Piranha: Firing Point

“Look, Patch, I know about your wife, Eileen. I was at the funeral. And I know you loved her and your life came apart when she passed away. I also know you tried to leave the Navy when she died, and that Donchez wouldn’t hear of it. But he’s gone now, and honoring his dying request, you’re my responsibility now, besides which, I’m your boss. And listen, I know what it’s like to lose your wife. Colleen’s mother, Mary, passed away when Colleen was just eighteen. It was a horrible time for her. It was a horrible time for me. I never thought I’d shake it. I thought I’d live the rest of my life lonely and hurting.” He leaned forward. “And you know something? It still hurts, I’m still not over her.

I say her name in my sleep. But you keep living, and one day it gets easier. None of the pain goes away, it doesn’t even ease, but you get stronger, you become able to carry a heavier load. And when that happens, you can move on. What I need to know is, for Admiral Pacino, when is that going to be? I can’t let an entire fleet rust away while you pick up the pieces. Patch.

So, are you going to get out of the Navy or are you going to be in it?” “Well, sir,” Pacino said slowly, “I think I’m leaving.

I’ll have my resignation on your desk Monday.” He stood for the second time.

“Maybe you’d better look at this first,” O’Shaughnessy said, a mysterious note in his voice.

“What is it?”

“Damn, I knew I had it here somewhere.” O’Shaughnessy cursed under his breath, rifling his briefcase, his desk drawers, the cabinets opposite the fireplace. Pacino stood behind him, embarrassed.

“Hold on. Deanna? Deanna! Have you seen that letter?”

“What letter, honey?”

“The one from Donchez, the one he wanted me to save.”

“Sir, what letter is this?”

O’Shaughnessy was half out of the door of the study, waiting for his wife. He looked back for an instant and said, “Donchez’s second dying wish. Deanna!”

She came into the office, smiling mischievously at Pacino. “Honestly,” she said, going straight to a small side table, in matching cherry to the desk and lamp stand, “Dick, you’d lose your head if I didn’t keep an eye on it for you.” She shot a look at Pacino, smiling again. In spite of himself, he smiled back. “Here,” she said, handing O’Shaughnessy an envelope. “Don’t be in here too long, guys. Dinner’s almost ready.”

The door shut behind her. O’Shaughnessy handed the envelope to Pacino, who sat back down. The letter had been opened neatly along the top by a letter opener.

The printing was unmistakable, Donchez’s handwriting, cramped and untidy with his age.

O’Shaughnessy, I hope you’re watching out for Mikey like you promised. pacino looked up at O’Shaughnessy. “I was thinking we could name the SSNX the USS Richard Donchez.,” he said. “Not that it matters. But I’d still like to see it that way.”

“Just read the damned letter.” Pacino looked back to the page.

You do whatever the hell it is you have to do, O’Shaughnessy. I don’t care what it takes, but you give that submarine the right name, and you make goddamned sure Mikey stays in charge of it.

The name of the new submarine will be— Devilfish Pacino coughed, then looked up at O’Shaughnessy, handing the letter back.

“Well?” O’Shaughnessy asked.

“Well, what?”

“What do you think?”

Pacino took a deep breath, thinking of an answer for O’Shaughnessy, then realized he didn’t have an answer.

That Donchez would want to name the submarine after Pacino’s first command seemed at first a cheap gimmick, something Donchez would pull at the last minute, but then something clicked.

As he pictured the hull of the SSNX towering over him in the floating dock, he imagined that she was christened the USS Devilfish. He could see the banners, reading USS Devilfish, SSNX-1, he could hear the shipyard workers talking about “hull X-l, the Devilfish,” and he could see the documents, the procedures, one of them in his mind labeled uss devilfishinst 5510.1B, and he could see the radio messages reading from: comusubCOM, TO: USS DEVILFISH SSNX-1, SUBJ: OPORDER 13-001 …

And as he saw all that, something inside him began to move, to change shape. It was a feeling he’d had years ago, the first time he’d read the orders from the commander of Naval Personnel ordering him to report for duty and take command of the old Devilfish, for the first time linking his name with the name of that submarine, and for just a moment he could feel again how he had been back then, long before any of this had happened to him. He had a certain something back then, an attitude, a self-confidence, a cockiness. That was the word. Cockiness. And as he imagined the SSNX under the name of his old command, he felt some of that flow back into him, just a shadow of what he had once possessed, that old certainty, this time not coming from his genes or his upbringing, but as a gift from Richard Donchez. He felt it fill his chest as he looked at O’Shaughnessy.