Page 64 of The Love Haters

He didn’t need some person he barely knew putting more demands on him.

I might have dropped the subject entirely—if not for the drumbeat of Cole’s texts.

Did you ask again?

Better hurry up.

That dude from California just got the axe.

Plus, I was busy. This job was a steep learning curve for a person who knew nothing about the military. Coast Guard terms I learned in the first week alone included:rollersfor waves;sortiefor a trip out in the helicopter;ensemblesfor the different swim gear ASTs wore for different weather conditions;night sunfor the external spotlight over the waves in the dark. Plus, SAR for “search and rescue,” PIW for “person in the water,” and NVGs for “night-vision goggles.”

Oh, and this one seemed important:bingo. As in, “to hitbingo.” In the helicopter. Which meant to reach the point where, if you didn’t turn around and RTB (“return to base”)immediately, you would not have enough fuel to make it back to shore.

A lot of new terminology. None of it trivial.

I kept a notebook and wrote it down, went back and highlighted, and had to ask Hutch endless questions like, “I’m sorry: What’s a VFR chart?”

Plus, can I just add? Even when I wasn’t hauling ass to get up to speed on military terms, talking to Hutch was also just… fun. He was an interesting guy. Watching him go through his day at the air station prompted endless questions in my head.

And don’t forget: I was making a video about him.

All day, I followed him around with a camera, and then, after I got back to the Starlite, I went through the footage. Hutch basically took up 90 percent of my waking hours. When I wasn’t talking to him, I was filming him, and when I wasn’t filming him, I was combing through the footage, looking for the best moments.

And do you want to know what I saw?

Hutch holding the door for people. Hutch sweeping the air station hangar while humming “Heart and Soul.” Hutch stopping to gather up litter in the parking lot. Hutch genuinely laughing at other people’s jokes. Hutch picking up breakfast tacos for the crew. Hutch offering other people his umbrella in the rain and insisting that he didn’t mind getting wet. And one I saw over and over on the footage that I didn’t quite understand: Hutch picking up pennies whenever he saw them on the ground, checking them out, and then tossing them back down so someone else could have the good luck.

“What’s the deal with the pennies?” I asked one time, on our commute home.

“The pennies?”

“You always look at pennies.”

“Do I?”

“You check them when you get change. And you go through the coin jar in the lounge. And you always pick them up if you see them on the ground.”

“Everybody does that. It’s good luck.”

“Only if you keep them. But you don’t.”

“I have enough luck as it is.”

“It’s like you’re looking for something,” I said then. “What are you looking for?”

Hutch looked over. Then he said, “After my mom died, when I was a kid, I got this idea that if I could find a penny from the year she was born, I would know she was okay. So I started looking. And now I collect them.”

“You collect coins?”

“No. I collect pennies from 1965. Only pennies. Only 1965. The year my mom was born.”

“Are they valuable?”

“They are to me.”

“How many do you have?”

Hutch shrugged. “A jarful or so. I haven’t counted in a while. I just like finding them, you know? It’s like my mom’s saying hi.”

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