Gone to the Woods: Part III

And his mother became cross with him as though he had contracted the pox on purpose just to ruin her trip on what she called “the luxury liner.”

Some small, white-painted steel cell with two bunks on the side wall and a toilet and small sink on the end of the cell welded to the wall.

He was very kind to the boy and seemed to have a soft smile to match his soft voice whenever he saw the boy, which was every day for the time the boy was confined in the small cell.

The so-called room that the boy was kept in had been the cell—called the “brig”—for men who broke the law and had to be confined.

The ship rode gentle swells that came from the rear and helped slide it gracefully across the surface of the sea, and the boy found the motion to be enjoyable and so restful he slept during the sleep periods like he’d been hit with a soft hammer.

They could not come to see him in what he came to know and understand as his medical confinement, but they quickly found out that Ruben saw the boy every day and they virtually accosted him with comic books and candy to give to the boy along with notes they hoped he would show his mother, but in the way of things the ship itself—herself?—had become his parent.

Twice in the boy’s confined time Ruben came into the cell looking pushed, harried, and said: “We must clean the cabin now. Captain Rigs will inspect it.”

Until later in the day when he got another steel tray of food—very often fried liver, instant dry mashed potatoes, two more slices of white bread without butter, some absolutely god-awful desiccated string beans mixed with watery kidney beans, and a candy bar for dessert from the men who wanted to meet his mother.

Twice Ruben brought him a can of pork patties cold in lard and a second can—the cans were colored olive- drab—with something called a pound cake for snacks.

The plane passed over the ship quite closely—he could see rivets and other markings plainly—and made two gently dropping circles.

As he watched, he saw, or really sensed, motion in the water near the ship and he looked to see large gray shapes leaving the stern and streaking in the direction of the plane and within what seemed like only moments the people in the water began screaming and thrashing at the surface and some of them jerked and went under, came up and were jerked under again.

It seemed like everybody was screaming—shrill, ripping screams as they got hit—and even at this distance he could see the red froth of blood in the water near the boat.

Ruben had introduced him to the galley on the ship and the cook, who was also Filipino.

The large central cargo hold was essentially sealed off with bolted hatches but he had the run of the rest of the ship, and in the remaining two weeks of the trip there wasn’t really a part that he didn’t see, although—except for a quick look—he didn’t spend any real time on the bridge.

But the rest of the ship was like a playground to him, filled with nooks and crannies and hidden places.

But the sea seemed to take him. He loved the color of it, the way it rose in front of him, pulling at him, beckoning, and he was never bored with it.

The air had a heady smell, a rich almost green tang, a mix of plants and animals and mustiness and heat and moisture.

The boy started to turn to go for his mother but she appeared suddenly and grabbed him by the arm and took him below where a small door was opened onto a gangway the sailors had placed across to the pier.

Bombs and artillery and mortars had blown everything apart so that he didn’t see any undamaged standing buildings.

One ancient ornate Spanish building that the boy thought might have been a church had an enormous round hole blown—it must have been forty feet across—through the middle so you could see completely through the whole building.

The boy learned she had a child, who she brought to work sometimes, and Rom had lived in the center of the city of Manila in a ramshackle hut made of wooden ammunition boxes and roofing tin.

And finally they were drunk and fighting, screaming at each other about other men and other women, his mother throwing dishes and ashtrays at his father, and the boy curled into his bunk in the alcove that was supposed to be his room and tried to not listen, not hear, not know.

But when it became evident that the parents didn’t seem to care very much what happened to the boy, Rom started taking him into the city to his shelter, which the boy found was built of ammunition-box wood and corrugated roofing tin, part of a block away from the ornate building with a hole blown through the middle.

At first, he was not sure what they were—the sound was dense, sodden, like somebody rapidly hitting a flat board with a large hammer floating on water—they came in short bursts, eight, ten flat explosions and then a pause and another burst.

And after that, a part of him, a part of his spirit, was calloused and toughened.