The Flask

The Flask

May the 3rd, 1972, New York, at midnight…

“Scotland, 1906.” Reggie babbled. The 95 years old was breathing heavily. Suddenly, a mysterious old worn little black book slipped from his right hand and fell on the vintage maroon Persian rug under his chair. The notebook’s pages opened as it hit the rug. “We did all we could, perhaps even more,” it read in the opened page. Along with it, an old flask fell from his hands. The words that Reggie just said became visible on one side of the fallen flask; “Scotland, 1906.” There was also something else written within the intriguing black booklet’s pages…

April 15, 1912, North Atlantic Ocean, more than one hour after midnight…

Although temperature outside was way below zero, that baking room inside the enormous ship was hell. Activities there were very intense. A group of people were baking bread at a vertiginous pace.

“We need more, way more!” Reginald, the young baker of the White Star Lines’ pride and glory H.M.S. Titanic was yelling.

Timothy, his very close friend who has been working with him since they were kids was moving as fast as his pal.

Reginald was 35 and a baker since 15. Three generations of his family were involved in the bakery business back in Glasgow, his hometown in Scotland. His dream was to make it to New York to become a prosperous baker.

The fire was literally coming out of the oven, sometimes even reaching the baking crew. Reginald was a team soldier and as such, he was worried about his kitchen mates and the fate of hundreds outside the kitchen, through the colossal ship, especially about Christine, a young widow he met right after departure almost by accident, and Dianne, her little daughter.

Right before starting the baking odyssey, the baker accidentally dropped a flask. “Scotland, 1906. Oh well, when in God´s earth if not now?” Reginald asked himself as he started drinking the flask´s content after annotating the tasks at hand in a small notebook with a black leather cover he got a day before boarding the ship.

Reginald and his baking crew have been delivering bread for more than an hour; the task was getting harder every minute as the ship was sinking because of an unfortunate collision with an iceberg.

Desperation kicked in. Nobody knew for sure how long it would take for the ship to break and go straight to the bottom of the freezing North Atlantic Ocean. Suddenly, Reggie’s baking crew started to flee. “Here, give me some bread and I will give it away,” most of them said on their way out.

Reginald did not hesitate and kept on baking. He wanted to deliver as many loaves as possible, that way, at least people would have something to eat on their way out of the sinking ship. Time was running faster for the baker and his loyal friend Timothy, who stood right by his pal.

Temperature outside was extremely low. All of a sudden, Taylor Cummings, one of Reginald´s men, accidentally ran right into a lady and knocked her down. Two of the four pieces of bread he was carrying fell from his arms. He briefly stared at the lady and a little girl she was holding, but he did not stop to assist them. He was scared and confused.

“Mommy, are you alright, please mommy, tell me that you are alright!” the little girl cried. “We are going to be just fine Dianne. Here, help me out with this bread,” the young woman said while keeping a calm tone of voice.

Her face was pale as the color of the glacier´s ice, her hazel eyes were turning gray, like frozen, but Christine´s attitude was valiant and resolved as she transmitted confidence to her little daughter, who looked like a smaller version of her mother.

Back in the kitchen room, just Reginald and his good mate Timothy remained baking bread, but there was almost nothing else to bake. Water was getting all over the place; there was only time to pick up whatever bread was left and go upstairs.

“Reggie, there is nothing else we can do here. We need to go. Nobody else is here but the two of us!” determined, Timothy said.

“We pick up the bread and share it with everybody,” Reginald ordered, already visibly drunk after refilling and drinking from his flask several times.

“I can assure you old friend, there is nothing else to do but to pick up the bloody bread and take it outside!” Tim yelled to his pal.

Suddenly, Reginald spotted another whiskey bottle on the floor. A little bit dizzy because of the alcohol intake, he filled up his flask one more time. “We did everything we could and perhaps even more,” he then wrote on his still almost new black little notebook.

Outside the baking room, the freezing breeze hit them hard. They were wearing two aprons over two pairs of sweated and dirty shirts each. In the meantime, Reggie kept drinking. They gave bread to as many people as possible.

A cracking noise brought general consternation. Reggie could feel how the structure was tearing apart. In the meantime, Timothy was running to the other side of the ship towards where the life save boats were. “Come on Reggie, let´s go mate, this Christine you are looking for, either she is on a boat or dead!” Tim yelled. But Reginald would not give up. “I will meet you where the boats,” he said to his pal.

“Reggie, there is no more bread left and soon there will be no more boats left!” Tim answered.

Reggie stared at Tom for a few seconds, but a familiar voice made him turn his head. “Reginald? Thank God you are alive!” Christine said as she sobbed. Immediately, she and little Dianne ran into his arms. Reggie held both of them tight. He remembered that dinner at the lower level. Then, everybody was dancing and singing. He had a great time with his new girlfriend and little Dianne, who also enjoyed being around Reggie. “It was just a week ago,” he whispered to Christine´s ears. Suddenly, another loud cracking noise brought them back to their desperate reality. The H.M.S. Titanic was screaming in pain.

