Elusive Shelter(Lee Conrad) The sea, like people, has a calmness that can quickly turn to rage.

As the storm approached, the wind picked up and hit them full at the bow. Waves slapped at the ship like fierce hands. Rain pummeled the crew as they grabbed rain gear for protection.

The ship, a US Navy destroyer, had been deployed to Vietnam in 1969 and sent to the gun line shelling coastal villages and enemy strongholds. Some of the sailors on board, like Signalman Kevin Gale, had tried to forget the destruction the ship did, knowing that not everyone the shells found were the enemy. Even out at sea the smell of gunpowder, burning shacks and death seemed to still hang in the air.

Built in 1942, the ship was considered “borderline” seaworthy. The crew always joked that it was held together with layers of red primer and gray paint that would disintegrate from being hit by a well aimed projectile filled with turpentine and paint thinner.

Kevin Gale, like the rest of the crew, had been looking forward to returning to the States after the year assignment off the coast of Vietnam. They were one day away from port. A storm was not going to dampen his spirits.

The ship made its way out of the storm and reached the coast of California. As they pulled alongside the pier, where the ship would be dry-docked for repairs, Gale could see from his station on the signal bridge at the top of the destroyer, the town and the park with its small lake. It looked like the Garden of Eden after his weeks at sea. Looking through his binoculars he could see a half hanging, rusted and weather beaten sign for the town that simply said, “Welcome to Redemption.”

Repairs to the ship would take a few days, enough time for the sailors to go ashore and begin repairing damaged souls as well.

As Gale went below to the crew’s quarters to change into his dress whites he heard the raised voices of his ship mates, anxious for a few hours of freedom.

“Hurry up Gale, the bars and women are waiting,” yelled Gale’s friend Bill Ely through the din of eager voices.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you later, I’m going for a walk through town first” said Gale.

“Just don’t get lost,” warned Ely. “You haven’t been around normal people in awhile,” he said half joking.

Leaving behind a skeleton crew, sailors left the ship and went straight to the first bar they saw at the end of the wharf.

Gale’s mind was on the park and it drew him with images of childhood memories of the park back home and peaceful times.

Gale grew up in the suburbs outside a small city in upstate New York. He wasn’t a tough city kid like some in the crew. He would like to just sit near a tree and read. When he got out of high school he joined the Navy at the encouragement of his cousins who were already sailors. Better than being drafted into the Army they said. Even though he barely passed the swim test at boot camp, the Navy took him. His best friend, Richard, wanted the two of them to go in the Army together. Richard became a door gunner on a Huey helicopter in Vietnam. A letter from home said he was listed as missing when the chopper didn’t return to base.

As Gale left the ship his first steps back on the pier and then onto solid land greeted his sea legs with a shock. It seemed that the land was off balance, not the fact that he had been rolling with the rhythm of the sea for months. He felt awkward trying to adjust to walking straight on a surface that didn’t move.
His senses sprang alive with colors and smells that those who lived their whole lives on the land took for granted. An alien world compared with the sea and its shades of blues, grays, and of course the vastness. He wanted to breathe it all in, to reconnect with a world that a year ago was his.

The walk to the town was quick. The smell of rotten fish mingled with stale beer from the run down bar on the pier. The houses along the street leading away from the pier were in need of repair. The home owners, looking at their new visitors, didn’t say much, but the smiles on their care worn faces were friendly. It appeared that the ships’ arrival was a bit of an oddity and an unexpected sight in a town whose best days were past.

The park with its small oblong lake seemed serene and the early days of October were still warm. As Gale crossed through the park towards the lake he passed a large, rotund man in bibbed dungarees. He waddled more than walked. Gale noticed that he had almost a child-like face. “Nice day isn’t it,” Gale said to him, but the man just gave him a vacant stare and a forced grin as if that is what was expected of him.

Feeling conspicuous in his uniform, Gale felt the anxiety of being an outsider, but as he got closer to the lake the sight of the water eased his mind.

He walked by two young men and a girl who were staring at him. He made his way to a picnic table above a sloping bank on the edge of the small lake. He lit a cigarette.

“Hey Navy,” yelled one of the young men. “Got an extra one of those?”

“Sure, take a couple. We get them pretty cheap on the ship,” said Gale.

“See, I told you he was an all right guy,” said the kid as he took six cigarettes.

He appeared to be 17 or 18, only a few years younger than Gale, but a lifetime in experience away. White, stocky and rugged the kid said “My name’s Jimmy and this here is Nate,” pointing to a lanky black kid with a headband and bell-bottoms. “And this sweet thing is Delia.” said Jimmy, looking over at the girl. She was small built, about 17, with long blonde hair and tanned skin.

“We saw your ship come in. Sort of freaked people with the town being on hard times and such,” said Delia.

“Seen any fighting?” Jimmy interrupted eager to hear tales of battles unseen.

