Part 6 (1/2)

I found the Captain and his first officer standing on the starboard bridge wing, conferring. I was struck by his remarkable resemblance to Captain E. J. Smith: the regal bearing, the snow-white beard. I'm sure this was deliberate, that Harlan had chosen the man both for the resemblance and presumably for his seamans.h.i.+p. I was more than a little curious about where and how he'd come to t.i.tanic.

The tone of their conversation changed when they noticed me standing a few feet from them. The Captain said something to his first officer, who nodded and moved off. He then turned to me.

”May I help you, sir?” the Captain asked. His tone was affable, if a little remote.

”I'm sorry to bother you, Captain, but once we got underway, I couldn't resist coming up here. I hope it's all right.”

His face creased in a warm paternal smile. ”Of course. She's a beautiful s.h.i.+p. She should be explored.”

”How fast are we going, by the way?”

He turned his weathered face to the wind, blue eyes squinting into the sun. ”About eighteen knots. Would you like to see the wheelhouse?”

”Try and stop me,” I replied.

The sense of deja vu overwhelmed me again when we entered the wheelhouse. I'd seen it so many times in the film and in old black and white photos I could picture it in my sleep: the main telemotor and the auxiliary wheel, the commutator, and the intercom system, so primitive, yet so elegant. The Captain watched me examining every artifact, then turned to the crewman behind the wheel. ”Mr. Harper, let our guest take the wheel.”

I suddenly felt like a kid again, like the time my grandfather had arranged for me to drive a train in the yard where he once worked.

This, however, was far different. I grasped the wheel in my hands and watched the ocean through the bank of windows fronting the wheelhouse.

I was on top of the world.

”You're that writer friend of Mr. Astor's, aren't you?” the Captain asked.

”Yes, though sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't get a real job.”

The Captain nodded, staring out the window a moment, my humor lost on him. I could tell something was on his mind, something that bothered him. ”Is anything wrong, Captain,” I asked.

He turned back to me. ”I was wondering,” he said, hesitating a moment, ”if you'd like to hear an old man's story?”

I smiled. My first interviewee had found me.

Returning the wheel to the crewman he'd called Harper, I pulled out my iPod touch and placed it on a nearby ledge. ”Do you mind if I use this?” I asked.

”Not at all.”

I said a silent prayer, hoping the miniaturized wireless camera hidden in the frame of my gla.s.ses would work. ”Just state your name for the record,” I said.

He nodded, and I reached over and pressed ”record.”

5.

Interview with Captain Earl Pierce Location: Wheelhouse Captain Pierce hesitated a moment, his eyes darting from the iPod touch back to me. ”Is it on?” he asked.

I sensed it might be intimidating him and reached for it. ”Yes, but if you're uncomfortable-”

”No, no, leave it on. It just reminded me of my old life for a moment. What should I say?”

”Anything you want. Your name, age, that sort of thing.”

The Captain nodded, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.

”...My name is Earl Garrett Pierce, I'm sixty-two years old, and I remember as clear as a bell the day my life started going downhill....

”I was an advertising executive at one of the top agencies in New York, started in the mail room when I was twenty-five. G.o.d, it was exciting back then. All the old taboos were fading, people were willing to take chances, and I loved every minute of it. I got my break through a fluke. I'd been working on house accounts at home in my spare time, coming up with dummy campaigns. I was waiting for my big chance, never realizing it was about to ambush me.” Pierce chuckled. ”You see, somehow one of those dummy campaigns I'd brought into work got mixed up with the mail. I've often suspected my cohort in the mailroom of taking matters into his own hands. To make a long story short, it ended up on the desk of one of the partners, who read it and called me in. I thought my career was over.” Captain Pierce smiled wistfully.

”He liked it, didn't he?” I prompted.

”He loved it, thought it was the freshest idea he'd seen in ages.”

”What happened next?”

Pierce looked out over the ocean, then turned back to face me. ”I was promoted to Junior Account executive and given the account, over the objections of the Senior Account Supervisor. She was one of those ball-buster types, had clawed her way up, and resented a young college boy upstart waltzing in and dazzling the boss. She did everything she could to sabotage me. Christ, she even had the nerve to go to my clients behind my back and accuse me of stealing my colleagues' ideas. But my patron saw through it, and gave her an ultimatum: fly straight, or she was out. She tried to get along with me, but she knew it was all over for her. She was gone within a year. By that time, I'd proven my mettle, as my boss liked to call it, by not only increasing the sales of the accounts I'd handled, but by bringing in new ones, as well.

”Those first years saw phenomenal growth and I grew with it, helping to branch the agency out into different arenas.”

He paused a moment and I took the opportunity to gently nudge him back on course. ”You said you remembered the day your life started going downhill. What did you mean by that?”

Pierce sighed, took off the dark-navy-blue cap with its bullion embroidered White Star Line c.o.c.kade, and wiped his brow with a folded handkerchief. ”It all began in 2003. I'd been with the agency for almost thirty years, was a full partner and pulled down a salary of over a million and a half annually. And suddenly...I didn't want to do it anymore. I began spending more and more time sailing my forty-foot ketch. Sailing was my saving grace, you see. Spent all my spare time on that boat, and it kept me from succ.u.mbing to the madness the business had become. Creativity was dead. All they wanted was to follow someone else's trend, rather than set them. My wife, Bette, finally made me see the light and I cashed out.

”Being a partner has its advantages, the main one being stock in the company. We might not have been half the company we used to be, but we were worth ten times as much as when I started. With my share in-hand, Bette and I took our boat around the world. The trouble began when we got back....”

Pierce fell silent, and I resisted the urge to prompt him again, sensing he needed the moment to gather himself.

”Bette had cancer, you see, had known for months. It was something the doctors told her was inoperable, nothing they could do. I was livid that she'd kept it from me. Felt betrayed. I told her, 'What good is a marriage if we don't tell each other the good and the bad?' She looked at me for the longest time, not saying anything except with those sky-blue eyes of hers, and then she said, 'Because I knew you would want to leave no stone unturned, and I couldn't bear the thought of your fighting so hard, only to lose.'”

Captain Pierce averted his face, tears welling in his eyes.

”Excuse me,” he said, wiping his eyes. ”I'm sorry.”

”That's all right, sir. Would you like to stop?”

He shook his head.

”No, I need to tell this.”

I nodded for him to continue at his own pace.

”Of course, she was right, which only made me all the more angry. And yet, I loved her for it...her courage.... She died six months later, quietly and with little pain. I thanked G.o.d for that much, at least. And when I came home from the funeral, I suddenly realized I no longer knew how to be alone. I went to bars and struck up conversations with whomever sat next to me. At first these people were charmed, and then they began to avoid me. I suppose I was lousy company in the long run. Soon, I stopped using the loneliness as an excuse and drank in earnest. The house began to deteriorate, my boat sat in its slip rotting....”

”How did you-”

”-end up here?” Pierce said, antic.i.p.ating my question. ”After five years of steady drinking, I'd nearly hit bottom. Most of my friends, who weren't too numerous to begin with after Bette's death, deserted me. I was a very sloppy drunk, you see, couldn't keep from telling the truth about people, pointing out their faults.” Pierce laughed without a trace of humor. ”As if I were without sin.