Ginny’s sister, Janet, took the photo, after the first pitcher of martinis, a black and white still in its Kodak envelope that I unearthed yesterday in my old Navy sea chest. In the photo Ginny sits in an Adirondack chair, the chair with the missing slat in the back. We’re in Annapolis, the backyard of Ginny’s parent’s house. You can’t tell the chair’s color or the house’s color but I remember the chair was green and the house, once a vacation home, was a faded brown. The house sprawled along the bank of the Severn. Water moccasins inhabited the riverbank – their presence never seemed to bother anyone except me.

We followed the comet. Bremerton to Moses Lake, Moses Lake to Missoula. It was April Fools Eve, 1969, the USS Epstein back a week from Nam. McMurty was AWOL. In two days, I’d be AWOL too, me with only ninety days and a wake-up till I was out of the Navy. We were “rescuing Darla.” That’s how McMurty put it, although McMurty needed rescue too. Darla was McMurty’s main squeeze. She worked at Heavenly Donuts, outside the shipyard gate. Her dad, a pipe