Playing Fair and Being Kind

Preface note: Writing this story got me out of the funk I was in. I grounded myself during the process of recording the event.
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WILL CALL THIS AFTERNOON

I don’t trust a fucking thing at the moment. I’m in a jam of sorts and I got here all by myself. I don’t trust myself and I don’t want to believe there is a way out. My faith in my abilities to make decisions is shot through. Filled with holes and tatters. I’m in charge of my actions and decisions still. I just don’t have the faith to lean heavily against them. Like walking on black ice with street shoes. I can feel the landing on my ass even as I move my feet in the direction I intend to go. The world is filled with good intentions, so I’ve heard. My trust level is shaky.

This feeling I have is similar to when the boat was at or near test depth and I knew, intellectually, that the thing was going to be o.k. but my heart was not in it. I sit here with the dread of one who is about to walk the last mile. No context. None needed. I’m just going with it. I have manufactured a wonderful case of ‘lost in a maze’. Existential anxiety formed around a series of mis-steps that have brought me to an unfamiliar dead-end in a grouping of hedges taller than I. I am tired of being out of options. That’s the whole of it right there. Being without options is something I’m not familiar with. Call it lucky. My arrogance got me into this and, goddamit, arrogance will get me out of it.

The beginning of the last paragraph, “when the boat was at or near test depth…” presents, to me, a clear image of the starboard side of the operations compartment, upper level, of the Sam Houston. A clear view of the frame bays and wireways. The ‘beach sand’ paint of everything in sight. The hull insulation, the frames, the hull curvature, the groups of wires in their tightly wrapped bundles running forward/aft with identifying circuit tags all shipshape. The workmanship of the builders in Newport News providing false confidence that all is o.k. Something inside or maybe just outside or perhaps not even part of reality whispers that everything is not o.k. The knowledge that natural forces outside the hull of the Sam Houston were constantly and forever trying to breach the design, the application of human science and laws of physics, the workmanship, and the illogical thoughts, prayers, and hopes of mindless people inside the hull wishing, yes, just wishing and hoping that the water stayed the fuck outside.

I remember an instance when I was piloting a deep submersible, Sea Cliff, at test depth, much deeper than Sam Houston would ever be in real life. We were at six thousand and five hundred feet deep. I had given the co-pilot the pilot’s seat to let him gain experience with driving at depth. I was confident in his abilities so I took a seat on top of the gyro at the back of the sphere. I sat on the cushion and watched the back of his body and the back of the body of the science observer at the port side viewport. We had been at depth for some time and the air inside was cooled to the point of all of us wearing our full jump suits and sweaters and wool caps and other items we’d brought along for the ride. I let my gaze wander about in the ‘ball’. I tipped my head back to look up at the hatch and by eyes fell upon the small two-inch viewport in its center. My imagination took over. I couldn’t see a thing by looking through the viewport at the top of the ball. All I could see was black. No light can penetrate past six hundred feet of sea water. I was looking at black water and my innermost-self conjured up dread and non-existence in that moment. I felt as if I was staring at the face of death.

The moment shook me to my core. I quickly looked back at the inside of the ball and the lights, the gages, and the others going about their tasks. My mind was still spinning from fear of where we were. I knew that we were a mile and a quarter below the surface of the water. This was not a normal environment for submariners. I was a proud submariner having earned my dolphins on three submarines over the course of my first ten years in the Navy. Driving a deep submersible was a different story. During those ten years the United States had lost two deep-diving nuclear submarines with all hands on board. Those were traumatic events for many, many people including me. The reality of the dangers of exploring the depths of the ocean came home with these two events. I know from my own experiences with the aftermath, the trauma of learning that we lost so many men, of losing one good friend, from my Sirago days, on Thresher that submarine duty is fraught with catastrophe. Prior to the loss of Thresher and Scorpion submarine duty was purely fun adventure.

The simple physics of water pressure against the hull of a submerged vessel is enough to overwhelm imagination. For each one hundred feet of depth there are forty-four point four pounds pressure per square inch applied to the vessel. At depth, sixty-five hundred feet, there is a ton and a half of pressure per square inch. Of course, to the average person, that seems like so much gobble-d-gook. To the pressure hull that is simply and purely scientific data that is real. Any disfigurement in the spherical alignment of the pressure hull will readily reveal the weakness of it. The impersonal nature of science will be evident immediately. When the pressure hull fails to hold back the forces of the water at depth there is an implosion most likely of the catastrophic type. I imagine the hull collapsing in a flash, literally. The hull would collapse in a flash of fire, a spark similar to a diesel engine piston compressing a combination of air and oil. The compression of the air causes a large amount of heat to ignite the oil supplied to the cylinder. An explosion occurs. What we have is, first the implosion forcing the compression of gasses and fuel and then the explosion from the heated fuel to expand outward. Snap, Bang.

What wasn’t readily apparent to me, until I gave it some thought, is the fuel in the collapse of the deep submersible sphere to explode is me. Snap (water pressing everything together), Bang (me).

So, I got a message this morning from my best friend in the whole world. She said that she would call me because she knew I was feeling down physically and emotionally. She said she would call this afternoon. When I read the message, my whole being boomeranged backward to my greatest fear-filled situation in memory; being underwater in Sea Cliff and looking upward through the two-inch viewport. Her message to me reminded me just how dangerous and uncomfortable I am in this moment. A validation that, yes indeed, I am not in a safe place.

There you have it. Thanks, Nina.

G. M. Goodwin
December 21, 2019