Always On My Mind
PART I
And So, It Starts
Now this is not the end.
It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Winston Churchill
CHAPTER ONE
It Begins
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge!
Shakespeare
It started because Emmett McDonald couldn’t get a beer on a Sunday in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania.
A small, inconsequential thing, like a careful exit from a parking lot, but the oncoming driver is texting, and now you’re in an ambulance—the rhythm of the siren pounding your consciousness. Plans changed without warning.
Emmett McDonald hesitates, the sledge in mid-air as he recalls the terrifying rhythm of the explosions that forever changed his.
He’d joined the Navy prior to Pearl Harbor, when he wasn’t quite eighteen. After Pearl, the Navy told him, “Forget the three years, sailor; you’re in for the duration.” He fingers the handle of the four-pound sledge as he prepares to destroy the gears of his recently purchased marine transmission.
The machined, bronze shifting lever stands like a sentinel, reflecting the rays of the morning sun streaming into the long-abandoned cabin cruiser. He hesitates before beginning his destruction because he’d paid good money for the transmission.
The sledge twists through dawn’s light, its impact muffled by the rags Emmett jammed around the transmission.
Each time the sledge slams into the end of the sharpened chisel, a sharp crack rings, and a rusted bolt head arcs through the sky like the opening volley of a mortar barrage.
Emmett rose early. It didn’t take long to reach the boat club that early in the morning because the cops weren’t out yet, at least not around Port Clinton, Pennsylvania.
His hand grasps the chisel, the muscles of his face strong and determined. His blue eyes squint with the hint of a smile across the stubborn, tightly drawn lips. The last of the bolt heads shear off—only the gasket holds the transmission cover to the gearbox. He reaches for a small bronze hammer, gives a delicate tap and the top breaks free, but he’s in luck; the cork gasket doesn’t tear. He grabs the cover, lifts it free, and a Stillson wrench makes quick work of removing the sheared-off bolts.
Then he shakes his head and stops to rest. Almost fifty, getting too old for this. Re-focusing on the transmission, he positions the chisel on the machined teeth of the gears and shatters them. Sweat collects on his brow, gathers into rivulets, and trickles from his face. He squints to avoid the flying fragments, then cradles the chisel on the shifters to destroy them.
After slipping the sledge into his tool bag, he pauses. Screw the King and Dom, they deserve this for jamming Cappy—some things are more important than money—not many, though.
Emmett reinstalls the cover, grabs the rusted bolts from the truck engine at the junkyard, tightens them, and rubs dirt over the cover. Yeah, nobody could ever tell it’s been off. Perfect match.
Four bolts secure the transmission to the engine; they’re not as rusted. He removes only one, then pulls a rag from his back pocket, unfolds it, and holds up the pearl—the bolt he’s prepared by filing the sharp corners of the head so a wrench will slip when someone uses force to break it free. The bolt is below the sharp edge of the bracket holding the water pump. Holding the special bolt, he thinks how the King and Dom are in for a genuine surprise, then fumbles in the canvas bag at his side and grabs a beer—no reason not to be civilized.
He balances his beer against the propeller shaft. It’s a good thing Cappy warned me how the King and Dom were going to steal the spare gear I bought. He shakes his head. How rich guys ain’t ever content with what they got.
As much as he hates to admit it, he’s got to buy Cappy a beer the next time he goes to the yacht club.
He grabs his beer, tips it back, and crushes it with his powerful grip. As he shoves the empty into his tool bag, the rough canvas grates the back of his hand. Then, he fumbles around, yanks out a different sledge and chisel, and lines them side by side on top of the engine. He scatters dead leaves and twigs to make it look like they’d been left there, forgotten for years. As he grabs his bag of tools and surveys his handiwork, a broad smile enlivens his face as he envisions the scene. If the wrench slipping don’t get ’em, the sledge and chisel will.
He climbs to the bottom runner of the boat’s cradle, and before stepping down, stomps the weeds to clear a spot, reflecting how the weeds are there in most yacht clubs, how their pods have a way of blowing around, getting in your eyes, down your neck, working their way up under the cuffs of your pants.
His eyes shift to the other queens in the club’s storage area, the ones tucked away in the corners, the ones no one seems to own or cares enough about to get rid of. After all, it was a job for him to find who owned the boat and buy the transmission. As he strides through the backwaters of the yard toward the dock, his palms curiously face to the rear, giving the appearance, not of a man walking, but struggling against a powerful current that seeks to first tire, and then, drag you into its depths.
He descends the gangplank and makes his way onto the dock, passing boats with no one aboard. His steps are measured as he navigates the shifting of the floating dock. As he gets closer to Cappy’s boat, he slows. Smoke is coming from the stovepipe where it protrudes from the cabin’s topside. The smell of bacon quickens his steps as he approaches the boat’s stern. The name, Jules Verne, is meticulously carved in gold letters stretching across the mahogany name board. Emmett smiles as he stares at the name, and his eyes shift to the crossed muskets above the gold letters—the symbol for Army Infantry. Cappy was a front-line soldier in Europe and was in some tough engagements—even shot down a Messerschmitt with his machine gun. Emmett regards Cappy with great respect, even if he was in the Army during the war. Certainly not as good as being in the Navy, but not too shabby, either.
