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Show Blue Run/37 better Cap sailed Destroyer Kraus to the South China Sea, north from Ho Chi Minh City, where his ship was known to blow the shit out of Charley during one land assault after another Word came down that a rank admiral had been passed over and Captain Rock C. Rockerson was to declare his desires. "Declare his desires," Renee says. "Can you believe that? It was toughest on Mom " All the petty jealousies from the passed over officer's wives, all the afternoon teas that bled into evening cocktail parties, the martini glass flag flap-flapping in the sad light that washed in over Charleston Bay. The loneliness, always having to hold your tongue no matter how offensive and outright mde some people could be There was one wife in particular who'd been pregnant that year and lost the child. She could be a real razorblade, that one, those things she'd say. If Meg's travails were hard to bear, Renee's suffering was another flavor. She was in ninth grade that year, a drop-dead looker, and had made Cheer squad at Goose Creek High Sammy Davido was a junior half-back on the varsity team that lost two games up front, until he learned how to throw the half-back pass and the season got interesting He was Filipino, a Catholic, and that never sat well with Cap. Anyway, all this was happening about the same time that the screenings began-the heat was on the whole family, it must have been something. Renee started sneaking out the bedroom window on Friday nights after the game, when the mown grass was just beginning to get that fall chill so that the dew was cold to her bare feet-that's what she remembers, cold feet and Sammy Davido's car in the dark beyond the circle drive. They'd cruise to the quarry and Sammy'd burn an incense cone on his dash, let his headlights shine out into the deep blue water where a girl had drowned the last summer, an enlisted man's daughter who drank a ton of purple Jesus and split her head open diving off a cliff ledge. I've seen the photo Cap |