Shallow Water Sailor

By Ray Garra

The term shallow water sailor, sometimes jokingly applied to Coast Guardsmen, has its origins in the misconception that Coast Guard duty keeps one close to land. Indeed, there are many Coast Guard duty stations that are land based—and for obvious reasons. But Coast Guard duty can take  one  into  any or  all  of the  seven seas  of this  planet.  This  story begins  on land, but through subsequent assignment takes the reader quite a distance from land and into some  intimacy with the deeper parts of mother ocean.

The time of this story is the era from 1956 to 1960. Eisenhower was President for a second term with Nixon as his Vice President. Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and seemed to enjoy exacerbating the Cold War. The Korean War had ended in 1953, but  there was trouble aplenty brewing on the planet.

This book is a tale of wildly contrasting assignments within the Coast Guard during a three-year period and takes the reader through a kaleidoscopic change of scenery from Miami, Florida, to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, to Hollywood movie studios, a visit to  pre-Castro Havana and a final gambit that covers almost the entire expanse of the Bering Sea. It is an esoteric journey through places and activities far out of the ordinary.

Although I have written it as a “novel,” the events depicted here are true and the characters involved are even more so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Expressive Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781517265137

Ray Garra

Ray Garra served three and a half years active duty with the US Coast Guard, followed by six and half years in the USCG Reserve. The true events of those years, half a century ago inspired in first book. Ray's civilian career has largely been spent in the printing and publications field. His shorts stories have appeared over the past few years in Mensa and other publications.

Book preview

Prologue

The term shallow water sailor, sometimes jokingly applied to Coast Guardsmen, has its origins in the misconception that Coast Guard duty keeps one close to land. Indeed, there are many Coast Guard duty stations that are land based—and for obvious reasons. But Coast Guard duty can take  one  into  any or  all  of the  seven seas  of this  planet.  This  story begins  on land, but through subsequent assignment takes the reader quite a distance from land and into some  intimacy with the deeper parts of mother ocean.

The time of this story is the era from 1956 to 1960. Eisenhower was President for a second term with Nixon as his Vice President. Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and seemed to enjoy exacerbating the Cold War. The Korean War had ended in 1953, but  there was trouble aplenty brewing on the planet.

The U.S. exploded the first hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in May of 1956. The USSR conducted their third test of atomic weapons in September of 1956. In December of that year, tanks bearing the hammer and sickle rolled into Hungary. An arms race was in progress.

Russia had established the Warsaw Pact as their chess move to match NATO; the CIA became involved in a secret war in Laos. The U-2 reconnaissance plane was put into operation. An intercontinental ballistic missile made its appearance. The Soviets increased their atomic testing in their Arctic test areas.

A good portion of our story takes place in Alaska, America’s last frontier, which in July, 1958, became the 49th state of the union. That year Alaska harbored a mere total of 210,000 inhabitants. Anchorage, its capitol, had the most citizens in one spot—32,000.

Russia’s Siberia nudged up to within 54 miles of our shoreline across the  Bering Straits, which was an obvious concern of the U.S. military. The DEW Line radar early warning stations were in place but would only serve to provide an alert of a missile attack. Our military installations consisted of small Navy bases in the Aleutians on Kodiak and Adak Islands ( sans any warships) and an Air Force base on Shemya Island that launched U-2 flights. Actually, at the time, the  U.S.’s  primary federal representative in the territory just happened to be, you guessed it, the U.S. Coast Guard, which maintained a LORAN (Long Range Aid to Navigation) station on the outermost Aleutian Island, Attu, and was responsible for maintaining all of the established aids to navigation from the Aleutians up through the Arctic Circle.

Also at this time, and diametrically across our continent from the Alaskan territory, the Communist presence was at work in Cuba. Fidel Castro and his rebels were in place to oust President Batista’s government. It would not be long before 80 percent of the country would be in rebel hands and the U.S.’s southern perimeter faced a dire exposure. Our story will briefly take us there too.

With all this trouble coming about, the U.S. Selective Service System, otherwise known as the draft, was in full operation and would continue as an entity that affected and influenced the plans of the American male youth until it officially closed its doors in 1973. It was a time when a young man fulfilled a military obligation before starting a civilian career. It was an era that embraced patriotism with military service highly valued and respected.

At the time the U.S. Coast Guard comprised just over 28,000 personnel, a ridiculously small number in comparison to any of the other military services. The Coast Guard existed with far less public visibility than that given it by today’s media. Regardless, the Guard was, and always has been, true to its motto: Semper Peratus, always ready! The wide variety of missions that the U.S. Coast Guard  has  been called  upon over  its  three  centuries  of operation is  a  matter  of proud   recorded history. This story provides just a scant glimpse of one of the Coast Guard’s unglamorous but primary missions, the maintenance of all aids to navigation within the U.S. and its possessions (over 39,000 units during this period).

note

—Ray Garra

1959

S

now.