As the ship was precipitously tearing apart, two officers approached them. Timothy went away while waving his hand. “I will see you later Reggie!” he yelled.

Drunk but sobering up as the situation worsened, Reginald waved back at Tim.

“There’s a boat where we could accommodate the lady and the young girl,” one of the officers told Reginald.

“Take them, I will wait for the next boat,” Reggie yelled determinately.

“There might not be another boat,” the officer whispered to him.

“You go. I will see you once we reach land,” Reginald told Christine.

Without hesitating, Christina gave him a smooth kiss on his lips. “I…I have been drinking,” Reginald shyly told Christine. “I know,” she responded while staring at the flask in Reggie´s pocket. Right away, they smiled and a more passionate kiss followed. For an instant, the world stopped for Reggie and Christine.

After Christine and little Dianne left, Reggie checked the last words he wrote on his little black notebook again. “We did everything we could and perhaps even more,” Then, he put his little black notebook along with his empty flask in his pocket.

Everything was happening so fast that Reggie, under the soothing effects of alcohol, did not have time to panic. He was just feeling the salty, unruly ocean water getting closer, while holding tight to a piece of iron. Suddenly, he fell into the shivering cold ocean. He saw how many others fell abruptly into the sea while the ship was vertiginously sinking.

Then, he spotted a big floating chunk of wood, part of a huge wardrobe, that served him as a floater.

Strangely, for the first hour after the ship sank Reginald felt sleepy and even a bit relaxed although worried. “I should be in shock. I’m probably dead,” he thought. But he was just cold and somehow stable. Although befuddled, he could hear others crying while unfortunately experiencing how those cries eventually died down.

He probably got asleep. Reginald barely felt the two pair of arms that grabbed and pulled him up. He was able to read the word “Carpathia” on his way up to the rescue ship.

May the 3rd, 1972, New York, over one hour after midnight…

Dianne and Andrew were barely getting back to their house after a good dinner with friends.

“Dad is usually reading and listening music at this time. But it’s quiet here,” Dianne said. “He’s asleep,” her husband voiced while walking into the living room. “See? He’s asleep,” he assured.

Dianne wanted to believe him, but she looked down and saw a flask and an open notebook lying on the rug. Also, she smelled that particular whiskey aroma.

“Reggie…” she sobbed. But Reggie’s spirit was gone.

Then, the day after the Titanic sank when she was a very young girl and Reggie decided to adopt her went clear through her mind. It was her who found Reggie aboard the Carpathia. She was alone. So was him. “She is my daughter,” Reggie said when asked, after learning that Christine, her mother, fell from the boat that was overloaded with people never to be found again. Timothy, Reginald´s best friend, also didn’t make it.

After kissing her stepfather´s forehead, Dianne remembered when back in 1912, while sitting beside Reggie´s bed in a New York hospital, she heard the doctor. “Well, it appears that you have being drinking quite a lot right before the tragedy, sir. Actually, this flask saved your life! Somehow, whiskey kept your body warm and saved you from freezing to death,” he said.

Next thing that came to her mind was how her stepfather became a successful businessman as she grew wise enough to help him with three liquor stores. Destiny pushed Reggie away from keeping on baking. Alcohol saved his life and also prospered him.

She remembered Reggie’s sob. He dearly missed her mom, but he was also happy to see Dianne grow to became a successful woman.

Dianne’s husband was beside her all the time. “I will call Reginald and Christina,” he said, referring to their children, who were in their homes with their own children.

“Scotland, 1906,” Dianne read in one side of the flask. Dianne stared at the old mysterious black notebook. She picked it up and started reading through its old worn pages. There were all sorts of annotations, from Reggie’s daily tasks as a baker in the H.M.S. Titanic to the dramatic scribblings from that infamous day when the majestic ship sunk. But there was something else, a folded page. Dianne opened that page and read it.

“My dear Dianne; I wasn’t joking when I told you about the twenty-thousand dollars I saved for Reggie and Cristine. You will find that amount in cash inside a small brown suitcase in the top drawer.”

Since his stepdaughter became a mother, Reggie told her he would save money for her children. “Twenty thousand,” he then promised to her while chuckling. Dianne did not deem it necessary, to her it was an affectionate joke.

Reginald wrote those instructions just minutes before passing. That night, he was holding the little booklet while waiting for Dianne and Andrew to tell them about that money. He didn’t make it, but he got to write it down in his old little black notebook and fold the page for Dianne to find out. The small suitcase was exactly where Reggie told her. Inside, she found twenty thousand dollars in cash.

Reginald was buried in the same symbolic grave dedicated to Christine whose body was never found after the tragedy of the Titanic. Engraved on his tombstone it reads; “You did more than you could’ve ever imagined. Love, your little Dianne.”

© 2021 Marcelo F. Palermo