The boat rocks as Emmett climbs aboard. It’s a forty-foot ex-Navy launch Cappy has converted to a houseboat. Emmett calls it a floating house rather than a boat—after all, it has no engine. Cappy doesn’t believe in them. Emmett laughs as he recalls the conversation.
“Say, Cappy, when you gonna get an engine for this clunker so we can go fishing?”
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“Know many of the people on the dock from seeing them on their boats?”
“No, can’t say I do. Know most of ’em from up the bar.”
“That’s why I don’t have an engine.”
“I don’t get ya, Cap.”
“Look, Emmett, anytime I come down the dock, all I ever see are people’s behinds—they’re always bent over fixing the engine or adjusting something.”
Cappy breaks Emmett’s thoughts as he emerges from the cabin’s companionway. Cappy’s somewhere around fifty, a short, powerful man, with dark brown eyes, and a crewcut that’s decidedly out of style in the nineteen seventies. His shirt is missing the three top buttons and forms a vee over the upper part of his broad chest. A scally cap is pulled low, just off center over his forehead.
Emmett inhales the smoke from the sizzling bacon as it wafts from the cabin. “Morning, Skipper,” Emmett says, as he yawns.
“Morning, Emmett, like a cup of coffee?” He motions Emmett into the cabin and, without waiting for an answer, points to a small table on the galley’s starboard side. Then, he grabs a speckled green coffee pot off the back of the woodstove and pours Emmett a cup. “I woke up awful early this morning, Emmett.”
“That right?”
“Yeah, an awful pounding woke me, like somebody was beating on something.”
“Really, Cap?”
“Yeah, someone musta gotten up awful early this mornin’—probably skipped breakfast, even.”
Cappy grabs a frypan from the back of the stove; the cabin’s air is heavy with the smell of the bacon. “I’m just gettin’ ready to have some breakfast. Don’t suppose you’d be interested.”
Emmett stifles his yawn. “Hate to see a man breakfast alone. A well-cooked breakfast’s a capital thing to share. Guess it wouldn’t do no harm if I have a half dozen slices o’ bacon and three over easy with ya.”
“No, probably won’t, toast?”
“No more than two slices tops, Cap. Gotta watch my waist.”
“So, I’d imagine. You almost look like you been out jogging or something this morning; you’re all sweaty.”
“I ain’t as young as I used to be; it’s a long walk down the dock to your floating house.”
“Not so I noticed . . . Get lost on the way?”
“Nah, I had a map in my mind of the route I was taking from the time I got into my truck till I got here.”
After Cappy finishes fixing the eggs, he takes a seat across the table from Emmett. “What you lookin’ for, Emmett?”
“The heart medicine. Oh, there it is behind you on the counter. Would you pass it over,” Emmett says, pointing to the salt shaker on the ledge to the left of Cappy.
“Did you hear the bangin’ this morning?” Cappy asks again.
“Yeah, I heard something, or at least I think I did.”
Cappy nods toward Emmett’s hands. “How come your hands are all dirty? Greasy lookin’ too?”
Emmett stops chewing.
“Imagine you had truck problems on the way here, huh?”
“Got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool you, Cappy.”
* * *
Just over twelve hundred miles south of Port Clinton, the sun is rising. It warms the air, drying the leaves littering the trail. In a scene repeated every spring, as sparrows return to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, so too a different flock gathers in the northwest corner of Georgia. From all over, by train, plane, and bus, the flock assembles. In little bands and on their own, they start the first of many long hard climbs up the Amicalola Falls Approach Trail to the summit of Springer Mountain.
They come for many reasons; some for adventure, some to live simply, some to walk northward with spring. Some to touch the face of America, some to touch others, and some to be touched.
At first light, the dew still lies untrodden on the path; cobwebs, not yet broken from the night before, await dawn’s first hiker. Janice Wilson, a woman older than most of the other hikers, makes her way up the trail, crosses Cemetery Road onto Frosty Mountain, and reaches the summit of Springer Mountain and the beginning of the Appalachian Trail.
Like her, the other thru-hikers are focusing on a trek over two thousand miles, five million steps, along the ancient ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains. A walk the length of the Eastern Seaboard from Georgia to Maine on a footpath through the wilderness. It’s a walk begun by many, but completed by few. She’s never done anything like this before, and already she’s tired. She knows it’s going to be tough and has no illusions—she’s left them in Japan.
Janice knows only the committed will finish the journey, and before the day is over, she wonders if she’ll be one of them. The woods call, but she doesn’t notice their beauty. Her heavy backpack tugs at her shoulders and rides heavily on her hips, for she carries food and gear for fifty miles.
