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Opening the refrigerator, taking a gallon bottle of milk, Joe poured a dollop into his coffee mug. “You want milk with chow?”

Having nothing to do with kosher dietary laws, the thought of drinking milk with meat truly repugnant, “No. No, thanks.”

“You ain’t kosher, are you?”

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February 8. 1953

USCG Rockaway Life Boat Station

Rockaway, NewYork

How’s he know I’m a Jew? “Nah,” Mitchell said. “I just don’t like milk with dinner. With dessert, yeah, but not usually with dinner. You got anything else?”

Motioning to the refrigerator, “Be my guest.” Joe said, flipping the steak again.

“Joe, let me ask. How’d you know I’m Jewish?”

“With a name like Lipensky?”

“Shit, Joe, Lipensky could be Polish if it were spelled with an I rather than a Y.”

“Mitch, word gets around, and we…” Joe said conspiratorially, “you’n’me and a couple’a others here are in the minority. It ain’t no fuckin’ democracy here!” Taking a deep, angry draw on his cigarette, jerking his thumb to the left, “This here’s a fuckin’ dictatorship, and there ain’t nothin’ you’n’me can do ’bout it but do our work, keep our mouths shut, and help each other the best we can.”

Absorbing what Joe had said, using a clean ladle that was on the sink, he dished out generous portions of peas and mashed potatoes onto a dinner plate.

Turning the steak again, “Don’t get me wrong, most of ’em here’s good guys,” Carrying the two pots to a large, galvanized garbage can, he dumped the peas and banged the potato pot on the inside of the can. “And there’s only a couple here that I’d tell you to look out for. But maybe that’s just my opinion, and anyway, I don’t know you from shit and you might be a prick, too. But I do know you’re going to have a tough time here, and just thought that maybe you’d feel better knowin’ you’re not the only one here getting’ it from that motherfuckin’ cocksuckin’ son-of-a-bitch.”

He knew, but asked anyway: “The Skipper?”

“Yeah, Captain Ewing!” he said contemptuously. “The fucker hates me ’cause I’m a spick, and he’s tried to burn me, a lot, but I’m a cook first class, so’s there ain’t too much he can do to me so long’s I do my job.”

At the sink, Joe ran steaming water into the pot. Using a steel-wool pad, he scrubbed the pot as smoke from the cigarette held between his lips spiraled upward, causing him to squint.

“I’m glad you told me about it, Joe, but it seems so unfair. Can’t anyone do anything about him?”

“You don’t want to try it. The skipper of a unit is the boss, and anyone tryin’ to hang him better sure as hell have every man in the whole fuckin’ unit behind him, or he’ll end up gettin’ his ass shipped to a weather station at the Arctic fuckin’ Pole for the rest of his life.”

Wiping his hands on the apron, going to the stove, “Looks like you’re about done.”

The overflowing dish in one hand and a glass of ice water in the other, returning to the mess hall, finding McDonald still there, alone, nursing his coffee, Mitchell sat at the far end of the table.

After a few seconds, “I’ve put you in the port section, so if you want, you can pull liberty tomorrow,” McDonald said. “And you got the 12 to 1600 watch so someone’ll take you to the tower in the morning to break you in.” He dropped his cigarette butt in the dredges of his coffee. “Oh, yeah, and your duty station’s the upper deck.”

“The upper deck!” Remembering the width and length of the second floor passage, he swallowed. “The whole upper deck?”

“Yeah. And it gets swept and buffed every day, and scrubbed and waxed and buffed on Friday. Duty station’s from 0800 to 0900, except on Friday when it’s ‘field day,’ then it’s from 0800 to 0930, when the Captain has his white glove inspection.”

Thinking, That’ll give me plenty of time, at least. Taking a bite of steak, chewing a minute, “Mac,” he said, “can I ask you something?”

Hesitating, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What did the Captain see on my record when he said, ‘Look what they sent us’?” Taking a drink of water, he looked at McDonald.

Who looked away. “Nothing.”

