USS MULLINNIX DD-944
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Baltimore, Maryland 1962
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Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
All he ever got in mail call was magazines. That was how he’d gotten his nickname. Mags was thumbing through an ancient copy of Playboy.
"How's it hang'n Mags?"
"What? Oh, howdy Kramer. Not too shabby, not too shabby. You?"
"Heading out on liberty."
"I'm an hour behind you. Maybe I'll buy you a beer when I run into you."
"Done."
Mags was dark haired and dark eyed - big green or gray eyes - depending on the weather, with long sideburns that flared on his cheeks. Good with women from the looks of him. A dark velvet voice, could have been a natural DJ instead of a Radioman.
Mags was in fact, Kansas City's own Eddie Edwards - a young man from the flat and wide plains of the Great American Dessert.
Old South Baltimore was below the Inner Harbor and east of the old B&O Railroad's Camden line tracks and Russell Street downtown. It was a culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse waterfront area with neighborhoods such as Locust Point and Riverside around a large park of the same name. Just south of the Inner Harbor, the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, was home to many pubs and restaurants.
Mags wasn't headed to anyplace in particular, rather walking around Old South Baltimore, enjoying the sites, taking in the atmosphere, stopping for an occasional beer. No place to go, no agenda, and plenty of time to do it in.
Debbie Flowers was a Navy nurse from North Platte, Nebraska. Newly minted Ensign and recently transferred to Baltimore. She had a cloud of rich auburn hair and wind-tanned face. With gray eyes and a mouth that was sensitive and gentle, she looked both intelligent and attractive.
A smoky barroom - a sultry brunette singing the blues with a full orchestra behind her - a smarmy little bartender with a tattoo that says "Mom" inside a faded heart, and some very suspicious looking spy type guys bellied up to the bar - and a group of sailors in a dark corner with a bottle and a shot glass holding court over a small but eager group of lost souls.
She was sitting alone at the bar, far from the spy type guys. The barman, at the moment, was nowhere in evidence. An amber glass sat before her. She was smoking a cigarette and looking straight ahead, at the bottles on the shelves or at her own mirror image. She was packed into a pair of white tailored pants, a long-sleeved shiny salmon blouse, and wearing a string of pearls that size of mothballs. She didn't see him until he was there pulling out the stool beside her.
He stood short and rotund, with a rounded stomach neatly encased in a uniform whose buttons were stretched to their limit. He had thinning sandy hair, wide megaphone ears, blue eyes, and a smile that showed a maze of nicotine-yellowed teeth. His features resembled a relief map of a rock quarry and his ready smile caused long furrows to be formed alongside his eyes and the corners of his mouth.
"Hey toots, let me buy you a drink."
"No thank you."
"Come on honey, just one little drink with this lonesome sailor."
"I said, no thank you."
Mags sauntered into the bar and spotted her immediately She was hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. And, it appeared she was having trouble with a pushy, drunk sailor.
"Hey, buddy, I'll let you buy me a drink. What'da say?" asked Mags.
"Get lost Mac."
Ignoring him, Mags said, "Sorry I’m late Mary. Glad you had it in your heart to wait for me."
Debbie fixed on him a frankly appraising look from remarkable eyes, the irises as richly brown as treacle. Mags gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
"You with this guy?" yellow teeth asked.
"Yes," looking at Mags, smiling, "no worries Donnie."
Mumbling a 'fuck me', yellow teeth went to look for the next lucky lady.
Debbie looked back at Mags. A sweet look; a smile that remained in the eyes even after it had left the lips. She turned her dark liquid eyes on him an Mags felt he was swimming into them.
"Thank you, ah...um..."
"Oh, sorry. Edwards. Eddie Edwards."
"Well, thank you Eddie Edwards. That guy was a jerk with a capital J."
"Yeah, well the fleets in. There are going to be jerks and worse, running around town for the next couple days. And your name is?"
"Debbie. Debbie Flowers."
"You are more the welcome Debbie Flowers."
"ou on a ship, Eddie Edwards?" asked Debbie
"Yes, a destroyer, the Mullinnix. Got in this morning."
Mags noticed she was one of those people that crowed your personal space. She was so close to he could feel breath on his face. He didn't mind.
"You?"
"Navy."
"Serious?"