Everything seemed like just cold and snow. Deadly cold. Deadly snow.

God, Mr. Grayson, exclaimed the plucky Bos’n. A red face poked out of a tightly drawn parka. I’ve thrown the tin overboard. My hands, frozen, couldn’t hold on. That settled it. Lt. Randall Grayson went for the walkie-talkie.

Big flakes of snow, blown by gusts of wind, swirled around the 24-foot Coast Guard cargo   boat.

They tasted of night.

Large waves dashed against the bow and starboard side, like white claws trying to drag it down.

The boat was traveling in the area of the Bering Sea on a line between Siberia and Alaska. How did a Florida boy get from sweet oranges and warm sun to this? Grayson wondered.

He pushed back the thought. He had to act and act now. For his life. For the life of the crew. When he found the walkie-talkie, Grayson discovered that had not escaped the deluge.

Soaked!

Desperately he thumbed it on.

All he could get was static. Somehow he had to signal the mother ship of the peril he and his crew of five suddenly faced due to an unexpected major change of weather. He remembered the flares and the Very pistol, which was designed to launch them, that were stowed aboard. He broke out the pistol and the box of flares. Water won’t affect them, he thought hopefully. As he pulled off his gloves to open the box with his fingers, he moved closer to face Chief Blainey. Chief, come to port 60 degrees! That would put the wave action off their starboard stern and reduce the spray and water intake.

As their little craft swung to an easier heading, Grayson attempted to break open the cardboard shell box with his fingers, but they just wouldn’t function in a semi-frozen state. Goddamn it, he cursed in frustration, and clamped hard onto the edge of the shell box with his teeth, ripping the lid up until it tore away. He reached into the box with fingers that didn’t respond. Jesus, God!

The elements were taking control.

How the hell, Grayson thought, did a Florida boy get into this kind of mess?

He raised the box and tipped it towards his open mouth so that the shells would roll out into his mouth and he could clamp onto one with his teeth. It worked.

Casey and Teddy were staring at the Lieutenant wide-eyed and opened-mouthed. Lehman and Kowalski had turned into mummies. Blainey kept his eyes on the treacherous seas without even a glance at the Lieutenant, as though he didn’t want to see what was happening  within  the threatened craft.

Holding the open Very pistol with both hands and clamping a flare shell between his teeth as though it were a fine Cuban cigar, Grayson leaned over the pistol and inserted the shell into the chamber quite adroitly. He closed the pistol shut, pointed it directly overhead with his outstretched arm, and pulled the trigger.

Not  knowing  how  thick  the  snow  flurries  were,  Grayson  could  only  hope  that  the  intense luminosity of the flare, when it exploded, would be seen by the duty personnel on the ship, which had to be fairly close by. Seeing the flare would at least alert the ship that Grayson and crew were having a problem, thereby prompting the ship to get underway and head in the direction of the flare.

Grayson expectantly craned his head back, looking directly up into the thick gray sky where the flare should appear. There was nothing, not even a faint flash. The elements had swallowed his distress signal like a whale swallowing a light bulb. They were on their own. At that moment Randall Grayson felt, for the first time in his young life, complete despair.

The new course had reduced the water intake considerably but it was also taking them away from the ship. The squall that had surprised them only an hour ago had not decreased in intensity. Night was almost upon them. The temperature was below freezing. They could not continue their exposure to the elements indefinitely. They had to pull in somewhere. But where? The port of King Salmon would be fine. There were people, warmth and food there. But heading to King Salmon would take practically the same course that they had been following. That wouldn’t work.

There was an abandoned cannery that could be a solution, but they didn’t have a whole lot of time to find it. Grayson tried to visualize the chart he had explored so minutely the day before.

He needed to come up with a heading that would get them as close as possible to...Graveyard Point.

Standing there, looking death square in its frozen face, he thought again: Lord, how did I get HERE?

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Part I

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Miami, Spring 1956

I

t was late on a spring afternoon in 1956 when Randall Grayson realized that his life was about to change and that the change was going to be sudden and irrevocable. The change was not entirely unexpected and he didn’t know whether to be worried by it or to look forward to it. But he knew that it was going to happen.

The reason that he knew about the change was because of something he had just read in the pages of a magazine.

Randall looked up from the latest issue of U.S. News and World Report and peered affectionately at his mother as she cleared the remains of dinner from the dining room table. She had just served one of his favorites, veal julienne, and it had been delicious. He had been getting the benefit of her home cooking now for the past three months, ever since returning home from college. He knew she  really did not like to cook and was putting extra effort into the meals to make his current stay that much more pleasant because he would soon be moving on again. That was one of the things that worried him— that he was getting so much special attention from his mother. It was because she also knew about the change and also didn’t know whether it was something to be anticipated with excitement or concern. But she knew that the change would be taking her son away from her, at least for the  foreseeable future. That’s why he was getting such special treatment in the Grayson household.

