
don't want me to speak Uzbek, but they want me to have long black hair. 
That's fine.
   You couldn't tell my specialization by my name, though -- Jeanette Rorke
Escobeda.  My given name was almost "Giants", as my mother wanted to
christen me from the headline in English she'd read the morning after I was
conceived.  Fortunately, my father convinced her that "Jeanette" was almost
the same.
   Mother read everything, actually, but "Little House on the Prairie" was
always her favorite.  She read it to me when I was about seven and I never
corrected her pronunciation.  Once our whole family went to the prairie by
train to visit Mother's relatives who'd come later, but we liked New York
City more.
   Actually, one time we might have moved.  When his beloved Giants moved
west, my distraught Father touted the merits of moving to San Francisco. 
He'd been there lots.  Cable cars, even.  Maybe just spend a year to see
how we like it.
   "Nuts to that!" said my Mother.  I'm still not sure if she'd nailed a
Brooklyn idiom, or if the initial word was a rude negation in Uzbek.  She
sometimes mixed her languages.  In any case, Father got the point.
   When she discovered her immigration papers stuffed in a sea-chest,
Mother was at first appalled.  "My name was no Ozbekchi!" Then she laughed.
"But is very good country."
   I knew my mother as my mom and softball coach.  "Picture hit!" was what
got us to the 14-and-Under championship.  The Daily News hailed Mother as
the Kerchief Coach and quoted her that baseball was invented in her home
country, which drew several rebuttals.
   It never occurred to us to chat about the latest 45s when we were in the
dugout.  We were picturing our next hit -- "No high to outside field where
catch." A dozen singles beats a lucky homer every game.
   The stories my mother shared with others about her journey to America
were:
   (1) How my father pulled her from the Atlantic, and
   (2) How listening to a ship's radio got her interested in baseball.
   In crossing half a continent, Mother was taken by soldiers perhaps in
barns, perhaps in bombed-out schools, perhaps on the hood of half-tracks. I
can only suppose the situations.  The who and how and where and when matter
no more.
   The greater question is that as a fertile woman, why she didn't
conceive? It wasn't anything medical that kept her safe.  Maybe God knew my
father was waiting.
   That I was conceived on their wedding night is proven by their dated
wedding photo and my birthday.  The photo shows Mother so beautiful as
Father raises his glass.  In the background, Aunt Betty Sue holds a tiny
American flag.  Mother's turned her hand so you can see her ring.  I wore
her veil for my wedding and I'm Unitarian.  My daughter wore it for hers
and she goes to Vineyard Fellowship.
   My father, Cookie Rorke, never went back to sea.  I knew him as my dad
and the dessert chef at the Waldorf Astoria.
   The stories my father shared with others about his journeys to
everywhere were:
   (1) That if a place is at sea level, he'd probably been there, and
   (2) That it was Mirta who salvaged him from the M/V Parkton.
   Except probably for Father Cavanaugh, maybe I'm the only one to whom he
ever confessed what he'd almost done on the lifeboat.  He never quite
understood why he stopped.  I suppose I don't either, except I know that
even before Mother, he was a good man.  Maybe God had a better plan for
him, too.
   In any case, my father had no doubt that God had a preference for the
New York Giants.  I can imagine his voice in the hotel kitchen, a burly
Irishman commanding his assistants from as many nations as those with whom
he'd crewed.
   "Them '54 Giants knew how to play, Pepe.  Mays' 345.  Fuckin' series in
four.  Ain't been no team better.  Ya call this cream fuckin' whipped?"
   "Them goddamn Yankees!  I don't care how many they win, Hamid.  A bunch
of losers, them guys.  Gimme the goddamn frosting tube and I'll show ya how
to make a fuckin' rose the right way."
   "You call them Dodgers a team, Sung Lee?  You gotta' be fuckin' jokin'!
'Member how many the Giants scored on 'em?  Twenty-six smackeroos in nine
innings!  Leave it in till the crust's crisp, for chrissake!"
   "Mirta's girls could take the fuckin' American League pennant, Tarik! 
Goddamn City champs!  My Georgia won it with a RBI in the ninth." (Actually
it was the borough title, but fathers have selective memories.  Mother told
Lucia, our slugger, to play it safe, just get on first and steal second
when mother touched her kerchief.  I'd struck out my last two at-bats, but
I had this one pictured.  Between second and shorstop and Lucia was already
turning third.)
   Even now when I eat at the Waldorf, I order their Walnut Astoria, even
if I hardly take a bite.  It sits preeminent on the dessert table.  The
waiter says it's a house secret, but I know where they got the recipe.
   When I was little, my parents would leave me to mind my siblings so they
could watch shooting stars from the rooftop.  They'd take the old sea
jacket in case it got cold.  In an emergency, I was to ask the neighbor
woman, Mother's friend, to go up and get them.  Whenever I looked for
shooting stars, though, the sky was too bright with city light, so I don't
know what they saw.
   When I was little, I'd wake up to the creak of my parents' bed.  They
didn't know my friends had already told me about how babies are made.  We
all knew our parents did it, but maybe I was the only one who liked the
sound.  I knew they did it even after Mother was pregnant.  Maybe she even
knew I could hear, I wondered, and this was her way of telling me.  It
wasn't until much later did I realize how remarkably long they made it
last.
   Hypnotized by the sound of bed springs, I taught myself to masturbate.
Years later, I orgasmed at my very first intercourse, not as much from my
boyfriend's prowess -- I knew more than he did -- as from the sound of his
mattress.
   When I was little, my father would drag us to the Polo Grounds.  Father
Cavanaugh would come, too, and the two men would debate the game's finer
points.  I thought it wrong for a priest to pay for the beer, but it had to
do with bets.  I'd get a hot dog with the works and root for Willie. 
Everybody remembers his catches, but forgets how precisely he punched his
hits a glove's length too far from the infielder.
   When I was little, my parents would take us to Staten Island for the
ferry ride.  Father would appraise the arriving ships.  Mother would wear
his old sea jacket, hold his arm and the wind would blow in our hair as we
sailed by the Statue of Liberty.
   THE END
   Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My
problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As
literary errors (or just lame word usages) are made known, I'll repair that
which is salvageable on https://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Holly_Rennick/www.  My website's
not much graphically, I'll admit, but HTML isn't my native language.  If
you take the time to read me, don't wade through an early version.
   You can contact me via the site's message form, that HTML code by the
smart people at ASSTR.
   Holly 
  
Lifeboat