Klay didn’t respond. Instead, he did what a good reporter does when he’s having a conversation: he kept his mouth shut.

“Ah, you know,” Billy continued. “His old man left my daughter. Kid had to be a man straight out of the cradle. Said he wanted to do something with his life. Not just a job, an adventure kind of thing. I told him there’s lots of adventures don’t mean getting your head blown off, but what does an old man like me know, right? I’m so smart what am I doing pouring rail booze to has-beens? Present company excluded,” he apologized. “Anyway, kid says he wants to be like his granddad. I told him I was drafted. He thinks I was a war hero.”

“From what I hear you were.”

“What’s that get you?”

“You feel responsible,” Klay said.

Billy shrugged.

“Go Army!” Phil the Economist blurted.

Both men looked down the bar. Billy pointed his finger. “I’ll give you that one,” he said. “No more.”

Phil’s eyebrows shot up. He wasn’t used to being addressed directly. He was large and soft with a few sprigs of hair left on a pale head. He wore a gray sweatshirt over gray sweatpants and black sneakers, giving him the appearance of a manatee with a Jack and Coke between his flippers. He sipped his drink and watched the game.

“Carl did real well in school,” Billy said to Klay. “Loved engineering. Had plenty of offers in the private sector. Turned them all down. Says there’s nobody doing what the military does. But I do worry about him.”

“I’m sure he’s in good hands. Seventh Fleet, right?”

“That’s right. Lucky Seventh,” Billy said, bitterly. “MacArthur’s Navy. Twenty thousand sailors now. All circling the South China Sea.” Billy looked at a tattoo on his forearm too old and faded for Klay to read. “Seems like we can’t ever get away from that place.”

“Well, it’s a different world now,” Klay said.

On the television, the midshipmen were marching onto the field, lining up by company.

“Doesn’t look different,” Billy said. “They’ve got the Shiloh on stand-down. You’ve seen the news, right?”

Klay had not paid much attention to the news since his return from Kenya. Everything on it seemed like a version of Bernard’s killing.

“No, Bill. What’d I miss?”

“Carl says it’s nothing. Seventh Fleet’s been having accidents. The Fitzgerald got rammed by a Japanese cargo ship. Dead of night, sent her into a full 360 spin, full red over red. Seven dead. Then McCain turns into the path of a thirty-thousand-ton Liberian oil tanker—ten more boys gone. Maybe it was girls. I don’t know. Champlain ran over a fishing boat—that’s an Aegis cruiser like the Shiloh. All South China Sea. Modern Navy. How modern is that?”