He looked past his mother in the dining room and into the living room where his dad was nestled comfortably in his big stuffed easy chair, reading the newspaper with his usual thoroughness, evening glass of gin close at hand just as it had been as far back as Randall could remember. Dad in his easy chair after dinner with his gin. A pint a day kept the doctor away or so his father seemed to believe. By eight o’clock he would be in bed. That’s because he got up at four a.m. to go to work at his wholesale bin in the market downtown. He was Miami’s big butter and egg man, as he had always been. Randall never really found an opportunity to get to know him. He knew his mother, though. After dad went to bed they would talk for hours—about anything, everything. She was well read and had a great open mind.

He reflected upon the total scene—the Grayson household, where the family had lived for the past seventeen years, since he was five. It seemed so very small during this visit: two bedrooms, one bath, probably no more than 1,400 square feet, single car garage...and the typical Florida screened-in back porch, where he was sitting presently on the couch with his magazine.

He returned to reading the feature article, a 3,000-word essay of doom and gloom concerning the superior military capability of the Soviet Union. That, of course, was the main subject contributing to his chief worry—the obligation of military service staring him in the face. It wasn’t becoming a part of the military that worried him. It was which part. He did not want to become a victim of the draft and become a foot soldier in the army. That just didn’t seem right. In college he had joined the Air Force ROTC unit, but his poor eyesight would have prevented him from becoming a pilot, and to Randall that was the whole point of being in the Air Force. So he had dropped out of the ROTC unit in his sophomore year, figuring he would take his chances on the Navy’s OCS program after graduation.

Having graduated in mid-year, his college deferment was good until the normal school year   ended in June. This had given him time to explore the OCS opportunities available and the Coast Guard program had leaped out in front of all others. It was longer (three-and-a-half years active duty versus two) but the nature of the service is what appealed to Randall. It didn’t prepare you for war or defense—the Coast Guard had a peace time service to perform, and to Randall it had the appearance of being an elitist organization. If war came then the Coast Guard would fold into the Navy, which was fine with Randall. As a commissioned officer trained by the Coast Guard, he surmised that he would have no problem fitting into the Navy, probably with a superior résumé.

He had passed all the written exams and was now scheduled for a final physical, which he had just learned had a 20/50 sight requirement. Randall was 20/100 or worse. This was now the big worry. It was too late to make an application for any of the other OCS programs. Their quotas had been filled weeks ago. Randall needed to be able to read that eye chart to fulfill the minimal requirements—or, within a month, become exposed to the horrors of the draft.

What to do? Life had all these troublesome complications to it. During his last visit  to  the recruiting office, when he got the news about the vision requirements, he had peeked into the physical exam room and noticed an eye chart on the wall. The peek was brief but he had noticed the format of the chart and after leaving the recruiting office, which was in downtown Miami, he popped into an optician’s office two blocks away and asked if they had an eye chart. They did and it appeared to be in the same format as the one in the recruiting office. Asking the optician which line on the chart constituted a 20/50 reading (it turned out to be the fourth line from the top), he wrote down the  top five lines, which were quite simple, and thereafter he committed it all to memory,  both right to  left and left to right—not a hard thing to do since the top line was only one letter and each subsequent line expanded by only one letter to a total of only five letters on the fifth row. The prevailing worry was whether the optician’s chart was an accurate match with the recruiter’s chart. He would find that out tomorrow afternoon.

He caught his mother giving her only child a combined look of endearment and concern before joining his father in the living room. She knew her son was in a fret, and it wasn’t only about the draft. There was the other worry: Carol. Carol was the girl he left behind at college, a thousand miles away on the West Coast. He had put her picture up on the dresser cabinet in his room, and  had been moaning over his separation from her ever since his return home.

Carol. Her image was constantly before him. He had been terribly smitten by her since their first meeting over a year ago. She had entered a parlor room in her sorority where he had been visiting with others and it was as though he was being introduced to Tinker Bell, with magic spells and all. She didn’t walk into the room. She floated in with her sparkling eyes and dimpled smile, her fetching figure and her aura of joie de vivre. She was not made of clay, like the rest of us; she was made of moonbeams and scented vapors. Randall never recovered from that initial impact. It took him six months before he had the opportunity to date her; she had been seeing other guys in his fraternity and protocol dictated that he wait until those liaisons were over. When they did finally start dating he had only a few months left before he graduated and returned home to Florida.

