Bledsoe came up to us. “Oh, there you are.… Look—I feel I owe you an apology for running lunch the other day. I wondered if I could persuade you to eat dinner with me. There’s a good French restaurant about twenty minutes from here in Crown Point, Indiana.”

I’d worn a black corduroy pantsuit that day and it was covered with fine particles of barley. Bledsoe saw me eye it doubtfully.

“It’s not that formal a place—and there’s some kind of clothesbrush in the stateroom, if you want to brush your suit. You look great, though.”

Chapter 11

Grounded

Dinner at Louis Retaillou’s Bon Appetit was delightful. The restaurant took up the ground floor of an old Victorian house. The family, who all played a role in preparing and presenting the meal, lived upstairs. It was Thursday, a quiet night with only a few of the inlaid wooden tables filled, and Louis came out to talk to Bledsoe, who was a frequent guest. I had the best duckling I’ve ever eaten and we shared a respectable St. Estephe.

Bledsoe turned out to be an entertaining companion. Over champagne cocktails we became “Martin” and “Vic.” He regaled me with shipping stories, while I tried to pry discreetly into his past. I told him a bit about my childhood on Chicago’s South Side and some of Boom Boom’s and my adventures. He countered with stories of life on Cleveland’s waterfront. I talked about being an undergraduate during the turbulent Vietnam years and asked him about his education. He’d gone straight to work out of high school. With Grafalk Steamship? Yes, with Grafalk Steamship—which reminded him of the first time he’d been on a laker when a big storm came up. And so on.

It was ten-thirty when Bledsoe dropped me back at the Lucella to pick up my car. The guard nodded to Bledsoe without taking his eyes from a television set perched on a shelf above him.

“Good thing you have a patrol on the boat—anyone could get past this fellow,” I commented.

Bledsoe nodded in agreement, his square face in shadow. “Ship,” he said absently. “A boat is something you haul aboard a ship.”

He walked over with me to my car—he was going back on board the Lucella for one last look around. The elevator and the boat—ship—beyond loomed as giant shapes in the dimly lit yard. I shivered a bit in my corduroy jacket.

“Thanks for introducing me to a great new restaurant, Martin. I enjoyed it. Next time I’ll take you to an out-of-the-way Italian place on the West Side.”