Submarine Duty
by Robert McBrearty
He read the notice informing him of his assignment. No, not submarine duty! He would fight on land and on the sea if needed, but not below the sea. No one came back. He would die a horrible death trapped and running out of breath or the pressure would explode his organs from inside. He ran into the tiny kitchen of the apartment. Mother, Mother! They’ve given me submarine duty! She raised a dish towel to her face. No one comes back, she said. Her knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor. He ran into the living room where his father sat on a large brown armchair. He was a gaunt man with thinning hair. Before the war, he had written poetry. They had not wanted him in the war. Now he mostly just sat and stared. Father, they’ve given me submarine duty and Mother has fallen to the floor in the kitchen. Get me a beer, his father said.
Before he was to report in for duty, the war ended. He ran into the living room. Father, the war is over and there will be no submarine duty! Get me a beer, his father said. He ran into his mother’s bedroom. She had taken to the bed after she had learned of his submarine duty. Mother, the war is over, he said. She did not stir. Her face was a terrible whitish blue color. He felt her carotid artery. Nothing.
He ran back into the living room. Father, Mother is dead! Get me a beer, his father said. Don’t you care, don’t you care that Mother is dead? His father’s lips trembled faintly. To care about one thing is to care about everything, he said.
You care about your beer! he shouted. What if I told you there was no beer? His father’s eyes grew wide and panicky. With unsteady frail arms he raised himself halfway out of his chair. He whispered hoarsely, Please not that. Please don’t tell me there is no beer.
Robert Garner McBrearty is the author of five books of fiction, mostly recently When I Can’t Sleep, published by Matter Press. His stories have appeared in many places, including in the Pushcart Prize, Missouri Review, StoryQuarterly, Fiction, Fiction Southeast, New Flash Fiction Review, and previously in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Submarine Duty”? The story began as a visualization, as if the characters were on stage. I saw a gaunt older man sitting in an armchair staring vacantly, utterly detached, while a son and a wife move around him in a small, cramped apartment. That visualization stayed with me, haunted me, until other elements of the story fell into place, the war, the call to submarine duty. I often like to use a repeated line in a story and when he says, “Bring me a beer” I knew that that line would run through the story like a refrain, comical on one hand but sad, too. The compressed form seemed just right for the piece, with the compressed, shut-in setting, the references to submarines with their compressed space, the man’s compressed spirit. I wanted the son to provide a contrast in his will to live, in his urgency to reawaken his father.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
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