They meshed immediately, and achieved intimacy just prior to his departure. She had two more years of college remaining. He had the military before him. Perhaps sometime during that period he would return to the West Coast; if not, he wondered if she might not join him...wherever. It was a maddening state of affairs.

The exchange of correspondence in the first months after his return home had been frequent and promising. But while his epistles maintained a steady pace, hers had slowed down. Oh, he had anticipated that—to  a degree. She was incredibly popular and was not about to reduce her social agenda. That would not be expected. The problem was that he really had nothing definite to tell her about his future at this point. That was the added worry.

He attempted to find interest in the other U.S. News articles, now that he was alone on the porch. It was all pretty depressing. U.S. News didn’t sugarcoat anything! Settling into an article on U.S. defense spending, he began to develop the odd feeling of a presence behind him. His back was directly next to the porch screen; it was dark outside and he was reading by the floor lamp next to the end of the couch. The eerie feeling intensified and he was compelled to turn around and when he did so he found himself facing, at eye level, the most evil-looking spider he had ever seen, one whose outstretched legs, attached firmly to the screen (on the outside, thank God!), covered the space of a large saucer. The jet black body was no bigger than a dime, but the multiple legs featured tiny white circles that started an inch from the body and extended in one-inch increments along the extent of the four-inch legs. It was one of nature’s more decorative creatures. And it was not alone. Leaning back from the screen Randall saw an entire panorama of tropical insects spread across the panel behind him, a collection of living specimens worthy of intense categorical analysis by the nearest entomologist. This was, after all, Florida in late spring. The reading light had attracted them. Randall was thankful the screen had no holes in it. He wondered if the same variety of creatures existed in the jungles of Laos, which is where U.S. News predicted the next conflict involving U.S. troops would occur. No, the insects would probably be worse. The incentive to pass the Coast Guard physical instantly rose a notch.

He looked at his watch. It was past seven thirty. He was due to meet Fitz in another half hour. Time to get the keys to mom’s car.

Now that was probably another reason for his mother’s recent look of concern. In his present mood of despair a rendezvous with Fitz could easily lead to trouble. Not that Fitz was held with disregard by his mother; she liked him. It’s just that when the two of them got together...well, it could turn into a late night and that could cause her to worry. Her white 1950 Dodge sedan was kept in immaculate condition, and she would not want it tarnished. It was her first car, not having learned to drive until 1949. It only had a little over 20,000 miles on it—she only drove it to do weekly shopping.

Ah, worries seemed to predominate within the Grayson household these days. Randall looked forward to having all of that change. For now it was time to head out.

Randall waved goodbye to the congregation that had collected on the back porch screen, strolled into the living room, and thanked his mom for the keys to the car as she handed them over to him. He turned to leave by the front entry of the Grayson’s modest dwelling. As usual, his dad was in the big armchair right next to the door, engrossed in the day’s newspaper. Pausing to open the screen door to make his exit, Randall looked down on the pate of the old boy and noticed a considerable thinning of hair in the top back area. It startled him a bit. In the four years he had been away at school he had not been around his parents enough to notice such evidence of aging.

Bye, pop! he offered as a departing acknowledgment, stepping out into the balmy evening air. Be careful, came his mother’s words from behind, along with a muffled grunt from his dad.

As he strolled to the waiting car in the driveway, he considered that baldness was genetic and wondered when it might catch up to him. Maybe he’d be lucky and it would skip a generation.

Before opening the door to his mother’s pristinely preserved ‘50 white Dodge sedan—even though it was six years old it was always kept in immaculate condition, for it was his mom’s pride and joy— he gazed up into the evening sky and watched the typical white billowing clouds part to reveal one of his favorite sights. It was the image that had caused the song to be written. It was majestic in its silvery white luminescence and fullness, and it was in its rightful place. The moon did belong over Miami.

Randall Grayson had been to enough other places across the continent and seen the  moon from many other locations. But it never looked as though it really belonged anywhere as much as it did over Miami.

The silhouetted palm trees, the sultry southern air, the way the moonbeams sparkled off Biscayne Bay all helped. He had been away from Miami for most of the past four years, but the magic of his home town, its moon and its playground atmosphere had always been with him and he was content to be back, even though it might not be for long.

Pulling away from his home and out into the night, his mother’s parting comment—Be careful!— came back to him. Was that cautionary request for Randall, he mused, or for the car? After all, he had pretty well pulverized dad’s Plymouth Suburban six years ago when it was almost brand new. It was clearly his fault. He had tried to squeeze out a fast left turn and didn’t make it. He regarded it as one of the dumbest things he had done thus far in his life. "I guess she was referring both to me and the car," concluded Randall. His mom knew he was rendezvousing with Fitz tonight and that probably added to her concern.

