signs inside to the U-boat. He stood in line alongside restless schoolchildren on field trips, vaguely interested retirees, and a few military buffs. Then he calculated how many times he might repeat this tour before his return flight to New Jersey.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOHN CHATTERTON
I N WAYS, it amazed Chatterton that he was still alive to visit museums. He had lived a life of startling decisions, many of which he’d known could kill him, and all of which would have been unfathomable to the tourists with whom he stood in line. Now that he was forty years old, married, and ideally employed, his past sometimes seemed to belong to someone else. Still, in unexpected places like this museum, small things hurtled him back in time. Drab gray paint on a waiting area display evoked 1970, a year that still lived hot in his bloodstream. Photos of a giant ocean hung on nearby walls tossed him onto the waters of an unlikely boyhood. Today, he might have looked like everyone else standing beside him. But none of them had come close to a life like his.
That life began on a leafy September in 1951, when Jack and Patricia Chatterton welcomed their first child into their lives. The scene was 1950s perfect: Jack was a Yale-educated, up-and-coming aerospace engineer for the Sperry company, a fantastical-sounding job in an era when the word
aerospace
conjured images of Martians and death rays. Patricia was a twenty-four-year-old, newly retired fashion model who had twirled her willowy shape and waterfall of brown hair on international runways.
When John was three, his family moved to a new ranch-style home in Garden City, a tony Long Island suburb populated by Manhattan executives, local business owners, and jockey Eddie Arcaro. Few could imagine a better place to raise a child. Garden City was safe and quiet, its tract homes and color televisions promising Americans a new and better way of living.
When John was four, Patricia gave birth to another son, MacRae, named for Patricia’s father. As the boys grew into school age, Garden City’s fortunes grew with them. Four Long Island Railroad stations served the town in a time when most communities were lucky to get one. The Chattertons enjoyed a large TV and electric heat. John’s bicycle had training wheels that didn’t squeak.
Patricia made the beach her priority. She drove her two boys forty minutes to Gilgo Beach, along a stretch of barrier islands off the South Shore of Long Island. There, she turned John and MacRae loose to run like untied balloons, their bare feet on fire against the blazing sand until they had to rush into the Atlantic for relief. John’s father never joined the family there. He was busy. He didn’t like sand and salt water.
It was the salt water that gave John his feeling. At home, he was thrilled by little. School was okay. Books were so-so. Mickey Mantle was all right. But when he stood in the Atlantic up to his knees and looked out over the horizon, he felt as if he could see a different world, a world that no one talked about. At home, he would push his T-shirts against his face and smell the salt water, and that also gave John his feeling.
At home, John’s life was different from those of his friends. His mother spoke to him without filters, expressing viewpoints without dumbing down her ideas or dialogue. John’s father liked to have fun, but not the ball-tossing, fishing-trip recreation that television fathers favored. Jack would spend hours behind his desk at home, studying aerospace equations and smoking through his daily four packs of Kents. Two martinis, and he was ready to put on a gorilla mask and run around the neighborhood.
When Jack began to drink heavily, Patricia tried to coax him into becoming a proper father. He countered by upping his working, smoking, and drinking. Patricia decided then that as long as her own father was still alive, she was going to leave Jack out of things.
Patricia’s father was Rae Emmet Arison, a retired rear
CHAPTER FOUR
JOHN CHATTERTON
I N WAYS, it amazed Chatterton that he was still alive to visit museums. He had lived a life of startling decisions, many of which he’d known could kill him, and all of which would have been unfathomable to the tourists with whom he stood in line. Now that he was forty years old, married, and ideally employed, his past sometimes seemed to belong to someone else. Still, in unexpected places like this museum, small things hurtled him back in time. Drab gray paint on a waiting area display evoked 1970, a year that still lived hot in his bloodstream. Photos of a giant ocean hung on nearby walls tossed him onto the waters of an unlikely boyhood. Today, he might have looked like everyone else standing beside him. But none of them had come close to a life like his.
That life began on a leafy September in 1951, when Jack and Patricia Chatterton welcomed their first child into their lives. The scene was 1950s perfect: Jack was a Yale-educated, up-and-coming aerospace engineer for the Sperry company, a fantastical-sounding job in an era when the word
aerospace
conjured images of Martians and death rays. Patricia was a twenty-four-year-old, newly retired fashion model who had twirled her willowy shape and waterfall of brown hair on international runways.
When John was three, his family moved to a new ranch-style home in Garden City, a tony Long Island suburb populated by Manhattan executives, local business owners, and jockey Eddie Arcaro. Few could imagine a better place to raise a child. Garden City was safe and quiet, its tract homes and color televisions promising Americans a new and better way of living.
When John was four, Patricia gave birth to another son, MacRae, named for Patricia’s father. As the boys grew into school age, Garden City’s fortunes grew with them. Four Long Island Railroad stations served the town in a time when most communities were lucky to get one. The Chattertons enjoyed a large TV and electric heat. John’s bicycle had training wheels that didn’t squeak.
Patricia made the beach her priority. She drove her two boys forty minutes to Gilgo Beach, along a stretch of barrier islands off the South Shore of Long Island. There, she turned John and MacRae loose to run like untied balloons, their bare feet on fire against the blazing sand until they had to rush into the Atlantic for relief. John’s father never joined the family there. He was busy. He didn’t like sand and salt water.
It was the salt water that gave John his feeling. At home, he was thrilled by little. School was okay. Books were so-so. Mickey Mantle was all right. But when he stood in the Atlantic up to his knees and looked out over the horizon, he felt as if he could see a different world, a world that no one talked about. At home, he would push his T-shirts against his face and smell the salt water, and that also gave John his feeling.
At home, John’s life was different from those of his friends. His mother spoke to him without filters, expressing viewpoints without dumbing down her ideas or dialogue. John’s father liked to have fun, but not the ball-tossing, fishing-trip recreation that television fathers favored. Jack would spend hours behind his desk at home, studying aerospace equations and smoking through his daily four packs of Kents. Two martinis, and he was ready to put on a gorilla mask and run around the neighborhood.
When Jack began to drink heavily, Patricia tried to coax him into becoming a proper father. He countered by upping his working, smoking, and drinking. Patricia decided then that as long as her own father was still alive, she was going to leave Jack out of things.
Patricia’s father was Rae Emmet Arison, a retired rear
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