“THINGS ARE REALLY LOOKING UP”
by OPOVV, ©2017
(Apr. 7 2017) — ACT I
The curtain rises to the theme music of Victory at Sea. The stage is set as a vast ocean, depicted by clouds painted on the backdrop of the same blue as the water, which is topped with whitecaps. Center stage we see a small boat with five US Navy enlisted sailors on board, in dress blues. The sun is slowly rising from stage right: the lighting is getting brighter and brighter. As the music ends the sailors wake up; stand, stretch and look around.
“The ship disappeared.”
“It certainly appears to be the case. I wonder what happen to it?”
“If I didn’t know any better it looks like somebody moved it while we looked the other way.”
“That or we were so drunk as to let the tide carry us out to sea while we were passed-out.”
“I submit that the navigational devices on this ship have malfunctioned and, therefore, it is not we who are at fault but the contractor who slipped one over on the Navy. I hereby plan to make a protest. What do you say we write our elected representatives. Are you with me?”
“We’re all with you, all the way. But look, I just made a detailed inspection of this-here ship and it seems it could be classified as a rowboat and therefore legally exempt from being required to have the normal navigation devices required on, say, a United States Navy Aircraft Carrier.”
“Gee whiz, whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Side? It’s a rowboat. We got caught by the tide because we all passed out and now we got to start thinking how we’re going to get back to the ship. Meanwhile, we should at least start rowing.”
“Which direction?”
“Good question. Due east is ‘The World*’, but it’s a couple of thousand miles while on the other hand, enemy territory and our ship is 10 miles due west, so I can make it.”
“Let’s vote on it.”
“Good idea. Who wants to go to Hawaii?”
“Why not California? I mean, in for a penny, in for a pound. We’ll run ashore on Mission Beach and the first thing I’m getting is a cold beer.”
“Not me; that’s exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. I’m ordering a tall glass of milk, real milk, none of that powered junk.”
“Make that ice-cold milk with eggs – fresh eggs — and a steak, made to order, any way I please.”
“Fresh steak from a fresh cow.”
“Williams and Oaks, you get to row first: due west.”
“You don’t outrank me. You can’t order me around.”
“Yes I can because I’m the Captain.”
“A rowboat doesn’t have a Captain.”
“Every boat has a captain, and I’m it. Row.”
“I don’t like it. I outrank you; you just can’t order people around. And who made you captain in the first place? I outrank all of you so I should be the Captain.”
“That’s right, you do. So you’re the one who got us into this mess and I’m the one who’ll get us out of it. Go ahead; talk all you want but start rowing. The tide is against us now so we got to make the next couple hours count or we may find ourselves in real trouble.”
“I would rather be heading home.”
“We are heading home: back to the ship. Save your strength: don’t talk, row: due west.”
Curtain lowers.
ACT II
The curtain rises on the little rowboat to the music of Sea Cruise. From the angle of the sun it’s 1000. The captain is at the stern, holding a makeshift tiller.
“So when’s it your turn to row, Captain?”
“Right now you’re addressing the Navigator and the Helmsman. The way I have it figured in another half-hour or so we’ll spot our ship leaving the estuary, that is, if it left on time. In another couple of minutes we’ll move a little bit north. See that brownish water to our starboard?”
“Starboard? Why not just say ‘right’ and ‘left’ like normal people?”
“That’s the river current stretching out into the ocean. When the tide changes it’ll get really mixed; it won’t be such a different color. That and the ratio between the fresh water and the salt water will change, and that’s when the tide will push us in.”
“Okay, so you know more than us because you were a deck ape for a year. So where’s our ship?”
“I figure we now change course a couple of points north, say 290, and in a half-hour our ship will run us over. What do you say I sing us The Last Farewell.”
“I see her now, Captain!”
“There she is; we’re saved!”
“What are we going to tell them?”
“Let’s approach the problem in a military way.”
“That makes sense. I say we start with the Coast Guard.”
“No way. The Coast Guard always ties up every night at their dock; why, when they get a ship the dock is included.”
“How about the Air Force?”
“They’re dumb but not as dumb as the Navy, or even the Army. They only jump out of planes through necessity.”
“The Army?”
“If it wasn’t for the crazies jumping out of planes they’re the smartest.”
“What about the Marines?”
“Let’s leave the Marines out of this. Okay, we all need nuts that are willing to run into a burning building, right? Some anthropologists say that we have Marines to keep track of the really off-the-wall people.”
“That leaves the Navy, and that makes us the bottom of the totem pole, does it not?”
“Look at it this way, the Navy is like the Air Force but without the planes. I mean: do we have gills? No, we don’t; we’re creatures of the land. We live on the land so why would anyone voluntarily leave the land to go float on the water? Doesn’t make any sense.”
“So, where are we?”
“We’ve determined that to talk our way out of missing ship’s movement we have to come up with a real honest-to-goodness NAVY excuse, an excuse so bizarre that only a Navy person could come up with it in the first place and only a Navy person would buy into it.”
“We were forced to get drunk and pass out.”
“Well, you’re half right.”
“The ship was hijacked and we were forced to head out to sea.”
“That would work if we had the bad guy.”
“Let’s blame it on the bad guys. Maybe North Korea.”
“Good idea, but they’re too far away.”
“Then what about the Russians? Why, they have spies and submarines and everything. You can’t say they wouldn’t want us to disappear; after all, we’re Americans.”
“Good idea: blame it on the Russians. You think the Captain would buy into it?”
“Here’s a guy who wants to go float on the water; what do you think?”
“I think things are really looking up. We’ll just say, ‘It was the Russians.’ I do believe it’ll work.”
“It will work. Isn’t life grand?”
Curtain lowers to the sound of Up a Lazy River.
[*The World: USA.]
FINI