Ronald Fitzgerald had been one of Randall’s best buddies all through high school, and, even though they had gone to different universities far apart—Fitz to the University of Miami, Randall to Duke University—they had maintained their camaraderie during school vacations and summers. In fact, it was the summer between their sophomore and junior years when they had enjoyed a great adventure together. The adventure was driving across country to California in Randall’s spiffed up ‘51 Ford and the sometimes wild experiences they had together out on the West Coast before fall arrived. That trip had influenced Randall to transfer from Duke University to UCLA for his final two years and instilled a West Coast state of mind in his thinking thereafter.

There were not that many similarities between Fitz and Randall Grayson. Randall was small boned and medium sized, while Fitz had another thirty pounds on him with a little more height. Whereas Randall came across as more polished and urbane with his choirboy good looks, Fitz looked more like a bull in a China shop with a captivating Jack O’Lantern smile that made him easy to like. Randall was olive in complexion, with wavy brown hair and deep hazel eyes. Fitz was sandy haired and blue eyed. Fitz was into working on car engines. Randall was into sports and girls. They did make an odd couple appearance together, but they got along very well. Where they did match up was in activating their mutual wild hairs when they got together. That was probably one of the things on Randall’s mother’s mind when she issued her parting caution.

Randall was meeting Fitz tonight at the Tropics Lounge on Biscayne Boulevard just off 79th Street. It was a strip bar that had been converted from the Florida theatre, where Randall had spent many a Saturday afternoon during his adolescence. Tonight Zorita and her trained anaconda were the featured act, one that both Randall and Fitz had seen before and enjoyed. It seemed like an appropriate place to meet, considering what they planned to talk about—their immediate future now that college was behind them.

Fitz was waiting at the bar conversing with one of the B girls when Randall walked into the lounge. It was early on a Thursday night, so there were only a small number of customers and Zorita wasn’t due for her first act for another hour. When Fitz looked up to see Randall come in he broke into a wide grin that displayed the small gap between his two front teeth. He dismissed the B girl and beckoned Randall to where he sat at the bar, proffering the rum and coke that he had ordered in advance. Rum and coke was their mutual libation of choice.

Hey, buddy, I’m glad I got here in time to keep that hotbox blonde from tapping into your  wallet,

Randall said, greeting Fitz. B girls were employed by the majority of Miami bars to get the male customers to buy them drinks—usually champagne cocktails—at exorbitant prices. Randall had never failed to be amazed at how many guys thought buying drinks would help them get it on with the flashy chicks that operated as Bar girls.

Don’t worry, chum, Fitz responded. "The Florida sun hasn’t fried my brain that badly just yet. I told her I was a wild animal trainer and was here to professionally observe how Zorita controlled her slithery friend."

Yeah, with total disregard for those 44Ds the snake likes to wind around, right? Randall countered.

Naturally. She could tell I’m a sincere kind of guy, Fitz said with a smirk.

Uhh, hmm. Randall clicked his glass to Fitz’s and sipped his first taste of golden rum for the evening. So how’s the job going? Randall said, changing the subject.

Crappy, boring. It’s all I can do to hang on until fall, Fitz replied. After graduating from the University of Miami last spring, Fitz had taken a job with the city’s administration department to save some money as he waited to attend law school in September. He had taken the law school exam, done well, and been admitted to Tulane. Although Ron Fitzgerald at times might appear to be a hooligan, he was no dummy.

I don’t know how this city survives the people that are running it, continued Fitz, but when I become State Attorney General I’ll know where to start in my clean-up campaign.

Randall leveled his stare into Fitz’s eyes and broke out into a big smile. What? Fitz knew something was coming.

I just recalled a vision of Florida’s future Attorney General jumping from the back porch of a Tijuana whorehouse after punching out one of the bouncers and running for his life through the surrounding brush as pistol shots zipped through the air while we made our hasty exit. Randall was remembering one of their wilder West Coast adventures.

Hell, RG, if the good people of the State of Florida knew the circumstances of that skirmish, they would certainly agree that I had administered justice at the time and you’re my best witness to that! Fitzgerald retorted.

You’re right, Fitz, Randall agreed. We certainly weren’t getting our  money’s  worth—and the guy needed to be punched before he could pull a knife on us. The people of Florida are just lucky the other dude with the pistol couldn’t shoot very straight.

They both laughed, downed their drinks, ordered another round, and reminisced some more about their past hijinks.

The comic had come on stage to warm up the audience and had barely succeeded. It was the first show of the evening and the place was sparse in clientele; the gag man probably hadn’t had enough juice in him to be effective. Fitz and Randall were polite in their applause. The stage band consisted of a drummer and a sax player, both of whom looked like retirement should be an imminent consideration. It was time to bring on Zorita, so the comic began his introduction. Zorita was a burlesque veteran, just as were all the others on stage. But she had preserved herself well and she was billed as the first ecdysiast to work a python into her act. She had made Miami her home base and developed a consistent fan club over the years. Fitz and Randall considered themselves a part of that club. They had been following Zorita’s performances for almost five years now.