The climbing makes her legs sore, and she has little reserve, too tired to do much of anything but keep putting one foot in front of the other. The whole day she’s exhausted, never catching her breath, stopping for breaks, once soaking her feet in the icy waters of a small stream. She’s already seen one person curse the mountain and turn back.
The first night, she makes Stover Creek Shelter—ten miles. Like all of them, the shelter is just an open-front lean-to, big enough for a few hikers to stretch out their sleeping bags and keep out of the weather. Spartan, but that night, it sure looks good.
She’s started the hike later than most and shares the shelter with two male hikers—one middle age, the other young. Nobody talks much; they’re bone-tired.
Finally, the young hiker breaks the silence. “Man, today was tough; my boots are tight.” He takes off his socks. “Look at my heels; they’re like raw hamburger.”
The older hiker interrupts, “I told you that would happen. That’s gonna be your trail name, Hamburger Heels.”
Janice nods, “The blisters need to be broken to drain.”
After supper, Janice takes a small bottle from her backpack, sits on the edge of the shelter platform, and motions toward the young hiker. “Let’s have a look.”
Janice dabs alcohol around the blisters. “That feels good.”
“I’ll have to prick them with a needle to take the pressure off. We’ll let them drain, and in the morning, I’ve got some moleskin you can use.”
The older hiker has been watching. “I got a trail name for you, too: The Doc.”
With an official trail name, Janice is now a member of the flock.
The other hikers have collapsed into sleep’s amnesty, but she’s still awake. Her arm stretches behind her head, tugs the backpack’s zipper, slides inside, rummages through the side pocket, and draws out the chain.
She can’t see it clearly in the dark, but that doesn’t make any difference. Her mind ranges back to the time Emmett gave it to her. Her fingers tighten around the delicate links—it’s the reason she’s hiking the A/T.
Janice is a nurse who recently retired from the Navy. She’s shy of forty-three, never married. In fact, other than a few double dates, she’d never gone out much with men and she’d never been what you’d call an attractive woman. Her teeth and jaw stuck out and gave her face enough angularity that the kids in grammar school used to call her Bucky. The nickname stuck right through high school. By the time she became a nurse and joined the Navy, she didn’t expect much, and during the time her cutting nickname had rung in her ears, she’d refused to get surgery to correct the angularity of her jaw—refused, until after Emmett gave her the chain.
She smiles in the darkness, recalling the scene at her retirement party in the Officer’s Club at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. She’d fully recovered from the surgery on her jaw, and the other nurses kept telling her what a big difference it made in her appearance.
All the nurses had been drinking—they’d been nearly put out of the club. It caused a big ruckus when a friend of Janice’s, Lieutenant Hallowell, told the others how she’d gotten the doctor to do the operation as it was contrary to naval regulations because it was for cosmetic, not medical, reasons.
At first, Lieutenant Hallowell said the doctor wouldn’t even consider it—leastways, not until she got him up to her quarters alone. When she finished with him, she told the other nurses he’d have moved a belly button over an eyebrow for medical reasons. The other nurses hooted and hollered when they heard this—a couple of them even danced on the table and proposed toasts to “medical reasons.”
The assistant manager of the club, a new ensign from the States, came over at this point and told them if they didn’t behave, he’d have to ask them to leave. Lieutenant Hallowell, a veteran of a field hospital attached to the Marines in Nam’s I Corps, told him he’d better crawl back in his hole and not come out again if he knew what was good for him.
He left.
Even though Emmett never told Janice where the supplies from the naval hospital’s goodwill program were going, everyone knew they were going to the orphanage. She also knew Emmett was going out with her because she could help expedite their transfer. The wife of Emmett’s best friend was a doctor at the orphanage—and yet, after the doctor and her husband were transferred back to the States, he still took her out. She felt he deeply cared for her, but he never said so, yet he cut back on his drinking and even brought her flowers.
She wipes a tear as she thinks about the day she drove him to Naval Air Station for his flight back to the states and retirement. They were standing at the foot of the plane’s boarding ramp. He took out the gold chain. “I’ve been saving this for someone special”, he said, as he fastened it around her neck. He cradled her head in his hands and kissed her forehead—the only time he’d kissed her. At the top of the ramp, he turned, faced her, came to attention and saluted. “You’re some kind of special woman.”
Then he was gone—on his way to civilian life in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania, or as he referred to it, “The Buzzard Capital of the East.”
Not long after he left, she submitted her resignation from the Navy. She had over twenty years and was a full commander; in fact, she’d been selected for captain. It surprised everyone when she announced she was retiring. But, as she said, she didn’t want her life so structured anymore. And nobody believed her when she said she was thinking about hiking the Appalachian Trail. However, she didn’t tell them the Appalachian Trail goes right through Port Clinton, Pennsylvania.
