Loneliness Comes in Threes

The Willard

Washington 4, DC

My Dearest Shep, Tuesday November 3rd, 1952

I fear I always make such a mess of addressing my envelopes. It seems the Navy is destined for me to be parted from you in all respects. It is as cold in Washington as anything you can imagine, and you are sorely missed. I’m certain the post will arrive much more promptly sending this out of D.C. rather than from New York. The kind woman at the post office seemed to agree and said they stack the letters to the boys as high as the eye can see in large satchels. Is that truly how it works, Shep, darling?

You mustn’t tell a soul, but I’m lounging here in the hotel with a mint julep and a pack of Herbert Tareyton’s, and I feel as matronly as they come. These little cork tips are quite charming though, I must say.

I’ve lost myself…We’ve been at the most egregious dinner in Georgetown with the Turpins and though they are marvelous hosts, their conversations lull in such a way that my skin crawls. Your father though, so much like yourself, was the savior of any such pauses. All our thoughts are with you Shep, and we pray for you by the hour.

My day, it seems, has consisted of you in the most brilliant ways. This morning was a parade of all the people you hold dear. Your brother met us in the lobby as I took breakfast with Mother, and we were of course glad for him to join. He has such a glint in his eye that sings of you, and so you can’t imagine my joy when he pulled from his suit the most handsome picture of you in full uniform, or I assume…as you were seated. Shepherd Lockwood you must be truly carved from cream cheese the way you look in that photograph. I will keep it with me until you return. He told me your Mother had it printed for him to deliver because she wasn’t sure if you had been so bold to provide one yourself. Well of course I never let on that you hadn’t and simply told him I could never have too many.

Mother hasn’t been well...She’s taken to drinking before noon and after our breakfast she was so embarrassed she went back up to the room and your sweet brother escorted me to Garfinkle’s where I assuredly spent too much money. Daddy is sure to have a fit when he gets the bill, but I ran into Jackie Bouvier and she dresses so smart. And although I’m certain she was only being polite; she was so kind and had them bring out the most beautiful black gown that I wore tonight. You know she’s started courting Senator Kennedy? Good for her.

All of that to say, when I returned to the hotel, who should be waiting for me other than Beckett Walton! Your Beck with the most beautiful spray of flowers and a reservation at Rive Gauche. You’ll surely laugh when I tell you that in that beautiful spray of flowers was ANOTHER photo of you. Beck told me he had a drawer full of them at home. That your poor mother was handing them out like baseball cards. Darling, I so love Beckett and he does make these long weeks in D.C. so much more bearable. Ironically he is working with Bouvier at the Herald but says he will soon be moving higher up! He has his sights set high as you do, my love.

I’m rambling, and my eyes are heavy. Shepherd…Beck and I went to the movies this afternoon and watched one of those horrible feature films on what’s happening over there in Korea and I can’t stand it. My heart aches for you. I cannot wait until you come home to us, my darling.

I wait for your response and for you to be in my arms. I cannot wait to be fully yours.

All my love,

Mina

*******

Shepherd smiled down at the fragrant envelope and turned it over in hand. He exhaled a cyclone of smoke and closed his aching eyes while the boys had a comforting jam session in the hallway below deck. He rose and opened the door to his room a bit more as a fellow sailor had his hand at playing Little Walter on the harmonica. He tossed Mina’s letter onto the desk and turned to the rest. He picked up a familiar scrawl and smiled further as he peeled back the familiar posh white envelope with a B.W. seal on the back.

*******

Hello You,

It’s November 4th and I am watching the sun rise over this wicked city and in turn thinking a thousand wicked thoughts…though I won’t tell you of whom. It is bitter here. A chill that sinks into your bones and creates a soreness. It must be a sign of the times, don’t you think, that my bones ache that way when it turns cold. Like the old men that use such pains as their own form of meteorology, prophesying inclement weather. Sometimes I long for the comfort that must surely come with crippling age. You know I’ve always been prone to a cantankerous mood even in this Grecian youth.

Your last letter worried me, Shep. I don’t like this state you’re in and it twists my heart. I…well I’ve spent a great deal of time with your supposed betrothed in the last twenty-four hours, and I understand the weight you now feel. She is all the things you should want in this life. As swell a gal as anyone could find…sorry…I’ve dropped ash. She’s swell. Mina Whitemarsh is the real deal for you. She is crippling though. I don’t know why I suggested it, but I took her to the pictures today—some fucked up propaganda for the war. Soldiers handing out bubble gum then in the next turn torching the North Koreans in foxholes. I’m thankful that for now you are in the Canal.