You could drink legally in Miami at eighteen. Fitz and Randall had started hitting the bars when they were sixteen. Fake IDs were easy to produce and there was little concern among bartenders over serving youths  as long as an identification could be shown. And  there  was no  curfew; bars   stayed open as long as there were customers in attendance. In their early college days, Fitz and Randall more than once saw the sun come up after an all-night soiree. They called Miami The  World’s Playground and if you lived there you learned to play at an early age.

The obligatory drum roll signaled the imminent appearance of the show’s star. From one of the sides of the main stage Zorita glided into view and slowly undulated her way onto the center  ramp. Her voluptuous lines demanded the audience’s attention. She had a magnificent figure, long black straight hair, a sensuous mouth and something of a Middle-Eastern exotic look. She easily elicited the prurient tendencies of the crowd and drew a wellspring of fantasies from her appreciative admirers.

Fitz and Randall knew her routine pretty well and were somewhat inoculated from falling into the trance common to most of her audience. As Zorita began languorously to shed items from her sparse cover-up, Fitz leaned closer to Randall and whispered in his ear.

"So, tell me some more about those West Coast gals out there. I did notice some interesting stuff that summer I was out there with you, but I never really had time to develop anything. Sounds like UCLA was a pot of gold for you. All those parties all the time."

Ah, Fitz, me boy—they’re just different, Randall answered, while not taking his attention away from Zorita’s provocations. You know I love our Southern belles, but California girls—well, they just seem healthier, more athletic, more active, into more things. They have a certain kind of zest; they’re fun companions. Randall continued his answer while still watching the show on stage.

Sooo, did you find anything...special?

Special! The word pushed a button. Randall was watching Zorita but a mental image of that special person occluded the bar scene and his vision of Carol took over. Carol was special, so special, special enough to have put him under a spell. But he couldn’t tell Fitz this. He didn’t think Fitz would understand. Fitz was really still into cars and things, not the feminine mystique.

Oh, I’ve gone out with some very choice ladies, my friend. There were a lot around.

In his two and a half years at UCLA Randall had met some beauties and a ton of fun girls, but he had never anticipated running into a heart stopper. That’s what Carol was—to him. She had put his heart into an uncontrollable spin.

Zorita was bringing her pet python into the act now, but Randall’s memory was assuming precedence and a vision in his mind took him back to that very first time Carol came into his life— when Tinker Bell floated into a room with magical gold dust falling in her wake.

It was an entrance that left Randall breathless. Her smile was overwhelming in its effect on him. She was wearing very skimpy tight white shorts that allowed for a magnificent view of her lithe and shapely tanned legs. Her size was perfect for Randall who, at five eleven, estimated her to be a slim and trim five foot five. Her features were close to being Polynesian—an island look. Short dark hair, bewitching green eyes; a sparkle combined with a chaste sensuality formed her aura. She flashed a gleaming white smile as she spoke, while sporting killer impish dimples. Randall was dumbstruck by this charismatic creature, and was doomed to be enslaved by an intense infatuation for his remaining year-and-a-half at the university.

Zorita’s python was getting quite friendly with his mistress’ body as Randall snapped out of his visionary digression. Isn’t it wonderful that the human race can evolve such a variety of intriguing female specimens? mused Randall to himself, becoming aroused by the show before  him.  He thought, Here is a magnificent woman, Zorita, so capable of inducing lust in a man...and then, even more exciting, a woodland nymph such as Carol who you just craved to cuddle and be with. Randall, from an early age, had found women profoundly more interesting than men, and had established himself as  an ardent admirer  of the  opposite  sex. And  he  was  able  to  sort out  the  difference   in admiration between a Zorita and a Carol.

The show came to a conclusion and Zorita retired to enthusiastic applause from the assembled  fans

—including Fitz and Randall. They both needed to rise early for the next day, but decided to have one more round before going their separate ways.

So, how’s it going with your Coast Guard deal? Fitz got back to talking about future plans. Well, I did fine on all the written tests and tomorrow I take the physical.

Oh, ohh. What are they going to do when they find out you have syphilis? "Hey, I don’t mess with the kind of girls you do. I only go out with clean ones! Uh huhhh. Wasn’t that you running alongside me in TJ?"

God, that was three years ago, Fitz, and I’ve reformed since you haven’t been around to get me into trouble.

"What? I seem to remember that it was your idea to find a little Mexican hospitality in TJ! Well, whatever. Anyhow, syphilis is not my problem."

Is there a problem?

You know I’m nearsighted.

