Jimmy went into his home office and brought out some papers for me to sign, including a power of attorney.
As I was about to leave, I handed Jimmy a package. "You might want to return this to the police department, or maybe give it to the police chief or to a judge." The package was dickwad's gun and badge.
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Before I married Linda, I spent four years in the Navy. I thought I would see the world, but mostly I saw the engine room in a fleet replenishment ship. That is basically a cargo ship that resupplies ships at sea. That is where I learned about marine diesel engines. Most of the crew was Merchant Marine, so I learned my job from the best. For the past ten years, I've worked for a company that services towboats on the Mississippi River, working out of Vicksburg and Natchez.
So now I'm leaving my cheating wife behind, and I'm headed for the Port of Houston. I know I'll miss my kids, but I can't live with their mother anymore, so there it is. If I stayed, there would be a nasty divorce tearing the family apart, and she would end up with custody anyway. Even if she is a lying, cheating skank.
My first priority was to get a job. I checked into a cheap motel, and started making the rounds of diesel shops and truck dealers. I had 14 years' experience, and all the mechanic certifications, so by the end of the day I had a job. I started on Monday working on the boats supplying oil rigs in the Gulf.
This was a good start, but my ultimate goal was to get away. I had to get away from Linda, from her family, from her cop lover, and I had a plan. The next day I went down to the union hall and started the paperwork to get my merchant marine license. The engine in a container ship or a tanker, or even a cruise ship is no different than those I worked on in the Navy. Within a month I was ready to set sail on the Nederland Provider, a Dutch container ship, sailing with the tide out of Bayport, TX. I started as an apprentice engineer.
Before I left, I called Jimmy Hankins to let him know where I was. My home port was going to be Rotterdam, and I told I'd let him know when I got an address there. Linda had been served the divorce papers a week after I left. She signed them immediately and mailed them back. The divorce would be final within six months. I looked forward to being at sea at the time.
Chief Reyker came to work after Christmas, and found a package on his desk. After he opened the package, Frank 'Dickwad' Bowman was demoted and transferred to Animal Control. He became a dog catcher. Six months later he was fired. The only dog he ever caught was the mayor's daughter's poodle.
Mary Lou Bowman filed for divorce, and took dickwad to the cleaners. She got the house, the car, the kids, and 75% of marital assets. And he had to pay $1500 a month for child support, and another $1000 for alimony. His wife had a very good attorney, Jimmy Hankins.
Frank moved in with Linda. When Linda saw that Frank was broke, she kicked him out too. So, Frank ended up in a one room studio apartment, eating Ramen noodles and tuna from the can. After he was fired, he went to jail for non-payment of child support and alimony. An ex-cop, Frank did not enjoy his time in the can.
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After leaving Bayport, we stopped for two days in Charlotte, then for two days in Baltimore. We used these stops to inspect the engines and other machinery on the ship, and to do any service that required the engines to be stopped. Since I was the junior crewman in the engine room, I had to stand watch instead of going ashore. Not that I had any interest in getting off of the ship. After Baltimore, our next port would be our home port of Rotterdam. We would get a week of shore leave there.
At Rotterdam, the engines would be inspected and undergo a major service. A crew from shore would come aboard to do the work. I was starting to become acclimated to shipboard life. It wasn't unlike my days in the Navy, except I didn't have some Chief Petty Officer ragging my ass about some meaningless nonsense. And the food was better. I shared a cabin with another crewman from the engine room, Lars Eigleman from Norway. Most of the technical crewmen, like the engine room and bridge and communications technicians were European. The deck crewmen were from Malaysia, the Philippines, or India. The chef was Swedish, and he had two assistants, both from Nigeria. One served as the steward when we had passengers. I was the only American on the crew.
When I wasn't standing watch in the engine room, I was sleeping or eating. I had maybe four hours a day for myself, and during that time I did my laundry or read. The ship had a small library, just a bookshelf with a few books in a corner of the galley, in various languages. The collection did contain a few volumes of Hemingway. I started with "The Sun Also Rises". I'm hoping that in the future I can take some of my shore leave time to visit Paris and Spain.
Standing watch in the engine room is not the most exciting job you could have. As long as the engines are running as intended, you just stand around monitoring instruments. There are at least two crewmen on duty, as well as the Chief Engineer or an Assistant Chief Engineer. I learned the routine was for one man to watch the instruments, and the other two may be playing cribbage or chess. We talked about our homes, our families, and of course, women.
The Chief Engineer was Franz Gruber, originally from southern Bavaria in Germany. He now lived with his family in Amsterdam. He grew up in Germany learning to work on MAN diesels, and Mercedes and BMWs. He went to work on the Rhine river boats, and moved up to seagoing cargo ships. He had been working in the engine room of cargo ships for 30 years.
After we docked in Rotterdam, it took 12 hours for the containers to be unloaded, and then the ship was moved away from the terminal to the company docks. We would remain there for a week for a complete engineering inspection, before returning to the terminal to load outgoing containers. As I was preparing to disembark the ship, the Chief stopped me.
"Come, my young friend, you come home with me. My good wife, Gretel, will have prepared a feast for us; you will sleep in a big bed tonight, and meet my family. Tomorrow we will introduce you to Amsterdam." he said in his heavy German accent.
Carrying our seabags, we took the trolley to the train station, the Haupt Banhof. We then took a train to Amsterdam, and then another trolley to Chief Gruber's house. It was a nice 2 story gray stucco home, with a red tile roof, in a modest neighborhood of similar homes. In the driveway was a gray Peugeot 301 sedan. We walked through the gate, and through the carefully maintained front yard, covered in gravel with a few flower beds and shrubs. As is the custom with most European homes, there was no grass.
I mentioned how nice the house and garden looked.
"Mark and Evan, my sons, are responsible for taking care of the house while I am gone. I see they have been keeping up with their chores."
For just a moment I thought of my own sons.
Before we reached the front door, it opened and we were greeted by Frau Gruber. She was an attractive mature woman, about sixty, with her graying blond hair in a French braid. I would describe her figure as Rubenesque, full but still attractive. She was wearing a knee length modest dress, befitting a Dutch hausfrau, knee length cotton socks and slippers. She hugged her husband in a manner a wife would greet her husband who has been at sea for eight weeks. When the Chief finally was able to catch a breath, he introduced me to his wife. I went to shake her hand, and she grabbed me in a vigorous hug as well. Her ample bosom was trapped between us. I hoped my reaction wasn't too obvious.
Inside the door, I could see everyone was expected to remove their shoes, and wear a pair of slippers while inside the house. I followed the Chief's example, and he showed me a pair of slippers to wear. He then showed me where to stow my seabag. I returned to the parlor, where the Chief handed me a Heineken beer while we waited for dinner. We tried not to talk shop while off the ship, but it was hard since that was the main thing we had in common. The Chief told me of growing up in Germany after the war, with the deprivations they were still suffering even into the '50s. As soon as he was old enough, he went to sea.
Dinner was a delicious traditional Dutch fare, and I enjoyed getting away from the meals we had onboard. For dinner, we were joined by the Gruber sons, Marc, 19, and Evan, 18. They are both in university in Amsterdam, but still living at home. Marc is studying engineering and Evan is studying accounting and business computer systems. There are also two daughters, Giselle, 26 is studying classical literature at Cambridge, and Evie, 24 is studying classical music in Vienna. I learned that Frau Gruber is also an accomplished musician, playing the violin in the symphony orchestra for the last 20 years. She also teaches violin privately. Her students range from 6 years old to 65.
