Chapter 36
Robert Didn’t Take That Well at All
I was impressed with Robert’s driving that morning; he tended toward indecision.
He would usually ask for map confirmation from me.
Not trusting me to give accurate information on this particular destination was probably one of his more enlightened decisions.
We arrived early.
His good mood lifted mine a little. The knot in my stomach stayed.
Military uniforms, kids, and beer.
Years earlier in Mannheim a commander had handed me a unit coin after a family picnic.
He learned I wasn’t USO staff — just a housewife keeping small children from getting hurt.
He said he appreciated it.
Now I was walking my own children toward a warship.
A sailor waited near the parking area.
We stood beside the car with our bags while he approached and introduced himself.
He didn’t say he would guide us.
He simply started walking, and we followed.
“You only brought what was previously approved?”
Robert answered.
I didn’t.
I narrowed my job immediately.
Answer the children’s questions and not touch anything.
I looked around.
I was under the impression other new teachers would be here.
We crossed onto a narrow plank leading into the ship.
I ducked through a low doorway.
The air changed immediately.
It smelled like oil and metal.
Like a machine that never stopped running.
Inside, a man stood beside an electrical panel and spoke into a phone as we passed.
“The general is informed.”
We were guided through a short passage and out onto the deck.
Only then did I look up.
The ship was smaller than I had imagined.
Any bigger and it wouldn’t have fit through the canal.
I watched the children.
Jane was placed with a group where she could sit and read.
Patrick immediately drew attention.
A sailor knelt to talk to him and soon took it upon himself to keep an eye on him.
That was enough for me.
“Robert, I was given the impression there would be other teachers here.
I don’t see any.”
“Neither do I.”
“We were on time by ten minutes.
If they are any later, they won’t make the boat.”
“Call it a ship.”
“Aye, Aye.
I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.
This deck is hot!
I’m not comfortable.”
“It’s a cruise.
Just find a place to park it.”
One lounge chair on a warship.
That sends a message.
At least there’s a dish towel.
Someone left it on the table.
I can protect my face.
I found the place along the side, laid down, and put a towel over my head.
“Wake up, Lee Ann, you need to go get your son.”
That was Robert’s voice.
“Excuse me?”
“Patrick. Look!
That’s an admiral he’s trying to boss around.
You need to go get him.”
Sure enough,
I looked across the deck toward the helicopter pad.
Patrick was arranging an all-brass dance-off.
That was a lot of brass out there.
Decision time.
The towel went back over my head.
I laid back down.
“Lee Ann, I can’t go get him, that’s high rank out there.”
“Join them then,” was my muffled reply.
“This is embarrassing. Go stop your son.”
I removed my towel, looked him straight in the eye and said,
“Listen, Mister,
For today, right here, I don’t even know who you are.
I don’t know that kid either.
You handle your own son.”
Then I laid down.
My head turned sideways under the towel.
I watched my son have the time of his life as he taught macarena lessons on a helicopter pad that looked like a floating bullseye.
My plan was simple: stay quiet, don’t be noticed, and sleep through the day.
At one point during my nap, I heard a disgruntled cook looking for his towel.
The cloth had been upgraded from dish towel to sunscreen. Now it was camouflage.
I wasn’t giving it up.
I could sleep almost anywhere, and the ship spent more time waiting than moving.
I don’t know how much later, Robert’s voice woke me, again.
Not what he said—the way he said it.
I sat up before I was fully awake.
I noticed his hands first.
They were shaking.
Not a small tremor—his fingers, wrists, even his legs trembled.
I had never seen him shake.
“Lee Ann,” he said, his voice tight.
“I don’t understand what is going on.”
I kept my eyes on his hands.
“They’re asking me questions,” he said.
“They?”
“Over there.”
He pointed toward a group of officers gathered at the far side of the deck.
“Two Generals, three Admirals, and two men with no rank showing at all.”
“You had answers?”
“Hell. No. I didn’t have answers.
That’s why they’re mad.
They don’t believe me.”
“They say there’s no way I don’t know.
They’re asking about you.
About that drug lord thing.”
He paused.
“Lee Ann, they told me to send you over.”
I was instantly awake.
For the first time all day, the knot in my stomach disappeared.
I stood up before I thought about it.
I was certain this was finally going to make sense.
As I crossed the deck, I didn’t look back at Robert.
The general saw me and said hello.
He looked concerned.
I smiled. “Hey! I was hoping to see you.
Thanks for waking me up.
I would’ve hated missing you.”
He began talking immediately — explaining the ship.
How large it was.
What it carried.
How many people served it.
How it was American soil.
I listened, waiting for the real conversation.
It didn’t come.
The others said nothing.
They were watching me.
Then he asked,
“Lee Ann, do you feel safe here?”
“Seriously? No. I do not feel safe.”
He seemed surprised.
“I just explained this ship to you.
Why does it not feel safe?”
I pointed toward the flight deck.
“I’ve got my whole family on this ship.
You just told me we’re standing on fifty thousand sticks of dynamite.
There’s a helicopter landing pad right there.
It looks exactly like a target!
How am I supposed to feel safe?”
“Whose idea was it to put a target on floating explosives?
We need to talk to the Army Corps of Engineers about this.”
Wrong branch.
Navy ship.
Every one of them looked at each other.
He turned back to me, exasperated.
“I mean you are safe.
You are here.