Yeah, but you’re not trying to be a pilot, are you? No, but a line officer has to have reasonable vision. I thought you had contact lenses?

I do, but they don’t fit well and cause me to tear. Whoever gives me the exam would know I had them on.

"Well, you don’t have to be a line officer, do you?"

Hey, I don’t want to spend three or four years being told what to do by some petty officer who gets his kicks lording it over a college boy. And I’m not going to wait to be drafted into the Army for two years and become cannon fodder in the field. And I don’t have your flat feet to keep me out of the draft. I know you had your feet stretched on purpose.

Fitz laughed. "Well, I got to admit, nature did deal me an absentee excuse for the draft and I’m not sorry about it at all. So, how are you going to make it into the Coast Guard OCS if you can’t pass the eye exam?"

Find a way to pass the exam. How?

Memorize the chart.

On his way back home later that evening, Randall Grayson was thinking very hard about what the next day held for him. He had applied for the Coast Guard’s Officer Candidate School program soon after returning home to Miami in February after graduating from UCLA in mid-year. It had taken him an extra semester to graduate as the result of transferring schools.

His college degree would make him eligible for any of the Officer Candidate Schools offered by the armed forces, and even though that meant more time in the service than a regular enlistment, he determined that he would get more out of his stint in the military as an officer than in the lower ranks.

Actually, he had spent a year in the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps—ROTC—unit at Duke, but upon transferring to UCLA and changing majors, he didn’t have the classroom time to spare to continue in ROTC. Besides, why be in the Air Force if you couldn’t be a pilot—which he couldn’t because of his myopia?

Most of his buddies in college had gone into the Army OCS, but land forces just did not appeal to him and the Marine Corps espoused just a little too much bravado to suit his tastes. That left the Navy

—or the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard in Miami enjoyed a high level of respect from everyone, considering their continuous efforts in search and rescue and hurricane monitoring. As a military unit, they were not martial in concept. The preservation of life and property at sea was their primary mission and activity. And they were limited in how many young lads they could embrace within their organization on a yearly basis. To Randall, that made the Coast Guard the most exclusive of the services and that did appeal to him.

He had considered the opportunity of being a line officer in the Navy, but when he looked into it and compared the Navy program to that of the Coast Guard, it was easy to make a decision. The Navy OCS classes numbered over a thousand at a time. Coast Guard OCS accommodated just a little over a hundred. In Randall’s evaluation, the Coast Guard’s mission was more appealing and they were more selective and that made them his choice.

Passing the eyesight requirement was now a must. And at this point even more was riding on the exam. Randall’s student deferment with the draft board would run out in a few months, making  him 1A and immediately draft eligible. Getting sucked into the Army’s lowest echelon was not in Randall Grayson’s game plan. He felt it would be too late to make application and receive acceptance to the Navy OCS program before the draft picked him off. Gaining Coast Guard acceptance had become a matter of do or die.

It was still dark outside when the next morning arrived and Randall left the house with his dad at 4:30

a.m. This was a routine that began soon after Randall returned home to Miami in February after graduation. He had sold his car in Los Angeles and flown back rather than risk driving across country with a vehicle as worn down as his had been. He had immediately picked up a job as a copy boy at the Miami Daily News in downtown Miami. It was strictly interim employment while he sorted out his military options, and it was to satisfy his curiosity about how a major newspaper was run and the characters that contributed to it.

Journalism was something of a hobby with Randall, having been an editor in high school and later being appointed as News Editor of the Duke Chronicle. His copy boy position was totally perfunctory but it gave him a chance to meet the Pulitzer Prize journalists that did work at the News and see the news before it was published. The job allowed him to save money for a new car and gave him the afternoon off.

It also gave him a chance to spend more time with his dad than he had in years. Their ride into town in the quiet, early morning hours was, well, inspirational. The senior Grayson was as responsible and hard working a person as Randall had ever known. He was in the produce business, which required an early start every day including Saturdays. Dropping Randall off at the newspaper office to start his shift at 5 a.m. was convenient and it brought father and son back in contact with one another after four-and-a-half years mostly spent apart.

So, sonny boy, today you take your physical for the Coast Guard, right? Grayson Senior’s voice broke into Randall’s early morning reverie over his family and his oncoming challenges.

Yeah, Dad. Hope it goes okay.

If you get accepted, when would you start your training?

I think the next class starts about July ninth...and it lasts for seventeen weeks—right up to Thanksgiving.

And you come out—what, an Ensign? Yep.

Well, I can tell you now, Grayson Senior said, "that would make your mother and me real proud of you. Yes, sir, both a college graduate and an officer, that’s real good. Where’s the training? Up in Connecticut, did you say?"

