right out of the sea after they’d been shot down. I knew nobody. Nobody at all. I was very hungry and my stomach tingled and then turned uneasy and I wondered who was here to try to break me and who wished me harm. I took out my packet of orders and got my ID card ready and then wondered why I was there at all.
The bus made a slow half turn and stopped parallel to the gate. I was the only passenger with a sea bag, so I waited for the others to get off, then stepped out and saw the others presenting their ID cards to a Marine sergeant. The civilians nodded to the Marines, the sailors saluted. I went up to the sergeant.
“Airman apprentice Michael Devlin reporting for duty, sir,” I said and saluted. The Marine’s face was a formal grid. He looked at the papers and the ID card and then at me. He returned the salute.
“Welcome aboard, sailor,” he said.
Chapter
7
W ith the sea bag on my shoulder, I walked down the main street of the base, following the Marine’s directions to the barracks. I tried to walk in what I thought was a rolling, sea-duty gait, just in case anyone was watching, an affectation so heavily practiced then that it became in fact my adult walk. In the years that followed, women sometimes laughed at it, and so did I, but it is now too late to make a change. Sometimes you actually become what you want to become. But on the first day of 1953 I was not yet formed as a man, and was still anxiously trying on the various styles of the world. Perhaps that’s why I still see myself so clearly, walking for the first time into Ellyson Field. Anxiety sure does sharpen focus.
I know that I turned left into a street without sidewalks. And I remember how the grass came right down to the curbs, as precisely cut as my boot-camp crewcut, uniformly green and flat and perfect. A rich, creamy earth smell rose from the grass and little jewels of water sparkled among the blades. That odor is one of the memories I can never reclaim in the way buildings can be revisited, and streets; my senses have been blunted by too many cigarettes. Everywhere I go, the American air is now stained with the fumes of gasoline and chemicals. That day I inhaled the fresh wet air and thought: I’m in Florida, goddamnit, and nobody I ever knew has been here before me .
Three raked gravel paths were cut through the grass from the street to the barracks doors. I stood there for a moment, wondering which door to choose, hearing the chirring sound of insects in the close, drowsy air. The Bachelor’s Enlisted Men’s Quarters were ina wooden building almost a block long, painted a shiny white. Birds clung to the peak of the tar-papered roof. I couldn’t see through the screened windows. The entire building was three feet off the ground, on concrete blocks the color of mice.
I turned and looked around at my new slice of the world. Most of the base was blocked from my view by the low white building right across the street. My pulse quickened when I saw a sign saying Supply Department . That’s where I’d be working. And I felt as if I’d put something over on the Navy Department. I could sleep late and still make muster in less than a minute. Right across the street . Beautiful.
From where I stood, the building seemed to be divided in two. There was a door in the center, and through the windows on the left of it I could see the rough wood of packing crates. Nothing was clear through the screened windows on the right. That’s where they must work , I thought, and all the gear must be stored in the section on the left . I was standing there for what seemed a long moment, trying to imagine what might happen to me on the other side of those doors, when I heard from a great distance the sound of a saxophone.
He was playing the blues. A slow, mournful tune, drifting from somewhere on the empty base. Long sad lines. And then a pause. And then more long lines. A tenor, probably. Little phrases breaking and curling around themselves and then a
The bus made a slow half turn and stopped parallel to the gate. I was the only passenger with a sea bag, so I waited for the others to get off, then stepped out and saw the others presenting their ID cards to a Marine sergeant. The civilians nodded to the Marines, the sailors saluted. I went up to the sergeant.
“Airman apprentice Michael Devlin reporting for duty, sir,” I said and saluted. The Marine’s face was a formal grid. He looked at the papers and the ID card and then at me. He returned the salute.
“Welcome aboard, sailor,” he said.
Chapter
7
W ith the sea bag on my shoulder, I walked down the main street of the base, following the Marine’s directions to the barracks. I tried to walk in what I thought was a rolling, sea-duty gait, just in case anyone was watching, an affectation so heavily practiced then that it became in fact my adult walk. In the years that followed, women sometimes laughed at it, and so did I, but it is now too late to make a change. Sometimes you actually become what you want to become. But on the first day of 1953 I was not yet formed as a man, and was still anxiously trying on the various styles of the world. Perhaps that’s why I still see myself so clearly, walking for the first time into Ellyson Field. Anxiety sure does sharpen focus.
I know that I turned left into a street without sidewalks. And I remember how the grass came right down to the curbs, as precisely cut as my boot-camp crewcut, uniformly green and flat and perfect. A rich, creamy earth smell rose from the grass and little jewels of water sparkled among the blades. That odor is one of the memories I can never reclaim in the way buildings can be revisited, and streets; my senses have been blunted by too many cigarettes. Everywhere I go, the American air is now stained with the fumes of gasoline and chemicals. That day I inhaled the fresh wet air and thought: I’m in Florida, goddamnit, and nobody I ever knew has been here before me .
Three raked gravel paths were cut through the grass from the street to the barracks doors. I stood there for a moment, wondering which door to choose, hearing the chirring sound of insects in the close, drowsy air. The Bachelor’s Enlisted Men’s Quarters were ina wooden building almost a block long, painted a shiny white. Birds clung to the peak of the tar-papered roof. I couldn’t see through the screened windows. The entire building was three feet off the ground, on concrete blocks the color of mice.
I turned and looked around at my new slice of the world. Most of the base was blocked from my view by the low white building right across the street. My pulse quickened when I saw a sign saying Supply Department . That’s where I’d be working. And I felt as if I’d put something over on the Navy Department. I could sleep late and still make muster in less than a minute. Right across the street . Beautiful.
From where I stood, the building seemed to be divided in two. There was a door in the center, and through the windows on the left of it I could see the rough wood of packing crates. Nothing was clear through the screened windows on the right. That’s where they must work , I thought, and all the gear must be stored in the section on the left . I was standing there for what seemed a long moment, trying to imagine what might happen to me on the other side of those doors, when I heard from a great distance the sound of a saxophone.
He was playing the blues. A slow, mournful tune, drifting from somewhere on the empty base. Long sad lines. And then a pause. And then more long lines. A tenor, probably. Little phrases breaking and curling around themselves and then a
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