“Come, on, Mac! He even brought it to you to see. I haven’t been in the Coast Guard long enough to do anything that bad.” Cutting another piece of steak, halting the trip to his mouth, “What was he pointing at when he brought my papers to you?”

            Beginning to walk out of the mess hall, stopping, McDonald turned back. “Hebrew,” he said softly. “Where it says ‘Religion’, it says you’re Hebrew.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Thanks, Mac.”

“Hey, Mitch, I’m takin’ off! When you’re done, just wash your stuff and leave it on the sink, okay?”

“Sure, Joe. See you tomorrow.”

…He’d been lying on his bed, reading. “Hi.” When Mitchell entered the room, the young man sat up. “I’m Sal Minnossa. Looks like we’re roommates.”

Recognizing him as the man that had spoken to him in the head, crossing the room, shaking hands, “I’m Mitch Lipensky.”

Twenty years old, Minnossa had a thin, handsome face with dark-brown eyes and tightly curled brown hair. In clean denims, he had one chevron with the Machinist Mate emblem stenciled on the sleeve.

“The asshole had you cleaning the head before you even got unpacked, eh.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have minded, except he knew that by the time I’d finished you guys would be securing for the day and it would be getting filthy again.”

“Sounds like the cocksucker… Where you from, Mitch?”

Taking his sea bag from the closet, putting it on the bed, he began to unpack. “Chicago… You?”

“Brooklyn. Not too far from here.”

“That’s great! You get to go home whenever you want.”

“Yeah. I spent more’n a year and a half on a buoy tender out of Boston, and when I got transferred here I could hardly believe it, and if it weren’t for that motherfuckin’ cocksuckin’ son-of-a-bitch it would be like heaven.”

“You got a…” stopping, smiling, “gal, Sal?”

“Minnie… The guys call me Minnie. Yeah, we’re engaged… You?”

“Nah,” he sighed. “No one at home but my family.”

“Just as well you don’t have a girl that far away, Mitch.”

Putting his underwear into the top drawer of the empty dresser, “At boot, the guys called me Lippy.”

“Okay,” smiling. “You had a chance to see New York yet?”

“No. I caught the subway at Grand Central and came right here.”

“If you’re a drinker—or even if you’re not—there’s lots’a broads to pick up at bars.”

“Nah, bars ain’t my thing, and the girls you can pick-up at them seem…?”

“Yeah, I never liked that kind either. You ought to go to the U.S.O. over on 42nd Street. There’s lots’a good looking broads there, and even if they’re not supposed to, a guy looking as good as you should have no problem talking some of ’em into going out with you.”

“What about girls here, in Rockaway?”

“In summer, yeah! Lots’an’lots of ’em. But in winter? Forget it!”

Changing the subject, “So tell me about here, Minnie. What do we do here all day?”

Lighting a cigarette, “Shit, don’t worry about that. The old man’ll be sure to keep you busy, even if it’s just to go to the beach and move sand dunes around… Just a word of advice.”

Lighting a cigarette also, “Yeah?”

“Do whatever you got to do and stay the fuck out of his way, and don’t do anything to make him madder at you then he already is.”

“I got a feeling just being alive makes him mad.”

“Yeah, for the both of us. He don’t like wops either. Mac’s a good guy, though, and he tries giving guys that bunk together the same liberties and watches, so’s we don’t wake each other coming and going, so I’ll usually be in the con, when you’re in the tower.”

“Con?”

“The communication room. I’ll usually be on the switchboard there when you’re in the tower. And if I know the fucker’s coming, I’ll give you a call to warn you. Problem is, sometimes the prick sneaks out and we don’t know he’s gone and, believe me, you’ll always want to know when he’s coming.”

“How’s a jerk like Ewing get to be skipper of a place like this?”

“He was a Chief Petty Officer during Korea and had a couple’a LSTs shot out from under him, and he even got wounded; the gooks should’a killed the motherfucker, but they shipped him stateside and made him a warrant officer and gave him Rockaway as his first command, and it went to his head and he became a first class asshole.” Standing, “I’ll help stow your gear, then how’s ’bout we shoot some pool?”