Yes, sir. It’s on the grounds of the Coast Guard Academy itself—in New London, Connecticut. Well, at least you’ll be going up there in the summer. Should be nice.

Yeah, I sure hope so.

They had arrived at the Miami Daily News building, quite a unique structure that stood all by itself on the fringes of downtown Miami. It was ten floors of offices supporting a four-story narrow tower that could be seen for miles around. It stood like a sentinel, looking across Biscayne Bay, perhaps, Randall thought, to convey the impression that it was there as a beacon of truth and reporting all the news that was fit to print—or something like that.

This morning, as in all his mornings while employed there, he would be the first one in, following the janitors, who opened up the doors for him. He would go immediately to all the teletype machines, tear off the rolls of paper news stories that had been accumulating all night, cut the individual stories apart and place them on the appropriate editors’ desks. He was the first person in Dade County to know what would be talked about and read that day, the News being an evening edition paper.

Good luck, son! Grayson Senior called out to Randall as he stepped out onto the empty sidewalk. Thanks, Dad. Yes, Randall thought to himself, a little luck is always good to have, especially

today.

One p.m. Quitting time came around quickly and Randall skipped down the steps of the News building to the sidewalk that followed Biscayne Boulevard up past Miami’s better  hotels, the ones that faced out onto Bayfront Park, and took him to Flagler Street. Flagler was the city’s main east- west artery, featuring theatre row and the best of Miami’s shopping area along with the Coast Guard’s district office building, where he had his 2 o’clock appointment.

The walk along Biscayne Boulevard with its royal palms majestically reaching up into the clear indigo sky above was a delight. This was Miami’s showplace area. It was the route the Orange Bowl parade took prior to the New Year’s game. Bayfront Park was where President Eisenhower had recently spoken, as had other presidents before him. Randall did love his home town and when events led him away he always looked forward to his return. As he briskly walked the blocks to Flagler, he wondered how long this next event might keep him away. E, FP, TOZ, LPED—the eye chart was firmly established in his mind.

F...D...O—or it could be C...T—and N, I think! Randall was on the fifth line and having a little trouble with the letters. It didn’t matter. He’d had no problem with the first four lines—it was the same chart that he had memorized in his optician’s office—and that was all he really needed to know. OK,  Mr.  Grayson,  do  you  want  to  try  the  next  line?  the  corpsman  queried  without   much

enthusiasm.

No, I don’t think so—it’s getting a little blurry, Randall replied.

That’s okay, sir, you’ve done just fine. Now we have just one more test for you and we’re all through. Here’s a little book with what looks like a lot of different colored bubbles and shades of color. Within the mass of bubbles a number or numbers should appear to you. There  are  sixteen pages. Use this test sheet to write down the numbers you see. The corpsman handed Randall the slim little book along with a test answer sheet and pencil.

Randall sat down at the corner of the corpsman’s desk and opened the book. The first page had a mix of salmon and different green shade bubbles covering the page. From within the middle of the display the number thirty-four appeared and Randall wrote it on the test sheet. The second page had the same mass of colored bubbles, these more on the yellow side with different shadings. Once again, a faintly distinctive 27 appeared and Randall wrote it down. Turning over to the third page, the same mass of bubbles, this time in pink and light blue, offered a backdrop of a barely discernible 16. Looking over to page four, which was covered with varying shades of green and blue bubbles, Randall was unable to make out any hidden number at all.

Does every page have a number on it? Randall innocently asked the corpsman, who had seated himself on the other side of his desk and was busily engaged in the day’s paperwork.

Randall’s question caused the corpsman to pause in his work and give Randall a quizzical look. Why, yes, sir. EVERY PAGE has a number.

Randall started to flip through the remaining pages as he felt his body tighten. Breathing became more difficult. On many of the successive pages he could determine NO NUMBERS AT ALL!  On some there were the slightest hints of a vague outline, but nothing distinctive. This test was impossible. He did the best he could but his answer sheet was more than half BLANK. He was becoming blank.

I’m afraid I’m at a loss for seeing any numbers at all on most of these pages, Randall said in a cowed manner, handing the test paper and booklet over to the corpsman. What does that mean?

Well, sir... The corpsman hesitated. That usually indicates color blindness.

A lightning bolt went through Randall’s heart. The unexpected had occurred. He had never been tested for such a thing. He had been seeing color all his life. He had never had difficulty determining any color or shade of color before—or so he thought. Where in the world did this test come from?

At that moment the Chief Petty Officer who was in charge of the recruiting office popped in to see how things were going. Chief Lyman and Randall had gotten along quite well since Randall walked into the office a month ago to get information on the OCS program.

Randall was starting to feel a mini-trauma coming on. The gates were closing and he was about to be turned away. There really had been no backup plan and time was growing too short to initiate a different course. He felt a tightening