Graham returned to
the Brain Room to talk some of the soldiers and to check on a few details
regarding operations at the platform. He
had done two tours out there, each for about sixteen months, and he remembered all-to-well
the persistent feeling of isolation. At
headquarters, a few soldiers passed through each week as they were being
deployed to different substations. There
were always a couple of fresh faces around.
But once you got out to the Platform, you could be stuck interacting
with the same guys day in and day out for weeks at a time.
The Platform had
been built directly adjacent to the Southeast Farallon Island, one of the
biggest in the chain of rugged, rocky islands located about twenty-seven miles west
of San Francisco. A narrow footbridge
connected the Platform to the island as an emergency escape route. When Graham had been stationed there, he frequently
took long walks on the island. After he
was finished in the Brain Room, he decided to step outside for a bit of fresh
air.
Graham had read a
lot about the history of the islands. While
some of the smaller islands in the chain had disappeared with the rising ocean,
the Southeast Farallon, along with its nearby neighbor, Maintop Island,
remained. They had first been inhabited
by Russian seal hunters who coveted the soft pelts of the seals that lived on
the islands. Graham had seen a picture
of a street in Moscow in which hundreds of men walked shoulder to shoulder all
wearing identical hats made of seal fur from the faraway islands.
Then, after the
seals had been wiped out, the United Stated took control and built a few
residences and a lighthouse high atop the Southeast Farallon Island. A few years later, some entrepreneurial San
Franciscans responded to a shortage of eggs in the City by boating over to the
Farallons to collect millions of eggs from the hordes of seabirds nested along the
craggy shorelines. Competition between
the egg collectors grew intense. Graham
read that there was even an “egg war” between rival companies, which left two
men dead. After the island chain was
given protective status by the government, scientific researchers set up shop. In their journals, the researchers explained
that the islands were so covered in life that they could barely walk on its paths
for fear of crushing eggs or new-born chicks and that the surround seas teemed
with white sharks, elephant seals, and an astounding variety of fish.
All that was long
gone.
Graham walked the silent
paths to the ruins of the government housing and the lighthouse. He imagined the cacophony of millions of seabirds
squawking and the scientists’ delight as they tagged birds and studied seal mating
behaviors. The afternoon was perfectly
calm. He could hear no waves breaking on
the shoreline below. He felt like his
senses had shut down. The thick fog obscured
his vision, and the silence of the island, where once so much life had thrived,
gripped him by the throat. He could not
believe that the final chapter of the islands’ incredible history would be so empty,
so quiet, so meaningless – just a few lonely soldiers walking aimlessly through
the fog.
##
At
five, Graham returned to his room to freshen up for dinner. Throughout his career, he had stayed in countless
small, bare rooms such as the one he occupied that afternoon. The walls were empty and white, devoid of
history or personal attachment. They
simply divided space. The floor was
hard, cold, and bare. The Army did not even
provide a small mat by the bedside to prevent the occupants’ feet from getting
cold first thing in the morning. A round
window the size of a diner plate displayed the same grayness he had lived with for
the past nineteen years of his life. A
large, institutional wardrobe stood imposingly in a corner. A metal desk and chair rounded out the décor.
Graham had the
urge to pin something up on the walls or scratch his initials into the desk, as
a tiny reminder to his soul that he might have had something more – something
that did not feel so much like a prison cell.
Then, he reconsidered this comparison.
The room was less like a cell and more like an oubliette, where jailers used
to strip prisoners of all their clothing, lock them away in a tiny cage in the
dungeon, and literally forget them until they had repented their misdeeds and
committed themselves to a better life . . . or the prisoners died. He wondered what he had done to deserve a
lifetime of penance and isolation.
The sterile twin
bed, shoved up against the wall, reminded him of his first days as a
soldier. He pictured himself sleeping
there as a young man – curled up and all alone.
He remembered that some nights the loneliness seemed to carve deep pits
into his heart. All he could do was lie
still and wait for the night to end. For
the past decade or so, he had almost convinced himself that he had outgrown that
feeling. They say one can get used to
anything. His noble role was to
sacrifice so that others might live. What did he expect? Real sacrifice was not easy. But now, standing in that small, dark room,
he realized that he wanted more. The image
of his body curled up in endless solitary confinement – young, middle-aged, and
eventually old – burned deep in his gut.
He lay down on the bed and stared at the gray ceiling.
Why was Peggy Lee
being so kind to him? Charley thought he
had a chance with her. Charley thought
it was worth a try. Graham wondered for
a second if Charley was just toying with him, pushing him into a situation that
was bound to backfire. But no, Charley
would not do that to him. So maybe there
was a glimmer of hope. And she kept
encouraging him.
But it was so
hard. He had never felt so
insecure. He was in completely unchartered
territory. The intensity of his feelings
scared the shit out of him, but this fear also made him feel alive – more alive
than he had felt in years. Maybe, just
maybe, there was a sunnier future for him.
But it was all too much. Joy and fear. Euphoria and devastation. Was this what it felt like to fall in
love? She was shaking his
foundations. Like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca,
Peggy Lee had changed the all rules.
##
Graham showed up
to dinner a few minutes early. He went
into the kitchen to check on the menu to make sure that everything was
vegetarian. The soldier from lunch was
preparing a large salad. He apologized
for the gaff with the squid.
“That’s okay,”
Graham responded. “I know you were just
trying to do something special. And it
would have been nice – very well appreciated, in fact – with most other guests. I didn’t know that our invitees were so opposed
to eating meat. Don’t trouble yourself
about it anymore. I hope you all back
here enjoyed them.”
“Thank you, sir,
we did. Might I add – um, well – have
you ever seen such a horrified expression on a person’s face? It was like we were serving them fried
grandmother or something.”
“I know, I know,
she seemed a bit overly-shocked from my vantage point too. But we all have our convictions, and Ms.
Swenson is clearly against eating meat.”
“No, sir, I wasn’t
talking about her. I meant him, that big
guy. When I came back into the room with
the soup, he was still pale, and his eyes were fixed on the plate of
calamari. It looked like he might blow
chunks right there at the table.”
“I didn’t notice –
I guess I was focused on Peggy Lee.”
“Well, let me just tell you, it was strange all right,
real strange.”