When Mina was so distraught and fell onto me for support, I had never felt more alone in all my life. I too wanted to collapse into the floor in a puddle of tears. I too wanted someone to know that my heart was not with me in that theater but half a globe away on a hunk of steel fighting someone else’s war. I’m only allowed to mourn and wallow in your distance in this swallowing aloneness that is Washington without you. A sepia miniature is all I have now. Those eyes squinted in some mischief. The fresh fade of this Navy sanctioned hair. Your mother has a printed stack of them piled on her desk, and I’ve stolen half a dozen to keep in my drawer when one grows faded from caress, splotched by tears, or torn by my everyday carrying of you. But I do carry you every day that I am forced to draw breath and face the void of time without you.

I cannot imagine what fills your days, Shep, and I hope that no melancholy comes between you and what I know to be your great duty. I long for your homecoming with all my heart, but a wicked part of me screams to enjoy this unbridled longing, for I know when you return I will be forced to watch you fall into her, and that will be the end of everything. A war not fought on foreign soil but within my own heart, within our own parlors and living rooms. It is no longer the red hand of Communism that haunts me, but a knowing of what comes in the hours when your feet cross this soil once more. You will come home, because I pray too hard for it to be any other way. You will come home, and there will be nothing left of my heart because I have wrung out an eternity of love in preparation of what’s to come.

Stay the course. Fight the Fight. Come home to whatever is left of us.

B. Walton

Si me apartas tu vida morirás aunque vivas. – unknown.

*******

Shepherd trembled and cleared his throat loudly as he thrashed his cigarette in the tray. He grabbed both letters in mannish hands and shoved them into the King Edward Imperial cigar box that housed his few worldly possessions on this ship. The guys still crooned in the hall, plucking guitars and laughing amongst themselves. Shep wiped quickly at his face with the hem of a white undershirt and returned to his little desk. A smattering of family photos and one of he and Beckett from college days—languishing on the floor propped on their elbows staring down Beck’s sister’s camera, grinning and at ease. Shep sniffed loudly and shuffled through his stationary. He wrote back to the beautiful Mina in words so soft and gentle, answering each of her quips and concerns with gentlemanly prose. The second sheet of paper was first doused with a large tear that left a long streak when wiped away.

*******

Beck,

I’ve told you not to write this way…knowing you would, regardless of my warnings or if it would get me sent overboard. I never know what might send me overboard these days. The ice riddled decks, a rogue wave, a blast from the Chinese as they make their advances. I suppose your idiocy or rather arrogance would be the preferred reason for a seaward death.

I’m sorry my last letter troubled you. Yours are always such smart prose and vivid imagery and mine surely come as a canon of morbid self-pity that I suppose is inherent when feeling useless in this ever seemingly useless war.

I've always been one to reject the beaten path. This stark pressed uniform is a constant and at times laughable reminder of that. Go on Shep, join Uncle Sam, that’ll teach ‘em. I sit here in this bunk and feel quite helpless yet superior and free when compared to my brother, who languishes behind a desk, counting his numbers and coins to receive his dutiful pat on the head from Pops as he rushes home. Perhaps I should've settled for the pat on the head. Braved the campaigns, took a senatorial oath, and married some broad from the Herald…ha.

Your unknown Spanish quotation is lost on me, but since we’re offering them up, I believe it was Dickinson who wrote that she was out with lanterns looking for herself. My beloved, I have felt a similar sensation since birth. My life has been a darkness that seems destined to extinguish any lantern, any shred of light that manages to worm its way into my life…there is no goodness here. I don’t know now that I would recognize the man I’m out searching for should I find him. I can’t even begin to imagine what true, pure, avowed happiness would look like on these darkened features. Perhaps you could describe it for me…for I believe the only instance in this miserable life that I have experienced such uninhibited happiness has been any moment in which I was alongside you.

Dad writes that support for this effort dwindles back home. He hears whispers from his Washington contemporaries that Eisenhower plans to wave the flag. If what he says is true, then my time has been well served, but I have no desire to return to that pit we call home. I loved you first when our families spent that summer bobbing off the Amalfi coast. You were tan as a native and your dark hair caught the light and my heart has never again been mine. You know the town. When all of this comes to an end and the threat of Communism retreats back into the east, meet me on those shores so that I might find myself in the lantern that is you.

Yours,

Shep

*******

Authors Note: The Unknown quotation is from Pablo Neruda’s poem The Slip, published anonymously in his work “Los Versos del Capitán” in 1952. The Translation reads: “If you take your life from me / you will die / even though you live.”