Your husband is here.
Your kids are here.
You are on American soil.
No one is listening in.
No one else knows what we are talking about.”
I finally understood — or thought I did.
“Oh! That. I know that.
I’m always an open book.
So, let’s talk.”
He repositioned slightly so I could only see him.
Then he asked quietly:
“Will you tell me how you ended up under drug lord protection?”
I stared at him.
He knows I am under protection.
He knows it is real.
“That was all just a bunch of school kid stuff.”
They erupted in an extremely non-military way.
Voices were on top of voices.
My eyes scanned them.
I managed to isolate one sentence.
“There’s no way her husband doesn’t know anything about this.”
“Sir, you know I haven’t talked to him since 1989.”
I grew afraid.
Not grass.
Not a carload of mysterious men.
Not culture.
Not disbelief.
Not isolation.
But, the military—not acting like military—scared the hell out of me.
The voices continued.
“There has to be more to it than that.”
“Her husband has to know something.”
“We can take her below and get the truth from her.”
The general turned me away from them.
I could only focus on him.
“Tell me about the school kids.”
It came out in a rush.
“Alec—the drug lord’s kid—didn’t want to grow up to be a drug lord.
I said, then don’t, and that started a fuss with the American kids.
They all said he had to be a drug lord because his dad was one.”
I took a breath.
That was a mistake, because they started acting nonmilitary again.
The general’s head snapped up toward the crowd.
I expected them to quiet down.
They didn’t.
The general lowered his eyes to mine again.
I took that as a signal to continue.
If only one of these people believes me, it will be him.
“Well, Sir,
I told Alec that if he didn’t want to be a drug lord that he should go home and talk to his dad about it. I mean, if my kid didn’t want to be a teacher, that’s something I would want to know as a parent. I figured Alec’s dad would want to know too.
So, he went home and talked to his dad.
The next day, Alec came back.
He was so excited.
He said that his dad was proud he talked to him like a man.
Sir, he doesn’t have to be a drug lord!
He’s going to college!
You should see him now, all the kids call him Professor Alec.
I told him I was proud of him too.
That’s when Alec gave me a message from his dad.
He offered me protection while I live here.”
The structure of the military held.
Brass barked, but the questions that scared me came from men without rank.
If I heard those goons say they could take me down below one more time, I was going to jump overboard.
Patrick. At home, he had one leg over the rail.
The canal is just two feet away.
I already have a plan.
The general nodded to me once.
For some reason, that was reassuring.
Then…
“You admitted you are under drug lord protection!”
“What have you been using the protection for?”
“Why did you agree to accept it?”
The questions were hurled into the air, isolated.
Clear spoken.
One after the other.
The unranked, again.
They weren’t centered on Robert.
I didn’t mind answering these questions.
It came out as tired anger.
“Because family takes care of family because they’re family.“
“I know I’m under protection. I’m thrilled to hear that you all know that too.
I tried telling Robert, once, but he never hears me.”
“The mall man that threw two dollars saying I was going to get someone killed.
No one touches the fiber optic internet hub now that they put it in my classroom.
My bike, never stolen, no one ever cuts the chain to take it.
Everyone’s shoes on the porch were stolen, but mine.”
“Look, just knowing y’all know helps me.
But I don’t think we speak the same language.
I’m not certain y’all…
I gestured toward the military chorus of brass,
“… can understand…”
“You might.”
I pointed at the general.
“You’re from Alabama, you might get it.
But you’re a man.”
“I said yes because I’m from Alabama, the U.S. of A.
This is his country, Panama.
To tell a powerful man ‘no’ in his own country just seemed like a really bad decision to me at the time.”
Silence.
“I believe her. This is over.”
He’s a general; that should have ended it.
But they were again shouting over each other.
He raised his voice, for the first time.
“I’m in charge. I said, I believe her. It’s over.”
He’s in charge.
There is quiet.
Military—being military again.
He pulled me aside. He had words for my ears only.
“Little Lady, do you remember the rules that he gave you?”
“Yes Sir, every one.”
“It only applies to you?”
“Yes Sir.”
“You have to tell people you deal business with, but you don’t have to tell anyone else.
In fact, not saying anything to anyone unless you have to, just like you have been, is a great way to handle this.”
“That sounds fantastic.”
“Take this.”
He handed me a coin.
“That’s my unit coin for all of Panama. I only give ten of them out.
I’m over Panama, but I work somewhere else.
I’m headed back that way soon.
If you ever need my ear, that coin shown to anyone in my command will get it for you.
It won’t get you out of trouble.
But I will be there for you, even if I’m not in Panama.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“What you did, it was important.”
Tears.
I didn’t hide them.
He took a step back.
“Now, you go back and enjoy the rest of the cruise. The food will be out soon.”
As I turned to walk away, I heard an admiral question him,
“How do you know that she’s telling the truth?”
The smile was in his voice by way of his Southern accent,
“She’s from Alabama, she doesn’t lie.”
I walked back across the deck, eerily over the helicopter pad that looked like a bullseye.
Robert looked at me, but I didn’t explain anything.
I told them we never talked, so why start now.
I returned to the place I had been before.
I laid down and covered my head.
“I wish you’d take that towel off your head. It looks ridiculous.”
I look ridiculous?
Good.
People don’t ask ridiculous looking people questions.
The towel stayed.
The ship moved on.
Daniel's Den 