“Sorry to disappoint you man,” said Gale. “No battle scars yet.” Gale didn’t want to tell him that his ship shelled towns much like this one, and the people of those towns had seen much harder times.

“Well my brother is in the Marines and I’m joining up soon myself,” exclaimed Jimmy.

Nate whacked him on the arm. “What’s wrong with your head man? You looking to die like Bobby Thompson! Times might be tough around here right now, but we can get high and hang out in our park and ain’t no Viet Cong shooting your ass.”

“Bobby wasn’t tough enough. I was always tougher than him,” Jimmy shot back, shoving Nate.

Nate and Jimmy stopped their roughhousing and went to the top of the bank near the lake and started skipping stones across the water.

Delia and Gale walked over and sat on top of the picnic table. Both looked out at the lake, lost in their own thoughts.

Delia broke the silence first. “You’re kind of shy. What’s wrong, don’t you like girls.” she said with a smile.

Gale burst out laughing. “I like girls alright. You just are not the kind I have been hanging around with in most of the ports I have been to.”

“You’re lucky you know. Always moving place to place, not stuck like we are,” said Delia.

“I thought so too…at one time,” said Gale.
A wind was picking up. “This looks like the same storm we hit on the way into port,” said Gale, feeling a chill go through him.

As they sat looking out at the lake, each with their own thoughts, Gale noticed the large man with the child-like face that he had passed in the park walk towards the bank of the lake.

The man’s choice of sitting couldn’t have been worse.

He plopped down directly in front of Jimmy and Nate, who had been skipping stones across the lake. Jimmy became agitated at the obstruction of his line of fire.

“Hey dummy, get out of the way!” yelled Jimmy.

In a world of his own, he paid no attention to Jimmy.

Jimmy, incensed at being ignored, threw the first stone at the man’s head.

As if being jostled out of a dream, the man yelled in a high pitched voice, “Leave me alone!”

But this didn’t stop Jimmy and Nate. With a fury they pressed their attack. Stones showered on the man’s head. He swatted at them as if being stung by angry bees.

As Gale, jolted out of his solitude, rose to stop Jimmy and Nate, the man also rose, walked a few feet and dove into the lake.

His two assailants cheered at their victory.

As time passed and he didn’t rise to the surface the elation faded to a stunned silence.

“Something’s not right man, where is he?” Nate said with rising anxiety.

A look of panic set into Jimmy’s face. “We’ve got to find him,” he yelled to Nate as he jumped into the lake
As both repeatedly dove under the water, a frantic Jimmy on breaking to the surface yelled, “Hey Navy, come in and help us!”

“I can’t swim!” shouted Gale.

“You’re in the Navy, what do you mean you can’t swim?” said Jimmy, now desperate for help.

“I never saw the point. Where would I swim to?” Gale said, as painful memories of burning shorelines in Vietnam and desperate people walking into the water swept back into his head.

“Go call the cops,” Gale yelled to Delia as he took off his shoes, rolled up his pants to his knees and ran along the shore of the lake looking for Jimmy and Nate’s victim, slicing the bottom of his foot on a broken beer bottle hidden in the mud.

Jimmy and Nate, exhausted by their search, crawled up on shore and stared blankly at the lake that was becoming choppy with the arrival of the storm.

Gale, feeling helpless, joined them.

Thunder, like the echo of shells exploding, turned his mind inward.

Within a short period of time the police with a rescue boat in tow arrived and proceeded to drag the lake, while others searched along the bank.
As the police on the boat called out and the lifeless body was raised out of the water, rain drops fell heavily into the lake.

After questioning Jimmy, Nate and Delia, a police officer turned to Gale, eyeing his uniform. “You certainly don’t look like you belong with this bunch,” the cop said looking with contempt at the others.

“I’m just a visitor,” said Gale, sitting on the picnic table holding his head in his hands. “I came to the park for a little R and R, you know, rest and relaxation. I’m from the Navy destroyer at the pier.”

“Well it doesn’t look like you got your ‘R and R’ here did you,” said the cop. “There’s the guy who will be resting—forever,” the cop said as he looked over at the lifeless figure on the bank as it was being put in a body bag. “Your story is the same as theirs. Get back to the ship. I’ve got the ship name in case we need you,” said the cop.

Walking back through the town with mud on his wet uniform and limping from his sliced foot, Gale spotted Bill Ely, hanging out in the doorway of the rundown fishermen’s bar. “Jesus Gale, what the hell happened? Didn’t I tell you not to get lost,” said Ely.

As Gale stops and looks back through the rain at the park and the flashing police lights, he sees the police load into the ambulance the body of simple man who only wanted a moment of peace by a lake.

“I’m still lost man— but I don’t think I am the only one,” Gale says, staring at Ely and his ship mates as he continues to walk towards the ship, leaving Redemption behind.

The end

---