"Yes. Nurse. Ensign. Ensign Nurse," laughing.
Eddie returned the laugh, thinking, man is she beautiful. He was struggling a bit to continue the conversation smoothly as he didn't want it to end. Then she smiled and it was like the sun coming out from behind a dark cloud.
"What's that you’re drinking Ensign Nurse Debbie Flowers?"
"Whiskey - straight."
"Can I buy you one Nurse Flowers?"
"Please, Debbie, and yes you may Mr. Edwards."
"Please, Eddie," answered Mags.
He had fallen in love with her from the first word she uttered, and he was not a man who loved easily. There would never be another woman for him. He wondered if she thought the same or different.
"So, Debbie, you in need of a chaperon for the rest of the day?"
"You must make each lady think she is the only woman in the world", Debbie said with a quality that was sensual and female.
"But never for too long, lest they behave as if they are," laughed Mags.
How odd that sex should be so simple and love such a complication.
Her auburn hair, touched with gold under the soft spill of light from the lamp behind her. Her extraordinary poise was intriguing, her laugh pleasing.
Finishing their drinks, Mags suggested, "You want to get out of here."
"And go where?"
"I don’t know. Someplace --- else?"
Debbie was liking this guy. He was good looking, easy going, funny, and definitely not your typical sailor. Mags sensed it as well.
"You like me, don't you," ask Mags.
Smiling, Debbie asked, "How do you do it?"
"My meteorologist degree. I can do weather."
"Weather what?" she ventured.
"Whether you love me or not."
Debbie couldn't stop laughing. Outside, his sun glasses were black holes, as if part of him had been cut away.
"Were to?" Mags said
"You're driving sailor."
He had handed his heart to her. Mags was a tall man. She looked erotically fragile beside him, as he might crush her inadvertently like a grape against the palate, to her eternal and ecstatic gratitude.
"You like parks?"
"Sure."
Boston's Public Garden was the first public botanical garden in America. The Victorians ushered in the style of park which featured the gardener's art. They designed vibrant floral patterns in the Garden which utilized new techniques of collecting, hybridizing, and propagating plants. With access to showy annuals and greenhouse-grown plants they bedded the Garden with colorful displays and planted exotic imported trees. In the early days, some complained that the unnatural combinations of colorful plants were garish beyond the bounds of good taste. Now Boston calls the Public Garden one of its greatest attractions.
The trees lined the perfect lawn in their raised beds. In the center there was a pond as large as a small lake with flowering lily pads and a wooden bridge that crossed the middle so you could look down at the koi. The flower beds were a riot of May colors. The flowers, russet, red, gold-brown, orange, fell to earth in riots of color.
They walked, they talked, they laughed. In general, loving every minute of each other's company.
"What a great idea this was Eddie. You didn't strike me as a garden type sailor," Debbie laughingly said.
"Until today, I wasn't,"
There was a gate of rough wood and ivy cascaded over the fence, growing tendrils in every direction. The stone path was punctuated with weeds after every stone. The disheveled, un-manicured lawn was more moss than grass and was over shadowed by huge weeping willows flowing down onto the dank and squishy ground. Clusters of defiant daffodils reared their golden heads amidst the gloom and there were smatters of fuchsia alongside the scarlet and saffron hued primroses.
Without either realizing it, they were walking hand in hand. The garden stretched up into town, winding like a black river through the bright flower beds, statuary, and foot paths. They were on a circular lawn with a path around it. There was a central bed of shrubs. Outside of the lawn area were four rose bush beds to fill up the square area.
Stopping, Mags pulled Debbie close. "Listen...I ah...well...you see, I know we just met but I want you to know," He said this against her lips, not quite, but almost there. A breeze stirred at their feet and her hair, long and loose, floated up like a veil.
She bit back tears and looked away from him, "I know. Me to." She hugged him with the intensity of a war bride.
Maybe they were two different people. Maybe it was this day wasn't to be tampered with and that had been enough for them. Some fires can't bear to dampen and can provide heat even from the distance of time.
Both knew their thoughts were distant and distinct. Neither had determined how much of their worlds to bring together. Though they remembered every smell and touch such was the relationship of sailor and his liberty sweetheart. His softness and gentleness reminded her of what she’d always been looking for.
To be continued...
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