Chapter 37

This was so not what she had in mind.

Corey didn’t like it one bit, but what was she going to say? They stood on the parade field of the Coast Guard Academy, a rolling sea of green on a crisp fall day. The entire cadet corps was assembled in front of them, split into eight companies—Alfa through Hotel, Kyle explained—standing ramrod straight at attention. The companies themselves were organized into massive columns of young men and women, in their black dress uniforms with rows of gold buttons running up their chests, and topped with sharp white caps. Or covers, as Kyle called them, and the stray intersection of military and musical jargon elicited a fleeting smile from her.

At the current moment, the Regimental Commander shouted, “Pre-sent…ARMS!” and every cadet lifted the rifles they carried and thrust them forward at once. The front row of every company was staffed with seniors—“firsties,” Kyle noted—and they carried swords. At the command they raised the hilts to their faces and the blades reached skyward, their tips catching the light. They gleamed like tiny torches.

One could hear a pin drop.

Was everyone else seeing this, she thought? It was the most overtly phallic display she’d ever seen. It was like synchronized dick swinging. In the deathly stillness, she was uncomfortable in the same way she was at funerals and she had to stifle a manic laugh, not borne of humor but from the same sensation as whistling past a graveyard.

How could she feel so claustrophobic on a sunny afternoon in the middle of a field? She looked up into Kyle’s face, but he was transfixed, lost in thought. Jesus, are his eyes shining? Is he going to knuckle a fucking tear?  

It was a visceral feeling she was trying to tamp down, the same feeling she had when she used to see A-Game in their prime: four frat bros who marched to the same drum machine and convinced half the planet to do the same. And what was this before her now but one giant fraternity, albeit highly organized and with weaponry?

She felt her anxiety building. As if the sea of green in front of her were a beach and a flood tide of dread was washing in.

Stop, she thought. You’re being a shit. They’re the Coast Guard. They’re lifesavers. You’re just jealous because you belong to no one and nothing and never have and the last week only put an exclamation point on it. There was the Boston music scene of the 90’s, and it was heady while it lasted, but it imploded. And she and the rest of The Toddlers caught the last rocket out, but they had all turned on each other in the end. The same with A-Game. Anytime she ran with a pack it didn’t end well, and anything larger than a pack—any mass of people—she instinctively looked at with disdain. She even viewed her own audience—at its largest, when she was playing amphitheaters with thousands calling out her name—with suspicion. They were a capricious lot who could turn on her at any time. Now she was down to clubs and sports bars and having trouble filling those, her earlier suspicions now seeming like an accurate prediction.

Everyone leaves you behind in the end.

She understood little of the proceedings. There seemed to be a lot of movement, rifles slung over shoulders then held out in front, then the rifle butts thrust down on the ground, then slung over their shoulders again. And small groups, breaking off from the larger masses, squaring their corners and offering lots of salutes to the parade stand. Clearly there was an order to the orchestrated movements—hell, that’s all there was. There wasn’t a scrap of chaos as far as the eye could see. It was like church in that sense, another institution she just couldn’t wrap her head around.

Finally, the head cadet in charge shouted “Pass…in re-VIEW!” and this jolted the Corps into action, starting with the band. The brass and the woodwinds and the sharp drums started up, and admittedly it was rousing. She didn’t know the tune by name, but she had heard it before, and then the instruments fell silent save for the tattoo of the drums, and she appreciated the dynamism of it, and thought, how the hell can they march and play at the same fucking time? She was not a dancer on stage. At best, she swayed and had a few moves, but she would never classify her stage presence as kinetic. There was a precision in the Corps’ rigidity and the uniformity amounted to a theatricality she had to appreciate.

Then the band passed by the parade stand and was gone, the echoes of the drums wafting after them on the parade field. Then one company by one, the rest of Corps passed in review, their heads snapping to the right when each company commander screamed “Eyes…RIGHT!”

And blessedly, it was over.

Kyle took a deep breath, exhaled, and laughed a little. While the pomp and circumstance of it all had soured something in her, it was obvious it had stirred something in him.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, “it takes me right back.”

“Which one were you?”

“Company commander.”

“Means nothing to me.”

“The head of one of those eight companies.”

She tried to think of a witty retort, but suddenly she seemed too exhausted to come up with one. As if she was underwater. What energy she had she used to keep from actively frowning.

“Cool,” she said.

Just then, they heard a voice. “Hey!”

It was Charlie. He shouldered through the crowd and gave Kyle a hug. He went in for a hug with Corey, and she found herself delighted to see him. Relieved. Anything to break this weird spell.

“There’s a couple of hours until the dinner at Leamy Hall. Pre-game with some beers at Campus Pizza?”

Kyle looked toward Corey. “Old cadet hangout,” he explained. “Cheap beer. With an open-minded policy on checking ID.”

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” she said.

Listening to the two of them over a pitcher, it may as well have been another language. Terms she could not identify. Guidon. Motherbucket. Quarterdeck. Foul weather parade. Some she picked up in context, others sailed right over her head. She nodded along, smiling, wondering if it was purposely designed to be so exclusionary. Was this how Kincaid felt for so long?

The beer helped.

They mentioned Kyle’s ex-wife and she perked up.

“Wait,” said Corey, dipping back into the conversation, “why do you keep calling her Cold Max? Is she, like, a real fucking ice queen or what?”  

Kyle and Charlie exchanged a look then burst out laughing.  

“Oh God, no!” said Kyle.

Charlie laughed even harder.

“What?” she asked.

“Cold Max is indoc,” said Charlie.

“Indoctrination,” said Kyle.

“I’m lost. Is she an actual person or not?”

Kyle shook his head. “I’m sorry. Indoc is what we had to memorize during Swab Summer—”

“Our freshmen summer,” added Charlie.

“Thanks,” said Kyle, “One second we’re civilians and then the next we’re in uniform with our heads shaved, we raise our right hands, and boom, we’re in the Coast Guard. But we still don’t know anything, so we have to memorize all of this indoc. The terminology, the language of the Academy…‘Cold Max’ is one of those terms. Maxine is her name. Maxine, Cold Max. It just stuck.”

“Yeah,” said Corey, getting annoyed, “but what does Cold Max mean?”

“It’s when you ace a test,” said Charlie. “When you get 100% on something. Academics, athletics, military ranking…no one could touch Maxine at the Academy. Not me, not Kyle, not anyone.”

“In other words,” said Corey, looking at Kyle, “she was perfect.” 

“No,” said Kyle. “Clearly not perfect…”

“But you married her.”

“She was like one of those stallions,” said Charlie, well on his way to being drunk. “He could only stay on for eight seconds. What’s a lady stallion called?”

“A horse, Charlie,” said Kyle. “A stallion is a male horse.”

“That’s a bit sexist,” said Charlie. “Seems to me if a lady horse works hard enough, she can—”

“So just to be clear, your ex-wife was, like, the valedictorian?”

“Not ‘like’ the valedictorian,” said Charlie. “She was the valedictorian. And ranked number one militarily too.”

Kyle shot him a look. Charlie clenched his teeth and pretended to hide under the table.

“And I’m guessing she can fly too,” said Corey into her beer.

“Well, not without a helicopter…” offered Charlie. “But yeah.”