Date: June 12, 1944
Location: New York City – Brooklyn Naval Yard and Lower East Side
Calvin Rosen stood in front of the mirror and tilted his cover forward half an inch. The gold band on his cap caught the morning light and flared like a match head. He adjusted it again, then gave up and turned away. The uniform itched. All dress whites did. His mother said it made him look like a fresh towel. His father said nothing—just nodded and went back to his paper.
The apartment smelled like toast and printer’s ink. The old kind. Acidic. Sharp. The window was open, and the breeze carried street sounds—vendors, car horns, the thrum of a city at war but still impatient about traffic.
“Breakfast,” his mother said.
“I don’t have time.”
“You always have time for eggs.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll get seasick.”
“I’ll get used to it.”
She put the eggs on the table anyway. He sat and ate them slowly, chewing through silence. The clock above the sink ticked louder than usual.
“You’ll write?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t lie.”
Cal smiled and stood. “Then don’t ask me to.”
She kissed his cheek, fussed with his collar, and told him not to trust admirals. His father handed him a folded copy of The Forward and said, “Don’t forget who you are.”
Cal slipped the paper into his bag and left before he could answer.
By noon, he was standing at Pier 41, staring up at the gray flank of the USS Clark. She wasn’t much to look at. He had orders in his coat and a knot in his stomach. “You Rosen?”
A petty officer with a clipboard appeared, squinting.
“Yes, sir.”
“Not sir. I work for a living.”
“Right.”
“Welcome aboard.”
The sailor shook his hand. Cal stepped onto the gangway. The deck smelled like hot iron and salt.
But the real farewell didn’t happen there. It happened six hours earlier, in a smoky café on the Lower East Side, with half a pastrami sandwich on his plate and three chairs filled by the only friends he still talked to since Annapolis had shoved him into uniform.
They were already waiting when he arrived—Levy, Max, and Pearl.
Levy was in uniform too—Army Air Corps, stationed in Georgia. Max had bad lungs and was stuck in a Navy office. Pearl, as always, was out of uniform and twice as sharp as anyone in one. “Look at you,” Max said as Cal walked in. “Our boy the officer. All pressed and polished.”
“Only took four years and six bad haircuts,” Cal replied, sliding into the booth. Pearl grinned. “I like the whites. You look like a bottle of milk someone left in the sun.” Cal rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
They ordered drinks—coffee, thick and bitter. No one said what they were thinking. “So what’s it like?” Levy asked. “Being a communications officer?”
“I haven’t even reported yet,” Cal said. “Right now it’s mostly pretending I know what I’m doing and trying not to trip on my sword.”
“You don’t get a sword,” Max said.
“I should.”
Pearl lit a cigarette. “When do you sail?”
“Two days. Patrol route off the Atlantic coast first. Then, who knows.”
“You scared?”
Cal hesitated. “A little.”
Max leaned back. “Good. Means you’re still human.”
They talked about old teachers, old dates, old dreams. Max teased Levy about the girl in Atlanta. Pearl quoted Brecht until they begged her to stop. Cal laughed too hard at something stupid and spilled his coffee. The waitress brought napkins. Time ran short.
Pearl asked, “What do you actually do on a destroyer?”
“I keep the signals straight,” Cal said. “Radar, encrypted transmissions, line-of-sight, Morse code, flags if we’re desperate.”
“You’re the voice.”
“I’m the listener.”
She tilted her head. “And if something goes wrong?”
“Then nobody hears anything. And we all guess wrong.”
He left before dark. Levy shook his hand like a man going to court. Max hugged him like a brother. Pearl just stood on the curb, watching as he walked away. “Don’t die,” she said.
Now, as the sun slanted westward over the Brooklyn piers, he stood in the radio room aboard Clark, hands behind his back, listening to the quiet hum of readiness. The first officer showed him around—equipment, crew stations, a teletype that stuttered out message after message like a nervous secretary. “Want to send something?” the man asked.
Cal nodded, typing out his first official message.
ENS ROSEN REPORTING
READY FOR ORDERS
The keys clicked. The wire sparked. The signal flew—somewhere.
He looked out the porthole and watched a seagull loop over the water.
It felt like the sky was listening.